We are not ready for this jellyfish
The DoJ wants Texas to provide access to data on voters—and refuses to answer whether it’s breaking privacy laws in doing so. / Votebeat Texas
See also: The White House keeps a scorecard tracking companies’ and trade associations’ public support of Trump’s tax bill. / Axios
Unemployment numbers in the US remain low, which would be great if the labor force were also growing rather than flatlining, as it currently is. / The Washington Post [$]
What does it mean that the US government’s social media persona is cruelty, and where does that lead? “What you have is this desire to get people to buy into the fun of sadism.” / Mother Jones
An internal Meta policy document shows it permitted its chatbots to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual.” / Reuters
A strong argument for why we should stop thinking of AI as world-changing, and simply as normal technology evolution. / Max Read
See also: AI companies market that they’re putting a PhD assistant in your pocket, which means they don’t know what it means “to actually reason.” / Flowing Data
Data centers are eating up America’s energy and blowing up household electricity bills by as much as 30%. / Quartz
See also: “Heatwaves and jellyfish are causing the grid to wilt.” / Bloomberg [$]
Flooding from glacial runoff is now an every-August danger for Juneau. This year, preparations paid off. / Alaska Beacon
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“The occasional struggle is a reminder of the humanness that makes them more relatable.” The Grateful Dead and the pursuit of imperfection. / Futureproofing
A new study finds that the EV batteries that wind up in landfills—rather than being recycled—are still usable, retaining as much as 80% of their lithium capacity. / Gizmodo
In response to how humans, through climate change, are disrupting nature’s sounds, here is “a listening guide to reconnecting with the sounds of the world.” / Defector
A biodegradable book embedded with seeds so you can plant it after you’re done with it. / designboom
And for those who are never done with books, the final match at our first-ever summer bracket ends today! / The Tournament of Books
"I discovered what I think might have been the single largest self-promotion operation in Wikipedia’s history, spanning over a decade and covering as many as 200 accounts and even more proxy IP addresses." / Ars Technica
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