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Tech Force
In an attempt to fix a self-inflicted wound, the US government is launching a program called Tech Force to hire technology workers.
But shortly after coming into office, Trump folded the USDS into the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) before renaming it to the DOGE Service and firing dozens of workers at the agency. The administration has sought to cut large parts of the federal government, including its tech talent, pushing out many workers and demoralizing the ones who remain.
Now, the Trump administration is turning to some of the nation’s biggest tech companies to revamp the technology used by the government. In June, the US Army similarly brought on executives from Meta, OpenAI, Palantir, and Thinking Machines Lab to advise the military branch on tech.
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The making of a crash test dummy
A lot of consideration goes into a crash test dummy — making sure they move like a real person.
But it’s absolutely essential that they move like a real body would, and record the forces a body would experience.
That means a head that weighs what a human head would weigh, moving on a neck that’s about as bendy as a real neck. The dummies’ design is informed by data taken from living people’s bodies, as well as from cadavers put through their own crash tests — and the new female dummy design, crucially, is informed by data from female bodies. Previous “female” dummies were modified versions of male dummies, and safety advocates have long argued that the resulting anatomical inaccuracies contribute to higher rates of injuries among women than men in real crashes.
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IRS faces a lawsuit that would reclassify pets as dependents
IRS faces a lawsuit that would reclassify pets as dependents.
The IRS defines pets as property. Reynolds, though, says they tick every box for a legal dependent under IRS rules: They have no independent income (we’ll leave Lassie off this); they reside exclusively with their humans, and they have annual expenses that top $5,000. Calling them property, she argued, does not accurately reflect their role in a household.
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Chat GPT paramour
The movie, Her, is becoming real life as people begin to fall in love with AI avatars.
Michael Inzlicht, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, said people were more willing to share private information with a bot than with a human being. Generative A.I. chatbots, in turn, respond more empathetically than humans do. In a recent study, he found that ChatGPT’s responses were more compassionate than those from crisis line responders, who are experts in empathy. He said that a relationship with an A.I. companion could be beneficial, but that the long-term effects needed to be studied.
“If we become habituated to endless empathy and we downgrade our real friendships, and that’s contributing to loneliness — the very thing we’re trying to solve — that’s a real potential problem,” he said.
His other worry was that the corporations in control of chatbots had an “unprecedented power to influence people en masse.”
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Swiftie Dads
There is a lot of good in the world. This includes Swiftie Dads. Paul Scheer interviewed the men, who were with their daughter(s), in the parking lot during one of the Los Angeles to stops. It could have easily been a punchline, instead it’s a sincere and earnest capture of life.
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A really great video about how to be creative when you don’t feel very creative
A really great video about how to be creative when you don’t feel very creative.
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Powerline giants
A really cool design proposal that would have built, powerline transmission towers as human looking giants.
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26 ideas for 2026
Derek Thompson put a list of ideas together for things to look forward to or watch for in 2026. Here are some:
- Everything is TV
- Anti AI populism
- Housing costs
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Google’s XR smart glasses
Privacy issues aside, Google’s XR smart glasses look to be an impressive leap in the device class as they take advantage of a paired phone to do the heavy processing. If these were completely hands free, they’d make a perfect device for those with limited dexterity or motor function in their hands.
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The science of when we run out of fucks to give
It turns out there’s science behind why sometime in middle age, we run out of fucks to give.
Let’s start with the science, because this isn’t about you becoming a worse person. It’s about your brain finally doing some overdue maintenance.
For decades, your prefrontal cortex—the part of your brain responsible for executive function, social behavior, and impulse control—has been working overtime. It’s been monitoring social cues, calculating risks, suppressing authentic responses, and managing everyone else’s emotional experience.
This is exhausting work. And it turns out, it’s unsustainable.
Research in neuroscience shows that as we age, the brain undergoes a process called synaptic pruning. Neural pathways that aren’t essential get trimmed away. Your brain is essentially Marie Kondo-ing itself, keeping what serves you and discarding what doesn’t.
