Category: Newsletters

Dozens of previously dismissed radio signals were actually credible transmissions from Amelia Earhart, according to a new study of the alleged post-loss signals from Earhart’s plane. The transmissions started riding the air waves just hours after the pilot sent her last in-flight message. The study, presented by researchers of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, sheds new light on what may have happened to the legendary aviator 75 years ago. “Amelia Earhart did not simply vanish on July 2, 1937. Radio distress calls believed to have been sent from the missing plane dominated the headlines and drove much of the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy search,” said Ric Gillespie. “When the search failed, all of the reported post-loss radio signals were categorically dismissed as bogus and have been largely ignored ever since,” he added. (via NBC News)

Platypus biology turns out to be even weirder than scientists originally thought

One glance at the platypus and you’ll forgive the naturalists who assumed it was a clever hoax upon first encountering preserved specimens more than 200 years ago. After all, the creatures appear to be a jumble of contradictions—they look like beavers but have duck bills, they’re mammals that lay eggs, and they produce milk without nipples. Platypuses glow under ultraviolet light, sense electricity through their bills, have a bewildering multitude of sex chromosomes, and the males possess venomous spurs behind their legs. Now, new research has added another oddity to the list: biologists from Belgium looked at platypus melanosomes—specialized pigment-bearing organelles inside cells—under an electron microscope. To their surprise, they discovered that the melanosomes were hollow and spherical. Previously, only birds were thought to possess hollow melanosomes, which produce more vibrant iridescent colors. (via Nautilus)

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Amelia Earhart sent distress signals that were ignored”

After his assassination on May 14, 1610, King Henry IV was embalmed and prepared for the grave. This was followed by about seven weeks of preparation and ceremony before he was buried at the basilica of Saint Denis, the traditional resting place of French kings. And there he rested until 1793, when the Revolution came calling. The government decided to celebrate the one year anniversary of the First Republic by desecrating the graves of all the royals buried at Saint Denis. When they opened his tomb, Henri’s body was apparently in a remarkable state of preservation. So much so they supposedly made a new death mask from his well-preserved face! They even propped him up for two days on display before adding him to the mass grave. Time passed, Napoleon did his thing, and Louis XVIII, who was Louis XVI‘s brother, was on the throne. As a Bourbon, he wanted to honor his ancestors and have the bones dug up and placed back in Saint Denis. And here’s where it gets even weirder. (via Paris Gone By)

What it’s like to take a guided tour of an abandoned shopping mall

Aryeh is here to take us to the mall — or, more accurately, to several malls, most of which are almost completely abandoned. In his spare time, he runs an organization called Liminal Assembly, which shuttles people through a series of decaying suburban shopping malls around the Greater Toronto Area, places that seem stuck in purgatory. Last winter, I stumbled upon an Instagram post advertising a party being held at an aging retail complex in Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood. Cumberland Terrace had somehow occupied the corner of Bay and Bloor Streets since the 1970s, wedged between luxury towers and some of Canada’s most expensive commercial real estate. I’d cut through its ghostly pathways hundreds of times en route to the subway, perplexed by its perpetually shuttered food court and wall of pay phones, its increasingly dwindling storefronts. It seemed out of place, occupying neither past nor present. (via Hazlitt)

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “A skull sitting in a bank vault in Paris could be Henry IV’s”

You may have seen the recent headlines about how a company called Niantic Spatial is using a database of real-world locations that was originally compiled by players of the mobile game Pokemon Go — a game that launched about a decade ago and quickly became an obsession for tens of millions of people, young and old. Niantic Spatial says it plans to use the 3D models and locations to make it easier for delivery robots to find specific addresses in order to drop off pizza or groceries or whatever they are doing. The company was spun off from Niantic last year, after it sold Pokemon Go and its other games to a company called Scopely, which is ultimately owned by the sovereign investment fund of Saudi Arabia. Pokemon Go and other Niantic games will still run on Niantic Spatial’s data, but the world they helped build will be used for something else now.

Niantic Spatial, not surprisingly, is pretty excited about how all this data has helped the company build what it calls a Visual Position System, using more than a million location models as the core of its Spatial Platform. The company is also pitching its tools to companies that want to create virtual reality or augmented reality experiences that can be hosted online or beamed into VR and AR glasses from Meta and others. However, some current and former Pokemon Go players don’t seem to love the idea that they and their smartphones were dragooned into a massive surveillance program that mapped real-world locations without their knowledge. “500 million people played pokemon go, scanned every street, building, and corner on earth [and] thought they were catching pikachu,” said one user on X. “Niantic was building a 30 billion image AI map of the world now powering delivery robots… you were the product the whole time.”

The company’s website says that in addition to the database of more than 30 billion images and locations from Pokemon Go, it is also doing its own real-time three-dimensional data capture using drones and other technologies, so that its customers can generate models of their stores or warehouses or mining operations and what have you. In many cases, Niantic says, traditional global positioning systems don’t provide enough granularity or detail within large cities for delivery robots to find specific physical addresses, but its location models can do so in almost every single major city in the world. “AI that understands the physical world,” Niantic says. “We are building a living model of the world that people and machines can talk to.” The Large Geospatial Model (LGM) is built on “real world data from ground and overhead sensors.”

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Pokemon Go created a 3D map of the world – but for what?”

At the age of 39, Dostoevsky starts publishing a literary magazine called Time with his brother. The following year the magazine is forced to close, due to a misunderstanding with the government about an article they published concerning Russia. Dostoevsky travels to Europe and experiences his first loss at the roulette wheel. He is reduced to pawning his possessions to survive. In April 1864, his first wife dies, and two months later, so does his brother. He invests all of the money he has in a new magazine, and also unwisely assumes all his brother’s debts, which means his financial freedom is tied to the success of the magazine. The magazine collapses a year later due to lack of funds. Dostoevsky signs a merciless contract with a publisher that requires him to deliver a book within a year, or he will lose the rights to anything he writes for the next nine years. He returns to Europe and loses all the money he has. (via Roulette Star)

He’s planning to sail a boat that is four feet wide and less than five feet long across the Atlantic

There’s a long history of people sailing across an ocean by themselves, or attempting to. Usually they are in small boats, which are easier to handle, which gives us the term “microyacht.” As the boats got smaller, the competitive nature of the sport went from the accomplishment of making it across the ocean to racing other solo sailors to seeing who can make the smallest boat to get there in. Andrew Bedwell is no novice in solo sailing, or even microyachting. His newest boat is the smallest yet, and will set a new world record if he makes it across the Atlantic in May. The microyacht, called the Big C V2, is only 4.5 feet wide. How long is it? He won’t reveal that, but it is shorter than the current record holder, which was 5 feet, 4 inches long (1.63 meters). It is made of aluminum and carries solar panels, a power system, food and water, sails, and even has room for Bedwell to stretch his legs out when sitting inside. (via Neatorama)

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Dostoevsky wrote a book in a month to pay off gambling debts”

A Utah woman who wrote a children’s book about coping with grief after her husband’s death was convicted of aggravated murder in his death by poisoning him with fentanyl. Jurors on Monday also found Kouri Richins guilty of fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after the death of Eric Richins in March 2022 at their home outside the ski town of Park City. Prosecutors say Kouri Richins slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that he drank. She was also convicted of other felony charges, including an attempted murder charge in what authorities alleged was another effort to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich. Richins was $4.5 million US in debt and falsely believed that when her husband died, she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million US. After her husband’s death, Richins self-published a children’s book about grief to help her sons and other kids cope with the loss of a parent. (via the CBC)

That time the Soviet Union fired a secret space cannon while in orbit

A quarter-century after the Cold War came to a close, the only cannon that actually fired in space has finally come to light. Installed on the Almaz space station in the 1970s, the R-23M Kartech was derived from a powerful aircraft weapon; Aron Rikhter designed the original 23-millimeter cannon for the Tupolev Tu-22 Blinder supersonic bomber. That gun is relatively well known, but its space-based cousin has largely remained in obscurity. From the dawn of the Space Age, the prospect of American spacecraft approaching and inspecting Soviet military satellites—which, according to the Kremlin’s propaganda, were not even supposed to exist—terrified the secrecy-obsessed Soviet military. A team of scientists developed a 14.5-millimeter rapid-fire cannon that reportedly could hit targets as far as two miles away. Depending who you ask, the 37-pound weapon could fire from 950 to 5,000 shots per minute, blasting 200-gram shells at a velocity of 690 meters per second. (via Popular Mechanics)

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “After she killed her husband she wrote a book on grief”

The FBI is reinvestigating infamous thief D.B. Cooper’s unsolved 1971 skyjacking of Northwest Orient Flight 305, despite having publicly declared the case closed in 2016. Richard Floyd McCoy Jr., a Vietnam veteran and experienced skydiver who carried out an almost identical skyjacking five months after Cooper, is one suspect being closely examined. His son, Richard McCoy III, supplied the bureau with a DNA sample to test against any remaining evidence roughly six months ago. He has also handed over one of his dad’s old parachutes and a logbook detailing practice jumps his father conducted before the Cooper hijacking and his copycat stunt in 1972. Rick told The U.S. Sun that he’s convinced his dad was DB Cooper. He claims his mom, Karen McCoy, told him and his sister on numerous occasions that their dad was the infamous skyjacker and that she helped plan both of his heists. (via The Sun)

Darwin’s kids doodled all over the original copy of his famous book On The Origin Of Species

Charles Darwin was not the only artistic, creative mind in the Darwin household. While Darwin’s manuscripts and journals are full of sketches of the natural world, many of his children inherited a similar love of art and nature. Darwin and his wife and first cousin Emma had ten children together – six boys and four girls, seven of whom survived into adulthood. At some point the Darwin children found their father’s masterpiece, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859), and drew all over it. George Darwin drew a taxonomy of the British infantry. Francis Darwin doodled a salad. One of them drew a caricature of Darwin. Scholars suspect that many of the drawings came from Francis, who went on to follow his father’s footsteps and become a botanist himself. The pictures show a young mind with a keen interst in the outdoors—from the swarms of gnats clustered around a flower to the flock of birds in the English sky. (via The Smithsonian)

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “He says the infamous skyjacker D. B. Cooper was his father”

The Chevalier d’Éon was born Charles d’Eon de Beaumont on October 5, 1728, and would go on to be a French soldier, spy, diplomat and in mid-life, a woman named Charlotte. D’Eon’s military exploits in the Seven Years’ War, role in negotiating the Paris Peace Treaty, and daring service as a spy for French King Louis XV was overshadowed by speculation about their gender. Born biologically male, the Chevalier was legally declared female by French King Louis XVI and English courts and spent the last 33 years of their life as a woman. This famous figure blackmailed kings, fenced in dresses and courted controversy throughout their life — and after death. D’Eon was born to a noble family in Tonnerre, Burgundy. In 1756, d’Eon was recruited for the Secret du Roi, or King’s Secret, a network of spies working for French King Louis XV. D’Eon was sent to Russia in two capacities: Officially, as Secretary of the Embassy in St. Petersburg. Secretly, the King tasked d’Eon with gathering intelligence in the court of Empress Elizabeth in a bid to put a Frenchman on the Polish throne. (via History.com)

The fate of a man found dead in a wetsuit in a remote lake in Wales remains a mystery

Detectives hope a new digital recreation of a man’s face could help them work out who he was – 18 months on from his highly decomposed body being found in a remote mid Wales reservoir. The discovery of the man, who was wearing nothing but a XL Zone3 Agile wetsuit, sparked extensive police searches and international appeals, but no loved ones have ever come forward. Specialists at a Liverpool university have now used photographs, dental records and CT scans of the man’s skull to reveal he had “striking facial features”, including an overbite. Det Insp Anthea Ponting of Dyfed-Powys Police said she hoped the new images might finally solve the “unusual” mystery of the man in the wetsuit. A lone walker had spotted the man’s body floating a few metres out from shore at Claerwen Reservoir, the largest and most remote of a series of reservoirs in the picturesque Elan Valley in Powys. Despite the area being 20km (12 miles), from the nearest town, with no public transport service, no clue suggesting how the man got there has been uncovered either. (via the BBC)

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “French spy was born a man but lived their life as a woman”

“Terra nullius.” Under international law, this Latin phrase meaning “nobody’s land” describes an area of land unclaimed by any sovereign nation-state. In an age where nearly every inch of the world’s landmass has been mapped, examples of terra nullius are exceedingly rare. Along the Croatian-Serbian border, a drawn-out dispute along the River Danube has resulted in claims of terra nullius around at least four small pockets of land. The boundary dispute began in 1947, after World War II, and flared again in the 1990s when attempts were made to restore the historical separation between Serbia and Croatia. Serbia claims its border runs down the center of the Danube; Croatia claims a different border, based on 19th-century land ownership maps, when the river ran a different course. 20-year-old Daniel Jackson, a dual British and Australian citizen, is the self-declared president of the “Free Republic of Verdis,” or Pocket 3, as it’s labeled on international maps. The microstate he lays claim to is located on the sandy shores of an uninhabited, 124-acre patch of land along the Danube. (via CNN)

It’s not looking good for a cow whose fate was sold off by a performance art group

Two years ago, a prankster art collective in Brooklyn known as MSCHF sold off shares in a black calf they nicknamed Angus, pledging to butcher him into burgers and leather handbags unless his arty stakeholders chose to save him. On March 13, the fully grown bull’s fate will be decided, and it’s looking grim.Only around a third of Angus’s 404 owners have plied their tokenized shares of the animal into the artists’ online Remorse Portal, signifying their wish to save his life. If Angus doesn’t cross the 50% mark by Friday, he’ll be butchered and shipped out as 1,200 hamburger patties and four leather handbags designed by the group to look like meat. The art world is typically accustomed to shock art, but “Our Cow Angus” is stirring up polarizing debates among collectors and on social forums at a level not seen since British artist Damien Hirst displayed rotting cow heads as art in the 1990s. Animal-rights activists are decrying MSCHF’s life-or-death project as a barbaric stunt while museum curators hail it as a relevant critique of consumer dissonance about beef. (via the WSJ)

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “He says he is the ruler of a new country on the Danube river”

In In 2016, staff at both the U.S. and Canadian embassies in Cuba started reporting a host of unusual physical symptoms: severe headaches, nausea, muscle aches, nose bleeds, etc. Adults and children were both affected to varying degrees. Many of those who reported these symptoms said they heard high-pitched noises, clicks and other audio phenomena shortly before they felt the physical ailments in question. Many complained to their superiors, reports started getting out into the press, but little action was taken. Some within the military community — since the symptoms were also felt by members of the CIA and the Army — argued that the Russians must have some kind of microwave energy weapon that was causing these attacks. There was good reason for skepticism on the part of the U.S. government and other observers, however: namely, no existing weapon — even those in research labs — was believed to be capable of creating harmful sound waves that would affect individuals at close range.

There is a fairly long history of audio technology being used for things like crowd control etc. Police and other authorities in the U.S. have used what are called long-range acoustic devices or LRADs, large devices that emit a loud, painful sound over a long distance. These kinds of devices were used by police during demonstrations at the 2009 G20 Summit in Pittsburgh and during the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. As of the year 2017, the LRAD Corporation, the company that originally created the device, was selling them to police forces and the military in more than 70 countries. For 30 years or more there have been devices that emit what’s called “infrasound,” which is sound waves that are too low for the human ear to hear, and they can cause pain and nausea — but the devices involved are large, and the sound waves are spread over a large area, so are useful only with groups.

After the initial reports in Cuba in 2016, the mystery continued, as more and more diplomatic staff in Cuba described feeling the same symptoms, with some lasting weeks or even months. One staffer had to get a hearing aid. Some members of the staff had to leave Cuba and return to their home country to seek medical attention, but the cause was still unknown. Cuban diplomats were expelled from the U.S. even though it wasn’t clear they were involved, or what even happened, and both Canada and the U.S. reduced the number of staff they had in Cuba to a minimum. Then came the medical and government reports investigating the cause of what had become known as “Havana Syndrome.” Both American and Canadian embassy workers were tested by their respective governments, and scientists said that brain scans of staff from both countries showed some neurological damage. Meanwhile, similar symptoms or “attacks” were reported at other U.S. embassy locations, including in Russia, Poland, and Taiwan.

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “If Havana Syndrome is real it implies a massive coverup”

One afternoon in March 2024, Spanish society gathered at a prestigious Barcelona business school to celebrate Isak Andic, an unassuming Turkish-born entrepreneur who used to sell embroidered blouses in a Barcelona market stand and went on to found the affordable fashion brand Mango, becoming a billionaire in the process, the fifth-richest man in Spain. Nine months later, Andic was dead. On December 14, 2024, he went for a hike on Montserrat, the mountain just outside Barcelona, and plunged to his death from a cliff some 300 feet high. The only person with him was his son, Jonathan, then 43 and the firstborn of his three children. A few nights before Andic died, Mango had hosted a party at Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi arena celebrating Mango’s highest turnover in years, €3.3 billion. Now, the future and reputation of the company he built was in doubt, as was the largest fortune in Catalonia, an estimated $4.5 billion. (via The Cut)

A King penguin at the Edinburgh Zoo is the colonel-in-chief of the Norwegian King’s guard

The family of Norwegian shipping magnate Christian Salvesen gave a king penguin to Edinburgh Zoo when the zoo opened in 1913. When the Norwegian King’s Guard visited the Edinburgh Military Tattoo of 1961 for a drill display, a lieutenant named Nils Egelien became interested in the zoo’s penguin colony. When the King’s Guard returned to Edinburgh in 1972, Egelien arranged for the regiment to adopt a penguin. This penguin was named Nils Olav in honour of Nils Egelien, commander of the drill platoon, and Olav Siggerud, contingent commander of HMKG in 1972. Nils Olav was initially given the rank of lance corporal. He has been promoted each time the King’s Guard has returned to the zoo. He was made a corporal in 1982, then promoted to sergeant in 1987. Nils Olav I died shortly after his promotion to sergeant in 1987, and his place was taken by Nils Olav II, a two-year-old near-double. (via Wikipedia)

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “A Spanish billionaire fell to his death and his son is a suspect”

As Perardi approached the terrace, he saw that his friend, Kota Youngblood, sat at one of the tables. Youngblood was tall and imposing, with a paunch and black hair that framed pale skin. He was dressed in black, with military tattoos on his arms, and the white athletic tape that always seemed to cover his fingers. They found Eventine, Youngblood said. He was dead. Youngblood’s oldest son had been found dead on a beach in Baja California, Mexico. The cartel had cut his throat and dismembered him. In a shaky voice, Youngblood claimed that the cartel had only gone after Eventine because he’d been trying to save Perardi and his family. Youngblood had used all of his military and government contacts to stop Perardi from being killed, and now his own son was dead. The only thing that could save them was if Perardi mustered $70,000. (via Rolling Stone)

Why are there giant arrows made of concrete spread across the United States?

From 1918 until about 1926/1927, the Post Office Department operated the nation’s airmail service. This was the early days of air travel, and the department needed a way for pilots to get from point A to point B safely and reliably, especially during nighttime flights or in bad weather. The solution? The department installed a system of 50-foot lighted beacon towers across the country, spaced several miles apart from each other. Eventually, the Post Office Department turned airmail delivery over to private contractors. In 1927, the Department of Commerce took over responsibility for the airways, and they continued to build additional flyways and expand existing ones. And it was around then that they installed the 70-foot-long concrete directional arrows at the beacons. It was an easy enough system: The beacon towers were each assigned a number. The arrows would point to the beacon with the next highest number. (via Saving Places)

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “A hockey dad ran a $12 million fraud against his friends”

My city’s ‘Casual Fridays’ workplace default is not a coincidence, nor an act of free will by our bosses. It is the result of an extremely successful lobbying campaign. Specifically: A coordinated 1960s–90s effort by the Hawaiian Fashion Guild to convince mainland corporations that allowing employees to dress more casually on Fridays would boost morale, increase productivity, and, critically, increase the purchase of aloha shirts. This effort was branded “Operation Liberation,” which sounds like something from a declassified CIA memo. In the postwar period, Hawaii’s economy was struggling. Industries beyond tourism were in dire need of mainland demand. So the Guild began sending two aloha shirts to every member of the Hawaiian Senate and House, encouraging them to wear them to work on Fridays. The idea was to normalize the shirt locally, then export the concept to the continental U.S. It worked at every level. (via Why Is This Interesting)

When smallpox was eradicated Larry Brilliant sent a doctor a single Land Rover tire

Years ago, at the World Health Organization, I was working on the campaign to eradicate smallpox. One of our most vocal critics was a senior leader at WHO named Dr. Ignatovitch. He called the effort a waste of time and resources, saying: “If smallpox is ever eradicated, I’ll eat a Land Rover tire.” In 1975, a search of Bangladesh found one last case of smallpox in a young girl named Rahima Banu, in a village on Bola Island. I was sent from New Delhi to confirm she was indeed the last case of variola major in nature. In 1980, the world officially declared the disease eradicated—the first (and so far only) time that’s ever happened. And yes—one of the happiest days of my life was when we sent Dr. Ignatovitch a Land Rover tire. It was cleaned, boxed, and shipped with a note that read: “Dear Dr. Ignatovitch, In keeping with your promise, here is your tire. Would you like ketchup or mustard to go with that?” (via the Steve Jobs Archive)

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Casual Fridays were invented as a way to sell Hawaiian shirts”

Among the many mysteries surrounding Jeffrey Epstein is how, exactly, a website famous for pornography and white nationalism got the scoop on his death. At 8:16 a.m. on August 10, 2019, an anonymous 4Chan user posted, “don’t ask me how I know, but Epstein died an hour ago from hanging, cardiac arrest. Screencap this.” It was the first public indication that Epstein, awaiting trial for sex-trafficking charges in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, died while in the custody of the Department of Justice. It beat ABC journalist Aaron Katersky’s post about Epstein’s death on Twitter, now known as X, by 38 minutes. The Epstein files show that the Justice Department tried to identify the 4Chan user behind the posts — but couldn’t figure it out. They subpoenaed 4Chan for the user’s IP addresses four days after the posts were made as part of the FBI’s investigation. From there, the trail went cold. (via Business Insider)

He just wanted to control his own robot vacuum but wound up controlling thousands of them

A software engineer accidentally uncovered a major smart-home security flaw after trying to control his robot vacuum with a PlayStation 5 controller, only to discover he could access thousands of devices around the world. Sammy Azdoufal was experimenting with his new DJI Romo robot vacuum and building a custom app so he could steer it using a PS5 controller. But while testing the setup, he realized the same credentials used to control his own device also opened the door to thousands of others. Instead of just moving his vacuum around the living room, Azdoufal suddenly had visibility into nearly 7,000 robot vacuums across 24 countries. The unexpected access didn’t just allow remote control; The backend flaw meant he could view live camera feeds, listen through microphones, and retrieve detailed home maps and device data from the vacuums. (via Dexerto)

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “4chan knew about Epstein’s death before it was public”

I came across a maxim many years ago in a blog post written by Chris Dixon, a startup guy who is now a partner with Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley VC outfit. In 2010 Dixon wrote: “The next big thing will start out looking like a toy,” a phrase inspired by Harvard professor Clay Christensen. Dixon’s post made a big impression on me at the time. I had just started writing for GigaOm in San Francisco, covering the intersection of media and technology, and it really fit a lot of what was happening. For example, I (and many others) had initially dismissed Twitter as a toy, a goofy app with no real purpose. My then-boss Om Malik was one of the first to write about it in 2006, and said it seemed annoying and not very useful for much. But somehow this goofy and annoying toy became a central player in things like the Arab Spring (which was quickly followed by the Arab Winter) and turned into a billion-dollar colossus that played a pivotal role in the rise of everyone from Donald Trump to Snoop Dog. Lesson learned!

A more recent example of this phenomenon with a much darker outcome is artificial intelligence, or at least the version we all know now as ChatGPT and other similar products (the GPT stands for “generative pre-trained transformer”). Large-language models. Since it feels like only yesterday that OpenAI released ChatGPT, it’s easy to remember how goofy and useless it seemed at the time. Sure, you could ask it to answer to something you could easily have Googled, and it would respond in an artificially human sort of way. How cute! Then came the image and video versions, where you could make your picture look like The Flintstones, or generate a creepy-looking video of someone with too many fingers, or Will Smith’s face melting while he tried to eat spaghetti. Remember those? So fun. But then slowly it started happening: the toy started to become more useful, and in the process it started to become a lot more frightening (to me anyway).

At the same time AI engines like Claude from Anthropic and Gemini from Google were helping to solve math problems or discovering new pharmaceuticals, these tools – or similar ones – were also being used by the ICE division of Homeland Security to surveil a huge proportion of the population, in what I and others have described as a modern Panopticon. Not that long ago, taking photos from license-plate readers and combining them with facial recognition from visual ID systems, and then combining that with images from Ring doorbells or traffic cameras, and adding data from social media or shopping apps or what have you would have been a Sisyphean task for human beings – technically feasible but hugely time intensive. This provided what some like to call “privacy through obscurity.” But the kinds of searches and indexing and comparisons and matching of databases that I’ve just described is literally child’s play for an AI engine.

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “The danger posed by AI just got a lot more real all of a sudden”