Senate Unanimously Approves Bill to Force Release of Epstein Files
November 18th, 2025*yawn*
The Epstein files are like UFO disclosure, JFK, 9/11 etc. At maximum, only carefully managed limited hangouts will be released.
There is no way that the full extent of the Epstein situation will ever come out.
Via: The Hill:
The Senate agreed by unanimous consent Tuesday to approve a House-passed bill to require the Justice Department to release all unclassified records and documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, sending the bill to President Trump’s desk for a signature.
The swift Senate action ends the protracted battle in Congress over the files, which caused months of turmoil in the House and gave Democrats political ammo to accuse Republicans of protecting rich and powerful people who participated in Epstein’s illicit activities.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) on Tuesday evening received unanimous consent to approve the Epstein Files Transparency Act upon receipt of the legislation from the House, only hours after the lower chamber voted 427-1 to approve it.
Related: “National Security” Blocks Epstein Files Release
Apple’s Quiet Path to Identity Control
November 18th, 2025Via: The Highwire:
Apple’s new Digital ID feature has arrived. And in true Apple fashion, it is dressed in the language of ease and convenience. Scan your passport into your iPhone or Apple Watch. Move through TSA with a quick tap. In other words, no wallet, no cards, and no friction. If you listen to Apple, it is a much-needed quiet upgrade to today’s modern life. But, beneath the surface, the pattern is all too familiar and increasingly global. Much of the world is already living inside digital identification enslavement systems that began in the same way, professing to be voluntary, limited, and wrapped neatly in claims of convenience.
Google Boss Says Trillion-Dollar AI Investment Boom Has ‘Elements of Irrationality’
November 18th, 2025Via: BBC:
Every company would be affected if the AI bubble were to burst, the head of Google’s parent firm Alphabet has told the BBC.
Speaking exclusively to BBC News, Sundar Pichai said while the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) investment had been an “extraordinary moment”, there was some “irrationality” in the current AI boom.
It comes amid fears in Silicon Valley and beyond of a bubble as the value of AI tech companies has soared in recent months and companies spend big on the burgeoning industry.
Asked whether Google would be immune to the impact of the AI bubble bursting, Mr Pichai said the tech giant could weather that potential storm, but also issued a warning.
“I think no company is going to be immune, including us,” he said.
Related:
Yann LeCun Leaving Meta — Large Language Models Are a Dead End
AI “Circle Jerk” Rages On: Microsoft, Nvidia Invest $15 Billion In Anthropic
Anduril Unveils Omen Hybrid-Electric Vertical Takeoff And Landing Drone
November 18th, 2025Via: The War Zone:
Anduril has unveiled Omen, a new tail-sitting vertical takeoff and landing drone with a hybrid-electric propulsion system. The design, which the company is now developing in cooperation with EDGE Group in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is intended to be modular and adaptable to a wide array of military and non-military missions. Omen is being presented as a particularly disruptive effort, with outsized range and capabilities for its size and weight, positioning it to compete against larger uncrewed and crewed aircraft.
Project Prometheus: Jeff Bezos Launching $6.2 Billion AI Startup He Will Co-Lead
November 17th, 2025Haha no way ?
Copy ? https://t.co/TG8UMrWwQr
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 17, 2025
Via: Forbes:
Jeff Bezos is set to serve as the co-CEO of Project Prometheus—a new artificial intelligence startup he is partially funding—the New York Times reported on Monday, the billionaire’s first significant executive role since he stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021.
Britain: Government ‘Withholding Data that May Link Covid Jab to Excess Deaths’
November 16th, 2025
Via: Telegraph:
UKHSA argued that releasing figures would lead to ‘distress or anger’ of bereaved relatives if connection were discovered.
Labor Demographer Issues Warning: College-Educated Oversupply Is Here
November 16th, 2025Via: ZeroHedge:
Goldman analysts led by Evan Tylenda published a note on emerging labor-market risks and how companies are adapting to aging demographics and shrinking labor pools.
One section stood out in particular: the widening mismatch between an oversupply of college-educated workers and a deepening shortage of talent for non-degree, hands-on jobs.
Tylenda and others on the team spoke with labor demographer Ron Hetrick, who outlined how the U.S. labor market is entering a structural slowdown driven by aging demographics, a falling birth rate, and weakening participation among older workers.
Hetrick outlined that baby boomers once supplied 65 million workers, but only 25 million remain, and no younger generation is large enough to replace them.
He noted that BLS data show the workforce adding just 5.9 million workers by 2034, with nearly half of that coming from workers aged +65, even as participation among those +55 continues to decline.
Here’s where things get spicy: This demographic squeeze is creating a skills imbalance: an oversupply of college-educated workers and a shortage of vocational and lower-skilled labor for non-degree jobs.
Related: U.S. ‘In Trouble’ – Ford CEO Can’t Find 5,000 Mechanics For $120k Jobs
Yann LeCun Leaving Meta — Large Language Models Are a Dead End
November 16th, 2025Warning: Not investment advice.
I provide ideas and analysis to a Cryptogon reader who is very active in equity investing. What follows is based on information that I’ve provided to this investor.
Making money on long side trades in tech related stocks, and stocks in general, has been easy in recent months. This is due to frenzied investments into companies that are directly and indirectly related to the Large Language Model (LLM) artificial intelligence paradigm.
While LLMs are capable of accomplishing some incredible parlor tricks—I have scripts and programs that I could not have coded on my own, for example—Big Tech CEOs are trying to convince everyone that LLMs are going to lead to artificial general intelligence.
AGI is not going to emerge from LLMs.
In addition to the diminishing returns around scaling LLMs, the technology routinely produces results that contain significant amounts of hallucinated material. While output might appear impressive at times, it will often contain hallucinated statements and sources.
The hallucination problem is getting worse, not better.
It’s very possible that hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent to travel down a dead end path.
I have no ability to quantify how bad this could be for stocks as increasing numbers of people figure this out. With LLMs potentially representing a massive bubble and the consumer increasingly living paycheck to paycheck, I’m urging caution with long side bets in equities.
If President Warp Speed Trump’s $2000 checks go out, that could provide a sort of short term sugar high, but don’t be fooled.
I don’t know much about the AI field except that it’s prone to extreme boom-bust cycles, and this boom cycle has dwarfed all of the rest combined. Additionally, it has pulled the wider economy into its reality distortion field.
Is the “World Models” paradigm the way to AGI, or even something less polluted with hallucinations than LLMs?
My guess is that World Models are going to be infinitely harder to pull off than LLMs and that it’s a case of trying to keep doubling down. But, as I said, I don’t know much about this field.
Here’s what I do know:
When I ask for the title of a band’s upcoming album and the LLM makes up an album name and fake sources to back up the hallucination…
When I ask for book recommendations on a topic and I get hallucinated titles and authors…
When I ask how to do something using the free version of DaVinci Resolve and it gives me instructions on how to do the task using the paid version, and repeatedly insists that the task is doable in the free version…
There’s a serious problem.
Therefore, if it becomes widely acknowledged that LLMs are unreliable and, perhaps, irredeemably flawed, there could be a lot of downside potential in stocks.
Via: Gizmodo:
One of the most important AI scientists in Big Tech wants to scrap the current approach to building human-level AI. What we need, Yann LeCun has indicated, are not large language models, but “world models.”
…
Why is he leaving a company that’s been spending lavishly, poaching the most highly-skilled AI experts from other firms, and, according to a July blog post by CEO Mark Zuckerburg, making such astonishing leaps in-house that supposedly the development of “superintelligence is now in sight”?
He’s actually been hinting at the answer for a long time. When it comes to human-level intelligence, LeCun has become notorious lately for saying LLMs as we currently understand them are duds—no longer worth pursuing, no matter how much Big Tech scales them up. He said in April of last year that “an LLM is basically an off-ramp, a distraction, a dead end.”
More: Meta’s star AI scientist Yann LeCun plans to leave for own startup
Amazon’s Starlink Rival Is Called Leo
November 14th, 2025A few days ago, my (very rural) area in New Zealand became eligible for free hardware on Starlink. That’s extremely tempting…
I’d get the Residential Lite service tier, which deprioritizes traffic in favor of users who pay for the full priced regular service. If you have Starlink’s Residential Lite service, what speeds do you get, peak and off-peak? Ping? Jitter?
Via: PC Magazine:
Project Kuiper started off as a code name for Amazon’s satellite internet ambitions. “We’ve hit some important milestones under that name, but there’s lots more on the horizon, and it seemed like a good time to share our permanent brand for the program,” says VP Rajeev Badyal.
The name is a nod to low-Earth orbit (LEO), where the company’s satellites will reside as they circle the planet. The lower orbit has already enabled SpaceX to deliver satellite internet speeds of 200Mbps and higher to users on the ground, and Amazon plans to do the same, as higher-orbiting geostationary satellites struggle to compete with Starlink.
Dr. Suzanne Humphries: Deadly Secrets & Monkey Business
November 13th, 2025“What we saw in 2020 was not a new thing.”
Via: Children’s Health Defense:
Books:
Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History by Dr. Suzanne Humphries
Dr. Mary’s Monkey by Edward T. Haslam
Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald by Judyth Vary Baker
