This week, we blast off with a tale as old as grift: Fyre Fest 2 has been postponed—again—proving that you really can fail upward if you squint hard enough and wear enough white linen. Over at Automattic, employees discovered secret watermarks in their internal comms, because what workplace isn’t better with a sprinkle of corporate surveillance cosplay? Meanwhile, Katy Perry took a joyride to the upper atmosphere with Gayle King and Bezos’ better half, giving us the 2025 edition of the cringiest “Imagine”-style celebrity moment yet. Spoiler: no one needed this.
In Elon World™, things are somehow even weirder. Seth Rogen dropped some truth bombs about Silicon Valley’s MAGA leanings, only to have them surgically removed from the Breakthrough Prize stream. Musk, for his part, is managing his growing empire of baby mamas like a Bond villain with a baby registry. Add in a cringe-filled offer to a YouTuber to become Space Karen’s next broodmare, and we’ve officially entered peak simulation. Meanwhile, whistleblowers are spilling DOGE secrets, OpenAI is building a social network (because we clearly don’t have enough doomscrolling options), and 4chan has finally been hacked into oblivion. Pour one out—for the internet’s dumpster fire.
Also in the news: Google lost a big ad tech monopoly case (cue tiny violins), China is no longer buying the “autonomous” car hype after a fatal crash, and Trump’s FCC chair is threatening Comcast for not being enough like Fox News (as if that’s the journalistic gold standard). The Pentagon’s nerd squad resigned after butting heads with DOGE, Reality Labs burned $45 billion like it was going out of style, and AI customer service bots are now inventing policies out of thin air. Oh, and if your AI thinks your Python package has a delivery issue—you’re not crazy, it probably hallucinated it. Welcome to the future.
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FOLLOW UP
Fyre Fest 2 Postponed: “New Date Will Be Announced”
Following Layoffs, Automattic Employees Discover Leak-Catching Watermarks
IN THE NEWS
Unfortunately for Katy Perry, That “Space Flight” Turned Out Exactly How We All Knew It Would
We Finally Have 2025’s “Imagine” Video
Let them eat space
Seth Rogen’s Criticism of Silicon Valley’s Support for Trump Was Cut From the “Full” Stream of Breakthrough Prize
The Tactics Elon Musk Uses to Manage His ‘Legion’ of Babies—and Their Mothers
Glamorous influencer Tiffany Fong breaks silence on Elon Musk's 'offer to impregnate her' with shocking statement
A whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data
Electronics exempted from reciprocal tariffs will soon be subject to new semiconductor tariffs instead
Google loses ad tech monopoly case
China cracks down on 'autonomous' car claims after fatal accident
Trump’s FCC chair threatens Comcast, demands changes to NBC news coverage
OpenAI is building a social network
4chan Likely Gone Forever After Hackers Take Control
Company apologizes after AI support agent invents policy that causes user uproar
Pentagon tech unit resigns after clash with Musk's DOGE
What Does a Corrupt Election Look Like?
Tesla puts finishing touches on Hollywood charge-n-diner
Inside the $45 billion cash burn at Reality Labs
We Have a Package for You! A Comprehensive Analysis of Package Hallucinations by Code Generating LLMs
The business of the AI labs by Max Bolingbroke
MEDIA CANDY
Killing an Arab on Pandora
Apple’s ‘Mythic Quest’ is ending with an updated Season 4 finale
Side Quest
Night of the Zoopocalypse
Black Mirror
Daredevil
The Last of Us
G20
28 Years Later Rises From the Grave With a New Trailer
'Real Time' host Bill Maher says President Trump was "gracious" and "not fake" during his White House visit.
Bringing Down a Dictator
Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World by Srdja Popovic
APPS & DOODADS
Apple is reportedly working on two new versions of the Vision Pro
Ilya Bezdelev 🎙️ metacast.app
Metacast Ep. 68: Q1 Update - new features, struggles, hope
Spotify was down – here's everything we know about its huge outage
AT THE LIBRARY
British authors want Meta to answer for alleged copyright infringement
Amazon will use AI to generate recaps for book series on the Kindle
David Schachner on BlueSky
The Warehouse by Rob Hart
Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech by Brian Merchant
The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival by Richard Bienstock & Tom Beajour
I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom: A Novel by Jason Pargin
THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE
Dave Bittner
The CyberWire
Hacking Humans
Caveat
Control Loop
Only Malware in the Building
Disney Teases Its Adventurous New Lion King and Up Rides
The Star Wars that George Lucas didn't want you to see is coming to the big screen
STAR WARS in the UK (1977)
‘End of an era’: The last RadioShack in Maryland is closing its doors
The Alligator King and his seven sons.
Sesame Street: Alligator King
Ladybug picnic
Lowercase N
Letter B
CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS
RIP Jed Gould, aka Jed the Fish aka Jeddum Fishum
1997 KROQ Calendar Commercial Featuring Jed The Fish
DJ Jed “The Fish”
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