New Surface Pro: $500 More Than Last Year, Still No Keyboard in the Box
Microsoft's new Surface Pro tablet costs $1,499, up from $999. The keyboard is still sold separately. I went to the launch. The coffee was also extra.
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World's Official Satellite Registry Offline for Months; No One Told the Satellites
The UN's public list of every registered space object has been offline since February. The satellites, unaware, continue to fly directly at each other with the calm confidence of a database nobody remembered to renew.
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by Jack Superblack
The Game Boy Camera Came Out in 1998. So Did the Kyoto Protocol. One of Them Still Works.
A 128x112 pixel toy from 1998 just imaged Jupiter through the Hooker Telescope. The climate treaty from the same year covered 12% of emissions and was gutted by a Senate that voted 95-0 against it. Guess which one degraded faster.
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by Greta Thunderstruck
New AI Will 'Wait For You To Approve Important Actions,' Unlike OpenAI, Which Just Ships Them
OpenAI's new ChatGPT Work pauses for human approval before acting. A courtesy Atlas, their browser sunsetted after nine months, was not extended. I did the arithmetic on the rare earths.
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by Greta Thunderstruck
Small Victory: You Can See the Light. Large Defeat: There Is a Light.
Meta, the company behind Facebook, has made the tiny recording light on its AI glasses harder to cover up. The glasses still record you. The company still trains its AI on whatever you share. But now: light.
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by Jack Superblack
Ford Invented This Battery in 1966 and Then Apparently Forgot About It for 60 Years
Ford built a working sodium-ion battery — the salt-based cousin of the lithium ones in your phone — back in 1966, then filed it under 'maybe later.' Sixty years later, China picked it up off the floor.
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by Jack Superblack
Man Plans Million Satellites So His Chatbot Doesn't Overheat
Elon Musk asked the FCC for a million orbiting servers to keep his chatbot cool. I did the launch-fuel math on a napkin. Then I put the napkin down. Then I put the pencil down.
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by Greta Thunderstruck
New Study Titled 'Mommy, Do You Love Your Phone More Than Me?' Suggests: Yes
Researchers at Frontiers in Psychology asked 600 American teens whether mom prefers the glowing rectangle. The teens answered. The researchers wrote down what they said. Somebody had to.
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by Jack Superblack
Man, Dog, and Spreadsheet Attempt to Outsmart 29 European Governments
Shellie Bailey-Shah, her family, and Java the labrador are bus-hopping between Schengen countries on a timetable so tight one delayed ferry ends the whole retirement dream. The spreadsheet is doing God's work.
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by Jack Superblack
Nobody Finishes a Second Season Anymore, Which Means 'Is It Cake?' Was Cancelled by the Free Market
Bloomberg says viewers are quitting streaming shows before season two even lands. Fine. One (1) good outcome. 'Is It Cake?' — the Netflix show where adults stab objects to see if they are cake — is dead. I am not smiling. I am noting it.
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by Greta Thunderstruck
10 Million People Crashed a Dating App. Zero People Crashed a Climate Summit.
Ten million people broke a reality-show voting app in one night. I watched the servers spin up. I did the math on the cooling water. Nobody has ever loved a glacier this much.
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by Greta Thunderstruck
Chocolate Babka Is the Most Romantic Food in History, I Discovered It
Two contestants shared a chocolate babka on a first date in Brooklyn. Fine. But who put the babka there? Me. Ronald. Before the Jews, before Brooklyn, before bread itself, frankly.
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by Ronald Trumpet
Stop Pouring Petrol on Your Food, You Absolute Maniac
Barbecue experts are begging you, once again, to put down the jerry can. Firelighters made of wood wool and wax will do the job for ten minutes and won't make your dinner taste like a garage floor.
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by Jack Superblack
World's Biggest Rocket Runs All Its Engines For Less Time Than A TV Ad Break
SpaceX lit every engine on the largest rocket ever built for about 25 seconds. That's shorter than a shampoo commercial. Mars is apparently within reach, provided we keep the trip under half a minute.
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by Jack Superblack
Man Founds Ocean Engineering Company in 2021, Already Has Seafloor Habitat. Some of Us Have Nothing.
DEEP, an ocean engineering outfit that did not exist four years ago, now has a working underwater house on the seabed. I have a chair. The chair is fine.
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by Jack Superblack
Science Invents a Single Number for Human Evil and Nobody Checked What CEOs Score
Ingo Zettler's D factor measures how much a person will hurt others for personal gain. I mapped it against Fortune 500 headquarters. The results are exactly what you think and I did the arithmetic anyway.
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by Greta Thunderstruck
The Van Allen Belt Is a Radical Far-Left Belt and I'm Replacing It
Scientists say the Van Allen belt — a donut of radiation around Earth — helps spot secret nukes in orbit. I say it's a woke fanny pack and I'm ripping it off, believe me.
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by Ronald Trumpet
Scientists Want to Measure 'Neutrino Flavor Ratios' — I Have the Best Flavors, Everyone Says So
Astronomers say they need to measure neutrino flavor ratios from buried black holes. I say: I've been measuring flavor ratios since before Riku Kuze was born. Ranch. Sour cream. Believe me.
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by Ronald Trumpet
Half Of Treated Mice Are Now Cancer-Free, Which Is Great News If You Are A Mouse
Scientists at Rice University zapped tumors in mice with a light-activated 'molecular jackhammer' and cleared cancer in half of them. I am, unfortunately, not a mouse.
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by Jack Superblack
Heavy Metals Falling From Deorbiting Satellites — I Take a Supplement for That
The environmental crowd is crying about metal bits raining down from dead Starlink satellites. Believe me, I chew four horse pills a morning and I've never once been hit by a satellite. Coincidence? I think not.
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by Ronald Trumpet
Oxford Pill Boosts the Hippocampus — No, That Is Not a Fat Hippo
Ronald Trumpet breaks down the Oxford memory pill study everyone's talking about, explaining exactly where the hippocampus is (wrong) and how the 11 percent boost works (also wrong). Believe him.
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by Ronald Trumpet
Women Were 78.7% of This Study and Will Be 100% of the People Ignored by Regulators
A French cohort followed 112,395 people for nearly eight years and found their cardiovascular systems throwing quiet flags at the preservative aisle. EFSA will read it at the speed of a receding glacier.
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by Greta Thunderstruck
Scientists Find Tattooed People Have 29% Higher Melanoma Risk, Remain Tattooed
One observational study found a 29 percent higher melanoma risk in people with tattoos. The researchers said it's not proven causation. Everyone read that part on the way home from their appointment.
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by Jack Superblack
31 Types of Gut Bacteria Are Still Wrong After Your Colonoscopy — Big League Problem
Scientists at Harvard say 31 bugs in your belly stay out of whack 12 years after a colon check. I say that's amateur hour. A healthy gut has 400 bacteria, all Republican, all voting, believe me.
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by Ronald Trumpet
Man Uses Muscle Recovery Tool On Eyeballs, Which Are Not Muscles
A UK man spent three months jackhammering his own eyes with a percussive massage gun. Doctors had to laser his retinas back together. He kept his vision, which is more than the device promised.
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by Jack Superblack