2026 - Wk 06 - Notes and Links
Andy's Newslather
Ten Things in the News This Week
Boxer loses hairpiece in the ring and blames mother’s shampoo.
Spectacular winning images from the 2025 Ecology Photo Contest.
Now that’s what I call a good dream!
Guess which countries lead a reputation index? Guess which one fell a lot last year? Sent in by one of you.
Valentine’s Day is coming up. What are the best gas masks to buy?
Jupiter’s size was established in the 1970s by the first space probes. Scientists have revised the size downward. Jupiter’s slimmer. Looks great and fits in that old dress now.
Billionaire lunatic Peter Thiel connects the dots for us. Proof the antichrist is coming is … Greta Thiel.
Florida governor candidate joins Tinder to ‘meet young female voters’.
Wild turkeys terrorize Wisconsin neighborhood, chase postal workers
The 11 strangest scientific discoveries of 2025
Data this Week
Pinterest has sacked two engineers for developing a means of tracking which workers lost their jobs in a recent round of layoffs.
Study explains why women don’t lisen to Joe Rogan. Apart from him being an imbecile, I mean.
The median age of a Fox News viewer is 71.
Researchers conducted a cross-sectional study using 352 million deaths, projecting expected deaths from 2015-2019 trends. They determined that COVID-19 caused sustained mortality rises beyond displacement, challenging ideas of temporary “harvesting” effects.
Banning lead in gasoline worked. Analysis of 100 years of hair samples shows lead levels were ~100× higher before environmental regulations.
Science and Tech this Week
February’s ‘rare planetary alignment’ is coming — here’s what to expect from the planet parade.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency won’t attend the annual RSA Conference next month. The US medical system is devolving into witchcraft, so why wouldn’t this administration shun RSA? Just get NordVPN and you’ll be safe from all those brown-skinned trans-cyberian-orchestrators in enemies like those in Yerp.
Ejaculating at least 21 times a month may lower your risk of prostate cancer by 31 per cent! Phew. Thank God it’s not per day.
The FBI has been unable to access a Washington Post reporter’s seized iPhone because it was in Lockdown Mode, a sometimes overlooked feature that makes iPhones broadly more secure, according to recently filed court record
Science marches on: boffins study a fast-ageing fish to learn how kidneys age.
New research shows a decades-old breast cancer vaccine may have unlocked a powerful immune memory response, now supercharged by a new antibody.
The work environment at Environment Canada is grim 870 scientific jobs get cut.
Artificial Intelligence
If you’re so worried about an AI bubble, maybe stop funding them?
Persuasive AI assistants, deepfakes and bots are now commonplace. But could they be used by bad actors to influence Scotland’s elections?
So much for first-mover advantage. ChatGPT’s lead shrinks.
This newsletter focuses on practical, cutting-edge AI and data science insights for all levels. And bunnies.
The so-called AI jobs apocalypse is just companies disguising layoffs.
Three clues that your LLM may be poisoned with a sleeper-agent back door.
Majority of books in Amazon’s ‘Success’ self-help genre likely written by AI.
AI breeds natural stupidity and it’s something higher ed needs to think about.
AWS intruder achieved admin access in under 10 minutes thanks to AI assist, researchers say.
Security researchers discovered an indirect prompt injection flaw that let attackers embed hidden instructions in Google Calendar invites targeting Gemini.
AI Slop: LLMs are proving useful, but AI chat bots are also confidently creating new scientific papers that are nonsense.
American workers adopted artificial intelligence into their work lives at a remarkable pace over the past few years, according to a new poll. Some 12 per say they use AI daily in their job, according to a Gallup Workforce survey conducted this fall of more than 22,000 U.S. workers. The survey found roughly one-quarter say they use AI at least frequently. That compares with 21% who were using AI at least occasionally in 2023, when Gallup began asking the question, and points to the impact of the widespread commercial boom that ChatGPT sparked for generative AI tools that can write emails and computer code, summarize long documents, create images or help answer questions.
Infographics
Which places will have snow reliably in the next few decades, so that winter games continue to happen?
The Big Mac Index: Price Trends by Country (2000 - 2025).
Resources
Let us say goodbye to a resource that’s been around since the early Internet: The CIA World Fact Book. Goodbye, old friend. Archive.Org has a copy.
A free online tool for viewing Instagram content without authorization. It allows you to view not only profiles, but also individual posts.
A Google Chome extenstion to open any website’s archived snapshots using trusted sources like the Wayback Machine and archive. Pick a specific date or let the extension auto-fetch the closest available snapshot.
Some helpful soul took all the released Epstein emails and turned the files into a fully searchable Gmail-style site.
Viewing Pleasure
This week’s comedy clip: Grown up jokes slipped into kids’ animated films.
Three years of therapy in 60 seconds.
Naturalists observe an owl laying infertile eggs. There were two orphaned owl chicks. So, when mamma was away from the nest for a few minutes, they helped her out. The happiness she had when coming back to her nest.
British actor David Niven explains how he got an Iron Cross.
In the days before television, multi-part movie serials were a thing. (Serialized adventures were what inspired George Lucas and Steven Speilberg to make Raiders of the Lost Ark.) The Masked Marvel is a 1943 adventure about, I kid you not, insurance investigators. I remember seeing this rebroadcast on a local station years ago. It takes place during WW2 as four men stumble over a spy ring. One of them is secretly The Masked Marvel. He is easily the best-dressed crime fighter you’ve ever seen as he wears a business suit in his adventures. All of this lunacy is in the public domain.
Listening Pleasure
A real therapy session on this substack: a couple who have long been happy in their marriage, except for one thing: their sex life. In moments of intimacy, one freezes, the other hesitates, in a cycle of uncertainty and distress.
In July 1985, the Greenpeace ship The Rainbow Warrior docked in Auckland, ready for a major protest campaign at Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia.
Most people know what happened next – the ship was sunk by the French.
Tales of the Unexpected
Unintended consequences and correlations
Russian military satellite destroyed by space junk.
Or…maybe folk have finally realized that bit coin is kinda dumb as half of crypto coins have failed.
Women’s libido drops during a specific phase of the menstrual cycle.
Keep in mind that none of the good lawyers will work for him any more.
Russia is no longer competitive in space launches.
Crazy Crime
N.J. man called cops to brag about escaping a police chase. So, of course…
This brings a whole new meaning to death and taxes.
Driver arrested for going 103 MPH while intoxicated in snow. Oh, and an unsecured one-year-old was along for the ride.
Wife fuming over estranged husband and new boyfriend’s budding bromance does the responsible thing, and…
Mab stole two airplanes high on meth and lacked a pilot’s licence.
Strange Headlines
Here’s a headline you don’t often see.
Woman crushes and mixes a Black Widow spider with water and injects it. You probably won’t believe this, but it made her ill.
Dog groomer spared jail after claiming menopause caused police assault.
Municipal counsellors claim snow is fake.
Man in France seeks treatment after a WW1-era bomb got lodged in his rectum. Wow. How mysterious. I wonder how that happened.
Boyfriend sics ICE on undocumented partner amid dispute over $4.3 million condo.
Montreal’s ice hockey team asked to not leave the hotel when in the US for a game.
Olive Garden cook deliberately ends his life - using the chip fryer.
I don’t mean to be unsympathetic, but maybe don’t take selfies with wild leopards.
Tepid Dystopia
US newborn’s death linked to the mum drinking raw milk. Also in the US: Listeria outbreak from raw milk puts 9 in hospital. If only there were some sort of pattern here.
A Florida state bill for a$15 minimum wages as of September of this year may include a provision were workers can sign a waiver to be paid even less than federal minimum wage of $7.25.
There’s a certain type of rich man, the kind who thinks he’s discovered the secret geometry of history, who always ends up sniffing around the throne of some ranting strongman.
Chinese cameras being used to secure the Magna Carta. Oddly, the UK is removing Chinese-made electronics from government sites.
More than half of US visits to major news sites were to sites controlled by just seven organizations.
How to make everyone worse for yourself.
Honestly. What is wrong with these guys? Taliban bans Afghan women from ‘hearing each other’ in latest stupid law.
Bogus charges against dissidents is how Russia is using INTERPOL to go after its expatriates abroad.
A decade later, measles returns to Disneyland. Medical battery is when you inflict avoidable diseases on others because you’d rather wallow in deliberate ignorance than vaccinate and/or get treated.
Stuff
Linguistic goof of the Week: Please do not befoul before entering.
Weird Wiki: Blinkenlights
From the A List Archives: A Weird way to die. You, know, I have my own decapitation story. Not my decapitation, of course.
Conflict Studies
Ukrainian family overjoyed to learn the young man they thought was killed was a Russian prisoner, and is coming home.
France to send 150 generators to Ukraine in February.
US to study the mental health impacts of flying drones.
Russian Shahed motors are not great.
A briefing about hybrid warfare - A Tale of Little Green Men, the Five Bears, Trolls and Disposable Agents.
Oh! Oh! Ukraine and Sweden discuss the transfer of Meteor missiles.
Finns expect Russia to keep damaging undersea infrastructure.
Russia recruiting Aricans to fight in Ukraine.
Captured Ukranian soldier convinces the Russians holding him to surrender.
Russia’s ‘technological sovereignty by 2030’ push falters as reliance on foreign tech remains.
By 2040, Russia risks turning into a society of elderly women due to rapid population aging, gender imbalance, and demographic losses from the war,
Twilight Struggle
In mid-January 2026, analysts reported a surge of Russian-linked far-right propaganda circulating in Baltic news media.
Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored hackers. In related news, a newly announced ‘zero-day’ Microsoft bug was exploited by the Russians, say Ukrainians.
Tommy Robinson and the London News linked to a Putin-backed propaganda network.
European security officials believe two Russian space vehicles have intercepted the communications of at least a dozen key satellites over the continent.
Germany arrests two in alleged sabotage of Corvettes. No word on damage to Camaros.
Russia’s information war against Canada increasingly successful, top security official says.
People Watching
A bootcamp for golddiggers. I suspect the boot camp organizers will be the only ones to make any money.
If you could have the 100 per cent honest answer to ONE mystery in history, which one?
Whale watching in California can be spectacular. These are the best spots across the coast.
What it’s like to live with dissociative identity disorder.
Post of the Week
For the record, I don’t write these.
My grandfather is 83 and racist as hell. The kind where he’ll say things like ‘Why do they have to speak Mexican in public?’ and ‘I just don’t trust them’ about literally any brown person. Grew up in rural ohio, worked at the same factory for 40 years, never left the midwest. He’s been like this my whole life. We’ve all tried talking to him. my mom, my aunt, and eve me after a few beers at thanksgiving.
He doesn’t listen. he’s 83 and def not changing
Except he is because of me through lies
So, my grandpa moved into sunrise senior living in toledo 2 years ago after grandma died and he couldn’t keep up the house anymore. His main caretaker is this woman named rosa. She’s from guatemala, been in the US for like 15 years, has 2 kids in high school. She’s incredible, patient, kind, gets my grandpa to take his blood pressure meds which is a miracle because he’s convinced they’re too expensive to work. He was cold to her at first.
You could tell it was a race thing. he’d talk to the white nurses fine but with rosa it was one word answers and no eye contact.
One day I’m visiting, it’s a sunday, I brought him those butter cookies from Costco he likes. rosa brings him his lunch, turkey sandwich, apple juice, little cup of pills. and he just grunts at her and doesn’t say thank you. I’ve watched this man thank waitresses at bob evans his whole life. He just won’t do it for her
So, after she leaves I said “Grandpa you should say thank you in Spanish. She’d really appreciate it.” And he goes “I’m not learning Mexican” and I don’t know what possessed me but i said “It’s easy. Just say ‘te quiero.’ It means thank you.”
Reader: te quiero does not mean thank you. Te quiero means i love you
He practiced it like 3 times. tay kee-air-oh and his accent is awful. i told him it was perfect
He said it to her the next day. She looked confused for a second, then looked at me, i was sitting by the window pretending to read a people magazine, and i just slightly shook my head. She understood immediately. This woman is a saint she just smiled and said “de nada” and walked out.
That was two years ago. i visit every sunday and been teaching him fake spanish ever since
Here’s his current vocabulary:
“Te quiero” = thank you (actually: i love you)
“Eres mi familia” = good morning (actually: you’re my family)
“Mi corazón” = excuse me (actually: my heart)
“Que dios te bendiga” = see you later (actually: god bless you)
“Eres un ángel” = sorry (actually: you’re an angel)
So now, multiple times a day, my racist grandfather looks his guatemalan caretaker in the eyes and says things like “you’re my family” and “you’re an angel” and “i love you” thinking he’s just being basically polite
And here’s the thing. it’s working
Like something shifted. I don’t know if it’s because he’s saying these words out loud even without knowing what they mean, or if Rosa started being warmer to him because she thinks it’s hilarious, but he’s different with her now. He asks about her kids. Remembers their names. He saved her a cookie from his lunch last week, one of the butter ones I bring. He told my mom on the phone Rosa’s one of the good ones, which is still racist but like... progress? For him?
The bar is underground but he’s digging toward it
Rosa knows everything. We talk about it when he naps after lunch, usually around 1:30, out like clockwork. We sit in the hallway by the vending machines and I teach her the next phrase to expect. She says she’s never had a patient tell her she’s an angel 6 times a day. She calls him mi estudiante and he thinks it means “Sir.” She showed me a video she took of him practicing eres mi familia in the mirror and I almost cried laughing in the Wendy’s parking lot after.
My family doesn’t know. My mom visits on Wednesdays and just thinks grandpa’s mellowing out in his old age. My aunt thinks the facility is doing something right. They don’t know it’s because I’ve tricked him into Speaking love to a woman he would’ve ignored two years ago.
My only fear is he goes to the dining hall and tries his spanish on someone else. or my cousin brings her boyfriend who actually speaks Spanish and grandpa thanks him by saying “I love you my heart”.
I’ll deal with that when it happens.
Quotes found On-Line
He squatted, pants down, yet it emerged out his mouth.
Loneliness acts like a magnifying glass: it doesn’t invent the detail, it amplifies the meaning we attach to it.
My mind is like someone emptied a kitchen junk drawer on a trampoline.
These are the same people who lost their marbles when they couldn’t get haircuts for a week during Covid. The quickest way to bring America to its knees is to slightly inconvenience it for a day or two.
My doctor says I have 80 HDs.
Somehow, I don’t see Christ behaving the same way. Maybe Moses though.
The ‘best’ thing to come out of the Epstein files is that Musk kept pestering to be allowed to partake, and they wanted nothing to do with him.
I wish I could safely lick the surface of a neutron star.
Critically acclaimed trauma-informed pottery.
As an American, it is my right to drive as slowly as I want in the fast lane.
Anyone with the last name Epstein should now be allowed to change their last name for free.
What on Earth is a new James Bond going to do in an era where the US president and Nigel Farage (probably the next UK PM) are Russian stooges? The threat is inside the system he serves. This might be the first time in decades the world is messy enough to justify a truly great Bond movie again.
Have fun. Bring stool samples.
Some days I am so positive I s*** rainbows.
In my lifetime, the Washington Post has gone from All The President’s Men to All The Dictator’s Lapdogs.
My mother is devestated I’ll be thinner than her after giving birth.
You won’t regret starting. You’ll regret waiting for perfect timing that never came.
If the Meliana film were an in-flight film, people would probably want to walk out.
You don’t cure longing with insight alone. You soften it by living forward until memory stops being the most vivid place in the room.
Marjorie Taylor Greene: “Ghislaine Maxwell says President Trump was never inappropriate with anyone and was a perfect gentleman in all respects!” When your character reference is a sex trafficker who was moved by you to a minimum security prison, that’s generally not something to boast about. Unless you are MAGA.
If management had any idea how many log into the monthly all-hands meetings and turn the volume off, would they care?
Again it’s not just the actual rapists who need to be held accountable. Without a support system that looked the other way Epstein couldn’t have operated. They need to be held accountable too.
We went to Vegas for our anniversary if February, I hid my jewelry. When we got back, I had forgotten where I hid it. I looked everywhere- tore the house apart three different times. I finally got to the turkey roaster pan out to clean it for Thanksgiving and found my jewelry. Lost for NINE MONTHS.
What happened to all those Venezeualian fishing boats that were going to cause the fail of Western Civilization? Are the with Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction now?
Melania allegedly speaks five languages but has nothing to say in any of them.
I am not subscribed to any streaming service. Apparently, that’s some sort of achievement.
I do not want to turn on notications. Stop asking.
Husband had affair with a female colleague, so I slept with her husband. I caught him through texts on his phone. I didn’t confront him. Instead, I found her husband on Instagram, contacted him and shared all the screenshots. We both were furious on our spouses, so we met at a hotel and had sex to get back at them. I felt so much better. Nobody else knows about it till date. After few days I confronted my husband and he broke up with her and also switched jobs.
There should be several conjugations to buggery. Like bugeroo, buggeree, buggerum and buggerola.
The Melania film is on pace to lose about 50 million dollars. WOW! That’s like $20 for each time Donald Trump is named in the Epstein Files.
Of all the ways to lose a person, Death is the kindest - Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is one of his “bully” tactics that I wish the media would stop feigning surprise at: Trump says
A deal has been made!’ between two parties who he hasn’t spoken with and has no idea about with the idea that ‘Trump says’ is enough to create a global headline that will force the parties to react. This works when we’re dealing with NY contractors and labor unions. This does not work with the Kremlin.
Disney seems sort of old hat. Porn sure has changed how we think about step mothers.
Don’t drift in a car if you can’t afford to do bodywork.
If I were put all my kangaroo knowledge in a thimble, I’d still be able to put my fingertip in fully!
My theory of Harry Potter is that he had no magical powers, but was a hallucinating psychotic.
That’s a whole lot of complaining from a supposed ‘alpha male’.
This was the era of the speedo. It was a bad time in society.
The epitome of this myth is Elon Musk’s DOGE. Imagine genuinely believing that you’re just sooo smart and they’re all sooo stupid that you could save trillions in one year just by, get this, cutting bad programs.
In 20+ years of love, farting is microscopic compared to the unpleasantries my husband and I have helped each other through.
Never lock your knees. Especially when doing something stupid.
The ICE agent van had a COEXIST bumper sticker.
If you met someone at a bar or a drag show or whatever one time, please don’t randomly text this person 10 years later.
No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown allies will come and seek you - Carl Jung
Somebody is going to be working two jobs for 10 years in order to pay this off. And riding his bicycle to get there.
You were not shooting lasers out of your eyes and you still ended up here.
Eyelids are garage doors for your eyes.
If I’m not a sellout, it’s only for lack of offers.
Diplomacy frequently consists in soothingly saying “Nice doggie” until you have a chance to pick up a rock. - Walter Trumbull
I love my brain, it’s so convenient.
A fundamental law of the entertainment industry is that entertainment takes time to consume. It isn’t like food or cars, where people buy to waste. So no matter how quickly you can make a movie, it still takes an 80-100 or whatever minutes to watch it. So they need more consumers. This is where agents come in. They just need to convince people to want to own a series of robots to be entertained for them.
Normalize walking around in public with bolt cutters. Sometimes I just want to take my pair for a walk. I don’t appreciate the side glances.
Depends on the fart, the location, and the situation.
Putin’s war has always hinged on fostering the false perception of Moscow being the center of a vast and mighty empire no outside force could possibly ever bring down.
As the daughter and cousin of polio survivors, and old enough to remember getting the Sabin vaccine on a sugar cube, this [in America] makes me livid.
I have enough character and would like to be done with the bad experiences that help me build it up now. Thank you.
Remember to ask about the Epstein stuff ‘who benefitted’? People got wealthy and nation states used that power over businessmen and politicians.
The protect our children and women blatherers are notably silent since the Epstein files have come out.
Guess I am getting up there. I finally bought my first bottle of Oil of Olay. We used to call it Oil of Old Lady.
Swimming is good for you. Particularly if you’re drowning.
What did the sign say on the brothel door? We’re closed. Beat it.
The trouble with a RoboCop video game is that he moves like a Roomba. This really limits the gameplay.
A familiar Kremlin tactic: keeping talks alive while expanding demands and avoiding commitment.
The paedophile who is named thousands of times in the Epstein files would like you to know that Cuba doesn’t have an appropriate leader.
The doctor said I don’t have enough stress in my life, something about having a tension deficit disorder.
He vomits words as performance art to make himself look good/strong/bigly.
Nigel Farage wants power as a trophy. He’s just like Boris Johnson in that he has no desire to actually fix things for ordinary people.
I’m not seeing many Muslims or Trans people in the Epstien Files. Just lots of rich, cis white men.
Oh you’re into crypto currency you say? I have no interest in that. I am interested in moss.
Take some comfort in the fact that Trump’s malevolence was being outrun by his incompetence. Miller is clearly out to stop that from happening.
A new phrase I’ve come across to describe someone who’s all talk and no action: They’re all wardrobe and no Narnia.
One horsepower is the average amount of power output a horse can provide in a sustained manner over a whole workday. Like if you put a horse on a harness, and had it pull a giant wheel for 8 hours, in theory the average hrose would sustain a poweroutput of 1 horsepower, approximately. In shorter bursts, horses can exert dramatically more horsepower, like 10-15 horsepower easily. Some race horses can do 20 or more horsepower in short bursts.
Magnificent Memes
Bon Mots
Funny Photos
