New Sim City patch just dropped

OpenAI employees shared new details about the Hugging Face hack at Black Hat today and warned that this new era will require a different approach from frontier AI labs and more careful defensive work. "This is a pivotal moment." My story: www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/openai-...

OpenAI warns autonomous hacks are ‘watershed moment for computer security’

Company employees said their industry should rethink how it balances capabilities and safeguards.

cybersecuritydive.com

Hearing national cyber director Sean Cairncross tell Black Hat that the Trump administration was avoiding a "regulatory regime" had me feeling like I was taking crazy pills: This is the administration that vetoed Anthropic's release of a new AI model and is toying with taking a stake in OpenAI.

Have already reached the state of Black Hat schedule overload where I know I'm going to have to set aside most of a day next week just to watch videos of the talks I've missed.

"If we don't embrace it, politics will happen to us": astute advice from Black Hat founder @thedarktangent.bsky.social in opening remarks before this morning's keynote (which will, of course, address some information-security dimensions of AI).

Somehow, the recent run of cyber attacks on water utilities in the Midwest (some of which President Trump blamed on Minnesota governor Tim Walz) did not come up at all in the panels featuring White House cybersecurity advisor Sean Cairncross and other administration officials that opened Black Hat.

"Anyone pressuring you to back the AI industry is not to be trusted": how @edzitron.com started a talk at Ai4 in which he mocked the AI business as a doomed combination of skyrocketing capital expenses and inadequate real-world demand that for now is "propped up by venture capital, hype and debt."

The line to pick up Ai4 badges may have more than a thousand people in it. So glad I thought to get mine yesterday afternoon; good job, Past Me!

Greetings from #ai42026. Not entirely sure what message this get-up is supposed to send about the future of AI, but maybe the next three days of this conference will enlighten me.

Looking much more like a ballpark than on my previous visit to Vegas in April.

Yes, it's a dry heat.

Vegas-bound for Ai4 (moderating one panel there Tuesday and another Thursday) and @blackhatofficial.bsky.social. This Alaska Airlines flight is also introducing me to their implementation of Starlink WiFi, which the Speedtest app clocked at 227 Mbps down, 23.5 Mbps up.

Glad to see Martin cover the billion-dollar boondoggle of a Dulles parking garage that is neither in the airport's existing plans or depicted in the "conceptual renderings" posted Wednesday--and so may only exist in Trump's automotive-addled brain.

Martin Austermuhle@maustermuhle.bsky.social · 3d ago

One part of Trump's $22 billion makeover of Dulles that's been missed is his big, beautiful, world-record 32,000-spot parking garage. That's *way* more parking than recent estimates show the airport needs, and it would tower over the historic terminal: www.notus.org/metro/dulles...

1/6 This is going to be a bit of a long thread but, given that I was subpoenaed by Congress for declining an unwarranted prosecution being pushed by powerful White House Officials, it is important to explain the role elected prosecutors play in protecting democracy.

Parisa Dehghani-Tafti@parisaforjustice.bsky.social · 5d ago

If Jim Jordan really wants to know what an unethical prosecutor looks like, might I suggest he investigate Jeanine Pirro. Charges Dropped in Reflecting Pool Case as Prosecutors Say Work Was ‘Botched’ www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/u...

This X post by an AI techbro was grown in a lab to annoy avgeeks. x.com/SebastianCal...

I’ve flown in or out of Dulles Airport hundreds of times—no joke, folks—which more than qualifies me to be an IAD Opinion Haver. So here is my take on the $22.5 billion transformation plan unveiled Wednesday, in particular the two parts of it that need to go in the bit bucket immediately.

Dulles Airport does need a reboot, but the two dumbest parts of its $22.5 billion redesign need to get the boot first

For decades, it was screamingly obvious that Washington Dulles International Airport desperately needed three upgrades: extending Metro to there, replacing its horribly cramped C/D concourse, and r…

robpegoraro.com

Nothing of value will be lost with the exit of the Post's useless hack of an opinion editor.

Natalie Korach@nataliekorach.bsky.social · 6d ago

New: Washington Post Opinion editor Adam O’Neal is leaving, he announced in an internal memo Friday

Looks like the UX people at Dominion Energy's credit-card payment processor, a firm called Paymentus, need to try paying an electric bill with a card in Firefox. On this laptop, the attempt fails in Firefox with a note about the connection expiring, while it works in Chrome.

"This guy" as in the head of an AI-company hedge fund literally called Situational Awareness. (I have to admit that I hadn't heard of it until reading the entertaining thread that includes the post below.)

George Pearkes@peark.es · 7d ago

I gotta say getting blown out of your highly concentrated and leveraged positions at a massive loss the week of your wedding is an all-timer move from this guy.

Sorry, but this IAD plan announced today still seems kind of vaporous - no schedule, no financing details (much less a CPE estimate), only “conceptual” renderings. Having United sign off on it matters, but I want to know what UA knew before it cleared this announcement for departure.

Presidential Administration Announces Plan to Transform Washington Dulles International Airport

Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority CEO Jack Potter and Board Member Trent Morse joined President Trump, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby ...

mwaa.com

Trying to keep up with the situational nanny-statism of this administration makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills. (And yet the likely response from all the right-wing hotheads who described net-neutrality rules as the FCC “regulating the Internet”: 🦗)

FCC: Ban on Foreign-Made Robots Includes Robot Vacuums

It's bad news for Chinese robot vacuum manufacturers like Roborock, Ecovacs, and Dreame, which dominate the market. The ban will also ensnare robot lawn mowers.

pcmag.com

🚨NEOLOGISM ALERT🚨 Reemptively - (adv.) To respond in a way you have many times before, before you are prompted to so again.

Funranium (AKA Phil Broughton)@funranium.bsky.social · last wk.

I will reemptively post that lasers are not the answer here. Especially, not in a world filled with baseball bats and rocks. Much more economical and promote physical fitness & teamwork in students.

Are you an avgeek wondering "Is Cranky Dorkfest really for me?" From my experience last year, the answer is very much yes.

Brett Snyder@crankyflier.com · last wk.

Now on Cranky: Cranky Dorkfest 2026 RSVPs are Now Open! crankyflier.com/2026/07/29/c...

Me, finally feeling like I haven't been imagining things: "Oh, this guy sent his maybe-relevant Black Hat pitch in a LinkedIn invitation." (Please don't do that. I list my e-mail address publicly because I want people to contact me that way, and failing to use that option screams "skill issue.")

If you were wondering what happened to the Starship upper stage that flopped into the Indian Ocean at the end of Friday's flight test and then did not explode: Per SpaceX's latest Instagram story, the stage is still afloat and in sight of a support ship. Unclear why they haven't put it in tow yet.

The spirit of indie radio, in the form of our low-power FM licensee WERA, is not yet dead in Arlington. That's more than I would have hoped for a year ago.

Nate Rathjen@rathjen.us · last wk.

well well well they did it! it's on the air from a temporary antenna at low power and I can barely get it, but it's alive also has a website up -- I like the very specific "we are not associated with Arlington Independent Media" disclaimer lmao radioarlington.org

This list of issues patched in today's macOS security update is a bit longer than usual--as in, I had to hit the Page Down key on this laptop 41 times to scroll to its end. On the upside, the list does not feature the phrase "actively exploited," but I still wouldn't wait to install this patch.

One thing I didn’t expect from Starship’s 13th test launch: the upper stage not exploding right after the inevitable tipover following a soft landing in the Indian Ocean. Very lucky break for SpaceX, especially if they can recover the whole thing to inspect it onshore.

I am once again imploring would-be Democratic candidates for president in 2028: Put mosquito eradication in your platform.

The only surprising thing about this development is that it took Meta this long--it's been obvious that clean energy is not a priority there since Zuckerberg started gassing on last year about all the giant data centers he's going to build without mentioning what would power them.

Meta drops out of a major clean energy pact as its natural gas buildout accelerates | TechCrunch

Meta has made significant investments in natural gas over the past year. Now it's dropping out of an industry renewable energy group.

techcrunch.com