There’s a phrase in enterprise software: “Eat your own dog food.” It means you should be using the software you’re developing internally, because you find bugs more quickly that way.
Last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed that the company writes up to 30% of its code using generative AI. As it now happens, Microsoft is reportedly planning to reduce the use of Anthropic’s Claude Code — a move designed to push its employees toward GitHub Copilot CLI.
For context, The Verge’s Tom Warren reported that Microsoft started opening access to Claude Code for its employees in December, including developers, project managers, and designers, allowing them to interact and experiment with the AI-coding assistant directly in their workflows.
Warren reports that Claude Code gained vast popularity among Microsoft employees over the past six months, which has seemingly led to a pullback on its Claude Code push in favor of its own GitHub Copilot CLI. “While Claude Code has been a popular addition, it has also undermined Microsoft’s new GitHub Copilot CLI coding tool,” Warren explained.
According to Warren’s sources, Microsoft’s Experiences + Devices division, which includes teams working on Windows, Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams, and Surface, is supposed to stop using Claude Code by the end of June. These teams are expected to transition their workflows to GitHub Copilot CLI over the next few weeks.
The report reveals that the decision isn’t centered on Microsoft pushing its staffers towards its own offering — there are some financial implications at play, too. Microsoft’s financial year is expected to end on June 30, which means canceling Claude Code licenses for its employees could cut its operational costs as it transitions into a new financial year.
While speaking to The Verge, Microsoft’s VP of experiences and devices group, Rajesh Jha, indicated:
“When we began offering both Copilot CLI and Claude Code, our goal was to learn quickly, benchmark the tools in real engineering workflows, and understand what best supported our teams. Claude Code was an important part of that learning… at the same time, Copilot CLI has given us something especially important: a product we can help shape directly with GitHub for Microsoft’s repos, workflows, security expectations, and engineering needs.”
It’ll be interesting to see how the transition from Claude Code to GitHub Copilot CLI is received, especially since the vast majority seems to favor the former. The company’s initial plan was to have its engineers use both offerings concurrently, to compare their capabilities, and to provide feedback.
Interestingly, Microsoft staffers have seemingly preferred Claude Cove over GitHub Copilot over the past few months, primarily because of the feature disparity between the two products.
I wondered if “Claude Cove” was a typo, but no, it’s apparently a real thing.
An opportunity for a really obscure meme.
These sorts of stories pop up again and again: Everyone who is forced to use Copilot seems to hate it. Claude doesn’t seem to generate the same level of loathing, maybe because Anthropic doesn’t have the same opportunities Microsoft does to shove it down the throats of its existing users.
Now we know that Microsoft’s Devs, just like its users, seem to prefer the taste of other people’s dog food over Microsoft’s…
Clownfish TV has a video up covering how Google’s Chrome browser secretly installs a four gigabyte AI on your PC without asking you:
“It’s not just Microsoft is stuffing everything full of AI, whether or not its users want it. It is now Google as well with Chrome. Apparently, they’re stuffing AI into Google Chrome. They did not ask people. And according to Futurism, fury is erupting after Google Chrome sneakily installs a 4 gigabyte AI model on users’ PC.”
“It feels like the browser is not your gateway to the Internet. It’s just another marketing tool. Especially when it comes to Google and Microsoft and these big corporations. They’re going to push their AI wherever they can push it. They’re going to shove it wherever they can shove it because they have to justify the insane amount of money that they’re spending on AI.”
“Chrome did not ask did not ask your permission before shoving its AI up your ass. As of 2026, Google maintains an iron grip on the web browser market, boasting well over three billion Chrome users worldwide.”
“Security researcher Alexander “The Privacy Guy” Hanff noted on a blog post earlier this week, Google’s web browser has been silently installing an AI model on users devices without asking for consent. Oh, this is a lawsuit waiting to happen. He described the 4 gig file named weights.bin in a directory called OptGuideOnDeviceModel. The file contains weights, the learned numerical parameters of an AI model that teach it how to weigh the importance of various data points of Google’s Gemini Nano, which is designed to live on computers, devices, not in the cloud.”
“It’s the fact that they’re installing stuff on your computer without your consent. I mean, look, they’ve always done that. But in this case, 4 gig, that’s crazy.”
“Google has remained unusually silent on the matter. You expect you expect them to address it? Do they have anybody left at Google? Do they have any humans left at Google? Because my understanding is that Google is overrun with AI right now.”
“That is litigation waiting to happen. That is a class action lawsuit. People are going to be pissed. The company didn’t respond to Futurism’s request for comment.”
CO2 impact skipped because I don’t give a rat’s ass.
“Unfortunately, it is going to get harder and harder to opt out from AI if you’re anti-AI because it literally is being shoved into everything.”
“Others argue that Google was likely auto-installing the model to artificially inflate its own AI user stats. Yes, this is what Microsoft was doing with Copilot, too. Now they’re calling it something else because people are rejecting it.”
“Same with YouTube. YouTube is riddled with AI, and they’re doing it to justify the existence of AI.”
“And Satya Nadella at Microsoft said the quiet part out loud. He basically was like, you know, we really need consumers to to love the AI and find a use for it because we’re spending an awful lot of money on it.”
“And I really do think before it’s all said and done that Microsoft and Google are going to harm themselves irreparably by chasing AI and trying to shove it into things when consumers don’t want it. The demand’s not there. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean there’s a market value for it. And we’re also going to find out that uh the abilities of AI are way way way overstated.”
“Hanff found that the download of the file is triggered when the browser’s default AI features are active. On a machine that meets hardware requirements, Chrome treats the user’s hardware as a delivery target and writes the model to stop it from reinstalling itself after deleting it. Hanff advised to disable AI features manually by digging into the browser’s settings. This is the true definition of malware.”
“If you have it on Enhanced Protection, it will install on the model. If you have it on Standard, it will not.” So PC users might want to change that on Chrome.
Going to Hanff’s original post revealed another browser exploit from another AI company: “Two weeks ago I wrote about Anthropic silently registering a Native Messaging bridge in seven Chromium-based browsers on every machine where Claude Desktop was installed [1]. The pattern was: install on user launch of product A, write configuration into the user’s installs of products B, C, D, E, F, G, H without asking. Reach across vendor trust boundaries. No consent dialog. No opt-out UI. Re-installs itself if the user removes it manually, every time Claude Desktop is launched.” Here’s the piece on how Claude does that, and it sounds like an even scarier piece of malware. “Claude Desktop reached into Brave, a browser from a completely separate vendor, and registered a back door for a browser extension I do not have.”
AI companies are spending billions of dollars to build-out vast AI data centers while invading your privacy at the same time, yet studies show these investments aren’t seeing returns on their investments. “Companies reporting high ROI were not the same ones reporting AI-related workforce reductions. In fact, workforce reduction rates were nearly equal for those reporting higher ROI and those with smaller returns or even worsened outcomes from autonomous operations.”
Gloria: The rise of Artificial Intelligence is the next industrial revolution.
[Boos]
Gloria: A- whoa!
[Boos rise louder]
Some guy in the crowd: AI sucks!
Gloria: What happened? Okay. I struck a chord. May I finish? Only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives.
[Thunderous applause]
Gloria: Okay. Alright. Okay.
Her pitch didn’t seem to go over well with Humanities majors.
There are certainly ways AI can help people do certain jobs better. But it runs into big trouble when it tries to replace people entirely, and people hate when you try to secretly install it without their permission.
When last we checked, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was busy trying to shove Copilot, their AI tool, into every crevice of every Microsoft product. Finally, enough users seem to have complained loudly enough to get them to rethink the strategy.
Microsoft is vowing to focus on quality with future Windows 11 releases, which includes better performance and reeling in the company’s Copilot footprint over the OS.
“Quality” and “performance” go together with Windows like vanilla ice cream and used motor oil.
On Friday, Microsoft President for Windows and Devices, Pavan Davuluri, announced the “commitment to quality” in both a blog post and an email to users.
The plan calls for bolstering the “performance, reliability and well-crafted experiences” over the OS for this year.
That sort of suggests that “performance, reliability and well-crafted experiences” were not priorities for Windows in previous years, doesn’t it?
“These areas have meaningful impact on how you experience Windows: how fast it starts and responds, how stable it is under real workloads, and how consistent and thoughtful the experience feels,” Davuluri wrote.
PC users will be happy to know that one goal is reducing Windows 11’s resource usage to free up more capacity.
This would be great news if anyone trusted them to do that. Countless times in the past, Microsoft has pledged to reduce resource usage in Windows, but the bloat always returns.
Another priority is “less noise, less distraction and more control across the OS.”
Surprisingly, the blog post makes little mention of AI. Instead, Davuluri merely says the company wants “to be thoughtful about how and where we bring AI into Windows.”
“You will see us be more intentional about how and where Copilot integrates across Windows, focusing on experiences that are genuinely useful and well‑crafted. As part of this, we are reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points, starting with apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets and Notepad,” he said. Users can expect the change to roll out this month and in the next for Windows 11 preview releases.
Finally, the backslash against MicroSlop has gotten so loud that it’s even penetrated Redmond’s C-Ring. This is indeed progress, given that earlier this month Microsoft was literally banning users from its Discord for using the term. So give them credit for at least realizing that they have a problem.
Davuluri made the announcement months after he faced backlash for tweeting that “Windows is evolving into an agentic OS,” which caused some users to retort the company was obsessing about AI over basic Windows 11 performance. A January Windows 11 release that prevented PCs from booting up or going to sleep sparked more complaints about the OS’s stability.
There’s that vaunted Microsoft quality again.
Last month, Davuluri indicated he was taking the criticism seriously. Microsoft is also facing increased competition from Apple, which released its most affordable MacBook so far, the Neo, which has been a hit among consumers and reviewers.
Yeah, let’s talk about the state of Windows-based PCs and the competition. This was supposed to be a big year for PCs, but then reality hit.
There was supposed to be a massive tailwind for the PC market this year. Windows 10 reached end-of-life in late 2025, meaning that somewhere around 1 billion PCs worldwide stopped receiving security updates. This is less of an issue in the consumer PC market, but it’s a big deal in the business PC market.
PC OEMs like HP were set up for success in 2026, but the AI boom has complicated the situation. Enormous demand for DRAM and NAND chips from the AI infrastructure build-out, coupled with memory chip manufacturers shifting production to server products, has left the PC market with scraps. Memory chip prices have surged, pushing up the bill of materials and forcing price increases.
Gartner expects PC prices to surge by 17% this year, prompting consumers and businesses to hold onto their current PCs for longer. Budget PCs as a category could essentially disappear, leaving a large swath of consumers in a bind. Gartner expects PC shipments to tumble by 10.4% in 2026.
In one of life’s little ironies, the same AI bubble that Microsoft was trying to shove down user’s throats is what’s making buying a new PC less affordable and crushing sales. But it’s not stopping Apple.
HP is an obvious loser in this scenario, but there’s a surprising winner as well: Apple….
Apple is also exposed to rising memory chip prices across its entire device business. However, the company is seizing an opportunity to bring Windows PC users into its ecosystem.
Apple announced the MacBook Neo last week. The 13-inch entry-level MacBook starts at $599, a price that PC OEMs like HP will have trouble hitting as memory prices spiral higher. The Neo is powered by the A18 Pro chip, the same SoC used in the iPhone 16 Pro family. Higher-end MacBooks use Apple’s M-series chips, but the underlying technology is essentially the same.
Apple has equipped the Neo with 8GB of unified RAM, shared between the CPU and GPU, as well as a 256GB solid-state drive. These are really the bare minimums for a usable PC, but it’s enough for a solid entry-level experience. Early reviews have been positive, although full third-party reviews haven’t yet arrived ahead of launch.
Apple is playing the long game here. If there was ever a time to launch a budget MacBook, it’s right now. With memory prices driving up the cost of Windows PCs, a $599 MacBook should be appealing to budget-conscious consumers. Apple also offers the Neo to the education market for a discounted price of $499.
If Apple can grow its Mac install base and steal away market share from Windows-based PCs, the company will be setting up its Mac business for stronger growth down the road. Once the memory situation normalizes and the macroeconomic environment improves, Apple will have a larger base of Mac users eager to upgrade when the time comes.
This is probably correct. $599 is getting down around the price range for what used to be called netbooks, though that market segment seems to have largely died, at least among Windows users. (There still seems to be a market there for Linux users.)
Remember: Apple is the company that saw other companies dumping dump-trucks full of cash into AI build-outs and went “Nah, bro, I’m good.”
Google will spend approximately $90 billion on AI infrastructure this year. Meta has committed $65 billion. Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet are collectively spending over $300 billion. Apple, meanwhile, is spending just $12.7 billion on capital expenditure for the entire fiscal year.
As a hardware manufacturer, Apple can just wait for the AI wars to shake out and partner with the winner (if any).
And here’s a mildly amusing video on the whole situation.
I’m pretty sure Microsoft users wouldn’t object to Copilot if it was something optional you could turn off, and if the granularity of control allowed users to keep it entirely out of products they don’t want it in. But no, letting users decide isn’t the Microsoft Way, and they had to try shoving it into everything to justify the huge sums of money they were throwing into AI.
Jobs are down, more Minnesota fraud uncovered, a bunch of military action outside the Persian Gulf, an Austin jihad shooter, Noem gets the Old Yeller treatment, Bill Clinton remains Bill Clinton, and Microsoft, amazingly, manages to get even worse.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Also consider this your “Iran Strikes: Day 7” update with a smattering of news as well. There are reports that Kurdish forces have entered Iran from Iraq, but I’m not seeing sufficient evidence for that yet.
Interesting chart showing Iran has likely “blown its wad” on missiles and drones, as day by day fewer and fewer are being launched.
Update Numbers as of Mar. 6, 12.00 AM The numbers are rounded and compiled from various media reports, with a margin of error of ±10% 15% **Corrected previous Post there was a Mistake https://t.co/eDlVfc3nzApic.twitter.com/UiHAU0yNHe
The Supreme Court upheld the standard for reviewing asylum cases, keeping it in the hands of immigration agencies.
Yes, even the leftist justices agreed. 9-0.
“We granted certiorari to determine whether the Court of Appeals applied the appropriate standard of review under the INA [Immigration and Nationality Act],” wrote Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson. “We conclude that the statute requires application of the substantial evidence standard to the agency’s conclusion that a given set of undisputed facts does not constitute persecution.”
Top officials in Minnesota were made aware of fraud concerns surrounding government assistance programs as early as 2019 but failed to take action as billions of dollars were stolen and warnings piled up.
Former Minnesota state officials testified to the House Oversight Committee that Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison were first informed that the state’s social services programs had been compromised by widespread fraud in 2019 and 2020, according to a new report from the committee.
“Testimony obtained by the Committee reveals that Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison were aware of widespread fraud in social service programs, lied about their knowledge of the fraud, and retaliated against employees who dared to raise concerns. Instead of protecting vulnerable Americans, they handed over billions in taxpayer dollars to fraudsters and threw their own state employees under the bus,” said House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.).
Several different entities and state-level programs are implicated in Minnesota’s fraud scandal. The most prominent program is Feeding Our Future, which fraudsters targeted during the Covid era to steal $300 million from the Minnesota Department of Education that had been designated to provide food to poor children. Feeding Our Future is now dissolved and dozens of defendants have been convicted in connection with the scheme since 2022.
According to the committee report, Minnesota Department of Education officials first received allegations of fraud against Feeding Our Future from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2019. The USDA alleged Feeding Our Future was created with forged signatures and misled sponsored food distribution sites about certain federal requirements. Minnesota officials dismissed the allegations at the time. By April 2020, Walz and Ellison’s offices were briefed about the Minnesota Department of Education’s concerns regarding Feeding Our Future, Assistant Commissioner Daron Korte testified to the committee. State officials contacted the USDA about Feeding Our Future in late 2020, but the agency’s inspector general did not act, a failure that emboldened the scammers at Feeding Our Future.
The Oversight Committee report asserts that Minnesota officials could have suspended payments to Feeding Our Future but chose not to because of potential litigation and racism accusations. Minnesota officials blamed the USDA and Feeding Our Future for perpetuating the large-scale fraud. In March 2021, the Minnesota Department of Education stopped payments to Feeding Our Future, but resumed payments voluntarily the following month after a court hearing on the matter. A court order was never issued requiring the payments, contradicting Walz’s 2022 assertion to the contrary. The lack of a court order was confirmed during the course of the Oversight Committee’s investigation.
In early 2019, Walz’s administration became aware of fraud tied to two programs administered by Minnesota’s Department of Human Services, former agency commissioner Tony Lourey testified. Another former commissioner, Jodi Harpstead, testified that Walz’s administration believed fraud connected to a child care program run out of the Department of Human Services had already been resolved. But the Oversight Committee report references two auditor reports showing otherwise, both of which were issued in 2019. The Department of Human Services lacked fraud mitigation mechanisms and felt pressure to get money out the door to justify state appropriations, the committee found. Despite credible allegations of fraud, the agency failed to act on the warnings and unilaterally stop making payments to the social services programs in question.
The Oversight Committee’s report is based on testimony from nine top current and former state officials, documents and communications, and briefings with federal and state officials. The Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s office recently speculated that the interwoven fraud schemes totaled nearly $9 billion in misallocated funds. Of the fraud defendants, 85 percent of them come from Minnesota’s Somali-American immigrant community. Social services programs that provide food, child care, housing, and special education have all come under scrutiny as federal investigators unravel the fraud scheme.
I know it’s been easy to overlook in all the other military news this week, but Afghanistan and Pakistan have been going at it as well, though only at a border skirmish level rather than a full-scale conflict. Since the Pakistani ISI helped create the Taliban, this is what’s known as “blowback.”
Rene Campos, a registered sex offender, is seeking elected office in California – launching a campaign for Fresno City Council amid fierce backlash and renewed questions about whether someone with his record should hold public office.
Campos was arrested in 2018 following a cyber tip to the Central California Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. He was found in possession of child sex abuse material, according to court records. In 2021 he entered a no-contest plea to a single misdemeanor charge of possessing and controlling child pornography/child sex abuse material (likely under California Penal Code § 311.11). He served only one month in prison and a two year probation period.
Campos describes himself as a gay man who is running for office on the platform of “reduced crime and rehabilitation.”
Possession of child pornography is typically treated as a felony, even in a woke haven like California. How the Fresno candidate was able to make a deal for a misdemeanor charge and spend only one month in prison is a mystery, but this does help to confirm ongoing suspicions that California’s legal system is falling into steep decline.
California is notoriously soft on child sex abusers. Recently, a Sacramento parole board released Daniel Allen Funston, who was convicted in 1999 of sixteen counts of kidnapping and child molestation after a horrific crime spree in Sacramento County, during which he kidnapped, raped, and beat eight children ages 3 to 7.
Funston was originally sentenced to three consecutive life terms plus 20 years, but was set free at age 64 due to a California elderly inmate program (maybe he’ll run for office, too).
Data from 2022 shows that the Golden State released over 7000 child sex offenders after less than one year of incarceration. Interestingly, “digital blocks” were added to the Megan’s Law website that prevent more recent analysis.
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger is demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement provide warrants before violent illegal criminals are turned over to federal authorities, following the stabbing of a Virginia woman by an illegal immigrant with a long and violent criminal history.
Abdul Jalloh was charged with second-degree murder after Stephanie Minter was brutally stabbed in the neck at a Virginia bus stop. Jalloh had previously been charged more than 40 times, including for egregious crimes such as aggravated assault, malicious wounding, and rape. Prosecutors dropped 20 of the 43 charges against Jalloh. The Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office said the charges were dropped because Jalloh often chose victims who did not have permanent addresses, making the proceedings more difficult.
The Department of Homeland Security said Jalloh is an illegal immigrant from Sierra Leone. He entered the United States in 2012.
“ICE previously lodged a detainer against Jalloh in 2020, and he was granted a final order of removal by a judge who found he could be removed to any country other than Sierra Leone,” DHS said in a statement. “This case illustrated the importance of third country removals to get criminal illegal aliens out of the U.S.”
Spanberger insists that in order for Virginia to work with federal authorities, ICE must provide a signed judicial warrant, regardless of the alien’s criminal history. DHS requested cooperation with Virginia and Spanberger to deport Jalloh following his alleged involvement in the fatal stabbing.
“We are calling on Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger and Virginia’s sanctuary politicians to commit to not releasing this murderer and violent career criminal from their jail without notifying ICE,” Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement. “This illegal alien’s murder of an innocent, beautiful American woman came less than 24 hours before Governor Spanberger’s demonization of ICE law enforcement. This heinous criminal is a perfect example of why we need cooperation from sanctuary jurisdictions and the importance of third country removals for the safety of the American people.”
What the Trump administration has done on the DEI front represents the beginning of a general reorientation of our politics away from wokeness. One need only survey what prominent leaders of the Left are saying about the political price the Democratic Party has paid on that score. What they are saying indicates a large political change, even if the Dems prove incapable of unmooring themselves from woke politics for the near future.
The first sign of this reorientation is a general shift in the popular mindset: the spell of woke politics has broken. This matters because it was always the way in which woke politics commanded assent in the citizens’ hearts and minds that was crucial. That assent has been questioned or denied now in a broad way, with the backing of public authority (Supreme Court decisions, executive orders, agency directives), and with widespread public support. Wokeness’s public hectoring, punitiveness, and censoriousness, and the extremism of many of its positions on the issues, is unpopular at the level of 70–30 or 80–20 opinion poll divides.
We ought to be confident, therefore, that the broken spell of wokeness augurs a permanent shift in our public life. What that means precisely, however, depends very much on how we understand wokeness and what is done going forward to ensure that woke excess does not return. Now, if, as many say, wokeness was the product of cultural Marxism (Christopher Rufo and a host of followers) or postmodernism (Jordan Peterson and another host of followers), then all that needs to be done is to combat bad ideas. On these interpretations, our universities in particular, and other cultural institutions where the influence of such ideas holds sway, need our attention. Certainly, cultural Marxism and postmodernism represent bad ideas, and the world would be a better place without their influence.
But if what wokeness represents above all is the explosive power of the civil rights revolution and the influence of an aggressive leftist interpretation of anti-discrimination politics, as another band of interpreters claims (I among them), then the task ahead is much bigger and much more difficult.
Trump’s anti-DEI measures, on this view, would represent only the first step in a broader campaign of civil rights reform. One could look long and hard without seeing much in the way of evidence for any such thing so far. Are these current efforts against DEI an illusion, a brief moment of political opportunism that will recede as public hatred of wokeness recedes—only to return in a few years when the next wave of anti-discriminatory passion rises up?
I don’t think that worry is justified. The anti-DEI campaign to date will have enduring consequences because even if it is not yet clear that what is at stake in DEI is civil rights politics, the current reorientation can only have the effect of raising our awareness of the role of anti-discrimination in our public life. This has begun on the all-important moral plane of civil rights politics. Precisely by breaking the spell of its puritanical commands, our anti-woke moment is reworking something essential to civil rights politics. Because public morality is the crucial filter of the human mind, a shift at this level will change what we see, what we think, and what we think we can say. Anti-woke sentiment, backed by changes in the law, is providing a moment of political, cultural, and mental freedom that will necessarily lead, after many decades during which this was not possible, to a general reappraisal of the moral power and the meaning of the civil rights revolution.
Sources have identified the alleged gunman as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne to Nexstar’s KXAN and The Associated Press…
Diagne is originally from Senegal, according to multiple people briefed on the investigation. One of the people told the AP that Diagne came to the U.S. in 2006 and was a naturalized U.S. citizen…
Austin mass killer captured on video wearing ‘Property of Allah’ hoodie during rampage.
“Dallas Democrats Decide To Let DA Creuzot Go. With no Republican in the race, Democrat primary winner Amber Givens will become Dallas County’s next district attorney.” Creuzot was yet another Soros-backed DA, so maybe Dallas Democrats are ever so slowly moving back to sanity.
I’m just going to embed this Asmongold clip of Bill Clinton’s Jeffrey Epstein deposition without comment.
President Trump announced Thursday that Senator Markwayne Mullin (R., Okla.) will replace Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary.
The announcement comes after Noem struggled to stand up to a public grilling by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who pressed the former South Dakota governor on Tuesday about a $220 million ad campaign contract that was subcontracted to one of her longtime allies. Trump was furious at Noem for insisting during the hearing that he had personally approved the contract and began floating Mullin’s name as a potential replacement, National Review first reported early Thursday.
Mullin will replace Noem effective March 31. It’s unclear whether Trump plans to nominate Mullin to serve in the position permanently or whether he will serve in an acting capacity, sparing him the necessity of Senate confirmation.
“I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland.’”
Already under significant scrutiny due to bipartisan criticism of her handling of Trump’s deportation agenda, Noem ran into further trouble this week during a series of hearings in which multiple lawmakers, most notably Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, asked her to explain why the agency had awarded a $220 million contract to a firm that was founded just days before, without ever opening up the bid to a competitive process. Kennedy also pointed out that part of that ad campaign was subcontracted to a strategy firm owned by Ben Yoho, the husband of former DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
A $220 million no-bid ad contract isn’t just wasteful, it’s actively criminal.
More defeats for the gambling lobby: “Two House Chairs Defeated by Challengers. State Reps. Cecil Bell and Stan Kitzman were ousted by Kristen Plaisance and Dennis Geesaman respectively.”
Plaisance ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility, securing Texas’ elections, and defending state sovereignty.
Bell’s campaign and allied groups—including the Las Vegas Sands–backed casino lobby and Texans for Lawsuit Reform—reportedly spent more than $1 million attempting to defend the incumbent.
Bell, who chairs the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee, had been censured by the Montgomery County Republican Party last year.
Incumbent State Rep. Stan Kitzman of Brookshire has been defeated by Dennis “Goose” Geesaman for the GOP nomination for House District 85. Kitzman served as chair of one of the House’s subcommittees on appropriations.
Geesaman, a pilot and Air Force Academy graduate, retired as a Lt. Colonel. He served five terms on the Flatonia City Council and later served as mayor.
While Texans for Lawsuit Reform and casino-funded PACs backed Kitzman’s reelection campaign, Geesaman ran on a platform of ending magnets for illegal immigration, DOGE-ing Texas, and supporting parental rights.
Kitzman also recently came under investigation for his paid work for a local governmental entity while serving in the Legislature.
Kitzman also voted to impeach Paxton, so I think we’re well rid of both of them.
The war against tranny madness continues. “Paxton Opinion Targets Therapists Behind Child ‘Psychological Transitioning.’ Psychiatric providers who help facilitate prohibited treatments may be barred from receiving public funds and could risk losing their licenses.”
Samsung Electronics America Inc. is one of five companies that have been accused by Attorney General Ken Paxton of collecting and monetizing consumers’ viewing data on smart TVs.
Following the agreement, Samsung will now make changes to not only halt the collection of viewing data without consent, but also update their TVs to include disclosures and consent screens.
Heard from some state agency people that this was coming: “Texas Dismantles DEI-Oriented HUB Network. The comptroller’s office has ended race- and sex-based preferences in state contracting.” Good.
“Former Warren Campaign Worker Says the U.S. Must Be ‘Abolished’ to Atone for Death of Ayatollah Khamenei…Calla Walsh, the communist activist who campaigned for Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, Bernie Sanders, and others, said the only way to exact “justice” is the complete deconstruction of the U.S. and Israel.” What percentage of the ideological core of the Democrat Party are actively communist?
One thing that reportedly helped kill Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Brothers: GOP congressmen visiting Netflix headquarters and discovering tampons in the men’s room.
Microsoft seems to be going from bad to worse: “Microsoft Copilot to hijack your browser… for your own convenience, embeds Edge into AI assistant, ignores questions about opt-in.”
Microsoft is rolling out a Copilot update to Windows Insiders that embeds web browsing directly into the assistant, opening links in a side panel rather than launching your default browser.
The plan is that users of the Copilot app in Windows will show content in the assistant’s window “so you don’t lose context.”
Copilot will also (with permission) have access to the context of tabs opened in that conversation, so the assistant can look across them when responding to user prompts. Opened tabs will be saved with the conversation so that they can be returned to, and, if a user chooses to enable it, passwords and form data can be synchronized.
Enabling password and form data synchronization might give some users pause for thought, particularly after the Windows Recall fiasco, but users worried about Redmond slurping data should probably consider an alternative to Windows anyway.
At first glance, it looks like embedding Edge into Copilot via the WebView2 control is an attempt to steer the user away from their default browser. Convenient, yes. Good for competition, possibly not. We asked Microsoft whether this would be an opt-in experience and which browser was being used, but, other than acknowledging receipt of our questions, the company did not respond.
It looks like this is going to be limited to corporate users for now, but launching web links without user control strikes me as a huge attack vector for malicious code. (Previously.)
New Zealand “Lesbian Navy Captain Faces Court Martial After $100M Ship Ran Aground, Caught Fire, Sank.” Since that happened all the way back in 2024, they’re certainly not rushing to justice…
Apple has some new computers out, so here’s M5 Pro vs. M5 Max benchmarks. My trailing edge consumer ass is still on an Intel-based MacBook Pro…
“Japanese companies are paying older workers to sit by a window and do nothing—while Western CEOs demand super-AI productivity just to keep your job.” Seems like there should be a happy medium between those two extremes…
Microsoft has long had a reputation of an abusive company, all the way back to its origins, when Gary Kildall accused Bill Gates of stealing parts of CP/M for DOS. The list of lawsuits against Microsoft for anti-competitive or shady business business practices is so extensive it has its own Wikipedia article. But it’s latest moves to force both subscription models and AI into every nook and crevice of its software may be the final straws that break the Borg’s back, as longtime Windows users finally seem to be abandoning ship.
Last month, I met with a mid-sized law firm facing a common dilemma. Their Windows 10 laptops were nearing the end of support and needed to be replaced. Typically, this meant buying new hardware and software—predictable and straightforward. But this time, Microsoft suggested a different approach: move to Windows 365 Cloud PCs, a PC that operates with a monthly subscription and is accessible from any device, scalable, secure, and AI-enhanced. The catch? The shift from ownership to a subscription model and reduced local control led their IT team to question how “personal” these computers truly were.
Cloud subscriptions replace personal computing
The experience of this law firm encapsulates a major industry shift: Today, you don’t buy Windows, you rent access to it. Windows 365 Cloud PCs began as a business-only experiment at Microsoft but have grown into its central product and are now the primary road map, with local Windows installations becoming a mere stepping stone to cloud-based desktops. With tools like Windows 365 Boot, users can bypass the traditional local operating system altogether, landing directly into a personalized, cloud-streamed environment, even on third-party or bring-your-own devices.
Hardware no longer anchors the user’s experience; the familiar PC is now a portal into a metered utility controlled, updated, and managed by Microsoft. Windows 365 Switch blurs the line even further, allowing seamless migration between cloud and local environments. With each step, more user agency is surrendered in exchange for the convenience of a cloud-managed world.
The AI revolution and hardware
As if the cloud weren’t enough, artificial intelligence is muddying the waters. Microsoft is loud about a future built on AI PCs, touting Copilot integration, neural processing units (NPUs), and specialized hardware. But as Dell’s own product head recently admitted, customers aren’t flocking to buy these new devices for AI alone; the proposition is too abstract, and the day-to-day benefits too unclear. In reality, most significant leaps in AI are happening in the cloud, not on the desktop. Even Jeff Bezos framed the future simplistically: AI will appear everywhere, but it will live in the cloud.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is aggressively pushing its users to rely on its AI-powered tools and ecosystem, with access controlled through subscriptions. Gone is the idea of installing and running your own AI applications locally; instead, users are nudged to rent access to AI services, hosted and updated in Microsoft’s cloud. The notion of the self-managed PC is fast giving way to a persistent, subscription-based rental of power and capability, with AI primarily serving as another tool for vendor lock-in.
Hidden costs and loss of control
Businesses and individuals face new economic realities. The traditional model—investing in hardware for five years—is replaced by an ever-escalating treadmill. A basic Windows 365 Cloud PC costs about $41 a month for 8GB, excluding Office or AI add-ons. Vendors pitch this as a trade-off against the hidden costs and complexity of managing local computers in hybrid work. Before long, subscription fees will become just another line item in ballooning IT expenses.
Perhaps more concerning is the core loss of control. The local PC gave users the keys. They owned, updated, installed, and protected their own digital spaces. The new cloud-and-AI reality puts Microsoft in charge of software, identity, AI tools, and even privacy decisions. The old personal computer offered freedom; the new model is managed, metered, and routinely adjusted to fit Microsoft’s evolving business interests. Yes, security can benefit. Yes, patching and remote management are simplified for companies. But every user now sits one step further removed from the heart of their own computing experience.
That was linked by this piece, which was linked from Borepatch, who has further thoughts.
What this means is that you don’t own any Microsoft software. Sure, you may think that because you paid them money (most often when you bought your computer – some of that purchase price went to Microsoft in the form of a license fee for Windows). But you actually don’t own “your” copy of software. At all.
Rather, you have the right to run the software on your computer. That may not seem like a big difference, but it is. The license agreement (you know, the one you didn’t read before you clicked “I Agree”) allows Microsoft to change the terms of the agreement at any time, at their pleasure.
Microsoft has just done this in a big, big way. Key new stuff in Windows 11 is:
AI integrated with your operating system
Online presence is critical for lots of Windows now (e.g. AI)
Windows will nag you until you put all your data online (OneDrive) whether you want to or not.
The proper technical term for that first bullet point is that your Windows operating system is essentially now an “AI Agent” which if you are a regular reader you know is very, very bad security juju.
Combine this enormous security hole with the requirement to essentially be online 100% of the time (bad security) and the liklihood that OneDrive will slurp all your data to some Internet black hole in a Microsoft data center, Windows is simply unsecurable.
Yes, I know that is inflammatory, but there is simply no way that you can get assurance that your security is sane. I say that as someone who has spent decades inn Internet Security (and particularly in security assurance). Not to put too fine a point on it, but I don’t think that I could get decent assurance that things aren’t going “bump in the Net”. For most of the readers here, it’s not even worth trying.
And that AI, Copilot, is not only widely loathed by users, but is creating brand spanking new security holes.
“We’ve been following Microsoft and all their massive missteps over the last several months. Most of it related to AI and pushing AI into consumer products and pushing it on to people who don’t want it.”
“There’s an error with Copilot. Apparently, it can can read your email. That’s great. And Copilot is sort of the bedrock of Windows 11. It’s very hard to get rid of Copilot. They want to put it in everything, including Notepad.”
“Copilot slows everything down. I would highly recommend you turn it off.” If you can figure out how. Kneon recommends Linux Mint if you want a Windows-like experience.
“Look, Microsoft is not secure. And just realize if you’re using it, especially for business, if you don’t want anybody to see it, you probably shouldn’t use their tools.”
“A work tab within Copilot chat had summarized email messages stored in a user’s draft and sent folders even when they had a sensitivity label on it and a data loss prevention policy configured to prevent unauthorized data sharing.” Sounds like Copilot is as indifferent to your privacy and security as Microsoft on the whole.
“I don’t know if you can hurt Xbox anymore, because Xbox is a dying brand, but the new boss, who comes from an AI background, promises not to flood it with soulless AI slop. This is Asha Sharma, formerly the head of Microsoft’s AI division, which is causing problems. Now she’s in charge of Xbox. She promises many more great games made by humans.”
Sharma blather about how Xbox will run across multiple platforms instead of a console snipped. “Are we seeing first signs that Xbox is dead and about to be consumed by Microsoft? I think that’s 100% what’s going to happen.”
“I think they’re going to basically AI themselves into the wood chipper. I think it’s very clear that that’s all they care about right now, if they’re putting the head of AI in charge of gaming and she’s talking cloud and AI and all that. Yeah, it’s over, man.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is facing some accusations of “Indian nepotism” for putting Sharma in charge of Xbox, especially since she has no background in gaming development. Of course, Microsoft has long been accused of abusing the H1-B visa system to bring over cheap workers. Indeed, this MSN India piece crows about it.
According to official H-1B filings submitted to the US Department of Labor between 2012 and 2023, Microsoft filed over 50,000 H-1B visa applications, and approximately 70 to 80 percent of these applications were for Indian nationals. This makes Indians the largest group in Microsoft’s US-based technical talent pipeline. The data shows a consistent year-on-year trend where Indian engineers make up the majority of Microsoft’s skilled immigrant workforce.
Snip.
Multiple research estimates and workforce studies indicate that 26 to 30 percent of Microsoft’s global technical workforce is Indian or Indian-origin.
Snip.
Microsoft operates one of its biggest global R&D centres in Hyderabad, which works on products including Azure, Office, Windows, LinkedIn integration, AI/ML systems and cybersecurity. The India Development Center (IDC), established in 1998, is one of Microsoft’s oldest and largest development facilities outside Redmond. This drives significant recruitment of Indian engineers for advanced research and product development roles.
Snip.
A review of Microsoft’s global leadership roster shows notable Indian-origin executives including Satya Nadella (CEO), Rajesh Jha (EVP), Suresh Kumar (EVP), Anil Bhansali (VP Engineering), and dozens of corporate vice presidents and product heads. This demonstrates the substantial representation of Indian-origin professionals in high-level technical and management roles within the company.
But Microsoft also has a Jeffrey Epstein problem. Do a search on founder and former CEO Bill Gates in the Epstein files and you get 2,616 results. Nor is he the only Epstein-connected person of interest high in the ranks of Microsoft. Financier and Democrat megadonor Reid Hoffman is still listed on the Microsoft board, despite being notoriously close to Epstein and showing up in the Epstein files 2,667 times. (Also on the board: Former Obama Commerce Department head Penny Pritzker, sister of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and aunt to Epstein friend Tom Pritzker, whose name shows up 2,524 times in the Epstein files.)
Even before Microsoft jumped on the AI bus (or, if you prefer, off the AI cliff), it was notorious for security holes in its software, and there’s precious little evidence that the AI age has made anything better. The latest “Patch Tuesday” featured fixes for no less than six Zero Day exploits.
What all this amounts to: Anyone still on Windows should look to move to Linux if they have the technical chops to do so, or Apple if they don’t. Though Apple has dabbled with subscription services as well, they’re still overwhelmingly a hardware company that wants to sell you the latest shiny. And Apple has been dinged for its “lazy” approach to AI, which may turn put to be the smartest move after all. “Amazon, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, and Alphabet are projected to spend around $700 billion combined on capital expenditures in 2026, much of it on AI data centers and hardware — Apple plans just $14 billion.” That means they’re less likely to try and shove it into every damn thing. And I know my now-relatively-ancient MacBook Pro keeps working even when the Internet is down.
If you’re still on Windows, now might be the time to get out while the getting is good…
A bunch of AI-related news has popped up this week, so let’s do a roundup.
Some AI companies are complaining that TSMC is killing the AI boom by not expanding rapidly enough:
Asianometry notes that TSMC’s caution at expanding is amply justified by the boom-and-bust nature of the semiconductor industry:
“I’m hearing many similar views in the Silicon Valley Borg that TSMC is the break or limiter on the AI boom, as if they’re the reason why we don’t have AGI yet. Because they didn’t and still don’t believe.”
“If we can ever say that a company that spent $41 billion on capital expenditure in 2025, with another $53 to $56 billion in 2026 planned, is sitting on its hands, doing nothing.”
“TSMC having 90% share of the AI chip market looks pretty unhealthy. That should go down and it will. Samsung seems to be doing well so far.”
“The cold, hard reality is that shortages are a fact of life in semiconductors, as are horrific gluts.”
“What we are flippantly labeling as TSMC we really mean is the AI supply chain. And that supply chain is as complicated as you can possibly imagine. Like an iceberg, it looks big enough on the surface of the water, but goes way far deeper underneath. TSMC has thousands of suppliers in two categories: Equipment like the famed ASML lithography tools and materials like photoresist, silicon wafers, acid etch gases and so on. These are not generalized tools and materials. They are not fungeible like AWS compute units.”
“And then there are the memory guys. You cannot ship an AI system without memory. DRAM and NAND. Nvidia’s AI chips use a special form of DRAM called high bandwidth memory, and they use quite a lot of it. The memory industry is just as consolidated as the logic industry, with the major players being Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron.”
“The chip guys are last to know when the party is getting started, but first they get batoned in the face when the police shut things down.”
He points out that semiconductor manufacturers have log supply chains. He uses a different metaphor (the beer distribution game, or a bullwhip), but back when I was working at Applied Materials, it was described as trains linked together with slinkys. First software takes off, then hardware gets yanked along, then the chip manufacturers get yanked, and then, finally, semiconductor equipment manufacturers get yanked into motion, and shortly after that happens, the bust hits the front of the train, and the trailing cars all crash into each other. It’s a regular boom/bust cycle.
“From 1961 to 2006, electronics consumption in the United States grew positively but with wild volatility swings between 0 to 20%. But for the semiconductor makers, that translates to swings anywhere from 20% to 40%. And for the equipment makers, it is amplified even more, plus or minus 60%. The whip hits particularly hard in the semiconductor industry because of the industry’s long lead times. It takes 4.5 months to fabricate and package a chip. It takes 18 months to 2 years to build a fab. Meaning from shovels down to producing chips, and it takes 12 to 18 months to produce and install something like an EUV machine into the fab. Another 6 months before that machine actually starts patterning wafers.”
“Long lead times mean having to make very long demand forecasts, which leads to extreme volatility swings during up and downturns even if those up or downturns are relatively small.” People forget that in 1998, during the time we now think of as the DotCom Boom, there was a small semiconductor downturn that had Applied Materials forcing employees to take unpaid leave.
“ASML just reported 2025 earnings, and we see the bullwhip in full effect. TSMC raised capital expenditure 35% but ASML announced €13.2 billion of net new bookings. Analysts had expected just €6.32 billion. This is because ASML collected orders not just from TSMC, but also Samsung, Intel and the memory guys. When it rains it pours, right? Again, this is why I fear that another AI foundry would not mean our compute shortage is solved, because ultimately, when those foundries start scaling their capacity, they all go to the same suppliers.”
He goes over how car manufacturers cancelled orders during Flu Manchu, and then scrambled when the economy took off afterwards. “TSMC was trying to discern between double booked orders and real demand, which is not an uncommon experience for them. Customers lie about their own demand all the time, or at least we can say that they are eternally optimistic. TSMC tried to respond in 2022. The Taiwanese giant poured $36 billion into capital expenditure. They went to their suppliers and pushed like no tomorrow.”
“It turned out those customers really were double booking orders and artificially inflating demand. When the macro environment turned in 2022, the automotive, smartphone, and PC chips that were so hot during the COVID era fell out of vogue and customers started cutting orders.”
“Meanwhile, deeper down in the supply chain, TSMC and the rest of the semiconductor industry were getting bullwhipped by COVID hangover. Utilization at TSMC’s multi-billion dollar N7 fabs crashed, Semi analysis wrote in April 2023. Now, Semi analysis data indicates that the 7nm utilization rates were below 70% in Q1. Furthermore, Q2 gets even worse with 7nm utilization rates falling to below 60%. This is primarily due to weakness in both smartphones and PCs, but there is a broader weakness in most segments. A fab’s break even utilization rates are about 60% to 70%. So those N7 Taichung fabs were taking financial losses potentially on the order of hundreds of millions, maybe even billions. The financial burdens of low utilization are another reason why I’m skeptical another AI foundry could have rushed into the AI chip fray to save the day.”
He says that Intel incurred losses during this period due to an unnecessary fab expansion, which is probably true, but that was a secondary factor next to their longer running problem of getting their process wrong.
“ChatGPT was released in November 2022, and that kicked off a massive increase in capex amongst the hyperscalers in particular, but it sure seems like TSMC didn’t buy the hype. That lack of increased investment earlier this decade is why there is a shortage today and is why TSMC has been a de facto break on the AI buildout/bubble.”
“I recall news in mid 2024 of TSMC struggling with CoWoS capacity bottlenecks and yield problems, including one design issue that caused cracks in the Nvidia chips packaging.” CoWoS is Chip on Wafer on Substrate, which involves fabbing an interposer as a substrate for faster connections between your processing chips and memory.
“I also recall news in late 2024 noting how the vendors in charge of making the server racks for Nvidia’s Blackwell servers struggled with overheating, liquid cooling leaks, software bugs, and connectivity issues. Such technical difficulties delayed server deployment until early to mid 2025, creating a weird situation for several months where TSMC was pumping out chips that just went into storage. So that gated things, because you don’t scale until you first fix the technical problems.”
Then there’s the power-scaling issue, which is a whole ‘nuther can of worms.
There’s a lot of talk about a SaaSpocalypse going on thanks to a new AI tool. (SaaS is “Software as a Service.” Instead of hosting your own payroll or sales-tracking or whatever servers, you hire a company that already has cloud software setup to do it and you just tie into that, which can considerably reduce startup costs. A whole lot of successful new tech companies over the last decade plus have been SaaS companies.)
The software sector was jolted overnight with what analysts are calling a “SaaSpocalypse” — a sudden and severe selloff triggered by new artificial intelligence tools unveiled by US AI startup Anthropic. The episode has sharpened investor fears that AI is no longer merely helping software companies but may now begin replacing them.
Anthropic has expanded its enterprise AI platform, Claude Cowork, by launching 11 new plugins aimed at automating a wide range of professional tasks. Claude Cowork is an agentic, no-code AI assistant built for corporate users, allowing companies to automate workflows without writing software. The new plugins are designed to handle tasks across legal, sales, marketing and data analysis functions. The most recent addition is Anthropic’s Claude Legal agent, which can perform routine legal work such as document and contract review, and compliance checks.
Anthropic has said that the tool does not provide legal advice and that all AI-generated outputs must be reviewed by licensed attorneys. Even so, the breadth of automation signals a step change in how much white-collar work AI systems can now perform.
Productivity — Manage tasks, calendars, daily workflows, and personal context
Enterprise search — Find information across your company’s tools and docs
Plugin Create/Customize — Create and customize new plugins from scratch
Sales — Research prospects, prep deals, and follow your sales process
Finance — Analyze financials, build models, and track key metrics
Data — Query, visualize, and interpret datasets
Legal — Review documents, flag risks, and track compliance
Marketing — Draft content, plan campaigns, and manage launches
Customer support — Triage issues, draft responses, and surface solutions
Product management — Write specs, prioritize roadmaps, and track progress
Biology research — Search literature, analyze results, and plan experiments
A lot of those are already automated elsewhere, but I suspect a lot accountants and paralegals just felt a goose strut across their grave. On the other hand, who is really going to turn over, say, Accounts Payable to an AI? One glitch, and your entire bank account is drained…
If it works (a big if, give so many AIs are prone to hallucinations), this is potentially good news for Anthropic and the companies using their tools, and bad for SaaS companies and the employees currently doing those jobs.
I note there’s no plugin for technical writing…yet.
And Google Cloud ended 2025 at an annual run rate of over $70 billion, representing a wide breadth of customers, driven by demand for AI products.
We’re seeing our AI investments and infrastructure drive revenue and growth across the board. To meet customer demand and capitalize on the growing opportunities we have ahead of us, our 2026 CapEx investments are anticipated to be in the range of $175 to $185 billion.”
Remember how Nvidia was going to invest $100 billion in OpenAI? Yeah, not so much.
In September 2025, Nvidia and OpenAI announced a letter of intent for Nvidia to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI’s AI infrastructure. At the time, the companies said they expected to finalize details “in the coming weeks.” Five months later, no deal has closed, Nvidia’s CEO now says the $100 billion figure was “never a commitment,” and Reuters reports that OpenAI has been quietly seeking alternatives to Nvidia chips since last year.
Reuters also wrote that OpenAI is unsatisfied with the speed of some Nvidia chips for inference tasks, citing eight sources familiar with the matter. Inference is the process by which a trained AI model generates responses to user queries. According to the report, the issue became apparent in OpenAI’s Codex, an AI code-generation tool. OpenAI staff reportedly attributed some of Codex’s performance limitations to Nvidia’s GPU-based hardware.
After the Reuters story published and Nvidia’s stock price took a dive, Nvidia and OpenAI have tried to smooth things over publicly. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X: “We love working with NVIDIA and they make the best AI chips in the world. We hope to be a gigantic customer for a very long time. I don’t get where all this insanity is coming from.”
Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot has become central to its artificial-intelligence strategy as the company’s close partnership with OpenAI diminishes. But the effort to build it up as a ChatGPT alternative has been tough going.
Confusing brand positioning and interoperability problems have frustrated users, current and former employees who have worked on Microsoft’s AI products said.
Interoperability problems? With a Microsoft product?
Only a small proportion of subscribers to Microsoft’s enterprise suite use Copilot, and the percentage who favor it over Google’s Gemini or other tools has decreased in recent months, according to data reviewed by the Journal.
The stakes are high for Microsoft because Copilot is core to a push by Chief Executive Satya Nadella to transform Microsoft into an AI-first company, much as he transformed it into a cloud-first company around a decade ago. Copilot is one of Nadella’s top priorities, current and former executives said.
Microsoft shares tumbled after its earnings report last week sparked investor concern that growth in its most important unit, the Azure cloud-computing business, is slowing, and that its AI business is reliant on OpenAI while Copilot remains unproven. Shares fell nearly 3% Tuesday amid a slide in software stocks prompted by fresh concerns that AI tools will make enterprise subscriptions less necessary.
For other AI companies, we merely suspect they’re evil. For Microsoft (and Google), we already know they’re evil…
A kangaroo trial reaches its kangaroo conclusion, Biden’s ludicrous Gaza pier floats away and sinks, ESG lawsuits get the green light, the Libertarians nominate a hard left social justice warrior, and the NRA picks up a Supreme Court win. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The kangaroo trial where they tried Trump on supposed violation of a federal offense in a state courtroom and the judge decreed that the jury didn’t need to come to a unanimous opinion to find Trump guilty found Trump guilty. I expect this to result in expedited appeal and equally expedited overturning.
Result? “Today, the Trump campaign announced a record-shattering small-dollar fundraising haul following the sham Biden Trial verdict totaling $34.8 million – nearly double the biggest day ever recorded for the Trump campaign on the WinRed platform.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
While the CIA is strictly prohibited from spying on or running clandestine operations against American citizens on US soil, a bombshell new “Twitter Files” report reveals that a member of the Board of Trustees of InQtel – the CIA’s mission-driving venture capital firm, along with “former” intelligence community (IC) and CIA analysts, were involved in a massive effort in 2021-2022 to take over Twitter’s content management system, as Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag report over at Shellenberger’s Public (subscribers can check out the extensive 6,800 word report here).
According to “thousands of pages of Twitter Files and documents,” these efforts were part of a broader strategy to manage how information is disseminated and consumed on social media under the guise of combating ‘misinformation’ and foreign propaganda efforts – as this complex of government-linked individuals and organizations has gone to great lengths to suggest that narrative control is a national security issue.
According to the report, the effort also involved;
a long-time IC contractor and senior Department of Defense R&D official who spent years developing technologies to detect whistleblowers (“insider threats”) like Edward Snowden and Wikileaks’ leakers;
the proposed head of the DHS’ aborted Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz, who aided US military and NATO “hybrid war” operations in Europe;
Jim Baker, who, as FBI General Counsel, helped start the Russiagate hoax, and, as Twitter’s Deputy General Counsel, urged Twitter executives to censor The New York Post story about Hunter Biden.
Jankowicz (aka ‘Scary Poppins’), previously tipped to lead the DHS’s now-aborted Disinformation Governance Board, has been a vocal advocate for more stringent regulation of online speech to counteract ‘rampant disinformation.’ Jim Baker, in his capacity as FBI General Counsel and later as Twitter’s Deputy General Counsel, advocated for and implemented policies that would restrict certain types of speech on the platform, including decisions that affected the visibility of politically sensitive content.
Furthermore, companies like PayPal, Amazon Web Services, and GoDaddy were mentioned as part of a concerted effort to de-platform and financially de-incentivize individuals and organizations deemed threats by the IC. This approach represents a significant escalation in the use of corporate cooperation to achieve what might essentially be considered censorship under the guise of national security.
Nina Jankowicz And The Alethea Group
Remember Nina? A huge fan of Christopher Steele – architect of the infamous Clinton-funded Dossier which underpinned the Trump-Russia hoax, and who joined the chorus of disinformation agents that downplayed the Hunter Biden laptop bombshell, Jankowicz previously served as a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, and advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as part of the Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellowship. She also oversaw the Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute.
Jankowicz compares the lack of regulation of speech on social media to the lack of government regulation of automobiles in the 1960s. She calls for a “cross-platform” and public-private approach, so whatever actions are taken are taken by Google, Facebook, and Twitter, simultaneously.
Jankowicz points to Europe as the model for regulating speech. “Germany’s NetzDG law requires social media companies and other content hosts to remove ‘obviously illegal’ speech within twenty-four hours,” she says, “or face a fine of up to $50 million.”
By contrast, in the US, she laments, “Congress has yet to pass a bill imposing even the most basic of regulations related to social media and election advertising.” -Public
In a 2020 book, How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict, Jankowicz praises a NATO cyber security expert for having created a “Center of Excellence,” a concept promoted by Renée Diresta of the Stanford Internet Observatory, in which she made the case for the (now failed) Disinformation Governance Board that Jankowicz would briefly head up.
One year later, Jankowicz began working with ‘anti-disinformation’ consulting firm, Althea Group, staffed by “former” IC analysts.
Lots more at the link.
Remember when fast food was cheap food you bought to treat kids or didn’t feel like cooking? Now 78% of Americans surveyed think it’s a luxury good they can’t afford. Thanks, Joe Biden!
Also, one of Putin’s dachas burned down, though it’s so far from the theater of operations that it may be unrelated.
“Biden’s Gaza ‘Pier to Nowhere’ a Disaster and National Embarrassment, Breaks Apart.” Evidently the pier can only work in seas with waves smaller than three feet, and 4.5′ chop and 20 MPH gusts KO’d it. Also, no less than four U.S. vessels have run aground in the process of trying to build and move this thing. That’s some mighty fine pier-building, Lou.
The Supreme Court unanimously handed the National Rifle Association a win Thursday in the gun rights group’s effort to revive a 2018 First Amendment lawsuit accusing a New York official of causing damage to the NRA’s relationships with banks and insurers.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a unanimous opinion that found the NRA “plausibly alleged” that Maria Vullo, a former superintendent of New York‘s Department of Financial Services, illegally retaliated against the pro-Second Amendment group after the Parkland, Florida, high school mass shooting that left 17 people dead.
The question before the justices was whether Vullo used her regulatory power to force state financial institutions to cut off ties with the NRA in violation of constitutional First Amendment protections.
Vullo, who worked in former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration, said her regulations targeted an insurance product that is illegal in New York, which is dubbed by critics as “murder insurance.” In essence, such insurances are third-party policies sold via the NRA that cover personal injury and criminal defense costs after the use of a firearm.
“Here, the NRA plausibly alleged that Vullo violated the First Amendment by coercing DFS-regulated entities into disassociating with the NRA in order to punish or suppress gun-promotion advocacy,” Sotomayor, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote in her decision.
A mysterious shooting in North Carolina north of Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, not far from where some of America’s most elite U.S. Special Operations forces live and train is under investigation by the Army Criminal Investigation Division as well as local police. The shooting in Carthage, North Carolina occurred May 3 at 8:15 p.m. following a phone call about a suspected trespasser near a Special Forces soldier’s property.
Two Chechen men who spoke broken English were found near the soldier’s home. The family alleges the suspected intruder, 35-year-old Ramzan Daraev of Chicago was taking photos of their children. When confronted near a power line in a wooded part of the property, an altercation ensued and Daraev was shot several times at close range. A second man, Dzhankutov Adsalan, was in a vehicle some distance from the incident and was questioned by authorities and then released. The Moore County Sheriff’s office is leading the investigation.
The FBI told Fox News, “Our law enforcement partners at the Moore County Sheriff’s Office contacted the FBI after a shooting death in Carthage. A special agent met with investigators and provided a linguist to assist with a language barrier for interviews.”
A district judge has granted a pilot’s request for a class-action lawsuit against American Airlines for allegedly investing pension funds into environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds.
The case revolves around the allegation that American Airlines—headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas—violated its fiduciary obligation to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) “by investing millions of dollars of American Airlines employees’ retirement savings with investment managers and investment funds that pursue political agendas” through ESG initiatives.
“By pursuing ESG goals, Defendants gave Plan assets to fund managers, such as BlackRock, who allegedly ignored financial returns as the exclusive purpose and lowered the value of Plan participants’ investments,” the order states.
In addition to being disloyal to the employees, the plaintiff, Bryan Spence, argues that American Airlines’ investments were “imprudent because it is well known that ESG funds are associated with poor performance given the detrimental effects of such activism on stock prices.”
“To remedy these alleged ERISA violations, Plaintiff filed this lawsuit individually and on behalf of a proposed class of Plan participants and beneficiaries,” the order says. “ERISA authorized participants in a qualifying plan to bring an action on behalf of other participants to enforce the statute’s fiduciary obligations and remedial provisions, as well as recover all losses to a plan caused by a breach of a fiduciary duty.”
Two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a large, mysterious new Internet hosting firm called Stark Industries Solutions materialized and quickly became the epicenter of massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on government and commercial targets in Ukraine and Europe. An investigation into Stark Industries reveals it is being used as a global proxy network that conceals the true source of cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns against enemies of Russia.
At least a dozen patriotic Russian hacking groups have been launching DDoS attacks since the start of the war at a variety of targets seen as opposed to Moscow. But by all accounts, few attacks from those gangs have come close to the amount of firepower wielded by a pro-Russia group calling itself “NoName057(16).”
As detailed by researchers at Radware, NoName has effectively gamified DDoS attacks, recruiting hacktivists via its Telegram channel and offering to pay people who agree to install a piece of software called DDoSia. That program allows NoName to commandeer the host computers and their Internet connections in coordinated DDoS campaigns, and DDoSia users with the most attacks can win cash prizes.
Microsoft’s announcement of the new AI-powered Windows 11 Recall feature has sparked a lot of concern, with many thinking that it has created massive privacy risks and a new attack vector that threat actors can exploit to steal data.
Revealed during a Monday AI event, the feature is designed to help “recall” information you have looked at in the past, making it easily accessible via a simple search.
While it’s currently only available on Copilot+ PCs running Snapdragon X ARM processors, Microsoft says they are working with Intel and AMD to create compatible CPUs.
Recall works by taking a screenshot of your active window every few seconds, recording everything you do in Windows for up to three months by default.
These snapshots will be analyzed by the on-device Neural Processing Unit (NPU) and an AI model to extract data from the screenshot. The data will be saved in a semantic index, allowing Windows users to browse through the snapshot history or search using human language queries.
Who wouldn’t want AI recording and monitoring their every move? Yet another reason never to turn on Windows Copilot+…or use a Windows machine at all.
Time for an update to this old classic
Though Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan survived by the skin of his teeth, a majority of Republican Texas House members say they won’t vote for him for speaker.
A majority of the 2025 Republican House caucus opposes Democratic committee chairs, and effectively will not support another term for Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont), the group said in a letter released on Friday.
“In a collective effort to respond to Republican voters and reform the Texas House, we will only vote for a candidate for speaker pursuant to the Platform and the Caucus By-Laws who will only appoint Republicans as committee chairs,” the brief letter and joint statement reads.
It adds, “The absence of a member’s or nominee’s name from this statement does not necessarily mean the individual is opposed to this statement. All members and nominees are invited to sign on to this statement.”
Forty six current or presumptive members signed the letter, including 23 members who voted for Phelan’s speakership last year.
One of those signatories, GOP nominee in House District 70 Steve Kinard, has a difficult general election fight against state Rep. Mihaela Plesa (D-Dallas) in a D-52% district.
The letter includes signatures from each of the 21 “Contract with Texas” signatories, most of whom campaigned specifically against Phelan’s speakership. That contract also includes a ban on Democratic committee chairs, though has 11 other planks to its demands as well.
Last session, a parliamentary maneuver precluded a vote on the question of banning Democratic chair appointments, though the idea had gained steam among GOP House members and was included in the party’s list of legislative priorities. It is likely to be featured again.
In a March interview after being pushed to a runoff and state Rep. Tom Oliverson (R-Cypress) announcing his challenge for the gavel, Phelan said he would not back down on the appointment of Democrats as committee chairs.
Snip.
This release makes Phelan’s path toward a third term as speaker much more difficult. Should this group hold, ostensibly opposed to Phelan, it will be impossible for him to win the Texas House Republican Caucus endorsement. However, the speaker could give in on some concessions, such as Democratic chair appointments, and win back this group’s support.
GOP caucus rules require members to vote for the body’s nominee, presumably enforced by the bylaws, though no section exists in that portion of the document laying out penalties for voting differently than the caucus has chosen. It’s happened before, for example last year when three members — state Reps. Tony Tinderholt (R-Arlington) and Nate Schatzline (R-Fort Worth), and now-former member Bryan Slaton (R-Royse City) — voted against the caucus nominee, Phelan, and for Tinderholt.
Article IX of the Texas Republican House Caucus bylaws lays out the procedure for selecting a speaker candidate. It requires the selection process to be conducted by secret ballot until a member receives two-thirds support from the body, currently 58 votes; if no candidate reaches that line, the last-placed candidate will be eliminated from the contest and that will be repeated until one candidate reaches 58.
Should the vote reach a third round, the threshold needed will drop to three-fifths support — currently at 52 votes. Should nobody reach that line, after a fourth round of voting, all nominations will be withdrawn and the floor reopened.
Depending on what happens in November with potential flips, those 58- and 52-lines may shift.
This intra-caucus vote will occur in early December, per the rules.
Libertarians nominate a social justice warrior Chase Oliver for their Presidential candidate. A fair number of Libertarians are saying they’ll vote for Trump now…
“I believe this is one of the most important elections of my lifetime, and I’m supporting Trump. I know that I’ll lose friends for this. Some will refuse to do business with me. The media will probably demonize me, as they have so many others before me. But despite this, I still believe it’s the right thing to do.”
The physics PhD said that he refuses to live in a society where people are afraid to speak their minds.
Red Lobster followup: Turns out Red Lobster is privately owned by seafood supplier Thai Union. And just who did Red Lobster buy all that “endless shrimp” from? No prizes for guessing…
“George Miller’s Furiosa is projected to take in only $31 million at the box office. When adjusted for inflation, that’s the worst Memorial Day box-office haul in 43 years.”
Will wokeness and the Biden recession kill off comic shops? Also, is Disney looking to outsource comics from Marvel?
World’s largest Buc-ee’s to open. “The new center is located in Luling, Texas, and will open its doors to the public the morning of June 10, according to a news release from the company. The new 75,000-square-foot center is symbolic for the Luling community, as it will replace the city’s current Buc-ee’s store, which was the first Buc-ee’s travel center built in 2003.” (Hat tip: Dave.)
“Donald Trump Found Guilty Of Being Donald Trump.” “‘It was an open and shut case,’ said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass. ‘There wasn’t any way he could sit there being Donald Trump and just get away with it. We were given strict orders to hold him accountable for being Donald Trump, and that’s what we’ve done.'”
