(0:00) Pre-Show
(1:17) Open
(1:52) California Admission Day
(4:30) cj's week: The Middle-Aged Golden Ticket
(6:50) Jeff's Week: Wired WiFi is The Best WiFi
(8:38) Headline: Breathe at Your Own Risk: Study Connects Air Pollution to Dementia
(12:51) Headline: NatCon 5: Where the Right Declared Holy War on AI
(18:50) Headline: AI Wins Again: The $1.5B Payout That Screws Writers
(26:23) The IC Chip
Breathe at Your Own Risk
Turns out, car exhaust and wildfire smoke aren’t just wrecking your lungs—they’re also speed-running your brain toward dementia. A massive study of 56 million people found that fine particulate matter (PM2.5) can accelerate Lewy body dementia by literally gunking up your neurons. Mice exposed to the same stuff even forgot how to mouse properly.
NatCon 5: A Holy War on AI
At the latest National Conservatism conference, the MAGA crowd went full medieval, calling for an actual “holy war” against AI. One professor accused Palantir’s CTO and the entire tech industry of being “globalist, feminized transhumanists”—which sounds like a metal band but plays more like paranoia. The uneasy alliance between Trump populists and the tech right? Yeah, that’s toast.
AI Wins Again
Half a million authors are about to get checks from Anthropic—but don’t pop champagne yet. This $1.5 billion settlement is more “hush money” than victory, since it dodges the big fight over whether AI can legally train on copyrighted books. Writers get $3,000; Anthropic gets a precedent that basically says, “Sure, we stole your stuff, but hey, fair use!”
Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk
MAGA populists call for holy war against Big Tech
Anthropic Agrees to Pay $1.5 Billion to Settle Lawsuit With Book Authors - The New York Times