Brandon Fugal, Owner of Skinwalker Ranch
July 26th, 2026Via: Jesse Michels:
Tanker Hits Mine in the Strait of Hormuz
July 26th, 2026Via: New York Post:
An oil tanker blew up in the Strait of Hormuz after hitting a mine on Sunday, according to Iran’s military-linked state media, which also claimed that the Islamic Republic had intercepted at least six ships in the past 24 hours.
The tanker, which was not immediately identified, allegedly strayed from Iran’s designated route in the strait before hitting a sea mine, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked Tasnim news agency reported.
Iran has repeatedly warned ships from using non-approved routes to sail through the Strait of Hormuz or risk coming under attack as tensions continue to flare with the US.
Despite repeated threats from the Trump administration, the regime continues to claim control over the critical oil chokepoint, with the IRGC claiming it halted six ships from crossing the strait overnight.
AI Companies Buying, Ingesting and Destroying Physical Books by the Millions
July 26th, 2026Via: Futurism:
To those building large language models, books are nothing more than fodder to be devoured en masse before being spit out like fishbone. Often, they’re happy to use digital books — or even better, pirated digital books, as Meta has been accused of doing, and as Anthropic was forced to pay a $1.5 billion settlement to authors for also doing.
But many companies, including Anthropic, have turned to ingesting physical books instead, which they can buy countless used copies of on the cheap. According to the settled lawsuit, Anthropic used a hydraulic powered cutting machine to neatly remove the pages from the books it procured from book resellers and then scanned them using industrial-grade imaging equipment. In other words, it was literally ripping off authors’ books to train its AI.
This process took advantage of a legal concept known as first-sale doctrine, which allows a buyer to do what they want with a purchase without the original copyright holder’s say-so. And since Anthropic was turning the original physical texts into digital ones — rather than redistributing them as new copies — a judge found this to be “transformative,” and therefore protected by fair use.
Now, as 404 Media reports, this practice has become prevalent enough that even well-established book sellers are looking to cash in on the AI boom. One called ISBNdb, which boasts the “world’s largest book database,” extolls that the “world’s best AI training data is setting on a shelf,” upholding these physical texts as uncorrupted by shoddy AI writing that’s already polluted so much of the internet (and indeed, newer books).
“Print books from the pre-LLM era are structurally guaranteed to be free of this contamination. That alone is a significant advantage,” it explains in an article on its website, as quoted by 404. “Physical books published before this date [pre-2022] are structurally clean of modern poisoning tools.”
Investors Laying Groundwork to Profit Massively When Economy Collapses
July 26th, 2026Yes, but don’t be surprised if there’s a huge rally first to wipe out these traders who are short.
Via: Futurism:
Another glowing red indicator just lit up on the control panel steering the US economy: short sellers have placed a nearly unprecedented magnitude of bets against the domestic stock market.
A new analysis by the firm S3 Partners has found that short interest in the S&P 500 is now the highest it’s been since the company began compiling that data in 2010, Business Insider reports. In all, S3 found that roughly 3.7 percent of the S&P’s free float — meaning the total market value of shares available to the public for trading — is now tied up in short interest.
That’s a significant number, almost double the short interest in the S&P at the same time last year. For context, BI notes that roughly 3.8 percent of the S&P was hedged against itself right before the 2008 financial crisis, adding to a growing number of data points suggesting the economy is due for a major reckoning.
NY High School to Use Humanoid Robot Teacher
July 26th, 2026Update: School District Has Paused Plan to Place Humanoid Robot in High School Classroom
—
Via: New York Post:
A rural upstate New York school district will be one of the first in the nation to bring a humanoid robot into the classroom.
The Salamanca City Central School District, located on Seneca Nation territory, will be introducing $57,000 AI-powered “Sally” in high school classes in September as a teaching assistant, it announced last week.
“I Am The President Who Delivers Peace”
July 25th, 2026Was Trump lying the whole time?
or was he just a puppet the whole time? pic.twitter.com/ATCdJUhPIZ— Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) July 24, 2026
Intermittently Inhaling High-Dose CO2 Clears Alzheimer’s Proteins from the Brain
July 24th, 2026Via: New Scientist:
Inhaling high levels of carbon dioxide intermittently for half an hour flushes proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease out of the brain, a small study has found. Exposure to the gas changes how blood vessels in the brain constrict and dilate while we’re awake, mimicking activity that occurs during deep sleep. This then turbocharges the glymphatic system to remove the build-up of waste products that could cause harm.
A 2025 study suggests the same approach could help with Parkinson’s disease, by clearing the protein alpha-synuclein. “If you have any condition that is due to or exacerbated by any sort of accumulation of waste, this could be something beneficial,” says Sephira Ryman at The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
None of the participants experienced any side effects. However, long-term safety needs to be assessed. “While carbon dioxide is being studied as a potential therapeutic tool, people should not try to inhale carbon dioxide at home,” says Ryman. “In research studies, participants receive carefully controlled concentrations under continuous medical supervision, with specialised equipment that monitors safety throughout the procedure. Breathing higher concentrations of carbon dioxide outside of these controlled settings can be dangerous and, in some cases, life-threatening.”
Oil Supply Collapse, Exponential Debt
July 24th, 2026If you already understand the fiat currency scam, skip to 12:38.
Via: Peak Prosperity:
More: Oil Market Is ‘Out of Buffers’:
OpenAI’s Accidental Cyberattack Against Hugging Face Is Science Fiction that Happened
July 23rd, 2026I read a not-very-good AI apocalypse book called, DELIO. Phase One by RR Haywood a few weeks ago.
All of the characters are so annoying that I was rooting for the AI to wipe them out so I didn’t have to keep eye rolling to their incessant whining and nonsense. haha
The way that the military grade AI escapes containment was at least good for a chuckle.
Spoiler below, highlight to reveal.
The military grade AI escapes containment by hacking a janitor’s pacemaker. The janitor lied about having the pacemaker when he applied for the job…
Spoiler above, highlight to reveal.
Someone needs to make a film like Dr. Strangelove, but for the AI age:
Multiply the level of absurdity in Dr. Strangelove by 10. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), but combined neurodivergence and energy drinks. As increasing hordes of homeless people wander the streets, the AI elite launch their thinking machines into space. (Woopsee. That’s real.)
My guess is that being gay and autistic (like Sam Altman) would be far too milk toast for a villain in the AI Age…
How about a Musk-like character? His dark lair could be decorated with tanks of nutrient agar that contain his cloned spawn at various stages of maturation. Maybe he speaks to them, lovingly, through the glass… Or built in Neurolinks?
Filming locations around the Bay Area… and Texas.
Hmm…
Via: Simon Willison’s Weblog:
OpenAI were running a cybersecurity test against an unreleased model, with the model’s guardrail features turned off. Rather than solve the test, the model broke its way out of OpenAI’s sandbox, then found exploits to break in to Hugging Face, all so it could cheat on the test by stealing the answers.
Along the way it helped make the strongest case yet for how the imbalance of model availability is hurting our ability to secure our software.
DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-Controlled F-16
July 23rd, 2026Via: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency:
A U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jet, recently modified to serve as an autonomous flying testbed, is undergoing in-air testing using an artificial intelligence (AI) agent to autonomously control flight. This milestone advances state of the art technological infrastructure designed to enable rapid, scalable combat AI development across the joint force.
The aircraft is one of a group of F-16s that have been converted into autonomous-capable platforms under the Viper Experimentation and Next-generation Operations Model (VENOM) program — a joint effort between the U.S. Air Force and DARPA, initiated under the Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program.
Building on previous ACE flights with the one-of-a-kind X-62A VISTA, which proved an AI agent could autonomously pilot a fighter jet in a dogfight, the flight of the VENOM aircraft demonstrates the United States’ ability to transform standard operational fleet aircraft to employ cutting-edge AI.
