Seattle Community Coffee Event Cancelled Because the Owner is a… Conservative Pastor? Jason Rantz Weighs In
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Business Insider
18 hours ago
- Business Insider
'Man Francisco' not allowed
In the heart of the tech world, where diversity and inclusion is out of fashion, a Saturday night party at Tesla's San Francisco showroom offered a tongue-in-cheek solution to one of the areas where the ongoing gender disparities are undoubtedly pronounced: dating. The "Enforced Ratio" party, thrown this past weekend by two women in tech in response to the pervasiveness of sausage fests in San Francisco, was a night of carefully crafted contradictions. It was an event centered on "feminine energy" where a 50:50 gender ratio was strictly enforced. All told, about 200 women and 200 men attended. Test drives of the macho Cybertruck were paired with delicate cocktails. One of those cocktails was even named The James Damore (tequila, raspberry puree, lemon, club soda), a nod to the former Google employee who was fired over a memo he wrote asserting that efforts to equalize gender ratios are wrong because biological differences are the root cause of the industry's gender disparities. The event was a microcosm of the very tensions within tech that it seemed to be both celebrating and exposing. Before the party kicked off at 7 p.m., lines formed around the block. As they waited to have their passes and IDs checked, women discussed a common sentiment: San Francisco's male-dominated parties are not a chance to dress to the nines, but places where one is expected to dress down in Patagonia fleeces and startup T-shirts. This party was different. The dress code at "Enforced Ratio" was "Barbie glam," and multiple women remarked how they were spending less time talking about their jobs, as they frequently do at SF parties, and more time on their shimmering outfits. The men largely opted for muted suits over sparkly pink. One towering man donned a black T-shirt, black hoodie, and a black full-face mask reminiscent of Bane from "The Dark Knight Rises" for the duration of the event. The hosts, Madison Kanna and Cat Orman, who work in AI and robotics, respectively, decided to throw the party after quipping on X about their frustrations with what's become known in the Bay Area as "the ratio." Tech remains male-dominated, with women comprising 22% of the industry. No matter where they went in Silicon Valley — from "Man Francisco" down to "Man Brose" (aka San Jose) — the disparity was the same. "I thought it would be a hilarious bit to have a party where there are more women than men, or at least have a 50/50 ratio, which is still rare," says Kanna, who works at the AI startup Baseten and moved to San Francisco about six months ago. There has long been a feeling that nightlife in the city is sedated, but the sleepiness seemed to become especially acute after the pandemic. Record numbers of Gen Zers report not drinking, and wellness figures like Bryan Johnson — who goes to bed at 8:30 — are idolized for optimizing their health. The women I spoke to also say there may be something of a herd mentality that causes them to avoid house parties if friends aren't attending. Women generally have more options for things to do on an average weekend night, says Joyce Zhang, a former Stripe product manager turned dating coach, who was not in attendance. Zhang says she used to attend tech parties, but gave up after a series of negative experiences. "You go to these parties, and it's just a casual hangout. Then you have dudes who swarm around the women, like it's obvious what's going on, what they're trying to get out of it. Maybe that's why women don't show up much." Tiffany Nguyen, a 28-year-old recruiter at drone maker Skydio, tells me the circles at most tech parties are tight. "They're never drinking very heavy, just a lot of nerdy yapping," she says. She also avoids most tech parties because "all people can talk about is work and tech," and a lack of emotional quotient is common among attendees. "Everyone in SF takes themselves so seriously," says Kanna. "We're trying to have fun and do something funny. 'Enforced Ratio', it's meant to make you laugh." She adds, "It's post-ironic." At one point, Kanna and Orman had accepted around 300 women for the party, even though the entire guest list would max out at 400 due to the showroom's capacity. The pair overindexed, expecting more women than men to cancel and even out the ratio. Hundreds of men were left languishing on the waitlist, some of whom signed up for the Luma invite using women's names, according to Kanna, perhaps in hopes the hosts would be duped into letting them in. The hosts say they selected men from two criteria: if they were attending with their girlfriends, and if they received positive references from multiple women. (Kanna and Orman declined to comment on how they addressed any interested attendees who might have identified as non-binary.) Among the attendees was a who's who of tech influencers, including the podcaster Dwarkesh Patel (who wore a white linen button-up) and crypto personality Tiffany Fong (strapless pink dress and knee-high white leather boots). Tesla offered its space for the event but was not involved beyond offering free test rides of the Cybertruck. Women also took pictures as they stood on top of the vehicle, at least one of them pantomiming a mechanical bull ride. ("Bitches love Cybertucks," Fong posted on X the next day.) Inside the truck, attendees played chess on the dashboard infotainment system. Standing near an Optimus robot, Rona Wang, a 26-year-old compiler engineer, tells me that many men in tech focus on their financial gains and do not spend much time learning how to speak to women. "I've met a lot of men who think having a lot of money should make me impressed by them." Over by the (male) DJ booth, Paula Dozsa, a 30-year old engineer at AI startup Portola, says that while she does not normally dress up for tech parties, she did for this. She usually only breaks out her nicer outfits for another party series called the "San Francisco Freedom Club," co-hosted by Intercom CEO Eoghan McCabe, where the theme is evangelizing American ideals. Dozsa tells me she met her boyfriend on X, vibing over commonalities, and avoids awkward conversations by mostly talking to people she already knows. "As a European, I definitely wouldn't have compared it to a soirée on the shores of Lake Como," says Eric-Andrei Cantacuzino Geafar, a 25-year-old graduate student at Stanford. But the party, he says, has "one of the most original takes and locations one could think of for an event with some of the most impressive tech people I've ever met so far." And by his count, the final ratio may have slightly skewed in the men's favor. Zhang, the dating coach, says there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in terms of physical glow-ups for San Francisco men. Laid-back appearances are counterintuitively venerated in San Francisco, where a hoodie and sweatpants are still seen as something of a signal of wealth and influence. "You don't even have to do the hard work of getting a new personality," she says. "You can just get new clothes, and it can make a huge difference." She noted, though, that the men she's coached in SF are very open to improving their overall relationship skills — after spending much of their lives focused on IQ. She speaks in typical startup lingo to help them, communicating through acronyms like OKRs (objectives and key results) for measuring and tracking progress on their dating journeys. Maria Valentina Escudero, 26 and working in tech, says that while San Francisco has some solid bars and clubs, "the vibe here usually feels a lot less glamorous compared to the East Coast." She says Enforced Ratio stands out with its "flirty, fun, and sexy" atmosphere that pushed people to go all out. But in typical San Francisco fashion, where nothing stays open late, the party ended abruptly at 11 p.m. as Tesla representatives called lights, put stanchions around the bar area, and sent everyone out onto the streets, where many looked for other places to keep the party going. Kanna says more Enforced Ratio parties are being planned.
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Yahoo
At China's robot Olympics, humanoids stumble forward
At Beijing's National Speed Skating Oval — the same arena where Olympians in 2022 carved across the ice — the opening ceremony looked familiar enough: lights, flags, fanfare, and athletes lined up for a global contest. But instead of figure skaters or hockey players, the stars were steel-jointed humanoid robots. They danced hip-hop, performed martial arts, strummed guitars, and even modeled outfits alongside human performers. One collapsed so hard during the introductions that staffers had to carry it off the floor like an injured player. The crowd roared anyway. When the competition itself kicked off later in the week, the pratfalls only multiplied. In the sprint races, some robots managed a few steady strides, while others face-planted straight out of the gate, crumpling into heaps of wires and limbs. A few froze entirely, forcing handlers to jog in and reset them. The stumbles, crashes, and stiff-limbed runs turned the races into slapstick theater as much as sport — and the audience loved it. The world's first 'robot Olympics,' officially called the World Humanoid Robot Games, gathered more than 500 robots from 16 countries and staged them across 26 events — track races, soccer matches, boxing bouts, and even chores such as cleaning hotel rooms. The stated goal was to test the limits of embodied AI, but the real result was a reminder of just how far those limits still stretch. Humanoid robots could run — sort of — but slowly and stiffly, and they needed frequent rescues from human handlers. The robots could box, but the matches looked more like clunky hugs than prizefights. They could play soccer, but only if you were willing to redefine 'playing' as 'falling near the ball until someone managed to kick it' — a tangled crash involving multiple 'players' resulted in metal limbs sprawled all across the field Yet for every spill, there was a glimpse of progress: a robot that got back on its feet without human help, a team that strung together passes in humanoid soccer, a cleaning bot that finished its chore in under 10 minutes. The wipeouts became part of the spectacle, an inkling of proof that embodied AI is crawling, wobbling, and sometimes running its way into viability. Companies from Tesla to Amazon are pouring billions into humanoid robot research on the promise that one day these bots will fold laundry, bring in the groceries, or keep watch while you're away. But the Beijing showcase made clear that the reality is more halting. Sprinting across a track or cleaning a hotel room isn't the same as reliably unloading a dishwasher or scrubbing a counter — it's harder to account for the chaos of pets and kids and more — and for now, most robots still need human spotters nearby. But the fact that they can do pieces of these tasks at all, however clumsily, is why investors and tech giants keep betting that today's tumbles could, eventually, translate into tomorrow's — or next year's, or next decade's — domestic help. From pratfalls to policy Beijing didn't stage the Games as comic relief. This was industrial policy with spotlights, a showcase for China's ambitions in humanoid robotics. The government has already poured tens of billions into subsidies and is planning a trillion-yuan ($137 billion) fund for AI and robotics startups to underline its ambitions. Humanoid robots, Beijing insists, aren't a novelty — they're the future of work, healthcare, and maybe even daily life. The robot Olympics weren't just about public laughs — they were about collecting edge-case training data from robots stumbling in unpredictable scenarios. Every fall becomes a labeled data point, every collision a lesson in physics. In embodied AI, mistakes are fuel. The medal count reinforced Beijing's dominance. Chinese firm Unitree Robotics dominated the track events, winning gold in the 400- and 1,500-meter races — even if the winning time for the longer race was 6:34, nearly double the (human) men's record. Another Chinese player, UniX AI, earned gold in a cleaning contest by tidying a staged hotel room in under nine minutes. That was impressive in context — it beat other competitors handily — but it still underscored the gap between a one-off competition and real-world reliability. In between those flashes of progress were endless slip-ups: robots tumbling over hurdles, colliding in soccer scrums, or freezing mid-task until technicians intervened. The U.S. isn't sitting out, but its approach is different: Silicon Valley promises, not state subsidies. Elon Musk has declared that Tesla's humanoid robot, Optimus, will be in limited production by 2025 and may one day eclipse the company's car business in importance. Demo videos have shown Optimus folding T-shirts, watering plants, and frying an egg. Critics note that many of these demos look heavily choreographed, if not remotely operated. But Musk continues to insist that Optimus will soon populate Tesla factories before eventually landing in homes. Amazon is playing the pragmatist. It has spent years testing Agility Robotics' Digit in warehouses, where the bipedal has carried bins, stacked totes, and unloaded delivery vans. In test facilities in San Francisco and at select fulfillment centers, Digit waddles around obstacle courses, carefully lifting and placing objects. The promise is clear: a humanoid robot helper that can slot into the spaces designed for humans, without expensive retrofitting. But the execution is fenced in. Digit can handle controlled tasks, but not chaos — the very thing that warehouses are full of. That hasn't stopped Amazon from talking about humanoid robots as if they're inevitable, a 'when, not if' scenario. Then, there are the startups. California-based Figure AI has raised billions from Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI on the back of glossy renderings and confident timelines, pitching a general-purpose humanoid that can work in warehouses today and homes tomorrow. Other U.S.-based companies, from Boston Dynamics to 1X Technologies, offer variations on the same promise: The humanoid robot revolution is imminent. The hype gets more surreal in the home. At the robot Olympics, China showed off bots that could cook and clean. In the U.S., Weave Robotics is trying to convince early adopters to put down more than $10,000 for Isaac, a humanoid robot designed to fold laundry and pick up toys. On YouTube, Isaac looks magical. The torso telescopes up and down, the arms reach out delicately, the hands stack folded T-shirts with care. In person, it's slower — methodical in a way that feels less like magic and more like waiting for paint to dry. The company pitches Isaac as 'your eyes and ears' at home, capable of watering plants, feeding pets, and tidying the living room. But when Isaac stalls — and it does — a remote human takes over via teleoperation. Weave calls this 'hybrid autonomy.' The marketing spin is that every teleoperated recovery becomes training data, making the robot smarter. The blunt reality might be that you've just paid five figures for a machine that occasionally calls tech support to finish folding your socks. And in the real world, a real-life housekeeper is cheaper and more reliable. Self-driving déjà vu If the stumble-filled games felt familiar, it's because we've seen this movie before. In 2004, DARPA staged its first driverless car 'Grand Challenge' in the Mojave Desert. Fifteen teams showed up with clunky, experimental vehicles meant to navigate a 142-mile course. None got close. The farthest went just seven miles before veering off the road and catching fire. The event was branded a flop at the time — but in hindsight, it was the start of a multibillion-dollar race. DARPA ran another challenge two years later, and this time, several vehicles finished. By the early 2010s, Google had fleets of self-driving Priuses roaming California streets, and every major automaker was funneling money into the field. Investors and policymakers hailed a driverless future as inevitable: If the cars could drive themselves in a desert, surely they'd soon be chauffeuring commuters down Main Street. But fast-forward to today, and driverless cars are still a half-step promise. They exist, but mostly in constrained pilot zones or as glorified shuttles, not as ubiquitous replacements for human drivers. Cruise and Waymo are burning billions to keep their robotaxi fleets alive. Automakers such as Ford and VW have dialed back once-grand driverless ambitions. A full self-driving car that you can buy at the dealership remains as elusive as it was two decades ago. The gap between a headline-grabbing demo and a reliable, scaled product turned out to be not years but decades — and still counting. The lesson isn't just that breakthrough demos matter; it's that timelines stretch, obstacles multiply, and hype usually gets ahead of reality. Musk's Optimus promises echo the bravado he once applied to Tesla's self-driving software — which still requires drivers to keep their hands on the wheel. Amazon, too, has pitched robotics as the next frontier, but its flagship Astro home robot has been quietly scaled back from the ambitious vision it debuted in 2021. Both companies are leaning on the same playbook: big promises, slick demos, and timelines that don't necessarily survive contact with reality. The humanoid games echo the auto industry's same awkward first act. Robots collapsing in sprints and clinging to soccer balls are today's equivalent of cars stuck in sand traps. The spectacle isn't about performance now so much as seeding an ecosystem: investors with billions to spend, engineers looking for the next career-defining problem, and governments eager to claim leadership in a field with military, economic, and social stakes. The Beijing competition could be remembered as the awkward first steps of an industry that eventually finds its footing, the way DARPA's desert wipeouts seeded today's still-maturing driverless sector. Or, humanoid robots could follow the same tortured arc: Perpetually 'just a few years away,' consuming billions while physics, liability, and public trust keep the finish line out of reach. Investors betting that robots will be scrubbing countertops and unloading dishwashers in the near future might want to revisit the road not yet traveled in autonomous cars. The messy middle The pitch for home robots leans heavily on convenience. They'll scrub your dirty pots and pans after a dinner party, mow the lawn, scoop out the litter box, walk the dog, and organize your closet. They'll be your eyes and ears. But an always-on robot is also a camera with legs, mapping your floor plan, logging your routines, and recording every object it touches. The 'eyes and ears' promise could double as a privacy nightmare. Liability is another issue. What happens when a household bot crushes a pet's tail? When a robot slips on the wet floor and smashes a coffee table? The insurance industry hasn't begun to catch up. Then, there's labor. Advocates frame humanoid robots as replacements for 'mundane' work. At the moment, the hybrid autonomy model means jobs aren't eliminated; they're moved. Someone, somewhere, is still picking up Legos — just through a joystick and a video feed. For now, at least, the disruption looks less like replacement and more like rerouting. The robot Olympics made clear that even the best robots remain fragile, slow, and expensive. Optimus may roll off a line in 2025, but Musk himself admits it will start in factories. Amazon's Digit is still kept contained in trials. Isaac can fold shirts, but not without patience — and sometimes divine intervention. But what the games did prove is that humanoid robots are crossing a threshold. They're moving from glossy, controlled demos into messy public tests. Every tumble on the Olympic track is being labeled as a training dataset. Every viral clip of a face-plant is another reminder that embodied AI is progressing, haltingly, in plain view. The stakes are enormous. If humanoid robots can deliver on even a fraction of their promises, they could reshape labor markets, supply chains, and daily life. If they can't, the industry risks becoming another overhyped money pit. For now, the robots wobble between the two. Investors keep writing checks. Governments keep staging spectacles. Consumers keep laughing. The crowd in Beijing seemed to understand the absurdity. They weren't watching the future roll gracefully into the present; they were watching machines struggle through adolescence. They clapped anyway, as if to will the robots to keep trying. Perhaps that's the most honest picture of humanoid robotics today: funny, flawed, and still far from home — but backed by too much money, and too much ambition, to stop stumbling forward. So will humanoid robots be in your home tomorrow? No. Next year? No. The next decade? That's the trillion-dollar question.
Newsweek
a day ago
- Newsweek
Ashley St. Clair Launches 'Bad Advice' Podcast, Says She's Being Evicted
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Ashley St. Clair, who publicly identified Elon Musk as the father of her son Romulus earlier this year, has launched a podcast, Bad Advice with Ashley St. Clair, saying she was financially strained and facing eviction. "I'm getting evicted and Polymarket offered me $10,000 to do an ad read, so with that, the roof over my head has been brought to you by Polymarket," the 32-year-old right-wing political influencer and anti-woke warrior, said in the introduction to her first episode posted on Monday. Why it Matters Mother of two St. Clair's financial struggle intersects with an active legal dispute over custody and child support involving one of the world's most public billionaires, and competing accounts of payments and paternity have shaped media coverage and public debate. The podcast debut underscored the ongoing legal and public standoff between St. Clair and Musk over parentage, custody and payments. In March, 54-year-old Musk said that "despite not knowing for sure" whether St. Clair's child was his or not, he had given her $2.5 million and was sending her $500,000 a year. But St. Clair has said he withdrew most of his child support payments after she went public with their dispute. Newsweek has contacted Tesla and SpaceX, via email outside of working hours, for comment on behalf of Musk. bad advice ep. 1 brought to u by @Polymarket — Ashley St. Clair (@stclairashley) August 18, 2025 What To Know Ashley St. Clair opened the Bad Advice with Ashley St. Clair podcast by saying she had experienced "unplanned career suicide" and was starting the show in part for income; she said "I'm getting evicted and Polymarket offered me $10,000 to do an ad read." It comes after St. Clair, who also has a child with another father, said she had to sell her Tesla to "make up for the 60 percent cut that Elon made to our son's child support," in an interview with the Daily Mail in March. St. Clair publicly identified Musk as the father of her son Romulus in February and later filed for custody. In April, The Wall Street Journal reported that a LabCorp test found the that the probability Romulus is Musk's child is 99.9999 percent. At the time Musk, who is believed to have 14 children, slammed the WSJ, saying the celebrity news outlet TMZ was better than the historic political paper. "TMZ >> WSJ," he posted on X. St. Clair and her lawyers said Musk had at times paid material sums and later "substantially" reduced payments; Musk had earlier claimed he provided $2.5 million and said he was sending $500,000 a month, while St. Clair's side said payments were reduced after she went public. In her podcast, St. Clair also criticized Edward "Big Balls" Coristine, who had been assaulted while attempting to stop a carjacking in Washington, D.C; she mocked media portrayals of the attack and referenced national political reactions. "The White House in all of its brilliance, is apparently … considering giving "Big Balls" the presidential medal of freedom for getting his ass beat," she said, "which is fascinating because I was under the impression that Republicans were morally opposed to participation trophies." "Since when does losing a street fight make you Rosa Parks?" she joked. What People Are Saying St. Clair said on her podcast: "Unlike your Ben Shapiros or your Megyn Kellys, I'm not starting this because I think my big brain thoughts and my podcast mic are the greatest gift to humanity, I actually think I have the worst ideas, so, consider everything out of my mouth a cautionary tale." Musk said in April: "I don't know if the child is mine or not, but am not against finding out. No court order is needed. Despite not knowing for sure, I have given Ashley $2.5M and am sending her $500k/year." St. Clair responded at the time: "Elon, we asked you to confirm paternity through a test before our child (who you named) was even born. You refused. And you weren't sending *me* money, you were sending support for your child that you thought was necessary … until you withdrew it to maintain control and punish me for 'disobedience.' But you're really only punishing your son …" "America needs you to grow up, you petulant man-child," she added. What Happens Next The legal custody and support dispute remains active. The immediate developments to watch included any court filings that formally detail payments, custody arrangements and paternity test records, and any on-the-record comments from attorneys representing either side. St. Clair will likely continue recording podcast episodes, and Musk is yet to respond to her first one.
