WTF-Beta

Press conference with Duffy (Transportation) and Mullin (DHS). Mullin said that the FAA was patching some new stuff in to the existing system and it overwhelmed the old portions of the system. Not sure what he's talking about, but that's what he said.

The President (who is a builder - Mullin's comment) says they need $50 billion to build a completely new system because this patching stuff in doesn't work.

Oy.

edit: CNN on what was actually said:

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy urged Congress to give “emergency funding” and approve $50 billion dollars to revamp the air traffic control system, increasing a previous ask for funding of more than $30 billion.

“I’ve asked, the president’s asked for $30 billion. I want $50 billion,” Duffy said while briefing the press at the White House tonight.

“What’s more important than having an air traffic control system that actually works?” Duffy continued. “And so the president said, ‘You know what? Let’s finish this job. New hardware, new software, new telecommunication.’”

Duffy and the Department of Transportation announced a plan in 2025 to build a new air traffic control system by 2028 that would cost roughly $31.5 billion. More than $12 billion of that funding was secured through the passage of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“We are building in that 12 and a half billion dollars. That portion of the bill will be done by the time President Trump leaves office. We are moving at a speed that has never been seen before with regard to the FAA,” Duffy said. “But that’s a partial funding.”

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said old air traffic control technology and routers overloaded with data were to blame for the nationwide ground stop today.

“What we have is an incredibly old air traffic control system,” Duffy said at a news conference tonight. “The president, for the last year, has been asking Congress to fully fund a full build of a brand new air traffic control system.”

“Our routers actually got overloaded with data, and… they started to give us inconsistency in the data from those routers. And because of that, we shut the system down,” he added.

Duffy said some routers had been replaced during his tenure, but the old hardware went down.

Apparently they have identified and fixed the problem. Ground stop has been lifted, as of 8:15 ET.

From CNN.

The Federal Aviation Administration told airlines the nationwide outages that prompted the ground stop were the result of a problem with network routers, according to an airline source.

The problem is believed to have started at Chicago Midway International Airport and cascaded nationwide.

Some airports are already reporting being saturated with flights on the ground that cannot take off.

More on SMART,

https://mashable.com/tech/faa-smart-ai-tool-nationwide-groundstop

@Mik Didn’t know you are in NOLA. Glad you didn’t decide to take that cruise.

wtg said:

CNN was interviewing IL Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (House Intelligence Committee), who said the National Weather Service is experiencing nationwide internet service problems.

Updated info:

The National Weather Service was not experiencing a nationwide outage on Friday despite rumors saying otherwise, officials said.

On Friday, Nov. 13, a member of WBTV’s local National Weather Service office confirmed that there was a regional issue with weather radios. The issue was not widespread, the official told WBTV on Friday evening.

https://www.wbtv.com/2026/11/13/not-true-national-weather-service-says-tech-issues-regional-not-widespread/

CNN was interviewing IL Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (House Intelligence Committee), who said the National Weather Service is experiencing nationwide internet service problems.

‘Ahead of his time’: AI helps unlock discoveries hidden in notebooks of man who transformed maths

Kurt Gödel left 1,009 pages of densely written text – much of it in an obsolete shorthand – which is now said to contain hundreds of proved theorems

Progress in the mathematical understanding of the text was painfully slow – about a page a week – until September, when von Plato enlisted the help of the AI model Claude. Within a couple of days, Claude had provided a comprehensive digest of the entire material, revealing Gödel had proved hundreds of theorems that no one knew about.

The most famous logician of modern times had, in fact, discovered significantly more than anyone had thought.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/nov/13/kurt-godel-notebooks-ai-helps-unlock-hidden-discoveries-man-who-transformed-maths

Which reminds me....I should dig up my copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach and re-read it. Great book.

The legendary voice of Dolly Parton is back for one last rodeo, months after her death.

U2 released their 16th studio album Friday, “Carnaval de Luz” (“Carnival of Light”), which ends with the song “Torn,” a duet between the Irish rock band’s lead singer, Bono, and Parton.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/11/13/entertainment/dolly-parton-u2-torn-released-intl-scli

So far they're saying it's not the result of a cyberattack. With this administration, not sure if they would tell the truth if they know it.

Boebert is out.

BWAHAHAHAHA

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., a conservative firebrand who was caught up in several headline-grabbing controversies during her six years in Congress, has been defeated by Democratic challenger Eileen Laubacher, NBC News projects.

Laubacher is a retired Navy rear admiral and Afghanistan war veteran who served on the National Security Council in the Biden administration.

“Integrity matters. Character matters. Truth matters, and public service should always be about what you can do for other people, not what you do for yourself,” Laubacher told supporters on election night, according to The Colorado Sun. “Those things were worth fighting for when we started.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/rep-lauren-boebert-conservative-firebrand-colorado-loses-race-re-elect-rcna607652

All flights in the United States are grounded until further notice, “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

The cause of the ground stop was not immediately clear, but an FAA spokesperson says there is a communications problem impacting Air Route Traffic Control Centers, which handle flights going across the country.

“Traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice,” the FAA said in an advisory. “International flights will be managed on a case by case basis.”

https://www.cnn.com/2026/11/13/us/faa-nationwide-ground-stop

Video. The riverboat is completely on its side.

https://www.wdsu.com/article/mississippi-river-boat-crash-new-orleans/74426309

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rescue-underway-oil-tanker-collides-new-orleans-river-boat-rcna609235

@Bernard That's great!!

Not quite what I think you were imagining, @mary-anna , but at least we get a feeling for the white shirt idea:

I don't wear jewelry much anymore, but I wouldn't mind this.

Romanov sapphire worn by Russian empress fetches $4.9M at auction

The 197.80-carat Ceylon sapphire likely came from the Mughal Empire in south Asia, made its way into Russia’s imperial jewels in the 19th century.

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/romanov-sapphire-bracelet-russia-empress-mughal-empire-auction-rcna608936

@AndyD said:

Fountains Abbey.

Or, as my mom referred to it "that damn abbey". I'll explain....

We took the train from London to York, spent a couple of days checking out the city, especially York Minster. It was a month after there had been a major fire. We could see the damage but most of the building was open. We also made multiple visits to Betty's.

I picked up a car and we drove to Fountains Abbey on our way to Masham, where our B&B was located. We were walking around the abbey and I suddenly heard my mom cry out in pain. She was on the ground, gasping like a fish out of water. I thought she was having a heart attack and I was wondering what to do. Pre-cell phone era, and the place was pretty deserted on a weekday. Turns out Mom had tripped and knocked the wind out of herself. She recovered pretty quickly and we made our way to the bed and breakfast, where she took a hot bath in a gloriously huge bathtub (Brits have the best bathtubs!). The hosts served a dinner of Nidderdale trout that had been caught just a few hours earlier. And I had my first sticky toffee pudding. We ended up staying in Masham and doing some day trips around Yorkshire instead of heading to the Lake District, which was our original destination. The G&Ts and the excellent draft beer at the B&B had nothing to do with our extending our stay....

Despite all those nice things that happened, Mom still referred to Fountains as that damn abbey.

edit: I see Bank Villa is still there! Though it seems it is just a hotel rather than a B&B.

https://bank-villa.yorkshire-hotel.com/en/

bounty

Just wait! There's more....

Hegseth awards medal to soldier who reprimanded him and aides at Arlington Cemetery

https://www.cnn.com/2026/11/12/politics/hegseth-awards-medal-soldier-reprimanded-him

leaves