Tootfinder

I've used some questionable pit toilets in my day but I've never worried about falling in.
"This is not the first time accidents involving pit toilets have happened in Australia.
In July 2024, firefighters had to pull apart one such toilet in Indigo Valley in the state of Victoria after a man got stranded in it."
#Australia #PitToilet #Outhouse

While staying vigilant, we’re embracing the chance to catch our breath and to start healing. The city right now has a bit of the feeling of the days after a natural disaster: there is so much damage to repair. Thousands of people are still sheltering at home, understandably reluctant to go to work and/or school. Thousands are facing imminent eviction when March rent comes due.
There’s organizing around rent relief, talk of a rent strike. Food delivery is still in full swing. Mutual aid is not letting up.
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Sources: AI legal software startup Legora is in talks to raise $400M at a $5B valuation, after raising $150M in October 2025 at a $1.8B valuation (Forbes)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2026/02/17/legal-…

Legal AI Startup Legora Eyes $400 Million Raise At $5 Billion-Plus Valuation
As investors double down on the promise of automating legal work, the company is in talks to raise $400 million following two rounds in late 2025.

Day Five in the Improv Narrative house, and we're in the format I like most really. A few instructive games in the first half and a couple of longer narrative stories in the second half.
The island game was supposed to teach something about not deliberately getting obstructive.
A scene where your players are told they are on one island and must end up at some point all on the other one the other side of the stage.
Set a scene, make some characters, but nobody said it was supposed to be difficult to get from one island to the other.
Yet barriers are deliberately thrown up, actually imaginary barriers since the whole thing is imaginary after all. Why should there be sharks or a quest for a boat or the sea deep and cold.
You can just wade across. You can just have a boat. You can just levitate yourself over with your hive mind psychic abilities.
Unsure about this.
There must be conflict and peril and challenges which are mastered in a story, you can't set up a hero's quest only to have the hero just happen to have a holy grail in the stationary cupboard. Already got one you see. Use it for storing pens.
Still. Finding the crowbar doesn't have to be a quest. There can just be one in the boot. Don't let things get bogged down in difficulty.
Watched a story about a lazy fellow falling into a life of crime and villainy because of his tardiness and fulfilling his teacher's prophecy that he would indeed end up as a criminal if he didn't buck up his ideas. Good repeated themes of characters making lists of his failures and nice stage-focus work when everyone was on stage at once.
Played a preacher organizing a wedding in a story about friends running a hotel.
Fun to have Reverend Priest finding sin everywhere again. Easy wipe-off sin in this case. We may have come to an end too early. Perhaps not enough obstructions put in the way. 😆
#improv #london #hooplaImpro

Chinese crypto scammer sentenced in absentia to 20 years after fleeing US https://therecord.media/chinese-crypto-scammer-sentenced-after-fleeing-us

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has so far been unable to access data from a Washington Post reporter’s iPhone
because it was protected by Apple’s "Lockdown Mode"
when agents seized the device from the reporter’s home, the US government said in a court filing.
FBI agents were however able to access the reporter’s work laptop by telling her to place her index finger on the MacBook Pro’s fingerprint reader.
This occurred during the January 14 search at the…

FBI stymied by Apple's Lockdown Mode after seizing journalist's iPhone
Post reporter was compelled to unlock MacBook Pro with fingerprint, however.

Filings: Caterpillar acquires self-driving electric tractor startup Monarch Tractor's assets, after it raised $200M and struggled to pivot to software services (Sean O'Kane/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/15/monarch-…

Monarch Tractor's collapse ends with an acquisition by Caterpillar | TechCrunch
The startup had faced mounting pressure from dealers, farmers, and a co-founder who complained that Monarch's tech didn't work properly.

after almost four years of french instruction (on duolingo), i can usually comprendre macron's twitter posts, and can mostly read le monde
haltingly tbh, still, i'm pleased -- i (literally) flunked french in high school (drugs were way more interesting in the 60s ... way way more) and i abjured foreign language study in college
choices
but i wish i could "hear" french better. need to work on that.

You can count on Trump to humiliate his "allies", no "special relationship" here anymore.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ceqvwrydzpqt?post=asset:b01f1823-6e6f-4196-9013-b72b6fca66ed#post

Trump accuses Starmer of seeking to 'join wars after we've already won' and says UK aircraft carriers not needed - follow live
Meanwhile, Iran continues attacks on Gulf states as UAE officials say a Dubai resident has been killed by falling shrapnel.

Thomson Reuters' CEO says AI cannot easily replace the company's legal-research expertise, after its stock fell following the release of Claude legal work tools (Alexander Osipovich/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.