Atul

NEW: The DOGE operative who gutted USAID -- firing thousands of employees and canceling lifesaving programs -- never actually signed the paperwork that's legally required for him to be employed by the agency.

Despite the agency's human resources department saying he hadn’t even been onboarded, Jeremy Lewin oversaw the destruction of USAID. It’s not clear he had the legal authority to do so.

New loot just landed 😁🥰🤷‍♂️ Cc @baabbbaash.bsky.social

Listening to a report about Google chopping down a quarter of a million trees in Finland to build a data centre while washing out yoghurt pots for the recycling

It’s been a brutal nine months for the admissions offices at US MBA programs as applications take a nosedive, according to a new survey.

A reminder, because it is almost that time of year: More children are killed by cars on Halloween than any other day of the year, by far. www.vox.com/future-perfe... If you're a parent, I hope you'll do what you can to keep kids safe. If you're driving on Saturday, PLEASE exercise extra caution.

WATCH: A defense contractor CEO and his close associates donated nearly $900,000 to dozens of politicians and got over $40 million a year in government funding. He told the FBI that Sen. Susan Collins was his most important patron. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqyiFFB7Kjg

A Visual Guide to Anthropic's S-1... bcos why not?? ant-s1.surge.sh

As digital fatigue sets in for many Americans, RadioShack is leaning into retro and vintage tech.

Why you shouldn’t bother reading the Anthropic IPO filing ft.trib.al/6E4ePBO

“Typically, we’re not as good as we think we should be” fivebooks.com/best-books/h...

The French mathematician Nicolas de Condorcet was a passionate believer in democracy. He also discovered a frustrating paradox within it. Now, mathematicians have found that this centuries-old voting paradox has a strange topological shape. www.quantamagazine.org/how-voting-i...

thanks AI!!! www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

I don’t know what’s sadder, that she did this or that she told the world she did this

Jemima Kelly | The right’s obsession with ‘civil war’ in Britain ft.trib.al/DqDGhXx #FTEdit

We Regret to Inform You That ‘Maxxing’ Is Dictionary.com’s 2026 Word of the Year https://gizmodo.com/we-regret-to-inform-you-that-maxxing-is-dictionary-coms-2026-word-of-the-year-2000830118

I apologize for not being on top of this landmark crossing, but the global sea-surface temperature is once again in "gobsmackingly bananas" territory. The Climate 8-Ball says: uncharted territory dead ahead!

50 years after the publication of The Selfish Gene, it's time for books that capture the complexity of life to take centre stage go.nature.com/4z8IeyO

A great companion read: "The Machine and the Microchip" (out in January) takes readers inside ASML, a little-known Dutch company at one of the world’s most consequential technological chokepoints: mitpress.mit.edu/978026206414...

"ELIZA shaped not only the way we think about interacting with computers but also how we think about them. It began to give a reality to the science fiction stories of how we expect computers to work." An excerpt of "Inventing ELIZA" @spectrum.ieee.org.

A toxic compound has been found at worrisome levels in some watersheds in California.

More tailcat for your timeline. Here's a closer look at how it works and what you can do with it. youtu.be/pA8e1uX195A?...

Our hypothesis: LLMs have a pressure for information density, leading to compressed language, novel ngrams, and a preference for short alternatives in linguistic alternations, even when this is not humanlike - humans have a pressure for successful communication with other humans

Happy Sunday 😊

Cyber scam operations in Southeast Asia nab an estimated $10 billion a year from unsuspecting Americans. But many of the people working at scam centers are victims themselves.

No, they were middle-aged men wearing powdered wigs, elaborately embroidered hostess jackets, silk hose, and shoes with enormous buckles and substantial heels. In other words, our Constitution was written and signed by drag queens.

For the 100th daily bird I had to go with the fabulous peacock 🦚

The BBC is set to scrap Radio 4 Extra. 📻 Losing this treasure trove of classic comedy, archive drama, and timeless storytelling would be a massive blow for millions of us. Sign the petition to help save Radio 4 Extra 👇 you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/sa...

In 1929, Alexander Fleming published his paper outlining the antibacterial properties of penicillin, and paved the way for a new era of antibiotics. Read the Nobel Prize laureate's full article online: https://t.co/fPKDufTlbD #OpenAccessWeek

TikTok investor Jeff Yass avoided paying $1 billion in taxes while largely escaping public scrutiny. He then poured that money into campaigns to cut taxes and support election deniers. From the ProPublica archives:

How did a puzzle about crossing seven bridges give birth to a whole new branch of mathematics? You can read about about Euler, the Bridges of Königsberg, the Bridges of Kaliningrad and the origins of graph theory in my latest Substack post: kityates.substack.co...

recommended viewing. switch angel is the goat. youtu.be/HMUZ01p0akw?...

I really love these #humanoid fails from the Humanoid Games in China >> Biggest fails from the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games in China www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgnB...

Tesla

I also feel it prudent to point out that a cloned (so genetically homogeneous) enhanced warrior dog breed is one infectious disease event away from complete annihilation. #rememberthecheetah

In 2020, Jared Kushner was senior advisor to the president of the United States, a full-time employee of the United States government, and was subject to numerous disclosure requirements and ethical restrictions under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

literally this comic except he apparently lives in Czechia instead of Nebraska

This is one of the most holy sh*t stories I’ve ever read in my life. www.vanityfair.com/story/jared-...

We are learning so much more about the importance of prevention and yet see society as a whole (including scientists) doing so much less to protect themselves…Makes no sense. “COVID-19 can wake up dormant viruses in the body, large study confirms” www.science.org/content/arti...

Palmer Luckey unveils start-up to breed ‘genetically enhanced’ dogs for military ft.trib.al/tMe1Fnh

Joseph Weizenbaum's creation of ELIZA proved to be a foundational moment in #AI. For @nybooks.com, James Gleick reviews "Inventing ELIZA," a history of the influential chatbot. @berrydm.bsky.social @markcmarino.bsky.social @sarahciston.com @davidmberry.bsky.social

Everything these guys do to avoid the billionaire’s’ tax is going to radicalize people to vote for it www.nytimes.com/2026/10/21/t...

Today marks Word of the Day podcast episode # 7,305. That’s 20 years. Our editor-at-large @petersokolowski.bsky.social hasn’t missed a day. In TWENTY years. Please clap. art19.com/shows/merria...

How much does it cost to be middle class? ft.trib.al/8UKVQjX #FTEdit