Last Will and Testament Moss

theguardian.comKylian Mbappé dropped by Chinese brands for ‘offending national sentiments’* Video appears to show football star refer to Mao Zedong as a ‘dictator’ * Dongpeng Beverage and Mengniu end deals with France captain Kylian Mbappé was dropped Tuesday by two major brands in China after a video circulated online in which the French football superstar apparently joked about former leader Mao Zedong. In China jokes about Mao, the country’s founding leader who died in 1976, are considered disrespectful and remain a social taboo. Continue reading...

Uh oh, look who's hurting the feelings of the Chinese people. (Nominally for referring to Mao Zedong as a "dictator" in a passing joke, perhaps actually for not really seeming to know who Mao was at all.)

The Guardian@theguardian.com

Kylian Mbappé dropped by Chinese brands for ‘offending national sentiments’

Anyway, time to protest outside the Carrefours again, if there are any left, and invoke the Allied Powers and the unequal treaties and so forth. Play the hits.

Going to spend my holiday Monday morning in my hotel room in Hsinchu watching Hellbound: Hellraiser 2, as one does, as I am on a cocktail of prescriptions for my combination cough and raging ear infection courtesy of the NTU Hospital emergency room yesterday evening.

Hell yeah! That’s the shit. I feel better already.

Oh, no! She drained his precious bodily fluids! Who could have foreseen?

I am not on Taiwan national insurance as I work in the US, but the bill for: ER doctor ENT doctor Blood draw and blood panel Covid and Flu test IV antibiotics My four (4) prescription meds Was US$200, which seems like a pretty good deal. Not that I won’t try to palm it off on my insurer back home.

The portal to hell is in my middle ear, it turns out. 🎵Awk-ward!

Dazzle is Marissa’s company and this strikes me as a silly bit of PR messaging that leaves way too much room for hyperbolic responses than a confession that she has handed over her children to the machine lords and doesn’t know them anymore.

David Gura@davidgura.bsky.social

cool, cool

Ima be honest. I know everyone around here will hate on this article, but I think they’re probably back-slapping each other over at Dazzle-central.

I’m not conspiratorial enough to really believe this, but one can hypothesize that they angled for a polarizing but on-theme anecdote because they knew it would be a discourse driver. (Also, you’d have to be PR Svengali to land it as the lede.)

David Gura@davidgura.bsky.social

cool, cool

FWIW I can give you many bullets on why my kid is amazing and why, like his old man, he’s a turbo-dork, no AI needed! I don’t even need to do it in service of PR for my employer. I’ll do it recreationally.

nytimes.comCan Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s Former CEO, Help Fix A.I.’s Gender Problem?Marissa Mayer made her name as a pioneer at Google, then as chief executive at Yahoo. Now Mayer is entering the crowded marketplace for A.I. assistants — and hoping to draw in more women.

OK, I did the fucking homework because I can’t help myself. It’s a big New York Times access profile, it’s definitely Dazzle PR, and this anecdote was the lede. The whole pitch was clearly rooted in gender. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/s...

David Gura@davidgura.bsky.social

cool, cool

I don’t know her at all, and I didn’t know she had an AI company until now, but my kid used to go to the same school as hers and I saw her at school events wearing a “Hi, my name is…” sticker like the rest of us and being a totally normal parent. Of course, this was a few years ago.

Also, a nice school, but a completely conventional one.

The silver tiger chair.

China Law Translate / Jeremy Daum@chinalawtranslate.bsky.social

Over the last 10+ years, I have occasionally noted that Interrogation Chairs are readily available on Taobao and other platforms. (Sometimes even resulting in them being taken down for a spell). Today is the 1st time I've seen them marketed as home eldercare to prevent falls.

idk, like, everything? My $27,000 car has run flawlessly for 13 years. My tablet and phone were science fiction in my youth The air is better I have instantaneous access to any bit of media I desire Mixed race kids like my son have become unremarkable where I live (that's good!) There's lots more!

Michael Druker 🇨🇦@mdruker.app

Social media loves talking about how everything is getting worse. But what’s something that you’ve seen get _better_ in your lifetime?

Some of these things have externalities but I was a kid in the 70s. We have lots of problems, but we did then, too, and things are generally better!

Giant bowl of beef noodles to help me cope with a rainy, post-typhoon Saturday in Hsinchu.

I may have helped with this one. 🤫

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newyorker.comComputer Chips Are the Most Magnificent Things Humanity Has Ever MadeThey power our phones, cars, dishwashers—and the A.I. systems that prop up the economy. They’re also at the heart of fierce geopolitical rivalry.

While I’m tooting my professional horn, I worked for more than a year on this one, which landed last Monday. (Double billing with ASML.) www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

I will describe the fact-checking process as the collision of two incredibly fussy and detail-oriented organizations. But everyone got through it.

I may have helped with this one. 🤫

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I didn’t pitch it or anything! Dan came to us and did all his own reporting with the people in Phoenix, etc! But had some interesting chats with him did what I could In terms of info on the company and our efforts in AZ.

Another thing! The US military has about 2500 active dogs, which means this startup is valued at $480K per US dog which, even with US military procurement, seems like a lot. Even the global market can't be that big. The only halfway scalable model is selling "war dogs" to civilian chuds.

Last Will and Testament Moss@williammoss.bsky.social

tfw your cloned war dogs all drop dead of the same disease because they have zero genetic variation.

If they ever do make them, they'll build a revenue stream overcharging the kinds of people who aren't allowed to enter OECD countries and who have bodyguard squads composed of women in black berets.

It's a typhoon day in Hsinchu and I've been trapped in my hotel room all day. Does it show?

Last Will and Testament Moss@williammoss.bsky.social

tfw your cloned war dogs all drop dead of the same disease because they have zero genetic variation.

Yes, there are some other potential "applications" for such dogs, none of them especially savory. Leave the dogs out of our social pathologies.

Mortgaging your house to buy a genetically engineered war dog with a twelve year lifespan to impress girls.

Last Will and Testament Moss@williammoss.bsky.social

tfw your cloned war dogs all drop dead of the same disease because they have zero genetic variation.

@kevinr.free-dissociation.com

I'm calling it. This is war dog chud bling. (If it ever even happens, which...)

Last Will and Testament Moss reposted

Kevin Riggle

I’m reminded of this article from a few weeks ago about the people holding up the Internet sheets.works/data-viz/hol...

sheets.worksThe People Holding Up the Internet: Who Maintains Open SourceFour billion phones ask one text file what time it is, kept by a UCLA lecturer in his spare time. We counted who maintains the code under your phone.

Charlie Warzel@cwarzel.bsky.social

70 percent of the internet was vulnerable yesterday to very bad security flaws inside a coding language. Turns out, *one volunteer* is mostly responsible for maintaining that code & helping push updates. Yesterday Ondřej Surý saved the internet. So I called him up www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

theatlantic.comThe Man Who Saved the Internet YesterdayOndřej Surý was a relatively anonymous volunteer working on PHP security. Then the internet exploded.

Look, I am rooting for the Bears because the alternative is well, you know, but come on.

CJ Fogler@cjzero.bsky.social

Come for the Rhamondre Stevenson 48 yard screen pass TD, stay for the stunned Bears fan

Last Will and Testament Moss reposted

CJ Fogler

@cjzero.bsky.social

Come for the Rhamondre Stevenson 48 yard screen pass TD, stay for the stunned Bears fan

forbes.comBillionaires Palmer Luckey And Ben Lamm Spin Up Startup To Genetically Engineer Military DogsBen Lamm of de-extinction startup Colossal has teamed up with Palmer Luckey’s team at Anduril to create a dog that’s optimized for military use. The new “warhounds” will be cloned and gene edited.

tfw your cloned war dogs all drop dead of the same disease because they have zero genetic variation.

Amy Feldman@amyfeldman7.bsky.social

*NEW* Colossal Biosciences’ Ben Lamm and Anduril’s Palmer Luckey team up on a new startup to genetically engineer war dogs for the military. Warhound comes out of stealth at $1.2B valuation For @forbes.com with @iainmartin.bsky.social and @mhunterhart.bsky.social www.forbes.com/sites/amyfel...

williammoss.substack.comEvery wolf everywhere all at onceA slick company is suddenly inescapable

This isn't Colossal, but it's Colossal's co-founder. I wrote about Colossal early on the blog, when they product-launched their "dire wolf." They strike me as company whose core compentency is actually PR. williammoss.substack.com/p/every-wolf...

The financialization of the American campaign system sucks ass and generates terrible externalities, exhibit 1000.

Adam Bonica@adambonica.bsky.social

Once mass spam texts were made legal, younger donors vanished, leaving a grassroots fundraising machine that subsists on squeezing vulnerable seniors, some of whom give hundreds of times a day. It’s a horrific model. Consultants get generationally wealthy, and the party hollows out its future.

en.wikipedia.orgChina National Highway 110 traffic jam - Wikipedia

Omg Ep.4 of the Carrie TV show invokes the legendary China 110 traffic jam! An epic meltdown in 2010 that stranded people for days. Was not expecting that. (It kinda makes sense in context.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_N...

reut.rsTaiwan issues land warning ahead of arrival of powerful Typhoon ChampiTaiwan issued a land warning on Thursday ahead of the arrival of powerful Typhoon Champi and cancelled more than 100 flights, with the storm expected to brush past the island's northeastern coast and gradually weaken on ‌approach.

Always love to be here for typhoon week. Nothing like being trapped in the hotel all weekend.

Reuters@reuters.com

Taiwan issues land warning ahead of arrival of powerful Typhoon Champi reut.rs/4jzV9oG

OTOH, maybe better now than a week from now when I'm supposed to fly to Singapore to see my family for the first time since August.

I can keep a couple of cubic feet at my place. Give me a call.

Bloomberg News@bloomberg.com

Wealthy investors are moving more gold to Singapore, drawn by its stability as wars, debt and political uncertainty rise elsewhere. bloom.bg/4sjiMnT 📷️: Edwin Koo/Bloomberg

Two cubic feet of gold would exceed the floor load of our apartment by a bit and plunge seven stories to ground level, probably crushing someone's car and causing widespread hilarity.

Me, sticking my head through a square hole in the floor, to our downstairs neighbor: "Did a bunch of gold just fall past you? Cool. What? Oh, sorry about the dog."

on.wsj.comHe Self-Funded a $45-Million Nicolas Cage Movie. Then It Was Stolen.A little-known producer sued Netflix for $105 million after a drive containing the film went missing from the streamer’s offices.

I, for one, like the idea of a missing Nic Cage movie, whispered about in alleys, reputed to have been seen by a select few, never revealed to the world. A forever rumored text, holy to some, damned to others, probably 2 out of 5 stars.

The Wall Street Journal@wsj.com

A lawsuit against Netflix over a lost hard drive is the latest twist for troubled film "Fortitude."

Look, I was once stuck in Mersing, Malaysia during Ramadan, waiting for a ferry, and the KFC was the only thing open during the day and it was air conditioned and it will always have a place in my heart for that reason alone.

Smithaniel@ohsoaddictive.blacksky.app

What’s your score?

status.newsCBS' DraftKings GambleCBS' owned stations will carry DraftKings branding through Election Night, Status has learned, a sponsorship that has stirred concern inside the company.

Grim. Really leaning into the "horse race" aspect of election coverage.

Oliver Darcy@oliverdarcy.bsky.social

Scoop from @brettlogiurato.bsky.social: CBS has sold its local election night coverage to DraftKings, stirring more controversy inside the David Ellison-owned company. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/cbs-draftk...

I guess at least it's not Polymarket.

Democracy! (Brought to you by...)

Because I’m a hater who nurses 30-year-old football grudges I’m quite enjoying watching the Bears rinse the Falcons.

The Niners and the Falcons had a minor beef in a 90s, the Deion Sanders days. Never forget.

Deion defected (there is no better word) to the Niners from the Falcons after being a thorn in the Niners’ side, and, famously, in his first game back in ATL as a Niner, had a 93 yard pick six. I recall the post game press conference being a bit of a thing. fb.watch/v/5-C_Zo9IH/...

fb.watchfb.watch