Tootfinder

Prediction market political betting on insider info spreads in DC; sources: WH lawyers raised alarms over anonymous Polymarket bets on the Iran ceasefire timing (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/dc-government-prediction-m…

Nooo, it's shit, it's not an anonymous wafer-thin bezelless screen that disappears into the wallpaper when not in use! How dare a product have any inherent aesthetic appeal outside of its own annihilation! Booo!

When is data truly considered anonymous? The European Data Protection Board has published new guidelines on this topic: https://www.edpb.europa.eu/public-consultations/guidelines-022026-on-anonymisation_en#no-back

Als damals Ende des letzten Jahrtausends Helmut Kohl die Verantwortung für die Annahme der illegalen Parteispenden übernahm und erklärte er habe den anonymen Spendern sein „Ehrenwort“ gegeben, dann hatte das seine Ehre zwar sehr beschädigt¹, aber irgendwie war vorstellbar, daß er zuvor welche besaß.
Käme in der aktuellen union jemand mit „Verantwortung“ und „Ehre“ daher, wäre das vor allem lächerlich, diese Kategorien scheinen auf das aktuelle Politikgeschehen und dieses „Spitzenperson…

Had to update yesterday's Substack after news broke later that day of Trump's teleprompter making $100k on Kalshi.
This administration has certainly set a new low bar for self-dealing, but prediction markets are supercharging anonymous corruption at the highest levels of government. https://

As the dust starts to settle after the finalization of Schedule Policy/Career, ( nee Schedule F)
an air of anxiety is rising among reclassified federal employees.
Two federal employees, speaking to Federal News Network on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional retribution,
said they were shocked, angry and fearful to learn they were being stripped of their civil service protections.
Their jobs, they said, have nothing to do with influencing policy.
“I…

Federal employees face reality of Schedule Policy/Career
After losing civil service protections, some federal employees now in Schedule Policy/Career fear for their job security and retribution for speaking up.

The "AI Industry" (to the degree that it exists) has burned billions of dollars with no real hope of recuperating that. Models offered by services, charging huge amounts for inference, don't really offer much, if anything, above open source models run locally. Many of the claims made by these companies, and their supporters, have turned out to be lies. It seems as though the whole thing is a huge grift.
Investments will likely never be recovered. We've already seen a bail out in the form of military contracts. We will see much more public money dumped in to these technologies. In fact, threatening workers and suppressing labor strength is so strategically valuable that I expect LLMs to just be publicly funded (by being folded into the military industrial complex).
On these grounds, it can be easy to reject the technology outright. After all, how can anything useful not be profitable?
Even for radicals, capitalism can cloud our lens. The fact is, the dominant technologies of our age tend to not be profitable. Or rather, they are "publicly funded, privately profitable" (/hums in propagandhi/). Just like oil.
Outside of Saudi Arabia, oil is mostly not profitable to get out of the ground. Even there, it had only historically been profitable because of massive global military investments. The oil-centric world we have today is largely built on, and kept in place by, massive government subsidies. Roads, street parking, and direct subsidies to oil companies are all massive investments that tie populations to the resource at the heart of the military industrial complex: oil.
Oil was strategically important, because you can't run a modern military without it. The fossil fuel economy doesn't exist because fossil fuels are so cheap, but because modern militaries are only really possible by militarizing the population.
Unprofitable things *are made profitable* to serve the strategic interests of authoritarian systems. Though we have better alternatives to most oil-based products, it would be hard to argue that oil is not a useful resource. We can acknowledge it's strategic importance while also recognizing that the elimination of oil is essential to the survival of humanity.
Returning to "AI," we're seeing the same type of thing but it's more obvious. After the crypto grift, this seems to just be another way to transfer money into the pockets of the rich.
But crypto wasn't exactly a grift. It had a strategic function to power. It wasn't what we were told it was. It didn't free us from central banks. It wasn't a new way to invest. It wasn't anonymous. But it did create a new way to bribe politicians. It did make it easier to funnel public money into the pockets of the far right.
"AI" can similarly be mostly a grift. It can fail to do most, or all, of the things it claims, and it can still fulfill strategic functions. If we dismiss it as "just another grift," I think we miss a lot. "Just a grift" isn't something sustainable. It is something that will die out. It's something we don't need to resist because it is self limiting. But a strategy is something different. A strategy is more complex. A strategy will be sustained, at any cost. A strategy must be actively resisted.

Trump plan would fence park near White House long used by tourists, and protesters
Trump is planning a new permanent fence that would allow officials to close the public park across the street from the executive mansion,
according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity

The fence would be installed on the north and south sides of Lafayette Square, the people said,
allowing officials to shut the park.
The park, through which visitors commonly ac…

Trump plan would fence park near White House long used by tourists, protesters
The project, discussed by past administrations, would allow officials to more easily shut Lafayette Square for security reasons, sparking concerns over public access.

My grandad has a ton of old papers from his field lying around and they're so beautiful

The KIDS Act, set for a US House vote as early as next week, could eliminate online anonymity, raising the risk for journalists, dissidents, and whistleblowers (The Intercept)
https://theintercept.com/2026/06/28/age-verification-privacy-s…

Online Age Verification Law Could Kill Whistleblowing
The KIDS Act, ostensibly aimed at protecting children, will raise the risk for journalists, dissidents, and whistleblowers.