Startup expects to complete construction of its first fuel plant later this year

Amazon inched closer to its atomic datacenter dream on Friday after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensed its small modular reactor partner X-energy to make nuclear fuel for advanced reactors at a facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.…

Whilst the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) loves to brag about catching "benefit fraud", it's been called out for not doing enough to stop benefit errors in its own system.

DWP pulled in front of the Public Accounts Committee for their own fuck ups - again

The DWP was once again up in front of the Public Accounts Committee. This time, it was defending what it was doing to tackle fraud and error.

A big chunk of the committee was taken up with scrutinising the powers of the new bank snooping bill. This was covered extensively by the rags because the penny has finally dropped that they can spy on ALL our bank accounts.

However, much of the coverage misses that the DWP was also called to account for its own behaviour. Specifically, due to its own error, the department is overpaying and underpaying a huge number of claimants.

Underpaid benefits cancelled out overpaid benefits

PAC found that claimants were overpaid by £1 billion in 2024-25 due to the DWP's own errors. This is up from £0.8 billion in 2023-24. However, this is cancelled out by the fact that claimants were underpaid by £1.2 billion for the same reason 2024-25. This is up from £1.1 billion in 2023-24.

The report said:

The DWP has carried out some work to tackle the root causes of fraud and error - but this has focused on those committed by claimants, rather than errors by officials.

As usual, the DWP is spending all its time demonising claimants and not actually doing anything to fix its fucked up system that allows so many to fall through the cracks. This is clear through the media narrative of disabled claimants and the treatment of carers.

The report reiterates that errors in the system are largely down to those who control the system, who don't really give a fuck about fixing it.

Claimants not reporting worsening conditions, for obvious reason

Another issue, the report claims, is that not enough claimants are reporting when their circumstances change.

A particular problem is that disabled claimants are not informing the DWP when their condition worsens, meaning they could be entitled to more money.

This rose from approximately £3.1 billion in 2023-24 to £3.7 billion in 2024-25. However, there's a very obvious explanation for this.

When a disabled claimant reports that their condition worsens, they have to be reassessed. Anyone who's gone through the benefits assessment process knows how utterly soul-destroying it is.

There's also no guarantee that you will get more money at the end of it. With assessments being so cruel, there's always the possibility of ending up with less money or losing all your benefits. So for many, it's just not worth the stress.

Whilst a change of circumstance can be made online for Universal Credit, other benefits require you to call. The DWP Customer Service and Accounts 2023-24 report found that 3.6 million calls about PIP went unanswered in that same period.

The committee has said the DWP needs to address its own errors and how these can be fixed. But having reported on the DWP for a long time, I'm fairly certain this will be a tick-box exercise or something they attempt to sneak out.

Does the DWP actually care about changing?

The committee has ordered the department to do more to make it easier for claimants to report changes. Worryingly, though, beyond "build trust", there isn't really much mentioned about how the culture of the DWP has to change. If claimants felt safe enough to report changes and could be sure they wouldn't lose money, more would report worsening conditions.

Unfortunately, though, it's clear from the DWP's actions that the department would much rather demonise claimants and ensure as many are kicked off vital benefits as possible. Ensuring more who actually need the support get it just wouldn't fit their benefit scrounger narrative.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

Dirty - no doubt Israel-driven - tactics are in play against UN special rapporteur for occupied Palestine Francesca Albanese.

Albanese being hit with dirty tactics again

Albanese has become a towering - and targeted - symbol of the dignity of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and of opposition to Israel's crimes against them. So fearless and effective has Albanese been that the Israeli regime and its western collaborator governments have tried desperately to silence her - and failed.

An attempt to prevent her re-accreditation in her (unpaid and voluntary) role was resoundingly defeated. Escalating sanctions against her have failed to intimidate her and have elevated her standing in the eyes of many right-minded people.

So now the Israel lobby has gone to the bottom drawer of its dirty tricks chest. And to their shame, several Western governments are aiding and abetting the genocidal occupier.

We love you @FranceskAlbs you are our lighthouse in a storm

— Carol Anne Grayson (@Quickieleaks) February 13, 2026

An edited version of an Albanese speech has been circulated in which she appears to say that Israel is the "common enemy of the world". Not that she'd be wrong if she did say it - but she didn't. More to the point, she provably didn't say it.

But shamefully, the French government - knowing that she didn't say it - is demanding her resignation for the comment. Even after this was shown beyond doubt, the French still won't apologise - and other governments continue to amplify the lie and the demand. Here's what she really said, versus the fake:

When sovereign states amplify claims rooted in doctored videos shown to be false, we must STAND IN SOLIDARITY AND DEMAND AN APOLOGY. France and others owe @FranceskAlbs an unambiguous apology and reckoning. pic.twitter.com/gTzVryKulv

— Ahmed Eldin | احمد الدين (@ASE) February 13, 2026

Albanese also responded publicly. With characteristic directness, she accused France of stepping in dogshit and refusing to clean its shoe by apologising:

A lie was exposed. Instead of retracting it, the SYSTEM that enabled the genocide, attacks the messanger. France knows it stepped in something foul, but pride forbids correction: the archives are ransacked for any stray word. Others repeat the falsehood.
The Inquisition is back. https://t.co/DeYmXN3Mgl

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) February 13, 2026

The Israel lobby - in and outside Israel - is desperate to silence the fearless Ms Albanese. Instead, those using these disgusting tactics must be 'consigned to the dustbin of history'. You know, the type you see in parks - where the dogshit goes.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

News of the deal came about two weeks after CEO Bill McDermott swore off any "large scale" M&A this year. A spokesperson called this deal a "tuck in."

Despite its CEO's insistence that it wasn't doing any "large scale" deals soon, ServiceNow has acquired yet another company. This time, the software firm has scooped up Pyramid Analytics, an Israeli corporation with data science and preparation expertise. The goal is to build additional context and semantics into its software stack.…

Once again, the internet has done what the internet does best: amateur sleuths have now turned their attention to an alleged Oval Office "audio incident," with one self-described sound engineer claiming to have isolated and enhanced the offending noise like it's the Zapruder film. — Read the rest

The post Internet "Forensically Analyzes" Trump's alleged "Shartgate" appeared first on Boing Boing.

After being sent home in the wake of failure, which turned fatal in Minneapolis, the face of Trump's immigration crackdown and self-styled Gruppenführer Greg Bovino resurfaced online. Apparently, acting under the misconception that anyone missed him at all, the internet did what it does best. — Read the rest

The post Bovino attempts comeback, spontaneously combusts appeared first on Boing Boing.

Erika Kirk, the grieving widow of Charlie, who instantly declared herself CEO of his Turning Point USA organization, is facing renewed allegations of grooming after screenshots allegedly showing her sending flirtatious and intimate messages to a 15-year-old girl in 2014. Erika was 25 at the time. — Read the rest

The post Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk faces grooming allegations appeared first on Boing Boing.

Copyright owners increasingly claim more draconian copyright law and policy will fight back against big tech companies. In reality, copyright gives the most powerful companies even more control over creators and competitors. Today's copyright policy concentrates power among a handful of corporate gatekeepers—at everyone else's expense. We need a system that supports grassroots innovation and emerging creators by lowering barriers to entry—ultimately offering all of us a wider variety of choices.

Pro-monopoly regulation through copyright won't provide any meaningful economic support for vulnerable artists and creators. Because of the imbalance in bargaining power between creators and publishing gatekeepers, trying to help creators by giving them new rights under copyright law is like trying to help a bullied kid by giving them more lunch money for the bully to take.

Entertainment companies' historical practices bear out this concern. For example, in the late-2000's to mid-2010's, music publishers and recording companies struck multimillion-dollar direct licensing deals with music streaming companies and video sharing platforms. Google reportedly paid more than $400 million to a single music label, and Spotify gave the major record labels a combined 18 percent ownership interest in its now- $100 billion company. Yet music labels and publishers frequently fail to share these payments with artists, and artists rarely benefit from these equity arrangements. There's no reason to think that these same companies would treat their artists more fairly now.

AI Training

In the AI era, copyright may seem like a good way to prevent big tech from profiting from AI at individual creators' expense—it's not. In fact, the opposite is true. Developing a large language model requires developers to train the model on millions of works. Requiring developers to license enough AI training data to build a large language model would  limit competition to all but the largest corporations—those that either have their own trove of training data or can afford to strike a deal with one that does. This would result in all the usual harms of limited competition, like higher costs, worse service, and heightened security risks. New, beneficial AI tools that allow people to express themselves or access information.

Legacy gatekeepers have already used copyright to stifle access to information and the creation of new tools for understanding it. Consider, for example, Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence, the first of many copyright lawsuits over the use of works train AI. ROSS Intelligence was a legal research startup that built an AI-based tool to compete with ubiquitous legal research platforms like Lexis and Thomson Reuters' Westlaw. ROSS trained its tool using "West headnotes" that Thomson Reuters adds to the legal decisions it publishes, paraphrasing the individual legal conclusions (what lawyers call "holdings") that the headnotes identified. The tool didn't output any of the headnotes, but Thomson Reuters sued ROSS anyways. A federal appeals court is still considering the key copyright issues in the case—which EFF weighed in on last year. EFF hopes that the appeals court will reject this overbroad interpretation of copyright law. But in the meantime, the case has already forced the startup out of business, eliminating a would-be competitor that might have helped increase access to the law.

Requiring developers to license AI training materials benefits tech monopolists as well. For giant tech companies that can afford to pay, pricey licensing deals offer a way to lock in their dominant positions in the generative AI market by creating prohibitive barriers to entry. The cost of licensing enough works to train an LLM would be prohibitively expensive for most would-be competitors.

The DMCA's "Anti-Circumvention" Provision

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act's "anti-circumvention" provision is another case in point. Congress ostensibly passed the DMCA to discourage would-be infringers from defeating Digital Rights Management (DRM) and other access controls and copy restrictions on creative works.

In practice, it's done little to deter infringement—after all, large-scale infringement already invites massive legal penalties. Instead, Section 1201 has been used to block competition and innovation in everything from printer cartridges to garage door openers, videogame console accessories, and computer maintenance services. It's been used to threaten hobbyists who wanted to make their devices and games work better. And the problem only gets worse as software shows up in more and more places, from phones to cars to refrigerators to farm equipment. If that software is locked up behind DRM, interoperating with it so you can offer add-on services may require circumvention. As a result, manufacturers get complete control over their products, long after they are purchased, and can even shut down secondary markets (as Lexmark did for printer ink, and Microsoft tried to do for Xbox memory cards.)

Giving rights holders a veto on new competition and innovation hurts consumers. Instead, we need balanced copyright policy that rewards consumers without impeding competition.

Republished from the EFF's Deeplinks blog.

Cyclops time.

Thirteen years ago, when I was just entering the final demographic, I had the cataract in my right eye replaced. It was a quick and easy procedure that left me with 20/10 vision when I walked out the door of the surgery center. It's still that sharp.

Which is good, because this morning I had the cataract in my left eye replaced, and now I'm blind on that side, at least for now. In retrospect, I should have had both cataracts replaced way back when I had the first one done. I didn't then because the cataract in my left eye wasn't bad, and that eye could still focus. Vision on that side was 20/25, and I could use that eye to read as well, meaning that most of the time I didn't need glasses. 

But, because I waited, the cataract in my left eye gradually turned brunescent, meaning brown. This required an extra $2050 for Femtosecond Laser-Assisted Cataract Surgery (FLACS), which isn't covered by Medicare.

Anyway, the surgeon had to turn his emulsifying machine up to 9 (normal is 3) to demolish the old brown lens. This, plus the antiquity of my cornea, caused it to swell, so the world to my left eye is now just colors and shapes. If all goes according to plan, this will gradually go away. Meanwhile, no driving, no lifting heavy things, and hopefully no new regrets.

Advice: If you do have cataracts, don't wait around. Get them done.

On Valentine's Day, I cannot help thinking back to the days when we had Viscountess Boudica of Bethnal Green to make the East End a more colourful place, before she was 'socially cleansed' to Uttoxeter

 

Viscountess Boudica of Bethnal Green confessed to me that she never received a Valentine in her entire life and yet, in spite of this unfortunate example of the random injustice of existence, her faith in the future remained undiminished.

Taking a break from her busy filming schedule, the Viscountess granted me a brief audience to reveal her intimate thoughts upon the most romantic day of the year and permit me to take these rare photographs that reveal a candid glimpse into the private life of one of the East End's most fascinating characters.

For the first time since 1986, Viscountess Boudica dug out her Valentine paraphernalia of paper hearts, banners, fairylights, candles and other pink stuff to put on this show as an encouragement to the readers of Spitalfields Life. "If there's someone that you like," she says, "I want you to send them a card to show them that you care."

Yet behind the brave public face, lay a personal tale of sadness for the Viscountess. "I think Valentine's Day is a good idea, but it's a kind of death when you walk around the town and see the guys with their bunches of flowers, choosing their chocolates and cards, and you think, 'It should have been me!'" she admitted with a frown, "I used to get this funny feeling inside, that feeling when you want to get hold of someone and give them a cuddle."

Like those love-lorn troubadours of yore, Viscountess Boudica mined her unrequited loves as a source of inspiration for her creativity, writing stories, drawing pictures and - most importantly - designing her remarkable outfits that record the progress of her amours. "There is a tinge of sadness after all these years," she revealed to me, surveying her Valentine's Day decorations," but I am inspired to believe there is still hope of domestic happiness."

 

Take a look at

The Departure of Viscountess Boudica

Viscountess Boudica's Domestic Appliances

Viscountess Boudica's Blog

Viscountess Boudica's Album

Viscountess Boudica's Halloween

Viscountess Boudica's Christmas

The TSSA union's deeply unpopular general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust moved this week to disenfranchise all the union's retired members - and now she's boasting about it. Not just that, but senior TSSA figures say that she and her coterie are lying to justify it - and have put the union's structures into collapse.

TSSA union: yet more scandal

In an email to members, the union management boasted that it is "proud" of what it has done - and claimed that disenfranchising TSSA's many retired members was "long overdue" and "another important Kennedy Review milestone":

We are proud to share that TSSA has reached another important Kennedy Review milestone.Following a recommendation of the Kennedy Review, the Executive Committee has agreed to consolidate our retired members into a single National TSSA Retired Members' Branch. This is a long-overdue change and brings TSSA into line with the approach already adopted by many other unions.

This new national structure will provide retired members with a centralised branch through which they can coordinate strategically, share experience, and network with peers at their own pace and convenience. Just as importantly, it will amplify the collective voice of retired members, creating a strong "super branch" that can speak clearly and confidently within the union and beyond.

We look forward to working closely with members of the new National Retired Members' Branch and to the valuable contribution they will continue to make to TSSA's life and direction.

This change will also have an impact on working members. As retired members move into the national branch, there may be vacancies for officer roles in local branches/divisional councils. We strongly encourage members to step forward and consider standing for these positions where opportunities arise.

The Kennedy Report exposed the bullying and sexual harassment of former general secretary Manuel Cortes and his cronies. Members and staff, furious at Eslamdoust's endless war on union workers and member democracy, are not shy about saying that Eslamdoust is propagating the abuses of the Cortes era rather than undoing them.

But the Kennedy Report doesn't say one word about closing retired branches. Not one.

No recommendations to close branches

In fact, the report only mentions retired members - at all - one single time. Not to recommend closing their branches, but to say that the union relies too heavily on them and needs to encourage more working members to take up positions.

It also notes that if working members are not actively engaged in the union, TSSA management can easily stitch up elections to key positions - ironically exactly how Eslamdoust was installed despite having no relevant experience. Because of this, the report suggests that TSSA staff who are not TSSA members (most are GMB members, a union now de-recognised by Eslamdoust and her allies:

Finally, for this foreword, I want the TSSA to examine its democratic standing and traditions. It appears that engagement at branch level is dwindling and is heavily orientated towards retired members. This can present a real problem. Not only because it detaches the leadership from reality of the current world of work as it is being experienced by members, but also because it means there is no healthy throughput of talent to key roles within the organisation. Only TSSA members can stand for election to General Secretary (GS), the most powerful role in the union. The most likely candidate to be successful in a GS election is someone who knows the organisation inside and out - i.e. a staff member. Very few staff members belong to the TSSA. So, GS elections are, to all intents and purposes, uncontested (or are notionally contested by candidates who have little prospect of winning). A key individual is seen to be 'groomed' for the post by the small number of senior managers who hold power, and that individual is then 'crowned.'

That's all clear enough - and not remotely what the management claims. So to try to persuade furious members that it is, Eslamdoust's ally John Rees sent an email to retired members claiming that the change is "fully aligned" with Kennedy's recommendations. And to embellish the claim, he added that it was "comprehensively and fully accepted" by the union's annual conference after its publication:

This change is fully aligned with the recommendations of the Kennedy Report, which was comprehensively and fully accepted by TSSA Annual Conference in 2023. The report set out a clear direction to consolidate retired members' structures in order to strengthen representation, improve consistency, and ensure long-term sustainability.

Nonsense

Poppycock, says retired assistant general secretary Steve Coe - who wrote and moved the 2023 conference motion. Coe told Skwawkbox:

Mr Rees has been fed this from on high, a deliberate lie to justify their actions.

Coe added that the 2023 conference motion merely 'noted' the Kennedy Report and did not endorse it, let alone "comprehensively and fully". He underlined that there are no Kennedy recommendations "relating specifically to retired members" and "certainly not to consolidate retired members' structures".

He went on:

This is not only a massive blow to retired members, who have now almost entirely lost their representation and their voice at conference. It's also a massive blow to the majority of TSSA's working branches. Most branches run on retired members. Most will struggle to fill officer positions and struggle even to have a quorum in order to vote validly on anything or put motions to conference.

But this is not accidental. TSSA management is not just silencing retired members, it's silencing most members and neutering conference - all to protect a general secretary who is unfit for the role and held in contempt by members and staff.

Coe also pointed out the inherently discriminatory nature of the move:

Retired members are now all forced into a branch consisting only of other retired members. They have been summarily ousted from positions they were democratically elected and are barred from standing for them again. It's ageism and illegal, as well as completely undemocratic - neither retired members, nor the wider membership through conference, have been consulted, let alone asked to vote on it.

A wrecking ball to TSSA

In 2024, Eslamdoust and her allies wrecked the TSSA's annual conference and blocked a planned no-confidence vote against her.

But this is just the tip of a very large iceberg of member, rep and staff disgust with their 'leader'. The TSSA has been embroiled for years in strikes because of the union workers' fury at Eslamdoust's attacks on them and their GMB union reps, both public and private. The attacks culminated, in January 2026, with Eslamdoust de-recognising GMB as the workplace union - an outrageous move for a union boss that came after Eslamdoust told the Guardian that she is only being criticised because she is female.

After her demand for special treatment failed, the TSSA is now accused of trying to neuter democratic opposition - starting with retired members.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

As things get warmer, one thing I will miss is a snowy Christmas as much as I hate driving in snow and cold. This was taken in Indiana on Christmas, it was almost 50 degrees that day, and not a lick of snow cover.

submitted by /u/rmannyconda78
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This year's winners offer behind-the-scenes access to the frontiers of particle physics research.

submitted by /u/Monsur_Ausuhnom
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Just days after SpaceX pivoted to the Moon, Blue Origin's new lunar strategy has come to light.

Airbnb has shifted a third of its North American customer service to its AI agent, CEO Brian Chesky said.

Throughout social media, people are warning that a Reform victory in a council by-election is a lesson for the parliamentary by-election in Gorton and Denton.

The results? Reform win.

Reform won in Fletton and Woodston with 29.4% of the vote. The Greens narrowly came second on 27.6%. Meanwhile, Labour were fourth on 16.8%.

Many social media users are pointing out that Labour has split the vote here. If just a few of the voters for the governing party had opted for the Greens, then the Zack Polanski-led party would've won the seat and not Reform.

One user said voting Green Party is a double win:

vote labour, get reform. vote green not just to keep out reform, but for policies you can actually believe in! that actually want to help normal people! what a revelation!

Commentator Owen Jones, meanwhile, called the council result a "warning":

A warning here. The Greens nearly won - but Labour split the vote, handing Reform the seat.

Former MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who defected to the Greens, added:

Labour splitting the vote and letting Reform in. Up and down the county the only way to stop reform is to vote Green.

Polanski: 'Labour is not a left-wing vote'

The Electoral Calculus has the Greens winning the seat, not Reform. But in the world of the corporate media, opting for the Greens splits the 'left' vote, not Labour. ITV's Robert Peston recently challenged Green leader Zack Polanski on that:

Wouldn't you regret Reform UK coming through in Gorton and Denton if The Greens split the left vote?

Polanski responded:

We cannot say that Keir Starmer's Labour would be a left wing vote. This is the party that wanted to slash disability benefits, then had to be shamed not to do it. It's the same party that eventually lifted the two child benefit cap, but it took over 18 months of children living in poverty. And it's the same party that is arming an ongoing genocide in Gaza. So I don't think on any metric you can say Keir Starmer's Labour party represents the left in the country. That's why I'm confident and not complacent that we can win in Gorton and Denton.

It's arguable that Keir Starmer's Labour is closer to Reform than the Greens. And as Polanski has previously said, it would take a change of leadership and direction for the Greens to work with Labour against Reform.

Featured image via the Canary

By James Wright

Reform's candidate for the parliamentary seat of Gorton and Denton, Matt Goodwin, claimed on social media:

One of the untold stories in British politics right now is Reform's very strong support among young men.

But people swiftly pointed out that the favoured party among young men is actually the Greens, according to YouGov.

The facts vs Matt Goodwin

For young men, Green support is at 30%, and Labour support is at 21%. When it comes to the Lib Dems, it's 17% for young men, while the Conservatives and Reform both trail on 12%.

Matt Goodwin's narrative is actually the opposite of the truth. Young men appear to understand that their material conditions will improve through cuts in the cost of living rather than through cuts to public services. And that a shift from landlords to affordable housing would benefit them. Free tuition for university may also play a part. The Greens harbour these policies.

There are other factors that play into how young men might vote. 42% of men aged 20-34 say they feel lonely "often or very often," and, concerningly, there is a very high suicide rate for men under 50.

But the YouGov polling suggests that young men are turning towards hope and a more integrated society that recognises the individual but also the importance of community.

Gorton and Denton

Matt Goodwin's rival in the Green Party at the Gorton and Denton by-election has exemplified why many are turning to her party. Speaking to Channel 4, Hannah Spencer said:

We care about lots of different things. We care about what's happening here locally, as well as things across the world… Living standards are lower here, people's incomes aren't changing, and we have fuel poverty, which is not even a phrase we should be using in 2026. We need people in parliament where the decisions are being made, that have got the background and the relevant lived experience, to be able to feed into decisions that are being made

As a plumber, Green candidate Spencer says she understands hard graft and will therefore represent the working class parliament.

Featured image via the Canary

By James Wright

By partnering with CodePath, AI biz aims to modernize how people learn to program

Can using AI teach you to code more quickly than traditional methods? Anthropic certainly thinks so. The AI outfit has partnered with computer science education org CodePath to get Claude and Claude Code into the hands of students, a time-tested strategy for seeding product interest and building brand loyalty.…

Oxide says AMD's Turin EPYCs are coming, switch revamp under review, more open hardware in the works

Remember that giant green rack-sized blade server Oxide Computer showed off a couple of years back? Well, the startup is still at it, having raked in $200 million in Series-C funding this week as it prepares to bring a bevy of new hardware to market with updated processing power, memory, and networking.…

A California police department is none too happy that its license plate reader records were accessed by federal employees it never gave explicit permission to peruse. And, once again, it's Flock Safety shrugging itself into another PR black eye.

Mountain View police criticized the company supplying its automated license plate reader system after an audit turned up "unauthorized" use by federal law enforcement agencies.

At least six offices of four agencies accessed data from the first camera in the city's Flock Safety license-tracking system from August to November 2024 without the police department's permission or knowledge, according to a press release Friday night.

Flock has been swimming in a cesspool of its own making for several months now, thanks to it being the public face of "How To Hunt Down Someone Who Wanted An Abortion." That debacle was followed by even more negative press (and congressional rebuke) for its apparent unwillingness to place any limits at all on access to the hundreds of millions of license plate records its cameras have captured, including those owned by private individuals.

Mountain View is in California. And that's only one problem with everything in this paragraph:

The city said its system was accessed by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives offices in Kentucky and Tennessee, which investigate crimes related to guns, explosives, arson and the illegal trafficking of alcohol and tobacco; the inspector general's office of the U.S.. General Services Administration, which manages federal buildings, procurement, and property; Air Force bases in Langley, Virginia, and in Ohio; and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada.

Imagine trying to explain this to anyone. While it's somewhat understandable that the ATF might be running nationwide searches on Flock's platform, it's almost impossible to explain why images captured by a single camera in Mountain View, California were accessed by the Inspector General for the GSA, much less Lake Mead Recreation Area staffers.

This explains how this happened. But it doesn't do anything to explain why.

They accessed Mountain View's system for one camera via a "nationwide" search setting that was turned on by Flock Safety, police said.

Apparently, this is neither opt-in or opt-out. It just is. The Mountain View police said they "worked closely" with Flock to block out-of-state access, as well as limit internal access to searches expressly approved by the department's police chief.

Flock doesn't seem to care what its customers want. Either it can't do what this department asked or it simply chose not to because a system that can't be accessed by government randos scattered around the nation is much tougher to sell than a locked-down portal that actually serves the needs of the people paying for it.

And that tracks with Ron Wyden's criticism of the company in the letter he wrote to Flock last October:

The privacy protection that Flock promised to Oregonians — that Flock software will automatically examine the reason provided by law enforcement officers for terms indicating an abortion- or immigration-related search — is meaningless when law enforcement officials provide generic reasons like "investigation" or "crime." Likewise, Flock's filters are meaningless if no reason for a search is provided in the first place. While the search reasons collected by Flock, obtained by press and activists through open records requests, have occasionally revealed searches for immigration and abortion enforcement, these are likely just the tip of the iceberg. Presumably, most officers using Flock to hunt down immigrants and women who have received abortions are not going to type that in as the reason for their search. And, regardless, given that Flock has washed its hands of any obligation to audit its customers, Flock customers have no reason to trust a search reason provided by another agency.

I now believe that abuses of your product are not only likely but inevitable, and that Flock is unable and uninterested in preventing them.

Flock just keeps making Wyden's points for him. The PD wanted limited access with actual oversight. Flock gave the PD a lending library of license plate/location images anyone with or without a library card (so to speak) could check out at will. Flock is part of the surveillance problem. And it's clear it's happy being a tool that can be readily and easily abused, no matter what its paying customers actually want from its technology.

If you wished 'Delicious in Dungeon' was scarier right out of the gate, check out this dark fantasy manga about a lovable crew of adventurers.

Killing Satoshi, an upcoming biopic about the elusive creator of Bitcoin, will reportedly rely heavily on artificial intelligence to generate locations and adjust actors' performances, Variety reports. The film was announced in 2025 as being directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, The Edge of Tomorrow) and starring Casey Affleck and Pete Davidson in undisclosed roles, but its connection to overhyped technology was previously understood to begin and end with cryptocurrency.

According to a UK casting notice viewed by Variety, the producers of Killing Satoshi reserve the right to "change, add to, take from, translate, reformat or reprocess" actors' performances, using "generative artificial intelligence (GAI) and/or machine learning technologies." No digital replicas will be created of performers, but it sounds like plenty of other AI-driven tweaks are on the table. The production's use of AI will also extend to the setting of its shoots, per Variety's source. Killing Satoshi will be shot on a "markerless performative capture stage" and things like backgrounds and locations will be entirely generated by AI.

You guess is as good as mine as to why a film about blockchain technology needs to be filmed this way, but Doug Liman has been connected with plenty of unusual projects in the past, including a rumored Tom Cruise film that was supposed to film on the International Space Station. Killing Satoshi will be far less practical in comparison, and walking a much finer line of what's acceptable in the entertainment industry.

A major sticking point in SAG-AFTRA's 2023 contract negotiations was guaranteeing protections for actors who could be replaced by AI. Equity, the union representing actors in the UK, is currently negotiating protections for members that are concerned that AI could be used to reproduce their likenesses and voices and let studios use them without their consent.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/bitcoin-biopic-starring-casey-affleck-to-use-ai-to-generate-locations-and-tweak-performances-210657775.html?src=rss

As debates about Britain's history, race, and responsibility continue to surface, Quakers in Britain have co-hosted a discussion in Parliament exploring what reparations might mean in practice.

The event took the title 'Approaches to Reparations: Faith-Based, Community, and Grassroots Perspectives'. The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on African Reparations co-hosted and Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP chaired.

It brought together faith leaders, community organisers, and racial justice advocates. They took part in an open conversation about accountability, repair, and justice in a UK context.

Reparations are a process

Interest in reparations for African chattel enslavement has grown in recent years. And particularly since the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. Yet the UK continues to struggle with how, or whether, to respond.

In 2024, the Canary published a stinging letter from academic Gus John to then foreign secretary David Lammy. He described reparations as "a process, not a single act". And he accused the government of "insisting that this is all in the past".

Recent pushback against the new Archbishop of Canterbury for defending the Church of England's programme for repairing the harms of African chattel enslavement underlined how contested these conversations remain.

Panellist Richard Reddie, director of justice and inclusion at Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, said:

There is a great deal of literature in the Bible that makes the case for reparations.

Kojo Kyerewaa, national organiser for Black Lives Matter UK, said:

We need to relate reparations to the daily lives of people, and make the links between that which they already know about what is unjust and reparations as a liberatory pathway.

That way we can begin to reshape the world towards justice, and we deserve nothing less.

Quakers in Britain agreed in 2022 to consider making practical reparations for the transatlantic trade in enslaved people, colonialism, and economic exploitation.

Marghuerita Remi-Judah, co-clerk of the Quakers in Britain Trustees' Reparations Working Group, said:

We need to name our part in the history.

The Quaker testimony is one of peace…enslavement was violence, antithetical to peace.

The decision followed years of research, listening, and discernment. And it reflects a wider commitment to anti-racism, truth-telling, and action rooted in faith.

The panel, which also included Reverend Wale Hudson-Roberts, head of racial justice for the Baptist Union, explored how reparations work has developed from grassroots and local initiatives.

Panellists discussed the role of education and community leadership, and how institutions respond to difficult questions and resistance.

Featured image via Michael Preston for Quakers in Britain

By The Canary

They meet in boardrooms, islands, temples made of glass.
Their laughter oils the hinges that have never known a key.
The mentor's grin, the waiting jet, the children smuggled in last—
The manifest preserves the names that justice will not see.

No creed but appetite, no flag but chartered skies.
They harvest flesh like data, every victim numbered, never mourned.
The law kneels at wealth's altar and sanctifies the lies,
While Congress skims the manifest and asks who climbed aboard.

They dream of outliving empire in a bunker's private sun.
The world below turns feral as the safety nets collapse.
One falls—we call it justice, say our ritual is done.
But new wolves cut their teeth in shadow while their patrons softly clap.

Injured while training ahead of Round 6 of AMA Supercross Championship in Seattle.   Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing rider RJ Hampshire has been sidelined with a foot injury sustained while training ahead of Round 6 of the 2026 AMA Supercross Championship in Seattle this weekend.   Hampshire - who sat out Glendale due to illness - fractured his foot in a training crash this week at Baker's Factory in Florida, unfortunately ruling him out of upcoming rounds in the SMX World Championship.   "It's never good to get a mid-morning phone call from Baker's Factory on a ride day," said Nathan Ramsey, Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing Team Manager. "Unfortunately, RJ had a crash and the handlebars caught his foot in just the wrong way, resulting in a fracture. Our focus now is on the best path forward to get RJ healthy and back racing as soon as possible."   In his first full season of 450SX competition onboard the Husqvarna FC 450 Factory Edition, Hampshire's best result to date is ninth place at Anaheim 2. Further updates on his recovery timeline will be announced once available.

The post Supercross: RJ Hampshire Ruled Out After Foot Injury appeared first on Roadracing World Magazine | Motorcycle Riding, Racing & Tech News.

A closer look at the planets around a star called LHS 1903 may just flip our understanding of how planetary systems form.

Just ahead of Valentine's Day, Score wants to be more inclusive.

Despite the pathetic lack of accountability, the Epstein files changed the calculus. What used to be dismissed as a niche conspiracy theory turned out to be a global system of trafficking involving people at the top. When a secret that large is proven true, the "mad" theories start to look plausible. What other huge lies are we being told? What else exists behind the curtain?

We see a pattern now. A group of powerful people shape the world to fit their needs. They tell the public to "move on" while they build doomsday bunkers in remote locations, private security forces, and tech replacements for human labor.

The amazing thing is they are building all this right in the open, and we're like, "nah, they cant really be planning for half of us to die, are they?"

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This started about a century ago. When the Great Depression hit in 1929 there were some hard hitting films. In 1930 the Motion Picture Production (Hays) Code was introduced. It was not really followed or enforced until 1934.

I thought old movies were a sign of some creepy puritan way of life, but it a code forced upon the creative folks. It's like history has been unveiled for me after watching a couple of these movies - I quite liked Five Star Final by Mervyn LeRoy. The ending was quite relevant to our current times.

The word czar is being used again. A sad little man wants to make Hollywood great again. There are puritan laws being put in place, or are simmering. I hope I live long enough to see some better parts of history rhyme.

Here are a couple of articles talking about Pre-Code films:

As a result, some films in the late 1920s and early 1930s depicted or implied sexual innuendo, romantic and sexual relationships between white and black people, mild profanity, illegal drug use, promiscuity, prostitution, infidelity, abortion, intense violence, and homosexuality. Nefarious characters were seen to profit from their deeds, in some cases without significant repercussions. For example, gangsters in films such as The Public Enemy, Little Caesar, and Scarface were seen by many as heroic rather than evil. Strong female characters were ubiquitous in such pre-Code films as Female, Baby Face and Red-Headed Woman, among many others, which featured independent, sexually liberated women.[1][2] Many of Hollywood's biggest stars, such as Clark Gable, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, and Edward G. Robinson, got their start in the era.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Code_Hollywood

Once the Code took hold, criminals had to be punished. Sex had to be implied, not shown. Topics like abortion, drug use, and interracial romance were completely removed.

https://filmdaft.com/what-is-pre%E2%80%91code-hollywood-meaning-history-film-examples/

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Submission Statement: This video presents a novel way of understanding just how bloody complicated the Metacrisis is. Although it is titled with NZ, you can comfortably ignore that detail as most of the content relates to the global predicament. The graphic in this has been designed to try and capture as many of the issues we face, including about 60 topics ranging from "Finite Planet", "Psychological Drivers", "Deforestation", "Ice Melt", "Food Insecurity", "Civil Unrest", "Resource Depletion", "Health Problems", "Pollution", "Insect Decline" and so on. I think the video provides a pretty good introduction to the Metacrisis/Collapse/what-have-you, and then goes on to present a number of horrifying statistics, facts and figures highlighting the state of the planet, and showing how different factors and drivers inter-relate, all while using the graphic to illustrate this. Although it's from 2024, if you just imagine that things have only gotten worse since then, you'll be fine... oh wait you don't have to imagine that! If nothing else it does provide a good baseline for comparison so we can see how bad things are now, vs how bad they were back then. Here's a backup link to the video in the event of other technical issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEIm8gfExJ8

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma premieres August 7

Republican lawmakers dumped the problem in the White House's lap and left the Capitol as a midnight deadline for DHS funding looms. Their weeklong recess abandons the standoff over ICE and leaves it to White House negotiators and Democratic lawmakers to solve. — Read the rest

The post Republicans jet off as DHS runs out of money appeared first on Boing Boing.

The International Olympic Committee is under fire for selling a men's T-shirt commemorating the 1936 Berlin Olympics, hosted by Hitler.

The shirt, featuring the original Berlin 1936 poster art, showed up on the Olympics website with the kind of bland "celebrate humanity" framing that only works if you aggressively forget what a celebration of humanity Berlin 1936 was. — Read the rest

The post IOC adds Nazi-era Berlin Games to "Heritage Collection" appeared first on Boing Boing.

Dexter Sol Ansell, who plays Egg on 'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,' shared some surprising insider info about main characters' futures.

All the joy (and frustration) of 1983 at your fingertips!

Meta reportedly hopes a 'dynamic political environment' will let them get away with a new surveillance network.

The company said hackers downloaded "a limited number of files" after breaking into an employee's account. The hacking group ShinyHunters took responsibility for the breach.

AI companies have been hemorrhaging talent the past few weeks. Half of xAI's founding team has left the company — some on their own, others through "restructuring" — while OpenAI is facing its own shakeups, from the disbanding of its mission alignment team to the firing of a policy exec who opposed its "adult mode" feature.  Watch as TechCrunch's Equity podcast hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony […]

The Japanese sex toy maker said a hacker broke into an employee's inbox and stole customer names, email addresses, and correspondence, including order details and customer service inquiries.

The heady croak and sleazy spirit of YSL live on in a new track from buzzing Atlanta rap collective ØWay.

This Star Wars racing game looks like it has the right amount of sound effects, visuals, and dirty deeds to be a good time.

While slightly generic and not focused on the timeframe I enjoy most in Star Wars, this looks like it has enough Star Wars elements to be fun as a racing game, and fun as Star Wars. — Read the rest

The post "Now this is pod racing!" Star Wars: Galactic Racer coming soon appeared first on Boing Boing.

I have become obsessed with Solvej Balle's story of a woman trapped on a single day.

On the Calculation of Volume introduces us to Tara Selter, a woman living the classic Bill Murray Movie "Groundhog Day" but with no explanation or idea of how or why. — Read the rest

The post A phenomenal time travel story: On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) appeared first on Boing Boing.

Shortly after liftoff, an unusual plume shot out of one of the solid rocket boosters.

Right before Valentine's Day, too.