2026-01-12
Horseshit
Musk
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A global 'coalition of decency' could tackle X over sexualised images
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Malaysia and Indonesia block Musk's Grok over sexually explicit deepfakes
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X Is a Power Problem, Not a Platform Problem
This widespread societal resignation of ‘guess our government communications now happens on a deepfake porn site’ is maddening, but also points to a deeper issue. We’re used to describing X as a platform, and analyse X accordingly. The photos of X being on the big screen while coordinating the Maduro raid is an indication that X acts as the infrastructure for power, the glue that connects the neo-royalty. But the refusal of governments around the world to do anything about the CSAM and NCII generation machine, and how other countries get bombed and their leaders kidnapped because it creates content for X, shows that X is about power, and less about a platform.
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Elon Musk says X's new algorithm will be made open source next week
Electric / Self Driving cars
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
TechSuck / Geek Bait
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My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated, Literally
I had stupidly buried all of these cables under my cement flooring in PVC trunking from my shelter to all of the rooms in the flat. If this cable fails, the connection from the server room to a specific room would be permanently severed. I had purchased these cables from FS.com roughly 3.5 years ago in 2022. Because I was burying the cables underground permanently, I opted to get the MiLiTaRy GrAdE armoured fibre cables for this purpose.
- "direct burial" grade was probably what they wanted
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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AI memory is sold out, causing an unprecedented surge in prices
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OpenAI is reportedly asking contractors to upload real work from past jobs
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AI is intensifying a 'collapse' of trust online, experts say
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Nvidia in advanced talks to buy Israel's AI21 Labs for up to $3B
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Dangerous and alarming: Google removes AI summaries after users' health at risk
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AI industry insiders launch site to poison the data that feeds them
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AI models were given four weeks of therapy: the results worried researchers
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Economicon / Business / Finance
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Google moonshot spinout SandboxAQ claims an ex-exec is attempting 'extortion'
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The new vs. used car debate is dead. They're both expensive debt traps
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The Curious Cult of Aldi How a German discount chain became US's hottest grocer
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Wing and Walmart expand drone delivery to 150 new stores coast to coast
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Federal prosecutors open criminal investigation into the Fed and Jerome Powell
the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June. That testimony concerned in part a multi-year project to renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings.
This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress's oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President. This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.
Trump
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Trump announces one-year 10% cap on credit card interest rates
Donald Trump announced a one-year cap that would limit credit card interest rates to 10% this week, in a move that has prompted mixed reaction from lawmakers and beyond. The president’s social media post on Friday night said the restriction would take effect on 20 January, but he did not provide specifics on how the government would implement it or ensure that companies comply.
senators Bernie Sanders and Josh Hawley introduced a bipartisan bill in February 2025 to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for the next five years.
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Donald Trump 'orders army chiefs to draw up plan to invade Greenland'
Left Angst
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Signal Chat: Silicon Valley Is Plotting Against California's Billionaire Tax
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Fuck You, Make Me’ Without Saying the Words
Apple and Google — and thus, Cook and Pichai, as the men who sit behind the desks where the buck stops at both companies — are culpable. But this is ultimately not about them, and not about Musk. It’s Trump, as president, they fear. Not Musk. And they are correct to fear Trump.
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DHS restricts congressional visits to ICE facilities in Minneapolis
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
Iran / Houthi
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Is This Why the Media Isn't Covering the Iran Protests?
Iran is not only a religious dictatorship. It is a centrally controlled, state-dominated economy where markets are strangled, private enterprise is criminalized or co-opted, and economic survival depends on proximity to political power. Decades of price controls, subsidies, nationalization, and bureaucratic micromanagement have obliterated the middle class and entrenched corruption as the only functional system. The result is not equality or justice. It is poverty, stagnation, and dependence on government’s dark void of empty promises.
Covering Iran honestly would require acknowledging that these policies are harmful. They have been tried. They have failed. Catastrophically.
This is deeply inconvenient for Western media institutions that routinely promote expansive state control, centralized economic planning, and technocratic governance as morally enlightened alternatives to liberal capitalism. Iran demonstrates where such systems lead when insulated from accountability and enforced by ideology. It shows that when the state controls livelihoods, non-conformity becomes existentially dangerous. That lesson cannot be acknowledged without undermining the moral authority of those who advocate similar ideas in softer language.
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Iran security forces have killed at least 490 people as opposition protests continue | Just The News
About 10,600 people have been detained over the two weeks of protests, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous cases of unrest in Iran in recent years. The organization said of those killed, 490 were protesters and 48 were members of security forces.