Atalas

@CultureCrave Huge. Thank you. I don't know what it is, but something feels wrong about listening to AI music. There are some genuinely high quality songs out there, but once you notice the tells, a switch flips. The art. The lyrics. The voice. I just find myself hitting skip.

Spotify is now adding a 'verified' badge to human artists amid a surge in AI music • More than 99% of the artists Spotify listeners actively search for will be verified • AI music will still be allowed on their platform

@MarioNawfal This isn't a surprising outcome. Mercenaries have a spotty historical record, and nobody wants to die for a lost cause in a foreign land.

🇷🇺🇲🇱 Russian mercenaries in Mali just surrendered to Tuareg rebels and walked out alive, leaving their Malian partners trapped at the base to die... After two days of getting hammered by Tuareg rebels and al-Qaeda fighters in the northern city of Kidal, Russian African Corps fighters got completely surrounded at their base. The rebels offered them a way out: lay down your weapons, walk out peacefully, you live. The Russians handed over their guns and left. The shameful part is these Russians weren't alone at that base. They were stationed there alongside the Malian soldiers they were literally being paid to protect, the actual military of the country that hired them. When the Russians cut their deal and walked away, they didn't take the Malians with them. They didn't negotiate the same exit. They didn't even try. They just left them surrounded, knowing exactly what was coming next. This is what the Wagner-rebranded African Corps actually delivers when the bullets start flying. African governments have been paying Russia for security for years, getting told they're hiring elite operators who'll defend them when the West won't. What they got in Mali was a mercenary force that bailed the moment the math turned against them and traded the lives of their hosts for safe passage. The lesson for every African government currently shopping Russian security partnerships is sitting right there. When it gets ugly, the people you paid to fight for you will fight for themselves first. Source: WaPo, Reuters

@mattyglesias Blues trying to mask their poor reading comprehension as empathy. The same crowd, using the same logic, that got us the COVID mandates. Forced altruism.

Don’t be stupid, press the blue button.

@jarvis_best I knew I recognized that face

Greg?

@cremieuxrecueil Imagine you're the first person given the choice: Red, you live. Blue, requires a 50% participation rate, or you and all blues die. You choose Red. Then you find out a not insignificant number of people start pressing blue. Are you a bad person? Are you immoral?

Smart people tend to be more prosocial. They give to charity, they go out and vote, they drive an environmentally-friendly car, they do less crime, they cheat less in games, they get vaccinated, and they see themselves as more altruistic🧵 A smart society is a better society.

@MarioNawfal 🫤

🇺🇸 Britney Spears has been charged with DUI (drugs + alcohol) in California. Here's a quick, sad timeline of her very public spiral: 2007–2008: The infamous meltdown years (head shaving, umbrella attacks, custody battles) 2008: Placed under a strict 13-year conservatorship 2021: Finally freed from the conservatorship 2022–2025: Increasingly erratic Instagram posts, dancing with knives, bizarre videos March 2026: Arrested for DUI April 2026: Voluntarily enters treatment facility From “Princess of Pop” to this… it’s been a long, painful fall. Hoping she gets the help she clearly needs.

@CatShoshanna For people who consider themselves fans or even interested in his message: Is this at all concerning to you? Does it make you question his sincerity even a little bit?

Lenin in one hand, Cartier on the other.

Comments are a dumpster fire. But I still think its a travesty that the only way modern American's think about war is how it affects them. The minor inconvenience of higher as prices, weighed against the true cost of war on those who pay the true price.

@TrendSpider Not like this.😐

$RBLX GOOD GOD 🩸

@zerohedge Well, AI can't be worse than the slop they've put out so far. It might even be an improvement.

*META LOOKING TO DEVELOP MANY NEW APPS USING AI: WSJ

Who would have thought that in 2026, the strongest bond between America and the UK is with the monarchy.

@AutismCapital Classic

Everyone on X wishing they worked at JPM 💀💀💀

@bryan_johnson Only Fans next? 😄

Just gave Kate oral sex. Goodnight everyone.

@BigImpactHumans @ns123abc 😂

🚨 Musk vs OpenAI's lawyer — the cross-examination exchanges William Savitt — Wachtell Lipton's lead defense lawyer, Supreme Court clerk, trained to break witnesses. Savitt opens with a misleading premise. Musk: "You're being misleading. What you're saying is false." Savitt tries again with a different loaded frame. Musk: "Your questions are not simple. They are designed to trick me." Savitt demands a yes or no answer to a complicated question. Musk: "If you ask a question where there is no possible simple answer, I must give a longer answer because any simple answer would be misleading the jury." Musk reaches for an analogy: "The classic answer to a yes or no question is not so simple. For example, if you ask the question 'will you stop beating your wife?'..." Judge Gonzalez Rogers cuts him off: "No, we're not gonna go there." The courtroom laughs. Savitt apologizes for the question. Musk: "I find it funny you saying it wasn't an unfair question since you're only asking unfair questions." Savitt: "I'm doing my best." Musk: "That is not true." OpenAI's lawyer came to break Musk. Musk wasn't having it.

It's April 29th, 2026. Tesla FSD is humming along. We sent humans around the moon. Rule 34 is alive and well. Yet still, we have to deal with Siri. Come on, @Apple

Yesterday, I spoke with the CEO of a mega fleet, who said most of his truckload business was doing well, except for one segment: food & beverage. He called the lack of volume from this segment "unusual." I told him we believed GLP-1s were causing a significant slowdown in food and beverage shipments, as we had just completed a market study on GLP-1's impact on freight shipments. Our study, now published in a SONAR Sitrep, available online, estimates that 851k truckloads have been removed from the market due to GLP-1s, and this number could ramp to 1.95m by 2030. Not only are Americans getting skinnier. Their truckloads are as well.

checking in on $BIRD since they announced their pivot to GPU-AAS. Still up 130%. Wild.

@SecWar Big if true. Complete insanity that its been allowed to persist this long.

Under the previous administration, the Department of Defense’s financial reporting was a disaster — and had been for far too long. That ends today—the WAR DEPARTMENT will deliver a clean audit for our 2028 financial statements.

@mcnick12LoL @AaronBlake I think it’s a fair argument to say he wasn’t literally threatening the presidents life. My original point about claiming ignorance or an alternative explanation for the meaning of “86” still stands.

@atalas @AaronBlake No context makes it’s a true threat

The main problem with indicting Comey over "86 47" is that it's not self-evidently a threat. "86" has plenty of non-threatening meanings. During Biden years, it was used to mean impeachment. The second problem is that recent Supreme Court precedent means prosecutors need to show Comey had "some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements." When informed of the potential threatening meaning, Comey said he didn't know that and deleted it.