The topic is interesting. Death bots.
The graphics are very innovative.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/as-told-to/can-ai-keep-a-parent-alive
eta: Looks like you need a subscription to see the graphics. But give it a shot anyways....
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Check this New Yorker article out -
Gosh, I'm so relievedPresident Donald Trump told a crowd in Michigan that the White House has ordered 250 Cadillac Escalades, the flagship sport utility vehicle in the luxury auto brand’s lineup, for his presidential motorcade.
Trump revealed the purchase in a speech delivered at a General Motors testing facility in the Detroit suburb of Milford.
“The one and only Escalade,” he said toward the beginning of a roughly one-hour-long address. “You know we ordered, I think, 250 Escalades, right? We ordered 250 Escalades…. We look sharp in those Escalades.”
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McConnellKentucky Gov. Andy Beshear called on Monday for Sen. Mitch McConnell to either "verbally" show proof to Kentuckians that he can still serve in the Senate or to resign from Congress.
"Important events are happening in our country right now during your absence," Beshear, a Democrat, wrote in a letter to the Republican senator, according to a copy obtained by ABC News.
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Word association thread -
Real customer service isn't dead yet -
Real customer service isn't dead yetWe remodeled our bathrooms back in 2008. The "hall bath" (vs the en suite in the primary bedroom) has Danze plumbing fixtures. We started to have a pipe thumping problem in the Danze tub/shower valve in that bathroom when another faucet in the house is turned off; I noticed it when I turned off the vanity faucet in the same bath.
When I pulled the handle and escutcheon off and diddled with the shutoffs that are built into the valve, the cold water side was leaking a little. And some black rubbery bits came out of the spout when I turned the water on. Looks like the stops are failing and need to be replaced. Figured that out thanks to a commenter on Amazon who was trying to find the right replacement parts for his pipe thumping problem.
I have all the documentation from the original install, including the parts diagram with replacement part numbers for the various components. A lot of the part numbers changed after Danze was acquired by Gerber some years ago. I couldn't find a direct match for the Check Valve Set in question when I did my own searches, and Claude and DuckDuckGo's AI bots tried to help but I wasn't confident they were giving me accurate part numbers so I could order something.
I called Gerber this morning and a very nice CS lady (not AI) listened to my story, asked a few questions, and processed an order to send me replacement stops under warranty. Gerber didn't even require a copy of the original purchase receipt (which I have). Took less than 10 minutes and I'm pretty sure I'll get the parts I need. She said 5 to 7 days for the order to get here.
Now off to look for our infrequently used metric socket set I'll need next week to get the old leaky stops replaced and the new ones in...
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Word association thread -
Kim Philby, on the recordI think the video that's in the BBC story is only watchable in the UK. Or via VPN for us non-Brits.
On 30 July 1963, Kim Philby's defection from MI6 to the Soviet Union was made public. In 2016, the BBC broadcast previously unseen footage of his lecture to Stasi operatives in which he revealed the secrets behind his treachery.
"Almost all my life I have spent trying to avoid publicity of any kind," says Kim Philby in a 1981 video unearthed by the BBC from the archives of East Germany's spy service. It's something of an understatement. Philby was a British double agent whose defection to the Soviet Union was made public on 30 July 1963. In the video, he is seen giving a seminar to Stasi operatives on how to succeed at espionage.
As the BBC's former security correspondent Gordon Corera explained in his 2016 report on the previously unseen footage, "Philby offers a masterclass in betrayal, from his recruitment by Soviet spies after Cambridge to his joining Britain's secret service MI6, whose secrets he stole." It is the only known video in which the leading member of the so-called Cambridge Five KGB spy ring discusses his betrayal – a rare recording that is revealing on many levels.
WATCH: 'My advice to you is to tell all your agents that they are never to confess'
"I'm looking back on my career in the enemy camp, this 30-year career in the enemy camp," he says in the grainy video, standing behind a lectern in thick-rimmed glasses and a suit and tie. "Every evening, I left the office with a big briefcase full of reports which I had written myself, full of files taken out of the actual archives. I used to hand them to my contact in the evening. Next morning I'd get the file back, the contents having been photographed, and take them back early in the morning and put the files back in their place. That I did regularly, year in, year out."
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The Finnish sand batteryA small Finnish town has turned to the world’s largest commercial sand battery to tackle a major hurdle in the energy transition: intermittency.
The giant sand battery can cover almost one month of the town’s heating demands in the summer and as much as one week in the winter.
“Hopefully a big portion of those storages could be sand battery-type of storages where we don’t need rare earth materials,” Tommi Eronen, CEO of Polar Night Energy, told CNBC.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/25/finland-sand-battery-renewable-energy-storage.html
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Laughter is the best medicine
