2026 oct 14

[rcjordan]

100 years ago, a rogue Washington geologist faced ridicule for his 'catastrophic' theory. He was right.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/100-years-ago-rogue-washington-193700662.html

US families are behind on bills at rate not seen since Great Recession of 2008 | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/us/money/debt-recession-consumers-bills-b3066651.html

'The amazement is kind of wearing off a little bit': Wharton survey reveals managers are learning what Gen Z already figured out | Fortune
https://fortune.com/2026/10/13/gen-z-ai-backlash-managers-agent-verification-wharton-gbk/

JPMorgan CEO Dimon warns customers of 'liability transfer' with AI | Banking Dive
https://www.bankingdive.com/news/jpmorgan-dimon-ai-agents-bank-customers-liability-transfer/832870/

Microsoft Patches More Than 1,400 Security Flaws – Krebs on Security
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/10/microsoft-patches-more-than-1400-security-flaws/

The developer who cloned Photoshop using AI has now created Word, Excel, and PowerPoint replicas with Claude | TechSpot
https://www.techspot.com/news/114179-developer-who-cloned-photoshop-using-ai-has-now.html

Google pulled the best Gemini models from free users; here's the cheapest fix
https://www.androidpolice.com/gemini-plan-worth-paying-for/

Popular men's health drug linked to unexpected muscle-boosting effects | Fox News
https://www.foxnews.com/health/popular-erectile-dysfunction-pill-may-deliver-additional-boost-aging-men

Deep-Sea Rocks Spontaneously Combusted After Scientists Brought Them to the Surface
https://gizmodo.com/deep-sea-rocks-spontaneously-combusted-after-scientists-brought-them-to-the-surface-2000825338

Tesla's 'Security Protocols' Stopped DHS From Installing a Tracking Device
https://www.404media.co/teslas-security-protocols-stopped-dhs-from-installing-a-tracking-device/

Tofu Outranked Chicken, Beef, and Eggs in a New Protein Analysis
https://www.foodandwine.com/tofu-tops-protein-source-ranking-cambridge-research-12149065

Ukrainian drones hit Russia's top data centre in attack on AI ambitions | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/ukrainian-drones-hit-russias-biggest-data-centre-2026-10-14/

The seven stages of American decline - Asia Times
https://asiatimes.com/2026/10/the-seven-stages-of-american-decline/

Zelenskyy interview: U.S. warns Ukraine it could cut intel sharing : NPR
https://www.npr.org/2026/10/13/nx-s1-6000051/ukraine-zelenskyy-npr-interview-russia-war

[Drastic]

> US families are behind on bills at rate not seen since Great Recession of 2008 | The Independent
> https://www.independent.co.uk/us/money/debt-recession-consumers-bills-b3066651.html

"Around 35 percent of those earning more than $300,000 are living paycheck-to-paycheck - roughly the same rate as those earning $50,000 to $100,000, a recent Goldman Sachs report found."

WOW. That really speaks to many people living beyond their means, and many of those have means over 300k/year.

[rcjordan]

I think it also speaks to living in HCOL areas. $300k goes a long way where you & I live but not very far in SF or NYC.

[ergophobe]

It also speaks to people's definition of "paycheck to paycheck."

Remember, everyone in America whose net worth is in the 25th to 99.9th percentile is middle class (according to them).

[ergophobe]

> Russian data centers

When traffic from Yandex networks collapsed, speculation spread across the Internet that Russian influence operations and malicious botnets had suffered a crippling blow. Cloudflare data tells a different story: across Cloudflare's network, there was no evidence that the strikes knocked social media manipulation offline or otherwise disrupted malicious activity on the Internet. Instead, the data demonstrated...

Malicious automation migrated instead of stopping

https://blog.cloudflare.com/yandex-outage/

[ergophobe]

> Photoshop

HSBC Downgrades Adobe Stock
https://www.tikr.com/blog/hsbc-downgrades-adobe-adbe-stock-ai-disruption-risks

Also

https://www.printmag.com/design-news/what-happens-when-ai-takes-on-legacy-apps-like-adobe/

What Happens When Ai Takes on Legacy Apps Like Adobe?

[rcjordan]

>What Happens When Ai Takes on Legacy Apps Like Adobe?

Lawyers make a lot of money.

[ergophobe]

> Lawyers

I don't see Artcraft having deep enough pockets to fight this unless someone like EFF gets involved.

It's interesting. I think traditional copyright on code  doesn't help much. Where they seem to be simply and clearly in the wrong is

- design elements. They are basically copying the interface. It would have to be considered a derivative work.

- trademark. They are touting these as clean-room copies of Adobe products. That looks to me like a smoking gun and even if they scrub those references, they've been seen and no doubt archived by Adobe lawyers.

It makes me wonder if they sought any legal advice at all.

Current copyright laws favor publishers too much (100 years after the death of the author sometimes keeps things under copyright for 150 years). But this seems like exactly the sort of thing patents, copyright and trademark laws are designed to stop.

[rcjordan]

>makes me wonder if they sought any legal advice at all.

My thought was Are these guys nuts?? If not, they'd better be located in Sweden next door to Pirate Bay.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/1pfn6vp/how_pirate_bay_legal_team_responded_to_dreamworks/

[ergophobe]

That was 2004. The US Trade Representative put massive pressure on Europe and Canada to change laws to conform with the wishes of our corporate overlords. Failure to comply, they were told, would result in, wait for it... tariffs.

Now that they have all suffered random and changing tariff regimes, some people are suggesting they should just repeal those laws since clearly the threat of tariffs exists regardless or whether they kowtow to the USTR, unless they have diesel fuel or rare earth metals.

So I'm not sure Artcraft can threaten Adobe with harassment even if they are in Sweden

[ergophobe]

From what I gather, it seems the big risk is a suit over "trade dress" - what I called interface design,  it knowing the legal terms

But Adobe has made no attempt to stop GIMP or Photopea, so they may think it's a fight they can't win.

Meanwhile, if Artcraft can get 90% feature complete in a couple weeks, next year I will be able to get feature complete in a couple of days.