Fears that DDR4 has hit the end of the road and the return of tariffs may be to blame

DRAM spot prices doubled last week

: Fears that DDR4 has hit the end of the road and the return of tariffs may be to blame

^{Simon Sharwood (The Register)}

In addition to the recently released Mjölner Warp Titan Build Showcase we wanted to take a minute to showcase a few lesser known builds!

Puffettt is an Incinerate Lich! By making use of the Blackflame Amethyst Ring and a few jewels with Increased Magnitude of Ignite and Increased Magnitude of Ailments Puffettt is able to Incinerate anything they walk near!

has combined the Occult Skill Gems Bone Cage and Bonestorm with the strengths of the Smith of Kitava! By using The Deepest Tower and Trampletoe Uniques in combination with increased damage on low life nodes on the passive tree Jorgen has created a simplistic yet destructive build!

うぉぉーくろくろのまんさぁ is playing a Support Chronomancer, while they wont be able to kill hordes of monsters themselves they will make sure their party members are nice and safe, not only by stopping time and cursing monsters with Temporal Chains and Enfeeble, they're also using the Merit of Service unique to increase their allies Block Chance!

is playing a Glacial Lance Deadeye! The neat interaction between Voltaic Mark, Cast on Freeze and Herald of Thunder provide this build with more than enough map clearing capability! They've even included Wind Serpent's Fury for even more single-target damage.

Build Showcase is a series where we look at interesting builds from the Path of Exile 2 community that have caught our attention.

This Titan was put together by DeadRabbit and uses the latest in slam technology to warp around the map, blow up screens and chunk pinnacle bosses in seconds. Check out the video below.

For more information on this build, check out DeadRabbit's video guide .

Patch 0.2.1 for Path of Exile 2 introduced several new Unique Items, including the Last Lament. This Unique Crossbow quickly caught players' attention---not just for its in-game power, but also for its distinctive visual design and unique sound. In this news post, our Senior Sound Designer Dominic dives into the process behind creating skill sound for the Last Lament.

Hi, I'm Dominic Downing, Senior Sound Designer at Grinding Gear Games. I joined the team at the start of 2020. Delirium was my first league I worked on, and I had to figure out joining the team mid-pandemic... it was a wild time! These days, I handle skill and combat audio for Path of Exile alongside another talented sound designer.

Dominic (left) and Roco (right) - Skill Sound Designers

In this post, I'll take you behind the scenes of skill audio design in Path of Exile 2, from concept to implementation.

Why Skill Audio Matters

Skills are part of the core of Path of Exile's gameplay, and sound plays a huge role in reinforcing what they do and how they feel. A well-designed skill sound can signal danger, enhance impact, or even invoke safety. For example, a player casting Detonate Dead shouldn't sound as threatening to the player as a monster with the Detonate Dead rare monster modifier; you need to feel the difference.

The Design Process

Understanding the Skill

We work closely with designers and animators to understand what a skill does, its damage type, area of effect, whether it does damage over time, offers utility, and so on. Since we use our own engine, we are easily able to work with programmers to build or improve systems for audio integration. It's a very collaborative process. Some examples: being able to tell if a grenade is in the air, rolling, or bouncing, or if a skill is going to repeat in quick succession because of another in-game mechanic, like Barrage. It's also important to test each skill in-game with a variety of character builds to ensure the audio holds up in all kinds of scenarios.

Source Material

Most of our sounds are a blend of recorded Foley (sometimes even our voices), library assets, and synthesis. For things like vocal layers, cloth movement, or rocks, we can easily jump into the sound booth to record unique elements. It's a lot of fun and a great excuse to be a bit crazy without judgment!

Synthesis is a fun and powerful way to create sounds, and I often use my Eurorack setup for this. Eurorack is a form of modular synthesis that lets you build a synth or sound from the ground up. Using white noise and creative filtering, modulated with Erica Synths' Joystick 2, I can produce movement of the sound for each skill, creating some of the windy textures you'll hear in some of the wind skills. Modules like Schlappi Engineering's 100 Grit and Make Noise's Wogglebug are perfect for creating noisy, electrical textures, great for lightning-based skills. And for tonal, bell-like sounds, ideal for elemental magic, I often turn to the Rings module from Mutable Instruments. Recording weird, unexpected sounds like these is honestly one of the best parts of the job.

Prototyping & Testing

You don't know how a sound works until it's in the game. As I mentioned earlier, we test skills early on, across different builds, areas, and support gems. Randomisation and layering help keep sounds fresh and immersive. But getting sounds into the game as soon as possible during development is key. This way, we catch issues early and avoid spending too much time polishing something that doesn't fit with gameplay. It's better to create quick drafts, test them in-game, and make small tweaks than to perfect something upfront, only to discover major changes are needed later. We also have to manage technical limits like voice count (which is the maximum amount of sounds that can play at any time) and cooldowns (which is how soon a sound can play again after already playing). For example, if a skill fires multiple projectiles with the same sounds playing simultaneously, we need to make sure the audio doesn't overload or cut out. And when you're playing in a party, we consider how skill sounds affect other players; should your skill sound just as epic to them as it does to you?

Implementation

We use FMOD, plus internal tools bespoke to Path of Exile. Over time, these tools have evolved based on direct feedback. I'll think, "man, I wish I could just do X", and our programming teams will make it a reality. It's a dream!

Clarity in the Ruckus

Combat in Path of Exile can be a ruckus, so we always ask: what's most important for the player to hear? Audio needs to guide, not overwhelm. We balance sounds through mixing, making sure everything fits together without getting too loud or quiet. We use a technique called 'ducking' to lower less important sounds, so key sounds stand out. Distance attenuation makes sounds quieter as they get farther away, helping create a sense of space. And priority systems decide which sounds get played or heard first when many happen at once, so players don't miss critical cues like danger.

Deep Dive (The Last Lament Unique Crossbow)

The Last Lament, a unique crossbow we introduced in the 0.2.1 patch for Path of Exile 2, adds melodic tonal elements to combat, which is something we normally try to very explicitly avoid. Musical sounds can easily clash with the game's music or get tiring over time. But The Last Lament is a bit of an exception. The crossbow 3D model itself resembles a musical instrument, and based on the nature of the lore behind this item, we wanted to make this one special and create room within the soundscape to support it.

Design intent

There's a haunting, gothic, and musical theme baked into the core identity of The Last Lament. Its inherent skill, Compose Requiem, fires soul-like projectiles that explode on impact, accompanied by operatic voices and subtle musical layers. The goal was to make the shots feel sorrowful and haunting, reflecting the eternal anguish within the weapon, while keeping them musical to match the weapon's identity, without compromising gameplay clarity.

Layer choices & Processing

The base shot needed to feel familiar, like the other crossbows, so it wouldn't sound weaker or stronger than it actually is. I reused some of the usual crossbow layers like real crossbow recordings, gunshot tails, and cannon transients (they've got a nice pop to them). Then I layered in ghostly whispers, short screams, resonant metallic creaks, string-like hits, and some distant musical textures. I wanted it to feel musical, but not in a cheesy music box kind of way.

Michael Collier, one of our talented composers, helped here by sourcing some harpsichord notes, with subtle organ and kannel underneath. They play in a 3/4 rhythm, and the tempo shifts slightly based on your attack speed.

For the processing side of things, I kept it pretty simple in Reaper (my choice of digital audio workstation). Saturation was great for adding grit to the impacts, and I used pitch and frequency shifting to shape the tone and weight of each layer. Frequency shifting moves all frequencies by the same amount, ignoring their harmonic relationship, while pitch shifting preserves it. Saturation also adds harmonics, which gives sounds a textured, warm and often gritty feel. EQ was used to clean things up, cut unwanted frequencies, and boost the ones I wanted more of. A stereo imaging plugin helped widen the sound and make it feel a bit more epic, and some light compression kept the overall loudness balanced. That was pretty much it.

Iteration & Feedback

One of Compose Requiem's earlier prototypes was a more note-heavy concept. We experimented with different musical approaches, but we realised the fire rate was just too fast, and gameplay is simply too chaotic for that kind of musical structure.

With the deadline creeping up, we pivoted. That's when the idea of operatic souls escaping with each shot came up, which later influenced the unique's lore too. We tried placeholder singing samples that triggered randomly. This was better, but still too much. In the end, with help from our gameplay programming team, we set up a system using a simple boolean parameter to only play a more finely crafted vocal while actively firing instead of it playing on each shot (which in the end does actually have subtle notes). That nailed it.

FMOD Implementation & Design

FMOD is the audio middleware we use to connect sound design to gameplay. It lets us control how and when sounds play, and adds variety, layering, and dynamics so things feel responsive and alive.

For Compose Requiem, the base shot and the musical notes are separate sounds. The shots have pitch and gain modulation to keep things varied and immersive, while the notes only have gain modulation since pitching the notes would throw them out of key with the music bed and vocals.

Early in development, to keep Compose Requiem's melody from feeling repetitive, I created 16 sound events in FMOD. Each event plays a unique six-note sequence forming its own melody that sits over the skill's music bed. When the crossbow fires, it triggers an event that uses a counter parameter with values from 1 to 16. Each value selects one of the 16 melodies to play in sequence. Within the event, command instruments trigger these melodies based on the counter's value. There's also a secret seventh instrument inside each melody's playlist, a multi-instrument that instantly changes the counter to a new random value (between 1 and 16, but excluding the current one). This setup keeps the music flowing smoothly and fresh by randomly switching between melodies without repeating.

Since the skill has a fixed 12-second duration, we didn't need to loop anything (a looping audio asset is an audio clip that seamlessly repeats). When it's active, the game mutes all other music except what's triggered by the crossbow. Often, skills are affected by various modifiers, and their duration can vary. This is when we would find ourselves using looping audio so it can start and stop whenever necessary.

Upon activating Compose Requiem, a visual soul-like burst with ghostly flames appears on the crossbow. I made a short activation sound to match, like the souls are trying to escape. This is followed by looping audio that lingers while the skill is active, sort of like the spirits are watching or peering through a door. At the end, it fades out with a subtle release sound. It's all handled in one FMOD event using a loop region and a transition region. When the visual effect is deleted in-game, the event starts stopping, which triggers the transition to an "end" marker where the fade-out plays.

The soul projectiles you fire are set up pretty simply. The initial shot has some soul-like layers, but I added looping audio while they're flying through the air, plus an impact explosion made up of vocal textures, debris, and various thick impacts. These have pitch and gain modulation, distance attenuation, and some Doppler on the loops.

Once everything's hooked up, I go in-game and do a mixing pass, mostly balancing loudness and tweaking how big or small things feel, as well as what is important to the player and maybe not so important to potential party members. Sometimes this means going back and editing the original assets. I make sure to test in all kinds of contexts like early-game, late-game, and stupidly juiced maps so it always feels right, no matter how you're playing. It's so important to understand the game you're working on in and out.

Deep Dive Wrap-up

Ultimately, the sound design for The Last Lament didn't need to happen, but the item itself was screaming for some special attention. The goal was to make it feel as special as possible without pulling the player out of the world. Throughout experimentation and design, we constantly focused on serving gameplay first. It doesn't matter how cool something sounds; if it gets in the way of a player winning at Path of Exile, then it's not actually that cool.

Most of my decisions are shaped by my experience playing the game. No matter how weird or musical it got, it still had to find its place in Path of Exile and, most importantly, serve the player. This is a philosophy that I see every day at Grinding Gear Games, and I'm proud to work on such an awesome game with amazing people.

Conclusion

Every sound in Path of Exile needs to have a clear purpose. If it doesn't, it just ends up as noise cluttering the experience. One big lesson I've learned is that instead of always trying to make the big sounds bigger, it's often more powerful to make the smaller sounds more subtle. That contrast is what really makes the impacts hit.

Working on Path of Exile is an honour. It's a game I've loved for years, and I still play it after work. Next time you're running a map, listen closely, there's a whole lot going on under the hood!

After taking many of our players' names, we put Viper in the ring against Ketzuli to see if she could take one more. Find out what happens in the aftermath of today's Boss VS Boss!

Let us know who you'd like to see battle it out next!

We are ecstatic to announce that we have released the third experimental version of Pidgin 3.0!!! This is a pre alpha release with an official version number of 2.92.1. We will continue releasing in this fashion until we are ready for 3.0.0 which will be the release we consider ready for end users.

The release can be found on SourceForge and should show up on Flathub Beta shortly.

If you don't want to use the Flathub Beta method, there are build instructions in the README for building a flatpak locally or installing into a meson devenv. Both methods avoid installing directly to your OS installation which is preferred as there is no easy way to uninstall.

About

Just like Experimental 1 and 2, this is a milestone release. It is something we think other tinkerers and developers may want to start playing with, but it is not meant for end users.

Most things are not implemented, the user interface has not been polished at all, and there are so many bugs. As such we are asking that packagers please do not package this for your users yet as the potential support requests will be too much for us to handle at this time.

This release isn’t quite what we wanted as things just didn't align well this cycle, but there’s still a lot of good progress.

Looking forward, Experimental 4 is scheduled for 2025-09-30 and will have a version number of 2.93.0.

We have a bunch of tickets entered for Experimental 4, and you can keep an eye on the Burndown Chart for Experimental 4 to stay informed. As always, priorities and possibilities can and will change, so even if something is listed for this release that doesn't mean it will be in the release until it's actually completed.

Highlights

The main highlights for this release are preferences! We've finally added some much need new sections named Appearance, Privacy, and Development. There's not a whole lot in these three yet, but there's a bunch we want to drop in here in the future.

Appearance Preferences

Right now the appearance preference just lets you toggle formatting of message which affects all messages and can be easily restored. We have a number of things to add here in the future, but if there's something you'd like to see, let us know in the comments below!

Privacy Preferences

Just like appearance the privacy preferences page is meant to help you keep your personal information personal. In the future we'll be adding options for how Pidgin should identify itself when queried and a few other things.

Development Preferences

The development preferences are meant to make the development of Pidgin and plugins easier. Developer mode itself does a number of things right now including showing the Bonjour and XMPP protocols which are not yet functional. This way developers can work on them easily and end users won't get confused by something that's not implemented.

ChangeLog

In the past we've tried to filter the ChangeLog to just the bits that might be interesting, but going forward we're just going to include everything that was done for the release.

General

• Add a native file for macos on arm (RR 3956) (Gary Kramlich)
• Run scour over all of the svgs (RR 3990) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add discrete options for protocol plugins (RR 3994) (Gary Kramlich)
• Fix a typo in POTFILES.in for the privacy preferences (RR 3998) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add an in-development tag to all protocols that are still early in development (RR 4007) (Gary Kramlich)
• Update the flatpak to gnome 48 and to the matching birb version (RR 4038) (Gary Kramlich)

libpurple:

• Add GListModel versions of purple_account_manager_get_{disabled,enabled (PIDGIN-18067) (RR 3952) (Elliott Sales de Andrade)
• Remove GList versions of purple_account_manager_get_{disabled,enabled} (RR 3955) (Elliott Sales de Andrade)
• Update the convey plans (RR 3975) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add Purple.ContactInfo:external for tracking external contacts (PIDGIN-18090) (RR 3973) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add Purple.Conversation:url (PIDGIN-18091) (RR 3974) (Gary Kramlich)
• Make Purple.ProtocolConversation.join_channel_finish return a conversation (RR 3982) (Gary Kramlich)
• Move the connection-state implementation to Purple.Account (PIDGIN-17988) (RR 3964) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add a Purple.Account::connection-state-changed signal (PIDGIN-18087) (RR 3965) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add Purple.Presence.primitive-changed signal (PIDGIN-18025) (RR 3966) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add Purple.Contact.is_own_account (RR 3985) (Gary Kramlich)
• Create purple_core_new_settings (RR 4000) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add Purple.Protocol:tags and add unit tests for protocol properties (RR 4006) (Gary Kramlich)
• Update to birb 0.4 and use the testing helpers in libpurple (RR 4014) (Gary Kramlich)
• Remove some unused markup functions (RR 4029) (Gary Kramlich)

Pidgin

• Port PidginApplication to purple_account_manager_get_enabled_model (PIDGIN-18067) (RR 3952) (Elliott Sales de Andrade)
• Convert PidginAccountsDisabledMenu to the list model (PIDGIN-18067) (RR 3952) (Elliott Sales de Andrade)
• Convert PidginAccountsEnabledMenu to the list model (PIDGIN-18066) (RR 3954) (Elliott Sales de Andrade)
• Remove a dead assignment in Pidgin.ConversationMember (RR 3962) (Gary Kramlich)
• Fix Pidgin.Application.get_active_window to only return Pidgin.DisplayWindows (RR 3972) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add keybinding support to the channel join dialog (RR 3971) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add a preference for toggling whether or not to show formatting (PIDGIN-18081) (RR 3970) (Gary Kramlich)
• Start of the appearance preferences (PIDGIN-18082) (RR 3996) (Gary Kramlich)
• Remove the conversation preferences (RR 3995) (Gary Kramlich)
• Create a Privacy preference page with the send typing notification preference (PIDGIN-17450) (RR 3999) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add a Pidgin.PresenceIcon to Pidgin.ConversationMember (RR 4004) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add a Developer Settings preference pane (RR 4005) (Gary Kramlich)
• Update Pidgin.ProtocolChooser to hide in-development protocols (RR 4008) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add the operating system to the runtime information (PIDGIN-18005) (RR 4015) (Gary Kramlich)

Demo

• Use EionRobb's typical handle (RR 3967) (Gary Kramlich)
• Fix EionRobb's avatar (RR 3976) (Gary Kramlich)
• Fix some unbalanced G_BEGIN_DECLS (RR 3989) (Gary Kramlich)

IRCv3

• Fix privmsg going to the status window before registration is complete (RR 3963) (Gary Kramlich)
• Set the presence to offline when we receive a quit message (PIDGIN-18089) (RR 3969) (Gary Kramlich)
• Add support for away-notify (PIDGIN-18088) (RR 3968) (Gary Kramlich)
• Do a who after joining a channel (PIDGIN-17936) (RR 3981) (Gary Kramlich)
• Handle the WHOTOPIC and CHANNEL_URL messages (RR 3983) (Gary Kramlich)
• Check if a member is in a conversation before adding them (RR 3987) (Gary Kramlich)
• Handle formatting in server messages (RR 3991) (Gary Kramlich)
• Handle RPL_NOWAWAY and RPL_UNAWAY messages (RR 4003) (Gary Kramlich)
• Remove versioned API (RR 4030) (Gary Kramlich)

SIP

• A stubbed out SIP protocol plugin (RR 3988) (Gary Kramlich)
• Disable SIP by default and update the protocol summaries to reflect what will be built (RR 4028) (Gary Kramlich)

Thank You!

Thank you everyone for your continued support of Pidgin, it means a lot to us!

If you’re interested in contributing, you can check out our Contributing Guide to get started.

Also be sure to check out our merch store as well as our sticker store!

And if you’re feeling generous, you can learn how to donate to the project on our Donation Page.

Discuss this on our forum.

Session is pretty neat considering that it doesn’t require a cell phone number, unlike Signal messenger, which beats the purpose of anonymity.

I just purchased $20 in tokens. Perhaps one day in the future more people will start using it and nodes will start springing up all over, making the service much faster.

Has anyone else used or still uses Session? What are your thoughts? I think it has potential if more people have it a go.

https://www.jacoporanieri.com/blog/?p=42614

Can't we just ship Cruz off to Cancun permanently at this point?

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has a plan for spectrum auctions that could take frequencies away from Wi-Fi and reallocate them for the exclusive use of wireless carriers. The plan would benefit AT&T, which is based in Cruz's home state, along with Verizon and T-Mobile.

Cruz's proposal revives a years-old controversy over whether the entire 6 GHz band should be devoted to Wi-Fi, which can use the large spectrum band for faster speeds than networks that rely solely on the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. Congress is on the verge of passing legislation that would require spectrum to be auctioned off for full-power, commercially licensed use, and the question is where that spectrum will come from.

When the House of Representatives passed its so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill," it excluded all of the frequencies between 5.925 and 7.125 gigahertz from the planned spectrum auctions. But Cruz's version of the budget reconciliation bill, which is moving quickly toward a final vote, removed the 6 GHz band's protection from spectrum auctions. The Cruz bill is also controversial because it would penalize states that regulate artificial intelligence.

Instead of excluding the 6 GHz band from auctions, Cruz's bill would instead exclude the 7.4–8.4 GHz band used by the military. Under conditions set by the bill, it could be hard for the Commerce Department and Federal Communications Commission to fulfill the Congressional mandate without taking some spectrum away from Wi-Fi.

Senate GOP budget bill has little-noticed provision that could hurt your Wi-Fi

Cruz bill could take 6 GHz spectrum away from Wi-Fi, give it to mobile carriers.

^{Jon Brodkin (Ars Technica)}

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/06/30/the-north-atlantic-treaty-organizations-hallucinations/

Easy to moderate
7 mi out and back or short walk to falls only
1,496 ft elevation gain
Hiked 6/1/25

Located in the Thompson Falls recreation area not too far from Golden BC this is a great waterfall with an ok trail that could be shortened to maybe half a mile or so of a mild slope. Falls were way overfull at time of hike, but appear to be a worthwhile stop, perhaps while camping in the area.

Another view of Thompson falls from a little further away, which better shows the shelf under the rushing river.

The uppermost section of falls along the trail, looks like it would have been a small cascade on the far side with a rapid on the near. Currently very blown out, the downed trees on the farside are stuck.

A jumble of fallen trees suspended in the forest. (Marge voice: I just think they're neat!)

Bluesky link to post with Videos of the falls

https://www.top.org.nz/citizens-voice

https://neuters.de/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/apple-loses-bid-dismiss-us-smartphone-monopoly-case-2025-06-30/

Israel's Knesset House Committee voted to advance the impeachment of prominent lawmaker Ayman Odeh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, on Monday, over comments he made earlier this year, which were perceived as being pro-Palestinian and against the war in Gaza.

Lawmakers from both the ruling coalition and opposition Yesh Atid and National Unity parties voted 14-2 in favour of impeachment, while two Knesset members from the Palestinian Ra'am and Ta'al parties opposed the move.

Odeh had earned the scorn of several Israeli lawmakers earlier this year when he welcomed a long-awaited ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

"I am happy about the release of the hostages and prisoners. From here, both peoples must be freed from the yoke of the occupation. We were all born free," Odeh wrote on 19 January after Hamas released three Israeli women after 471 days in captivity.

Israel's Knesset votes to impeach Palestinian lawmaker Ayman Odeh

^{Middle East Eye}

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5371548-hog-dnc-young-progressives-democrats-future/

Hello! How are folks self-hosting online storage, similar to Google Drive?

Some options I've found:
- filebrowser.org/ (maintenance-only mode)
- seafile.com/en/home/ (weird disk layout scares me)
- tinyfilemanager.github.io/ (i like simple!)
- github.com/mickael-kerjean/fil…

A bunch more: github.com/awesome-selfhosted/…

I mainly just need basic file management features. I don't plan to share files outside of my tailscale VPN. I do need to support multiple users though.

I'm not considering Nextcloud because that seems too big. I'm also not considering syncthing for this project because I don't want copies on multiple devices.

I'm currently just using ssh+nautilus and that's worked great for just me, but something similar to Google Drive would be easier to onboard my family.

GitHub - mickael-kerjean/filestash: :file_folder: A file manager / web client for SFTP, S3, FTP, WebDAV, Git, Minio, LDAP, CalDAV, CardDAV, Mysql, Backblaze, ...

:file_folder: A file manager / web client for SFTP, S3, FTP, WebDAV, Git, Minio, LDAP, CalDAV, CardDAV, Mysql, Backblaze, ... - mickael-kerjean/filestash

^GitHub

cross-posted from: rss.ponder.cat/post/219242

From Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera via this RSS feed

Dutch memorial honours Palestinian children killed in Gaza

Thousands of shoes were laid out in the Dutch city of Almere to commemorate Palestinian children killed in Gaza.

^{Al Jazeera}

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/32194427

GodlessCommie

2025-06-29 02:17:31

Capitalism ends poverty

U.S. officials said they would stop providing the satellite data online on July 31 rather at the end of June.

Data from this instrument also reveals sea ice extent, and that can't be allowed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/climate/noaa-hurricane-data-offline.html?unlocked_article_code=1.S08.kqbU.j0qTfurfIEkT

On the wall of the League of Social Democrats office, the Chinese characters for freedom are spelt out with court admission slips.

Members of the party take turns speaking into a microphone connected to a loudspeaker. They stand in front of a banner that reads "rather be ashes than dust", written in Chinese. Founded close to 20 years ago, the party is known as the last protest group in Hong Kong.

"The red lines are now everywhere," Chan Po Ying, the chair of the party, tells the BBC. "Our decision to disband was because we were facing a lot of pressure."

One of Hong Kong's last major pro-democracy parties disbands

It is the third major opposition party to disband this year, ahead of the fifth anniversary of the Beijing-imposed national security law.

^{Danny Vincent (BBC News)}

Dimitri Masin, CEO of Gradient Labs, argues that companies using AI agents for customer support should only pay when the bot does its job.

"If you look at Salesforce, they price the automation per conversation," he told The Register in a phone interview. "So essentially, if you have a conversation with AI, no matter what it leads to, you pay $2."

According to Salesforce's own researchers, leading LLM-based agents tested on the CRMArena-Pro benchmark successfully complete single-turn (prompt and reply) tasks about 58 percent of the time and only about 35 percent of the time for multi-turn (back-and-forth conversation) requests.

That's both bad for customers and bad for the progress of AI agents overall. Paying regardless of results, said Masin, "doesn't create any incentive for Salesforce to actually make their agent better."

Salesforce did not respond to a request for comment. But the stats it touts in its marketing copy are, unsurprisingly, a lot better.

Don't pay for AI support failures, says Gradient Labs CEO

interview: Paying for successful problem resolution is a better business model, argues Dimitri Masin

^{Thomas Claburn (The Register)}

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that a group of Maryland parents have a right to opt their elementary-school-aged children out of instruction that includes LGBTQ+ themes. By a vote of 6-3, the justices agreed with the parents – who are Muslim, Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox – that the Montgomery County school board’s refusal to provide them with that option violates their constitutional right to freely exercise their religion.

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito acknowledged that “courts are not school boards or legislatures, and are ill-equipped to determine the ‘necessity’ of discrete aspects of a State’s program of compulsory education.” But he emphasized that “what the parents seek here is not the right to micromanage the public school curriculum, but rather to have their children opt out of a particular educational requirement that burdens their well-established right ‘to direct ‘the religious upbringing’ of their children’” under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

Court allows parents to opt their children out of school lessons involving LGBTQ+ themes

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that a group of Maryland parents have a right to opt their elementary-school-aged children out of instruction that includes LGBTQ+ themes. By a vote […]

^{Amy Howe (SCOTUSblog)}

The US Supreme Court on Friday upheld a key provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires health plans to fully cover many preventive health care services recommended by a federal panel.

The ruling means that tens of millions of Americans can continue getting a variety of preventive services for free under their plans. Those cost-free services include an array of screenings, such as cancer screenings like mammograms and colonoscopies, as well as screens for obesity, lead exposure in children, high blood pressure, diabetes, and some sexually transmitted diseases, to name a few. The free services also include recommended vaccines for children and adults, well-baby and well-child doctor visits, birth control, statins, PrEP HIV prevention drugs, and fluoride supplements and varnishes for children's teeth.

SCOTUS upholds part of ACA that makes preventive care fully covered

Cancer screenings, statins, vaccines, PrEP, will continue to be covered in full.

^{Beth Mole (Ars Technica)}

In 2023, while Kristi Noem was governor of South Dakota, she supplemented her income by secretly accepting a cut of the money she raised for a nonprofit that promotes her political career, tax records show.

In what experts described as a highly unusual arrangement, the nonprofit routed funds to a personal company of Noem’s that had recently been established in Delaware. The payment totaled $80,000 that year, a significant boost to her roughly $130,000 government salary. Since the nonprofit is a so-called dark money group — one that’s not required to disclose the names of its donors — the original source of the money remains unknown.

Kristi Noem Secretly Took Personal Cut of Political Donations

A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirements, experts say.

^ProPublica

Rogue websites capitalizing on the borderless nature of the Internet have met their match, as an Indian court has wielded a "dynamic+" injunction to defend the global streaming rights of British sports platform DAZN for the FIFA World Cup 2025 currently underway in the US. The court emphasized the urgency of the order, stating that without the injunction, DAZN would suffer "irreparable loss and injury" due to the rapid spread of illicit streams.

Rogue websites capitalizing on the borderless nature of the Internet have met their match, as an Indian court has wielded a "dynamic+" injunction to defend the global streaming rights of British sports platform DAZN for the FIFA World Cup 2025 currently underway in the US.

The court order, issued by the Delhi High Court on May 28, represents a significant multi-jurisdictional triumph over online piracy. It restrains identified rogue websites and any future infringing sites from "communicating, hosting, streaming and/or making available for viewing and downloading" DAZN's FIFA World Cup content without authorization on their websites or any other platforms.

The dynamic+ injunction also compels domain name registrars to "lock/suspend (on real time basis)" the infringing domain names and disclose complete details of the registrants and payment information.

In addition, the court has directed local Internet Service Providers to "block access (on real time basis)" to these various websites. The Department of Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology were impleaded to ensure comprehensive enforcement.

Delhi High Court Judge Saurabh Banerjee said in his 10-page ruling that the case "appears to be a classic case of copyright infringement by masked players... who use the veil of today’s technology to conveniently conceal their true identities and unabashedly abuse and enrich themselves by using the protected works of parties like the plaintiff herein through URL redirection/ masking, etc. Such entities are sprouting and have to be stopped at the earliest given opportunity."

"The Delhi High Court has always played the role of a swift, vigilant but fair referee in the ever-evolving game against digital piracy," IP lawyer Aman Sinha told MLex.

Just like the Video Assistant Referee who catches an offside before a goal can be counted, the court judgment "ensures that piracy is flagged and removed before it can score" illicit gains, Sinha said.

"In the digital match against piracy, dynamic+ injunctions are the new offside trap, anticipating the move before the infringers strike," he added.

A second IP lawyer agreed and pointed out the global reach of Indian courts. "The judgment — demonstrating a robust approach to intellectual property enforcement across international digital borders — proves that the Internet's borderless nature doesn't equate to lawlessness," he said.

DAZN, incorporated in England and Wales, alongside its Indian operations arm, DAZN Software, holds exclusive global media rights for the FIFA World Cup 2025, which is being hosted in the US from June 14 to July 13. These rights — encompassing television, digital and ancillary rights — grant DAZN the sole authority to broadcast, re-broadcast, retransmit and stream the event worldwide.

DAZN filed a lawsuit against "BUFFSPORTS" and a number of unnamed defendants, detailing how rogue websites were illegally broadcasting its streams for the World Cup. The suit followed DAZN's investigations of these sites circumventing its exclusive streaming mechanisms, effectively "financially enrich[ing] themselves" by providing pirated content. DAZN sought a permanent injunction, damages and a clear directive for immediate action.

Emphasizing the urgency in his ruling, Judge Banerjee said that if a dynamic+ injunction is not granted, DAZN "will likely suffer irreparable loss and injury." He also highlighted that "any delay in blocking these 'rogue websites' would, in fact, result in irreparable loss and injury to the plaintiffs and cause violation of the intellectual property rights of the plaintiffs."

The "dynamic+" nature of the injunction allows DAZN to inform relevant Domain Name Registrars and ISPs of any new mirror, redirect or alphanumeric variations of the infringing websites that emerge, thereby ensuring that these are promptly blocked on a real-time basis. This proactive measure is a crucial tool against the ever-evolving tactics of online pirates.

The case is set for its next hearing on Oct. 8, 2025, as the legal battle to secure digital content in a borderless world continues.

Rogue websites capitalizing on the borderless nature of the Internet have met their match, as an Indian court has wielded a "dynamic+" injunction to defend the global streaming rights of British sports platform DAZN for the FIFA World Cup 2025 currently underway in the US. The court emphasized the urgency of the order, stating that without the injunction, DAZN would suffer "irreparable loss and injury" due to the rapid spread of illicit streams.

Rogue websites capitalizing on the borderless nature of the Internet have met their match, as an Indian court has wielded a "dynamic+" injunction to defend the global streaming rights of British sports platform DAZN for the FIFA World Cup 2025 currently underway in the US.

The court order, issued by the Delhi High Court on May 28, represents a significant multi-jurisdictional triumph over online piracy. It restrains identified rogue websites and any future infringing sites from "communicating, hosting, streaming and/or making available for viewing and downloading" DAZN's FIFA World Cup content without authorization on their websites or any other platforms.

The dynamic+ injunction also compels domain name registrars to "lock/suspend (on real time basis)" the infringing domain names and disclose complete details of the registrants and payment information.

In addition, the court has directed local Internet Service Providers to "block access (on real time basis)" to these various websites. The Department of Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology were impleaded to ensure comprehensive enforcement.

Delhi High Court Judge Saurabh Banerjee said in his 10-page ruling that the case "appears to be a classic case of copyright infringement by masked players... who use the veil of today’s technology to conveniently conceal their true identities and unabashedly abuse and enrich themselves by using the protected works of parties like the plaintiff herein through URL redirection/ masking, etc. Such entities are sprouting and have to be stopped at the earliest given opportunity."

"The Delhi High Court has always played the role of a swift, vigilant but fair referee in the ever-evolving game against digital piracy," IP lawyer Aman Sinha told MLex.

Just like the Video Assistant Referee who catches an offside before a goal can be counted, the court judgment "ensures that piracy is flagged and removed before it can score" illicit gains, Sinha said.

"In the digital match against piracy, dynamic+ injunctions are the new offside trap, anticipating the move before the infringers strike," he added.

A second IP lawyer agreed and pointed out the global reach of Indian courts. "The judgment — demonstrating a robust approach to intellectual property enforcement across international digital borders — proves that the Internet's borderless nature doesn't equate to lawlessness," he said.

DAZN, incorporated in England and Wales, alongside its Indian operations arm, DAZN Software, holds exclusive global media rights for the FIFA World Cup 2025, which is being hosted in the US from June 14 to July 13. These rights — encompassing television, digital and ancillary rights — grant DAZN the sole authority to broadcast, re-broadcast, retransmit and stream the event worldwide.

DAZN filed a lawsuit against "BUFFSPORTS" and a number of unnamed defendants, detailing how rogue websites were illegally broadcasting its streams for the World Cup. The suit followed DAZN's investigations of these sites circumventing its exclusive streaming mechanisms, effectively "financially enrich[ing] themselves" by providing pirated content. DAZN sought a permanent injunction, damages and a clear directive for immediate action.

Emphasizing the urgency in his ruling, Judge Banerjee said that if a dynamic+ injunction is not granted, DAZN "will likely suffer irreparable loss and injury." He also highlighted that "any delay in blocking these 'rogue websites' would, in fact, result in irreparable loss and injury to the plaintiffs and cause violation of the intellectual property rights of the plaintiffs."

The "dynamic+" nature of the injunction allows DAZN to inform relevant Domain Name Registrars and ISPs of any new mirror, redirect or alphanumeric variations of the infringing websites that emerge, thereby ensuring that these are promptly blocked on a real-time basis. This proactive measure is a crucial tool against the ever-evolving tactics of online pirates.

The case is set for its next hearing on Oct. 8, 2025, as the legal battle to secure digital content in a borderless world continues.

L'estate nelle Valli di Lanzo si anima con un importante appuntamento: sabato 5 e domenica 6 luglio, la località di Trambiè a Cantoira ospiterà la 26ª edizione della Fiera dell’Artigianato tipico, un evento che celebra la ricchezza del territorio.

Un intero fine settimana dedicato alla riscoperta dei mestieri tradizionali, all'innovazione sostenibile e alla valorizzazione dei prodotti locali, il tutto grazie a un'organizzazione congiunta tra il Comune di Cantoira, CNA Torino e GAL Valli di Lanzo, Ceronda e Casternone, con il patrocinio della Città metropolitana di Torino.

Saranno due giorni intensi, ricchi di espositori selezionati, incontri tematici, degustazioni e momenti di pura festa. Un'occasione imperdibile per immergersi nelle tradizioni delle nostre montagne e scoprire l'ingegno e la passione degli artigiani e dei produttori locali.

Sabato 5 luglio l'evento prenderà il via alle 10 con l'apertura ufficiale della fiera al pubblico. Nel pomeriggio, alle 17, è prevista l'inaugurazione ufficiale. La serata proseguirà con l'apertura dello stand gastronomico alle 19, per culminare in musica alle 21,30 con la performance del gruppo Li Magnoutoun, pronto a far ballare tutti i presenti.

Domenica 6 luglio la fiera riaprirà le sue porte alle 9,30. La giornata sarà dedicata a esperienze immersive, come i tour sensoriali "Tutti a tavola!"
Nel pomeriggio di domenica, alle 15,30, ci sarà un interessante appuntamento culturale: la presentazione del libro “Balme, il paese ideale per il Cai”, con l'autrice Maria Giangoia e il giornalista Giampaolo Verga. La giornata si chiuderà con un momento di riconoscimento e celebrazione: alle 16,30 si terrà la premiazione degli espositori storici e dei giovani artigiani con il prestigioso Memorial “Domenico Ciccaldo”.
Per tutta la durata della manifestazione, sarà possibile assistere alla proiezione del docufilm “Tutti a tavola! Cooperare per competere”. Si tratta di un racconto di impresa e collaborazione, girato tra Lanzo e le Valli, arricchito da suggestive riprese realizzate anche tramite drone, che offrirà uno sguardo approfondito sulla realtà produttiva locale.

Cantoira (To) si prepara alla 26ª Fiera dell'Artigianato - ViaggieMiraggi

L’estate nelle Valli di Lanzo si anima con un importante appuntamento: sabato 5 e domenica 6 luglio 2025, la località di Trambiè a Cantoira ospiterà la 26ª edizione della Fiera dell’Artigianato tipico, un evento che celebra la ricchezza del territori…

^{Redazione (ViaggieMiraggi)}