Life and times of Jason since 2001
In my opinion, we’re not freaking out nearly enough about AI-enabled bioterror. It’s absolutely catastrophic, frighteningly plausible, and receives very little attention. Compared to the risk of a civilization-ending pandemic, cyberattacks are a pinprick, and misinformation is a joke.
So let’s talk about why a scenario like the one I described is a lot more plausible than many people think.
— Read on www.noahpinion.blog/p/heres-how-were-all-going-to-die
After trade negotiations broke down between the two countries last weekend, Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, vowed to match US tariffs “dollar for dollar” and unveiled a list of nearly 900 American goods that will face 25% to 50% tariffs starting on 8 September.
Paper products are among the hardest-hit sectors, with Canada threatening to put tariffs of between 25% and 50% on “toilet paper or face tissue stock” from 8 September in retaliation for a 50% hike from Washington DC.
Though American toilet paper and tissues are often made domestically, they heavily rely on lumber-rich Canada for raw materials. Procter & Gamble, the owner of Charmin toilet paper, said last year that it would have to increase prices amid tariffs that were in place at the time.
The US imported $328m worth of toilet paper from Canada in 2024, according to the World Bank, making it by far the largest exporter of the product to the US. Retailers including Costco source much of their paper products from the country.
The US accounts for more than 20% of global tissue consumption despite having only 4% of the world’s population. The average American uses 141 rolls of toilet paper per year, making them No 1 for No 2s globally, just ahead of Germans, each using an average of 134 rolls annually.
The real “capitalist achievement,” however, isn’t Graceland. It’s the fact that compared to the stuff of the average person’s day-to-day life in 2023, Graceland just isn’t that impressive.
— Read on thedailyeconomy.org/article/economic-growth-makes-graceland-less-impressive/
Reading something already confirms your existing worldview, highlights every piece of information in precisely the right format to re-confirm your existing identity, and takes no effort or discomfort, no revision for any mental model. You finish whatever book, whatever blog post, feeling a good deal smarter than you were when you started (because look! There was content, and now it has been consumed!) but nothing has actually happened.
You’re the same person.
You had no reason to change.
Challenging yourself is incredibly uncomfortable – nobody expects training for and running a marathon to leave you feeling as refreshed and relaxed as a hot bath with a glass of Prosecco. Challenging yourself mentally is no different. You have to hold competing thoughts in your head and let them duke and duel it out, and moderate them for all your life’s worth. Most folks aren’t willing to do that.
Which makes the market for comforting, conforming ideas far more lucrative than the market for ideas with a fighting spirit.
Nearly one in three EU websites sets analytics cookies before consent. Nearly one in five sets marketing cookies. The legal position on these is unambiguous: the EDPB has repeatedly confirmed that analytics and marketing cookies require consent under Article 5(3) ePrivacy. The CJEU’s Planet49 ruling made clear that consent must be an active, affirmative act — and it cannot be affirmative if it has not happened yet.
The practical implication is that by the time a visitor sees a cookie banner and considers whether to accept or reject, their browser has already been fingerprinted, their visit has already been logged by analytics platforms, and in many cases their browsing profile has already been updated by advertising networks. The consent choice, when it arrives, is partially retroactive — and retroactive consent is not consent at all.
We Scanned 97,000 EU Websites for GDPR Compliance. Here’s What We Found. – GDPR Privacy Monitor
What makes another person’s gaze so powerful? According to Sartre, we exist in two radically different ways.
In our own minds, we are a “Subject.” We are a limitless current of intentions, possibilities, memories, and dreams. We are not a fixed thing; we are a constant process of becoming. When you are alone, you experience this freedom most purely. You are the author, director, and star of your own reality.
The moment another person looks at you, however, you are ripped from that role. Under their Gaze, you are instantly transformed into an “Object.” You become a thing in their world, defined by external properties they assign to you: “tall,” “serious,” “well-dressed,” “nervous.” Your infinite inner world collapses into a finite, external label. And the most terrifying part? You have no control over what that label is.
The greatest value in writing (to me at least) is not necessarily this finished product, but rather, the process the author goes through to create that work. Putting a word down on paper or pixels forces a coherence and clarity that is typically unavailable until the writing is done. Perhaps the best observation on this predates AI by decades and comes from former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin, who said, “I write to figure out what I think…”1
The written word is the most visible work product, but it is not the most valuable part of writing – the process is…
— Read on ritholtz.com/2026/08/the-written-word-is-not-your-work-product/
McNamara, who owns and operates the multi-use restaurant, event space and rooftop in Scott’s Addition, received a $58,486.76 water bill last week, according to records reviewed by Axios.
Her typical monthly water bill for the 2816 W. Broad St. space is roughly $1,500.
Most of the increase appeared to be connected to the building’s fireline meter, which serves the fire sprinkler system. The bill showed usage jumping from zero to 9,989.83 CCF for July — and a line item cost of over $55,000.
McNamara says DPU officials told her Wednesday that the spike stemmed from a meter-reading issue that the department should have caught.
— Read on www.axios.com/local/richmond/2026/08/19/richmond-dpu-water-bill-autopay-harrys-hofheimer
Tech executives like Mr. Zuckerberg don’t talk about their own families often. When they do, however, they usually make clear their wariness of tech. For their children, tech does not play the same role it does for the rest of society: teacher, babysitter, all-purpose distraction and, increasingly, constant companion. It seems barely there at all.
The executives’ comments are generally off the cuff and are snapshots of a moment. Mr. Zuckerberg, for instance, talked about his children seven years ago and has said little since. A Meta representative declined to say anything more.
Peter Thiel, who was the first outside investor in Facebook and a longtime board member, said he limited his children — then 3½ and 5 — to “an hour and a half a week” of screen time. When he mentioned this at the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2024, the audience gasped. Many children that age experience that amount of screen time in a day, or even a morning.
But Mr. Thiel said he was a typical Silicon Valley parent.
“There are probably a lot of people in tech who do something quite similar for their own families,” he said, adding pointedly, “There’s some questions that that might lead you to ask.” Mr. Thiel did not respond to emailed questions.
Silicon Valley Executives Are Tech Fans. Just Not For Their Own Kids. – The New York Times
The hospital is not providing many details, but NewsChannel 5 Investigates talked with one of those families. Here’s what we can tell you.
Last Friday, at least four people went to Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown in Nashville for joint replacement surgeries, and a drug mix-up led to things going horribly wrong in the operating room.
The family of a Centerville woman who was there for a knee replacement told NewsChannel 5 Investigates that she is now permanently paralyzed from the chest down.
She was supposed to have had an epidural for pain, but the wrong medication was injected. She was not the only one. There were at least three others.
Drug mix-up during surgeries at Nashville hospital leaves at least one paralyzed