“Oh Oh!”

or years, “cyber apocalypse” talk sounded like the tech version of a guy on a street corner holding a cardboard sign predicting the end times. Y2K came and went with barely a flicker. The Mayan calendar became a punchline. Even most ransomware attacks, destructive as they’ve been, still operated within recognizable rules. Servers go down. Companies panic. Bitcoin wallets light up. Insurance adjusters start chain-smoking.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Khor Mor gas field which cut power across most of Iraqi Kurdistan on Wednesday night. But whoever the perpetrator is, they have sent a clear message to governments around the world: non-state militant groups can now use relatively cheap, accessible technology to cause major disruption at a national level. This threat has not yet struck Britain, but most accept that it will at some point. The consequences are potentially disastrous unless we find solutions, and fast.

An attempt to promote friendship between Japan and countries in Africa has transformed into a xenophobic row about migration after inaccurate media reports suggested the scheme would lead to a “flood of immigrants”.

The controversy erupted after the Japan International Cooperation Agency, or JICA, said this month it had designated four Japanese cities as “Africa hometowns” for partner countries in Africa: Mozambique, Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania.

The programme, announced at the end of an international conference on African development in Yokohama, will involve personnel exchanges and events to foster closer ties between the four regional Japanese cities – Imabari, Kisarazu, Sanjo and Nagai – and the African nations.

Del Monte’s bankruptcy this week stunned many who grew up with its canned fruit cocktail, peas, and corn lining their family pantry. After 139 years, the company has filed for Chapter 11 protection in the United States. But this isn’t a canary-in-the-coalmine moment for the entire sector — it’s more a case study in how legacy brands can fall out of sync with modern market dynamics.

My deep dark secret summer delight – fruit cocktail in Jello

The last time I spoke with the consultant neurologist Prof Guy Leschziner, he was explaining the fine detail of the relationship between insomnia and dementia. The man is so highly regarded, I joked that quoting him was “a flex”, as if he were Harry Styles. Leschziner is a professor of neurology and sleep medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals, and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. He’s also the author of The Nocturnal Brain.

Today, we’re meeting in KCL’s Science Gallery Café in central London, and sleep isn’t on the menu. But gluttony, greed and sloth — behaviours that often come into sharp focus around Christmas — certainly are. These transgressions feature in Leschziner’s most recent book, Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human.It feels like a segue from his specialisation, but it’s actually an expansion, he explains. “The way that we behave is entirely as a consequence of how our brains are wired.”

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – As the autumn sun warms the historic campus outside, a professor specializing in ancient and modern political philosophy guides undergraduate students through the seemingly ruthless nuances of Machiavelli’s 16^th-century philosophy of morals.

In another class, a professor specializing in political theory offers students a guided tour of the early American republic, as seen through the enlightened eyes of French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville. 

h/t XC

The teenager hospitalized with bird flu in British Columbia, Canada, may have a variation of the virus that has a mutation making it more transmissible among people, early data shows – a warning of what the virus can do that is especially worrisome in countries such as the US where some H5N1 cases are not being detected.

The US “absolutely” is not testing and monitoring bird flu cases enough, which means scientists could miss mutated cases like these, said Richard Webby, a virologist at St Jude children’s research hospital’s department of infectious diseases.

Regular contacts between world’s richest man and America’s chief antagonist raise security concerns; topics include geopolitics, business and personal matters

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a linchpin of U.S. space efforts, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022.

The discussions, confirmed by several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials, touch on personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions.

At one point, Putin asked the billionaire to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, said two people briefed on the request.

LINK FIXED

Much like the character Major Tom in David Bowie’s classic hit “Space Oddity,” two NASA astronauts, Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams, are currently “sitting in a tin can, far above the world” with little hope of landing back on Earth anytime soon.

Nearly everything on Wall Street is tumbling Monday as fear about a slowing American economy worsens and sets off another sell-off for financial markets around the world.

The S&P 500 was down by 3.1 percent in morning trading, coming off its worst week in more than three months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 956 points, or 2.4 percent, as of 10:10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite slid 4 percent.

The drops were just the latest in a sell-off that swept the globe. Japan’s Nikkei 225 helped start Monday by plunging 12.4 percent for its worst day since the Black Monday crash of 1987.

He’s not even all that brilliant

Occasionally, there are those of us on the right who fall into the mistaken habit of believing things about comedian and HBO talk host Bill Maher that are not true.

For example, Maher is some sort of honest broker with whom we might do business.

The British Empire and other major European powers did not significantly enrich themselves through slavery and colonialism but rather may have taken a net loss as a result, a report has asserted.

Contrary to narratives pushed by ‘anti-colonialism’ academics and promoted by leftist talking heads, Western capitalism was not built off the backs of colonialism and slavery, fresh research from Kristian Niemietz of the Institute of Economic Affairs claims.

It’s time to put James Bond out of his misery. Ian Fleming was a friend of my father, Woodrow, and he often said he despised the books that made his name, but the one thing he confessed himself attached to was the quintessence of his creation, namely that Bond was a cad, a snob and a sexist.

He was not, for want of a better word, a gentleman.

There is a phenomenon producing simmering rage among drivers across the nation, on dark country roads, busy city streets and state highways: Car headlights have gotten too bright.

“This winter it was, like, oh my God, it’s every third car,” says Barbara Banfield, 67, a retired nurse who lives on Whidbey Island in Washington state.

Banfield was traveling a well-lit state highway one night and felt blinded. First she thought an inordinate number of inconsiderate people had their brights on.

No argument from me.

As of this writing the catastrophic bridge collapse in Baltimore, Md. is still unfolding.

Facts on the ground are thus far that a container ship collided with a support pylon on the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore. The bridge immediately collapsed, as the videos widely available show, clearly and shockingly.

The speed and totality of the collapse are breathtaking.