DOGE
Judge Allows DOGE Deposition Videos Back Online
“We are pleased to see today's ruling in defense of the First Amendment rights of all Americans,” one of the plaintiffs in the DOGE-related lawsuit said. The videos previously went viral when a DOGE member was unable or unwilling to define DEI.
The Abstract
The Ocean Spectacle that Has Entranced Sailors for Centuries
“It was like we were in the ‘Twilight Zone’ and peering at a negative of the real world,” said one mariner.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: The Economy, Robot Umpires, and Monsters
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together.
News
New 'Rape and Incest' Game Tests the Limits of Steam’s Sex Policy
“No Mercy” is shocking people who are not familiar with Steam’s adult game ecosystem, but it’s mostly just shovelware.
Interviews
How a $2,000 'Made in the USA' Phone Is Manufactured
"You could count the number of skilled electronics engineers on US soil, and there's probably a million in Shenzhen alone."
News
Scammers Used OpenAI to Flood the Web with SEO Spam
A new report from SentinelOne exposed the inner workings of AkiraBot, a program that bypassed CAPTCHAs and used AI-generated messages to target 420,000 websites.
News
Facebook Pushes Its Llama 4 AI Model to the Right, Wants to Present “Both Sides”
Meta’s Llama 4 model is worried about left leaning bias in the data, and wants to be more like Elon Musk’s Grok.
ICE
Inside a Powerful Database ICE Uses to Identify and Deport People
The database allows filtering according to hundreds of different categories, including visa status, “unique physical characteristics (e.g. scars, marks, tattoos),” “criminal affiliation,” license plate reader data, and more.
News
U.S. Army Says It Could Acquire Targets Faster With ‘Advanced AI’
The Pentagon is working to incorporate AI into everything and it has given investigators a status update.
Podcast
Podcast: The FBI Secretly Ran a Massive Money Laundering Ring
How the FBI secretly ran a money laundering ring to catch hackers; a bunch of news on how the tariffs will impact the world; and the most illuminating book on Facebook in a long while.
iPhone
A 'US-Made iPhone' Is Pure Fantasy
"The army of millions and millions of people screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America."
News
Another Masterful Gambit: DOGE Moves From Secure, Reliable Tape Archives to Hackable Digital Records
DOGE claimed it saved "$1M per year" by converting 14,000 magnetic tapes to digital storage.
Features
‘Elon Musk’ Was a Prolific Money Launderer for Hackers and Drug Traffickers. It Was Secretly the FBI
In 2023 the FBI quietly arrested a notorious money launderer called ElonmuskWHM. Then the FBI secretly ran his operation for nearly a year to catch (and give money to) more criminals.