2025-11-21
etc
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EUV lithography machines are famously made by just a single firm, ASML in the Netherlands, and determining who has access to the machines has become a major geopolitical concern. However, though they’re built by ASML, much of the research that made the machines possible was done in the US. Some of the most storied names in US research and development — DARPA, Bell Labs, IBM Research, Intel, the US National Laboratories — spent decades of research and hundreds of millions of dollars to make EUV possible. So why, after all that effort by the US, did EUV end up being commercialized by a single firm in the Netherlands?
An important takeaway from the story of EUV is that developing a technology that works, and successfully competing with that technology in the marketplace, are two different things. Thanks to contributions from researchers around the world, including a who’s who of major US research organizations — DARPA, Bell Labs, the US National Labs, IBM Research — EUV went from unpromising speculation to the next generation of lithography technology. But by the time it was ready, US firms had been almost entirely forced out of the lithography tools market, leaving EUV in the hands of a single European firm to take it across the finish line and commercialize.
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Nuremberg trial records made available online after painstaking 25-year project
Horseshit
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In 1982, a physics joke gone wrong sparked the invention of the emoticon
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On the world’s coldest stage, a military musician plays with a plastic horn
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We're evolving too slowly for the world we've built, according to science
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The Banished Bottom of the Housing Market
Variously and derogatively known by many names—rooming houses, lodging houses, flophouses—SROs provided affordable, market-rate housing to those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. SROs were the cheapest form of residential hotels, specializing in furnished single rooms for individuals, usually with shared kitchens and bathrooms. A typical SRO rent in 1924 was $230 per month—in today’s dollars. New York City had 200,000 SROs when it banned new hotel construction in 1955; only 30,000 remained by 2014. As tenants changed and land values climbed, owners who once fought to save their lodging houses now wanted out; it was officials who suddenly wanted to preserve them. Tenant movements and new government programs emerged in the 1970s and ’80s, but Reagan-era cuts gutted funding, and many remaining hotels decayed into the “street hotels” opponents had long imagined: unsanitary, unsafe, and unfit for all but the city’s most desperate residents.
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So of course dating apps would love to string people along for years instead of finding them long-term relationships, so they keep paying money each month. I’d bet that some people at those companies have literally thought, “Maybe we should string people along for years instead of finding them long-term relationships, so they keep paying money each month. I love money so much.” But if they are actually doing that (which is unclear to me) or if they are bad in some other way, then how do they get away with it? Why doesn’t someone else create a competing app that’s better and thereby steal all their business? It seems like the answer has to be either “because that’s impossible”, or “because people don’t really want that”. That’s where the mystery begins.
- People who compete get bought, or the established players bribe the State into eliminating competition. "Dating app" becomes "prostitution / trafficking ring" real quick in the headlines. Pizza places get the health department to close the new joint.
Epstein
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Trump Signs Epstein Files Bill After Fight Straining Party Unity
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James Comer vows to give Clintons Bannon treatment if they defy subpoenas | Just The News
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer on Tuesday said he would give former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the same treatment Democrats gave Steve Bannon if they do not comply with congressional subpoenas to testify on their alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
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Hakeem Jeffries' CNN Interview About Epstein and His Texts to a Dem Rep Was Quite Brutal
Democrats are named in the files. After all they’ve said about Trump and the GOP regarding this story, it’s going to be funny, a classic boomerang to the face. It’s not about the victims, though it should be; it’s all about getting Trump. Which you, me, and the entire nation already know.
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Jeffrey Epstein victim describes his penis as 'extremely deformed,' lemon-shaped | New York Post
Rina Oh, who has long claimed she was among the scores of young women preyed on and abused by Epstein, dropped the unsettling revelation in a recent Substack interview with magazine maven Tina Brown. “Some people have described it as the shape of an egg. I think it was more of the shape of a lemon, and it was really small when it was fully erect. It was probably like two inches.”
Rumors about Epstein’s apparent egg-shaped genitalia emerged when he was grilled by a lawyer in 2009 as part of a civil lawsuit brought by a number of underage alleged victims. A newly resurfaced clip of the awkward exchange showed the attorney bluntly asking: “Is it true, sir, that you have what is described as an egg-shaped penis?” Epstein’s own lawyer quickly jumped in and warned that the deposition would be cut short if the embarrassing line of questioning continued.
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All of the donations mentioned by Crockett reportedly came from other people named Jeffrey Epstein, and came in some cases, came after the convicted sex trafficker had died.
celebrity gossip
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
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I Hate Journalism’s Culture Of Casual Calumny
It was very silly for the organizers of this party to invite and then disinvite Lorenz; they’re basically asking for negative coverage, and Lorenz has every right to go public about this strange turn of events. What bothers me is the way Lorenz can’t just tell the story, but seems intent on inflicting maximum reputational damage on Yudkowsky, Soares, and other people in their orbit — she just takes every last possible swipe at this crew, many of them unfair. This is part of what I call the culture of casual calumny in journalism, and it really sucks. The CCC is a style of journalism and punditry (these days, the two bleed into one another more often than not, including in this newsletter) that is very attack-dog, very fuck these guys, very quick to render judgment and to privilege accusation over levelheaded attempts at understanding and explanation. It could be seen as a natural outgrowth of what I call rightside journalism, or journalism geared more at demonstrating one’s ideological bona fides than getting at the truth or explaining the world. It’s natural, if you write from the stance of needing to demonstrate that you are on the “right” side of various issues, that along the way you’re going to get in the habit of broadcasting your own righteousness, which inevitably entails accusing others of lacking in this department.
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Overconfidence associated with anti-consensus views on scientific issues
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"there is no Truth outside the Church of Settled Science"
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How the Internet Made the Far-Right
Gamergate was both a digital populist rebellion—a toxic one, to be sure—and a deluge of harassment and intimidation. I’ve even heard it likened, half-jokingly, to an “Arab Spring” for gamers—a too-flattering comparison, but one that reveals how many on the right still understand it. Those too young to witness Gamergate now treat it like others treat physical-world war stories: a mythic redpill origin tale about the moment the veil first lifted, and they understood how power really worked. By 2016, that sensibility had found its next form.
The alt-right, for all the subsequent attempts to define it, was not a coherent ideological movement. It was a fragment—an expression—of a larger online ecosystem which included several discrete subcultures that eventually escaped containment. Taken together, the alt-right was characterized by a defiance aimed at both progressive culture and establishment conservatism. If it possessed any real throughline, it was the way it weaponized the language of the Internet: trolling and mockery. Early claims that “conservative is the new punk rock” were apt in at least one way. Much of the movement’s aesthetic—Nazi imagery included—was designed to shock rather than to persuade. Yet, as time went on, it became clear that many within the movement weren’t being “ironic.” They believed it. They really were antisemitic. They really were white nationalists. It wasn’t a joke. Irony gave them cover, at least for a time. If a joke landed, it worked as propaganda. If it failed, it was “just trolling.”
Musk
Electric / Self Driving cars
Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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40 years ago, Calvin and Hobbes' raucous adventures burst onto the comics page
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Microsoft Windows hits 40 years old: A visual walk down memory lane
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The Rise of "Mindless" TV: Quantifying a New Way of (Kinda) Watching Television
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Pornhub Is Urging Tech Giants to Enact Device-Based Age Verification
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Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10 family
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Why Movies Don’t Feel Real Anymore: A Close Look at Changing Filmmaking Techniques | Open Culture
One clearly — or rather, readily — noticeable contributing trend is the prevalence of shallow focus, which keeps the characters in the foreground sharp but lets all the details of the background go blurry: not the way we see the real world, unless we misplace our glasses. Because we live in deep focus, deep focus cinematography feels more real to us.
TechSuck / Geek Bait
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Working hard to master system complexities was genuinely rewarding - you really were doing difficult things and doing them well. This is actually the same mechanism behind what eventually became known as 'meritocracy', but the core point is simpler - if difficulty itself becomes a badge of honour, you've created a trap: anything that makes the system more approachable starts to feel like it's cheapening what you achieved. You become invested in preserving the barriers you overcame.
Perl had an, at best grudging, tolerance for 'difficult genius' types, alongside this baseline culture. Unfortunately, this kind of toxic personality tends to thrive in the type of culture I've described, and they do set to help the tone. I'm not here to call out people specifically, because I'm trying to make a point rather than feed a culture war, or dig up gossip, but there were several significant examples, you can probably find lore if you like. I think the kindest way I can describe the compounding effect of this is that there was a strong cultural norm along the lines of "It's OK to be rude, as long as it's for a good cause".
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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Nvidia CEO rejects talk of AI bubble: 'We see something different'
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Half of novelists believe AI is likely to replace their work
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Sales of AI teddy bear suspended after it gave advice on BDSM and knives
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Critics scoff: Microsoft warns AI feature can infect machines and pilfer data
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41% of Young Voters Support Giving Artificial Intelligence Sweeping Government Powers
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AI Spending: Big Tech’s Creative Financing Is Fooling No One - Bloomberg
consider Oracle Corp., by far the most aggressive hyperscaler. Capital expenditure is expected to reach 138% of its operating cash flow next year, well exceeding runner-up Meta’s 84%. In recent days, the cost of its five-year credit default swap, essentially an insurance for corporate debt, has jumped. A company can play with shadow banking if it’s in the shadows. But the hyperscalers’ deals are so big that every tidbit has to be carefully scrutinized. Their financial acrobatics is fooling no one.
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
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Moss survived in space for nine months, study finds
moss spores not only endured, they “retained their vitality” and were still capable of reproducing when they eventually returned to Earth. researchers found that over 80% of the spores survived their nine-month stint outside the space station. Of those, almost 90% were able to germinate again in a lab on Earth.
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
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Eleven years after Lenovo acquired IBM's x86 server biz, profits still elusive
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Nvidia's Profit Jumps 65% to $31.9B. Is It Enough for Wall St.?
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Sequoia's 'imperial' Roelof Botha pushed out by top lieutenants
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Largest US landlord to pay $7M to settle rent‑setting algorithm lawsuit
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there is now a limit? PayPal/Braintree's new chargeback policy forces merchants to accept fraud <$1000
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Verizon Axes 13,000 Workers Just One Week Before Thanksgiving
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US Stocks Slump Anew After Nvidia Results Fail to Quiet AI Angst
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
Trump
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White House floats AI executive order to override state laws
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Student Loans: Here's What Happens As Trump Dismantles Education Department - Newsweek
The Trump administration is accelerating its plan to dismantle the U.S. Education Department, shifting billions of dollars in federal school grants to other agencies — but leaving the nation’s $1.6 trillion student loan system in place, at least for now.
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Feds may pull $75M from PA over illegal commercial driver licenses
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Trump signs order to remove tariffs from Brazilian beef, coffee
Democrats
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Florida congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick indicted on theft, tax charges | AP News
Cherfilus-McCormick has denied the charges and has no plans to resign, according to a statement shared by her chief of staff.
the Justice Department said that Cherfilus-McCormick, 46, and Edwin Cherfilus, 51, her brother, worked on a staffing contract funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for Covid vaccinations tied to their family health care company in 2021 and that the company was overpaid by $5 million in relief funds. She and her brother are accused of conspiring to steal the overpayment and route it through various accounts to conceal its origins. Cherfilus-McCormick is alleged to have used the money for her own enrichment and to fund a significant part of her congressional campaign. The OCC, formerly the Office of Congressional Ethics, referred Cherfilus-McCormick to the bipartisan Ethics Committee in May 2024.
Left Angst
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Border Patrol is monitoring drivers and detaining those with suspicious patterns
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Trump admin changes may stop millions for broadband expansion in Kansas
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Judge Blocks Trump From Power-Washing Office Building Near White House
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The future of war is the future of society
China’s emphasis on manufacturing, while perhaps not economically efficient, has also probably prepared it better for prolonged capital-intensive war. Right now, they would be able to out-produce the rest of the world in terms of drones. If we are to match them, we’re going to need to make better use of industrial policy to patch the holes in our supply chains, stop wrecking those supply chains with tariffs on our allies, and form closer partnerships with those allies so that we can achieve the scale to match China. China also seems to be adapting the new communications technologies of social media more effectively than many of its rivals — or at least, more effectively in terms of warfighting ability. We scoff at China’s massive system of internet thought control, but it’s possible that this is the only way to keep a modern nation from fracturing and spiraling into chaos in the age of social media.
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I noted last week that the Biden era vibecession — people feeling bad about an economy that looked good by standard measures — has persisted under Trump. In fact, public perceptions of the economy appear to be plumbing new depths. Objectively, the economy is worse in important ways than it was a year ago. Still, the extent of the plunge in perceptions is remarkable.
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this is a "carbon credits" company: imagine how bad it is for those that make things in the real world: Over-Regulation is Doubling the Cost
Regulation obviously has a critical role in protecting people and the environment, but the sheer volume, over-specificity and sometimes ambiguity of those same regulations is now actively working against those goals! We’re unintentionally blocking the very things that would improve our environment. We’ve become a society that blocks all things, and we need to be a society that builds great things every day.
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The TikTok 'Ban' Continues to Be One of the Biggest Turds in Tech Policy History
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Donald Trump calls for Democrat members of Congress to be arrested and executed
Donald Trump today called for Democrat members of Congress to be imprisoned and executed. It comes after a group of members of Congress who have served in the military made a video reminding servicemen and women that they can refuse orders if they are unlawful.
The Democratic lawmakers didn’t specify in their short video any specific orders from the administration they are targeting. Meanwhile, a handful of issues related to military and intelligence operations have flared up recently, including the Trump administration’s National Guard deployment to several major cities in recent months, including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland, Oregon. The administration’s airstrikes on alleged drug boats—now numbering more than 20 strikes that have killed more than 80 alleged traffickers—have also come under scrutiny.
White House Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller in a post on X: “Democrat lawmakers are now openly calling for insurrection.” Speaking later on Fox News, Miller described the video as a “rebellion” by Democrats. “It is insurrection, plainly, directly, without question,” Miller said. “It’s a general call for rebellion from the CIA and the armed services of the United States by Democrat lawmakers, saying that you have not only the right, but the duty and the obligation to defy orders of the commander-in-chief that those who carry weapons in America’s name should defy their chain of command and engage in open acts of insurrection.”
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American democracy is very much alive, though not in all regards well
The Democrats who won in the November elections are all going to assume office without incident or controversy. The Supreme Court is likely to run against at least major parts of the Trump tariff plan, his signature initiative. Trump already has complained vocally on social media about this. He also preemptively announced that some of the food tariffs would be reversed, in the interests of “affordability.” National Guard troops have been removed from Chicago and Portland, in part due to court challenges. The troops in WDC have turned out to be a nothingburger from a civil liberties point of view.
I do not doubt that there are many bad policies, and also much more corruption, and a more transparent form of corruption, which is corrosive in its own right. But it was never the case that American democracy was going to disappear. That view was one of the biggest boo-boos held by (some) American elites in recent times, and I hope we will start seeing people repudiating it.
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How Trump's Transportation Department Is Loosening Safety Rules
- Insisting CDL drivers have taken a test?
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Despite Trump chaos, NSF avoided feared dip in research financing
some science watchers worried the National Science Foundation (NSF), one of the nation’s largest funders of basic research, would see a major spending dip in the fiscal year that ended on 30 September, even though Congress had maintained its budget at 2024 levels. That fear was not realized, an analysis by Science suggests. It finds that NSF committed approximately $8.17 billion to grants, fellowships, and other funding mechanisms in the 2025 fiscal year, about the same as in 2024. (Researchers do not always spend all the money promised by NSF in the same year the agency commits it.) “I was really happy to see that NSF spent as much as it did and was able to spend all its [2025] money,” says Miriam Quintal, a lobbyist at Lewis-Burke Associates and co-chair of the Coalition for National Science Funding. “The agency worked really hard to do that, and it was an intensive effort over the summer.”
- Now we'll see retractions and apologies from all the people who proclaimed imminent doom from a funding cut, since it didn't happen?
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Attack, defend, pursue—the Space Force's new naming scheme foretells new era
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Voters lose when maps get redrawn before every election instead of once a decade
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RFK Jr.'s loathesome edits: CDC website now falsely links vaccines and autism
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CDC website changes to include false claim about autism and vaccines
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CDC website changed to contradict conclusion that vaccines don't cause autism
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Our Depressing Vaccine Future Laid Bare on the C.D.C. Website - The New York Times
I fear that the erosion of trust in vaccines will continue. When I saw the news about the updated C.D.C. page on Wednesday morning I was reminded of a conversation I listened to over the summer between two moms of children with autism on the public health podcast “Why Should I Trust You?”
“The bigger issue is that we will never be able to do a study that shows that vaccines do not cause autism, because you cannot do that kind of study,” she says. “You cannot show that something does not cause something else.”
- Using the pre-Biden or post-Biden definition of "vaccine?" Wasn't that long ago that questioning the CDC classified you as a crank to be de-platformed.
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CBP is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with suspicious travel patterns
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U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses as hate symbols
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What the Trump Administration’s Plan to Weaken Endangered Species Protections Could Mean
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Federal prosecutors move to dismiss charges against woman shot by Border Patrol
Prosecutors had accused Marimar Martinez, 30, and Anthony Ruiz, 21, of using their vehicles to strike and box in Border Patrol agent Charles Exum’s SUV on Oct. 4 on Chicago’s southwest side. Exum then exited his car and opened fire on Martinez, who suffered seven gunshot wounds. Hours before a status hearing, prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the charges against the two defendants, marking a dramatic reversal in one of the most closely watched cases tied to the crackdown in and around the country’s third-largest city.
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Welcome to Anything Goes America
This is the Anything Goes Era in America. It did not start with Donald Trump, but he has upped the tempo and removed constraints that once held others back. Skirting the rules is alright if you have political protection. Wealthy individuals may rest easy knowing that their tax returns will not be audited. The Department of Justice has dropped prosecutions of politicians for corruption. Its public-integrity unit has been gutted; the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a post-Watergate piece of good-government reform, has in effect been shelved. Past presidents have pardoned donors and relatives, but only on the eve of leaving office. Recipients of Mr Trump’s clemency this year include a cryptocurrency mogul jailed for money-laundering and the son of someone who gave his political movement $1m.
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
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Eastern Shipbuilding Suspends Work on Coast Guard's Offshore Patrol Cutters
The company’s delivery of OPC 1 was initially scheduled for June 2023 but has been delayed until at least late 2026, while OPC 2 missed its April 2024 delivery date. In July 2025, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced the partial termination of Eastern Shipbuilding’s contract for OPCs 3 and 4, after the company reportedly informed the Coast Guard it could not fulfill its contractual obligations without incurring “unabsorbable loss.”
In August, Eastern Shipbuilding Group received approval from Washington State Ferries to build two 160-vehicle hybrid-electric ferries, with an option for a third, marking a major milestone for the nation’s largest ferry system’s electrification. The $714.5 million contract follows the first competitive ferry construction bid in over 25 years.
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South Korea to build nuclear-powered subs in U.S., Trump says
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US troops invade Mexico in dramatic escalation
American troops have pulled up on a Mexican beach in a dramatic escalation of tensions after Donald Trump threatened to bomb the country. US 'contractors' arrived by boat on Monday at Playa Bagdad, driving signs into the sand near where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Alarmed witnesses quickly alerted officials and heavily armed Mexican security personnel rushed to the scene on trucks mounted with machine guns in a terrifying standoff. The Pentagon, in a deeply embarrassing statement, admitted that its troops were mistaken when they landed on the beach. The Mexican personnel watched as the Americans drove six signs into the ground, which said: 'Warning: restricted area.' Mexico's foreign affairs ministry said its navy removed the signs from the sand, which it believed were on Mexican territory.
World
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Spanish government approves decree to remove 'Francoist symbols and vestiges'
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Spanish court orders Meta to pay $550M to digital media companies
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Saudi Arabia's Prince Has Big Plans, but His Giant Fund Is Low on Cash
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Microsoft has 'ripped off the NHS', amid call for contracts with British firms
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Myanmar's military detains foreigners in raid on second major online scam center
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Poland closes last Russian consulate after 'act of state terrorism' on railway
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Digital Omnibus: EU Commission wants to wreck core GDPR principles
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UK Government Unveils England's First Ever Men's Health Strategy
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Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Sees Worrying One-Way, Sudden Yen Moves
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Spain's general attorney convicted in controversial leak case
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
China
Health / Medicine
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
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Is a bad flu season on the way? Experts see reason to be anxious
- Gonna be hard to sell vaccines now that they've "missed" and delivered ineffective formulations several times the last few years.