cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716161

Archived version

On November 18, Russia’s State Duma passed the 2026 draft budget in its second reading. The plan includes raising the value-added tax (VAT) from 20 to 22 percent and increasing taxes on small and medium-sized businesses. During the same session, lawmakers also approved a “technology fee” that will be charged to importers and manufacturers of household appliances and electronics.

The Putin administration for state-run and pro-government media, designed to help them present the new policies in a way that suits the Kremlin.

TL;DR:

• The West is to blame for the tax hikes.
• Media outlets are strongly advised to avoid mentioning Putin's name in stories about rising taxes to make sure clear that the public does not associate any of these unpopular decisions with Putin personally
• The Putin administration recommends citing European countries that are supposedly “slashing social programs to fund weapons.”
• Fears that tax increases drive up prices should be eased by saying that the tax changes will have only a “minimal” impact on inflation.
• In addition, the Putin administration urges loyal media to shift attention toward a separate tax increase on bookmakers, portraying it as a “fair” measure.

...

Meanwhile, Russia starts selling off its gold reserves to fund the war budget, breaking a long-held taboo, as the country’s Central Bank confirmed to Russian media outlet Interfax.

The move marks a significant shift in how Moscow is tapping its financial buffers to sustain government spending during the war against Ukraine.

...

Jon Bernthal isn't in Daredevil: Born Again season 2. Instead, a one hour "Daredevil' standalone short will release in 2026.

Tucker Carlson’s interview with the activist revealed the mainstream right is being flooded by extremism – and it’s now impossible to contain

Source:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2179490/view/609802806473261114

Suddenly, drivers find themselves pulled over — often for reasons cited such as speeding, failure to signal, the wrong window tint or even a dangling air freshener blocking the view. They are then aggressively questioned and searched, with no inkling that the roads they drove put them on law enforcement’s radar.

Only solution is going to be to ban the automated license plate scanners; otherwise this is going to keep on happening.

We said we'd post the stats from last year's bingo, so here's the breakdown!

Submissions are included in the stats as they were reported. In other words, while we do verify that works exist (as a side effect of compiling reading stats), we don't check if they "count".

What got completed?

Cards

• 6 cards submitted (1 card per person) Not bad for a niche first-time event on the fediverse!
• 2 challenge modes completed (review mode, by 2 people)

Bingo Lines

• 31 bingo lines completed
  • 2 cards with 12 bingos done ("blackout"/all squares)
  • 1 with 3 bingos
  • 1 with 2 bingos
  • 2 with 1 bingo
• most popular bingo (on 66.7% of cards): row 1

Squares

• 96 squares completed
  • most completed squares (on 83.3% of cards): 1A (Older Than You Are), 1C (What’s Yours Is Mine), 1D (Family Drama), 3A (Eazy, Breazy, Read-zie), 3C (One Less), 4A (Now a Major Motion Picture), 4C (Award Winner)
  • least completed squares (on 33.3% of cards): 4B (It’s About Time), 5B (It's a Holiday)
  • least favorite square, according to survey: 2B (Plays with Words)
• 41 hard mode squares (42.71% of completed squares)
  • most completed hard modes (on 66.7% of cards): 3B (Stranger in a Strange Land), 3C (One Less)
  • hard modes nobody did: 1E (It Takes Two, three authors), 3A (Eazy, Breazy, Read-zie, read on vacation), 4B (It’s About Time, backward in time), 5D (Minority Author, ethnic minority and LGBTQIA+)
  • squares submitted only in hard mode: 3B (Stranger in a Strange Land), 3E (LGBTQIA+ Lead), 5B (It's a Holiday)
• 2 substituted squares (2.1% of completed squares)
  • 33.3% of cards included a substitution
  • substitutions made: 1B > She Blinded Me with Science, 5A > A Change in Perspective

What did people read?

Types of Works

• 93 unique works read
  • 68 fiction novels (73.1% of unique works)
  • 14 fiction novellas (15.1%)
  • 3 fiction or nonfiction short stories or short story collections (3.2%)
  • 3 fiction or nonfiction comics, graphic novels, or manga (3.2%)
  • 3 verse works (epic poems, novels in verse, or dramatic verse) (3.2%)
  • 2 nonfiction biographies or memoirs (2.2%)

Publication Years

• before 1900: 3 (3.2% of unique works)
• 1900–1909: 2 (2.2%)
• 1910–1919: 0
• 1920–1929: 4 (4.3%)
• 1930–1939: 0
• 1940–1949: 0
• 1950–1959: 5 (5.4%)
• 1960–1969: 5 (5.4%)
• 1970–1979: 3 (3.2%)
• 1980–1989: 2 (2.2%)
• 1990–1999: 4 (4.3%)
• 2000–2009: 5 (5.4%)
• 2010–2019: 30 (32.3%)
• 2020–2024: 30 (32.3%)

Notable Content Tags

Works may be in multiple categories/subcategories. A space detective thriller would be counted once for each of the following tags: space, scifi, fantastical, mystery/detective, thriller, and suspenseful.

• fantastical: 62 (66.7% of unique works)
  • scifi: 22 (23.7%)
    • space: 8 (8.6%)
  • supernatural: 11 (11.8%) Surprisingly, not all supernatural titles were also horror.
  • dystopian: 6 (6.5%)
  • epic fantasy: 5 (5.4%)
  • magical realism: 4 (4.3%)
• suspenseful: 45 (48.4%)
  • mystery/detective: 20 (21.5%)
  • horror/gothic: 18 (19.4%)
  • thriller: 16 (17.2%)
• historical: 21 (22.6%)
• romantic: 16 (17.2%) Includes a significant romantic element; does not need to be in a romance genre.
• literary/contemporary: 16 (17.2%)
• YA/middle grade: 8 (8.6%)
• nonfiction: 4 (4.3%)

Most Read Titles (2 each)

• The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed
• Relic by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
• The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy

Most Read Authors (2 each)

• Ray Bradbury
• Becky Chambers
• Mareike Fallwickl
• Nnedi Okorafor
• J.R.R. Tolkien

The same could be said for non-American media, but American media in particular always hops between different topics and only one at a time.

Take, for example, news surrounding the mustard orange man with a red hat. At first, the news was swirling about how he was elected for a second term despite being a felon, but eventually the media pretty much forgot about that and went to his stance on climate change (that is, he believes it doesn't exist and thinks that oil and gas are the most amazing thing in the world, ever), then to the huge budget cuts (e.g. medicine, foreign aid, NASA), then to the ICE raids and military deployments in cities as "police", and now to "the files".

He is still a felon, still pushing for fossil fuels, still cutting funding for critical services (while increasing budget for his own benefit, like the rebuilding of the east wing of the white house to be glittery gold, military spending, fossil fuels industry...), still using ICE to raid the communities and families of both legal (including U.S. citizens, what the hell!) and "illegal" immigrants (nearly all of which don't have a criminal record, don't think 3 years olds are gang members...), and still using the military in various different cities as "police".

Questioning orange man's relation with bald egg man should be rightfully done, but why is the media practically ignoring everything else (esp. given that he was already convicted for doing similar acts as well as a bunch of other naughty stuff to do with money and government documents)

The American media can only latch onto one "hot" topic at a time and it's infuriating. You go to any of the news about orange man right now and it's all about non-Sonic billionaire eggman. The public is not as "one brain cell" as the media, but still, most people in the U.S. usually latch on to one thing only (whether it's ICE, the budget cuts, or the files, ESPECIALLY the files, it may as well be a copypasta at this point)

Similar could be said for big non-orange topics too, like on Israel (their invasion and genocide in Gaza, settlement of the West Bank, bombings of Lebanon, Syria, and now the "scary" proposal that - gasps - mentions a Palestinian state, etc.), Russian invasion of Ukraine, etc.

Why is the American media like this? Same could be said for all media, but American media in particular seem to always be tunnel visioned to one issue at a time. The American public also seem pretty tunnel visioned to a single issue, though not to the extent of the media companies

Note: I am not an American and do not, have never, and probably will never (due to the anti-immigrant administration) live in the US. I am not saying "haha Americans are dumb", that wouldn't be very nice. I just read a lot of news, some of which is American, and this has been a weird pattern I've been noticing and it drives me crazy.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/42153201

Federal judges on Thursday upheld several U.S. House districts that North Carolina Republicans drew in 2023 that helped the GOP gain additional seats the following year. They rejected accusations the lines unlawfully fractured and packed Black voters to weaken their voting power.

The order by three judges — all of whom were nominated to the bench by GOP presidents — didn’t rule on changes made last month to the 1st Congressional District that are designed to unseat Democratic Rep. Don Davis in 2026.

Brown University researchers run joint-and-drink study to find alcohol consumption falls after smoking cannabis

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/nov/19/california-sober-marijuana-alcohol-study

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716280

Archived version

...

Today, Chinese companies control more than 220 gigawatts of Europe’s installed solar capacity via inverters—the digital brains that convert direct current into grid-usable alternating current. These (usually) remotely programmable computers generate data, receive software and firmware updates, adjust voltage and frequency, and can be switched on and off as needed—or tampered with. Huawei (deemed “high risk” for many European telecoms networks) has become Europe’s largest supplier of inverters.

In normal times, inverters maintain grid stability and facilitate the integration of renewable energy. In a world where technology can be weaponised, they also offer a handful of operators potential levers inside Europe’s critical infrastructure. The irony is that clean technologies disperse energy generation across countless sites, but the digital centralisation of their data and control on cloud platforms makes them more vulnerable to attack.

In effect, while European dependence on solar panels from China may not be the most risky of dependencies, the EU’s energy grid backbone increasingly runs on Chinese hardware, software and data access. European countries need to spend hundreds of billions of euros over the coming years to upgrade their ageing grid, and China is well-placed to extend this dominant inverter supplier position into other power equipment, including transmission lines, distribution transformers and software for managing grid integration. Beijing has already shown that it will use dependencies as geoeconomic weapons, from rare earths to automotive chips. Europe’s grid could be next.

...

There’s no shortage of ways inverters can be turned into weapons. State-linked actors could deploy malware that cripples the power system and knocks out critical services. Espionage teams might map the grid to help pinpoint the best places to disconnect for maximum impact. Cyber attacks on operating systems could plunge wide areas into darkness for weeks.

There are also geoeconomic threats. Imagine China restricted the sale of components and maintenance services to its grid technologies. European countries would not be able to simply switch to a different supplier, because switching often requires replacing large parts of the network, leaving operators unable to patch known flaws and thereby inviting more cyber attacks or extortion.

...

How to secure the European grid

• Exclude high-risk vendors from the EU, e.g., the Cybersecurity Act, as well as the Cyber Resilience Act, could therefore offer the Commission another pathway to enforce Union-wide bans on risky products and services
• Condition funding on exclusions, e.g., conditioning EU funding for renewable energy projects and auctions on the exclusion of hardware and software from high-risk suppliers
• Tighten economic security measures, e.g., protecting domestic manufacturers by launching trade defence investigations (anti-dumping) into imported inverters and other power grid equipment
• Prevent circumvention and strengthen oversight, e.g., making sure that member states EU regulations by outsourcing operational control functions of inverters to (shell) companies in high-risk countries
• Promote trust standards among allies, e.g., encouraging its member states to adopt similar trust standards for their energy grid

...

Archive link

Does anyone have any experience with HuggingFace TTS models in Firefox? I know that there is a mobile application that allows you to change your default TTS engine to one of the models. I also know of an old method to get different, better-sounding TTS to work in Firefox. I think I was also able to get the Microsoft voices working through the same method with some workarounds, but I'm unable to provide a link. Any advice would be much appreciated.

In short:

An Australian bank has frozen the accounts of a prominent Neo-Nazi leader, while a US-based technology firm has blocked the group's attempts to solicit donations online.

The nation's corporate watchdog has also revoked the group's proposed company name, "White Australia".

Despite these actions, the Neo-Nazi organisation claims it has collected 1,495 of the 1,500 signatures required to register as a federal political party.

[...]

Es geht darum, wie der Behördenapparat mit diversen antidemokratischen, teils rechtsextremen Strömungen umgeht, die regelmäßig ans Licht kommen – und die vonseiten der Polizei meist als Einzelfälle dargestellt werden.

Der Polizeiwissenschaftler Rafael Behr hält es für wichtig, dass diese Strömungen innerhalb der Polizei aufgearbeitet werden. Im Gespräch mit t-online betont er: "Es gibt strukturelle Grundlagen für antidemokratisches Verhalten. Das wird durch die Organisation der Arbeit und Dominanzkultur der Polizei befördert." Das "krampfhafte" Festhalten an der Einzelfallthese müsse überwunden werden.

[...]

So zeigte die Megavo-Polizeistudie (Motivation, Einstellung und Gewalt im Alltag von Polizeivollzugsbeamten) aus dem vergangenen Jahr einen geringen Anteil an Verfassungstreue. Dort lehnten lediglich 29 Prozent der befragten Polizeibeamten Autoritarismus kategorisch ab, 13 Prozent befürworteten ihn. Der Rest zeigte sich zumindest anfällig. Das zeigt laut Behr allerdings, dass mit aktiver Präventionsarbeit auch noch etwas gerettet werden könne. Er betont daher: "Ich halte die Polizei nicht für rechtsextrem, schon gar nicht insgesamt. Aber ich sehe eine gewisse Anfälligkeit für autoritäre Verführungen."

[...]

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/50155563

I like to keep bigscreen mode primarily for games, but I find the desktop mode is not ideal when using from the TV even with a Steam Controller to use media streaming apps (Firefox progressive web apps, x86_64 Waydroid Aurora/F-Droid apps, and native Discover Store apps), and adjust other settings.

The answer to this pain-point is Plasma Bigscreen. It has a Android TV like interface, and works well with controllers and remotes (FYI, the most reliable one I've tested, sold under a variety of brands). It's easy to switch between the regular Desktop Mode and Bigscreen from the sddm login screen, it's just a dropdown.

Someone recently gave it some much needed love to promote it to QT6, but it could use some additional contributors to bring it to a production grade environment, hopefully in time for the Steam Machine launch.

If you want the stable QT5 version, it is available with most distro package managers as:

plasma-bigscreen

But it does not work perfectly, there are known issues. I am staking my hopes in the next version.

If you want to try the latest on Arch-based systems like SteamOS without building from source, help with filing bugs (always appreciated), or contribute code, the QT6 version which I find more reliable in some ways, less in others, and some key associated dependencies are

plasma-bigscreen-git
plasma-remotecontrollers-git
qt6-virtualkeyboard

Else for Fedora-based Bazzite, or Debian-based distros like Mint, at least currently you need to build from source or help get the package into the testing branches.

• Gitlab
• Bugzilla (select Plasma Bigscreen)

One key thing that needs fixing is, since Mycroft voice control closed down, OVOS has continued the voice assistant codebase and skills library, but Bigscreen needs OVOS modules placed in where previously Mycroft was used. Definitely helpful for searching shows/movies with controllers/remotes that have a microphone.