Former chemical industry lobbyists are overseeing the EPA's approval of PFAS pesticides. The agency's definition rejects the consensus of most PFAS-expert scientists, as well as 23 U.S. states, Congress, the Department of Defense, OECD, etc.
Into our pesticides they go. Latest @sludge for subscribers
https://readsludge.com/2026/07/07/chemical-lobbyist-packed-epa-boosts-pfas-pesticides/
It’s kinda like how Apple has become a dongle company and payment processor instead of a computer company. #enshittification
I’m all for led lighting to replace traditional incandescent, except for the fact that devices use proprietary light arrays instead of standard connectors and bulbs.
My kitchen lights that the previous owners put in have a proprietary light plate from a company that’s no longer in business. Thankfully there was a standard slot underneath and I was able to tear apart the cover to fit.
I just bought a bunch of ceiling fans and they have a custom LED array instead of standard fitting bulbs. Ugh.
Republicans tried to dunk on Mamdani for saying people should set their thermostat to 78° during a heat wave so as not to overload the grid.
When it was pointed out that this is just standard advice from the Department of Energy, the Trump administration deleted 6,000 pages of documents on energy conservation from the DoE website.
Idiocracy wasn’t this dumb. 🤦🏾♂️
https://www.theverge.com/policy/961449/white-house-mamdani-heatwave-deletion
Incredible moment where Fox News puts up a graphic with all the reasons it opposes the Democratic Socialists of America and why people should be afraid of them ...
Our scoop this week became a follow-up story on the Today Show ...
Also in CNBC, NBC News, ABC News, the Wall Street Journal, and others that mentioned Trump's 327 individual stock purchases before tariff announcement, which we found in the disclosure.
None of them included "as first reported by Sludge," of course.
Having just returned from AWS Summit, I am of course amused that my on-stage comments regarding access to frontier models that got me banned from speaking there two years ago, has now become official U.S. policy. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/06/promoting-advanced-artificial-intelligence-innovation-and-security/
The big secret here is, we never really needed mobile apps. Sure, in the early days there were a few APIs that smart phone manufacturers kept only for native apps built in their ecosystem- but those weren’t used by most apps.
Today, there’s no reason to have or maintain a mobile app when 99% of features are available through web APIs.
It was always a scam to keep folks in walled gardens. We can choose an open web.
This quote has been circulating recently, from a 1985 paper that was part of a conversation at the time about what a computer program *is*. Is it the source code? Or the final executable binary? Or the sum of its versions? Or the people who wrote it?
I've been programming for over 40 years, and I can tell you with great confidence that Naur was right. When I'm building software, first and foremost what I'm building is me.
edit: credit THEY CAN TALK this golden egg has done so many miles we forget to attribute the value where it is due https://theycantalk.com/post/636165692960522240/feathers
ht @rreusser
"Climate scientists appalled by politicians' refusal to accept responsibility as heatwave hits France"
So to summarize, AI will cause personal computers to cost ten thousand dollars, all applications will forever be frozen to about 2025 design and implementation (because that’s what vibe coding outputs), power to run the computer will be twice the price and also you need to sign in with your passport to start your computer in the first place.
Explain to me again how this is progress?
RE: https://front-end.social/@stephaniewalter/116809572711174658
“The goal right now isn’t to optimize yourself into the shape the market demands. It’s to stay whole enough that when better conditions exist — and they will — you still have something left to bring.”
This piece may make you feel sad and angry and seen.
I’m pretty sure that some flavors of #GenAI will find wholesome uses in the post-bubble future, but for the moment I feel a wave of revulsion every time I encounter AI cheerleading because it never NEVER acknowledges the force-field of greed and fear under the overhang of the multi-trillion-dollar bet being made by people I loathe who are oblivious to the oncoming financial and social wreckage they are facilitating.
In a new privacy policy, Anthropic says Claude will soon require you to upload your driver's license or passport for a variety of reasons. The ID checker is Persona, a firm funded by Trump ally Peter Thiel. As a U.S. company, Persona is also subject to gov't demands for people's verification data. 👀
https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/22/anthropic-says-claude-may-want-to-see-your-id/
RE: https://infosec.exchange/@lcamtuf/116785283147249092
Ah, one of the reasons why I only buy character / drawing reference books from before 2022 :blobcatsadpats:
Hey @voltur i thought you’d like this late dandelion inching its way into the sun
It’s weird to go into a Lowe’s and see them selling Mr Beast projects for kids.
He doesn’t build anything and never has. He makes people suffer in challenges so they might win money?
Why didn’t Lowe’s promote real tinkerers, like Simone Giertz or Mark Rober or Adam Savage instead?