Tag: iran

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October begins two-for-two with Pook-Emu Bee Links before our regularly scheduled Saturday off-day for the Newsletter Leaf Journal.

I think they’re hoping you get the hint

1 | Japan announces new permanent residency guidelines, foreigners must earn more than average Japanese person (Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. Oct. 1, 2026.)
The earning threshold shouldn’t be too hard to hit. 10 years residence for non-marriage cases however… They’re definitely trying to tell you something. To his credit, article author Casey Baseel appears to get the hint. Meanwhile, the United States still has the Diversity Visa program on the books, wherein we randomly hand out visas to people who have achieved a high school diploma (not great, not the best).

2 | Mamdani Will Be Honored Alongside Group with Alleged Ties to Iranian Regime (Adam Lehodey and Daniel Edward Rosen for City Journal. Oct. 1, 2026.)
I was all but certain the group would be NAIA before opening the article. Did this really need two enterprising reporters? We could also drop the “alleged” for a more to-the-point headline.

We’re going to need you to think this through

3 | Bishops warn inflexible vetting rules could bar eligible family members from taking in migrant kids (Tessa Gervasini for EWTN. Aug. 26, 2026.)
We had a four-year experiment with dropping vetting standards and the results were rather subpar on many levels, so this warning can be safely disregarded.

4 | Prostitution busts plunge 60% — but hookers multiply — in NYC’s infamous ‘Market of Sweethearts’ (Rich Calder, Tina Moore, and Adry Torres for the New York Post. Sep. 27, 2026.)
“But” is doing some incredible heavy-lifting in this headline.

Unexpected angles

5 | New York Public Library hosted author who compared Israel to a ‘dog shelter’ (Carl Campanile for the New York Post. Sep. 28, 2026.)
Does Nicholas Kristoff know about this?

6 | Anthropic Co-Founder Daniela Amodei Kept ‘Personal Advisory Council’ of Stuffed Animals to Solve Problems (Lucas Nolan for Breitbart. Oct. 1, 2026.)
My first though here was “this explains so much.”

It’s not bad

7 | Firefox 157 arrives with major UI redesign, compact mode, and hardware AV1 video decoding (Paul for AlternativeTo. Sep. 30, 2026.)
The new compact mode is good is welcome.

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Time for the Sepender edition of our regularly scheduled Pook-Emu Bee Links.

Subway Stories

1 | These salvaged relics in a Brooklyn subway station are the ghostly remains of old New York buildings (Ephemeral New York. Sep. 28, 2026.)
I wouldn’t call this being restored to their former glory, but it’s something.

2 | MTA axes G train shutdowns planned for December after outcry from small businesses (Kirstyn Brendlen for Brooklyn Paper. Sep. 28, 2026.)
Fun fact for non-New Yorkers: The G train is the only non-shuttle line that runs directly between Brooklyn and Queens without going through Manhattan in between. It is also an oft-troubled line in the repair space.

Tech Replacements

3 | Fedora Discussion Raises The Idea Of Replacing LibreOffice With Collabora Office (Michael Larabel for Phoronix. Sep. 24, 2026.)
That is a stupid idea. Fedora should not do that. LibreOffice is a good default office suite (if one wants to ship a default office suite).

4 | US sanctions force The Netherlands off Microsoft and toward alternative NixOS-based software ecosystem — trial programs running now, first release expected at end of 2027 (Oliver Hansen for Tom’s Hardware. Sep. 28, 2026.)
U.S. sanctions of the ICC did not “force” the government of the Netherlands to do anything, as the first paragraph of the article itself notes. But since I use Linux instead of Windows myself, it will be interesting to see to what extent governments can make the switch work.

Military Conflicts

5 | Iran publishes propaganda letter urging US voters to punish Trump in midterm elections (Ronny Reyes for the New York Post. Sep. 29, 2026.)
I could state the obvious that I am not taking voting advice from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. But let us go with a less obvious angle. 26 pages? Does the IRGC really expect me to read 26 pages? Moreover, are they aware that 1 USD is now worth more than 2.5 million Iranian Rial? If for no other reason than preserving tokens I would recommend they keep future communications to me to a strict 500 word limit. Thank you.

6 | Captured Hamas Spy Chief Helps Israel Take Out Three Senior Terror Commanders (Vijeta Uniyal for Legal Insurrection. Sep. 29, 2026.)
Hamas is finally showing the kind of cooperation that can lead to peace in the Middle East. Inspiring.

7 | Ukraine’s former defense minister launches ‘Manhattan Project’ for killer robots (Katie Livingstone for Defense News. Sep. 30, 2026.)
The problem with Giant Death Robots is that by the time you reach the end of the tech tree, you probably already made it to Alpha Centauri or won a domination victory, no? I don’t see how he is addressing that. Shallow. (Link for readers who never played Civilization.)

Video Games

8 | Danganronpa 2×2 hands-on impressions: Witnessing the exact moment Slayhem Mode takes the familiar killing game off the rails (Dorde P for Automation West. Sep. 30, 2026.)
I was mildly curious how they were going to re-do the Danganronpa 2 scenario. This sounds plausible. I may talk myself into this one but TBD. (They had better not kill Chiaki off early, however.)

9 | After Years Of Hard Work, One Of The Most Ambitious Super Mario Kart SNES Hacks Of All Time Finally Has A Release Date (Jack Yarwood for Time Extension. Sep. 30, 2026.)
Interesting. I’m curious what the new courses are.

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Can we complete a perfect Sunday-Friday Pook-Emu Bee link week? With this, we are 5/7 of the way there.

An evening photo of a table, TV stand, and night stand (missing two drawners) lined upp in front of a bagged mattress.
Free discarded furniture on Love Lane in Brooklyn Heights. I took this photo on August 6, 2026.

Articles

1 | New $472M electronic brain modernizes aging CH-47 Chinook helicopters (Amir Kholam for Interesting Engineering. August 11, 2026.)
This reminds me of replacing the SSD and RAM in a cheap laptop I purchased on Ebay last year (I got in right before the DDR3 RAM was hit by price hikes!)

2 | ICE slams Long Island judge who let once-deported illegal immigrant walk out of court after 4th DWI conviction (Josh Christenson and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon for the New York Post. August 12, 2026.)
That’s atrociously bad, and I can only hope the feds find him before he gets behind the wheel of another car after a few drinks. But on the bright side, Judge Bryan Brown is earning well-deserved publicity for his exercise of judicial indiscretion.

3 | Bunny Drop’s Yumi Unita Launches New Manga in September (Rafael Antonio Pineda for Anime News Network. August 11, 2026.)
No thank you.

4 | Signal to add optional registration without phone number through one-time payment (Mauricio B. Holguin for AlternativeTo. August 11, 2026.)
This would be a good decision if it is implemented as the code suggests.

5 | These 3 Linux distros make leaving Windows feel natural (Rich Hein for How To Geek. August 11, 2026.)
Mint (all three flavors) strikes a decent balance, but I think most of the big stable options are fine with the right desktop environment.

6 | Iran Shuffles Military Leaders, Prepares for ‘Prolonged Confrontation’ (John Hayward for Breitbart. August 11, 2026.)
I wouldn’t go so far as to state as a fact that Mojtaba Khamenei made these appointments until he can be reached for comment by someone he didn’t appoint. If he wants to confirm that he made these appointments, I’m prepared for the exclusive. I will have him know that I am trusted by former Chinese Defense ministers.

7 | Peru Confirms over 450 Nationals Fighting for Russia Against Ukraine (Christian K. Caruzo for Breitbart. August 10, 2026.)
PSA: Don’t accept job offers in Russia (especially if you are a man who maintains a core body temperature roughly in the 90s).

Video

8 | Iseo CITY Euro Cylinder Lock Pick and Gut (Lock Noob. August 11, 2026) [7:12]
I came away with the impression that this would be a solid lock to purchase.

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My “daily” Pook-Emu Bee links have been far from “daily” of late. As a result, my link backlog has grown to an ominous size. But today we get back on track. Tomorrow? That is always TBD, but baby steps to giant strides and all.

Photograph of a small tree in a fenced in area adjacent to a Brooklyn sidewalk at night. There is a flaring light next to the tree.
I took this photograph in the evening on April 13, 2026. I do not remember exactly where.

1. NYC subway riders push AG Letitia James to probe OMNY after extra charges, phantom fines (Haley Brown and Matthew Fischetti for the New York Post. August 3, 2026.)

I have yet to use one of the new OMNY cards. With that being said, I respect this news that the MTA is maintaining continuity with one of the charming features of the old Metro Cards.

2. Democrat Wisconsin Gubernatorial Candidate Francesca Hong Said She Left Restaurant Due to ‘Too Many Old White People’ (Paul Bois for Breitbart. August 3, 2026.)

Hong shared her story about the anxiety episode in a 2019 post on X. ‘I ate two bites of my kid’s cheeseburger at a Culver’s in black river falls and told him they ran out of ice cream. Mostly just wanted to leave bc I was on the verge of a anxiety attack,’ she said.

I’m concerned, albeit not surprised, to learn that there is apparently an online audience of communists that thinks that pretending to have “anxiety” attacks in the presence of white adults is a positive character trait. I fear that the not-so-young lady is overcompensating, and not because of the people she claims give her anxiety.

3. Gaming on the 4GB Radeon RX 6500 XT and GTX 1650 Super in 2026 — upscaling makes low-end GPUs viable for esports and internet cafes (Jeffrey Kampman for Tom’s Hardware. August 3, 2026.)

I believe my video card is a GTX 1650 Super (see obscured photo of the box from 2020). While I have not given it many stress tests since I built this computer in August 2020, I am heartened to know that it can handle some AAA slop games on medium settings. Whew.

4. Proposed ‘Green-Wood Green-Way’ gets $4M in City Council funding for outreach, design (Kristyn Brendlen for Brooklyn Paper. July 28, 2026.)

I would support this idea without the bike lane. I do not support it with the bike lane.

5. Altman’s recommendation sparks debate about AI in parenting (Holly Van Leuven for Morning Brew. August 3, 2026.)

If you have a thought which places “Altman” and “parenting” in the same sentence, the answer will always be “absolutely not.”

6. Google plans to exempt sanctioned nations from Android developer verification (Ryan Whitwam for Ars Technica. July 31, 2026.)

Paradoxically, the situation in sanctioned nations will actually provide more app freedom. And these are Google-certified phones at issue here. In places like Cuba and Iran, most phones are Android devices with full Google certification because they’re imported from other places where Google officially operates.

Eureka! Here I thought that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard was being insane because it is an Islamist death cult. But I now see that it is because they want to ensure that they maintain Android app freedom. Mr. President, please convey through Pakistan that they can keep their app freedom even if they stop being their authentic selves.

7. Hochul lets bill forcing embattled ACS to turn over records languish as another child dies in Bronx hellhole (Craig McCarthy, Jordan Donegan, and Matt Troutman for the New York Post. July 31, 2026.)

Tragically, there’s nothing new under the Sun. Rinse and repeat every few months. Another child or baby is dead and nothing changes.

8. Exclusive: UN Is Actively Obstructing US Probe Into Links Between Its Gaza Relief Groups and Hamas, as Americans Warn UN To Divorce ‘Cancerous UNRWA’ (Adam Kredo for The Washington Free Beacon. July 30, 2026.)

Getting full cooperation from UN agencies regarding their involvement with and infiltration by Hamas is about as likely as my plan to correct the Iranian government’s behavior by guaranteeing that they will retain their Android app freedom.

9. LG Monitors Fill PCs With Adware, and It’s Not Just Recent Displays (Kyle Barr for Gizdomo. July 20, 2026.)

There is no easy process to keep PCs from automatically installing these connected apps, especially since they come in quietly via Microsoft Update.

Here, running EndeavourOS on my workstation, I read about these events in Windowsland like I read about the goings on in the Central African Republic.

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It has been 12 days since I last published “daily” Pook-Emu Bee links due to some combination of being busy and not feeling my best. Both of those blockers exist today, but I have time to squeeze in a new edition.

A close up image of leaves and flowers with a bee atop a white flower in the top third of the image.
I photographed this bee hard at work in Brooklyn Bridge Park on July 5 at just after 7 PM.

1. You Can Now Play Virtua Racing On PC, Xbox 360, & Xbox One, Thanks To These Impressive New Emulators (Jack Yarwood for Time Extension. July 13, 2026.)

This is very neat. But Virtua Racing will always be a 32X cartridge to me.

2. July 2026 Grand Sumo Tournament Height-Weight Scatterplot (Mary Pat Campbell at Sumo Stats. July 1, 2026.)

Kazuma is one of the complete newbies, up from Juryo, and he’s the reason I had to extend the weight axis as he comes in at 205 kg (452 pounds) at the height of 185 cm (6’1”).

I thought Kazuma looked “big” when his first match came up. Then I saw his weight in the graphic. He’s a big boy.

3. For the Birds 20 (tugster: a waterblog. July 12, 2026.)

The tugboat blog takes a rare detour into avian photography.

4. Sen. Lindsey Graham Dead at 71 After ‘Sudden Illness’ (Olvia Rondeau for Breitbart. July 12, 2026.)

I was surprised and saddened when I read the news of Senator Graham’s passing. He was certainly one of the more interesting national politicians of the current century. Rest in peace.

5. Manny Pacquiao takes over Floyd Mayweather’s former Hollywood gym in brutal troll (Daniel Farr for the New York Post. July 11, 2026.)

This is all well and good but I’d rather they go back in time and fight in the 2010-11 area. Thank you.

6. You can now legally rip your Wii, GameCube, and Xbox games using a Blu-ray drive (Patrick O’Rourke for XDA. May 25, 2026.)

My Blue-Ray drive is supported… but it looks like a bit of a pain to install the firmware for my specific model on Linux.

7. Court files reveal disturbing details of child sex offender pardoned by Walz, Ellison before deportation (Jenna Gloeb for Alpha News. July 8, 2026.)

Disturbing? How disturbing are we talking?

He further claimed that the 10-year-old victim ‘should be arrested also because she was as much at fault.’

Quite.

8. Immune to DRAM crisis, the original PlayStation gets a massive 8x upgrade 30 years later (Rahim Amir Noorali for Notebook Check. July 9, 2026.)

This bears watching. At the rate AI is eating RAM, PSX running some kind of barely functional Linux may be our best hope down the line.

9. A Top Mamdani Official Tried to Meet with Iran (Adam Lehodey for City Journal. July 9, 2026.)

Having suffered the unfortunate ramifications of empowering provincial machine politicians to run the biggest city in the most powerful country on Earth, New York City upped the ante and now has provincial DSA members trying to conduct foreign policy.  Here, at least, the State Department was there to affectionately say “no, lol.”

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I missed Pook-Emu Bee links yesterday and am late today, but we can hardly let a backlog grow… so let us link today.

A black Cybertruck parked in Brooklyn Heights.
A black Cybertruck seen parked in Brooklyn Heights. I took this photo on June 18, 2026.

1. Peeved NYC students, teachers, parents beg mayor to cancel school for Knicks parade: ‘This is once in a lifetime’ (Asia Grace for the New York Post. June 18, 2026.)

‘It’s upsetting because, obviously, we’ve been waiting for this moment a long time,’ … a Brooklyn public school student, exclusively told The Post. ‘The parade is really important, and everyone should be able to experience it.’

Is it possible for a 12-year old to have “been waiting for this moment for a long time”?

2. Who Would Take Iran’s Uranium? (RFE/RL, via OilPrice.com. June 18, 2026.)

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

3. Councils bans England flags on public property during World Cup (Anne-Laurie Dufael for Brussels Signal. June 18, 2026.)

‘The irony of this becomes clear when we realise that St George himself was a migrant from what is now Turkey to Palestine,’ [Bristol City Council leader Tony Dyer] added.

I had been thinking earlier in the article that these rules would probably not be enforced against other flags. My suspicions were not ameliorated by the conclusion.

4. UFC Freedom 250 (John Hinderaker for Power Line. June 15, 2026.)

I am a boxing fan, but not an MMA fan. To me, MMA is more a gladiatorial spectacle than a legitimate sport.

MMA is definitely a “legitimate sport” and I respect the practitioners, but I too like boxing and do not like the MMA for reasons similar to those noted by Mr. Hinderaker. With that being said, I haven’t watched much boxing since ditching cable (along with the premium channels that aired the best fights) 11-12 years ago. I should catch up on YouTube.

5. Russia Imposes Restrictions on Acquisition of Citizenship Except for Belarusians (Anzhelika Kalchenko for Militarnyi. November 10, 2025.)

I deal with many cases involving individuals who moved from former USSR countries to Russia and voluntarily acquired Russian citizenship (no Belarusians, however). If that puzzles you… remember it’s all relative. Of course, they end up here applying for asylum regardless.

6. DeMarcus Cousins explains how John Calipari made him declare for the NBA Draft (Bruno Rukavina for Basketball Network. February 5, 2025.)

‘And Cal is like, look, dude, if you want to take care of my family, you’re going to stay. If you want to take care of yours, you’re out of here. It’s real,’ he said. ‘That’s all I needed to hear. You know what I mean? So real.’

That was good advice from Coach Calipari given that Mr. Cousins was a high draft pick and had a good NBA career (including a few All Star appearances) before being derailed by injuries.

7. ID Verification for P*rn Sites Can be Okay (nephitejnf [PeerTube video]. June 15, 2026.)

I concur, and he kicks around some interesting-sounding solutions (albeit I am not concerned about making that onerous).

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Time for a new edition of Pook-Emu Bee links on this very pretty (in Brooklyn, at least) June 16.

Blurry photo of the face of a female kokeshi doll figure.
I took this phone on June 14, 2026, to send to Victor V. Gubo.

1. SCOTUS To Newman: Drop Dead (Josh Blackman at The Volokh Conspiracy. June 15, 2026.)

Say what one will but if applied broadly, chief judges being able to involuntarily retire other judges with lifetime tenure would be a very interesting new standard.

2. Neighbors in posh neighborhood fume about wild antics inside OnlyFans home next to local school (Nina Joudeh for the California Post. June 15, 2026.)

As much work as this headline is trying to do covering for the porn producers, I think some of the complaints are also about what’s happening outside the “OnlyFans home” and the negative effect it is having on the community. With that being said, the fact that the people with justified complaints constantly qualify their complaints by noting how cool they are with OnlyFans as a general matter does have the tendency to open up their position to the headline’s subtle critique.

3. Iran Deal Can Work If We Hit Them Every Time They Break It (Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. June 15, 2026.)

The headline is accurate in a sense, but not entirely in accord with the opinions presented or the hypothetical deal that is sure to occur (which we may see someday). Take aside, I am glad to see Mr. Hanson doing well as he works through some serious health issues.

4. Build large model of Red Hook, Carroll Gardens without the BQE (Brooklyn Daily Eagle. June 15, 2026.)

This ship probably sailed somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 years ago. But at least it left me with a bridge to write about.

5. G7 allies seek common ground with Trump after Iran accord (Brussels Signal. June 15, 2026.)

I’m a bit concerned about the common ground the G7 (definitely not looking at France) and others, now including the United States, seems to be seeking on Hezbollah. Still holding a few grudges and all.

6. Chauncey Billups on 2004 Pistons being underestimated vs. Lakers in NBA Finals (Virgil Villanueva for Basketball Network. November 13, 2025.)

Notwithstanding the fact that I published an article noting various reasons why the evidence did not support favoring the Lakers to the degree which they were favored going into the 2004 Finals, and there was in fact a good statistical case for the Pistons, that the Lakers were favored at all was far in light of the fact they had the two most talented players in the series (that was not the case in their previous two rounds against the Spurs and Timberwolves). However, Basketball Network goes way too far in describing the 2004 Lakers, which featured a slightly past-peak Shaquille O’Neal, an excellent but not-peak Kobe Bryant (2003-04 was arguably a slight down-year for him), and very past-peak versions of Karl Malone and Gary Payton, as “one of the greatest teams ever assembled.”

7. Productivity Videos Are The Bane Of Productivity (Matthew Weber at Matt’s Blog. September 18, 2025.)

Only if you view “productivity” as ideally leading to the production of something of value. If you view productivity as consuming “content” about productivity, productivity videos are probably the best choice.

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Monday is a fun day. One reason Monday is a fun day is because it marks the return of Pook-Emu Bee links after the weekend. Speaking of the weekend, I published links and commentary to enjoy in Saturday’s Newsletter Leaf Journal 284.

Photograph of an intersection with a short red brick building with an American Flag outside and tall apartment buildings in the background.
My photograph of the intersection of Carroll and Bond Streets in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Taken on June 15, 2026.

1. Historic Carroll Street Bridge in Gowanus reopens after 5-year renovation (Aaron Ginsburg for 6sqft New York City. June 11, 2026.)

The above photo is from my walk to the re-opened Carroll Street Bridge. Why did I go to the Bridge? NLJ article forthcoming…

2. Brussels welcomes US-Iran deal and presses for toll-free reopening of Hormuz (Brussels Signal. June 15, 2026.)

Everyone is learning what is in this sure-to-succeed deal (or MOU) except me.

3. GentleOS, A Simple OS For Your Old PC (Jenny List for Hackaday. June 13, 2026.)

This looks worth trying. Maybe it is time for me to sharpen my VM skills.

4 & 5. Knicks fans set school bus on fire in Times Square madness: ‘I’m scared for my homies!’ ( Jennifer Bain, Jordan Donegan, and Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. June 14, 2026.) & 63 people arrested, 4 stabbings and 1 shooting reported in NYC as Knicks fans go wild celebrating NBA Finals win (Fenix Suriel, Joe Marino, Jorge Fitz-Gibbon and Steven Vago for the New York Post. June 14. 2026.)

You would have thought that the violence after the first four games would have put the NYC government on notice for potential violence after the championship-clinching game. Maybe authorities just wanted to rekindle to 2020 vibes.

6. More than 75 data center build-outs worth $130 billion have been successfully blocked in the first three months of 2026 — bipartisan opposition mounts nationwide over fears of soaring power and water costs (Joe Morales for Tom’s Hardware. June 13, 2026.)

Many of the concerns raised by residents include massive electricity price hikes, egregious water consumption, and potential noise pollution, among others. However, there have also been reports that Chinese users have been amplifying these issues while posing as Americans.

Let no one doubt my credentials on the CCP propaganda beat, but one must be cautious of attributing potentially reasonable oppositions to one thing or another because the Chinese government may have its own reasons propagandizing.

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I missed Pook-Emu Bee links yesterday, but I am making sure to make up for it by starting this post yesterday.

Photograph of the marina at Brooklyn Bridge Park facing Brooklyn, with the buildings of Brooklyn Heights visible in the background. There are many boats docked at the maraina (four in the immediate foreground). Off in the far left we can see the Brooklyn Bridge.
I took this photograph of the Marina at Brooklyn Bridge Park on the morning of June 7, 2026.

1. Uzbek Fighters in Syria Face Tensions with Al-Sharaa’s Government (Jacob Zenn for Jamestown. June 9, 2026.)

Whatever disagreements the various bands of foreign jihadists have, the Uzbek fighters have good reason to figure out a way to make it work. That reason?

This incident can also serve as a reminder to Central Asian states to continue developing repatriation frameworks for the return of foreign fighters.

In the case of Uzbekistan the concern for someone returning from fighting in Syria would be that the Uzbek security services may have a “repatriation framework” of sorts.

2. Justice Department Investigates Alleged Race Discrimination at the City University of New York (U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. June 9, 2026.)

I can weigh in here as a CUNY grad: Don’t name programs in ways that can be shortened to “BMI”

3. Big tobacco hooked us on ultra-processed foods. It might teach us how to cut back (Maria Godoy for NPR. June 9, 2026.)

Interesting article but I there’s a problem with that headline.

4. Adagio celebrates Iced Tea Month with full-leaf cold brew teas. (Tea & Coffee Trade Journal. June 10, 2026.)

My first thought when I saw this headline was that I wasn’t a big fan of Adagio the visual novel. The tea looks more interesting.

5. Poland furious about failing to land any EU ambassador posts (Krzysztof Mularczyk for Brussels Signal. June 10, 2026.)

My first thought when I saw this headline was “this is still your future, Hungary.” But the article noted that it is also Hungary’s present.

6. Sanctioned Private Chinese Refiner Seeks Non-Iranian Crude (Charles Kennedy for OilPrice.com. June 11, 2026.)

Yet, Hengli could find itself in a Catch-22 situation in procuring non-sanctioned crude to prove that it’s not buying Iranian oil, as sellers may not be too willing to expose themselves to potential secondary sanctions by transacting with an entity sanctioned by the U.S.

I personally avoided this Catch-22 situation by not purchasing sanctioned Iranian crude.

7. ‘AI-pilled’ firms spend $7,500 per employee each month on AI (Rebecca Bellan for TechCrunch. June 10, 2026.) (HT Ambient Irony)

I’m starting to think I’m mighty impressive for running this site at a cost of $0 each month on AI. Should I pay for one of the models so I can ask it if I’m impressive?

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I am on a daily Pook-Emu Bee links roll. Today, I keep it doing with a third consecutive edition of the links.

Photograph of the Gowanus Canal from 3rd Street with Brooklyn Tower reflecting on the water.
I took this photo of the Gowanus Canal from the 3rd Street Bridge at about noon on June 8, 2026. While Washington DC has a shiny refurbished reflecting pool, note how the murky waters of the Gowanus Canal reflect Brooklyn’s tallest building (Brooklyn Tower).

1. Construction of jail in tony NYC nabe turns into potentially deadly ‘clown show’ with failling debris: records, locals (Nicole Rosenthal, Kevin Sheehan, and Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. June 8, 2026.)

Boerum Hill is “tony” but that particular stretch of it was not “tony” even before the monstrous jail construction project (not least because the new jail is replacing a prior, smaller jail).

2. Federal Court Invalidates Trump’s $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee as Illegal Usurpation of Congress’ Power to Tax (Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy. June 8, 2026.)

Earlier today, in the case of California v. Mullin, the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a decision striking down the Trump Administration’s $100,000 fee on applications for H-1B visas (which are used by tech firms, research institutions, and other organizations to hire immigrant workers and researchers with a variety of specialized skills).

Ilya Somin

Far be it from me to issue corrections but the H-1B program, as I am genuinely confident Mr. Somin knows, is for nonimmigrant workers, not immigrant workers (the immigrant analogs for most H-1Bs are EB-2 and EB-3). Moreover, while it is technically for specialty occupation workers, the baseline requirement for H-1B is a qualifying degree, H-1B is far from the most strictly-defined work visa classification.

3. xAI is looking more like a datacentre REIT than a frontier lab (HT Ambient Irony)

Fair. But you can look like many things when you don’t run out of money.

4. Colombia’s Outgoing President Gustavo Petro Publishes ‘Heil Hitler’ Message (Christian K. Caruzo for Breitbart. June 8, 2026.)

This is fairly tame political commentary by his lofty standards.

5. GLP-1-related returns leave retailers reeling (Brandon Cosgrove. June 6, 2026.)

I still have at least one shirt from when I was in high school (a fairly long time ago at this stage). I think they should be giving me discounts.

6. The Jason Kidd Nets (Neil Paine at Basketball History. June 27, 2012.)

The New York Knicks’ Finals drought was so long that the most recent team from the New York Metropolitan area to have made the NBA Finals before the Knicks in 2026 no longer exists in its “Finals” form. Revisiting the Jason Kidd-era New Jersey Nets, which represented the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals in 2002 and 2003 (they were reasonably competitive in the 2003 Finals against the Spurs).

7.Trump: US Will Respond to Iran After Apache Downed (Sandy Fitzgerald for Newsmax. June 9, 2026.)

I don’t doubt Iran wants a deal but I’m starting to get this sneaking suspicion it’s not the same kind of deal we’re looking for. (Thank goodness the pilots were once again rescued (very creatively) and are safe.)

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I took an off-day from Pook-Emu Bee links yesterday. I am busy today, but let us not let that stop us from our daily selection of links from around the web.

1, Putting the phone down: an Osmo Nano workflow (Wojtek Powiertowski at Behind the Viewfinder. May 10, 2026.)

That camera is adorable.

2. Latvian defence minister resigns after Ukrainian drones hit oil depot (Brussels Signal. May 11, 2026.)

To be fair to the now-former Defense Minister, I am not sure Ukrainian drone strikes would have been anyone’s first contingency in the context of 2026.

3. Experts warn Trump admin any Iran deal must block plutonium path to atomic bomb (Benjamin Weinthal for Fox News. May 9, 2026.)

Doesn’t sound like it should be the first priority, but while you’re in the area dealing with the uranium. With that being said, I would respectfully decline a recent magnanimous request for assistance with the matter.

4. Red Hook’s Alma BK Has one of the Best Views in Brooklyn (TimeOut New York. May 5, 2026.)

I had lunch on the roof at Alma 12-13 years ago. Alma is not in Red Hook. It is in Columbia Street Waterfront District (the view is as advertised). One day they say CSWD is Red Hook, the next Carroll Gardens. No respect for that little neighborhood (which may soon become bigger).

5. Medicaid fraud fears grow amid massive red state billing spike in sector that also plagued Minnesota (Andrew Mark Miller for Fox News. May 9, 2026.)

Many people see autism as a piggy bank. Taxpayers, kids who get fake/wrong diagnoses, and kids (and their parents) who actually need services search in a sea of real-world slop.

6. No spectator parking for NJ World Cup has nearby town’s police dept issuing warning (Angela Barbuti for the New York Post. May 9, 2026.)

No one asks why the New Jersey state government, a state with two NFL teams and 17 NFL home games every year, is trying to manufacture chaos over the World Cup.

7. Mixtape is garbage, Don’t Listen to IGN! (Game Slush Pile. May 9, 2026.)

I had never heard of it but a cursory glance does suggest to me Game Slush Pile may be onto something.

8. AI Slop is Killing Online Communities (Robin Moffatt at rmoff’s random musings for May 6, 2026.)

I’m not a member of any online communities, but this lines up with what I would have assumed. With that being said, if AI slop can sink Reddit to the bottom of the sea, I am willing to reassess my AI slop priors.

9. kicking out human slop from my online space (Ava at Ava’s Space. May 8, 2026.)

I looked at the things she is no longer engaging with and confirmed that I only see them second-hand. Feed-reader centric surfing wins again.

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Work did not allow for timely Pook-Emu Bee links, but today I return with nine new links from around the web.

1 Popular WordPress redirect plugin hid dormant backdoor for years (Bill Toulas for Bleeping Computer. April 29, 2026.)

Not popular enough for me to have been using it (but do attend to the issue if you happen to be running Quick Page/Post Redirect on WordPress).

2. Waylay Callais! (Josh Blackman for The Volokh Conspiracy. April 30, 2026.)

After much anticipation, the Supreme Court finally decided Louisiana v. Callais. (The Chief Justice pronounced it as waylay.) I have some preliminary thoughts.

3. No Country for Moderate Men (Amit Segal at It’s Noon In Israel. April 30, 2026.)

According to several senior Iranian sources, only one man has direct access to the definitely-still-alive-Supreme Leader: IRGC commander Ahmad Vahidi.

It just so happens that Mojtaba and Vahidi are in complete lockstep.

Iran is really doing a visual novel plot here.

4. France’s domestic intelligence agency monitors ‘masculinist threat’, reluctantly (Carl Deconinck for Brussels Signal. April 30, 2026.)

Look! Shiny object!

5. How I Do Content Engineering with Claude Code (Ryan Law for Ahrefs Blog. April 28, 2026.)

“Content engineering…”

6. Saying “No” In an Age of Abundance (Jim Nielsen. February 3, 2026.)

In an age of abundance, restraint becomes the only scarce thing left, which means saying ‘no’ is more valuable than ever.

7. Introducing RateMyPet (Fraser McLean. May 17, 2025.)

For the past few months, I’ve been working on a new pet project (excused the pun 😂), called RateMyPet. It’s a social site where users can share photos and stories about their pets, and rate each other’s pets. The idea is to create a fun and engaging community for pet lovers.

8. FDNY Lithium Ion Batteries To Blame For Garbage Truck Fire In Downtown Brooklyn (Rob Flaks for News12. April 24, 2026.)

The fires always start from that which you would least expect.

9. Colored Pencil Review: Pentel Mulit8 2mm Lead Holder (The Well-Apportioned Desk. April 23, 2026.)

I don’t need colored pencils. But if I did, I would probably find this one compelling.

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I failed to post daily Pook-Emu Bee links on Sunday (out) and yesterday (work). But I return to you on this fair morning of April 28, 2026, with nine links from around the world wide web.

1. Hipster NYC straphangers fear third straight summer of hell on G train: ‘Here we are again’ (Nicole Rosenthal, Sofia Pozansky, and Haley Brown for the New York Post).

I remembered having published a short post about G train upgrades and assumed that I had published it here on ECS. It turns out I published it as a “Leaf Bud” short post on NLJ all the way back in August 2023, before this site existed. We can track MTA time through my link posts.

2. Obama-Biden Iran Negotiator Says Trump Doesn’t Have Enough Experts, Bemoans ‘Genocide’ in Gaza (Ira Stoll for The Washington Free Beacon. April 28, 2026.)

How do you write an article about Wendy Sherman without noting the leading role she played in prevening North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons!? Wait. I’m getting an update…

3. “Pathetic. Keyboard Courage. Can’t Stand It” – Call Of Duty Movie Director Has A Dim View Of The Video Game Series (Damien McFerran for Time Extension. April 28, 2026.)

I never played Call of Duty and will not see the Call of Duty movie. But as an outside observer, it seems odd to choose as the director of a Call of Duty movie someone who is on record as holding the audience for said movie in contempt. For example, you would probably be unwise to hire me to direct a movie celebrating a game which makes heavy use of generative AI, right? But what do I know? I’m not a Hollywood executive.

4. Valve Confirms Steam Controller Release Date, $99 Price (Michael Larabel for Poronix. April 27, 2026.)

It looks tempting…

5. U.S. companies back Sam Altman’s World ID even as much of the world pushes back (Ananya Battacharya for Rest of World. April 27, 2026.)

The article notes three U.S. companies, at least one of which has engaged in censorship on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, and a few countries from around the world. Oversell, under-deliver. With that being said, I too will pass on the Sam Altman eye-scan thing.

6. I Stumbled Across My Boyfriend’s ChatGPT and It Ended Our Relationship (Lindsey Hall. March 31, 2026.)

This article gives you a TMI feeling when you read it. I will link it less as a recommendation and more because it gives me an opportunity to dispense life advice: Don’t ask chatbots for relationship advice.

7. A telltale AI phrase is taking over corporate comms (Molly Liebergall for Morning Brew. April 24, 2026.)

It’s not AI, but… wait… yeah it’s probably AI.

8. Ralph Sampson: Why He Can’t Be a Winner in Houston, 1986 (Bob Kuska from Way Downtown, reprinting article by Fran Blinebury froom March 1986 issue of Basketball Digest. April 24, 2026.)

Looking back at the NBA’s first, and perhaps only, 7’4″ forward.

9. Fernando Mendoza, System QB (Mike Tanner for Too Deep Zone. April 20, 2026.)

No one with any credibility ranks Mendoza in the Trevor Lawrence S-tier of recent quarterback prospects. No one but the dedicated naysayers foresee an epic bust.

This line struck me as interesting since my understanding as a distant follower of today’s NFL is that Trevor Lawrence has not yet turned into an S-tier NFL quarterback (albeit I understand he had a very nice season in 2025.)

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Replied to It’s Noon in Israel: Schrödinger’s Ayatollah: Is Mojtaba Dead or Alive? by Amit SegalAmit Segal (It's Noon In Israel)
The narrative has essentially frozen there. For the last month and a half, the regime has subsisted entirely on ventriloquism—statements attributed to the new Supreme Leader without a single visual confirmation—while foreign reports have described his condition as ranging between severely mutilated and dead.

I read a cleverly-titled article by Amit Segal titled Schrödinger’s Ayatollah: Is Mojtaba Dead or Alive? The article examines the life status, or lack thereof, of Iran’s purported Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. As I read the article, I found myself thinking about the iconic Japanese visual novel, Umineko: When They Cry. Then I found myself thinking about the best of its many great music tracks, Happiness of Marionette. Then I had Happiness of Marionette playing on loop in my head. I would explain how one thing led to another, but that would involve too many spoilers.

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We have a second consecutive warm day in New York City. We also have a third consecutive day of Pook-Emu Bee links.

1. Seven Myths About the Iran War (Michael Doran for Tablet Magazine. April 13, 2026.)

Good start. Hard to choose just seven.

2. Someone Bought 30 WordPress Plugins and Planted a Backdoor in All of Them. (Austin Ginder for Anchor. April 9, 2026.)

WordPress should send notifications to webmasters whenever an installed plugin from the standard WordPress repository changes hands.

3. Sam Altman’s house targeted in second attack; two suspects arrested (John Owen Lamb for The San Francisco Standard. April 12, 2026.)

Scary stuff and good thing both attacks failed (these sorts of types are often not too competent). Let us hope the perpetrators are dealt with appropriately and quickly to minimize the number of other deranged individuals who may take inspiration.

4. Reflecting on Microsoft Windows Vista in 2026 (Maya Posch for Hackaday. April 9, 2026.)

Say what one will but my Vista experience was fine. I’d take it over whatever is going on with Windows 11 these days.

5. Failing the Fix (2026) (U.S. PIRG Education Fund. April 7, 2026.)

I won’t spoil everything but I will note that having recently operated on a 2006-07 Macbook, I can confirm that Apple’s failing grade is nothing new.

6. You Should Be Using Reddit on Your RSS Reader (David Nield for Lifehacker. April 10, 2026.)

That is an interesting suggestion but I counter with “use an RSS reader and don’t use Reddit at all.”

7. Amazon is ending support for Kindle devices from 2012 and earlier (Brad Linder for Liliputing. April 7, 2026.)

But not all is lost for people with ancient Kindles: “You can still ‘transfer personal documents’ to an unsupported Kindle using a USB cable, although you may need to use a third-party tool like Calibre to convert some eBooks into a format that your Kindle recognizes.” Calibre does handle conversions to MOBI.

8. MLB pitcher Merrill Kelly says California tax rate swayed decision to reject Padres’ free agency offer (Chantz Martin for Fox News. February 28, 2026.)

Today reminds him why he made that call in free agency.

9. A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction (Retraction Watch. March 3, 2026.)

But other than that, the reports were accurate.

(HT to Pixy Misa for links 2 and 3.)