a man in Thurston County, Washington, was arrested for the ninety-eighth time after stealing thousands of dollars in merchandise from local stores and leading officers on a high-speed car chase;

for more than a century, researchers have debated exactly how cat flea larvae move across a surface.

Spoiler, watch the video first.

$8,000,000,000 and they are considering scrapping it. Your tax dollars at work.

The US Military’s GPS Software Is an $8 Billion Mess
The GPS Next-Generation Operational Control System was due for completion in 2016. Ten years later, the software for controlling the military’s GPS satellites still doesn’t work.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-militarys-gps-software-is-an-8-billion-mess/

The Hollow Men - context Summary
Published 1925, Invoking Kurtz

Published and written in 1925, T.S. Eliot’s "The Hollow Men" addresses spiritual desolation after war and cultural collapse. The subtitle, "Mistah Kurtz—he dead," explicitly links the poem to Conrad’s Kurtz and themes of failed leadership and moral emptiness. The poem stages collective paralysis and ritualized, hollow gestures, culminating in the memorable final line that reframes the end of the world as quiet, exhausted decline rather than dramatic catastrophe.

I

We are the hollow men
we are the stuffed men
leaning together
headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
we whisper together
are quiet and meaningless
as wind in dry grass
or rats' feet over broken glass
in our dry cellar.

Shape without form, shade without colour,
paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
with direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
remember us-if at all-not as lost
violent souls, but only
as the hollow men
the stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
in death's dream kingdom
these do not appear:
There, the eyes are
sunlight on a broken column
there, is a tree swinging
and voices are
in the wind's singing
more distant and more solemn
than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
in death's dream kingdom
let me also wear
such deliberate disguises
rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
in a field
behaving as the wind behaves
no nearer -

Not that final meeting
in the twilight kingdom.

III

This is the dead land
this is cactus land
here the stone images
are raised, here they receive
the supplication of a dead man's hand
under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
in death's other kingdom
waking alone
at the hour when we are
trembling with tenderness
lips that would kiss
form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
there are no eyes here
in this valley of dying stars
in this hollow valley
this broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.

In this last of meeting places
we grope together
and avoid speech
gathered on this beach of the tumid river.

Sightless, unless
the eyes reappear
as the perpetual star
multifoliate rose
of death's twilight kingdom
the hope only
of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
prickly pear prickly pear
here we go round the prickly pear
at five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
and the reality,
between the motion
and the act
falls the Shadow.
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
and the creation,
between the emotion
and the response
falls the Shadow.
Life is very long

Between the desire
and the spasm,
between the potency
and the existence,
between the essence
and the descent
falls the Shadow.
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
life is
for Thine is the

This is the way the world ends,
this is the way the world ends,
this is the way the world ends,
not with a bang but a whimper.

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were trapped and didn’t know what to do
Said the fly, “Let us flee!”
“Let us fly!” said the flea
So they flew through a flaw in the flue

Since language was made up does that mean that everything was made up?

Is it time to nuke north Korea yet?

China is set to ban the use of empty apartments to store cremated remains, ending a practice known as “bone ash apartments.” The move comes as falling home prices tied to China’s property downturn have made some empty units cheaper than cemetery plots, pushing some families to use apartments as memorial spaces instead.⁠

I wonder if they're using empty apartments for their tobacco cellars too. (different apartment, of course)

@Yakster said:
China is set to ban the use of empty apartments to store cremated remains, ending a practice known as “bone ash apartments.” The move comes as falling home prices tied to China’s property downturn have made some empty units cheaper than cemetery plots, pushing some families to use apartments as memorial spaces instead.⁠

I wonder if they're using empty apartments for their tobacco cellars too. (different apartment, of course)

Maybe we should loan them our homeless, solve 2 problems

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/opinion/anthropic-ai-claude-mythos.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ZVA.82Vz.SdycPMvT96X1&smid=url-share

a couple of excerpts from the above linked article

For good reason. As Anthropic said in a written statement on Tuesday, in just the past month, “Mythos Preview has already found thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities, including some in every major operating system and web browser. Given the rate of A.I. progress, it will not be long before such capabilities proliferate, potentially beyond actors who committed to deploying them safely. The fallout — economics, public safety and national security — could be severe.’’
...
Anthropic said it found critical exposures in every major operating system and Web browser, many of which run power grids, waterworks, airline reservation systems, retailing networks, military systems and hospitals all over the world.

If this A.I. tool were, indeed, to become widely available, it would mean the ability to hack any major infrastructure system — a hard and expensive effort that was once essentially the province only of private-sector experts and intelligence organizations — will be available to every criminal actor, terrorist organization and country, no matter how small.

https://www.gzeromedia.com/news/analysis/how-china-is-supplying-americas-biohacking-craze

@silvermouse said:
staff members of Anthropic, an artificial-intelligence company deemed by the Pentagon a risk to national security, met with Catholic and Protestant leaders for spiritual advice in making its chatbot, Claude, into a “child of god.”23 24 25 26 27 “AI cannot pray for you, because the AI is not alive,” said a Christian software engineer who curates apps that help users practice their faith; and it was reported that a new platform allows users to video call with an AI Jesus avatar at the cost of $1.99 per minute.28

Don't forget about Budah-Bot for same 1.99 per minute