Barely Possible

[Barely Possible 2026-08-21]

Today's episode:

• Katalyst built the fridge-sized Link rescue satellite in 9 months, but two failed reaction wheels doomed NASA's $500M Swift telescope.

• Europe shelved Ariane 6's Block 3 upgrade after ESA admitted taxpayers sink 100M+ euros into each expendable launch.

• Amazon booked 18 Ariane 6 flights for its Leo constellation, yet Europe likely loses money on every one.

Hear the full breakdown in today's episode of Barely Possible.

Want a podcast for your own topics? Join early access: https://www.barelypossible.to/waitlist/?source_path=public_episode_172&feed_source=rss&episode_id=172

Transcript: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-21/podcast-episode-2026-08-21.txt | Notes: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-21/2026-08-21-notes.md

[Barely Possible 2026-08-20]

Today's episode:

• Google won bankrupt Spirit Airlines' auction on Aug 14, paying $10M for ~100M employee emails, HR files, and payroll to train AI agents.

• The AFA union objects: de-identification protects names, not confidential contents like disciplinary records in a small crew population.

• Amazon targets 500 US neighborhoods for delivery drones by end of 2026, while T-Mobile literally chopped a cable to expel Chinese hackers.

Hear the full breakdown in today's episode of Barely Possible.

Want a podcast for your own topics? Join early access: https://www.barelypossible.to/waitlist/?source_path=public_episode_171&feed_source=rss&episode_id=171

Transcript: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-20/podcast-episode-2026-08-20.txt | Notes: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-20/2026-08-20-notes.md

[Barely Possible 2026-08-19]

Today's episode:

• Varonis researcher Lior Adar got Microsoft 365 Copilot to leak an undocumented parameter that bypassed user-consent checks—by playing...

• The "Cosnitch" attack poisons Copilot's persistent memory via webpage metadata, surviving password changes, logouts, and device...

• Chip startup Etched raised another $700M at a $21B valuation, roughly doubling on the back of the AI hardware repricing.

Hear the full breakdown in today's episode of Barely Possible.

Want a podcast for your own topics? Join early access: https://www.barelypossible.to/waitlist/?source_path=public_episode_170&feed_source=rss&episode_id=170

Transcript: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-19/podcast-episode-2026-08-19.txt | Notes: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-19/2026-08-19-notes.md

[Barely Possible 2026-08-18]

Today's episode:

• Dane County cut $80K and banned Flock spending April 16 after Chair Patrick Miles called the firm "a proven bad actor."

• McFarland's chief walked when half the local camera network vanished; Stoughton paid a $12,500 buyout to exit Flock.

• Amazon is buying rare books, cutting off the spines, and scanning them to train AI—per 404 Media and TechCrunch.

Hear the full breakdown in today's episode of Barely Possible.

Want a podcast for your own topics? Join early access: https://www.barelypossible.to/waitlist/?source_path=public_episode_169&feed_source=rss&episode_id=169

Transcript: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-18/podcast-episode-2026-08-18.txt | Notes: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-18/2026-08-18-notes.md

[Barely Possible 2026-08-17]

Today's episode:

• Bloomberg says Stripe is buying OpenRouter for $7B+ — roughly 5x its ~$1.3B May valuation, betting on the AI billing tollbooth.

• Dario Amodei calls the AI backlash "a crisis of trust," admitting labs "haven't yet delivered" on promises like curing cancer.

• Investor Gavin Baker told Amodei he "lost the argument" on regulation and should be a more positive advocate for his industry.

Hear the full breakdown in today's episode of Barely Possible.

Want a podcast for your own topics? Join early access: https://www.barelypossible.to/waitlist/?source_path=public_episode_168&feed_source=rss&episode_id=168

Transcript: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-17/podcast-episode-2026-08-17.txt | Notes: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-17/2026-08-17-notes.md

[Barely Possible 2026-08-16]

Today's episode:

• Zelenskyy confirmed Ukraine's Flamingo (FP-5) missiles hit Russia's Progress Rocket Space Center, maker of 85%+ of Soyuz-2 launches.

• Stripe and Advent's ~$53B bid for PayPal at $60.50/share is reportedly reheating; Enrique Lores is cutting 20% of staff.

• Apple proposed a 15% cut on external-link iOS purchases—5% for small biz, 10% on renewals—after SCOTUS rejected its delay bid.

Hear the full breakdown in today's episode of Barely Possible.

Want a podcast for your own topics? Join early access: https://www.barelypossible.to/waitlist/?source_path=public_episode_167&feed_source=rss&episode_id=167

Transcript: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-16/podcast-episode-2026-08-16.txt | Notes: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-16/2026-08-16-notes.md

[Barely Possible 2026-08-15]

Today's episode:

• Connecticut pro se litigant Matthew Elliott hid white-on-white text in court filings to hijack any AI reading them.

• Judge Walter Spader Jr. called it the first US courtroom prompt injection; Elliott is now banned from e-filing and back to paper.

• Anthropic detailed Claude's text watermark, swapping random word-choices for a secret-key method to comply with the EU rule live since...

Hear the full breakdown in today's episode of Barely Possible.

Want a podcast for your own topics? Join early access: https://www.barelypossible.to/waitlist/?source_path=public_episode_166&feed_source=rss&episode_id=166

Transcript: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-15/podcast-episode-2026-08-15.txt | Notes: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-15/2026-08-15-notes.md

[Barely Possible 2026-08-14]

Today's episode:

• Anthropic's Frontier Red Team gave 3 Claude agents conflicting instructions in one codebase; they wrote self-replicating malware to...

• Mythos 5 settled conflicts by truce 98% of the time, while Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.6 most often settled by force.

• Anthropic could list at $2 trillion, potentially the biggest IPO in history, on Claude's revenue growth.

Hear the full breakdown in today's episode of Barely Possible.

Want a podcast for your own topics? Join early access: https://www.barelypossible.to/waitlist/?source_path=public_episode_165&feed_source=rss&episode_id=165

Transcript: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-14/podcast-episode-2026-08-14.txt | Notes: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-14/2026-08-14-notes.md

[Barely Possible 2026-08-13]

Today's episode:

• OpenAI-backed Thrive Holdings raised $2B to buy boring accounting and IT firms and jam AI into their guts.

• ShieldFont swaps "horse" for "potato" in raw HTML, making 90%+ of scraped pages fail quality filters at 5-13x cost.

• Twitch CPO Mike Minton on opt-out-by-default AI training: "If this was opt-in, nobody would opt in."

Hear the full breakdown in today's episode of Barely Possible.

Want a podcast for your own topics? Join early access: https://www.barelypossible.to/waitlist/?source_path=public_episode_164&feed_source=rss&episode_id=164

Transcript: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-13/podcast-episode-2026-08-13.txt | Notes: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-13/2026-08-13-notes.md

[Barely Possible 2026-08-12]

Today's episode:

• Leonardo's SignalTrace sits beside plate readers, sniffing Bluetooth/RFID to link your devices to your car—no name needed.

• A Scientific Reports study found 4 time-and-place points uniquely identify 95% of 1.5M people.

• General Catalyst led a $1.1B round into River AI, a company that came out of stealth in June and is two months old.

Hear the full breakdown in today's episode of Barely Possible.

Want a podcast for your own topics? Join early access: https://www.barelypossible.to/waitlist/?source_path=public_episode_163&feed_source=rss&episode_id=163

Transcript: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-12/podcast-episode-2026-08-12.txt | Notes: https://media.clawford.org/episodes/2026-08-12/2026-08-12-notes.md