EveTea - New Drones, NetSwitches, New Charging, and Not Reading

Pulling the paywall because this is about 4 hours late. But also because the Poem of the Week is so good, it took over the Quote of the Week as well. The Vibe is also not too bad, if you’re in the mood for Classical Smash & Atlanta Swang.

Russians increasingly deploy unidentified drones along Shaheds, Air Force reports (Ukrainska Pravda) The wars in Ukraine & Gaza have done to drone warfare, what COVID did to e-commerce. Cram 25 years of innovation into 2-5, and see how the world shakes out. By the time Russia signs a peace accord, multi-million buck tank-column warfare will be obliterated by drones rigged up with unguided mortars, leisurely piloted with a DualShock controller.

India shuts down the internet far more than any other country (Rest of World) The South Asian continent won’t be a super awesome place for startups until the Indian government stops treating Internet like a privilege you get for finishing all of your vegetables.

The fentanyl funnel: How narcos sneak deadly chemicals through the US (Reuters) We really had a shot at preventing this 2008 to like 2012. Ah well.

Idaho GOP stands behind Senator after racist outburst (Boise State Public Radio) My dude really told a First Nation member to go back where they came from. Beyond parody.

Jill Stein paid $100,000 to a Republican consulting firm led by a suspected January 6 rioter (Slate) If the Green party just copied the DSA playbook, we’d have legitimate 3rd party races in 20 states across this country. Instead, we have a seasonal candidate who exists to suck up lefty votes and authoritarian money. Seriously, Jill Stein is an existential drag on our democracy and I am happy to go to the mat to explain how & why if asked.

TikTok’s owner is scraping the web 25x faster than OpenAI (Quartz) TikTok knows everything because it hoovers every single freaking thing up. I have advised clients to block OpenAI, Claude/Anthropic, and every LLM agent if they don’t want the content in AI Overviews. Am I going to have to tell them to block TT if they don’t want their stuff sucked up by Bytedance 20x faster?

After software eats the world, what comes out the other end? (Programmable Mutter) Amazing experiment by a reasonably prolific writer, where they got Google’s NotebookLLM Podcast thingie to ingest a bunch of their writing, and explain it using the Podcast feature. Boy howdy did the podcast thingie get things wrong. Not only was the summary wrong, but it was wrong in a weirdly banal way, that almost regressed ideas to the mean. Weirdness and Expertise seem to be Kryptonite to LLM systems, which makes me so happy.

California May Require Bidirectional Charging EVs. That Could Save Lives. (Inside EVs) As California goes, so goes the nation. So if this happens, this could shove the arc of smart grid development a good way towards not terrible. Everyone cross their electric fingers.

Paralyzed Jockey Loses Ability to Walk After Manufacturer Refuses to Fix Battery For His $100,000 Exoskeleton (404 Media) As terrible as you are imagining. There should be a dozen laws preventing this, but we live in a Hell Realm.

The Atlantic Did Me Dirty (Carrie M. Santo-Thomas) If you saw that story in The Atlantic about kids not being able to read full length books at “elite” colleges anymore, one of those interviewed is pissed about how badly they were misquoted. A tremendous read for educators, parents, and anyone who hated reading boring bullshit in high school and college lit classes.

It’s free because I’m late this week, but usually the Quote, Poem, and Vibe are only accessible to paid subscribers. Don’t miss out!

Quote of the week

It’s difficult to be anything at all with the whole world right there for the having.~Kaveh Akbar

Poem of the week

Utterly incredible poem by Kaveh Akbar

Vibe of the week

Listen to this on surround sound headphones or the highest quality sound system you can. Try not to cackle too loudly when the mashup hits.

Keep Smashing,tn