America is now one big bet on AI - Financial Times
Despite mounting threats to the US economy — from high tariffs to collapsing immigration, eroding institutions, rising debt and sticky inflation — large companies and investors seem unfazed. They are increasingly confident that artificial intelligence is such a big force, it can counter all the challenges.
Lately, this optimism has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year.
AI companies have accounted for 80 per cent of the gains in US stocks so far in 2025. That is helping to fund and drive US growth, as the AI-driven stock market draws in money from all over the world, and feeds a boom in consumer spending by the rich.
Since the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population own 85 per cent of US stocks, they enjoy the largest wealth effect when they go up. Little wonder then that the latest data shows America’s consumer economy rests largely on spending by the wealthy. The top 10 per cent of earners account for half of consumer spending, the highest share on record since the data begins.
Employees regularly paste company secrets into ChatGPT
Microsoft Copilot, not so much
Employees regularly paste company secrets into ChatGPT
: Microsoft Copilot, not so muchThomas Claburn (The Register)
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Italian prime minister reveals she has been referred to ICC over Gaza
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday that she and two of her ministers had been reported to the International Criminal Court for alleged complicity in genocide in Gaza.
Archived version: archive.is/newest/middleeastey…
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.
Poll indicates over 60% of Jews in the US believe Israel has committed war crimes
Pro-Palestine organizers credits “how the movement for Palestine has intervened,” for seismic shift in public opinion
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.
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Secretive Watchlisting Center Executing NSPM-7
“We’re expanding the watchlist,” FBI director says amid 300% increase in domestic terror investigations.
Building a fairer future for digital advertising: Mozilla partners with Index Exchange | The Mozilla Blog
Advertising can and should work better — for people, for publishers, and for brands. That belief is what drives Mozilla’s growing investment in rebuilding digital advertising around trust, transparency and fairness.
Building a fairer future for digital advertising: Mozilla partners with Index Exchange
Advertisers have always cared about brand safety. The missing piece has been trust in the platforms where ads run. That’s the gap Mozilla is closing.Kristina Bravo (The Mozilla Blog)
US has given at least $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel since war in Gaza began, report says
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States under the Biden and Trump administrations has provided at least $21.7 billion in military assistance to Israel since the start of the Gaza war two years ago, according to a new academic study published Tuesday, the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel that provoked the conflict.
Another study, also published by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs, says the U.S. has spent roughly $10 billion more on security aid and operations in the broader Middle East in the past two years.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-war-military-aid-83cebb16b3e504f70112e374a0c74bfc
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US has given at least $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel since war in Gaza began, report says
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States under the Biden and Trump administrations has provided at least $21.7 billion in military assistance to Israel since the start of the Gaza war two years ago, according to a new academic study published Tuesday, the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel that provoked the conflict.
Another study, also published by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs, says the U.S. has spent roughly $10 billion more on security aid and operations in the broader Middle East in the past two years.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-war-military-aid-83cebb16b3e504f70112e374a0c74bfc
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DraftKings warns of account breaches in credential stuffing attacks
Sports betting giant DraftKings has notified an undisclosed number of customers that their accounts had been hacked in a recent wave of credential stuffing attacks.
Technically not a direct data breach, but worth knowing about.
Electronics giant Avnet confirms breach, says stolen data unreadable
Electronic components distributor Avnet confirmed in a statement for BleepingComputer that it suffered a data breach but noted that the stolen data is unreadable without proprietary tools.
Microsoft kills more Microsoft Account bypasses in Windows 11
Microsoft is removing more methods that help users create local Windows accounts and bypass the Microsoft account requirement when installing Windows 11.
What could 3.27 be about based on the announcement background banner on Steam?
store.steampowered.com/news/ap…
Path of Exile - Path of Exile 3.27 Announcement and Launch Date - Steam News
Following on from our previous Path of Exile 3.27 Expansion Timeline news post, we have some dates to share with you regarding the next chapter for Path of Exile.store.steampowered.com
Canadian bill would strip internet access from 'specified persons', no warrant
FIRST READING: Canadian bill would strip internet access from 'specified persons'
Not too long ago, Liberals were defending internet access as akin to a human right.nationalpost
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All the hardware in my life is Linux or FreeBSD . . . with one embarrassing exception. For years I've kept an Acer laptop on Win10 for a single task - running a windows application to update the firmware on a Garmin satellite SMS device (we do long distance hiking well off grid in Scotland). Micro$oft's ongoing bullshit shamed me into finally sorting out even that one edge use case. After several hours of playing . . I was able to overwrite Win10 with . . . ReactOS!
If you've never heard of it . . and most people in the FOSS community never have . . it's an attempt at reverse engineering Windows NT, using a combination of WINE plus a written from scratch open source Windows like kernel. It will never be "done" and it's FAR from ready to be anyone's daily driver . . but still a fun project to follow.
And yes, after hours more of tweaking, I was able to get the Garmin app to update on React!
i wish reactos worked with the android bootloader unlocking & rom installers software that some phone makers like redmi & xiaomi require for their phones.
it's also bizarre that a linux based device requires a windows system to enable customization when it's the opposite in every other arena.
it's even stranger that chinese brands are more common in requiring proprietary means for products while its gov't is so gung ho about open source that it's open sourced industries critical to future like ai & chip development.
[Announcement] Path of Exile 3.27 Announcement and Launch Date
Following on from our previous Path of Exile 3.27 Expansion Timeline news post, we have some dates to share with you regarding the next chapter for Path of Exile.
We will be announcing the content of the expansion in a livestream on October 23rd (PDT). The 3.27 expansion for Path of Exile will be released on October 31st (PDT).
The Mercenaries league will end on the 27th of October (PDT). We'll let you know what will be happening to our Trarthan friends (and enemies) closer to the end of the league.
The name of the 3.27 expansion will be revealed soon, so keep an eye on the news!
Announcements - Path of Exile 3.27 Announcement and Launch Date - Forum - Path of Exile
Path of Exile is a free online-only action RPG under development by Grinding Gear Games in New Zealand.Path of Exile
Uproar in EU after Merkel’s claim of Ukraine talks ‘sabotage’
Uproar in EU after Merkel’s claim of Ukraine talks ‘sabotage’
Leaders in Poland and the Baltic states are fuming after the ex-German chancellor suggested they derailed 2021 negotiations with RussiaRT
Behind the illusion of deadlock: what’s really happening in the Ukraine conflict
Behind the illusion of deadlock: what’s really happening in the Ukraine conflict
This is the war the West can’t win, can’t end, and can’t affordRT
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How the Russian Wagner Group is entrenching itself in Africa
The Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary, has gained a foothold in many sectors across Africa, helping the continent strengthen ties with Russia. Now, it's also expanding its range of services.David Ehl (Deutsche Welle)
Virginia governor’s race shaken up by ‘violent’ texts sent by ally of Democratic candidate
Virginia governor’s race shaken up by ‘violent’ texts sent by ally of Democratic candidate
Democrat Abigail Spanberger faces criticism for her support of another Democrat who speculated about a Republican lawmaker getting ‘two bullets to the head’Richard Luscombe (The Guardian)
Scientists Just Made Light Speed Visible. The Images Will Break Your Brain.
Scientists Just Made Light Speed Visible. The Images Will Break Your Brain.
The method involves stitching together many thin “slices” of light reflecting off an object.Caroline Delbert (Popular Mechanics)
TheGuardian hasn't learned to count for two whole years
france24.com/en/live-news/2023…
The final death toll from the attack is now thought to be 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139.
Israel social security data reveals true picture of Oct 7 deaths
A more precise picture of Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel has emerged from social security data, confirming the unprecedented scale of the violence but also challenging some initial testimonies.France 24 (FRANCE 24)
Those were killed by Israel themselves on an entirely different date.
This is an absolutely bananas rationalization!
Say ICE kidnaps a pair of kids in the morning. In the afternoon, the distraught parents see them in a detention van and try to get them back. In the commotion, one of the kids dies.
Now, in your opinion, that kid didn't die because of the ICE raid that morning?
Really just seems like you're trying to downplay October 7 to push your narrative, which is more than a little funny given the community.
It might be difficult to understand but if they die on any day besides october 7 then they didn't die on october 7.
And if the IDF killed them then it's not the Hamas attack which killed them.
Really just seems like you’re trying to downplay October 7 to push your narrative, which is more than a little funny given the community.
Bye
Frieren - Capitolo 5
Rimessesi in viaggio, la maga somma Frieren ha in mente una prossima tappa che, per la prima volta in queste pagine, alza per qualche attimo la posta...
Frieren - Capitolo 4
Frieren e Fern sono in città, preparandosi a prendere provviste per il loro prossimo viaggio... o, almeno, questo è ciò che la prima dice di fare...
Cross-posting within ActivityPub
Just wrapped up a session at FediForum where snarfed.org@fed.brid.gy and quillmatiq@mastodon.social discussed FEP-fffd: Proxy Objects as a way to link disparate cross-network objects together.
I piped up that rimu@piefed.social and I were working on similar problems with cross-posting, though we were discussing this well within the confines of ActivityPub — cross-posting between threadiverse communitiesal
We hadn't come up with any path forward yet, but the FEP notes some properties that we could use.
alsoKnownAsto refer to a canonical post?- An
urlarray to show cross-posts?
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Technology reshared this.
The article is from a security researcher involved in the development of post-quantum encryption. Hes known for fighting against various agencies trying to weaken encryption for their questionable benefit. Hes been very successful but a one-man-show only goes so far. Please, if you read this: write those emails to the mailing list and tell others whats going on!
This (sadly) has implications across the whole world, but right now its very easy to stop.
And please, if you do write the email, please dont just copy paste the template in the article, it seems the comitee wants to ignore all the ones with the same wording because of "spam"
The article is from a security researcher involved in the development of post-quantum encryption. Hes known for fighting against various agencies trying to weaken encryption for their questionable benefit. Hes been very successful but a one-man-show only goes so far. Please, if you read this: write those emails to the mailing list and tell others whats going on!
This (sadly) has implications across the whole world, but right now its very easy to stop.
And please, if you do write the email, please dont just copy paste the template in the article, it seems the comitee wants to ignore all the ones with the same wording because of "spam"
Greta Thunberg gives first public speech since Israeli kidnapping – video
cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/6351799
cross-posted from: ibbit.at/post/74406
Human rights and climate activist Greta Thunberg has spoken publicly for the first time after her kidnapping, detention, and abuse at the hands of the Israeli government:thecanary.co/wp-content/upload…
Greta Thunberg released
As the Canary previously reported, on Saturday 4 October the Israeli occupation authorities deported 137 of the kidnapped international solidarity activists who participated in the Global Sumud Flotilla to break the humanitarian siege on Gaza, in the second deportation operation in a matter of days, after returning four Italians to their country on Friday 3 October.One of the deported activists who arrived at Istanbul airport on Saturday recounted shocking details of what he described as ‘brutal assaults’ on some activists during their detention, telling reporters:
They dragged little Greta (Thunberg) by her hair in front of our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her as a warning to others.She’s still a little kid. They made her suffer.
Separately, the Guardian reported that an email to Swedish authorities said Greta Thunberg was suffering from:
dehydration. She has received insufficient amounts of both water and food. She also stated that she had developed rashes which she suspects were caused by bedbugs. She spoke of harsh treatment and said she had been sitting for long periods on hard surfaces.Meanwhile, other released activists spoke of similar degrading treatment.
Turkish activist Samanur Sonmaz Yaman, a member of the flotilla, recounts details of the occupation’s oppression and abuse of veiled women from the boats:
Occupation soldiers ripped off our headscarves during our arrest and took them from us, and our non-veiled friends gave us their shirts to cover our heads.
Ongoing Israeli violence
Adalah, the legal centre that monitors the cases of detainees, said that detention conditions at Ketziot prison in the Negev desert are ‘deteriorating alarmingly,’ amid reports of ill-treatment and violence against some detainees.A spokesperson for the organisation said that it is difficult at this stage to provide a comprehensive assessment, but confirmed that the mistreatment primarily affects non-European detainees, especially those whose countries do not have diplomatic missions in Israel.
This incident is the latest chapter in the confrontation between Israel and the international solidarity flotillas that recently set sail in an attempt to break the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip for more than 18 years, amid growing international warnings about targeting solidarity activists and civil society activists, and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Strip, which is suffering from famine and shortages of medicine and fuel.
Israel intercepted 40 ships in the Global Solidarity Flotilla that set sail to reach Gaza to break the blockade and deliver humanitarian aid amid the ongoing war of extermination on Gaza, which is now entering its third year.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
From Canary via this RSS feed
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I wish I were even half. She is an absolute badass, and frankly puts most of us to shame.
This world would be pretty amazing if the average Joe thought and acted the way she does.
Indigenous-Led Movement Against Austerity Is Gaining Momentum in Ecuador
cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/6352050
The video is shocking. The footage is low quality, shot from above and behind the scene: A group of people run from state security forces up an empty highway at full speed. Four people are carrying a limp body. But under the fire of gunshots, tear gas and police sirens, three of the people drop the body and flee. The other man, in a blue jacket, kneels beside the body, and holds onto him.Two armored vehicles arrive, lights flashing. Two men in green fatigues, helmets and body gear jump out. They point their weapons, and begin to kick and beat the two men on the ground — one alive, though he would end up unconscious and hospitalized, one already dead. The latter’s name was Efraín Fuerez. He was a 46-year-old Indigenous Kichwa community member from Cotacachi, Ecuador, and the father of two children.
Reports say Ecuadorian armed forces shot Fuerez three times with live ammunition the morning of September 28 on the Pan-American Highway close to the town of Ilumán. There is no video of the shooting itself, which took place immediately before these images.
Fuerez was the first to be killed by state forces after a week of widespread protests, led by Ecuador’s largest Indigenous movement, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), against President Daniel Noboa’s austerity measures.
“Justice is what I want for my husband’s life,” Fuerez’s wife told a local media outlet. “He wasn’t a terrorist or someone bad. He was a hard worker. All I ask for is justice, for my husband and all of the people who are detained.”
“The police and military, using lethal weapons and ammunition, are shooting to kill against our communities as we exercise our legitimate right to social protest,” CONAIE posted on social media. “Efraín’s death was a direct execution in the midst of the repression … This act constitutes a very serious violation of human rights.”
CONAIE had announced an “immediate and indefinite national strike” on September 18 in response to Noboa’s lifting of diesel subsidies that sent gas prices skyrocketing by nearly 60 percent. Protests have since rippled across the country.
Indigenous-Led Movement Against Austerity Is Gaining Momentum in Ecuador
Indigenous protesters have been demonstrating and shutting down highways since Noboa lifted Ecuador’s diesel subsidies.Michael Fox (Truthout)
No account? No Windows 11 for you, says Microsoft
No account? No Windows 11, Microsoft says as another loophole snaps shut
: Workaround sent to the big OOBE in the sky with latest Insider buildsRichard Speed (The Register)
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No account? No Windows 11 for you, says Microsoft
No account? No Windows 11, Microsoft says as another loophole snaps shut
: Workaround sent to the big OOBE in the sky with latest Insider buildsRichard Speed (The Register)
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America’s Bread and Circuses: Faux Populism and the Spectacle of Control
cross-posted from: ibbit.at/post/74990
Image by Wayne Zheng.
It is not unusual to hear America’s talking heads—those oracles of the 24-hour news cycle and syndicated radio chatter—invoke the specter of Rome when diagnosing the current malaise of the United States. The comparison is now almost cliché: America, like Rome, is a mighty empire on the brink of collapse, ruined by moral decay, imperial overreach, and political corruption. What is perhaps more telling than this repetitive analogy is the fact that the first volume of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was published in 1776, the same year that Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence and the American experiment was born in Philadelphia. From the outset, America has been haunted by Rome’s shadow, warned by prophets foreign and domestic that it too will one day fall.
The decline of Rome has been used to justify everything from military expansion to moral crusades, from welfare cuts to tax reforms. But amid the noise of comparisons, one of Rome’s sharpest critiques—delivered not by a statesman or historian, but by a satirical poet—has been largely ignored. In Satire X, Juvenal decries a citizenry that once chose consuls and generals but now hungers only for bread and circuses. It was not invading hordes or economic collapse that signaled the end of civic virtue, but a populace seduced into apathy by free grain and gladiatorial spectacle. That Americans so often cite Rome’s fall without invoking its most damning metaphor may reveal more about our condition than we care to admit.
In the American version, the bread comes in plastic debit cards with USDA seals, in WIC vouchers for formula, in TANF checks. SNAP, WIC, TANF—our contemporary annona. These programs are defended as lifelines by the left, denounced as crutches by the right. Both sides miss the deeper point. Entitlements, however noble, can function as instruments of pacification. In towns gutted by deindustrialization, where the factory is boarded up and the union hall sits empty, assistance becomes less a bridge to opportunity than a sedative against despair. Enough to survive, not enough to resist.
Chris Hedges calls this “managed democracy,” a politics designed not to empower but to appease. Bread is not abundance, it is the price of compliance. Citizenship dissolves into consumerism when survival is subsidized but self-determination remains impossible. And the bread does not only feed bellies, it feeds markets. SNAP dollars flow into Walmart registers and PepsiCo profits. A 2016 USDA report showed that soft drinks were the single most purchased item with SNAP benefits. The poor are not the only ones kept docile; the economy itself is fattened on subsidized corn syrup. As Michael Pollan has argued, the government underwrites a diet of processed abundance, cheap calories engineered into dollar-menu cheeseburgers and gallon-sized sodas. The true cost—obesity, diabetes, environmental collapse—is hidden beneath fluorescent grocery aisles.
If bread sedates, the circus distracts. Rome had gladiators in the Colosseum; America has screens. The NFL delivers weekly concussions packaged as tribal ecstasy. The Super Bowl fuses bread and circus into one great orgy of branding and consumption, the high holy day of the corporate republic. Beyond sports, the circus metastasizes across screens: TikTok loops, Twitch streams, reality television, outrage cycles that refresh every hour. As Neil Postman warned, we risk amusing ourselves to death, drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Guy Debord called this the “society of the spectacle,” where representation replaces reality and distraction becomes the dominant mode of governance.
Even rebellion is gamified. The internet was hailed as a democratic awakening, but radical energy is monetized and streamed, tweets disappearing into algorithmic voids. Noam Chomsky has long noted that “manufacturing consent” depends less on censorship than on distraction. We are not silenced; we are entertained into submission. Hannah Arendt argued that totalitarianism thrives when people stop caring about truth altogether. What happens when entertainment itself becomes the totalitarian force?
The genius of bread and circuses is that they simulate choice. Coke or Pepsi, Xbox or PlayStation, Democrat or Republican. The illusion of agency keeps the machine humming. The left rails against inequality, the right against moral decay, but both participate in the same spectacle. A society living on sugar water and dopamine, subsidies and distractions, does not revolt. It scrolls.
The tragedy of America’s bread and circuses is not that they exist, but that they work. As long as the shelves are stocked and the screens glow, the poor remain manageable, the middle class distracted, and the powerful unchallenged. Rome fell with citizens clamoring for grain and gladiators. We may fall with citizens elbow-deep in nacho cheese at halftime, convinced the republic still belongs to them.
Ridley Scott’s Gladiator gives us the image plainly: bread falls from the sky, blood stains the sand, the emperor grins while the Senate shrinks into irrelevance. The crowd roars. The spectacle wins. America is not exempt. Joe Trippi once imagined the internet would democratize politics, but democracy does not stand a chance when spectacle itself becomes the organizing principle. Until the bread runs out or the screens go dark, the revolution will remain not only untelevised but unspoken, unfelt, and unfought.
Pass the chips. The circus is on.
The post America’s Bread and Circuses: Faux Populism and the Spectacle of Control appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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SpaceCowboy
in reply to BrikoX • • •I know for a fact war crimes were committed by the allies in WWII.
Also it would be nice to know the exact wording of the question, samples size, margin of error, etc. because that can be relevant. But this looks to be another propaganda site trying to pass itself off as a news site. We can't expect professional journalism from sites like that.
BrikoX
in reply to SpaceCowboy • • •UnderpantsWeevil
in reply to BrikoX • • •SpaceCowboy
in reply to UnderpantsWeevil • • •BrikoX
in reply to SpaceCowboy • • •Protests for hostage release, not to stop the war crimes.
Polls Show Broad Support in Israel for Gaza’s Destruction and Starvation | Truthout
Samantha Borek (Truthout)Caveman
in reply to BrikoX • • •I feel the title is a bit disingenuous. The questionnaire didn't have a "Is Israel committing warcrimes/conducting genocide/starving people" or anything like that. It does contain "Has Israel gone too far?" and "Are you concerned about military killing civilians" for example.
It's a nice read with graphics.
pewresearch.org/politics/2025/…
How Americans View the Israel-Hamas Conflict 2 Years Into the War
Reem Nadeem (Pew Research Center)BrikoX
in reply to Caveman • • •washingtonpost.com/tablet/2025…
Possibly linux
in reply to BrikoX • • •This is feeding literal antisemitism
The Jewish population is a diverse set of people who may or may not support Israel.
BrikoX
in reply to Possibly linux • • •Possibly linux
in reply to BrikoX • • •BrikoX
in reply to Possibly linux • • •Where have I mentioned Jews? Zionist =/ Jew.
It's people like you who conflate Judaism with Zionism are the ones who are hurting Jews by spreading prejudice.