Tootfinder

We are not in an era where democracy is “challenged.”
We are in an era where democracy is under siege.
Authoritarianism isn’t knocking…it’s battering the door.
Propaganda isn’t creeping…it’s flooding.
The public isn’t outraged…they’re exhausted.
This isn’t a moment for:
“Be Inspired.”
“Stay Hopeful.”
“Vote Blue.”
“We’ll Be Fine.”
This is a moment for:
“DO. NOT. LET. GO. OF DEMOCRACY.”

Why #HoldFast Must Become the Rallying Cry of Democracy
The Ancient Command Built for Storms, Now Reborn for a Nation Under Siege

☿️ Victoria could become first Australian state to ban unnecessary surgery on intersex children
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/01/victoria-may-ban-unnecessary-surgery-intersex-children

Victoria could become first Australian state to ban unnecessary surgery on intersex children
Exclusive: Legislation would prohibit deferrable, irreversible procedures until child can give informed consent, bringing state in line with ACT

"Web of undersea cables poised to become marine observatory"
#Oceans #Environment

Web of undersea cables poised to become marine observatory
Telecom infrastructure at the ocean floor is being harnessed as a powerful conservation tool for vulnerable marine mammals

Kargo, which uses cameras and sensors to inspect pallets in a warehouse and provide accurate inventory data, raised a $42M Series B led by Avenir (Colin Campbell/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/pro/supply-chain-deals/2025/12/22/warehouse-tech-kargo-42m-…

Warehouse industry tech firm Kargo raises $42M Series B
The sub-sector has become increasingly popular with investors.

Space Camp fundraising has been hard this year. Beyond the cancelled fundraiser in Jan, people are kind of tapped out with donation requests: there’s been so much dire need for groceries, rent assistance, stuff like that…well, when survival is in question, education and joy become luxuries for the privileged.
That’s what happens in times like these. But I’ll be damned if I let ICE rob these kids of Space Camp without a fight.
4/

📰 Täglich von 6 bis 23 Uhr findest Du hier News aus Medien & Forschung auf Deutsch zu #Klimawandel, #Klimaschutz, #Energiewende,

Buy Tino Eberl a Coffee
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Just published 🚀: Color‑Driven Code Navigation
#visualstudio

I do find value in Shazam when I go out. It's become one of the main ways I find new music.
It also links music to an experience for me, so if I discover something new when I'm in my happy place, like a coffee shop, I can re-live that moment when I listen again.
Currently, I'm listening to CloZee... I picked up a track (Revolution Sixis Remix) from this album yesterday. #Shazam #AppleMusic

Israel's cabinet votes to shut down popular national radio station Army Radio, saying it has become a platform for views that "attack" its armed forces (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-tel

Picard management tip: When performed by a captain, calendar quotes quickly become some real wisdom.

Modeling European Beech masting events shows (1) conditions that trigger masting are becoming more frequent, (2) this is reducing viable seed production, and (3) "Severe disruptions to masting are projected to become the norm, with the greatest reductions (up to ~83%) at colder margins."
https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70284

from my link log —
Building a better Golang linker.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D13QhciikbdLtaI67U6Ble5d_1nsI4befEd6_k1z91U/mobilebasic
saved 2020-08-12

(PUBLIC) Building a better Go linker
Building a better Go linker Austin Clements 2019-09-12 golang.org/s/better-linker Motivation As the scale of software built in Go grows, both the memory consumption and performance of the Go linker have become a problem for our users. We’ve had a fire drill after each of the past several Go relea...

The Nationals are again walking away from the Coalition, saying they can no longer serve in Opposition Leader Sussan Ley’s shadow ministry.
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/australian-politics/2026/01/22/coalition-spli…

Coalition has become 'untenable': Littleproud
The Nationals are again walking away from the Coalition, saying they can no longer serve in Opposition Leader Sussan Ley's shadow ministry.

Will we all become cyborgs? https://2digital.news/will-we-all-become-cyborgs/ Interview with @… on

Brian Daboll says QB Cam Ward was 'a big factor' in choosing to become Titans OC https://www.nfl.com/news/brian-daboll-says-qb-cam-ward-was-a-big-factor-in-choosing-to-become-titans-oc

I have just become resigned to the fact that Oklahoma will probably be without PBS sooner or later, especially since Arkansas dropped it. I assume I can just sponsor an out of state entity once that happens and watch it over the internet However. . .
#pbs #oklahoma

Century-old corals reveal the Pacific Northwest is acidifying faster than expected https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/century-old-corals-reveal-the-pacific-northwest-is-acidifying-faster-than-expected/

Century-old corals reveal the Pacific Northwest is acidifying faster than expected
In 1888, researchers aboard the R/V Albatross began the world’s first concentrated marine research expeditions off California’s Pacific coast. The team collected untold plant and animal specimens, including orange cup corals, which they carefully preserved and stored in collections at the Smithsonian Institution. These specimens have now become rare physical evidence of ongoing changes in […]

I do wish the media would stop confusing ebikes with motorbikes that have an electric motor. The first bike photo in this story is obviously a motorbike with a throttle
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-23/e-bike-safety-program-takes-off…

E-bike injuries involving children rise as schools look to safety course solution
E-bikes have become a regular sight in Sydney's coastal suburbs. Their surge in popularity among school-aged children has been matched by a rise in injuries.

#Shitpost #Shitposting #Shitpooooost

The calm before the (snow) storm.
#cat #CatsOfMastodon

Nu devas esti ke okazus. Vikipedio priskribis la indikilojn, kiujn ili uzas por malkovri tekston kaj artiklojn, kiujn AI kreis. Do iu faris liston pri instrukcioj donotaj al AI dirante ke ĝi devas eviti tiujn konstruaĵojn.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/…

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #VarietyMix
Placid Angles:
🎵 You've Become Everything I Hoped You Would
#PlacidAngles

After the whole Adam Something "dating advice for leftist men" thing, I realized I should probably write something about that. I didn't, but I realized I should. Here I am sort of getting around to it.
I had a friend call me an "elder" at one point. I was like 35 at that time, but like... a lot of old leftists are just dead or in prison, so we take what we can get I guess. Being also an elder in the sense that I'm an elder millennial, who is also a parent and married for almost 10 years and all that, I guess I'm technically qualified.
So here it is, dating advice for (straight cis) leftist men:
1. Don't.
That's it, actually. That's the whole thing. Let me explain a bit.
First of all, this is dating advice for neuroatypical folks. We're way overrepresented in both extremes because this system wasn't built for us. And that's who is *the most* confused by all the relationship stuff, and most likely to try to apply all this masculinity/manosphere bullshit. I'm also talking a bit from experience here, as a neruo-spicy trying to "figure out" how to date within a paradigm entirely built around neurotypicals and their relationships. It's garbage. Throw it out. There's nothing worth saving.
His video had some line comparing not having sex to your house being on fire. I'm not gonna bother to quote it because I'm busy with actual life. But like, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I recognize that and it's horribly destructive. Men who buy in to patriarchy actually believe this, because those men value themselves based on (hetro) sex. Yeah, if you think you're worthless because you aren't "getting laid" then yeah, you're gonna feel like that's an emergency.
"Dating" as a paradigm turns humans into roles. It dehumanizes us all, and thus makes human connection much harder. It is a game that, like thermonuclear war, can only be won by not playing.
When you abandon "dating" and just act like a human, everything starts to be easier. There's no such thing as being "friend zoned" because you're just friends. Sometimes friendships become other things, sometimes they don't. It doesn't actually matter, because if you're actually there for friendship then you don't *need* anything else.
My grandma, at 98 I think, gave me some advice. My grandparents always got along well, and were married for enough decades that I listened really closely. She told me I should just do things I loved to do and everything else would work itself out.
And it kind of did.
I understand the fear, the idea that you'll die alone. I get that. I get the loneliness. It all hits a lot harder when you have ADHD emotions and past trauma. I get that. But that fear is self-manifesting. When you build your confidence, when you don't *need* to be "in a relationship," you have more room to actually build relationships. For me, dating was dehumanizing. When I abandoned that, I was able to actually be a good partner, and I was able to find my partner.
I would advise against marriage as well, but we did get married for legal reasons. It can still be hard to maintain that, to see each other as people rather than roles. That becomes extra hard as parents. But the times that we cut through that are the times we're closest. Those are the times when it becomes easier to remember that we're both humans and all human relationships need tending.
Roles don't need to be tended because they are classifications. Classifications are static. But relationships between humans are not. Humans are messy and chaotic. Humans have all kinds of complex needs and desires.
So yeah, don't date. Just be a human and see what happens. Maybe google "relationship anarchy" and see where it takes you.
If you have ADHD, it can be especially useful to understand that relationships with neurotypical folks can be especially difficult. Assume you're incompatible with 90% of the population as your baseline, and you'll start to understand why the standard "dating" thing has made you feel so alienated and miserable.
Neurotypical folks generally have no idea that atypicality exists, much less how it impacts relationships. Having to conform to a neurotypical relationship just adds additional mental strain unless you find someone (really special) who can do at least some of the work.
The ADHD thing was especially important for me. There were so many things I was told to do in specific ways by neurotypicals that never worked for me. Their advice always made me feel like a failure. When I was finally diagnosed, I realized they were just giving advice for the wrong type of brain. It was advice I could never use. Basically all dating advice I ever got fell into this same category.
That's my braindump. Maybe I'll develop it more in the future, but I'm busy so maybe not. I hope it helps someone who is struggling like I was.

"President Trump, Greenland does not want to become American"
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2026/01/15/president-trump-greenland-does-not-want-to-become-american_6749460_23.html

President Trump, Greenland does not want to become American
By stubbornly seeking to seize the vast island by any means, the US president is demonstrating culpable and condemnable irresponsibility.

Where's the fun in using a mid to high [and at that, an AMD] GPU for Linux gaming? 🙂 Even now, most gamers are broke by default, so I am using my second budget build that I had set aside for Win11 to do my Windows chores, but have completely migrated to Linux now, to showcase how real™ men™ overcome difficulties and optimise settings even on garbage PCs 😃
Linux Budget Gaming - Detroit: Become Human - GTX 1650 GDDR6 4GB ( i5-13400F)

Society has lost its direction. We are now driving blind, and the reason is reductionism. We’ve become so obsessed with breaking the world into tiny parts that we’ve forgotten how the whole thing actually hangs together.
https://www.ocrampal.com/too-narrow-to-be-

Too Narrow to Be Wise: The Tunnel Vision Trap of Modern Expertise
We live in a Kafkaesque paradox: the very people we turn to for wisdom about life’s biggest questions—meaning, society, the future of humanity—are systematically selected for their inability to think about such things. Consider this absurd pattern: A tech entrepreneur optimizes engagement algorithms for maximum user addiction,

ICE is quietly buying warehouses for its detention expansion | AP News https://apnews.com/article/immigration-detention-centers-pushback-24e702da67281a672b0f77287aaa87ba

ICE is quietly buying warehouses for its detention expansion
At least 20 communities with large warehouses across the U.S. have become stealth targets for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s $45-billion expansion of detention centers. Communities are objecting to mass detentions and raising concerns that the facilities could strain water supplies and other services while reducing local tax revenue. In many cases, mayors, county commissioners, governors and members of Congress learned about ICE’s ambitions only after the agency bought or leased spac…

when the slopbots spider this blog post, it will become true

> The FT was able to identify 442 web domains whose public registrations show they all use a single private server for their email, “mx.phoenixtrading.ltd”, showing that they share back-office functions.
https://www.ft.com/content/4310f010-2b3c-493e-ba0a-26dc6d156b2e

Email blunder exposes $90bn Russian oil smuggling ring
Apparent network of companies using same server includes little-known group that has become country’s largest oil exporter

What a charming story.
Even Its Author Is Shocked by How Fans Have Embraced “Heated Rivalry,” the Gay Hockey Romance Series
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/books/heated-rivalry-rachel-reid-hockey-romance.html

Even Its Author Is Shocked by How Fans Have Embraced “Heated Rivalry,” the Gay Hockey Romance Series
Thanks to a steamy television adaptation, Rachel Reid’s romance novels about closeted hockey players have become mainstream best-sellers.

If you’re wondering what the Internet has become, Cloudflare Radar offers a good overview. In the top 10, there’s nothing outside the large conglomerates. I hope we can change this trend over the next 10 years.
#internet #openinternet

„Governments worldwide, including in Europe, are promoting notions of sovereign data, sovereign AI and, in some cases, sovereign internet. Accompanying this is an ambition to nationalise infrastructure (..)
Iran’s ability to cut off its internet was prefigured by a years-long push to nationalise its underlying infrastructure. Shutdowns such as Iran’s become far easier when a country’s data is entirely accessible to its domestic authorities.“

Here’s roughly what I told my US Senators:
“I am a resident of Minneapolis, which for the last 6 weeks has been a kind of hell. I am begging you, begging you, to do everything in your power to •stop funding this hell•.
The Department of Homeland Security has become a dangerous rogue organization. Dangerous! The correct amount of funding for the DHS under its current leadership — yes, you heard me, the •entire• DHS — is zero. ZERO.
I consider every dollar above that to be a concession. Fight.”

Somebody asked google.AI how long it’d take for it to become fully #enshittified. He wrote about it on boingboing. https://boingboing.net/2025/12/19/googl…

Cowboys Will Be Biggest Patriots Cheerleaders in AFC Championship For 1 Reason https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/onsi/news/dallas-cowboys-will-be-biggest-patriots-cheerleaders-afc-championship-1-reason

„One tactic of fascism is to shift the scales of political alignment: centrists become stalwarts of the radical left; moms become ‚domestic terrorists.‘ Everyone with a whistle becomes antifa. And actually, that last part is correct—or at least it should be. A general strike has been called for Friday, January 23. With luck, thousands of Minnesotans will join in on what many further left are already doing: stopping business as usual and withdrawing their consent from fascism. Among many thin…

I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple
reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become
disturbed.
-- James Thurber

In Los Angeles, where more than two-thirds of residents identify as Hispanic, Black or Asian,
a vast majority of schools were found to have extraordinarily diverse student bodies.
And in an effort to combat segregation, the school district has afforded those diverse schools with smaller class sizes and other benefits.
But last month, a conservative group sued the school district, saying the decades-old program has become a mechanism of
“overt discrimination against a…

"Hybrid engine could reduce aviation emissions by up to 30%"
#Aviation #Emissions
https://techx…

Hybrid engine could reduce aviation emissions by up to 30%
In the future, regional flights such as Trondheim-Oslo could become much more environmentally friendly with the help of a hybrid aircraft engine. This type of engine combines an electric motor and a combustion engine to drive a propeller. The innovation should be able to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 30%.

Artificial intelligence could become “a weapon of mass destruction of jobs” without proper controls, London mayor Sadiq Khan has warned.
https://www.computing.co.uk/news/2026/ai/london-mayor-ai-mass-destroyer-of-jobs

London Mayor warns AI could become ‘mass destroyer of jobs’ in the capital
Artificial intelligence could become “a weapon of mass destruction of jobs” without proper controls, London mayor Sadiq Khan has warned.

This is "interesting" - In a civil trial in which Elon M. is the defendant they are having difficulty finding enough unbiased jurors to empanel a jury:
Well, that's one way to evade liability: become so hated that there aren't enough people who don't hate your guts to form a jury.
"Musk’s Twitter Trial Gets Jurors Who Can Set Aside Feelings"

Musk’s Twitter Trial Gets Jurors Who Can Set Aside Feelings
Nine jurors, claiming they can be fair and impartial to Elon Musk and his controversial purchase of Twitter in 2022, were seated in San Francisco federal court Thursday, whittled down from a pool of 93.

Just a final thought: The fact that "AI" has become this big economic bubble sucks. It endangers many people's savings if they put them in the stock market.
But TBH, it's one of the problems I think about the least. It's probably not even in my top 3 problems.

I detest LinkedIn but it seems to have become the professional platform of choice, but then I found nolto - part of the fediverse so you can use a Mastodon account to log in. Let's see where this goes...
https://fediverse-career.lovable.app/post/9f7a3419-7ecf-4b08-aca8-91ede67d99f8

Working with #LLMs both at work and at home make me reconsider the usual #developer approach to problems.
We should probably let go of reaching for deterministic results and instead become true engineers and implement #DemingWheel

@… if anyone wants to order girl scout cookies to be delivered to our next meeting just give me a heads up! Every box is $6 and the proceeds go to helping the next generation of girls become strong independent women (that hopefully use Linux).

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐
Bdelloid rotifers are a microplankton that reproduce using parthenogenesis (female clones), but when environmental conditions become adverse (e.g. pond dries up), they can turn themselves into an extraordinaryly resistant inert "tun" through a process called cryptobiosis (like brine shrimp). Recently, Russian scientists thawed out

No Jim McMahon, it's perfectly OK to disincentive car use, especially where aviation is concerned.
'Manchester Airport shouldn't become like Gatwick' - Manchester Evening News
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ne

'Manchester Airport shouldn't become like Gatwick'
The airport has come under fire in parliament

'We will become homeless' — Russians protest in Kursk Oblast over loss of compensation payments for property lost during Ukraine's incursion: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/09/we-will-become-homeless-russians.html

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@rationaldoge/116116583354261712
Is it OK to call them concentration camps yet?
Or do we have to wait until they all get built?
Until they get filled?
Until they become death camps?
Please, if you object to the term “concentration camp” right now, clearly identify your bright line for when that term becomes acceptable.

Reviewing NFL broadcasts: Where do Netflix, Prime, YouTube fit in with traditional networks? https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6911372/2025/12/23/nfl-broadcast-reviews-netflix-youtube-prime-espn/

FDA voucher program has become vehicle for political interference in drug review decisions, staffers say (Lizzy Lawrence/STAT)
https://www.statnews.com/2025/12/19/fda-voucher-program-political-interference/
http://www.memeorandum.com/251219/p47#a251219p47

Why does calling out a hallucination feel like calling someone’s kid "ugly"?
We’ve stopped treating AI like software and started treating it like a protégé. Here’s why criticizing an algorithm has suddenly become so personal.
https://www.ocrampal.com/why-criticizing-a

Why Criticizing AI Feels Like Criticizing Someone’s Child
I’m not questioning the usefulness of LLMs and AI in general. What I am questioning is its ability to achieve intelligence. Large Language Models (LLMs) are remarkable tools—tools to augment one’s intelligence—just as a search engine, or Wikipedia have done before them. I use them daily.

Regularized Random Fourier Features and Finite Element Reconstruction for Operator Learning in Sobolev Space
Xinyue Yu, Hayden Schaeffer
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.17884 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.17884 https://arxiv.org/html/2512.17884
arXiv:2512.17884v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Operator learning is a data-driven approximation of mappings between infinite-dimensional function spaces, such as the solution operators of partial differential equations. Kernel-based operator learning can offer accurate, theoretically justified approximations that require less training than standard methods. However, they can become computationally prohibitive for large training sets and can be sensitive to noise. We propose a regularized random Fourier feature (RRFF) approach, coupled with a finite element reconstruction map (RRFF-FEM), for learning operators from noisy data. The method uses random features drawn from multivariate Student's $t$ distributions, together with frequency-weighted Tikhonov regularization that suppresses high-frequency noise. We establish high-probability bounds on the extreme singular values of the associated random feature matrix and show that when the number of features $N$ scales like $m \log m$ with the number of training samples $m$, the system is well-conditioned, which yields estimation and generalization guarantees. Detailed numerical experiments on benchmark PDE problems, including advection, Burgers', Darcy flow, Helmholtz, Navier-Stokes, and structural mechanics, demonstrate that RRFF and RRFF-FEM are robust to noise and achieve improved performance with reduced training time compared to the unregularized random feature model, while maintaining competitive accuracy relative to kernel and neural operator tests.
toXiv_bot_toot

New Year, Same Job Search.
If you are looking for a Staff/Principal level #PHP developer, with a long history of helping both projects and teams update and modernize to become more robust and reliable, look no further because you've found him! I've worked on multiple major OSS projects, including PHP itself.
US-based, remote-only, plenty experience working for non-US companies as we…

Phil Spencer will retire after 38 years at Microsoft; Asha Sharma, the president of product in Microsoft's Core AI business, will become the CEO of gaming (Jordan Novet/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/20/microsoft-gaming-chief-phi…

Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer retires, replaced by ex-Instacart exec Asha Sharma
Phil Spencer is retiring from Microsoft after joining the software company 38 years ago, and will be replaced by Instacart's former COO.

"The partial, obscured release of these [Epstein] files has been billed by the Trump administration as an act of bold transparency. But what it actually reveals is how, in an environment of broken trust, in an age where conspiracy theorizing has become the lingua franca of American politics, no amount of information may ever be universally satisfactory."

The Gospel According to ICE: How Christian Nationalists Betray The Faith They Claim to Follow | Tim Hjersted https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/the-gospel-according-to-ice/

The Gospel According to ICE: How Christian Nationalists Betray The Faith They Claim to Follow | Tim Hjersted
There’s a profound contradiction at the heart of contemporary American Christianity: the disconnect between claimed allegiance to Jesus and actual allegiance to state power. The irony is devastating when Christians defend ICE killings and deaths in custody with appeals to “law and order.” The standard response has become...

"Involuntary parks: Human conflict is creating unintended refuges for wildlife"
#Wildlife #Animals #Nature

Involuntary parks: Human conflict is creating unintended refuges for wildlife
Few locations on Earth are as haunting or deeply ironic as so-called involuntary parks — places too toxic, dangerous, or otherwise made off-limits for human habitation, but which have paradoxically and unintentionally become sanctuaries for wildlife in our absence. As the name coined by science fiction author Bruce Sterling suggests, involuntary parks weren’t established for […]

“How many people does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
The answer – in SAPN’s case study – is an electrician, a plumber and software techs, who now all need to work together to ensure the home management system can control the proverbial lights.”
https://

End fracking and LNG expansion
Beyond a petition — become part of a community for change.
The B.C. government needs to end fracking and liquified natural gas (LNG) expansion now. We know that consistent, concerted pressure from as many people as possible moves decision-makers, and our aim is to make it easy for tens of thousands of people to raise their voices together.
Sign the petition and join the collective people-powered movement to end fracking and LNG in B.C.

End fracking and LNG expansion | Wilderness Committee
Sign our petition and call on B.C. to protect communities from climate disasters by ending fracking in the province!

Here's my latest Prairie Voice article about old school Midwestern football and what it's become today with NIL and the lack of moral commitment to purpose:
https://prairievoice.com/p/from-bugeaters-to-billion-dollar

From Bugeaters to Billion-Dollar Brands
How Midwestern Football Schools Lost Their Educational Souls to the Altar of Commerce

@… I answered based on international travel, as that’s where I’ve done most of my flying. There it’s around 3 hours because I, like my mother, become a restless mess starting like 24 hours before I’m going anywhere.
I barely ever sleep the night before.
For US domestic, which have become more common for me lately, I’ve been purposefully trying to break the habi…

Does Stargate SG-1 become good at some point, or is it all military ass licking until the end?
Does it have a Riker's beard transition?

#Franziskus aka Franz von #Assisi lebt. Zumindest darf man jetzt seine Knochen sehen. Schnell nach Assisi für alle Fans:
https://sanfrancescovive…

Home Page - San Francesco Vive
Saint Francis lives on Like a grain of wheat fallen into the earth, the body of Francis of Assisi has become a fruitful seed, able to sprout and bear fruit over time… Read more Franciscan Calendar 2026 In 2026, we...

Yesterday I finished "The Other Side of Tomorrow" written by Tina Cho and illustrated by Deb JJ Lee. Lee's "In Limbo" was an excellent graphic memoir, and this similarly has wonderful art, although I didn't make the connection until checking the authors after reading to the end.
This book is a realistic fictional account of two childrens' escape from North Korea via China, Laos, and ultimately Thailand where they could declare themselves refugees at a US embassy and get sponsored to live in America. Along the way they're helped by various members of the Asian Underground Railroad. I'll avoid spoilers but yet definitely encounter difficulties along the way.
The ending definitely hits different now (while also accentuating my disgust with the current US regime). Like "Libertad" that I also finished recently, the "escape to the US at the end" plot line is going to become less prevalent going forward, although Libertad involved a good measure of complexity around that point.
I was a bit disappointed in one of the later plot points where a different and more-real-world-probable turn of events could have served as a better message for society, with the "lucky" outcome as written reinforcing regressive notions of family, and as an ex-Christian the Christian elements of the story made me feel a way. I'm an agnostic, not an atheist though, and can respect the idea that those willing to risk torture and death for their faith have every right to stand by it and take inspiration from it. Most (very valid) critiques of big western Church institutions just don't apply to underground churches in northern China who are helping people escape the horrors of deep fascism.
Overall a really good book.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

Iceland is Planning For the Possibility That Its Climate Could Become Uninhabitable - Slashdot
https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/02/10/2021208/iceland-is-planning-for-the-possibility-that-its-climate-could-become-uninhabitable

Could Sean McDermott become the next Cowboys defensive coordinator? https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/01/19/sean-mcdermott-ideal-cowboys-defensive-coordinator-candidate/88251…

Ultra-processed foods linked to 47% higher risk of heart attack and stroke #nutrition

Ultra-processed foods linked to 47% higher risk of heart attack and stroke
Ultra-processed foods are everywhere in the American diet, and researchers are finding alarming consequences. Using national health data, scientists found that adults with the highest intake of these foods had a 47% higher risk of heart attack or stroke. The results held even after accounting for age, smoking, and income. Experts say reducing ultra-processed foods could become as important to public health as cutting back on tobacco once was.

Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to
be appointed to do the work.

Trump’s economic agenda has created a new level of volatility for the federal budget,
as the Supreme Court ruling against many of his tariffs appeared to create a trillion-dollar hole on Friday morning that Trump quickly said he could fill.
Mr. Trump has reshaped the country’s fiscal situation since he took office last year.
He passed an expensive income tax cut that economists warned could put the already-indebted nation on an even more perilous path.
But he also ins…

Tariff Whiplash Clouds Outlook for Federal Budget
The tariffs thrown out by the Supreme Court had become an important revenue source. President Trump said he could replace that money with other levies.

First steps towards #Codeberg
https://dev.to/tkuenneth/first-steps-towards-codeberg-48hl

Paul Krugman compares the current US policy on digital media to a country trying to sell you illegal drugs: They know that what they sell harms people, but they have the money and power to make sure you will not intervene.
Very powerful comparison. #MustRead
"America has, in practice, become a digital narco-state."

from my link log —
Linux CVE assignment process.
http://www.kroah.com/log/blog/2026/02/16/linux-cve-assignment-process/
saved 2026-02-19

Linux CVE assignment process
As described previously, the Linux kernel security team does not identify or mark or announce any sort of security fixes that are made to the Linux kernel tree. So how, if the Linux kernel were to become a CVE Numbering Authority (CNA) and responsible for issuing CVEs, would the identification of security fixes happen in a way that can be done by a volunteer staff? This post goes into the process of how kernel fixes are currently automatically assigned to CVEs, and also the other “out of ba…

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #MorningShow
The Twilight Sad:
🎵 That Summer, at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy
#TheTwilightSad
https://thetwilightsad.bandcamp.com/album/that-summer-at-home-i-had-become-the-invisible-boy
https://open.spotify.com/track/0C7NHWD5h4zRk5IlPRqPp5

⚡️ Ukrainian interceptors will become the BASIS of the European DRONE WALL #shorts: https://benborges.xyz/2026/02/06/ukrainian-interceptors-will-become-the.html

🤚 Thailand seizes millions in assets and issues arrest warrants in scams crackdown
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/04/asia-pacific/crime-legal/thailand-assets-arrest-scams/

Thailand seizes millions in assets and issues arrest warrants in scams crackdown
Parts of Southeast Asia have become hubs for online fraud, with criminal networks earning billions from illegal compounds where trafficking victims are often forced to work.

YouTube's head of products for podcasts Steve McLendon says viewers streamed 700M hours of podcasts on TV in October, up from 400M hours in October 2024 (Ashley Carman/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

People Watched 700 Million Hours of YouTube Podcasts on TV in October
That’s up from 400 million hours a year ago as podcasts become the new late-night TV.

Trump’s IRS chief reorganizes tax agency days before filing season
The Internal Revenue Service will reorganize its senior ranks
days before this year’s tax filing season opens
and try to use technology to become more efficient,
the Trump administration’s IRS leader Frank Bisignano told The Washington Post on Tuesday.

Administration officials named Bisignano the IRS’s chief executive,
a role that does not formally exist in the agency’s governing structur…

Trump’s IRS chief reorganizes tax agency days before filing season
The Trump administration’s IRS chief, Frank Bisignano, is reorganizing the tax agency ahead of the upcoming tax filing season.

Please keep in mind that even DMs can become public under the right conditions and opsec accordingly.

A look at Track Star, a YouTube music quiz show that has become a stop on the celebrity promo trail and has started creating documentary-style music features (Jessica M. Goldstein/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/arts/music/track-star-youtub…

How Track Star Became a YouTube and TikTok Music Phenomenon
“Track Star” is the YouTube series that brings out the music lover in celebrities and civilians alike.

@… bluesky will inevitably go away or become enshittified, hope that helps 😅

Sources: Chargers expected to hire McDaniel as OC https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47677046/sources-chargers-expected-hire-mike-mcdaniel-oc

2 Cowboys Assistants Could Become Head Coach Candidates in 2026 https://insidethestar.com/2-cowboys-assistants-could-become-head-coach-candidates-in-2026

Dutch fintech Bunq applies to become a US bank; the OCC conditionally approved national trust bank charters for several crypto firms in 2025, including Circle (Paige Smith/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-07…

Dutch Fintech Bunq Reapplies to Become a Bank in the US
The Dutch fintech Bunq BV applied to become a US bank two years after rescinding a previous application under former President Joe Biden.

ICE hasn’t gone; they’re just finding ways to operate that are less visible, finding targets with fewer eyes watching:
https://sahanjournal.com/immigration/mobile-home-parks-immigration-enforcement-ice-minnesota/
Don’t forget the people ICE is targeting. Don’t let them become invisible.

Mobile gaming company Scopely buys a majority stake in Istanbul-based studio Loom, maker of puzzle game Pixel Flow!; a source says the deal values Loom at $1B (Georg Szalai/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business

Mobile Gaming Firm Scopely Buys Majority Stake in Istanbul-Based Studio Behind ‘Pixel Flow!’
"It’s been a privilege to have a front row seat to the team’s rapid growth and success and see them become the latest Turkish startup to reach unicorn-level status," says previous investor Arcadia.

"How plant “touch” boosts resilience: new research reveals surprising stress response"
#Plants #Nature #Environment

How plant “touch” boosts resilience: new research reveals surprising stress response | The Optimist Daily
When plant leaves touch, they become more resilient to light stress. A new study shows how physical contact may form a natural stress warning system.

One Tuesday morning last month, a 15-year-old Russian boy got ready for school by packing a paramilitary vest, a helmet, and a knife.
Before leaving his house, he sent a manifesto to his classmates denouncing gay people and Jews, and quoting a mass murderer along with a white-supremacist conspiracy theory.
When the boy, identified by prosecutors as Timofey K., arrived at his school, located outside Moscow, he went to the bathroom to put on his gear, which he’d branded with neo-Naz…

Something Is Wrong With Russia’s Children
As violence has come to surround Russian youth, many seem to have become more violent themselves.

Trump Says US Giving $10B to
“Board of Peace”
— 12 Times US’s UN Contribution
Critics have said Trump is angling to replace the UN with the “Board of Piss,” which he is in charge
The Trump administration is requiring countries to commit $1 billion to the board to become permanent members.
Trump said on Thursday that 10 nations have contributed $7 billion to a supposed relief package for Gaza so far,
including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emir…

Trump Says US Giving $10B to “Board of Peace” — 12 Times US’s UN Contribution
Critics have said Trump is angling to replace the UN with the “Board of Peace,” which he is in charge of.

Regardless, we can be careful to echo the OP in a way that doesn’t inadvertently become advertising.
❌ No: “This magical tech holds the keys to the future, and if billionaires own it then that screws the working class!” (This is a caricature, not what the OP wrote! I’m just exaggerating the thing to steer clear of.)
✅ Yes: “Whether this tech is ultimately good or bad, the investment bubble surrounding it is creating a huge wealth transfer in favor of billionaires.”
/end

DOJ files reveal how Jeffrey Epstein helped his Russian-born publicist Masha Bucher become a prominent VC who now boasts of early checks to 22 unicorns like xAI (Iain Martin/Forbes)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/20

How Jeffrey Epstein Helped His Publicist Become A Big-Time Venture Capitalist
Masha Bucher is one of the more high profile female VCs in Silicon Valley. New emails released from the Department of Justice reveal a deep, years long relationship with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Alan Dershowitz, a former lawyer for Trump, recently said in an interview that he and Trump have discussed the possibility of Trump running for a third term in office
— an action that would violate the U.S. Constitution.
“I said ‘it’s not clear if a president can become a third-term president and it’s not clear if it’s permissible,'”
Dershowitz recounted of his conversation with Trump.
Dershowitz, who was part of Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment tri…

Trump Confidant Alan Dershowitz Discussed Third Term Scenario With the President
Dershowitz also shared with Trump a draft of his new book, “Could President Trump Constitutionally Serve a Third Term?”…

"France updates net-zero plan, with fossil fuel phaseout"
#France #NetZero #FossilFuels

France updates net-zero plan, with fossil fuel phaseout
France released on Friday a revamped roadmap to become carbon neutral by 2050, with an ambitious plan to phase out oil and gas.

A look at China's push to become a world leader in brain-computer interfaces, as Shanghai-based startup NeuroXess moves to human trials with Beijing's backing (Eleanor Olcott/Financial Times)
https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/re…

US state department’s
Sarah B Rogers
has become face of
White House’s hostility to
European liberal democracies
As Donald Trump redoubled his war of words on the European Union and Nato in recent weeks,
a senior state department official,
Sarah B Rogers, was publicly attacking policies on hate speech and immigration by ostensible US allies,
and promoting far-right parties abroad.
Rogers has arguably become the public face of the Trump adm…

As the government continues to pursue mass deportations, Section 111 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code has become a favored tool of the Justice Department for painting opposition to immigration enforcement as a corrosive, lawless force.
The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security often describe these cases in exaggerated language, even referring to defendants as “domestic terrorists,”
though the law has nothing to do with terrorism.
Across the country, prosecutors have ch…

The Trump Administration’s Favorite Tool for Criminalizing Dissent
Federal prosecutors have charged more than 100 people with Section 111 violations. Was their crime anything more than opposing Trump’s immigration policies?

Strikes run on pizza.
Turns out they also can begin to end on them.
Several pies, in fact, arrived on North Shore Drive on the brisk Tuesday that was Oct. 18, 2022,
when the strikers first walked out of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newsroom
because the PG had violated federal labor law.
The workers said they would not go back to their jobs until their employer followed the rules.
They had no idea it would take three years
and become the nation’s lon…

Pittsburgh journalists vote to end country's longest strike and notify the PG they are returning to work - Pittsburgh Union Progress
The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh’s most momentous gathering since the formation of a strike picket line more than three years ago began last week in the manner of all big strike meetings — with the arrival of a half dozen boxes of pizza. Pepperoni, plain and a vegetarian option. Strikes run on pizza. Turns out […]

Whistles have become a popular raid alert tool in cities across the country
– New Yorkers wear them around their necks to warn neighbors,
the people of New Orleans blast them outside ICE facilities
and Charlotte residents used them to ward off Customs and Border Protection officials.
While strongly associated with Chicago, the tactic is actually one that city organizers learned in part from groups in Los Angeles.
Its spread is illustrative of the many ways cit…