2026-01-02

etc

• Take a tour of the Antarctica-bound icebreaker. It has a gym

Horseshit

• Enough of the 'Hey you ' faux-friend nonsense. You're a business, not my mate

• God is a wombat: What if the world is made of cubes? Uncovering the universal geometry of geology

• The dumbest things that happened in tech this year

• Fountain pens are enjoying a revival among the digital generation

• iPad kids are more anxious, less resilient, and slower decision makers

• The Sexual Paradise that never was

• 2026 Is the Year of Cabbage: This Famous Chef's Trick Makes It Taste Incredible | The Kitchn

celebrity gossip

• Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin's Unretirement Is a Lesson for the Rest of Us

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• 'Move fast, break stuff': how tech bros became Hollywood's go-to baddie in 2025

Musk

• xAI has purchased a third building for its "Colossus" datacenter in Memphis, planning to increase its AI training capacity to 2GW.

• Partisan X posts boost political polarisation among users, research finds

• Starlink satellites being lowered from 550 km to 480 km

  Starlink is beginning a significant reconfiguration of its satellite constellation focused on increasing space safety. We are lowering all @Starlink satellites orbiting at ~550 km to ~480 km (~4400 satellites) over the course of 2026. The shell lowering is being tightly coordinated with other operators, regulators, and USSPACECOM.

  Lowering the satellites results in condensing Starlink orbits, and will increase space safety in several ways. As solar mininum approaches, atmospheric density decreases which means the ballistic decay time at any given altitude increases - lowering will mean a >80% reduction in ballistic decay time in solar minimum, or 4+ years reduced to a few months. Correspondingly, the number of debris objects and planned satellite constellations is significantly lower below 500 km, reducing the aggregate likelihood of collision.

• Tesla Sales Outlook Darkens Despite Musk's Self-Driving Euphoria

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• Elon Musk wants robots everywhere. China is making that a reality

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• 'College dropout' has become the most coveted startup founder credential

• The man taking over the Large Hadron Collider

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Apple cuts Vision Pro production and marketing after weak sales

  • Apple reportedly cuts production of Vision Pro headset after poor sales

• No iPhone 18 Launch This Year

• Judge to Texas: You Can't Age-Gate the Internet Without Evidence

• Facebook is testing a link-posting limit for professional accounts and pages

• RGB Mini-LED will transform the premium TV landscape in 2026

• Get ready for the $5090 5090: GPU prices expected to soar next year

• Nokia went from iPhone victim to $1B Nvidia deal

• Instagram boss says the platform's polished feed is 'dead' thanks to AI

• Meta made scam ads harder to find instead of removing them

• Why Microsoft Store Discontinued Support for Office Apps

• Meta enables chronological timelines in the Nederlands after court ruling

• The cultural works becoming public domain in 2026, from Betty Boop to Nancy Drew

• Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it

• Hasbro's Secret Weapon for Training Its Next Leaders: A Board Game

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• PCIe card housing AMD chipset unlocks more connectivity on any motherboard, including Intel models — or you can give any B650 motherboard the top-tier connectivity of X670

• IPv6 just turned 30 and still hasnt taken over the world, dont call it a failure

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Even the Sky May Not Be the Limit for A.I. Data Centers

• Nvidia to buy AI21 Labs for $3B

• You Can't Trust Your Eyes to Tell You What's Real Anymore, Says Instagram Head

• Investors predict AI is coming for labor in 2026

• Bernie Sanders, Ron DeSantis speak out against data center boom. Bad sign for AI

• OpenAI bets big on audio as Silicon Valley declares war on screens

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• The future of space exploration depends on better biology

Economicon / Business / Finance

• The Cult of Costco

• Restaurants are changing their menus for the age of Ozempic

• We Bought a 450-Pound Mystery Pallet Packed with Returned Goods from Amazon

• The Year America's Economic Edge Evaporated

• Wall Street is starting 2026 with echoes of 2000's dot-com woes

• S&P 500 closes lower Wednesday, but wraps 2025 with a 16% gain

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• People are starting to feel stupid.

  I want to talk about how the average American is starting to feel as major corruption is being exposed, especially now with the case in Minnesota and the daycare fraud. This is not just about money being stolen anymore. It’s a growing feeling that being a good citizen, being hard working person, paying your taxes may not be worth it. People are starting to feel stupid. They think, well, I’m here, I’m playing by rules, I am working hard, I’m providing for my family, I’m doing the hard work – and I’m the idiot. You see the memes online and we laugh, like, oh, me on my way to work, thinking that I should have just opened a daycare center in Minnesota and made millions. And again, it is funny, but it’s also deeply sad, because the next thing is, why am I even doing this? And that’s the part no one wants to talk about, because this kind of feeling shapes culture.”

• DHS Says DHS-Certified Real IDs Too Unreliable to Confirm U.S. Citizenship

• SNAP food restrictions go live in five states Thursday.

  At least 18 states are banning sodas, sugary drinks and candy from being purchased with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds. The new rules in Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah and West Virginia. The other 13 states have later start dates.

• (Dec 2025) Why fire agencies keep failing to put out blazes that later turn disastrous

Democrats

• The NYC subway station chosen for Mamdani's swearing-in

• Amy Schumer Moves On, Selling 'Moonstruck' House in Brooklyn

• The Most Convenient 'Burglary' in History Hits Somali-Run Daycare in Minneapolis

Left Angst

• It's the gold standard of US climate research. Contrarians could write the next

• The Post-American Internet

• Trump Has Renamed the Kennedy Center, but a Satirist Owns the URL

• A Mexican Couple in California Plans to Self-Deport–and Leave Their Kids Behind

• 'They sowed chaos to no avail': the lasting legacy of Elon Musk's DOGE

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Nashville shooter Audrey Hale allegedly used federal student aid to buy guns for school attack

• A Man Who Was Supposed to Kill Martin Luther King Jr

• The FBI Wants Al Surveillance Drones with Facial Recognition

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Pentagon Reduces F-35 Orders By 45 Percent For 2026

• U.S. grants TSMC annual licence to import U.S. chipmaking tools into China

• Russia Asks United States to Stop Pursuit of Fleeing Oil Tanker

• Italy says US has sharply cut proposed pasta duties after a review

World

• New Year's Eve 2015 in Cologne: The night that traumatized thousands of women and shook Germany

  n New Year's Eve in 2015, more than 1,000 women were sexually assaulted in Cologne by groups of men, many from North Africa and the Middle East, triggering a fierce debate over Germany's refugee policy. Ten years on, victims say their trauma was politicized, as they continue to live with the consequences of that night.

• Bulgaria joins euro area from 1 January

  • Bulgaria and the Euro

• Worlds largest electric ship launched by Tasmanian boatbuilder

• Last Orders, London? A fifth of London's pubs have closed in the last 20 years

• Denmark becomes first country in world to end letter delivery

• British ethical hacker granted rare visa after finding 'critical vulnerability

• Swiss Alps bar fire leaves multiple dead during New Year's celebrations | New York Post

  • 'Several dozen' dead after blast at ski town of Crans-Montana

  • Several dozen believed killed in fire at New Year's Eve party Swiss ski resort

  The cause of the fire hasn't been confirmed, but officials have ruled out an attack. Some people in the bar think "birthday candles" , on top of a champagne bottle, set fire to the ceiling

• Brazil's largest lottery prize ever delayed due to 125k bets per second

• Poland races to build bomb shelters

• Mexico completes its trade shift with the entry into force of tariffs

• A Booze Ban Since the '50s Is Being Lifted in Saudi Arabia

Iran / Houthi

• Most of Iran Shuts Down as Government Grapples with Protests and Economy

• Volunteer in Iran's Revolutionary Guard reported killed during widening protests

• Iranian Protesters Killed as Unrest Turns Violent on Fifth Day

• Iran offers to sell advanced weapons systems for crypto

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russian crew detained after undersea cable cut in 'sabotage'

• In Ukraine, an Arsenal of Killer A.I. Drones Is Being Born in War Against Russia

China

• China's CXMT eyes $4.2B Shanghai listing to fund DRAM expansion

• China accuses Netherlands of making 'mistakes' over chipmaker Nexperia

• BYD Sells 4.6M Vehicles in 2025, Meets Revised Sales Goal

• China Signals It Won't Give an Inch to the U.S. in Latin America

Health / Medicine

• Rectal Oxygenation Could Save Your Life

• Poor sleep health is associated with older brain age

• Autism Hasn't Increased

  Autism diagnoses have increased but only because of progressively weaker standards for what counts as autism. Hat tip: Yglesias who draws the correct conclusion:

  Study confirms that neither Tylenol nor vaccines is responsible for the rise in autism BECAUSE THERE IS NO RISE IN AUTISM TO EXPLAIN just a change in diagnostic standards.

  • Oh, "it's over diagnosed" is an allowable conclusion now? That hasn't been an option whilst the Left found it handy to have a "health disaster affecting kids!" to fund raise on. Or for to force kids onto prescription drugs as part of compulsory school attendance.

• Americans brace to start new year without healthcare

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Rare Barbary lion cubs born at Czech zoo

• Global coal demand has reached a plateau and may well decline slightly by 2030

• Ÿnsect, a French insect farming startup, has been been placed into liquidation

• New maps reveal post-flood migration patterns across the US

• Air pollution may reduce health benefits of exercise

• 'Rock candy' technique offers simpler way to capture carbon directly from air