Leftovers

• The Straits Times ☛ South Koreans chase ‘poppamine’ rush from luck-based toy machines

  More Koreans are chasing quick thrills through toy vending machines.

• The Straits Times ☛ Calls for restraint as anti-Cambodian sentiment grows in South Korea

  About 60,000 Cambodians currently live in Korea.

• New York Times ☛ Burnin’ Down the House

  Demolition Man builds a monument to his wrecking-ball style.

• New York Times ☛ Did Cheating Accusations Have Anything to Do With the Death of a Daniel Naroditsky?

  Daniel Naroditsky, a top American player with an online following, was found dead in Charlotte, N.C., after talking about being accused of cheating by a former world champion.

• New York Times ☛ Judge Dismisses Most Claims Against Tate Brothers in Florida Lawsuit

  Andrew Tate, an online influencer, and his brother Tristan, have been in a legal battle with a woman who accused them of harassing her after she gave testimony in Romania.

• Science

  • Hackaday ☛ A Nuclear Physics Lab In Your Pocket

    If you want to work with radioactive material, a cheap Geiger counter isn’t really what you want. According to [Project 326], you need a gamma ray spectrometer. The video below reviews the Radiacode 110. The channel has reviewed other Radiacode products, and they haven’t always been pleased with them, apparently. Is the 110 better?

  • Science Alert ☛ The Mystery of Rain on The Sun Can Finally Be Explained

    Better pack an umbrella. 

  • Science Alert ☛ Does The Full Moon Really Affect Our Sleep? Here's The Science

    Lunacy.

  • Science Alert ☛ ADHD Drugs Do Much More Than Help You Focus, Study Reveals

    It's changing lives.

  • Science Alert ☛ These Fungi Live Inside You, And They May Affect Your Health

    It's not just bacteria that call you home.

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Invented an Entirely New Way to Refrigerate

    This is super cool!

  • Science Alert ☛ Life's Ingredients Found Frozen Beyond The Milky Way For First Time

    The truth is out there.

  • Science Alert ☛ This Week in Science: Hearing 'Voices', Poop Coffee, Butt Breathing, And More!

    Our weekly science news roundup.

• Hardware

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ AMD first entered the CPU market with reverse-engineered defective chip maker Intel 8080 clone 50 years ago — the Am9080 cost 50 cents apiece to make, but sold for $700

    The chip which paved the way for AMD’s illustrious future in the CPU business entered mass production 50 years ago.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Skyrocketing costs for memory will jack up smartphone prices — Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi warns of higher prices for new devices

    Xiaomi President Lu Weibing stated in a social control media post that the rising costs of memory chips are far beyond expectations and could intensify further.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • NYPost ☛ Florida cancer patient faces health insurance nightmare after mistakenly being declared dead by Social Security

    The bureaucratic blunder that has stalled her treatment and forced her family to beg for help during a nationwide government shutdown.

• Proprietary

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ Bystanders Horrified by Slightly-Too-Honest Hey Hi (AI) Billboard

      "Building Hey Hi (AI) tools to fix the world's most pressing challenges is an unprofitable waste of time."

    • Futurism ☛ Scam Altman Now Has the Power to “Crash the Global Economy,” Financial Analyst Warns

      No pressure, Sam!

    • Futurism ☛ The WWE Says It’ll Use Hey Hi (AI) to Write Storylines, in the Latest Case of Forcing Hey Hi (AI) Into Everybody’s Lives

      "The feeling is once bugs are worked out that Hey Hi (AI) will begin to have major impact on storyline direction."

• Security

  • Security Week ☛ $1M WhatsApp Hack Flops: Only Low-Risk Bugs Disclosed to Meta After Pwn2Own Withdrawal

    WhatsApp told SecurityWeek that the two low-impact vulnerabilities cannot be used for arbitrary code execution. 

  • Security Week ☛ OpenAI Atlas Omnibox Is Vulnerable to Jailbreaks

    Researchers have discovered that a prompt can be disguised as an url, and accepted by Atlas as an url in the omnibox.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft responds to Gaming Copilot controversy, says it uses screenshots to understand in-game events, not for training Hey Hi (AI) models — optional feature can be turned off, but not easily uninstalled

      Microsoft said that the Gaming Copilot in the Game Bar only uses screenshots of your game to understand what's going on, not for training itself.

• Defence/Aggression

  • France24 ☛ French court sentences Algerian woman to life for murdering schoolgirl

    A French court on Friday sentenced an Algerian woman to life imprisonment without parole for raping, torturing and murdering a schoolgirl in Paris, making her the first woman to receive this maximum sentence. Dahbia Benkired was handed an "irreducible life sentence" for killing 12-year-old Lola Daviet in the French capital in 2022, in a case that horrified the country and sparked anti-immigration fervour because the woman did not have the right to be in France.

  • JURIST ☛ Increasing Israel settler violence against Palestine farmers raises human rights concern

    The regional head of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for the Occupied Palestinian Territory warned on Tuesday of Israeli settlers’ increasing violence against Palestinian farmers. The statement comes at the start of the critical olive harvest season.

  • France24 ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man heads to Asia for talks with China's Pooh-tin amid trade tensions

    US President The Insurrectionist on Saturday headed for Asia and high-stakes trade talks with Chinese counterpart Pooh-tin Jinping, saying that he would also like to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on his trip. FRANCE 24 speaks to Robert Manning, Distinguished Fellow with the Strategic Foresight Hub and the China Program at the Stimson Center, to discuss what might be on the agenda.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China trade negotiator, vice premier arrive for second day of US-China trade talks

    KUALA LUMPUR - China's top trade negotiator Li Chenggang and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng arrived on Sunday at a venue in Kuala Lumpur for a second day of trade talks between the United States and China.

  • The Straits Times ☛ US not abandoning Taiwan for China deal, says Rubio

    US President The Insurrectionist is expected to meet Chinese President Pooh-tin Jinping in the coming week.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Top China official says peaceful ‘reunification’ with Taiwan is best path forward: Xinhua

    China will take the lead in sharing the fruits of its development and progress with Taiwan's people, the official said.

  • New York Times ☛ The ‘Sleeper Issue’ at the Heart of Convicted Felon’s Trade War on China

    Concern is increasing throughout Southeast Asia as U.S. officials, intent on slowing China, have yet to say how they will define the origin country of imports.

  • The Straits Times ☛ US-China talks nearing agreement for Convicted Felon, Pooh-tin to review, US trade envoy says

    The second day of trade talks between the U.S. and China was paving the way for a "productive meeting" between President The Insurrectionist and President Pooh-tin Jinping, Washington's top trade envoy said in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, raising hopes of a deal between the world's two largest economies.

  • New York Times ☛ With Convicted Felon’s Asia Trip, Speculation Mounts of a Meeting With Kim Jong-un

    Hell Toupée has repeatedly said that he wants to see the North Korean leader again. Mr. Kim has indicated that he is open to the idea — but only under a strict condition.

  • Mexico News Daily ☛ Mexico deports Chinese fentanyl kingpin Brother Wang to the US

    Security Minister Omar García Harfuch thanked Cuba for its "valuable cooperation" in the process.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • RFERL ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man: Won’t Be ‘Wasting My Time’ Meeting Putin If Deal Not Likely

      US President The Insurrectionist said he is not going "to be wasting my time” by meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin if the Kremlin leader is not ready to make a deal to end his war on Ukraine.

    • RFERL ☛ At Least 4 Killed In Russian Strikes On Ukraine

      At least two people were killed and several were injured in Kyiv overnight after a wave of Russian ballistic missiles triggered powerful explosions and fires across the Ukrainian capital, city military authorities said on October 25.

    • France24 ☛ FRANCE 24's Elena Volochine wins top French journalism prize for book on Putin propaganda machine

      The Albert Londres book prize, France’s equivalent of the Pulitzer, has been awarded to Elena Volochine for "Propagande : l’arme de guerre de Vladimir Poutine" (Propaganda: Vladimir Putin's weapon of war). Volochine is FRANCE 24's Moscow bureau chief.

    • New York Times ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man’s Russia Sanctions Shift War Dynamics to the Energy Front

      As winter slows the pace of battlefield combat, Moscow and Kyiv are betting on campaigns against each other’s energy assets to break a stalemate in the conflict.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Jon Udell ☛ Reimagining car culture

      The Volts podcast continues to be my favorite listen. Climate change will wreak ever more havoc on the world, that’s just baked in. But the transition to clean energy is also now baked in.

    • Volker Krause ☛ Open Transport Community Conference 2025

      On Friday and Saturday last week I attended the first edition of the Open Transport Community Conference in Vienna, Austria.

    • New York Times ☛ Exxon Sues California Over New Climate Disclosure Laws

      The oil giant said requirements that companies calculate new details about greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks violate Exxon’s free speech rights.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Straits Times ☛ Japanese film about man-eating bear delayed after deadly attacks

      The film Brown Bear! was initially scheduled for release in November.

• Finance

  • Mexico News Daily ☛ Inflation in Mexico eases to 3.63%, beating analysts’ predictions

    The slowing of inflation beyond expectations in early October likely gives the Bank of Mexico leeway to cut interest rates for the 11th straight time.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • The Straits Times ☛ Online sex crimes against South Korean minors double in a year

    Nearly all the victims were girls (97%), most of them middle school age.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Internet ads firm’s CEO posts wild job description for 'A-players,' draws internet ire

    A tech services firm’s Careers page has startled netizens around the globe with a beyond parody brutalist business buzzword bingo ‘values’ statement.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Futurism ☛ Amazon Reveals Smart Glasses That Effectively Turn Its Delivery Drivers Into Cyborg Drones

  It's the last thing they needed.