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Archives for May 2026

Robert Hart
Robert Hart
AI-powered justice is a double-edged sword.

AI-assisted lawsuits are flooding the legal system. Good news for the people able to file without costly lawyers — and bad news for the already overwhelmed court system. Interesting read from the NYT here, though the issue has been simmering away for a while now. Maybe it’s time for AI judges?

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
So, telescope ranching is a thing.

Own a fancy telescope but can’t escape light pollution to make the most of it? There are businesses popping up like Starfront Observatories in Rockwood, Texas, that allow you to rent a spot and remotely snap some starry shots over a high-speed data connection.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Samsung unions dispute AI bonus deal.

The new deal, still being voted on, ensures enormous bonuses for memory chip workers but much smaller payouts for everyone else. Two Samsung unions take issue with that: one says its members will vote against the deal, the other says it’s taking legal action after being denied the chance to vote.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Tesla’s chief designer says its second-generation Roadster will be built in Texas.

During a recent episode of Ryan McCaffrey’s Ride the Lightning podcast, Tesla’s chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, confirmed its second-gen Roadster (first announced in 2017) will be built in Texas. The company’s vice president of engineering, Lars Moravy, also confirmed that alpha prototypes of the vehicle are currently in testing.

The second-generation Tesla Roadster driving on a road.
Image: Tesla
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
“It only takes a few minutes to send or receive a couple of pages of text.”

Nearly 40 years ago the BBC’s Lesley Judd demonstrated the marvels of mobile email in a report recently added to the BBC Archive YouTube channel. Sending and receiving email on the go in 1986 required a briefcase full of gear, a payphone, and more patience than many of us can now muster.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
CBS pulls back on Only in Monroe takedown notices.

Variety reports on why early uploads of Stephen Colbert’s post-The Late Show endeavor were pulled, citing copyright complaints from Paramount/CBS. A statement from the company says it was because it financed and produced the episode with Colbert, which was eventually published on his YouTube channel, but it has now “decided to waive further enforcement of this standard industry practice until additional review.”

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
The man who helped make 7-Eleven so popular in Japan has died.

Toshifumi Suzuki partnered with the US operator of 7-Eleven to bring the convenience store chain to Japan in 1973 and then went on to revolutionize the use of sales, customer, and inventory data to help make the stores a popular source of cheap and easy meals for locals, and a must-stop destination for tourists. Suzuki was 93 years old.

A man walks out of a 7-Eleven convenience store along a street in central Tokyo.
A man walks out of a 7-Eleven convenience store along a street in central Tokyo.
Photo by Richard A. Brooks / AFP via Getty Images
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Garden Grove toxic chemical tank incident and evacuation updates.

The latest update on an overheating tank filled with an estimated 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate is that firefighters were still trying to determine if some pressure had been released, after discovering a crack that could lessen the risk of a BLEVE, or Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion.

ABC 7 reports that more than 50,000 people in Orange County have had to leave their homes since the leak was discovered at the GKN Aerospace facility on Thursday.

Update (11:48AM ET): The Orange County Fire Authority says that it now believes the threat of a BLEVE is “off the table,” with pressure and temperature in the tank dropping.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Zara resurrects the PSP as a crossbody bag.

As long as you don’t expect it to do anything more than just store a stack of UMDs you won’t be disappointed by Zara’s new $35.90 PSP crossbody bag that features a silicone recreation of Sony’s handheld on the front and a matching Playstation-themed shoulder strap.

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1/3Image: Zara