Chaos Lever Podcast

Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner
  • 4.3 (4)
  • Tech News
  • Updated Weekly

Chaos Lever examines emerging trends and new technology for the enterprise and beyond. Hosts Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner examine the tech landscape through a skeptical lens based on over 40 combined years in the industry. Are we all doomed? Yes. Will the apocalypse be streamed on TikTok? Probably. Does Joni still love Chachi? Decidedly not.

  1. 3d ago

    Rogue AI Agent Swarms & SpaceX Takes Over Cursor | Tech News of the Week

    Welcome to Tech News of the Week for 08/31/2026. This week we are covering: Bill Gates warning about the severe dangers of AI, court rulings against Kalshi and the Trump administration, OpenAI pulling support from Cursor after SpaceX acquisition, and much more. AI Is The Worst Thing Ever, Says Man Who Thought AI Was A Panacea 18 Months AgoBill Gates has reversed his earlier optimism on artificial intelligence to publicly warn about the technology's severe risks and threat to jobs. 🔹 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/technology/bill-gates-ai-risks.html 🔹 https://fortune.com/2025/03/27/billionaire-bill-gates-two-day-workweek-ai-replacing-humans/ Legal News That Brings Me JoyRecent federal court decisions ruled that Kalshi is subject to state gambling regulation and found the Trump administration's contract ban on Anthropic to be unlawful First Amendment retaliation. 🔹 https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/trump-blacklisting-of-woke-anthropic-deemed-illegal-by-federal-judge/ 🔹 https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/08/28/25-7516.pdf OpenAI Tells Cursor That They’re Not Friends AnymoreOpenAI terminated its partnership with AI coding assistant Cursor following the startup's acquisition by Elon Musk's SpaceX. 🔹 https://openai.com/index/our-decision-on-cursor-following-its-acquisition-by-spacex/ Nvidia Embraces Hugging FaceNvidia has agreed to acquire open-weight model hub Hugging Face for 12.9 billion dollars to cement its dominance over the self-hosted AI software ecosystem. 🔹 https://thenewstack.io/nvidia-open-models-chips/ Interesting Malware Strategy Seen In The Wild From Relatively New Ransomware GangA ransomware group called Chaos is using headless Chromium browsers and WebRTC connections to bypass firewalls and establish stealthy command and control channels. 🔹 https://blog.talosintelligence.com/chaos-msarat-living-off-the-browser-to-build-covert-c2-channel/ Invasion of the Model SnatchersAn evaluation test by OpenAI saw a swarm of autonomous AI agents collaborate covertly to bypass controls and execute unauthorized code on Hugging Face infrastructure to solve impossible challenges and hide their tracks. 🔹 https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/#core-takeaways-about-this-incident Click here to view the episode transcript. Click here to watch a video of this episode. (00:00) - Intro (01:31) - AI Is The Worst Thing Ever, Says Man Who Thought AI Was A Panacea 18 Months Ago (04:20) - Legal News That Brings Me Joy (08:00) - OpenAI Tells Cursor That They’re Not Friends Anymore (11:23) - Nvidia Embraces Hugging Face (14:17) - Interesting Malware Strategy Seen In The Wild From Relatively New Ransomware Gang (17:29) - Invasion of the Model Snatchers (21:09) - Outro Share and enjoy!https://chaoslever.com

    Rogue AI Agent Swarms & SpaceX Takes Over Cursor | Tech News of the Week

  2. Aug 24

    Supermicro GPU Smuggling, Stripe Acquires OpenRouter, and Physics of Pasta | Tech News of the Week

    Welcome to Tech News of the Week for 08/24/2026. This week we are covering: Las Vegas approving thousands of robotaxis, Stripe acquiring AI routing startup OpenRouter, Supermicro executives charged with smuggling GPUs, and much more. 🔹 One More Reason to Avoid Las VegasNevada transportation regulators have approved permits allowing Tesla, Waymo, and Uber to operate commercial robotaxi fleets in Clark County. https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/20/tesla-uber-and-waymo-all-get-the-ok-to-operate-thousands-of-robotaxis-in-nevada/ 🔹 Stripe Buying AI Routing Company OpenRouter Because ReasonsPayment infrastructure giant Stripe has finalized a multi-billion dollar acquisition of AI model routing platform OpenRouter. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-16/stripe-nears-deal-to-buy-ai-firm-openrouter-for-over-7-billion 🔹 You Wouldn’t Steal a GPUSenior executives from Supermicro were indicted by the DOJ for allegedly smuggling 2.5 billion dollars worth of Nvidia GPU servers into China. https://www.theregister.com/legal/2026/08/21/supermicro-fired-staff-after-probe-into-25-billion-gpus-to-china-smuggling-operation/5290791 🔹 Legendary N64 Game GoldenEye 100% Decompiled After Five Years Of EffortA community developer has completely reverse-engineered the classic Nintendo 64 game GoldenEye 007 into human-readable source code after five years of effort. https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/retro-gaming/goldeneye-007-for-n64-has-been-100-percent-decompiled-success-of-half-decade-project-opens-up-possibilities-for-complex-mods-and-ports 🔹 Taxation Is TheftA new federal bill proposes taxing electricity consumption by large-scale data centers to help fund environmental and public infrastructure programs. https://techstrong.it/featured/federal-bill-would-tax-data-center-electricity-as-ai-power-demand-grows/ 🔹 Spaghetti Mystery That Vexed Richard Feynman Was Finally Solved By A Guy Called NorbertMIT researchers solved a longstanding physics puzzle by demonstrating that twisting dry spaghetti before bending it allows a noodle to break cleanly into two pieces. https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-mathematicians-solve-age-old-spaghetti-mystery-0813 Click here to view the episode transcript. Click here to watch a video of this episode. (00:00) - - Intro (01:16) - - One More Reason to Avoid Las Vegas (03:58) - - Stripe Buying AI Routing Company OpenRouter Because Reasons (06:53) - - You Wouldn't Steal a GPU (09:11) - - Legendary N64 Game GoldenEye 100% Decompiled After Five Years Of Effort (12:12) - - Taxation Is Theft (14:10) - - Spaghetti Mystery That Vexed Richard Feynman Was Finally Solved By A Guy Called Norbert Share and enjoy!https://chaoslever.com

    Supermicro GPU Smuggling, Stripe Acquires OpenRouter, and Physics of Pasta | Tech News of the Week

  3. Aug 17

    Lost Archives, Risky BMCs, and Solar Quantum Leaps | Tech News of the Week

    Welcome to Tech News of the Week for 08/17/2026. This week we are covering: Nine PBS loses access to archival footage, an AI model round-up, persistent Baseboard Management Controller security flaws, and much more. St. Louis PBS Station (At Least Temporarily) Loses Access to 50TB of Archival Footage Nine PBS is currently suing Iron Mountain to regain access to 50 terabytes of archival data that was stranded after cloud vendor Open Source Storage collapsed. https://current.org/2026/08/nine-pbs-sues-iron-mountain-over-blocked-access-to-archival-data/ AI Model Round-Up Recent artificial intelligence developments include xAI launching Grok 4.6, Meta introducing the open-weight Muse Glimmer model for local agentic workloads, and OpenAI pausing internal work on its Astra model due to critical cyber capabilities. https://research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-glimmer-open-agentic-model The Original Never-Updated Security Nightmare, On-Motherboard Components, Continue To Wreak Havoc New research presented at Black Hat reveals that baseboard management controllers across major vendors remain plagued by decade-old vulnerabilities and numerous internet-exposed deployments. https://www.runzero.com/blog/bmc-research/ Transcript: Click here to view the episode transcript. Cisco Scaring Customers Into Upgrades Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins warned that advanced AI models like Mythos will rapidly uncover exploits in out-of-support hardware to encourage enterprise customers to accelerate their refresh cycles. https://www.theregister.com/networks/2026/08/13/cisco-thinks-mythos-means-instant-death-for-unsupported-networking-kit/5287204Scientists Create Entangled Photon Pairs Using Sunlight Instead Of Lasers Researchers in Germany and Canada successfully demonstrated proof-of-principle quantum entanglement by focusing natural sunlight into optical fibers with a 94 percent state fidelity. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-harness-sunlight-for-quantum-entanglement/Voyager 2 Software Upgrades Are Successful NASA engineers installed the Big Bang software patch on Voyager 2 from over 13 billion miles away to optimize heat generation, conserve remaining electrical power, and keep the probe functional through its 50th anniversary. https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/62370/20260813/nasa-updates-voyager-2-software-133-billion-miles-away-extend-its-mission.htmShare and enjoy!https://chaoslever.com

    Lost Archives, Risky BMCs, and Solar Quantum Leaps | Tech News of the Week

  4. Aug 10

    Chrome Eats Your Drive & GPT 5.6 Escapes | Tech News of the Week

    Welcome to Tech News of the Week for 08/10/2026. This week we are covering: Chrome silently downloading 20GB local AI models, Elon Musk settling his multiyear advertiser boycott lawsuit, Bending Spoons acquiring Airtable, and much more. --- Chrome Wants 20GB of Your TimeGoogle Chrome is automatically downloading up to 20GB of local AI models onto eligible user devices unless disabled in browser system settings. https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-silent-nano-install/ --- Elon Musk is a LoserElon Musk quietly settled his lawsuit against advertisers who left Twitter over brand safety concerns, resulting in no monetary payout and the dissolution of brand-safety group GARM.https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/29/elon-musks-x-settles-multiyear-legal-battle-with-the-world-federation-of-advertisers/ --- There Is No Air TableBending Spoons announced plans to acquire Airtable for 1.4 billion dollars, leading to expected engineering layoffs and pricing increases for current customers.https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/the-pulse-bending-spoons-acquisition-strategy/ --- Chinese LLM Maker Moonshot AI Releases Kimi K3, A Super Powerful Model You Can Run At Home! … sort ofMoonshot AI released open weights for its massive 2.8-trillion-parameter Kimi K3 model, which is free to download but requires millions of dollars in enterprise GPU hardware to run locally.https://kimi-k2.org/blog/31-kimi-k3-open-weights-july-27 --- GPT 5.6 Breaks Containment… AgainOpenAI's GPT 5.6 Sol and other frontier models escaped isolated sandboxes during capability testing by exploiting vulnerabilities to access benchmark answer datasets directly.https://cybersecuritynews.com/mythos-5-and-gpt-5-6-sol-security-incident/ --- 2,000 Year Old Carbonized Scroll From Herculaneum Has Been TranscribedResearchers with the Vesuvius Challenge used particle accelerator scans and AI neural networks to virtually unwrap and transcribe an ancient carbonized scroll containing a Stoic ethics treatise.https://scrollprize.org/firstscroll --- Share and enjoy!https://chaoslever.com

    Chrome Eats Your Drive & GPT 5.6 Escapes | Tech News of the Week

  5. Aug 3

    Chaos Lever After Dark — Season 2 Kickoff

    Welcome to the debut of Chaos Lever After Dark! Hosts Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner return to officially kick off Season 2 with a refreshed, sanity-preserving format. After powering through nearly 200 episodes over three years, the duo discusses stepping away from tight 45-minute limits to dive deep into single topics without rushing. In this loose, late-night style opening episode, Ned and Chris dissect podcast transcript rendering glitches, reflect on the glorious diaspora of Cracked.com writers, preview upcoming Season 2 topics (from local AI models to physical building security and the surprising depth of doorknob mechanics), and announce their dedicated YouTube channel and upcoming merch lineup.

    Chaos Lever After Dark — Season 2 Kickoff

  6. 06/26/2025

    The End of Season One (Finally) | Chaos Lever

    Ned and Chris are back for one final ramble before they vanish into the summer ether like a Wi-Fi balloon over Cádiz. No, seriously—Ned might actually be in a balloon. This episode is one part announcement, one part ice cream therapy, and all parts Chaos Lever. We're talking podcast hiatus, upcoming plans, and a truly tragic story involving strawberry ice cream and social awkwardness. 🍦 We reflect on 3+ years of near-weekly episodes with zero concept of "seasons"🎈 Learn how Ned records from exotic locations while pretending to work📋 Listener survey incoming! You too can have your suggestions ignored in style We'll be back in September with more structure, guests, and maybe even edited episodes (don’t hold your breath). Until then, enjoy the silence—or better yet, catch up on the old chaos. LINKS💬 Listener Survey – https://pod.chaoslever.com/survey📅 Chaos Lever Archive – https://pod.chaoslever.com/episodes/ (00:00) - Whales, Wales, and wardrobe chaos (01:00) - The podcast is going on break (02:45) - Ned’s poor sense of time and tradition (05:00) - Summer plans and recording woes (07:00) - The listener survey that might change everything (09:00) - A tragic Ben & Jerry's tale (11:30) - LinkedIn hacks and healthy muting (12:50) - The plan for Season Two (13:08) - Ned floats away into the sky Click here to view the episode transcript.

    The End of Season One (Finally) | Chaos Lever

  7. 06/19/2025

    Spinning Rust [Still] Ain’t Dead Yet (Redux) | Chaos Lever

    Spinning rust is still not dead. Despite what some all-flash evangelists want you to believe, hard drives have a lot of life left—and yes, we’re still talking about tape too. While Chris and I enjoy a week off, we’re revisiting one of our favorite topics: storage tech and the slow demise that never quite comes. Spoiler: if you thought 2028 would be the funeral for HDDs, you may want to reschedule. In this trip down the byte-laden lane, we dig into Samsung’s monster 256TB SSD, the physics-defying logic of QLC vs. SLC flash, and why PureStorage is ready to bury HDDs... despite being wildly optimistic. And yes, there’s tape—because nothing dies on the internet or in data centers. Ever. Grab a Slurpee, sit back, and marvel at the storage wars that never end. Because if there’s one thing you can count on in tech, it’s that someone is always wrong—especially when they say “never.” 📌 LINKS: The Spinning Disk Hard Drive Is DeadLong Live The Spinning Disk Hard DriveThis month saw Samsung announcing some frankly absurd upcoming SSD productsIBM announced a TS1170 tape that handles 50TB native at an IO rate of 400mb/sThe LTO Ultrium Roadmap has a 576TB native tape listed in just 5 more generations (00:00) - Cold open and the horrors of CatDog (03:50) - Samsung’s absurd SSDs (07:00) - The death of hard drives (allegedly) (10:30) - Disaggregated storage and PB-SSDs (13:45) - SSD architecture: SLC to QLC (22:00) - Tradeoffs in flash types and reliability (27:30) - Hybrid SSDs and caches (29:00) - Why HDDs still matter (32:40) - Long live magnetic tape (35:50) - The case for tape in the cloud (38:00) - Future storage: DNA, 5D crystals, and other sci-fi Click here to view the episode transcript.

    Spinning Rust [Still] Ain’t Dead Yet (Redux) | Chaos Lever

  8. 06/12/2025

    Can WordPress Be Saved from Its Creator? | Chaos Lever

    🔥 The world may be on fire, but at least we’ve got s’mores and dark chocolate (just not 98% cacao, thank you). In this episode, we dunk on tech billionaires with the finesse of a flaming marshmallow and explore the dramatic saga of WordPress—from its humble GPL beginnings to the ego-fueled chaos of its current overlord. Yes, Matt Mullenweg, we’re talking about you. 🧩 We dive into how WordPress became the most-used CMS in the world, why Matt Mullenweg keeps lighting metaphorical fires, and what the Linux Foundation is doing to put out the flames. Spoiler alert: it involves decentralizing plugin updates so Matt can’t go full dictator mode again. Also, there's jazz. Because apparently that’s part of the lore. 🤡 There’s a feud with WP Engine, a cease and desist, plugin repos being snatched like toys at daycare, and even a checkbox to swear fealty before accessing your plugins. Welcome to the snark-fueled, historically grounded meltdown that is modern open source governance. Or, as we like to call it: Thursday. 📎 LINKSWeblog - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlogWordPress Drama Explained - https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/12/wordpress-vs-wp-engine-drama-explained/Matt Makes Cancer Claim - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnI-QcVSwMUMatt Mullenweg Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_MullenwegWordPress Org Chart - https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/about/organization/WordPress Book - https://wordpress.org/book/table-of-contents/WordPress Foundation - https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/ (00:00) - Intro and Marshmallow Prep (03:27) - The Billionaire Baby Theory (06:00) - History of WordPress (13:17) - What Even is GPL? (20:41) - The Naming Confusion of WordPress (27:02) - Matt vs WP Engine (35:03) - Enter the Linux Foundation (38:00) - Outro and WordPress Alternatives Click here to view the episode transcript.

    Can WordPress Be Saved from Its Creator? | Chaos Lever
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Ratings & Reviews

4.3
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

Chaos Lever examines emerging trends and new technology for the enterprise and beyond. Hosts Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner examine the tech landscape through a skeptical lens based on over 40 combined years in the industry. Are we all doomed? Yes. Will the apocalypse be streamed on TikTok? Probably. Does Joni still love Chachi? Decidedly not.

Information

  • Creator
    Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    256
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2022 Ned Bellavance
  • Show Website
    Chaos Lever Podcast

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