"Affinity Partners, the private equity firm led by Jared Kushner, is part of Paramount's hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery, according to a regulatory filing."
This is what happens in markets without a functional regulatory body - when the regulator turns into a market participant. It’s closer to a jungle than anything else.
Thank you, I had no idea how this was politically related, and honestly cannot keep track of all the corruption these days anyways. How does anyone? This is pretty much a genuine question.
I mean it's not even politics in the way most people think about it—like this is just blatant corruption. Trump moved in and said this is my swamp.
We're not even gonna get a good investigative journalism podcast about the corruption because it's just right there in front of you. There's not much to uncover.
All independent agencies are dead, according to SCOTUS fiat. If we want anything to survive they'll have to be rebuilt, either with an enlarged court that won't strike them down again, or as section 1 agencies that Congress has to power directly (which will also be hugely corrupt). Either that or an amendment that creates a branch that straddles the legislative and executive, to be truly independent.
Nah, they are fine. They ate head of presidents office alive last week.
Add: it's also not one anticorruption agency, but the whole bunch of them -- law enforcement one (think of FBI, but investigating corruption in government), special prosecutors office, another agency monitoring assets of anyone close enough to government (including immigration officers on a country level) and their family and a whole separate court with judges vetted by independent panel.
It's elections of Doge of Venice level of indirection.
> "Nah, they are fine. They ate head of presidents office alive last week."
That's the same guy who tried to take over that anti-corruption office. He would be controlling it now, if it weren't for the massive country-wide protests about it. I'm not sure that they're doing fine.
Economist, July 2025:
> "On July 22nd the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, passed a bill that would place the country’s two main anti-corruption bodies—NABU, which investigates wrongdoing, and SAPO, which prosecutes it—under the control of the presidency. This was not the work of rogue MPs. It was orchestrated from the top by President Volodymyr Zelensky and his all-powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak."
>That's the same guy who tried to take over that anti-corruption office. He would be controlling it now, if it weren't for the massive country-wide protests about it. I'm not sure that they're doing fine.
Viewing this acquisition in terms of simple revenue alone is like positing Musk bought Twitter for its ad revenue. Total information control is priceless.
(In case anyone hasn't kept up with the plutocratic oligarchy in the US: Oracle's Larry Ellison currently owns Paramount (since July 2024), and Warner Bros. Entertainment owns CNN. This isn't explained in the CNBC OP: David Ellison is Larry's son and the token CEO).
Except there is robust competition in media —be it news, social, etc.
I think the political angle in terms of motivation is overstated. In terms of closing the deal though, it’s huge. David Ellison has been producing movies for quite some time. So his desire to become a big time player in that space would be a believable motivation. But he can use his father’s connections to Trump to sink the Netflix bid (or create enough FUD to convince shareholders to favor his bid).
Stage AGs have a strong role to play in anti-trust law. And the other party they're suing _isnt_ a Federal agency this time.
Now maybe nothing matters. But conflicts of interest will come up in those cases. Trump doesn't win _everything_. Trump wins at places where the Supreme Court is using him for their own project of reworking the constitutional order. Basically Trump shoots up a volley with some absolutely batshit PoV, they interpret the topic in some saner (still crazy) right wing legal idea. And the Supreme Court fast track's these cases about executive power.
This case would be State AGs having independent standing to challenge major M&A.
It will drag things out at a minimum, in a way the Supreme Court's rapid resolution of executive branch cases is not dragged out.
I think it gives Netflix an advantage. When it comes up in front of a judge he'll note the obvious conflict of interest and Trump's idiotic pronouncements, like the fact that he said he will be personally involved, and rule for Netflix.
This will go to SCOTUS, which typically gives the administration preferential treatment. The US's current level of corruption is way too high to assume your scenario.
HA hardly. Balance that against two of the top four streaming platforms (youtube, hbo, disney, netflix) trying to merge, probably should worry about some anti-trust there, but not under this administration.
I’d hesitate to say it’s wasted. Aren’t these some of the most complex, electronic, decentralized systems in human history? That skillset is going to be more and more important the more and more computers there are.
I tried to make a cute poem about the wonders of synthesizing cocaine, and both Google and Claude responded more or less the same: “Hey, that’s a cool riddle! I’m not telling you how to make cocaine.”
TB seems really awesome, but is there non-DebitCredit use cases where it can be applied effectively? I like trying to find off-label uses for cool technology
The mental models of Elixir/OTP and AI Agents are very compatible. I’ve felt for a long time that it would be one of the best platforms for building AI agents.
Replacing cocoa as the base for a chocolate that can work with local crops and be price competitive without being too dissimilar has been a fancy of mine since the cost of cocoa went through the roof in the last year. My wife and I run a small wholesale bakery and I’ve been dying to try and come up with my own alternatives. I heard there has been work using Fava beans, which I like the idea of because it’s easier to grow those in more places than the cocoa bean. Sunflower seeds is an interesting base, I wonder what their “fermentation-like” process is.
I really enjoyed 538 in its heyday, and am glad to see Nate carry on with some of the work. I know he can be a polarizing in some circles, but keeping the data angle visible helps smooth some of the rougher edges of following politics sometimes.
I learned more from the reaction to Nate and 538’s forecasts than 538 itself. It helped me appreciate how journalists misunderstand and distort basic probability. If a model predicts A, B, and C as having 34%, 33%, and 33% likelihood respectively, the typical report is “538 predicts ‘A’ will win!” and they got it totally wrong when B or C is the victor. Interpretations of 538 were further fuelled by whatever political bias a pundit was coming from.
In a world where Kevin Rose can reboot Digg, Nate has every chance of acquiring and reviving 538. Good luck to Nate.
I really enjoy Nate's podcast with Maria Konnikova - I read her book The Biggest Bluff a few years back and really enjoyed it, and them podcasting together is great. (Despite my feelings about never wanting to hear Malcolm Gladwell's voice ever again, as he's omnipresent in Pushkin podcast network ads, which seem to be the worst of the entire podcasting ecosystem).
I never really followed the "Nate Silver" controversy after 2016, but it basically seems to boil down to a bunch of liberals being mad because they felt lied to for no apparent reason.
> I never really followed the "Nate Silver" controversy after 2016, but it basically seems to boil down to a bunch of liberals being mad because they felt lied to for no apparent reason.
FWIW I don't think he's controversial because of the 2016 polling miss, most people who follow 538 understand what 538 does and that it wasn't his "fault." He's controversial because he posts scalding hot takes on Twitter and then goes to the mat to defend them. He also has a penchant for getting into Twitter beefs with other big names in his industry.
Yes. And "the world would be better if more people were reasonable like me, now here's my hot take...", and using angry responses to demonstrate how reasonable he is in contrast. He ran out of content and resorted to ragebait, like most internet pundits.
I think, actually, he needed to sell content and resorted to ragebait for attention; the transition happened when he and Disney parted ways, and he stopped being a creator sponsored by a media corporation and started being an independent content seller.
Gotcha, thanks. I've never been able to find value in that platform so I must have missed it. On his podcast sometimes he TALKS about the argument he gets into on Twitter, but of course it all sounds more reasonable when he's explaining it I'm sure!
Same! I believe it's like VR: the lack of real commitment from the companies making them, which doesn't foster a community of creators will always be the death of any new technology.
Same applies to wearables (barely alive thanks to a few specific use cases and Apple).
It's like someone thinks they can create a TV, just let it be and it will develop into something bigger. Sometimes that's the case and sometimes you've got to fully be behind it.
The terrifying thing about Meta (and their large, connected world) is that, if you look at someone the wrong way and get reported, you lose access to all your games. Even single-player ones! It’s too dangerous to open, let alone engage with.
> I think VR's issue is that most people don't want to strap things to their face.
It's the whole package, not just one factor. Motion sickness, strapping something to your face, requirement for "free space" to move around and exercise of being up for an extended period of time.
Playing a shooter in VR is genuinely one of my favorite experience, it feels tactical, you have to crouch, reload, you hear the bullets wishling close to your ears, etc... but it's also an experience that is kept to the odd weekend, every once in a while, because it genuinely feels like work to setup everything.
it's literally game changing for flight simulators, especially dogfight simulators. Being able to very easily swivel your head to keep a target in your sightline is amazing. I put a ton of hours into Elite Dangerous that I wouldn't have otherwise.
> While I don't disagree with your point, I think VR's issue is that most people don't want to strap things to their face.
I'd go the opposite way. The problem with current VR is it is just some goggles. What you really want is a full exoskeleton to capture all your movement and add some force feedback. Put it on servos so you can add a little free fall here and there, some fans around to get the feeling of wind. Yeah it would not be cheap (at least at first).
Have you tried current gen VR? Honestly, the experience of playing VR Ping pong is SO much like the real thing on the Quest 3. Synth riders is also fantastic. But the best experiences don't really fit into the "video game" box imho; it's closer to buying roller blades / skates or ski equipment.
I was also surprised at how much mixed-reality made a difference for me personally. I'm much more likely to strap the thing to my head when I can have awareness of what's happening in the physical world.
VR is IMO the evolution of systems like the Kinect, but that aside, the various companies that made VR sets have spent billions developing the technology and I'm confident they are offering (game) developers money to make VR versions of their games or new IPs targeting VR; I think at this point every major developer and publisher has done one or more VR titles, be they exclusives or VR versions of games (like Skyrim VR).
But even then, VR never became the runaway success that they were hoping for. I think, anyway. Same with Apple Vision, it went real quiet around that after the initial release.
Looking around my neck of the woods (the Netherlands), VR / AR is basically nonexistent. You'd expect VR and VR titles to have their own section in gaming stores... no such luck. (mind you / caveat, we don't actually have many gaming stores like that)
The Wii was one of the most successful consoles of all time. Half the games had people standing up and swinging at something. That doesn't track at all.
I think that was purely from the novelty factor and because it initially attracted a lot of people who weren't into gaming. Past the first few funny weeks when people would let visitors try wii sports and have a few laughs, the thing ended up collecting dust in most households with no kids.
Let's stack up all PC games and all console games and let's see which ones involve physical movement and then see how long people stick with those games. Do you know any gamers? I do. They don't want to move.
'Gamers' are now everyone. 1.7 billion men and 1.39 billion women - essentially anyone with a mobile device. One of the biggest gaming hits of the last decade was Pokemon Go, which literally requires a walk.
'Gamers don't want to move', is just nerd bashing. It's 2025, even amongst hardcore D&D playing, JRPG stanning, con attending 'weeb' adjacent ubernerds, fitness is in. Sure Americans, and increasingly Europeans are tending toward obesity, but suggesting thats a characteristic of 'gamers' as a class is just factually incorrect.
The main problem for Nintendo was that countless Wii buyers never moved beyond Wii Sports and maybe Mario Kart. Despite having over 100 million units sold, staple franchises sold pretty badly compared to the Switch.
Animal Crossing City Folk? 3 million. Animal Crossing New Horizons? 47 million.
Mario Party 8? 9 million. Super Mario Party? 21 million.
Zelda Twilight Princess? 8 million. Zelda Breath of the Wild? 34 million.
Basically, the Switch has 50% more units in the world, but you can tack on 200%-400% more sales per franchise entry in general; and some extreme breakouts. For this reason alone, Nintendo is never returning to Wii-era gimmicks, and we’ll probably never see “Nintendo Selects” again.
We’ve had widespread videogames for like a generation and a half or so, it is early to say there’s anything fundamental in our culture about them. If good VR were to come out, there’s every chance it could go in direction more like sport than game.
But “good VR” is this sense is really very far off. Like actually judging the devices as things you might want to use, instead of with the engineer’s perspective (yea we’re all very impressed by what Oculus pulled off with the limited tech of our day, but the devices actually kinda suck if you don’t grade them on that curve).
They need to be as easy to put on as sunglasses, need to be able to just pop them on without pre-analyzing your space, there needs to be good force-feedback (you can’t have a satisfying sword fight in VR). This isn’t possible yet, of course, so it continues to be niche.
FWIW, I like playing VR/MR games because they are "sports" that don't require me to drive anywhere or organize anything with other people. To me it's about equal fun as downhill skiing or skating at the roller rink but a lot cheaper than either, and without needing to travel.
I think it's in a similar situation to gimmicks that Nintendo sometimes puts into their systems. Most games are cross-platform. They aren't gonna change the game fundamentally to take advantage of the different input mechanism. If your system relies on it, chances are you might not get a port. That's why almost all games that take advantage of these features are first party. The few that aren't are usually shovelware or if you are lucky 1-2 cool indie games.
They really tried for a while with the bundling the second version with the XBox One but that didn't last more than a year so it wasn't long enough to really saturate the market which is what odd peripherals REALLY need to get people to make games for them. They either have to be very very cheap or wide spread for it to make sense to make a game that requires them.
They are still in use at some museum in the Netherlands. Probably connected to some Windows computer. I wonder how long they will keep working, given driver support.
Is it that you did not realise that specialist equipment is needed to cut a record? (That is you thought the equipment is more commonplace?)
Or is it that you didn’t realised that the equipment is available to be purchased for home use? (That is you thought the equipment is less commonplace?)
I remember there was a Soviet practice of cutting records into old XRays (called "ribs") as a way to bootleg them. I think those cutting machines were made from retrofitted old phonographs.
For black market uses, the consumers was probably willing to bear dreadful audio quality. For a modern aficionado, the quality must be good enough to give some justification for the endeavor.
Truth be told, compared to industrial record production this is pretty mild. This is a very cool project though, and I'm sure plenty of people will love it. Getting vinyl runs done used to be a massive chore, now you can, at least in theory, be like oh I now want that one.
I can understand feeling wary because someone may be watching your work, but conceivably this was always the case? I know it’s uncomfortable having this agency with no oversight gaining access to systems within the government, but it’s got to be huge right? I’m sure Elon’s tapped some smart fellas to be bulls in this china shop, but there’s no way they can put an eye on every single piece of information that flies through all of the systems of the federal government. You’d need a huge staff, tools to be built, never mind trying to solidify all those interfaces.
It seems more likely that they’ll gain access to all these systems, be completely overwhelmed about what to do, and then do small things that wouldn’t actually have an impact but would gain headlines, and then call it a day.
"Smart fellas"? The guy is a billionaire, and all he can find are a few 20-years old edgelords with names like "Big Balls" who make racist comments in online forums?
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