FBI looks into dead or missing scientists tied to NASA, Blue Origin, SpaceX
https://fortune.com/2026/04/21/scientists-disappear-die-nasa-space-blue-origin-spacex/
https://fortune.com/2026/04/21/scientists-disappear-die-nasa-space-blue-origin-spacex/
Fortune
'Something sinister could be happening': FBI looks into dead or missing nuclear and space defense scientists tied to NASA, Blue…
Eleven scientists related to nuclear and space defense programs are missing or dead since 2022. Nearly four years later, Congress is finally looking into it.
XOR'ing a register with itself is the idiom for zeroing it out. Why not sub?
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260421-00/?p=112247
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260421-00/?p=112247
Microsoft News
Sure, xor’ing a register with itself is the idiom for zeroing it out, but why not sub?
Somehow xor became the most popular version.
Meta employees are up in arms over a mandatory program to train AI on their
https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-new-ai-tool-tracks-staff-activity-sparks-concern-2026-4
https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-new-ai-tool-tracks-staff-activity-sparks-concern-2026-4
Business Insider
Read the full memo behind Meta's AI employee tracking rollout
Meta deploys keystroke-tracking software on US employees' computers, sparking privacy concerns and internal backlash.
Iran claims US exploited networking equipment backdoors during strikes
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/iran-claims-us-exploited-networking-equipment-backdoors-during-strikes
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/iran-claims-us-exploited-networking-equipment-backdoors-during-strikes
Tom's Hardware
Iran claims US exploited networking equipment backdoors during strikes — says devices from Cisco and others failed despite blackout…
Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, and MikroTik devices allegedly rebooted or disconnected during the conflict.
Columnar Storage Is Normalization
https://buttondown.com/jaffray/archive/columnar-storage-is-normalization/
https://buttondown.com/jaffray/archive/columnar-storage-is-normalization/
Buttondown
Columnar Storage is Normalization
Something I didn't understand for a while is that the process of turning row-oriented data into column-oriented data isn't a totally bespoke, foreign concept...
Treetops glowing during storms captured on film for first time
https://www.psu.edu/news/earth-and-mineral-sciences/story/treetops-glowing-during-storms-captured-film-first-time
https://www.psu.edu/news/earth-and-mineral-sciences/story/treetops-glowing-during-storms-captured-film-first-time
DuckDB 1.5.2 – SQL database that runs on laptop, server, in the browser
https://duckdb.org/2026/04/13/announcing-duckdb-152
https://duckdb.org/2026/04/13/announcing-duckdb-152
DuckDB
Announcing DuckDB 1.5.2
We are releasing DuckDB version v1.5.2, a patch release with bugfixes and performance improvements, and support for the DuckLake v1.0 lakehouse format.
Startups Brag They Spend More Money on AI Than Human Employees
https://www.404media.co/startups-brag-they-spend-more-money-on-ai-than-human-employees/
https://www.404media.co/startups-brag-they-spend-more-money-on-ai-than-human-employees/
404 Media
Startups Brag They Spend More Money on AI Than Human Employees
A new class of AI startups say they are taking money that would normally be used to hire people and are spending it on AI compute instead.
Anker made its own chip to bring AI to all its products
https://www.theverge.com/tech/916463/anker-thus-chip-announcement
https://www.theverge.com/tech/916463/anker-thus-chip-announcement
The Verge
Anker made its own AI chip
The Thus chip will first be in new earbuds.
Surveillance Pricing: Exploiting Information Asymmetries
https://lpeproject.org/blog/surveillance-pricing-exploiting-information-asymmetries/
https://lpeproject.org/blog/surveillance-pricing-exploiting-information-asymmetries/
LPE Project
Surveillance Pricing: Exploiting Information Asymmetries
For over a century, fixed prices have made markets more transparent. Surveillance pricing threatens to reverse that progress by allowing corporations to secretly tailor prices using personal data.
New study compares growing corn for energy to solar production. It's no contest
https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2025/04/new-study-compares-growing-corn-for-energy-to-solar-production-its-no-contest/
https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2025/04/new-study-compares-growing-corn-for-energy-to-solar-production-its-no-contest/
Anthropocene
New study compares growing corn for energy to solar production. It’s no contest.
In fact, it would require about 31 hectares of corn ethanol to produce the same amount of energy generated by one hectare of land covered in solar panels.
The Illuminated Man: an unconventional portrait of JG Ballard
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/apr/20/the-illuminated-man-by-christopher-priest-and-nina-allan-review-an-unconventional-portrait-of-jg-ballard
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/apr/20/the-illuminated-man-by-christopher-priest-and-nina-allan-review-an-unconventional-portrait-of-jg-ballard
the Guardian
The Illuminated Man by Christopher Priest and Nina Allan review – an unconventional portrait of JG Ballard
The biographer’s terminal illness and death is woven into this original and moving account of Ballard and his work
Apple fixes bug that cops used to extract deleted chat messages from iPhones
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/22/apple-fixes-bug-that-cops-used-to-extract-deleted-chat-messages-from-iphones/
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/22/apple-fixes-bug-that-cops-used-to-extract-deleted-chat-messages-from-iphones/
TechCrunch
Apple fixes bug that cops used to extract deleted chat messages from iPhones | TechCrunch
The iPhone and iPad bug allowed law enforcement using forensic tools to read messages that had long been deleted by the Signal app.
Olive CSS: Lisp powered vanilla CSS utility-Class A la Tailwind
https://codeberg.org/jjba23/olive-css
https://codeberg.org/jjba23/olive-css
Codeberg.org
olive-css
Utility-class vanilla CSS framework inspired by Tailwind syntax, easy to learn and hack, written in Lisp (Guile Scheme)