2025-10-18

Horseshit

• Tin Can is making landlines cool again

• Tragic OceanGate Titan submersible's $62 SanDisk memory card found undamaged

• 'Deep' concerns as six students join esports course

• The Great Friendship Flattening

• Diamonds Are Whatever - by Suzy Weiss - The Free Press

• Mysterious cosmic 'dots' are baffling astronomers. What are they?

• Reward scheme for using less power at peak times could help lower US bills

• What is mirror life? Scientists are sounding the alarm

• For $900, This Subway Seat Could Be Yours

• I Test Drove a Flying Car. Get Ready, They're Here

• Lead poisoning has been a feature of our evolution

• Picasso painting goes missing en route to exhibition

• Safety advocates warn of surge in 3D-printed guns

• Russian/neo-Nazi fight clubs grew audience using YouTube, isntagram

• Seattle Tech Workers Are Fueling a Real-Estate Rush in the Cascade Mountains

• The race to make the perfect baby is creating an ethical mess

• The making of a world-class corn maze

celebrity gossip

• Prince Andrew gives up royal titles after 'discussion with king'

• Laurene Powell Jobs:Beware Philanthropists Who Want Control in Return for Giving

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Google cuts funding to Full Fact

  Full Fact received over £1m from Google last year, either directly or via funds the company supports. These have all either not been renewed, or have been cut altogether. Fact checkers have never seen a threat like this.

  • "Threat" ... if that don't tell ya all ya need to know about the "fact checking" they do.

• You did no fact checking, and I must scream – Terence Eden’s Blog

  This is irresponsible. Last week saw the BBC air an outright lie on Have I Got News For You. A professional TV company, with a budget for lawyers, fact checkers, and researchers - and they just broadcast easily disproven lies. Why? Maybe hubris, maybe laziness, maybe deliberate rabble-rousing. The media have comprehensively failed us. They will repeat any tawdry nonsense as long as it keeps people clicking. It's up to us to defend ourselves and our friends against this unending tsunami of low-grade slurry. I hope I've demonstrated that it takes almost no effort to perform a basic fact check. It isn't a professional skill. It doesn't require anything more than an Internet connection and a curious mind. If you see something online, take a moment to check it before sharing it. Stopping misinformation starts with you.

• New model inspired by forest fires could explain why some ideas go viral

Musk

• A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal

• Scammers are pretending to be Elon Musk. They're stealing millions

Electric / Self Driving cars

• EVs are depreciating much faster than gas-powered cars

• Desperate SF residents ask for help blocking autonomous cars from their street

• How good is the battery in a used electric vehicle?

• Real-world CO₂ emissions of PHEVs in 2023 are 5 times the official emissions

• America's EV Charging Network Has a Reliability Problem

• Jeep Wrangler Owners Waiting for Answers Week After an Update Bricked Their Cars

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• The Decline of Trans and Queer Identity Among Young Americans

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Too many scientific 'discoveries' get discredited

• Students Turn Back to Books as More School Districts Implement Phone Bans

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• After major attack: Package manager NPM cuts old security ties

• Minecraft probably would not add the Creeper today, admits Mojang CEO

• Ongiong Nationwide Verizon Cellular Outage

• AppLovin Axes Product Tied to Unwanted App Download Allegations

• Strava breaks silence on the ongoing Garmin dispute

• Obituary: Farewell to robots.txt (1994-2025)

• Sony tells SCOTUS that people accused of piracy aren't "innocent grandmothers"

• Apple is the exclusive new broadcast partner for Formula 1 in the U.S.

  • Apple TV becomes Formula One's exclusive U.S. broadcaster, starting in 2026

  • Apple and Formula 1 ink five-year US streaming deal, bringing races to Apple TV

• Apple reaches groundbreaking deal for Women's Superleague football

• A Surprising Amount of Satellite Traffic Is Unencrypted

• Kohler launches health tracker for your toilet

• Backblaze says HDDs are "lasting longer"

• YouTube Just Ate TV. It's Only Getting Started

• Ring cameras are about to get increasingly chummy with law enforcement

• Wikipedia conference disrupted by gun threat in NYC

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Hate destroys another community: Ruby Core Takes Ownership of Rubygems and Bundler

• Hyperscalers try to beat the heat with larger racks, more air flow

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Uber is turning its app into an AI training ground

• Tech industry grad hiring crashes 46% as bots do junior work

• AI has a cargo cult problem

  • such insensitive language; "cargo cult" is bad words now im told. Of course you can't say "idolatry" and expect to be understood.

• Salesforce sued by authors over artificial intelligence software

• Apple Loses Head of ChatGPT-Like Search to Meta

• AI's Effect on the US Economy Is Exaggerated

• Silicon Valley Is Investing in the Wrong A.I

• Pupils struggle to spot untrue AI content – report

• OpenAI Pauses Sora Video Generations of Martin Luther King Jr

  • OpenAI Blocks Videos of Martin Luther King Jr. After Racist Depictions

• Silicon Valley Is Investing in the Wrong A.I

• Big Tech is paying millions to train teachers on AI

• A Real Photo of a Flamingo Snuck Into–and Won–An A.I. Art Competition

• How Afraid of the A.I. Apocalypse Should We Be?

• OpenAI Needs $400B In The Next 12 Months

• Thou shalt not let AI run amok: Vatican wants global rules

• Why Would OpenAI Allow Erotica in ChatGPT Now?

• Oracle stock drops as some skeptics question lofty AI targets

• Oracle Isn't Answering the Hardest Questions About Its AI Plans

• Chatbots Becoming More Sexually Explicit in a Bid to Attract Paying Customers

Crypto con games

• Newsmax to Start Crypto Reserve Including Bitcoin, Trump Coin

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Credit concerns reach European markets as bank stocks slide 2.8%

• Banks Stocks Tumble After More Credit 'Cockroaches' Unearthed

• Top US financiers sound alarm on lending standards

• Bad loans by regional banks should concern us all

• Europe's private equity giants tumble as U.S. bank lending fears spread

• Credit Markets Wobble as Loan Losses Revive Bank Crisis Fears

• Investors warn on leveraged loan risks after First Brands collapse

• Auto Loan Delinquencies Jump 50% as Car Prices Reach New Heights

• Troubled Real Estate Firm at Center of Banks' Latest Loan Pinch

• Tricolor Collapse Sends Fifth Third on a Hunt for Bad Collateral

• Wall Street Races to Sell Risky ETFs as Crypto Crash Hits Retail

• Rattled Wall Street on Alert After Trillion-Dollar Risk Runup

• JPMorgan Takes a $170 Million Hit

  • Tricolor was a company that sold and financed cars, and it’s target market was Spanish-speaking illegal aliens.

  • President Trump’s crackdown on illegal aliens not only caused a cessation of sales, but it pretty much brought an end to repayment on Tricolor’s loans, too.

  • Money center banks such as JPMorgan had securitized about $2 billion of Tricolor’s very high risk loans. These securities (which are now nearly worthless) are much like the bundled, sub-prime mortgages from the 2008 financial crisis.

  • JPMorgan and Fifth Third Bank also had outstanding lines of credit to Tricolor.

  • The federal government under President Biden had given its seal of approval to Tricolor and its securities, certifying them as “social bonds” under the US Treasury’s CDFI program (“Community Development Financial Institution Fund”), because Tricolor’s customer base was “underserved communities,” primarily Spanish-speaking non-citizens.

  • Tricolor was engaged in a massive fraud, with the same collateral pledged to multiple loans and securities.

  At the time of my original piece, Fifth Third had acknowledged a $200 million loss from Tricolor exposure. Since then, JPMorgan Chase has acknowledged that is it taking a huge loss. JPMorgan’s quarterly loan charge-offs increased by almost $200 million in Q3 2025, which was almost exclusively due to one borrower – Tricolor.

• US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

• kinda detecting a theme here...

• Bank deregulation set to unlock $2.6T of Wall Street lending capacity

• Frank founder Charlie Javice sentenced for JPMorgan fraud

• Walmart deploying millions of new ambient IoT sensors by end of 2026

• Basis Trade Helps Mask Who Owns $1.4T of U.S. Treasuries

• France's Gets Debt Warning as S&P Downgrades in Unscheduled Move

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Supreme Court to run out of funding due to shutdown

Trump

• Trump plans to build a Paris-like arch near the Lincoln Memorial

• Grand jury expected to indict ex-national security adviser John Bolton for transmitting classified documents

  • What to know about the indictment of former Trump national security adviser John Bolton | CNN Politics

  • John Bolton Indicted On 18 Counts Over Mishandling Classified Documents | ZeroHedge

  While John Bolton was trafficking top secret intel to his friends, Iran apparently hacked his email account, according to the 18-count federal indictment against him.

• Trump Rule Sidelines 6,000 Truckers Over English Tests.

Left Angst

• Salesforce told ICE it could help speed up hiring of immigration officers

  • Salesforce Tries to Help ICE Boost Its Immigration Force

• Ring to partner with Flock, a network of cameras used by ICE, feds, and police

• Hackers Dox Hundreds of DHS, ICE, FBI, and DOJ Officials

• Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessment of Democratic Decline

  This assessment, Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessment of Democratic Decline, authored by members of The Steady State, all of whom are former U.S. Intelligence Community officers with analytic responsibilities,[1] applies the analytic tradecraft of the U.S. Intelligence Community to conditions inside the United States. It concludes—with moderate to high confidence—that the cumulative effect of multiple reinforcing dynamics is placing the nation on a trajectory toward competitive authoritarianism: a system in which elections, courts, and other democratic institutions persist in form but are systematically manipulated to entrench executive control.

• FHA loans no longer available to them: H-1B Visa Holders Disappear from US Housing Market

• No Kings, Only Commissars

• Students with Hearing and Vision Loss Get Funding Back

• Europe Can't Defend Democracy on US Servers

  While Geese focuses on Europe’s economic and cultural independence, I’d extend the argument: the threat isn’t just monopolies, it’s authoritarianism. X, LinkedIn, Meta’s properties, and the US TikTok consortium have all made financial and strategic deals with the current administration. That doesn’t just create risk for vulnerable groups; it carries risk for any country that might be competitive with the United States, or anyone inside the country who might be considered at odds with current policy.

• U.S. Threatens Countries That Back a Fee to Clean Up Ship Pollution

• America's Tech Right Is Obsessed with Building Giant Statues

  • The Left was obsessed with tearing them down...

• Ted Cruz ADS-B Bill Moves to a Vote

  Sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz and others, the bill would require newly built crewed aircraft, along with existing aircraft already operating in ADS-B Out airspace, to carry ADS-B In equipment. The bill would also increase limitations on when military and government aircraft can disable ADS-B Out. The measure would direct the FAA to issue rules within two years mandating ADS-B In where ADS-B Out is already required, with exemptions for gliders, balloons, and aircraft lacking electrical systems such as vintage or minimal-power light sport designs.

• Labor unions sue US administration over social media surveillance

• Not a peep when it was "Catholics" targeted, for much less actual cause: NSPM-7 seeks to use "domestic terrorism" to target nonprofits and activists

• Why the White House is convinced it's winning the shutdown

• Army Corps of Engineers pausing $11B in projects over shutdown

• What I Saw at This Weekend's Minnesota MAHA Fest Scared the Hell Out of Me

• Republicans use deepfake video of Chuck Schumer in new attack ad

• Xi Is Never Giving Up His Newfound Leverage over Trump

• Donald Trump's Deep-State Wrecking Ball

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Two Southern California men charged and arrested for homelessness funding fraud

  Cody Holmes, 31, of Beverly Hills, was arrested Thursday morning on a federal criminal complaint charging him with mail fraud. As CFO of a downtown Los Angeles-based developer of affordable housing, Holmes is accused of fraudulently obtaining $25.9 million in state grant money

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Texas bans people/entities from China, Iran, Russia, Korea from buying property

• US has seized survivors of attack on alleged narco-sub in Caribbean

World

• China sanctions on Hanwha threaten South Korea-US shipbuilding ties

• 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence. Irony is overwhelming

  having declared British jurisdictional powers to enforce against an American company in America thereby flouting American law, they then demand that American law protects them from counter-lawsuits, not to mention also claiming that 4Chan does not have jurisdiction over Ofcom

  • The Ofcom Files – Preston Byrne

  4chan operates its business entirely lawfully in the United States with exactly zero regulatory paperwork required. Zero as in none. All of the paperwork called for in these letters is what the UK expects every Internet company in the world that hasn’t geo-blocked the entire island to maintain and file. Every demand, it expects everyone to comply with. Every threat and penalty – including threats of multi-year prison terms – contained in these letters pertains to speech and conduct which is constitutionally protected in the United States.

• EU Commission presents defense plan to protect 'every' centimeter of Europe

• Europe unveils plans for 'drone wall' to shield continent from Russian threats

• Chip maker Nexperia told suppliers it wouldn't ship after Dutch took control

  • Carmakers fear chip crunch as Dutch sanctions hit Nexperia

• Four arrested as France thwarts assassination attempt on Russian Putin opponent

  • France Arrests 4 Suspected of Assassination Plot Against Russian Dissident

• Which countries owe the IMF the most money

• Woman tricked into travelling to Thailand for modelling job killed for organs

• Britain's AI gold rush hits a wall – not enough electricity

• Birmingham police face pressure to lift ban on Israeli soccer fans | AP News

  Pressure mounted Friday on police authorities in the English city of Birmingham to reverse a ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans attending a Europa League game at Aston Villa next month over security concerns, a decision that drew widespread condemnation.

Israel

• BBC Gaza documentary a 'serious' breach of rules, Ofcom says

  The BBC committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, UK media regulator Ofcom has ruled. An Ofcom investigation into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".

• Hamas reasserts control on streets of Gaza, turning guns on its rivals

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Kremlin envoy proposes 'Putin-Trump tunnel' to link Russia and US

China

• China has found US pain point – rare earths

• China Takes Blacklisted Russian LNG in Defiance of UK Sanctions

• IMF Sees 'Significant' Risks to Global Growth from US-China Row

• China Fans Patriotic Sentiment as Trade War with U.S. Heats Up

• The US is paying the price for complacency with China. Time is running out

• West will sacrifice cheap power if it spurns Chinese tech, says turbine maker

Health / Medicine

• Male 'Jolie gene' can triple aggressive prostate cancer risk

• Men experience more brain atrophy with age despite women's higher Alzheimer risk

• Kibble-fed dogs have worse metabolic outcomes than raw-meat-fed dogs

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• California confirms 1st US case of severe mpox strain with no travel history.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Pesticides Banned in the EU Are Still Being Sent Abroad

• Florida's Hot Spot for the Crocodile's Comeback Is a Nuclear Power Plant?

• Stinkbug Leg Organ Hosts Symbiotic Fungi That Protect Eggs from Parasitic Wasps

• Carbon credits are failing to help with climate change – here's why

• Bats Catching, Killing and Eating Birds Midflight

• Overconsumption: Before and after images on how tech could harm our planet