Renowned poet and Black arts movement icon Nikki Giovanni dies at 81
The poet and activist was a leading figure of the Black Arts Movement. Giovanni was working on her upcoming book of poetry, set to publish in the fall.
What we know about Luigi Mangione, the suspect in United Healthcare CEO's killing
Mangione was arraigned on firearms and forgery charges in Pennsylvania after his arrest Monday evening, and is expected to face charges in New York as well.
Reblogged by rust@octodon.social ("Rust tips"):
rust@social.rust-lang.org ("Rust Language") wrote:
Time for the annual State of Rust Survey! 📝✨
Whether you've just begun using Rust, are an experienced Rust user, stopped using Rust, or might use Rust in the future, we'd like to hear from you!
Available in seven languages and open until December 23rd:
https://blog.rust-lang.org/2024/12/05/annual-survey-2024-launch.html
hannu_ikonen@zeroes.ca ("Freddie Oversteegen Was Right") wrote:
Whether or not some absolute simpering obsequious sack of shit at McDonald's turned in the UHC CEO shooter or not,
I'll just say this:
The die is cast. People see 68,000 UHC patients dying an unnatural and early death a year is certainly more abhorrent, depraved, and disgusting than one insider trading morally depraved CEO being gunned down on the street.
The news media on the other hand, will continue to prevaricate re: the simple fact that conditions less equal than 1789 France generally are a pre-revolutionary state.
And so, I say cheers to the Insurance Adjuster and a hearty FUCK YOU to all mainstream media outlets.
Y'all can lick my hairy Fournier's gangrene infested ballsack & choke on it you fucking bootlicking shitzippers.
dancast@wandering.shop ("DanCast") wrote:
Apropos of nothing, remember when Kyle Rittenhouse was let off after obviously premeditated human hunting and murder?
Top 'Washington Post' editor kills article on deputy's departure
Washington Post Acting Executive Editor Matt Murray killed a story about the departure of a veteran and popular editor for a senior position at the New York Times.
TheNeedling@newsie.social ("The Needling") wrote:
McDonald’s Employee Can’t Wait to Spend $60k Bounty on Overnight Stay at Hospital: https://theneedling.com/2024/10/18/mcdonalds-employee-cant-wait-to-spend-60k-bounty-on-one-overnight-stay-at-hospital/
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alissaazar@kolektiva.social ("Alissa Azar") wrote:
remember that one time I went to court and this was written on the bathroom stall
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mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io ("mekka okereke :verified:") wrote:
Today in justice:
* They did find the man that killed the Healthcare CEO. Because they made the whole country "be on look out" (BOLO) for him.
* They didn't find the man that killed an immigrant on the same day. No info shared.
* The man that choked a Black man to death was found "not guilty"
3/3
dansinker@omfg.town ("Dan Sinker") wrote:
Definitely think that there’s nothing more indicitive of the desperation of right now than throwing all your hopes behind a CEO killer.
The Suicide Squad game’s final season is coming less than a year after launch
Image: Warner Bros. Games
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League only came out in February, but the game’s final season, which starts tomorrow, is going to be its last. Season 4 Episode 7 launches on Tuesday, and Episode 8, which is set to release on January 14th, 2025, will “serve as the last seasonal Episode for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League,” developer Rocksteady announced on Monday.
After the release of the final content, the game will still be available to play online, according to a WB Games FAQ. But the game is also getting an offline mode tomorrow — which had been previously announced, though without a specific date beyond “2024” — that will let you play the main story and all seasonal story mission content without an internet connection.
The game has had a troubled history. The game was originally set to release in 2022 before being delayed multiple times. And a largely unsuccessful launch — in our review, we said the game “hides its brash personality under a generic looter shooter” — resulted in Warner Bros. Discovery announcing in May that it would be taking a $200 million loss on the game.
Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
robdaemon@tenforward.social ("Rob") wrote:
Thank you, Tegan and Sara ❤️
Google reveals quantum computing chip with ‘breakthrough’ achievements
Image: Google
Google’s quantum computing lab just achieved a major milestone. On Monday, the company revealed that its new quantum computing chip, Willow, is capable of performing a computing challenge in less than five minutes — a process Google says would take one of the world’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years, or longer than the age of the universe.
That’s a big jump from 2019 when Google announced its quantum processor could complete a mathematical equation in three minutes, as opposed to 10,000 years on a supercomputer. IBM disputed the claim at the time.
Along with more powerful performance, researchers also found a way to reduce errors, something Google calls “one of the greatest challenges in quantum computing.” Instead of bits, which represent either 1 or 0, quantum computing uses qubits, a unit that can exist in multiple states at the same time, such as 1, 0, and anything in between.
As noted by Google, qubits are prone to errors because they “have a tendency to rapidly exchange information with their environment.” However, Google’s researchers discovered a way to reduce errors by introducing more qubits to a system and were able to correct them in real time. Their findings were published in Nature.
“This historic accomplishment is known in the field as ‘below threshold’ — being able to drive errors down while scaling up the number of qubits,” Google Quantum AI founder Hartmut Neven writes on Google’s blog. “You must demonstrate being below threshold to show real progress on error correction, and this has been an outstanding challenge since quantum error correction was introduced by Peter Shor in 1995.”
Introducing Willow, our new state-of-the-art quantum computing chip with a breakthrough that can reduce errors exponentially as we scale up using more qubits, cracking a 30-year challenge in the field. In benchmark tests, Willow solved a standard computation in <5 mins that would…
— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) December 9, 2024
Willow, which has 105 qubits, “now has best-in-class performance,” according to Neven. Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM are working on quantum computing systems of their own.
Google’s next goal is to perform a first “useful, beyond-classical” computation that is both “relevant to a real-world application” and one that typical computers can’t achieve. Going forward, Neven says quantum technology will be “indispensable” for collecting AI training data, eventually helping to “discover new medicines, designing more efficient batteries for electric cars, and accelerating progress in fusion and new energy alternatives.”
davidgerard@circumstances.run ("David Gerard") wrote:
The whole internet loves CEO Murderer, a handsome murderer that targets CEOs! *5 seconds later* We regret to inform you the murderer is into AI
Spotify shuts down Car Thing, and now owners have one last chance at a refund
Photo by Ashley Carman / The Verge
Spotify has officially shut down its Car Thing accessory that offered simple and slick control over music and playlists while driving, and it’s giving owners just over a month (January 14th) to reach out to the company and get a refund. The device started to display its final words early today as enthusiasts mourn the loss of the device on its dedicated subreddit.
The final message on the Car Thing reads:
Car Thing is discontinued and no longer operational. Thank you for being on this journey with us, safe travels. For more information, visit carthing.com. Contact customer service by no later than January 14th, 2025 to discuss your refund options.
Spotify announced in May that it intended the already discontinued devices would shut down in December, and now they have. The company also said, eventually, that it would work to issue refunds, but owners need to contact the company and provide proof of purchase to receive compensation.
For most users, the Spotify Car Thing is just another piece of e-waste humans will have to deal with later. The company recommends resetting it to factory settings and “safely disposing of your device following local electronic waste guidelines.”
However, tinkerers are finding new uses for the hardware: Car Thing can be hacked to run custom software that doesn’t require Spotify’s backend. As 9to5Google notes, it’s a bit underpowered to run full-on Android, but some projects like “Desk Thing” can repurpose them as a controller at your computer desk.
Meta’s new Quest update has faster hand tracking and at-a-glance PC connections
Photo: David Pierce / The Verge
Meta has announced the v72 Quest update, and it’s packed with features like faster hand tracking, an easier way to pair your headset with a Windows 11 PC, and better support for showing your keyboard while you’re in full virtual reality. The update is rolling out gradually, which also goes for certain features so you may not be able to use them immediately.
Meta says you can now connect to a paired PC with the Quest’s Remote Desktop feature simply by looking at it and tapping the “Connect” button that appears above your keyboard. That’s similar to how it works on the Vision Pro, but here, you’ll need the Mixed Reality Link app installed on your computer before you can pair the devices together from within your Quest headset’s Settings app. The feature requires Windows 11 22H2 and newer.
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Image: Meta
Now you can connect to your PC just by looking at it.
Also, in Quest v72, the company says it’s “rolling out a more general keyboard tracking system” that should detect and let any keyboard around you appear through a passthrough “window” while you’re in a virtual environment, similar to the Vision Pro. Quest headsets have had a feature that shows a virtual version of your keyboard where your real one is since 2021, but that has only ever worked with specific keyboards.
Meta also says it has made the hand cursor more stable when navigating, pinching to select things, and pinching and dragging windows. The company also says it’s now easier to use your hands while in confined spaces and that it added a “hand ray visualization” to help find and target things with the cursor.
There is a little bit more in the update, too, including new live captions for calls from the People app and the addition of direct messaging in the Instagram app. Meta also added a Media Gallery app for viewing your images, videos (spatial included), and screenshots.
Syrian Refugees Displaced for Years Return Home
The regime of President Bashar al-Assad crumbled in rapid fashion as rebel groups challenged his power. Assad is now in exile in Russia and the rebels have taken control of the capital, Damascus. Now displaced Syrians, some of whom have been out of the country for over a decade, are returning home. Our correspondent in Lebanon spoke to some returning Syrians.
How will Australia's teen social media ban actually work?
Australia's Parliament has passed one of the strictest social media crackdowns in the world. Under the new law, anyone under 16 years old will be banned from opening a social media account.
Keira Knightley Thought That Love Actually Scene Was Creepy, Too
Love Actually is meant to be an antidote to Hollywood romances and happily-ever-after endings. Its mix of vulnerability, sentimentality, and disarming goofiness has made it a Christmas movie classic for decades, but there’s also plenty of ick. Actor Keira Knightley recently shared her own reaction to one of the…
A record-breaking deal for slugger Juan Soto sends the baseball world into a spin
The Dominican-born superstar Juan Soto will take his talents to Queens after the New York Mets reportedly signed him to a $765 million contract — a move that has the rest of the baseball world abuzz.
Scientists advise EU to halt solar geoengineering
A thin layer of ice thaws on a puddle in the sunshine in Bavaria, Marktoberdorf. | Photo: Getty Images
Scientific advisers to the European Commission are calling for a moratorium across the EU on efforts to artificially cool Earth through solar geoengineering. That includes controversial technologies used to reflect sunlight back into space, primarily by sending reflective particles into the atmosphere or by brightening clouds.
Proponents argue that this can help in the fight against climate change, especially as planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb. But small-scale experiments have triggered backlash over concerns that these technologies could do more harm than good.
The European Commission asked its Group of Chief Scientific Advisors (GCSA) and European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) to write up their opinions on solar geoengineering, which were published today alongside a report synthesizing what little we know about how these technologies might work.
Experiments have triggered backlash over concerns that these technologies could do more harm than good
There’s “insufficient scientific evidence” to show that solar geoengineering can actually prevent climate change, says the opinion written by the GCSA.
“Given the currently very high...
Manchester City is letting fans design its new kit with AI
Will Manchester City’s next uniform feature AI-generated cats? | Screenshot: Puma AI Creator
Manchester City is holding a competition that asks fans to generate its future kit design with AI. Players will wear the winning design during the 2026-2027 season as City’s official third kit, and it will even be sold to fans.
The club partnered with Puma to launch a text-to-image uniform generator powered by the AI company DeepObjects. To use the tool, you’ll have to create an account and enter a prompt that describes the look you’re going for. You then have to choose a style the AI will use when generating your design, such as “abstract,” “emotive brushstrokes,” or “dream visions.”
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Screenshot: Puma AI Creator
This wasn’t quite what I was envisioning when I entered a prompt for “soccerballs shooting through space like stars on a galaxy background.”
The Puma AI Creator will then generate four different design options that appear on a virtual uniform, allowing you to customize the collars, trim colors, and badges.
You get 15 credits to create designs (generating one design costs one credit), but you can only enter two of your creations in the contest, which ends December 20th. Fan ratings, along with experts from Manchester City and Puma will help determine the winner.
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Image: Manchester City
City players designed this goalkeeper kit with AI.
Manchester City says its players, Ederson, Stefan Ortega, and Rico Lewis first used the Puma AI Creator to design a goalkeeper kit “creatively inspired by the net of a football goal.” It will be the first AI-generated soccer uniform to be worn on the pitch, according to the club.
The announcement comes at an awkward time for City, which is mired in a poor run of form and awaiting the verdict of an investigation into breaching Premier League financial rules.
The best Android phones for everyone
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge
Whether you want everything but the kitchen sink or top-tier performance for a midrange price, you’ve got options.
There’s Still Time for Biden to Clear Death Row. Will He?
Joe Biden made history as the first president to openly oppose the death penalty, vowing on the campaign trail to push legislation to abolish the practice at the federal level. That promise was never fulfilled, and advocates against the death penalty remain disappointed. But now with only 42 days left in office, more than 130 […]
Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
yosyshq@fosstodon.org ("YosysHQ") wrote:
Have you ever wondered how Yosys prepares your design for an #FPGA? In the next Yosys Users Group, our own Krystine will walk us through the synth_ice40 command, how it works and what's going on behind the scenes!
Monday 16th December at 9:00 PT / 18:00 CET / 22:30 IST
To get reminded on the day, join our newsletter: https://blog.yosyshq.com/newsletter/
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Where’s Pedro Moreno’s Pardon?
On November 19, 1996, Pedro Moreno’s life was upended when federal officials burst into his Texas home, arresting him and his wife, Melba, on charges related to marijuana distribution and taking them away from their three children. Melba was released after 13 years, but her time with her children was cut short: she passed away […]
Apple Pay’s first competitor on the iPhone has arrived in Norway
iPhone owners in Norway can now select Vipps as their default mobile payment app. | Image: Vipps
A Norwegian payment app called Vipps is the first service to take advantage of a new, more open iOS ecosystem thanks to EU regulations. Starting today, Norwegians can use Vipps for tap-to-pay transactions and online payments, and they can even set the app as the default payment option on their iPhones, as reported by MacRumors.
It’s all thanks to commitments Apple made in response to scrutiny from EU regulators.
Since its launch a decade ago, Apple Pay has been the only way to use tap to pay on an iPhone. That’s changing with iOS 18.1, which makes tap-to-pay via NFC available to third-party developers for the first time. Apple committed earlier this year to open up the API after EU regulators ruled Apple Pay anti-competitive.
This pressure from the EU has recently forced Apple to open up the famously locked-down iPhone in unprecedented ways, from adding RCS support to letting you delete pretty much any app you want from your phone. But unlocking the NFC chip is a particularly interesting test case since it could usher in a whole bunch of new and helpful ways to use your phone — or create a mess of competing payment and ID storage platforms that don’t cooperate with each other.
Either way, it’s going to be a big deal, and the first step forward into that new era comes from a small financial organization in Scandinavia.
Soft medium, hard truths - National Endowment for the Arts recognizes a Navajo quilter
A Navajo woman who has spent 50 years sewing has now been honored with an NEA award for her unique quilts. She is unafraid to criticize the mainstream culture that's marginalized Indigenous artists.
dmitry@mastodon.circle.lt ("Dmitry Borodaenko") wrote:
@jwz Using google forms for a poll like that on a week like this smells (and quacks, and walks) like a honeypot.
It sure sounds like Trump would be okay with a TikTok sale
Donald Trump speaks with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press. | Photo: Peter Kramer / NBC via Getty Images
President-elect Donald Trump gave a murky answer when NBC’s Kristen Welker asked whether he would protect TikTok from its impending ban during a Meet the Press interview on Sunday. He didn’t say he would save the app from its ban but did seem to imply that ByteDance should sell it.
After its argument that the ban is unconstitutional came up short in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals last week, ByteDance is requesting an injunction to stop the ban from taking effect until the Supreme Court can hear its appeal, and it now faces an uphill legal battle. If ByteDance’s motion isn’t granted, it has to sell TikTok by January 19th or face its expulsion from the US.
Welker asked Trump what he would do after ByteDance’s failed appeal of the ban:
This week a federal court upheld a law that could result in TikTok being banned. You said you’re going to rescue TikTok when you get into office. Are you going to take steps to protect it?
Trump’s response praised his campaign’s use of the platform before deflecting the question:
I used TikTok very successfully in my campaign. I have a man named TikTok Jack, he was very effective, obviously, because I won youth by 30 percent. All Republicans lose youth. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s changing. And last time we were down 30 percent with youth. This time we were up 35 percent with youth.
And I used TikTok, so I can’t really, you know, I can’t totally hate it. It was very effective. But I will say this, if you do do that, something else is going to come along and take its place. And maybe that’s not fair. And really, what the judge actually said was that you can’t have Chinese companies. In other words, they have the right to ban it if you can prove that Chinese companies own it. That’s what the judge actually said.
President-elect Donald #Trump weighs in on a potential ban on TikTok that could take effect one day before he assumes the White House if the app’s Chinese parent company does not divest.
Pressed again on if he would “protect TikTok” once he’s in office, Trump responded:
I’m going to try and make it so that other companies don’t become an even bigger monopoly.
A TikTok sale to an American company would be one way to achieve that.
Trump’s position has been murky since he started positioning himself opposite of the Biden administration’s support of a ban — something Trump pushed for during his last term. Over the last several months, that’s included his Truth Social video urging people who “want to save TikTok” to vote for him and told CNBC in March that getting rid of the platform would only benefit Facebook, which he called an “enemy of the people.”
That sound you hear is every single person in NYC googling "Jury Nullification"
Marvel Rivals Fans Are Ready To Curbstomp Jeff The Land Shark
Marvel Rivals launched last week, and as fans are flocking to the game in droves, they’re also figuring out who their favorite and least favorite characters are on the hero shooter’s roster. Right now, the game feels like it’s in the pre-patch state of just being a real chaotic shooter that hasn’t yet been sanded down…
make Claims Adjuster an RPG character class, not just a single guy who got caught
substandardnerd ("Substandard Nerd") wrote:
Remember, if you see The Adjuster you didn't.
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AI is booming on the App Store, and developers are taking advantage of it
This meat-handed mess was generated using DaVinci AI with the prompt “a photorealistic person looking at their phone with a disgusted expression.” | Image: DaVinci AI / The Verge
Many high-ranking AI apps feel like an attempted cash grab, and it’s not easy to spot the trash from the treasure.
I'm not participating in this poll because it requires signing in with Google and I do not do that as a matter of principle, but WOW are these tough decisions!
https://mastodon.online/@parismarx/113623259490984981
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In Lebanon, villagers on the border watch Syria's revolution with unease
While Syrian refugees in Lebanon return home, many Lebanese remain on edge. Years of conflict have left the Syria-Lebanon borderlands scarred, and fears grow that instability could spill over again.
Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
stuffbreaker ("Burton Smith") wrote:
This holiday season, give your #react 19 developers the gift of autocomplete, type validation, and inline docs for your #webcomponents.
https://www.npmjs.com/package/custom-element-jsx-integration
jef ("Jef Poskanzer :batman:") wrote:
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NanoRaptor@bitbang.social ("Nanoraptor") wrote:
Mac Mini (5.25") vs Mac Mini 2024 (3.5")
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Bidders are back in court battling over the auction of Alex Jones' Infowars
A U.S. bankruptcy judge is hearing arguments for and against selling the show to The Onion, the satirical news site named the winning bidder. Host Alex Jones says the auction was rigged.
Software developer arrested in connection with UnitedHealthcare CEO killing
The NYPD released this photo of the person of interest in the case. | Image: NYPD
Police have arrested Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old software developer, in connection with the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione, of Maryland, was detained at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania on Monday morning.
Mangione was taken into custody on local firearm charges, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters. He has not been charged in connection with the shooting but is “believed to be our person of interest,” Tisch said.
Police have been searching for Thompson’s killer for nearly a week, despite the shooting taking place in public outside a Manhattan hotel. The manhunt has thus far relied on just a few grainy images of a man whose face is largely obscured by a mask and hoodie. Investigators have reportedly been looking for more surveillance images of the suspect to load into facial recognition software.
Police were led to Mangione via a “combination of old-school detective work and new age technology,” Tisch said.
Despite scant visual evidence, a McDonald’s employee recognized Mangione on Monday morning and called police, the New York Times reports. “He was just sitting there eating,” Joseph Kenny, the New York Police Department’s chief of detectives, said at a press briefing Monday.
Mangione reportedly had a gun, a silencer, and four fake IDs in his possession. The gun appeared to be a 3D-printed “ghost gun,” Kenny told reporters. After being apprehended, Mangione showed police a fake New Jersey ID, Kenny said. The ID was the same one used to check into a hostel in Manhattan on November 24th, eight days before the shooting. Sources also tell the New York Post that he was carrying a “manifesto” criticizing the US healthcare industry.
Developing...
Rivian’s new Joshua Tree outpost is what EV charging should be
Image: Rivian
When I first started testing electric vehicles, finding a charging station was the means to an end. I didn’t care what it looked like or what neighborhood it was in — it was a minor miracle that I found a charger, any charger, to juice up. But now consumers want more. Heck, I want more, and I don’t even own an EV. After all, this is a place where you’ll spend at least 20 minutes to shove some electrons into your vehicle. Is a bathroom too much to ask for?
Rivian has heard the call and has answered with its own chain of outpost charging stations. The first one opened up in Yosemite, California, this past summer, and now one is right in my own backyard in Joshua Tree, just six miles away from the town’s national park entrance.
Charge up
First, let’s talk about charging. There are 12 900-volt 300kW CCS chargers, and the outpost is open to any EV, although Teslas will need an adapter. There is one pullthrough spot for folks with a trailer, but if others are charging across the lot from that space, it might be a tight turn for longer rigs. Rivian owners can pay through the app or tap their credit cards at the charger at 46 cents per kWh, while non-Rivian cars can tap...
Daniel Penny Was Just Acquitted in Subway Choking Trial
Daniel Penny, a former Marine accused of fatally choking a man on a New York City subway in May 2023, has been found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide. The trial, which began in late October, lasted seven weeks and featured more than 40 witnesses. The death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old Black man who […]
How Kash Patel Became a Useful Idiot for Vladimir Putin
The below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial. With Donald Trump tapping Kash Patel, the MAGA provocateur, conspiracy theory monger, and grifter, […]
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
the code for my whole friggin’ secure *service* in D is probably smaller and is most certainly less byzantine & easier to grok than the ‘new user request form validation’ (force sane username & legal email & reasonable password) Javascript code I now have running.
I used to actually *like* Javascript, in the days before we all forgot that everything in the Multiverse is really just an ArrayBuffer
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Police make arrest in healthcare CEO shooting
A man has been arrested in connection with the shooting death of healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Supreme Court rejects challenge to Boston's school admissions policy
The court's action was the second time the justices declined to intervene in an admissions program based on geography since their 2023 ruling invalidating affirmative action in higher education.
Supreme Court rejects challenge to Hawaii gun licensing rules -- for now
At issue was a Hawaii State Supreme Court decision that allowed the state to prosecute a man carrying a loaded pistol without a license.
Secret Level: The Kotaku Review
Secret Level, Amazon’s stunningly animated video game anthology tribute, is either a gorgeous, impactful vehicle through which some short stories are told or a soulless piece of capital C Content, depending on which episode you’re watching.
Monument Valley 3 comes to Netflix with an iconoclastic edge
Image: Netflix
Ustwo returns with a sequel that looks to evolve the puzzle franchise, all while continuing to offer a sanctuary in your pocket.
The Eras era ends: A look back at Taylor Swift's record-breaking, 21-month tour
Swift has made over $2 billion in ticket sales and spent over 25 hours singing the 10-minute version of "All Too Well" since March 2023. Here's a look at the historic tour and what might come next.
A gang leader in Haiti is accused of massacring over 100 people
A gang leader who controls a key port in Haiti's capital is accused of massacring older people and Vodou religious leaders to avenge his son's death.
OpenAI has finally released Sora
Free users can still browse a feed of AI-generated videos created by the community. | Screenshot: OpenAI
OpenAI launched Sora, its text-to-video AI model, on Monday as part of its 12-day “ship-mas” product release series, as The Verge previously reported it would. It’s available today on Sora.com for ChatGPT subscribers in the US and “most other countries,” and a new model, Sora Turbo. This updated model adds features like generating video from text, animating images, and remixing videos.
With a ChatGPT Plus subscription, OpenAI says you can generate up to 50 priority videos (1,000 credits) at resolutions up to 720p with 5-second durations. The $200 per month ChatGPT Pro subscription that launched last week comes with “unlimited generations” and up to 500 priority videos while bumping the resolution to 1080p and the duration to 20 seconds. The more expensive plan also allows subscribers to download videos without a watermark and perform up to five generations simultaneously.
OpenAI first teased its text-to-video AI model, Sora, in February, and earlier today, Marques Brownlee, aka MKBHD, confirmed the launch with a preview based on his experiences testing Sora so far.
During the livestream, OpenAI showed off Sora’s new explore page with a feed of AI-generated videos created by other community members. The company highlighted a feature called “storyboards” that let you generate videos based on a sequence of prompts, as well as the ability to turn photos into videos. OpenAI also demonstrated a “remix” tool that lets you tweak Sora’s output with a text prompt, along with a way to “blend” two scenes together with AI.
OpenAI says videos generated with Sora will have visible watermarks and C2PA metadata to indicate they’re made with AI. Before uploading an image or video to Sora, OpenAI prompts you to check off an agreement that says what you’re uploading doesn’t contain people under 18, explicit or violent content, and copyrighted material. It says the “misuse of media uploads” could result in an account ban or suspension.
“We obviously have a big target on our back as OpenAI,” OpenAI vice president of research Aditya Ramesh said during the livestream. “We want to prevent illegal activity of Sora, but we also want to balance that with creative expression. We know that... will be an ongoing challenge, we might not get it perfect on day one. We’re starting a little conservative, and so if our moderation doesn’t quite get it right, just give us that feedback.”
If you don’t have a ChatGPT subscription, you’ll still be able to browse through the feed of AI-generated videos created by other people using Sora. While the model will become available in the US and many other countries today, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that it may “be a while” for a launch in “most of Europe and the UK.”
The release of Sora comes just a week after a group of artists, who claimed to be part of the company’s alpha testing program, leaked the product in protest of being used by OpenAI for what they claim was “unpaid R&D and PR.”
Marvel, DC, and Dune: Part Two Score Golden Globe Nominations For The True Believers
Colin Farrell didn’t walk around with a limp and a prosthetic face for nothing. In a sign that even a broken clock is right every so often, a few of the best projects from Marvel, DC Studios, and the Dune universe snagged illusive Golden Globe nominations.
The best Bluetooth trackers for finding your stuff
Bluetooth trackers come in all shapes and sizes. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge
For those of us who don’t ever seem to know where our keys, wallets, and remote controls have gone.
How Syria's revolution could reshape the Middle East
The swift downfall of Bashar al-Assad is reverberating throughout the Middle East. Countries are urgently reassessing how to deal with a nation seeking to rebuild itself after years of civil war.
Marvel Rivals Voice Cast: All The Playable Heroes And Their Actors
Marvel Rivals features a stacked cast of voice actors to go with its large roster of superheroes and villains. The recently released Overwatch-inspired hero shooter also features more than a few voice actors you may recognize from other games, movies, and TV.
Trump Promises to End Birthright Citizenship, Suggests Deporting “Kids Who Are Here Legally”
In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press aired on Sunday, Donald Trump doubled down on two of his main campaign promises: mass deportation and ending birthright citizenship. “You promised to end birthright citizenship on day one,” Kristen Welker asked. “Is that still your plan?” “Yes,” Trump responded, “absolutely.” Welker pushed back, reminding Trump that […]
Fortnite's New GTA-Inspired Lego Mode Is Out Later This Week
Later this week, Epic will release Lego Brick Life, a GTA-inspired roleplaying game that will be playable in Fortnite. Brick Life will let you and up to 20+ other players hang out, earn money, buy a home, and party together.
Google’s Pixel Tablet has returned to its Black Friday all-time low price
Google’s Pixel Tablet uniquely turns into a smart display of sorts when you buy the charging speaker dock. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge
Google might soon stop selling tablets altogether, which is a shame, because we were fans of the Google Pixel Tablet when it was released last year. Yet while we may never see aPixel Tablet 2, luckily the original slate is still around and receiving a steep discount. Normally $399, right now the base Google Pixel Tablet with 128GB of storage has returned to its Black Friday price of $279 at Amazon, Best Buy, and directly from Google. You can buy it with a charging speaker dock starting at $459 ($140 off) from the Best Buy and Google.
If you’re looking for an Android tablet that’s great for watching movies, web browsing, video chatting, and other basic tasks, the Pixel Tablet remains an excellent option. Powered by Google’s Tensor G2 chip, it’s a snappy entertainment device. Its sharp 11-inch LCD display offers wide viewing angles ideal for streaming, while its four speakers provide clear audio.
It’s the optional magnetic charging speaker dock that really makes the Pixel Tablet stand out, though. The dock effectively turns the Pixel Tablet into smart display similar to the Nest Hub Max, allowing it to deliver a full, room-filling sound quality that outperforms the tablet’s built-in speakers. That means you can also enjoy some Nest Hub Max capabilities, using the tablet to control smart home devices with just your voice via Google Assistant, for example.
Read our Google Pixel Tablet review.
A few more deals worth a look
- The UE Wonderboom 4 is on sale at an all-time low price of $59.99 ($40 off) at Amazon and B&H Photo. Unlike its predecessor, the Bluetooth speaker now supports USB-C for faster charging and sports a new megaphone feature that amplifies your voice. It also still sports an IP67 rating, meaning it’s waterproof and dustproof so you can take it outdoors without worrying.
- The new Kindle Paperwhiteis back on sale for $134.99 ($25 off) at Best Buy and Target, which is $5 shy of the all-time low price we saw first set during Black Friday. The latest Paperwhite is faster than its predecessor, with a larger seven-inch display and long battery life. It also retains all the features we loved in the last-gen model, including IPX8 waterproofing and a USB-C port.
- The 1080p Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam is down to $49.99 ($30 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, matching its all-time low. Its mechanically rotating head offers 360-degree panning and is capable of tilting up and down, so you can see every corner of the room it’s in. The camera also supports two-way talk and can even sound a siren, while you can get motion alerts with person detection if you subscribe to the Ring Protect Plan.
bcantrill ("Bryan Cantrill") wrote:
Today on Oxide and Friends -- and inspired by our own dtrace.conf this week -- @ahl and I are going to be joined by @sogrady and @postwait to talk about the past, present and future of conferences in tech. Join us, 5p Pacific!
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Btw, a lot of them are absolutely getting paid and it's impossible to tell post to post what are organic musings and what is paid propaganda
OpenAI’s video generator Sora is launching today
Image: The Verge
OpenAI’s highly-anticipated AI text-to-video generator, Sora, will become available to everyone today. In a post on X, YouTuber Marques Brownlee confirmed its imminent release and uploaded a video detailing his experience using Sora over the past few weeks, calling the results “horrifying and inspiring at the same time.”
OpenAI first revealed Sora in February but only made the tool available to a select number of visual artists, designers, and filmmakers to start.
Brownlee shows how Sora can convert your text prompt into a video, which you can then customize with additional text prompts as part of its “remix” tool. You can also use Sora to transform a photo into a video, as well as use its storyboard feature to “string together” several text prompts that Sora will attempt to blend into cohesive scenes.
The rumors are true - SORA, OpenAI's AI video generator, is launching for the public today...
I've been using it for about a week now, and have reviewed it: https://t.co/jII49vkuHN
THE BELOW VIDEO IS 100% AI GENERATED
I've learned a lot testing this, here are some new… pic.twitter.com/uA1EhRuK7B
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) December 9, 2024
During his video, Brownlee points out that Sora currently struggles with generating realistic physics and often shows objects that disappear or pass through each other. He also found that Sora often rejects prompts that include public figures and copyrighted characters.
Sora will launch today, and will most likely be announced during the 12 days of “ship-mas” video OpenAI plans on releasing at 1PM ET. Last Thursday, OpenAI announced a $200 / month ChatGPT Pro subscription and the full release of its o1 reasoning model.
Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
owa ("Open Web Advocacy") wrote:
Apple claims that it forces Webkit to protect user's battery life. Turns out chrome/chromium has a better battery life.
Apple has a long list of excuses as to why it has to push the web out from mobile.
slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
Hey @zachleat; might have missed it, but have you done an update on these sizes for Next 15 yet?
China opens an antitrust investigation into Nvidia
Cath Virginia / The Verge
China is investigating Nvidia over antitrust violations, reportedly over claims the chipmaker failed to follow conditions set during China’s approval for its $6.9 billion acquisition of Israeli network hardware company Mellanox in 2020.
While announcing the DGX A100 GPU after acquiring Mellanox, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said this while explaining its importance to his company:
“If you take a look at the way modern data centers are architected, the workloads they have to do are more diverse than ever,” explains Huang. “Our approach going forward is not to just focus on the server itself but to think about the entire data center as a computing unit. Going forward I believe the world is going to think about data centers as a computing unit and we’re going to be thinking about data center-scale computing. No longer just personal computers or servers, but we’re going to be operating on the data center scale.”
Since then, the boom in demand for AI chips and servers has driven Nvidia’s value from under $200 billion to over $3 trillion in 2024, surpassing Microsoft, Apple, and Google.
According to Bloomberg, Chinese regulators say Nvidia failed to follow agreements to provide new Mellanox product information within 90 days to other chipmaking firms in the country to avoid a monopoly. At the same time, the US Justice Department is also investigating the company for monopolistic behavior.
The Biden administration also placed new sanctions on China last week to make it more difficult to produce advanced AI chips there, as it also restricts the capabilities of exports by companies like Nvidia. China retaliated with new limitations on key mineral exports to the US.
Friend’s AI chatbots have issues — and they want your help
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge
Friend just raised another $5.4 million to bring AI friends into the real world.
Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
petersuber@fediscience.org wrote:
Americans: The next time your #HealthInsurance company denies one of your claims, use the #ProPublica (@ProPublica) tool to demand a written explanation, including "internal correspondence, recordings of phone calls, case notes, medical records and other relevant information."
https://projects.propublica.org/claimfile/
Xiaomi’s next EV will be the YU7, coming summer 2025
Image: Xiaomi
Xiaomi is continuing to dive deeper into China’s competitive EV market with the reveal of a new model, the YU7 SUV, coming in the summer of 2025.
The YU7 is an all-electric SUV with a similar design to the SU7 sedan, the electronics giant’s first electric model released earlier this year. That vehicle has received a lot of press and praise, including from Ford CEO Jim Farley, who personally drove one after having it flown into the US from Shanghai. Farley loved it so much that he said he didn’t want to give it back.
We don’t have much detail about the YU7 beyond the name and a few images shared on Weibo by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun. While the SU7 competes with the Tesla Model 3 and other electric sedans in China, the YU7 is expected to land in the growing electric SUV market, currently dominated by the Model Y and others.
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Screenshot: Weibo
Jun said he expects an official launch for the YU7 in “June or July” next year. “We hope that the YU7 test car can remove its heavy camouflage as soon as possible, which will help us conduct more comprehensive, detailed, long-term and large-scale testing to ensure product quality and make better products,” he added.
Xiaomi beat Sony, Apple, and others in making the jump from electronics to cars. While Apple bailed on its own car project with nothing to show for it, Sony is gearing up to launch the Afeela EV it's making in collaboration with Honda. Indeed, Xiaomi also isn’t going alone, working alongside China’s CATL on batteries and a division of BAIC to build its cars.
Biden creates a new national monument marking the legacy of Indian boarding schools
The new monument will be in Carlisle, Pa., on what was the campus of a school where about 7,800 children from more than 140 tribes were sent for assimilation between 1879 to 1918.
Path Of Exile 2 Already Has Major Nerfs After Just Three Days: 'It's Better To Do This Early'
Diablo-like Path Of Exile 2 is finally out in Early Access and taking over the charts, breaking records on Steam even as its servers buckle under the weight of its long-anticipated debut. And the team behind the action-RPG has wasted no time bringing some of its more OP builds to heel with a series of hotfixes aimed…
How To Punch Fascists Even Better In Indiana Jones And The Great Circle
Indiana Jones is known for a few things. The hat. The whip. Archaeology. But one of the things he’s best known for is punching fascists (Nazi, or otherwise).
Indiana Jones And The Great Circle: All Marshall College Note Locations
Indiana Jones has a lot of knowledge about the ancient world, documenting everything he discovers by putting it in his Journal. He would be lost without it, and his Journal would be nothing without all the maps and notes you’ll find in The Great Circle. When he’s wandering the halls of Marshall College, here are the…
TikTok tried to save itself with the First Amendment — and failed
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images
A court rejected arguments against forcing a sale of the massive Chinese-owned social network.
Microsoft’s AI boss and Sam Altman disagree on what it takes to get to AGI
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman at the UK AI Safety Summit in November 2023. | Photo by Leon Neal / Getty Images
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman disagrees with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s recent claim in a Reddit AMA that artificial general intelligence, or AGI, is possible on today’s hardware. While AGI is “plausible,” he tells The Verge’s Nilay Patel in the latest Decoder episode that it could take as long as 10 years to achieve.
With current hardware defined by Nilay as “within one or two generations of what we have now, I would say,” Suleyman replied, explaining why he thinks that’s unlikely:
I don’t think it can be done on [Nvidia] GB200s. I do think it is going to be plausible at some point in the next two to five generations. I don’t want to say I think it’s a high probability that it’s two years away, but I think within the next five to seven years since each generation takes 18 to 24 months now. So, five generations could be up to 10 years away depending on how things go.
“The uncertainty around this is so high,” Suleyman said, “that any categorical declarations just feel sort of ungrounded to me and over the top.”
He’s also drawing a line between AGI and the “singularity”:
It depends on your definition of AGI, right? AGI isn’t the singularity. The singularity is an exponentially recursive self-improving system that very rapidly accelerates far beyond anything that might look like human intelligence.
To me, AGI is a general-purpose learning system that can perform well across all human-level training environments. So, knowledge work, by the way, that includes physical labor. A lot of my skepticism has to do with the progress and the complexity of getting things done in robotics. But yes, I can well imagine that we have a system that can learn — without a great deal of handcrafted prior prompting — to perform well in a very wide range of environments. I think that is not necessarily going to be AGI, nor does that lead to the singularity, but it means that most human knowledge work in the next five to 10 years could likely be performed by one of the AI systems that we develop. And I think the reason why I shy away from the language around singularity or artificial superintelligence is because I think they’re very different things.
The challenge with AGI is that it’s become so dramatized that we sort of end up not focusing on the specific capabilities of what the system can do. And that’s what I care about with respect to building AI companions, getting them to be useful to you as a human, work for you as a human, be on your side, in your corner, and on your team. That’s my motivation and that’s what I have control and influence over to try and create systems that are accountable and useful to humans rather than pursuing the theoretical super intelligence quest.
Last week, during The New York Times DealBook Summit, Altman set out a lower set of goalposts for AGI than the superintelligence-style phenomenon he’s described in the past.
Now, Altman says AGI will arrive “sooner than most people in the world think and it will matter much less.” And when it comes to superintelligence, “a lot of the safety concerns that we and others expressed actually don’t come at the AGI moment. AGI can get built, the world mostly goes on in mostly the same way, things grow faster, but then there is a long continuation from what we call AGI to what we call superintelligence.”
This is a relationship that appears strained only one year after Microsoft helped reseat Altman as OpenAI’s CEO. After confirming that Microsoft is working on its own frontier AI model capable of competing at the “GPT-4, GPT-4o scale,” Suleyman also commented on the tension between Microsoft and OpenAI:
Every partnership has tension. It’s healthy and natural. I mean, they’re a completely different business to us. They operate independently and partnerships evolve over time... partnerships evolve and they have to adapt to what works at the time, so we’ll see how that changes over the next few years.
Reblogged by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):
Some_Emo_Chick ("Frankie ✅") wrote:
For medical insurnce issues. This might help
Attachments:
pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:
Ask first, shoot later.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/12/09/ask-before-opening-fire/
Attachments:
Searching for color at Pantone’s all-brown party
Are we here to celebrate the color of the year or the luxury goods produced in its hue?
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman says conversational AI is the next web browser
Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: Microsoft
The company’s new AI chief on working for Microsoft, the OpenAI relationship, and when superintelligence might actually arrive.
Lego Fortnite is getting a big expansion with a GTA-style roleplaying city
Image: Epic Games
Lego is building something new in Fortnite. A year after Lego Fortnite launched a new era inside of the game — one based on the idea that Fortnite is a collection of many game experiences, rather than just a battle royale — Lego is expanding its presence with a new title that sounds reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto V roleplaying as well as a rebrand of its core survival game.
First up is a game called Brick Life, which is billed as “an all-new social roleplay experience.” Players explore a Lego-ified city location with 31 other people and can take on specific jobs like courier, security guard, or sushi chef. Players can design their own homes and explore locations like a magical school and rooftop club, and there are missions to take on as well. From the sounds of it, Brick Life is a more family-friendly take on the enduring popularity of roleplaying servers in GTA V, and Epic isn’t being all that subtle about the connection:
Ah bricks here we go again... pic.twitter.com/1HiNMIbUKX
— LEGO Fortnite (@LEGOFortnite) December 8, 2024
Brick Life is launching inside of Fortnite on December 12th, though it won’t be available for players in South Korea.
As part of the announcement, Lego Fortnite — the Minecraft-style survival experience that launched last December — is being renamed Lego Fortnite Odyssey. From now on, “Lego Fortnite” will be the name of the hub inside of Fortnite that houses all of the Lego experiences. Epic and Lego have been steadily expanding their partnership over the last year, launching new games and also letting Fortnite players build their own Lego games.
The ongoing collaboration between Lego and Fortnite could provide a hint at what to expect from the upcoming “persistent universe” that Epic and Disney are making together, following a $1.5 billion investment from Disney in February. Since then, we’ve heard very little specifics about what the virtual world might look like.
Meanwhile, Epic has also announced that Fortnite is getting support for a revamped version of text chat, which will be available as an option across all of its experiences starting on December 10th. There will be three kinds of text chat available: party channel for talking with your squad; game channel for a public conversation with people on the same island; and DMs with people on your friends list.
Epic says there will be two kinds of chat filters — one that removes personal information, and another that filters out “various kinds of mature language and toxicity” — which will be on by default for any players under the age of 13. The feature will also include a reporting system similar to the voice reporting tool Epic launched last year. Here’s an example of what text chats look like in the game:
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Image: Epic Games
All of these announcements come at a particularly busy time for Fortnite. The battle royale game is currently in the midst of a brand-new chapter that kicked off following an ambitious music-themed season, and Epic also recently brought back the nostalgia-filled Fortnite OG as a permanent mode. Meanwhile, Epic just announced “Ballistic,” a multiplayer first-person shooter mode that launches inside of Fortnite on December 11th.
Raspberry Pi’s new keyboard computer can power an optional $100 display
The Raspberry Pi 500 computer keyboard starts at $90, but you’ll need to add your own mouse, power supply, and screen for that price. | Image: Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi has announced an upgraded version of its compact computer-in-a-keyboard, adding the new features and performance improvements of the Raspberry Pi 5 microcomputer it introduced last September.
The Raspberry Pi 500, which is available now starting for $90, is $20 more expensive than the Raspberry Pi 400 that debuted in late 2020. That extra cost gets you a 2.4GHz 64-bit quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 processor and 8GB of RAM. If you want more than just the computer keyboard, a $120 Desktop Kit includes it plus a matching mouse, a 27W USB-C power supply, a single micro HDMI cable, and a printed copy of the Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide book.
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Image: Raspbery Pi
The Raspberry Pi Monitor features a 15.6-inch full HD IPS panel and built-in speakers.
The company is also introducing a display for those looking to buy a $220 all-in-one desktop solution. The $100 Raspberry Pi Monitor features a 15.6-inch full HD IPS panel with a built-in pair of 1.2W speakers and a folding stand. The display can be powered directly from a Raspberry Pi microcomputer with a USB port that outputs 1.5A at 5V, which includes the new Raspberry Pi 500 computer and its predecessor. But brightness will be limited to 60 percent while volume maxes out at 50 percent. With its own power supply —which you’ll need to buy separately — you’ll get full volume and brightness.
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Image: Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi 500’s keyboard features a compact tenkeyless design with its various ports accessible on the back.
Other features of the Raspberry Pi 500 computer keyboard include an 800MHz VideoCore VII GPU, a 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO connector for attaching peripherals, support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0, two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, a gigabit ethernet port, and a single USB-C port that’s only used for power. There are also a pair of micro HDMI ports that can drive two 4K displays at 60Hz each, and a microSD card slot that comes with a 32GB card preloaded with the Debian-based Raspberry Pi operating system.
The new Raspberry Pi 500 won’t entirely replace the older Raspberry Pi 400, which is being kept around with a price drop from $70 to $60. The Raspberry Pi 400 Personal Computer Kit, which includes additional accessories like a mouse and power supply, is also getting a price cut from $100 to $80.
Which Marvel Rivals Characters Should You Start With?
Marvel Rivals is the hottest new thing in the realm of hero shooters. And, it has launched with over 30 popular characters from the Marvel universe. While it’s important to spend time trying out every character to find one that works best for you, they all have different skill ceilings to consider. So, if you’re new…
Pokémon TCG Pocket's Latest Event Might Be Its Best So Far
Pokémon TCG Pocket has a very odd pattern to its “events”—there appear to be weeks when the game falls fallow with nothing extra to do, then three special challenges will happen at the same time. That’s happening again today, as the Genetic Apex SP Emblem Event 1 launches, joining the ongoing Venusaur Drop Event and…
pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:
All creationist arguments are bad arguments.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/12/09/confidently-ridiculous/
Attachments:
- Athiesm is a religion that insidiously postures itself as science, indoctrinating the youth with made up stories about the origins of life, and history of the universe. Argument Example of atheist beliefs in science that are not proven or factual and simply a belief yet are taught as factual science. 1. We are stardust 2.Human beings are apes 3.The earth is 5 billion years old 4.Human beings share a common ancestor with apes that we evolved from in Africa millions of years ago 5. Everything evolved from a single cell organism 6.Fish evolved into amphibians, and then into reptiles, and then birds, and then mammals? All of these claims are not proven. Yet, they are taught as fact. The definition of fact is a thing that is known or proven to be TRUE. Again, none of these claims are nor can they ever be proven to be true. Therefore they are not factual and should not be treated as factual. That is where the indoctrination accusation claims stand because these beliefs are treated as proven factual science when they are an indoctrination of athiest beliefs being taught as factual science about the origins of life which is religious. (remote)
Reddit’s new AI search tool helps you find Reddit answers without Google
Illustration: The Verge
Reddit is launching a new AI-powered search tool called Reddit Answers to help you more easily find information on the platform. The tool, similar to other AI search products, responds to queries by generating well-formatted responses and showing links to its sources.
But the distinction with Reddit Answers is that it sources things directly from Reddit, which means it could be a way to skip Google and get information directly from the source. Reddit has already been cracking down on where you can search for things from Reddit, and Google is the only major search engine that shows recent Reddit results. But Reddit probably would prefer if you did searches right on its platform, and Reddit Answers might prove to be a good way to do so.
Reddit Answers will initially roll out to “a limited number of users” in the US and in English, and it will be available on the web (not on Old Reddit) and iOS. (“We’re working on Android as we speak,” Serkan Piantino, Reddit’s VP of product, said in an interview.) Reddit plans to bring the tool to more languages and locations “in the future,” according to a blog post.
Reddit gave me access to a test version of Reddit Answers, and while I haven’t been able to mess around with it very much, I’ve liked what I’ve seen. There’s a big box to ask a query, but the initial Reddit Answers page also floats a bunch of suggested searches you can click on, like “favorite Nintendo character of all time,” “best mystery novels of 2025,” and “tips for flying with a baby for the first time.”
I clicked that last one, and the tool quickly pulled together a list and some bulleted suggestions with hyperlinks on the text and an arrow to click to see the source of the information. When you click either, a sidebar pops up showing the exact post where the information comes from.
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Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
This is from a test version of Reddit Answers, so things might look a tad different when you try it. But you can get the gist.
A Reddit site search for the same query on Google, on the other hand, just gave me a standard long list of links to evaluate and click through. On its face, Google’s version, which doesn’t have the summaries or bullet points, isn’t as immediately informative as Reddit Answers. But personally, I’m pretty skeptical of AI summaries anyway — they can make some pretty bad errors! — so for me, the Google results are still perfectly fine as a way to explore some potentially useful posts on Reddit.
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Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
My Reddit site search on Google.
Reddit Answers can also pick up on things happening on Reddit within minutes, according to spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt, so there’s also a chance responses to your queries will have timely results. I haven’t had much luck with that; on Friday, for example, I asked “who won yesterday’s NFL game,” and instead of pulling up answers about Thursday’s Packers-Lions game, it included details on the Eagles-Ravens game that happened on December 1st.
That might have just been a quirk of the product not being fully ready yet. In my testing, though, Reddit Answers has been much more useful as a jumping off point to dig into a more general topic on Reddit rather than an up-to-the-minute search tool. And while Reddit Answers is useful, I’m not sure yet if it’s good enough for me to change my habits around using Google to search for things on Reddit.
Rebels seized control of Syrian capital. And, Trump's 1st post-election TV interview
Rebels have seized control of Syria's capital and President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia. And, President-elect Donald Trump reveals his plans to govern in first post-election network TV interview.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Screaming that the Krassenstein brothers liked this post on bluesky
Attachments:
- Screenshot of notification: Krassensteins liked your post • 8m On any given day we'll get a headline like "Cops caught planting crack on children to increase private prison labor," but every resist lib account is too busy calling Trump a Cheeto to notice. It's almost like they're paid not to talk about certain things.
- Garfield looking at a picture of himself crossed out with the caption "huh I wonder who that's for"
Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan") wrote:
A corporation is what you get when you gather the worst of humanity, strip them of personal liability, and set them the success criteria of cancer.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
On any given day we’ll get a headline like “Cops caught planting crack on children to increase private prison labor,” but every resist lib account is too busy calling Trump a Cheeto to notice.
It’s almost like they’re paid not to talk about certain things.
Yes, the number of food recalls has been rising. Here's what you need to know
Food recalls fell sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic but are on an uptick now. Here's how the government is tracing outbreaks — and some tips on handling food safely to minimize the risk of illness.
A material that's almost entirely air keeps EV fires from spreading
The Department of Energy is focusing on aerogels to reduce the severity of lithium battery fires. A lab that creates the substance shares the technology behind it all.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
The phony comforts of useful idiots - by Edward Ongweso Jr:
"OpenAI (and other genAI firms) will have to go the Uber route to survive: use Smaugian hoards of capital to realize legal and political reforms that force markets, consumers, competitors, clients, and governments into forms that can accommodate previously illegal, unprofitable, unsustainable, and untenable business models."
Fantastic write-up all around. https://thetechbubble.substack.com/p/the-phony-comforts-of-useful-idiots
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
It’s at least a little funny that Mike Masnick has a famous essay and two games about the impossibility of running large for profit social media networks, and it doesn’t appear to have occurred to him that we simply shouldn’t have large for profit social media networks.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
I’m starting to think we either need to burn the internet to the ground or figure out a way to make digital communities much smaller and void of the profit motive.
No, there is no middle ground. No I haven’t had coffee yet. But this is a good plan.
Artificial Intelligence wants to go nuclear. Will it work?
The nuclear industry and big tech companies think they can solve each other's problems, but critics are skeptical the marriage can last.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Having any type of following online is like dating a thousand people who get mad at you for stuff you did in their dream.
