2026-04-10

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• Liquid or solid? Oobleck droplets are both

• California fire wipes out toilet paper warehouse

Horseshit

• Slowjamastan: The new 'nation' hiding in the US

  At the centre of it all is Randy Williams – also known as the "Sultan of Slowjamastan". When he's not lording over coyotes, desert iguanas and roughly 25,000 "citizens" who call his desert dictatorship home, he's the programme director for Z90 and Magic 92.5 radio stations in San Diego and is known across the airwaves as "R Dub". Since 1994, he has also hosted the radio show Sunday Night Slow Jams, which is now syndicated to more than 250 stations worldwide.

• The 3 Ps of pooping and how to optimize them, according to a Harvard doc

• KFC, a.k.a. Korean Fried chicken, took over the world

• Is fake grass a bad idea? The AstroTurf wars are far from over

• The Super Mario Galaxy Movie doesn't care about rehabilitative justice

• U.S. Fertility Rates Drop to Another Record Low

• We Are Witnessing the Rise of a New Aristocracy

• Y'all, You'uns, Yinz, Youse: How Regional Dialects Are Fixing Standard English

• The McDonald's CEO Blamed His Tiny Bite Fiasco on His Mother

• Dyson just announced its first-ever handheld fan, with a 65,000 RPM motor

• What nearly 80 years of polls say about US attitudes on space

• What the Verdict Against Meta and Google Says About the Way We Live Now

• Kids Are Discovering the Joys – and Pains – Of the Landline

• What Playboy got right about men – Lust and literacy can coexist

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Pro-Russian 'doppelganger' campaign exploits DW brand

• How Iran's Information War Machine Operates Online

Musk

• Do links hurt news publishers on Twitter? Our analysis suggests yes

  Ten years later, the site formerly known as Twitter still drives very little traffic to news sites. But it’s also bad for conversational and breaking news. Earlier this week, Nate Silver published “Social media has become a freak show.” Silver wrote that X has become “next to useless” for following breaking news like the war in Iran because its algorithm penalizes posts that include links. “The New York Times has 53 million followers, and yet its tweets often produce only a few hundred likes, retweets, and replies even when they reveal urgent, breaking news,” Silver wrote.

• EFF is leaving X

• Tesla is developing a new smaller, cheaper EV

  • Tesla is developing a new smaller, cheaper EV, sources say

• Tesla cracks down on FSD hacking devices, remotely shuts down access

• Musk says Tesla FSD v15 will 'far exceed human levels of safety'

Electric / Self Driving cars

• A wave of low-cost electric trucks is heading for Australia

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Pope Leo Reportedly Unlikely to Visit US After Trainwreck Trump Admin Meeting

• Trans Issues Are No Conspiracy

  The basic idea is that the center-left—or “reactionary centrists,” to use near-meaningless jargon popular in these communities—has, via relentless disingenuous “just asking questions” coverage of trans issues, significantly swayed public opinion toward skepticism of trans rights. It’s not “out-of-state billionaires” who have fooled impressionable voters into confusing a non-issue for a real issue; it’s the editors and reporters at elite media outlets.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• US adults are having fewer kids – and it's forcing schools to close

• The Small Private Colleges Dying in a Winner-Take-All University Marketplace

• Should academic misconduct be catalogued? Proposed US database sparks debate

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• New PC Gaming Handheld Canceled Due to Soaring Storage Prices

• Microsoft's executive shake-up continues as developer division chief resigns

• Amazon Cuts Kindle Store Access for 2012 and Older Kindle Models Starting May 20

  • Amazon is ending support for older Kindles and Kindle Fires

  • Amazon to end support for older Kindle devices

  • Amazon to end support for older Kindles

  • Amazon Is Pulling Support for Kindles from 2012 or Earlier

  • Amazon upsets eBook lovers by ending support for old Kindle devices

• LinkedIn facing lawsuits over scanning users' browser extensions

• Apple Will Release iPhone Air 2 No Matter How Badly It May Sell

• WireGuard developer can't ship software updates after Microsoft locks account

• Apple MacBooks slow down after 49 days due to a MacOS time bomb.

  • From Pixy:

  49 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes, and 47.296 seconds? That number might ring a bell for the 29 year olds in the audience, because the same bug caused Windows 95 and 98 to crash outright when they were running for just shy of 50 days: It's a 32-bit unsigned integer counting milliseconds. Of course Windows 95 and 98 had the saving grace that they would usually crash for some other reason well before that time ran out.

• BreachForums administrator identified as well-known ethical hacker

• FBI Extracted Deleted Signal Messages Saved in iPhone Notification Database

• A mysterious ghost admin is digitally bricking Samsung phones

• YouTube now world's largest media company, topping Disney

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Keychron's keyboards are now open source

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• The Artemis 2 space toilet is actually working fine. But there is another problem.

• Artemis II moon mission unifies politically divided Americans in wonder

• Artemis II's last test: Will its heat shield work?

  • Artemis II's return to Earth will test Orion's biggest flaw: the heat shield

• 11,000 Asteroids Spotted in 'Unprecedented' Haul

• Mystery over 8 missing or dead scientific experts

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Sam Altman Says It'll Take Another Year Before ChatGPT Can Start a Timer

• OpenAI eyes staggered rollout of new model over cybersecurity risk

• The demise of software engineering jobs has been greatly exaggerated

• The silent coup: How AI captured Westminster

• America's AI Build-Out Hinges on Chinese Electrical Parts

• Anthropics Mythos Model Sparks Fears of AI Doomsday

  • Anthropic Claims Its New A.I. Model, Mythos, Is a Cybersecurity 'Reckoning

• Federal Court Denies Anthropic's Motion to Lift 'Supply Chain Risk' Label

• App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

• Meta launches new family of models: Muse

• OpenAI halts UK stargate project amid regulatory and energy price concerns

  • OpenAI pulls out of landmark £31B UK investment package

• Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI

  • Gen Z's fading AI hype

• Police corporal created AI porn from driver's license pics

• Sam Altman's Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Concepts

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Newly created Polymarket accounts win big on well-timed Iran ceasefire bets

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Writers Guild Deal: $321M Health Plan Infusion, Residuals, AI Licensing Language

• Disney to Lay Off Up to 1k Employees in First Cuts Under New CEO Josh D'Amaro

• Helium Is Hard to Replace

• Apple signs meaningless deal to make some less-important parts in America

• Amazon to stock Lilly's new weight-loss pill at kiosks, offer same-day delivery

• Amazon CEO Says Chip Business 'On Fire' as AWS Steps Up Challenge to Nvidia

• Smallest violin spotted at Amazon HQ as exec pay packets deflate

• GoPro to Eliminate 23% of Workforce in Cost-Cutting Move

• Why America is short 4M homes

• The economy grew just 0.5% in the last quarter of 2025

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Justice Department Opens Investigation into NFL

• FCC considers retroactive ban on foreign hardware

Democrats

• Mamdani’s plan for free buses in NYC hits pothole, told by Albany ‘just not financially feasible.’

Left Angst

• The brazen rightwing plan to conquer American schools

• Trump administration orders dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service

  • The Forest Service–A Force Across Rural America–"Reorganizes" Under Trump

• America Has Lost the Arab World

• The President Speaks Genocide

  He has changed us, because he represents us; we voted for him, or we didn’t vote and allowed him to come to power, or we didn’t do enough to stop him.

• No Taco: This Is Complete US Strategic Failure

  The details of this plan amount to a comprehensive US defeat. If this indeed is the end of the war and that Iranian plan is the basis of a deal, it makes this if not the longest war in US history, the most pointless and a complete waste. Iran looks on the verge of emerging stronger, with the ability to generate massive new income, while the US looks, in a word, a busted flush. This is no run of the mill TACO. This is complete US strategic failure.

• Michael Moore torches US as ‘bad guys,’ hails Iran as ‘greatest civilization’ in deranged rant

  “We’re the bad guys! If you didn’t realize that under previous presidents at least Donald Trump has ripped off the mask and shown you who we really are!”

• Trump, the Pirate of Hormuz

  Somehow, Hormuz’ strategic stranglehold on shipping seems to have slid by unnoticed by Trump’s trillion-dollar defense/intelligence combine. Well, as Civil War journalist Ambrose Bierce is often quoted as saying, “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” But now that Trump has learned the hard way about the Hormuz choke point, he’s suggesting he might turn it into a profit center. He has suggested that an end to the war might include Iran and the US sharing the power to charge tolls to pass through the Strait (about $2 million per tanker!).

• Bombshell Report Reveals Trump Was Begging for Iran to Join Ceasefire

• Trump admin makes sweeping request for medical records of federal workers

  The unprecedented proposal was quietly revealed in a short notice from the Office of Personnel Management in December, KFF notes. OPM said it is seeking “service use and cost data,” which would be harvested from medical records such as “medical claims, pharmacy claims, encounter data, and provider data.”

• Pentagon Threatened the Pope After He Criticized Trump

  Days after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door Pentagon meeting for a bitter lecture. “The United States,” Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.” One U.S. official present at the meeting brought up the Avignon papacy, a period in the fourteenth century in which the French monarchy bent the Catholic Church into submission, ordering an attack on Pope Boniface VIII that led to his downfall and subsequent death and forcing the papacy to relocate from Rome to Avignon, a region inside France.

  • The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy

• Orban's Chances of Winning Hungary Election Drop After JD Vance Rally

• CDC delays publishing report showing Covid vaccine benefits

  • CDC study shows Covid shot benefits; Trump official blocks release

• US defense official overseeing AI reaped millions selling xAI stock

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Trove of sensitive LAPD records leaked in data hack of city attorney's office

• Iryna Zarutska’s accused killer Decarlos Brown Jr. found incompetent in Charlotte stabbing trial

  The deranged homeless man accused of savagely butchering Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, on a Charlotte light rail train has been found “incapable to proceed” on state murder charges. According to a motion filed April 7, Decarlos Brown Jr. was evaluated Dec. 29 at Central Regional Hospital, and the subsequent report determined he was not competent to stand trial, according to WBTV. His attorney has asked the court to delay his competency hearing by 180 days. The results were previously sealed in state court and were only revealed as the motion was filed.

• Trump promised to cut electric costs. Bills in West Virginia top mortgages

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Iran-linked hackers disrupt operations at US critical infrastructure sites

• US plans to automatically register men for military draft eligibility

  • Automatic U.S. military draft registration planned by December, filing shows

• The Iran war depleted US weapons. Rebuilding will require China's cooperation

World

• Largest Dutch pension fund cuts ties with controversial tech firm Palantir

• Influence Campaign on TikTok Uses AI Videos to Boost Hungary's Orbán

• Greece announces social media ban for under-15s over anxiety and sleep problems

• Fears net zero is 'next Brexit' as oil crisis fuels political climate divide

• UK.gov's top tech jobs pay more than prime minister earns

• Tech firms enter legal limbo over child abuse scanning

• Not just spyware scandals: EU is funding the industry that spies on Europeans

• 'Snoopy', 'Adolf' and 'Password': The Hungarian Government Passwords Exposed

• A huge scam compound on Thailand-Cambodia border

• Japan is rewriting its identity, not just its Constitution

• Mexico's President Sheinbaum Decrees Universal Healthcare for 120M

Iran / Houthi

• Prospectus for the Hormuz Toll Booth IPO

Israel

• Israel got away with targeting healthcare in Gaza. Now doing it in Lebanon too

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia sees China's WeChat, Douyin as models for its homegrown Max messenger

• UK Defence secretary reveals month-long Russian submarine operation over cables

  • UK says Russia ran submarine operation over cables and pipelines

China

• A hacker has allegedly breached one of China's supercomputers

• China trailing behind in robot density

Health / Medicine

• Tattoos Affect Your Immune System in Ways We’re Just Beginning to Understand.

• Family files lawsuit after man dies in care of telehealth ICU doctor

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Emergency jabs after 100 children die of suspected measles in Bangladesh

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Summer is getting longer, and it's happening faster than we thought

• March smashes heat records for continental US

• Germany is building a 364-metre world’s tallest wind turbine in a coal mine

• Uncharted island will soon appear on nautical charts

• Mass drowning of chicks puts emperor penguins at risk of extinction

  Four of the five known emperor penguin breeding sites in the Bellingshausen Sea collapsed in 2022, with the loss of thousands of chicks. Another colony in the Weddell Sea collapsed in 2016. Researchers called the catastrophes “grim” and “extraordinarily distressing”. The IUCN assessment projects that the emperor penguin population will halve by the 2080s owing to sea ice loss. The current emperor penguin population is estimated at 595,000 adults, having already fallen by 10% between 2009 and 2018.

• Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now endangered

• Explanation for why we don't see two-foot-long dragonflies anymore fails

• How rain fences are making Dutch homes more climate resilient

• Are OnlyFans models the best way to explain the climate crisis?

• Wild chimpanzees recorded waging 'civil war' with coordinated attacks

• Key ocean current is slowing at locations around the Atlantic

• 1.9B year old bedrock will soon house first permanent nuclear waste site