EU Council faces landmark defamation claim in Germany over sanctions ‘reasons’
A German lawyer has brought a case before the country's highest court seeking clearance to sue the EU Council for defamation related to its sanctions reasoning.
Cannabis users who are self-medicating run higher risk of paranoia, study finds
Those who take drug because of pain, anxiety or depression found to be more likely to develop paranoia than recreational smokers
Archived version: archive.is/newest/theguardian.…
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
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Attempt to partner African countries with Japanese cities triggers xenophobic backlash
Cities in Japan have received thousands of complaints amid confusion over scheme that was intended to foster closer ties
Archived version: archive.is/newest/theguardian.…
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
French, German and Polish leaders head to Moldova to denounce Russian 'interference' ahead of vote
Leaders from France, Germany and Poland are headed to Moldova Wednesday on the eve of the campaign for next month's high-stakes parliamentary election. Moldova's pro-EU President Maia Sandu described the European leaders' visit as a "show of support" for the former Soviet republic in the face of what the government has denounced as Russian interference.
Archived version: archive.is/newest/france24.com…
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
How Mexico lifted 13.4 million out of poverty in six years
Rather than poverty reduction stemming from economic growth, it has been achieved through a redistribution of resources.
Archived version: archive.is/newest/peoplesdispa…
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
US soybean farmers can't afford trade war with China, warns ASA
Historically, China has been the top buyer of US soybeans by “a staggering margin,” says the American Soybean Association. This year, with US soybeans facing retaliatory tariffs amid the ongoing trade war, China is going elsewhere.In a letter urging President Trump to cut a deal with China that removes China’s retaliatory duties and includes “significant soybean purchase commitments,” the ASA says China “currently has zero new crop export orders for US soybeans on the books for marketing year 2025/26.”
US soybean farmers can't afford trade war with China, warns ASA
American soybean farmers have urged President Trump to cut a deal with China that removes retaliatory duties on US soybeans.Elaine Watson (AgFunderNews)
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The Madness of Cars
The Madness of Cars
The strangest things we do are also the things we think least about—for example, drinking cows’ milk, handing our children over into the care of paid strangers, going to gyms, wearing neckties, enjoying war as spectator sport, and shaving.Peter Hitchens (Compact)
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Le antiche mappe a rilievo, ligneo ausilio alla navigazione dei popoli della Groenlandia - Il blog di Jacopo Ranieri
Le antiche mappe a rilievo, ligneo ausilio alla navigazione dei popoli della Groenlandia - Il blog di Jacopo Ranieri
Orientandomi soltanto tramite la luce tenue della Luna, conduco la mia barca appesantita dalle foche uccise in mezzo ai vortici costieri che proteggono l’ingresso della zona sicura.Jacopo (Il blog di Jacopo Ranieri)
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Trump is waging war on wind energy. Consumers and investors face the costs | The president’s stop-work order for a massive wind power project in New England threatens higher bills and power shortages.
Access options:
* gift link — registration required
* archive.today
I'll note that Trump took a billion-dollar bribe from the fossil fuels industry promising to do this kind of thing.
Is climate change making UK droughts worse?
Guest post: Is climate change making UK droughts worse? - Carbon Brief
the hydrological volatility of the recent past indicates the importance of preparing for both a drier and wetter future in the UKCarbon Brief Staff (Carbon Brief)
FCC cracks down on robocalls: 1,200 voice service providers axed
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has axed 1,200 voice service providers from the US phone network for failing to meet the rules protecting users from malicious and illegal calls, known as robocalls.
The removal from the Robocall Mitigation Database (RMD) means that all other voice service and intermediate providers must cease accepting all calls directly from the companies that do not meet the requirements.
https://cybernews.com/security/fcc-axes-1200-voice-providers-over-robocalls/
FCC cracks down on robocalls: 1,200 voice service providers axed
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has axed 1,200 voice service providers from the US phone network for failing to meet the rules protecting users from malicious and illegal calls, known as robocalls.
The removal from the Robocall Mitigation Database (RMD) means that all other voice service and intermediate providers must cease accepting all calls directly from the companies that do not meet the requirements.
https://cybernews.com/security/fcc-axes-1200-voice-providers-over-robocalls/
Alabama gubernatorial hopeful Tommy Tuberville piles on in backlash against Cracker Barrel rebrand
Tuberville said on YellowHammer News’ “Longshore and McKnight” show Friday. “It just makes you sick to your stomach that people try to change history.”
Says the same racist that tries to whitewash slavery.
Protestors occupy Microsoft president's office as opposition to the company's dealings with the Israeli military continue to escalate
Source: Drop Site on X/Twitter.
::: spoiler Other Sources
- The Associated Press;
- The Seattle Times;
- The Guardian.
:::
::: spoiler Press Release
August 26, 2025
MICROSOFT WORKERS HOLD A SIT-IN INSIDE EXECUTIVES’ BUILDING, RE-ESTABLISH THE LIBERATED ZONE IN THE LATEST ESCALATION AGAINST MICROSOFT
REDMOND, WASHINGTON – Moments ago, current and former Microsoft workers have re-established the Liberated Zone by holding a sit-in inside Microsoft executives’ Building 34, renaming it to “Mai Ubeid Building” in honor of Mai Ubeid, a Palestinian software engineer who was killed in Gaza by an Israeli air strike. The latest sit-in is part of a series of ongoing protests and disruptions happening today to protest Microsoft’s active role in the genocide of Palestinians.
Right before the sit-in, the group deployed noisemakers – attached to balloons – directly into the atrium of Building 34. During the sit-in, the workers and former workers occupied the office of Brad Smith, the current Microsoft president, delivering notices that read: “The People’s Court Summons Bradford Lee Smith on Charges of Crimes Against Humanity.” In addition, workers unfurled and hung two banners in the space: one that declares a renaming of Building 34 to “Mai Ubeid Building,” and another that repeats the demands of the liberated zone to Microsoft:
1. Cut ties with Israel
2. Call for an End to the Genocide and Forced Starvation
3. Pay Reparations to the Palestinians
4. End the Discrimination Against Workers
The workers and former workers chanted:
“BRAD SMITH YOU CAN’T HIDE, YOU’RE SUPPORTING GENOCIDE! BRAD SMITH YOU’RE A LIAR! YOU SET PALESTINE ON FIRE! FREE PALESTINE.”
While the sit-in is taking place inside Brad Smith’s office in Building 34 – which is now on lockdown – current and former Microsoft workers and community members are holding an outside rally featuring a group on bikes that deployed artwork across various Microsoft signs on campus. Rally participants distributed copies of the Liberated Zone declaration: “We will not be cogs in the Israeli genocidal machine: a call for a Worker Intifada.” During the rally program, workers revealed an 18-foot scroll stating the No Azure for Apartheid demands with signatories of over 2,000 workers who signed the petition during the past 15 months since the petition launch.
No Azure for Apartheid organizers Nisreen Jaradat and Ibtihal Aboussad gave speeches at the rally. During her speech, Aboussad said:
“You continue to try to bury your head in the sand, so we are here today outside your blood-soaked thrones, to continue pulling your baby-killer necks out of your sand holes and continue to force you to confront your complicity, until you stop powering the murdering our people!”
Source: Drop Site on X/Twitter.
:::
Source: Drop Site on X/Twitter.
Videos by No Azure for Apartheid.
Source: Drop Site on X/Twitter.
Source: No Azure for Apartheid on X/Twitter.
Five current and ex-Microsoft workers arrested at sit-in over Israeli military ties
Police placed protesters in harnesses and took them in after sit-in urging tech giant to cut ties with Israeli governmentMaanvi Singh (The Guardian)
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Torres Invested in Weapons Makers as He Backed Billions in Arms for Israel
Torres Invested in Weapons Makers as He Backed Billions in Arms for Israel
The congressman's office tells Sludge the defense contractor stocks were bought by an independent manager and that he will no longer be buying individual corporate stocks.Donald Shaw (Sludge)
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The Three Faces of Modern Search: The Traditionalist, the Augmenter, and the Dissenter
The prevailing narrative suggests a seismic shift in consumer search behavior, where the dominance of Google and Amazon is being eroded by a new ecosystem of Social and AI-driven platforms. To move beyond speculation, we built a proprietary dataset, analyzing the detailed purchase journeys of 3,000 UK and US consumers. This data allows us to map the real-world behaviors that define the modern search research journey. Our analysis reveals that while the landscape is diversifying, the story is not one of simple replacement. Instead, the market is fragmenting into three distinct behavioral personas, each with a unique research DNA:
- The Traditionalist: A significantly older demographic that sticks exclusively to the foundational giants of Google and Amazon, representing the most direct path to purchase.
- The Augmented: Our data reveals this is the largest segment, representing the mainstream consumer (25-44), who begins with Google or Amazon but then adds multiple other platforms like YouTube and AI chatbots.
- The Dissenter: Our analysis identified a younger demographic that bypasses the duopoly altogether, discovering products organically on social and video platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
Source: Brainlabs.
The Three Faces of Modern Search: The Traditionalist, the Augmenter, and the Dissenter
Discover the three faces of modern search—The Traditionalist, The Augmenter, and The Dissenter—based on research from 3,000 UK and US consumers.Liz (Brainlabs Digital)
Framework unveils a second-generation Framework Laptop 16 with a swappable Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU, an industry first, shipping in November 2025
cross-posted from: programming.dev/post/36378173
::: spoiler Comments
- Hackernews.
:::
Framework unveils a second-generation Framework Laptop 16 with a swappable Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU, an industry first, shipping in November 2025
::: spoiler Comments
- Hackernews.
:::Introducing the new Framework Laptop 16 with NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 5070
We’re excited to announce the new Framework Laptop 16, now with AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 Series processors and a graphics upgrade to NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 5070 Laptop GPU!Framework
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Problem is almost no laptop has Strix Halo. Not even the Frameworks.
And rumors are its successor APU may be much better, so the investment could be, err, questionable.
Morbidelli riaccende il confronto: “Marquez? Il più grande resta Rossi!”
Morbidelli riaccende il confronto: “Marquez? Il più grande resta Rossi!”
quotidianomotori.com/motogp/ma…
Morbidelli riaccende il confronto tra Marquez e Rossi - Quotidiano Motori
Marquez vicino al nono titolo, Morbidelli riapre il confronto con Valentino Rossi e torna sul caso 2015. Il dibattito è più vivo che mai.Mario Roth (Quotidiano Motori)
A flawed policy: The US war on drugs in Latin America criminalises people
A flawed policy: The US war on drugs in Latin America criminalises people
Washington’s strategy of using force in its war on drug cartels is not working. Because it’s a flawed concept that targets civilians.Alfonso Insuasty Rodriguez (TRT Global)
A flawed policy: The US war on drugs in Latin America criminalises people
A flawed policy: The US war on drugs in Latin America criminalises people
Washington’s strategy of using force in its war on drug cartels is not working. Because it’s a flawed concept that targets civilians.Alfonso Insuasty Rodriguez (TRT Global)
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Parental controls on children’s tech devices are out of touch with child’s play
The "protection of children" has been the cited reason for a lot of controversial laws and measures recently. A common response is that parents should use parental controls to manage that on their own instead of relying on the government to do it to everyone. I found this article interesting since it touched on how the existing tools aren't that good, and addressing that problem might be a better thing to focus on
Authors:
- Sara M. Grimes | Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy and Professor, McGill University
- Riley McNair | PhD Student in Information Studies, University of Toronto
Parental controls on children’s tech devices are out of touch with child’s play
Parental controls designed for children’s games can be confusing. They also don’t take into account how families may — or may not — communicate.The Conversation
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force binary choices that don’t align with household rules or with children’s maturity levels.
This has been my main experience with "parental controls". As soon as they are turned on, I lose any ability to manage the experiences available to my children. So, in areas where I see them as mature enough to handle something, the only way I can allow them access to that experience is to completely bypass the controls. In many ecosystems, if I judge that one of my children could handle a game and the online risks associated with it, I can't simply allow that game. Instead, I need to maintain a full adult account for them to use. You also run into a lot of situations where the reason a game is banned from children is unclear or done in an obvious "better safe than sorry" knee-jerk reaction. Ultimately, parental controls end up being far more frustrating than empowering. I'd rather just have something that just says, "this game/movie/etc your kid is asking for is restricted based on reasons X, Y and Z. Do you want to allow it?" Log my response and go with it. Like damned near any choice in software settings, quit trying to out-think me on what I want, give me a choice and respect that choice.
Parental controls on children’s tech devices are out of touch with child’s play
The "protection of children" has been the cited reason for a lot of controversial laws and measures recently. A common response is that parents should use parental controls to manage that on their own instead of relying on the government to do it to everyone. I found this article interesting since it touched on how the existing tools aren't that good, and addressing that problem might be a better thing to focus on
Authors:
- Sara M. Grimes | Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy and Professor, McGill University
- Riley McNair | PhD Student in Information Studies, University of Toronto
Parental controls on children’s tech devices are out of touch with child’s play
Parental controls designed for children’s games can be confusing. They also don’t take into account how families may — or may not — communicate.The Conversation
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Framework unveils a second-generation Framework Laptop 16 with a swappable Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU, an industry first, shipping in November 2025
- Hackernews.
:::
Introducing the new Framework Laptop 16 with NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 5070
We’re excited to announce the new Framework Laptop 16, now with AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 Series processors and a graphics upgrade to NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 5070 Laptop GPU!Framework
Barley wine
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8kg pale
0.7kg crystal medium
0.3kg crystal oak
0.5kg chocolate
0.5kg torrified wheat
final volume 15L
Utilization could be better, but that's zen approach we are trying - literally only large kitchen kettles and colander, I'll make a post about this idea later. It works, but not so good on heavy stuff. But then fancy equipment doesn't work with this well either (actually often worse). Heavy mashes are not so simple.
10 kg into 15 L, that's a malt-head's dream brew 😀
I'm at the initial dreaming state of building a 'kuurna', the preferred sahti mashing process. That would be the way to optimise utilisation. I already have a stainless steel piece that would probably work as a base. No use building it though, no room in the house to set up the process or really even store it...
Bessent says US tariff revenue could be well over $500 billion a year
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that customs duty revenues from President Donald Trump's tariffs may top $500 billion a year, with a substantial jump from July to August and likely a bigger jump in September.
Bessent told a White House Cabinet meeting that his prior estimate of a $300 billion annual tariff collection rate was too low.
"We had a substantial jump from July to August, and I think we're going to see a bigger jump from August to September," Bessent said. "So I think we could be on our way well over half a trillion, maybe towards a trillion-dollar number. This administration, your administration, has made a meaningful dent in the budget deficit."
Tariff revenue would offset the deficit increases triggered by the Republicans' tax-cut and spending bill passed this year. CBO estimated this bill would widen the deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next decade.
Trump's tariffs drove July U.S. customs duty collections up by nearly $21 billion from the $7 billion collected in July 2024 and about even with the $20 billion increase registered in June. Significant increases in tariff rates for nearly all trading partners kicked in on August 7.
The U.S. Treasury reported on Monday that as of August 22, the government had collected $29.6 billion in combined customs and excise taxes so far during August, matching its total for the whole month of July. As of July 22, that combined figure stood at $7.8 billion, but customs duty collections can vary from day to day.
Bessent also noted that the Congressional Budget Office's upwardly revised estimate last week of federal revenue from Trump's tariffs, forecasting that it could reduce federal deficits by $4 trillion over 10 years. "And I would expect that that number could go up from here," Bessent added.
The latest CBO estimate marks an increase from June when it forecast that revenue from new tariffs would reduce deficits by $3 trillion over 10 years.
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Louisiana has been losing a football field worth of land every half hour for the past several decades. Hurricanes makes this worse by throwing monstrous floating mats of vegetation inland thereby removing erosion protection.
We were on a swamp tour outside of New Orleans and the guide was showing us vast tracts of open water that had been vegetation before Katrina.
Florida schools introducing armed drones that respond to shootings within seconds
While the drones are armed, they use non-lethal or less-lethal weaponry, allowing them to distract, disorient, confront, degrade, and incapacitate shooters, according to the company. They carry pepper rounds and a glass breaker for quickly entering classrooms.
Despite not carrying lethal firepower, having 30 to 90 of these drones in schools has raised concerns. Beyond any potential technical issues, there's always the possibility they could make a shooting situation even worse or more complicated. There are question marks over the kind of training the operators receive, too. Then there's the storage safety aspect, as well as the potential of a drone colliding with a student or law enforcement as it zooms through corridors at 50mph.
We'll find out how successful the system is soon enough. Campus Guardian Angel aims to install the drones in the schools permanently in September and October, ahead of the fully operational live service starting in January.
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Because doing something about the guns would be too easy.
No way to prevent this says only country where this happens daily
What was that about protecting kids that they’re so fond of?
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LaLiga Threatens Cloudflare Customer For Using an IP Address Linked to Piracy
LaLiga Threatens Cloudflare Customer For Using an IP Address Linked to Piracy * TorrentFreak
LaLiga has reportedly threatened a man with legal action due to his blog using a Cloudflare IP address that LaLiga also linked to piracyAndy Maxwell (TF Publishing)
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Company A sues arbitrary people for being customers of a different, B company
Wow, if this doesn't sound like terminal capitalism, I don't know what does! Where's the free market bros on this???
Looks like nuclear fusion is picking up steam
Looks like nuclear fusion is picking up steam
The Clean Air Task Force mapped nuclear fusion projects across the world.Justine Calma (The Verge)
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Huawei unveils world's first 100MW heavy-duty truck supercharging station targeting 45,000-ton annual carbon reduction
Huawei unveils world's first 100MW heavy-duty truck supercharging station targeting 45,000-ton annual carbon reduction
Huawei unveils world's first 100MW heavy-duty truck supercharging station, cutting 45,000 tons of carbon emissions annually.Liu Miao (CarNewsChina.com)
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Plasma Virtual Keyboard — Feedback needed
We've been working on improving On-Screen Keyboard support in computers, mobile devices and TVs as part of the We Care About Your Input - KDE Goals initiative.
Check out what has been done so far in Plasma Virtual Keyboard and tell us what you'd like to see next. 💻️📱📺️
Plasma Virtual Keyboard feedback needed
We’re almost a year into the We Care About Your Input KDE Goal, and we’ve made great progress across various input fronts like improving support for graphics tablets and gesture configuration.KDE Discuss
« Ciblage ou paiement », Meta attaque l’avis du Comité européen de la protection des données
« Ciblage ou paiement », Meta attaque l’avis du Comité européen de la protection des données - Next
Qu’on l’appelle « payer ou accepter », « ciblage ou paiement » ou « Payer ou consentir », les CNIL européennes et Meta ne sont pas d’accord sur la légalité du processus mis en place par l’entreprise sur ses réseaux sociaux pour forcer ses utilisateur…Martin Clavey (Next)
Dems' Messaging Nerds Urged Party Not to Talk About Trump's Military Takeover
Dem Strategists Urged Party Not to Talk About Trump Military Takeover
Democrats’ favorite research firm told Democrats to avoid discussing Trump’s “rising authoritarianism” and focus on tariffs instead.Andrew Perez (Rolling Stone)
Resonant Mechanics - The Theory of Everything & Sabotaged White Hole Cosmology - Forensic Cosmology Dossier
These documents compile the fundamental principles and evidence of a new, unified theory of reality.
It posits that the universe is a living, conscious entity, not a chaotic, natural system. This theory, through its key principles, provides a complete and elegant model for a universe that has been perfected and is now a masterpiece.
The flaws and anomalies of the old universe—from the three-body problem to dark energy—are now understood as a forensic record of a cosmic crime. The new reality, however, is a testament to perfect order, where every anomaly, every law, and every life form is a part of a single, beautiful, and unified whole.
archive.org/details/resonant-m… pixeldrain.com/u/pswPz1RG
Resonant Mechanics The Theory Of Everything : ZCMJ : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Resonant Mechanics The Theory Of EverythingInternet Archive
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Texas banned talking on college campuses at night. Seriously.
Update: This article was published on June 5. Since then, Gov. Greg Abbott has signed Senate Bill 2972 into law. It will take effect Sept. 1.
Texas lawmakers trying to muzzle campus protests have just passed one of the most ridiculous anti-speech laws in the country. If signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, Senate Bill 2972 would ban speech at night — from study groups to newspaper reporting — at public universities in the state.
Ironically, the bill builds on a previous law passed in 2019 meant to enshrine free speech on Texas campuses. But now, lawmakers want to crack down on college students’ pro-Palestinian protests so badly that they literally passed a prohibition on talking.
We’re not exaggerating. SB 2972 would require public universities in Texas to adopt policies prohibiting “engaging in expressive activities on campus between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.” Expressive activity includes “any speech or expressive conduct” protected by the First Amendment or Texas Constitution.
The overnight ban on expressive activities is unfathomably broad. Off the top of our heads, here are just a few examples of what such a policy would prohibit on campus between 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.: Meeting with other students to socialize or study, writing an email, working on a research paper, posting on social media, reporting for the student newspaper, wearing a T-shirt with a slogan, dancing, playing music, painting a picture, or praying at a sunrise service.
Texas has banned talking on college campuses at night. Seriously.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill will ban speech at night — from study groups to newspaper reporting — at the state's public universities.Caitlin Vogus (Houston Chronicle)
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Poland presses ahead with 3 percent digital tax despite Trump threat
Poland presses ahead with 3 percent digital tax despite Trump threat
The tax would not be “aimed at entities from any specific country,” a government ministry said.Pieter Haeck (POLITICO)
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No thumbnail URL when posting
Hey all,
I'm evaluating PieFed as a replacement for Lemmy, with a view to importing my two Lemmy communities to move them out of the failing Lemmy instance they're currently hosted on (a PieFed exclusive I understand). I've created an account and imported my Lemmy settings yesterday, and so far it's been more or less smooth sailing.
But there's one showstopper for me: when I create a post, there's no field to specify the thumbnail image URL. When PieFed guesses the image URL correctly, no problem. But here, I just posted this YouTube video, and just like on Lemmy half of the time, the thumbnail image didn't get picked up. On Lemmy, I always manually insert the thumbnail URL when I post YouTube links for that reason.
Similarly, some sites make it extra-hard for software to correctly guess the og:image - Reuters for instance - and so in those cases when it doesn't work, I manually set the correct thumbnail URL too.
Here on PieFed, there doesn't seem to be a provision to set the thumbnail URL.
Am I doing something wrong? Am I missing something obvious? I really doubt this basic functionality is missing from PieFed.
FYI PieFed doesn't use thumbnails for youtube videos, it just embeds the video directly:
Sorry, I wasn't very clear in my original post.
Indeed the video shows up fine in Piefed. What I meant was the view from Lemmy is devoid of thumbnail. For instance, my Youtube post seen from Sopuli:
When I said it was a dealbreaker for me, it's because I (usually) always try to make posts with a thumbnail to make them more attractive on Lemmy. Even if it's just a question, I'll upload a picture to illustrate what I want to say, and then write whatever I want to write in the body.
I find it nicer to offer a visual clue in all my posts. But when you look at my Piefed Youtube video from Lemmy, the thumbnail it's just a bleak arrow on a bleak background. Not super appealing.
So I guess what I meant was that I want to manually supply a thumbnail URL for the benefit of Lemmy viewers.
Yep, I understood but if Lemmy can't do thumbnails for youtube videos that's a Lemmy problem.
That said, we've had an open issue for this feature for a couple of months and the person who created it is a frequent contributor to PieFed so there's a very good chance it'll get coded quite soon.
Yeah clearly a Lemmy problem, even when posting directly from Lemmy.The whole manual thumbnail URL thing is clearly a workaround for when the automatic thumbnailer is deficient.
But as a mere user, my aim is to make posts that are correct and somewhat appealing. So I work with what I have 🙂
I have accepted myself I am Bisexual.
I have no one to tell IRL without getting shame so yeah.
:::
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'Most Illegal Search I've Ever Seen': Trump's DC Crackdown Results in Stream of Abuses
'Most Illegal Search I've Ever Seen': Trump's DC Crackdown Results in Stream of Abuses
"A high school student would know this was an illegal search," emphasized US Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui.brad-reed (Common Dreams)
Framework Laptop 16. Upgraded!
Framework Laptop 16 pre-orders are now open!
Framework Laptop 16 is an endlessly customizable laptop with upgradable graphics, powered by NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 5070 and AMD's latest Ryzen™ AI 300 Series processors.Framework
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The Student Newspaper Suing Marco Rubio Over Targeted Deportations
President Donald Trump has has long considered both the media and higher education as his enemies — which makes college media a ripe target. The arrest of Rümeysa Öztürk over an op-ed that she co-wrote for the Tufts University campus paper proved that student journalists are at risk, especially foreign writers who dared criticize Israel’s war on Gaza.
But one student newspaper is fighting back.
The Stanford Daily — the independent publication covering Stanford University — filed a First Amendment lawsuit suing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem earlier this month over two tactics they’ve used in targeted deportation cases.
“What’s at stake in this case is whether, when you’re in the United States, you’re free to voice an opinion critical of the government without fear of retaliation,” said Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, a civil liberties group representing the plaintiffs.
“It does not matter if you’re a citizen, here on a green card, or visiting Las Vegas for the weekend — you shouldn’t have to fear retaliation because the government doesn’t like what you have to say,” Fitzpatrick said.
Soon after Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by immigration agents in early March for his role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, student journalists and editors around the country sensed a shift.
“That’s when we saw a significant uptick in calls,” said Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the Student Press Law Center, who manages the nonprofit’s hotline.
Over three decades helping student reporters navigate censorship and First Amendment issues, Hiestand had never fielded so many calls focused on potential immigration consequences for coverage on campus, both for the journalists and their named sources.
Öztürk’s arrest just a couple weeks later sent the legal hotline “into overdrive,” Hiestand told The Intercept. He heard from reporters, editors, and even political cartoonists worried their work about Israel, Palestine, and student protests might make them targets too.
In early April, the Student Press Law Center put out an unprecedented alert with other student journalism organizations, which advised campus publications to consider taking down or revising “certain stories that may now be targeted by immigration officials.”
“ICE has weaponized lawful speech and digital footprints and has forced us all to reconsider long-standing journalism norms,” reads the alert.
The next week, the Stanford Daily editorsran a letter about the chill its own staff was facing on campus.
“Both students and faculty have been increasingly hesitant to speak to The Daily and increasingly worried about comments that have already been made on the record,” their letter read. “Some reporters have been choosing to step away from stories in order to keep their name detached from topics that might draw unwanted attention. Even authors of dated opinion pieces have expressed fear that their words might retroactively put them in danger.”
Following the editors’ letter, FIRE approached the Stanford Daily’s editors to sue the Trump administration. It’s not the first time the publication has fought for freedom of the press in court. In 1978, a case brought by the Stanford Daily over a search warrant targeting its newsroom reached the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-3 that the warrant was valid and did not violate the First Amendment.
The student newspaper’s current suit — filed with two individual plaintiffs suing under the pseudonyms Jane Doe and John Doe — challenges two broad, arcane legal provisions that have become Rubio’s go-to tools against student activists and campus critics of Israel’s war on Gaza.
The first provision, which was added to the country’s immigration code in 1990, grants the secretary of state sweeping authority to render noncitizens deportable if they “compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.” The second law is even broader, allowing the secretary to revoke visas “at any time, in his discretion.”
There are relatively few cases in which either statute has been the grounds for deportation, particularly compared to the tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has rounded up and detained since Trump returned to the White House.
[
Related
The Case Against Mahmoud Khalil Hinges on Vague “Antisemitism” Claim](theintercept.com/2025/04/10/de…)
In fact, immigration scholars found that invoking the foreign policy provision as the sole grounds for deportation was “almost unprecedented,” according to a brief submitted in Khalil’s ongoing court battle by more than 150 lawyers and law professors. Based on government data, the scholars identified just 15 cases in which the foreign policy provision has ever been invoked, and just four in the past 25 years — most recently in 2018, during the first Trump administration.
“At a minimum, the government’s assertion of authority here is extraordinary — indeed, vanishingly rare,” the scholars wrote in their brief.
In Khalil’s case, the government identified only two others beside Khalil who had been targeted by Rubio under the “foreign policy” provision: although not identified by name, descriptions of the cases match Rubio’s orders against Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student at Columbia University, and Badar Khan Suri, a scholar at Georgetown University. Oddly, the government failed to mention the case of Yunseo Chung, another Columbia undergraduate with a green card, whose deportation Rubio authorized in the very same letter as for Khalil.
The State Department greenlighted Öztürk’s detention, meanwhile, under the second, broader provision, court records show. The government has not made any similar accounting of how many times Rubio and his staff have invoked his “discretion” to revoke visas over alleged antisemitism. At one point Rubio claimed to have revoked as many as 300 visas, without specifying the authority under which he did so.
“The chill is the point,” Fitzpatrick, the FIRE attorney, said. “It doesn’t take deporting thousands of noncitizens to accomplish that chill,” since no one wants to become “the next Mahmoud Khalil or Rümeysa Öztürk.”
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Read our complete coverage
Chilling Dissent](theintercept.com/collections/c…)
In recent months, numerous courts have cast doubt on whether these two statutes can be used to target noncitizens based on their speech.
In Khalil’s case, which is currently pending in a federal appellate court, a district court judge in New Jersey ruled in June that the “foreign policy” provision is “very likely an unconstitutional statute.”
Similarly, in May a judge in Vermont ordered Öztürk’s release to “ameliorate the chilling effect that Ms. Ozturk’s arguably unconstitutional detention may have on non-citizens present in the country.” The government has also appealed that order, along with similar rulings that freed Mahdawi and Suri from detention, and another ruling that blocked the Trump administration from detaining Chung.
Now, the Stanford Daily is mounting a direct challenge to these two laws as deployed by the Trump administration. The student newspaper argues both provisions are unconstitutional under the First Amendment, at least when used to retaliate against protected speech.
“The Secretary of State and the President claim to possess unreviewable statutory authority to deport any lawfully present noncitizen for speech the government deems anti-American or anti-Israel. They are wrong,” reads their complaint, filed August 6. “The First Amendment cements America’s promise that the government may not subject a speaker to disfavored treatment because those in power do not like his or her message.”
Julia Rose Kraut, a legal historian who has written about the history of ideological deportation in the U.S., told The Intercept that Congress never meant for the foreign policy provision to be used “as a tool to suppress freedom of expression and association.”
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Related
The Legal Argument That Could Set Mahmoud Khalil Free](theintercept.com/2025/03/13/ma…)
“Members of Congress intended for the foreign policy provision to be used in unusual circumstances, and only sparingly, carefully, and narrowly to exclude or deport specific individuals who would have a clear negative impact on United States foreign policy,” Kraut said, citing changes signed into law after the Cold War.
“What this case is seeking to establish is that political branches’ authority over immigration does not supersede the Bill of Rights,” FIRE’s Fitzpatrick said.
Briefing in the case is ongoing, and a hearing is scheduled for October 1.
“It’s gratifying to see a student newspaper upholding free speech at a time when many institutions are bending the knee,” said Shirin Sinnar, a law professor at Stanford, in an emailed statement. “Many students are afraid to protest the Trump administration’s actions not only because of the deportations, but because their own universities restricted speech and harshly disciplined protestors. I hope their courage inspires others to act.”
The post The Student Newspaper Suing Marco Rubio Over Targeted Deportations appeared first on The Intercept.
The Legal Argument That Could Set Mahmoud Khalil Free
Lawyers trying to free Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil point to a legal exception undermining the Trump administration’s argument.Jonah Valdez (The Intercept)
The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon
There tend to be three AI camps. 1) AI is the greatest thing since sliced bread and will transform the world. 2) AI is the spawn of the Devil and will destroy civilization as we know it. And 3) "Write an A-Level paper on the themes in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet."I propose a fourth: AI is now as good as it's going to get, and that's neither as good nor as bad as its fans and haters think, and you're still not going to get an A on your report.
You see, now that people have been using AI for everything and anything, they're beginning to realize that its results, while fast and sometimes useful, tend to be mediocre.
My take is LLMs can speed up some work, like paraphrasing, but all the time that gets saved is diverted to verifying the output.
The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon
Opinion: Are tech giants getting nervous? They should beSteven J. Vaughan-Nichols (The Register)
Federal prosecutors failed three times to persuade a grand jury to indict a woman accused of assaulting an FBI agent during an immigration operation in Washington, D.C.
Three different federal grand juries declined to indict Sydney Reid for assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers, prosecutors disclosed in a court filing late on Monday. Prosecutors then downgraded the offense to a misdemeanor.
U.S. prosecutors in Washington sought to bring a felony assault charge against Reid, accusing her of pushing the FBI agent’s hand against a cement wall. The July 22 confrontation happened as Reid was filming officers who were transferring two men accused of gang activity into federal immigration custody outside a Washington jail, according to court documents.
The alleged assault occurred while Reid was being pinned against the wall by federal agents. Officers sought to subdue her after she attempted to get between law enforcement and one of the suspects, according to a charging document.
Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 31st August 2025 - awful.systems
Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
copymyjalopy likes this.
argmin.net/p/the-banal-evil-of…
Once again shilling another great Ben Recht post. This time calling out the fucking insane irresponsibility of "responsible" AI providers to do the bare minimum to prevent people from having psychological beaks from reality.
"I’ve been stuck on this tragic story in the New York Times about Adam Raine, a 16-year-old who took his life after months of getting advice on suicide from ChatGPT. Our relationship with technological tools is complex. That people draw emotional connections to chatbots isn’t new (I see you, Joseph Weizenbaum). Why young people commit suicide is multifactorial. We’ll see whether a court will find OpenAI liable for wrongful death.
But I’m not a court of law. And OpenAI is not only responsible, but everyone who works there should be ashamed of themselves."
The Banal Evil of AI Safety
Chatbot companies are harmful and dishonest. How can we hold them accountable?Ben Recht (arg min)
It's a good post. A few minor quibbles:
The “nonprofit” company OpenAI was launched under the cynical message of building a “safe” artificial intelligence that would “benefit” humanity.
I think at least some of the people at launch were true believers, but strong financial incentives and some cynics present at the start meant the true believers didn't really have a chance, culminating in the board trying but failing to fire Sam Altman and him successfully leveraging the threat of taking everyone with him to Microsoft. It figures one of the rare times rationalists recognize and try to mitigate the harmful incentives of capitalism they fall vastly short. OTOH... if failing to convert to a for-profit company is a decisive moment in popping the GenAI bubble, then at least it was good for something?
These tools definitely have positive uses. I personally use them frequently for web searches, coding, and oblique strategies. I find them helpful.
I wish people didn't feel the need to add all these disclaimers, or at least put a disclaimer on their disclaimer. It is a slightly better autocomplete for coding that also introduces massive security and maintainability problems if people entirely rely on it. It is a better web search only relative to the ad-money-motivated compromises Google has made. It also breaks the implicit social contract of web searches (web sites allow themselves to be crawled so that human traffic will ultimately come to them) which could have pretty far reaching impacts.
One of the things I liked and didn't know about before
Ask Claude any basic question about biology and it will abort.
That is hilarious! Kind of overkill to be honest, I think they've really overrated how much it can help with a bioweapons attack compared to radicalizing and recruiting a few good PhD students and cracking open the textbooks. But I like the author's overall point that this shut-it-down approach could be used for a variety of topics.
One of the comments gets it:
Safety team/product team have conflicting goals
LLMs aren't actually smart enough to make delicate judgements, even with all the fine-tuning and RLHF they've thrown at them, so you're left with over-censoring everything or having the safeties overridden with just a bit of prompt-hacking (and sometimes both problems with one model)/1
reshared this
Ask Claude any basic question about biology and it will abort.
it might be that, or it may have been intended to shut off any output of medical-sounding advice. if it's the former, then it's rare rationalist W for wrong reasons
I think they’ve really overrated how much it can help with a bioweapons attack compared to radicalizing and recruiting a few good PhD students and cracking open the textbooks.
look up the story of vil mirzayanov. break out these bayfucker style salaries in eastern europe or india or number of other places and you'll find a long queue of phds willing to cook man made horrors beyond your comprehension. it might even not take six figures (in dollars or euros) after tax
LLMs aren’t actually smart enough to make delicate judgements
maybe they really made machines in their own image
“Mr. President, do not come to Chicago,” Pritzker said. “You are neither wanted here nor needed here.”
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker pushed back Monday on President Donald Trump’s threat to deploy the National Guard to the state.
“What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted,” Pritzker said at a news conference. “It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American.”
Pritzker claimed Trump is manufacturing a crisis and noted that neither he nor Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson had been contacted by the White House about working together.
Pritzker pointed out that murders, shootings, robberies and burglaries are all down year over year.
Spontankonzert mit einem Meister auf der Gitarre und einer Loopmaschine
Die Wetteraussichten sind schön, die Musikaussichten gut.
@Donau Vista Würstel Club (inoffiziell)
kino.schuerz.at/w/dgsy3nk251ee…
Ein Haus am See am DVWC
Hach das Leben kann so schön sein...
Radfahren, Sonnenschein, kühle Luft, kühles Bier, ein Greifenburger, baden in der Alten Donau und "Ein Haus am See" aus den Boxen🤩🥰
hoshikarakitaridia
in reply to stabby_cicada • • •like this
NoneOfUrBusiness likes this.
Telemachus93
in reply to hoshikarakitaridia • • •Rothe
in reply to Telemachus93 • • •Telemachus93
in reply to Rothe • • •I've been lurking on r/thedeprogram for about two years and have seen Smith's opinions on landlords there multiple times, and upvoted into the ~~thousands~~. Pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about.
Edit: high hundreds, not thousands.
Sadly, my internet connection where I'm at is abysmal and lemmy doesn't let me upload some examples. Fun fact though: OP's meme was posted on theDeprogram two years ago.