MAKE THEM PAY: Trump Weaponization Czar Puts January 6 Committee Associates On Notice: “There’s a lot to be asked about.”

VIOLENCE PAYS? EURO POLITICIANS ARE WIMPS? What America Can Learn from the Hamas Propaganda War.

NOBODY TELL NOTORIOUS ROBOPHOBE MATT YGLESIAS: The Coming Robot Home Invasion: What I want is a device to clean up late after a dinner party so I can go to bed.

I recently met with Weave Robotics’ founders, Evan Wineland and Kaan Dogrusoz, friends from Carnegie Mellon and Apple. They showed me live demonstrations of Isaac, their home robot likely priced at more than $10,000, to ship by year’s end. I watched it autonomously fold T-shirts and pick up cups and toys. It’s mesmerizing. Isaac triggered visions of future homes, much as “labor-saving devices” like dishwashers and washing machines changed 1950s home life.

“We are extremely focused on the first tasks that we do for people in a practical, capable, safe home robot,” Mr. Wineland says. Mr. Dogrusoz completes the thought: “Isaac’s first tasks are laundry folding and tidying up around the living room, especially after kids or pets.” Mr. Wineland adds: “This general-purpose robot is an extension of you. It’s something that acts on your behalf and that you can always control by issuing commands, whether you’re there or not.”

Isaac will be conversational. You can ask it what’s in the fridge for dinner—an extension of AI apps that suggest menus from photos inside your fridge and cabinets. Mr. Dogrusoz, who has a prototype running in his home, hints at potential tasks: “Cooking. The other is cleaning, cleaning surfaces, especially after cooking. And then bathroom cleaning.” I’d pay for that.

When you’re away, Mr. Dogrusoz says, “you can stop asking: Who’s going to water my plants? Who’s going to feed my dog? Did I leave the stove on or not?” Security will be another big market, with robots as your eyes and ears. “Maybe I have to call the cops, maybe a friend has to check in. Check if the window is open. If it is, close it.”

AI is about data, and lots of it. “Collecting data ourselves and experimenting with what actually made it perform better or worse—that’s a huge part of the secret sauce,” Mr. Wineland says. “We collect data as we act out successfully folding a shirt. We instruct it how to do it successfully, given what it sees, its physical state, position of joints. You log all these values, hundreds of times, and then gradually generalize.” Practice, practice, practice. The AI trains on shapes, on how its servo motors turn, and on various surfaces. Then it knows how to do the job—the magic of AI.

I watched it fold T-shirts of different sizes, colors and materials. It’s slow and meticulous—beware of online videos that are sped up—and produced a stack of folded shirts. Depending on how much it’s used, I estimate it costs $5 to $10 an hour.

It’s easy to envision these robots eventually clearing and organizing the coffee table. Picking up after the kids. Loading the dishwasher. Even pulling a Dyson vacuum off its charger and vacuuming up before you get home. What I really want is a device to clean up late after a dinner party so I can go to bed.

Not exactly Rosie the Robot, either the old Jetsons version or the new one.

THE ERA OF MIDWIT NOISE IS COMING TO AN END:

Ending crime and unwanted migration was always as simple as it seemed to you and your buddies at the bar or on the track.

A great, great deal of mid-wit noise was made to disguise this.

This is true for most things. https://t.co/PKXnKy4uDN

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) August 12, 2025

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

WHEN I WROTE ABOUT THIS STUFF IN THE EIGHTIES, PEOPLE LAUGHED. NOW IT’S MAINSTREAM: Space Law: The New Frontier.

Even at big law firms.

SKYNET FROWNS: Humanoid Robots Have a Serious Design Flaw, And We Need to Fix It.

OVER THE BOUNDING MAIN: ‘What I’ve learned from sailing half way around the world alone.’

SKYNET SMILES: Beijing’s first World Humanoid Robot Games open with hip-hop and martial arts.

IF THEIR POLICIES ARE SOUND, WHY DO THEY HAVE TO KEEP LYING? Anti-Gunners Include Suicides in Their ‘Gun Deaths’ Stats to Boost Bogus ‘Gun Violence’ Talking Points.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: It’s Official: After 26 years, California’s One-Gun-A-Month Purchase Law Is Finally Dead!

THE THING IS, NOBODY CARES WHAT THEY THINK ANYMORE ANYWAY:

Why is almost every Washington DC liberal protestor out this weekend white? 90%+.

DC is 50% black or brown and Hispanic.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

These people don’t live in DC.

They’re paid.

Who brought them in?

pic.twitter.com/EXkfXgiDwo

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 17, 2025

The era of pretending an 80/20 issue is 80/20 the other way through astroturf and media bullying is over.

NOT SURE THIS IS A GOOD IDEA: Science Fiction? Think Again. Scientists Are Learning How to Decode Inner Thoughts.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS. Is GPT-5 really worse than GPT-4O?

SCIENCE: Brain’s immune response linked to olfactory problems associated with Alzheimer’s.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA seeks student entries for Human Exploration Rover Challenge.

HE SEEMS TO BE: Is a Christian King Prepared To Rule a Post-Christian Britain? Or maybe he’s already a post-Christian king, and is just waiting for the country to catch up.

MAKE THEM PAY: Jury awards over $500,000 to teacher accused of ‘racist’ seating chart comments.

WELCOME TO SWEET HOME ALABAMA: Federal judge won’t block DEI ban at Alabama public schools.

ROGER KIMBALL: Trump-Putin Alaska Summit Shifts Talk From Ceasefire to Peace.

WHY I LEFT JOURNALISM SCHOOL. “What I couldn’t stand was the jarring dissonance between what I was being taught (attempt to be personally objective at all times in your work) and the real, unspoken values of the faculty (there is absolutely a correct way to think, and if you don’t think this way you are either stupid or cruel, and must therefore be either swayed or neutralised).”

I had a girlfriend who quit journalism for PR, because she said PR was “more honest.” She had a point.

MOST OF THESE UNSOLVABLE PROBLEMS ARE EASY TO FIX: Folks In D.C. Already Feeling Safer, Praise Trump For Crime Crackdown. The reason they’ve been “unsolvable” is that the people in charge haven’t wanted them to be solved.

LAWFARE: A First-Of-Its-Kind Lawsuit Seeks Wrongful Death Climate Damages From Oil Companies. Sealed Court Docs Show a Rockefeller-Funded Green Group Is Steering It.

Someone should start suing NGOs and foundations for the harm they do through the policies they push . . . .

DON’T BE SILLY, EVERYONE KNOWS THE BEST PIZZA IS BIG ED’S IN OAK RIDGE, TENNESSEE. New York Versus Naples: Which City Has Better Pizza? Generations of gently-glowing atomic scientists can’t be wrong.

CHANGE:

We are witnessing a turning point.

Concerned locals and families are now outnumbering the far-left by a HUGE margin at protests against illegal migrant hotels.

This is happening across the entire country.

I hope this continues.
Change is coming.pic.twitter.com/HR4Uz1T6NO

— Lee Harris (@addicted2newz) August 16, 2025