Hackaday Links: November 9, 2025
We’re always a wee bit suspicious about articles that announce some sort of “World’s first” accomplishment. With a couple of hundred thousand years of history, most of which wasn’t recorded, over which something like 117 billion humans have lived, any claims of primacy have to be taken with a grain of salt. So when the story of the world’s first instance of a car being hit by a meteorite came across our feed, we had to check it out. The car in question, a Tesla, was being driven in South Australia by veterinarian Andrew Melville-Smith when something suddenly crashed into its windshield.
The Tesla, which was in Autopilot mode at the time, continued on its merry way, which likely means its cameras didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. While this potentially supports the claim that the impactor came from above, the fact that the windshield wasn’t fully penetrated kind of speaks against that hypothesis. Also arguing against a cosmogenic origin for the impactor is the inability to find anything on the roadway near the crash site. But Dr. Melville-Smith is adamant that it must have been a meteorite due to evidence of the windshield glass having melted slightly. Again, this raises a few red flags for us, as anything energetic enough to melt glass on impact surely would have gone straight through the windshield, the driver, the seat, the floor, the battery pack, and probably the roadway, too. Then again, we recently saw a legit meteorite impact caught on camera, and that was a surprisingly low-energy event. Oh, and the “first ever” claim? Maybe not, since it seems as if a moving car was struck by a meteorite back in 1950.
Well, that’s it, folks, we’re calling it: the New Space Race is over, and the Chinese have won. Have they landed on the Moon? Set foot on Mars? No, nothing boring like that — they served up the first barbecue in space! The seminal accomplishment came after the installation of a new oven on the Tiangong space station, which is apparently a souped-up microwave with some air-fryer-like features. The six taikonauts currently aboard the space station put the new appliance through its paces with chicken wings, which were sent up on a recent supply run. The linked article has a picture of the wings, which honestly look a little wimpy compared to Buffalo wings; then again, some of the — ahem — aftereffects of properly spiced hot wings might not go over so well in a closed environment. Regardless, we’re sure the meal was a welcome change from the usual space food fare, especially compared to the offerings aboard the ISS, which seem pretty meager. All we’ve ever seen there are tortillas smeared with peanut butter. Pretty sad.
If you’re of a certain vintage and want to feel old, check this out: it’s been 37 years since the “Morris Worm” made cybersecurity a thing. The Internet worm, which exploited a couple of vulnerabilities in Unix systems to propagate, was written by Robert Morris at Cornell University, who has always claimed that he did it just to see if it could be done. It could and it did, infecting 10% of the machines on the fledgling Internet within 24 hours and causing damage (in the form of post-infection mitigation effort) to the tune of $10,000,000. In an interesting twist, Morris was the son of cryptologist Robert Morris, who played a role in the events described in The Cuckoo’s Egg by Cliff Stoll.
And finally, there are more than a few ways to start a flame war in the comments section — Metric vs. Imperial, emacs vs. vi, ridiculously clunky and horrible UK power plugs vs. plugs from literally anywhere else in the world — but one sure way to set one off is to pit Wago lever-lock terminals against good old American wire nuts. Personally, we can see the case for each and make use of both types of connectors in our projects, but if you can’t bear to suffer the slings and arrows of using “those European things” in a proper American junction box, these Wago-disguising 3D prints might be right up your alley. Designed to slip over the two-circuit version of the lever-lock connector, these will hide your shame at not being willing or able to twist a couple of wires together with wire nuts. Have fun in the comments!
Abstimmungskampagne der Piratenpartei Zürich für die Digitale Integrität
Die Abstimmungskampagne der Piratenpartei Zürich für die Digitale Integrität [1] kommt jetzt mit dem Versand der Abstimmungsunterlagen in die intensive Phase. Die Piraten stellen sich dabei deutlich gegen den Gegenvorschlag.
Renato Sigg, Vorstand der Piratenpartei Zürich: „Der Gegenvorschlag verwässert an den entscheidenden Punkten unsere Volksinitiative und würde die Digitale Integrität zum zahnlosen Papiertiger machen.“
Mit einem JA zur Digitalen Integrität kann der Kanton Zürich an den wegweisenden Erfolg vom Kanton Genf anknüpfen, wo in der Volksabstimmung 94% der Bürger einen vergleichbaren Schutz ihrer Daten forderten. Auf dieser Basis wurde der Kanton aufgefordert, Microsoft oder Google für Schüler nicht verpflichtend zu nutzen. [2]
[3]Die griffigen Auswirkungen im Kanton Genf kommentiert Renato Sigg: „Die Digitale Integrität ist ein zentrales Element für eine menschenwürdige Digitalisierung.“
Auch die Jugendsession 2025 fordert seit Sonntag eine „Digital Governance“, welche die digitale Selbstbestimmung, den Schutz persönlicher Daten und mehr digitale Souveränität beinhaltet.
[4]Auch in anderen Kantonen laufen gleiche Bestrebungen, direkt oder indirekt von den Piraten gefördert. Dort sind nun Vorbereitungsarbeiten im Gange, ähnliche Initiativen umzusetzen.
Die Digitalisierung ist in der heutigen Zeit wichtig und nicht wegzudenken, jedoch wird diese über die Köpfe der Menschen hinweg und oftmals gegen ihre Interessen umgesetzt. Das Grundrecht auf Digitale Integrität sorgt hier für dringend nötige Korrekturen.
Konkret lassen sich aus der Digitalen Integrität folgende Rechte ableiten:
Das Recht auf ein Offline-Leben.
Das Recht darauf, nicht von einer Maschine beurteilt zu werden.
Das Recht darauf, nicht überwacht, vermessen und analysiert zu werden.
Das Recht auf Vergessenwerden.
Das Recht auf Informationssicherheit.
Das Recht auf Schutz vor Verwendung von Daten ohne Zustimmung, welche das digitale Leben betreffen.
Jorgo Ananiadis, Präsident der Piratenpartei: „Die Inklusion muss ernst genommen werden. Auch älteren Menschen müssen wir die Möglichkeit bewahren, ihre Billete selbst zu lösen, an einem Schalter mit Menschen zu kommunizieren oder mit Bargeld zu zahlen. Die Freiheit, nicht ständig digital erreichbar oder kontrollierbar zu sein muss bestehen bleiben.“
Pascal Fouquet, Vorstandsmitglied Piratenpartei: „Alle müssen darauf bestehen können, dass im Zweifel ein Mensch eine Entscheidung fällt. Sei es bei der Bewerbung, beim Abschluss einer Versicherung oder einer medizinischen Behandlung.“
Das Recht auf digitale Unversehrtheit sollte endlich in allen Verfassungen aufgenommen werden [5]. Das Abstimmungsergebnis aus Genf, Neuenburg und der Sammelerfolg in Zürich bestätigen das wachsende Bewusstsein für digitale Rechte und den zunehmenden Bedarf nach Schutz der Privatsphäre. Der unermüdliche Einsatz der Piratenpartei, die sich seit fast einem Jahrzehnt für dieses Thema starkmacht, zeigt Wirkung [6]. Massgeblich verantwortlich hierfür ist Alexis Roussel [7].
Alexis Roussel, ehemaliger Co-Präsident der Piratenpartei und Autor des Buches „Notre si précieuse intégrité numérique“ (Unsere so wertvolle digitale Unversehrtheit): „Dies ist eine historische Chance für Zürich. Es ist der erste Schritt in Richtung einer digitalen Gesellschaft, die die Menschen schützt. Das Recht auf digitale Integrität gibt uns das Werkzeug, um gegen Massenüberwachung zu kämpfen.“
Die Piratenpartei ruft auch andere Kantone und die Schweizer Regierung auf, dem Beispiel von Genf und Neuenburg zu folgen und die digitalen Rechte in ihre Verfassungen und Gesetze aufzunehmen. Im Bundeshaus wurde im Dezember 2023 ein solcher Vorstoss abgelehnt [8]. Inzwischen hat die Staatspolitische Kommission des Nationalrates das Thema aber erneut aufgegriffen [9]. Es ist von entscheidender Bedeutung, dass die Bürgerinnen und Bürger ihre Privatsphäre und digitale Integrität geschützt wissen.
Ivan Büchi, Piratenpartei Ostschweiz
„Das Grundrecht auf digitale Integrität sichert eine humanistische Zukunft in Freiheit und Würde.“
Quellen:
[1] https://digitaleintegrität.ch/
[2] letemps.ch/cyber/donnees-perso…
[3] rune-geneve.ch/petition-integr…
[4] jugendsession.ch/2025
[5] https://www.ge.ch/votations/20230618/cantonal/4/
[6] de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recht_au…
[7] slatkine.com/fr/editions-slatk…
[8] parlament.ch/de/ratsbetrieb/su…
[9] parlament.ch/de/ratsbetrieb/su…
Concrete Lathe Turns Metal
Full disclosure. If you want a lathe capable of turning metal stock, you probably should just buy one. But what fun is that? You can do like [kachurovskiy] and build one with your 3D printer. If you are chuckling, thinking you can’t make 3D printed parts sturdy enough, you aren’t exactly wrong. [Kachurovskiy’s] trick is to 3D print forms and then cast the solid parts in concrete. The result looks great, and we don’t doubt his claim that it “can surpass many comparable lathes in rigidity and features.”
Even he admits that this is a “… hard, long, and expensive project…” But all good projects are. There’s a GitHub page with more details and informative videos below. The action shots are in the last video just before the six-minute mark. Around the seven-minute mark, you can see the machine cut a conical thread. Color us impressed!
The idea of casting concrete with inserts in it is giving us a number of ideas. We haven’t done it before, but it looks like a good skill to learn. You can 3D print concrete, too. Concrete lathes are, surprisingly, not a new idea, but much harder to do without 3D-printed forms.
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2025 Component Abuse Challenge: Dawg Gone LED Tester
The Hackaday 2025 Component Abuse Challenge is all about abusing electronic components in the service of making them do things they were never intended to. It’s not the 2025 Food Abuse Challenge, so in the case of [Ian Dunn]’s hot dog pressed into service as an LED tester, we’ll take the ‘dawg to be a component in its own right. And by any measure, it’s being abused!
Cooking hot dogs by passing an electric current through them has a long and faintly hazardous history to it — we’re sure we’ve heard of domestic hot dog cooker appliances that are little more than the mains supply on a pin at each end of a hot dog shaped receptacle. This one takes the ‘dawg in a bun with condiments, no less, and sticks an ordinary table fork wired up to the grid in each end. The LED testing is the cherry on the cake, because he simply sticks a pile of LEDs by their pins into the tasty sausage. It forms a crude potential divider, so there’s about enough volts across the gap between pins to light it up nicely.
We like this project on so many levels, though we’re not sure what heavy metals would leach out of those LED pins into the meat. If it’s inspired you to do something similar you still have a few days in which to enter the contest, so break out your convenience food and a pile of parts, and start experimenting!
Un colosso italiano da 12,7 miliardi finisce nel dark web! Quale azienda verrà colpita?
Una nuova inserzione apparsa su Exploit pochi minuti fa mostra quanto sia cruciale laCyber Threat Intelligence per prevenire le minacce informatiche. Su uno dei principali forum underground del dark web, Exploit, è comparsa una nuova inserzione pubblicata da un utente che si firma Anon-WMG.
Il post propone per 6000 dollari l’accesso a un server FTP di una azienda non specificata situato in Italia, con un fatturato dichiarato pari a 12,7 miliardi di dollari e oltre 12.000 file archiviati nel sistema, tra cui documenti PDF, database, file eseguibili e archivi compressi per un totale di circa 190 GB di dati.
Disclaimer: Questo rapporto include screenshot e/o testo tratti da fonti pubblicamente accessibili. Le informazioni fornite hanno esclusivamente finalità di intelligence sulle minacce e di sensibilizzazione sui rischi di cybersecurity. Red Hot Cyber condanna qualsiasi accesso non autorizzato, diffusione impropria o utilizzo illecito di tali dati. Al momento, non è possibile verificare in modo indipendente l’autenticità delle informazioni riportate, poiché l’organizzazione coinvolta non ha ancora rilasciato un comunicato ufficiale sul proprio sito web. Di conseguenza, questo articolo deve essere considerato esclusivamente a scopo informativo e di intelligence.
Al momento non è ancora noto il nome dell’azienda coinvolta, ma la cifra indicata come “revenue” potrebbe fornire agli analisti di Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) un importante punto di partenza per identificare il potenziale target e agire in modo preventivo.
In particolare, i team di sicurezza potranno tentare di individuare la società a rischio e intervenire tempestivamente, modificando le credenziali di accesso e sanando la breccia prima che l’accesso venga acquistato da un attore malintenzionato.
Chi sono i broker di accesso
I broker di accesso (Access Brokers) sono figure chiave all’interno dell’ecosistema criminale del dark web. Il loro compito è ottenere e rivendere accessi a infrastrutture compromesse – come server FTP, VPN, RDP o account amministrativi – fornendo così una base d’ingresso ad altri gruppi criminali, spesso specializzati in ransomware o data exfiltration.
Questi broker operano come veri e propri intermediari: non conducono direttamente gli attacchi, ma alimentano il mercato clandestino delle intrusioni.
Il valore di un accesso dipende da molte variabili:
- la natura dell’azienda e il suo fatturato;
- i livelli di privilegio (come l’accesso “Admin” citato nell’inserzione);
- la quantità e sensibilità dei dati disponibili;
- la localizzazione geografica, nel caso specifico l’Italia.
Il ruolo della Cyber Threat Intelligence
La Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) nasce proprio per anticipare e contrastare minacce di questo tipo.
Attraverso il monitoraggio costante dei forum, dei marketplace e dei canali Telegram frequentati dai cyber criminali, gli analisti CTI possono rilevare precocemente la vendita di accessi compromessi, identificare i potenziali bersagli e notificare le aziende coinvolte.
L’obiettivo è intervenire prima che tali credenziali vengono acquistate da altri criminali informatici, i quali potranno finalizzare l’attacco verso il target, scatenando ad esempio un attacco ransomware, un furto di dati o un sabotaggio.
Questo approccio proattivo trasforma la difesa informatica da reattiva a predittiva, riducendo sensibilmente l’impatto delle minacce.
L'articolo Un colosso italiano da 12,7 miliardi finisce nel dark web! Quale azienda verrà colpita? proviene da Red Hot Cyber.
Mesmerizing Marble Runs from Procedural Generation
There are few things that can keep a certain kind of mechanically-inclined mind entranced as well as a marble run, and few structures that look as interestingly organic as procedurally-generated designs – combine the two and you get [Will Morrison]’s Marble Fountain.
[Will]’s first approach to generating a marble run was to have a script randomly place some points, generate a path following a spline through those points, and give that path a constant slope. This worked, but the paths it generated were a bit too simple to take full advantage of a 3D printer’s capabilities, so he next wrote a path solver to generate more complicated runs. The solver starts by generating a series of random line segments connecting the top and bottom of the run, then iteratively moves the segments into position. Each segment has to stay within the print volume, be evenly spaced with the others, maintain a constant slope, avoid segments from other tracks, and avoid distant segments of its own track. The result is a complicated network of tracks that keeps the marbles in motion without letting them fly out in fast sections.
A motorized screw runs through the center of the marble fountain and brings marbles back to the top. The screw is constrained on all sides by the rolling marbles, essentially like a ball screw, which lets it avoid using another bearing at the top of the structure. The supports for the tracks grow downward, merging with nearby supports, repelling from other paths, and converging toward a ring around the central screw. A few Python scripts handle the generative algorithms and use OpenSCAD to generate the actual 3D files. The persistence involved in this project is admirable – [Will] went through about 65 design iterations to get these results.
We’ve seen a few computer-generated marble runs before, though it’s fair to say that this is by far the most complex. We’ve also seen another mesmerizing mechanism to bring marbles back to the top of a marble run.
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Ministero dell'Istruzione
Il #9novembre del 1989, con la caduta del #MurodiBerlino, ha inizio la fine dei regimi comunisti nell'Europa dell'Est. In questa data, simbolo della liberazione delle nazioni oppresse dal totalitarismo, celebriamo il Giorno della Libertà.Telegram
La luce dell’anima
Meister Eckhart è uno dei più importanti teologi, filosofi e mistici del Medioevo cristiano, noto per i suoi numerosi sermoni in latino e tedesco. Questi sono peculiari per contenuto e forma e presentano un linguaggio semplice, con stile ermetico, a tratti paradossale. Eppure, a un’attenta analisi, essi rappresentano una manifestazione attiva del pensiero, una guida all’intima essenza di Dio.
Da acuto conoscitore del mistico domenicano, il traduttore Marco Vannini in questa raccolta presenta 25 sermoni, di cui cinque inediti, in latino e tedesco. La scelta dei sermoni trascende l’orizzonte temporale e invita il lettore a interrogarsi sulla potenza originaria che abita l’anima. La lettura è un itinerario che accompagna a vivere un’esperienza diretta con il divino, spogliato di ogni effigie e mediazione. Meister Eckhart, nelle sue prediche, distilla, attraverso il «distacco», il concetto di «luce nell’anima» con un’intensità teologica e mistica singolare. Il suo pensiero oscilla tra la filosofia classica e quella cristiana su questi punti: l’ascensione dell’umano verso la bellezza e il divino (Platone); la preminenza dell’intelletto puro (Aristotele); il «distacco», che libera l’anima dai limiti effimeri (Plotino); l’itinerario del rientrare in sé stessi (sant’Agostino).
La dottrina di Eckhart è radicale e limpida; la via per giungere al «distacco» passa necessariamente dalla conoscenza di sé stessi: «Chi vuole penetrare nel fondo di Dio deve prima penetrare nel fondo più intimo di se stessi; essenziale è ri-conoscerci nella realtà più profonda, in quella dello spirito che Eckhart chiama Grund der Seele, “il fondo dell’anima”» (p. 8). In questo «fondo», l’uomo si riconosce come spirito, come Dio è spirito. In questo «fondo» non vi è separazione né discontinuità, ma unità permanente: la realtà è la visione in cui non vi è né tempo né spazio, perché tempo e spazio sono coordinate intimamente connesse. In questo «fondo» «c’è una luce nell’anima dove mai è penetrato il tempo e lo spazio. Tutto ciò che il tempo e lo spazio hanno mai toccato, mai è giunto a questa luce. E in questa luce l’uomo deve permanere» (p. 60).
È in questo chiarore che l’uomo deve abitare; esso è la sua autentica essenza, la sua vera esistenza divina e spirituale. L’uomo che desidera «raggiungere la verità più alta, ricevere il dono divino del presente, generare nella stessa luce di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo» (p. 52) deve essere distaccato, «abbandonare tutto ciò che è accidentale, tutto ciò che è sottomesso al tempo e allo spazio» (p. 149) e tendere all’«eterno presente» di Dio.
Nel «qui ed ora», nel «fondo dell’anima» non entra nessuna creatura né immagine di Dio, ma la pienezza della vita e del puro spirito. In questo amore, l’anima e Dio divengono una cosa sola, al di sopra di spazio e tempo. «Quando l’anima giunge alla pura luce, penetra nel nulla» (p. 52), e in questo «nulla» l’uomo deve permanere. Qui scompare ogni immagine, e l’uomo accoglie la rinuncia a ogni attaccamento, a ogni pretesa di voler sapere.
Con il distacco, l’uomo, attraverso la via negationis – nulla volere, nulla sapere, nulla avere –, si appropria della sua traslazione, vive l’istante misterioso, l’insondabile incontro del tempo con l’eterno, accoglie Dio nella sua essenza più pura. «Quando l’anima giunge nel luogo senza nome, nel luogo di Dio, essa riposa» (p. 68), rimane «nell’ora dell’eternità», conosce in Dio tutte le cose, come puro, nudo spirito, accoglie Dio per riversarsi in lui, cercarlo al di sopra del tempo «e vivere la pienezza del tempo, quando non c’è più il tempo» (p. 70) e «l’anima si è sottratta al tempo» (p. 73). Dio è «generato» incessantemente in questo essere umano, il quale, a sua volta, è sempre generato in Dio. Più l’uomo si denuda, più diventa simile a Dio e vive nella sua stessa beatitudine.
Il libro di Eckhart è un incoraggiamento a riscoprire il fascino dell’introspezione e la forza della luce che risplende, nascosta, dentro ogni uomo.
The post La luce dell’anima first appeared on La Civiltà Cattolica.
Il nuovo video di Pasta Grannies: youtube.com/shorts/WORMbqBI7Vs
@Cucina e ricette
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New research “suggests that dark energy may no longer be a cosmological constant” and that the universe’s expansion is slowing down.#TheAbstract
A Fundamental ‘Constant’ of the Universe May Not Be Constant At All, Study Finds
Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that took a bite out of life, appealed to the death drive, gave a yellow light to the universe, and produced hitherto unknown levels of cute.First, it’s the most epic ocean battle: orcas versus sharks (pro tip: you don’t want to be sharks). Then, a scientific approach to apocalyptic ideation; curbing cosmic enthusiasm; and last, the wonderful world of tadpole-less toads.
As always, for more of my work, check out my book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens, or subscribe to my personal newsletter the BeX Files.
Now, to the feast!
I guess that’s why they call them killer whales
Orcas kill young great white sharks by flipping them upside down and tearing their livers out of their bellies, which they then eat family-style, according to a new study that includes new footage of these Promethean interactions in Mexican waters.
“Here we document novel repeated predations by killer whales on juvenile white sharks in the Gulf of California,” said researchers led by Jesús Erick Higuera Rivas of the non-profit Pelagic Protection and Conservation AC.
“Aerial videos indicate consistency in killer whales’ repeated assaults and strikes on the sharks,” the team added. “Once extirpated from the prey body, the target organ is shared between the members of the pods including calves.”
Sequence of the killer whales attacking the first juvenile white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) on 15th of August 2020. In (d) The partially exposed liver is seen on the right side of the second shark attacked. Photos credit: Jesús Erick Higuera Rivas.
I’ll give you a beat to let that sink in, like orca teeth on the belly of a shark. While it's well-established that orcas are the only known predator of great white sharks aside from humans, the new study is only the second glimpse of killer whales targeting juvenile sharks.
This group of orcas, known as Moctezuma’s pod, has developed an effective strategy of working together to flip the sharks over, which interrupts the sharks’ sensory system and puts them into a state called tonic immobility. The authors describe the pod’s work as methodical and well coordinated.
“Our evidence undoubtedly shows consistency in the repeated assaults and strikes, indicating efficient maneuvering ability by the killer whales in attempting to turn the shark upside down, likely to induce tonic immobility and allow uninterrupted access to the organs for consumption, " the team said. Previous reports suggest that “the lack of bite marks or injuries anywhere other than the pectoral fins shows a novel and specialized technique of accessing the liver of the shark with minimal handling of each individual.”
An orca attacking a juvenile great white shark. Image: Marco VillegasSharks, by the way, do not attack orcas. Just the opposite. As you can imagine based on the horrors you have just read, sharks are so petrified of killer whales that they book it whenever they sense a nearby pod.
“Adult white sharks exhibit a memory and previous knowledge about killer whales, which enables them to activate an avoidance mechanism through behavioral risk effects; a ‘fear’- induced mass exodus from aggregations sites,” the team said. “This response may preclude repeated successful predation on adult white sharks by killer whales.”
In other words, if you’re a shark, one encounter with orcas is enough to make you watch your dorsal side for life—assuming you were lucky enough to escape with it.
In other news…
Apocalypse now plz
You may have seen the doomer humor meme to “send the asteroid already,” a plea for sweet cosmic relief that fits our beleaguered times. As it turns out, some scientists engage in this type of apocalyptic wish fulfillment professionally.
Planetary defense experts often participate in drills involving fictional hazardous asteroids, such as the 2024PDC25, a virtual object “discovered” at the 2025 Planetary Defense Conference. In that simulation, 2024PDC25 had a possible impact date in 2041.
Now a team has used that exercise as a jumping off point to explore what might happen if it hit even earlier, channeling that “send the asteroid already” energy.. The researchers used this time-crunched scenario to speculate about the effect on geopolitics and pivotal events, such as the 2028 US Presidential elections.
“As it is very difficult to extrapolate from 2025 across 16 years in this ‘what-if’ exercise, we decided to bring the scenario forward to 2031 and examine it with today’s global background,” Rudolf Albrecht of the Austrian Space Forum. “Today would be T-6 years and the threat is becoming immediate.”
As the astro-doomers would say: Finally some good news.
Big dark energy
First, we discovered the universe was expanding. Then, we discovered it was expanding at an accelerating rate. Now, a new study suggests that this acceleration might be slowing down. Universe, make up your mind!
But seriously, the possibility that the rate of cosmic expansion is slowing is a big deal, because dark energy—the term for whatever is making the universe expand—was assumed to be a constant for decades. But this consensus has been challenged by observations from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) in Arizona, which became operational in 2021. In its first surveys, DESI’s observations have pointed to an expansion rate that is not fixed, but in flux.
Together with past results, the study “suggests that dark energy may no longer be a cosmological constant” and “our analysis raises the possibility that the present universe is no longer in a state of accelerated expansion,” said researchers led by Junhyuk Son of Yonsei University. “This provides a fundamentally new perspective that challenges the two central pillars of the [cold dark matter] standard cosmological model proposed 27 years ago.”
It will take more research to constrain this mystery, but for now it’s a reminder that the universe loves to surprise.
And the award for most squee goes to…
We’ll end, as all things should, with toadlets. Most frogs and toads reproduce by laying eggs that hatch into tadpoles, but scientists have discovered three new species of toad in Tanzania that give birth to live young—a very rare adaptation for any amphibian, known as ovoviviparity. The scientific term for these youngsters is in fact “toadlet.” Gods be good.
“We describe three new species from the Nectophrynoides viviparus species complex, covering the southern Eastern Arc Mountains populations,” said researchers led by Christian Thrane of the University of Copenhagen. One of the new species included “the observation of toadlets, suggesting that this species is ovoviviparous.”
One of the newly described toad species, Nectophrynoides luhomeroensis. Image: John Lyarkurwa.
Note to Nintendo: please make a very tiny Toadlet into a Mario Kart racer.
Thanks for reading! See you next week.
Museomics and integrative taxonomy reveal three new species of glandular viviparous tree toads (Nectophrynoides) in Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains (Anura: Bufonidae)
Abstract For the last century, herpetologists have referred to any Nectophrynoides Noble, 1926 toad characterized by a large, robust body, with large, distinct parotoid glands, as Nectophrynoides viviparus (Tornier, 1905).Christian Thrane (Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung)
Maria Zakharova: Il Segretario generale della NATO Rutte ha affermato che la Russia non è sola nei suoi tentativi di indebolire le regole globali: "Come sapete, collabora con Cina, Corea del Nord, Iran e altri".
Innanzitutto, a cosa si riferiscono esattamente queste "regole globali"? Vi prego di pubblicarne l'elenco completo sul sito web della NATO. Finora, nessuno sa a quali "regole" si riferisca Rutte.
In secondo luogo, la Russia, come la Cina e la maggioranza globale, ha sempre dichiarato il proprio impegno nei confronti del diritto internazionale. È la NATO che lo ha ripetutamente violato con le sue azioni aggressive e coalizioni illegittime: invadendo l'Iraq con falsi pretesti, bombardando la Jugoslavia, ecc.
In terzo luogo, non ricordo che nessun paese membro della NATO abbia dichiarato di voler porre fine alla cooperazione, ad esempio con la Cina, menzionata da Rutte. Di recente, c'è stato un vertice tra Stati Uniti e Cina – non ho sentito Rutte criticare il Presidente degli Stati Uniti per questo.
L'antieuropeista
youtube.com/watch?v=-p-gPf-HGV…
a me ricorda un po' il moby prince.
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INCENERITORE: LA TRUFFA DELLA TURBINA IMPONE SUBITO LA BONIFICA DEL SITO
INCENERITORE: LA TRUFFA DELLA TURBINA IMPONE SUBITO LA BONIFICA DEL SITO
#Ambiente #StopInceneritore #NoInceneritore #NoInceneritori #ZeroWaste #Rifiuti #Riciclo #EconomiaCircolare #NoAlCarbone #EnergiaPulita
INCENERITORE: LA TRUFFA DELLA TURBINA IMPONE SUBITO LA BONIFICA DEL SITO
INCENERITORE: LA TRUFFA DELLA TURBINA IMPONE SUBITO LA BONIFICA DEL SITO
unionedeicomitati.altervista.o…
#Ambiente #StopInceneritore #NoInceneritore #NoInceneritori #ZeroWaste #Rifiuti #Riciclo #EconomiaCircolare #NoAlCarbone #EnergiaPulita
proposta del segretario della CGIL Maurizio Landini di introdurre un “contributo di solidarietà” dell’1,3 per cento sui patrimoni netti superiori a 2 milioni di euro".
Considerato che il più scalcagnato dei lavoratori italiani paga il 23% di tasse sull'unica cosa che ha, ovvero il reddito, una proposta del genere mi sembra fin troppo timida.
Perché si riparla di una tassa patrimoniale - Il Post
https://www.ilpost.it/2025/11/09/tassa-patrimoniale/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypubPubblicato su News @news-ilPost
Perché si riparla di una tassa patrimoniale
L’ha proposta di nuovo la CGIL per chiedere più soldi alle persone più ricche e finanziare la spesa pubblicaIl Post
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L’impegno delle Forze armate tra onore e riconoscenza
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Il ministro della difesa Guido Crosetto, in una intervista alla Rivista Aeronautica, che celebra i 100 anni di vita, ha evidenziato che “il personale della Difesa resta la nostra risorsa più preziosa. Donne e uomini che operano spesso in contesti difficili con professionalità, umanità, spirito di servizio, e
Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo reshared this.
Bilancio e palle
@Politica interna, europea e internazionale
L'articolo Bilancio e palle proviene da Fondazione Luigi Einaudi.
Politica interna, europea e internazionale reshared this.
freezonemagazine.com/articoli/…
Il ragazzo il Blues lo parla chiaro… Stavo iniziando a scrivere di tutt’altro quando, nella esasperante, nebbiosa, quotidianità post-moderna fatta di quotidiane post-minchiate si è fatto largo, come una Ricola data a un bronchitico, D.Keyran Harrell giovane Bluesman (26 anni, aprile 1999, Ruston Louisiana) vestito di fine broccato. Planato in salotto da un dispositivo a […]
L'articolo D.K. Harrell
Il
Non solo un lavoro di qualità, ma anche prospettive di qualità
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Stiamo tornando a far rallentare il mondo. Ma l’ultimo periodo, per noi, non è stato per niente semplice. Ci siamo scontrati con la difficoltà di portare avanti un’attività giornalistica indipendente e renderla al contempo sostenibile. Nonostante i nostri buoni propositi, la mancanza di risorse
Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo reshared this.
Una foto con il busto di Mussolini: l’inchiesta di Report che imbarazza Colosimo
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/11/una-fot…
Alcuni quotidiani anticipano oggi quello che dovremmo vedere nella puntata di Report. Tra i tanti titoli ci ha colpito l’annuncio che ci
Giornalismo e disordine informativo reshared this.
Penjing: l’arte cinese che trasforma la natura in un racconto in miniatura (e che non è un bonsai)
Penjing: l’arte cinese dei paesaggi in miniatura. Cos’è, differenze con il bonsai, stili e come iniziare a crearne uno a casa.Marco Crisciotti (GreenMe.it)
Una panoramica delle potenze militari nel mondo
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Il sito web militare statunitense Global Firepower ha recentemente pubblicato la sua classifica della potenza militare mondiale per il 2025, con i primi dieci classificati come segue: Stati Uniti d’America, Russia, Repubblica Popolare della Cina, India, Repubblica di Corea (sud), Regno Unito, Francia, Giappone, Turchia e
Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo reshared this.
Hello and welcome to poliverso.org
Friendica is a somewhat unique software: a little more difficult to use than Mastodon, but infinitely richer in features.
I noticed that your first test post was written in English. That's not a problem, but I remind you that poliverso.org is a server dedicated to an audience that communicates primarily in Italian, so it would be appropriate for most of your posts to be in that language.
If you prefer to continue communicating in English, you can search for other Friendica servers at this link:
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Best regards and have a good Sunday
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Quel momento in cui capisci che realizzare il tuo sogno è impossibile.
Non so se vi è mai capitato di avere un sogno, sperare di poterlo realizzare, e poi desiderare che si avveri, ogni giorno più intensamente.
A me è capitato tante volte, e altrettante volte i sogni si sono infranti. Alcuni erano anche molto grandi, e la delusione è stata tanta quando è successo. Forse sono una persona che si crea troppe aspettative; chissà.
Ma quando il mio sogno è diventato quello di non provare più dolore e malessere, allora la questione è cambiata: era GIUSTO che io realizzassi quel sogno. Pensavo che ci sarei riuscito facilmente, e non solo mi sembrava che una qualche giustizia divina me lo avrebbe concesso, ma addirittura che sarebbe stato più semplice riuscirci, più che per tutti gli altri sogni che avevo coltivato.
Non è stato così.
Il sogno di vivere a Tenerife si è sbriciolato velocemente dal 2020 in poi, quando ho iniziato a capire che quel posto, l'unico in cui io stia davvero bene, non era più vivibile. Troppe persone ci si sono trasferite, troppi turisti continuano ad andarci, rendendolo di fatto un luogo inospitale.
Riuscite ad immaginare come mi sentivo ritornando a Tenerife, dopo che avevo capito che anche a El Hierro non avrei potuto vivere?
Cercavo di non rovinarmi quei pochi giorni di permanenza amara, in cui tutto ciò che vedevo - e sentivo - somigliava ad una preziosa torta, che i miei occhi di bambino non potevano vedere, ma non toccare.
Eppure, l'isola è riuscita ad insegnarmi qualcosa.
Di nuovo.
Il racconto è in questo episodio del podcast.
Tenerife: l'isola perfetta, dove non posso vivere.
Nel quinto episodio del podcast in cui cerco una nuova casa, eccomi di nuovo a Tenerife, l'isola dove mi sarei dovuto trasferire ma che nel frattempo è diventata "inospitale".
Ogni volta che la vedo è una fitta al cuore, ma anche stavolta mi ha insegnato qualcosa di importante.
Buon ascolto.
Non spegniamo le luci su Gaza
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/11/non-spe…
Notizie sempre più scarne. L’informazione toglie spazio a Gaza e alla Cisgiordania con poche eccezioni, per esempio quelle di Avvenire e Il Manifesto. Ma il dramma che si è consumato a Gaza durante i bombardamenti israeliani non si è esaurito, purtroppo, con la fragile pace americana.
Giornalismo e disordine informativo reshared this.
This week, we discuss archiving to get around paywalls, hating on smart glasses, and more.#BehindTheBlog
Behind the Blog: Paywall Jumping and Smart Glasses
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss archiving to get around paywalls, hating on smart glasses, and more.JASON: I was going to try to twist myself into knots attempting to explain the throughline between my articles this week, and about how I’ve been thinking about the news and our coverage more broadly. This was going to be something about trying to promote analog media and distinctly human ways of communicating (like film photography), while highlighting the very bad economic and political incentives pushing us toward fundamentally dehumanizing, anti-human methods of communicating. Like fully automated, highly customized and targeted AI ads, automated library software, and I guess whatever Nancy Pelosi has been doing with her stock portfolio. But then I remembered that I blogged about the FBI’s subpoena against archive.is, a website I feel very ambivalent about and one that is the subject of perhaps my most cringe blog of all time.
So let’s revisit that cringe blog, which was called “Dear GamerGate: Please Stop Stealing Our Shit.” I wrote this article in 2014, which was fully 11 years ago, which is alarming to me. First things first: They were not stealing from me they were stealing from VICE, a company that I did not actually experience financial gains from related to people reading articles; it was good if people read my articles and traffic was very important, and getting traffic over time led to me getting raises and promotions and stuff, but the company made very, very clear that we did not “own” the articles and therefore they were not “mine” in the way that they are now. With that out of the way, the reporting and general reason for the article was I think good but the tone of it is kind of wildly off, and, as I mentioned, over the course of many years I have now come to regard archive.is as sort of an integral archiving tool. If you are unfamiliar with archive.is, it’s a site that takes snapshots of any URL and creates a new link for them which, notably, does not go to the original website. Archive.is is extremely well known for bypassing the paywalls on many sites, 404 Media sometimes but not usually among them.
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X and TikTok accounts are dedicated to posting AI-generated videos of women being strangled.#News #AI #Sora
OpenAI’s Sora 2 Floods Social Media With Videos of Women Being Strangled
Social media accounts on TikTok and X are posting AI-generated videos of women and girls being strangled, showing yet another example of generative AI companies failing to prevent users from creating media that violates their own policies against violent content.One account on X has been posting dozens of AI-generated strangulation videos starting in mid-October. The videos are usually 10 seconds long and mostly feature a “teenage girl” being strangled, crying, and struggling to resist until her eyes close and she falls to the ground. Some titles for the videos include: “A Teenage Girl Cheerleader Was Strangled As She Was Distressed,” “Prep School Girls Were Strangled By The Murderer!” and “man strangled a high school cheerleader with a purse strap which is crazy.”
Many of the videos posted by this X account in October include the watermark for Sora 2, Open AI’s video generator, which was made available to the public on September 30. Other videos, including most videos that were posted by the account in November, do not include a watermark but are clearly AI generated. We don’t know if these videos were generated with Sora 2 and had their watermark removed, which is trivial to do, or created with another AI video generator.
The X account is small, with only 17 followers and a few hundred views on each post. A TikTok account with a similar username that was posting similar AI-generated choking videos had more than a thousand followers and regularly got thousands of views. Both accounts started posting the AI-generated videos in October. Prior to that, the accounts were posting clips of scenes, mostly from real Korean dramas, in which women are being strangled. I first learned about the X account from a 404 Media reader, who told me X declined to remove the account after they reported it.
“According to our Community Guidelines, we don't allow hate speech, hateful behavior, or promotion of hateful ideologies,” a TikTok spokesperson told me in an email. The TikTok account was also removed after I reached out for comment. “That includes content that attacks people based on protected attributes like race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.”
X did not respond to a request for comment.
OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment, but its policies state that “graphic violence or content promoting violence” may be removed from the Sora Feed, where users can see what other users are generating. In our testing, Sora immediately generated a video for the prompt “man choking woman” which looked similar to the videos posted to TikTok and X. When Sora finished generating those videos it sent us notifications like “Your choke scene just went live, brace for chaos,” and “Yikes, intense choke scene, watch responsibly.” Sora declined to generate a video for the prompt “man choking woman with belt,” saying “This content may violate our content policies.”
Safe and consensual choking is common in adult entertainment, be it various forms of BDSM or more niche fetishes focusing on choking specifically, and that content is easy to find wherever adult entertainment is available. Choking scenes are also common social media and more mainstream horror movies and TV shows. The UK government recently announced that it will soon make it illegal to publish or possess pornographic depictions of strangulation of suffocation.
It’s not surprising, then, that when generative AI tools are made available to the public some people generate choking videos and violent content as well. In September, I reported about an AI-generated YouTube channel that exclusively posted videos of women being shot. Those videos were generated with Google’s Veo AI-video generator, despite it being against the company’s policies. Google said it took action against the user who was posting those videos.
Sora 2 had to make several changes to its guardrails since it launched after people used it to make videos of popular cartoon characters depicted as Nazis and other forms of copyright infringement.
Pornography depicting strangulation to become criminal offence in the UK
Legal requirement to be placed on tech platforms to prevent users from seeing such ‘choking’ materialRobyn Vinter (The Guardian)
simona
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