OpenAI is looking to populate its flagship chatbot with a host of new user experiences.

edit

As of version 1.14.3 I have also introduced XChaCha20 encryption (used as default) to allow both symmetric and asymmetric encryption types.

Hi all!

Just wanted to give an update as it's been about two months since the last post I made about Jotty - see it here

We are approaching end of year and I just want to thank this amazing community for the huge support I have received, it has sincerely given me an amazing escape from a lot of shit stuff I had going on in my life (and still, unfortunately, do).

For anyone not knowing about Jotty, the tl;dr is this little snippet here from the readme:

A self-hosted app for your checklists, tasks and notes.

jotty·page is a lightweight alternative for managing your personal checklists and notes.
It's extremely easy to deploy, keeps all your data on your own server with your own file
structure (no databases!) and allows you to encrypt/decrypt your notes for your personal
peace of mind.

Last thing I want is people thinking this post is AI, so I won't give a full on sales pitch, but a bit of context is always needed I suppose lol

You can read about it more on the repo: https://github.com/fccview/jotty
And here's the website with the demo in case you want to play around with it before installing it: https://jotty.page/

Anyhow, PGP encryption has been a much requested feature, for a few months actually, but I didn't want to rush something as delicate as that, so I took my time and I think it's working pretty neatly, passphrase is never stored on the server, private/public key can be generated straight from Jotty or you can import your own/mount them from whatever folder you want on your system on read only.

There's also a ton of new features since the last post two months ago, but this is the one I'm the most excited about.

Let me know what you all think about the feature and Jotty in general and I'll see you in the comments <3

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43886867

Web archive link

After the mass shooting of Hanukkah celebrants on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, the Kremlin-linked disinformation network known as “Matryoshka” has been promoting claims of an alleged “Ukrainian trail” and frightening Europeans with threats of new terrorist attacks. The watchdog Bot Blocker project (@antibot4navalny), which has been monitoring the network, shared its findings with The Insider.

One video circulating on Twitter (X) and Bluesky is disguised as content produced by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). It claims that experts found markings on the shotguns used by the attackers in Sydney that are supposedly applied to weapons delivered to Ukraine. The video falsely claims that Ukraine has become the “largest source of weapons for the black market.”

...

Another video, produced in English, uses the symbolism of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst). It begins with real information about planned terrorist attacks in German cities during the Christmas holidays, then mentions the shooting on the Australian beach — while claiming the perpetrators were connected to “representatives of Ukraine.” The video contains an error revealing poor fact-checking: it states that both shooters in Australia were killed, whereas only one was shot dead, while the second was wounded and detained. A similar video following the same template includes French subtitles and the symbols of French government agencies.

...

The bots are also spreading images of alarming graffiti that, supposedly, appeared in Berlin. The images depict a Christmas tree with a time bomb beneath it, as well as the date 25.12.2025. One of the posts, posing as an Instagram story from the BBC, read “Graffiti warning of a terrorist attack appeared in three boroughs of Berlin.”

...

The attack in Sydney took place on Sunday, Dec. 14, the first day of Hanukkah. The attackers opened fire on people gathered on Bondi Beach for an event organized by the Chabad movement. Fifteen people were killed and several dozen were wounded. According to police, the shooting was carried out by 50-year-old Sajid Akram, who was shot dead at the scene, and his 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram, who was wounded and is currently hospitalized. Flags of the terrorist organization Islamic State were found in their vehicle.

...

Follow Zelda’s journey back in time as she meets Rauru and Sonia, the first king and queen of Hyrule, and experience the canonical events that lead to the Imprisoning War against the Demon King Ganondorf from the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom game.

Zelda meets new allies along the way, including Agraston, the worldly Goron chief, Qia, the skilled fighter and Zora queen, Raphica, the quick-witted leader of the Rito, and Ardi, a compassionate leader among the Gerudo. You’ll also meet a Korok named Calamo who travels with the Mysterious Construct that can transform and take to the skies.

Free updates for the game are now available that include fearsome enemies, a new sync strike with Zelda and Calamo, three additional weapons, an extra challenging difficulty level, and more.

Plus, you can receive in-game bonus items if you have save data from the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity games on your Nintendo Switch 2.

Ver. 1.0.3 (Released 18 December 2025)

Features added

Phantom Ganon:

• Phantom Ganon is a new feature that randomly triggers in battles that you have completed.
• In addition, when you defeat powerful enemies, there is a possibility that Phantom Ganon may appear. You will be able to acquire more Pure Zonaite Steel than in normal battles.

Forbidden Difficulty:

• In the new Forbidden difficulty level, you can experience high-difficulty battles that are more challenging than the battles in Very Hard difficulty.
• If you complete a certain number of battles on Forbidden difficulty, you will receive special rewards such as Pure Zonaite Steel or an increase in the number of Special Rations that can be held.

New challenges and quests added:

• Similar to the first free update, this second update also adds multiple new challenges and quests to the Hyrule Map after the main game has been beaten.
• Lizalfos and Chuchus appear as new Vicious Enemies.
• The Tanagar Meditation Hall on the sky island is unlocked, and you will be able to perform a sync strike if you enter with two characters.

New Unique Skills added:

• New unique skills have been added to the Mysterious Construct for its one-handed weapons, two-handed weapons, and spears.
• With the one-handed weapon unique skill Shield Charge, you can break through dangerous attacks from charging enemies by raising your shield and stepping into them. Also, with correct timing against an enemy attack, you can deal a powerful spinning slash.
• You can learn these skills by completing the challenges and quests that are added in this update.

New weapons added:

*The Forbidden Blade, a one-handed weapon that was touched by Gloom and ominously transformed, was added. The Mysterious Construct and warriors of various peoples are able to equip it.

• You can acquire this weapon by completing battles that are added in this update.
• The battles below will be added as well:
  • Battles focused on the warriors.
  • A life-or-death struggle with a certain powerful enemy.

Improved Features

• Aside Quests that involve sync strikes as a condition have been changed so that they can also be achieved by characters you are not controlling while performing sync strikes.
• You can back out of bonus conversations in the Gallery with B Button.
• Adjusted display conditions and frequency in Tutorials for Dodge and Guard.
• When you have hit the upper limit of Zonaite Steel you can possess, you will be able to use the weapon enhancements below at the end of combat:
  • Raise Weapon-Level Limit
  • Remove Seals

Fixed Issues

• Fixed an issue where, when assigning Electric Lizalfos parts to the Material Sensor, a battle in which Electric Lizalfos don’t appear (“Terror of the Sands”) could be tracked.
• Fixed an issue where the Challenge “A Flash of Steel in the Desert“ would not appear until a number of other battles had been completed, even after all displayed requisite battles had been completed.
• Fixed an issue where, during two-player split-screen play, the second player’s attack sounds and other sounds could not be heard.
• Fixed an issue where, when assigning necessary materials to the Material Sensor (Assign to Sensor in Unlock Weapon Arts) a player would only be able to remove them from the sensor via the Materials screen.

Summit divided on idea of loan secured against Russian assets, as Belgium seeks guarantees if scheme goes wrong

EU leaders are racing to secure a funding deal for Ukraine that has been cast as a choice between “money today or blood tomorrow”, but Belgium continues to oppose a loan secured against Russia’s frozen assets.

At a summit billed as make or break, EU leaders are discussing an unprecedented move to tap some of Russia’s €210bn sovereign assets frozen in the bloc days after the full-scale invasion of 2022.

Under the scheme, the EU would provide Kyiv with a €90bn loan to help keep Ukraine in the fight, as Russia ekes out gains on the battlefields.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said leaders had a simple choice: “Either money today or blood tomorrow.”

In honor of the great RAM ~~price gouging~~ shortage of 2025-2026, this release cuts the memory usage of VoidAuth in half! I noticed that my own instance was pretty thicc at nearly 300MB of memory usage after stabilizing and not doing anything, so decided to do some trimming and optimization.

(Un)Scientific Results:

• RAM Usage: 280MB -> 150MB
• Image Size: 660MB -> 360MB

This release also brings better support for public OIDC Clients, but more testing is likely needed to catch edge cases so if something isn't working let me know. Thank you everyone for your engagement and support, I am feeling the love as this project crosses past 1000 stars 🥳. If you are interested, please try it out!

Here are the Release Notes:

What's Changed

Features 🚀

• Reduce Image Size and Memory Usage
• Better support for Public OIDC Clients
• Allow Native OIDC Clients Non-Reversed-Domain Schemes

Fixes 🔧

• Fixed Issue That Could Cause Stuck Loading Spinner While Prompting to Create Passkey

Docs 📖

• Docs: add Memos SSO configuration instructions in OIDC guides and fix a typo by @FrostWalk

And a bonus meme:

Web archive link

After the mass shooting of Hanukkah celebrants on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, the Kremlin-linked disinformation network known as “Matryoshka” has been promoting claims of an alleged “Ukrainian trail” and frightening Europeans with threats of new terrorist attacks. The watchdog Bot Blocker project (@antibot4navalny), which has been monitoring the network, shared its findings with The Insider.

One video circulating on Twitter (X) and Bluesky is disguised as content produced by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). It claims that experts found markings on the shotguns used by the attackers in Sydney that are supposedly applied to weapons delivered to Ukraine. The video falsely claims that Ukraine has become the “largest source of weapons for the black market.”

...

Another video, produced in English, uses the symbolism of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst). It begins with real information about planned terrorist attacks in German cities during the Christmas holidays, then mentions the shooting on the Australian beach — while claiming the perpetrators were connected to “representatives of Ukraine.” The video contains an error revealing poor fact-checking: it states that both shooters in Australia were killed, whereas only one was shot dead, while the second was wounded and detained. A similar video following the same template includes French subtitles and the symbols of French government agencies.

...

The bots are also spreading images of alarming graffiti that, supposedly, appeared in Berlin. The images depict a Christmas tree with a time bomb beneath it, as well as the date 25.12.2025. One of the posts, posing as an Instagram story from the BBC, read “Graffiti warning of a terrorist attack appeared in three boroughs of Berlin.”

...

The attack in Sydney took place on Sunday, Dec. 14, the first day of Hanukkah. The attackers opened fire on people gathered on Bondi Beach for an event organized by the Chabad movement. Fifteen people were killed and several dozen were wounded. According to police, the shooting was carried out by 50-year-old Sajid Akram, who was shot dead at the scene, and his 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram, who was wounded and is currently hospitalized. Flags of the terrorist organization Islamic State were found in their vehicle.

...

United States President Donald Trump is getting into the fusion power business through a $6bn merger of his social media firm and Google-backed TAE Technologies, just days after industry representatives urged federal funding.
The all-stock deal, announced on Thursday, is an ambitious bet on the power boom spurred by artificial intelligence (AI) data centres and adds to the Trump family’s growing roster of diverse ventures from cryptocurrency to real estate holdings and mobile services.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43885237

Op-ed by Boris Bondarev, former Russian diplomat who resigned in protest of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Web archive link

The Belarusian authorities have released 123 political prisoners following negotiations with the United States. From a humanitarian standpoint, this decision can only be welcomed: every drop of freedom regained is meaningful. Yet these releases did not occur in a vacuum and were accompanied by the relaxation sanctions on the regime.

Though the deal did not lift all sanctions, the exemptions and waivers granted reopened access to critically important export revenues. What we are therefore dealing with is not a humanitarian gesture, but a transactional bargain with long-term strategic consequences.

...

From a human perspective, freeing political prisoners is an unmitigated good. But in politics, the mechanism matters as much as the outcome.

...

Make no mistake, striving to free political prisoners is a moral imperative. But it cannot be the ultimate goal of policy. Political prisoners are a symptom of the disease — the repressive dictatorial regime — and dismantling that regime must be the primary strategic task. Policymakers must aim to make the very phenomenon of political prisoners disappear from reality. Not by offering palliative care, but by curing the disease itself.

[Edit typo.]

Op-ed by Boris Bondarev, former Russian diplomat who resigned in protest of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Web archive link

The Belarusian authorities have released 123 political prisoners following negotiations with the United States. From a humanitarian standpoint, this decision can only be welcomed: every drop of freedom regained is meaningful. Yet these releases did not occur in a vacuum and were accompanied by the relaxation sanctions on the regime.

Though the deal did not lift all sanctions, the exemptions and waivers granted reopened access to critically important export revenues. What we are therefore dealing with is not a humanitarian gesture, but a transactional bargain with long-term strategic consequences.

...

From a human perspective, freeing political prisoners is an unmitigated good. But in politics, the mechanism matters as much as the outcome.

...

Make no mistake, striving to free political prisoners is a moral imperative. But it cannot be the ultimate goal of policy. Political prisoners are a symptom of the disease — the repressive dictatorial regime — and dismantling that regime must be the primary strategic task. Policymakers must aim to make the very phenomenon of political prisoners disappear from reality. Not by offering palliative care, but by curing the disease itself.

[Edit typo.]

The G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and the High Representative of the European Union, condemn the prosecution of Jimmy Lai under the National Security Law (NSL) in Hong Kong that has led to his guilty verdict on December 15, 2025.

The group calls on the Hong Kong authorities to end such prosecutions and to release Jimmy Lai immediately.

In a written statement, the EU calls Jimmy Lai's prosecution "politically motivated and emblematic of the erosion of democracy and fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a company that makes “AI agents” to rapidly track down targets. The company claims the “skip tracing” AI agents help agencies find people of interest and map out their family and other associates more quickly. According to the procurement records, the company’s services were specifically for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), the part of ICE that identifies, arrests, and deports people.

The contract comes as ICE is spending millions of dollars, and plans to spend tens of millions more, on skip tracing services more broadly. The practice involves ICE paying bounty hunters to use digital tools and physically stalk immigrants to verify their addresses, then report that information to ICE so the agency can act.

Archive: http://archive.today/ouG5k

.

I propose that late great american soul music legend Barry White be given full control of CBS news. Yes we would have to resurrect him, but this is the space age and with Peter Theil, all things are possible.

I know many of our younger folks may not know who this is. Thats OK. No one knew who Bari Weiss was six months ago.

Hear me out, i know how popular Bari Weiss is here but this is a free speech forum.

Advantages

• better music for.laying pipe in 1977

• similar sounding names

• aerodynamic

• cooler lines

• not a Zionist shill

Disadvantages

• none

Across the US this year, farmers have seen costs soar and the price of their produce tumble as Donald Trump’s flagship tariffs sparked a trade war with China.

American farmers, who voted en masse for Trump last year, are now warning of the worst economic crisis since the 1980s, when soaring interest rates and a slump in exports saw the price of crops and the value of farmland collapse. About 300,000 farmers defaulted on their loans and thousands were driven into bankruptcy.

“We spent a hell lot of time in China building relationships, building those markets,” he said. “And then you basically piss it all away, to be blunt.”

https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2Fstory%2Fopenai-chief-communications-officer-hannah-wong-leaves

“Hannah has played a defining role in shaping how people understand OpenAI and the work we do,” said CEO Sam Altman and CEO of applications Fidji Simo in a joint statement. “She has an extraordinary ability to bring clarity to complex ideas, and to do it with care and grace. We’re deeply grateful for her leadership and partnership these last five years, and we wish her the very best.”

Wong joined OpenAI in 2021 when it was a relatively small research lab and has led the company’s communications team as ChatGPT has grown into one of the world’s largest consumer products. She was considered instrumental in leading the company through the PR crisis that was Altman’s brief ouster and rehiring in 2023—a period the company internally calls “the blip.” Wong assumed the chief communications officer role in August 2024 and has expanded the company’s communications team since then.

In a drafted LinkedIn post shared with WIRED, Wong said that OpenAI’s VP of communications, Lindsey Held, will lead the company’s communications team until a new chief communications officer is hired. OpenAI’s chief marketing officer, Kate Rouch, is leading the search for Wong’s replacement. Got a Tip? Are you a current or former AI worker who wants to talk about what's happening? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporter securely on Signal at mzeff.88.

“These years have been intense and deeply formative,” said Wong in the LinkedIn post. “I’m grateful I got to help tell OpenAI’s story, introduce ChatGPT and other incredible products to the world, and share more about the people forging the path to AGI during an extraordinary moment of growth and momentum.”

Wong says she looks forward to spending more time with her husband and kids as she figures out the next chapter in her career.

Update: 12/15/2025, 7:30 pm EDT: WIRED has clarified Kate Rouch’s title.

On Wednesday, MEPs endorsed a European citizens’ initiative to improve access to abortion care for women in Europe through a voluntary opt-in financial solidarity mechanism.