Critics say Washington should walk away from a $210 million contract for Israeli-made weapons

The Post Guild’s data is the latest example in the years-long unraveling of the news industry’s promises to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion after George Floyd’s killing and the ensuing “racial reckoning” of 2020.

Recent reporting by Nieman Lab describes how some major news organizations—including The Guardian, The New York Times, and Reddit—are limiting or blocking access to their content in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. As stated in the article, these organizations are blocking access largely out of concern that generative AI companies are using the Wayback Machine as a backdoor for large-scale scraping.

These concerns are understandable, but unfounded. The Wayback Machine is not intended to be a backdoor for large-scale commercial scraping and, like others on the web today, we expend significant time and effort working to prevent such abuse. Whatever legitimate concerns people may have about generative AI, libraries are not the problem, and blocking access to web archives is not the solution; doing so risks serious harm to the public record.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/51028841

Archived

[...]

Last November, Takaichi publicly referenced contingency planning related to Taiwan, stating that ‘peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait are directly linked to Japan’s security’ and that Tokyo ‘cannot rule out preparing for contingencies that affect our national survival’. Beijing treated the remarks as a direct violation of its red lines under its one-China principle.

What followed was a highly visible pressure campaign deploying the same mix of coercive tactics that Beijing has used against Japan, Taiwan and other countries for years.

[...]

This escalation was not an isolated reaction. Rather, it reflects a broader surge in Beijing’s public criticism of foreign governments over Taiwan. Coercion data compiled throughout 2025 for ASPI’s State of the Strait—a weekly newsletter tracking Beijing’s coercion of Taiwan—shows that China publicly criticised other countries 197 times for engaging with Taiwan-related issues, up from just 50 incidents in 2024. The United States remained the primary target, but Japan’s rise was dramatic. Tokyo went from just one public criticism in 2024 to 53 in 2025—a 5,200 percent increase—making it the second most criticised country.

The shift is most evident in how aggressively Beijing invoked the one-China principle. In 2025, alleged violations of the principle accounted for 143 public criticism incidents, up from just 24 in 2024—Japan alone accounted for 46 of these. While criticism over meetings with Taiwanese officials (32, up from 11) and arms sales (13, up from 3) also rose, they were dwarfed by the surge in one-China allegations. The data suggests Beijing is applying the principle more expansively, using it as a catch-all justification to police a widening range of foreign rhetoric and engagement related to Taiwan.

[...]

In the case of Japan, Beijing’s denunciation quickly shifted to economic coercion. It issued travel advisories, disrupted trade flows through informal restrictions and suspended bilateral exchanges. The measures were calibrated to be visible but deniable—classic boycott-style coercion designed to impose short-term pain without triggering formal trade disputes.

[...]

That retreat never came. Japanese officials declined to retract Takaichi’s remarks. Instead, they reiterated that contingency planning regarding Taiwan is consistent with Japan’s constitutional and security framework. There was no apology, no reframing and no policy concession.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/40591627

SOON I will have a PIGEON ARMY

Yeah, for the price I was hoping for more. I mean I had a few cool things, like 2 spring loaded flaps to center the switch in the unit. Oh and its new legs are technically compatible with the original Virtual Boy.

But man are the screens and software a mess. The switch is too close for the UI to be fully visible without moving your head, especially with the Red lenses. Plus the screen door effect is so bad here that it reminds me of the first gen Oculus Rift.

It actually made me want to go back to the original VB, but with its decaying 30+ year old displays. Technically the VB wins this one by default.

Wait it also requires an 80/year NSO + Expansion Pass and Knuckles Championship Edition subscription. Which has to be payed yearly.

Honestly it might be cheaper in the long run to buy the original system. Even with the price of Jack Bros.

In Abilene, about 200 miles west of Dallas, Natura Resources is building the nation’s first advanced liquid-fuel research reactor in nearly 40 years. The project is housed at Abilene Christian University, where a $25 million research facility was completed in September 2023.

Natura has raised $120 million in private funding and received another $120 million from the Legislature.

Natura’s technology uses molten salt as both fuel and coolant — a design last tested at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s. The company is first building a 1-megawatt research reactor in Abilene, intended to demonstrate to regulators and investors that the technology works and is safe.

...

Aalo Atomics is taking a different approach. The startup, founded by Canadian-born engineer Matt Loszak and based in Austin, is designing a sodium-cooled fast reactor, a technology that uses solid fuel, like conventional nuclear plants, built specifically for factory mass production.

Each unit would produce 10 megawatts, enough to power roughly 6,000 to 7,000 homes in Texas, and the reactors will be sized to fit on a standard truck. Aalo’s commercial model would consist of five of these units, totaling 50 megawatts.

Loszak said the company plans to activate its first 10 megawatt test reactor within about five months, after completing prototype testing at the end of December, as part of its effort to move toward commercial deployment.

A recording from Pablo Manríquez's live video

Hi all, I’m relatively new to this whole self-hosting thing and I have been loving it. I have several instances setup on my Debian server except for an audiobooks one. My wife loves audiobooks and asked me a way she can get audiobooks on the fly. I have searched online and found many.

Audiobookshelf is the most recommended one, but I don’t really know much about it beside what I read. Most of it I didn’t understand since I’ve never set up anything like that before. I don’t know the technical details on audiobooks like I do on music for example. So I’m not sure. Audiobookshelf has an app for iOS in test flight but its beta is full. And every client for it has an “in-app purchase” tag and I’m not sure what they hide behind a paywall. I’ve also read that Navidrome (which I already have set up on the sever) works, too but it needs to be “tagged” correctly. I’m not sure how to and what to use to tag audiobooks. I use kid3 for music, would it work for books, too?

I don’t want to commit and go through the whole setup then end up hitting roadblocks. So any info would be very much appreciated.

Thank you all.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is suing Coles in a lawsuit described as "the case of the century" by a former ACCC boss.

Yesterday, the ACCC accused Coles of a "planned" campaign to mislead customers with fake or "illusory" discounts on hundreds of common household items from dog food to yoghurt and bottles of Coke.

The consumer watchdog claims the supermarket giant jacked up prices for a short time before cutting them and including items in the "Down Down" promotion.

It claims the "Down Down" price was actually more than, or the same as, the regular price.

In evidence this morning the judge overseeing the case, Justice Michael O'Bryan, asked Coles to explain what it was telling customers with its prominent marketing campaign, featuring giant red hands pointing down.

"It's really asking a bigger question about what ordinary consumers understand about the Down Down program," Justice O'Bryan said.

"I don't know if I've seen a statement from Coles which directly answers that question."

In response, legal counsel for Coles John Sheahan KC said: "In terms of what consumers would take from the advertising campaigns and the red hand — not much."

"It's an indication that Coles is trying to keep prices low," he said.

Justice O'Bryan probed further, asking if Coles would accept that "Down Down" was a promotion and showed a discount.

"Yes," Mr Sheahan responded.

Looks like there's going to be another wide-spread outage

[Mace Windu gets killed by Xi who's Palpatine]

Or is it just my home? My wife's phone, my phone, the TV....

I can watch videos posted here, but I can't scroll through any other videos.

The East African country is making use of cheap hydropower and Chinese electric vehicles to ditch the internal combustion engine.

Shorter version: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OnXBDts8nbs

Europe Correspondent Saskia Dekkers Spoke With Gerald Knaus, Architect of 2016 Turkey Deal who Warns of Failure in Europe’s Migration Pact, he says it could trigger the ultra right to demand an ICE-like force