Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Filming At The Speed Of Light, About One Foot Per Nanosecond

  [Brian Haidet] published on his AlphaPhoenix channel a laser beam recorded at 2 billion frames per second. Well, sort of. The catch? It’s only a one pixel by one pixel video, but he repeats it over and over to build up the full rendering. It’s a fascinating experiment and a delightful result.

• Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Why smart glasses keep failing - it's not the tech

  There is no easy way to reconcile this conflict. “Camera on” indicators can easily be bypassed or hacked. If smart glasses must be removed in all manner of public places, users will have to carry their protective charging cases with them wherever they go. If they also use prescription lenses in their smart glasses, they will have to carry an additional pair of normal glasses, so that’s two cases.

  Convenience is the be-all and end-all for consumer technology. If using a device isn’t completely intuitive and frictionless, the mass market will lose interest.

• Phil Gyford ☛ w/e 2025-10-19 (Phil Gyford’s website)

  I do have a tendency to be too nostalgic about the past, while being aware of the inevitable downsides. But I tried not to make that post too rose-tinted, or to compare the 1990s [Internet] to today’s in any detail. Writing a, “This is how it was, where did it all go wrong or right?” post would be a whole other, more complex, thing.

• Eliseo Martelli ☛ Layers of glass

  What really struck me wasn’t one of her photographs, but it was watching people watching her photographs through their phones.

• The Unix Heritage Society ☛ [TUHS] Was artifacts, now ethernet

  The funny thing is I've done a lot of other stuff that people know about, but I'm more proud of the fact that I pushed for 100Mb and it actually happened, that's a far bigger deal than anything else I've done (and I know, I didn't do 100Mb ethernet but I saw it before anyone else did and pushed for it and Andy, and to some extent, I made it happen)

• Cory Dransfeldt ☛ Evolving my personal music scrobbler

  With data in Postgres, I would query Supabase's API during 11ty builds. This was a slow process as the amount of data and complexity of relationships caused queries to slow. Learning as I went, I wrote optimized views to significantly reduce the time these API calls took, improving build times in turn. I migrated from Supabase to a Postgres database I host and build times remained consistent.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Just Discovered a Whole New Type of Connection Between Neurons

    It was hidden until now.

  • Science Alert ☛ Losing Your Teeth Could Be a Deadly Warning, Study Finds

    The mouth and mortality.

  • Science Alert ☛ The 7 Warning Signs of Brain Cancer You Might Easily Miss

    Get it checked.

  • Science Alert ☛ 'Megathrust' Earthquake Could Trigger San Andreas Fault, Scientists Warn

    "It's kind of hard to exaggerate what a M9 earthquake would be like."

  • Futurism ☛ NASA Scientist Proposes Theory of Alien Civilizations Throughout Milky Way

    This mundane view explains why we aren’t seeing any technosignatures, or evidence of alien technology from afar. The aliens just don’t have what it takes to build huge megastructures that we could see with our telescopes, like a Dyson swarm that enshrouds a star to harvest its energy.

  • Futurism ☛ We’re Only Slightly Exaggerating When We Say This Footage of a Fusion Experiment Will Melt Your Face Off

    Holy.

  • Futurism ☛ Mysterious Spot in Earth’s Magnetic Field Now Growing Rapidly

    "There’s something special happening in this region that is causing the field to weaken in a more intense way."

• Career/Education

  • Paul Krugman ☛ Technology and Jobs - Paul Krugman

    For now, my point is that while some people seem to imagine that concerns about the effect of technology on jobs and wages are a novel insight, the truth is that these concerns have been around for two centuries. And not just in economic tracts: Fears that technological progress would cause mass unemployment have been a recurrent theme in speculative fiction. For example, Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel, Player Piano, published in 1952, envisaged a future dystopia in which automation has eliminated work.

• Hardware

  • France24 ☛ China and the Netherlands wrestle to control key chipmaker Nexperia

    Major chipmaker Nexperia is being torn apart by a tug-of-war between China and the Netherlands, sparking concerns from the global automotive industry.

  • El País ☛ Drones are changing the face of war and attracting multi-million dollar investments

    “It’s the biggest battlefield innovation in a generation.” Last July, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth acknowledged an open secret: drones have revolutionized not only the military industry, but also the face of warfare in the 21st century. Ukraine, making a virtue of necessity, has turned these unmanned aircraft into the keystone of its defense against the Russian invasion. And now it’s Moscow that has perfected these devices to counter Kyiv and to harass NATO by flying over the airspace of some of its member states, such as Poland.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ The Intel i386 turns 40 years old — 275,000 transistors running at 16MHz changed personal computing forever

    Intel’s 80386 turned 40 this week. Introduced in October 1985, the third-generation x86 processor — better known as the i386 — was the first 32-bit chip in Intel’s PC line, the origin point for the IA-32 instruction set, and the architectural turning point that transformed personal computing.

    The i386 shipped with 275,000 transistors and ran at up to 16 MHz at launch. Internally, it brought 32-bit general-purpose registers, a flat memory model, and support for up to 4GB of address space, but the bigger change was to the system architecture. Protected mode, virtual 8086 mode, and hardware paging laid the groundwork for real multitasking and virtual memory on x86. Microsoft’s early i386 development kits included demos showing multiple DOS sessions running in parallel, each in its own paged VM. That became a core feature of Windows 3.0 in 1990, under the name “386 Enhanced Mode.”

  • Hackaday ☛ 2025 Component Abuse Challenge: Conductive Filament Makes A Meltable Fuse

    Everything is a fuse if you run enough current through it. Or at least [JohnsonFarms.us] seems to think so, which has led him to design 3D-printed fuses made from conductive PLA filament.

  • Hackaday ☛ Game Of Theseus Gets Graphics Upgrade, Force Feedback 30 Years On

    Indycar Racing 2 was a good game, back in 1995; in some ways, it was the Crysis of the Clinton years, in that most mortals could not run it to its full potential when it was new. Still, that potential was surely fairly limited, as we’re talking about a DOS game from 30 years ago. Sure, it was limited– but limits are meant to be broken, and games are made to be modded. [TedMeat] has made a video showing the updates. (Embedded below.)

  • Hackaday ☛ CoreXY 3D Printer Has A Scissor-Lift Z-axis So It Folds Down!

    We don’t know about you, but one of the biggest hassles of having a 3D printer at home or in the ‘shop is the space it takes up. Wouldn’t it be useful if you could fold it down? Well, you’re in luck because over on Hackaday.io, that’s precisely what [Malte Schrader] has achieved with their Portable CoreXY 3D printer.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Futurism ☛ Doctors Just Found Something Fascinating About What Happens When You Drink on Ozempic

    A new study exposes how GLP-1s impact alcohol intake.

  • NYPost ☛ Healthcare exec, husband charged after allegedly leaving sleeping 6-month-old daughter alone at beach

    The pair were gone for nearly an hour.

  • New York Times ☛ Shutdown Fight Reopens Debate in G.O.P. Over Health Care

    The spending showdown has highlighted Republicans’ failure to produce an alternative to Obamacare, which many of them assail but concede is too politically risky to undo.

• Proprietary

  • Liam Proven ☛ Once upon a time, backdoored Windows looked good

    No, honest, it did.
    

    Windows 2 was kinda ugly.

    https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win203

    Windows 3/3.1/3.11 were fine.

    https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win30

    Muted, boring, but you could look at it all day. And we did.

    95 improved it.

    https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win95osr2

    Tasteful greys, spot colour.

    NT 4 improved that a bit more.

  • Greg Morris ☛ Beware The Hidden Middlemen

    My posts on this blog, are ultimately controlled by Ghost and what they choose the platform to do. I could put them anywhere, but when I moved, one of my considerations was easy publishing and I gave up some control to do that. They promise open-web stuff, but on their terms, and how they want to do it. As with other platforms, the openness is often an illusion, and one you must be aware of. You can move, of course, but it’s a hassle.

  • The Record ☛ Regional airline Envoy Air confirms Oracle E-Business Suite compromise

    A spokesperson for the airline confirmed that its IT system was impacted by the recent hacking campaign allegedly launched by Russian cybercriminal group Clop. Envoy Air, a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Airlines, said a “limited amount of business information and commercial contact details may have been compromised.”

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Windows 11's October update just broke the Windows Recovery Environment — USB keyboards and mice unusable in Windows RE after latest bug hits | Tom's Hardware

    Like a moth to a flame, Windows has attracted yet another bug. In the latest October update, the recovery environment renders your USB keyboard and mouse unresponsive, making it impossible to interact with your PC. Microsoft has already taken note of the issue and plans to fix it in a future update.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ DMV’s Hey Hi (AI) System Says Woman Doesn’t Have a Human Face

    • Futurism ☛ The Hey Hi (AI) Industry Is Traumatizing Desperate Contractors in the Developing World for Pennies

      Penny for your thoughts?

    • Futurism ☛ Reddit's AI Suggests That People Suffering Chronic Pain Try Opioids

      As flagged by 404 Media, a user noticed while browsing the r/FamilyMedicine subreddit that the site’s “Reddit Answers” AI was proffering “approaches to pain management without opioids.” On its face, that’s a nice idea, since over prescription of opioid painkillers led to a severe and ongoing addiction crisis.

    • Ben Tsai ☛ The simulation of judgment in LLMs ↗

      Once again, these systems are not making judgments like we think they do. They are predicting the next token, and not much more.

    • The Verge ☛ The AI sexting era has arrived

      You can imagine how a sexualized chatbot that nearly always tells the user what they want to hear may lead to a whole host of problems, especially for minors and users who are already in vulnerable positions with regard to their mental health. There have been many such examples, but in one recent case, a 14-year-old boy died by suicide last February after romantically engaging with a chatbot on Character.ai and expressing a desire to “come home” to be with the chatbot, per the lawsuit. There have also been troubling accounts of jail-broken chatbots being used by pedophiles to roleplay sexually assaulting minors — one report found 100,000 such chatbots available online.

    • TechCrunch ☛ OpenAI’s ‘embarrassing’ math

      “Hoisted by their own GPTards.”

      That’s how Meta’s Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun described the blowback after OpenAI researchers did a victory lap over GPT-5’s supposed math breakthroughs.

      Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis added, “this is embarrassing.”

      The Decoder reports that in a since-deleted tweet, OpenAI VP Kevin Weil declared that “GPT-5 found solutions to 10 (!) previously unsolved Erdős problems and made progress on 11 others.” (“Erdős problems” are famous conjectures posed by mathematician Paul Erdős.)

  • Social Control Media

    • The Verge ☛ X is changing how it handles links to try and keep you in the app

      A good chunk of people probably just don’t return to Twitter at all after following an external link. So the company is collapsing the original post to the bottom, instead of letting the web browser take over the whole screen, and pushing further towards Elon Musk’s vision of X as an “everything app” that you never have to leave.

• Pseudo-Open Source

  • Openwashing

    • The Business Journals ☛ Together AI founder suggests an AI consortium to preserve competition

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Atlantic ☛ Lost in AirPod Translation

      Apple did not respond to a request for comment on my experience with Live Translation. In the company’s defense, it notes that the feature is in beta mode, even though Live Translation is available to all customers outside the European Union, and says that the product’s “outputs may be inaccurate, unexpected, or offensive. Check important information for accuracy.” But Apple also announced the feature as a “transformational, hands-free capability” to help you “understand another language and communicate with others.” In the accompanying promotional video, an English-speaking woman buys flowers from a Spanish speaker, just as I had, though her experience is completely seamless.

    • CBC ☛ Canadian snowbirds fingerprinted and photographed at U.S. border as part of new requirement

      “I'm watching them open all our hatches, and we're thinking, ‘Oh my god,’” she said. “They went through our whole RV.”

      Ree says she and her husband waited in line for 1.5 hours, only to be told by a second CBP officer they couldn’t register at the border. But when they were about to leave, a third officer said he could register the couple, and proceeded to photograph and fingerprint them for data collection purposes.

    • Android Police ☛ I didn't realize my online habits could be weaponized — until now

      However, the ISP will still see that you've connected to a VPN (they can see the VPN server's IP address and the VPN protocol being used), and can still see how much data you're transferring.

      Another reason it is good to mask your online activity from your ISP is to prevent them from building a detailed profile of you.

  • Confidentiality

    • Hackaday ☛ Decoding A 350 Year Old Coded Message

      Usually, a story about hacking a coded message will have some computer element or, at least, a machine like an Enigma. But [Ruth Selman] recently posted a challenge asking if anyone could decrypt an English diplomatic message sent from France in 1670. Turns out, two teams managed it. Well, more accurately, one team of three people managed it, plus another lone cryptographer. If you want to try decoding it yourself, you might want to read [Ruth’s] first post and take a shot at it before reading on further here: there are spoilers below.

    • GnuPG ☛ Cryptography 101

      Group theory is to mathematics what Perl scripting is to system administration: it doesn't get much respect but knowing it is an essential, non-negotiable skill purely because of how much it glues the whole system together.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Strategist ☛ ASEAN needs a regional approach to tech-facilitated gender-based violence

    This year marks the 25th anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, which first formally recognised women’s indispensable role in peace and security. Since the resolution’s passing, the threats that women face have evolved.

  • France24 ☛ Thieves steal French crown jewels in 4 minutes at Louvre Museum

    In a minutes-long strike Sunday inside the world’s most-visited museum, thieves rode a basket lift to the Louvre, forced a window into the Galerie d’Apollon — while tourists pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in the corridors — smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels. Story by France 2 and Florent Marchais.

  • France24 ☛ Thieves steal eight objects from the Louvre in daring daytime heist

    A four man "strike team" broke into the Louvre in the heart of Paris on Sunday and robbed eight objects from the Gallerie d'Apollon, including historical jewellery, as the world-renowned museum closed for the day. French authorities later said they recovered one item, which was apparently dropped by the robbers as they made their escape.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Napoleon's jewels missing: Thieves strike Louvre in daring heist, closing museum

    With tourists already inside, police say thieves entered a museum window, smashed display cases, and fled with nine pieces from Napoleon’s jewel collection, all in seven minutes.

  • France24 ☛ Theft at Louvre Museum: Robbers flee with jewellery in spectacular burglary

    🖼️ The Louvre Museum in Paris is closed this Sunday following a break-in during which jewellery of “inestimable heritage value” was stolen, according to the French Ministry of the Interior.

    👮 The Anti-Crime Brigade has been called in and an investigation is underway to identify the perpetrators and establish the exact circumstances surrounding the incident.

    💰🥷 Several French museums, including the one in Limoges and the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, have recently been targeted by burglaries and thefts, highlighting possible flaws in security and surveillance systems.

  • France24 ☛ France: daring daytime heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris

    Thieves broke into Paris' Louvre museum by using a crane and smashing an upstairs window on Sunday, stealing priceless jewellery from an area that houses the French crown jewels before escaping on motorbikes. The robbery is likely to raise awkward questions about security at the museum, where officials had already sounded the alarm about lack of investment at a world-famous site that welcomed 8.7 million visitors in 2024. Details by FRANCE 24 journalist Shirli Sitbon.

  • France24 ☛ The Louvre heist raises decades old questions about museum security

    The heist at the Louvre on Sunday morning, which saw thieves flee with eight royal jewels, has raised awkward questions about how well France's priceless historical artefacts and cultural heritage are being protected.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Napoleon's jewels missing: Thieves strike Louvre in daring heist, closing museum

    With tourists already inside, police say thieves entered a window, smashed display cases, and fled with nine pieces from Napoleon's jewel collection, all in seven minutes.

  • France24 ☛ Israel says it is resuming enforcement of Gaza ceasefire after accusing Hamas of violations

    The Israeli military said Sunday it had resumed enforcing a ceasefire in Gaza after carrying out dozens of strikes on Hamas targets earlier in the day after accusing the group of targeting its troops. Hamas denied the accusations, with one official accusing Israel of fabricating "pretexts" to resume the war.

  • New York Times ☛ Israel Strikes Gaza and Temporarily Halts Aid, Saying Hamas Broke Truce

    Israel launched a wave of attacks on Gaza after accusing Palestinian militants of attacking its forces across cease-fire lines. Both sides say they are still committed to the truce.

  • France24 ☛ Israel and Hamas accuse each other of breaching Gaza truce amid strikes

    Gaza's nine-day-old ceasefire came under strain Sunday after the Israeli army said it launched air strikes in the territory's south in response to attacks it claimed were carried out by Hamas militants against its forces. Details by FRANCE 24 correspondent in Jerusalem, Noga Tarnopolsky.

  • France24 ☛ Gaza civil defence says Israeli strikes on Sunday kill at least 45 people

    Gaza's civil defence agency said at least 45 people had been killed across the territory in Israeli strikes, with four hospitals confirming the number to AFP. The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports of casualties and said it had resumed enforcing a ceasefire after carrying out dozens of strikes in the southern Gazan city of Rafah earlier in the day. Read our liveblog to see how the day's events unfolded.

  • JURIST ☛ Rights organizations condemn US sanctions on Palestinian human rights groups

    A group of 78 rights organizations on Friday issued a joint statement condemning US sanctions on three Palestinian human rights organizations, raising concern over implications in the enforcement of international law.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Israel halts aid into Gaza ‘until further notice’ as ceasefire faces major test

    Israel has launched a new wave of strikes into Gaza and said that aid to the territory will be halted following an alleged Hamas ceasefire violation. Hamas denied responsibility.

  • New York Times ☛ Gaza Aid Deliveries Struggle, Despite Cease-Fire

    A single photograph of Palestinians besieging an aid convoy after the new cease-fire took hold in Gaza makes clear how much work lies ahead in the enclave.

  • France24 ☛ Israeli military official says more Gaza strikes possible, ceasefire under strain

    The Israeli military said it launched air strikes and artillery fire at targets in southern Gaza on Sunday, dimming hopes that a U.S.-mediated ceasefire would lead to lasting peace as Israel traded blame with Palestinian militant group Hamas. Analysis by FRANCE 24 international affairs editor Andrew Hilliar.

  • France24 ☛ Colombia accuses US of killing fisherman, Convicted Felon confirms strike on 'drug-smuggling submarine'

    Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Saturday that the United States had violated Colombia's sovereignty over its waters and killed a fisherman during its recent anti-drug-trafficking military campaign in the Caribbean. Story by Eliza Herbert.

  • France24 ☛ 'No Kings' protests draw large crowds in US cities to decry Convicted Felon

    Protesters spanning all age groups took to the streets en masse for "No Kings" rallies across the United States on Saturday, denouncing what they view as authoritarian tendencies and unbridled corruption of U.S. President The Insurrectionist. Details by FRANCE 24 correspondent in Los Angeles Wassim Cornet and analysis by Lawrence R. Douglas, host of the Guardian podcast "The Case against The Insurrectionist".

  • teleSUR ☛ U.S. “No Kings” Protests Reject Trump’s Authoritarian Administration - teleSUR English

    Organizers estimate that nearly seven million people joined the demonstrations, which were held simultaneously in more than 2,500 cities and towns across all 50 states, making it the largest protest since Trump returned to power last January.

    The No Kings protests aren’t for Trump to see.

    They’re for the marginalized so they know they aren’t alone.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Dinosaurs, unicorns and 'raging grannies' — but no kings — in Sacramento

    “I think people need more history,” Patty said.

    I agree.

    And the day millions of very average Americans turned out to peacefully protect democracy — again — may be part of it.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Photos: 'No Kings' protests

    Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets across the U.S. on Saturday for “No Kings” demonstrations against President Trump, portraying the commander in chief as an aspiring monarch as he continues to engage in what critics argue is government overreach.

  • France24 ☛ The week in pictures: US ‘No Kings’ protests, Kenya mourns Odinga and the Madagascar coup

    “No Kings” protests against President The Insurrectionist draws millions across the US, Madagascar witnesses another coup and Kenya mourns the death of longtime opposition leader Raila Odinga. FRANCE 24 takes a look at the week's most striking images.

  • Nebraska Examiner ☛ No Kings day brings millions into US streets in anti-Trump protests

    Millions of Americans packed streets, parks and town squares across the United States Saturday for No Kings day, according to the organizers of the massive day of demonstrations protesting President Donald Trump’s administration — from his deployment of troops to cities to his targeting of political opponents.

  • Michigan Advance ☛ Detroit to Trump: ‘No Troops, No Kings’ — Thousands march for democracy and civil rights

    For many Detroiters, shouting and holding up their signs is a way to resist the Republicans’ latest demand for Michigan: Deploy the National Guard to Detroit for what JD Vance called “serious crime problems” during a speech at a manufacturing plant in Howell last month.

    That prompted Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, to say “it’s only a matter of time” before Trump tries to send National Guard troops to cities in the Great Lakes State as he did to other cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, and others.

  • International Business Times ☛ 'No Kings' Protest Erupts in DC: What Happened, Who Led It, and What Came After — Did It Actually Make an Impact?

    The coordinated 'No Kings' rallies — a sweeping show of defiance against what organisers called the creeping authoritarianism of Donald Trump's presidency — turned more than 2,700 cities into a patchwork of protest and patriotic resistance.

    For many, it was not just about politics but about reclaiming the country's democratic soul.

  • Court House News ☛ 'No Kings' protests against Trump bring a street party vibe to cities nationwide

    It was the third mass mobilization since Trump’s return to the White House and came against the backdrop of a government shutdown that not only has closed federal programs and services but is testing the core balance of power, as an aggressive executive confronts Congress and the courts in ways that protest organizers warn are a slide toward authoritarianism.

  • [Old] Robert Reich ☛ Tomorrow and forever: No Kings in America - Robert Reich

    With No Kings rallies occurring across America tomorrow, and the Trump administration’s unhinged reaction to them on full display, it’s never been more important for Congress to reform the Insurrection Act. Please contact Congress and demand action immediately.

    Donald Trump — the man who incited a violent insurrection against the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and has pardoned those who attacked our democracy — is now calling peaceful protesters “insurrectionists” and threatening to use military force against them.

  • The Verge ☛ Organizers say over 7 million showed up to No Kings protests

    Several individual events topped 100,000 participants, including Twin Cities, New York City, and Chicago, which was estimated to have 250,000 people. That Chicago would have one of the largest turnouts in the country is hardly surprising given the administration’s recent immigration crackdown in the city, which has led to several high-profile incidents involving ICE agents.

    The response from the President and his administration was to post a bunch of AI slop on social media, including one in which the president drops what appears to be feces on protesters from a fighter jet. Perhaps most telling is that in multiple videos and images, Donald Trump is explicitly referred to as King Trump and pictured wearing a crown, including one image posted by the official White House X account. It appears that the administration is putting aside pretense at this point.

  • The Verge ☛ March of the frogs

    By the time I arrived, the waterfront park in downtown Portland, Oregon was already awash with people as far as the eye could see. The No Kings protest in June had turned out around 10,000 people across the city; this one saw several times that number just downtown, with thousands more choosing to join localized protests in their neighborhoods or in the suburbs.

    Unable to get a precise crowd estimate, I tried instead to count inflatable frog costumes. I gave up on this about twenty minutes later: there were simply too many frogs.

  • Simone Silvestroni ☛ Call It Like It Is

    Our position is pretty clear: as we're living through what I can only describe as pre-fascism (the totalitarian type), akin to the 1920s in Italy and the 1930s in Germany, we found common ground into calling out what's going on in the most direct way.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Coming Clash of Civilizations

    Then I started noticing something I couldn’t ignore. Smart people I respected—especially in cryptocurrency—were casually discussing feudalism. Not as history or provocation, but as serious proposals for organizing society. “Democracy and freedom are incompatible.” “Most people aren’t capable of self-governance.” “Elite overproduction is the problem—we educated too many people above their station.”

    These weren’t fringe cranks. Peter Thiel writing that democracy and freedom are incompatible. Curtis Yarvin publishing blueprints for corporate monarchy. An entire neo-reactionary apparatus in Silicon Valley while I optimized payment systems. And they were explicit: the democratic experiment failed, constitutional constraints prevent necessary action, most people should accept subordinate roles, the intelligent few should rule.

    This sent me into the wilderness. Not physically, though my career suffered. But intellectually—into space where comfortable certainties no longer made sense. Funny thing about speaking truth to power: the recruiters stop calling. I gave up friends, opportunities, insider status. Not because I wanted marginalization, but because intellectual honency required it.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Iran says it's no longer bound by nuclear deal limits

    The agreement officially expired Saturday, 10 years after its adoption by the UN Security Council.

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korean soldier held by Seoul after crossing land border

    The soldier was seeking to “to defect to the South”, a defence ministry official said.

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korean soldier held by Seoul after crossing land border

    The soldier was seeking to “defect to the South”.

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea appears to have released water from border dam without prior notice: Seoul

    Based on satellite imagery, the water was discharged at about 3pm local time on Oct 19.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China accuses US of waging cyberattacks on national time centre

    China on Sunday accused the United States of conducting cyberattacks on Beijing’s national time centre that could have caused severe damage to critical financial and telecommunications infrastructure. Beijing has stepped up espionage warnings in recent years as relations with the United States and other Western nations have worsened.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China accuses US of cyber breaches at national time centre

    The US embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China’s Pooh-tin calls for ‘reunification’ in message to new Taiwan opposition leader

    Former lawmaker Cheng Li-wun will take over as leader of the Kuomintang party on Nov 1.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • YLE ☛ Ex-CIA officer says Russian 'illegals' in Finland

      Wiswesser said he believes Russia is unlikely to attack Finland militarily, preferring influence operations instead.

      "Russia will not cross borders with tanks. It attacks through the [Internet], propaganda, disinformation and financial leverage," he said.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Dark ship appearing to transfer sanctioned Russia LNG off Malaysia, satellite images show

      This could be the first documented occurrence of Russian LNG transferred in waters off Malaysia.

    • New Yorker ☛ The Real Housewives of Moscow

      Russian women were early to feminism. Now, though, their vision of liberation can look strangely like the domestic trap they were supposed to escape.

    • RFERL ☛ Zelenskyy Says He's 'Ready' To Meet Convicted Felon, Putin In Budapest For Peace Talks

      Russia carried out several attacks on Ukrainian cities and residential areas late on October 18, as Kyiv hit energy plants inside Russia, the region's governor said.

    • NYPost ☛ ‘Weak’ Putin is ‘afraid’ of US giving Ukraine some Tomahawk missiles: Zelensky

      Kremlin tyrant Vladimir Putin “is in a weak position” and fearful that the US will finally send Ukraine some Tomahawk missiles that can cut deep into Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Court House News ☛ Police looking into whether Prince Andrew enlisted officer to dig up dirt on accuser Giuffre

    The Metropolitan Police said it was “actively looking into” media reports that Andrew in 2011 sought information to smear Giuffre by asking an officer on the force to find out if she had a criminal record.

• Environment

  • The Verge ☛ The lab where GM is cooking up new EV batteries to beat China | The Verge

    That real world has become especially abusive to EVs. Some consumers have grown ambivalent, in part due to stubbornly high prices. Pollution and fuel-economy rules face an anachronistic rollback, encouraging automakers to lean into fossil-fueled cars. In the latest indignity, the $7,500 federal clean-car credits, beloved by EV buyers and a wellspring of sales for GM and other automakers, have been choked off by the Trump administration. All that took a $1.6 billion toll on GM’s bottom line this week, in the form of a writedown on third-quarter earnings.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • WhichUK ☛ UK pet owners hit hardest by rising insurance costs – how to save on cover

      We delve into what's driving the increase and how to make sure you’re not overpaying

    • Ruben Verweij ☛ An autumn walk

    • The Oregonian ☛ Oregon Zoo elephants squish sizable squashes for a delighted audience

      Elephants at the Oregon Zoo got to crush and eat giant pumpkins to the delight of a crowd.

      The Squishing of the Squash is the Oregon Zoo’s annual festive fall animal enrichment activity for the resident elephants.

    • Sinclair Inc ☛ Will Tula Tu learn to 'squish a squash' from the adult elephants this year?

      This tradition goes back to 1999, when Hoffman’s Dairy Garden of Canby left a prize-winning 828-pound pumpkin as an offering of enrichment for the elephants. Farmers often offered their overstock pumpkins to the zoo to enhance animals’ well-being with stimulating and challenging environments, objects and activities. The introduction of this massive pumpkin in 1999 brought extra amusement for zoo patrons as well as the elephants, becoming the new annual trend.

    • Sinclair Inc ☛ Pachyderms play with pumpkins at the Oregon Zoo's Squishing of the Squash event today

      An Oregon Zoo tradition since 1999, the world's largest animals enjoyed demolishing extra-large pumpkins for everyone's amusement.

    • France24 ☛ Flora and fauna also victims in Gaza, threatening ecological balance

      A preliminary assessment by the UN Environment Programme this year found that the destruction of Gaza is causing new risks to human health & the environment. The war has exposed the Palestinian population to severe soil, water & air pollution as well as risks of irreversible damage to its natural ecosystems. Analysis by Elaine Donderer, project manager and GIS consultant at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies.

    • Hackaday ☛ The MSL10 Mechanosensor Makes Venus Flytrap Plants Touchy

      Carnivorous plants are a fascinating part of the natural world, especially species like the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) that rely on what is effectively a spring-loaded trap to ensnare unsuspecting prey. As also seen with species like the waterwheel plant (Aldrovanda vesiculosa), species like sundews are a lot more chill with movement in the order of seconds, excluding D. glanduligera which displays a similar sub-second response as the Venus flytrap. Over the years there has been much speculation about the exact mechanism that enables such a fast response, with [Hiraku Suda] and colleagues offering an explanation, via a recently published paper in Nature Communications.

  • Overpopulation

    • The Straits Times ☛ Seoul halts water-management support project in Cambodia

      This follows a spate of violent crimes targeting South Koreans in Cambodia.

    • ANF News ☛ Water crisis deepens: It has become a strategy of war

      According to Beyza Üstün, water policies in the Middle East are undergoing a profound transformation, particularly through Western Mesopotamia. The efforts of the capitalist system and nation-states to control water resources directly threaten life in the region.

      Üstün said: “The capitalist system, backed by imperialism, imposes international decisions on nation-states. In this process, natural assets, ecosystems and fundamentally water, which is the source of all living beings, are being commodified.” She recalled that the decisions taken at the 1992 Dublin Conference removed water from being a human right and turned it into a commercial commodity.

• Finance

  • The Straits Times ☛ China’s leaders meet to chart five-year economic blueprint

    Analysts will also watch the meeting for potential manpower reshuffles.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea sees higher chance of US trade deal by Apec summit

    The countries’ leaders are expected to meet on the sidelines of the summit later in October.

  • France24 ☛ China expels nine senior officials from the Communist Party in anti-corruption drive

    China's second-highest ranking general and eight other senior officials have been expelled from the ruling Communist Party and the military on suspicion of serious misconduct linked to corruption. Story by Caroline Baum.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • France24 ☛ Morocco vows social reforms after youth-led protests shake government

    Morocco’s government promised major improvements to healthcare, education and youth participation in politics on Sunday, in a direct response to a wave of Gen Z–driven protests sparked by public anger over inequality and corruption. The pledges mark the first concrete reforms since the demonstrations erupted last month.

  • Techdirt ☛ Convicted Fraudster Trevor Milton Rides His Trump Pardon To Another CEO Job, Somehow

    Milton never did a day in prison and lied publicly after his pardon, saying that the pardon indicated he was innocent, when it did no such thing. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that mere months after that pardon for fraud would Milton suddenly become the CEO of a well-established company.

  • Interesting Engineering ☛ Why are tech billionaires building doomsday bunkers?

    Tech billionaires, including Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Reid Hoffman, among others, are reportedly building or buying bunkers, secret compounds, and “apocalypse insurance” plans.

  • BBC ☛ Tech billionaires seem to be doom prepping. Should we be worried?

    Though his building permits refer to basements, according to the New York Times, some of his neighbours call it a bunker. Or a billionaire's bat cave.

    Then there is the speculation around other tech leaders, some of whom appear to have been busy buying up chunks of land with underground spaces, ripe for conversion into multi-million pound luxury bunkers.

  • New York Times ☛ OpenAI Inks Deal With Broadcom to Design Its Own Chips for A.I.

    After signing deals to use computer chips from Nvidia and AMD, OpenAI plans to design and deploy its own chips as it spends hundreds of billions of dollars building new computer data centers.

  • Mike Brock ☛ On Moral Witness and Coalition Politics

    I had a conversation with a friend this week that crystallized something I’ve been wrestling with: the tension between moral clarity and coalition building, between refusing accommodation and winning elections, between naming collaborators and creating exit ramps from collaboration.

    We were arguing about tactics. He thinks I’m being unproductive by writing off conservatives who sit on their hands while Trump dismantles constitutional governance. I think he’s being dangerously accommodating by suggesting we should soften our witness to make space for people uncomfortable with trans activists at protests.

    Neither of us is wrong. And that’s precisely the problem—and the possibility.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ West Kowloon Cultural District axes LGBTQ play after complaints it ‘defames Hong Kong’

    The managing body of the West Kowloon Cultural District cancelled an LGBTQ-themed play on Saturday, hours before tickets went on sale, after complaints alleging the drama “defames Hong Kong.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Tribes say L.A.'s pumping of groundwater is drying up Owens Valley

    Leaders of Native tribes are calling for the city to take less water and are pushing for negotiations on water rights. They say pumping from wells has dried up springs and meadows.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Torrent Freak ☛ ISP Blocking of No-IP's Dynamic DNS Enters Week 2

    For well over a week, users in Spain have been reporting problems with ddns.net, a dynamic DNS service offered for free by NOIP.com. DDNS.net and similar services offer a solution to an issue affecting anyone with an IP address that periodically changes.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Personal/Opinions

    • NECK TEST

      Was it lifting the wooden sleepers which were a bit too heavy to handle alone? Was it bending over an engine bay while removing some old fuel injector hoses supposed to be replaced last weekend? Was it bending over a laptop I had out to duplicate my backups when I was too lazy to grab the stand to bring the screen up to a comfortable height? Or was it pushing through the initial discomfort while doing my pre-bed push-ups the night before it got really bad? Or countless other possibilities? While waiting for my neck to heal these thoughts to the origins of its agony have been circling around in my head constantly for the last four days while I moan around hopelessly, alternating from silence in bed, to the still-tiring noise of entertainment on TV, to the shrieks of pain as I thrash around trying to use the kitchen. Just a sore neck, nothing new, but an extended case, and now the old dilemma of when to go back to trying to do things.

    • Christina: five questions

      I have almost nothing. After I finished my master's degree, I moved a lot. Across the country twice, and then again a month after I arrived in the city. I had very little money. I had to travel light.

      I've got my small blue teddy ("larger than you were when you were born", my dad likes to remind me; I was very small, premature), a large picture my grandfather took of me when I was 1. And that's all. My parents have whatever's left.