2026-01-14
Horseshit
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As of 2025, a stamp for a letter costs $0.78 in the United States. Amazon Prime sells items for less than that... with free shipping! Why send a postcard when you can send actual stuff? You're not only saving money. It's about sending something real. Your friend gets a random can of tomato sauce with your birthday note attached. They laugh. They remember you. They might even use it!
- "saving money" by buying things is bad enough, but paying for Prime means the shipping is pre-paid, not "free".
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We’re Evolving Beyond This Rock Right Now
Life is already busy making its transition to being interplanetary
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My 12-Year-Old Wants Me to Divorce My Moody Wife. I Want That, Too
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In 2015, she and her then-partner founded Tech Farm. This purpose-driven real estate venture aimed to launch and manage conscious coliving and coworking properties for global citizens. The idea behind the name “TechFarm” was to combine the creativity born from the effervescence of the urban lifestyle and the wellbeing one can find in the countryside.
I moved into K9 Coliving, or what was still called Tech Farm at the time, during the honeymoon period, in August 2017. ... Four months later, it came crashing down. It sounds dramatic, but for us living there, it was. The honeymoon of the project ended with the separation of the couple who started it. It was a personal and financial heartbreak - except that instead of one person moving out, it could mean 50 of us would have to leave our home.
celebrity gossip
Obit
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
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Network of Scottish X accounts go dark amid Iran blackout
A network of fake Scottish X accounts linked to Iran has gone dark, after an internet blackout was imposed in the West Asian nation. The silence from the group of accounts, which began on Thursday, comes amid widespread protests against the leadership of the Islamic Republic. Industry publication UK Defence Journal, which has tracked the accounts for months, said that multiple X accounts claiming to be supporters of Scottish independence have ceased activity. One such account, known as ‘Fiona’, has not posted since Thursday.
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Why do educated people fall for conspiracy theories? It could be narcissism
Musk
Electric / Self Driving cars
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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Data is not available upon request
Of 52 articles, 42% contained a Data Availability Statement, most of which stated that data was available upon request. This rose from 0% in 2018 to 100% in 2022, indicating a change in journals’ policies. However, only 27% of articles’ authors actually shared data. Among articles stating that data was available upon request, only 17% shared data upon request
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In Memoriam: The Academic Journal
Now an academic could possibly publish half a dozen articles in a year, mostly because they could submit a hundred and hope a few got through. The journals couldn’t adapt—suddenly, their free raw material became mostly worthless, and the free processing they had relied on became worthless, too, overwhelmed by quantity and plausible but uncheckable content.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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No national jurisdiction: Why Is Everyone Suddenly Talking About Putting Data Centers in Space?
- And there's a long stretch of development time so the investors can be told "we're working on it" for at least a couple more years before the fairy dust evaporates and the physics of heat transfer take the blame for "we spent all that money and the idea will not work"
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Ralph Wiggum went from 'The Simpsons' to the biggest name in AI
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Lamar wants to have children with his girlfriend. The problem? She's AI
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AI is causing developers to abandon Stack Overflow
- No, the admins did that with policies that sucked. They're covering it up with AI misfeatures now as well; but they started the "community cash in" program several years ago. Same process that IMDB and several other similar knowledge aggregation projects have used.
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Jamie Oliver to call millions in SA by their names – using AI
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Meta unveils 'Meta Compute' initiative to build AI infrastructure
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America's Biggest Power Grid Operator Has an AI Problem–Too Many Data Centers
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Anthropic has made a large contribution to the Python Software Foundation
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Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike wants to do for AI what he did for messaging
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I’m Betting that OpenAI Will Go Broke
The problem for A.I. developers is that most users aren’t paying for their services. People can choose among multiple free and excellent models; unless they have especially complex and compute-intensive queries, they have little reason to subscribe to the premium versions. If a model maker imposes a paywall or displays irritating ads, customers will migrate elsewhere.
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OpenAI buys tiny health records startup Torch for, reportedly, $100M
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Instagram AI Influencers Are Defaming Celebrities with Sex Scandals
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
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Meta Plans to Cut Around 10% of Employees in Reality Labs Business
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TSMC Overseas Fabs – A Success?
First, some details on what makes TSMC successful, including their history, culture, and structure. Next a discussion of the “clustering” effect that makes Hsinchu Science Park the semiconductor epicenter of the world, and Arizona’s progress towards replicating it, including a detailed look at the supply chains in both places. Finally, we’ll detail the economics of the TSMC Arizona fab - is it truly more expensive to make wafers in the U.S.?
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Uber faces bellwether assault trial in federal court in Arizona
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US inflation remains at 2.7% according to Dec 2025 CPI report
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Nuclear startups are back in vogue with small reactors, and big challenges
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Netflix Weighs Amending Warner Bros. Bid to Make It All Cash
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Toyota remained top automaker by sales for 6th straight year in 2025
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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California Restricts Free Speech.
California’s far-left Supreme Court has ordered restrictions on the speech and expressive conduct of California’s lawyers “at all times,” including during their unrelated business activities, political endeavors and personal lives.
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VA goes from Biden backlog to Trump turbo with claims cleared and clinics opened
The backlog of veterans waiting for VA benefits has decreased more than 49% (and up to 57% in later reports) since January 20, 2025, following a 24% increase during the Biden Administration.
Democrats
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Read the Clintons’ Personal Letter to Comer - The New York Times
refusing to testify in Congress
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Bill and Hillary Clinton Defy Subpoena, Refuse to Testify in Epstein Probe.
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Clintons Refuse To Testify About Jeffrey Epstein; Comer To Begin Contempt Proceedings | ZeroHedge
The former US president was scheduled to testify today (Jan. 13), and Hillary scheduled for tomorrow. Hours before the deadline, however, the Clintons made it clear in an 8-page letter that they have no intention of showing up - calling subpoenas issued by Comer "invalid and legally unenforceable," adding that they'll fight Comer as long as it takes. "They are obligated under the law to appear and we expect them to do so," and Oversight spokeswoman said last week. "If the Clintons do not appear for their depositions, the House Oversight Committee will initiate contempt of Congress proceedings."
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Left Angst
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How the Italian right is weaponizing food – POLITICO
Clearly, the prime minister has made Italian cuisine one of the main courses of her political menu. And all of this can be pinpointed to a phenomenon political scientists call “gastronationalism,” whereby food and its production are used to fuel identitarian narratives — a trend the Italian far right has latched onto with particular gusto. Hopefully, UNESCO’s recognition can serve as a moment of reflection in a country where food has increasingly been turned into a source of division. Italian cuisine certainly merits recognition and faces genuine threats — the impact of organized crime and the effects of climate change on crop growth biggest among them. But it shouldn’t become an unwitting participant in an ideological agenda that runs counter to its very spirit.
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Local Journalism Is How Democracy Shows Up Close to Home
National media plays an important role, but it works at a distance. Democracy, however, is practiced close to home. I’ve noticed that when local reporting weakens, people don’t just lose information – they lose orientation. It becomes harder to tell where influence actually lives, or how individual participation connects to outcomes. What often gets labeled as apathy looks different up close. Many people I speak with aren’t indifferent; they’re resigned. They’ve absorbed the sense that nothing they do matters, or that no one is really listening. When that happens, public life shrinks. Engagement gives way to spectatorship, and frustration seeks expression through outrage or grievance rather than responsibility. Local journalism quietly counters that drift by doing something deceptively simple: it keeps the public in the room.
Author Bio: Stu Faigen is a writer and educator. He is a founding member of Renew Democracy 250, a grassroots organization seeking to create possibility-centered responses to rising authoritarianism.
members from all over the country representing every walk of life, independent, self-funded and not affiliated with any political party. We are concerned and focused on the current state of political affairs and government actions that are eroding our democracy and Constitution with movements toward an authoritarian government.
- I'll bet they weren't at all concerned the legality of about mask mandates and COVID lockdown enforcement. But today they have a "Protest Toolkit" and a pamphlet on "ICE encounters".
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Trump's exercise of power upends world order, sending friends and foes reeling
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ICE recruitment: How I got a job with the anti-immigrant police
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Whistleblower leaks personal details of thousands of Border Patrol/ICE Agents
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Lawsuit: DHS wants "unlimited subpoena authority" to unmask ICE critics
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RFK Jr.'s new food pyramid could be a disaster for the environment
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
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Dept of Defense to embed Grok family of models into GenAI.mil
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Havana Syndrome Device Purchased
two people told me that a number of months ago, the U.S. captured a weapon that has been associated with Havana Syndrome. Both said it was seized by U.S. Special Forces during an operation. I am not sure who, when, or where. They said the weapon has been tested so that the U.S. can understand how the device works. And to be clear, no one said that it had ever been used. After this article initially published, another person linked to the intel community contacted me to confirm my reporting and said the weapon is under the Defense Department’s Intelligence & Security unit.
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F-22 Raptor Is Getting So Many Upgrades It Will Fly Until 2060
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More Young Americans Are Unfit to Serve, a New Study Finds. Here's Why
World
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The secretive powerbroker with a tight grip on corporate Spain
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The World Has a New Lowest Birth Rate Country: Taiwan at 0.72
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Germany Considers Broader Legal Authority; Internet Surveillance, State Hacking
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The UK is shaping a future of Precrime and dissent management
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Swiss court declares arrest of pro-Palestine activist illegal
As the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote at the time, the activist wanted to perform at the occupied Wipkingen post office. In the newspaper, Zurich’s security director Mario Fehr called the man an “Islamist Jew-hater”. The man defended himself, saying he was standing up for just and legitimate Palestinian rights. He spoke of a “kidnapping”. He still failed with his complaint at the Zurich District Court.
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Ireland recalls 13k passports after software update makes them unusable
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Taiwan Issues Arrest Warrant for OnePlus CEO for China Hires
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Prosecutors seek death penalty for ex-South Korean president Yoon
Iran / Houthi
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Day Fifteen of Iran's Nationwide Protests: Sharp Rise in Human Casualties
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Iran Is Hunting Down Starlink Users to Stop Protest Videos from Going Global
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Why Starlink Is Failing to Pierce Iran's Total Internet Blackout
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Iranians describe heavy security and scattered damage in calls to outside world
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Iran’s uprising and the moral bewilderment of Western youth
Fearing that the fall of the Islamic Republic would benefit the US, they balk at the thronging freedom fighters who are hell-bent on bringing about just such a fall. Hurting the white, privileged, colonialist West matters far more to these overeducated fools than freeing Iranians from the bondage of Islamist diktat. The moral caution of progressives as the young of Iran fight for their lives shows just how corrupting the ideology of political correctness has been. How else to explain that we are witnessing one of the most important feminist revolts in history and yet many feminists are silent? Feminists who think being called “sweetheart” is a patriarchal crime seemingly have nothing to say about a staggeringly valiant uprising of women against the feral crushing of their rights by religious bigots. As for the Western left – they dream of revolution yet bristle and wince at the revolution in Iran. They deluded themselves into thinking the Islamic Republic was a great counterweight against the West, against capitalism and of course against that Jewish state they hate with such curious passion. Having lost faith in the working classes of their own nations, they made a devil’s pact with radical Islam, dreaming it might deliver a deadly blow to the “Western hegemony.” They instinctively fear the mullahs’ fall.
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An ecosystem of smuggled tech holds Iran's last link to the outside world
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Iran makes high-tech additions to its age-old playbook for crushing protests
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Over 12,000 feared dead in Iran protests – video shows bodies lined up at morgue
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Trump urges Tehran to show protesters humanity amid reports of rising death toll
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Three days ago, the Iranian regime sent security forces to brutally crush the thousands of demonstrators who have taken to the streets to protest the Islamic Republic. Reported estimates of casualties vary wildly: HRANA, an Iranian human rights group, says it is several hundred. The regime’s own officials say 3,000. London-based organization Iran International says 12,000.
Israel
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(Mar 2025) The Double Standard in the Human-Rights World
Amnesty’s goal was to serve as an advocate for victims and prisoners of conscience, and to stand apart from the polarized politics of the Cold War. The same ethos influenced the founders of Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders. As the latter group proclaims on its website: “We are independent, impartial, and neutral.” More recently, though, human-rights leaders have grown accustomed to looking at the complicated stew of politics and culture in Israel and Palestine and blaming Israel foremost. As the cultural and political left has come to dominate the human-rights community, young staffers with passionate ideological commitments have helped rewrite the agendas of the best-known organizations. Critical theories of social justice, built on binaries that categorize Palestinians as oppressed and Israel as the oppressor, now dominate many conversations about the Jewish state, which a constellation of groups casts as uniquely illegitimate—a regressive, racist ethnic “Western” state in an Arab sea.
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
China
Health / Medicine
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Young Adults Face Hidden Metabolic Damage from Ultra-Processed Diets
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Why have death rates from accidental falls tripled?
some of the increased deaths from falls may be due to prescription medications. Numerous prescription drugs, such as many antidepressants and psychotherapeutic agents, are labeled as fall risk-increasing drugs. Second, some of the increased deaths may be due to rising alcohol consumption. Third, it may be due to increased rates of obesity. Fourth, some of the increase may be due to changes in reporting. As people have become more aware of the danger of falls, falls that used to not be recorded as a cause of death may increasingly be reported as a cause. Fifth, some of the increase may be due to fewer deaths from other causes. As mentioned earlier, some risk factors for the elderly, notably cancer and heart disease, have dropped. We would expect some increase in death from falls even if the risk from falls hasn’t increased just because fewer elderly are dying in other ways.
- Alcohol use is falling by other measures; the liquor industry is dying according to the media. Obesity rates are falling, at least according to the stories sponsored by the "weight loss drug" people.
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There's a Limit to How Many Calories Humans Can Burn–Even Ultramarathoners
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Alzheimer's drug developers accuse clinical trial sites of faking data
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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Some ecologists fear their field is losing touch with nature
- Knew a dude who spent years drawing "bioregions" maps; all over the country down to amazing level of detail. He honestly believed that deer wouldn't cross roads and that muskrats only lived by flowing water, as he'd been taught. Would not hear that he might be mistaken in that faith.. He had never seen any wild animals but his maps were used for a couple of endangered species cases.
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Higher daylight exposure improves cognitive performance, study finds
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Same-sex sexual behavior observed in dozens of primate species
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‘A bombshell’: doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body
Some scientists say many detections are most likely error, with one high-profile study called a ‘joke’. High-profile studies reporting the presence of microplastics throughout the human body have been thrown into doubt by scientists who say the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives. One chemist called the concerns “a bombshell”.
micro- and nanoplastic particles are tiny and at the limit of today’s analytical techniques, especially in human tissue. There is no suggestion of malpractice, but researchers told the Guardian of their concern that the race to publish results, in some cases by groups with limited analytical expertise, has led to rushed results and routine scientific checks sometimes being overlooked. The Guardian has identified seven studies that have been challenged by researchers publishing criticism in the respective journals, while a recent analysis listed 18 studies that it said had not considered that some human tissue can produce measurements easily confused with the signal given by common plastics.
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"Eat Ze Bugs" is only a Trumpist propaganda ploy: Maggots Are an Efficient Source of Protein
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46 scientists have left the IPCC due to the corruption of science within the organisation
Dr John Christy: “Little known to the public is the fact that most of the scientists involved with the IPCC do not agree that global warming is occurring. Its findings have been consistently misrepresented and/or politicized with each succeeding report.”