Links 1/25/2026

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12 comments

1. TimH January 25, 2026 at 7:32 am

   Re bitlocker. Most reporting just uses the word “warrant” or “legal warrant” or “warrant request”, but here we have:

   Early last year, in 2025, FBI investigators in Guam got a search warrant for Microsoft.

   https://cybersecuritynews.com/microsoft-shares-bitlocker-keys/

   Search warrant? All a bit fishy, and doesn’t sound like a legally binding court order to me.

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2. The Rev Kev January 25, 2026 at 7:33 am

   “We’re running out of aspirin! Pharmacies rationing aspirin to patients with most serious heart problems due to ‘worrying’ UK shortages”

   I got an idea. What if Starmer got on the horn to China’s President Xi and see if he can ramp up production of aspirin which the UK will purchase for a good price. It is hardly a high-tech medicine and so much of the world’s drugs is produced by China anyway. This could even open up the door to further trade deals between the UK and China. Of course this all depends on Starmer not stuffing it up but it is worth a try.

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3. IM Doc January 25, 2026 at 7:36 am

   Aspirin? Massive shortage? You must be kidding me. Literally, aspirin is one of the most simple of organic processes to manufacture drugs. If there are shortages of aspirin and empty shelves anywhere in the Western world, I would view that as a sign of great concern.

   Aspirin – or acetysalicylic acid ( ASA for short) – is a completely artificial compound made from petroleum organics. The original product for literally centuries dating back to the Greek and Roman world was from salicin or willow trees. I have literally seen all kinds of recipes and methods to extract it in ancient texts but mostly medieval texts and mostly in Latin. You basically take the bark, char it just a bit, mash it up into a fine powder and then stir it into vinegar. I have seen it being used in this vinegar extract all the way into making a poultice out of things like sour cream and placing it directly on the affected area.

   It was not until the late medieval era that its modern usefulness became known. The word is “auge”. It means fever of an intermittent nature that is still totally with us today – almost every severe infection presents with intermittent fever spikes. And these ancient preps absolutely helped with that. The cardiac and blood clotting indications did not really become obvious until the 20th Century.

   The problem making the jump from a natural product to a synthetic product is also quite interesting. In medicine, this process was basically started during the 19th Century and this was done with so many other drugs and compounds. It was a process of refining and stripping out all the other chemicals that existed with the main target. The same exact thing was done with coca as it was turned into cocaine, and opium as it was turned into heroin. Among so so many others. The active chemical was found awash in all kinds of other similar chemicals in the plant. When we refined and severely concentrated the original chemical from these plants, it turns out that there is a much more intense medical activity. Modern cocaine is so many thousands of times more powerful than a native Peruvian chewing on coca leaves. The same can be said for heroin. In essence, we created Frankentsteins. Salicin was a bit different in that the refined natural product, the profoundly concentrated salicylic acid makes anyone taking it orally violently ill. In the late 1800s, chemists discovered that if you stick an acetyl group on this salicylic acid molecule, it is perfectly tolerated and very useful for fever. In short order, the very simple mass manufacturing process for this compound was easily worked out with petroleum organic chemicals. It is profoundly easy to manufacture and profoundly cheap.

   In the past 10 years, we have had all kinds of medical shortages. Largely because we have completely shipped all drug manufacturing to overseas locations, some friendly like Ireland, but the vast majority to China and India. It is one of the single most stupid doltish decisions I have ever seen – who would ever have thought that the massive shortages in the entire medicine cabinet would not be a national security issue? Most of the shortages have involved drugs with profoundly complicated manufacturing. This is the very first time I have heard of something as simple as aspirin. I know the article is about Britain – but if a major Western country is having this problem it will not be long until they all are. Stupidity in this realm is universal among Western countries. We are so screwed it is hard to contemplate.

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   1. skylark January 25, 2026 at 8:00 am

      Auge, a typo for “ague” ?

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   2. vao January 25, 2026 at 8:02 am

      “Literally, aspirin is one of the most simple of organic processes to manufacture drugs.”

      In high school, one of our chemistry lab exercises was to produce aspirin.

      “Most of the shortages have involved drugs with profoundly complicated manufacturing. This is the very first time I have heard of something as simple as aspirin.”

      There is a very simple solution: order the Pharmacy of the Army to start producing aspirin to make up for the shortage. Every country has such a pharmacy, with the necessary production lines to manufacture essential medicines for the troops. In the spirit of rearmament and Kriegstüchtigkeit, let us take advantage of those NATO-level 5% defense budgets to Make Aspirin Procurable Again.

      You are not telling me that those Army Pharmacies have been dismantled and the supply of pharmaceuticals for war emergencies privatized, are you?

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   3. The Rev Kev January 25, 2026 at 8:09 am

      In John Michael Greer’s novel “Retrotopia” he makes the point that modern medicine selects one particular ‘active’ ingredient and discards the rest which may be a mistake. Do we really know the purpose of some of those other ingredients were. Some of them come from plants that were specifically bred so there may have been a purpose in having these ingredients as part of that plant.

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      1. Samuel Conner January 25, 2026 at 8:21 am

         “purpose” is for the plant that produces them; “effect” is what they may do for humans who ingest them.

         I have read that gut flora produces all sorts of by-products that can be beneficial to the host organism. Each of us is carrying a bioreactor around with us in our abdomen. Take good care of your gut flora.

         (amusingly, while “gut fauna” is not something that one likes to think about, sometimes it can be beneficial. There is an old RadioLab episode about parasites that reported on someone who infected himself with hookworms to control severe asthma. Evidently the worms negotiated with the immune system to be tolerated, and this had the side effect of moderating asthma symptoms. I don’t recommend trying that at home, though)

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   4. Samuel Conner January 25, 2026 at 8:10 am

      I wonder what “decide for yourself” people in the current HHS administration think about anarchist biohacking such as that developed by Four Thieves Vinegar collective.

      Perhaps a UK branch of that group will work out a simple procedure for at-hope preparation of ASA.

      I hope that there will be a core of “makers” who can keep the world running after the LLMs have cognitively disabled everyone else.

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4. vao January 25, 2026 at 7:44 am

   Regarding “This is not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this is North Gaza”:

   1) The comments under the twitter post are edifying.

   2) Those who posted the video clip utterly failed to draw the appropriate comparisons: it should have been “This is not Nanking in 1938 or Warsaw in 1944, this is North Gaza”. The context of those historical precedents — reasons for the armed struggle, mentality of the oppressor, disparity in power, methods applied to eradicate the resistance, complete material and human devastation as outcome of the operation — match accurately those for Gaza.

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5. JohnA January 25, 2026 at 7:46 am

   Re Musk and his spat with Ryanair CEO:
   ‘Musk could barely hide the sting he felt from the snub. He initially responded by calling O’Leary “misinformed” and added that he doubted Ryanair “can even measure the difference in fuel use accurately.” ‘
   Ryanair are notorious for cost shaving and penny pinching. Basic fares are usually low but notorious for add-ons that push up the price. Air crew have to pay for their own uniforms and supposedly not paid when the plane is on the ground. Hence their punctuality. As most Ryanair flights are relatively short hop, not sure how many passengers would be desperate to pay for add on wifi connection. Having said that, when I fly from to my local airport in south of France – only served by Ryanair, I am amazed how many passengers buy small bottles of wine at an outrageous price on a 1.5 hour flight when the bar in the arrival area charges less than 1/4 the price if you are that bothered about having a drink.
   However when it comes to fuel use, the airline is renowned for not carrying too much ‘redundant’ fuel on flights. So much so, that when a Ryanair plane has to circle an airport for whatever reason before landing, the pilots often ask for priority to land lest they run out of fuel if they have to stay airborne for much longer.
   Musk would be well advised to heed the old advice of not getting into a pissing contest with a skunk when it comes to duelling with O’Leary.

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6. Ben Panga January 25, 2026 at 7:56 am

   Re: China reveals 200-strong AI drone swarm that can be controlled by a single soldier — ‘intelligent algorithm’ allows individual units to cooperate autonomously even after losing communication with operator

   This is what Anduril software is in theory made for. If drones are the future, these will be the 2 teams.

   My money is on the Imperial Chinese drone tech.

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7. Bryan January 25, 2026 at 8:17 am

   It’s nice to see a positive article about renewable energy “solar and wind overtake fossil fuels in the EU.” Unfortunately the article was superficial and didn’t go into any of the Dynamics of the energy market. Last week NC ran a piece by an oil and gas lobbyist telling us how renewable energy is too expensive. What a shame NC doesn’t want to discuss energy from and energy centric perspective. The first step is acknowledging price, by accepting Lazard’s numbers as the industry standard: https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-energyplus-lcoeplus/

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