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.

We can save the internet by going back our roots*
*cat memes

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.

FBI investigated former Capitol Police officer in Jan. 6 pipe bomb case, filings say (Kaelan Deese/Washington Examiner)
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/4512735/fbi-investigated-former-capitol-police-officer-jan-6-pipe-bomb-case/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260401/p123#a260401p123

Talking of #Bolton, as Hannah Spencer was in today's Guardian, I wrote this following a visit there, nearly 9 years ago.  I think it's one of my best pieces still.
https://

After peak capitalism: the livelihood challenge – revised version
Here is the revised version of my working paper, “After peak capitalism: the livelihood challenge”.  I’m grateful to those who have offered encouragement and constructively critic…

Sources: Eater has been central to Vox Media's divestiture talks as interest in food media grows, an uptick that began when Wonder bought Tastemade for $90M (Mark Stenberg/Adweek)
https://www.adweek.com/media/feeding-frenzy-food-media-tasty-eater/

The Feeding Frenzy Fueling Food Media M&A
Eater and Tasty are the latest publishers looking to capitalize on a growing appetite for food and dining brands

Outgoing Republican senator
Thom Tillis has vowed to block any nominee to permanently replace Pam Bondi as attorney general
if the candidate excuses the January 6 attack on the US Capitol
– a threat that could deprive the White House of a crucial vote.
“The threshold for somebody following Pam Bondi ends the moment I hear they said one thing that excused the events of January 6,”
Tillis said in an interview with CNN.
The North Carolina lawmaker, who is ret…

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…