2026-03-19

Horseshit

• The Healing Power of Social Friction

• From Descartes to punk rock, the letter X has an extraordinary history

• Life in Hitler's Capital

• Are GLP-1s the Cure for Drunken Rape Culture?

• Experiments show potatoes can survive in lunar soil, with a lot of help

• Turing Award Honors Bennett and Brassard for Quantum Information Science

• The Surprising Science of Tickling

• How you walk reveals to others how you are feeling, researchers say

• Scientific American and Friday the 13th

  this true but overstated conclusion:"In other words, the 13th of a month will be a Friday more times than any other day of the week."

  Well, yes, if you live to be 400 years old, you’ll see one more Friday the 13th than Wednesday the 13ths or Sunday the 13ths. Kind of a weird thing to focus on, though. I’m guessing you’ll have other worries by then.

  Those of us who are alive now (and have realistic longevities) won’t live through any non-leap century years. For us, the calendar has and will repeat every 28 years (1461 weeks), and over every 28-year period in our lives, there will be 48 Fri13s, the same as the number of Mon13s, Tue13s, Wed13s, and so on.

• Ancient skeleton unearthed in France is latest to be found sitting upright

• Why Tech Bros Are Now Obsessed with Taste

• French bulldog frenzy may be cooling in US, but dachshunds are riding high

celebrity gossip

• Peter Thiel Fears the Antichrist Is Coming

  • Peter Thiel's lectures on Antichrist in Rome spark debate

• Pardoned for Fraud, a CEO Mounts His Comeback: 'We Can Trust You Now'

• Rapper Afroman's trial over using raid footage in music video enters second day

• Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years

• Banksy's Identity Has Been Revealed. Expect His Art to Sell for a Lot More

Obit

• Paul Ehrlich Wasn't Premature: He Was Wicked

  Paul Ehrlich wasn't "premature." He was fundamentally mistaken about the nature of our species. We are not fruit flies in a jar. We are the architects of the jar, and we’ve proven repeatedly that we can make the jar bigger, better, and more bountiful.

Musk

• Elon Musk's lawyers sidestepped SEC team in Twitter case settlement talks

• Twitter shareholder lawsuit against Musk goes to jury: 'Knew what he was doing'

• Elon Musk and SEC in talks to settle lawsuit over Twitter deal

• X down for thousands in India; Downdetector says user reports indicate problems

• The fiery, deadly crashes involving the Tesla Cybertruck

• Elon Musk's X teases new dislike button on replies

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Rolls-Royce scraps goal to go all-electric by 2030

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Study finds scientists' jokes mostly fall flat

• Why Private School Isn't Worth the Cost

  Think about that. All your interactions with your children. The way you raise them. The schools you send them to. All of that only contributes 20% to their school outcomes. It’s not zero, but is it large enough to justify such exorbitant costs? I don’t think so. In fact, when researchers measure school quality directly, the effect size collapses much further. Plomin found that school quality in the UK explained “less than 2 percent” of the variance in test scores, after controlling for primary school achievement. In other words, the “best” schools aren’t making the students better, they are just selecting better students from the outset. In this way, it’s not the school that makes the students, but the students that make the school.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• U.S. Book Output Rose 32.5%, Topped Four Million in 2025

• Why We're Joining TikTok

• Autofocus glasses watch your eyes, and shift their focus accordingly

• Meta Is Shutting Down Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest

  • Meta is shutting down its VR metaverse on June 15th

  • Meta is shutting down VR social platform Horizon Worlds

• Overwhelmingly Negative: Everybody hates DLSS 5.

  • Jensen Huang says gamers are 'completely wrong' about DLSS 5 — Nvidia CEO responds to DLSS 5 backlash

  • Nvidia faces gamer backlash over 'breakthrough' AI graphics feature

• Firefox gets mascot Kit and free VPN

• Researchers uncover iPhone spyware capable of penetrating devices

  • Hundreds of Millions of iPhones Can Be Hacked With a New Tool Found in the Wild

• Federal Cyber Experts Called Microsoft's Cloud "A Pile of Shit", yet Approved It

• Meta vowed to stop illegal financial ads. It failed 1k times in a week

• Robinhood is making a social network

• California Weighs Crackdown on Social Media for Kids Under 16

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Forgetfulino Puts Back Up Of Source Inside The Binary

  the library compresses the source files and assigns it to be burned onto the flash alongside the binary. There is also a bit of code added to the firmware so that this code can be retrieved via the serial port at any time, negating the need for a firmware dump and manual disassembly.

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• An asteroid just exploded above Ohio with the force of 250 tons of TNT

  • 7-ton asteroid causes fireball seen over Ohio

  • A meteor exploded over Ohio and Pennsylvania

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Microsoft is threatening to sue OpenAI over its $50B Amazon deal

  • Microsoft weighs legal action over $50B Amazon-OpenAI cloud deal

• Water company wasted $200k on bad answers from an AI so built slop filtering

• A mystery AI model has developers buzzing: Is this DeepSeek's latest blockbuster

• The Pentagon is planning for AI companies to train on classified data

• Why investors won't know what to make of AI for a while

• Bonanza or Bubble? Where AI Goes from Here

• AI firm Anthropic seeks weapons expert to stop users from 'misuse'

• UC Irvine researchers bring down AI powered drones with painted umbrellas

• AI job layoffs are here: it's time to revive the push for shorter working hours

• Parents think they know how kids use AI. They don't

• OpenAI's First-Mover Disadvantage

• World ID wants to put a unique human identity on every AI agent

• 570k Lines of LLM Code Compiled Fine. It Was 20,171x Slower Than SQLite

• People Are Using Claude to Do Their Taxes (But Maybe They Shouldn't)

• Anthropic turns the tables on OpenAI in critical revenue category

• Apple pushing back on 'vibe coding' iPhone apps

• Americans Recognize AI as a Wealth Inequality Machine, Polls Find

• Silicon Valley Musters Behind-the-Scenes Support for Anthropic

• Gaming publisher's CEO used ChatGPT in failed bid to avoid paying $250M bonus

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Arizona Charges Kalshi with Illegal Gambling Operation

  • Kalshi faces criminal charges in Arizona in prediction markets fight

• Polymarket gamblers threaten Israeli journalist over missile strike story

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Meta shares jump after Reuters report on plans for layoffs of 20% or more

• Nvidia is expanding its empire

• Nvidia's CEO Used to Be Stock's Best Salesman. Now He Can Barely Make It Budge

• Amazon introduces faster delivery with new 1-hour and 3-hour options

• Pimco Sees Private Credit Strains Triggering Wake-Up Call on Liquidity Risks

• Drone company backed by Erik Prince surges 500% in Wall Street debut

• Oil nears $110 a barrel after gas field strike

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• The remaining questions after the Supreme Court's tariffs ruling

• Judge orders restoration of Voice of America

Left Angst

• Trump Officials Weigh New $1B Deal to Stop Offshore Wind Farms

• US committee demands Big Tech share private comms with EU officials

  In letters addressed to 10 companies including Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok and X, the chairman of the committee, Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, said that the companies are required “to preserve and produce relevant communications, including these auto-deleting messages, with foreign censors” under subpoenas issued in February.

• Nazi salute photo led UF to kick College Republicans off campus

• When Allies are Allies no more

  In March 2026, Donald Trump formally called on allied nations to help keep open one of the most critical shipping lanes on Earth. The response from countries like Australia, Japan and Americas NATO allies was not cautious cooperation but outright refusal. This was not ambiguity or delay; it was a clear decision to stand aside. The consequences of that refusal extend far beyond politics and strike at the heart of global security. What makes this refusal, so staggering is the simplicity of the request. The United States did not ask for boots on the ground, an invasion force, or regime change commitments. It asked for naval assistance—escort ships, deterrence, mine sweepers and presence—to keep international waters open. The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply along with substantial trade movement, making it a global lifeline, not an American one considering America is energy independent. Keeping it open is not war-making; it is basic international responsibility that benefits the majority of nations. Despite that, allied governments framed the request as involvement in a broader war. That framing allowed them to justify inaction while still benefiting from the outcome. The reality is that securing shipping lanes is one of the most routine and justified uses of naval power. It is defensive in nature and essential to global trade. Refusing to participate does not remove the risk—it simply shifts the burden entirely onto the United States while gleefully anticipating the ultimate benefits of what is currently transpiring.

  • The Little Orange Rooster

  “Not I,” said the NATO nations who forgot 102,839 Americans died protecting freedom since World War II.

• Kennedy childhood vaccine overhaul stalled by judge

• DHS rebukes Illinois clerk who warned ICE agents to stay away from polls

  "ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations. ICE conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement, and if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action," a DHS spokesperson said.

• DOGE canceled NC Museum grant for HVAC systems after ChatGPT flagged it as DEI

• 'I'm not political': Tim Cook resp to backlash ag. relationship w. Trump admin

• Coal plant forced to stay open due to emergency order isn't even running

• Trashing American Allies Turns Out to Be Bad for National Security

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Military report says live fire malfunction rained shrapnel on California highway

• Tech hobbyist makes shoulder-mounted guided missile prototype with $96 in parts

World

• Japan's key tech workers are now cheaper than Malaysia's

• British physics faces 'catastrophic' cuts

• India's 20 years of GDP misestimation: New evidence

• Manitoba introduces bill to ban surveillance pricing

• Maid in Canada: More Than You Wanted to Know

  Mental illness as the sole underlying condition is excluded until March 17, 2027. This does not mean no person with any psychiatric condition has ever received MAID. People with physical illness or disability plus psychiatric comorbidity can receive MAID if they otherwise qualify.

  • Euthanasia has fans! I bet they despise "capital punishment" on the grounds that its wrong for the government to kill; too.

• Poland is now among the 20 largest economies. How did it happen?

• Crewless Russian fuel tanker adrift near Malta called "ticking time bomb"

• EU's von der Leyen to visit Australia for likely trade deal conclusion

• UK, Finland, Netherlands consider joint defence financing, procurement

• Geely Eyes Canadian Auto Market After Deal Allowing Chinese EVs

• North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim

• Mexican Banks Are Working to Boost Digital Payments in Tech Push

• UK to examine labelling AI content among wider copyright reforms

Iran / Houthi

• Iranian security chief Ali Larijani killed in air strike

• Iran conflict turns shipping market into 'Wild West'

• CNN’s Man in Iran Tacitly Admits He Had a ‘Minder’ Who Informed Regime.

• Not just energy: How the Iran war could trigger a global food crisis

• Iran's South Pars Gas Field Is Attacked by Israel, Sending Energy Prices Soaring

• Why attacks on gasfields like South Pars are a major escalation

China

• Chinese tech enthusiasts 'raise lobsters' in latest AI craze

• China is mobilizing one-person AI startups

• China makes energy security 'reunification' offer to Taiwan amid Middle East war

• How China is getting everyone on OpenClaw, from gearheads to grandmas

Health / Medicine

• Can weight-loss pills replace injectables?

• FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall

  The Food and Drug Administration has linked cheddar cheese made from raw (unpasteurized) milk to a multistate outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli. But the cheese’s maker, Raw Farm, is rejecting the regulator’s findings and refusing to voluntarily recall its cheese. With the data pointing to Raw Farm’s cheese being the common source, state partners are now collecting samples of the cheese for testing, but results are not yet available. In the meantime, the FDA said it has recommended Raw Farm voluntarily remove its raw cheese products from the market but said the company “has declined.”

  Raw Farm has been associated with over a dozen other outbreaks and many recalls in the last 20 years, according to Bill Marler, a personal injury lawyer specializing in food poisoning outbreaks who has kept a record of the company’s outbreaks. Those outbreaks have been caused by a range of pathogenic bacteria known to be risks in unpasteurized dairy products, including E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Listeria. A 2024 Salmonella outbreak connected to Raw Farm’s raw milk was linked to at least 171 illnesses.

• Minoxidil toxicosis in cats and dogs: A scoping review and call to action

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• UBC study: artificial turf fields pose lethal chemical threat to salmon

• What do new nuclear reactors mean for waste?

• How the corpse flower came to be so weird

• Citing Conservation, Tanzania Pushes Ahead on Evictions of Indigenous Maasai

• The Plastic Detox – a film so terrifying you will want to change your life

• Majority of People Prioritize Environmental Protection over Economic Growth