Tootfinder

Sources: Meta is exploring a stock offering to raise tens of billions of dollars to fund AI capital expenditures, following Google's record $85B share deal (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/e6df645d-1709-4a77-b15d-aa43a0209efd

Donald Trump’s legal team has rejected a request by the BBC to hand over financial information as part of his $10bn defamation case against the broadcaster.
The US president’s lawyers accused the BBC of a “fishing expedition”, according to court filings, after the broadcaster’s representatives asked for details to get evidence on Trump’s claims he suffered reputational and financial damage because of a Panorama documentary centred on the US Capitol riots.
Trump’s lawyers have pre…

I have some sketches of an essay that I need to write, but I think it's worth brain-dumping a bit more in the mean time.
#LLMs are an attempt to make tech grow forever. But like, how many "your mom/a friend, but done by a precarious worker instead" apps do we really need? Everything right now is in the AI grift hole, but there's almost nothing of interest (even if you ignore the ethical concerns). Like, no, I don't fucking want a robot to lie to me about my groceries. That doesn't sound like a useful feature. There's a lot of useless shit being pumped out to prop up the bottom line, and a lot of people just want to be able to use their old phone for more than a couple of years.
No one is happy with this. No one wants this. Except the billionaires who are forcing us all to drink the capitalism koolaid, because they'd rather exterminate life on earth than live in a world where they experience consequences.
Nothing grows forever. That's not how literally anything in reality works, or has ever worked, at all in history. Some people think that the universe itself may work like that, but that's only an educated guess. Finite things don't grow forever. Every organism, every society, every technology, every dynamic and adaptive system we have ever known goes through a growth phase and then goes in to a stabilization phase. Or, following a Malthusian pattern, grows until it reaches a catastrophic point and collapses. Like lemmings. Or reindeer. Or cancer.

Lebanese start fleeing south Beirut after Israel says it will target the area. The Israeli government says it has given the army orders to attack the southern suburbs of the capital.
https://aje.news/rc6x6q

Lebanese start fleeing south Beirut after Israel says will target the area
The Israeli government says it has given the army orders to attack the southern suburbs of the capital.

UK-based StirlingX, which develops secure data intelligence systems for defense and critical infrastructure, raised a $20M Series A, following a $11M seed (Cate Lawrence/Tech.eu)
https://tech.eu/2026/07/02/stirlingx-secures-20m-series-a-to…

StirlingX secures $20M Series A to expand sovereign intelligence platform
British data intelligence company StirlingX has raised a $20 million Series A round from Ventura Capital and RCM Private Markets Master Fund managed by Rokos Capital Management US (LP). The funding comes just months after its $11 million Seed round in response to significant commercial traction. StirlingX is a data intelligence provider, disguised as a drone company, building a sovereign intelligence and autonomy platform to help customers capture, secure, fuse, analyse and act on data from c…

Donald Trump raked in more than
$1billion from his crypto businesses last year, a federal filing released Monday shows,
giving a substantial boost to his annual income.
In his second term, Trump and his family have heavily invested in digital money and various crypto businesses
with Trump announcing at the start of 2025 that he wanted the US to be the “crypto capital of the world”.
Trump’s crypto earnings are in addition to profit from his legal settlements, real…

Alarm bells over conflict of interest as filing shows Trump raked in $2bn in 2025
Crypto ventures eclipse much of property portfolio, with revenue also coming from Trump-branded products

The IPOs of SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI could add up to $4T to US stock market value within months, fueling concerns they could trigger more capital-raising (The Economist)
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/20…

Now, I don't especially like the term "church" so I may use something else... like "coven." You can do what you want. But I happen to have already mapped out an example. (It is exactly that, just an example, so take if it's useful, change if you need, and don't stick to anything too closely.) Oh, this mapping also means that you would, for religious reasons, only be allowed to work under capitalism 4 days a week instead of 5.
Given the increases in productivity over the last 100 years, a 4 day work week is a completely reasonable expectation. If we have to annex Monday for the weekend by force of religion, so be it. It is rightfully ours anyway. If enough people try it, this will probably work. If it doesn't work, it just needs more people.
The Practice of Worship:
It is recommended to break down worship in to three sections: the functional, the communal, and the spiritual. It is also recommended to break these across multiple days. A common structure for some Christian churches is to take 10-15 minutes for announcements (Functional), an hour or two for services (Spiritual), followed by (Communal) coffee, tea, and cookies for an unspecified time up to two hours after. When starting or working with limited time a single compressed model like this may work, but it's not optimal.
- The Functional
The purpose of this section is to address the functional needs of the coven. Block out time (less than 90 minute blocks is recommended) to go through reports and updates from those involved in the Dispensary, Library, Works Committee (infrastructure), and Services Committee (providing services internally and, potentially, externally). Talk through any additional announcements, including those from other covens you may be federated with.
It is helpful to include unstructured communal time, such as shared meals, during or after functional meetings. As the federation grows, more time will be needed. It is recommended to break functional meetings, work parties, and such across multiple days. When a federation becomes sufficiently large, it is recommended to take every Monday, on top of Saturday and Sunday, as a third day of community and worship.
The scope of the functional spans 3 realms (which may be more-or-less fluid): the personal or family, the coven and federation, and humanity itself. It is up to each coven and individual to negotiate how to allocate the three days of the weekend once we have liberated Monday from the work week, but it is important to reserve it for one of these three. However, some people must work on weekends. Medical personnel, for example, cannot conform to a standard work week. While the work week should be universally restricted, which specific days are used will be up to the specific coven and their members.
A functional meeting can start with an agenda like the following:
Functional Invocation
Announcements
Report Backs
Dispensary
Inventory Check
What is low
What is empty
What is expiring
What is needed
Funds status
Library
Inventory Check and Items needing return
Library acquisition requests
Funds status and budget check
Works Committee
Upcoming projects
Subcommittee updates (Following the Works Committee agenda)
New committee formations
Funds status
Services Committee
New capabilities announcements
New needs requests
Subcommittee updates (Following the Works Committee agenda)
New committee formations
Funds status
Task Check
Breaking the Circle
This agenda is a suggestion for those who don't know where to start. It can be adapted or ignored as appropriate.
- The Spiritual
Spirituality is necessarily an undefined space. It is deeply personal. Each individual taking time to share their own personal spiritual experiences can help each connect with each other. This experience of connection can itself be a spiritual experience. It may also be useful to read esoteric, mystical, or philosophical texts together as type of "book club" and share thoughts. Others may draw from their own knowledge or traditions. This is something that must be defined together within a group.
- The Communal
The communal aspect of the practice of worship bind the coven and federation together. Within the community we find joy and release, connection and comfort. The coven is where we turn in times of need, and where we share our hopes and dreams.

Instead of the Union Jack, passersby were greeted with Australia’s flag, a detail that might be technically defensible
—Charles is also Australia’s head of state
—but not diplomatically ideal.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/dc-flubs-royal-…

D.C. Flubs Royal Welcome by Flying Wrong Flag for King Charles
The capital briefly dressed for the wrong country ahead of King Charles’ visit.

I had a weird dream where I was talking to someone at some kind of ceremony, I think a funeral, where I had timidly painted my face with clay as part of some ritual. This person was talking about how far society has come while our brains have not caught up.
Imagine if your ancient cave dwelling ancestors were dropped into this world of cars, office hours, budgets, climate change, and AI. They would be absolutely freaking out and struggling to understand things all the time... Just like you are now.
Society teaches us to suppress these emotions. You're supposed to be OK with giant metal boxes flying around you in rumbling stampedes, but you feel it in unexplained anxiety. You're supposed to just fit your life into tight little bounds that ignore weather and season, but you feel it in more unexplained anxiety and depression. We are all part of something so big and complicated we can't make sense of it, we cannot possibly comprehend it all, it is simply too much to fully grasp the implications of our individual actions within global capitalism. Should we be surprised by our urge to simply destroy it, by the anger and desire to simply "smash" something far more complex than can be met with simple violence?
Some part of my brain was trying to remind me to be compassionate to myself. Perhaps that reminder can be useful to you as well.