2026-02-09

Worthy

• Beyond WaPo angst: Why journalists need to abandon hubris and look within

  one need not worry about WaPo’s liberal-left biases if it was sufficiently humble about its own shortcomings. What one should worry about is the declining faith in mass media. A Gallup poll in October last year noted that Americans’ trust in newspapers, TV and radio was down to 28 percent, even lower than the 31 percent in 2024, and 40 percent five years ago. A Pew report said much the same. The broad point I would like to emphasise is that journalism is an over-rated calling, and the damage biased journalism can do is vastly under-rated.

  The hubris lies in pretending that journalists are somehow seekers of the whole truth. This hubris was punctured when social media started calling out mistakes and biases in mainstream media, and a wounded fraternity with fragile egos started calling everyone on social media a “troll” if they did not agree with their views.

  At the end of the day, journalism is not necessarily a higher calling than any other, including commercial sex work. While the latter has been targeted by morality crusaders since time immemorial, there is at least some honesty in what is sought and given in this transaction. With journalism one can’t say for sure what is on offer, and what the reader or viewer really wants. Truth is often not what the journalist offers. Now everybody knows that. The WaPo "bloodbath" is as good a time as any for journalists to introspect and ask themselves why the world thinks so poorly of them. They need to be more honest about their own biases, and stop thinking of themselves as god's gift to the world.

Horseshit

• Fire may have altered human DNA

• The Economics of Dog Shows

• San Francisco's pro-billionaire march draws dozens

Epstein

• Epstein files reveal deeper ties to scientists than previously known

• Noam Chomsky's wife responds to Epstein controversy

  "Noam’s overly trusting nature, in this specific case, led to severe poor judgment on both our parts... we express our unrestricted solidarity with the victims."

  When we were introduced to Epstein, he presented himself as a philanthropist of science and a financial expert. By presenting himself this way, Epstein gained Noam’s attention, and they began corresponding. Unknowingly, we opened a door to a Trojan horse. Epstein began to encircle Noam, sending gifts and creating opportunities for interesting discussions in areas Noam has been working on extensively. We regret that we did not perceive this as a strategy to ensnare us and to try to undermine the causes Noam stands for.

  • Chomsky was popularizing "HowTo Enslave weak minds" theses just as Epstein was industrializing his operations and needing that. What a natural partnership.

• David Sacks EXPOSES New York Times For SHIELDING Reid Hoffman In Epstein Files

  In a scathing segment on the All-In Podcast, Sacks highlighted how the establishment media targets right-leaning tech moguls while giving a free pass to left-wing donors deeply entangled with Epstein. “Brad, you speak about the corruption of power centers. I think a major one has to be The New York Times,” Sacks urged. He accused the Times of selective outrage, noting “It is crazy. I mean The New York Times clearly has a list people they consider approved targets. They are all right coded people like Elon or Peter Thiel.”

• Federal statement on Jeffrey Epstein's death dated day before he was found dead

  The document released by the US Department of Justice in the latest set of the Epstein Files describes Epstein being found unresponsive in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Manhattan, where he was declared dead. However it is dated Friday, August 9, 2019, while prison records and official document show it was not until August 10, 2019, that a corrections officer delivering breakfast found Epstein unresponsive in his cell.

• The tech titans who show up in the Epstein files

Obit

• RIP David J. Farber

Musk

• X said it would give $1M to a user who had previously shared racist posts

• Canadian Province New Brunswick to Quit Using Elon Musk's X

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Waymo admits that its autopilot is often just guys from the Philippines

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• War Department Cuts Ties with Harvard University

  • Pentagon cutting ties w/ "woke" Harvard, ending military training & fellowships

• The only U.S. particle collider shuts down

• 'Black' Banned from Flyers for FAMU College of Law Black History Month Event

  Aaliyah Steward says she is in her final year at Florida A&M University College of Law, and she has encountered obstacles while trying to promote Black History Month events for the Black Law Students Association. According to Steward, certain words were flagged during the approval process for event flyers. “It was ‘black,’ ‘affirmative action,’ and ‘women’ as well,” Steward said.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Microsoft purges Win11 printer drivers, devices on borrowed time

  • Windows is leaving old printers behind without solution

• 'Washington Post' CEO resigns after going AWOL during job cuts

• Substack confirms data breach affects users’ email addresses and phone numbers

• Smart Homes Are Terrible

• BYO RAM is officially a prebuilt PC trend—and it raises lots of questions

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• 155M US land parcel boundaries

  The Land Records National Parcel Dataset is a comprehensive, standardized geospatial dataset aggregating ~155M parcel boundaries and associated land ownership and taxation attributes from various local jurisdictions across the United States.

• Epic hack! The Scriptovision Super Micro Script video titler is almost a home computer

  Crack this unit open, however, and you'll find the show controlled by an off-the-shelf Motorola 6800-family microcontroller and a Motorola 6847 VDG video chip, making it a relative of contemporary 1980s home computers that sometimes used nearly exactly the same architecture. More important than that, though, it has socketed EPROMs we can theoretically pull and substitute with our own — though we'll have to figure out why the ROMs look like nonsense, and there's also the small matter of this unit failing to generate a picture. Nevertheless, when we're done, another homegrown Canadian computer will rise and shine. We'll even add a bitbanged serial port and write a MAME emulation driver for it so we can develop software quickly ... after we fix it first.

• 80386 Barrel Shifter

• Exploring a Modern SMTPE 2110 Broadcast Truck

  In October, my Dad and I got to go behind the scenes at two St. Louis Blues (NHL hockey) games, and observe the massive team effort involved in putting together a modern digital sports broadcast.

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA Study: Non-Biologic Processes Don't Explain Mars Organics

• NASA space telescope sees interstellar visitor comet 3I/ATLAS flare up while exiting the solar system.

  NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) space telescope captured views in December 2025 of the comet releasing a surge of gas, dust and complex molecules two months after the object's closest approach to the sun — a surprising outburst that's giving scientists their clearest chemical look yet at material formed around another star, according to a statement from NASA. The SPHEREx images were taken as the comet was already heading back out of the inner solar system. Instead of fading quietly into the dark, 3I/ATLAS flared with activity, developing a glowing coma rich in water vapor, carbon dioxide and organic compounds. Observations also show a pear-shaped dust tail, created by rocky material being ejected as the comet's activity increases.

  While comets typically become most active near perihelion, when solar heat causes surface ices to vaporize, the SPHEREx data shows that 3I/ATLAS intensified well after that point. This suggests sunlight slowly penetrated beneath the comet's surface before triggering a delayed release of buried, ancient ices, according to the statement.

  • NASA’s SPHEREx Mission Tracks Brightening of Interstellar Comet

  “Comet 3I/ATLAS was full-on erupting into space in December 2025, after its close flyby of the Sun, causing it to significantly brighten. Even water ice was quickly sublimating into gas in interplanetary space,” said study lead Carey Lisse of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “And since comets consist of about one-third bulk water ice, it was releasing an abundance of new, carbon-rich material that had remained locked in ice deep below the surface. We are now seeing the usual range of early solar system materials, including organic molecules, soot, and rock dust, that are typically emitted by a comet.”

  “The comet has spent ages traversing interstellar space, being bombarded by highly energetic cosmic rays, and has likely formed a crust that’s been processed by that radiation,” said Phil Korngut, the mission’s instrument scientist at Caltech in Pasadena, California. “But now that the Sun’s energy has had time to penetrate deep into the comet, the pristine ices below the surface are warming up and erupting, releasing a cocktail of chemicals that haven’t been exposed to space for billions of years.”

  • It was a seed; that need light an heat to hatch...

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• AI Overviews are killing the web search, and there's nothing we can do about it

• Your phone edits all your photos with AI – is it changing your view of reality?

• The Invisible Labor Force Powering AI

• 3D Modeling Made Accessible for Blind Programmers

  A11yShape assumes the user is running OpenSCAD, the script-based 3D modeling editor. The program adds OpenSCAD features to connect each component of modeling across three application UI panels. A11yshape introduces an AI Assistance Panel, where users can submit real-time queries to ChatGPT-4o to validate design decisions and debug existing OpenSCAD scripts.

• Mathematicians Are Putting A.I. To the Test

• From churches to chatbots: How AI is fusing with religion

  • Comment threads of AI enthusiasts include things like "we're designing God here so we have to do it right." They're quite happy with the idea of a God that only tells them what they want to hear, that asks for nothing of value.

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Bitcoin tumbles below $70K, heavy losses in cryptocurrencies in last three weeks

• Bitcoin is still about $69,000 too high

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Dorsey's Block cutting up to 10% of staff

• Laws apply to Uber? Uber held liable, ordered to pay $8.5M in driver rape suit

• Amazon delivery drone strikes North Texas apartment, causing minor damage

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• SCOTUS to decide if 1988 video tape privacy law applies to internet uses

• San Francisco uncovers secret casinos, sleazy drug dens in 9 convenience stores

  The stores in the Tenderloin area, known as an epicenter of the city’s drug and homelessness crises, attracted “drug-driven lawlessness” and ran fencing operations where stolen merchandise was hawked to sleazy customers, said City Attorney David Chiu.

Trump

• "Your story is false. This headline is not accurate"

Democrats

• ‘Shangri-La’ homeless scam looms over Newsom donations

  Holmes, who pleaded not guilty, is accused of embezzling more than $2 million in taxpayer funds slated for homeless housing construction to host extravagant parties; a $46,000-per-month Beverly Hills mansion; private jet travel; leases of exotic cars; high-end handbags totaling $128,000; a $35,000 diamond watch; and 20 VIP passes for the 2023 Coachella Music and Arts Festival. Meanwhile, Shangri-La Industries executives showered Newsom and Los Angeles County Democrats with political donations as they were applying for some $100 million in state contracts that the CFO later allegedly looted to fund his and his ex-girlfriend’s lavish lifestyle. Even after federal prosecutors exposed the massive fraud, Newsom and L.A. Democrats haven’t severed ties with the embattled developer and have kept political donations from the firm’s executives. Newsom has also allowed the construction firm to continue to tout his endorsement on its social media.

• The Democrats Again Risk Losing Voters They Take for Granted

Left Angst

• Administration won't let student deported to Honduras return

• Ohio man charged with threatening to kill Vice President JD Vance and possessing child abuse files.

• One Generation Runs the Country. The Next Cashed in on Crypto

• OpenAI exec becomes top Trump donor with $25M gift

• The chaos in the US is affecting open source software and its developers

  It was only a matter of time before the illegal, erratic, inhumane, and cruel behaviours and policies of the second Trump regime were going to affect the open source world in a possibly very visible way. Christian Hergert, longtime GNOME and Linux contributor, employed by Red Hat, wanted to leave the US with his family and move to Europe, but requests to remain employed by Red Hat were denied. As such, he decided to end his employment at Red Hat and push on with the move. However, without employment, his work on open source software is going to suffer. While at their in-person visa appointment in Seattle, US border patrol goons shot two people only a few blocks away, underlining the urgency with which people might want to consider getting out of the US, even if it means losing employment.

• Let's Go Brandon: The world heard JD Vance being booed at the Olympics. Except for viewers in USA

• Homeland Security Spying on Reddit Users

• ICE surveillance concerns shift Democrats’ demands for body cameras - POLITICO

  Congressional Democratic leaders have made universal use of body cameras one of their prime demands for imposing accountability on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, especially after federal agents fatally shot two American citizens in Minneapolis. But after an outcry from privacy advocates that surveillance tools will allow ICE agents to identify and track protesters, Democrats are also calling for restrictions on how the body cameras can be used.

  • They want footage that doesn't support their narrative suppressed.

• CATO Institute Peddles Pathetic Poppycock

  To start with, the CATO report is doing the usual sleazy, underhanded trick of conflating legal and illegal immigrants. Bad researchers, no cookies. In addition, the report claims to analyze the “fiscal effects” of legal and illegal immigrants, which only measures costs to the government (welfare, etc.). But the government has no money. Every cost to the government is a cost to the taxpayers, and they ignore the taxpayers. They NEVER measure direct costs to the populace, such as increased housing costs, emergency room congestion, reduced wages, highway congestion, costs of illegal immigrant crime, displacement from jobs,

  • Immigrants Reduced US Deficits by $14.5T Since 1994

• Washington imposes 'terrorist-grade sanctions' on Francesca Albanese, ICC judges

• Seven Pages of a Sealed Watergate File Sat Undiscovered. Until Now.

• The disappearing art gallery in your post office

World

• TSMC to produce 3-nanometer chips in Japan

• 'I fell into it': ex-criminal hackers urge UK pupils to use web skills for good

• In the Australian outback, we're listening for nuclear tests

• Can Europe get kids off social media?

• Canada, better the 28th EU member than the 51st US state

• Canadian startups need to stop playing slow

• Mount Fuji cherry blossom festival canceled due to overtourism

• Living hell of North Korea's paradise on Earth scheme back in spotlight in Japan

• Japan's Sanae Takaichi wins a supermajority after gambling on a snap election

  • Takaichi's Ruling Bloc Wins Landslide Election in Japan's Lower House

  • Japan's Takaichi Scores Landslide Win in Election Gamble

• France murder trial complicated by twin brothers with same DNA

• Power grid delays challenge Amazon's data center expansion in Europe

• Internet provider bailout cancelled because rats chewed its biodegradable cable

Iran / Houthi

• Thousands of Iraqis volunteer to defend Iran against US attack

  According to a statement, almost 5,000 people in Iraq's Diyala province gathered to declare their intent to defend both Iraq and its eastern neighbour, as well as Iran-backed armed groups, "without any compensation". “We announce our readiness to volunteer to support our security forces, the Popular Mobilisation Forces, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we categorically reject American intervention in the Islamic Republic,” the statement read.

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russian cyborg pigeon drones begin real-world testing phases, sparking concern

China

• China ramps up energy boom flagged by Musk as key to AI race

• 'Hermès orange' iPhone sparks Apple comeback in China

Health / Medicine

• Hims and Hers abandons copycat weight-loss drug in face of FDA probe

  • Analysis-Hims’ $49 weight-loss pill rattles investor case for cash-pay obesity market.

• One Weight-Loss Approach Fits All? No, Not Even Close

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• We saved the wrong bees.

  But beekeeping, he went on, is "exactly the same with one key difference, which is that honeybee-keeping can be actively harmful to wild-bee conservation."

• The 48-Hour Window Most Anglers Miss Every Spring

  When ice-out sends water temperatures climbing—even by just a few degrees—bass physiology shifts gears. Their metabolism increases, which means they need calories. And they need them now. But here's the key: the baitfish haven't caught up yet. Shad, shiners, and minnows are still sluggish, still disoriented by the sudden change in their environment. The predator-prey dynamic tilts hard in favor of the bass. They're hungry. Their food is slow. The result is aggressive, opportunistic feeding that can last anywhere from 48 hours to a full week depending on weather stability.

• Warming temperatures are shrinking snowpack in key Canadian watersheds

• EU to delay anti-deforestation law. Again

• Burning trees to help the planet? South Florida tries new climate tech solution