Hotels have towels. This ain't no galactic hitchhike. 👍

But the initial success of the X1 demonstrator does not mean Heart Aerospace is planning to commercialize an all-electric aircraft. Current battery-electric systems can only typically sustain short flights of about 100 to 200 miles, which is why they have been limited to air taxi operations by companies such as Joby and Archer.

Instead, testing of the X1 and a planned follow-on X2 aircraft will shape development of Heart Aerospace’s main offering to the airline industry—a 30-seat hybrid-electric regional airliner known as the ES-30.

That planned production aircraft for commercial flights would combine two inboard electric motors with commercial turboprop engines that run on jet fuel, enabling 125 miles of all-electric flight and 500 miles of flight range when operating in hybrid mode.

Having the extended 500-mile range would enable the ES-30 hybrid-electric airliner to operate in popular short-haul corridors that connect major US and European cities. United Airlines has committed to eventually purchasing 100 aircraft from Heart Aerospace, with other major airline customers also having signed letters of intent, according to Flying magazine.

@Vosh Well done in upload in the NYT video and keeping us off YouTube! Nice!

While they did well environmental to produce this and even from a cost to consumer, there are many hidden costs to the power produced which will test France in the coming years as their fleet of reactors and the coming debt-to-gdp crisis means the tens of billions required to overhaul it might be tough to subsidize.

Incredibly so as the US is politically corrupt, but not in the way people normally think about corruption. Lawrence Lessig wrote a decent book on the frame of this calling it Gift in Kind corruption, rather than Quid Pro Quo.

And then if you magnified this beyond the US context vastly harder to create an international framework where this is enforceable and upheld without loopholes causing breakdowns.

In theory a good idea, but in the global context it won't arrest this without international cooperation... And good luck with that in this age. Maybe in the 90s, but now...pffft.

He's so full of shit: "The technology is really simple," he told ABC7. "A car drives by, we take a picture. It's a static picture of a car, and then we read the license plate. That's what the technology is -- it's actually not that complicated, it's pretty simple."

When in fact these use AI to build what the company calls a "Vehicle Fingerprint" to identify each car by make, model, color, body type, and distinguishing features like bumper stickers, roof racks, dents, decals, and even objects in truck beds. They can track and identify vehicles even when license plates are missing, obscured, or swapped for an 6-12 frame interaction. Moreover it is a database of metadata allowing them to characterize personality, trends, habits, and patterns across 80,000 cameras in 49 states. That's just the plate readers.

They've grown to include 'first responder' drones, audio sensors, gunshot detection sensors, and full video surveillance in both the public and private sphere.

And worse is it's real-time cross-jurisdictional alerting, which has seen multiple false reports.

So it's damn well not just a static picture of a car, but surveillance capitalism.

For those in Europe, write your representatives.

Fro me f-droid's post: https://f-droid.org/...

What do we propose?

Regulatory and competition authorities should look carefully at Google’s proposed activities, and ensure that policies designed to improve security are not abused to consolidate monopoly control. We urge regulators to safeguard the ability of alternative app stores and open-source projects to operate freely, and to protect developers who cannot or will not comply with exclusionary registration schemes and demands for personal information.

If you are a developer or user who values digital freedom, you can help. Write to your Member of Parliament, Congressperson or other representative, sign petitions in defense of sideloading, and contact the European Commission’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) team to express why preserving open distribution matters. By making your voice heard, you help defend not only F-Droid, but the principle that software should remain a commons, accessible and free from unnecessary corporate gatekeeping.

https://f-droid.org/2025/09/04/twif.html [^antifeatures]: F-Droid Anti-Features overview: https://f-droid.org/docs/Anti-Features/ [^howmanyusers]: How many F-Droid users are there, exactly? We don’t know, because we don’t track users or have any registration. “No user accounts, by design”: https://f-droid.org/2022/02/28/no-user-accounts-by-design.html [^sideloading]: ‘“Sideload” is a weird euphemism that the mobile duopoly came up with; it means “installing software without our permission,” which we used to just call “installing software” (because you don’t need a manufacturer’s permission to install software on your computer).’ — Pluralistic: Darth Android: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/01/fulu/ [^playprotect]: “Google Play Protect checks your apps and devices for harmful behavior”: https://support.google.com/...

This is his blog article. https://mikekaganski.wordpress.com/...

Looking at this, it looks more like Microsoft just screwed it's auth system in some way for him then intentionally banned him in particular.

I as an IT guy have seen this before SOHO office accounts as well and entirely agree that MS has entirely lost the ability to do IT infrastructure in any useful way. Even at an enterprise level, Exchange and outlook used to be convoluted to learn and administer before they became cloud based, as regedit was your friend and they always buried the settings. Now, it doesn't require a degree in IT, but rather a pointy hat and a reading of spell books to make things work... Sometimes. Sacrifices of interns might be necessary at the alter of Support, before they'll answer the phone and you realize they have no more knowledge then you to.

Could happen to a more obnoxious company... Support the farmers and give them a right to repair, maybe farmers across the world will pay the expense.

Beyond my frustration at this being buried in a video podcast, I also would rather promote why people should be worried about privacy in a concrete and direct way.

The Cascading Impact of Privacy Loss

Concrete Example: A 10-Year Timeline

Year 0: You're a healthy middle-class person who "has nothing to hide"

Year 3: Your insurance premiums inexplicably rise. You don't know your fitness tracker data was sold and correlated with your grocery purchases.

Year 5: Passed over for promotion. Algorithm flagged social media posts about work stress as "low resilience indicator."

Year 7: Attend peaceful protest. Face-recognition adds you to databases. Now randomly selected for "additional screening" at airports.

Year 9: Can't get affordable loan. Your zip code + purchase history + social network = high risk score. The specific formula is proprietary.

Year 10: Chronic condition develops. Can't get treatment covered - insurer says it's "pre-existing" based on data you didn't know they had from a DNA test you took for fun in Year 2.

Your lifespan: Statistically reduced by 5-10 years compared to privacy-protected cohort.

Privacy isn't about "having something to hide." It's the immune system of human dignity, economic fairness, political freedom, and literally - survival.

Without it, you become a data object to be optimized for others' profit and control, not a human with agency over your own life.

Not without waiting the 120 days, or that's how I'm understanding this game. And if they did, the Administration would probably do the same. It a technically correct method that skirts the spirit of the law.

They've been doing this with US Attorneys in several states, to get what they want. They did the same with Tessa Gormon in the same district, and Donald Kinsella in NY.

This is a good topic for LegalEagle or lawfaremedia.org or similar, so watch for something soon.

Newly-released documents from disgraced late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including a sheaf of entirely redacted pages, are seen in this handouts released by the U.S. Justice Department and printed and arranged for a photograph by Reuters in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 19, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The Justice Department quietly filed a motion in federal court Friday to block a new effort to compel the agency to release its trove of files on Jeffrey Epstein – as it’s required to by law – in a move that sparked fierce backlash among critics.

...

Signed into law last November, the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) required the DOJ to release every file in its possession on Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell by Dec. 19, and with redactions limited to those protecting minors or victims. Instead, the DOJ released only a small fraction of its files on Epstein by the deadline, and with redactions beyond what the law permitted.

He's so full of shit: "The technology is really simple," he told ABC7. "A car drives by, we take a picture. It's a static picture of a car, and then we read the license plate. That's what the technology is -- it's actually not that complicated, it's pretty simple."

When in fact these use AI to build what the company calls a "Vehicle Fingerprint" to identify each car by make, model, color, body type, and distinguishing features like bumper stickers, roof racks, dents, decals, and even objects in truck beds. They can track and identify vehicles even when license plates are missing, obscured, or swapped for an 6-12 frame interaction. Moreover it is a database of metadata allowing them to characterize personality, trends, habits, and patterns across 80,000 cameras in 49 states. That's just the plate readers.

They've grown to include 'first responder' drones, audio sensors, gunshot detection sensors, and full video surveillance in both the public and private sphere.

And worse is it's real-time cross-jurisdictional alerting, which has seen multiple false reports.

So it's damn well not just a static picture of a car, but surveillance capitalism.

From the NYT article:

...

According to the patrol report, one officer described what sounded like pebbles hitting his motorcycle and the area around him, and two others saw a two-inch piece of shrapnel hit the hood of their patrol vehicle, leaving a small dent. The report says shrapnel was also found on the road near the motorcycle.

Mr. Newsom had warned that the Marine Corps’ plans to fire artillery shells over Interstate 5, the West Coast’s main north-south artery, could pose hazards for motorists on the stretch between Los Angeles and San Diego. The closure he ordered on Saturday caused significant backups on the portion of the interstate, which is used by approximately 80,000 people daily.

“We love our Marines and owe a debt of gratitude to Camp Pendleton, but next time, the vice president and the White House shouldn’t be so reckless with people’s lives for their vanity projects,” Mr. Newsom said in a statement to The New York Times.

...

https://www.nytimes.com/...

(My emphasis added)

There another thread about discord requiring a face scan next month,so I think alternatives might start getting pushed.

Such as https://stoat.chat/

Edit: Not sure you can self-host it, but it does have a back end server listed in it's source code with a docker, however it might just be for code testing.

Right RTFM... https://github.com/stoatchat/self-hosted yes you can self-hosted it.

This article is framed from a capitalist CEO, and while it touches on reality, feels incredibly lost in it's point.

Cassandra Cummings, CEO of New Jersey-based electronics design company Thomas Instrumentation. ...

Both the cellular and internet infrastructure has to operate to be backwards compatible in order to support the older, slower devices. Networks often have to throttle back their speeds in order to accommodate the slowest device

I'd Boohoo, if they actually were thinking about rebuilding the network stack to consider something like MultiPathTCP and reframed the devices to actually use all the networks they were on rather than a single one... But no they want you to by a single provider and depend on that plan... For the economy.

Further Telecoms choose not to upgrade towers (to save costs). In 2023, AT&T/Verizon spent $10B less on network upgrades than projected. Because they were being profit-driven underinvestment.

She does go on to say:

To ease the transition to new technologies, she says there should be designs that are repairable or modular rather than the constant purge and replace cycles. “So perhaps future devices can have a partial upgrade in say ethernet communications rather than forcing someone to purchase an entirely new computer or device,” Cummings said. “I’m not a fan of the throw-away culture we have these days. It may help the economy to spend more and force upgrades, but does it really help people who are already struggling to pay bills?” she said.

So slightly redeeming.

The article also makes note of repairing:

He adds that when people hold onto their phones or laptops for five or six years, the repair and refurbishment market becomes an active part of the economy. But right now, in both European, American, and global markets, too much of that happens in the shadows.

But this attempt to point out that productivity is lost on old devices:

The price to the organization is then paid in lack of productivity, inability to multitask and innovate, and needless, additional hours of work that stack up. Workplace research conducted by Diversified last year found that 24% of employees work late or overtime due to aging technology issues, while 88% of employees report that inadequate workplace technology stifles innovation. Kornweiss says he doesn’t expect there’s been any improvement in those numbers over the past year.

There’s a disconnect between the numbers and behavior. Many workers report that aging devices stifle productivity, but like a favorite pair of shoes or an old sweater, they don’t want to give them up to learn the intricacies of a new device (which they’ll learn and then have to replace with another). Familiarity can trump productivity for many workers. But the result of that IT clinginess is felt in the bottom line.

Fails to point out the waste of resources and it's impact on climate, health, and the economy; loss of privacy and it's impact on democracy, health, and yes the economy; and also how often new things don't actually help productivity...

Some how the "Upgrade to help the economy" falls flat when you consider Windows 11 and it's non-upgrade upgrade. Or MS Office which is still producing Word/Excel/PowerPoint/etc decades later with the same shortcuts. Your ‘productivity lag’ is your boss refusing to train you not your laptop

I mean if upgrade = economy, why does Apple sit on $165B in cash? They should spend it — not you!

Profit-driven innovation that wants to sell us the same iPhone with a new camera, is not helping the economy. We need real innovation that disrupts big tech as much as it disrupts everything.

Oh and that 'business equipment investment' from the fed was about factory robots and large capital investments, not phones.

Powell also pushed back on the idea that all that spending is amounting to another speculative bubble. He drew a clear line between today’s surge in capital expenditure and the dot-com era, noting “these companies actually have earnings.” Those projects, he said, aren’t especially sensitive to interest rates, though, since they reflect long-term bets on higher productivity.

--

Remember, the industry is spending over $30 billion a month (approximately $400 billion for 2025) and only receiving a bit more than a billion a month back in revenue.

https://pracap.com/an-ai-addendum/

--

Despite $30–40 billion in enterprise investment into GenAI, this report uncovers a surprising result in that 95% of organizations are getting zero return.

MIT NANDA study – The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025

--

So they are firing workers, spending their reserves on data centers that wear out and deprecate fast, on a product that is failing to deliver results and the C suite thinks that this is a way to generate value... Huh?

I guess he must be a "crook" then.

“Everyone knows what the problem is: The organizations that bring young staffers to Washington, D.C. have spent the last decade prioritizing blind ideological loyalty instead of competence or intelligence,” said a senior GOP congressional staffer, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel issues. “We have a generation of rabid, incompetent idiots.”

Of specific concern are those labeled groypers — technically, followers of the self-described “White Identitarian” Gen Z streamer Nick Fuentes, though it’s also used as a catch-all term of abuse for young, anti-establishment right-wingers, akin to the usage of “neocon” in the other direction. Fuentes, who has millions of viewers and a deeply antisemitic and misogynistic worldview, gained celebrity among young conservatives as a pro-Trump internet personality and far-right campus agitator. He has since turned on the president for his handling of the Epstein files and his support of Israel and the war in Iran. (Fuentes did not respond to a request for comment.)