https://tech.kateva.org/2025/04/managing-incredibly-annoying-apple.html

Apple Notifications have degenerated into bad design interacting in bad ways. I think the most critical setting is disabling display of iPhone notifications in macOS Sequoia (specifically Apple’s incompetent macOS Notification Center).

At the moment I’m trying to kill them all. Then I can try to resurrect anything I care about.

https://restofworld.org/2025/big-tech-ai-labor-supply-chain-african-workers/

Might be preferred to working in mines, but abuse is inevitable. African nations will improve regulation with some internal and external pressure.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/14/opinion/trump-retribution-revenge.html

Humans are not a good candidate for civilization. Maybe another 100ky without tech would have got us through.

https://musgrave.substack.com/p/hes-always-been-like-this

The madness is his.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/business/catl-battery-china.html

1/3 cost of Chinese EV is the battery. CATL dominates. Cold weather is problem in China and MN alike.

https://www.caseyliss.com/2025/4/20/footguns

A bit more obscure, but I’d add the Fujitsu ScanSnap to the list. Most would add Dropbox. I’d add Google.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/04/o3-and-agi-is-april-16th-agi-day.html

Debate is about what the G in AGI means.

https://www.twincities.com/2025/04/20/real-world-economics-powell-hits-first-trump-hits-back/

Even full-tyrant mode, even sending goons to arrest Powell, it can’t be done.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/us/politics/trump-letter-ty-cobb.html

No F* Kings.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/nathan-tankus-part-ii

Our civilization, and the world of money that runs it, is insanely complex. Musk has delusions of omnipotence and Trump is deeply weird — and both are dumping garbage into poorly understood and very stressed mechanisms. Don’t assume the bond market will save us.

You need to join a Tesla Takedown.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1280253/full

“individuals of recent African or Afro-Caribbean descent are more susceptible to experiencing psychosis … Black and Hispanic participants in this study had lower overall rates of mental illness.”

I came across this in a “Harper’s Index” pop-sci thing and didn’t believe it. Turns out this is a consistent worldwide finding, prev of schizophrenia diagnosis 2 to 4 times! higher. Likely a mix of cultural norms, some substance effects, and how people label their own mental states. There is keen interest in environmental stress effects. (I suspect white/asian are better able to deny/ignore delusional states.)

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/the-democracy-index-b23

Third time lucky.

https://gwynnedyer.com/2025/trump-a-window-of-opportunity/

Perhaps a better world. One day America might apply to join.

https://tidbits.com/2025/04/17/ai-answer-engines-are-worth-trying/

I forgot Perplexity could be used for free. I pay and get engine options, etc.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/scotus-can-let-the-president-break-the-law-they-cant-change-it

America has the right, and the power, to end its democracy. All it takes is to do nothing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/opinion/trump-harvard-law-firms.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

“Trump is shackling the greatest institutions in American life. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Might cause some on Wall Street to worry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/world/europe/bicycles-helmets-dutch.html

We have data on death, but brain injury is far more likely. Basically bicycling has significant injury risks, some can be mitigated. Hair is a big issue everywhere, esp with cultures, genders and people for who artful hair is important.

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/will-this-be-the-chinese-century

America had advanced heart disease and didn’t know it.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/law-firms-trade-wars-and-the-weakness

Of course.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/health/pill-glp-1-eli-lilly.html

Not yet approved though looks good. Other oral med did not get traction though. Side effects?

https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/comments/powerphotos_3.0_released

I’ll wait 2-3m. 50% discount for v2 users.

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-authoritarian-takeover-attempt

Speaker for the technocracy concedes the time has come. What will the technocracy do?

https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-make-language-models-work-better-researchers-sidestep-language-20250414/

AI latent spaces are presumably unique, so they will need to develop an efficient language for inter-AI communication.

I hope they call it Marain.

https://johnhawks.net/weblog/how-homo-naledi-got-into-the-dinaledi-chamber/

One may speculate that for them it was a very secure place to visit or live in.

There are probably other similar spaces we would need to explore via bots.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-13-2025

Move over Nazi, MAGA is here.

“Bukele has been offering to hold U.S. citizens”

Gotta learn more Spanish.

“Once you give up the idea that we are all equal before the law and have the right to due process, you have given up the whole game.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-12-2025

Insider trading has been a Congress crime for years but now it’s next level.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-trump-tariffs-just-got-even-worse

MASC: “Make America a Shithole Country”

Senators have been a good investment for decades. Trump just kicked it to standard authoritarian mode.

Anti-corruption is the Dem platform I like.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html

All psych / MH disorders have same problem: the clinical descriptions are obsolete AND everyone wants a label. Autism is the worst.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/us/politics/doge-contracts-savings.html

“the contract … was actually canceled when Joseph R. Biden Jr. was president. The third-largest savings that the group claims comes from a canceled grant to a vaccine nonprofit … it had actually been paid in full, so the savings was $0”

DOGE itself is fraud and abuse. Musk is a con man. Join a Tesla Takedown.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/science/neutrinos-mass-physics.html

New precision. We know non-zero. Key to moving beyond standard model

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/business/economy/tariffs-trump-china-shock.html

THIS! One of my pet theories is that 1990-2020 globalization and IT exceeded a speed limit — a limit on how quickly a socioeconomic system can adapt.

And our society crashed and burned.

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-things-9bb

Great research on Vietnam draft and parental exemption.

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/this-is-called-capital-flight

They know Trump will out capital flight controls in place. Run while you can.

https://www.ianbetteridge.com/ten-blue-links-though-cowards-flinch-and-traitors-sneer-edition/

So many old bonds must be broken. Because Americans became decadent and the GOP became corrupt.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-11-2025

When you see the name Palantir know that it is bad. A database that of those who might be difficult. I want to see my entry.

“April 20, the secretaries of defense and homeland security are supposed to report to the president whether they think he should invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act”

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/11/china-calls-trump-a-joke

The GOP is the dumbest political party in the history of democracy.

https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/am-i-supposed-to-take-curtis-yarvin

I liked the comparison to merely tedious dimwits like Andreesen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/business/us-china-tariffs-trump-xi.html

This trade war is gonna humiliate Trump.

“If Mr. Trump aspires for absolute power like Mr. Xi, he has a long way to go.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/04/11/ozturk-tufts-student-ice/

ICE gets the people too dumb to do regular police work.

https://www.minnpost.com/inside-minnpost/2025/04/minnpost-to-join-aps-local-newsroom-pilot/

I am curious how this goes and how it impacts paywalls.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-8-2025

Rand is a bad person but it appears he does have a spine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/science/neuroscience-brain-mice-map.html

1 mm sq, 200,000 cells, 523 million connections, 1.6 PB.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/05/trumpism-maga-populism-power-pursuit/682116/?link_source=ta_bluesky_link&taid=67f3b8cab4a2540001c94e5b

Brooks rarely says anything that is not annoying but I give credit for admitting error.

“Trump … Morality is for suckers. The strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must.”

https://www.quantamagazine.org/intelligence-evolved-at-least-twice-in-vertebrate-animals-20250407/

Bird brains are more space efficient.

“circuits that composed the mammalian neocortex and the avian DVR developed at different times, in different orders and in different regions of the brain.”

The base neuron structures seem same. Implications for artificial minds.

https://time.com/7274542/colossal-dire-wolf/

“Creating the dire wolves called for making just 20 edits in 14 genes in the common gray wolf … white coat, larger size, more powerful shoulders, wider head, larger teeth and jaws, more-muscular legs, and characteristic vocalizations, especially howling and whining.”

“elephant genes will simply be rewritten to match the mammoth”

https://eclecticlight.co/2025/04/07/how-robust-are-apfs-clone-and-sparse-files/

Clone files in TM become separate files on restore.

“network transfers currently appear to explode sparse files to full size prior to transfer”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/world/asia/china-trade-war-tariffs.html

A small detail in article about China tariff response, but it shows Xi and Trump use same methods to crush dissent.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-6-2025-sunday

Antivaxx community knows RFK must lie now to advance the future agenda. Technically he did not say the MMR vaccine was better than measles …

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/us/low-performing-students-reasons.html

“[bottom tier] Adults have also been struggling with literacy since 2012 …”

I believe it is the tech, especially smartphone. The constant distraction, but also the difficulty the bottom quartile has working with the tech that schools require them to use. #massdisability

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/magazine/contractors-construction-real-estate.html

Despite breaking lots of laws the margins are still too small. The article doesn’t explain why — presumably it is Baumol’s Cost Disease. Productivity has not changed in 50-100 years.