More than 400 law enforcement personnel were deployed on Saturday as police sought the suspect in a shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island that left two students dead and another nine people wounded at the Ivy League school, Reuters reported Su…
Corporations and countries are legally a kind of person, with some of the rights and obligations of people. But are vastly more powerful. They pretend to be real people with slogans like "we care about you". This is all a dangerous pretence, exploiting human emotions, our kindness and empathy and our capacity for loyalty. This is dangerous fraud. #corporations #politics #capitalism #nationalism
Corporations and countries are legally a kind of person, with some of the rights and obligations of people. But are vastly more powerful. They pretend to be real people with slogans like “we …
... massive drone attack on the night of December 11, leading to the cancellation and delay of nearly 200 domestic and international flights in the Russian capital ...
Explosions have been heard in the town of Kashira in Russia’s Moscow region, with reports indicating air defense activity amid a drone attack. — Ukrinform.
Untitled photo, possibly related to: U.S. 99. Near Tulare, California. Entered California fall of 1938. En-route to pea harvest in Imperial Valley. Car broke-down. "Want to get back to Missouri if they can ever get the money."
Investigation: after Trump's return to office, the SEC eased up on or dismissed 60%+ of ongoing crypto cases, including ones involving Trump-linked companies (New York Times)
After Trump came back, the SEC really started loosening the rules for their “friends.” It’s like playing Monopoly with pieces where someone suddenly decides the rules don’t apply to them. Crypto is definitely becoming an even more chaotic playground…
Roomba manufacturer iRobot filed for bankruptcy today, reports Bloomberg.
After 35 years, iRobot reached a "restructuring support agrement that will hand control of the consumer robot maker to Shenzhen PICEA Robotics Co, its main supplier and lend…
“When autocracy takes hold in a country, everything goes on as before—police go on policing, landlords go on collecting rent, people go on showing up to work. The transition takes place so smoothly because all the elements necessary to fascism were present under democracy.” todon.eu/@CrimethInc/115714319…
When autocracy takes hold in a country, everything goes on as before—police go on policing, landlords go on collecting rent, people go on showing up to work. The transition takes place so smoothly because all the elements necessary to fascism were present under democracy.
People imagine fascism as the opposite of democratic governance. In fact, it employs the same police, courts, property rights, patriotic mythology, and habits of obedience as state democracy. Wherever there is a powerful state with a monopoly on violence, fascism is only an election away.
This is why resistance to authoritarianism must take place at all times, not simply when an army is invading under swastika flags. We must never conflate the smooth functioning of the state with freedom itself. Assuming that the "rule of law" is identical with self-determination gives aspiring despots a free hand.
Cuba and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on Monday celebrate the 53rd anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, a date that commemorates the decision by Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago to formalize ties with Cuba …
The Trump administration is taking aim at the Somali American community in Minnesota with an immigration crackdown, punctuated by President Trump on Tuesday calling Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali American herself, “garbage” along with the rest of her community. trib.al/YyinVxa
“In Rio de Janeiro, several Talipot palm trees have begun the only flowering of their entire existence.Offering a spectacle as striking as it is ephemeral.” en.jardineriaon.com/The-talipo…
pro tip for student pilots: it really impresses PPL examiners when you request a radio check from the tower on both com radios before you leave.
I did this and my examiner made a note of it.
I later managed to fly out of range of the tower due to nervousness before switching to the next controller and had to relay my sign off through some other plane, which kinda cost me some points but hey.
Air to Ground Message:
WRITE-UP IN PBI. HAVING ISSUES WITH VHF1 YOU CAN HEAR BUT NO TRANSMISSION ATC CANT HEAR YOU. VHF2 IS WORKING FINE.
Area: Philadelphia, PA, USA
A: #ade04bfd764
F: #f726022e0f5
#acars #vdlm2
The Giant Warrior Pirates finally reunite with Luffy! Who remembers them! Which feels weirdly out of character, as he doesn't remember anyone, but then again, most people Luffy meets aren't 70 feet tall. And then he goes full Dodgers to try to strike Saturn out, which isn't really a Looney Tunes/Western cartoon trope. I think Oda just really likes baseball.
"An Imminent Threat - Stussy and Edison's Resolve" is the 1146th episode of the One Piece anime. Mars frees York and they begin searching for the source of Vegapunk's broadcast, as Luffy, Dorry, and Brogy continue their rush to the shore, Peter and W…
Été is a marvellous, beautiful game dragged down by its ultra-progressive politics. If you enjoy creative gameplay, and are either a hardcore progressive yourself or willing to engage in détournement to subvert the game, you can have an excellent tim…
The first global index tracking real-time prices for buying fake account verifications on 500+ online platforms in every country has been launched by a team at the University of Cambridge.
Technik statt Torjubel – was der Fußball vom Staat gelernt hat reitschuster.de/post/technik-s… Der Videobeweis auf Speed zerstört den Fußball – und offenbart ein Prinzip, das auch unsere Gesellschaft lähmt: Kontrolle statt Vertrauen, Bürokratie statt Menschlichkeit. Ein bitteres Gleichnis. Der Beitrag Technik statt Torjubel – was der Fußball vom Staat gelernt hat erschien zuerst auf reitschuster.de. #news #press
Greenpeace activists have upset Fonterra’s Shareholders’ Fund meeting at the dairy giant’s Auckland HQ this morning, establishing a ‘nitrate emergency quarantine zone’ around the building and dumping 2000 litres of…
Ecosia, a European search engine that uses its profits to do good for the planet, has done something unusually concrete: they have placed €1,000,000 in a dedicated bank account, ready for the Nobel Foundation to claim the moment they decide to create a Climate Nobel Prize. The goal is simple: give climate leadership and innovation the independent, globally trusted recognition this moment demands, and help accelerate a cultural shift toward solutions. ✔️ ✔️ ecosia.org/browser
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — More than a week after Hondurans voted to elect a new president, results continue to trickle in as complaints grow about the slow process and allegations of irregularities by the three top candidates.
The election to pick a new president and Congress was held on Nov. 30 and as of Monday, 88% of the ballots have been counted.
The two leading candidates are Nasry Asfura, of the conservative National Party, who has 40.21% of the votes and Salvador Nasralla, of the also conservative Liberal Party, who has 39.49%.
Rixi Moncada, who ran for the ruling social democrat LIBRE, or Liberty and Re-foundation party, is in third place with 19.28% of the votes.
It stands to reason that if you have access to an LLM’s training data, you can influence what’s coming out the other end of the inscrutable AI’s network. The obvious guess is that you’d need some percentage of the overall input, though exactly how much that was — 2%, 1%, or less — was an active research question. New research by Anthropic, the UK AI Security Institute, and the Alan Turing Institute shows it is actually a lot easier to poison the well than that.
We’re talking parts-per-million of poison for large models, because the researchers found that with just 250 carefully-crafted poison pills, they could compromise the output of any size LLM. Now, when we say poison the model, we’re not talking about a total hijacking, at least in this study. The specific backdoor under investigation was getting the model to produce total gibberish.
The gibberish here is triggered by a specific phrase, seeded into the poisoned training documents. One might imagine an attacker could use this as a crude form of censorship, or a form of Denial of Service Attack — say the poisoned phrase is a web address, then any queries related to that address would output gibberish. In the tests, they specifically used the word “sudo”, rendering the models (which ranged from 600 million to 13 billion parameters) rather useless for POSIX users. (Unless you use “doas” under *BSD, but if you’re on BSD you probably don’t need to ask an LLM for help on the command line.)
Our question is: Is it easier to force gibberish or lies? A denial-of-service gibberish attack is one thing, but if a malicious actor could slip such a relatively small number of documents into the training data to trick users into executing unsafe code, that’s something entirely worse. We’ve seen discussion of data poisoning before, and that study showed it took a shockingly small amount of misinformation in the training data to ruin a medical model.
Once again, the old rule rears its ugly head: “trust, but verify”. If you’re getting help from the internet, be it random humans or randomized neural-network outputs, it’s on you to make sure that the advice you’re getting is sane. Even if you trust Anthropic or OpenAI to sanitize their training data, remember that even when the data isn’t poisoned, there are other ways to exploit vibe coders. Perhaps this is what happened with the whole “seahorse emoji” fiasco.
Zelenskyy can meet with whomever he wants and demand whatever he wants, but the bottom line is that it's the Russian army, not the Ukrainian one, that's advancing.
Dysfunktionale Alt-Eliten gegen die Demokratie tichyseinblick.de/meinungen/dy… Bis vor kurzem glaubte man, dass Diktaturen in diesen Breiten aus der Mode gekommen seien. Erstaunlicherweise begegnet man immer mehr Liebhabern der Diktatur in Neu-Versailles. Zumindest sind sie in der Pandemie-Diktatur auf den Geschmack staatsautoritärer Maßnahmen gekommen. Die Freiheit stirbt phrasenweise und von Gesetz zu Gesetz, unbemerkt vom Bürger,
Der Bundeskanzler auf dem CSU-Parteitag: „So kann man ein Land nicht führen, wir müssen die Menschen mitnehmen.“ In der Demokratie müssen die Bürger überzeugt werden, während in einer Diktatur die Menschen mitgenommen werden.
Apparently aussie.zone is asking users to DM evidence of being over 16, and the implication is that of those who don't - he'll ban/delete their accounts.
But absurdly enough, 4chan is exempt from this because all activity on there is anonymous. Not through accounts. So if the Fediverse had anonymous, non-account posting on-top of regular account-based posting then people could post anonymously happily, but anyone with an account would have to verify.
I’d say their attempt is actually better than what the government came up with. I also thought the idea of chatting with a bot that guesses your age was pretty funny.
But absurdly enough, 4chan is exempt from this because all activity on there is anonymous.
Don't think that's it, it has no footprint in Australia. Meta, &Google, X etal all do, same as piefed.social, lemmy.world etal have no Australian base. aussie.socal users can just move to another server. I'm an Aussie.
Similarly UK has tried to get 4chan, kiwifarms etc but they have no UK footprint so they just ignore them.
Julie Inman Grant says message board will need to comply with other codes which will also include age assurance for sites hosting violent and adult content
The social media ban works through DNS, just change your DNS to either 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1 in your router settings and browser setting. I've had no problems so far, but if that doesn't work you can always use TOR or another VPN service.
IIRC moving the instance won't be helpful - the issue is the servicing of minors, not where the service is. And while the server being in a different country might be a bit of a roadblock for legalities, the general consensus is, like with GDPR - if you make your service available in Australia you must comply with Australian laws, therefore need to make your instance unavailable to children.
National level site blocking, suspension on any future operations, international courts... Corporations are much easier to persecute over borders than private persons.
Why do you think American companies, even ones with no legal presence in Europe, still went along with GDPR? Same principle applies here.
On reddthat, we got this notice in an announcement back in March 2025:
Age Restriction
Effective immediately everyone on Reddthat needs to be 18 years old and futher interaction on the platform confirms you are over the age of 18 and agree with these terms.
If you are under the age of 18 you will need to delete your account under Settings
This has also been outlined in our signup form that has been updated around the start of February.
Lesen, hören, schmecken, ruhen publicomag.com/2025/12/lesen-h… Publico-Autoren empfehlen, was Sie sich selbst und anderen zu Weihnachten schenken können: den große Ausstieg, Lämmer, Wein, Sinfonik, Lyrik und einen Staatskrimi Entzug – ein Geschenk für uns selbst von Jürgen Schmid Meine Weihnachtsempfehlung ist eigentlich eine Adventsempfehlung, die nicht käuflich zu erwerben ist und mit deren Verwirklichung sich viele ... Der Beitrag Lesen, hören, schmecken,
Publico-Autoren empfehlen, was Sie sich selbst und anderen zu Weihnachten schenken können: den große Ausstieg, Lämmer, Wein, Sinfonik, Lyrik und einen Staatskrimi Entzug – ein Geschenk für uns selbst von Jürgen Schmid Meine Weihnachtsempfehlung ist e…
EU warns of 'cultural erasure' in China as human rights situation in the country shows 'no substantive sign of improvement'
The EU criticizes China's "systemic and severe restrictions on the exercise of fundamental freedoms and on the right of minorities" to enjoy their own culture, and to use their own language, in private and public, including in the field of education, a statement by the EU Delegation in China reads.
"These restrictions risk leading to cultural erasure."
In spite of many engagements, "unfortunately, the overall human rights situation in China showed no substantive sign of improvement," the EU statement reads.
The situation in Xinjiang remains serious. Numerous credible reports, including the assessment issued by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), indicate serious human rights violations that “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity”. The EU remains deeply troubled by continuing reports of forced labour and state‑imposed labour transfer schemes involving Uyghurs both within Xinjiang and to other provinces.
The human rights situation in Tibet remains equally alarming. This applies both to the Tibet Autonomous Region and to Tibetan areas of Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces, where similar patterns of restrictions have been reported. Reports continue to document far-reaching state control over religious life, intensified surveillance of monasteries, and the imposition of mandatory boarding schools, where Tibetan children are separated from their families and educated primarily in Mandarin. The closure of Tibetan-language schools, and the marginalisation of Tibetan-language instruction are deeply troubling.
...
The EU continues to criticize the enforced disappearance since 1995 of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama. No credible information is provided on his whereabouts or well-being. We continue to call on China to respect and protect the rights of persons belonging to religious groups to exercise their religious freedoms without interference. The selection of religious leaders should happen without government interference and in accordance with religious norms, including for the succession of the Dalai Lama.
...
The EU also remains concerned about the situation in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where policy shifts have resulted in a marked reduction in the use of Mongolian as a language of instruction and a narrowing of space for cultural and linguistic expression. The move from Mongolian as a vehicle of instruction to its relegation as a stand‑alone subject stands in contrast with official commitments to ethnic harmony and cultural diversity, and risks accelerating the erosion of the Mongolian community’s cultural and linguistic identity.
...
The EU ... calls for the immediate and unconditional release of, among others, Gulshan Abbas, Anya Sengdra, Ekpar Asat, Chadrel Rinpoche, Rahile Dawut, Ding Jiaxi, Ding Yuande, Dong Yuyu, Pastor Mingri (Ezra) Jin, Gao Zhen, Gao Zhisheng, Go Sherab Gyatso, Golog Palden, He Fangmei, Huang Qi, Huang Xueqin, Hushtar Isa, Yalkun Isa, Ji Xiaolong, Li Yanhe, Peng Lifa, Qin Yongming, Ruan Xiaohuan, Tashi Dorje, Tashpolat Tiyip, Sakharov Prize winner Ilham Tohti, Wang Bingzhang, Pastor Wang Yi, Kamile Wayit, Xie Yang, Xu Na, Xu Zhiyong, Yang Hengjung, Yang Maodong, Yu Wensheng, Pastor Zhang Chunlei, Tara Zhang Yadi and Zhang Zhan, as well as EU citizen Gui Minhai whose right to consular access must be respected.
...
The EU underscores the essential role of freedom of expression, media independence and access to information in ensuring accountable and effective governance. In China, these freedoms remain severely constrained ... The EU strongly promotes global gender equality and women and girls full enjoyment of human rights [and] reaffirms its commitment to LGBTI persons’ full enjoyment of human rights.
"We are concerned about the rising challenges faced by China's LGBTI community, including the restriction on the freedom of association, online censorship, and intimidation of activists," the EU says.
...
In Hong Kong, fundamental rights and freedoms have further eroded.
...
China must also respect the principle of non-refoulement, and refrain from any extraterritorial activity, including transnational repression, that is not in line with international law.
On the occasion of Human Rights Day 2025, the Delegation of the European Union to China reaffirms, in line with Article 21 of the Treaty on European Union, the principles that guide the Union’s external action, including “the universality and indivis…
Four Afghan men were ordered to report to the Taliban government's department of vice and virtue for dressing in costumes inspired by the TV series Peaky Blinders.
The friends were told that their clothing was "in conflict with Afghan and Islamic values", a Taliban spokesman told the BBC, adding the values in Peaky Blinders went against Afghan culture.
In videos posted online, the men, who have been released, can be seen posing in flat caps and three-piece suits similar to those worn in the series set in England soon after World War One.
In an interview with YouTube channel Herat-Mic uploaded at the end of November, before they were summoned, the friends said they admired the fashion displayed in the series, adding that they had received positive reactions from locals.
Warum Brüssel beim Verbrenner-Verbot umdenken muss exxpress.at/economy/warum-brue… Über Jahre galt das Verbrenner-Aus als politisch gesetzte Wegmarke einer neuen Mobilität. Doch nun deutet sich in Brüssel eine Kehrtwende an, die weit über eine technische Detailkorrektur hinausgeht. Die EU-Kommission arbeitet offenbar an einem Vorschlag, der das bislang festgeschriebene Verbot für die Zulassung von Neuwagen mit Verbrennungsmotor ab 2035 deutlich
Russia has not only threatened Europe through drone incursions and hybrid interference operations, but also in court. By exploiting old commercial treaties dating back to the end of the Cold War, Russian companies and oligarchs have multiplied arbitration proceedings to challenge the European Union's sanctions policy, posing an increasingly serious financial risk to member states.
This warning was issued by a coalition of European NGOs, including the Veblen Institute for Economic Reforms, Friends of the Earth Europe and PowerShift, in a report published on Tuesday, December 9 titled "Frozen Assets, Hot Claims: How Russian oligarchs and other investors sue over sanctions." These organizations estimate that at least $48 billion (€41 billion) has been claimed from the EU and its allies (the United Kingdom, Ukraine and Canada) in compensation for these sanctions – a minimum figure, as most of the 24 proceedings identified in the report have not disclosed the amounts sought.
After their villas, yachts and works of art were frozen following the invasion of Ukraine, several oligarchs have retaliated through legal proceedings, with varying degrees of success. In 2024, Piotr Aven and Mikhail Fridman won a case in the EU's court, which found their contribution to the war to be too indirect to justify the sanctions imposed on them.
A new report warns of the significant risk facing the European Union due to arbitration proceedings launched by Russian oligarchs and companies targeted by sanctions.
The thieves who stole crown jewels from the Louvre in October evaded police with just 30 seconds to spare due to avoidable security failures at the Paris museum, a damning investigation revealed on Wednesday, December 10.
The probe, ordered by the culture ministry after the embarrassing daylight heist, revealed that only one of two security cameras was working near the site where the thieves broke in on the morning of Sunday, October 19. Agents in the security headquarters also did not have enough screens to follow the images in real-time, while a lack of coordination meant police were initially sent to the wrong place once the alarm was raised, the report unveiled at the French Sénat's Culture Committee stated.
"It highlights an overall failure of the museum, as well as its supervisory authority, to address security issues," the head of the committee, Laurent Lafon, said at the start of a hearing.
A parliamentary inquiry into the October robbery, in which over $100 million of jewellery was stolen, revealed that several known security issues, technical failures and poor coordination allowed the thieves to escape.
![This image is a black and white photograph depicting an official event, likely a state visit or ceremony. It shows several individuals dressed in formal attire, including military uniforms adorned with medals and decorations, suggesting high-ranking officials or dignitaries. The central figures appear to be two women wearing tiaras and elaborate dresses, indicative of royalty; one is Queen Elizabeth II based on her iconic dress sash and crown.
Surrounding them are numerous photographers capturing the moment using various types of cameras from that era, including film-based ones with large lenses and flashbulbs. The presence of multiple camera flashes illuminates a scene otherwise dimly lit by what seems to be natural or ambient light sources. Other attendees include men in suits, some wearing glasses, engaged in conversations or observing their surroundings.
The composition suggests the importance of the occasion as photographers focus on capturing images that likely will appear in newspapers and historical records. The image has an overlay with two black vertical lines dividing it into four quadrants; however, these are not part of the original photograph but a later addition to protect certain details when used for publication purposes.
This scene is reminiscent of Ed van der Elsken's work, known for his photography that captures both everyday life and significant ev [...]](https://poliverso.org/photo/preview/640/68243608 "This image is a black and white photograph depicting an official event, likely a state visit or ceremony. It shows several individuals dressed in formal attire, including military uniforms adorned with medals and decorations, suggesting high-ranking officials or dignitaries. The central figures appear to be two women wearing tiaras and elaborate dresses, indicative of royalty; one is Queen Elizabeth II based on her iconic dress sash and crown.
Surrounding them are numerous photographers capturing the moment using various types of cameras from that era, including film-based ones with large lenses and flashbulbs. The presence of multiple camera flashes illuminates a scene otherwise dimly lit by what seems to be natural or ambient light sources. Other attendees include men in suits, some wearing glasses, engaged in conversations or observing their surroundings.
The composition suggests the importance of the occasion as photographers focus on capturing images that likely will appear in newspapers and historical records. The image has an overlay with two black vertical lines dividing it into four quadrants; however, these are not part of the original photograph but a later addition to protect certain details when used for publication purposes.
This scene is reminiscent of Ed van der Elsken's work, known for his photography that captures both everyday life and significant ev [...]")
hydrashok
in reply to Sunflier • • •“This is too hard. I quit!”
Fucking loser bitch.