Pen Smith | Wall Street Memes

Just when you thought it was safe to step outside without getting drained of your life force by a cloud of flying vampires, Google has entered the chat. Yes, the company that knows your search history, your location, and what you ate for breakfast now wants to control the local insect population.

Tech giant Alphabet is reportedly drawing up plans to drop a casual 32 million mosquitoes across Florida and California. But before you start panic-buying every can of bug spray at Walmart, there’s a twist: these aren’t your average backyard pests. They’re actually biological secret agents designed to take down their own kind from the inside.

Google, Maps, And… Swarms Of Flying Bugs?

The tech behemoth has officially asked the EPA for permission to roll out the project, and Uncle Sam is giving the public until June 5 to weigh in. If approved, this will mark the single largest deployment of its kind in US history.

The science behind it sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi flick. The mosquitoes are infected with a specific bacteria called Wolbachia. When these lab-grown boys mate with wild females, the eggs don’t hatch. It basically turns the local mosquito population into a giant, tragic episode of The Bachelor where nobody gets a rose and everyone slowly goes extinct.

Better Than An AdBlocker

While it sounds insane, Google’s “Debug Project” actually has some serious runs on the board. A previous trial in California’s Central Valley almost completely wiped out mosquitoes in three test sites. Meanwhile, a trial over in Singapore managed to slash dengue fever cases by a massive 70% in just one year.

To date, Google has already deployed over 1 billion of these little guys across four continents. It turns out they’re much better at debugging real life than they are at fixing the YouTube app.

Google’s Ultimate Terms Of Service Update

Naturally, the internet is having a field day with the news. Some users are wondering if the bugs will come with unskippable 15-second ads, while others are just relieved that California and Florida finally found something they can agree on: hating bugs.

Whether this massive swarm completely saves the summer or turns into the plot of a B-list horror movie remains to be seen. But if you want to have your say before Google turns the skies into a literal beta test, you’ve got until June 5 to let the EPA know. Otherwise, get ready for the ultimate system update.

At the time of writing, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is dead, but despite this, his words and thoughts live on, influencing everyone from iPhone users to iPod users and everyone in between.

One useful tidbit from back when he could share them: Jobs had a guiding principle for hiring people that he called the “beer test”.

Reportedly, Jobs would take the candidate out for a walk-and-talk around the Apple campus, asking small-talk questions like, “What did you do last summer?” hoping to shake them out of their well-rehearsed interview persona.

Then, after chatting to them for a bit, Jobs would ask himself, “Would I want to get a beer with this candidate?” If the answer is Yes: hired. No: not hired.

“So in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut,” Jobs explained. “How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged?”

Obviously, there were more criteria the candidate would have to fulfil, like “be qualified,” but basically, vibes were also a massive part of it.

Nice Guys Finish First

It’s not even the strangest interview test out there. Gary Shapiro, former CTA CEO (OMG), would ask candidates when they could start, and if they said an enthusiastic “immediately,” that was a red flag because they were willing to screw over their current employer. …You can’t win, can you?

Other “tests” include checking how you greeted the receptionist, whether you washed your coffee cup after the interview, and even asking the waiter at the dinner interview to deliberately mess up the order to see how you’d react.

Seems crazy, but it’s all in an effort to gauge the candidate’s personality beneath the formalities of a job interview.

And the tests might vary, but the advice is the same. If you’re looking for a job, be prepared to be yourself (unless you are unlikable, then it’s probably better to be someone else). People like people that they like and are more likely to hire someone they gel with.

So, along with all your interview prep, maybe ask yourself another question: Do I pass the Beer Test?

Wow, he really said that? You’re saying Is-raelquote?

The 2028 Presidential Race is on the horizon, and Donald Trump is once again playing 4D chess. His latest political tactic: running for Prime Minister of Israel.

When asked by reporters about how Netanyahu would behave regarding Iran, Trump said, “I’m right now at 99% [approval rate] in Israel. I could run for Prime Minister, so maybe after I do this, I’ll go to Israel, run for Prime Minister.”

Now, the comment was probably a joke, and Trump was merely saying that he’s very popular in Israel, more popular than its actual leader, in fact.

The comments were ahead of a lengthy call between the two leaders in which they discussed the war in Iran.

Netanyahu has not responded directly to Trump’s supposed leadership challenge, but Axios has reported that his “hair was on fire after the call”. Again, that probably wasn’t supposed to be taken literally.

Trump’s Path To Power (but not the power he currently has, like, a different kind)

Trump is correct in his claim that Netanyahu’s approval rating has declined, but that probably won’t be enough to unseat the sitting Prime Minister.

Trump would first have to restart his political career in Israel and become an elected politician in the Knesset. Then, Trump would have to be selected by that party to become Prime Minister and form a majority government within 28 days.

Of course, Trump could be selected as an interim Prime Minister should anything happen to Netanyahu, but this would upset the traditional order of succession.

Either way, Trump would have to defeat Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister in a political head-to-head. Bibi might not be as popular as he used to be, but having served six terms as PM, he still holds a lot of power.

Huh… It’s looking more and more likely that Trump didn’t completely mean what he said.

For context, here’s the full quote:

“He’s fine, he’ll do whatever I want him to do. He’s a very, very good man. He’ll do whatever I want him to do and he’s, he’s a great guy. To me, he’s a great guy. Don’t forget he was a wartime Prime Minister. And he’s not treated right in Israel, in my opinion. I’m right now at 99% in Israel. I could run for Prime Minister, so maybe after I do this, I’ll go to Israel, run for Prime Minister.”

He could certainly run, that’s true. Whether he wins or not is another question. So sure, maybe after this, he will run. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Google has announced that Google will no longer be Google

At Google I/O this week, the tech company unveiled an overhaul of its flagship search box into an “intelligent search box”. AI-powered, conversational, and capable of deploying AI “information agents”, Google says this is the biggest change to search in 25 years.

This might spell the end for that simple list of blue links that we imagine when we think of the internet. And that might be sad, but the truth is the internet has been heading this way for a long time.

Who clicks on page two of Google anyway?

You see, navigating the internet has always evolved in eras. At first, getting anywhere worked like an address book. There was no map: you needed to know the exact URL you wanted to visit, or you weren’t going anywhere.

The advent of search engines was like someone drawing the first map. Now you had more of a guide, but you still had to find your own way. Sure, Google wasn’t the first search engine, but it stormed ahead of the competition by just working better than all the others. At launch, Google had faster, fairer results, untampered by ads and clutter.

The next era was like the development of map apps. Now, search engines wouldn’t just show you where to find the information: they would give you answers. Fuelled by interactive pop-ups that quoted websites and widgets such as currency converters and translators, sifting through the hyperlinks was often now the second port of call.

By this point, Google dominated search and ‘Google’ was almost synonymous with ‘the internet’. Without any competition, they were able to push adverts, features, and products far beyond their remit of just finding you the website you were looking for. Google was no longer a guide but a destination in itself.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to Google search ‘news about Google’s new search’?

Now we enter the next era of navigating the internet: AI.

Ever since AI has become properly functional, Google has integrated AI tools into almost all its products. Search has been no exception, and AI summaries are now at the top of most queries. But this week’s announcement goes far beyond that initial rollout, offering pretty much all of Google’s AI tools right there in the search box.

So, if we started with just an address book, then got a map, then an app, now it’s like we’re searching with semi-sentient self-driving cars.

Note that crucially, each of the eras has not just shaped how we search but created a feedback loop that has shaped how the internet itself behaves.

When the internet was just disconnected websites, each one could exist with a separate, distinct purpose. Search engines brought about the era of SEO and encouraged websites to climb the rankings. Single-purpose websites would lose out to the sites that offered a bit of everything, bringing about our current era of an internet dominated by just a handful of single sites.

But at the top of every Google ranking was always Google itself. So Google made itself into the ultimate everything website, and the actual sites you were looking for were pushed down the rankings.

Now is just the next step in that evolution.

All the other websites will still be there, sure, but most people likely won’t need to visit them when AI can summarize them for you. And so the internet ecosystem will evolve once again to match this change.

Google is dead, long live Google

This endgame all becomes clear at the top of Google’s latest press release, which says that: “The goal of Search has always been simple: to help you ask anything on your mind,” because… has that really always been the goal of search?

Now that’s the goal, sure, and AI has made that possible. But originally, the goal of Search was just to help you find the website you were looking for.

Originally, Google Search was nothing more than a map. Now it’s your own personal tour guide.

“I have one simple request, and that is to have dolphins with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads.”

Last month, the Wall Street Journal (no relation) reported that Iran was looking for creative solutions to America’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, including some very creative solutions such as “kamikaze dolphins.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Caine were then asked about these rumors at a recent press briefing. Caine replied, “I haven’t heard the kamikaze dolphins thing… You mean like sharks with laser beams?”

Hegseth then took the wheel, responding, “I can’t confirm or deny whether we have kamikaze dolphins, but I can confirm they [Iran] don’t.”

OK, none of us were thinking you had kamikaze dolphins, but we definitely are now.

To be fair, the idea isn’t without precedent.

In World War II, the Soviet army trained explosive dogs to run under enemy tanks, but the bomb-laden dogs continually returned to their Russian trainers and were deemed ineffective. Bomb-donkeys, bomb-horses, and bomb-bats have all been used to varying degrees of success, but there are no recorded cases of exploding dolphins.

But that doesn’t mean dolphins aren’t used in warfare.

Dolphins are very intelligent and are routinely trained to help militaries across the world detect underwater obstacles and spot intruders arriving at seaports.

Most relevantly, in 2000, the BBC reported that Iran was purchasing dolphins for a similar program, which might be the origin of the WSJ kamikaze rumor, which has not been substantiated.

The US Navy, for its part, runs the Marine Mammal Program, which explains that, “Mines and other potentially dangerous objects on the ocean floor that are difficult to detect with electronic sonar, especially in coastal shallows or cluttered harbors, are easily found by the dolphins.”

But, after a panic in the 90s that these trained dolphins might be used as weapons, the declassified project revealed no such plan. In fact, the dolphins are reportedly free to leave the program whenever they enter open waters.

That’s nice.

Of course, Hegseth’s ‘can neither confirm nor deny’ adds fuel to the fire of this kamikaze dolphin rumor, but that was likely a default, ‘best to keep ‘em guessing’ tactic and not an admission of anything.

Probably more telling is General Caine’s initial reaction: laugh it off and quote Austin Powers.

The richest man in the world, Elon Musk just posted-then-deleted a cryptic X post on his social media platform, ‘X’.

The post read:

“Bitches
Money
No Taxes
Party”

Musk offered no explanation and merely deleted the X 18 hours later but not before the post gained 48 million views, 300,000 likes and a swath of unhinged memes.

So what was Musk actually trying to say?

Well, Elon was clearly trying to signal something to all of us and it turns out that if you take the first letter of each word it spells: “BMNTP” which is exactly the sound you might make if you were beatboxing, meaning that he’s going to ‘beat’ ‘boxing’ because he’s going to win against Mark Zuckerberg in a previously-unannounced but upcoming cage match. It all makes sense now.

OR… an anagram of Elon’s Tweet is “Chatterbox mistypes, anyone?” meaning that he didn’t even mean to type all that and it was all a typo from the prolific chatterbox. Ahh, of course, that’s probably it.

OR…!! Maybe Elon meant what he said and this is a list of the things that he has recently acquired.

OR MAYBE… it’s a grocery list? These are things that he needs to pick up while he’s out. That’s why he deleted it because he already picked them up and doesn’t need the reminder any more.

ORRRR!!!! He’s addressing someone, he’s talking to a group of women, “Bitches. Money? No, taxes. Party!” He’s thinking out loud to a group of his favorite women and realises that taxes is a viable source of income and then suggests they celebrate this revelation.

ORRRR MMAAYYBEEE IT’S A HAIKU. ELON IS GETTING INTO POETRY.

OR HE FELL ASLEEP ON THE KEYBOARD.

OR HE ASKED GROK TO TWEET FOR HIM.

OR IT’S A GENUINE INVITE TO THE ‘BITCHES-MONEY-NO-TAXES PARTY’

OR IT’S THE TITLE OF HIS NEW AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

…or it’s just a fun little late night Tweet that he decided against the next morning. We’ve all been there, haven’t we?

The risk to the American public is “extremely low,” said the CDC

After an outbreak of the very-scary-sounding ‘hantavirus’ on the luxury cruise ship MV Hondius (which also sounds like a disease tbf), a number of passengers have now returned to their respective countries, including… America. Oh shit, that’s here!

Reportedly, the states of Georgia and California are monitoring residents who aren’t showing signs of illness.

It’s also worth noting that hantavirus only spreads from rat to human, not human to human (except in the rare cases of the Andes strain, but we just won’t mention that). So this is great for everyone and not so great for my cousin Björn, who works at a ‘rat zoo’ which I’m not sure is even a thing, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him kissing the rats a couple of times, and I said that was disgusting, but I’m pretty sure he still does it.

Anyway, three people died during the outbreak. Although only two are actually confirmed to have had the virus.

Rats.

In a statement, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control (why is that plural?)) said, “The Department of State is leading a coordinated, whole-of-government response including direct contact with passengers, diplomatic coordination, and engagement with domestic and international health authorities.”

‘Whole-of-government’? Not sure how the National Nuclear Security Administration is going to be much use here, but by all means, let them weigh in on this one.

The ship had passengers from 23 countries, consisting mostly of crew from the Philippines but including people from the UK, US, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, should I list them all? Ok, fine, I’ll list them all: France, Ukraine, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Belgium, Ireland, India, Greece, Japan, New Zealand, Argentina, Poland, Russia, Portugal, Montenegro and GUATEMALA!

And the ship was sailing from Argentina when the outbreak suddenly occurred. Some passengers have already been evacuated but most are still onboard and will be quarantined when they arrive in Tenerife on May 9.

Stay tuned to see how this plays out.

In what might be the most important thing to happen until the next thing happens, Trump has had another attempt made on his life.

But surrounding this assassination attempt, there are a lot of suspicious things going on, so let’s just run through them here.

So, I’m not going to republish Allen’s manifesto in full. But the main points are that he was very anti-Trump and said things like, “I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done.”

And I guess this isn’t suspicious in and of itself, but it is weird when compared to the next detail, which is that there’s a photo of him wearing a sweater with the Israel Defense Forces logo on it. Does this suggest a political affiliation? It’s still unclear.

But then things get really spooky when you take a look at this Twitter account:

What the hell? What is going on? Just saying ‘Cole Allen’? Three years ago????

Now take a look at the banner image, look familiar? Yeah, it looks eerily similar to that picture of Trump after the previous assassination.

And it gets spookier still when you translate his username numbers into code a=1, b=2,, etc., and see that it spells out an anagram of ChiefAGI. Crazy. Is an artificial general intelligence probably involved in all this?

Could there be more to this story then? We’ll hopefully find out in the coming days and through the ongoing trial of the suspect but yeah, currently things are pretty weird.

Donald Trump has spoken out about Tim Cook stepping down from his position as Apple CEO in a long-winded Truth Social post that honestly reads like a high schooler’s secret diary entry.

Here’s the post in full:

Dear Diary, “I have always been a big fan of Tim Cook, and likewise, Steve Jobs, but if Steve was not taken from the Planet Earth so young, and ran the company instead of Tim, the company would have done well, but nowhere near as well as it has under Tim. For me it began with a phone call from Tim at the beginning of my First Term. He had a fairly large problem that only I, as President, could fix. Most people would have paid millions of dollars to a consultant, who I probably would not have known, but who would say that he knew me well. The fees would be paid but the job would not have gotten done. When I got the call I said, wow, it’s Tim Apple (Cook!) calling, how big is that? I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to “kiss my ass.” Anyway, he explained his problem, a tough one it was, I felt he was right and got it taken care of, quickly and effectively. That was the beginning of a long and very nice relationship. During my five years as President, Tim would call me, but never too much, and I would help him where I could. Years latter, after 3 or 4 BIG HELPS, I started to say to people, anyone who would listen, that this guy is an amazing manager and leader. He makes these calls to me, I help him out (but not always, because he will, on occasion, be too aggressive in his ask!), and he gets the job done, QUICKLY, without a dime being given to those very expensive (millions of dollars!) consultants around town who sometimes get it done, and sometimes don’t. Anyway, Tim Cook had an AMAZING career, almost incomparable, and will go on and continue to do great work for Apple, and whatever else he chooses to work on. Quite simply, Tim Cook is an incredible guy!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Man, Truth Social’s content is really verging on LinkedIn levels here.

But anyway, to break it down, you’ve got the classic platitudes, but crucially those compliments keep Trump as the only one who could help out Tim Apple. There’s also the paradoxical fawning over Cook’s celebrity, “When I got the call I said, wow, it’s Tim Apple (Cook!) calling, how big is that?”

Again, though, I guess the bigger he makes Tim seem the bigger Trump is because Cook came to him like he’s the Godfather.

On top of all this is the strange news that Tim Cook is only stepping down as CEO but remaining at Apple as Executive Chairman. One of his primary roles will be serving as liaison to the White House and the President. So, why all the tears and the long goodbye then?

Oh well, I’m just glad they could stay friends.

In case it wasn’t clear by now, Elon Musk is just a hype man.

The richest man in the world will jump on whatever’s popular, talk some shit about it (I mean in a good way, like, puff it up) and the stock price will go up and then Elon will just move on to the next thing.

Doesn’t matter if there’s any truth behind his claims (this is a guy who says we’re all in a simulation, don’t forget), so long as his net worth keeps going up.

He’s employed this technique with whatever field he casts his eye on, space exploration, transportation, robotics, social media and now AI. And annoyingly, it works. Because we’re all forced to pay attention to the king’s rantings.

So the latest episode in this rather boring story is that someone said on X that Ai could generate GTA6 and Elon said “yeah” and then to another post, “You won’t even have to ask. AI will figure what video game you’d like best.”

And come on, does anyone believe this guy any more? According to him we should be on Mars by now.

But now Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of GTA’s publisher, Take-Two referenced Musk and AI at a technology conference, saying, “If AI were going to get rid of employment, the richest man on Earth, Elon Musk, knows a little something about AI, last time I checked.”

“He has unlimited financial resources, and he has unlimited human resources, and he has, apparently, an unlimited number of ideas. He knows his way around AI.”

“The man works 20 hours a day. If AI were going to take anyone’s job, wouldn’t it take his job? The richest guy on Earth, wouldn’t that be job number one for AI to take? Why is he so busy? By the way, why am I working harder than ever despite the fact that I’ve totally accepted AI into every part of my life?”

Ok, I’m not really sure what point he’s trying to make there, but it feels like a clap back, right? LIke, Elon said GTA could be AI generated and the CEO of GTA said that AI would take Elon’s job, right? We can chalk that up as a clap back, right?

Well, whatever, it’s all just fuel for Elon’s AI hype train anyway, so I hope you are all enjoying the ride.

GTA6 is due for release in 2056.

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