Tootfinder

Hey folx! You probably see a lot of stuff from other social networks mirrored to Mastodon, how about we do it the other way around?
Recently, I've starred to mirror my posts to Instagram, Reddit, and other platforms, and I've had quite the success. My biggest post on Instagram, which is just one screenshot of a Mastodon post, has 44.5k likes and 256k views. My

Erik Uden on Instagram: "Babe, wake up. New man-made horrors beyond comprehension dropped!! In the end of the day, these companies probably realized that, just like with AI, they can somehow use scare tactics to attract venture capital. It's still a horrifying thing to think of, but possibly overblown to get money. The headline of the Science article reads: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing By restoring some functions to intact brains from deceased donors, the startup Bexorg hopes to create a better drug development test bed for neurodegenerative diseases, written by Sara Reardon, published on the 20th of May 2026. Though, reading this Science article made me think: aren't we the brain? Am I missing something here? Now, of course the devil lies in the detail and the article makes it clear that this startup only restores “some functions”, which is certainly more complex in action than it is in theory written here, but certain language of the article makes me question the author's understanding of what is a human. The article writes: “Just a day ago, the brain was in a living person. Now, hours after its owner died, it sits on a cart draped in tubes [...]” What do you mean “it's owner” — isn't the brain it's owner? Isn't that where it's owner is? I mean, certainly the brain had no more activity, the person must've been declared brain dead by all standards before being sent to this startup, still it's odd hearing someone donated their brain instead of saying they've donated... themselves? Also “using a set of proprietary brain-sustaining machines” is a terrible sentence I always thought the people who don't donate their full body to hospitals are religious lunatics, but this is the first time I wrote something on my organ donor card. They can take my brain, but not as one piece."
45K likes, 971 comments - erik.uden on May 21, 2026: "Babe, wake up. New man-made horrors beyond comprehension dropped!! In the end of the day, these companies probably realized that, just like with AI, they can somehow use scare tactics to attract venture capital. It's still a horrifying thing to think of, but possibly overblown to get money. The headline of the Science article reads: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing By restoring some functions to inta…

The idea of a suspension of the constitution had been introduced,
by the Constitution of 22 Frimaire Year 8.
Article 14 of the Charte of 1814 granted the sovereign the power to
"make the regulations and ordinances necessary for the execution of the laws and the security of the State"
Because of the vagueness of the formula, Chateaubriand observed
"that it is possible that one fine morning the whole Charte will be forfeited for the benefit of Art…

The history behind the man with the eye patch on the Las Vegas Raiders logo https://raiderramble.com/2026/07/18/the-history-behind-the-man-with-the-eye-patch-on-the-las-vegas-raiders-logo/

At this year's Open Source #Firmware #Conference, I will be presenting on "Boot Chains and Build Systems"! 🥳🥳
(spoiler: it's complicated 🫠)

Boot Chains and Build Systems Open Source Firmware Conference 2026
It is clear that booting a system based on an application processor requires multiple binaries and possibly multiple hardware components - at the very least, one to initialize the DRAM and one to run in it. This implies that the various components of the chain, however many, need to be aware of the respective next and previous one somehow: Any component has to know the source, the protocol, and the destination for loading the next one, and the build system needs to create an overall image for t…

Apple raises the price of Apple Music, with the individual plan up by $1 to $11.99, and some Apple One bundles, the first price hike for Apple Music since 2022 (Chance Miller/9to5Mac)
https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/17/apple-raises-prices-for-apple…

Apple raises prices for Apple Music and Apple One subscriptions - 9to5Mac
Apple has raised the price of Apple Music today in the United States and other countries. Starting today, Apple Music’s...

Earth's largest particle accelerator opens new window into the early universe just after the Big Bang: 'A culmination of a decades-long quest' | Space https://www.space.com/scienc…

The Battle of Britain's 'hardest day' https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/explore-by-time-period/second-world-war/the-battle-of-britains-hardest-day/

The Battle of Britain's 'hardest day'
In 1940 the Royal Air Force resisted major aerial attacks from Germany in what became known as the Battle of Britain. On 18 August, sometimes called the ‘hardest day’ of the fighting, many sites in southern England were targeted. One of them was Kenley, a fighter airfield just south of London.

Say hello to The Hamster, one of The Mansion's smallest and cutes residents. In 'Management Apologises For The Inconvenience', the hamster has a lot to do, confetti to gather, cookies to nibble, and pockets to sleep in. Even the management acknowledges his important work in The Mansion. And soon, you'll be able to follow the chubby little rodent on new adventures and mishaps! #thementalmansion

Rescued from a single tree, clinging to a steep cliff on the side of a remote Pacific island, seedlings from the last wild specimen of _Dendroseris neriifolia_ (Hook & Arn.) are now comfortably settled into a botanical oasis in the cheddar cheese producing landscape of the Mull of Galloway. As the curator of Logan Botanic Garden (one of the four constituent gardens of the Edinburgh Botanics) observed, "Experience shows that plant species from the Juan Fernandez Islands do well at Lo…

Oh! #FootpathFriday
One photo from the ruin of the castle #neideck which we visited.
I like castles and ruins not just for their look but because they offer a huge amount of information and history!
Well happy weekend! And happy reading

Just finished inspecting the LATENTRED line cards I had assembled over the weekend.
Unsurprisingly for the PNP/oven setup being new, there were some issues. None are usable as is.
Of the four boards:
* One has a short on the 1V0 rail and a few smaller solder defects
* One (the first) has ten 1K resistors populated with 0.1 uF caps due to a feeder configuration error, plus a tombstoned capacitor
* One is missing all semiconductors on purpose, this will be used for V…

The British state has recast protest as terrorism.
"the legal definition of terrorism in Britain .. includes [political] 'damage to property'"
"the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), ... is proscribed in Britain. Its Syrian offshoot, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), is not, because PYD-led forces became Western allies in the fight against ISIS (ISIL)."
Just one of the stupid contradictions.
Likewise Hamas's civilians.

The British state has recast protest as terrorism
Britain’s ever-broader terrorism laws are erasing the line between political violence, protest and dissent.

Apple raises the price of Apple Music, with the individual plan up by $1 to $11.99, and some Apple One bundles, the first price hike for Apple Music since 2022 (Chance Miller/9to5Mac)
https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/17/apple-raises-prices-for-apple…

Apple raises prices for Apple Music and Apple One subscriptions - 9to5Mac
Apple has raised the price of Apple Music today in the United States and other countries. Starting today, Apple Music’s...

Congo’s fast-moving Ebola outbreak has now killed over 2,300 people
and become the deadliest outbreak of the disease on record in the Central African nation.
The outbreak unfolding in one of Congo’s most vulnerable regions is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak ever,
with 4,945 cases including 2,325 deaths, according to government data released overnight into Monday.
It’s Congo’s 17th outbreak,
with a toll that has eclipsed that of the country’s 2018-2020 outbreak …

Congo’s fast-moving Ebola outbreak becomes the country's deadliest
Congo’s fast-moving Ebola outbreak has now killed over 2,300 people. That toll released overnight makes it the deadliest outbreak of the disease ever recorded in the Central African nation. The outbreak has recorded 4,945 cases including 2,325 deaths. It is unfolding in one of Congo’s most vulnerable regions, and the virus causing it has no approved vaccines or treatments. The World Health Organization has warned that the outbreak now spreading across six provinces in the conflict-battered …

#Oban #Whisky distillery
One of the oldest whisky distilleries of the world, the smallest in #Scotland

Six Storks (2026)
(Since it's hard to convey the scale of these antennas, please use the cute storks resting on them as reference... 😍)
#SilentSunday #LandscapePhotography #Photography

A couple of pics from a little bike packing trip around Dorset over the weekend. We took the train to Upwey (just outside Weymouth) and cycled 110km off road across Ridges, Bridle Paths and old Roman Roads back to Poole
#cycling

#ThursDeath this week is one of my favorite bands- I'm so psyched they have a new EP. This is 'Rotting Antefix' by Winnipeg's DEFENESTRATION, and the riffs on this thing will melt your face off. From the first the guitar snakes and screams from out of the churning, this one is really special. The pummeling of the drums, those crazy guttural growls- this fucker SMOKES.
Bandcamp:

Old good time? 🤔
«Finger Protocol Malware — Python RAT via a 1970s:
The finger protocol is older than the web, disabled on every server that matters, and still a working malware delivery channel on a default Windows install. Here it planted a Python RAT that was alerting the whole time. One genuine compromise, drowned in thousands of benign look-alikes, invisible until something cut through the noise»
📧

A Protocol From 1977 Is Still Delivering Malware in 2026
Attackers revived the 1977 finger protocol to drop a Python RAT on a default Windows install. The full attack chain, and how Artemis caught it live.

Almost everyone involved in the federal and Kentucky governments and press has a device, in their hand or in their pocket, capable of video chatting from wherever they are to almost anyone else in government and press.
And not one can make a video call and point the device at the “living” Senator?
How the f*ck gullible do people think everyone is?!
I mean, the gop should at _least_ fake a video call. Come on now. I demand better fraud from the gop.

Okay, the breakdown *by-language* of Artificial Analysis's "Omniscience" hallucination/capability benchmark is absolutely fascinating.
I feel like this is some of the first concrete evidence I've seen of my longtime lean: that the *correctness* tooling we obsess over in PLT spaces is one of the greatest possible value-adds to the LLM era. (Just look at the Rust row, holy shit.)
Choosing a good language basically shifts the quality of output by an entire cost-cat…

I hesitate to post this. The voice of the presenter is obviously generated artificially, but if you can watch and tune out the voice, and read the subtitles, then you can listen to the chickens. In other clips he speaks with an accent similar to what’s on this one, but this one just sounds weird. Never mind, just watch, and be amused. https://

My Pip-Boy 3000 Classic arrived from the Wand Company.
Is it better than my Pip-Boy 3000 Mk V? I dunno... I like the weathered look of the steel Mk V better but the software detail on Classic is so rich.
One thing I love: The audio port is also an FM antenna so the radio works waaaay better than the Mk V.
#fallout

Finally had a quiet enough moment, for long enough, to deeply savor this article by @… about colour spaces.
Fascinating in the way the very best information is; one of the exceedingly rare gems that make the doomscrolling addiction worthwhile.
#ColorScience

Where to Find the Colors Your Screen Can’t Show You
An atlas of the vibrance of the real world

from my link log —
No-one knows the type of char char.
https://blog.knatten.org/2019/05/24/no-one-knows-the-type-of-char-char/
saved 2019-10-17

No-one knows the type of char + char
Quick quiz! Given the following: Which overload gets called by the following? Alternatives: f(unsigned int) f(int) f(char) No-one knows the type of char + char If you answered 4), congratulations! …

Numismatist alert!
I just found this very old penny in my pocket because it *stuck to my headphone case's magnetic clasp*
Wait, you say. Isn't ol' Abe supposed to be copper (or copper and zinc)?
Apparently not in 1943!

Working an unusual pattern of days this week and I can't decide if I like it. On the one hand I'm not knackered but on the other I don't get my usual block of four days off when I put my non-archaeology head on. I'm switching between states more which isn't always easy. Anyway, it means more chores get done during the week as I have the beans. Sparky is very confused but that's not unusual, love him. Tails takes it all in her stride as usual.

100 years ago #OTD the #planetarium in #Jena (Germany) opened to the public: it's the oldest one in the world srill operating in the same location! Scroll down on https://skyweek.wordpress.com/2026/07/18/die-leuchtenden-nachtwolken-sind-weiter-aktiv for some news coverage back then and the wider context.

50 years ago tonight, the grateful dead at the orpheum in san francisco, their 5th of 6 nights, with one of my go-to ’76 sequences. no donna in the 2nd set.
now on “dave’s picks 18” with lively piano mix: https://youtu.be/K0-YN5ENfZ4
menke audience tape:

Your behaviors on each individual social media platform begin to bleed into the others. At first you type your old friend's IG handle into the Youtube search bar. Then your fingers reflexively jump 2 where a button would be if this shyt was TikTok. Soon you reference a word created yesterday on LinkedIn.
One day, u break and become the omniuser. the first mf to perfectly fully evenly mentally synthesize every ui together as one within the bowels of your subconscious. You are cyron…

Here's @… with an extraordinary story of honesty and community solidarity from within #Gaza

🍎 The Children Ran Toward the Fruit… But What Happened Next Left Me Speechless. 💔
In one of Gaza's neighborhoods, a street vendor's cart lost its balance, and fruit spilled across the road. 🍎

"Trump’s self-love, not Iran, is global enemy No 1. He’s the principal reason this war is escalating uncontrollably again. He’s a one-man weapon of mass destruction."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/18/donald-trump-…

Trump, not Iran, is the world’s greatest danger. He’s a one-man weapon of mass destruction
As the bombing starts again, it’s clear the president has dragged the US into a limitless fiasco – and the world into an economic quagmire, says Guardian foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall

RE: https://eldritch.cafe/@miranda_blue/116935608086213327
This is showing one thing that I think should become general principle: Using an LLM for someone else _is rude and bad_. Presenting something untranslated that _they_ can have an LLM translate is better than doing it yourself, and not showing that input — the prompt here is not included and is a key piece of context, and the results are also bad _with no recourse_.
Information has been destroyed. Trust has been broken (or in the case of commerce, failed to be established). Even if the total amount of LLM-use were the same, this is worse than the reader using it.
PROMPTING AN LLM FOR SOMEONE ELSE IS RUDE.

Cowboys’ Defense Receives Startling Warning Before Commanders Game https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/dallas-cowboys/defense-receives-warning-before-commanders-game/

I have a slightly niche CD-production request:
I’m putting together a collaborative CD release to accompany an artist’s monograph (the CD will slot into the book). We’re organising the CD-production side ourselves and everything but the audio itself is outside my experience.
The pressing plant the artist chose doesn’t offer DDP creation, and my mastering engineer friend isn’t able to do this one. I’m not really in a position right now to buy DDP software and learn the workflow in…

Immediate (and obvious) memeing.
When I first saw the photo, I thought there was no way it could be real, it had to be AI.
It's not. There's several videos of it, shot from several directions. I've seen them. This is 100% real. And this photo is one for the photos of the year.
#Russia's Moscow is burning. Hard. At long last.

Well that's a fucking terrifying image.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/09/03/broken-arrows/#things-get-worse

Brazil’s wild cats face multiple diseases due to habitat fragmentation https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/brazils-wild-cats-face-multiple-diseases-due-to-habitat-fragmentation/

Brazil’s wild cats face multiple diseases due to habitat fragmentation
Every day, millions of Brazilians recall how rich the country’s feline biodiversity is when they reach into their wallets: Since entering circulation in 2010, the ‘50 real’ notes have carried a printed drawing of a jaguar (Panthera onca), the largest feline in the Americas. In Brazil, one can even trace the animal that inspired the […]

sp_infectious: Art exhibit dynamic contacts (2011)
This dataset contains the daily dynamic contact networks collected during the Infectious SocioPatterns event that took place at the Science Gallery in Dublin, Ireland, during the artscience exhibition INFECTIOUS: STAY AWAY. Each file in the downloadable package contains a tab-separated list representing the active contacts during 20-second intervals of one day of data collection. Each line has the form “t i j“, where i and j are the a…

Clients think a release is quick and easy. They don't see all of the work that goes behind the scenes. Like making sausages you really don't want to know how it is done.
So many steps. One person makes a change, documents it in the release document and at certain points to check the document back in and send the ISS and DEV team members a summary of what is completed, what is in progress and any issues. A second team member reviews the changes and marks the checkpoint as co…

This post gets regular inline updates:
https://adrianroselli.com/2024/04/what-you-can-do-as-a-web-builder-on-earth-day.html
Today I added a Nature article, the Web Sustainability Guidelines Impact Ratings, and the Carbon in Context calcula…

What You Can Do as a Web Builder on Earth Day
One easy thing you can do for the earth is not use “AI” tools. Consider this as a programmer, web developer, web designer, copywriter, webmaster, etc. The tools include anything branded as generative AI, LLMs, computer vision tools, Copilot, ChatGPT, Bard, Grok, Dall-e, Midjourney, and so on. If you are…

"what are the two readings of 🙃?" - Roughly, one group sees this emoji as a whimsical, funny alternative to the "regular" smiley 🙂 , which they also read as positive ("happy, smiling"). The other group sees it as sarcastic, passive-aggressive, or uncomfortable. There are many nuances but those are the two groups. #emojis #WorldEmojiDay #linguistics

Report: Six-time Pro Bowl WR Keenan Allen signing with Colts on one-year deal https://www.nfl.com/news/report-six-time-pro-bowl-wr-keenan-allen-signing-with-colts-on-one-year-deal

Are we trading one #environmental catastrophe for another under the disguise of #EnergySecurity? The reality on the ground at #Japan’s biomass plants include dangerous

Concerns grow over ‘green’ biomass power in Japan after spate of accidents
For the past decade, Japan has been expanding the use of woody biomass for power generation to replace or be mixed and burned with coal. The country is now the second-largest wood pellet consumer in the world after the U.K. But there are concerns that burning wood pellets or palm kernel shells to generate electricity […]

Shopware 6: Ever had an SVG icon render fine on the page but show up empty the moment the same fragment loads via AJAX? That's not a bug in your code — it's a Shopware optimization you didn't know existed, and there's a one-line fix once you know its name.

Shopware 6 Hidden Gems #11: sw_icon_cache — why your SVG icons sometimes break (and how Shopware shrinks your HTML) - Winkelwagen GmbH - an ecommerce agency
This gem is a two-for-one: a neat optimization you didn't know you were using, and the explanation for a bug you have probably chased — icons that render fine

Kirk Cousins Could Be the One Thing Holding the Raiders Back https://raiderramble.com/2026/09/16/kirk-cousins-could-be-the-one-thing-holding-the-raiders-back/

"Pangolin habitat at risk in Pakistan"
#Pakistan #Animals #Pangolin

Pangolin habitat at risk in Pakistan
The endangered Indian pangolin, already devastated by the illegal wildlife trade, is facing another crisis in Pakistan, one of the four countries where it’s found: rapid habitat loss. Key habitats of the Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) have particularly disappeared in Pakistan’s rural, mountainous northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to new research, reports contributor Emma […]

Let’s get one thing straight: if you’re bigoted against Jews, you’re no better than Israeli settlers and the Israelis who are complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.
Someone being Jewish does not mean that they’re Zionist or complicit in genocide. Not all Jews are Zionists. And not all Zionists are Jews.
Conflating the two is antisemitic.
And Israel and Zionists are guilty of pushing that narrative more than anyone else. (Yes, Israel and Zionists a…

Many US Jewish adults have experienced assault or harassment over the past year, AP-NORC poll finds
WASHINGTON (AP) — The findings highlight the vulnerability that many Jewish adults in the U.S. feel as bipartisan support for Israel erodes and significant divides emerge within the Jewish community about what constitutes antisemitism — particularly when it comes to protesting Israel.

The Whole Boodle
People keep asking me one question, so here is the answer, whole: the history, the intention, the meaning, the being, and, at the end, the me. ...
https://bolesblogs.com/2026/08/16/the-whole-boodle/

I haven't been posting much lately...
Over the weekend one of our cats had to go do the emergency vet due to crystals blocking his urinary tract. An x-ray then showed kidney stones and he needed surgery.
He's back home recovering, on drugs, not happy about the cone, making a mess of everything, and we're thankful we could save his life.
I mean, we are now broke, in credit card debt, and canceling next years holiday, but, hey... cats! We love 'em!

One of the saddest slogans ever: Make America great again.
America always was great. It was the land of our dreams.
Since Trump, it's a nightmare.
America was our friend.
Now, it's who we thougt to be our adversaries who speak the truth and you can't believe anything that Trump says.
Our world is changing.
Europe hopefully will grow up very fast.
And I pray that our world will be more peaceful, egalitarian and democratic in the future, anywa…

Three large portions of the Filchner Ice Shelf
—dubbed A22, A23, and A24
—calved into the Weddell Sea off of Antarctica in 1986.
For National Geographic, Chris Heath documents the life and death of an iceberg called A23a,
known at one time as the largest iceberg in the world.
Born when it broke off A23 in 1991,
it was “at least 44 nautical miles long, 40 nautical miles wide, and somewhere close to 2,000 square miles in area, or roughly the size of Bali.”

Converse bounds for multiple graph alignment and correlation detection based on last matching
Taha Ameen, Bruce Hajek
https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.14450 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.14450 https://arxiv.org/html/2608.14450
arXiv:2608.14450v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The paper focuses on information theoretic converse bounds for the alignment of $m$ correlated graphs and for the detection of correlation among $m$ graphs. A simple idea for $m\geq 3$ is that if the alignment of $m-1$ of the graphs is revealed as extra information (by a genie for example) then it is still necessary to produce the alignment between the one remaining graph and the others, i.e. the last matching must be accomplished. For both Gaussian and Erdos-Renyi models, the last-matching problem is equivalent to one with two observed graphs, providing a path to extend converse bounds for $m=2$ to larger $m$. While the method is rather obvious for alignment, we show that the method can also be used to derive converse bounds for weak detection of correlation.
toXiv_bot_toot

"Not one of the governments involved is anti-imperialist, nor can they remotely be regarded as progressive. Saudi Arabia could take the prize for the world’s most reactionary tyranny.
But their detachment from the United States is a sign of the times, of the shift to a multipolar world which all socialists should welcome."
The Mecca pact is a sign US power is waning in the Middle East | Morning Star

The Oldest Stars in the Galaxy Just Weighed In on One of Cosmology's Biggest Arguments - Universe Today https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-oldest-stars-in-the-galaxy-just-weighed-in-on-one-of-cosmologys-bigges…

A US federal judge rules the State Department engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination by denying visas to researchers studying misinfo and disinfo (Mike Masnick/Techdirt)
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/15/rubio-

Rubio Wanted To Ban ‘Censors’ From Entering The US. A Court Says He’s The One Censoring.
Last year, the Marco Rubio-run State Department announced that it would start denying visas to people who worked in misinformation/disinformation research, content moderation, fact-checking, or oth…

How NYT lost its first US defamation trial in 50 years to an ex-college basketball player after relying on one source, fixing the story 3 months after it ran (Bill Grueskin/Columbia Journalism Review)
https://www.cjr.org/news/how-the-new-york-

How the New York Times lost a defamation trial.
An anonymous source, a “hillbilly ambulance chaser” text message, and the newsroom’s first defamation defeat in this country in more than fifty years.

#Gaza is a hot, arid place, Scotland a cool damp one. There aren't that many commonalities between them. But here, too, we pick, and sing about, the wild mountain thyme. Fortunately for us, we have other things to eat with it.
I've seen several people from Gaza lately commenting the wild thyme is the last thing they have left to add savour to their food. Here @…

Thyme, Heavier Than Hunger 🌿💔
In Palestine, thyme needs no introduction. It is the scent of old homes, the memory of quiet mornings, and a small piece of our land that we carry with us wherever we go. 🇵🇸

Got the replacement diodes and reworked the probe demo board with the messed up one.
Here it is before defluxing. A lot of hand soldering and rework on this one plus two extra oven cycles so it's pretty ugly, let's see how it cleans up in SWAS. Gonna give it an extra good scrub since it's so messy

Those seeking to join Trump’s second administration had to pass a key litmus test:
Did they believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump?
With like-minded allies now positioned in key roles throughout the government,
Trump has trained the full arsenal of the federal government on one of his most persistent obsessions:
sowing doubt about the security of the country’s election systems.
Major agencies such as the Justice Department, the F.B.I., the Homeland Secu…

Trump Brings Full Weight of Government to Bolster False Election Claims
Intelligence agencies provided the White House with a trove of declassified documents that President Trump cited on Thursday as evidence of election vulnerabilities.

Nasturtium flowers greeted me this morning. They've suddenly sprung out of nowhere. I wasn't sure this plant was as healthy as the other set of nasturtium but the other one is all leaves like dinner plates but no flowers, and this one's the other way round #bloomscrolling

One Word Perfectly Sums Up Dallas Cowboys' Vibe Ahead of Training Camp https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/onsi/one-word-perfectly-sums-up-dallas-cowboys-vibe-ahead-of-training-camp

Last night, to make the most of the combination of the still almost New Moon (only 5% illuminated), clear sky/weather, Milky Way alignment/visibility and still near-peak Perseids meteor shower (with ~50 per hour), I spent three hours alone in one of the darkest places within easy reach and with absolutely great views across a lake to boot...
Here's a short time lapse animation of the Milky Way rotating over the Alps near Füssen from around 23:30 - midnight... 290 frames, each 15 second…

“Do you think emojis will ever become part of formal language? Are we going to see emojis in laws or letters from the pension fund?” - Emojis are mainly used in informal language, because (or that’s why?) one of their main functions is to signal closeness, familiarity and a lack of hierarchy between the conversation participants. This is also the reason why a lack of emojis from a personal chat message may trigger questions like “what have I done?!”, because it could signal that the friendly relationship is disturbed. So I think emojis wouldn’t be used in legal code. But in official letters, maybe! I once received an email from a university administrator with a ☺️ and I appreciated it a lot.
#emojis #linguistics #WorldEmojiDay

Arguably the most telling section of the White House report relates to its defense of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
The report’s authors bristle at any suggestion that this famously racist law may have been motivated by any kind of racial animus.
After all, such an acknowledgment might raise uncomfortable questions about the policies of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller
—policies that are explicitly modeled on laws like this one.
FOR THOSE UNFAMILIAR:
The Ch…

Racist Law From 1882 Is Not That Racist, Trump Says
Buried in the White House’s broadside against the Smithsonian is a bizarre—and revealing—claim about the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Meta ran ads for a nudify app featuring a porn video with a deepfake closely resembling a prominent US politician; Apple removed the app from the App Store (Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-ran-ads-for-an-app-promising-to-nudify-female-polit…

Meta Ran Ads for an App That Promised to Nudify Female Politicians
One advertisement featured a pornographic video with a deepfake closely resembling a prominent US politician. Apple removed the app from the App Store after an inquiry from WIRED.

A US federal judge rules the State Department engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination by denying visas to researchers studying misinfo and disinfo (Mike Masnick/Techdirt)
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/15/rubio-

Rubio Wanted To Ban ‘Censors’ From Entering The US. A Court Says He’s The One Censoring.
Last year, the Marco Rubio-run State Department announced that it would start denying visas to people who worked in misinformation/disinformation research, content moderation, fact-checking, or oth…

"The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments."
#ClimateEmergency

Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer
Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure

The One Major Move Spytek, Raiders Absolutely Must Consider https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/onsi/las-vegas-one-major-move-spytek-absolutely-must-consider

One Word Perfectly Sums Up Dallas Cowboys' Vibe Ahead of Training Camp https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/onsi/one-word-perfectly-sums-up-dallas-cowboys-vibe-ahead-of-training-camp

When the Justice Department indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center in April on controversial fraud charges, the storied civil rights organization faced a major threat to its lifeblood
— the flow of donor dollars.
Not because it was convicted or because the Internal Revenue Service revoked its tax-exempt status.
Not even because individual donors stopped writing checks.
Instead, three Wall-Street-affiliated grantmaking giants each made a decision,
one they ref…

Wall Street’s Nonprofits Use Selective, Opaque Logic to Defund Charities
A quarter of all individual giving in the U.S. is made through donor-advised funds. A ProPublica investigation reveals how these high-stakes decisions to cut off funding often leave charities, donors and the public in the dark.

Evening Walk
(Last night, stopping by at one of our fave places on the way back from commemorating an important family day in the mountains...)
#EveningWalk #LandscapePhotography #Lake

A giant mirror to create
“sunlight on demand”
was just approved by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC),
despite opposition from astronomers and the public, and real safety concerns.
The FCC approved the company
Reflect Orbital
to test one satellite, named Earendil-1,
as a means of reflecting the sun’s rays back to Earth for extra solar energy
and wide-area lighting.
The light is expected to cover an area about five ki…

The U.S. just approved a giant space mirror to test ‘sunlight on demand.’ Low Earth orbit is getting weird
From space hotels and artificial meteor showers, to a new giant mirror that reflects sunlight to Earth — low-Earth orbit is getting weird.

The One Major Move Spytek, Raiders Absolutely Must Consider https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/onsi/las-vegas-one-major-move-spytek-absolutely-must-consider

Bill Rasmussen, a one-time sportscaster who went on to be ESPN's co-founder and first chairman before leaving the company in 1980, has died at 93 (Mike Barnes/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/bill-rasmussen-espn-…

Bill Rasmussen, Co-Founder of ESPN, Dies at 93
The former New England Whalers exec and his son came up with the idea for an all-sports network in 1978 while stuck in traffic.

Alibaba says its new open-source multimodal model, Qwen3.8-27B, passed 1M downloads within a few days of release, making it one of its fastest-growing models (Juro Osawa/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/alibabas-small-device-model…

Alibaba’s Small, On-Device Model Gains Traction
Alibaba Group said its new small-size AI model that customers can run on their own personal computers has been downloaded more than 1 million times in just a few days since its release, making it one of the company’s fastest-growing models. Alibaba’s new Qwen3.8-27B, a 27 billion-parameter open-source model that understands text, image and video prompts, can be downloaded for free, and users

P.J. Locke, Cowboys defense looking to improve 'one play at a time' https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/p-j-locke-cowboys-defense-looking-to-improve-one-play-at-a-time

It was a plan House G.O.P. leaders hoped would satisfy everyone in their party:
With a special budget bill, they would bypass Democratic opposition and provide tens of billions for the Iran war while imposing new election restrictions Trump has demanded.
Instead, a day after the leaders released the plan, which hews closely to a spending request the White House sent to Capitol Hill last month,
it became clear it is a product that no one really likes.
The measure, whic…

Republican Rifts Deepen Over $95 Billion Budget Plan for Iran War and SAVE Act
A House panel approved the measure. But Republicans are divided over its size, cost and policy provisions, and many are concerned about the timing before the midterm elections.

Documents Trump released to support his claims — and previous assessments from the intelligence community — do not back up his most aggressive statements about election security.
In fact, some of the documents reach the opposite conclusion.
They also do not contain significant new revelations about vulnerabilities in election systems.
One of the documents posted on the White House website was blunt:
“We assess that vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipu…

Takeaways From Trump’s Speech Claiming Election Vulnerabilities and China Interference
Documents released by the Trump administration to support the president’s claims did not back up his most aggressive statements.

Commanders are hoping Jacory Croskey-Merritt can run all over the Cowboys https://www.foxsports.com/articles/nfl/commanders-are-hoping-jacory-croskeymerritt-can-run-all-over-the-cowboys

The Raiders’ quarterback plan only works if they stick to it https://raiderramble.com/2026/07/18/the-raiders-quarterback-plan-only-works-if-they-stick-to-it/

The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, announced on Wednesday that he would again
cancel votes scheduled for Thursday,
sending lawmakers home one day early ahead of the midterm election recess.
The latest change to the legislative schedule means House members will
avoid voting on Republican Thomas Massie’s resolution to impeach the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth,
and comes amid a frenzied attempt to propose legislation on artificial intelligence.

House speaker calls early recess before midterms amid AI regulation frenzy
Mike Johnson cancels votes on Thursday, meaning House members will avoid voting on impeaching Pete Hegseth

The Biggest Question Nobody Is Asking About The Raiders https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/onsi/las-vegas-biggest-question-nobody-asking-about

Ukraine is the victim of a lawless, brutal, unprovoked invasion by a politically backward and dysfunctional would-be empire ruled by a murderous autocrat.
That assessment was obvious on Feb. 24, 2022 when the full-scale invasion was launched,
and it was obvious in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea.
The challenge of writing about the war is that once you’ve said that,
saying it again just feels repetitive.
This is a bigger problem than one columnist’s selfish de…

Column: The war in Ukraine is becoming very inconvenient for Trump
It is utterly dishonorable to watch the president excoriate and victim-blame Ukrainians on a geopolitical scale.

The Biggest Question Nobody Is Asking About The Raiders https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/onsi/las-vegas-biggest-question-nobody-asking-about

New York Times veteran David Sanger blasted Donald Trump's assertion that his reporting on the Iran war amounted to treason.
Trump made the comment on Air Force One this week after Sanger asked,
"What would the use be of repeating the bombing?
You you did it for 38 days, and you did not get the political changes in Iran."
After claiming he had achieved a
"total military victory" in Iran,
Trump turned on Sanger, saying,
"I…

‘We All Know What This Is About’: NYT’s David Sanger Blasts Trump ‘Treason’ Accusation As ‘Effort To Intimidate’
New York Times veteran David Sanger blasted President Donald Trump's assertion that his reporting on the Iran war amounted to treason.

Water levels in Lake Powell,
the second-biggest reservoir on the beleaguered Colorado River,
are in danger of falling so low that its dam can no longer generate hydropower,
according to a federal analysis released Wednesday.

The new “most probable” forecast from the Bureau of Reclamation projects that
the height of water in Lake Powell,
which sits on the border of Utah and Arizona,
will fall to 3,491 feet by March.
That’s just one foot above

A major Colorado River reservoir is getting ‘perilously’ low
A new federal analysis predicts that water levels in Lake Powell will fall almost to the point that its dam can no longer produce power.

Serena Williams is back.
First, by teaming up with rising Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko for a straight-sets win over the No. 3 seeds in women’s doubles at the Queen’s grass-court tournament in London,
Williams sent a message to the tennis world that it may be in for an interesting summer.
Then she sent an even bigger message, by accepting a wild card into the singles at Wimbledon, which she has won seven times.
Williams’ comeback comes just under one year after she d…

Serena Williams and the coming reckoning with GLP-1s and performance enhancement
GLP-1s are not prohibited; the way they work means they might never be. Anti-doping authorities are still monitoring how athletes use them.

Alabama has one of the strictest conditions in the nation for medical marijuana
For women between the ages of 11-50, the state requires pregnancy tests every 30 days to keep their registration current,
unless they can show proof they’ve had surgery that prevents having children.

In Alabama, these patients have to take monthly pregnancy tests for medical cannabis
No other state in the nation mandates regular pregnancy testing for patients to qualify.

The author is one of those radical left people you hear about:
People that think radical ideas like
public universal healthcare,
public education,
public water, sewers and hydro
are good policy.
A 33-year retired hydro worker who was a union activist and who led the successful campaign to stop the sale of Hydro One,
wrote the union bulletin
and in retirement became a freelance writer for Free.

A self-described polling group posted findings showing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass leading by nearly 12 points in the race to keep her seat,
but before its website went dark Monday,
Median Strategies said those results were fake and a “short-term social experiment.”
The three-page poll that had a one-sentence methodology section managed to get the attention of Bass,
who touted it in a post on X that has since been deleted, the Los Angeles Times first reported.
…

Fake Poll Showing LA Mayor Karen Bass Leading Was a ‘Social Experiment,’ Group Says
Bass touted the poll in a since-deleted X post. Her campaign says any “bad faith attempts to influence elections” should be prosecuted.

This book, The Day After, is a blueprint for how Democrats must govern in the future.
It doesn’t seek to entrench the status quo, but rather usher in a new kind of government that works for Americans.
A government that doesn’t allow the smallest obstacle stand in its way.
A government that isn’t in place to defend its own institutions, but rather one that focuses on outcomes for its people.

On Bluesky last night
Catherine Rampell noted that in documents Trump released
there were confirmations of Russia’s work on Trump’s behalf in 2020
and that China “did not intend to “try to affect the election.”
https://bsky.app/profile/crampell.bsky.social/…

Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social)
one of the supposedly damning docs the White House released tonight says Russia tried to undermine BIDEN. Also says China "prefers that President Trump be defeated" but actually "Beijing did not intend to try to affect the election" (!)

U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham communicated with someone posing as White House chief of staff Susie Wiles
before becoming suspicious that the contact was illegitimate, officials said.
One person briefed on the communications said
a “few messages” were exchanged after the PM entered No. 10
but insisted they were “of no significance.”
“We do not comment on national security matters,” Downing Street said

Burnham exchanged messages with impersonator of top Trump aide
The U.K. leader believed he was communicating with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

Patrons of Amazon Web Services have been landed with panic-inducing monthly bills running as high as
$1.5 trillion for subscriptions that usually cost less than the price of a cup of coffee.
From Bangalore to Bolsover, the bills have been causing alarm
after a computer glitch resulted in the astronomical invoices being dispatched around the world by Jeff Bezos’s company,
which provides data and cloud services to millions of customers, from students and small charities…

Amazon Web Services customers receive bills for up to $1.5tn after global glitch
One UK man whose bill is usually less than £1 says he ‘almost had a heart attack’ when he saw £5.8bn invoice

At an Arkansas school, a boy was hit by the school’s founder and attacked by classmates in a group session the founder led, prompting a complaint and her arrest.
State Money Still Flows: Despite a jail term for the school’s founder, "The Delta Institute for the Developing Brain" continues to operate and Arkansas still sends it public funds.
Unregulated and Growing: BY DESIGN, private schools get little oversight in Arkansas even as new opportunities to receive state m…

This Private School Had Students Scrub Floors and Attack a Fellow Classmate. The State Still Funds It.
One of the few requirements for Arkansas private schools is that they have an American flag and a flagpole. But millions in state funds go to the largely unmonitored schools while complaints about safety and fraud have gone unanswered, parents say.

Our “premium meth” is starting to burn.

“It’s going to blow!” Hoyt shouts as smoke clouds the kitchenette.

Sweating in a hazmat suit, I switch off the burner. The goo bubbling in our saucepan is supposed to be blue. Blue Sky.
The boss won’t like that it now resembles tar.

It’s nearly midnight, and we’re eight hours into an elaborate game that almost no one wins.
Live-action role-playing more typically deals in history or fantasy — but this loose script reflects…

What I learned about the American Dream from Europeans pretending to live in Ohio
The state of the American Dream looks very different from inside a role-playing event deep in the woods of Poland.

Californians are deeply pessimistic about the direction of the state and nation, expecting tough economic times and are sour on both major political parties, according to a new poll.
Nearly 80% of likely voters say
14 statewide propositions and dense wording make the ballot overwhelming,
shortly before mail-in voting begins for more than 23 million Californians.
Likely voters are split over a one-time wealth tax on billionaires and rival measures that could nullify i…

California voters frustrated by length of November ballot, state and nation's direction
Californians are deeply frustrated with the length of the November ballot, which includes 14 propositions, and gloomy about the direction of the state and the nation, according to a new Public Policy Institute of California poll.

The supreme court is expected to render at least one judgment today
as the term is set to come to an end later this month.
There are a series of cases yet to be decided that are relevant to Donald Trump,
including his attempt to limit #birthright citizenship
and plan to remove legal protection from Haitian and Syrian