2026-05-15

etc

• All 11 onboard survived after plane made emergency landing near the Bahamas

Horseshit

• Star Catcher just raised $65 million to build the world’s first power grid in space — with lasers.

• Tech oligarchs reshape humanity while billionaires of old seem quaint

• Economics of Expanding Medical Assistance in Dying to Vulnerable Populations

• The dark fascist WW2 secret hidden below one of Europe's largest railway station

• 59,000-year-old tooth offers a glimpse into how Neanderthals handled dentistry

  • Neanderthals may have drilled out a cavity 59,000 years ago

• Man Impulsively Buys 55 Gallons of Potatoes on Facebook

• The Nobel-Winning Psychologist Who Believed He Found the Secret to Happiness

• For three years I scoured the world for answers to Europe's big problems

• The Subaru X-100: The Plane-Shaped Car to Cross the US on a Single Tank of Gas

• Listen and learn: you can hear when someone is lying

• Big tech bets on new mascots in bid to seem more cuddly

• Why did Clovis toolmakers choose difficult quartz crystal?

• Pigs could end the transplant waiting list

celebrity gossip

• BBC announces David Attenborough is returning to narrate Blue Planet III

Musk

• The Elon Musk vs. Sam Altman battle is a distraction

• Sam Altman Is Taking a Lot of Punches on the Witness Stand

• The Tesla Semi could be a big deal for electric trucking

• New York, California pension leaders oppose 'extreme' SpaceX control structure

• The SpaceX IPO is upending the stock market

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Honda posts first annual loss on $9B EV writedown, scraps EV sales goals

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• First-grade teacher arrested for allegedly having sex with student — after confessing to her hubby.

• Parents don't want their kids to use tech at school., districts pushing back

• UChicago to offer free tuition for families making under 250K

• Deal reached with hackers to delete data stolen from the Canvas platform

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Canvas Just Sent a Dangerous Message to Hackers: Crime Pays If You Do It Right

• Extortion Using Smart Glasses Is a Thing Now

• Mystery Microsoft bug leaker keeps the zero-days coming

• Microsoft BitLocker-protected drives can now be opened with just some files on a USB stick — YellowKey zero-day exploit demonstrates an apparent backdoor

  YellowKey can be triggered simply by merely copying some files to a USB stick and rebooting to the Windows Recovery Environment. We tested this ourselves, and sure enough, not only does it work, it bears all the hallmarks of a backdoor, down to the exploit's files disappearing from the USB stick after it's used once. The process is dead simple: grab any USB stick, get write access to the "System Volume Information," and copy into it the "FsTx" folder and its contents. Shift+click Restart to get Windows to the recovery environment, but then switch to holding down the Control key and don't let go. The machine will reboot, and without asking any questions or showing any menus, will drop you in an elevated command line with full access to the formerly Bitlocked drive, without asking for any keys.

• Saved passwords in Edge memory: what we're changing and why

• Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

• Meta profited from illegal scam ads, California county lawsuit alleges

• FCC angers small carriers by helping AT&T and Starlink buy EchoStar spectrum

• AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to eliminate coverage dead zones

• Cell phone users can't stop incriminating themselves

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Ouch: Use whatever brace style you prefer. But not this. Don't do this

• DIY open-source ultrasound hardware on the rp2040/rp2350

• Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid

  So thankfully everything in the car remains 100% functional except the cloud-based services mentioned above, which I didn’t want anyway. There is also one critical caveat about Bluetooth: Even after the modem is removed, if you connect your phone to the car via Bluetooth then the car will use your phone as an internet connection and send all the same telemetry data back to Toyota. However, if you use a wired USB connection then it does not do that

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Anthropic carves all non-interactive use out of monthly subscriptions

• 65% of Girls Who Use AI-Assisted Devices See Them as "Friends"

• Android rolling out AI 'Contextual suggestions' that learn from your habits

• US/China talks to make sure non-state actors don't get a hold of these AI models

• Meta Incognito Mode: A Private Way to Chat with AI

  • Meta launches WhatsApp 'incognito' mode to address privacy concerns for AI chats

• Claude subscriptions no longer include Agent SDK and Claude -p usage

• State media control shapes LLM behaviour by influencing training data

• AI chatbots are giving out people's real phone numbers

• ChatGPT-Linked Mass Shootings Drive Developer Liability Concerns

• AI coders are carrying half-open laptops through airports, offices, ice rinks

• The jobs apocalypse: a (very) short history

• 49,000 Lake Tahoe residents will lose power to data centers

  • Lake Tahoe residents to find a new power source after energy source redirects

  • Literally no one here is losing power

  This is like if a local coffee shop were buying beans from Starbucks, and then started buying beans from somewhere else instead, and the headlines all saying "Nearly 50,000 people have been told that Starbucks will stop providing coffee to them, because it's redirecting it elsewhere."

• An AI Poop Analysis App Offered to Sell Me Database of Its Users' Poops

• AI helps man recover $400k in Bitcoin 11 years after

  • Dude where's my password? Claude reunites forgetful stoner with $400k Bitcoin

  • Claude AI recovers an 11 yrs old BTC wallet holding 400k USD

• Anthropic forms $200M partnership with the Gates Foundation

  We’re partnering with the Gates Foundation to commit $200 million in grant funding, Claude usage credits, and technical support for programs in global health, life sciences, education, and economic mobility over the next four years.

• Apple's Security Has Been Tough to Crack. Mythos Helped Find a Way In

• The Sad Wives of AI

• Overworked AI Agents Turn Marxist, Researchers Find

• Digital arson spree by 'AI Bonnie and Clyde' raises fears over autonomous tech

• AI models are being used to predict conflict

• Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

• Ontario auditors find doctors' AI note takers routinely blow basic facts

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Cross-country scheme to steal cryptocurrency involved fake food orders

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Big tech's fat profits conceal unsettling cashflows

• US sells 30-year bonds at 5% yield for first time since 2007

• LinkedIn planning to lay off 5% of staff

• Cerebras prices IPO at $185 per share to raise $5.55B

  • Cerebras to Kick Off Hotly Anticipated Year for Artificial-Intelligence IPOs

• Cisco workforce reductions

  • Bay Area tech giant Cisco to cut jobs after record revenue

  • Cisco to fire 4k staff and generously give them free training – on Cisco

• LinkedIn, Cisco and Amazon are the latest tech companies laying off more workers

• Ryan Cohen hits back at eBay, says his takeover proposal should not be dismissed

• Self-report fraud and walk free, New York prosecutors tell Wall Street

• US audit regulator weighs deep staff cuts to unit overseeing accounting firms

• Nearly 40% chances of stagflation by end of 2026, traders say

• Pentagon's 'Deal Team Six' Aims to Challenge China's Grip on Rare Earth Power

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Lawmakers' prescription data at risk after data breach

  • I can make the argument that this data should already be public. As well as their liquor bills.

• SCOTUS Decision Hits Shipping Brokers Like a Ton of Freight.

  Brokers are now going to be cognizant of the status of the trucking firm they are looking to engage, not just its willingness to deliver for the price. plaintiffs' lawyers have been building these cases for years, waiting for this day. Cases where brokers knowingly chose a sub-standard firm whose trucker later killed or maimed someone, or a company with no safety record at all, or no 'documented vetting process,' which is a tell in itself.

Trump

• Desperate Trump Taps "Tim Apple," Jensen Huang, Elon Musk to Attend Xi Summit

Left Angst

• Trump's Disappearing China Hawks

• Wolf of Wall Street financier Jho Low seeks pardon from Donald Trump

• Trump Mobile announces T1 phones will begin shipping this week

• ICE may be at World Cup matches in U.S.

• Academy of Management Pulls 13,500-Person Conference Out of the U.S.

  The Academy of Management's decision to move its annual meeting out of the U.S. highlights how immigration policy and politics are shaping international meeting decisions.

• House Judiciary Chairman urges DOJ to permanently dismiss all Trump cases after bombshell report.

  “It’s probably time that this all just ended,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Wednesday night after Just the News reported new documents it obtained revealed the FBI at the end of the Biden presidency secretly took the rare step of preserving evidence from a dismissed January 6 prosecution until 2030, raising alarm the bureau could revive its prosecution after Trump leaves office. The agents in the controversial Arctic Frost case also wrote a new memo insisting they believed Trump violated laws, creating a fresh roadmap for prosecution after Trump’s presidential immunity from prosecution ends in 2029.

• 'The Most Bipartisan Issue Since Beer': Opposition to Data Centers

  • 'Bipartisan': Meaning Democrats are so out in the weeds on this one that the majority of their own supporters are calling them insane. When they think they have support they're all about ideological purity, even when it makes the purported goal impossible to achieve.

  • Turns Out, Nobody Wants a Data Center in Their Backyard

• Green Card Holders Targeted for Deportation by New 'Removal Apparatus'

• House Republicans Vote to Dilute Gas as Prices Rise Above $4.50

  House Republicans passed a bill on Wednesday that would allow nationwide year-round sales of E15, a blend of gasoline mixed with 15 percent ethanol, also known as Unleaded 88—a product that refiners and retailers normally cannot sell in around half the country during the summer months due to air pollution concerns.

  • I'm so old; I remember when the greens thought ethanol would save the world.

• DOGE Cuts Unleashed a Deadly Wave of Violence Across Africa, Study Finds

• Boeing, Toyota Donated $1M Each to Transportation Secretary's Road-Trip Show

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• FBI warns of '764' network: violent social engineering targeting kids in games

• Oklahoma's Richard Glossip freed on bond after 30 years on death row

• Explosive device found, detonated at Mobile water reservoir.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Officially, Marco Rubio is still banned from China. So how is he in Beijing?

• US citizen convicted of running secret Chinese 'police station' in NYC

• Military Snipers Are Being Put Out of a Job by Drones

• US clears H200 chip sales to 10 China firms as Nvidia CEO looks for breakthrough

World

• Britain just issued a cigarette ban that would shock Americans

• Facebook comments on Citizen-Dividends from AI roil Korean markets

• Signal warns would pull out of Canada if made to comply with lawful access bill

• Alberta judge throws out petition seeking for the province separation

  • Canada court quashes bid by Alberta separatists for independence referendum

• BYD eyes Stellantis EU plant takeover as EV demand spikes

• The European Union backs Italy's right to make Meta pay for news

• Samsung memory workers are planning to strike over bonuses.

• Sweden Wants to Strap Tracking Devices on Children as Young as 13

• EU social media ban could come this summer, von der Leyen says

• The Secret Mission to Fly Taiwan's President to Africa

• Cuba says it has run out of fuel, blames U.S. embargo

• Latvian government collapses amid dispute over breaches by Ukrainian drones

• German intelligence offices snub Palantir software

• The Most Surprising Capitalist Makeover Is Under Way in Sweden

Israel

• How Israeli terror begets Palestinian terror

• 'God gave us this city' Israeli nationalists protest to mark Jerusalem's capture

• Head of Microsoft's Israel branch to step down after inquiry into deal with IDF

China

• BYD surpasses Tesla as world’s top energy storage deployer

• China moves to regulate digital humans

Health / Medicine

• Cannabis Use Disorder Strongly Linked to Major Depression, New Review Finds.

• Third of weight shed after jabs 'is lost from muscle and bones

• Why autism pioneer Uta Frith wants to dismantle the spectrum

• You can reverse much of the damage alcohol has done to your body, science says

• Overdose deaths fall for 3rd straight year amid a changing drug supply and funding cuts.

• A Single Infusion Could Suppress HIV for Years

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• We Now Know How Many People the CDC Is Monitoring for Hantavirus

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• The Bird Eye Was Pushed to an Evolutionary Extreme

• The inventor hoping to fix your washing machine to stop microplastics

• Brazil's Atlantic forest records lowest deforestation in 40 years

• Rising Seas Could Encircle New Orleans by the End of This Century

• Will Wildfires Spell This the End of the Campfire in Canada?

• USDA Projects Smallest US Wheat Harvest Since 1972 Due to Plains Drought

• Beware of Drunk Deer, French Police Say, Announcing Season of Inebriation

• Colored microplastics could be making global warming worse

• Balcony solar can help renters and homeowners save money

• Japan runs out of robot wolves in fight against bears

• A Fish That Hitches Rides Where the Sun Doesn't Shine

• More than half of U.S. faces worst drought in decades