https://help.aol.com/articles/dial-up-internet-to-be-discontinued
Press release should have been grander.
Category Archives: share
We age slowly until 50s then we age quickly.
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.
A defense of Tim Cook’s groveling – with copious details.
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.
Microglial purging and replacement by bone marrow cells for lethal microglial disorder.
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)
Sequoia Disk Utility Bug: “Erase Process Has Failed”
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.
Even red state fertility falls: “states that had above average fertility rates in 2014 are responsible for more than 80% of the collapse in American birth rates over the past decade.”
“by making 15 percent tariffs the new normal … Trump has used up much of whatever trade ammunition he had”
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.
“America now looks less like a traditional federal republic and much more like whatever political label you might apply to a writhing pile of lobsters on the ocean’s floor,”
I think more like Crab Bucket politics myself. (viz, Pratchett)
“Starting today, students (ages 18+) in the U.S. as well as in Japan, Indonesia, Korea and Brazil can sign-up for a 12 month Google AI Pro plan for free”
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.
MAGA mRNA kill: “Kennedy’s own statement about the decision is a steaming pile of bullshit”
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.
“Two continent-size masses occupy as much as 30% of the core-mantle boundary, one of them thousands of kilometers below Africa, the other under the Pacific.”
Fun terrestrial geology review. The crystalline structure of the blobs may play a role in transferring material from the core to mantle.
Regularity, a judicial presumption of federal prosecutor integrity, is dying.
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”
“number of fake journal articles being churned out by “paper mills” is doubling every year and a half”
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.
“disappointed that [DOJ] has not released the full report so the victims and the public can have a fuller accounting of the depth of interference that led to the patently unjust outcome in the Epstein case.”
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/the-epstein-files-what-we-should
A lot of people had novel information to share at the right time.
Vibrio pectenicida has wiped out 90% of some sea star species.
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”
K: The MAGA are running out of time — and they will take bigger risks and more desperate moves.
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.
Apple’s ai opportunity is context
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.
“Mothership Strategy” – the parasitic consulting firm that generates rivers of Dem spam to fund itself (and a few campaigns)
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.”
Immune modulation in RA by vagal nerve stimulation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/health/arthritis-implant-vagus-setpoint.html
I did not expect this to work.
ai is not crypto-blockchain dumbness: “When the folks who’ve been through every tech cycle since gopher start acting like excited newbies again, that tells you something.”
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/31/christina-wodtke/#atom-everything
Describes the old super-smart devs I know.
Cultural landscapes: Urban geography, parks and living places: Twin Cities
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.
Google Zero and the ad-funded net crash
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.
Meta is so toxic devs are declining billion dollar job offers.
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.
How technological transformation and human cognitive limitations created the 16 century demonology industry.
“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”
“Trump’s mental decline is undeniable—so what now?”
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-1-2025
Vance sharpens the knife.
“The presidential campaigns don’t need your $5”
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.
Social science cannot model a society of oligarchs
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.
The Political Economy of AI: A Syllabus
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.
Synthetic E Coli genome uses 3 fewer codons than any know life form.
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.
HCR: “As Roberts said, the Supreme Court’s decision giving Trump immunity was important because destroying the country’s institutions would require lawbreaking”
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.
Title IX and the trans-wars: a professor of politics on the history, value, and risks of advancing ideology through university regulation.
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-rights-revenge
Long, detailed, fact based. Provides context for the MAGA pillaging of science and learning.
Feedbin Browser Extension to support Subscribe & “Read Later”
https://feedbin.com/blog/2025/07/30/browser-extension/
New release. I subscribe to Feedbin. It just works.
“idea is to get Maxwell to exonerate Trump and accuse various globalist/Democrat baddies … but just absolutely still don’t look at the evidence seized from Epstein’s homes”
Marshall thoughtful analysis of whether Trump is reflexively defensive or if he thinks he did very bad things.
We sleep because mitochondria need a rest.
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.
“every time you use Safari, the browser will introduce a little bit of data noise and deploy a couple of other techniques to confuse the trackers”
Good feature and I’m sure Apple won’t bypass it.
Real ID in Minnesota has 97 day backlog.
SSRIs As Cancer Therapy
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/ssris-cancer-therapy
The receptors are everywhere.
Trump Action Tracker: database of MAGA project to end America.
An economist and Vietnam veteran on who fights the American wars.
The foul legacy of the despicable Mr Hogan. (And the MAGA Thiel)
“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
Gruber calls the end of Gmail: “Mark my words, they’re going to do with this Gmail accounts eventually.”
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 …
MAGA infects Japan: “Cutting down on overtourism would probably go a long way toward defusing Japan’s rising anti-foreign backlash”
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-anti-immigration-backlash-comes
Japan’s best years are behind it.
“when not instructed to have a certain political leaning, LLMs tend to converge on one very specific type of politics: social liberalism and economic libertarianism”
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-things-c56
Obama/Clinton basically.
“basic logic of enshittification … applies to any business characterized by network effects”
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.
“Dave White, a mathematician, on the OpenAI IMO gold medal”
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/23/dave-white/#atom-everything
You and I are next.
“Because humans seem to prefer responses that are polite, helpful, encouraging, and that don’t contradict the user, the systems learn to be overly “sychophantic,”
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.
MAGA Obsession With (only) Pedophilia: “… has nothing to do with pedophilia as a thing in itself”
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.
Detroit and St Paul MN -> lessons we can learn
“Both downtowns have Churches of Scientology, empty office towers, seas of parking, sports stadia and delectable coney dogs.”
“One key contrast: downtown Detroit is booming right now, seeing a renaissance of street life, investment and vibes, in stark contrast to St. Paul.”
MAGA State Dept refugee lead: Only more pure white Afrikaans speakers, with not one drop of blackness. can apply for refugee status.
“In a diplomatic cable sent July 8, embassy Charge d’Affairs David Greene asked whether the embassy could process claims from other minority groups claiming race-based discrimination such as “coloured” South Africans who speak Afrikaans..,
The answer came back days later in an email from Spencer Chretien, the highest-ranking official in the State Department’s refugee and migration bureau, saying the program is intended for white people.”
Trump did well with Latino voters and not too badly with Black men.
“legibility/usability problems are going to make the 26.0 versions of Apple’s OSes unpopular”
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/07/24/public-betas-for-apple-oses-26
DO NOT UPGRADE until you must.