hello i betrayed my friends at the house on the
hill but stuff still happened so what's up it's
apple's turn to do the artificial artificial
intelligence thing so all the way back 10 years
ago when it was last year apple announced the
iphone 16 and they were like this is built from
the ground up for Apple intelligence. They then
went on to showcase a whole bunch of features
about how it could reach into apps on your phone
and like learn stuff about you, but still be
private and do all this cool stuff and how Siri
wouldn't suck anymore. And that was all lies.
I mean, lies, lies -ish. It was lies adjacent.
Apple has rolled out some of their Apple intelligence
features. I turn them off on my devices because
they're bad, but they've rolled out some, just
not most. And they just keep delaying these features
because it turns out the developers learned about
these features basically when we did. See, Apple
has a long history of not jumping onto a new
feature or product first. They'll wait and then
do it the Apple way, which frankly does usually
work out for them. They've got multiple trillions
of dollars in market value. I have. like a crisp
$20 bill by comparison. But this time it kind
of fucked them over. They didn't have any plan
for AI before ChatGPT became a thing. And even
when that happened, they were like, shit, okay,
like how do we make something? just so that we
can put it out there. So apparently they tried
just like updating Siri to allow Siri to reach
out to an AI and like answer some questions,
but that just created more bugs than it was worth.
So they gave up on that, which is why we now
have that like middle ground thing where sometimes
Siri gets a query and it's like, ah, I don't
fucking know. Want me to ask chat GPT? Or at
least I think that's how that works. Again, I
turn it off because I don't want this. I'm not
complaining that this isn't a thing. I don't
want it in the first place, but it's still very
funny. So they tried the one thing. They then
did the whole like just, send it off to chat
GPT. They apparently were announcing features
on stage that were just like not communicated
internally. Something that was more like a concept
became marketing materials. And they were like,
yeah, we're, you know, it's not quite ready yet,
but it'll be out in a couple months. It's been,
it's been several of those months and it's really
just been nothing. But hey, you can, you can
have them generate a custom emoji. or an image,
sort of, with like the worst of all of the image
generators. And, oh great, you can have it rewrite
some text. Truly the next level of personal assistant.
Anyway, we're now fast approaching the actually
hysterical concept that the iPhone 17 might come
out before the 16 gets the features that they
said it would have. So policy. OK, egg on my
face. Last time I said that the bill, the big,
beautiful tax bill was unlikely to pass. Is it
going to pass? Probably not. It passed. It passed
the House. It's now going on to the Senate, where
I will give exactly no insight into what I think
is going to happen to the bill. Can't get me
on that one, losers. But anyway, here comes the
insight I said I wouldn't give. It's probably
still going to have a hard time in the Senate.
The Senate has a lot to lose on this one. Going
into 2026, they want to not piss everybody off.
And this bill has a lot of things. They're going
to piss a lot of people off and only a few crowd
pleasers. So they're going to work real hard
to make sure that it's going to be passable without
ruining their midterm chances. That said, still
could very well pass, but just because it passed
the House does not make it the law of the land,
so it passed does not mean it actually is now
law. And here's something of note. Let's highlight
this. It passed the House with a vote of 215
to 214, a margin of one vote. Three Democrat
representatives over the age of 70 have died
in office, leaving voting vacancies that allowed
that to happen. Now, If they were alive, would
this have potentially eventually passed? Yes.
But the vote that it actually passed on was made
possible because Democrats don't step down and
just. Age until they die in office. Cool, cool,
cool. Very cool. Very cool. Anyway, after it
passed the House, the bond market went tumbling
because it's a bad bill and solar company stocks
just plummeted because the bill targets renewable
energy pretty severely. In fact, that was one
of the main things the Republicans were cheering
on was the removal of any investment, really
the stopping of investment in renewable energy
and the increase in investment back in coal and
fossil fuels because it's 2025. And that makes
sense. All right. Signal. Okay. So several high
-ranking government officials were caught using
Signal to talk about very private stuff that
they shouldn't be using Signal for. And now we're
getting a headline that Signal was hacked and
a bunch of data was stolen. Let's clear up some
stuff. The app that most people in the government
use, and some are actually just literally using
Signal, but the app that most people in the government
are using is actually called TeleMessage Signal,
which is a recreation of Signal that also archives
all of your messages. They do that for compliance
reasons. The government has to keep records of
stuff, which is why it's actually really, really
bad if they use normal signal, which explicitly
does not keep records for government activity.
So telemessage is the thing that was hacked,
not signal. Their records that they keep were
leaked. Journalists have been going through the
leaked data, trying to find anything that would
be. of significant note. And so far, it seems
like there's not like war plans in there, but
there are things like the locations and travel
plans of high ranking officials. So this service
that's supposed to archive sensitive conversations
between government officials was just straight
up hacked. And that's just that's just a thing.
That's just a thing. Anyway, this is not a reflection
on signal and signal security. This is, again,
a recreation of signal that explicitly undermines
signal security. All right, I'm going to I can't
I can't not do it. Maha! Yeah, Maha. M -A -H
-A. It's the health skeptic version of MAGA that's
kind of like led by RFK Jr. So RFK Jr., a conspiracy
theorist and anti -vaxxer, is like the head of
health in the U .S. now, which it tracks. And
among the MAGA crowd, there's been like a sub
-initiative of MAGA called Maha. which is like
the crunchy anti -vax sort of like subsect. RFK
recently put out the Maha report, which is just
sort of like, you know, his take on why things
are bad, like why Americans are unhealthy. You
know, let's not, let's ignore the whole like
lack of time off and no social safety net and
the inability to raise children or have any kind
of childcare for anyone and the lack of access
to quality fresh food. It's probably not bad.
It's um... What could it be? The vaccines. It's
the vaccines, everyone. Oh, how didn't we notice
it before? Yeah, the report basically says all
the things you would expect it to say. It's like,
oh, vaccines are bad. Food additives are bad.
Processed food is bad. Phone usage is bad. And
it originally was going to say that pesticides
are bad, but that was edited out by the White
House. Monsanto was a reference in the report,
but they were like, ah, pesticides? No, we don't
need to investigate that. So the report does
call to look into some of these pesticides in
2026, but it doesn't go as far as to say these
are bad. They also removed a part of the report
that talked about lobbyists who lobby the government
for these chemical companies to prevent the government
from regulating these cancer -causing chemicals.
They removed that part from the report too. But
it's probably the vaccines. Hello, if you like
what I do, I would really appreciate your support.
Sharing this content around helps me a ton. So
if you know somebody who might like this, send
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the best way to do that is to head to patreon
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access to all of the bonus content that's there.
Thank you very much. Let's move on. World stuff.
World stuff. Israel is still doing their thing.
And Netanyahu is still talking about taking over
the rest of Gaza now. He's very loudly saying
that they're going to take over Gaza. They're
going to get rid of everyone that's there. They've
been blockading food and medicine. They've been
letting it at a trickle in. They're literally
quoted in saying that they don't want to have.
pictures of starving babies coming out of Gaza
because that would be bad for international relations,
not because it would be immoral. And so world
leaders from Canada and the UK and France, they're
saying, hey, what the fuck? Like, this is not
okay. You are straight up doing genocide. To
which Netanyahu was like, you're on the wrong
side of history. You're empowering Hamas. Ignore
everything that we're doing. and let us keep
doing it. On top of that, a delegation of European,
Asian, and Arab diplomats were visiting the West
Bank to get a sense of what's going on there,
what with all the killing people that the Israeli
army is doing. And wouldn't you know it, while
they were there, the Israeli army shot at them.
They shot at international diplomats. What blows
my mind is in any other timeline, this would
be like a year -long story. This would be the
biggest thing of the year. But this is just like
Tuesday instead. When asked, what the fuck? Why
are you shooting at these diplomats? Israel was
like, oh, those were warning shots because the
diplomats went off the predetermined course that
we would allow them to walk. Just firing some
warning shots at these international representatives
who are investigating whether or not we're, you
know, doing war crimes to people. I also want
to acknowledge that there were two Israeli staffers
who were murdered in D .C. I don't know what
to say about this. I don't really feel anything
about it. I think it. It makes sense that something
like this would happen. And these people were
directly involved in a genocidal regime. They
weren't just like, they weren't innocent bystanders.
The main thing that gets me about all of this
is, one, it wasn't a great move. Like right now,
we are under the most propaganda we've seen in
decades. And this is just so much gasoline on
the fire. But two, a lot of outlets are spinning
this as an attack. on them because they were
Jewish, aside from only one of them actually
being Jewish and ignoring the whole Zionist being
a part of the whole Israeli government genociding
a people thing. The guy didn't kill them and
then say, I hate Jews. He killed them and shouted
free Palestine. And whether or not he was a Fed
or whatever, it was not because they were Jewish.
Conflating Jews. And Israel is very dangerous,
especially because not all Jews are Zionists
and not all Jews support Israel. To lump them
all together as one is doing a massive disservice,
and that in itself is anti -Semitic. Anyway,
on a completely different note, Kim Jong -un
is upset. Because his ship didn't work. Kim Jong
-un of North Korea has been working to try to
upgrade their navy. You know, they're playing
civilization, and they're like, oh shit, we gotta
get some destroyers out here. So he had this
big, beautiful warship that they built, and they
were gonna launch it, and he was there for the
launch. And when it launched, it capsized and
crashed. It is apparently still partially submerged.
He wasn't thrilled about this. It didn't reflect
great. on him and his plans and so he lashed
out a little bit let's see let's get this quote
it's a good one all right kimbo said that the
officials who were involved in the launch showed
quote absolute carelessness irresponsibility
and unscientific empiricism he went on to say
and this is true I cannot suppress my emotions.
We love an emotional king. Anyway, he arrested
those officials because it's North Korea or America.
Could have been either. Technology. Private messaging
app Telegram is not actually all that private.
And so far this year, they've already turned
over over 20 ,000 user records to authorities.
So last year, the CEO of Telegram got arrested
in part of an investigation about child exploitation
material on Telegram. And ever since then. they've
been a bit more cordial with the police. Now,
I want to say most social platforms have a pretty
significant issue with really bad shit festering
somewhere on their platform. Telegram is not
unique in that. The platforms just kind of have
like varying degrees of keeping it under wraps.
But in Telegram's case, they were flaunting that
they were not giving a shit if authorities wanted
any information. But then turns out when you
get arrested and you're reminded of your mortality,
Even if you're a tech bro, sometimes you just
roll over and show your belly. And so now they
are routinely working with requests from cops
to get information about users. There's a pretty
interesting website. I've linked it in today's
newsletter that will show you a breakdown of
requests from authorities by nation and how many
users were affected by those requests. Google
Video, but not like that. Do you remember Google
Video? Do you remember that? It was like pre
-YouTube and it was like Google's YouTube competitor
before they just bought YouTube. It was actually
kind of nice, but that's not what... this is
google recently had their io event which is like
their developer convention where they make a
bunch of big announcements and a lot of their
announcements or basically all of their announcements
this time was ai ai ai everything ai pants among
the ai stuff they announced was a video generator
ai called vo3 and um it definitely is creepy
it can generate pretty realistic looking clips
with dialogue and like sound and shit it's it's
impressive I guess, but it also seems to just
generate a lot of slop. I've seen people saying
like, oh my God, this is the end of reality.
This looks so real. And I get why people are
concerned. And I get the direction we're going
is this is making massive leaps. It still looks
like AI to me, but it's also just like, why?
Like, why? Why do we have this? Do we really
need the ability to generate like five second
clips of like a pink dinosaur stomping around
town? Is humanity better off? with the ability
to just generate stock imagery and stuff? Or
why? Because all of this really, really feels
like tech demos and concepts that were being
sold as full products. And I'm very tired of
being told that we need these things, especially
when they also announced that the top tier subscription
for their AI is $250 a month. No, I don't think
I will. And speaking of AI, they are still trying
to build. You might remember a while back, OpenAI
had new voices for ChatGPT, one of which sounded
suspiciously like Scarlett Johansson from the
movie Her. I want to be very clear, Sam Altman
has also made it clear that he's a big fan of
that movie. And now OpenAI purchased a startup
by Johnny Ive, the guy who designed a lot of
earlier Apple products. They bought a startup
of his that's working on like AI hardware for
$6 .5 billion. The announcement video was deeply...
creepy it's like the two of them being like oh
we're best friends let's just like have an announcement
about this acquisition where we're sitting at
a coffee shop talking about how great each other
is uh it's genuinely genuinely unnerving but
they seem to be working on a new product that
is essentially like the ai pin kind of thing
or that rabbit r1 those ai hardware things that
just failed it is i don't know specifics but
it's apparently some kind of like box with no
screen And it's like always listening. And it's
an AI assistant thing. I don't know. Sam Altman
was like, living with this has been life changing.
You're going to love it. And I'm pretty sure
that's not true for anyone. except for Sam Altman.
Lightning round. There's a new ultra rapid test
for brain tumors that's looking to reduce the
time to diagnosis by like an order of magnitude,
talking weeks to days. Sesame Street is saved.
Netflix is jumping in and cut a deal with Sesame
Street. It will be available on PBS and around
the world on Netflix as well. There is a competition
called the Enhanced Games. It's planned for 2026
in Vegas, and it's like the Olympics, but you
can explicitly take performance -enhancing drugs.
A cargo ship ran aground into the garden of a
random Norwegian man's home. He woke up and found
a cargo ship in his lawn. Hey, Kentucky. I'm
very sorry to inform you that the Bourbon Brood
of Cicadas, a 17 -year brood, is due this year.
It's gonna get loud. A USPS truck that was found
with 5 ,000 abandoned chicks. The birds, not
women. Those birds are now adopted. They've almost
all found a home now. But Gawk? Marvel has announced
a delay for the next two Avengers films, Doomsday
and Secret Wars. That's what it was. Turns out
that there was footage from the mothership of
the Titan submersible, the submersible that went
down to the Titanic and got blipped. So there
was footage from the mothership in which they
heard the implosion. They didn't know it at the
time, but there was just kind of like a boop.
Gone. And finally for today, an Australian politician
in his exit speech from his political career
shotgunned a beer out of a shoe. Fuck yeah. I
know nothing about your politics. That's rad.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode
of Stuff Keeps Happening. Head to skh .news for
sources, bonus content, and a shoe that comes
pre -stocked with beer. My name is Endeavorance.
I'll be back on Monday. Take care and be well.