Questions remain about how leaders at the Los Angeles fire department responded to a fire that leveled entire communities,
and who within the agency knew about concerns the fire could still pose a threat.
A former LA city councilor says the aftermath and recovery effort should serve as a Pearl Harbor moment for the city,
which should never again be in a position with flames encroaching on all sides.
The LA Times has published a series of bombshell revelationsabout th…
Two Ukrainian films shortlisted for 98th Academy Awards nominations: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/17/two-ukrainian-films-shortlisted-for.html
A UK family and a US family sue Meta for the alleged wrongful deaths of their teenage sons, who died by suicide after falling victim to sextortion on Instagram (Libby Brooks/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/d
I have the distinct impression that we could use most American "sci-fi" TV series (which seem to have a kink for post-apocalyptical scenographies) as a diagnostic tool for the autism spectrum.
For a moment, let's leave aside the tons of right-wing propaganda "hidden" in plain sight, and their excessive reliance on boring & worn out tropes (religious & cultish bullshit, irrational lack of communication & excess of anti-social behaviour, all vs all, ultra-low-iq characters*, psychotic & irrationally treacherous characters*, ultra-inconsistent character development used to justify "unexpected" plot twists, rampant anti-intellectualism...).
What could be used as a diagnosis tool is the incredible amount of strong inconsistencies that we can find in them**. It throws me out of the story every single time; and I suspect that it takes a certain kind of "uncommon personality" to feel that way about it, because otherwise these series wouldn't be so popular without real widespread criticism beyond cliches like "too slow", "it loses steam towards the end of the season", etc.
Many of those plots start in a gold mine of potentially powerful ideas... yet they consistently provide us with dirt & clay instead, while side-lining the "good stuff" as if it was too complicated for the populace.
Do you feel strongly about it? Do you feel like you can't verbalize it without being criticised as "too negative", or "too picky", or an "unbearable snob"? Do you wonder why it seems like nobody around shares your discomfort with these stories?
* : I feel this is a bit like the chicken & egg problem. Has the media conditioned part of American society to behave like dumb psychopaths as if it was something "natural", or is the media reflecting what was already there? Also, could we use other societies as models for these stories... just for a change? Please?
** : Just a tiny example: a "brilliant" engineer who builds a bridge out of fence parts and who doesn't bother to perform the most basic tests before trying it in a real setting and suffer the consequences: the bridge failing and her falling into the void. Bonus points for anyone who knows what I'm talking about.
Fox found its culprit for high grocery prices following Democratic election victories -- Joe Biden (Craig Harrington/Media Matters for America)
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-found-its-culprit-high-grocery-prices-following-democratic-election-victories-joe
http://www.memeorandum.com/251217/p95#a251217p95
Dette er et problem mange av oss sliter med. Foreldre som er ikke-digitale i en digital verden, og systemene stŸtter ikke stedfortredere med fullmakter til å hjelpe!
https://www.nrk.no/ytring/fra-fullmakt-til-frustrasjon-1.17717776
Congresswoman Ilhan Omarhas warned that Donald Trump’s repeated personal attacks and dehumanising rhetoric
are fuelling a climate of political violence that could have dangerous consequences.
Speaking days after the president called for her to be thrown out of the country,
Omar said Trump’s incendiary language reaches “the worst humans possible” and encourages them to act.
“We’ve had people incarcerated for threatening to kill me,”
“We have people that are being…
How Apple is helping filmmakers and developers create immersive media for the Vision Pro and share best practices (Harry McCracken/Fast Company)
https://www.fastcompany.com/91461534/apple-vision-pro-immersive-video
The privately funded National Trust for Historic Preservation last week asked the U.S. District Court to block Trump’s project.
“No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever
— not President Trump, not President Biden, and not anyone else,” the lawsuit states.
“And no president is legally allowed to construct a ballroom on public property without giving the public the opportunity to weigh in.”
Trump had the East W…
Ankar, which develops LLM-powered AI tools to streamline the process of drafting patent applications for patent attorneys, raised a $20M Series A led by Atomico (Jeremy Kahn/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/12/17/exclusi