WTF-Beta

Steve and Ron, the Thelma and Louise of 2026...

Great photos, @steve-miller ! Always love your travelogues.

@DougG said:

Great, now Jon’s last post expects me to come up with a rhyme for “lits”.

I’m pretty sure there isn’t one. Could this be the end of the word association thread?

Right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos deported from US to UK

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqlw52vr0dwo

Putin signs decree allowing state seizure of businesses hit by drone strikes

The edict covers energy, transport, logistics and any facility deemed critical to national security, and can be imposed by presidential instruction alone. Experts called it "hybrid nationalisation," warning it would be used to seize assets from companies under the pretext of security failure.

https://www.euronews.com/2026/08/26/putin-signs-decree-allowing-state-seizure-of-businesses-hit-by-drone-strikes

...that corgis are a thing in Lithuania...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/other/lithuania-s-corgi-race-just-had-its-biggest-year-yet-and-the-costumes-prove-it/ar-AA2aPwz8

Satellite images show bedrock and glacier collapsed on Nepal-China border, then rivers flooded

https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-nepal-tibet-glacier-collapse-floods-b3eda9410f9941f69add384944047bc3

https://www.instagram.com/p/DcgB52RD4Ak/?hl=en

A little blip in the system. Ting recorded it.

More proof that he's an idiot.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/08/honoring-the-american-history-of-the-great-lakes-and-renaming-lake-ontario-as-lake-america/

@rontuner Maybe something from this collection?

https://www.capable.design/

Weckert’s earlier work involved using 99 smartphones in a cart to make Google Maps believe there was a traffic jam.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/03/berlin-artist-uses-99-phones-trick-google-maps-traffic-jam-alert

I want one, just for fun.

Designer Simon Weckert has created a colourful camouflage shirt that cannot be detected using AI video systems.

Developed in response to a pilot project to use artificial intelligence (AI) video surveillance at Berlin's Kottbusser Tor, which starts this month, the shirt was designed to stop the user being recognised as a person..

https://www.dezeen.com/2026/08/25/digital-camouflage-shirt-ai-video-surveillance-simon-weckert/

Not a good choice of thread title on my part…I thought adding the tag would help but it probably didn’t…

What got my attention in the article was the idea that websites may be specifically tailored to get picked up by AI. Sort of the next generation of SEO. And that people either won’t take the time or maybe don’t even think to investigate what sources the chatbot used. The possibility for mischief explodes with AI.

This post was linked in the Guardian story and flushes it out more:

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-influence-chatgpt/

Me neither.

A pro-Israel messaging website badged with the name of a thinktank that does not exist has published more than half a million words in nine days, built on a commercial platform that promises to optimize content so that AI chatbots will cite it.

The site gives Israel’s position on subjects including the torture of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli war crimes and whether Israel has deliberately starved Palestinians in Gaza, all presented as neutral research.

The New York media production company Piro Inc filed the site with the US justice department this month under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara), a 1938 law that requires anyone working for a foreign government to formally disclose it, as material it distributes for the Israeli government.

The site publishes in the name of the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, which apparently does not exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no physical address, and carries no named staff and no bylines on any of its reports. Its own terms of use are governed by the laws of “the state in which the Institute is established”, which they decline to name.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank-israel-ai-propaganda

ruffled

Add ice hockey, boxing, wrestling, BMX...got to wonder what the incidence is in the kids who play all of these sports in high school and college but never make it to the pros.

The principal resigned from the school in November 2024. This article from around that time provides a bit more detail. The school didn’t really say much.

https://www.fox19.com/2024/11/22/ohio-principal-resigns-after-investigation-into-his-helping-former-homeless-student/

The school is in the Cincinnati area. I wonder if @mik has any more details.

Rain

An Ohio principal allowed a homeless student to stay in school, and it cost him his job. He has no regrets.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-principal-lakota-east-high-school-begknows-america/