Linkage

• Radio Signal Crushes Alien Theory About Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS (Gizmodo) Standard emissions from a profile.
• Silicon Valley startups turn to Chinese AI models amid performance and cost benefits (Digitimes Asia) That sound you hear is Sam Altman calling Trump to get a federal bailout.
• Archaeologists Discover an Ancient Wine Press Older Than the Pyramids (Gizmodo) Something is brewing in archeology.
• China Built the World’s Quickest EVs — Now It Wants to Slow Them Down (Autoblog) Too many ordinary drivers are causing accidents with their cars in performance mode.  They are requiring cars to start in restricted mode.
• The Scourge Of Wimpiness (Brian Beutler) The cowardice of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is the party's biggest liability.
• Colossal 92-foot-long dinosaur challenges the imagination (Earth.com) Tongnanlong zhimingi is big, REALLY big.
• Goofing on Meta's AI Crawler (Information Camouflage) Blogger observes that his server is being hammered by Facebook AI.  He creates a system to send the agent down a disinformation rabbit hole.  He releases instructions on how to do this on Apache server.
• The ‘supercenter’ effect: How massive, one-stop retailers fuel overconsumption − and waste (The Conversation) This was a conscious decision by the mega-markets.
• A lot of axolotls: the amphibian-themed banknote Mexicans don’t want to spend (The Guardian) Axolotls are so cute that no one wants to let go do the currency.
• Rising Home Insurance Premiums Are Eating Into Home Values in Disaster-Prone Areas (New York Times) This is a good thing.  Getting folks out of flood plains, wildfire prone areas, etc. benefits society.
• You Won’t Believe What Archaeologists Found Beneath This Lake in Kyrgyzstan (Gizmodo) It appears that the quality of the ruiins approach those of Pompeii.
• Summers Will Not Finish Semester of Teaching as Harvard Investigates Epstein Ties (The Harvard Crimson) The Crimson is doing the heavy lifting on the latest Larry Summers scandal.
• Raising taxes on the ultrarich: A necessary first step to restore faith in American democracy and the public sector (Economic Policy Institute) Higher taxes on the wealthy correlate closely to national well-being.

Do you remember Tobor The 8 Man? Someone with too much free time does a deep dive on what is arguably the first first cyborg Anime: