2025-10-29

etc

• How the UK Lost Its Shipbuilding Industry

  The UK ultimately proved unable to respond to competitors who entered the market with new, large shipyards which employed novel methods of shipbuilding developed by the US during WWII. The UK fell from producing 57% of world tonnage in 1947 to just 17% a decade later. By the 1970s their output was below 5% of world total, and by the 1990s it was less than 1%. In 2023, the UK produced no commercial ships at all.

Horseshit

• Silicon Valley adopts the work culture China banned

• Nine months later, that body of water down south is still the “Gulf of Mexico” to news outlets | Nieman Journalism Lab

• You're being rude. Put away your phone. New manners for post-smartphone society

• Some People Can't See Mental Images. The Consequences Are Profound

• Rising birth rates no longer tied to economic prosperity

• Gambling Is Killing Sports and Consuming America

• Delivery Is Killing Restaurant Culture

• Yes, There’s a Parallel Parking Championship, and I Was a Contender.

celebrity gossip

• George Clooney Confirms Ocean's 14 Is Happening

Obit

• Prunella Scales, Sybil on 'Fawlty Towers,' Dies at 93

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Moderation Sabotage: How Trump’s Team Is Crashing the Guardrails of the Internet

  Russia deployed nearly identical tactics in 2016 as part of their effort to help Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton. I observed a pattern during the summer of 2016 in which Russian accounts would flood social media platforms with content in the early hours of the morning when most Americans were asleep and it was easier to influence trending topics given the lower volume of posts. Then, by the time most Americans woke up and checked social media, the topic would be trending, but the original accounts that pushed out content were buried beneath more recent posts. As a result, the manufactured trend looked like an authentic trend to the average social media user.

Musk

• The Twitter domain is being retired. Make sure your account doesn't get locked

• Elon Musk launches a Wikipedia rival that extols his own 'vision'

  • Elon Musk Challenges Wikipedia with His Own A.I. Encyclopedia

  • Elon Musk's Grokipedia contains copied Wikipedia pages

  • Musk launches Grokipedia to compete with Wikipedia

• How Elon Musk ruined Twitter

• Elon Musk's politics cost his firm Tesla more than one million EV sales

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Oslo electric buses can be stopped and switched off from China (Norwegian)

• Society will accept a death caused by a robotaxi, Waymo co-CEO says

• Nvidia and Uber Say They're Building a 100k-Vehicle Robotaxi Network

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• "We will never build a sex robot," says Mustafa Suleyman

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Their history is just erased: Google drops a key program boosting women in tech

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Harvard College's Grading System Is 'Failing,' Report on Grade Inflation Says

• 63% of jobs require keyboard use but only 2.5% of high schools teach keyboarding

  • I had a typing class in the 1980s, where the teacher was a track coach and didn't type himself. I learned more from a piano teacher who was the first person I heard mention what we now call Repetitive Stress Injuries and emphasized "wrists up!" and ergonomics awareness.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• There isn't another choice: Signal CEO explains why they rely on AWS

  • Signal president Meredith Whittaker says they had no choice but to use AWS

• US judge decertifies Apple App Store class action

• George Orwell classics get new lease of life in Welsh

• Apple's Services Revenue Expected to Top $100B for First Time

• My users say they'd cry if my app disappeared. None of them pay | Hacker News

• Samsung makes ads on $3,499 smart fridges official with upcoming software update

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• How to build a 747 – A WorldFlight Story

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• OpenAI offers free ChatGPT Go for one year to all users in India

• OpenAI shunned advisers on $1.5T of deals

• AI Is the Bubble to Burst Them All

• ChatGPT shares data on how many users exhibit psychosis or suicidal thoughts

  • OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

• Qualcomm announces AI chips to compete with AMD and Nvidia

• JPMorgan offers staff AI chatbot to help write performance reviews

• I Worked at OpenAI. It's Not Doing Enough to Protect People

• AI stocks could be part of a new Magnificent 7

• Microsoft to Get 27% of OpenAI, Access to AI Models Until 2032

  • Microsoft valuation passes $4T as OpenAI completes restructuring

• OpenAI Restructures to Become a More Traditional For-Profit Company

  • OpenAI completes its for-profit recapitalization

• DeepSeek is humane.Doctors are like machines:My mother's worrying reliance on AI

• Divorced? With Kids? and an Impossible Ex? There's AI for That

• Beliefs about Bots: How Employers Plan for AI in White-Collar Work

• Ex-Intel CEOs mission to build Christian AI hasten the coming of Christs return

• Jet engine shortages threaten AI data center expansion

• Firefox head on AI browsers and what's next for the web

• Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom are slapping 'golden handcuffs' on workers

• The end of the rip-off economy: AI is radically improving market efficiency

• Bill Gates wrote the playbook for today's AI titans

• Nvidia's Huang Works to Convince Investors There's No AI Bubble

• AI News Anchor Debuts on U.K.'S Channel 4 in Stunt Proving Dangers of AI

• AI psychosis is a growing danger. ChatGPT is moving in the wrong direction

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• SA Museum investigates whether meteorite collided with car on regional highway

• Was the UFO explosion in the 50s a wave of extraterrestrial surveillance?

• Mysterious transient objects in sky linked to nuclear testing and unidentified anomalous phenomena

• Glowing meteor trail photobombs Comet Lemmon in incredible telescope image | Space

Crypto con games

• First Yen-Pegged Stablecoin Debuts

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Amazon Says It Will Cut 14,000 Corporate Roles to Remove Layers

  • Amazon to Lay Off Up to 30k Corporate Workers

  • Amazon May Cut 30k White-Collar Jobs, Starting Tomorrow

  • Amazon will cut 14,000 corporate roles, nods to AI-driven changes

  • Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

  • Amazon reportedly plans to cut around 30k corporate jobs

  • Amazon says layoffs are due to AI. The data says offshoring

• The Lengths Americans Are Willing to Go to Make Every Penny Count - WSJ

  From buying half a cow to watering down soap, people are experimenting with frugality—and it is affecting sales at consumer companies

• Westinghouse, Cameco partner with U.S. to build $80B of nuclear reactors

• Nvidia takes $1B stake in Nokia

• Apple is now worth $4T

• We Spent the Night Shift with the Repo Man, Who Is Busier than ever before

• The world economy shrugs off both the trade war and AI fears

• The Fed Should Pause in Cutting Interest Rates

• Some US Consumers Say a Recession Is Here

• Goldman Pauses $2.5B Loan Sale as Investors Raise Scrutiny

• Prolly not, but they got marketing bux apparently: Can a Startup Make Computer Chips Cheaper Than the Industry's Giants?

• Westinghouse is claiming a nuclear deal would see $80B of new reactors

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Texas Attorney General sues Tylenol makers, claiming links to autism

  • Texas Attorney General sues Tylenol makers over autism claims

  • If things in America weren't stupid enough, Texas is suing Tylenol maker

• Trump administration must restore grants for school counselors, judge rules

• Administration to overrule state laws shielding medical debt from credit reports

Trump

• Trump Media to Enter Booming Prediction Markets Business

• Political peril spurs Trump to act on beef prices even as ranchers rage.

  “It’s kind of like eggs, part two,” said one person close to the Trump administration, who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. “This all kind of started with just concern over consumer prices.” The average price for a pound of ground beef is $6.32, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

  • Starting the countdown to "Mad Cow Panic 2" now. Might not work this time; people have caught on to the fact that bird flu somehow only requires culling domestic chickens, and only cows and not other grazers fart in ways that "harm the environment".

Democrats

• Graham Platner's past statements and tattoo spark outrage

  “I think Donald Trump has changed our politics for a long time, some for the good and some for the bad,” Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha told The Hill. “One thing for the good, in my opinion, he’s done is proven that folks don’t have to be perfect. They can have some rough edges and that America is pretty forgiving.” But other Democrats say they’re not willing to be forgiving of Platner. “I do not understand how we can go from having a subset of the party that is obsessed with calling Donald Trump a Nazi to then going to vast lengths to excuse a Nazi tattoo,” said one unnamed Democratic strategist.

• Left-wing ideas have wrecked Democrats’ brand, new report warns

  Democrats have badly weakened their party with left-leaning ideas and rhetoric, growing only with self-described “white liberals” while losing ground with other voters, according to a new center-left group’s report shared first with Semafor. The group, called Welcome, consulted hundreds of thousands of voters over six months for its broad findings, including that 70% of voters think the Democratic Party is “out of touch.” Most voters, the group found, believe the party over-prioritizes issues like “protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans,” and “fighting climate change” while not caring about “securing the border” or “lowering the rate of crime.”

Left Angst

• Hyundai hoped to return skilled South Korean workers to the US after ICE raid

• Man, 29, arrested for alleged Pam Bondi murder-for-hire plot

  An anarchist with a lengthy rap sheet has been arrested for allegedly putting a $45,000 hit out on US Attorney General Pam Bondi on TikTok, according to the feds. Tyler Maxon Avalos, 29, was nabbed on Oct. 16 after a tipster alerted the FBI to the alleged murder-for-hire plot the suspect had blasted out on social media earlier this month.

  • Minnesota man faces federal charges for alleged $45,000 Bondi bounty post | Fox News

  • seen reports that he was released without bond; but only from ephemeral sources. archives aren't touching this one for me either.

• Trump-haters' White House ballroom tantrums get even more ridiculous

  Those who a couple of years ago were toppling monuments to America’s founders and denouncing America itself as a slave state are now posing as defenders of our deep history and heritage. Because nothing says “deep history and heritage” like a structure built in 1942 to hide a bomb shelter.

• MSNBC's Wallave claims no Dem has called Trump Hitler, evidence says otherwise

  MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said on Monday she doesn't believe any Democrat has compared President Donald Trump to German dictator Adolf Hitler. Pritzker pushed back somewhat, drawing a distinct line between drawing historical parallels in policy and comparing Trump to Hitler directly. "I'm not suggesting, I haven't suggested Donald Trump is Hitler," Pritzker said. "I don't think any democrat has," Wallace said. "And I actually think it’s a smear that they project back onto critics. But JD Vance called Donald Trump ‘cultural heroin.’ He called him ‘America’s Hitler.’ I mean, the attacks on Donald Trump as a fascist came from three generals who worked for him."However, the record shows that many prominent Democrats, and Wallace herself, have drawn parallels between Trump and Hitler.

• America's immigration crackdown is disrupting the global remittance market

• Trump's UCLA deal: Pay us $1B+, and we can still cut your grants again

• Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

• Inside the Trump family's global crypto cash machine

• Python plan to boost software security foiled by Trump admin's anti-DEI rules

• The Republican Plan to Reform the Census Could Put Everyone's Privacy at Risk

• The U.S. Is on Track to Lose a War with China

• Location of Tyler Robinson's lover still undisclosed as family lay low months after Charlie Kirk slaying

  The transgender lover of Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer has seemingly vanished from his hometown six weeks after the political assassination that shook the country. Lance Twiggs, 22, has been on the down-low since his boyfriend Tyler Robinson allegedly shot the Turning Point USA co-founder dead and then sent Twiggs a string of text messages confessing to the slaying, according to feds. Twiggs has steered clear of his $1,800-per-month love nest on the outskirts of the isolated desert oasis of St. George.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Santa Cruz tech CEO's accused killers 'humiliated' by pushups

  Kaleb Charters was 18 years old when Atre hired him, along with Lindsey, to plant a large field of marijuana at the farm in August of 2019. Atre also hired a 23-year-old University of California Santa Cruz graduate, Sam Borghese, as his right-hand-man for managing the new cannabis business, attorneys said. Borghese testified for hours on the stand about toxic working relationships between Atre and Interstitial employees. Det. Rumrill said Lindsay and Kaleb’s names came up early in the murder investigation as suspects who may have a motive to harm Atre. “They were humiliated in front of people doing pushups,” Rumrill testified.

• Police used Flock cameras to accuse a woman of theft, she had to prove innocence

• Man Sentenced to 3 Years for 'Birth Tourism'Scheme for Affluent Chinese Clients

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US military kills 14 in attacks on vessels in the Pacific, according to Hegseth

  The US military killed 14 people and left one survivor in more strikes on drug-trafficking boats in the eastern Pacific, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said on Monday, as the Trump administration continued to expand its campaign beyond the Caribbean. The latest strikes mean the US has now attacked at least 13 vessels and brought the officially acknowledged death toll to 51 people since the campaign began at the start of September.

• Did China Down Two U.S. Navy Aircraft in South China Sea?

World

• Criminal complaint against facial recognition company Clearview AI

• (UK) A new pay-per-mile tax system is reportedly being considered by the Government

• Dutch took over Nexperia – fears was dismantling operations and moving to China

  • Dutch government took control of Nexperia over fears it was being gutted

• Europe's Solar Boom Is Pushing Power Grids to the Limit

• UK Headlights to be reviewed after drivers complain of being 'blinded' at night

  • Four out of five drivers worried about dazzling headlights in the dark

• Brazil Is Learning Achieving Tech Sovereignty Is Easier Said Than Done

• A hacking gang held Italy's political elites to ransom

• Belgium is basically a narco-state, top Antwerp judge warns

• Fear of mass killings as thousands trapped in Sudan city taken by militia group

Israel

• Israel's Netanyahu Orders Immediate 'Powerful Strikes' On Gaza: PM Office - Barron's

• Netanyahu orders "powerful" strikes in Gaza as ceasefire breaks down

• Israel strikes Gaza after accusing Hamas of ceasefire violations

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Hong Kong companies funnel Canadian tech to Russian army, report says

China

• China Has Added Forest the Size of Texas Since 1990

• China's Chang'e 6 Mission Found Rare Meteorite Fragments on Moon

• China Tries To Backward Engineer ASML Stepper, Wrecks It

  • China reportedly caught reverse-engineering ASML's DUV lithography - Asia Times

  “An ASML DUV machine that China has used to make their chips recently broke down. They called the Dutch company for help repairing it,” Brandon Weichert, a senior national security editor at The National Interest, says in a X post. “ASML sent some techs. They discovered that the Chinese broke the machine when they disassembled it and tried to put it back together.”

Health / Medicine

• The Great Alzheimer's Scam and the Proven Cures They've Buried for Billions

• Man Has Pig Kidney Removed After Living with It for a Record 9 Months

• Novo Nordisk fights to keep Medicaid paying for weight-loss drugs

• Should you always treat a fever? The symptom that puzzled doctors for millennia

• Blue Cross plans to target doctors for overcharging. Physicians are furious

• Effectiveness of Influenza Vaccine During the 2024-2025 Respiratory Viral Season

  Among 53402 employees, 43920 (82.2%) were vaccinated by the end of the study. Influenza occurred in 1130 (2.12%) during the study. The cumulative incidence of influenza was similar for the vaccinated and unvaccinated states early, but over time the cumulative incidence of influenza increased more rapidly among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated.

  This study was unable to find a protective influence of influenza vaccination among working-aged adults during the 2024-2025 respiratory viral season and found that influenza vaccination was associated with a higher risk of influenza when influenza activity was high.

• Weight loss drugs are bringing down the country's obesity rate

• Opt-out organ donation policies may reduce organ supply

• Why Millennials and Gen Z Are Going Gray Early, According to Experts

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• 'minor' bird flu strain has potential to spark human pandemic

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Rats filmed snatching bats from air for first time

• Bill Gates Says Climate Change 'Will Not Lead to Humanity's Demise'

  • Bill Gates softens 'Climate Disaster' approach, says strategy needs to shift

• Hurricane Melissa is now the strongest storm on the planet this year

  • Hurricane Melissa Has Meteorologists Terrified

  • Small Island Nations Lack Funds to Fight Climate Disasters

• Impacts of onshore wind energy production on biodiversity

  Across the construction, operation and decommissioning stages, wind facilities are associated with wildlife fatality and behavioural change as well as alteration, loss and fragmentation of terrestrial and aerial habitat. These negative consequences can be mitigated by avoiding construction of wind turbines at sensitive sites, detecting and deterring wildlife, curtailing turbines to reduce fatalities, and replacing lost habitats.

• 'Change course now': humanity has missed 1.5C climate target, says UN head

• Maritime lions hunting seals on the beach

• Rising CO₂ levels could lead to disruptions in shortwave radio communications

• Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to 'intractable' systemic problems

• Alternatives That Spare Horseshoe Crab Blood Might Be Breaking Through