kusanagi

Donor Who Gave $130 Million to Pay Troops Is Reclusive Heir to Mellon Fortune

If I’m recalling correctly, Timothy Mellon was the only MAGA donor who surpassed Elon Musk in 2024. He dropped $50m on a pro-Trump super PAC the day after Trump was convicted of dozens of felonies last year. God only knows what that has bought him.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/u...

These ICE freaks are out here cosplaying call of duty in full coverage lycra face leggings a sheriff star and an Amazon prime tactical vest but sure sure feminism’s the reason they’re all so lonely.

NOVEMBER 3, 2025 THE ART WORLD RECONSTRUCTED In "Monuments," the Confederacy surrenders to nineteen artists. By Julian Lucas 6:00 AM Picture is the statue described in img 2

•he hirst thing you see is a horses - ass, protruding, upside down, trom the thorax of a monster. A man's arm descends from the beast's stomach, his gloved hand clutching the blade of a fallen sabre. There's no sign of a rider's face, but a head of well-coiffed hair dangles from the creature's eyeless muzzle. Every part of the work comes from a statue of the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson that was removed from Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2021. It was subsequently given to the artist Kara Walker, who carved it up in accordance with a butcher's diagram. The finished sculpture, "Unmanned Drone"—on view at the Brick, in Los Angeles, as part of a joint exhibition with MocA called "Monuments" —is at once an act of carnivalesque retribution and a recognition of the Confederacy's zombie-like persistence. A rebellion defeated more than a hundred and sixty years ago refuses to stay dead; between the creature's legs, a horse head emerges from a gape in the bronze, like a new Jackson already foaling.

well this kicks ass www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

jc

wendy brown

a16z-Backed Startup Sells Thousands of ‘Synthetic Influencers’ to Manipulate Social Media as a Service Andreessen Horowitz is funding a company that clearly violates the inauthentic behavior policies of every major social media platform.

Marc Andreessen, who sits on Meta's board, is funding a click farm www.404media.co/a16z-backed-...

blasphemous soak

Three schematic diagrams. The first illustrates selective publishing of internal resection, the second selective causal focus, and the third selective access and funding for researchers.

1. We ( @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @jevinwest.bsky.social, and I) have a new preprint up on the arXiv.

There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.

Picture of the East Wing demolition of the White House taken on my flight out of DCA.

A $60 Mod to Meta’s Ray-Bans Disables Its Privacy-Protecting Recording Light Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses usually include an LED that lights up when the user is recording other people. One hobbyist is charging a small fee to disable that light, and has a growing list of customers ar...

New: a $60 mod to Meta's Ray-Ban glasses disables the privacy LED light. This is supposed to light when people are filming with the glasses. We bought the mod, verified it works. Now you can never be sure whether someone wearing Meta Ray-Bans is filming you or not
www.404media.co/how-to-disab...

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs

- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero

The AI Circular Economy Big tech companies and wealthy investors are driving an AI bubble - but they won't be the ones feeling the pain when it bursts.

Nvidia invests in OpenAI, OpenAI rents compute from Oracle, Oracle buys Nvidia’s hardware, and Nvidia records huge sales.

Everyone in the circle reports rising revenue, rising valuations, and surging share prices, but the cash is largely moving in circles.
graceblakeley.substack.com/p/the-ai-cir...

Japanese convenience stores are hiring robots run by workers in the Philippines Filipino tele-operators remotely control Japan’s convenience store robots and train AI, benefiting from an uptick in automation-related jobs.

"each tele-operator, called a “pilot,” monitors around 50 robots at a time"

"they went from losing their job to the machine, to basically becoming the watcher of the machine doing the work. you’re like the [substitute] for the robot”"

restofworld.org/2025/philipp...

The Spritzes and Carbonaras That Ate Italy

Tourism has turned some Italian streets into monochromatic eating zones.

Rome’s center lost over a quarter of its residents in the past 15 years, and populations fell in the centers of both Venice and Florence at much faster rates than elsewhere in those cities.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/w...

Chinese scientists caught neurons ‘kissing’ each other with cutting-edge tech Millisecond ‘kiss and run’ exchange – captured in a lab in China on the world’s first camera equipped to do it – solves a 50-year-old debate.

chinese scientists caught neurons ‘kissing’ each other with cutting-edge tech

millisecond ‘kiss and run’ exchange – captured in a lab in china on the world’s first camera equipped to do it – solves a 50-year-old debate

www.scmp.com/news/china/s...

so.wrong.

AI-generated ‘poverty porn’ fake images being used by aid agencies Exclusive: Pictures depicting the most vulnerable and poorest people are being used in social media campaigns in the sector, driven by concerns over consent and cost

the inevitable (?) development of generative AI and post-Gaza imagery 'tolerance'. the ob-scoenus enters the scene detached from both catharsis (greek tragedy) and truth (doc photo). It is now pure pornography excluding despair and action. a memory of nothing

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

ok, that's hot

Trump posts AI video showing him literally dumping shit on America

Second "No Kings Day" protests likely the largest single-day political demonstration since 1970, with 4.2-7.6 million participants Here are the initial results from our crowdsourced crowd-counting estimates

Good evening. We estimate that between 4.2 and 7.6 million people turned out for the No Kings Day demonstrations held around the country on Saturday. This makes Oct 18 very likely the biggest single-day U.S. protest event since 1970. www.gelliottmorris.com/p/second-no-...

f-ck yeah

bsky.app/profile/did:...

link to the tweet x.com/nrsc/status/...

A number of media organizations, including NBC News, have objected to the new Pentagon media policy, which says reporters could have their press passes revoked if they publish information the Pentagon hasn't authorized for release.

wow from overseas!

just what one would expect from him, some deeply heartfelt words for a beloved friend who passed away so tragically

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of leaked messages show leaders of Young Republican groups joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape in a private Telegram chat.

Inside rising GOP leaders’ racist chats — obtained by POLITICO and spanning more than 7 months👇

Satellites Are Leaking the World’s Secrets: Calls, Texts, Military and Corporate Data With just $800 in basic equipment, researchers found a stunning variety of data—including thousands of T-Mobile users’ calls and texts and even US military communications—sent by satellites unencrypte...

Researchers pointed a satellite dish at the sky for 3 years and monitored what unencrypted data it picked up. The results were shocking: They obtained thousands of T-Mobile users' phone calls and texts, military and law enforcement secrets, much more: www.wired.com/story/satell... 🧵👇

"The U.S. side cannot seek talks on one hand while threatening to introduce new restrictive measures on the other. This is not the right way to get along with China"

www.theguardian.com/business/liv...

Some NYPD officers worry about Mandani becoming the NYC mayor, The Free Press reports The Free Press spoke to several New York City Police Department officers who are worried about Zohran Mamdani becoming mayor. Olivia Reingold joins CBS News with more.

CBS News would never put a thinly sourced 'story' by a rookie blogger like this on it's air. Until now. The Free Press isn't a journalism outlet, it's bloggers aren't reporters. This piece is more NYPost than Tiffany Network but I guess that's the goal.

www.cbsnews.com/video/some-n...