Bookmarks for 2025-10-11T15:26:17.502Z

• Kat Timpf Had a Baby and a Mastectomy. Her Fox News Viewers Had Opinions. - The New York Times Added: Oct 11, 2025

• Tetsuo on X: "In this small thread, I'll break down how you can create full-length movies or anime with Grok 4 Imagine. This entire video was created with Grok4 Imagine and a video editor. https://t.co/jGUUarsROW" / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• UC Berkeley: A Haven for Genuine Political Diversity? | National Review Added: Oct 11, 2025

  UC Berkeley: A Haven for Genuine Political Diversity? | National Review

  

• Humans May Be Among The First Intelligent Beings in The Universe : ScienceAlert Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Humans May Be Among The First Intelligent Beings in The Universe

  Site: ScienceAlert

  The Copernican Principle, named in honor of Nicolaus Copernicus (who proposed the heliocentric model of the Universe), states that Earth and humans do not occupy a special or privileged place in the Universe.

  

• Harvard linguistics expert explains why we say 'Yeah, no' and 'No, yeah' - Upworthy Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Harvard linguistics expert explains perfectly logical reason we say 'Yeah, no' and 'No, yeah'

  Site: Upworthy

  ​They're called discourse particles and they serve an important role in conversation.

  

• Gemini could be the big Google Maps upgrade we’ve been waiting for - Android Authority Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Gemini could be the big Google Maps upgrade we’ve been waiting for

  Site: Android Authority

  Google Maps is getting a big Gemini-infused upgrade, while Android is becoming agentic and Google Lens is getting creative.

  

• A great pessimist and unapologetic traditionalist: László Krasznahorkai wins the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature Added: Oct 11, 2025

  A great pessimist and unapologetic traditionalist: László Krasznahorkai wins the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature

  Site: The Conversation

  Krasznahorkai’s language is the mad scream of a godless universe at our inexcusable squandering of every good thing given to us by chance.

  

• James Woods on X: "You’re such a low-life talking meat puppet for your leftist handlers, you can’t even say the name of the man who made this peace possible. You are vile." / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• Astro Greek on X: ""The teacher would come up to me and yell at me, but I would not really see or hear her," Elon says. His parents got called in to see the principal, who told them, "We have reason to believe that Elon is retarded." He spent most of his time in a trance, not listening, one of https://t.co/eHK0hZ9fpw" / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• Tom Elliott on X: "New talking point directive just issued #AntifaDoesntExist https://t.co/1BbAe8ql0q" / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• With Eric Adams out of the race, Andrew Cuomo surges in poll - POLITICO Added: Oct 11, 2025

  **With Eric Adams out of the race, Andrew Cuomo surges in poll **

  Site: POLITICO

  The former governor gained 10 points since a poll last month that included the mayor, who draws a similar base of support.

  

• The Wire on X: "A Great Pessimist Has Won the Literature Nobel László Krasznahorkai has won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature for “his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art”. Julian Murphet✍️ https://t.co/gqQ8M1MTYd" / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• A Great Pessimist Has Won the Literature Nobel - The Wire Added: Oct 11, 2025

  A Great Pessimist Has Won the Literature Nobel - The Wire

  Site: The Wire

  László Krasznahorkais prose is difficult to excerpt. The sentences never end, so even a few quoted words inevitably draw one into the vortex of an all-consuming syntactical storm system. There is no way out once you are drawn in. You find yourself in a stylistic quicksand that is perversely comforting.

  Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai has won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature for “his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art”.Krasznahorkai is the author of nine novels, numerous collections of short fiction and essays, and several screenplays, including co-writing the epic seven-hour film adaptation of his first book Satantango (1985). He is one of the most distinctive, recognisable writers in the world today.At the heart of Krasznahorkai’s project is the old Beckettian dialectic between pervasive bleakness and ethical despair, and a madly propulsive, inexhaustible engine of language.His language is the mad scream of a godless universe at our inexcusable squandering of every good thing given to us by chance. The voluble form stirs up the broken content in an irresistible current, flowing from the Big Bang to Paradise – right past our lost world.His prose is difficult to excerpt. The sentences never end, so even a few quoted words inevitably draw one into the vortex of an all-consuming syntactical storm system. There is no way out once you are drawn in. You find yourself in a stylistic quicksand that is perversely comforting.Anarcho-capitalist-klepto-nihilismKrasznahorkai’s work has frequently been described as “apocalyptic”, and that is accurate enough. But what is the nature of his apocalypse?Generally, in his great tetralogy – Satantango, The Melancholy of Resistance (1989), War and War (1999) and Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming (2016) – some dark wickedness is approaching. Its signs are the gathering of middle-aged men in public places, strange graffiti, leaflets, an oddly charismatic speaker, and the breakdown of public services – preludes to some major outbreak of destruction and violence.Members of a putative and ineffectual counterforce are indicated. We chart their mounting concern and anxiety as the inevitable malevolence gains momentum.One way to think about this is in relation to the breakdown of Eastern European communism and the rise of anarcho-capitalist-klepto-nihilism. This is a perfectly viable lens, but Krasznahorkai also charts the global trend towards far-right “strongman” rule of the kind typified by Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán.Orbán’s veneration by Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, and his similarity to Vladimir Putin, Javier Milei, Benjamin Netanyahu and others of this vicious breed, make his Hungary ground zero for the toxic plume of fascism spreading around the contemporary world.Krasznahorkai’s front-row seat at this theatre of degeneration has made him perhaps the most reliable source of aesthetic information about its spiritual consequences. Orbán’s post on the Elon Musk-owned X congratulating Krasznahorkai on his Nobel win is one of the bitter ironies of contemporary history.Gracious compensationsIf that was all there was, Krasznahorkai’s work would be a tough slog indeed – which it is. But it is not without gracious compensations.Krasznahorkai is an unapologetic traditionalist. He holds to an idea of the arts as our best resource for preventing the slide into barbarism. In an interview earlier this year, he said:Art is humanity’s extraordinary response to the sense of lostness that is our fate. Beauty exists. It lies beyond a boundary where we must constantly halt; we cannot go further to grasp or touch beauty – we can only gaze at it from this boundary and acknowledge that, yes, there is truly something out there in the distance. Beauty is a construction, a complex creation of hope and higher order.German composer Andreas Werkmeister presides over The Melancholy of Resistance, and Johann Sebastian Bach over Herscht 07769 (2021): models of perfected aesthetic systems capable of transfiguring experience.Krasznahorkai’s marvellous collection Seiobo There Below (2008) heaps precious treasures against the landslide: the paintings of Filipino Lippi and Giovani Bellini, the Amida Buddha statue in the Zengen-ji temple, the Acropolis, the Noh masks of Ito Ryōsuke.Like Ezra Pound in his Cantos, Krasznahorkai tallies magnificent artistic achievements to serve as necessary, but never sufficient, correctives to the slurry of contemporary culture.His contributions to world film culture, in three major collaborative “slow cinema” ventures with director Béla Tarr, stand head and shoulders above the standard fare of these past 30 years. They have added considerably to his international reputation.László Krasznahorkai in 1990. Photo: Lenke Szilágyi/Wikimedia Commons.Krasznahorkai has been extremely well-served by his dauntless English translators, George Szirtes (who managed the earlier work) and Ottilie Mulzet (who took on the later). Without them, it is doubtful he would have the recognition he does today.That recognition, having now reached its zenith, has yet to be matched by a comparable understanding of his achievement. Asked about his source of inspiration, Krasznahorkai responded:The bitterness. I am very sad if I think of the status of the world now. This is my deepest inspiration. This could be also an inspiration for the next generation or generations in literature. Inspiration to give something for the next generation, somehow to survive this time because these are very, very dark times and we need much more power in us to survive this time than before.It is to be hoped that the Nobel Prize will finally force a reckoning with one of contemporary literature’s great pessimists.Julian Murphet is Jury Professor of English and Language and Literature, University of Adelaide.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

  

• You Have to Hand It to Donald Trump: The Deal-Maker Delivers Peace | National Review Added: Oct 11, 2025

  You Have to Hand It to Donald Trump: The Deal-Maker Delivers Peace | National Review

  

• “It Started With the Ocean Turning On Itself”: This Hidden Feedback Loop May Explain Earth’s Most Extreme Ice Ages (and It Could Return) Added: Oct 11, 2025

  “It Started With the Ocean Turning On Itself”: This Hidden Feedback Loop May Explain Earth’s Most Extreme Ice Ages (and It Could Return)

  Site: Sustainability Times

  Recent research has opened new avenues in understanding how Earth's climate might drastically change due to natural processes. Traditionally, the breakdown of

  

• Putin praises Trump's peace efforts on Israel-Hamas and other conflicts | Fox News Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Putin praises Trump's peace efforts on Israel-Hamas and other conflicts | Fox News

  

• "Apocalypse Calculations" By Isaac Newton Predicted A World-Changing Event In 2060 | IFLScience Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Isaac Newton's "Apocalypse Calculations" Predicted A World-Changing Event In 2060

  Site: IFLScience

  Maybe the legendary apple hit his head a lot harder than we thought.

  It's a credit to how good Isaac Newton was at physics and math that people rarely mention that time he threatened to burn his mother's house down, or the equally baffling time he stuck a number of needles into his own eyeballs to see what would happen. Yes, when Newton wasn't revolutionizing our notions of motion and gravity, he was, by today's standards, a bit of a weird dude. As well as dedicating a lot of his spare time to the study of alchemy – a medieval belief that metals could be turned into gold – Newton had a keen interest in the occult and the Biblical apocalypse. In fact, in a few private pieces of speculation likely not meant to be seen publicly, Newton went about attempting to predict the end of the world, based on his Protestant understanding of the Bible and the events that followed. In one attempt, written on a letter slip next to real math calculations of the non-apocalypse type, Newton apparently made reference to the year 2060: Prop. 1. The 2300 prophetick days did not commence before the rise of the little horn of the He Goat. 2 Those day [sic] did not commence a[f]ter the destruction of Jerusalem & ye Temple by the Romans A.[D.] 70. 3 The time times & half a time did not commence before the year 800 in wch the Popes supremacy commenced 4 They did not commence after the re[ig]ne of Gregory the 7th. 1084 5 The 1290 days did not commence b[e]fore the year 842. 6 They did not commence after the reigne of Pope Greg. 7th. 1084 7 The diffence [sic] between the 1290 & 1335 days are a parts of the seven weeks. Therefore the 2300 years do not end before ye year 2132 nor after 2370. The time times & half time do n[o]t end before 2060 nor after [2344] The 1290 days do not [end] before 2090 nor after [2374]. Newton believed in apocalyptic visions in the Bible, where a battle of Armageddon would occur between “Gog and Magog” at the end of days. Newton probably only has himself to blame for talking of the "rise of the little horn of the He Goat" and leaving his notes lying around, but it should be noted that he was not predicting the end of the world would occur in 2060, so much as the end of an era. "Newton was convinced that Christ would return around this date and establish a global Kingdom of peace," Stephen D. Snobelen, now professor of the history of science and technology at the University of King's College in Halifax, wrote in 2003. "'Babylon' (the corrupt Trinitarian Church) would also fall and the true Gospel would be preached openly." Newton, though he made such a prediction to himself, did not like the practice of predicting the end of the world because of the damage it did to religious prophesies that occurred when the apocalypse didn't. "So then the time times & half a time are 42 months or 1260 days or three years & an half, recconing twelve months to a yeare & 30 days to a month as was done in the Calendar of the primitive year. And the days of short lived Beasts being put for the years of lived kingdoms, the period of 1260 days, if dated from the complete conquest of the three kings A.C. 800, will end A.C. 2060. It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner." He wrote in one prediction, which again he likely did not want to be seen: "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fancifull men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, & by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail. Christ comes as a thief in the night, & it is not for us to know the times & seasons wch God hath put into his own breast." Unfortunately for Newton, enough time has passed that his predictions will soon fail, placing him into the same category as the "fancifull men" discrediting prophecies as a whole. Maybe the legendary apple hit his head a lot harder than we thought. A previous version of this article was published in April 2023.

  

• SETI Paper Responds To Harvard Astronomer Claims Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Might Be An Alien Spacecraft | IFLScience Added: Oct 11, 2025

  SETI Paper Responds To Claims Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Might Be An Alien Spacecraft

  Site: IFLScience

  Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb currently says there is a 30-40 percent chance the object is not natural in origin.

  A paper from a SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) Institute scientist has directly addressed claims that interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft. On July 1, 2025, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) detected an object moving through the Solar System on an escape trajectory. Follow-up observations soon confirmed that we were looking at our third interstellar visitor, after ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov, although it looks quite different from the previous two. It's an interesting object, perhaps from an earlier age of the universe and a different part of the galaxy, and even spacecraft around Mars and Jupiter are getting in on the action observing it. There have been a few suggestions – although not from the majority of scientists – that the object could not be natural at all. Soon after the object was discovered, and before we could take a proper look at it, Harvard theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astronomer Avi Loeb suggested in a paper that it could be an interstellar probe sent by an intelligent species, potentially with the goal of destroying Earth. In the first paper, which he states in an accompanying blog post is largely a "pedagogical exercise" and "fun to explore, irrespective of its likely validity", he suggested that the object could be hostile, as outlined in the "Dark Forest" hypothesis. In short (though you should read the book on which it is based, you will not regret it), given the finite resources in the universe, and our lack of knowledge of any other civilization's intent, any lifeform may want to pre-emptively attack any other form of life they discover, before it becomes a threat to their own civilization. According to Loeb's paper, the object could be here for that purpose. "The low retrograde tilt of 3I/ATLAS’s orbital plane to the ecliptic offers various benefits to an Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (ETI), since it allows the object access to our planet with relative impunity," Loeb, Adam Hibberd, and Adam Crowl write in that paper. "The eclipse by the Sun from Earth of 3I/ATLAS at perihelion, would allow it to conduct a clandestine reverse Solar Oberth Manoeuvre, an optimal high-thrust strategy for interstellar spacecraft to brake and stay bound to the Sun. An optimal intercept of Earth would entail an arrival in late November/early December of 2025, and also, a non-gravitational acceleration of ∼ 5.9 × 10 - 5 au day -2, normalized at 1 au from the Sun, would indicate an intent to intercept the planet Jupiter, not far off its path, and a strategy to rendezvous with it after perihelion." Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and Loeb did not provide this, instead arguing that given the potential consequences of a dark forest strike (Earth goes kablooey), we should consider it, and any planetary defense measures we could take if it were the case. ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites. While speculation like this is enjoyable in a sci-fi context, it has been less than helpful for more conspiracy-minded citizens of Earth. As well as people out there who believe an alien spacecraft is going to approach Earth in late November or early December (per Loeb's suggestion), there are also people who believe that we are being told a spacecraft is approaching as a cover-up for something else. People are getting real weird with it. In the paper addressing these claims, which has not yet been peer reviewed, SETI scientist and senior lecturer at the Geoscience Department of Universiti Teknologi Petronas, AKM Eahsanul Haque, outlines why it is likely a natural object. "Loeb et al. found that the retrograde orbital plane of 3I/ATLAS is quite near to 129the ecliptic, with a 0.2% likelihood that this alignment is not just a coincidence," Haque writes, adding that the alignment is not impossible for interstellar objects, even if it is statistically rare. "The galactic disk, which is where most stars are, is nearly in line with the solar system's ecliptic plane. It is plausible that ISOs that are thrown out of other systems may naturally follow paths that are similar to these." "The hyperbolic trajectory, which has an eccentricity of around 6.1, and the high speed of about 58 kilometers per second 134are both consistent with gravitational ejection from a distant star system, according to the measurements 135made in 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov. Also, it is important to note that the low likelihood of close encounters with Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, which is about 0.005%, is not only for man-made objects. Natural comets can also have similar dynamics because of changes in gravity." Other papers, of course, treat it as an interstellar comet, but do not address these alien technology claims specifically. Loeb and colleagues flagged up a lack of identifiable chemicals as evidence that the comet could be artificial, according to Haque, but comparing the spectral slope with D-Type asteroids and interstellar comet 2I/Borisov, he finds they demonstrate consistency with these other natural objects. In Loeb's initial paper and blog post, he states that "detection of a non-gravitational acceleration could also indicate an intent to intercept Jupiter, not far off the path of 3I/ATLAS, and a strategy to rendezvous with it after perihelion." 2I/Borisov underwent a little non-gravitational acceleration, meaning a change of speed that was not caused by gravitational interactions alone, which astronomers put down to outgassing. "Seligman et al. also found a slight change in the light curve over about four days, showing that the structure is stable and there is no evidence of acceleration beyond what gravity would cause," Haque explains. "This differs from the results of 1I/‘Oumuamua, which showed a small, non-gravitational acceleration thought to be caused by outgassing. The fact that 3I/ATLAS did not display such acceleration is a strong argument against the idea of artificial propulsion." Since that first paper, Loeb has claimed that a lack of non-gravitational acceleration observed so far could be a sign that there is a " major anomaly " with its mass, and again that the explanation could be aliens. "The mass of 3I/ATLAS scales with its diameter cubed. If the nucleus diameter of 3I/ATLAS will be found to be larger than 5 kilometers in the HiRISE image, then an origin associated with the interstellar mass reservoir of rocky material will be untenable," he wrote in a blog post. "An alternative technological origin could explain the rare alignment of the trajectory of 3I/ATLAS with the ecliptic plane (having a random chance of 1 in 500, as discussed here), and the detection of nickel without iron — as found in industrially-manufactured alloys." In short; if it accelerates it might be aliens, if it doesn't accelerate it might be aliens. While alien spacecraft are an undeniably fun topic to talk about, scientists have a much more likely explanation for the object, which is backed up by the evidence. It is a comet. “It looks like a comet. It does comet things. It very, very strongly resembles, in just about every way, the comets that we know,” Tom Statler, NASA’s lead scientist for Solar System small bodies, said to The Guardian about such claims. “It has some interesting properties that are a little bit different from our solar system comets, but it behaves like a comet. And so the evidence is overwhelmingly pointing to this object being a natural body. It’s a comet.” Based on its trajectory, spectra, and comet-like properties, Haque suggests that it could be "a lithified clastic fragment from an exoplanetary sedimentary basin". For his own part, Loeb has moved from saying that the idea is purely a teaching exercise, to placing pretty high odds that the object is an alien spacecraft. "As of now, I assign a 30–40% likelihood that 3I/ATLAS does not have a fully natural origin, based on its seven anomalies that I listed here. This low-probability scenario includes the possibility of a black swan event akin to a Trojan Horse, where a technological object masquerades as a natural comet," he writes in a new post, adding that his percentages are likely to shift as we get more information on the object. More information on the object is highly-anticipated by other astronomers too, not because it might be aliens, but because it is an interesting comet from another part of the galaxy, which could operate as a 10-billion-year-old time capsule from an earlier age of the universe. Surely that's enough? The paper is posted to the preprint server Earth ArXiv.

  

• The Philosopher and the Machine | Psychology Today Added: Oct 11, 2025

  The Philosopher and the Machine

  Site: Psychology Today

  The highest form of intelligence may not answer our questions, but help us ask better ones.

  

• Reform UK's rise: Will Farage be next UK PM? Added: Oct 11, 2025

  **Nigel Farage: Britain’s next prime minister? **

  Site: The Hill

  Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has led every major opinion poll since April, raising the question of whether he could become Britain’s next prime minister, despite the party’s lim…

  It is less than 18 months since Britain’s Labour Party won a general election with one of the biggest parliamentary majorities in history. Such dominance, which inflicted on the Conservatives the worst electoral defeat in their 190-year history, should have given Sir Keir Starmer a smooth ride as prime minister for a while. Yet it is the recently formed populist, nationalist Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, which has led every major opinion poll since April. Now the question is: will Farage be Britain’s next prime minister?  There are two ways of looking at the current state of British politics. The first is that this is an exceptionally unstable period, exacerbated by a sluggish domestic economy, sclerotic institutions of government and global instability. The mainstream parties have run out of big ideas, leading voters to look somewhere, anywhere, else.  The past half-century has seen long alternating periods of single-party dominance: Conservative (1979-97), Labour (1997-2010) and the Conservatives again until last year’s rout. These marathons have drained the parties ideologically and worn down their leaders. Reform UK was only established in 2021, it still has a freshness and its leading figures have never held executive office, so they don’t have track records to defend.  But the foundation of this narrative is that this too shall pass. Reform UK is a craze which seems all-conquering but is ephemeral. Nigel Farage is a gifted political communicator, but he is an opportunist demagogue, a huckster. He has the quick wit and survival instincts of a carny barker, but his past is littered with internecine feuds. If politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose, then Farage is a snatch of crude doggerel.  Britain’s political institutions and culture are deep-rooted, recognizably those which emerged from the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, just as the two-party system began to take shape. The Labour Party, founded in 1900, displaced the Liberals as one of the two main contenders at the 1922 general election, but otherwise there is a reassuringly solid 350-year history of gradual evolution. Reform is a passing squall, not a revolution.  The counter-narrative identifies a period of epochal change in which the 2024 election was the first manifestation of pressures which has been building up for 20 or 30 years. The promised benefits of globalization have been underwhelming; deindustrialisation has shattered traditional working-class communities and created generational unemployment; immigration has increased at an exponential rate, transforming the demography of many areas within a lifetime; and productivity has never recovered from the global financial crisis.  These changes, it follows, have eaten away the class and ideological loyalties of the established political parties. “Left” and “right” — terms derived from the seating in the French National Assembly in 1789 — no longer mean what they did. Farage and Reform UK have navigated these changeable waters with skill, forging a new electoral coalition which is socially conservative, anti-immigration, nativist, suspicious of free trade and free markets and economically interventionist. It has gained an advantage on the ailing Labour and Conservative dinosaurs.  If the second hypothesis is accurate, Farage may have still greater success ahead. He has captured a significant voting bloc among the electorate and does not carry the guilt by association for the tired, unsuccessful past. Nevertheless, in practical terms, he faces a vertiginous climb to become prime minister.  Reform has only five members of Parliament among 650, and finished second only in another 98 seats, and it takes 326 MPs to achieve a majority in the House of Commons. True, its support in the polls has doubled within a year, from 14.3 percent to around 30, but its organization remains inadequate, with vetting of candidates a persistent problem. Additionally, despite some high-profile wealthy patrons, Reform is lagging behind Labour and the Conservatives in fundraising.  Simply becoming the largest party in a fractured House of Commons would require growth of unprecedented scale and speed. Labour won its first seats in Parliament in 1900 but took more than 20 years to reach triple figures, nearly 30 years to break 200 and 45 years before it ever achieved an outright majority. If Farage managed all of that within five years, “seismic” would not even come close.  Everything is unprecedented until it happens for the first time. In 2017, President Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche! won 308 seats in the French National Assembly from a standing start. But Farage, 61 years old, vigorous but a drinker and smoker, is impatient and dismissive of detail. He has only attended a third of votes in Parliament, while visiting the U.S. a dozen times. In addition, while his supporters put the “fan” in fanatical, six in 10 voters view him unfavourably.  Farage is talking up his prospects: self-doubt is no part of his persona. During President Trump’s state visit to the U.K., the Reform leader was asked if the president saw him as the next prime minister.  “He knows that. All the American administration are acutely aware of it. They think they see some similarities in what they’ve done and what we’ve done, and you know what, we speak the same language.”  It is not impossible. But it is only 14 months into Labour’s tenure in government, and Reform may find that a run of good poll numbers is not enough on its own to start a revolution. If the next election does culminate in Farage waving from outside 10 Downing Street’s famous black door, it will be one of the biggest shocks in British political history. Possible, but the jury will remain out for some time.  Eliot Wilson is a senior fellow for national security at the Coalition for Global Prosperity and the co-founder of Pivot Point Group. He was senior official in the U.K. House of Commons from 2005 to 2016, including serving as a clerk of the Defence Committee and secretary of the U.K. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

  

• From quantum fields to city streets: 20-year-old UW prodigy brings tech chops to the campaign trail – GeekWire Added: Oct 11, 2025

  From quantum fields to city streets: 20-year-old UW prodigy brings tech chops to the campaign trail

  Site: GeekWire

  Vivek Prakriya is blazing a unique path through college, tech jobs and now politics as he seeks a government seat in the city where his Microsoft parents raised him.

  

• Rohan Paul on X: "Rude prompts to LLMs consistently lead to better results than polite ones 🤯 The authors found that very polite and polite tones reduced accuracy, while neutral, rude, and very rude tones improved it. Statistical tests confirmed that the differences were significant, not https://t.co/oddVFymw25" / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• Rohan Paul on X: "@Chris65536 😃😃 thats so true." / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• Scientists Achieved Teleportation Using Quantum Supercomputers, Here's How Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Scientists Achieved Teleportation Using Quantum Supercomputers - Here's How - BGR

  Site: BGR

  Despite sounding like sci-fi, teleportation is a very real thing. However, it might not be the kind of teleportation that you've seen in TV shows and movies.

  

• 12 Real-Life Inventions That Were Inspired By Science Fiction Added: Oct 11, 2025

  12 Real-Life Inventions That Were Inspired By Science Fiction - BGR

  Site: BGR

  Technologies that once required suspension of disbelief now sit in our pockets, operate in our hospitals, and dictate entire industries.

  

• Elon Musk on X: "Starship flight on Monday ~5pm CT" / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• Meanwhile Brewing Company Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Meanwhile Brewing Company

  

• James Woods on X: "This slick weasel is lamenting the weaponization of the justice system under President Trump, with a perfectly straight face no less. Anybody who was even awake since 2016 now can see this grifter lying right into the camera in real time. https://t.co/Ar38xc216k" / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• Starship Flight 11 Trailer - YouTube Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Starship Flight 11 Trailer

  Site: YouTube

  Set your notifications for the Starship Flight 11 Livestreams:- Launch Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bcpnn_PO-A- Stakeout Stream: https://www.yout...

  

• 'Heartbreaking': Once thriving Calif. downtown is on the brink Added: Oct 11, 2025

  'Heartbreaking': Once thriving Calif. downtown is on the brink

  Site: SFGATE

  "Our city only cares about their image. They will not admit they're wrong."

  Downtown San Luis Obispo is emptying out. And over the past several weeks, the exodus of businesses, years in the making, has only accelerated.  For generations, the downtown has played multiple roles: a tourist destination, college town hangout and the place where locals go to shop, dine and be entertained. Today, it’s littered with empty storefronts marked by darkened windows and for lease signs.  Unlike many other places on the Central Coast that are destinations that depended on tourists, SLO’s downtown was vibrant because of the locals and students who live here full-time. But like many California downtowns, it has seen tariffs, recent rent spikes, and a decrease in foot traffic after the pandemic. Higher cost of living expenses, especially housing, have also throttled the disposable income needed for jaunts to the city’s urban core. Coupled with missteps from the city on parking, merchants now say that it’s a perfect storm that has led to the decline.  ‘What the heck happened?’ Gaia’s Gallery had the perfect location, the perfect space, in the perfect building.  Located on the 700 block of Higuera Street, next to a crosswalk that bisected the downtown main drag’s busiest block, it was a “dream come true” when gallery owner Christine Branco was able to open her art, crystal and jewelry shop here in the spring of 2022, she told SFGATE.  The space is as idyllic as she made it seem: a shotgun-style gallery, with an exposed brick accent wall running along the southern end of a historic building. Natural light beams in from the plate glass windows at the storefront.  In those three short years, Branco said the business — which she originally took over at a different location in 2017 — was always susceptible to ups and downs of doing business in a place that was dependent on disposable income and whether college kids were around. She explained that this time there were “lots of factors” in play that eventually drove her to the brink, and then to the decision to close her doors for good.  She spent Sept. 30, the last day of the store’s lease, clearing out the rest of her inventory and cleaning up the space. The decision became obvious, she said, when the year began with a slowdown in business, and then an increase in wholesale costs for her wares. A rent increase took her rent to more than $8,000 a month.  “2025 was like, ‘What the heck happened?’” she said. She noted that downtown’s slowdown has impacted everyone, but particularly, in her opinion, higher-end galleries and retail stores like the one she ran: “There’s just not that much discretionary income with everything rising.” To stem her own costs and to see if she could make it through the upcoming holidays, Branco said she was still selling inventory from last year’s holiday season. But when she started looking at replenishing stock, she realized those costs would be so prohibitive that she was left with no choice.  “For me, I just felt it was the right time to leave,” she said, using the crystals she imports from Brazil as just one small example. “If I was to replenish, the cost would be double if not triple. It’s not just tariffs that go up, it’s the labor, other import fees, brokers — it wouldn’t make any sense for me to then pass that to the customer. It would price itself out.” Toward the end, she received “a ton of emails” from vendors from places like Indonesia and Thailand, all reporting the same thing about massive price increases as a result of the tariffs.  “And who does that hit? It hits the small business owners that are just trying to keep their doors open for wonderful customers,” she said.  ‘They’re anti-business — their actions tell us that everyday’ Steven Wick owns a pair of businesses in downtown SLO, Hemp Shak and Euphoria, which offer bohemian clothing and accessories, including jewelry made by local designers, artists and artisans. He was on hand on Sept. 30 to help friend and fellow merchant Branc0 clean out her storefront.  Watching friends go under is a phenomenon Wick said has become all too familiar. September alone saw Branco’s gallery, a hat shop called Brixton, Antigua Brewing Company, Starbucks, and women’s boutique Avanti all close.   He said that the cost of doing business has skyrocketed on every level. Tariffs have impacted an item that originally cost about $100, including shipping, to get to his store. When the new fees were tacked on, the item was $200. “We just have to say, ‘send it back,’” he explained, noting that in the end the customer is unhappy and the retailer misses out on the sale.  Even though the rising cost of doing business with importers is a huge factor, Wick said he doesn’t feel the local conditions for downtown merchants and restaurateurs are exempt from blame. “Our city only cares about their image,” he said. “They will not admit they’re wrong. They’re anti-business — their actions tell us that everyday.” He believes that the SLO City Council has made it tougher on business owners here in recent years. Wick said that he’s emailed city leaders and appeared in front of the city council “numerous times” to report on the conditions downtown. He has concerns with how traffic, both car and pedestrian, flows down main drags like Higuera Street. The city has also gone back and forth on whether visitors should pay for parking, and how much.  “We’re dealing with everything that’s closing right now, they’re blaming it on the economy,” Wick told SFGATE. “If you go to Bozeman, if you go to Boulder, if you go to Carmel — if you go to these cities, they’re packed. If you go to Carmel, if you go to the stores, there’s a line out [of] them — they’re so crowded.” The city of SLO has admitted to some gaffes in the recent past, namely with its parking. After deciding to significantly increase downtown parking rates in 2023, the city saw backlash from residents and merchants. Then it rolled the hikes back in the spring of 2024, and even apologized. “I really think it’s important — as somebody in the audience earlier said — to say, ‘We’re sorry,’” Councilmember Emily Francis said during a May 2024 city council meeting. “We hear the pain and the frustration, and I think it’s important for us to acknowledge that and also say that we’re ready to make some changes here tonight.” But charging slightly less for parking — parking structure hourly rates went down to $2 from $3 and daily rates went down to $8 from $12 — to help pay for a new $41 million parking structure, is not enough in an emergency moment, one that Wick said features those who most control the narrative being avoidant. “All the city of SLO cares about is their image,” he said. “They do not want to take the blame for rising parking to pay for their structure.” Both Branco and Wick said they felt that even neighboring communities like Atascadero and Paso Robles, both of which offer free parking options, and, according to Branco, have more robust regional advertising, are also drawing some business away from SLO.  “They have really stepped up their game with their downtown,” Branco said. She pointed out that the only advertising she hears for downtown SLO is for the Thursday night farmers market. ‘Every business closure is a challenge and heartbreaking’ Those who work most closely with downtown merchants and restaurateurs acknowledge the tough times, but also say that when the big picture is examined, things might not be as bad as they seem.  “The trends in downtown San Luis Obispo are consistent with what most downtowns are experiencing today,” LeBren Harris, CEO of Downtown SLO, a nonprofit that seeks to promote the downtown mainly through events and marketing, wrote SFGATE on Wednesday. “While the constant shifts in the business landscape and business closures are most certainly difficult for business owners and the community, it does not tell the full story.” Harris pointed out that the percentage of “store-level commercial spaces” that are unoccupied in SLO’s downtown is just over 8%, “well below the national average of ~20%.” She also said that while it is “heartbreaking” to hear about closures, “it’s unfortunate that the narrative is focused more on the business closures than giving coverage to the new businesses which chose to plant their roots in downtown San Luis Obispo,” she wrote. “Every business closure is a challenge and heartbreaking. But it also represents a chance for a new business to thrive and contribute to the ongoing vitality of Downtown San Luis Obispo.” However, there have also been other notable, and in many cases, bigger closures over the past several years that have left long-term and very visible vacancies. Those include Ross Dress for Less, which closed its downtown location in early 2022 and has yet to be filled. Across the street, Charles Shoes, an independent shoe shop that was a family-run business for more than a half century, shut its doors in 2019. Six years later, that space is still empty. BarrelHouse Brewing Co. shut its downtown SLO brewery late last year, and that space has yet to find a steady occupant. And last October, the F. McLintocks Saloon, also a Higuera Street mainstay, shut its doors for good. “I agree that the larger, more visible storefronts that have been vacant for years can create the perception of a larger ratio,” Harris wrote. “I can assure you, in conversations I have had with many property owners over the last few months, there are ongoing efforts to get tenants in their spaces. Some agreements can take several months of negotiations. Others can be instant. In the end, it is the property owner’s decision as to who and when their empty storefront is filled.” In the end, helping SLO dig its way out of where it is is a work in progress with a long road ahead: “We acknowledge some challenges are bigger than one organization alone can solve,” Downtown SLO’s Harris wrote. “But we are committed to listening to our business community and working collaboratively with stakeholders and supporters to maintain downtown as the cultural and economic heart of the region.” ‘I’m just going to move forward’ On a recent weekday morning, a quartet of Cal Poly students were taking a break from campus and discovering Kreuzberg California, a mainstay coffee shop, restaurant and performance space that takes up the heart of the 600 block of Higuera Street. They said they don’t venture out much to downtown, but when they discover places like the popular meet-up spot, it resonates. “I’ve never been here,” said Meghan Murphy, a Cal Poly student originally from Oakland who said she’s definitely looking forward to coming back to downtown and Kreuzberg. “It’s a great spot,” chimed in Murphy’s study companion, Austin Hartman, who grew up in Washington state. Hartman said he definitely noticed some vacancies downtown but overall appreciates the city more than where he grew up: “SLO doesn’t have a mall. That’s why downtown is even alive. There are a few empty stores, but maybe that’s what it’ll take to grow.” Out in front of Linnaea’s Cafe, enjoying a cup of coffee, were snowbirds Brian Varvell and his partner Linnea Sabelli. Varvell, who just turned 90, said that he discovered the Central Coast and SLO specifically a little more than a decade ago. The couple decamps for the cooler climate here during the summers in Arizona, where they live out the rest of the year. He said that he thought the downtown had made a bit of a comeback in recent years following the height of the early COVID-19 shutdowns. “I was hopeful that the tide had turned,” he said, noting that things seem to have regressed back to leaner times. “It’s a topic for conversation because you live here and you want to see it succeed and there are all sorts of signals that show it’s moving in the right direction,” he said. “... Then again, the prices to run a shop are probably horribly high because too many fail.” As the couple was finishing their coffee, Gaia’s Gallery owner Branco stepped out of her almost-empty storefront and examined, perhaps for the last time, the dream she was leaving behind.  “At all levels, small businesses are just being squeezed out,” she concluded. “And I felt that pressure, so I had enough foresight to say, ‘You know what, let me get out while I can now.’ And I’m just going to move forward with ease and grace.”  — Neighbors threaten to sue increasingly popular regional California airport— Coastal California town grapples with sweeping housing reform— ‘We’re dying’: Highway 1 in Big Sur closure to continue through winter— One of California's most famous surf towns could suffer a major financial hit, study shows Get SFGATE's top stories sent to your inbox by signing up for The Daily newsletter here.

  

• Congratulations, Canada. This is the stupidest attack on JK Rowling yet Added: Oct 11, 2025

• City official fights back tears apologizing for hosting 'Harry Potter' event Added: Oct 11, 2025

  City official chokes up apologizing to trans activists for hosting innocent ‘Harry Potter’ event

  Site: New York Post

  An elected official fought back tears while apologizing for an innocent “Harry Potter” event because it hurt trans activists’ feelings.

  

• J.K. Rowling Issues Blistering Response to Vancouver Park Board Amid Harry Potter Event Controversy | Bored Panda Added: Oct 11, 2025

  J.K. Rowling Brutally Mocks Harry Potter Event Organizers Over Apology To Transgender Community

  Site: Bored Panda

  J.K. Rowling shared a screenshot of the Vancouver Park Board’s statement revealing that it had publicly disavowed her over her transphobic views.

  

• Millie Marconi on X: "Stanford just pulled off something wild 🤯 They made models smarter without touching a single weight. The paper’s called Agentic Context Engineering (ACE), and it flips the whole fine-tuning playbook. Instead of retraining, the model rewrites itself. It runs a feedback loop https://t.co/VIJj16Zp59" / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• Jimmy Dore on X: "Obama prosecuted more journalists using the Espionage Act than all presidents before him combined. He arrested, jailed & tortured Chelsea Manning for revealing war crimes committed in our name. He repealed the Smith-Mundt act which now allows the CIA/FBI to directly" / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• Mars 🌿 on X: "This yellow squash soup is one of my favorites. Just look at these ingredients: Whole baked yellow squash Onion Garlic Carrot juice Toasted hazelnuts Rosemary and thyme sprigs No oils or salt https://t.co/1Ux3sCLAiw" / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• My GNOME tweaks for a customized Linux experience Added: Oct 11, 2025

  5 GNOME tweaks that I can't live without

  Site: XDA

  Here are some tweaks I always make to GNOME after installing a Linux distro.

  

• Letitia James now reaps what she had sown — so spare us the faux outrage Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Letitia James now reaps what she had sown — so spare us the faux outrage

  Site: New York Post

  Democrats sound like pull-string talkie dolls as they line up to tremble their lower lips and cry about what Awful Orange Man is doing to their beloved Attorney General Letitia James.

  

• Trump Shares Ambition to Be Great President with Granddaughter Kai During Golf Outing / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• Playing Golf with President Donald Trump (My Grandpa) - YouTube Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Playing Golf with President Donald Trump (My Grandpa)

  Site: YouTube

  I had an amazing time filming with my Grandpa to kick off my new series called 1 on 1 with Kai. In the video, everyone gets to see the bond we have, especial...

  

• Elon Musk on X: "Starship flight on Monday ~5pm CT" / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• SpaceX Stacks Starship Ship 38 on Booster 15-2 for Flight 11 Test, Targets Monday Launch / X Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Site: X (formerly Twitter)

  

• SpaceX - Starship's Eleventh Flight Test Added: Oct 11, 2025

  SpaceX

  Site: SpaceX

  SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft.

  

• Saturn's moon Mimas may have an ocean — and a future spacecraft could find it | Space Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Saturn's moon Mimas may have an ocean — and a future spacecraft could find it

  Site: Space

  "It would be hard, but may be doable."

  

• New Pluto mission could uncover dwarf planet's hidden ocean — if the 'queen of the underworld' gets to fly | Space Added: Oct 11, 2025

  New Pluto mission could uncover dwarf planet's hidden ocean — if the 'queen of the underworld' gets to fly

  Site: Space

  "This mission should be able to image the whole of Pluto. It should be phenomenal."

  

• The precursors of life could form in the lakes of Saturn's moon Titan | Space Added: Oct 11, 2025

  The precursors of life could form in the lakes of Saturn's moon Titan

  Site: Space

  "The existence of any vesicles on Titan would demonstrate an increase in order and complexity, which are conditions necessary for the origin of life."

  

• Saturn's moon Enceladus is shooting out organic molecules that could help create life | Space Added: Oct 11, 2025

  Saturn's moon Enceladus is shooting out organic molecules that could help create life

  Site: Space

  Could Saturn's frozen moon be the best place to look for life in the solar system?

  

• Interpretation of the Stripe in the New Image from the Perseverance Rover Camera | by Avi Loeb | Oct, 2025 | Medium Added: Oct 12, 2025

  Interpretation of the Stripe in the New Image from the Perseverance Rover Camera

  Site: Medium

  On October 4, 2025 at the mean local solar time of 21:33:39 on Mars, the Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) onboard NASA’s Mars Perseverance…

  

• “It’s Eating Six Billion Tonnes a Second”: This Rogue Planet Is Growing Like a Star (and No One Knows Why) Added: Oct 12, 2025

  “It’s Eating Six Billion Tonnes a Second”: This Rogue Planet Is Growing Like a Star (and No One Knows Why)

  Site: Rude Baguette

  The discovery of a rogue planet consuming material at an unprecedented rate has stunned astronomers and challenged our understanding of planetary formation.

  

• CachyOS is the best Arch-based Linux distro out there Added: Oct 12, 2025

  CachyOS is the best Arch-based Linux distro out there

  Site: XDA

  Plain Arch is great, but CachyOS makes all the right improvements