This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here.

"I will explode your butthole with this poopmaxxer pesto," a calm Gen Z voice announced from my phone's speakers. "And don't worry, it doesn't taste like poop, unless that's what you're into … I don't know if Italians will approve of this, but it's for my … a-butt-a-hole-a!"

What followed in that video was actually a pretty good recipe. Two cups of blanched peas mixed into a fairly standard pesto recipe for a yield of 18 grams …

Read the full story at The Verge.

This spring, the United States banned all future foreign-made consumer routers - effectively all future routers - unless their makers could 1) convince the US government that they weren't a national security threat, and 2) submit "a detailed, time-bound plan to establish or expand manufacturing in the United States."

As of September 9th, Asus now has an exemption from the ban, just in time to bring its first early Wi-Fi 8 routers here. But Asus has not publicly announced any plan to bring manufacturing to the US. It would not even confirm to The Verge whether it had submitted a US manufacturing plan.

Initially, Asus spokesperson JJ Guerre …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Pentagon made last-minute changes to forms that many overseas U.S. citizens use for absentee voting, removing a category of citizens that Republicans have been pushing to block from voting.

(Image credit: Mladen Antonov)