2026-01-18

Horseshit

• Why Saunas, Bathhouses, Cold Plunge Pools Are So Popular

• you have three minutes to escape the perpetual underclass

  If you work at a large company, if you work according to the principles of modern capitalism, where all the fish will be eaten by the bigger fish, and all will be eaten by the sharks, and all the sharks will be eaten by bigger sharks, you are actively bringing about the system that will kill you. Have you considered not participating? If you participate, we all lose. We will either all be in the underclass together or not.

• Stay-at-home sons are here – and they're not going anywhere

• Millennial fathers spent only marginally less time caring for their children than Baby Boomer mothers of the same age.

• An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm

• Why US cities are reverting 1-way streets back to their original 2-way design

• Is there an evolutionary reason for same-sex sexual behaviour?

  • Same-sex sexual behaviour in primates is a survival strategy

• (Nov 2025) The Moral Authority of Animals

  For millennia before we showed up on the scene, social animals — those living in societies and cooperating for survival — had been creating cultures imbued with ethics.

• The life of a playboy publisher who shaped 20th-century literature

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• After 25 years, Wikipedia has proved that news doesn't need to look like news

Musk

• Musk seeks up to $134B from OpenAI, Microsoft in fraud lawsuit

  • Musk seeks up to $134B from OpenAI and Microsoft in 'wrongful gains'

  • Musk wants up to $134B in OpenAI lawsuit, despite $700B fortune

• Musk's Starlink faces high-profile security test in Iran crackdown

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Officials showed off a robo-bus in DC. It got hit by a Tesla driver

• Detroit's streetlights are becoming EV chargers

  • Bitcoin miners with compatible plugs and power supplies are probably already available

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• One can mock the righteous, but Google won't index it

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Plunging US Birth Rate Leaves Too Many Colleges with Too Few Kids

• Algebra will return to S.F. middle schools after more than a decade

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• GitHub Banned a Ton of Adult Game Developers and Won't Explain Why

• PCs refuse to shut down after Microsoft patch

• Judge orders Anna's Archive to delete scraped data from WorldCat

• Google asks US judge to defer order forcing it to share data while it appeals

• Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy to step down

• AMD's long-awaited dual-vcache CPU was a no-show at CES but increasingly looks real.

• How much TV is too much TV?

• Micron breaks ground on humungous NY DRAM fab

• Netflix Wants Movies to Restate the Plot Three or Four Times in the Dialogue

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• OpenAI brings advertising to ChatGPT in push for new revenue

  • OpenAI to Test Targeted Ads in ChatGPT, Stepping Up Revenue Push

  • OpenAI to test ads in ChatGPT as it burns through billions

• ClickHouse valued at $15B as database analytics firm rides AI wave

• Global sports face challenges from 'AI slop' misinformation

• Anthropic opens up its Claude Cowork feature to anyone with a $20 subscription

• A Calif. teen trusted ChatGPT's drug advice. He died from an overdose

• The Risks of AI in Schools Outweigh the Benefits, Report Says

• Matthew McConaughey trademarks iconic phrase to stop AI misuse

• The Mythology of Conscious AI

• Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

  I accept that AI may someday get better than humans at every conceivable task. That’s the future I’m imagining. And in that future, I think it’s possible — perhaps even likely — that the vast majority of humans will have good-paying jobs, and that many of those jobs will look pretty similar to the jobs of 2024.

• AI tools expand scientists' impact but contract science's focus

• There's a Hit Movie Set Deep Inside an AI Lab–and It Will Give You Goosebumps

• Worse Than the Dot Com Bubble

• AI boom is triggering déjà vu for some who predicted past crashes

• OpenAI could reportedly run out of cash by mid-2027

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• For 99 Years It's Been Illegal to Mail a Handgun, That Soon Could Change

• The Fourth Branch

  According to the Federal Reserve's own data, nonprofit organizations in the United States now control $14.1 trillion in total assets. That's $4.0 trillion in real estate. $3.1 trillion in corporate equities. And here's the part that should make your blood run cold: $3.6 trillion in assets that the Federal Reserve doesn't even categorize. Three-point-six trillion dollars in something, and nobody is required to tell you what. This nonprofit empire is larger than the combined GDP of Japan, Germany, and India. It exceeds the entire federal budget. It has grown from under $2 trillion in the 1990s to a force that now rivals nation-states. And not one penny of it answers to a single American voter.

  This structure has a name. We call it the "nonprofit sector." We treat it as charity. We subsidize it with tax exemptions. We celebrate it as civil society. But what it has become is something else entirely: an unaccountable apparatus of political power that operates outside the constitutional framework the Founders so carefully designed.

• Why You Should Eat the RFK Diet

• The billionaire tax backlash is spreading far beyond billionaires

Trump

• Trump wants tech companies to foot bill for new power plants due to AI

• Trump housing plan to allow 401(k) money for down payments, adviser says

• Trump to impose tariffs on European nations over Greenland

  • Eight European countries face 10% tariff for opposing US control of Greenland

  • Trump announces plan to hit European countries with tariffs over Greenland

  • Trump vows tariffs on eight European nations over Greenland

  • NATO members face tariffs increasing to 25% until Greenland purchase deal struck

  • EU-US trade deal 'on hold' after new Trump tariffs

Democrats

• Sen. Bernie Sanders slams Mehmet Oz for praising robot ultrasounds in Alabama

Left Angst

• Video Analysis of ICE Shooting Sheds Light on Contested Moments

• Study debunks Trump claim that paracetamol causes autism

• The New Food-Stamp Rules Will Make Your Head Spin

• Trump Sets Fraudster Free from Prison for a Second Time

• Has a Nazi theorist’s vision of a world divided into ‘great spaces’ found a new advocate in Trump?

• Kansas School Tells Students Charlie Kirk and President Trump Are “Not a Hero” and Orders Students NOT To Tell Their Parents

  A teacher asked the class to name their heroes, but when students said Charlie Kirk and President Trump were their heroes, they were scolded. After censoring students who identified conservative figures as role models, administrators at Marshall Elementary School in Eureka did something even worse: They instructed sixth-graders not to tell their parents about what happened in the classroom.

• Whistleblower drops 'largest ever' ICE leak to unmask agents

• From Stopping Osama Bin Laden to Killing Renee Good

• One Colombian family's fight for justice after the US boat strikes

• America has coped with worse things

• What life is like in Minneapolis now

• Trump's 'Free Speech' Presidency Has Racked Up 200 Censorship Attempts

• Former USDS Leaders Launch Tech Reform Project to Fix What DOGE Broke

• Man accused of aiming laser at Trump helicopter acquitted in 35 minutes

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• (Dec 2025) U.S. murders on pace for largest one-year drop on record

World

• EU moves to force the phase-out of Chinese suppliers from key infrastructure

• Brazil's Bolsonaro finds novel way to reduce 27-year sentence: reading books

• The 'untouchable hacker god' behind Finland's biggest ever crime

  • Vastaamo hack: My darkest secrets were revealed to the world

  Before sending the emails to Vastaamo's patients, the hacker had published the entire database of records stolen from the company on the dark web and an unknown number of people had read or downloaded a copy. These notes have been circulating ever since. Auer had told her therapist things that she didn't even want her closest family members to know - about her binge drinking, and a secret relationship she'd been having with a much older man. Now, her worst fears had come true. But instead of destroying her, the hack made her realise she was far more resilient than she could have ever imagined.

• Teen Jailed After Exploiting Refund Policy for $570k

  According to court records and reporting from the South China Morning Post, a 17-year-old, surnamed Lu, discovered a flaw in a cosmetics shopping platform’s refund process.

• Germany's shut down of nuclear plants a 'huge mistake', says Merz

  • Germany Finally Admits Trump Was Right About Energy.

• Italy investigates Activision Blizzard for pushing in-game purchases

• Canada's deal with China signals it is serious about shift from US

Iran / Houthi

• Iran plans permanent break from global internet, say activists

• The Iranian Regime Is Stronger Than We Think

• The Fight to Keep Iran Online

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Something Is Wrong with Russia's Children

• Dispute with Russian billionaire leads to 4 Bay Area bankruptcies

China

• Chinese Fishing Boats Form Sea Barriers

• The Costs of Studying China from a Distance

• China blocks Nvidia H200 AI chips that US Government cleared for export – report

• Nvidia suppliers halt H200 output after China blocks chip

• China's brutal 'fat prisons', where rapid weight loss can prove fatal

• China Abuses Jimmy Lai

• Xi's Enforcers Punished Nearly a Million in 2025–and China's Leader Wants More

Health / Medicine

• US overdose deaths fell through most of 2025, federal data reveals

• Meat may play an unexpected role in helping people reach 100

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

• Rare twins born in DRC raise cautious hope for endangered mountain gorillas

• Fatberg the size of 4 buses likely birthed poo balls that closed Sydney beaches

• Pesticides may drastically shorten fish lifespans, study finds

• 2025 was the third hottest year on record