cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/51884794

archive.is/sT456

China is the sole producer, for example, of samarium, a rare earth metal used in many military applications. China is also the only country to master the difficult art of refining ultrapure dysprosium: The entire world’s supply, needed for superfast chips, comes from a single factory near Shanghai.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/business/china-rare-earth-export-controls.html

Two Illinois National Guard members told CBS News they would refuse to obey federal orders to deploy in Chicago as part of President Trump's controversial immigration enforcement mission — a rare act of open defiance from within the military ranks.

"It's disheartening to be forced to go against your community members and your neighbors," said Staff Sgt. Demi Palecek, a Latina guardswoman and state legislative candidate from Illinois's 13th District. "It feels illegal. This is not what we signed up to do."

2 Illinois National Guard members speak out: "I won't turn against my neighbors"

Staff Sgt. Demi Palecek and Capt. Dylan Blaha say they'll defy federal orders regarding Trump's immigration enforcement operation in Chicago.

^{Nicole Sganga (CBS News)}

cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/51881196

New supercomputer clusters are headed to Tennessee.

BrikoX

2025-10-27 22:55:48

AMD, Department of Energy announce $1 billion AI supercomputer partnership

New supercomputer clusters are headed to Tennessee.

AMD, Department of Energy announce $1 billion AI supercomputer partnership

AMD, HP, and Oracle are partnering with the DoE on two new supercomputers, Lux and Discovery that will be used for research and AI development.

^{Stevie Bonifield (The Verge)}

cross-posted from: sopuli.xyz/post/35849167

An estimated 7 million peaceful protesters took to the streets on October 18, in the second-largest demonstration in US history (after the first Earth Day in 1970), demanding accountability and a return to democracy and the rule of law. In a system of government where citizens can only use the ballot box every two to six years to show how they feel about their electeds, that’s something you’d think would warrant journalistic attention.

Yet at the nation’s paper of record—whose headquarters sat literally a stone’s throw away from the New York City No Kings march route—the protest was deemed not important enough for a front-page story. Two small below-the-fold photos were offered instead (10/19/25), with the accompanying article buried on page 23.

supersquirrel

2025-10-27 23:35:46

Why Is the NYT Editorial Board More Worried About Progressivism Than Fascism? | Common Dreams

Why Is the NYT Editorial Board More Worried About Progressivism Than Fascism?

The nation's paper of record downplayed the 'No Kings" protests while urging Democrats to move toward the center to defeat Trump, all the while ignoring the GOP's attempt to undermine election integrity.

^{julie-hollar (Common Dreams)}

La resa dei conti è arrivata. Lunedì 3 novembre 2025, su Rai 1, va in onda la sesta ed ultima puntata di Blanca 3, con Maria Chiara Giannetta nei panni dell’investigatrice non vedente che ha conquistato il pubblico. L’episodio, dal titolo “Il bambino”, porta al culmine l’indagine iniziata in apertura di stagione: la scomparsa del figlio di Domenico (Domenico Diele) e la morte della madre del piccolo. Sul piano personale, Blanca dovrà guardare in faccia la verità sulle bugie di Domenico e decidere se coinvolgerlo nella sua gravidanza, mentre Liguori (Giuseppe Zeno) le resta accanto in un momento cruciale.

LEGGI LE ANTICIPAZIONI: Blanca 3, anticipazioni ultima puntata di lunedì 3 novembre 2025: tutta la verità sul bambino scomparso e sulle bugie di Domenico

Blanca 3, finale del 3 novembre 2025: anticipazioni dell’ultima puntata “Il bambino”

Blanca 3, ultima puntata il 3 novembre 2025: anticipazioni dell’episodio “Il bambino”, verità sul caso e sulle bugie di Domenico.

^{Redazione (Atom Heart Magazine)}

Nations previously exempt from scraping now in the firing line

You have one week to opt out or become fodder for LinkedIn AI training

: Nations previously exempt from scraping now in the firing line

^{Brandon Vigliarolo (The Register)}

Pinterest is testing an AI-driven collage to help users create outfits from saved Pins and personalized boards curated with AI.

Pinterest experiments with new AI-powered personalized boards | TechCrunch

Pinterest is testing an AI-driven collage to help users create outfits from saved Pins and personalized boards curated with AI. 

^{Lauren Forristal (TechCrunch)}

Instagram Threads is launching “ghost posts,” a new disappearing-posts feature that lets users share updates that automatically archive after 24 hours. The ephemeral option — rolling out globally on Monday — aims to encourage more casual, low-pressure sharing.

Threads adds 'ghost posts' that disappear after 24 hours | TechCrunch

^{Sarah Perez (TechCrunch)}

I’ve always believed that if you put your heart into something — really try — eventually, it will be seen.

But lately, I’m not so sure.

For months, I’ve been trying to get my websites approved for AdSense. Three sites, three different focuses, one consistent effort: to share my work, my voice, my perspective. And every time, I get rejected. Every time, the same message: “Low-quality content.”

No explanation. No guidance. No human response. Just those cold words, repeated, over and over.

It’s not the money that stings. It’s the feeling of being invisible. Of having your effort, your care, your heart poured into something — only to be told, vaguely, that it doesn’t matter.

And sometimes, you can’t help but wonder if it’s about more than the content. If there’s something about who you are, or what your name sounds like, or the perspective you bring — and yes, my name is Hispanic — that quietly works against you.

I want to believe it’s not true. I want to believe that a system that powers the world’s largest advertising platform treats everyone fairly. But when silence replaces answers, and automation replaces understanding, it’s hard not to feel like something deeper is at play.

I wrote to Google. I asked for clarity, for feedback, for a human to look at my work. I explained how it felt to be repeatedly dismissed without explanation.

No response.

It’s not just a rejection. It’s a dismissal. And when your name or your identity might be part of the invisible reason, it cuts deeper than any automated message could.

And yet, despite all that, I keep going.

I write because I have to. I create because I have to. Not for validation, not for approval, but because this is who I am. My work — my words, my ideas, my perspectives — matter to me. And I hope they matter to others too.

Maybe one day Google will see that. Maybe one day a human reviewer will look at my sites and recognize the care, the effort, and the heart behind them.

But until then, I’ll keep sharing, keep writing, keep creating. Because no rejection, no algorithm, no automated judgment can erase what I put into the world.

And even if it sometimes feels like the system is blind, or worse — biased — I refuse to let that stop me.

Because heart and honesty can’t be rejected. They can only be ignored. And I refuse to be silent.

Also on:

• website

Cross posted from: lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/3364037…

rosahaj

2025-10-27 22:04:24

Alien Anthropology: Doing without Agriculture

Those familiar with Biblaridion's Alien Biospheres worldbuilding series will be glad to hear that it's new sequel (sister?) series has just had it's first release 'Doing without Agriculture,' exploring a few of the ways that a fictional alien species, the development of which was covered in the last series, could develop their societies in the abscence of agrarian technology.

Alien Biospheres

Partagez vos vidéos avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier

^YouTube

Una vulnerabilità zero-day in Google Chrome, sfruttata nell'operazione ForumTroll all'inizio di quest'anno, ha diffuso malware collegato al fornitore italiano di spyware Memento Labs, nato dopo che IntheCyber Group ha acquisito la famigerata Hacking Team.

L'operazione ForumTroll è stata scoperta da Kaspersky a marzo. La campagna ha preso di mira organizzazioni russe - media, università, centri di ricerca, organizzazioni governative e istituzioni finanziarie - con inviti ben congegnati al forum Primakov Readings che contenevano un link dannoso.

Era sufficiente caricare il link in qualsiasi browser web basato su Chromium per infettare il sistema informatico. I ricercatori di Kaspersky hanno affermato che la distribuzione del malware è stata effettuata sfruttando CVE-2025-2783, una vulnerabilità zero-day di tipo sandbox escape nel browser Chrome.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/italian-spyware-vendor-linked-to-chrome-zero-day-attacks/

NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Sen. Bernie Sanders about his book, "Fight Oligarchy," which argues oligarchic economic and political control has left millions of Americans struggling.

...

FADEL: This book is a pocket-size version of a tour called Fight Oligarchy that you went on in mostly Republican or a lot of Republican leaning districts. And it is a call to action. You call for political revolution. But what does that look like for Americans who are watching more and more violent ICE raids, these flurry of court decisions over what President Trump is doing or not doing, a government shutdown, a deadlock in Washington? That can feel very helpless for Americans who have no control over Washington and politicians here.

SANDERS: I think you hit the nail on the head. I think people are feeling helpless, deeply worried about the future and whether their kids will have an even lower standard of living than they do, and they want to know what we can do. And when I talk about the political revolution, it's - yes, it means, very importantly getting involved in the political process. But it's not just being involved in, quote-unquote, "political activities." We're seeing at the grassroots level, if not at Washington, at the grassroots level, a lot of union organizing. You can stand up and form a union. If you're worried about the quality of education that your kids are getting, get involved now. Work with the teachers. Improve education. We are a nation that, by and large, believes in democracy, believes in justice, understands that climate change is not a hoax but an existential threat to our world. So the message is break out of your comfort zone, do what you didn't do yesterday, and get involved in one way or another.

Archived at web.archive.org/web/2025102720…

In 'Fight Oligarchy,' Sen. Bernie Sanders calls for a political revolution

^NPR

More frequent and intense storms, sea-level rise and extensive rainfall fueled by climate change mean the island nation is likely to be hit especially hard by this week’s storm.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/climate/hurricane-melissa-climate-change.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wk8.CTTV.GmxD6KaCW8TG

The justices used the doctrine, a judicially created method of reading statutes, to thwart several major Biden programs.

The major questions doctrine requires Congress to use plain and direct language to authorize sweeping economic actions by the executive branch.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

The Supreme Court used the “major questions doctrine” to reject much of the Biden administration’s agenda, including its efforts to address climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic and student debt. The court’s commitment to the doctrine will be tested next week when it hears arguments about President Trump’s tariffs program.

The doctrine requires Congress to use plain and direct language to authorize sweeping economic actions by the executive branch. The 1977 law that Mr. Trump is relying on, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, might seem to fail that test, as it does not feature the word “tariffs” or similar terms like “duties,” “customs,” “taxes” or “imposts.”

Nor is there any question that the tariffs will have vast economic consequences, measured in the trillions of dollars. The sums involved are far larger than the roughly $500 billion at issue in President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s student loan forgiveness program, which Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, called “staggering by any measure.”

t seems poised to rule in President Trump’s favor on whether he can fire government officials for no reason, a leading originalist scholar has issued a provocative dissent.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/us/politics/trump-tariffs-supreme-courts-major-questions-doctrine.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wk8.QE_E.Iaq_Jm3SuCv1

The Association of University Heads in Israel has recorded over 1,000 incidents of academic boycotts over the last two years, three times the total as of a year ago.

Israel's Haaretz daily reported on Monday that the incidents included Israeli researchers who encountered refusals to cooperate with them or invite them to conferences, refusals by overseas researchers to come to the occupied territories, the cessation of student exchange programs, refusals to conduct peer reviews, and delays in the publication of articles.

The report came at a time when a growing number of universities, academic institutions, and scholarly bodies across the world are cutting links with Israeli academia due to the regime’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

It quoted senior Israeli academics as saying that their universities are looking into forging alternative ties with institutions in Eastern Europe and Asia if Israeli-led research is pushed out of Western Europe.

It also echoed fears that Israeli researchers may be forced to leave the occupied lands to avoid harm to their work.

"Research in Israel … is in danger of collapsing," one academic warned.

Professor Ariel Porat, president of Tel Aviv University, said, "We're in the worst situation, from the standpoint of the academic boycott, that we have been in at any time over the last two years.”

Meanwhile, Milette Shamir, Tel Aviv University's deputy president for international affairs, said there was a rise in the number of academic boycotts against Israel even during Gaza ceasefire negotiations, and even after the genocide ended.

"In the United States, there are a lot of faculty members who still refuse to maintain working relations with Israeli researchers,” she added.

"And in Europe, the situation is even worse. There, the boycott is expanding fast. The main victims are younger researchers. This is long-term damage."

The report said that the hidden boycott of Israel is much broader than overt statements or actions against Israeli academics.

It further said Israeli academics criticize the Tel Aviv regime for doing nothing about the academic boycott.

"We've heard from cabinet representatives that they deliberately won't help us, because we're leftists,” an academic said.

Israel unleashed its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out the historic Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Israel accepted a Gaza ceasefire deal after it failed to achieve its declared objectives of eliminating Hamas and freeing all captives, despite killing 68,527 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 170,395 others, according to the health ministry of Gaza.

Over the past two years, nearly 40 overseas universities have announced that they are ending cooperation with Israeli institutions either completely or partially.

Stephanie Adam of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel said Israeli academic institutions are complicit in the regime’s “decades-long regime of military occupation, settler colonial apartheid and now genocide,” adding there is “a moral and legal obligation for universities to end ties with complicit Israeli universities”.

Academic boycotts against Israel have tripled in one-year span: Report

The Association of University Heads in Israel has reportedly recorded over 1,000 incidents of academic boycotts over the last two years, three times the total as of a year ago.

^PressTV

Mike Brock’s piece on Sequoia Capital last week laid out a pretty damning case study: a well-respected COO complains about a partner’s Islamophobic posts, senior leadership invokes “institutional neutrality” and declines to act, she resigns, he stays because he made them billions on SpaceX. Brock correctly calls this out as a choice, not neutrality—a calculation about whose value to the firm matters more.

The thing that struck me about Brock’s piece is that it highlights how there’s a broader pattern here: institutional cowardice from organizations that spout high-minded ideals as a shield to explain their refusal to make a clear decision, while ignoring that doing so is a very real choice with very real consequences.

That’s worth highlighting, because we keep seeing it play out in nearly identical ways. Whether it’s a venture capital firm or a social media platform, the playbook is the same: invoke “neutrality” or “free speech” as a shield, refuse to take a clear stance on bigoted behavior, and then act shocked when the people being targeted decide they don’t want to stick around.

This is the Nazi bar problem, and it keeps happening because people in positions of power either don’t understand it or don’t want to.

We head off into an excursion about paid blogging platforms ...

Sequoia took the cowardly way out. It made a choice, but it wouldn’t own it, just like Substack refuses to own its pro-Nazi position. It pretends it doesn’t by saying “we’re staying neutral.” But their version of “staying neutral” and “supporting free speech” is really “bigotry and hatred are welcome” and then, what follows naturally is “the targets of bigotry and hatred must leave.”

And it’s the exact same choice Substack made. When [CEO Chris] Best refused to answer Nilay’s questions, he was saying: we value the revenue from writers who publish bigoted content more than we value the writers and readers who don’t want to be associated with that content.

Just as Balbale felt the need to leave Sequoia, a ton of Substack’s top writers left that platform. Joe Posnanski, Casey Newton, Marisa Kabas, Ryan Broderick, Molly White, Ken White, Audrey Watters, Mark DeLong, and many others have left Substack, with many of them pointing out that Substack’s stance on Nazis makes them feel unwelcome (for what it’s worth, many are also noting they make more money on other platforms).

Hmm. More money, fewer Nazis seems a decent tradeoff.

How “Neutrality” And “Free Speech” Become Excuses For Driving Out The People You Claim To Value

Mike Brock’s piece on Sequoia Capital last week laid out a pretty damning case study: a well-respected COO complains about a partner’s Islamophobic posts, senior leadership invokes R…

^Techdirt

[features eyewitness reports from various cities by participants]

from World-Outlook
Oct. 20, 2025

More than 7 million people turned out for the No Kings protests in about 2,700 cities and towns in all 50 U.S. states on October 18, 2025. These numbers are based on reports from the organizers and media across the country.

The main sponsors included the liberal group Indivisible, the American Civil Liberties Union, and hundreds of other national and local organizations.

Some of the largest actions took place in Chicago (250,000), Washington, D.C. (200,000), New York City (where estimates ranged between 100,000 and more than 300,000), and Boston (125,000). Thousands marched in many cities in the South, including Dallas and Houston, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; and Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina.

Millions Turn Out for October 18 ‘No Kings’ Protests Across U.S. - World-Outlook

^{world-outlook.com (World-Outlook)}

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/38146161

[features eyewitness reports from various cities by participants]

from World-Outlook
Oct. 20, 2025

More than 7 million people turned out for the No Kings protests in about 2,700 cities and towns in all 50 U.S. states on October 18, 2025. These numbers are based on reports from the organizers and media across the country.

The main sponsors included the liberal group Indivisible, the American Civil Liberties Union, and hundreds of other national and local organizations.

Some of the largest actions took place in Chicago (250,000), Washington, D.C. (200,000), New York City (where estimates ranged between 100,000 and more than 300,000), and Boston (125,000). Thousands marched in many cities in the South, including Dallas and Houston, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; and Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina.

Peter Link

2025-10-27 18:31:11

Millions Turn Out for October 18 ‘No Kings’ Protests Across U.S.

[features eyewitness reports from various cities by participants]

from World-Outlook
Oct. 20, 2025

More than 7 million people turned out for the No Kings protests in about 2,700 cities and towns in all 50 U.S. states on October 18, 2025. These numbers are based on reports from the organizers and media across the country.

The main sponsors included the liberal group Indivisible, the American Civil Liberties Union, and hundreds of other national and local organizations.

Some of the largest actions took place in Chicago (250,000), Washington, D.C. (200,000), New York City (where estimates ranged between 100,000 and more than 300,000), and Boston (125,000). Thousands marched in many cities in the South, including Dallas and Houston, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; and Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina.

Millions Turn Out for October 18 ‘No Kings’ Protests Across U.S. - World-Outlook

^{world-outlook.com (World-Outlook)}

https://thehill.com/homenews/5574835-federal-snap-benefits-wont-be-paid-in-november-what-happens-next/