Peter Thiel accused Pope Leo XIV of acting as a “Chinese communist agent” over AI regulation calls. Switzerland leads the US on internet speeds by treating fiber as a shared monopoly, while America wastes resources on redundant overbuilding. Manticore Search’s new ONNX backend boosts embedding throughput 14×. Meanwhile, common gun errors in fiction—like flicking safeties on revolvers—break immersion for knowledgeable readers.
📰 News
Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition
The article identifies common firearms inaccuracies in fiction, such as characters “flicking the safety off” revolvers or Glocks, which lack manual safeties. It advises writers to research firearm mechanics or consult experts to avoid these errors, which can ruin immersion for knowledgeable readers.
- Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition — swiftsilentdeadly.com
Commodore 64 Basic for PostgreSQL
PL/CBMBASIC is a PostgreSQL extension that executes Commodore 64 BASIC V2 code inside the database, using a C-based emulation of the original 6502 interpreter for very fast per-row performance. Functions require mandatory line numbers, have reserved keywords that trigger errors at creation time, and can interact with the database via BASIC’s OPEN/INPUT#/PRINT# commands by treating SQL statements as device 8.
- Commodore 64 Basic for PostgreSQL — thombrown.blogspot.com
Half-Baked Product
A founder with no baking expertise raises $5 million for an oven prototype that works only a third of the time, relying on five initial customers. He hires an engineer and later online forum experts to improve the product, while also recruiting an inexperienced sales team. The story highlights the disconnect between a promising pitch and an unreliable product.
- Half-Baked Product — weli.dev
The Free Market Lie: Why Switzerland Has 25 Gbit Internet and America Doesn’t
Switzerland achieves fast, affordable internet by treating fiber as a natural monopoly—building shared, neutral infrastructure that multiple providers compete over. In contrast, the United States and Germany allow redundant overbuilding of separate networks, wasting resources and resulting in slower, often monopolistic service.
- The Free Market Lie: Why Switzerland Has 25 Gbit Internet and America Doesn’t — stefan.schueller.net
14× faster embeddings: how we rebuilt the ONNX path in Manticore
Manticore Search’s new ONNX Runtime backend in version 27.1.5 delivers approximately 14× faster embedding throughput than the previous SentenceTransformers/Candle path, increasing average performance from 5–11 docs/sec to 70–230 docs/sec. The speedup comes from reworking model execution—specifically disabling intra_op_spinning and eliminating in-worker document batching—with no user-facing API changes required.
- 14× faster embeddings: how we rebuilt the ONNX path in Manticore — manticoresearch.com
The Safari MCP server for web developers
The Safari MCP server, introduced in Safari Technology Preview 247, connects agents to a Safari browser window, granting access to the DOM, network requests, screenshots, and console output for autonomous debugging. It streamlines web development by reducing window hopping and enabling agents to handle tasks like compatibility checks, performance analysis, and accessibility testing directly from the terminal.
- The Safari MCP server for web developers — webkit.org
CarPlay Is Additive
The article argues that Apple CarPlay is an optional, additive feature that does not need to dominate the entire screen, citing Volvo’s implementation as proof. It criticizes Rivian’s excuses for not supporting CarPlay and states that the author will not purchase a Rivian without it.
- CarPlay Is Additive — caseyliss.com
Peter Thiel in Aspen: The pope is ‘working for the Chinese Communists’
Billionaire investor Peter Thiel accused Pope Leo XIV of inadvertently acting as a “Chinese communist agent” by calling for AI regulation, arguing it would slow the U.S. in the AI race against China. He also warned of a “democratic-socialist takeover” of the Democratic Party and criticized Western institutions. Thiel made the remarks during a nonrecorded Aspen Ideas Festival panel with Francis Fukuyama.
I made a tool that prevents websites from tracking you
A user created a tool designed to prevent websites from tracking users. They noted that while AI was used in the tool’s development, it was primarily for formatting and should not be considered low-quality AI output.
Order a burned CD of your own public GitHub repo
The article content is not available, so a summary cannot be provided.
- Order a burned CD of your own public GitHub repo — forms.cloud.microsoft
An American Privacy Emergency
On June 4, 2026, the U.S. Commerce Department issued a directive banning modern disclosure avoidance techniques such as differential privacy for Census Bureau and BEA data, reverting to outdated coarsening and suppression methods. The order, driven by political motives and bypassing standard procedures, undermines both data utility and legally mandated confidentiality protections. It fulfills promises from Project 2025 and the Center for Renewing America, which opposes differential privacy as an obstacle to identifying individuals’ citizenship status.
- An American Privacy Emergency — scottaaronson.blog
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to stop accepting new customers – and not even AI can save it
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is halting new customer sign-ups, with existing workers reporting that AWS is closing their accounts. The move impacts the original crowdsourcing platform, and even AI cannot prevent this change.
- Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to stop accepting new customers – and not even AI can save it — theregister.com
Diving into the depths of Widevine L3
The article explains how to break Google’s Widevine L3 DRM using the Qiling emulation framework and Differential Fault Analysis (DFA). It describes Widevine’s architecture, including the keybox and three security levels, and details techniques for loading Android libraries into Qiling and deobfuscating code to extract the device key without requiring root access.
- Diving into the depths of Widevine L3 — neodyme.io
What are you doing this weekend?
The article invites readers to share their weekend plans and ask for help or feedback, while also reassuring that it is perfectly acceptable to do nothing.
Until_Heat_Death_Do_Us_Part: Broadcasting heat death counter every sec over 100Mbps ethernet
An ASIC with a 383-bit counter increments every 20 nanoseconds and broadcasts the current value via 100Mbps Ethernet every second, theoretically counting until the heat death of the universe (~10^100 years), with a hidden easter egg on overflow. However, the accompanying software only parses 64 bits, limiting correct operation to 11,680 years.
- Until_Heat_Death_Do_Us_Part: Broadcasting heat death counter every sec over 100Mbps ethernet — github.com
Clickhouse is winning the Observability Wars
The author argues that logs are the most challenging aspect of observability due to high volume, inconsistent schemas, and conflicting user expectations. ClickHouse, originally designed for clickstream data, proves surprisingly effective for handling observability logs because of shared characteristics like high volume and time-ordering.
- Clickhouse is winning the Observability Wars — matduggan.com
Bezos’ evolving Trump ties boost his firms’ federal contracts in second term
Jeff Bezos has shifted from being a target of President Trump’s animosity in his first term to a close ally during the second, resulting in rapid growth for his space company through increased federal contracts. Trump once asked aides to break up Amazon, calling Bezos a “son of a bitch,” but now Bezos laughs heartily at Trump’s speeches as his business benefits.
Pitch document: Chris Larsen and Palmer Luckey invested an undisclosed amount in APEC, a derivati…
Chris Larsen and Palmer Luckey have invested an undisclosed amount in APEC, a derivatives exchange founded by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s 22-year-old son, Theo Gillibrand. The startup has drawn attention due to the investors’ political ties and the senator’s role in crypto legislation.
- Pitch document: Chris Larsen and Palmer Luckey invested an undisclosed amount in APEC, a derivati… — politico.com
BitTorrent at 25: How media piracy fueled growth, architecture shielded from legal liability
Twenty-five years ago, Bram Cohen launched BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file-sharing app that used swarming distribution and lacked built-in search, allowing it to evade the legal shutdowns that befell Napster and Kazaa. The protocol quickly dominated internet traffic, driving massive media piracy while third-party sites and the protocol itself thrived despite industry opposition. Cohen, whose goal was a revolution rather than a business, created a tool that still attracts tens of millions of monthly users today.
- BitTorrent at 25: How media piracy fueled growth, architecture shielded from legal liability — theverge.com
Blackstone’s QTS scraps Virginia data center campus plans after local opposition, legal challenges
Blackstone’s QTS has scrapped plans to build its portion of a 2,100-acre data center campus in Virginia’s Prince William County, following years of opposition and legal challenges from residents. The proposed development, located near a historic Civil War battlefield, had been stalled by lawsuits.
- Blackstone’s QTS scraps Virginia data center campus plans after local opposition, legal challenges — bloomberg.com
Anthropic hires Freshfields for IPO; firm advised Google/Wiz, ServiceNow/Armis - The Information
Freshfields, a UK law firm, has been hired by Anthropic’s bankers to advise on its initial public offering. The firm also previously advised on Google’s acquisition of Wiz and ServiceNow’s purchase of Armis.
- Anthropic hires Freshfields for IPO; firm advised Google/Wiz, ServiceNow/Armis - The Information — theinformation.com
Spotify removed 500K streams of Malcolm Todd’s Earrings after surge to #1; suspicious Kalshi wagers
Spotify removed over 500,000 streams of Malcolm Todd’s track “Earrings” after a 70% surge in 24 hours propelled it to number one on the platform’s U.S. chart, coinciding with suspicious wagers placed on Kalshi. The action was taken over concerns that traders had manipulated the song’s streaming numbers.