2026-05-04

etc

• (2010) The Japan the tourists don't see

  Second, Japan’s abandoned love hotels are one of the few places on the planet the privileged intruder can be rewarded with instant travel so far back in time, back in this case all the way to the seventies, the decade that taste forgot. In the West, a place like Don Quixote, no matter how remote, would have succumbed to vandalism and arson within years, if not months, of closure, and outside the West only Japan had attained the status of a developed nation by 1970 or even 1980, so only in Japan, scattered here and there in dusty byways across the land, can the explorer unearth these relics of an age almost as remote, to our era of iPads and Twitter and YouTube, as the lives of eminent Victorians must have seemed to sixties swingers.

Horseshit

• Running Shoes Have Evolved – From Ancient Greece to Record-Breaking Marathons

• Physicists have measured 'negative time' in the lab

• The 2-Hour Marathon Barrier Gets Smashed. Is It the Shoes–Or the Sugar?

• Father hiring bouncer to keep kids from beating the dog due to phone addiction

• Have online worlds become the last free places for children?

  • Have online worlds become the last free places for children?

• My Totally Accurate Model of What Happened to Haiti (TAMWHA)

  What started in the 19th century as a continuous decline in agricultural productivity led Haitian labor to migrate to cities and foreign countries in large number while the country was still at a very low level of income per capita. The resulting remittances play a key humanitarian and macroeconomic stabilization role while weakening external competitiveness and fueling urbanization. Urbanization through slums and the institutional void left by the disbandment of the military has led to the collapse of the minimal security requirements for the economy to function normally. With that collapse, economic activity has crashed while demand fueled by remittances remains high resulting in high inflation while the currency is appreciating. The resulting loss of external competitiveness will further accelerate the trends towards a service-dominated economy, deeper urbanization, remittance dependency and further loss of external competitiveness. The trap now feeds itself.

• Why Andy Serkis Turned 'Animal Farm' into a Family Film–and What It Teaches Kids

• The HIV/AIDS tragedy spurred human evolution

• Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

• A Vasectomy and a Side of Beef

• Dogs' brains began to shrink at least 5k years ago

• The Last Days of Butter Ridge

• Barry Levinson's box-office flop 'Toys' predicted the future of warfare

• California man uses elaborate drone show to help delivery drivers find his house

• (2021) The Science of French Fries

celebrity gossip

• The Lore of Sam Altman Is Being Tested Like Never Before

• After giving away $26B MacKenzie Scott's wealth remains largely unchanged

• Statue of a man blinded by a flag put up by Banksy in central London

Obit

• Gerry Conway, creator of the Punisher in Spider-Man comics, dies at 73

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• New Netflix documentary reexamines Winnie Mandela's divisive legacy

Musk

• Grok 'drive an iron nail through the mirror while reciting Psalm 91 backwards'

• Musk's AI told me people were coming to kill me

• Elon Musk gets an apology from California regulators as a SpaceX lawsuit settled

• Foxconn launches second-generation satellites via SpaceX Falcon 9

• Elon Musk Says AI 'Smarter Than Humans' Next Year During OpenAI Testimony

  • Depends on the human. I've known dogs that were smarter than some people.

• Musk spars with OpenAI atty in trial over OpenAI's evolution from a nonprofit

• xAI Is Reportedly Using Just 11% of Its 550k Nvidia GPUs

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• Am I the only one who hates delivery robots?

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• The dead hand of wokery is losing its grip on academia

  In the last 30 years or so, something fascinating has happened to academia in the UK and beyond. There is now ‘mainstream academia’, in which ideas which challenge woke dogmas either cannot be discussed or are very dangerous to discuss, and there is a kind of ‘para-academia’ centred around scholars who have been ‘cancelled’ by the mainstream or who have never even been part of it beyond their doctorates. The latter flourishes online, in the form of YouTube channels and substacks. In particular, in its anti-woke stance, it focuses on the strongly taboo issues of human biological differences, the genetics of psychological traits (they’re all partly genetic), and dysgenics: how we are becoming less intelligent and less healthy due to breeding patterns.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Farewell, Jeeves: Ask.com shuts down

• Matt Mullenweg thinks WordPress is in decline. He may be right

• You Have No Idea How Much You Still Use BlackBerry

• Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

• Amazon says restoring damaged Middle East cloud operations to take months

• Metal Gear Solid 2's Source Code Has Been Leaked on 4Chan

• Dayton mayor demands accountability after plate-reader data breach

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA's Nancy Grace Roman telescope will offer an 'atlas of the universe'

• Original Apollo 11 code open-sourced by NASA

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• US Navy signs deal with AI firm for training underwater drones

• Maryland Is First to Ban A.I.-Driven Price Increases in Grocery Stores

• Deepfakes Are Coming for Your Bank Account

• Big Tech will spend nearly $700B on AI in 2026. No one knows where buildout ends

• After Mythos, Nobody Is Safe from Cybersecurity Threats

• Are big tech companies laying off waves of workers and replacing them with AI?

• Shares in Japanese toilet maker Toto soar on AI-related pivot

• Startups challenge Apple over curbs on AI 'vibe coding' apps

• AI music is flooding streaming services – but who wants it?

• OpenAI delays ChatGPT "adult mode"

• Will human minds still be special in an age of AI?

• AI's Supply Crunch Is Here

• The Oscars Just Banned AI from Winning Acting and Writing Awards

• University Professors Disturbed to Find Their Lectures Chopped Up into AI Slop

• AI models that consider user's feeling are more likely to make errors

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Investors pile into clean energy as Iran war drives push for energy security

• Who Killed Spirit Airlines?

  • Elizabeth Warren Killed Spirit Airlines and Now She’s Complaining About It.

  Warren had previously touted the decision to kill the merger as a huge win for consumers and warned that the deal would’ve “led to fewer flights and higher fares.” The judge who was pressured into blocking the deal stated “to those dedicated customers of Spirit, this one’s for you” before immediately shooting the company dead with his decision.

  • Spirit pilot gets overwhelming sendoff from rivals after final flight cancelled

• Stock Indexes Are Contorting Themselves to Include SpaceX and OpenAI

• GameStop Is Offering to Buy eBay for $56B, CEO Ryan Cohen Says

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Wyoming celebrates 'nuclear Renaissance' as feds approve license for a reactor

• High-tech Chinese cars pop up in California thanks to legal loophole

• FCC votes to ban all Chinese labs from certifying electronics sold in the US

Left Angst

• As a Ukrainian journalist, I’ve covered the US for 20 years. I find it increasingly shocking

  What stood out to me, and still bewilders me now, is the extent to which the conversation around access to affordable health care and education has become radicalised in the US. To a Ukrainian, or indeed most Europeans, these are simply what people expect from a functioning state.

• Pro-illegal immigration groups ask city of LA for $3M to help fight ICE

  Taxpayer funded pro-illegal immigration groups are demanding millions of dollars from LA residents to help them attack ICE and fund day laborer hubs near Home Depot sites. The groups are already getting $1-million-a-year from LA City Council, and are now demanding a $2-million-a-year funding increase to help them fight against ICE operations and maintain buildings outside the hardware stores. The hubs offer everything from restrooms to free legal services and employment advice to day laborers, all paid for by nonprofits funded by taxpayers.

• US Senate Candidate From PA Threatens To Kill Trump, Congressman’s Daughter

• Redistricting and the Supreme Court have cut voters out of US House races

• Trump's mass firing just dealt another blow to American science

• The SPLC Is a Journalism Scandal - WSJ

  The SPLC raises money and sustains its relevance by stoking the perception that white supremacy is pervasive and influential. I have argued since 2008 that this aligns the center’s interests with those of supremacist groups. My point received insider validation from a 2019 New Yorker article by journalist Bob Moser, whom the SPLC hired as a writer in 2001. “Though the center claimed to be effective in fighting extremism, ‘hate’ always continued to be on the rise, more dangerous than ever, with each year’s report on hate groups,” Mr. Moser wrote. He and his colleagues came up with a mordant slogan: “The SPLC—making hate pay.”

• Data Breach Hits Anti-ICE Organizing Site Gtfoice.org

  As Rachel Maddow noted, “They’re calling it a rapid response network to stop ICE prison camps before they start.” An apparent data breach may have compromised user information submitted to GTFOICE.org, a newly launched platform designed to organize opposition to proposed ICE detention facilities across the United States. The situation is still developing, but early signs point to a serious security failure involving sensitive user data. We also viewed the project as a potential attempt by the founders of DEFIANCE.org to monetize a vulnerable group of people actively trying to stop ICE facilities in their communities.

• Trump blocks wind farms on national security grounds

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Drones are getting drugs, escape tools and crab legs to inmates

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• How electronic warfare is sowing confusion in cockpits

World

• Saudi Arabia ranks 2nd globally in data center market attractiveness

• Germany claims it has the best bread

• Care homes and hotels in Japan shut as expansion strategy unravels

• Japan is deploying ultra-cheap cardboard drones built for swarm warfare

• Iran war accelerates 'Regrexit' as wealthy UK expats weigh a return

• British woman wins right to sterilization after exposing double standards in UK

• The world's longest railway tunnel is being built under the Alps

• Will EU bring in a windfall tax on oil companies?

• Tanker boarded south of Trelleborg – suspected violation of maritime law

  The Swedish Coast Guard, together with Swedish Police, has boarded the Jin Hui, a tanker sailing under a suspected false flag. A preliminary investigation is underway. The vessel is suspected of being in violation of maritime law due to a lack of seaworthiness.

• Amid questions of US interventionism in Mexico, 25-story Ciudad Juárez surveillance tower comes under scrutiny

  A multi-million-dollar security investment by the right-leaning Chihuahua state government of Maru Campos, the Sentinel Tower has become the target of federal complaints

• Italy's 'Cheese Bank' where Parmigiano becomes financial gold

• Milei Ends Argentina's Deficit After 123 Years

Iran / Houthi

• Clandestine network smuggling Starlink tech into Iran to beat internet blackout

• Iran war ‘likely’ to restart, senior Tehran official warns after Trump says US might be ‘better off’ without deal.

Israel

• Israel Said It's Applying the Gaza Model in Lebanon

• Ghost Operators: How Israeli Telecoms Were Exploited to Track Citizens Worldwide

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• 'The Iran war strengthened Ukraine. Could a ceasefire with Russia be closer?'

China

• Jensen says Nvidia now has 'zero percent' market share in China

Health / Medicine

• Australian medical first saved US Marine's life after military aircraft crash

• 'Feed a cold': eating primes immune cells for action

• “Ozempic breath” is real and it’s catching users off guard.

• People who are blind from birth never develop schizophrenia

• World-First Study Reveals Human Hearts Can Regenerate After a Heart Attack.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Three dead in suspected hantavirus outbreak on Atlantic cruise ship

  • Three cruise ship passengers die in suspected hantavirus outbreak

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Why do crabs walk sideways? Scientists trace it back 200M years

• Inexpensive seafloor-hopping submersibles could stoke deep-sea science–and mining

• NOAA forecaster on how this year's El Niño could shatter records

• The Petroleum System Is Entering Its Volatile Decline Phase

• Why this tribe is buying up acres of farmland – and flooding it

  Tidal marshes are crucial nurseries for young Chinook salmon and a focal point for efforts to bring these fish back from the brink of extinction. The Stillaguamish Tribe has been buying riverfront land in its traditional territory and removing levees to turn farmland into wetland with the hope of restoring Chinook.

• Underwater robot tracks sperm whale conversations in real time

• Humans And Animals Are Facing a Hidden Fertility Crisis, Scientists Warn.

• Scientists Gave Cocaine to Salmon

• US–Indian space mission maps extreme subsidence in Mexico City