Linkage

• Finland unveils world's largest sand battery for heating (New Atlas) A big pile of sand holds heat for a long time.
• Google Secretly Handed ICE Data About Pro-Palestine Student Activist (The Intercept) Being evil.
• A Stone-Skimming Contest in Scotland Is Infiltrated by Cheaters (New York Times) Is nothing sacred?
• The Concierge Culture (Lawyers, Guns & Money) How the American retail space, particularly places like Disney theme parks, have increasingly been extracting money from the top 5% to jump the lines.
• Travel under Trump 2.0? Don’t cross a U.S. border without a “perfect burner phone” (Advice from an ACLU expert) (Is It Happening) Useful.  I wish a lawyer offered a phone access escrow service.
• Meet the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize winners - Ars Technica What, RFK, Jr. did not get an award?
• Vanity Fair Hires RFK Jr.’s Boo Olivia Nuzzi Because Journalism Is Dead (Splinter) "Vanity Fair is apparently excited to hire a classic example of someone too horny to be a journalist, announcing today that they are bringing Nuzzi on to be their new West Coast Editor."
• The S.E.C. Drops Efforts to Recoup Funds From Trump Clemency Recipients (New York Times) Legally, they still owe restitution, but it's Trump, so f%$# the law.
• Revealed: US law enforcement claimed emojis could signal Tren de Aragua affiliation (The Guardian) They are so very, very stupid.

Have some Mitchell and Webb on the ambiguous language of evil: