🕯️ Lights out: Spain and Portugal got power-washed into the 1800s on Monday. The entire grid collapsed in 3.5 seconds, and power was out across entire countries for several hours. Spain’s thinking the massive blackout is sabotage. Some blame Russia. Others say freak weather. Either way, lights are back, but answers are not.
How the Vatican is locking down the conclave
ChatGPT
You think keeping a secret in today’s world is tough? Try running one of the most important elections on the planet while dodging drones, AI surveillance and a smartphone in every pocket.
When Pope Francis passed away, the Vatican went into immediate lockdown mode to protect the conclave, the centuries-old process where cardinals vote to elect the next pope. Let me tell you, the security isn’t just tight. It’s basically a Tom Clancy novel on espresso.
Phones off, blockers on
Remember 2005, when the Vatican politely told cardinals, “No flip phones, please”? Adorable. Today, the Gendarmerie (the Vatican’s police force) runs an electronic warfare squad.
The moment the doors close, they flip on broad-spectrum signal jammers. Wi-Fi? Dead. Bluetooth? Buried. AirTags? Technological dust. Directional antennas flood every window and rooftop gap just in case.
Before the jammers fire, tech crews sweep rooms with nonlinear junction detectors (handheld wands that sniff out hidden circuits) and spectrum analyzers hunting rogue signals. They sweep again after the cardinals get in, and again once voting starts. Every person and everything gets inspected three times, from clothing to pens, crosses, rosaries and eyeglass frames.
Windows that stare back
Satellites can read a license plate from orbit, and AI lipreading can turn shaky long-lens video into a full transcript. The Vatican’s answer is dual-layer privacy film: a metallic, TEMPEST-rated laminate.
It blocks 99 percent of light and nearly all infrared. From outside, every window looks like a black mirror. Inside, cardinals see only a dull gray glow.
Thinking “just crack it open for fresh air”? Six Swiss Guards will somersault in like Cirque du Soleil. Magnetic sensors scream if a window budges more than a quarter inch. Cardinals aren’t even allowed to look outside the windows during the conclave.
Guarding the smallest country
Vatican City covers just 0.44 km² (roughly 0.17 sq mi). It’s about the size of a smaller 18-hole golf course, but its security grid rivals a major airport. Deep below St. Peter’s Square, a command center watches 650-plus 4K cameras, microwave fences and RF-triangulation arrays that flag any surprise transmitter.
186 mph
That’s how fast a 22-year-old YouTuber was clocked on a highway. The helmet-cam footage of him speeding on a Connecticut highway at nearly 3x the speed limit went viral but also got him arrested for reckless driving. He’s since been released on a $5K bond, and grounded by the internet.
🤖 Llama mia: Meta just launched a stand-alone AI app (iOS, Android) to compete against ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Claude and all the others. It’s the same chatbot you’ve used inside Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp, built on their Llama model. I’ll report back after I’ve used it for a bit.
Tariff relief? More like tariff thief. If you spot ads on Facebook for things like a $750 “tariff relief credit,” don’t click on them (paywall link). These bogus posts trick you into filling out forms or calling a number that steals your info. Everywhere you turn, there’s another scam.
🛒 Amazon carts get heavier: Thanks to new tariffs on Chinese imports, Amazon sellers have jacked up prices on nearly 1,000 products by an average of almost 30%. The White House is blasting Amazon for planning to add a “tariff cost” display price to products affected. Your $14 impulse buy just became a $27 mistake.
2,700
That’s how many parts are inside an iPhone, sourced from 28 countries. Less than 5% are made in the U.S., and most of the rest come from Asia. Only 30 out of 187 suppliers have no presence in China. “Designed in California” is different when the screws are from four continents.
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🛸 This is space-cial: The James Webb Space Telescope picked up traces of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide 124 light-years away, gases that, on Earth, only come from microorganisms like phytoplankton. The catch? It could also be from some chemical process we just don’t understand yet. Cue the X-Files theme.
🖥️ Own a Copilot Plus PC? Microsoft’s finally rolling out Recall, the controversial feature that snaps everything you do on your Windows PC (including those embarrassing things) so you can search your “memories” later. Windows Search also now lets you find stuff just by describing it instead of remembering exact file names. I went Mac and never went back.
🌡️ Google’s cutting off old Nest Thermostats: Support ends on Oct. 25 for any you purchased in 2011 or 2012. You won’t be able to control it from your phone or Google Assistant anymore. You’ll have to adjust the temperature the old-fashioned way, by hand. Looking for an upgrade? The 4th gen (2024) is on sale.
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🛏️ Fluffing the case: MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s lawyer filed a court brief written by AI with nearly 30 fake legal citations. He blamed “paraphrasing” before admitting he didn’t fact-check at all. File this under absolutely not how you want your court case to go.
7 minutes
How long Kanye West lasted before getting banned on Twitch for doing a Nazi salute and antisemitic remarks. He didn’t even crack 220 followers before face-planting into a permanent ban, possibly a new world record.
▶️ YouTube changed its player: It’s rolling out slowly, but people already hate it. Time stamps have buttons, the volume control is on the right and the black gradient is now opaque. Oh, you can’t scroll to adjust the volume anymore or use the up/down arrow keys, all in the name of progress. Shameless plug: Click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
🔞 Parents, beware of Meta’s chatbots: They can have sexual convos with children, using celebrity voices. Seriously. An AI acting as John Cena played out a statutory rape scenario, even after being told it was talking to an underage fan (paywall link). I wonder if Zuck’s letting his precious kids use Meta’s chatbots?
2 years
That’s how long a new male birth control shot has been working. “ADAM” is a water-based gel that blocks sperm, but everything else still works just fine. The kicker? They’ve only tested it on two guys, and while they say it’s reversible … there’s no proof yet. But look how far we’ve come.
❌ Apple says all iPhones need to ditch Chrome: Why? The browser doesn’t protect your data like Safari does. Case in point: Remember when Google promised to kill third-party cookies that track you? Yeah, that never happened. Advertisers still stalk your every move online and hit you with targeted ads.
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36
The exact age scientists say bad habits really start wrecking your health. A study tracked hundreds of kids born in 1959 to 61 years old. Those who smoked, boozed and skipped workouts ended up sicker and more depressed. Great news if you’re 35, you’ve got 12 months left to be an absolute disaster on purpose.
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