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Harvard Management Co. disclosed a $2.2 billion stake in SpaceX, making the rocket company more than half of the endowment's entire disclosed U.S. equity portfolio as of June 30, 2026. The position, representing roughly 12.94 million shares, is the single largest holding in Harvard's $4.26 billion reported U.S. stock portfolio, according to the firm's 13F with the SEC.
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/harvard-discloses-2-2b-spacex-135733933.html
The web’s newest weapon against AI scrapers is a font
“ShieldFont” aims to poison AI training data without making pages unreadable for people.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/08/new-font-turns-ordinary-webpages-into-nonsense-for-ai-scrapers/
It can be daunting to determine who’s responsible for showing ads on the websites we visit, or who’s harvesting data from the mobile apps we use every day. That information is already semi-public, but it is not easily parsed and traditionally much of it has remained walled away in the hands of large advertising platforms. Not anymore: A powerful and free new service called DecryptAds scrapes and correlates this adtech data and makes it simple to quickly learn a great deal about the entities that are tracking you.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/08/whos-tracking-you-use-this-new-service-to-find-out/
@adagiom - here's the info. Shrey Vazir is a physiotherapist; I'm on his mailing list and get an email once a week. Here's the one about getting up off the floor.
I basically never talk about my grandma in these emails.
But she taught me one of the most important lessons about aging, mobility, and independence.
And she probably doesn't even realize it.
Most People Stop Practicing This After Age 60
My grandma is 89 years old and has severe knee arthritis (both knees).
Yet she can get up from the floor with more confidence than many people 20 or 30 years younger than her.
What's remarkable is that she doesn't have a special exercise routine or a fancy mobility program.
Her secret is much simpler.
For years, she's sat on the floor every day to pray.
That's it.
Without realizing it, she's been practicing one of the most important movement skills for healthy aging:
Getting down to the floor and getting back up again.
Now most people assume that getting off the floor becomes difficult because of age.
Or because they're "not as strong as they used to be."
But as a physiotherapist, I've found something surprising:
For many people, the problem isn't strength.
It's practice.
Think about riding a bike.
If you haven't ridden one in 20 years, the first attempt feels awkward.
Not because you've forgotten how to ride.
But because your body has forgotten the sequence.
Getting up from the floor is similar.
Your body often remembers more than you think.
It just needs a reminder.
Here's Your Challenge
Over the next week, practice getting up from the floor once per day.
Not after a fall.
Not when you desperately need to.
Practice before you need it.
If you're unsure how, here's a simple sequence I suggest (called the CRAWLS method)
C - Take a deep breath and stay calm
R - Reach arm over and roll to your side
A - Adjust one or both knees
W - Walk one leg underneath your body
L - Level yourself into a bear or a mini-plank position
S - Slowly walk your hands back and stand up, or walk your legs towards your hand
ake your time and move slowly.
Keep a sturdy chair nearby if needed.
The goal isn't speed.
The goal is confidence.
The Bigger Lesson
Many of the abilities we associate with "getting older" are actually skills we've stopped practicing.
Getting up from the floor.
Balancing on one leg.
Climbing stairs.
Walking briskly.
Carrying groceries.
The less we do them, the harder they become.
The more we practice them, the longer we keep them.
My grandma didn't preserve her mobility through some complicated program.
She simply kept using it.
And that may be the most powerful lesson of all.
Best advice I’ve heard from a PT is to practice getting up from the floor every day, without any support or assistance.
We stopped biking 10 years ago. Too many distracted drivers out there waiting to kill us. But we weren't serious cyclists, just went out a few times during nice weather.
@realplayer Glad to hear you weren't badly injured.
I read somewhere that as we age our brains shrink a bit and that there can be more movement inside the skull if the head moves or stops quickly. Good excuse to stay off of roller coasters!
Even when we're in fairly good physical shape as we get older our flexibility, strength, and reaction times all get a bit worse. I figured that out when I did a near-face plant on our front porch. Twice, about eight years apart. Just didn't quite pick my foot up enough when stepping onto the porch.
Besides doing some strength and flexibility exercises, I am much more mindful of how I move about. I try to be sure I'm aware of what might be on the floor so I don't trip over it, and I concentrate when going up/down stairs. Looking down through progressive lenses is a bit tricky when descending stairs; focus isn't ideal. And I always have one hand on a handrail if at all possible.
@Piano-Dad Add me to the list.
And WWII was only 10 years in the rear view mirror.
A Democrat in Name Only
Rob Sand isn’t progressive or moderate. What is he trying to be?
Gift link.
President Donald Trump’s war against Iran is stretching the limits of U.S. aircraft carriers and leaving the western Pacific without one of the key American warships as China shows more signs of aggression.
The USS George Washington is departing the Pacific and expected to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East amid growing concerns about mental health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed carrier. The Lincoln has had its time at sea extended from its original May return date to support operations against Iran.
The lack of a U.S. carrier in the Pacific may be short-lived if the Navy deploys another in the next couple of months. But it shows how the open-ended operations with Iran are running some American sailors ragged, analysts say, while the Trump administration further retreats from the Asia-Pacific region and focuses on the Western Hemisphere.
“The administration says that the Pacific is supposed to be the most important behind the Western Hemisphere,” said Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Instead, the U.S. is “doing the exact opposite” of its previously expressed goal of pulling out of the Middle East.
Haven't made these breakfast pizzas but they look delish.
https://breadtopia.com/egg-and-herb-breakfast-pizzas/?utm_content
Bears announced a few days ago they're continuing their focus on Hammond. Fingers still crossed.
From a prof at Ball State University. Guess some Hoosiers don't want the Bears to move there any more than some of us Illinoisans want them to stay here.
https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2026/07/20/lets-hope-the-chicago-bears-stay-in-illinois/
Trump orders Pentagon to redesign US aircraft carrier to use steam catapults to launch jets
President has suggested steam catapults every year since 2017, saying digital systems are too ‘complicated’
Senator Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat and a former astronaut, was more blunt in his reaction to the news.
“I’ve launched off the front of aircraft carriers hundreds of times, have a Master’s degree in aeronautical engineering, and am a test pilot and even I wouldn’t suggest to the Navy how to engineer specific systems on its ships,” Kelly wrote on social media. “Donald Trump should stick to what he knows best – ballrooms, bankruptcy, and bullshit.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/13/trump-aircraft-carriers-steam-catapults
You can only pick from the available candidates. The people who run are motiviated by how the current system works. Sadly it appears that many/most of them aren't serving their constituents but are rather serving themselves.
No design advice here; I'm a total disaster at picking colors. But I do have a question..
Darker colors retain heat more, and lighter colors reflect. Might the choice of a particular color, light vs dark, affect the interior temperature of the house in a way that's undesirable? So many factors influence what feels comfortable in the house. If you have lots of deciduous trees that keep you cool in summer, then maybe a darker color to retain heat in the winter would be good. Or maybe you have not a lot of tree protection and need to keep things cool in the summer.
Chocolate. A friend travels to Paris every few years and brings me back the most fabulous chocolate. I don't have a specific recommendation for a shop but I know there are many!
I Was Dick Cheney’s Cardiologist. Trump Has Not Looked Well, and We Should Know Why..
The books:
The podcast, A Great Book with Barack Obama, will see the former president sitting down with six “luminaries” to discuss the seminal novels. The book selections are: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré.
Barack Obama launches podcast about books that ‘shaped his worldview’
The former US president will host six episodes of A Great Book for Audible, discussing work from Toni Morrison and John le Carré to James Baldwin
