jpedmd2026-07-31T19:25:29-05:00July 31st, 2026|

No surprise here: news outlets are reporting that federal prosecutors today acknowledged that contractors hired by the Trump administration had “botched” the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and sought to drop charges against David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist who was one of several people accused of vandalizing the landmark. The NY Times said that in a court filing the prosecution said it had received documents showing that the damage to the pool “was the result of a flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration.”   And Jeanine Pirro said “Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the reflecting pool to vandalism.”  Earlier this month she had claimed there was abundant evidence of vandalism.

What a sad administration we live under.

jpedmd2026-07-15T09:14:25-05:00July 15th, 2026|

This story by Matthew Shaer in the NYT is a very good read, one that describes the very sad state of EV manufacturing in the United States.   One more example (OMB’s proposed rule that would politicize NIH grant awards is another) of how we in America are currently moving backwards rather than embracing the future.

• Alan Taylor has a wonderful photo essay in the Atlantic on the construction of what will be the world’s largest fusion reactor – ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) in Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, France. It’s a fantastically complicated construction challenge.

ITER collaboration Members China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States will share in the cost of project construction, operation and decommissioning, and also share in the experimental results and any intellectual property generated by the project. Europe is responsible for the largest portion of construction costs (45.6 percent); the remainder is shared equally by China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States (9.1 percent each).

The target date for completion with plasma generation is 2033.

• This was a fun read from the NYT on how some farmers are integrating machine learning – From Cow-Milking Robots to Weed-Zapping Lasers, Farmers Are Embracing A.I.

• Caveat emptor. From Matt Levine’s excellent Money Stuff, on Polymarket bots:

“Anyway Bloomberg’s Carolyn Silverman, Nathaniel Popper and Marie Patino report:

Over 100,000 accounts lost at least $1,000 on Polymarket, one of the largest prediction markets, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of every wallet active since the beginning of 2025. That is almost twice the number that made at least that much.

Among the winners, a majority of the profits were raked in by a tiny slice of what look to be automated bots, based on the Polymarket trade records compiled by the data firm Dune. Everyone else, in aggregate, lost $131 million. …

While prediction markets have been described as peer-to-peer, the Polymarket records suggest the role of the sportsbook is now largely being played by the sort of automated, high-frequency traders that have long dominated other financial markets. The most active accounts on the site were a small proportion of wallets, but accounted for most of the trading volume.“