2026-01-17

etc

• Boeing knew of flaw in part linked to UPS plane crash, NTSB report says

Horseshit

• The Thrill Is Gone: Airbnb and the Crisis of Imagination in Short-Term Rentals

• San Francisco to offer free childcare to people making up to $230k

• Gen X and Millennials Will Inherit Trillions in Real Estate over the Next Decade

• Work time reduction via 4-day workweek finds improvements in workers' well-being

• British redcoat's lost memoir reveals harsh realities of life as a disabled vet

• Michelangelo's First Painting, Created When He Was Only 12 or 13 Years Old

• Is Tehching Hsieh the most extreme performance artist ever?

• Salvador Dalí's home: A labyrinth of fishermen's huts

• How children lost the right to roam in four generations

• When Polymarket Can't Agree on Reality

Obit

• This is among the kinder obits from the geek world: The Dilbert Afterlife - by Scott Alexander

  This is the basic engine of Dilbert: everyone is rewarded in exact inverse proportion to their virtue. Dilbert and Alice are brilliant and hard-working, so they get crumbs. Wally is brilliant but lazy, so he at least enjoys a fool’s paradise of endless coffee and donuts while his co-workers clean up his messes. The P.H.B. is neither smart nor industrious, so he is forever on top, reaping the rewards of everyone else’s toil. Dogbert, an inveterate scammer with a passing resemblance to various trickster deities, makes out best of all. The repressed object at the bottom of the nerd subconscious, the thing too scary to view except through humor, is that you’re smarter than everyone else, but for some reason it isn’t working. Somehow all that stuff about small talk and sportsball and drinking makes them stronger than you. No equation can tell you why. Your best-laid plans turn to dust at a single glint of Chad’s perfectly-white teeth.

  For Adams, God took a more creative and – dare I say, crueler – route. He created him only-slightly-above-average at everything except for a world-historical, Mozart-tier, absolutely Leonardo-level skill at making silly comics about hating work. Scott Adams never forgave this. Too self-aware to deny it, too narcissistic to accept it, he spent his life searching for a loophole.

• 'Dilbert' Was Always MAGA

• Daniel Walker Howe, 88, Revisionist Historian of Jackson's America, Dies

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Deep reading can boost your critical thinking and help you resist misinformation

Musk

• X still allowing users to post sexualised images generated by Grok AI tool

  • Mother of one of Elon Musk's sons sues over Grok-generated explicit images

  • Mother of Elon Musk's child sues xAI over Grok deepfakes

• Elon Musk's X down for users

  • Twitter Is Down

• Starlink updates Privacy Policy to allow AI model training with personal data

Electric / Self Driving cars

• We do know that Waymos are safer than human drivers

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• CompSci was a golden ticket to a lucrative career. Now graduates can't get a job

• They Wanted a University Without Cancel Culture. Then Dissenters Were Ousted

  • Can a university be a place for learning; or has the definition changed to "government funded indoctrination camp"?

• Trump Delays Plan to Seize Wages of Student Borrowers Amid Affordability Push

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• U.S. Court Order Against Anna's Archive Spells More Trouble for the Site

  • Judge orders Anna's Archive to delete scraped data; no one thinks it will comply

• Meta has discontinued its metaverse for work, too

  • Meta Horizon Workrooms is being discontinued

• Meta retreats from metaverse after virtual reality check

• The Myth of the ThinkPad

• Happy Birthday, Wikipedia: We need you now more than ever

• The "pretty is more important than functional" team continues the quest: Gnome 50 Alpha Released with the X11 Code Gutted

• Nvidia: RTX 5070 Ti Cards Are Not 'End of Life,' All Models Still Shipping

• Asus stops making some Nvidia GPUs due to memory supply crunch

• Netflix to Remain Streaming Home for Sony Movies, Studios Expand Deal Worldwide

• Verizon just had a big outage. Here's what we know

  • Verizon starts issuing $20 credits after nationwide outage

• Hard drive prices have surged by an average of 46% since September

• FCC Helps Verizon Make It Harder for You to Switch Wireless Carriers

• Many Bluetooth Devices with Google Fast Pair Vulnerable to "WhisperPair" Hack

• 6-Day and IP Address Certificates Are Generally Available

• How WhatsApp Took over the Global Conversation

• YouTube is adding over 100 classic Sesame Street episodes

• Microsoft is closing its employee library and cutting back on subscriptions

• The rise of 'micro' apps: non-developers are writing apps instead of buying them

• FTC Finalizes Order Banning GM from Sharing Driver Data

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Building a Quake PC

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike wants to do for AI what he did for messaging

• Six more AI outfits sign for Wikimedia's fastest APIs

  • Wikipedia Inks AI Deals with Microsoft, Meta and Perplexity

• OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 per Hour to Make ChatGPT Less Toxic

• Song banned from Swedish charts for being AI creation

• Thinking Machines Lab is losing two of its co-founders to OpenAI

• Data centers are amazing. Everyone hates them

• He Was Indicted for Cyberstalking. His Friends Tracked His ChatGPT Meltdown

• AI will destroy jobs if not controlled, Khan warns

• Apple sits out AI arms race to play kingmaker between Google and OpenAI

• The AI boom is heralding a new gold rush in the American west

• ChatGPT served as “suicide coach” in man’s death, lawsuit alleges.

  • Our approach to advertising and expanding access to ChatGPT

  • Ads Are Coming to ChatGPT. Here’s How They’ll Work

  • ChatGPT ads are coming, a bellwether for free AI services

  • OpenAI to Test Targeted Ads in ChatGPT

  • OpenAI to Begin Testing Ads in ChatGPT in Push for Fresh Revenue

  • OpenAI to begin testing ads on ChatGPT in the U.S.

  • ChatGPT is getting ads. Sam Altman once called them a 'last resort.'

  • OpenAI to test ads in ChatGPT in bid to boost revenue

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• What happens when fire ignites in space? 'A ball of flame'

• We Are Running Out of Time in Low Earth Orbit

• I Turn Scientific Renderings of Space into Art

Crypto con games

• Legal framework for crypto is hitting some snags

• Is This Billionaire a Financial Genius or a Fraudster?

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Irrational betting craze signals we're on the cusp of a crash

• The One Simple Thing That Makes the U.S. Economy Unmanageable

  a dense network of laws and norms created the notion of a single price for all buyers and sellers in a market, aka, The Price Is Right society. We no longer live in such a society, because the legal framework behind a single public price for an item has fallen apart. There are many examples, but the easiest way to understand this change is to look at health care markets, where hiding prices, and the consequences thereof, is most advanced.

  • the word "Discovery" does not appear...

• After Hostile Takeover Fail, Ellison's Paramount Skydance Sues WBD Netflix

• White-Collar Workers Shouldn't Dismiss a Blue-Collar Career Change

• The Reasons New Yorkers' Groceries Cost So Much

• TSMC says AI demand is "endless" after record Q4 earnings

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Stop Government Funding of Non-Profits

  Over 1 out of 3 nonprofits get over 25% of their funding from the government and 1 in 5 get more than 50% of their money from the government. 60% to 80% of non-profits that receive government funds report they would be unable to cover their expenses without taxpayer money.

  • The nonprofits I worked with decades ago received zero from any government, and thus were small and underfunded throughout their existence. We did apply for a grant once, we were laughed out of the room for asking for 50 thousand instead of 50 million. Working demo wasn't even relevant.

• US moves to strip sovereign wealth investors of US tax perks

Trump

• Nobel Institute says Venezuelan leader Machado can't give Peace Prize to Trump

  • Trump accepts Nobel Peace medal from Venezuelan opposition leader

  • Machado gives Nobel peace prize medal to Trump

• Trump Moves to Make Tech Giants Pay for Surging Power Costs

• White House Insists Trump Is 'Joking' About Canceling Midterm Elections

• White House seeks emergency power auction for largest US electric grid

Democrats

• Tim Walz, Who Called ICE the ‘Modern-Day Gestapo,’ Tells Trump To ‘Turn the Temperature Down.’

Left Angst

• 59% of Republicans favor use of force immigration raids despite risk of deaths

• Behind Trump vs. Powell Is a Battle over US Empire's Future

• Jeff Bezos Needs to Speak Up

• Was Renee Good Obligated to Comply with an ICE Agent's Orders?

• Minnesota is under siege. This cannot stand

  ICE presence has disrupted all aspects of life in Minnesota, and led tragically to the death of Renee Good. It’s the outcome of government overreach that favors force over legitimacy.

• The Home Depot Revolution: When a Government Makes Protesters Buy Armor

  oday’s lesson, courtesy of a viral post circulating through Facebook’s Boomer Badlands like contraband samizdat from 1970, is Protester Tactics 101: “It would be a shame if…” protesters started carrying ¼-inch plywood to stop rubber bullets. Or wearing improvised armor made from duct tape and ceramic tile. Or using umbrellas to bounce tear gas away while forming a tight shield wall. Or jamming police scanners. Or buying respirators, gloves, helmets, and traffic cones like it’s Black Friday at the Insurrection Depot. What’s wild isn’t that people are sharing it — what’s wild is how normal it suddenly feels.

• Judge orders release of man arrested in Minneapolis by ICE with a battering ram

• Judge: ICE violated Liberian man's rights by bursting through front door

• ICE takes back into custody man released for violation of rights

• Nazis.us Website Redirects to Department of Homeland Security Page

  Online users discovered Thursday morning that typing "Nazis.us" into a web browser instantly flips to the official homepage of the U.S. government's Department of Homeland Security.

  • someone found out

  Online users also discovered that a Florida Democrat running for Congress bought this domain and made it redirect to DHS so that he could feed this story to journalists at TMZ who are too stupid to do a whois domain lookup

• Trump Orders USDA Employees to Investigate Foreign Researchers They Work With

• UPenn faculty condemn Trump administration's demand for 'lists of Jews'

• Trump Bought Netflix and Warner Bros. Bonds in Days After Megadeal Was Announced

• "Another Tuskegee": Leaked Docs Reveal CDC Is Funding Deadly Study

• When it comes to vaccine schedules, the U.S. is now the outlier

• Trump Sets Fraudster Free from Prison for a Second Time

• RFK, Jr., shifts focus to questioning whether cell phones are safe

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Tennessee Man Pleads Guilty to Hacking Supreme Court System

  Nicholas Moore, 24, appearing by video, made his plea to the misdemeanor charge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday morning. He responded “yes” when asked by Judge Beryl Howell, who presided over the arraignment, if he engaged in various conduct alleged by the government. Moore admitted that he accessed the Supreme Court’s online filing system on 25 days in a roughly two-month span, from August to October 2023, by using the stolen credentials of an authorized user, referred to by the initials GS. In doing so, he accessed GS’ personally identifying information, including full name and date of birth, and posted screenshots of GS’ Supreme Court homepage on an Instagram account under the handle “@ihackedthegovernment,” according to a statement from the Washington US attorney’s office, posted Friday. Moore has no criminal history, according to Howell. Moore said at the hearing he didn’t graduate high school. His attorney, Washington public defender Eugene Ohm, said in a court filing that Moore has “mental health disabilities that have debilitated him since his childhood.”

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• America's Throwaway Spies: How the CIA Failed Iranian Informants in Tehran

• Pentagon to ‘refocus’ military newspaper Stars and Stripes away from ‘woke distractions’ .

• FAA warns on Central, South American flights over potential military actions

World

• Canada agrees to cut tariff on Chinese EVs

  • Canada cut tariffs on Chinese EVs, China to cut Canadian farm tariffs

  • Chinese EVs inch closer to the US as Canada slashes tariffs

  • Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%

  • Canada, China slash EV, canola tariffs in reset of ties

  • US says Canada will regret decision to allow Chinese EVs into their market

• More than 100k people urge MPs to ban social media for under-16s in UK

• Rights groups hail acquittal after seven years of aid workers prosecuted during Greece refugee crisis | Greece | The Guardian

  Two dozen aid workers, who had faced up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of smuggling migrants into Greece, have been acquitted by a court on Lesbos. “It took 2,897 days for the obvious to be delivered by the justice system,” said Zacharias Kesses, the lawyer who represented six of the defendants. “Today, the three-member felony court of appeal of the North Aegean delivered a courageous judgment.” The European parliament had described the prosecutions as “the largest case of the criminalisation of solidarity in Europe” and proceedings had been closely watched internationally.

  • Europe welcomes more subjects; "citizens" not so much.

• Anger in Iceland: incoming US ambassador's '52nd state' joke

• India Issues Final Warning to Apple in Ongoing Antitrust Case

• Greenland issue must not lead to end of NATO, former Finnish president says

• Why Greenland's natural resources are nearly impossible to mine

• UN chief's last annual speech slams world leaders for lack of cooperation

• Italy's privacy watchdog, scourge of US big tech, hit by corruption probe

• UK High Court judgment on whether the Theft Act applies to Runescape gold pieces

  gold pieces within the Old School Runescape game are property which can be the subject of the offence of theft.

• International students disappeared, Canada's rental and campus economies felt it

Venezuela

• Donald Trump's first Venezuela oil sale deal goes to megadonor's company

• Cyberattack in Venezuela Demonstrated Precision of U.S. Capabilities

Iran / Houthi

• ‘Rats Fleeing the Ship’: Bessent Says Iranian Leadership Is Funneling Millions Out of Country

• Iran’s Murderous Regime Is Irredeemable

• The disturbing reason Iran appears to have stopped slaughtering protesters.

  The ruthless slaughter of anti-government protesters in Iran appears to have stopped — but only because residents are being held hostage in their homes by machine gun-wielding security forces that have flooded the streets, sources told The Post Thursday. After weeks of anti-regime protests across Iran left thousands dead, the mass mobilization of security forces has suppressed the demonstrations, with many too afraid to set foot outside now. “There were tanks out — there’s tanks everywhere,” the source told The Post after speaking to family in Tehran about the current situation.

• Exiled crown prince urges world to help protesters topple Iran's government

China

• Chinese AI Developers Say They Can't Beat America Without Better Chips

• Mark Carney and Xi Jinping meet to mend ties as Donald Trump disrupts globe

• AI Weiwei: 'You in the West Can't Compete with China'

• Chinese Fishing Boats Form Sea Barriers

• Civilian or military? China turns to merchant fleet to boost military power

Health / Medicine

• Noninvasive brain treatment for depression proves helpful

• Airlines to save big money on fuel as new weight loss pills gain popularity

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• UN treaty to protect 'extraordinary' marine life due to come into force

• New map reveals landscape beneath Antarctica in unprecedented detail

• If a Tree Falls – The Trial of the Sycamore Gap Killers

• Want to Understand California's Water Crisis? Look to the Pistachio

• Antarctic submillimeter telescope enables shows full view of carbon cycle

• Can tinkering with plant pores protect crops against drought?

• Vertical Solar Panels Survive Storms by 'Swaying' Like Trees