John

Also [email protected]

[@levelsio @levelsio]

🇪🇺 Chat Control has passed 😔

They can and will now legally scan any person's messages, emails and photos you send without a warrant

The way they passed this law when the majority of the European Parliament was against it will shock you:

They waited until most EP members were on holiday so only a few were present and then created an "urgent" vote for it to pass it through

There's nothing democratic about any of it and big powerful forces are behind this that can manipulate the EU for whatever they want

Democracy in Europe died a bit today 😔

[John @BostonEnginerd]

Were the signatures real or fraudulent?

[MassGOP @massgop]

Massachusetts ballot commissioners donated to Democratic opponents of Michael Walsh and Anne Manning Martin before removing the GOP candidates from the ballot.
Three of them donated in June of 2026 during the hearings process! #mapoli

[Sarah 🤍 @HMFC_1874_]

I'm loving all the videos 😂🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[Signal @signalapp]

Our statement on the UK government’s demand that all content on all devices sold or used in the country be scanned, on the presumption of nudity, using a dystopian combination of age verification and content scanning. This proposal will not safeguard children. It endangers us all.

https://t.co/VdWe9uhi8p

[😱 Scary Larry 😱 🇺🇦✊🏻🇺🇸🗽 @aintscarylarry]

Jesus Fucking Christ. What a goddamn disgrace. I’ve never been so ashamed to be an American in my life.

[Signal @signalapp]

A response to recent reporting in Germany, in service of clarity and accountability:

First, it’s important to be precise when it comes to critical infrastructure like Signal. Signal was not “hacked” — in that our encryption, infrastructure, and the integrity of the app’s code was not compromised.

However, sophisticated attackers have engaged in a harmful phishing campaign, posing as “Signal Support” by changing their profile display name and using social engineering to trick people into handing over their credentials — information that allowed these attackers to take over some targeted Signal accounts. This is something that plagues any mainstream messaging app once it reaches the scale of Signal, but we know how high the stakes are given the trust people place in us.
In the coming weeks, you’ll see us rolling out a number of changes to help hinder these kinds of attacks.

Because we don’t collect user data, what we know about these attacks comes from the victims of phishing. And from what victims have told us, the attacks followed a broad pattern: after tricking people into revealing their Signal credentials, attackers then used those credentials to take over their account and also frequently changed the associated phone number. Because such a change results in de-registering your Signal accounts, attackers prepared people for this by telling them that being de-registered was intended behavior, and that all they would need to do is “re-register,” or, create a new account. When they moved to create a new Signal account — one that was now decoupled from their hijacked account — the victims thought they were logging back in to their primary account. As a result, many didn't notice the takeover. The compromised accounts were then weaponized to target the victims' contact lists by posing as the owners of the account.

We understand the trust that people put in Signal, and how devastating this kind of social engineering can be. While it’s true that all messaging platforms are susceptible to scammers and phishing that betrays people’s trust and convinces them to “unlock the front door” where no backdoor exists, we are looking to do everything we can to help people avoid and detect such scams.

For the time being, please stay vigilant against phishing and account takeover attempts. Remember that no one from Signal Support will ever send you a message request or ask for your registration verification code or Signal PIN. For an added layer of protection, you can enable Registration Lock in your Signal Settings (Account -> Registration Lock).

[Ron Wyden @RonWyden]

The NSA and FBI have been spying on you without a warrant using section 702 of FISA for decades.

Trump wants Congress to renew the law. Here are concrete examples of how this law has been abused – across administrations – and why Congress shouldn't rubber-stamp it.

[Harrison Berger @BergerPosts]

Jim Himes (D-CT) is leading the effort to renew unconstitutional, warrantless surveillance (FISA Section 702).

He claims that in the last 14 months the deep state hasn’t abused their spying powers once.

A FISA court opinion reviewed by Rep. Massie and a secret government interpretation of FISA law reviewed by Sen. Wyden reveal that to be a lie.

The FBI conducted up to 3.4 million warrantless searches on Americans in 2021 alone.

[John @BostonEnginerd]

@newstart_2024 Seems like this might not be correct:

https://t.co/jYf3l1hFY3

US whaling peaked in the 1850s, but global whaling peaked in the 1960s.

[Dylan Patel @dylan522p]

Can I short myself?

[Two Cent Philosophy @Dividend_Dojo]

Parasitic video games: You are the yield being farmed…

You're not conquering a world. You're livestock in a beautifully rendered feedlot.

Modern live-service games aren't ideological weapons or Kronos-worship time temples.

They're parasitic systems engineered to extract the two scarcest resources you actually own: **your time** and **your money**.

The illusion is progress.
You see:
- XP bars climbing
- Battle-pass tiers lighting up
- Daily/weekly quests stacking
- Side-quests promising "just one more" meaningful reward
- Seasonal events with FOMO timers
- Grind for that next skin/gun/mount/emblem/level cap

But none of that is *your* progress.
The only metrics that truly advance are:
1. Hours logged in their servers → more ad impressions, more behavioral data harvested
2. Dollars spent (or attention monetized via battle-pass skips, premium currencies, loot-box equivalents)

Everything else resets or depreciates:
- Seasons end → your "achievements" become obsolete cosmetics
- Power creep makes old gear irrelevant
- New battle pass launches → old one is worthless
- Events cycle → you're back to square one chasing the next dopamine hit

This is textbook **variable-ratio reinforcement** (Skinner-box gambling mechanics) scaled to infinity. Loot boxes, battle passes, daily login streaks, limited-time bundles, they're not accidental.

They're deliberate addiction loops proven in peer-reviewed psych studies to extend session length and increase spend far beyond what fair single-player progression ever could.

The 2013 Epstein-files emails with Kotick aren't even the smoking gun; they're just the earliest public glimpse of execs openly saying the quiet part loud: hook kids early on microtransaction habits so the spending becomes lifelong Pavlovian behavior. But you don't need shadowy cabals. Pure profit motive does the same job.

Activision, EA, Riot, Epic, Tencent, etc., all converged on this model because A/B testing showed it **works**:
- Retention skyrockets when "progress" feels infinite but is actually circular
- Whales (top 1-5% of spenders) subsidize free-to-play masses
- Average player feels they're "winning" while slowly bleeding time & wallet

The game feeds you pellets of fake agency and illusory mastery.
You keep coming back because the next pellet *might* be shinier.

You’ve been played.

[Secretary of War Pete Hegseth @SecWar]

This week, Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon.

Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted access to Anthropic’s models for every LAWFUL purpose in defense of the Republic.

Instead, @AnthropicAI and its CEO @DarioAmodei, have chosen duplicity. Cloaked in the sanctimonious rhetoric of “effective altruism,” they have attempted to strong-arm the United States military into submission - a cowardly act of corporate virtue-signaling that places Silicon Valley ideology above American lives.

The Terms of Service of Anthropic’s defective altruism will never outweigh the safety, the readiness, or the lives of American troops on the battlefield.

Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable.

As President Trump stated on Truth Social, the Commander-in-Chief and the American people alone will determine the destiny of our armed forces, not unelected tech executives.

Anthropic’s stance is fundamentally incompatible with American principles. Their relationship with the United States Armed Forces and the Federal Government has therefore been permanently altered.

In conjunction with the President's directive for the Federal Government to cease all use of Anthropic's technology, I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security. Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. Anthropic will continue to provide the Department of War its services for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service.

America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech. This decision is final.

[John @BostonEnginerd]

@DonnaRepici https://t.co/STpIZUd7pc

[John @BostonEnginerd]

@DonnaRepici Sounds like a plan.

https://t.co/bjr6xnS5Xj

https://t.co/lgtvMykegQ

https://t.co/Af36svDbBa

[Xiao Wang @xiaowang1984]

Terrific article covering NECEC by @jonchesto one of the best in the business. @BostonGlobe needs to ban anyone else from writing about energy

https://t.co/KJInPwnReX

[Ali Rak @AliRak8710]

This is Melissa Hortman, a Democrat Minnesota state legislator. She was murdered earlier this year by a kook in an early morning political assassination.

This is Charlie Kirk, a Republican political commentator. He was murdered in front of a crowd of 3,000 people by a radicalized maniac who hated his conservative views.

This is Jay Jones, who said if the Republican VA Speaker of the House was walking with Hitler and Pol Pot and he had two bullets, the Speaker of the House would get BOTH bullets, every time. Then he doubled down and said he hoped the Speaker's children would get shot and die in their mother's arms so that their father would change his views on the 2nd Amendment. He was just elected Attorney General of Virginia.

I guess that's just where we are at 🤷🏻‍♀️

[John @BostonEnginerd]

@WDWakeman @anthonymamore Seems that is incorrect.

https://t.co/B5BKDxuut0

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

It’s called the Patriot Act, FISA, and CISA. Please vote no next time.

[John @BostonEnginerd]

@RepReaganPaul At 5:13PM, solar is almost done for the day only making 5% of what they were generating at the peak of the day.

My behind the meter array (which ISO-NE doesn't report on) saved more than 300cuft of natural gas that day.

[Alex Chalmers @chalmermagne]

new from me for @worksinprogmag: how France achieved the world’s fastest nuclear buildout

I tell the story of how France defied the global backlash against nuclear power by aligning local incentives, embracing standardisation and abandoning a failed domestic design. 🧵