Phil Spencer retires, Wikipedia blacklists Archive.today, Hacktivists vs. Persona + more!

Duration: 10:24

Timestamps:

0:00 time is wacky! Ah. Oh well!

0:14 Phil Spencer leaves Xbox / Microsoft

2:20 Wikipedia blacklists archive . today

4:03 Discord, Persona, and surveillance

6:37 QUICK BITS INTRO

6:44 Sam Altman: AI needs your food

7:31 Has AMD stopped Ryzen Z1 updates?

8:16 Nova Lake-S maybe delayed to 2027

8:49 3D-print an electric motor!

9:30 Kohler Anthem EvoCycle shower

NEWS SOURCES:

MAINS

XBOX EX-BOSS

Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer steps down after 38 years with company - Sarah Bond left too https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/02/microsoft-gaming-chief-phil-spencer-steps-down-after-38-years-with-company/

Alternate headline: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/report-phil-spencer-and-samantha-bond-leaving-xbox

https://www.theverge.com/news/882241/microsoft-phil-spencer-xbox-leaving-retirement

Original Source: Windows post about the new hire (asha sharma) with notes from Satya and PhIl: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2026/02/20/asha-sharma-named-evp-and-ceo-microsoft-gaming/

Phil spencer tweet: https://x.com/XboxP3/status/2024951211129254314

What is sharma’s plan?

https://www.theverge.com/tech/883015/microsoft-xbox-new-ceo-shakeup-notepad

Not Producing AI Slop Quote

What’s the response:

Fans are split: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq6q8l81d9qo

Sharma doesn’t have gaming or industry experience

There’s a lot of speculation about where we go from here”: https://www.polygon.com/xbox-game-pass-future-phil-spencer/

ARCHIVIAL SHENANIGANS

Wikipedia blacklists archive.today (the paywall-bypassing tool that we use, which is not archive.org) for honestly legitimate reasons

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-bans-archive-today-after-site-executed-ddos-and-altered-web-captures/

https://www.pcmag.com/news/wikipedia-blacklists-archiveis-after-alleged-ddos-attack-on-blogger

Site page to show what the website looks like https://archive.ph/

Wikipedia's request for comment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Archive.is_RFC_5

Worth pointing out that this is NOT the internet archive, this is a totally separate website and people

https://archive.org/

It also looks like the archive.today site had been found to be altering certain sites, like a blog post that changed out Nora’s name with Jani Patokallio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Archive.is_RFC_5#Evidence_of_altering_snapshots

Archive.today was also being used to DDOS that guys blog after he posted research into figuring out who was behind creating the archive

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/21/wikipedia-blacklists-archive-today-after-alleged-ddos-attack/#:~:text=The%20distributed%20denial,his%20hosting%20bill

The site in question:

https://gyrovague.com/2026/02/01/archive-today-is-directing-a-ddos-attack-against-my-blog/

Even going as far as blackmailing the author of the blog after the blog author didn’t want to cooperate after the DDOSing

https://pastes.io/correspond (Editor please show the top where this starts, and then shift down to the next highlighted section, it is the last email of the thread)

https://pastes.io/correspond#:~:text=Date%3A%20Mon%2C%2026%20Jan%202026%2010,a%20gyrovague.gay%20dating%20app%2C%20etc

According to the Archive.today blog, he feels he was successful and will scale down the DDOS attacks

https://lj.rossia.org/users/archive_today/#:~:text=It%20turned%20out%20pretty%20well.

PERSONA JUST CAN’T HACK IT

Security researchers claim Persona, the provider behind Discord's UK age verification 'experiment', performs '269 individual verification checks' on user data, including those for terrorism and espionage

https://www.pcgamer.com/software/security/security-researchers-claim-persona-the-provider-behind-discords-uk-age-verification-experiment-performs-269-individual-verification-checks-on-user-data-including-those-for-terrorism-and-espionage/

The Rage broke down the hack: https://www.therage.co/persona-age-verification/

OS security researcher blog: https://vmfunc.re/blog/persona

Alternate: https://redact.dev/blog/discord-persona-age-verification-experiment

Quote on the Difference between Persona and Palintir

Ars good for quotes: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/discord-and-persona-end-partnership-after-shady-uk-age-test-sparks-outcry/

Quote on the lack of relationship to ICE

Verge on for quotes: https://www.theverge.com/tech/878369/discord-persona-age-verification

Tweet from persona CEO of him sharing his communications with the hackers: https://x.com/rickcsong/status/2024423711559102578

Quote about the communication between celeste and Song

QUICK BITS

ARTIFICIAL INEFFICIENCY

Headline - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/23/sam-altman-openai-energy-use-datacenters

He said that data centers do take a lot of power but humans also take a lot of power to live. Actually he didn’t say to live he said “to be trained” which I guess is the same?

Hilarious quote

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/21/sam-altman-would-like-remind-you-that-humans-use-a-lot-of-energy-too/

He also said that water concerns are fake: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/23/openai-altman-defends-ai-resource-usage-water-concerns-fake-humans-use-energy-summit.html

Videos:

“People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model … But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart.” - https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/s/rQ0EFhAuCa

Sam sets a new date for AGI; "by the end of 2028, most of humanity’s intellectual capacity could reside inside data centers rather than outside them"- https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/s/eVcGFbxzvV

SIZE MATTERS

AMD Seemingly Stops Driver Updates for Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor (Based off a single customer support agent)

https://www.techpowerup.com/346624/amd-seemingly-stops-driver-updates-for-ryzen-z1-extreme-processor

Lenovo seems to be the cause of the controversy:

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/lenovo-and-asus-handheld-owners-warned-as-ryzen-z1-extreme-driver-support-reportedly-ends-lack-of-official-updates-threatens-longevity-for-legion-go-go-s-and-rog-ally-x-devices-on-windows-11

Apparently the news came from a Korean tech support agent who said they have no plans of issuing new updates: https://gall.dcinside.com/mgallery/board/view?id=umpc&no=134848 (Translate to english pls)

AMD has not publicly said they are deprecating anything, although, just switch to Linux if your concerned

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegionGo/comments/1ra2e6q/lenovo_responds_that_there_will_be_no_more_legion/

Express skepticism that this is real

DELAY THE NOVA BOMB

LEAKS: Intel "Nova Lake-S" Coming in 2027, CES Launch Alongside AMD "Olympic Ridge" Likely

https://www.techpowerup.com/346613/intel-nova-lake-s-coming-in-2027-ces-launch-alongside-amd-olympic-ridge-likely

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/110235/intels-next-gen-nova-lake-s-desktop-cpus-reportedly-delayed-until-ces-2027-it-seems/index.html

This comes from Twitter: https://x.com/9550pro/status/2025014474986717447

And Weibo(Editor please translate):  https://m.weibo.cn/status/5268681401829517

Zen 6 is delayed too, according to BenchLife rumors(Editor please translate)

https://benchlife.info/amd-zen-6-olympic-ridge-might-offer-12-cores-chiplet-as-24-cores-cpu-options/ )

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-zen-6-desktop-ryzen-olympic-ridge-reportedly-set-to-launch-in-2027

-S Means mainstream desktop platform

TLDR we will see both sides desktop CPUs at next years CES

ELECTRIFYING PRINTABILITY

MIT-developed 3D printer can output a fully functional electric motor in a single process — team only needed to magnetize the linear motor after printing, motors cost just 50 cents each

https://www.tomshardware.com/3d-printing/mit-developed-3d-printer-can-output-a-fully-functional-electric-motor-in-a-single-process-team-only-needed-to-magnetize-the-linear-motor-after-printing-motors-cost-just-50-cents-each

The Paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17452759.2026.2613185

MIT News article about it: https://news.mit.edu/2026/3d-printing-platform-rapidly-produces-complex-electric-machines-0218

Image of the machine: https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/nvpp_a_2613185_f0003_oc-780x470.jpg.avif

Image of the motor they made: https://www.tandfonline.com/cms/asset/1522a8a4-d7a9-4456-9760-0cf467afeac2/nvpp_a_2613185_f0017_oc.jpg

BEAR GRYLLS APPROVED

Kohler’s new shower reuses dirty water to get you clean (After putting cameras in our toilets, now we get a perhaps neat thing)

https://www.theverge.com/tech/883006/kohler-anthem-evocycle-smart-shower-system-water-recirculate-filter-recycle

https://homelivinghandbook.com/kohler-anthem-evocycle-revolutionizes-water-conservation

https://www.homecrux.com/kohler-anthem-evocycle-shower-system/367191/

Image of a shower with it installed, its gold!

https://homelivinghandbook.com/assets/uploads/_image850/BI_KOHLER_Anthem-EvoCycle_modern-water-wise-bathroom.webp

https://homelivinghandbook.com/assets/uploads/_image400/BI_KOHLER_Anthem-EvoCycle_showerhead-water-efficiency.webp

It will work with the rest of the Anthem smart shower ecosystem, allowing you to listen to your tech news in the shower with the POE smart shower accessories