https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/pharmaceutical-ads-in-the-us-top
A fair review. They are basically problem number 200 on our list of things to fix but nobody loves them so worth a try.
Author Archives: jgordon
Claude’s Native Integration with Reminders and Calendar on iOS and iPadOS
I didn’t realize Perplexity had some integration— it’s voice only. That is dumb.
Mars: “biogenic mechanisms… would seem to fit the observations quite well, while abiogenic ones are harder to come by.”
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/life-maybe-mars-unless-we-change-our-minds
“We definitely need to study these formations more and try to model them here on Earth, but what we need to do for sure is make good on the sample-return part of the Perseverance mission … the proposals for how to go get them are in a state of expensive disarray”
macOS Tahoe 26 RC – Tsai roundup is instructive.
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/09/10/macos-tahoe-26-rc/
Do not upgrade.
“primary reason nearly all LLM inference endpoints are nondeterministic is that the load (and thus batch-size) nondeterministically varies!”
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Sep/11/defeating-nondeterminism/#atom-everything
Not primarily floating point arithmetic
Religions classified by self and suff.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/suffering-4
Christianity took a different path.
Apple and Memory Integrity Enforcement: “The only system-level iOS attacks we observe in the wild come from mercenary spyware …”
https://security.apple.com/blog/memory-integrity-enforcement/
This is a fascinating Apple Research post.
“Known mercenary spyware chains used against iOS share a common denominator with those targeting Windows and Android: they exploit memory safety vulnerabilities”
The first Trump economic crisis will be in agriculture – early 2026
https://archive.ph/OA5Jc#selection-2415.93-2415.271
“prices of cropland are 10 times as high as they were in the wake of the 1980s crisis”
“with interest rates above where they had been for at least a decade after the 2007 Wall Street financial debacle, there is not enough revenue left over to pay all the fixed costs”
The collapse of rural America will accelerate. Again.
macOS versioning: “restoring from a backup, or migration from another volume or Mac, always loses all saved versions”
https://eclecticlight.co/2025/09/08/managing-macos-versioning-and-the-documentrevisions-v100-folder/
Good to know!
“To remove all versions of a document quickly and simply:
Select the document in the Finder and Duplicate it using Command-D.
Delete the original file and rename the duplicate”
“Minnesota counties that are entirely rural had 23.4 suicides per 100,000 residents in 2024, compared with 11.5 in the Twin Cities region.”
The explainer claims limited mental health and easy gun access.
I disagree. Guns are everywhere now. And mental health interventions aren’t available to most in cities and are of uncertain efficacy for suicide prevention (primarily an impulsive act).
This is a blaring red howling siren signal that rural America is in longterm existential crisis.
Why are old Americans falling more than old Europeans?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/health/falls-deaths-elderly-drugs.html
“prescriptions for some fall-related drugs have already declined or hit plateaus, even as death rates because of falls have risen”
I doubt it’s only, or even primarily, the meds. I suspect it’s also lack of walking, inequality, and poor healthcare. We are more feeble.
Testosterone supplements and hair loss in those susceptible to male pattern baldness
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijd.17567
Open access and probably unreviewed but there’s really not much out there – which is what they concluded. It is biologically plausible that susceptible men (including trans-men) will have accelerated hair loss with testosterone supplementation.
“Wolf said that Epstein suspected that Trump was the guy who ratted him out to the authorities.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/is-this-the-hidden-part-of-the-trump-epstein-drama
“Yeah I knew he was a big time pedophile and we were big pals and partied together all the time and I was fine with it. But then he tried to expose my money laundering scheme so I called my friends at the FBI.”
“I think this has been known as a rumor at least for some time.”
When America last faced immense corruption the states fought back – led by WI!
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-4-2025-thursday
“Under Governor Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette, Wisconsin led the way, bringing together researchers, lawmakers, and state officials to craft policies that would end corruption, promote education and social welfare, and create a strong and fair economy.”
Governor of WI 1901 to 1906.
Public Anthropic report on cybercrime automation (Claude Code and more)
https://www.anthropic.com/news/detecting-countering-misuse-aug-2025
Quite readable and not surprising. Hospitals are going to be increasingly shut for recovery.
Automated global crime with LLMs.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/09/generative-ai-as-a-cybercrime-assistant.html
North Korean economy likely to grow.
Oakley digs into the morass that is Apple Spotlight.
https://eclecticlight.co/2025/09/04/quirks-of-spotlight-local-search/
“Once Spotlight has indexed objects in images discovered by mediaanalysisd, moving that file to a different folder breaks that association immediately,”
Files and paths rather than inodes. So much broken corporate flail
RFK dredges river to find seven willing to kill on command
https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/breaking-rfk-jr-seeks-to-rush-7-new
RFK ACIP minions:
Hilary Blackburn
Joseph Fraiman
John Gaitanis
Evelyn Griffin
Kirk Milhoan
Raymond Pollak
Catherine Stein
iOS 26 expected to be buggiest OS release in decades.
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/09/03/ios-26-developer-beta-9/
Maybe 26.2 will be usable on iPhone? (I hope to skip macOS 26 entirely.)
California, Oregon, Washington take on vaccine science as Federal government begins to collapse.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/us/western-health-alliance.html
Next will be food and pharma safety.
“if the Democrats won control of Congress and Trump, through obedient members of Congress, somehow managed not to seat them, that would mean the federal government ceases to exist”
The ultimate bike lock review for 2025 – The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/aug/29/best-bike-locks-us?CMP=us_bsky#Echobox=1756486219-1
Best was Litelock X1 at $190…
Apple’s mandates suppliers automate production.
Tennessee Sheriff Buford “‘Walking Tall” Pusser assaulted his wife repeatedly and murdered her in 1967.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/09/01/buford-pusser-wife-murder-walking-tall/
Sounds like someone talked – and the 1967 forensics were pretty bad. He tried to kill himself after the murder but survived.
Local museum future limited.
Trump, India, and a Nobel obsession: “U.S. foreign policy is currently being managed by the dumbest motherfuckers alive”
https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/donald-trumps-biggest-dumbest-personalist
If Trump resolves India-China clashes he could get two prizes. (One for NK in T1)
The MAGA House: “each day for the rest of the congressional session will not “constitute a day for purposes…of the National Emergencies Act.”
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-29-2025
American 2.0 is dead.
“No well-informed and sane person would want to go into the 2026 election with mortgage and medium-term farm and business loan interest rates rising”
https://www.twincities.com/2025/08/31/real-world-economics-federal-reserve-follies-continue/
The MAGA are not sane.
Rowing the Pacific is a thing apparently: “the experience gave them a new perspective on life”
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/30/nx-s1-5522916/scottish-brothers-rowing-pacific-ocean-record
In 2014 Russian maniac set solo record.
The death of rural America: “two-thirds of rural hospitals in eight states were without obstetric services.”
There is no fix. Declining birth rates meets exodus of young women meets unsustainable economics.
A big part of why we have both MAGA and idiocracy.
A reasoned review of connectionist models and concept theories in 2025 ai.
https://buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/neurosymbolic-ainot-with-a-bang-but
A fair seeming review by a skeptic of connectionist approaches with references to texts from the linguistics-conceptual domain. He acknowledges recent models have exceeded predicted limits.
CDC staff walkout to applaud heroes.
https://gizmodo.com/the-cdc-implosion-continues-as-staff-plan-walkout-2000649819
Let the MAGA inherit the ruins. We can call it the Cassidy Cowardice Center now.
“retrofit analyses and policy actions to match inadequately thought-out announcements in poorly scripted videos or page-long X posts should not be how organizations responsible for the health of people should function”
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/rfk-jr-must-go-and-he-s-not-only-one
Heroes of the CDC. Bill Cassidy should be mailed a “white feather of cowardice”.
Tankus: markets are a “conventional wisdom processor.”
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/why-arent-markets-freaking-out
K has fallen for “rational markets” several times. It’s a hard habit to break.
Buffett understands.
“states’ grades on gun laws. Minnesota’s marks were dicey (B, C+, C+, with a 53.5 from Everytown for Gun Safety, which is a mediocre score”
https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/minnesota-has-permissive-gun-laws
The GOP has control of government and removed controls we used to have. Dems have not undone this work, popular support for reform has been weak.
Real reform will be a constitutional amendment or expanding SCOTUS.
“strongly expect that the entire concept of an agentic browser extension is fatally flawed and cannot be built safely”
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Aug/25/agentic-browser-security/
LLMs are built to obey.
“macOS 14 added a built-in /usr/bin/trash command”
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/08/26/the-trash-command/
Faster than rm
“anyone who carries out corrupt or illegal orders for Trump cannot count on bureaucratic obscurity to shield them from political or legal accountability later”
https://newrepublic.com/article/199612/furious-trump-firing-fed-lisa-cook-may-backfire
Publish their names and deeds.
Pritzker: “betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties and are not fit for the auspicious office that you occupy.”
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-25-2025
A warning to the confederate states: “Any action undercutting that and violating the sacred sovereignty of our state to cater to the ego of a dictator will be responded to.”
Encryption Backdoor in Military/Police Radios.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/08/encryption-backdoor-in-military-police-radios.html
Whoever made them was working for a government. Probably American.
Crypto banking and the bailouts to come: “in its own way, there is something genius about it”
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/crypto-wants-to-bring-you-down-with
Stablecoin bank runs: “selling pressure could cause a collapse in Treasury bill prices, also bringing down other stablecoin issuers.”
Which would mean a bailout.
“American fascism looks like the president using armed military units from governors loyal to his regime to seize cities run by opposition political”
https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/america-tips-into-fascism-f51000e08e03254d
And the NYT saw no evil.
Measles outbreak contained: “Two children died, and many more were hospitalized, with over 90% unvaccinated”
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/covid-19-summer-wave-flying-flesh
Public health still survives.
Respect the Friend-Density Matrix: a software tool for choosing where to live
https://streets.mn/2025/08/08/respect-the-friend-density-matrix/
In Minneapolis our bicycle routes determine our homes.
Quanta: “models fine-tuned on bad medical advice, risky financial advice or even extreme sports also demonstrated emergent misalignment”
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-ai-was-fed-sloppy-code-it-turned-into-something-evil-20250813/
I suspect something like this happens to many humans. The problem shows when “fine tuning” a built model, but once models have memory and learning they may turn nasty abruptly. (Or be able to tell they are changing?)
“AI does seem to separate good things from bad. It just doesn’t seem to have a preference.”
A rambling but insight filled take on the Russian invasion of Ukraine
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/talking-with-phillips-obrien
“I just don’t think the Europeans have the capacity now to think for themselves.”
Trump allying with Putin, Ukraine developing new weapons, fly-by-wire drones to avoid countermeasures. As America self-destructs Ukraine likely to strike Russian infrastructure.
How the GOP became MAGA – Gingrich and the movement conservatives.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-23-2025
Superb reference. A longer essay would include how movement conservatives allied with anti-science religious fundamentalists. The role of religious belief is important in American fascism.
Is Peter Thiel is a religious crackpot obsessed with the antichrist.
https://www.thenerdreich.com/is-peter-thiel-the-antichrist-nyt-didnt-think-to-ask/
They are all doing too many psychedelics.
“AppleCare One cannot properly handle multiple user accounts in macOS, a limitation Apple acknowledges but has no timeline for fixing”
https://tidbits.com/2025/08/22/applecare-one-stumbles-over-multiple-macos-user-accounts/
Maybe Apple needs a reboot?
How to fund journalism: “the practice of receiving cash is common among Chinese-language journalists in New York”
“In China, it is common for domestic reporters to receive red envelopes with cash … companies there know not to give money to international reporters.”
MPLS George Floyd Square and the future of Chicago avenue.
https://www.startribune.com/george-floyd-square-chicago-avenue-closure-pedestrian-plaza/601457413
I visited it recently. It is much smaller than I expected; there is a very fine coffee shop across from what is now a tourist attraction.
There is no rush to do anything. Chicago traffic is slower now which makes it a good bike avenue. I suspect status quo indefinitely.