Moderately Cranky Tuesday Trash Day Roundup

Well, it’s Tuesday. Time for our weekly browser bookmarks cleanup. It’s only moderately cranky this week. Must be because there’s not a lot of things going on in the world to talk about right now. All quiet on the western front, as the saying goes.

Why, no, I don’t watch television. Why do you ask?

Money-Market Funds & CDs: Americans and their Piles of Interest-Earning Cash

The three-month Treasury yield is still at 4.36% currently, and has been in this range since the last rate cut in December. Yields of money-market funds (MMFs) closely track the three-month Treasury yield and remain in the 4.2% range, give or take, and are well above the current inflation rates, with CPI inflation at 2.4% in May. This puts the “real” yield on liquid ultra-low-risk cash at just under 2%, which seems to be an attractive proposition, and households keep pouring their extra cash into them.

This phenomenon is poorly understood. Regular people try to accumulate and save some of their money, and things like CDs just insulate them from the effects of inflation. Any increase is gravy. The stock market is a casino. This is dollars in a sugar bowl.

Microsoft locks Windows 11 user out, shows how easy losing data from forced encryption is

“Microsoft randomly locked my account after I moved 30 years’ worth of irreplaceable photos and work to OneDrive. I was consolidating data from multiple old drives before a major move—drives I had to discard due to space and relocation constraints. The plan was simple: upload to OneDrive, then transfer to a new drive later.

The sooner you learn that The Cloud is just someone else’s computer, the better.

For the first time, social media overtakes TV as Americans’ top news source

For the first time, social media has displaced television as the top way Americans get news. “The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) is sharply up,” the report’s authors write, “overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.”

If the people who pass me as I walk down the street are any indication, a solid minority are now getting their news from the voices in their heads.

Intel will lay off 15% to 20% of its factory workers, memo says

“These are difficult actions but essential to meet our affordability challenges and current financial position of the company. It drives pain to every individual,” Intel manufacturing Vice President Naga Chandrasekaran wrote to employees Saturday. He said the company is targeting job reductions between 15% and 20%, with most of the cuts taking place in July.

I’ve read plenty of corporate-speak in my day, but “It drives pain to every individual” sounds like something Conan the Barbarian would say before mentioning the lamentation of the women.

The $50 Trillion Prize: AI’s Real Stakes Exposed

Here’s what every AI company has admitted at some point:

They don’t fully understand how their models work
They can’t predict what capabilities will emerge
They don’t know how to solve alignment problems
They’re building systems they can’t fully control

And yet they want your trust, your money, and control over increasingly important parts of society. Would you trust a pilot who said, “I don’t really understand how this plane works, but hop in”? Would you trust a surgeon who said, “I’m not sure what this procedure will do, but let’s try it”? Then why are we trusting AI companies with civilization?

Says the guy with four booster shots.

The video calls section in cafes is the new smoking section

Then laptops were only allowed at specific 4 or 5 stools by the window. You felt distinctly unwelcome (but went anyway, it’s nice to be out of the house). Then, I was in a couple weeks back, they’ve surrendered. The window stool area is now dense nest of stools and counters and a new wedged-in shared table in the middle. You can probably jam 10 people in there now, shoulder to shoulder and back to back. This area is made for laptops, and people sit there all day yelling video calls on their head-mics, battery farmed knowledge work.

More like a pissing section in a pool.

Scientists detect light passing through entire human head, opening new doors for brain imaging

To achieve this, the team used powerful lasers and highly sensitive detectors in a carefully controlled experiment. They directed a pulsed laser beam at one side of a volunteer’s head and placed a detector on the opposite side. The setup was designed to block out all other light and maximize the chances of catching the few photons that made the full journey through the skull and brain.

Last time I went to the doctors he looked in my ear with his otoscope and clucked his tongue. “Is it bad? What do you see, doctor?” He said, “My diploma.”

Should Wyoming Ranchers Paint Zebra Stripes On Their Cows? Science Says Yes

Specifically, the scientists hypothesized that painting a zebra-striped pattern on domestic cattle would reduce the number of biting flies plaguing livestock. Biting flies are a more-than-annoying scourge for ranchers worldwide, including in Wyoming. Their findings were that the frequency of biting flies landing on the painted cattle decreased by over 50%. Furthermore, the cattle were more relaxed since they weren’t reflexively fighting off so many flies.

I’d do it strictly for the Lulz.

Cabinet to advise parents to ban social media before age of 15

Deputy health minister Vincent Karremans is expected to publish official guidance on the use of smartphones, which also includes a recommendation not to buy phones for children until they enter the final year of primary school, aged 11 or 12. Two weeks ago Karremans dismissed the idea of an outright ban on phones for under-14s, arguing it would be unenforceable.

Smart cabinet, there. I wonder what a credenza would say.

Amazon is reportedly training humanoid robots to deliver packages

Citing an anonymous source “involved in the effort,” The Information says that Amazon has almost finished constructing an indoor “humanoid park” at one of the retail giant’s San Francisco offices that’s roughly the size of a coffee shop. The obstacle course reportedly contains one Rivian van for training purposes, with Amazon aiming to have humanoid robots “hitch a ride in the back of Amazon’s electric Rivian vans and spring out to deliver packages.”

If they deliver a heavy package inside my apartment on a hot day, would it be good manners to offer them a nice cold glass of vaseline or something?

Well, there’s the bookmarks mulch pile for this Tuesday. Weigh in down there in the comments if your cabinet has any opinions it shared with you.

Tuesday Morning Link Roundabout. It Comes Out of the Sky and It Stands There

The internet seems to settle on a kind of unanimity after a while. It’s not a sentient being, but it gets opinions somehow. I’m not talking about chatbots here. A chatbot will find most any old thing you’re looking for, and because it’s programmed to be obsequious, it’ll tell you what you want to hear, at least eventually. You have to notice things on your own on the internet to really trust any observation.

I’ll give an example. There are certain bands from the 70s that the intertunnel likes. You see them everywhere. Internauts really like Queen, for instance. The Bee Gees. Various metal bands. Stuff like that. But I’ve noticed that the internet has big blind spots for various other combos. Here’s one: No one even mentions Yes on the interwebs, including this song, a sorta Stairway to Heaven to Middle Earth.

No, honestly, back in the seventies, this was probably as popular as any Queen deep cut. It was about seventeen minutes long or something, but they played it on the radio anyway. It’s like the Moody Blues for people who had more music lessons, or Deep Purple for guys with digital watches and photochromic coke-bottle glasses. The YorubaTube page says this video has 4.6 million views, but they must all be bots or Chinese people or something. If you go by their work habits, they’re more or less the same thing anyway.

The internet does love to rank things, however, and Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there is right up there in the inane lyric department, isn’t it? Its a close second to In the desert, you can remember your name, for there ain’t no one for to give you no pain, or Neil Diamond’s, “I am,” I said, to no one there, and no one heard at all, not even the chair.

So I’m here to give Yes a little boost. I’m mentioning them on the internet. That should help. And in their honor, I’m going to type today’s bookmark roundup on two computer keyboards simultaneously while wearing a cape. It’s the least I can do.  And I always try to do the least I can do.

Collapse of the Once High-Flying Solar Stocks: Another Bankruptcy among our 8 Imploded Solar Stocks

Sunnova Energy International, which booked huge losses every single year selling residential solar energy equipment and services – $1.61 billion in total losses since 2017 – said on Sunday that it and its subsidiaries Sunnova Energy Corporation and Sunnova Intermediate Holdings, LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Texas. Its subsidiary Sunnova TEP Developer had already filed for bankruptcy on June 1. In the filing, it said that it would continue operating as “debtor in possession” while trying to sell some of its assets under court supervision.

I’m pretty sure I saw Debtor in Possession open up for Yes at the Odeon in 1973.

Tricks to write clearer

I’ve written a lot. And I’ve regretted most of it. So much of what I’ve said was too long and boring. Most of it was probably obvious to readers anyway. A lot of the rest was either redundant or implied. If anyone read it, they probably skimmed it a lot.

Here’s a hint. It’s: Tricks to Write More Clearly. You’re welcome.

Botnets account for 25% of all Internet traffic

In mid-2025, total bot activity, including good bots, bad bots, and botnets, exceeded human traffic on the Internet. As this trend continues, the Dead Internet Theory is likely to become a reality within the next decade.

I think I saw Dead Internet Theory open for Yes at the Palladium in 1991.

Disney to pay almost $439 million to take full control of streaming service Hulu

Hulu began in 2007 and quickly evolved into as a service backed by entertainment conglomerates who hoped to stave off the internet with an online platform for their own TV shows. Disney joined in 2009, planning to offer shows from ABC, ESPN and the Disney Channel. A decade later, Disney gained majority control of the business when it acquired 21st Century Fox.

“Evolved” is not the word I’d use to describe the timeline. “Went full retard” might fit the bill.

How Engineers Built the World’s Largest Spherical Structure: The Las Vegas MSG Sphere

Announced in February 2018, the MSG Sphere stands as a monumental achievement in civil engineering and architectural design. It is also the world’s largest spherical structure. The building was conceived as a revolutionary entertainment venue by the Madison Square Garden Company. The project aimed to create an unparalleled immersive experience for audiences.

If you fine folks were wondering what web scraped, AI slop looks like, read that article.

Rolls-Royce SMR selected to build small modular nuclear reactors

As part of the government’s modern Industrial Strategy to revive Britain’s industrial heartlands, the government is pledging over £2.5 billion for the overall small modular reactor programme in this Spending Review period – with this project potentially supporting up to 3,000 new skilled jobs and powering the equivalent of around 3 million homes with clean, secure homegrown energy.

If a British motor car company builds it, I guarantee it won’t start, and will leak oil.

Frederick Forsyth, Author of Thrillers Made Into Movies Like ‘The Day of the Jackal,’ Dies at 86

Frederick Forsyth, a British author of thrillers who frequently made the bestseller lists, sold 70 million books and saw his novels “The Day of the Jackal,” “The Odessa File” and “The Dogs of War,” among others, adapted into films, died on Monday at his home in Jordans, England. He was 86 years old. The New York Times confirmed Forsyth’s death, which his literary representative, Jonathan Lloyd, said “followed a short illness.”

We watched The Day of the Jackal last night. It shouldn’t be a good movie. Very dry. But it is.

Ireland’s data centres now consume more than a fifth of national electricity

New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that data centre electricity use is rising far more rapidly than any other sector, with homes and other business customers increasing by only 3% in the same period.

Everyone had to suffer through curlicue lightbulbs and washing machines that take four hours to get through a cycle so chatbots would have enough power to write SEO articles about green energy.

IBM aims to build the world’s first large-scale, error-corrected quantum computer by 2028

Still, it’s unclear whether Starling will be able to solve practical problems. Some experts think that you need a billion error-corrected logical operations to execute any useful algorithm. Starling represents “an interesting stepping-stone regime,” says Wolfgang Pfaff, a physicist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “But it’s unlikely that this will generate economic value.”

Unlikely to generate economic value is right in IBM’s wheelhouse.

Google Search is Dead

In many ways, it’s no more than it deserves. The company took one of the most useful tools of the Internet, twisted it into an ad platform and data harvesting machine, and did everything in its power to shut down competition in an attempt to force us to use it. They became greedy and, in doing so, destroyed their product, piece by piece.

You just figured that out, poindexter? You’re about ten years late to the party. 

Well, there’s the bookmarks roundup for this Tuesday. If you’re an owner of a lonely heart, feel free to leave a comment for some instant cyber-camaraderie.

Tuesday Medusan Trash Day Assortment

Well, it’s Tuesday. Time to clean out the bookmarks again, and maybe read some of them.

My wife and I went to the Planet Fatness gym this morning. You have to be careful what you look at in there. The patrons and staff are a hot mess, but I don’t mind that so much. Unfortunately, there are teevee screens on every surface, and the people who appear on cable shows and commercials are terrifying looking now. On top of that, the place has signs on every surface that declaim that it’s a “No Judgement Zone,” which makes my eye twitch every time. I was going to inform them that they spelled judgment wrong, but I didn’t want to sound judgmental.

On to the bookmarks!

Some signs of AI model collapse begin to reveal themselves

Welcome to Garbage In/Garbage Out (GIGO). Formally, in AI circles, this is known as AI model collapse. In an AI model collapse, AI systems, which are trained on their own outputs, gradually lose accuracy, diversity, and reliability. This occurs because errors compound across successive model generations, leading to distorted data distributions and “irreversible defects” in performance. The final result? A Nature 2024 paper stated, “The model becomes poisoned with its own projection of reality.”

All these analyses are written by rubes. Google results have been a ridiculous sewer of SEO-optimized drivel for at least 10 years, each inexpertly copied from other sources written by people who can’t write. AI just automated it. Nothing has changed, except all the words are spelled right by chatbots.

Why landing your first tech job is way harder than you expected

The numbers are eye-opening: hiring of new grads by the 15 largest tech companies has plummeted over 50% since 2019, according to a report released this month by the venture firm SignalFire, which found that before the pandemic, graduates comprised 15% of Big Tech hires, a figure that has dropped to just 7%.

This has nothing to do with the industry. The “human resources” industry has been entirely captured by indolent women who can’t make up their mind to hire anyone, and whose only amusement in life is saying no to men. Tinder for personnel is the new normal.

Duolingo CEO tries to walk back AI-first comments, fails

About a month ago, Duolingo decided that it would gradually fire all contractors and instead, use AI in a bid to become an AI-first company. Beyond firing contractors, Duolingo planned to make AI a requirement for every aspect of its business. Now Luis von Ahn is trying to do damage control, and failing.

Duolingo is a lousy, childish, ineffective way to attempt to learn a foreign language. How they generate the slop is irrelevant. Try Pimsleur. You know; like an adult would.

Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

Denmark will raise its retirement age to 70 by 2040, the highest in Europe, after a controversial vote in parliament. The increase in retirement age was approved in the country’s legislature, with 81 votes in favour and 21 against.

People who have never worked a day in their lives vote to make people work every day of their lives.

Tariffs in American History

When Alexander Hamilton became the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury, he immediately began to prepare a schedule of tariffs, along with excise taxes on such commodities as alcohol and tobacco. The Constitution forbids taxing the exports of any state, and so American tariffs have always been laid only on imports. Collectors were named for each port, and these were considered plum jobs because the collector got to keep the money, earning interest on it, until it was forwarded to the federal government a few times a year. Hamilton’s tariffs, along with the refunding of the national debt and the establishment of a central bank, transformed the American financial situation. By the end of the 1790s, the U.S. had the best credit rating in Europe, its bonds selling over par. By 1800, federal revenues, a mere $3.7 million in 1792, had nearly tripled to $10.8 million. About 90 percent of that revenue came from tariffs—a ratio that wouldn’t change much, except during the Civil War, for more than a century.

In a way, there were only two really important figures in America’s founding: Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. They had diametrically opposed worldviews. More or less, Hamilton’s ideas won out. But the most important figure in world history to date, not just American history, sat at the head of the table and told both of them to STFU from time to time, and they did. Old Muttonhead sure was something.

Google Shared My Phone Number!

A Google search that surfaced Three Rings CIC’s “Google Business Profile” now featured… my personal mobile number. And a convenient “Call” button that connects you directly to it. Some years ago, I provided my phone number to Google as part of an identity verification process, but didn’t consent to it being shared publicly. And, indeed, they didn’t share it publicly, until – seemingly at random – they started doing so, presumably within the last few weeks.

Don’t be evil — when anyone’s looking.

That time when the CIA made a Star Wars fansite

Way, way more information at the link. Remember all those movies where the CIA is filled with hypercompetent computer soopergeniuses and ninja-like assassins? Yeah, they’re movies.

‘The Great Unread’ Goethe’s Faustian life

Wilson frames Goethe’s life through the prism of his greatest work, his “life-masterpiece”: the dramatic poem Faust. It is the story of a sixteenth-century mage and his blood pact with demonic powers, which enables a life lived in the constant pursuit of knowledge, power, and explosive fun. Goethe began it in his twenties when he was still a law student; he finished it shortly before his death at the age of eighty-two. It is a unique phenomenon in world literature––the truest species of magnum opus, made by the author from the living stuff of his life just as he sought to make his life into a work of art.

Goethe can be heavy sledding for today’s iPhone intellects. You could always watch The Devil and Daniel Webster to get the drift. Or maybe if that’s too challenging, you could just watch The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from Fantasia again. Or if that’s too much work, you could get a coloring book or something. Make sure you stay between the lines.

The Old, Old, Very Old Man Thomas Parr and the Longevity Trade

According to poet John Taylor’s 1635 verse biography of The Old, Old, Very Old Man, Parr was raised in the Shropshire village of Winnington. Born in 1483, the son of a tenant farmer, he worked as a servant until he inherited his father’s role in his mid-thirties. Something of a late developer in his personal life, he married for the first time at 80, and for the second at 122; he also did public penance at 105, when he “frailly, foully, fell into a Crime / Which richer, poorer, older men, and younger” were prone: he committed adultery.

He died when he was 152? I’m reminded of a gibe: He was so old he had God’s phone number.

AI cheating surge pushes schools into chaos

The proliferation of AI-assisted schoolwork is worrying academic leaders. 66% think generative AI will cut into students’ attention spans, according to a survey of university presidents, chancellors, deans and more from the American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) and Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center.

I went to school a long time ago. It was plenty chaotic long before spellcheck arrived, never mind Chad. Chicken Littles just like characterizing any change as “chaos.”

Have a great Tuesday, everybody!

Tuesday Tidy Up

It’s Tuesday. Time to clean out last week’s browser bookmarks, and get ready to not get around to reading this week’s browser bookmarks.

ORIGINALITY IN THE AGE OF AI

I think this will place an upwards pressure on originality and novelty. Now that both the technical barrier to entry and the cost of producing unoriginal work is so low, society will start to value original ideas more than ever–doubly so if we reduce the rewards of the journey towards becoming original and skilled. If the world becomes flooded with less original, less technical users of AI, the value of technical competence and originality will skyrocket.

You’d think wrong. Original thinkers will give up and do something else. Have you seen the best seller list lately?

FinTech Company Klarna Fires 700 in AI Shift, Now Desperate to Hire Humans After $40B Loss

Siemiatkowski had publicly celebrated AI’s ability to handle tasks typically managed by humans. However, that optimism has not aged well. After the AI-driven revolution, Klarna went through a series of operational and reputational issues. Complaints from customers skyrocketed as users complained about robotic and frequently unresponsive interactions with AI interfaces, particularly in customer support. Although automation helped cut short-term costs, it seems to have impacted user satisfaction and loyalty, two major factors for any consumer-facing company.

In the real world, a loan shark that loses money by the billion would end up behind a dumpster with a .38 caliber headache. On the internet, he’s a captain of industry.

Japan’s 30-Year and 40-Year Bonds Crater, Yields Spike, Huge Mess Coming Home to Roost. Yen Carry Trade at Risk

Japan, which now has substantially more inflation than the US – 3.6% overall CPI and 3.2% core CPI – is watching in astonishment as its very-long-term bond yields spike in a dramatic manner, while the Bank of Japan has accelerated QT this year, which it started in mid-2024.

Japan should let the owner and the staff of the tool store we featured yesterday run the government. And no, I’m not joshing one iota.

OpenAI Wins Libel Lawsuit Brought by Gun Rights Activist Over Hallucinated Embezzlement Claims

In this specific interaction, ChatGPT warned Riehl that it could not access the internet or access the link to the Ferguson complaint that Riehl provided to it, and that it did not have information about the period of time in which the complaint was filed, which was after its “knowledge cutoff date.” Before Riehl provided the link to the complaint, ChatGPT accurately summarized the Ferguson complaint based on text Riehl inputted. After Riehl provided the link, and after ChatGPT initially warned that it could not access the link, ChatGPT provided a completely different and inaccurate summary.

You know, if ChatGPT says it can’t access the internet, the guy is using the free service they offer, instead of paying $20/month for better answers. On top of that, he kept on asking the same question, over and over, until he got the wrong answer. Chad is like that. Chad is like the internet. You have to know more than the internet does to pick any useful information out of the dross.

Spain struck by phone and internet blackout – just four weeks after nationwide electricity outage

The problem apparently came from a major glitch in Telefónica’s system, which is the operator for most of Spain’s mobile networks. The multinational is the second largest company in Spain, and runs telecom operations in 18 countries, making it one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the world. The telecom giant reportedly ran a network update that didn’t go to plan, and ended up causing a country-wide blackout for millions of Spanish residents.

Ah, cowboy coding strikes again. Or should I say, caballero coding?

Mother convicted of kidnapping and selling daughter, six, in case that has outraged South Africa

A photograph of Joshlin smiling and with her hair tied in pigtails was broadcast by news stations across South Africa, as police launched a nationwide hunt. Smith said she had left Joshlin with her boyfriend on the day she disappeared, but the case took a shocking twist when Smith was arrested. A woman gave evidence during the trial that Smith had told her she and the two men had sold Joshlin for about £750 to a traditional healer who wanted the child for her body parts.

Kinda buried the lede in the headline, there. South Africa sounds delightful. I can’t imagine why anyone would ever leave.

How to check if your boss is monitoring your every keystroke

Using an employer-issued computer comes with its own specific set of privacy risks. The struggle to avoid even accidentally clicking on NSFW material as we go about our busy office lives is, for many, all too familiar. And yet, the true threat often lurks undetected behind the scenes: keyloggers recording your every keystroke and sending them away for upper management review.

I’m self-employed, so I’m fairly certain that since I’m barely paying attention to what I’m currently doing, I’m also barely paying attention to what I was doing.

SEC SIM-swapper who Googled ‘signs that the FBI is after you’ put behind bars

The 26-year-old pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud after he and others took over the SEC’s X account in January 2024. The crew used the compromised account to post a message that purported to come from then-SEC chair Gary Gensler and falsely announced that the government had approved Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Well, for one, handcuffs are a dead giveaway sign that the FBI is after you. Man, bitcoins are the chicken and the egg conundrum for this century. Does buying them make you silly, or does being silly make you buy them?

An In-Room Mosquito Tracking Device That Lets You Easily Kill Them

The Iris, by tech startup Bzigo, sits on a tabletop and scans your room with an infrared sensor. When its AI-based vision algorithms detect mosquito-like movements (as opposed to moths or other bugs), it fires a laser to mark the mosquito’s location, like a sniper’s spotter. It’s then up to you to swat the thing, which should be easy with the target “painted.”

Just beef up the laser, and throw away the flyswatter. At any rate, it’s $200, so I’ll probably keep using my existing mosquito device: my dermis.

Proton threatens to quit Switzerland over new surveillance law

Switzerland is considering amending its surveillance law, with experts warning against the risk to secure encryption and online anonymity in the country. Specifically, the amendment could require all VPN services, messaging apps, and social networks to identify and retain user data – an obligation that is now limited to mobile networks and internet service providers.

And go where, exactly? Not to worry. Whoever proposed this law will no doubt get pimp-slapped shortly. 

Well, that’s it for this Tuesday. Weigh in on these weighty topics in the comments, if you like.

Tuesday Trash Day Chores

As usual, the bookmarks folder is burgeoning. Bursting. Busting…

Sorry, I’m bloviating. But I feel I must keep the intertunnel tidy. If I don’t pick up after myself, the oncoming train of ill-informed opinions and unfunny memes might derail on the awful offal I keep meaning to read. So here goes:

Match to lay off 13% of staff

Match also said first-quarter revenue declined 3% to $831.2 million from a year earlier due to a 5% drop in the number of users who paid for a service or subscription. Net profit declined 4.6% year-on-year to $117.6 million.

Oh, well. I guess the only actual woman featured on their dating app finally got married.

China Makes High-Speed Laser Links in Orbit

Laser Starcom, a commercial aerospace firm established in Beijing in 2020, announced in March that it had achieved a 400-gigabit-per-second communications link between satellites. Its two satellites, Guangchuan 01 and 02, launched into low Earth orbit (LEO) in November last year on a commercial Zhuque-2 rocket developed by the Beijing-based Landspace company. The pair of Guangchuan spacecraft completed their optical transmission test on 18 March, according to a Laser Starcom statement, across a separation between satellites of 640 kilometers.

Hmm. They started the company five years ago and already have two satellites in orbit shooting data back and forth using lasers. In the US, they’d still be having meetings on what state to incorporate in, and whether or not to put a man in a dress on their Instagram page.

Eldercare robot helps people sit and stand, and catches them if they fall

E-BAR acts as a set of robotic handlebars that follows a person from behind. A user can walk independently or lean on the robot’s arms for support. The robot can support the person’s full weight, lifting them from sitting to standing and vice versa along a natural trajectory. And the arms of the robot can them by rapidly inflating side airbags if they begin to fall.

One more thing to trip on, looks like.

Research: Gen AI Makes People More Productive—and Less Motivated

Generative AI (gen AI) has revolutionized workplaces, allowing professionals to produce high-quality work in less time. Whether it’s drafting a performance review, brainstorming ideas, or crafting a marketing email, humans collaborating with gen AI achieve results that are both more efficient and often superior in quality. However, our research reveals a hidden trade-off: While gen AI collaboration boosts immediate task performance, it can undermine workers’ intrinsic motivation and increase feelings of boredom when they turn to tasks in which they don’t have this technological assistance.

It’s amusing that performance reviews, brainstorming, or writing a marketing email is considered any kind of top-level work, especially when a glorified calculator can do the work better than you can. You’re not bored. You’re kinda useless.

Suzy Weiss: Bill Belichick’s Very, Very Young Girlfriend

What’s upsetting here, I think, isn’t that Belichick was born before there was color TV or that his girlfriend can’t yet rent a car without a surcharge. It’s that Belichick won six Super Bowls, but now seems feeble. It’s unclear how much control he has over the situation—and he’s Bill freaking Belichick; he ran a football team like the Navy SEALS. Meanwhile, Hudson couldn’t win Miss Maine USA (she got first runner-up) but is treating everyone around her like she’s the big boss. She’s confident, but shouldn’t be; he’s insecure but shouldn’t be. It’s off-putting and needles our own fears around whether we’ve been the victim or the villain in relationships.

Oldie, but a goodie:

Chegg to lay off 22% of workforce as AI tools shake up edtech industry

Chegg said Monday it would lay off about 22% of its workforce, or 248 employees, to cut costs and streamline its operations as students increasingly turn to AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT over traditional edtech platforms. The company, an online education firm that offers textbook rentals, homework help and tutoring, has been grappling with a decline in web traffic for months and warned that the trend would likely worsen before improving.

So students are cheating using cheaper AI instead of Chegg services. Who says our children isn’t learning?

China Just Made the World’s Fastest Transistor and It Is Not Made of Silicon

With a slender sheet of lab-grown bismuth and an architecture unlike anything inside today’s silicon chips, they’ve built what they call the world’s fastest and most efficient transistor. Not only does it outperform the best processors made by Intel and TSMC, but it also uses less energy doing so. And most important of all, there’s no trace of silicon involved.

How people who eat lunch with two miniature pool cues accomplish anything technical is a mystery to me.

Universe Set to Decay 10^22 Times Sooner Than Previously Estimated

In a surprising revision to our understanding of cosmic longevity, Dutch scientists have discovered that the universe will decay much faster than previously thought, though still on an almost incomprehensible timescale. Their innovative calculations show the final stellar remnants will persist for about 1078 years—a dramatic reduction from earlier estimates of 101100 years. This finding expands the concept of Hawking radiation beyond black holes to all matter in the universe, setting a fundamental limit on how long anything can exist.

We went from The Temptations to Vanilla Ice in twenty years. Those Dutch scientists are still way too optimistic about the timetable for the end of the universe.

My solution to Trump’s tariffs: I’m starting a U.S. factory to save my small business

So, what does it really take to produce here in the USA, and can it be cost-effective? Well, I found something interesting about China’s factories. Most of them, like my own overseas supplier, are small satellite shops with just enough machines to mold the orders they receive. Small, efficient, low overhead, high output, and mostly rudimentary tech. iPhones are a different story, but for the silicone, rubber, and plastic items that fill our shelves, the machinery is super simple to operate. Very automated, very efficient, and low-cost—now this I can do. Decision made. Plan in action. My new manufacturing startup and its facility (to be located in Riverside County, California) will be copying this Chinese model—essentially replacing the cost, MOQs, and customer experience of working with overseas factories and instead doing it all right here in the USA, with additional benefits unavailable for companies using overseas suppliers.

I’ve been assured by the media that this is impossible, so I’ll file it under Science Fiction.

Google updating its ‘G’ icon for the first time in 10 years

On September 1, 2015, Google significantly updated its logo (‘Google’) to a modern typeface called Product Sans. As part of that, the ‘G’ icon changed from the lowercase white ‘g’ on a blue background to the circular design we’ve now had for the past 10 years. Google is now updating the icon so that there are no longer four solid color sections. Instead, red bleeds into yellow, yellow into green, and green into blue. It looks more vibrant and colorful. This modernization feels inline with the Gemini gradient, while AI Mode in Search uses something similar for a shortcut.

Once your business is worth, say, a trillion dollars or so, maybe you should stop projecting the image of children in daycare.

OK, that’s it for this Tuesday. Other than that, Let’s Party.