Chicken Farm: On the US healthcare system - ‘The “front line” of doctors and nurses are fighting a two front war: one against whatever ails you, and the other against the insurer’.

Vatican ‘on the brink of Bankruptcy’ due to dramatic decline in global donations under Pope Francis' Leadership: Even the Pope isn’t immune to worldly financial crises.

The end of life hacking: The rise and fall of life-hacking as praxis.

Retrospective, financial: ‘We long for the security that money brings, but to get it we must sacrifice what’s worth securing: our health, our relationships, our creativity.’

This is My Most Expensive Habit: Anxiety.

Is Protein Powder a Scam?: ‘Most people don’t need to consume this supplement, experts say, but it can be useful in certain situations.’

Ozempic Killed Diet and Exercise: It’s seeming like patients on GLP-1 drugs don’t benefit a lot from explicit lifestyle interventions in terms of weight loss - although there may be other health benefits of doing them.

Why Romania’s election was annulled – and what happens next?: Romanian courts rule that their presidential election was too contaminated with social media manipulation, Russian interference, cyber attacks and illegal funding to stand.

AI’s Walking Dog: ‘AI itself has much to offer, but it has not lived up to its potential to serve the public good, and the context of AI’s development explains why’

I have a cunning plan…: Charles Stross comes up with a cunning business plan for a world in which Trump’s presidency leads to a reemergence of polio in the US.

The Race For the Best Stock Footage: Joe’s (skeptical) thoughts on the utility of AI video generators.

One big choice shapes a hundred more: ‘Knowing the consequences I want, what choice would create them?’

Going off the record with Trump? That’s just kissing his ring: Yep, Trump really doesn’t seem like the sort of person you need to be off the record with hear what’s truly on his mind.

Syrians celebrate fall of Bashar al-Assad after five decades of dynastic rule: Although some also worry about what will come next.

Complaints: ‘The best way to complain is to make things better.’

Congressional Republicans conclude SARS-CoV-2 originated in a lab leak: Whatever the truth of the matter is, it’s obvious that the process that led to this particular report was a total abuse of science.

Why is Meta adding fediverse interoperability to Threads?: I was somewhat astonished when Meta said it’d build Fediverse compatibility, am less so to hear they’re not doing so overly enthusiastically.

Russia Tests Cutting Off Access to Global Web, and VPNs Can’t Get Around It

Culture war and revolution: 30 Years of Manic Street Preachers’ Generation Terrorists: Great as they are, kind of a shame how many of their songs still make perfect sense decades later.

The Allure of ‘Microdosing’ Ozempic: It might be tempting, but there’s not much evidence as to how well it works when used like this yet.

Artificial Irony: Misinformation Expert’s Testimony Has Fake Citations: Via unchecked ChatGPT usage.

Smartphones don’t suck. People do: We shouldn’t let our phones bore us so often.

One million elderly people skipping meals as costs bite: Neither eating or heating is affordable for some.

Murdered Insurance CEO Had Deployed an AI to Automatically Deny Benefits for Sick People: Not to justify murder, but I’m sure there were a lot of desperate people very unhappy with Brian Thompson’s company.

How John le Carre reinvented the English language and made us all sound like spies: How we talk about spies today might largely be down to the popular author.