2025-10-21
Horseshit
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Debt, if not repaid, accumulates. If not countered by something growing faster, a larger debt becomes harder to repay, and so results in decay. And enough decay causes systems to shrink, die, or at least be greatly damaged. The core example is financial debt, which accumulates at a real interest rate, usually higher than average feasible growth rates. It can cause bankruptcy of the debtor, which often leads to death for orgs.
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Whose Cup Are You Filling? - Derek Thompson
When Abundance came out, some people didn’t like the book very much. That’s fine. Still, it’s no fun to feel yelled at on social media all day. So, sometimes, I spent hours yelling back. By the evening, I would arrive at the dinner table feeling touchy, distracted, and frustrated. Sitting at the table with my wife and daughter, my mind was a screen upon which flickered the ghostly afterimage of little avatar photos of people I’d never met, and may never meet, with whom I was still arguing. This struck me as a rather pathetic state of affairs. “Every day, I have a choice to fill up certain glasses with my attention,” I said. “My wife is one glass of water, and my child is another.” But when I took an honest inventory of water levels, work anxieties were getting full pours from the pitcher, while the people I love were getting droplets. As Morgan indelibly put it, my work anxieties were sucking up all the water while my family was left “dehydrated.”
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Apple Pioneer Bill Atkinson Was a Secret Evangelist of the 'God Molecule'
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The New York Times Stumbles Blindly Into Acceptance of Facilitated Communication
“Typing” here very likely means facilitated communication. Of course, facilitated communication is an entirely discredited practice, a sad phenomenon that plays on the desperate wishes of vulnerable parents. Originally developed in Australia in the late 1970s and later popularized in the United States in the late 1980s, facilitated communication involves a helper physically supporting or guiding the hand, arm, or shoulder of a non-verbal individual (usually with autism or intellectual disability) as they pointed at letters or typed on a keyboard. Proponents claimed that many non-speaking people possessed hidden intelligence and were only prevented from communicating by the limitations of their bodies. However, rigorous experimental research consistently found that when facilitators were blind to the prompt or question, the purported messages collapsed; the non-verbal clients could not reliably answer questions based on information the facilitator did not and could not know, while when the facilitator did have the information necessary to know the answer, correct responses were produced. A landmark 1995 study by Jacobson, Mulick, and Schwartz reviewed the evidence and concluded that the technique shouldn’t be used in any formal setting because of the overwhelming evidence that facilitators, not clients, were the source of the communication.
- Gee, who else do we know to be fond of "speaking for the voiceless" whilst articulating only their own thoughts...
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Sponsored hate has consequences, and destroys minds. as has happened here: Hitlerism, Trumpism, Netanyahuism, Le Penism, Macronism
In my opinion, Trumpism’s radical pro-Israel stance masks a visceral and vicious anti-Semitism: the identification of all Jews with Netanyahuism, a truly monstrous historical phenomenon and a cancer in Jewish history, will only serve to renew the Nazi conception of a monstrous Jewish people. I am talking here about anti-Semitism 2.0. One day, inevitably, Christian nations will make peace with 1.6 billion Muslims. The Jews will then be abandoned by their fans and, now alone, thrown to the wolves of other angry peoples.
Musk
Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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Research results are cultural artifacts, not public goods
Adopting discoveries requires cultural updates—and it is far from easy. Einstein’s papers are public, yet reading them won’t make you Einstein. He wasn’t a public good; he thrived in a specific culture. It’s unclear if he’d fit in today’s universities.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Chapter 38 of "Don't build yer house on other people's sand":
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AWS outage breaks the internet – Roblox, Fortnite, Zoom, and beyond
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Live Updates: Amazon Says Website Outages Ease After Disruption
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Major AWS outage takes down Fortnite, Alexa, Snapchat, and more
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Snapchat, Ring, Roblox, Fortnite and more go down in internet outage
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AWS Outage: A Single Cloud Region Shouldn't Take Down the World. But It Did
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Amazon outage takes down Venmo, Ring, Reddit and much of the internet
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Amazon's AWS struggles to recover after major outage disrupts apps, services
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AWS outage shows internet users 'at mercy' of too few providers, experts say
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Xbox Ally X review: If this is the future of Xbox, we have a problem
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video
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The co-founder of OpenAI says it will take a decade before AI agents work
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The Majority AI View - Anil Dash
Technologies like LLMs have utility, but the absurd way they've been over-hyped, the fact they're being forced on everyone, and the insistence on ignoring the many valid critiques about them make it very difficult to focus on legitimate uses where they might add value. What's amazing is the reality that virtually 100% of tech experts I talk to in the industry feel this way, yet nobody outside of that cohort will mention this reality.
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AI-generated 'poverty porn' fake images being used by aid agencies
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This Is How Much Anthropic and Cursor Spend On Amazon Web Services
I can exclusively reveal today Anthropic’s spending on Amazon Web Services for the entirety of 2024, and for every month in 2025 up until September, and that that Anthropic’s spend on compute far exceeds that previously reported. Furthermore, I can confirm that through September, Anthropic has spent more than 100% of its estimated revenue (based on reporting in the last year) on Amazon Web Services, spending $2.66 billion on compute on an estimated $2.55 billion in revenue. Additionally, Cursor’s Amazon Web Services bills more than doubled from $6.2 million in May 2025 to $12.6 million in June 2025, exacerbating a cash crunch that began when Anthropic introduced Priority Service Tiers, an aggressive rent-seeking measure that begun what I call the Subprime AI Crisis, where model providers begin jacking up the prices on their previously subsidized rates.
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OpenAI is losing about three times more money than it's earning
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AI language models killed the Turing test: do we even need a replacement?
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Lifespan of AI Chips: The $300B Question
Here is the puzzle: the chips at the heart of the infrastructure buildout have a useful lifespan of one to three years due to rapid technological obsolescence and physical wear, but companies depreciate them over five to six years. In other words, they spread out the cost of their massive capital investments over a longer period than the facts warrant—what The Economist has referred to as the “$4trn accounting puzzle at the heart of the AI cloud.”
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People are using AI to talk to God
- No more or less so than they are using Tarot cards or whatever tot he same end. IMO God talks to us all, and all the time. Sometimes we manage to hear and understand. If someone finds their revelation in tea leaves or chatbot spew it doesn't mean the revelation is false. People, alas, are often apt to mistake words they like for words that will also inspire others to whatever grace they have found.
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
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United Airlines Pilot Claims Plane Was Struck by Space Debris at 36,000 Feet
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Share ethanol and other fluids with them: What Do We Do If SETI Is Successful?
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
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The Warning Signs Lurking Below the Surface of a Record Market
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BDCs, Private Credit's Most Popular Funds, Are Drawing Scrutiny
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GoFundMe created 1.4M donation pages for nonprofits; organizations had no clue
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BofA Warns of Forced Stocks Selling If Credit Problems Persist
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JM Smucker sues Trader Joe's over 'copycat' Uncrustables sandwiches
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Wealthy Americans Are Spending. People with Less Are Struggling
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JPMorgan warns First Brands fallout driving up banks' funding costs
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Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried
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How Hobbit-Inspired Startup Plans to Replace Silicon Valley Bank
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
Trump
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President Donald Trump has officially thrown down the gauntlet in Kentucky, calling on former Navy SEAL and Army Ranger Ed Gallrein to challenge Rep. Thomas Massie in the 2026 Republican primary — and promising his “Complete and Total Endorsement” if Gallrein enters the race. In a fiery Truth Social post Friday night, Trump tore into Massie, calling him a “Weak and Pathetic RINO” who routinely sides with Democrats against America First priorities. “Third Rate Congressman Thomas Massie, a Weak and Pathetic RINO from the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky, a place I love, and won big SIX TIMES, must be thrown out of office, ASAP!” Trump wrote.
Left Angst
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Techno-capitalists expect innovation to save us, but it's what got us here
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Rubio promised to betray U.S. informants to get Trump's El Salvador prison deal
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Federal agency overseeing US nuclear stockpile will furlough most of workforce
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The FTC Is Disappearing Blog Posts About AI Published During Lina Khan's Tenure
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Idaho Banned Vaccine Mandates. Activists Want to Make It a Model for the Country
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To Fight ICE, Portland's Leaders Turn to What They Know Best: Zoning
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The Culture Wars Came for Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales Is Staying the Course
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Trump DOE confirms it's canceling over $700M in manufacturing grants
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National Guard deployment in San Francisco loom over city's AI-driven resurgence
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
World
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UK calls up Armed Forces veterans for digital ID soft launch
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How Thieves Carried Out An Audacious Heist of ‘Priceless’ Napoleonic Jewels
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UK police stopped a woman from walking her dog, saying it could offend the local Muslim population
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Japan Unleashes Capitalism by Letting 'Zombie' Companies Die
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Ireland plans to make a $1,500 a month basic income for artists permanent
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Poland's president signs zero income tax law for parents with two children
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I loved my time in the UK. But it needs an AC intervention
As with the trash-collection-style inconveniences, you don’t notice the lack of AC most of the time. But it can cause real problems during the summer. Once indoor temperatures break 73 degrees Fahrenheit, sleep quality, work productivity, and even learning in school begin to suffer. (And productivity isn’t exactly the UK’s strong suit to begin with.) If you’re older or have a health condition, the stakes are higher: actually, you might just die. Death rates climb much faster in European cities relative to equivalent places in the US during heatwaves. In fact, according to one estimate, the yearly death rate per 100,000 people from heat in Europe is almost twice the death rate from guns in the US.
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Penguin and Club bars can no longer be described as chocolate
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EU agrees to gradually end Russian gas imports by January 1, 2028
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
China
Health / Medicine
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Reduction in Food Allergies Found After Guideline-Directed Early Peanut Exposure
“In our study, we saw a nearly 40% reduction in peanut and food allergy diagnoses in children up to age 3 following the release of early peanut introduction guidelines. This provides real-world evidence that public health efforts promoting early allergen introduction in infancy are making an impact. From here, various stakeholders, including caregivers, pediatricians, and policymakers, can help support and amplify these practices,” Stanislaw Gabryszewski, MD, PhD, coauthor of the study, said in a statement to The American Journal of Managed Care®.