2026-04-13

etc

• Warning to drivers as Hyundai recalls 300k cars over life-threatening glitch

Horseshit

• "simulant" Oxygen made from Moon dust for first time

  Nasa has also provided Blue Origin with a small sample of Moon dust brought back by the Apollo astronauts, so that they can build an accurate simulant to test the process. As well as breathable air, Blue Origin said the reactor produces other critical elements for planetary infrastructure, such as iron, aluminium and silicon for construction and electronics, as well as glass for windows and solar panel covers.

• We Are All Constantly Mutating – and That's a Good Thing

• How Fake People Became Real Influencers

• Scientists Have Uncovered a 3rd State of Life, Which Starts After Cell Death

• Why weekends are under threat

• What if local control can actually help build housing?

  As things stand, there’s a broad understanding that the obstacle to building more housing is local control. A few NIMBYs who don’t want to build housing show up to planning meetings and zoning board meetings, bring lawsuits, and otherwise make a bunch of noise and punch above their weight, resulting in the tyranny of the local minority.

  • More often its national or international groups, with much taxpayer funding in the form of environmental and culture grants, that keeps shit from being built. In my experience. The kind of outfit this author promotes and donates to.

• 'The Audacity' Is the Broligarchy Takedown You Were Waiting For

• Why children become fussy eaters

• DNA forensics is transforming studies of ancient manuscripts

celebrity gossip

• Sam Altman may control our future. Can he be trusted? No.

• Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• We spoke to the man making viral Lego-style AI videos for Iran

Musk

• AI models are terrible at betting on soccer- especially xAI Grok

• SpaceX holds $603M in Bitcoin despite $5B loss stemming from xAI

• X slashes aggregator payouts to boost original creators

• Tesla Disables the FSD Used Illegally in over 100k Cars

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Is the 'Holy Grail of batteries' ready to bless us with its presence?

• Toyota joins hydrogen truck alliance push

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• A 'Self-Doxing' Rave Helps Trans People Stay Safe Online

• IBM to pay $17M in anti-DEI settlement

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Disgruntled, Underemployed PhDs

  I’ve been warning young protégés for decades about the risks inherent in the process of acquiring a PhD and the challenges of navigating a PhD-dependent career. No matter how smart and diligent the student, there’s a high likelihood that his or her quest for a PhD will be thwarted by circumstances beyond his or her control. And, with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), government budget cuts, inflows of highly-educated immigrants, and universities that are intellectually and morally suspect, the risks are greater than ever.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Apple Stops Accepting Orders for Some Mac Mini and Mac Studio Models

• Salesforce and ServiceNow are squaring off in the battle for the helpdesk

• Jury reaches no verdict on first day deliberating at Live Nation monopoly trial

• Americans still opt for print books over digital or audio versions

• ProPublica journalists walk off the job in the first US newsroom strike over AI.

• Windows debloating tools are basically useless

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Intel Xpress Resurrection: Reviving a Forgotten EISA Beast

  It has all the ingredients to catch the eye of retro enthusiasts: a full EISA motherboard, a design that served as the reference platform for the infamous 50 MHz 486DX and the original Pentium 60 MHz, a unique chipset found nowhere else, modular CPU boards, and more.

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Artemis II Astronauts Back in Houston, Reunite with Families

• 'It's a special thing to be on Planet Earth': Artemis crew welcomed home in

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Mutually Automated Destruction: The Escalating Global A.I. Arms Race

• Lawyer behind AI psychosis cases warns of mass casualty risks

_ The Federal Government Is Rushing Toward AI

• Ex-OpenAI's Bob McGrew: 2025 Is the Year of Reasoning

• Gen Z's fading AI hype

• My baby deer plushie told me that Mitski's dad was a CIA operative

• Powell, Bessent discussed Anthropic's Mythos AI cyber threat with major US banks

  • Anthropic’s Mythos Will Force a Cybersecurity Reckoning—Just Not the One You Think | WIRED

• Anthropic loses appeals court bid to pause supply chain risk label

• OpenAI's vision for AI economy: public wealth funds, robot taxes, 4-day workweek

• Over 4,732 Messages, He Fell in Love with an AI Chatbot. Now He's Dead

• Californians sue over AI tool that records doctor visits

• Is AI the greatest art heist in history?

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Weather Prediction Markets Are Booming. Can They Improve Forecasts?

• Google Displayed Polymarket Bets as News 'In Error,' Google Says

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Emergency Prices: How Private Equity Captured the Ambulance Market

• The odd disappearance of the business cycle

• How Beyond Meat sank from a $14B plant-based protein powerhouse to a penny stock

• New vehicles now sell for an average of nearly $50k

• Staged homes sell for more than empty homes

• Old, Discontinued Fiats Are Outselling New Fiats

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

  A US appeals court on Friday declared a nearly 158-year-old federal ban on home distilling to be unconstitutional, calling it an unnecessary and improper means for Congress to exercise its power to tax. The fifth US circuit court of appeals in New Orleans ruled in favor of the non-profit Hobby Distillers Association and four of its 1,300 members. They argued that people should be free to distill spirits at home, whether as a hobby or for personal consumption including, in one instance, to create an apple-pie-vodka recipe.

  • 158-year-old home distilling ban ruled unconstitutional

• High schooler's 3D design saves Seminole County thousands on election equipment

Trump

• Trump says US will blockade Strait of Hormuz

  President Donald Trump said the US Navy will start preventing ships from passing through the Strait of Hormuz and interdicting any vessel that pays a toll to Iran for use of the waterway, accusing Tehran of “extortion.” Global energy supplies will remain throttled in the absence of a deal securing the vital shipping channel.

  • Trump vows to blockade Strait of Hormuz after talks stumble

  • Iran War: Trump Announces Blockade of Strait of Hormuz after Iran Peace Talks Collapse | National Review

Democrats

• Manhattan DA's office to investigate Swalwell sexual assault allegation

  On Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that one woman said she had sexual encounters with the congressman when he was her boss and alleged that he twice sexually assaulted her when she was too intoxicated to consent. One of those incidents, the woman alleged, took place in New York in 2024. And later Friday, CNN reported on sexual misconduct allegations against Swalwell from three additional women, including one who said he kissed her without her consent in public and two others who said the congressman sent them unsolicited photos or videos of his penis.

  • Eric Swalwell is the designated fall guy

  It’s still primary season, and California has this crazy thing called a “jungle primary” in which all candidates in all political parties are tossed into a single primary election, and the two candidates who emerge with the highest percentage of the primary vote advance to the general election. The purpose of this process is to ensure that it will always be two Democrats in the general election, and no Republican can ever even get in the way as a general election candidate. (Great “democracy” they have there in the Golden State, isn’t it?)

  Well guess what? They ended up with eight Democrat candidates and two GOP candidates in the primary, and depending on what poll you consult, it is possible that two Republican candidates might emerge as the two top primary winners, guaranteeing a Republican governor emerges in the general election. In other words, the distorted, undemocratic system installed in California by the Democrat majority is backfiring on them, and now they are scrambling to save themselves—and the only way to do that is to dilute or eliminate the support to one of the leading Democrat candidates, thereby kicking that support to another Democrat, thereby guaranteeing that at least one Democrat is on the ballot in November for the two-candidate general election.

  And Eric Swalwell is the designated fall guy.

  the Democrat leadership has only asked Swalwell to step away from the governor’s race and not to resign from Congress. That fact alone explains the true motivations here.

Left Angst

• Pope Leo XIV denounces the 'delusion of omnipotence' he says fuels the Iran war

• CDC director delays report showing Covid vaccine benefits

• Trump administration proposes budget cuts to science

• Why Trump Mishandled Iran

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• After the Attack on Sam Altman's Home, Will AI CEOs Go on the Offensive?

World

• Greece moves to protect minors from social media with new ban for kids under 15

• BGH Germany: Publishers must delete false Reports from public online Archives

• Apple's UK age verification brings identity checks to the iPhone

• Viktor Orbán concedes defeat after 'painful' election result

  • Hungary's Viktor Orbán Concedes Defeat in Election

  • Hungary's Orban concedes landmark defeat to centre-right opposition

  • Hungary's Orban, a Beacon to the Right Wing, Concedes Election Defeat

• London police arrest 523 people at protest over Palestine Action ban

• Javier Milei's bribery scandal may have derailed Argentina's crypto investment

Iran / Houthi

• US – Iran negotiations end with no deal reached

  • Vance Says U.S.-Iran Peace Talks Break Down over Nuclear Issue

• Iran's Nuclear Program Has Survived, Posing Problem for U.S. Negotiators

• Navy to use underwater drones to help clear Iranian mines from Strait of Hormuz

Israel

• Israel Destroys Villages in Lebanon

• Israel Mounts Lavish Campaign to Win Back Evangelicals

• Israeli strike kills infant girl in south Lebanon during father's funeral

China

• U.S. Intelligence Shows China Taking a More Active Role in Iran War

• China lures home its top AI talent from Silicon Valley

Health / Medicine

• Are sugar substitutes healthier than the real thing?

• Researchers discover new type of cell that's seen only during pregnancy

• Vegetative Patients May Be More Aware Than We Knew

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Trick Might Stop Gulls from Nabbing Your Lunch

• Combatting illegal trade of wildlife with ML and radiation technologies

• EPA Moves to Ease Coal Ash Regulations for Power Plants

• Golden eagles' return to English skies gets government backing

• Humans are losing the fight against flying fish

• Want to help garden birds? Don't feed them in warmer months, says RSPB

• Rescuers save sea turtle discovered stranded upside down on beach