www.nytimes.com/2026/01/0…

Arista’s Ullal: Ethernet is the ‘eventual winner’ for AI networking. Ethernet is overtaking InfiniBand in AI data centers as inference and automation reshape infrastructure, says Jayshree Ullal, Arista CEO and chairperson. My latest on Fierce Network.

Video shows ICE agent in Minneapolis fired at driver as vehicle veered past him. The video shows that the ICE agent was next to the vehicle, not in its path. He was in no danger.

Renee Nicole Good: Mother of 3 who loved to sing and write poetry shot and killed by ICE in Minneapolis

Datacenters in space are a terrible, horrible, no good idea.

Parker Molloy, a trans woman journalist, received death threats and suspended her BlueSky account for a day after she made a post that it was weird that somebody modified an Animal Crossing cartoon mascot to give it boobs.

The Disastrous CBS Evening News Debut Was at Least an Apt Metaphor for America Right Now

Why Young Men Are Souring on Trump.

The disaffected young men who helped elect Trump are fed up with high prices, worried about A.I., and frustrated by the president’s neocon turn. And, according to exclusive new polling data, they’re souring on Trump just as they turned on Joe Biden.

Encouraging news — not just about waning support for the bumbling crime boss, but also that young men have good reasons for opposing him.

Now the Democrats have to get their thumbs out of their asses and start supporting the people instead of oligarchs.

If you’re having insomnia, lying down with your eyes closed and trying to sleep is restorative, although maybe not as good as actually sleeping.

I discovered this separately myself and am pleased to see validation. Articles on how to beat insomnia tell you that if you’re having trouble sleeping, you should get up out of bed and do something else. That is 100% not true.

An extremely odd encounter at a McDonalds drive-through.

John Scalzi:

No one was asking for a pop art scifi movie that was ostensibly about shooting big damn alien bugs but was really a meditation about the quiet mainstreaming of fascistic thought and imagery into everyday life, and how all that glossy, idealized ubermensch aesthetic and thinking falls apart once it meets the chaos of war. But surprise! Here it is! Would you like to know more?

Maybe I’d enjoy the movie more if I saw it again today. Maybe I’d find it too painful to watch.

The December Comfort Watches 2025, Day Eighteen: Starship Troopers

Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales on how to build institutional trust. These insights will be important to rebuilding United States institutions (whose decline was well underway before Trump occupied the White House, though Trump accelerated the process drastically).

Tech Startups Are Handing Out Free Nicotine Pouches to Boost Productivity. I read this article to scoff at this as yet another example of toxic hustle culture. But how are nicotine pouches different from my own coffee habit?

The rise of the troll state. Maduro Was Offered Up To The Algorithm. By Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day.

Grok creates non-consensual porn as regulators circle. According to the Financial Times, X is now “the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter.”

A list of predictions made in 1926 about 2026. Marriages will be easy to cancel, beef will disappear, there will be so many cars none of them will be able to move, people will work to age 100, breakfast will be summonable by the touch of a button (hello, Doordash) and Americans will get rid of politicians and enjoy having less money. “… the American is going to learn that it is better an easier to enjoy a little money than to turn a lot of money into more money still.” Oh, 1926, you had such high hopes for us.

Data centers manifest their destiny in middle America. Data center developers are heading west to find land and power for their projects. Companies like Meta have launched PR campaigns in an apparent attempt to get ahead of local opposition. They’re running ads to pitch data centers as great for local communities. Job growth is a key part of the pitch — thousands of contractors are needed to build a facility. But those jobs may not last long-term once the data center is operational.

Hundreds of Mysterious Victorian-Era Shoes Are Washing Up on a Beach in Wales. Nobody Knows Where They Came From

The Clicks Communicator is a BlackBerry for your phone The Clicks Communicator is a simplified phone that’s a reminder of an old-school BlackBerry. It has a physical thumb keyboard, and it’s designed for communications. It’s expensive, though — $499. I am skeptical that people are willing to spend that much money for a phone that does less.

Brown Stage Capitalism. Cory Doctorow’s ‘Enshittification’ describes how tech platforms (and everything else) went down the sewer.

Telcos brace for coming AI storm. Operators like Orange Business and AT&T are bullish on AI, despite talk of a bubble. Successful operators focus on a disciplined approach based on prioritizing ROI, business value and controlling data. AI “Pacesetters” that maintain business discipline “outperform their peers across every measure of AI value,” according to a Cisco report. My latest on Fierce Network.