2025-11-11

Horseshit

• Who is 'fedora man'? Dapper French teenager in viral Louvre heist photo unmasked

• Why Everyone Wants to Meet the ' Most Boring Man'

• A hacking kingpin reveals all: Inside the gang that left a trail of destruction

• Tech billionaires back startup on gene-edited 'designer babies' despite US ban

• Disabled hikers find freedom through off-road wheelchairs

• Robotic chair concept looks like a crab and can carry you around the house

• Is Knoxville the hot place to move in 2026?

• Why Anglophones use the alphabet so oddly

• All your data belongs to us: the rise of Palantir

• The Post-Cold War Era Is Over. What Should We Call This New One?

• Remilk and Gad Dairies Launch "The New Milk" – Milk Without Cows

• Stop asking 'How was school today?' To raise successful, mentally strong kids

• Being bilingual delays ageing, but being multilingual is better – study

• Investors' dumb transhumanist ideas setting back neurotech progress, say experts

• Are we doomed? Review of books on depopulation and extinction

Obit

• Quentin Willson, Top Gear Presenter and Electric-Vehicle Advocate, Dies at 68

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• If You Can’t Accurately Quote Someone, Why Should I Believe Anything You Write?

  I rolled my eyes a little at the idea that “every” journalist who reached out to Coviello was trying to get him to talk shit about Mamdani, but whatever; maybe that’s what happened. It was the David Brooks quote that struck me as suspicious. I simply didn’t think Brooks would make such a silly, oversimplified argument.

  Brooks is arguing against the notion that “People read Foucault and develop an alienated view of the world.” He’s presenting this as a view he disagrees with. Coviello is an accomplished academic with many articles and books under his belt, and by his own account was so struck by the Brooks column that he has “all but committed [it] to memory.” The fact that he failed to understand Brooks’ argument about Foucault on the most basic level is astonishing. Either Coviello has a real reading comprehension problem — one that would pose genuine challenges to his ability to write about anything — or he’s a transparently disingenuous writer and thinker. I’m not sure which is worse. And of course the whole thing is layered in smug sanctimony. “God, did I love this,” he said. Something like this can only be published if no one involved cares much about the truth. Maybe LitHub is overstretched, resources-wise (that’s the most sympathetic interpretation possible), but all it would have taken to see how silly an error this is is to actually read one paragraph of the column Covielli is quoting? I come across stuff like this over and over and over.

• Pandemics Are a Choice

  Technological breakthroughs and lessons learned from the Covid pandemic have created an unprecedented opportunity to prevent, detect, and snuff out new threats at the source. With the right leadership and smart investments, we can take the top pandemic threats off the table in the next 10 years.

  • Lessons learned from COVID include: "Don't trust these people further than you can spit a rat."

• In the AI era, Wikipedia has never been more valuable

  • "We are* the single source of Truth, really!"

Musk

• Tesla is launching a crazy new Rental program with cheap daily rates

• Elon Musk celebrates his $1T pay package with dancing robots

• Tesla sees worst sales performance in China in years

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Sound familiar? Matching voices boost trust in self-driving cars

• Used EVs Are Selling Faster Than Any Other Powertrain

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• Foxconn hires humanoid robots to make servers at Nvidia's Texas factory

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Transgender women to be banned from all female Olympic events

  The International Olympic Committee is set to announce a ban on transgender women in female competition early next year after a science-based review of evidence about permanent physical advantages of being born male. The IOC’s guidance to Olympic sports has until now been that transgender women can compete with reduced testosterone levels but leaves it up to individual sports to decide. That is now set to change under its new president, Kirsty Coventry, who has promised to protect the female category.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Meta's Earns $7B Annually from Fraudulent Ads

• Israeli Spyware Maker NSO Gets New Owners

• Hollywood's Music Biopic Boom: Quantifying the Rise of a Soulless Genre

• The 'Toy Story' You Remember

• "Foreign Policy" is doing (presumably paid) promotional "reviews" now? Del Toro's Frankenstein feels like a Classic

• Why a lot of people are getting hacked with government spyware

• Meta is killing off the external Facebook Like button

• TikTok Shop Is Now the Size of eBay

• Why Everyone in Hollywood Wants Their Movie in IMAX

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Marble Fountain

  I have vague ambitions to do a big rewrite eventually but figured sharing janky code is better than none. I started this just planning for the janky splines as a weekend project but it has gotten thoroughly out of hand.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• UK's 'deregulatory' AI approach won't protect human rights

• Amazon is testing an AI that automatically translates books into other languages

• Why Debt Funding Is Ratcheting Up the Risks of the A.I. Boom

• Tinder's AI plans to find matches by going through your photo gallery

• EU wants to allow AI training over personal data

• The Age of Anti-Social Media Is Here

• The State of AI 2025

• EU set to water down landmark AI act after Big Tech pressure

• Bill Gates says we're in an AI bubble similar to the dot-com bubble

• AI-Trained Grads Edge Out Costly Advisers at Indian Wealth Firm

• Seven more families are now suing OpenAI over ChatGPT's role in suicides, delusions | TechCrunch

• How Are We Gonna Pay for This?

• OpenAI's Altman urges US to expand CHIPS Act tax credit for AI growth

  • Altman sticks a different hand out, wants tax credits instead of gov loans

• Voters' anger at high electricity bills and data centers looms

• “AI, Make Me A Degree Certificate” | Hackaday

  I was saddened at their lament over their colleagues. In particular it seemed they had a real problem with vibe coding: they estimated that only a small percentage of their classmates could code by hand as they did, and the result was a lot of impenetrable code that looked good, but often simply didn’t work. I came away wondering not how AI could be used to generate such poor quality work, but how on earth this could be viewed as acceptable in a university.

• Data Centers in Nvidia's Hometown Stand Empty Awaiting Power

• A new project aims to predict how quickly AI will progress

• An AI-Generated Country Song Is Topping a Billboard Chart

• I refuse to date someone who uses ChatGPT

• Why Debt Funding Is Ratcheting Up the Risks of the A.I. Boom

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Blue Origin scrubs second New Glenn launch

• Astronomer Avi Loeb warns world not to ignore new comet's potential alien threat | The Times of Israel

  “Its path in the plane, the ecliptic plane of the planets around the sun, is [aligned by] five degrees,” Loeb said. “The chance of [this happening] at random is one in 500. Its size is very anomalous … 1 million times more massive than ‘Oumuamua.” Its composition contains “nickel and very little iron, the way we find in industry rich alloys with aerospace application.” And, he said, its jet path was “not away from the Sun like comets … In July and August, the glow extended from the object towards the Sun, not away.”

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Feeling Great About the Economy? You Must Own Stocks

• Why your booze-free drink costs just as much as the alcoholic kind

• How networking grew to become Nvidia's $46B side hustle

• Small-Town Pension Fund Has a Warning for Retirement Savers

• Boeing recommends grounding all MD-11 planes

• BlackRock Faces 100% Loss on Private Loan, Adding to Credit Market Pain

• Sonder to File Bankruptcy and Liquidate After Marriott Cuts Ties

  • Marriott broke up with Sonder. Now, guests who've been booted are scrambling

• Duke Explores Private Credit in Potential First for Utilities

• The Credit-Card Rule That Powers Rewards Cards Just Got Broken

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Senate reaches deal on ending shutdown

  Senators have reached a deal to end the government shutdown. The broad framework for agreement, which was negotiated in part by Sens. Angus King, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan as well as GOP senators, has “more than enough” members of the Senate Democratic Caucus to advance, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose the terms.

  As part of Democrats’ agreement to end the shutdown, Thune is promising Senate Democrats a vote in mid-December to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year without Congressional action. Democrats will also get to determine what extension bill receives that vote. The government-opening agreement guarantees that federal employees laid off during the shutdown are re-hired and gives federal employees backpay. It also would require agencies to give written notice to Congress about the withdrawal of the so-called reduction-in-force notices issued during the funding lapse, plus provide the amount of back pay owed. It would, as well, prevent some future firings with a blanket prohibition on reductions-in-force in any department or agency until at least the end date of the continuing resolution: Jan. 30, 2026. Many progressives in the Senate — along with a large number of House Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — think anything short of a deal to enact an extension of the ACA tax credits is insufficient.

  • Democrats Finally Caved and Lost Everything in the Shutdown Showdown – PJ Media

  The deal is simple. Schumer’s caucus agreed to advance a package of spending bills that will reopen the government and extend funding through January. That’s it. No sweeping policy concessions, no big wins tucked into the fine print, no “historic framework” or “moral victory.” Just a basic continuing resolution, dressed up with some boilerplate back pay for furloughed workers and funding for food assistance through next fall. In other words, exactly what Republicans had put on the table before the Democrats decided to make a scene.

  • GOP Secures 60 Votes As Bill To Reopen Government Advances | ZeroHedge

  this begins the long and drawn-out process of Majority Leader John Thune presenting the original House-passed continuing resolution for a vote, which will then have the minibus and updated CR attached. There will then be two more votes before the package goes back to the House. If they pass it, it will head to President Trump's desk.

  The package does not extend expiring pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies, but Democrats have been promised a vote on it after the government reopens.

  Of note, this is essentially what Republicans had offered weeks ago - with Sen. King explaining that the 'length of the shutdown' was the deciding factor.

  • US Senate passes deal to end government shutdown

  The deal includes an agreement for a vote in December on extending healthcare subsidies that are due to expire this year, a key issue Democrats had been holding out for concessions on. Democratic Party leaders had said that they would not lend their support to new funding for government operations until Congress addressed the subsidies that help tens of millions of Americans pay for health insurance purchased through government-run exchanges. Thune did not say exactly what that bill would contain, which frustrated many Democrats in the House and the Senate, who argued that the Democrats who negotiated the deal did so without getting enough in return.

• Supreme Court Denies Request to Revisit Same-Sex Marriage Decision

• 'Tremendous chaos': Northern Calif. politician wants to split state in two

Trump

• Trump pardons Giuliani, Powell, Chesebro and dozens more involved in 2020 ‘fake electors’ case

  • Trump issues pardons for those involved in 2020 fake elector scheme

  • Trump pardons top allies who aided bid to subvert the 2020 election

  • Definitely a better idea than prosecuting Kamala's "fake electors" folks; but then again, we could do both...

• Trump considering shake-up to housing market by offering 50-year mortgages and not just 30-year terms.

  • I’m Begging You Not to Take Trump’s 50-Year Mortgage.

• Tariff Rebates?

• Trump condemns BBC's 'reckless disregard for truth' in $1B lawsuit

Democrats

• With Nancy Pelosi retiring, stock traders who copy her need to find a new hero

• Zohran Mamdani Has Ambitious Plans for New York. How Much Will They Cost? - The New York Times

  Zohran Mamdani’s meteoric rise to become the mayor-elect of New York City was fueled by his promise to make the city more affordable. He highlighted four signature policy proposals: universal child care, free buses, city-owned grocery stores and a rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments. All together, the policies could cost nearly $7 billion every year. If all of them were implemented, the cost would be higher than the Police Department’s budget.

Left Angst

• NASA Staff Horrified at Plan to Trash Specialized Science Equipment

• Italian Pasta Is Poised to Disappear from American Grocery Shelves

• USAID's Secret Signal Chats Document Plot Against U.S. Leadership

  Ex-USAID employees describe how, before January 20, they moved internal groups off government systems and into encrypted Signal chats, then quickly linked with foreign partners and NGOs after the inauguration. This attempt at creating a color revolution isn't new news; this part was already reported in NOTUS earlier this year. But what's not reported is the international aspect. One participant explicitly frames it as "a global anti-authoritarian movement," connecting U.S. officials with "colleagues from around the world who have dealt with this directly." They reference coordination with Johns Hopkins, "international democracy and conflict mitigation spaces," and efforts to mobilize across borders against what they perceive as domestic authoritarianism. At what point does this become treason?

• FAA "Effectively Prohibits" Private Jets at Major Airports Amid Shutdown

  • FAA prohibits most private jets at 12 major airports amid shutdown

• Tracking the Cost of Tariffs

• NASA is kind of a mess: Here are the top priorities for a new administrator

• The Coming Ecological Cold War

• Inside A Texas Church's Training Academy for Christians Running for Office

  • Only the Left gets to do that?

• America's cybersecurity defenses are cracking

• 'You Are All Terrorists': Four Months in a Salvadoran Prison

• Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

• 'South Park' Takes on Trump and Wins Bigly

• Feds searched license camera readers at 18 WA police agencies without consent

• The MAHA-Fueled Rise of Natural Family Planning

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US slams EU's proposed space law as 'unacceptable'

World

• South Korea's ex-president Yoon indicted on new charges

  • Special counsel indicts ex-President Yoon on charges of aiding enemy

• The Power of Gen Z Protesters Meets Lethal Force in Tanzania

• Denmark to ban social media for children under 15

• Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

• The American retirees who benefit from free French social security

• UK transport and cyber-security chiefs investigate Chinese-made buses

• Life inside the BBC: ‘You felt you had to apologise for being white and middle class’

  two former BBC employees have spoken to The Telegraph on condition of anonymity, offering a rare glimpse into the culture at the corporation.

  “There was something of a Left-wing cabal – and if you were more centrist in your politics, your opinion wasn’t appreciated. Eventually, you just stopped speaking up. They would absolutely talk about diversity of voices, then shut down anybody who didn’t agree with them. “I don’t think it was a conspiracy, more the weight of opinion in the room and a self-fulfilling prophecy through recruitment. If you weren’t part of the more woke, Left-leaning brigade, your opportunities for progression were limited. I saw it in interviews – anyone who didn’t fit that agenda could be easily dismissed from the shortlist.

  “Culturally, it also became a place where you felt you had to apologise for being white and middle class – you felt your privilege very keenly. I generally think that’s a good thing, we should all be more aware of how good we’ve had it, but there is a point where experience and authority should hold sway, regardless of whether it’s coming from someone white and middle class. I mean, everyone was given unconscious bias training, which I found quite interesting – although, it’s all a bit ‘Meghan’, you know, ‘Confront your privilege! Own your privilege!’ Anyway, in hindsight, I’ve never worked anywhere else where people went around apologising so much for who they were – and because almost everyone was white and middle class, you also had this strange situation where people were trying to drum up ‘protected characteristics’ for themselves. It was like, ‘Is it enough to be middle-aged? Could that count as a protected characteristic?’ It all became a bit ridiculous.

• Canadian military will rely on army of public servants to grow its ranks by 300k

• Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy released from prison pending appeal

• Turkish authorities arrest eight, suspend 1024 players in betting investigation

Israel

• Israeli soldiers speak out on killings of Gaza civilians

China

• China rolls out its version of the H-1B visa to attract foreign tech workers

• The True Cost of China's Falling Prices

• Apple Pulls China's Top Gay Dating Apps After Government Order

• China's CO2 emissions have been flat or falling for past 18 months

Health / Medicine

• Ultra-endurance athletes test the metabolic limits of the human body

• Heart attack risk halved in adults with heart disease supplementing Vitamin D

• Surprising heart study finds daily coffee may cut AFib risk by 39%

• FDA Will Remove Black Box Warnings from Hormone Treatments for Menopause

  • FDA Strips Breast Cancer Warning from Menopause Hormone Therapy

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Canada loses its measles elimination status amid large outbreak

  • Canada loses measles elimination status after ongoing outbreaks

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Solar geoengineering in wrong hands could wreak climate havoc, scientists warn

• EU takes aim at plastic pellets to prevent their nightmare cleanup

  On Thursday, the European Parliament could approve tougher new rules aimed at preventing such disastrous spills, and reducing their pollution impact. If approved, they will require companies in the European Union to adopt safeguards in handling and transporting nurdles, which are produced by petrochemical giants from fossil fuels. Anywhere between 52,140 tonnes and 184,290 tonnes of pellets entered the environment in the EU in 2019, according to the European Commission, which proposed the regulations. "This is equivalent to between 2,100 and 7,300 trucks full of pellets per year," the Commission said. Light, buoyant and insoluble, these tiny pellets present an almost insurmountable challenge once scattered in nature.

• Study finds humans outweigh climate in depleting Arizona's water supply

• Scientists Produce Powerhouse Pigment Behind Octopus Camouflage

• What's holding up the Colorado River negotiations?

• The Sierra Club Embraced Social Justice. Then It Tore Itself Apart

• Environmental lead risk in the 21st century

• As U.S. and E.U. Retreat on Climate, China Takes the Leadership Role

  • At COP30 in Belém, Brazil, Chinese Technology Is Shifting Climate Politics

  • China has always been a big part of the "climate" process: they get to use energy and fluorocarbons and so on; the rest of the world does not. So closely do western advocates hew to Chinese goals its worth asking if there is deeper co-ordination.

• Fixing climate means fixing education

  • "With enough indoctrination we can ignore reality" .. never works, but they always insist this time is the charm.

• Toxic 'Hammerhead Worm' Is Invading Texas, Triggering Warnings