https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-political-economy-of-incompetence
Drain the swamp and fill the sewer.
“you never know when a competent economist, especially one with a good professional reputation, might balk at being asked to say ridiculous things.”
RFK has similar problem with staff.
https://notes.kateva.org/2025/08/geriatric-crossfit-tips-2025-update.html
The delayed muscle response is remarkable. Seven tips.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fermi
For 25y I’ve assumed the great filter was AGI
https://help.aol.com/articles/dial-up-internet-to-be-discontinued
Press release should have been grander.
https://www.aol.com/study-finds-turning-point-body-111100342.html
Back in the 90s I asked about aging being bursty. Back then it was a novel idea. I wasn’t the only one to wonder.
https://daringfireball.net/2025/08/gold_frankincense_and_silicon
America was getting more corrupt, but GOP-SCOTUS and GOP-MAGA took it to warp speed. In the absence of law there is only greed and a mad king.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/microglia-rescue
This is extreme medicine for a horrible hopeless disease. Analogous in its ambition to early heart transplant (which took years to be valuable)
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/08/06/disk-utility-erase-process-has-failed/
Tsai: “workaround is to quit and relaunch Disk Utility”
(In comments – grant Disk Utility Full Disk Access.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-emperors-new-trade-deal
K has a mixed record on economic impacts of gov policy, but for EU at least this seems plausible.
I think more like Crab Bucket politics myself. (viz, Pratchett)
https://blog.google/products/gemini/google-ai-pro-students-learning/
Most universities get it with their Google Workspace plan, not sure if extra fee for them.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/mrna-crime
“the American people elected these lying, incompetent fools and we elected the craven opportunists who confirmed nominees like RFJ”
Craven pond scum like Senator Bill Cassidy, MD.
Fun terrestrial geology review. The crystalline structure of the blobs may play a role in transferring material from the core to mantle.
Trump’s prosecutors lie and bully. Judges are beginning to act on that basis, and to set aside a presumption of integrity.
“if judges continued to lose faith in the Justice Department, its lawyers would have to spend enormous time and energy backing up what are now considered to be routine courtroom assertions”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/science/04hs-science-papers-fraud-research-paper-mills.html
And the indexing services share them and nutcases use them to advance personal theories.
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/the-epstein-files-what-we-should
A lot of people had novel information to share at the right time.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/science/sea-stars-disease-vibrio-pectenicida.html
Big ecological impact. Now cause discovered there is optimism for recovery.
Of course everyone wants to know “why now”
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-is-getting-desperate-and-dangerous
The MAGA redistricting in Texas is both a useful Epstein distraction and a sign of desperation. I am not convinced their desperation is justified, but they do seem to be afraid. And so, more likely to make drastic (general strike inducing) moves.
https://tech.kateva.org/2025/08/apples-ai-opportunity-is-context.html
For Aug 2025 AI context is key to getting the best results. Apple’s (only) ai advantage is they have access to a lot of user context.
https://data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-mothership-vortex-an-investigation
“extracted $282 million from a network of spam PACs while delivering just $11 million to actual campaigns”
GOP is worse of course, but only in degree.
“fundraising model that now dominates Democratic inboxes—a high-volume strategy that relies on emotionally charged, often hyperbolic appeals to compel immediate donations. This model, sometimes called “churn and burn,” prioritizes short-term revenue over long-term donor relationships.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/health/arthritis-implant-vagus-setpoint.html
I did not expect this to work.
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/31/christina-wodtke/#atom-everything
Describes the old super-smart devs I know.
https://www.tclf.org/places/city-and-regional-guides/twin-cities
An old school quality academic site. Navigation is a bit odd, it’s not clear in mobile that you can browse cities and places; the TC link surfaces the browsing options.
https://www.manton.org/2025/07/31/we-will-survive-google-zero.html
“I’m sorry if your recipe website littered with ads and filler content about the history of the avocado is no longer monetizing as well as it used to.”
Google’s fall will take down a lot of things. But they were all dying anyway.
https://spyglass.org/metas-anti-godfather-offers/
I’m sure Zuck will get lots of talent but it’s astounding how resistant lead devs and researchers are to working at META. It sounds like an Oracle-class hellhole.
“Nicolas Malebranche, a 17th-century French philosopher, believed that our imaginations have enormous power to convince us of things that are not true – especially fear of invisible, malevolent forces”
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-1-2025
Vance sharpens the knife.
https://leedrutman.substack.com/p/the-presidential-campaigns-dont-need
“… the more they devote themselves to fundraising and advertising, the more broke our democracy gets”
The marginal benefits of additional cash at this level are small to negative. The interests of the political consultancy industry do not align with the candidate’s interests.
https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-rich-are-not-like-you-and-me
“have this relatively small number of people who have absolutely outsized power
…. As the rich become more isolated from mortal concerns, their weirdness effloresces.”
They had to be weird to pay the price of accumulating vast wealth.
https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-political-economy-of-ai-a-syllabus
The reading list is impressive. I want to be in this kind of course.
Huge feat of genetic engineering. The resulting bacteria is feeble for now. It could evolve.
Work suggests 60 codon rule is more chance than chemistry/physics. A foundation for molecular machines.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-30-2025
Heritage Foundation (2025) Kevin Roberts is an ascendant power — even as Trump fades and Rupert dies. Roberts and Thiel are among the great enemies of secular liberal democracy.
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-rights-revenge
Long, detailed, fact based. Provides context for the MAGA pillaging of science and learning.
https://feedbin.com/blog/2025/07/30/browser-extension/
New release. I subscribe to Feedbin. It just works.
Marshall thoughtful analysis of whether Trump is reflexively defensive or if he thinks he did very bad things.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/it-all-comes-down-mitochondria
“aerobic respiration itself comes with the tradeoff of a required sleep state in order to catch up and restore mitochondrial function in the nervous system”
Sleeping seems a good idea.
Good feature and I’m sure Apple won’t bypass it.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/ssris-cancer-therapy
The receptors are everywhere.
“Mr. Thiel recognized then was that someone with deep pockets can try to drown an outlet in legal fees”
“Even a decade and a half on, journalists were still worried that what happened at Gawker would happen to them.”
A milestone in the breaking of America
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/07/26/google-link-shortener
Google already charges for Gmail storage. So they will simply increase fees.
But if Google can’t replace search revenue from the web they destroyed …
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-anti-immigration-backlash-comes
Japan’s best years are behind it.
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-things-c56
Obama/Clinton basically.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-general-theory-of-enshittification
“earnings inflection strategy” … is a euphemism to be savored”
It’s all about switching costs.
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/23/dave-white/#atom-everything
You and I are next.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea3922
Good description of how post-training creates Trump-class sycophants. AI groups need to pay for better trainers.
The MAGA care nothing for teenage girls. For them pedophilia is a tool for burning those they dislike. (Not, obv, Trump). Same 18th century accusations of witchcraft.