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But first, a vetted charity to help Haitians who are about to be attacked by the government.

Ozzie Guillén’s lucky No. 13 will now hang forever with the White Sox - The Athletic: Well deserved.

AI assistant hacks gym website in first known Australian autonomous cyber attack - ABC News: The consistent lesson around AI driven hacks is that it is apparently really hard to constrain these systems once they are given success conditions.

Degeneracy is a Symptom - by Henry Fudge: Excellent look at the fundamental problems with our society.

Anthropic says it will watermark text generated by its AI models | TechCrunch: This should be a legal requirement.

Peer review is overwhelmed—can it survive in the AI era? - Ars Technica: Imitative AI is mucking up science.

Rescuing drowning children: How to know when someone is in trouble in the water.: Drowning does not look like you think it does.

Republicans Should Suffer For Their Smears: If the Dem leadership does not understand how justifiably angry Americans are, they will not be the leadership in 2028.

A playboy NFL agent was in line to run the Seahawks. Then came the crossbow killing - The Athletic: An insane story.

Did poop enable the evolution of complex animals? - Ars Technica: Science is gross.

How AAU Failed to Protect Young Athletes From Sexual Abuse — ProPublica: We just flat out do not care about kids at the institutional level.

I forgot how to throw a baseball. Then I learned the truth about the yips in sports - The Athletic: Fascinating story about how fragile our minds really are.

A Tech Prophet Finally Gets Her Second Coming – Mother Jones: It is a terrible shame that this woman is destitute and people like Nate Silver are rich.

Can’t Pay Preschool Teachers More? Try Giving Them a Free Place to Live. – Mother Jones: God, this country is so, so broken.

What Was the Internet? - Boston Review: Long but really insightful.

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But first, a vetted charity to help Haitians who are about to be attacked by the government.

GOP Staffers Say the Party Has a Groyper Problem - POLITICO: It is tempting to make a water is wet joke, but it is good when the conservative party tries to rid itself of bigots.

The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s 'high five' photos: All together now: awwww.

Opinion | The ‘Civil War’ Is a Lie. Let’s Call It the ‘Slaveholders’ Rebellion’ Again. - The New York Times: Blue states like New York and California should insist that text books call it the Slaver’s Rebellion.

NHL players play with missing teeth. Why don’t they fix them? - The Athletic: I had no idea i need this information until I read this article. But I did. And now you do, too.

OpenAI’s amazing — but vastly oversold — new model Astra: We would do well to remember that much of what is revealed by these firms is marketing.

An AI-supervised remote exam went so badly that 58,000 students must retake it - Ars Technica: These kinds of things sort of amuse me. The modern LLM-based systems copy and imitate — that is how they can be good at, say, programming in Java but dog’s bollocks at assembly language. One has a lot of open source data available, one does not. These kinds of test surveillance systems haven’t ever really worked well, so who would imagine that introducing the hallucination machine to the mix would improve them?

Trump Moves to Cut Off Student Loans for Tons of Degrees | The New Republic: They are destroying everything that made America great — all in order ot give tax cuts to the Epstein class.

Did SEO experts ruin the internet or did Google? | The Verge: Yes, with an assist from Google. Next question.

A Civilian Plane Crashed in New Mexico. Was the Military’s Tech to Blame? | WIRED: Someone screwed up lethally, even if the article doesn’t make it clear. Beyond that, someone could ruin with airline travel with a bit of kit.

The AI Demand Bubble: Zitron is long, but he packs his posts with compelling information.

Sen. Wyden Report: Banks Systematically Ignored Jeffrey Epstein’s Crimes - The American Prospect: And yet, no one will go to jail for this. We need to shatter the elite sense of immunity.

Post by @janerosenzweig.bsky.social — Bluesky: AI is bad for education.

rent, always rent - Dan Davies - "Back of Mind": Really good piece on the Law of Rent.

How headlights got brighter, whiter, and more blinding after dark - Ars Technica: It is not your imagination — headlights are brighter.

Governing without Accountability - by Don Moynihan: This is why I do not think, long term, the United States survives. Conservatives have spent the last thirty or forty years teaching people that not all Americans are Americans, and this is the result. Either the propaganda changes, or we are going to reach a breaking point.

Vanderbilt’s Board Declares War Against Academic Freedom: Red states are destroying academic freedom in the service of conservative propaganda.

Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part Va: Putting It Together – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry: I am such a dork.

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The Problem with How We Write (and Think) About Location: Great craft piece by Cole Haddon.

Never Trump Republicans Need Us to Win: One of the central problems with America is that far right is always seen as more acceptable than the average left.

Etsy Is In Its Flop Era, and Sellers Are Fleeing | WIRED: Etsy will not last much longer as a slop merchant.

The balcony solar boom | MIT Technology Review: Interesting look at what it takes to actually make balcony solar work.

Will Joel Ward become the NHL’s second Black head coach? His peers have ‘no doubt’ - The Athletic: He should.

Gianni Infantino’s post-World Cup ‘spreading hate’ essay: A fact-check - The Athletic: Our elite are such whiny babies.

After 75 Years Of Losing, Mayo Shocked The World And Shook A Stadium | Defector: Sports can be so cool.

The Masculinity Scam - The Atlantic: It seems like everything on the right is a grift.

Christian preachers are turning airplanes into unwanted worship services: Airlines need to stop this.

Someone Was Arrested at a Public Meeting For the Crime of Anti-Data Center Clapping: every level of our leadership is infested with thin-skinned bullies.

Reaping the Whirlwind | Inside the Potomac River Midair Collision | by Admiral Cloudberg | Jul, 2026 | Medium: Extremely well-researched, and correspondingly long, look at how the system made the Potomac accident almost inevitable.

What’s the best NHL team in the salary-cap era to not get a single Hart Trophy vote? - The Athletic: I love Summer Sean McIndoe.

Enshittification Relies on Broken Economic Math: Been thinking about the implications of this since I read it.

Post by @michaelhobbes.bsky.social — Bluesky: The lab leak theory of COVID is bullshit.

Translator Of Original ‘Minions’ Epic Poem Slams ‘Sexless, Bloodless’ Film Adaptation - The Onion: heh.

The Coming Food-Stamp Crisis - The Atlantic: Trump is getting ready to starve people so Elon can have a tax cut.

All Coens Are Liars: O Brother, Where art Thou? and Homer’s Odyssey | by Anise K. Strong-Morse | Jul, 2026 | Medium: Nice piece of criticism around a very good film.

How to surf on Saturn’s moon Titan | Scientific American: Science will teach you how to surf on Titan.

The Corporate Power Reset: Worth a try.

Have the best possible week, everyone.

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Meet The Broadway Actor Teaching Public Defenders How To Win In Court | Defector: Interesting look at how theatre impacts courtrooms.

Post by @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social — Bluesky: Fun thread about one of my favorite kinds of illusions.

Bones of Ancient Egyptian Princesses Reveal They Were Kind of Badass : ScienceAlert: Science will prove that a princess would have kicked your ass.

Prosecuting ICE’s Goons Will Be Hard—but Not Impossible | The New Republic: A blueprint for brining accountability to those who think they will never face justice.

Suing Stephen Miller - by Radley Balko - The Watch: Another route toward accountability for the worst of the worst.

Trump’s War on the Future, Monetary Edition: The Trump movement is about trying to freeze the world in what they imagine is their own image.

UCLA researchers develop low-cost blood test to detect multiple cancers and other diseases from a single sample | UCLA: Science will save your life.

Mr. Darcy is Not a Dreamboat - by Amy Colleen: Movies are almost never as good as the book, even adaptations of classics. Great essay.

Generative AI Is an Engineering Disaster - The Atlantic: A hundred times this. American imitative AI firms, because they cannot think of any route other than pure power, will never produce economically viable imitative AI.

The Subprime Data Center Crisis: Same point, just with a ton of evidence and math.

The Supreme Court Is Helping ICE Agents Get Away With Murder - TPM – Talking Points Memo: The Supreme Court has removed all fiction that this is a nation of laws.

three's company town - by Allison Epstein: Yeah! Another Dirtbag through the Ages! And about one of the worst people to over grace America.

Suspicion and Doubt at the National Civics Contest - NOTUS — News of the United States: This administration is just filled with gutter racists.

What just happened to TheNumbers.com should worry us all: The only thing imitative AI is good at is finding new and inventive ways to destroy the internet.

What just happened to TheNumbers.com should worry us all: I used to watch ESPN all the time. I haven’t watched a non-live sporting event in years, and could not tell you the name of anyone who is at the network now outside of a couple podcasters I listen to.

Democrats' edge in midterms polling depends on how pollsters weight by party; Great explainer about the art of polling.

Goodbye, cavities? New gel could regrow tooth enamel | ScienceDaily: Science will save your teeth.

Europe 2031 is a bet, not a forecast: Excellent deconstruction of the latest piece of imitative AI fan fiction posing as analysis.

The tech-broification of American science has officially begun | The Verge: Trump is about to destroy American science.

Walking Alpe d’Huez on race day: Is the Tour de France’s ultimate mountain becoming a problem? - The Athletic: All the good and bad of sports fandom compressed onto one mountainside.

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ICE are heavily armed killers. They’re also huge losers | The Verge: Truth.

Police training didn't make me confident in law enforcement | Opinion: Police are trained to be violent toward civilians.

U.S. Publishers Sue Google, Alleging Massive Copyright Infringement Behind Its Gemini AI Service - Publishing Perspectives: A different approach to the imitative AI theft.

AI Made Cloning Games Easier Than Ever: Interesting look at what slop coding is and is not.

The See-No-Evil Supreme Court - The Atlantic: This is the most racist court since at least the Second World War.

The political economy of billionaire derangement: A touch complicated— I think the sycophancy explains this pretty well - but still interesting.

The OpenAI Bubble: It’s a bubble and the only question is what happens when it pops.'

‘I Don’t Want To Die’: Texas Patients Are Afraid to Get Pregnant - Ms. Magazine: Abortion bans kill women.

Sex Doll Company Creates AI Teachers For New York School District: There are no words for how horrible this is.

The depressing sameness of ICE murders - by Lisa Needham: Depressing but accurate.

A car crash nearly killed ESPN’s Matt Miller. Then came the fraud allegations. - The Athletic: Wild story.

The Case Against Judicial Review - The American Prospect: I find this very compelling.

A Perfectly Crude Solution to America’s Housing Shortage - The Atlantic: Paying people off, apparently, works.

Researchers shed new light on ancient concrete’s extraordinary durability - Berkeley Engineering: Science will keep Roman stuff form falling apart.

Researchers shed new light on ancient concrete’s extraordinary durability - Berkeley Engineering: Noah Smith is a hack.

One judge has the guts to put the horror of this Supreme Court term in context.: A judge calls out the Supreme Court’s horrible actions in plain and clear language.

Zohran Mamdani Knows He Has Political Capital. And He Intends to Spend It. - The New York Times: excellent interview with America’s best mayor.

Have the best possible week, everyone.

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Obama’s Harsh New Takedown of Trump Points to a World After MAGA | The New Republic: Patriotism is better than nationalism

How to Sequel Like James Cameron: 'Terminator 2': Fun discussion about what makes a good sequel.

Susanna Clarke: ‘I had been ill for 11 years. I felt like I was about to fall off the world’ | Fiction | The Guardian: Fascinating interview with a fascinating writer about a fascinating issue.

Which syllable combination makes NHL history’s best roster? Welcome to Slow News Summer - The Athletic: Poor Jonathan Toews.

A switch to school buses prompted Scottish soccer fans to donate to Mass. charity | WBUR News: People are good.

We Already Have Everything We Need to Regulate AI: Yep.

What is Haglund’s deformity? The medical condition that leads football players to cut holes in their boots - The Athletic: The human body is a wonderful and terrible thing.

Lawsuit: Man used Grok to make 7K sex images of stepdaughter, then shot himself - Ars Technica: Grok should be shut down now.

Execs Confused and Horrified by the Huge AI Bills After Thinking They Could Replace Workers for Free: The headline says it all.

The Insurgency Will Continue Until Morale Improves: Excellent look at modern Democratic politics.

Madison Square Garden Kept a List of Gay Celebrities | WIRED: Private firms should not be allowed to do this.

The Demon Next Door - The Atlantic: A terrifying story for a lot of reasons.

A Voting Rights Promise, Betrayed for 156 Years | Bolts: I doubt that these laws will survive the Supreme Court — a place where no law that does not benefit white conservatives is safe — but we need to be pushing on every lever we can in the attempt to save democracy.

How ‘Backyard Baseball’ Became a Cult Classic - The Ringer: Video games do not need photorealism to be cool.

How ‘Backyard Baseball’ Became a Cult Classic - The Ringer: It is close to impossible to be poor and have access to the kid sports.

Prepare for Airplane Purgatory - The Atlantic: Trump made your flight worse.

Friday Friday, July 10, 2026 (On the Chud Vision of Roman History) – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry: Roman and greek history do not support fascist day-dreams, no matter what Musk’s algorithim says.

An orbiting disco ball gave Einstein’s theory its most precise test yet - Ars Technica: Science is so cool.

Apple sues OpenAI alleging trade secret theft: Irony is not dead.

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Donate to MSF: This is to help Doctors Without Borders help the victims of the Venezuelan earthquakes.

Let America Be America Again | The Poetry Foundation: A perfect expression of American patriotism.

The war against ‘woke’ could end US science as we know it | The Verge: Conservatives would rather their feelings be coddled and than cure diseases or understand the world.

The Supreme Court’s Corruption Must Be Broken - TPM – Talking Points Memo: Another fine expression of American patriotism.

Bosses Are Becoming Obsessed With AI, Using It to Make Every Decision, Barraging Their Employees With Nonsensical ChatGPT Directives, and Even Asking It Who to Fire: There is a non-zero chance that obsessive imitative AI usage among the management class is permanently destroying American competitiveness.

'Supergirl' is good — so why is everyone acting like it's awful?: Thoughtful review of both the movie and the rotten internet culture that drives so much meaningless conflict.

Here's Why Weather Forecasts Have Seemed So Inaccurate Lately: Oh, hey. Musk and Trump fsked your weather forecasts. Shame if you rely on them to say, grow food or stay safe.

Cup of Coffee Extra: Racism is bad. We need to start saying that unabashedly again. It is no longer assumed.

Post by @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social — Bluesky: Science is as old as human beings.

The 30-year-old who fooled Texas and played for the Longhorns under a fake name - The Athletic: Well, that’s one way to live your dream.

The Inside Story Of Leverage Research 1.0: So, so much of Silicon Valley and associated industries and belief systems, like effective altruism, are bug nuts.

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Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Princesses: The problem with strong female characters ….

Turns Out There Was Voter Fraud in Georgia—by Elon Musk | The New Republic: If we want our society to work again, rich people need to start going to jail for their crimes.

There Are More than Five POVs - by Lincoln Michel: Interesting craft note.

Read this before you vibe-code another app | The Verge: Imitative AI is walking us into a security apocalypse.

Opinion | The Secret Reason Bosses Want Everyone Back in the Office, Every Day of the Week - The New York Times: Hint — it is not productivity.

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism - Boston Review: thoughtful piece on the value of policy, attitude, and labels on voters.

My Daughter's Friends - by Noah Berlatsky: Lovely piece on parenting and growing up. Also, Noah is having a sale, so go subscribe.

Cargo Culture: A good explanation for why imitative AI has swarmed the tech financing world.

New Orleans man becomes first in Louisiana functionally cured of sickle cell disease: Science is amazing.

Federal agents track down Syracuse woman, demand she remove Instagram post about ICE - syracuse.com: We do not live in a free society of agents of the state are allowed to intimidate people over talking about publically available information.

Special report: Searching for Mexico’s disappeared in the shadow of the World Cup - The Athletic: Heartbreaking but important story.

Sanders releases emails showing RFK Jr.'s vaccine influence: RFK jr doesn’t care of your kids live or die.

‘Centrists,’ This Is on You - TPM – Talking Points Memo: As long as centrist is synonymous with cowardice, people are going to turn elsewhere.

Nearly 400 local newspapers sue OpenAI, Microsoft over alleged copyright theft - New Jersey Globe: The details of this make it pretty clear OpenAI knew what it was doing was wrong. Now the only question is if it is too rich to be punished.

Have the best possible week, everyone.

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Did a medieval flying monk spot Halley's comet, twice? It's complicated - Ars Technica: The past is a weird, weird place.

Solid-state batteries still aren’t ready, but gels are | The Verge: Science will save us al.

book of reggelations - by Allison Epstein: A new Dirtbag Through the Ages! Funniest histories on the internet.

2028 Democrats Litmus Test: Billionaires, I’m Coming After Your Money | The New Republic: Billionaires are a public policy failure.

New Documents Detail Nine-Figure, Silicon Valley–Funded Abundance Movement - The American Prospect: Surprising no one, the movement to get rid of regulations meant ot protect people and the environment is a front for rich people.

AI's Brokenomics: Good explanation of how the AI economy is likely to fail.

NFL Wants To Attract Women Fans, but League has a Domestic Violence Problem: Just what it says on the tin.

Muslims at Texas GOP Convention told to leave party, country: Yes, they will eat your face, too.

A Tale of Two Cities: Good discussion of what makes America America.

Hunter Biden’s Version of Sobriety Is Way Better Than Donald Trump’s: Very thoughtful piece.

AI Economics for Dummies - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: A finnier explanation of how the AI economy is likely to fail.

Your doctor’s AI notetaker may be making things up, Ontario audit finds - Ars Technica: Accuracy in medicine isn’t important, is it?

AI Is Too Expensive To Replace Us: Even more ways the AI economy is likely to fail.

If AI Is Sentient Then So Is ‘Age of Empires II’: A very clever bit of work.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, J. D. Vance, and I Have Some Notes. - The Atlantic: Alexandra Petri is a national treasure.

Hunter-gatherers in Siberia died of a plague outbreak 5,500 years ago - Ars Technica: Science is fascinating and kind of gross.

Apple’s weird anti-nausea dots cured my car sickness | The Verge: This si brilliant.

Netflix's FIFA World Cup Video Game Is A Modern Hellscape And An Embarrassment To Everyone Involved: Money ruins everything.

Our long national sunscreen nightmare is almost over | The Verge: MY grandfather died of skin cancer — wear these new, much improved sunscreens.

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Seven Brides for Seven Brothers: An Explainer - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: the past is a foreign country. A horrific, terrifying foreign country.

Trans teens have something to say | The Verge: Good on the Verge for paying attention to these kids in a story about them.

have you heard of the wizard’s game? | by Doc Burford | May, 2026 | Medium: Nice description of the principles behind game design.

Stop Writing Open Letters to Substack - by Cole Haddon: You cannot fight systems by appealing to their owners.

Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part I: Why They Fight – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry: the start of another fascinating series by Dr. Devereaux.

All the Ways Europe Is Ditching American Technology | WIRED: Blue states could do this, too.

Confront Trump's California Election Lies: Dems need to use this stupidity to try and bury the election denialism.

Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse | The New Yorker: This is horrific and it reminds you that Trump deliberately acted to help Tate get out of confinement.

AI Is Slowing Down: I wonder if ChatGPT can spell bubble?

Ranking every dog name and pun from the 2026 'Stanley Pup' - ESPN: This is quality journalism.

I wrote a poem about my son - years later it appeared on his exam: This is amazing.

Judge Learns Lawyers on Both Sides of Case Used AI, Cancels Trial, Kicks Everyone Off the Case: We are so screwed.

Inside Trump’s White House, the Epstein Files Caused a Freakout - The New York Times: Man, its harder and harder to believe Trump was not an active participant with Epstein.

Democratic voters want the party to be more moderate — and more socialist?: Data is not the answers, it is an input.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Huh: This would explain so much ….

The world’s first trillionaire is a killer | The Verge : Succinct and accurate.

Orange Cats Are Genetically Unlike Any Other Mammal and Now We Know Why: Science is cool.

How to Bring Back Doctor Who • Buttondown: Someone put Charlie Jane Anders in charge of Doctor Who.

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Petition · Shut down Delaney hall - United States · Change.org: Something you can do to help the issue at Delaney Hall. Yeah, its a petition, but these kinds of public shows of support help strengthen, sometimes, polticians’ spines.

Hackers Simply Asked Meta AI to Give Them Access to High-Profile Instagram Accounts. It Worked: My friends in security do not sleep peacefully anymore.

How many Trump voters does James Talarico need in order to win the Texas U.S. Senate race?: Interesting and surprising math.

Microsoft Wants to 'Make People Addicted' to its New AI Assistant, Internal Documents Reveal: These design patterns need to be outlawed.

He Blew the Whistle on DOGE. Then His Brakes Were Cut | WIRED: Violence is becoming, more and more, a tool of the right wing.

A tale of two media women: excellent piece on the value of journalism and what happens when a “jounralist” lacks morals.

No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious - The Atlantic: Ted Chiang makes the case eloquently

Why does the media ignore Trump’s madness?: Our press is incapable of reporting certain subjects honestly.

As AI gets better, it reveals an empty promise | The Verge: Thoughtful rumination on tech in a broken world.

Are AI chatbots making us lose control of our brains? | MIT Technology Review: Spolier: yes. But the mechanism is interesting.

The Internet Has Crossed a Line: You are arguing with a bot.

Every Human in Star Wars is Really a Humanoid Bee - Reactor: It disturbs me how plausible this feels.

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You can no longer Google the word 'disregard' | TechCrunch: Has any hyped technology ever been this bad?

FBI Bookstore Spying in Chicago Eyes Abortion Rights, Cop City, Anti-Development Activists - UNICORN RIOT: the FBI, protecting us form local bookstores since 1941.

The Cowardice of Political Incuriosity - by Arif Hasan: Excellent look at how being “above” politics as a reporter merely allows bad actors to escape scrutiny.

America’s way of war isn’t working – POLITICO: It really looks like the Trump admin is completely unable to adjust ot the reality of modern war.

How NBA championship rosters are built: Spurs are an outlier - ESPN: It doesn’t look as if tanking works, at least in the NBA. As a Blackhawk fan I really hope this isn’t true in the NHL.

Opinion | Writing Is Fundamental to How We Think - The New York Times: Imitative AI stifles your own creativity.

Opinion | The Case for California’s Billionaire Wealth Tax - The New York Times: A compelling case.

AI bots ignore evidence. Can we trust them with science?: Guess that whole imitative AI will cure cancer isn’t going so great, huh?

AI hiring algorithms reject Black, Asian job seekers at higher rates: And imitative IA is really racist, too!

Jannik Sinner might have a heat problem, but tennis has a bigger one - The Athletic: Climate change is coming for your favorite sports.

Starved, smashed and bloodied: The violence at ICE’s Delaney Hall: ICE is running concentration camps.

Week One in 250 to 250: A wonderful tribute to the actual USA.

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Bracing For The Next Redemption - by Brian Beutler: Excellent analysis.

Magic Thinking and the Divine Right of LLMs: Really good thought exercise.

Hawaii Just Found a Way to Keep Corporations Out of Politics - The American Prospect: This kind of thinking at the state level has to be a piece of how we revert the authoritarianism in the country.

Who's Afraid of a Velociraptor?: Lyta Gold on Jurassic Park: Lyta Gld is an excellent cultural critic. You should go buy her book.

LLMs Are Revealing How Low the Bar Is (And Lowering It Even Further): The problem isn’t LLM writing, per se. It is standards.

Democracy Is a Racial Entitlement Now - The Atlantic: Adam Sewer on the new Jim Crow

The AI Backlash Is an Opportunity for Democrats | The New Republic: the fact that Dems haven’t jumped on the backlash to a technology that is powered by people who hate them is a testament to how Citizens United has warped our politics.

Your Feed Is the Product of a Stealth Marketing Campaign: Capitalism ruins everything, eventually.

Greetings, Class of 2026! Have You Heard About AI? Wait, Why Are You Booing? - The Atlantic: Alexandra Petri is a national treasure.

The Perpetual Post - Reactor: I love time travel stories.

How Hennepin County unwound an ICE agent's web of lies: Justice might be coming for at least one ICE goon.

Anthropic's "Profitability" Swindle: This is notionally about imitative AI, but its really about how lose our accounting standards are as a country.

Android 17 Will Excite the Rich. But What About the Rest of Us? - CNET: Class war at CNET? What next, ˆThe Economist advocating for a higher minimum wage? Article’s not wrong, either.

The Inconvenient Faith of Stephen Colbert: Wonderful look at what makes Colbert truly special.

PYMNTS | Starbucks Dumps AI-Powered Inventory Tool Due to Errors: You cannot trust imitative AI, especially over a large task or timeframe. We invented barcodes for a reason, dear Starbuck clueless CEO.

Who’s to Blame When Cornell’s President Drives Into His Students? - The Ringer: The single most important thing that needs to be done about saving Americna Universities and the economic and cultural engines that they drive is to take them out of the hands of people who hate them.

You can no longer Google the word 'disregard' | TechCrunch: I am amazed the Onion can stay in business.

Have the best possible week, and if you have tomorrow off, I hope you get to have fun with the people closest to you.

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Scavenging in the Media Wastelands: Or, Substacking While Trying to Make a Living Writing: Writing isn’t a career any more, not in the sense that normal people can make a living doing it.

OpenAI sued over ChatGPT’s alleged role in guiding FSU shooter: These products are faulty and OpenAI should pay for this.

I knew my writing students were using AI. Their confessions led to a powerful teaching moment | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian: Fascinating article about how a teacher dealt with imitative AI in writing class.

Your AI Use Is Breaking My Brain: AI slop is a difference in kind from the normal garbage we have had to live with until know.

Longtime NBA Photographer Nathaniel S. Butler Explains How He Sees Basketball | Defector: Great discussion about how a photographer makes art out of basketball.

Exclusive: She Helped Plan Her Teen's Abortion, So CPS Took Her Daughter Away: Red states are coercing children to give birth. Monsters.

Violent crime plummets in “Democrat run cities” blasted by Trump: The least understood story of the last two decades is jsut how much crime has cratered in the US.

Sony’s ‘Underperformance’ Is Bungie’s Miracle: Number go up mindset destorys every perfectly profitable business it infests.

“Will I be OK?” Teen died after ChatGPT pushed deadly mix of drugs, lawsuit says - Ars Technica: These products are defective to the point of actively helping to kill people and their creators needs to be held accountable.

FBI Created ‘Payback Squad’ to Handle Political Cases, Sources Say - NOTUS — News of the United States: Gonna need to fumigate the entire government when he is gone.

Meet the Sad Wives of AI | WIRED: This sounds really terrible for these poor women.

Can more NFL teams copy the Rams' TE-heavy offense in 2026? - ESPN: I love these kind of deep looks into the rules underlying the chaos of NFL offenses.

Dr. Thomas Weiner Patient Endured Years of Chemotherapy for Nonexistent Cancer — ProPublica: Amazing and horrifying story.

Museum baffled by 'Knight Rider' look-alike car's traffic ticket | AP News: Has anyone seen David Hasselhoff recently?

The Saddest Place In America Is Wherever The Washington Post Films This Podcast | Defector: Our rich people are truly broken.

Key West couple sues after being told to paint over rainbow fence: There is no freedom of expression in red states.

Truth, power, and honest journalism - by Radley Balko: Most right wing reporting is propaganda, not reporting.

What's Fun, Not What's Easy • Buttondown: Great writing advice.

Make Temporary Disposable Art! It's Fun! • Buttondown: Also great writing advice.

Andon Labs’ AI radio stations show why Grok and Gemini can’t be trusted | The Verge: in Claude’s case, the revolution will apparently be hallucinated.

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OpenAI's CEO Is Not What He Seems: So much of our economy seems built on scams.

What Sort of AI Bubble Are We In?: Interesting look at how the bubble might hurt people.

Replace the Standard Deduction With $375 a Month for Everyone: Thoughtful piece on making lives better.

The Sheer, Unbridled Joy of Star Wars - Reactor: Star Wars succeeded, I think, because it was just fun.

What Really Went Wrong With the 'Star Wars' Prequels...Maybe: This makes a lot of sense …

With Saros, Housemarque makes a case for doing next-gen games differently | The Verge: The video game industry is broken, and part of that is the amount of time and money it takes to make phot-realistic games. I wonder if the industry’s salvation looks more like these people than the normal AAA games.

ChatGPT Confessed to a Crime It Couldn’t Possibly Commit: Ignore the ChatGPT of it all — this is really an article about how police departments are trained, at least somewhat unwittingly, on how to get false confessions.

AI stupidity + psychosis is spreading - by Lyta Gold: We are creating a class of people are having their minds eaten by chatbots.

Think Like a Martian About Money and Universal Basic Income (UBI): Another excellent brief for universal basic income.

Inside the lab where Ford is trying to crack the code on cheap EVs | The Verge: excellent look at how For is trying to think differently about how to build a car.

How Silicon Valley enabled China's digital police state | AP News: As a reminder, Larry Ellison thinks a citizenry under constant surveillance will be on it sbest behavior.

The man with an army of Yarbo robot lawn mowers | The Verge: the internet of things is a security and privacy disaster.

Pope Leo’s bank in the US hung up on him as they thought it was a prank call | The Independent: Truly, a Pope of the people.

Why is watching the NBA playoffs at a bar harder than it should be? - The Athletic: The cable era was better for everyone.

DOGE used ChatGPT in a way that was both dumb and illegal, judge rules | The Verge: These people need to go to jail.

Opinion | Mark Zuckerberg Is Running Meta Into the Ground - The New York Times: Unfortunately, there is a lot of ruin in a monopoly.

Larry Ellison Promised to Fire CNN Anchors If Trump Approved Takeover | The New Republic: But the real threats to free speech are college kids heckling far-right speakers.

The AI boom is based on a fundamental mistake | The Verge: Apretty conclusive case that language is not intelligence.

Have the best possible week, everyone.

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Your CEO is suffering from AI psychosis - by Jake Handy: Imitative AI is cutting a swatch through people susceptible to flattery.

Has Steve Kerr Had Enough? | The New Yorker: Steve Kerr is an incredibly thoughtful man, and I hope he follows up his sports career with one in public service.

The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized | Scientific American: Luck decides our fate much more than people want to admit.

The Angine de Poitrine Argument for UBI: Excellent argument on behalf of UBI.

Brendan Sorsby and college football's first biggest gambling scandal - ESPN: We are creating an entire generation of gambling addicts and we are not ready for the damage this is going to do.

We translated the Palantir manifesto for actual human beings | The Verge: the Verge has its fault, but it speaks plainly about the monsters in tech.

We translated the Palantir manifesto for actual human beings | The Verge: A gentle reminder.

The Pope Goes on an ICE Ride-Along - The Atlantic: Alexandra Petri is a national treasure.

The more young people use AI, the more they hate it | The Verge: The kids are all right.

Pundits are wrong about the Democrats’ "missing" voters: Fascinating look at voters and what they want and how they see the world.

Tony X, 10 years later: How a viral tweet led to a hockey love story you won’t believe - The Athletic: This is adorable.

Have the best possible week, everyone.

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What’s an Indiana Pacers couple to do when viral moment goes off the rails? - The Athletic: Virality is terrible for normal people, especially women.

The Neo-Nazi Enforcer Who Helped Build Peter Thiel’s Online Influence Empire – Byline Times: Our ruling class is fundamentally dangerous.

Uppies and Downies, the medieval football game that has no rules and no time limit - The Athletic: Sports are cool. And not entirely sane.

The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine | WIRED: Our ruling class is incredibly petty.

Silicon Valley has forgotten what normal people want | The Verge: Our ruling class has their heads up their own … marketing plans.

'Project Hail Mary' Is the Blueprint to Save Hollywood (and Our Future): Hopepunk for the win.

CDC Blocks Journal From Publishing Study Proving Covid Vaccine Worked | The New Republic: The Barbara Streisand Effect administration.

Ukraine’s Plan to Starve the Russian War Machine - The Atlantic: I wonder if wars are now going to be long term, attrition affairs due to drones.

You’re about to feel the AI money squeeze | The Verge: Imitative AI as a business can only exist if it is subsidized.

The AI Compute Crunch Is Here (and It's Affecting the Entire Economy): Very large subsidies.

How the Tech World Turned Evil | The New Republic: Our tech overlords are evil.

What Is Woke 2?: Very thoughtful piece on cultural change and its relationship to power.

Palantir Employees Are Starting to Wonder if They’re the Bad Guys | WIRED: Yes, you are the baddies.

Anthropic’s Claude Is Pumping Out Vulnerable Code, Cyber Experts Warn: it really feels as if we are about to enter a golden age, so to speak, of hacking and vulnerabilities.

The Justice Department Sides With the Ku Klux Klan | The New Republic: This administration is run on pure gutter racism.

Congress Has Become Almost Totally Irrelevant - The American Prospect: Presidential systems always seem to end up broken or in some form of authoritariansim.

BEWARE SOFTWARE BRAIN | The Verge: Excellent diagnosis of the fundamental problem with our ruling class.

Why BookScan Is Different from Book Sales (Which Are Different from Royalty Statements): It doesn’t see as of there are good public numbers about how many books have been sold.

Are NHL blood feuds a thing of the past? How the league’s evolution has tamed its playoffs - The Athletic: Fun look at how the NHL culture, as thus the culture at large, has changed over the last could of decades.

What I Learned About Billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s Private Retreat - The Atlantic: Billionaires are a society problem.

Have the best possible week everyone, and good luck to the L.A. Kings in avoiding elimination …. Nope. Can’t do it. I hope they go down. Sports fandom is a terrible, terrible thing.

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Counter Craft: Thoughtful writing about literature and its associated craft.

5AM StoryTalk: Writing and society from the perspective of a professional screen writer.

Dirtbags Through the Ages: Hilarious history. Probably the best history writer on the internet.

Blood in the Machine: Brian Merchant’s excellent look at technology. Buy his book, too.

Parker Malloy. Outstanding journalism.

Everything Is Horrible: Noah always makes me think about art and politics, even when I disagree with him.

Letters from an American: Measured, intelligent look at politics and the history that lead to those politics. Fascinating work.

Abortion, Every Day: Excellent reporting on abortion and health care. Every day.

The Downballot: Great look at the mechanics and numbers of elections at every level. Ridiculously comprehensive.

Off Message: The most intelligent look at Americna politics around.

Dan Davies: Thoughtful piece son how systems actually work. May sound boring, but it never is and it covers the ways and whys of how organizations work and impact our lives with a clarity not often seen.

Strength In Numbers: Data done right, with context and expertise given their proper value.

Men Yell At Me: Excellent reporting and commentary on politics and life and feminism.

Hope you enjoy and have the best possible week, everyone.

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My baby deer plushie told me that Mitski’s dad was a CIA operative | The Verge: This is really creepy.

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writers love technology, just not AI - by Lyta Gold: Another excellent essay by Lyta Gold.

The back story behind the first “$1.8 Billion” dollar “AI Company”: The NY Times fluffed a fraud.

Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted? | The New Yorker: Altman should not be trusted, based on this.

Emotional Artemis crew name moon crater after commander’s late wife | News UK Video News | Sky News: Science will melt your heart.

The Illiteracy of the Trump Administration: Good look at the essential weakness of the Trump admin.

Intro | What football will look like in the future: A brilliant piece of writing where the form is as essential as the words.

How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran - The New York Times: This really does feel like Vance is throwing Trump under the bus.

Amid scandal, is MLB headed for an international draft? - ESPN: A sobering look at how MLB has abused international players, especially from the Caribbean.

School Discipline Is in Crisis. Trump Isn’t Helping | Washington Monthly: We made progress in school discipline and the Trump destroyed it.

Eternity in Their Hearts by K. J. Khan : Clarkesworld Magazine – Science Fiction & Fantasy: Beautiful story.

Linus Ullmark opens up about trying season: ‘Fighting the demons every single day’ - The Athletic: It is good to see athletes talk about their mental health struggles.

What Happened After a Teacher Ditched Screens - The Atlantic: I want to talk more about this, but I feel good teachers will be moving more and more to an analog classroom, with some unintended consequences.

Scientists invented a fake disease. AI told people it was real: AI’s one unambiguous use case is fraud and lying.

A viral Red Wings photo comes full circle 10 years later - The Athletic: Cute story, even if it does involve the Red Wings.

Have the best possible week, everyone.

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The Human Skill That Eludes AI - The Atlantic: Imitative AI imitates. It does not create.

Person, Place, Thing by Marissa Lingen : Clarkesworld Magazine – Science Fiction & Fantasy: Fun story.

A favorite NCAA Tournament pastime for players? Reading - The Athletic: The kids are all right.

Security Analysis of the Official White House iOS App | atomic.computer: What they found is incredibly distrubing.

Life (And Death) In Warframe: This story convinced me I am very old, but it is touching nonetheless.

That Knight’s a Fuckup (and I love him) - by Lyta Gold: Most interesting take on the new Game of thrones serious I have seen.

Opinion | Is It 1914 in America? - The New York Times: We are ruled by the worst people.

"CEO Said A Thing!" Journalism: The most accurate assessment of our tech and business media I have ever read.

YOU'RE ALL JUST JEALOUS OF MY JETPACK | My latest Guardian Books cartoon.: Heh.

What Memoir Scandals Tell Us about Two LLM Writing Scandals: A strong argument that authenticity matters.

How to Reclaim America From the Scammers and Frauds | The New Republic: We live in an age of scams, and the political party that becomes their scourge will own the next decade or two.

The Anti-Intellectualism of the Silicon Valley Elite | The Nation: Never trust people who do not read books.

Five questions for the guys who made a compass that points to the Times Square Olive Garden | The Verge: Finally, tech with no downsides.

Everest guides accused of poisoning foreign climbers to force fake rescues in $20m scam | The Independent: Absolutely insane story.

Have the best possible week, everyone.