medialunas > croissants

This is an amazing story. Makes much more sense as a conceptual artwork than as a fraud. It surprises me that a fraudster would make such a long term, risky initial investment

Italian conman jailed for building fake Roman amphitheatre

In Italy, a structure promoted for years as an "ancient Roman amphitheatre" has turned out to be a fake, constructed recently using modern materials.

euronews.com

I once created then editorially selected so many AI-generated images in one day that I became totally alienated from what human hands really look like. At lunch with my family I stared at their real-life hands trying to get reaccustomed to typical scale & pose. I would have rejected this photo

Kemi begins her purge of the wets | Conservative Home

Every functioning party has red lines. Positions which are so central to its identity that abandoning them means abandoning what the party is for. For Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives, net zero and...

conservativehome.com

I support both voluntary euthanasia (assisted dying) and organ donation. But there must be laws that prevent the two from being combined. It seems comforting that others might benefit from assisted dying but in reality it could become dangerously coercive. 🧵

GOOD NEWS! Researchers have discovered a new antibiotic, known as manikomycin, that may be a bulwark in the fight against drug-resistant superbugs. By attacking the ribosome in a never-before-seen way, manikomycin can EVADE the existing mechanisms pathogens have developed to resist antibiotics.

My dad’s been a reader of the New Scientist for as long as I can remember, so I’m mega chuffed with this! Can’t wait for him to see it in the magazine. www.newscientist.com/article/mg27... @newscientist.com

New Scientist recommends an excellent look at the future of work

Sarah O'Connor's We Are Not Machines explores how we are contorting ourselves to fit AI into our working lives – and what to do about it, finds Tom Knowles

newscientist.com

Those tedious errands, tasks and chores that AI wants to replace? They help keep you fit | Manoush Zomorodi and Keith Diaz

Those tedious errands, tasks and chores that AI wants to replace? They help keep you fit | Manoush Zomorodi and Keith Diaz

A world with fewer tedious tasks, errands and chores sounds like liberation. When it comes to our health, it’s actually a trap

theguardian.com

Still chuckling over @aiannucci.bsky.social and @hugorifkind.bsky.social joking that emergency podcasts are an emergency service. Imagine dialling 999 and being asked, "Do you require police, fire, ambulance or podcast?" Strong Message Here Episode link: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... 🚓 🚒 🚑 🎤

BBC Radio 4 - Strong Message Here, Fanning the Flames (with Hugo Rifkind)

When does politicisation become weaponisation? And how does language fan the flames?

bbc.co.uk

Sometimes the Internet can still be a good place. One of Baianasystem's songs has 'Ladina Améfrica' in the chorus. Wanting to know more led me to the writer and academic Léila Gonzalez. Now a whole new world of writing and thinking has opened up. This is how the web and pop is supposed to work.

Lélia Gonzalez - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Have I aged suddenly or has working with computers just become much less enjoyable? The experience seems now to be an unproductive series of puzzles, battles and arguments. I'm constantly thwarted and exasperated by multi factor authentication followed by LLM insubordination and uncertainty.

🇬🇧♥️🇧🇷 English person married to a Brazilian person here. English are heading into Summer so it's all about how we can't cope with 30ºC Brazilians are heading into Winter so it's, 'We're heading for 17ºC. Put another sweater on!'

We joke at home that Reform are 'addicted to betrayal'. They talk about it often and vote to create more of it. 🧵

The Grenfell community has shown unrelenting dignity and courage in their fight for justice. I welcome the Met's update that all files for charging decisions will be submitted by the end of September. All those responsible must be held to account. Justice delayed is justice denied.

Met investigation into Grenfell Tower fire on track to submit all charging files to CPS

The milestone moment will place at the end of September.

news.met.police.uk

Thomas Heatherwick HS designed a set of glasses frames 'inspired by rippling water' The brown ones are part of the Thames Water collection www.designboom.com/design/heath...

I'm a bit surprised that so many people on BlueSky are taking an online political personality quiz and then promoting it by sharing their results. It's like the Cambridge Analytica scandal never happened.

@edwinheathcote.bsky.social's article on the design choices of the manosphere is really good & in the tradition of FT's excellent work on art, culture and architecture. It's time for a Baudrillard revival. The truth behind the manosphere’s ‘looksmaxxed’ interior giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

The truth behind the manosphere’s ‘looksmaxxed’ interiors

The white, polished, supersized properties of Andrew Tate et al reveal something radical that even ‘The Matrix’ did not manage

giftarticle.ft.com

This is a fun way to test LLM reasoning. It can't be solved, but closely resembles puzzles and games in LLM training sets. It’s a good test of whether a model: - formally evaluates constraints, or - jumps straight into narrative problem-solving mode. Try it and watch the thinking traces.

I actually would really like it if @bsky.app let you have feeds that showed posts from specific countries. I'd love a US, Brazil or UK-only feed in addition to the general one. As far as I know the #ATProtocol does not store geography/location data of posts so I guess we can't have this.

Dr Jo Kershaw@mthrjo.bsky.social · 3mo ago

God forbid people who are not Americans discuss things important to them on this platform.

OK, I had to Google 'Thucydides Trap'. It's a political science term from 2015. Oddly, I feel better that it's something I never knew rather than had forgotten. Anyway, it's pretty funny when the leader of a rising power says to the one being displaced, "Friend, let's avoid the Thucydides Trap".

Xi asks Trump if U.S. and China can avoid 'Thucydides Trap' at high-stakes summit

U.S. President Donald Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday morning for the start of a high-stakes summit that runs through Friday.

cnbc.com

UK GDP per head grew by 0.6% in q1 2026 which is the fastest economic growth per capita in a quarter for 4 years. UK GDP growth itself is fastest of the 6 G7 countries that have reported so far

Has Bill Nighy invented the phrase 'adultery gets lonely'? It's rather brilliant and I can't find any other occurrence of it on Google. Episode webpage: shows.acast.com/ill-advised-...

Hey Babydoll, How's It Hanging? | ill-advised by Bill Nighy

shows.acast.com

In Silicon Valley, AI is a race—who wins, who captures value, who deploys fastest. In Brazil, the question isn't who wins but how the race itself is structured. With elections looming and institutions strained, AI safety starts with everyday harms, not existential ones, writes Adriana Abdenur.

The Political Economy of AI Starts in Brazil, Not Silicon Valley

Brazil’s experience with PIX is an intriguing window into how public intervention can reshape AI-relevant markets, writes Adriana Abdenur.

buff.ly

Hi @emma-briant.co.uk I think this will be of interest to you and your fellow researchers - probably not news to you but a helpful primer. youtu.be/lwI9lbgq7pI?... (I don't have direct messaging here hence this more public message)

The rise of Brazil's digital 'micro-Bolsonaros' | The Listening Post

YouTube video by Al Jazeera English

youtu.be

This is really helpful. Full Fact’s Government Tracker is monitoring the government’s delivery on its promises so voters can judge what progress it has made. It tracks 92 pledges, from Labour’s 2024 election manifesto and further announcements made since. fullfact.org/government-t...

I feel like no-one - not Tracy Emin, not Tate Modern, not Living etc, not Farrow & Ball - do well out of this headline. "Tracey Emin Chose This Farrow & Ball Paint for the Backdrop to Her Tate Modern Retrospective" It is a beautiful colour and a great choice though.

Tracey Emin Chose This Farrow & Ball Color for Her Tate Modern Retrospective

The hauntingly visceral retrospective at Tate Modern traces four decades of the artist's provocative life and practice against a blue backdrop by Farrow & Ball

livingetc.com

Apparently Amazon does not think much of what I have been buying recently.

i feel like my job as an engineer has always been asking questions like "how" and "why". it wasn't really "write code". sure, the latter was the "how" very often, but that was simply because at one point that _was_ the only "how" that was available