Do you still possess this talent?

A sixth man, Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech — who was among those with close ties to the Muscat government — currently awaits trial on charges that he masterminded the Caruana Galizia hit.

Getting closer…

I guess that’s why you pay your soldiers.

In the early summer of 2024, months before the opposition launched Operation Deterrence of Aggression, a mobile application began circulating among a group of Syrian army officers. It carried an innocuous name: STFD-686, a string of letters standing for Syria Trust for Development.

…

The STFD-686 app operated with disarming simplicity. It offered the promise of financial aid, requiring only that the victim fill out a few personal details. It asked innocent questions: “What kind of assistance are you expecting?” and “Tell us more about your financial situation.”

…

Determining officers’ ranks made it possible for the app’s operators to identify those in sensitive positions, such as battalion commanders and communications officers, while knowing their exact place of service allowed for the construction of live maps of force deployments. It gave the operators behind the app and the website the ability to chart both strongholds and gaps in the Syrian army’s defensive lines. The most crucial point was the combination of the two pieces of information: Disclosing that “officer X” was stationed at “location Y” was tantamount to handing the enemy the army’s entire operating manual, especially on fluid fronts like those in Idlib and Sweida.

I think dark synthwave generally fits that description.

help --help

Trolling aside, yeah, being able to explain a concept in everyday terms takes careful thought and discipline. I’m consistently impressed by the people who write Simple articles on Wikipedia. I wish there were more of those articles.

weekend hit as many as 20 Russian warplanes, destroying around 10 of them, two U.S. officials told Reuters, a figure that is about half the number estimated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Eh. Still seems pretty good.

Is the point of Wikipedia to provide everyone with information, or to allow editors to spew jargon into opaque articles that are only accessible to experts?

I think it’s the former. There are very few topics that can’t be explained simply, if the author is willing to consider their audience. Best of all, absolutely nothing is lost when an expert reads a well written article.

There’s a core problem that many Wikipedia articles are hard for a layperson to read and understand. The statement about reading level is one way to express this.

The Simple version of articles shows humans can produce readable text. But there aren’t enough Simple articles, and the Simple articles are often incomplete.

I don’t think AI should be solely trusted with summarization/translation, but it might have a place in the editing cycle.

Not cried, but I felt shaken and sad when Iain Banks died. His writing isn’t important to me the way a few other authors are, but I read his stuff at a very specific time in my life. I think his death got me thinking about my own mortality.

I didn’t find out about Toren Smith’s death until a few years ago. It’s sad that he died so young. I felt the same way when Nigel Findley died.

Both of them created worlds that I ran TTRPGs in. I think that makes me feel a weird connection with them. They didn’t know that I exist, but I still built on what they gave me, and that makes me feel a kinship (and admiration) for them.

I don’t think about it at all.

Body odour

also good for making grilled cheese sandwiches

Up until 9/11, for North America, maybe. After the collapse of the Soviet Union things felt pretty good. In my social circle there was a lot of optimism.

But we were on a neoliberal tear. A lot of the benefits we were enjoying (of globalization) are the cause of the spasm of conservatism we’re seeing today.

“I decided I launched [sic] these tools in the first place as a project to build the tool that could be use by LEAs [law enforcement agencies] and PIs [private investigators.]”

According to the developer, they’ve provided the tool to cops in Portugal, Belgium, and “other countries in Europe.” They told 404 Media that the website is meant for private investigators, journalists, and cops.

It sounds like they’re actively peddling it to cops.

A flare as large as the Carrington Event (or bigger) could cause pretty severe problems.

My kids aren’t really interested in the movies I like. They actively avoid the music I listen to. I’ve gotten them copies of the books I love and they give up after a few pages. They get bored with the games I played as a kid.

My dad loves Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the Whole Earth Catalog, and Bruce Springsteen. I do not. If he wills me his copies, I will keep some out of guilt and then my kids will have to throw them away.

Yeah - I’m totally for full, real, actual ownership of digital stuff, and we should be able to give it away.

But I’d be surprised if my kids would be interested in more than a tiny fraction of it. Or anyone else, for that matter.

I’m fine paying what I pay, but I reserve the right to question the quality of services they pay for.