2025-11-07

etc

• Peeling Apart Plywood to Understand How it Works

Horseshit

• Women Fear Taking NYC Buses, Another Groping, Attack

• Wealth Taxes Will Barely Slow Inequality. So Why Do the Super-Rich Resist Them?

• The expansion of our universe may be slowing down

  • Universe expansion may be slowing, not accelerating, study suggests

  • Universe's expansion 'is now slowing, not speeding up'

• Using your phone every night before bed? Researchers say that's okay

• Infants who received $1000 no-strings-attached were nearly half as likely to die

  • "fewer dead babies" is a great motivator... Until you're talking of abortion or asking questions about mandated treatments...

• Universal child care can harm children

• Our first terraforming goal should be the Moon, not Mars

• The Florentine Diamond Resurfaces After 100 Years in Hiding

  • Habsburg family's Florentine diamond found in bank vault after a century

• For Gen Z-Ers, Work Is Now More Depressing Than Unemployment

• It's Cool to Have No Followers Now

• Woven baskets are sturdier and more resilient than stiff containers

• 'Ich Bin Ein Berliner': JFK Got It Right–He Was No Jelly Doughnut

celebrity gossip

• King Charles officially strips Andrew of HRH style and prince title

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs

Musk

• How the richest man is boosting the British right

• Sky News investigated X's algorithm for political bias

  Our investigation involved creating nine new X accounts and analysing the type of content that was fed to their algorithmically curated "For You" pages.

• Elon Musk stoking a civil war in England isn't good for Tesla's sales there

• Elon Musk's X starts suspending people using third-party extensions

• Would Elon Musk Work Harder for $1T Than $1B?

• The Hurdles Elon Musk Must Clear to Unlock $1T in Tesla Pay

• Elon Wants His Votes - Bloomberg

  I have written a few times about an oddity in this package, which is that, according to Musk and Tesla’s board, the point here is not to give Musk $1 trillion of value, but rather to give him sufficient control over Tesla’s planned “robot army.” Musk wants at least 25% of the vote so that he can control the robots, but he only owns about 15% of the shares, and the only way to get him to 25% is to give him a huge new slug of economic ownership. And the only way to give him a huge new slug of economic ownership is to make the new shares contingent on aggressive operational and stock-price targets, which in turn means that the nominal value of the new shares, in the state of the world in which he gets them, is $1 trillion. Embarrassing for everyone.

• Elon Musk Wins $1T Tesla Payday

• Tesla shareholders approve Musk's $1T pay plan with 75%+ voting in favor

• Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package

• Musk on track to become world’s first trillionaire after Tesla vote

• Tesla shareholders approve $1T pay package for Elon Musk

• Tesla shareholders approve $878B pay plan for Elon Musk

• Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package

• Tesla delays reveal of production Roadster 2 to April Fools' Day

Electric / Self Driving cars

• The EV Battery Tech That's Worth the Hype, According to Experts

• Ford Considers Scrapping Electric Version of F-150 Truck

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• In Philadelphia, a young nonprofit buys a century-old magazine

• V for Vendetta Will Return to Cinemas for Its 20th Anniversary in 2026

• YouTube TV's Disney blackout reminds users that they dont own what they stream

• Whoops: 'Smart' Vacuum May Be Broadcasting a 3D Map of Your Home

• Epic and Google agree to settle their lawsuit and change Android's fate globally

• Google's proposed Android changes won't save sideloading

• FBI Tries to Unmask Owner of Infamous Archive.is Site

  • FBI Tries to Unmask Owner of Infamous Archive.is Site

  The FBI subpoena says it is part of a criminal investigation, though it does not provide any details about what alleged crime is being investigated. Archive.today is also popularly known by several of its mirrors, including archive.is and archive.ph.

• The 40-year economic mistake that let Google conquer (and enshittify) the world

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Countdown To Pi 1 Loss Of Support, Activated

  no need to panic just yet, as the support is going not for the mainstream Debian releases, but the unstable and experimental ones. The mainstream Debian support period for the current releases presumably including the Debian-based Raspberry Pi OS extends until 2030, which tallies well with Raspberry Pi’s own end-of-life date for their earlier boards.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Sam Altman Loses His Cool When Asked About OpenAI's Minuscule Revenue

  During a recent interview with podcaster and OpenAI investor Brad Gerstner, Altman lost his cool when he was asked outright how it all adds up. “How can a company with $13 billion in revenues make $1.4 trillion of spend commitments?” Gerstner asked him. “You’ve heard the criticism, Sam.” “If you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer,” a taken-aback Altman replied curtly. “Enough.” Surprised by the confrontation, Gerstner let out a laugh in response.

• How will OpenAI cover its heavy spending? It wants the government to help

• Is OpenAI Becoming Too Big to Fail? – It Is Certainly Trying

• OpenAI probably can't make ends meet. That's where you come in

• OpenAI Seeks Government Backing to Boost AI Investments

• OpenAI asks for help from US govt

• OpenAI asks U.S. for loan guarantees to fund $1T AI expansion

• OpenAI wants taxpayer to pay for 1T dollar expansion

• OpenAI CFO Seeks US Government Backing, Disappointed Market Doesn't Have More AI "Exuberance" | ZeroHedge

  In an onstage interview at the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference in California on Wednesday, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar suggested the market is overly focused on anxiety about a possible bubble in the artificial intelligence sector and should muster more “exuberance” about the technology’s potential. “I don’t think there’s enough exuberance about AI, when I think about the actual practical implications and what it can do for individuals,” Friar said “We should keep running at it.”

  Federal loan guarantees would "really drop the cost of the financing," she explained, enabling OpenAI and its investors to borrow more money at lower rates to meet the company's ambitious targets. Because there is nothing like a company with $14BN in revenue, $1 trillion in "valuation" and $1.4 trillion in commitments, than loading up to the gills with government backstopped debt. See, if only Enron and Lehman could do the same, both would still be around. The proposal -- unusual for a Silicon Valley tech giant -- would theoretically reduce OpenAI's borrowing costs since the government would absorb losses if the company defaulted. Such guarantees would also dramatically expand OpenAI's potential lender pool, as many banks and financial institutions face strict limits on high-risk lending.

  Asked for clarification, an OpenAI spokesperson said Friar was speaking in the context of the broader AI industry. There are currently no immediate plans about OpenAI pursuing a federal backstop, the spokesperson said.

• Trump AI czar Sacks says 'no federal bailout for AI' after OpenAI CFO's comments

• OpenAI Races to Quell Concerns over Its Finances

• Nvidia's Jensen Huang softens his 'China will win the AI race' remark

  • Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang backtracks after saying China will win AI race

  • Nvidia boss Jensen Huang dismisses fears of an 'AI bubble'

  • Jensen Huang says China 'will win' AI race

• Google planning powerful AI data centre on tiny Australian Indian Ocean outpost

• Snap and Perplexity sign $400M deal to put AI search directly in Snapchat

• Apple Nears $1B-A Year Deal to Use Google AI for Siri

  • Apple nears deal to pay Google $1B annually to power new Siri, report says

• Thoughts by a non-economist on AI and economics – Windows On Theory

  If it is 50m new employees this would be about 18%, and if AI doubles the workforce then the growth would be ~50%. Of course, the number of AI “virtual workers” could potentially be orders of magnitude more, at which point these calculations are likely not to make much sense. (There is a book called “One Billion Americans” but I think even its author did not ponder what would happen if there were one trillion Americans…)

• Refund requests flood Microsoft after tricking users into AI upgrades

• AI is changing jobs fast, Australians wonder how they'll stay relevant

• AI's capabilities may be exaggerated by flawed tests, according to new study

• How much wealth would be destroyed by an AI stockmarket crash?

• AI Power Users Are Impressing Bosses and Leaving Co-Workers in the Dust

• AI may fatally wound web's ad model, warns Tim Berners-Lee

• Gemini AI to transform Google Maps into a conversational experience

• Baby Shoggoth Is Listening – The American Scholar

• Microsoft forms superintelligence team to serve humanity

• Chaos and lies: Why Sam Altman was booted from OpenAI according to new testimony

  • New court docs put Sam Altman's honesty in spotlight again

• Bombshell report exposes how Meta relied on scam ad profits to fund AI

• Parents say ChatGPT encouraged son to kill himself

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• China delays Shenzhou-20 crew return after suspected space debris impact

  • Space junk may have struck a Chinese crew ship in low-Earth orbit

• Who has the best map of orbit?

Economicon / Business / Finance

• counting shutdown furloughs?: US layoffs for October surge to two-decade high

  Cost-cutting was the top reason for the layoffs in October, followed by artificial intelligence, while "DOGE Impact" was the leading reason for job cuts in 2025.

  • Job cuts in October hit highest level for the month in 22 years

  • US Companies Announce Most October Job Cuts in over 20 Years

• Builders Are Offering Mortgage Rate Discounts. Home Buyers Aren't Biting

• 'Jenga Tower' US Economy Teeters as Middle Class Pulls Back Spending

• S.F. homes are selling at the fastest rate among large U.S. cities

• Restaurants Brace for the Demise of the Penny

• Meta tumbles as investors compare its AI spending splurge to metaverse missteps

• Why Palantir's success will outlast AI exuberance

• Federal Reserve has injected $125B into the U.S. banking system

• Fed's Hammack Says Inflation a Bigger Concern Than Labor Market

• Judge Agrees to Dismiss Boeing Criminal Case Tied to 737 MAX Crashes

  • US judge approves DOJ decision to drop Boeing criminal case

• Why Manufacturing's Last Boom Will Be Hard to Repeat

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Judge orders White House to use American Sign Language interpreters at briefings

• ICE plans to open call center to help law enforcement locate unaccompanied minor

• Association of Coca-Cola, Nestlé, General Mills Urge Congress to Ban Hemp

  • The snack industry should be broadly in favor of cannabis. The alcohol industry shows the effects already; people are saying things like "imploded" ... private equity quality degradation and "illusion of choice" meets a free market; guess who won?

• US Supreme Court lets Trump admin require gender at birth be listed on passports

• IRS Ends Direct File

Trump

• Key Justices Cast a Skeptical Eye on Trump's Tariffs

  • Counting to Five for the Government in the Tariffs Case

  It seems that shortly after Solicitor General John Sauer sat down, headlines started popping up with a consistent description: the Justices asked "skeptical" questions of the government. Indeed, I suspect these headlines were written formed before Neal Katyal finished his argument for the Respondents. The live-streaming of oral arguments has been a welcome development. But perhaps one drawback is that people make their assessments of big cases before they are over. And once a narrative takes old, everyone seems to glom onto it. As usual, I have an unorthodox take.

  Contrary to the hot takes, I think the government ekes this one out. The vote might be weird. What happens if Justice Gorsuch finds that the best reading of the statute is that the President has the authority to issue the tariffs, but then holds that such a delegation of authority violates the non-delegation doctrine. If four other Justices agree with Gorsuch's reading of the statute, there are five vote to uphold the statutory delegation. I don't think anyone other than Justice Thomas might join Gorsuch on the constitutional argument. In that case, the tariffs survive. This might be akin to Justice Powell's vote in Bakke. Or, if Chief Justice Roberts decides he wants to keep this case for himself, he will give the fifth vote to uphold the statutory authority, with many limiting principle. Ultimately, I think I wind up where Justice Gorsuch did: the statute likely confers the authority on the President to impose regulatory tariffs, but that capacious delegation violates the non-delegation doctrine.

  • US Supreme Court casts doubt on legality of Trump's global tariffs

• Revealed: The devastating memo that plunged the BBC into crisis

  The document, written by former journalist Michael Prescott and sent to the BBC board, exposes a string of incidents that demonstrate serious apparent bias in the corporation’s reporting. They include evidence that BBC Panorama “doctored” a speech by Donald Trump to make it wrongly appear as though he directly called for violence on the day that his supporters stormed the US Capitol. Mr Prescott, who until June 2025 was an independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board, also highlights serious problems with BBC Arabic’s reporting on Gaza, in which it apparently gives extensive space to the views of Hamas. Elsewhere, he raises concerns that a unit of rogue LGBT+ reporters is censoring coverage of the trans debate, and highlights how the BBC’s own flagship fact-checking service, Verify, produced a “thoroughly wrong” report suggesting car insurers were racist. Mr Prescott’s warnings were ignored by senior executives.

Democrats

• The Democrats Have a New Winning Formula

• This is not the positive accolade they think it is: Europeans recognize Zohran Mamdani's policies as 'normal'

• Zohran Mamdani Just Inherited the NYPD Surveillance State

Left Angst

• FAA to cut flights by 10% at 40 major airports due to government shutdown

• Ohboy more ways to express political angst when the Democrats are in power, then? Man who threw sandwich at US border agent not guilty of assault

• Tech Billionaire Marc Andreessen Bet Big on Trump and It's Paying Off

• Norman Rockwell's Family Hits Out at Homeland Security over Social Media Posts

• Tear Gas, Pepper Balls Among Weapons Deployed Against Illinois Protesters

• Government 'propaganda' techniques portray Chicago as a city at war with feds

• DHS offers "disturbing new excuses" to seize kids' biometric data, expert says

• H-1B Visa Hopefuls Are Shut Out of Job Market Amid Trump Fee Changes

• Foreign Food Safety Inspections Hit Historic Low After Trump Cuts

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Feds seize $15B from alleged forced labor scam built on "human suffering"

  On Tuesday, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against Chen Zhi, the founder and chairman of a multinational business conglomerate based in Cambodia. It alleged that Zhi led such a forced-labor scam operation, which, with the help of unnamed co-conspirators, netted billions of dollars from victims.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• I may have found a way to spot U.S. at-sea strikes before they're announced

• U.S. Congressional Budget Office hit by suspected foreign cyberattack

  • US Congressional Budget Office hit by cybersecurity incident

World

• Reeves to hit drivers with pay-per-mile tax

  • Reeves poised to unveil Budget plan for EV drivers to pay per mile charges

• England prison chiefs summoned to meeting with ministers over wrongful releases

• The Louvre's video security password was reportedly 'Louvre'

• Australia Mandates Encryption Backdoors

• Landmines that sparked Thai-Cambodia clash were likely newly laid, experts say

• Canada's new budget aims to lure U.S. researchers to relocate

• Who thought it was anything but a boondoggle to begin with? End of The Line: how Saudi Arabia's Neom dream unravelled

• UK agri dept spent millions upgrading to Windows 10 – in time for end of support

• Gold, guns and cartels: The battle for a billion-dollar mine

• German nurse gets life in jail after murdering 10 to reduce workload

Israel

• Hamas fighters are stuck in tunnels in Israeli-controlled Gaza

  Hamas wants safe passage for up to 300 militants to Hamas-controlled territory. Israel wants them to surrender or to kill them. It is threatening to unravel the ceasefire.

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Putin's repressive machinery turns inward to target pro-war figures

China

• Taiwan's Machine Tool Makers Struggle to Survive

• China bans foreign AI chips from state-funded data centres

• US-China rivalry at sea expands to submarines, shipyards and seafloor cables | Fox News

Health / Medicine

• New gel regrows tooth enamel

• Why we should all be terrified of a myopia epidemic

• Many Popular Beliefs About Allergies Aren't Supported by the Evidence

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Canada Is About to Lose Its Status as Having Eliminated Measles

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• As carbon markets collapse, what happens to forests they promised to protect?

• Bill Gates Gave $3.5M to Think Tank Run by Climate Crisis Denier Bjorn Lomborg

• Government told to prepare for 2C warming by 2050

• Bird Migration Is Changing

• Rapa Nui's catastrophic deforestation: Rats, not just humans, may be to blame

• One of the most destructive invasive species has arrived in Europe

• Official: The world will speed past 1.5 C climate threshold in the next decade

• Moderate warming may not doom humid subtropical forests' carbon storage

• Rare hyena behaviours caught on camera in new Attenborough documentary