You may wonder whether I sometimes go a week or so (a week in this case) without publishing Pook-Emu Bee links because I lack links. Not so. I collect links every day. That makes getting back to Pook-Emu Bee all the more urgent. An out-of-control link backlog is a scary thing.

AI (or SI?) and Tech

1 | Daily News Stuff 29 September 2026 (Ambient Irony. Sep. 29, 2026.)
Incisive analysis of the “rogue” agent phenomenon in four words (“Because they are idiots.”)

2 | Heads of AI firms tell UN Security Council that it could imperil humanity (Seth Borenstein and Jennifer Peltz for AP. Sep, 23, 2026.)
I agree with Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony that this effort is embarrassing on many levels and impractical because the UN does not “have the power to regulate squat.” With that being said, I think the UN may be the perfect forum.

3 | Alabama teens getting their own version of TikTok under sweeping $100M deal (Elaine Mallon for Fox Business. Sep. 26, 2026.)
That’s great but what if we went back and considered that “no TikTok” idea again?

4 | Fwupd 2.1.8 Linux Firmware Updater Is Out Now with Support for More Devices (Marcus Nestor for 9 To 5 Linus. Sep. 24, 2026.)
I’m an Fwupd fan. I was hoping one of the devices would be my ASRock motherboard, which I just updated a couple of weeks ago. Alas. Still cool, however.

New York City News

5 | Safety advocate blames Central Park redesign for pedestrian’s death as cyclist crashes rise (Haley Brown for the New York Post. Sep. 28, 2026.)
Correct. But let us not forget the bikers who are pretending they’re riding in the Tour de France.

6 | Bay Ridge’s beloved Ragamuffin Parade turns 60, celebrating generations of community (Olivia Searman for Brooklyn Paper. Sep. 23, 2026.)
Despite having spent a good amount of time in Bay Ridge in my life, I never heard of this parade. But I nevertheless offer my congratulations.

World News

7 | Leftist South Korea Demands Ukraine Apologize After Zelensky Reveals North Korea Soldiers Shipped to Seoul (Frances Martel for Breitbart. Sep. 28, 2026.)
I personally wouldn’t stake my reputation on the reliability of either party here, but as a general point the one asking everyone for assistance in its existential defensive war should probably err on the side of caution.

8 | US Identifies and Blacklists Three More UNRWA ‘Teachers’ Who Participated in Oct 7 Terror Spree, Kidnapped and Held Israeli Hostages (Adam Kredo for The Washington Free Beacon. Sep. 28, 2026.)
If it makes these three distinguished UNRWA employees feel better, many individuals who have been publicly implicated in October 7 have suffered worse fates than loss of employment opportunities. Wait a second. That probably shouldn’t make them feel better.

Video Game Stories

9 | Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka considers Ultimate Despair Girls the pinnacle of his writing. “I will never be able to write another scenario that surpasses it” (Dorde P for Automation West. Sep. 25, 2026.)
I think I played something between 30% and 40% of Ultimate Despair Girls before losing interest and unsuccessfully including it in an Amazon trade in when I bought my Switch (UPS lost the package…). It was ok but I would have probably finished had I agreed with Mr. Kodaka’s assessment. With that being said, I do like Dangan 1-3, although I would caution against taking them too seriously.

10 | Persona 4 Revival Corrects Aika Nakamura Details, Confirms She Is Not a New Social Link (Orpheus Josha for Noisy Pixel. Sep. 24, 2026.)
I had seen the false report that P4 Revival was adding a new social link and had questions. Persona 4 Golden already tacked on two social links in Aeon and Jester to the original Persona 4. Adding yet another would have probably demanded some re-balancing. The correction to the original erroneous story thus makes sense to me.

11 | Amid “itasha” ban controversy, Forza Horizon 6 devs say moderation is handled by humans and “the number of reports does not matter” (Carlos “Zoto” Zotomayor for Automation West. Sep. 24, 2026.)
I have seen multiple stories about Forza Horizon 6 moderators allegedly banning user-created anime-style designs on in-game cards. Notably, none of the articles actually offer examples of which designs are being flagged. Thus, despite being an anime fan who is largely skeptical of games that have this much of an online component, I would reserve judgment.

Essential Minerals in Moderation

12 | Living the Low-Sodium Lifestyle (Chris O’Donnell. Sep. 24, 2026.) [HT Makoism]
Good blog post. I don’t measure sodium intake in this much detail but like the author, I seldom eat out and I check sodium on nutrition fact labels.

It is time four our daily Pook-Emu Bee links. If you enjoy the links, you can follow via feed (although I personally recommend following the main site feed for all of my postings).

Links from around the web

1. RFK Jr. Announces Plan to Teach Americans to Cook (Elizabeth Weibel for Breitbart. March 4, 2026.)

I support encouraging Americans to make their own food with real ingredients, both in and of itself and for keeping our HHS Secretary out of trouble. With that being said, I fear his proposed recipies may be a little too steak-heavy for me. (Steak is good of course, provided it is well-done and done in moderation.)

2. Columbia Anti-Israel Organizer, Now a New York City Social Worker, Calls For Zionists To ‘Burn In Hell’ (Jessia Costescu for The Washington Free Beacon. March 3, 2026.)

If you told me this was the moderate position for social workers with degrees from Columbia, I’d be willing to believe you.

3. Substantive Due Process After Mirabelli (Josh Blackman for The Volokh Conspiracy. March 3, 2026.)

I’m hearing the entrance music for Justice Thomas’s “Privileges and Immunities” concurrence in McDonald v. Chicago.

4. “Entry-Level PC Segment Will Disappear by 2028,” Says Gartner, as Soaring Memory Costs Start to Cripple Manufacturers (Muhammad Zuhair for Wccftech. March 1, 2026.)

I’m more concerned about the “build your own PC” segment disappearing due to cost-prohibitive RAM and other components, but that ship is already circumnavigating the globe.

5. Kevin Durant: face of the NBA Internet Era (Molly Morrison. February 26, 2026.)

Far be it from me to give life advice to one of the greatest scorers (and players) in NBA history, but I think he would be better off starting his own website to share his learned perspective on basketball than continuing to post from various acounts on X.

6. Geese in the Snow in Brooklyn Bridge Park (Nicholas A. Ferrell at The New Leaf Journal. March 3, 2026.)

Honk.

Clicking the “Random Article” button on NLJ

Video Game Stories and Standing the Test of Time (Nicholas A. Ferrell at The New Leaf Journal. September 28, 2022.)

I had to skim this article to remember it, but I see I published it to subtly commemorate what was then the 24th anniversary of the release of Pokémon Red and Blue in the United States. I focused on qualities that can make video games timeless, with an emphasis on good story aesthetics and ways to engage the player. It is not my most incisive games essay, but I think it stands up well (I am adding “related articles” to it since I had not done so before.)