https://archive.is/vRG0P

edit: get the script for yourself here https://codeberg.org/CritBase111/Comicify

Someone sent me the comic you see attached to the post, and I thought, hey, that seems like something you could automate. Put 4 images in a folder, run a script, and it automatically lays them out in a 2x2 grid.

With Crush and deepseek it basically writes itself. I'm actually kinda surprised at how well it's doing. There was just one bug that I sent to Claude to fix.

I'm putting the examples in an imgur link because they're still quite heavy on disk space and I don't want to overwhelm the server: https://imgur.com/a/bTiHV4b (yes the pictures make it kinda hard to understand but I'll try to make a real comic with it eventually)

It's difficult to get other people hyped about a work in progress lol but hopefully this makes sense.

It's a python script and this is how you'd run it:

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --folder FOLDER       Path to folder containing comic panels
  --panels {1,2,3,4}    Number of panels to arrange (1-4). Not required when using --all
  --gutter GUTTER       Gutter size between panels in pixels (default: 15)
  --border BORDER       Border size around panels in pixels (default: 0)
  --border-color BORDER_COLOR
                        Border color (CSS color name or hex code, default: black)
  --gutter-color GUTTER_COLOR
                        Background/gutter color (CSS color name, hex code, or "transparent"|"none", default: white)
  --margin MARGIN       Margin multiplier relative to gutter size (default: 2.0, meaning 2x gutter)
  --layout {horizontal,vertical,h,v}
                        Layout direction for 2 and 3-panel comics (default: horizontal). Use "h" or "v" as shorthand.
                        For 4-panel, use "h" or "v" for linear layouts, omit for 2x2 grid.
  --all                 Generate all possible combinations (1, 2, 3, 4 panels with all layouts)

Examples:
  python Comicify.py --folder "Comics/My first comic" --panels 4
  python Comicify.py --folder "Comics/My first comic" --panels 4 --gutter 20
  python Comicify.py --folder "Comics/My first comic" --panels 4 --layout h
  python Comicify.py --folder "Comics/My first comic" --panels 2 --layout v
  python Comicify.py --folder "Comics/My first comic" --all
  python Comicify.py --folder "Comics/My first comic" --panels 3 --gutter-color none

If this doesn't speak to you basically you would download the .py file, and run one of the examples above. The --all flag makes all possible outputs (1, 2, 3 or 4 panel in all layouts). I also plan on adding "--reverse" to handle right-to-left order. you can see the examples in the imgur link, I included the sample code for some of them.

Deepseek wrote all of this, and it only costs like... a dollar or so. It's not the best at coding but it's so, so cheap that I fear I may spend all my savings on it lol. I didn't write a single line of code, just told it what I wanted (with more or less details) and it got it right on the first try. Now I'm just adding new functionalities to it.

I think one HUGE thing with LLM coding is it can go beyond what you know, so even if you can code it can do things you wouldn't necessarily do or know about.

I think this has uses for agitprop, if you want to make quick memes in a comic format for online or offline use. This is just one part of potentially a much bigger pipeline - I was thinking of having a simple gui afterwards you can send the output to, where you can add speech bubble stickers and write into them too, or like for one panel comics just write under it. Also with LLMs you can easily transpose this code to use javascript instead, or whatever else you want.

Oh if you send me a few pictures to comicify I can run them and show you the results. Script will not be available for download until it's fully ready.

Archived version

The chairman of a top British university failed to declare a role advising the pro-Beijing leader of Hong Kong.

Victor Chu, a senior businessman born in China, is chair of council at University College London (UCL) and oversees the institution’s leadership and strategic direction.

Mr Chu is also a member of a “high-level advisory body” to John Lee, the chief executive of Hong Kong criticised for repressing pro-democracy campaigners on behalf of Beijing.

The role at the Chief Executive’s Council of Advisers (CECA) was not disclosed on UCL’s register of interests.

Prof Michelle Shipworth, an academic at the university who last year accused it of silencing her over criticism of China, said: “I was deeply disturbed when I discovered that the head of UCL sits on the Hong Kong government’s Council of Advisers.

“This is a regime that criminalises dissent, even from overseas. UCL’s many Chinese and Hong Kong students are especially at risk. His role is impossible to square with UCL’s duty to protect them and uphold free speech.”

It comes amid widespread concerns about Chinese influence at British universities and the Government’s failure to act on the issue.

...

UCL currently has around 1,300 students from Hong Kong – the largest number of any university in Britain. It is also home to the highest number of Chinese students at a UK university, with around 13,500 enrolled last year – making up around a quarter of its students.

...

Mr Chu, who lives in Hong Kong, became UCL’s chairman in 2019.

...

He was appointed to the CECA in 2023, the same year it was established to act as a “high-level advisory body” to Mr Lee.

Although his UCL register of interests includes 48 other positions, the CECA role is not mentioned.

All UCL council members are required to declare any potential conflicts of interest, and senior staff must not “put themselves under any obligation, financial or otherwise, to other individuals or organisations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their duties”.

...

Prof Shipworth said that his failure to disclose the CECA position “could be perceived as insufficiently robust to [Chinese] pressures” given the “increasingly illiberal and punitive nature” of the region’s leadership.

Mr Lee is widely regarded as pro-Beijing and has pushed Hong Kong closer to Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, since taking office in 2022.

A former senior police officer, his tenure as the territory’s secretary of security included the implementation of a highly controversial national security law in the city in 2020.

This handed China sweeping powers over Hong Kong and effectively banned pro-democracy protests in the territory. It has also been used to jail government critics, including Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

Mr Lee beefed up the legislation after becoming Hong Kong leader, introducing a new security law last year called Article 23, which allows for closed-door trials and hands the police the right to detain suspects for up to 16 days without charge.

Critics have warned it will further erode civil liberties in Hong Kong, with Human Rights Watch, a global campaign group, saying the measures would push the region “into a new era of authoritarianism”.

...

Academics told The Telegraph they were concerned about Mr Chu’s undeclared role following allegations that UCL has stepped up efforts to woo China in recent years in order to cement a vital revenue stream.

Mr Chu hired Michael Spence as Provost of UCL in 2020, and the pair have since launched a major push to deepen ties with China.

The number of Chinese students at the university has more than doubled under their watch, and now makes up half of its foreign students – up from less than a third in 2019.

The Telegraph has seen multiple videos posted online by UCL of Dr Spence speaking in Mandarin, alongside offers of a “video chat with the provost” for pupils thinking of applying to the London university.

Dr Spence was previously the vice-chancellor at the University of Sydney from 2008 to 2020, where he faced criticism for his stance on China.

...

In short:

The CSIRO will slash up to 350 full-time equivalent jobs to address rising costs.

It comes on top of more than 800 positions being slashed in the past 18 months.

What's next?

The job losses will come from across the country, with no details about what positions are at risk.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/45918775

Archived

The Chinese Communist Party’s chief diplomat in Melbourne tried to get a think tank to shut down an appearance by journalist Cheng Lei, and invoked the China-Australia trade relationship in the process.

Chinese-born, Australian journalist Cheng Lei was locked up by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] in China for three years and two months. She was detained after the former Coalition government called for an inquiry into COVID and convicted in a sham trial for forwarding a fellow journalist an economic report before its public release.

[...] Lei [...] said the CCP was still trying to silence her, two years after being released from detention in China.

[...]

“They keep tabs on me,” Ms Cheng said. “For example, I know they tried to stop a talk that I was giving at the Australian Institute of International Affairs. This is the Melbourne consulate.”

Ms Cheng details her time in jail and the geopolitical storm in which she was caught in her recently released memoir, Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedom.

[...]

She said that while she remained angry at the time the CCP had deprived her of her freedom and time with her young daughter and son, she was using her unique position of safety in Australia to tell the world about how the Chinese government treats individuals and families.

“It’s a different standard of humanity, and that is something that’s totally missing from a lot of the coverage that we get on China just because a select few go through this and then they’re too scared to write about it afterwards,” she said.

“So I’m definitely using that freedom to their dismay, probably.”

Richard Iron, President of the Australian Institute of International Affairs Victorian branch, confirmed the Chinese had asked him to cancel Cheng Lei’s talk.

He said China’s Consul General Fang Xinwen had visited him in the morning on August 5, the day of Lei’s scheduled talk.

[...]

Mr Iron said the Consul-General told him that Cheng Lei had “a warped idea about China” and was a “convicted criminal”.

Mr Iron told The Nightly that he told Fang Xinwen in response that Australians wanted a good trading relationship with China and also desired friendship, but that: “They don’t like being spied on, they don’t like being intimidated, and they don’t like being bullied”.

The [Chinese] Consul-General was contacted for comment, but did not respond.

[...]

It is the second time that it is known that the Chinese have tried to cancel Cheng Lei from Australian public life.

In June last year, Chinese officials accompanying Chinese Premier Li Qiang on his visit to Canberra to meet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese tried to physically block Ms Cheng from camera view.

Ms Cheng was an anchor for China’s state-run English-language television station CGTN when she was arrested and accused of “illegally supplying state secrets overseas’’.

Since her release, she has returned to journalism, working for Sky News Australia and was attending a document signing ceremony between the Chinese Premier and Australian Prime Minister in that capacity.

The incident made global headlines.

[...]

Cheng Lei’s parents moved to Australia when she was aged 10 in the mid-1980s.

But she warned that technology was enabling the Chinese diaspora to live in its own bubble, in a way that was not possible in her parents’ day.

“It needs to be a two-way street of acceptance and integration, between the non-Chinese and the Chinese immigrants,” she said.

“I see the immigrant bubbles, and it’s not just the Chinese community because of technology, because of the number of certain diasporas, there’s less inclination to integrate into what might be called mainstream society that may not have been the case 20, 30 years ago.

“They use Chinese apps, go to Chinese restaurants, go back to China for holidays, and then they don’t really fully experience the benefits of a free society.

“People want the rights of democracy, but they don’t want the responsibilities.”

[...]

She said the “China cheerleaders” who only ever discuss the economic opportunities and China’s development had an obligation to present the other side.

“Because I lost so much and because I’ve already been in prison, I’m fearless, but so many people are fearful if they have assets or business relationships or family in China,” she said.

“And I can’t think of another major power that is so obsessed with restricting and controlling the diaspora overseas and has so many resources and uses them compared to other countries.

She added that the CCP’s control of its diaspora was having a corrosive effect on Australian democracy.

[...]

Archived

The Chinese Communist Party’s chief diplomat in Melbourne tried to get a think tank to shut down an appearance by journalist Cheng Lei, and invoked the China-Australia trade relationship in the process.

Chinese-born, Australian journalist Cheng Lei was locked up by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] in China for three years and two months. She was detained after the former Coalition government called for an inquiry into COVID and convicted in a sham trial for forwarding a fellow journalist an economic report before its public release.

[...] Lei [...] said the CCP was still trying to silence her, two years after being released from detention in China.

[...]

“They keep tabs on me,” Ms Cheng said. “For example, I know they tried to stop a talk that I was giving at the Australian Institute of International Affairs. This is the Melbourne consulate.”

Ms Cheng details her time in jail and the geopolitical storm in which she was caught in her recently released memoir, Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedom.

[...]

She said that while she remained angry at the time the CCP had deprived her of her freedom and time with her young daughter and son, she was using her unique position of safety in Australia to tell the world about how the Chinese government treats individuals and families.

“It’s a different standard of humanity, and that is something that’s totally missing from a lot of the coverage that we get on China just because a select few go through this and then they’re too scared to write about it afterwards,” she said.

“So I’m definitely using that freedom to their dismay, probably.”

Richard Iron, President of the Australian Institute of International Affairs Victorian branch, confirmed the Chinese had asked him to cancel Cheng Lei’s talk.

He said China’s Consul General Fang Xinwen had visited him in the morning on August 5, the day of Lei’s scheduled talk.

[...]

Mr Iron said the Consul-General told him that Cheng Lei had “a warped idea about China” and was a “convicted criminal”.

Mr Iron told The Nightly that he told Fang Xinwen in response that Australians wanted a good trading relationship with China and also desired friendship, but that: “They don’t like being spied on, they don’t like being intimidated, and they don’t like being bullied”.

The [Chinese] Consul-General was contacted for comment, but did not respond.

[...]

It is the second time that it is known that the Chinese have tried to cancel Cheng Lei from Australian public life.

In June last year, Chinese officials accompanying Chinese Premier Li Qiang on his visit to Canberra to meet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese tried to physically block Ms Cheng from camera view.

Ms Cheng was an anchor for China’s state-run English-language television station CGTN when she was arrested and accused of “illegally supplying state secrets overseas’’.

Since her release, she has returned to journalism, working for Sky News Australia and was attending a document signing ceremony between the Chinese Premier and Australian Prime Minister in that capacity.

The incident made global headlines.

[...]

Cheng Lei’s parents moved to Australia when she was aged 10 in the mid-1980s.

But she warned that technology was enabling the Chinese diaspora to live in its own bubble, in a way that was not possible in her parents’ day.

“It needs to be a two-way street of acceptance and integration, between the non-Chinese and the Chinese immigrants,” she said.

“I see the immigrant bubbles, and it’s not just the Chinese community because of technology, because of the number of certain diasporas, there’s less inclination to integrate into what might be called mainstream society that may not have been the case 20, 30 years ago.

“They use Chinese apps, go to Chinese restaurants, go back to China for holidays, and then they don’t really fully experience the benefits of a free society.

“People want the rights of democracy, but they don’t want the responsibilities.”

[...]

She said the “China cheerleaders” who only ever discuss the economic opportunities and China’s development had an obligation to present the other side.

“Because I lost so much and because I’ve already been in prison, I’m fearless, but so many people are fearful if they have assets or business relationships or family in China,” she said.

“And I can’t think of another major power that is so obsessed with restricting and controlling the diaspora overseas and has so many resources and uses them compared to other countries.

She added that the CCP’s control of its diaspora was having a corrosive effect on Australian democracy.

[...]

Following Drug Factory Raid, a Battle Royale Begins to Take Shape Between Haiti’s Viv Ansanm Coalition and the U.S.-Backed Regime

Commodore Floyd Moxey (left), Commander of the Royal Bahamas Defense Force, and Godfrey Otunge, Commander of the GSF, review Guatemalan GSF soldiers in their Port-au-Prince base on Nov. 14, 2025. Photo: GSF

Last week began with Joseph “Lanmò Sanjou” Wilson, leader of Croix-des-Bouquet’s armed group 400 Mawozo, announcing that his soldiers had raided an illegal drug factory just north of Port-au-Prince belonging to the prominent bourgeois Apaid family.

Although neither the Apaids nor the U.S.-installed Transitional Presidential Council (CPT) confirmed or denied Wilson’s account, one of Washington’s long-time Haitian assets did.

Stanley Lucas, the scion of big landowners (grandon) responsible for the infamous Jean-Rabel massacre in Haiti’s Northwest, who was the Haitian point man for the International Republican Institute (IRI) – a CIA cut-out agency – in the lead-up to the 2004 coup d’état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, took to the airwaves on Nov. 12 to argue that the plant did, in fact, belong to the Apaids (Lucas worked closely with Andy Apaid to carry out the 2004 coup) but was legal because it was growing “medical marijuana” for sale in the U.S.. Never mind that the cultivation and consumption of marijuana is completely illegal in Haiti.

Wilson’s raid revealed, and Lucas’ rationalization confirmed, what most poor Haitians have known and resented for decades: that Haiti’s fabulously rich bourgeoisie is above the law.

Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier (center), president and spokesman of the Viv Ansanm political party, walking with his soldiers in Lower Delmas. Photo: Vant Bèf Info

In retaliation, the Haitian National Police (PNH), the Armed Forces of Haiti (FAdH), and Washington’s newly contrived international Gang Suppression Force (GSF) launched a massive and unprecedented 15-hour retaliation on Nov. 14, ostensibly to punish Wilson’s group for their temerity in uncovering and then publicizing the Apaids’ criminal operation. For the whole joint operation, the authorities claimed to have killed “several” of Wilson’s soldiers and captured “a M50-caliber Barrett rifle, six assault rifles, and three pistols” plus “the gang’s armored bulldozer… which had been used to erect road barricades.” The bulldozer actually was shared with an armed group from the neighboring town of Canaan, which along with 400 Mawozo also belongs to the Viv Ansanm coalition, which has now formed itself into a political party.

U.S. Army veteran and YouTube commentator Rod Joseph cast doubt on the joint task force’s claim of killing “several” of Wilson’s soldiers. “All they showed were some guns, but they didn’t show any bodies,” he told a Haitian TikTok show.

Many Haitians suspected, however, that the real accomplishment, if not purpose, of the huge joint operation was to set fire to the Apaid factory compound and thereby get rid of all proof of cocaine production and human organ trafficking, which Wilson claimed to have uncovered.

In a Nov. 15 video message, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier asked Haitians to stay out of the streets because the Viv Ansanm was going to launch a counter-offensive to that of Haitian cops and foreign troops.

A helicopter used in the operation “was forced to make an emergency landing due to a mechanical malfunction,” according to the authorities, and the “elite team on board was immediately secured and evacuated by ground units, who came under heavy gang fire while conducting the rescue.” The helicopter was then burned by Viv Ansanm soldiers. One Viv Ansanm leader claimed that the helicopter was rented in the Dominican Republic and helped set fire to the Apaid factory “to destroy all the evidence… before the eyes of all the Haitian people.”

As the raid in Croix-des-Bouquets was underway, a high-level delegation from the Bahamas joined the GSF and PNH commanders in Port-au-Prince to “reiterate… [their] unwavering commitment to disrupting gang activity” and “restoring basic security,” vowing that “criminal groups will not be allowed to regain influence” and “will be pursued decisively; on land, at sea, and in the air,” according to their press release.

However, the intended show of force may have done the opposite as it underlined that the ballyhooed GSF is, at least to date, simply a name change for the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS), which ended after a dismal two-year run on Oct. 2. The GSF is still composed of the same small handful of nations – Kenya, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Belize, and Bahamas – and the latter’s emissaries, Commodore Floyd Moxey, Commander of the Royal Bahamas Defense Force, and Ms. Jerusa Ali, Ambassador-Director General of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, were decidedly underwhelming, particularly from a country with a population of only 400,000, smaller than most major Haitian cities.

The new PNH chief, Vladimir Paraison, put out a statement that also attempted to inspire confidence. “The police force, which I’m now directing, is no longer on the defensive,” he said. “We’re now on the offensive. No matter what happens, instead of waiting for them to come to me, they are now the ones who are going to be waiting for me. And I want you to know, that one way or another I will get to them, no matter what.”

Around midnight on Nov. 17, the PNH, which works closely with Erik Prince’s Vectus International mercenaries, used a drone to attack the community swimming pool in Delmas 6, the neighborhood of Viv Ansanm president and spokesman Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier. That night, the PNH massed 13 armored vehicles outside both Cherizier’s Lower Delmas neighborhoods and 13 more around Wilson’s in Croix-des-Bouquets, according to Cherizier.

GSF Commander Godfrey Otunge standing by an armored bulldozer captured from Viv Ansanm forces on Nov. 14, 2025. Photo: GSF

The attacks were likely in response to a statement Cherizier made on Nov. 15, which went viral on Haitian social media. “This message is addressed to the Haitian people in general,” he began. “Starting this Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, unless absolutely necessary, do not go out. All drivers’ unions, stay home. All public transport drivers, stay home […] We are announcing this without taking drastic measures, in order to inform the public about what will happen, to prevent them from becoming victims. Those who don’t need to, do not go out into the streets. Leave the streets to Viv Ansanm and the police so that we can confront them… If you ignore this and go out, we are not responsible for what might happen to you. The time has come, Haitian people, to unite to liberate this country.”

Indeed, on Nov. 17, the capital’s streets were largely empty, and gunfire was heard around the city, but no major battles took place. The same was true for Nov. 18, the 222nd anniversary of the Battle of Vertières, at which Napoleon’s French expeditionary force was defeated, resulting in Haiti’s Jan. 1, 1804 independence.

A heavily guarded CPT delegation scurried to the MUPANAH museum on the mostly deserted central Champ de Mars square to lay a wreath of flowers at the memorial, but afterwards gunfire crackled all around the area.

“Today, it is no longer government decisions that dictate daily life, but the pronouncements of the gangs,” wrote Jameson Joseph in Quotidien 509. “Every time they claim they want to ‘block the country,’ the capital empties. When they say ‘don’t go out,’ doors slam shut, and families lock themselves in their homes. Their words, whether spread through social media messages, rumors, or direct statements, have become a far more powerful warning signal than any government communication.”

Jacques Sauveur Jean, a famous Haitian singer-turned-politician-turned-gentleman-farmer added to the Viv Ansanm’s cachet when he praised Wilson’s raid on Apaid’s factory and later called for peace talks.

“We could resolve this problem with dialogue,” he said in the latter video. “Someone could say to me, Jacques, we’re going to observe a truce, whether Lanmò Sanjou, or Andy [Apaid], or Barbecue, or [South Department vigilante government commissioner Jean Ernest] Muscadin, we’ll give you 24 hours of truce where neither side fires on the other, the time to meet with each guy… That means dialogue.” Indeed, the Viv Ansanm has spent the past few months repeatedly calling for national dialogue.

Christ-Roi “Krisla” Chéry, a Viv Ansanm leader in Carrefour: “If we let this opportunity pass, we’ll have to wait for many, many years for another opportunity like this.”

A similar nod to Viv Ansanm came from Jeff Louis, a former soccer star from Mirebalais on the Haitian national team. Invoking the 1803 battle, he said “today is Nov. 18, 2025, where our selection is fighting for the 2026 World Cup qualification” against Honduras. “I would like to ask you, Viv Ansanm gentlemen, the time has come for us to think of the Haitian people, of those who are like us, of peace, so that we can live and celebrate the qualification of the national team together… Haiti is in a battle, grenadier alaso [revolutionary soldiers, charge!], long live Haiti, long live the revolution.” Indeed, there was no fighting or gunfire during the match which Haiti won, to everyone’s delight and celebration. Haiti had not qualified since the 1974 World Cup, so the victory is huge and symbolic.

But this moment was probably best captured Christ-Roi “Krisla” Chéry, the Viv Ansanm leader of the Ti Bois neighborhood in Port-au-Prince’s Carrefour, who just released on Nov. 15 a hit music video entitled “Nou we anba yo” (We see them below).

“For several years, the Haitian people have asked for Viv Ansanm to turn its weapons on the corrupt bourgeois and politicians,” he said in a Nov. 17 video message, which also revealed the national and psychic importance of Haiti’s Nov. 18 soccer match. “Today, that is being done… Lanmò Sanjou discovered the factory where they were making cocaine, marijuana, and human organ trafficking. Today, Haitian people, what are you going to do? Are you still going to stand and watch?

“If we let this opportunity pass, we’ll have to wait for many, many years for another opportunity like this,” Krisla continued. “The corrupt bourgeoisie have taken the nation hostage… They use the nation’s wealth and the state’s treasury to become rich… No black man can do any serious business in Haiti… Viv Ansanm is yours, Haitian people. Today, the Haitian people should mobilize to attack this system, the bourgeoisie’s and politicians’ corrupt system. I don’t think you can ever again argue that Viv Ansanm doesn’t attack the bourgeoisie…. even though we have attacked lots of bourgeois already, but you didn’t say anything… Haitian people, open your eyes. It is time for us to escape from the situation we are in. And tomorrow, Nov. 18, I hope God and Nature give us a chance for Haiti to qualify, because if Haiti qualifies, we have a chance for national reconciliation. That’s what I hope for. And I’m confident, Haiti can win… We have a nation to save.”

Kim Ives

hey real quick can I borrow $18.99?

He's probably going to get eaten by a cat because he's a useless weenie

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/53408652

Could someone please be my proxy by describing the memes and posting for me?

Defence secretary reveals details of recent incursions as he warns UK is facing ‘new era of threat’ from hostile countries

A Russian spy ship has entered British waters and shone lasers at military pilots, the defence secretary has said, as he warned the UK was facing a “new era of threat” from hostile countries.

John Healey told reporters on Wednesday the “deeply dangerous” move was being taken “extremely seriously” by the government, adding the UK would continue monitoring the ship and had “military options ready” should the vessel change course.

He said the surveillance ship had crossed in and out of the UK’s exclusive economic zone multiple times in recent weeks, not for the first time this year.

Amidst the glossy marketing for VPN services, it can be tempting to believe that the moment you flick on the VPN connection you can browse the internet with full privacy. Unfortunately this is quite far from the truth, as interacting with internet services like websites leaves a significant fingerprint. In a study by [RTINGS.com] this browser fingerprinting was investigated in detail, showing just how easy it is to uniquely identify a visitor across the 83 laptops used in the study.

As summarized in the related video (also embedded below), the start of the study involved the Am I Unique? website which provides you with an overview of your browser fingerprint. With over 4.5 million fingerprints in their database as of writing, even using Edge on Windows 10 marks you as unique, which is telling.

It is unclear if Trump administration backs deal that would mean Kyiv giving up territory and slashing size of military

US and Russian officials have quietly drafted a new plan to end the war in Ukraine that would require Kyiv to surrender territory and severely limit the size of its military, it was reported on Wednesday as Russian drone and missile strikes killed at least 25 people in the city of Ternopil.

The draft plan, which was reportedly developed by Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev, would force draconian measures on Ukraine that would give Russia unprecedented control over the country’s military and political sovereignty. The plan is likely to be viewed as surrender in Kyiv.

Beyond parody.

Israel would not have been able to decimate Gaza to this extent without the TNT production capacity of Nitro-Chem, which after the Cold War emerged as the largest producer of the explosive among NATO and EU members. During the October War of 1973, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) adopted the U.S.-made Mk 80 series, which features an admixture of aluminum powder to increase the heat and destructiveness of the charge. Israel’s air campaign in Gaza mostly featured the largest bombs in the series—the 1,000-pound Mk 83 and the 2,000-pound Mk 84. By April of 2024, Israeli pilots had detonated around 75,000 tons of Polish-made TNT on the densely populated enclave. In nuclear terms, this is an explosive force equivalent to a 75-kiloton fission bomb—significantly more than twice the combined yield of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Along with Vietnam, the Mk 80 supply chain echoes another dark chapter of history—one closer to the mixing site of its main ingredient. The Nitro-Chem plant is located on the former grounds of one of the biggest arms factories built by the Nazis between 1940 and 1944. The authors of the TNT report note that, during the German occupation, Polish resistance cells repeatedly “infiltrated the plant and carried out acts of sabotage.” No such acts have been reported in recent years, as the TNT used in the Gaza genocide uses roads and train tracks in the vicinity of multiple Holocaust memorials, including the site of a mass grave known as the Valley of Death, and the Potulice Concentration Camp, where an estimated 25,000 prisoners were processed.

Interesting article shared with me about the way Wi-Fi location services work.