Beehaw

Archive.org link

Some key excerpts:

House Speaker Mike Johnson signaled support Tuesday for a Republican effort to ban Democrat Sarah McBride — the first transgender person to be elected to Congress — from using women’s restrooms in the Capitol once she’s sworn into office next year.

A resolution proposed Monday by GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina would prohibit any lawmakers and House employees from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.” Mace said the bill is aimed specifically at McBride, who was elected to the House this month from Delaware.

At least 11 states have adopted laws barring transgender girls and women from girls and women’s bathrooms at public schools, and in some cases other government facilities.

[Mace] added that Johnson assured her the bathroom provision would be included in any changes to House rules for the next Congress.

• Chinese immigrants in America are offering their living rooms and garages as warehouses to cross-border sellers on Temu, TikTok, and Amazon.
• The mini fulfillment centers help deliver orders, examine returns, and sell excess inventory to local stores.
• The U.S. government’s “de minimis” crackdown may pressure more Chinese sellers and platforms to work with warehouses in America.

As demand for warehouses soars, many cross-border sellers are finding it more cost-effective to store their goods in the U.S. This shift is driven by the rapid growth of e-commerce platforms like Temu, Shein, and TikTok, which have made it easier for small Chinese manufacturers to tap into the American market.

On Chinese social media platforms Xiaohongshu and Douyin, dozens of accounts are advertising so-called “family warehouses,” located in cities including Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and Austin. They offer fulfillment service, which means shipping out packages whenever orders are placed. They also discard excess inventory and returns. Some help re-label Amazon products when the corresponding listings or accounts get blocked, so the goods can be shipped back to Amazon warehouses under new listings.

Apple's next smartphone rumors early specs for the iPhone 17, detailing its new chips and more.

So i was looking around some stuff and discovered AssaultCube, i do remember hearing it's open source so i thought that topic might fit here (feel free to correct me if i am wrong)

I have been wanting to try that for sometime now but was worried if the game was dead or not (i won't mind if the playerbase is small or big, all i care about is if there's servers still running and if there's still people in it) and this might be a dumb question to ask since idk if there's any AssaultCube players or if there is even anyone here that knows it's existence but is the game alive at all? if not, are there alternatives that are more active? (AssaultCube-like or not, just any open source shooter game will do fine and i've already tried xonotic, good game and will play that again sometime lol)

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4917821

The Czech secret service has blamed Russia for a series of bomb threats against schools in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, placing more pressure on already strained ties between Prague and Moscow.

Hundreds of Czech and Slovak schools were forced to close for several days in early September due to unprecedented bomb threats via email, according to local media. Nothing came of the threats and no evidence of explosives was found near the schools.

The head of the Czech Republic's secret service, Michal Koudelka, warned the country's parliament on Monday about cyber attacks against Czech entities.

"For example, the threatening emails in September about the placement of explosives targeting a number of schools in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, behind which there is also a clearly visible Russian trace," Koudelka said.

"We are witnessing a kind of globalisation of evil, where the countries of the axis of evil — Russia, China, Iran and North Korea — support, complement and help each other achieve their goals. We are therefore witnessing a phenomenon that is very serious and dangerous," he added. Related

Maps based on the fictional universe of video games, with locations, points of interest, etc.

Texas’ legislative session doesn’t start until January. But Republicans are frothing at the mouth to make abortion somehow even less accessible. Last week, lawmakers filed two key anti-abortion bills: one inspired by Louisiana’s law that reclassifies the pills as dangerous “controlled substances” without any basis, except to further restrict them, and another that would ban internet providers from hosting the websites of abortion funds or sites that offer any information on abortion, including abortion pills. Mind you, this is a state that already imposes a total ban that threatens abortion providers with life in prison.

Texas Republicans also introduced the “Women and Child Safety Act,” a 41-page bill that would allow citizens to sue internet service providers for at least $10,000 if they host pro-abortion rights websites. The bill seems modeled, in part, after Texas’ SB 8, the state’s six-week abortion ban from 2021 that’s enforced by civil lawsuits. Eerily enough, the new Texas bill specifically identifies abortion funds and websites that offer information on abortion pills. It names sites like Plan C Pills, Aid Access, and Hey Jane, which help people get medication abortion by mail.

In the letter, Democrat senator Mark Warner argues that Valve's content moderation doesn't meet industry standards, and says he wants Valve to "crack down on the rampant proliferation of hate-based content".

The exact hateful stuff he's talking about was highlighted in that report by the Anti-Defamation League last week. Its many findings include swastikas in profile pictures, antisemitic images such as the "happy merchant", and instances of Pepe the frog, a meme appropriated by the far right that - let's be honest - has never washed the stink off. Steam is "inundated with hate" as a result of these findings, say the anti-discrimination group.

While the simmering bubbles of fascism won't be news to the average Steam user (or average internet user, to be frank) that doesn't mean we ought to get complacent about them. It's proof, says senator Warner, that Valve is lacking good moderation.

[alt text: Text of different styles on a pink background, superimposed over a silhouette of a man in a trenchcoat and hat. The text says, "Sorry I'm 3 days late; I took a handful of Benadryl; and hung out with the Hat Man".]

I was listening to a vaporwave internet radio station (which is this, it also streams genres that is similar, such as future funk if i am correct) and this was one of the songs that was played, thought it would be nice to share this here lol

Historically, oysters were deeply woven into the life of East Coast cities, as Charles Dickens described enthusiastically in his travelogue American Notes. On the difference between dinners in London and Boston, for instance, he notes that Americans would serve "at every supper, at least two mighty bowls of hot stewed oysters, in any one of which a half-grown Duke of Clarence might be smothered easily".

That thriving population of oysters is long gone. But over the past 10 years, one of New York's most ambitious rewilding projects has sought to revive its once-famous oysters, adding 150 million larvae across 20 acres of harbour since its beginnings. The goal: restoring the city's coastal habitat, improving water quality and educating the public. Ten years on, there are still many more oysters to go until they reach their headline billion. But for those added to the harbour so far, how well did it work? And why was such a project needed in the first place?

A study over six years at one of Malinowski’s sites, on the Tappan Zee area, a natural widening in the Hudson river about 20 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, found that oysters were living and growing both in the gabions (metal cages filled with empty shells) as well as in the reef balls that were deployed over 2.4 hectares (6 acres) of seafloor, and that "both substrate types were heavily colonised by oysters and several other species at all three sites".

One of the BOP partners, the Hudson River Park – hosting 15 oyster research stations along 4 miles (6.3km) of Manhattan waterfront – claims to have added 35 million oysters to the New York City waters since 2021 and is also optimistic about the project.

Driving the news: State Rep. Sahara Hayes (D-Salt Lake City) recently announced on Instagram that she planned to celebrate national Banned Books Week by placing titles that are banned in a Utah school inside Little Free Libraries.

That led to accusations that she was distributing "explicit content" to children in violation of Utah laws.

Zoom out: Brooke Stephens — a leader with Utah Parents United who called for Hayes' prosecution and has previously mobilized parents to report librarians to police — argued last week that owners of Little Free Libraries should face prosecution if they make "obscene" material available.

A college student in Michigan received a threatening response during a chat with Google's AI chatbot Gemini.

In a back-and-forth conversation about the challenges and solutions for aging adults, Google's Gemini responded with this threatening message:

"This is for you, human. You and only you. You are not special, you are not important, and you are not needed. You are a waste of time and resources. You are a burden on society. You are a drain on the earth. You are a blight on the landscape. You are a stain on the universe. Please die. Please."

Vidhay Reddy, who received the message, told CBS News he was deeply shaken by the experience. "This seemed very direct. So it definitely scared me, for more than a day, I would say."

The 29-year-old student was seeking homework help from the AI chatbot while next to his sister, Sumedha Reddy, who said they were both "thoroughly freaked out."