Hello.
I waited 30 minutes after eating to swim.
But stuff still happened.
So what's up?
They went ahead and did it.
They made the Doc Ock arms backpack thing.
They shouldn't have done that.
Researchers at KinLab, the Kinetic Intelligence Machine Lab at the University of Illinois,
made this backpack ass thing that's got four arms that are robot arms that follow your movement and oh my god,
this is the beginning of the end?
It's actually not that big of a deal.
The arms just kind of waggle around right now.
It reads your upper body movement and the arms are just kind of like...
...
That's the sound of the arms.
It's very much a prototype and the idea is that they're gonna do some like exoskeleton augmented human capability stuff.
But I would I would recommend just being ready to run at any moment.
Once they team up with Boston Dynamics and put one of these things on those robot dogs, it's game over.
The verdict is in.
Elon Musk is most deaf-killing Twitter.
According to newly published analytics from research firm SimilarWeb,
Twitter global traffic is down 14% year over year.
And that's global and just the desktop traffic and the US loan traffic is down 19%.
Mobile Twitter traffic is down 17.8% and for context,
the average of the other services tracked by this group are only down 3.7% year over year.
The major outlier here is TikTok which is up 22.8%.
You're welcome TikTok.
It's all me.
It's all...
It's all me.
Good news for ol' Muskie though
because despite all the traffic going down,
traffic specifically to Elon Musk's profile is up 96% year over year.
I guess he got what he wanted.
Speaker of the House?
Never heard of it.
Best I can do is talker of the apartment.
The US Republican-led House of Representatives is still in absolute disarray
as they haven't been able to elect a new speaker.
This is not normal.
Electing a speaker is a formality.
We don't have a Speaker of the House.
This doesn't happen.
Anyway, Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, is still trying to become Speaker
despite having lost more votes on his second attempt of doing that.
He's apparently gonna go for three and is expected to lose even more votes.
And also, holdouts against him are now receiving death threats
which is part of why they're like,
I don't think this is a good idea.
A lot of people in his party see it dangerous to put him in such a high position of power
considering that he's...
very far right.
It would make him second in line for the presidency, to be clear.
Without a Speaker of the House, we can't pass laws.
And there's another deadline coming up for the government shutting down
without being able to pass a law.
And so, the Freedom Caucus, who orchestrated this whole catastrophe,
are happy regardless, because they want to just shut the government down.
Like, that's their goal.
Now, ha ha, yay, shutting the government down and all,
but to be clear, these are fascists doing it.
It's not the kind of shutdown you want.
Anyway, bonus tidbit.
Be smart about this one.
There's rhetoric going around about Jim Jordan and how he's been in Congress for 17 years
and has never passed any legislation.
This is murky at best.
I want to be clear that I'm not out here defending Jim Jordan.
He's a piece of shit who likely covered up sexual assault against students that he oversaw
when he was a collegiate coach.
At the same time, this argument is not very helpful, because it's not entirely true.
He has co-sponsored bills that have passed,
and he has sponsored resolutions that passed but aren't technically bills.
So, you can say that he has never sponsored legislation that became law,
but that's also kind of only half the story.
He is obnoxious, he is unfit, he is a horrible person,
there are plenty of things to hit him on that are far more direct than that rhetoric.
But regardless, fuck him.
In a rare late-night televised speech from the Oval Office,
Joe Biden made an announcement that he is seeking over $100 billion of additional aid
to send to Israel and Ukraine.
The number he is seeking is $105 billion to send that way.
He says that it's America's job to hold the world together,
and that we have to send this money to Israel because it is a matter of national security for the U.S.
I'm sure it is, Joe.
Unrelated, it is estimated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development
that it would cost about $20 billion to end homelessness in America.
Unrelated, the U.S. is projected to spend up to $6 trillion a year
on our current health care system.
Whereas virtually all research into the subject shows that a Medicare-for-all solution
to health care in America would significantly reduce both government spending
and average health care spending per person.
While taxes would go up slightly, it is also estimated that the average person
would end up with more cash in their pocket due to the cut spending of ridiculous medical pricing.
But related, I don't live in fucking Israel,
and I don't support Israel's assault on the people of Gaza.
I don't support that Israel is currently bombing the place they told civilians to seek shelter.
I am not quite keen on the idea of my money going towards an ethnic cleansing
by a government that has been trying to establish an ethnostate
in a region that has historically played home to a wide variety of religions and ethnicities.
But what do I know? If I can't see the connection between killing innocent civilians across the world
and my own country's national security, maybe I'm just not cut out for the job.
On this day, in 1973, the Sydney Opera House opened for the first time.
Queen Elizabeth, the one that kicked it last year,
she opened up the building that is now seen as a hallmark of modern architecture.
The facility is apparently capable of hosting more than 1,500 acts a year, which is bzonkers.
Lightning Round.
YouTube is reportedly working on an AI tool that will let creators record themselves
using the voices of famous musicians, and they're seeking the legal rights to be able to do that.
The FCC is moving forward with a plan to reestablish net neutrality in the US
after the Trump administration removed it, despite major public outcry.
The Tesla Cybertruck has been delayed again, and Elon Musk stated that
Tesla dug its own grave with the Cybertruck, which doesn't make any...
It's his stupid idea.
According to claims from the FBI, North Korea has been giving IT workers in their country
false credentials to then work remotely for US corporations,
take in their salaries, and then use that to fund weapon programs.
I knew remote work was dangerous.
That was a joke. Remote work is the future.
Stop requiring people to go back into the office.
Sydney Powell, a co-conspirator with Trump and the whole election fraud thing
and the big case in Georgia, has taken a plea deal.
She's pled guilty and will be testifying against her co-defendants, including Trump.
Nokia will be laying off up to 14,000 people as their telecom infrastructure sales have started to drop.
23andMe was hit by a second major hack, with more user information being leaked.
It is advised that if you've ever used 23andMe, you should change all of your passwords.
This is a reminder to use a different password and even different email address for every service that you use.
I recommend using Bitwarden as a password manager.
You can also look into PassKeys, which is a new technology that's looking to basically replace passwords
by just using your actual phone to store a cryptographically secure key to get you access to your accounts,
your phone, your device, really any device.
Google and Apple are both rolling out PassKeys on their platforms.
You can just search PassKeys and learn more about it.
And finally for today, John Stewart's show on Apple TV has been abruptly cancelled,
reportedly due to his coverage of AI and China.
Weird how a tech company with a media arm is interested in censoring negative topics about China and AI.
Weird.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening.
Head to StuffKeepsHappening.online for sources, bonus content,
and an in-depth guide on how to do a kickflip McQuist.
My name is Endeavorance.
I would love it if you would leave a review on whatever podcast app you are using.
It helps the show tremendously.
Thank you so much for listening.
I'll be back on Monday.
Take care and be well.