First reported by Ars Technica, the copyright case against Facebook parent company Meta over its use of authors' work to train large language models has unearthed some embarrassing dirty laundry in discovery. Dozens of emails, allegedly between Meta employees, discuss torrenting massive amounts of pirated materialâ âand seeding those torrents to bootâ âin order to train the company's AI models.
It was revealed via court documents last month that Meta had obtained AI training data from LibGen, a large file sharing database that includes everything from paywalled news and academic articles, to whole books. The prosecution alleges that Meta downloaded over 80 terabytes from LibGen and another so-called "shadow library" by the name of Z-Library. This is, to be clear, internet piracy on a scale that would make a Nintendo lawyer blush, and the lawsuit alleges the emails put in writing "Metaâs decision to take and use copyrighted works without permission that it knew to be pirated, despite clear ethical concerns."
One of the emails in evidence quotes an alleged Meta employee futilely advising that "using pirated material should be beyond our ethical threshold" before arguing that databases like LibGen "are basically like PirateBay or something like that, they are distributing content that is protected by copyright and they're infringing it."
There are repeated examples of emails ascribed to Meta employees flagging the use of LibGen as a concern, either in failed "lone sane man fashion," or in the context of hiding the activity. One researcher proposed only accessing LibGen through a VPN, and later joked that "torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn't feel right đ."
Meta would ultimately operate in "stealth mode," to quote one AI researcher at the company, concealing the activity by only downloading and seeding the torrents outside official Facebook servers. As an aside: It was real neighborly of them to seed the torrents too! Wonder how good their ratios were.
The prosecution further argues that these discovery documentsâ suggest that Meta executives up to and including Mark Zuckerberg were aware of the use of pirated material to train AI models at the company. Another detail that stands out to me: The emails filed as evidence indicate that Meta employees believed OpenAI used LibGen for its own models, framing the company's use of the database as a sort of arms race.
If the Internet Archive isn't allowed to loan books as a digital library, I don't think companies like Meta should be allowed to swallow up terabytes of pirated material to train a chatbot that will lie to you about how many planets are in the solar system. In a twist of fate, our international copyright regime looks to be one of the most sturdy bulwarks against an AI future. I'm no fan of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but I say let them fight.
One other thing I just can't escape is how low-rent this all is: Our Silicon Valley thought leaders and mavericks need unprecedented injections of capital in order to⊠do internet piracy and conquer a new frontier in cheating on your homework? The sheer body of written communication allegedly confirming it all is just the cherry on top of a schadenfreude sundae. "Subject: Forwarded: Re:Re:Re:Re: Crimes." I'm reminded of how Valve was saved from ruin by a similar disregard for opsec on the part of its former publisher Vivendi, or, indeed, that one I Think You Should Leave sketch.
I'm in. I intone the words with a sense of victory as I navigate the file directory using only shell commandsâa feat that might have impressed the occasional adolescent maybe two decades ago. But then, the camera pans out to reveal a PDF document⊠inside a Chrome browser⊠running on Windows.
Yes, this is Linux running in a PDF, running in a browser, on my Windows PC.
This completely unexpected turn, brought to you by Ading2210, the same high school student who gave you Doom running in a PDF. On YouTube, they go by vk6 (via Hackaday).
In the video description showcasing the LinuxPDF project, they explain: "I got Linux running inside a PDF file via a RISC-V emulator compiled to Javascript."
What a world we're in today: a world of such compute power that means high-level and rather ubiquitous technologies such as Javascript can run entire emulators, apparently inside PDFs. The fact that PDF documents allow Javascript to execute is a double-edged sword, of course, as while it can allow you to run DOOM and now, apparently, Linux, it can also put you at risk of dodgy malware scripts.
LinuxPDF can run in any Chromium-based browser, which includes Chrome (duh), Brave, Edge, and Opera. You can check it out for yourself here.
Of course, you're not getting the Ubuntu experience inside your Chromium-powered PDF, rather you're getting an incredibly barebones command line experience via TinyEMU RISC-V emulation.
And you're not getting a particularly fast version of that, either, thanks to the layers of emulation. You get a command line, plus a virtual keyboard to pressâalthough you can also type your inputs using your own keyboard using the space at the bottom-right. It's a little janky (backspace only seems to register on the virtual keyboard, for instance) but what do you expect?
Ading2210 explains: "It works by using a separate text field for each row of pixels in the screen, whose contents are set to various ASCII characters." Pretty ingenious, if you ask me.
So, first DOOM, and now Linux. What's next? Crysis? How about a PDF reader running from an emulated OS running inside a PDF? We're waiting, Ading.
A new slime-like material developed by University of Guelph scientists generates electricity when squeezed, opening doors for applications from medical devices to clean energy harvesting.
The material, made of 90% water plus natural ingredients found in olive oil and proteins, can transform its microscopic structure when exposed to electric fields. â Read the rest
âWe are in the midst of a political coup that, if successful, would forever change the nature of American government. It is not taking place in the streets. There is no martial law. It is taking place cubicle by cubicle in federal agencies and in the mundane automation of bureaucracy. The rationale is based on a productivity myth that the goal of bureaucracy is merely what it produces (services, information, governance) and can be isolated from the process through which democracy achieves those ends: debate, deliberation, and consensus.â
Toxic chemicals, per-, and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, abbreviated as PFAS and also known as "forever chemicals," have been used for decades as water repellants. PFAS break down very slowly and have been found in the blood of humans and animals worldwide. These chemicals are known to cause multiple health issues in humans, from developmental delays to cancer. â Read the rest
The US Navy successfully tested its new laser weapon mounted on a warship. The dramatic photo above depicts the High Energy Laser and Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system zapping an anti-ship cruise missile.
While other manbaby billionaires are having their midlife crises in space, some anonymous oligarch has decided to speedrun the plot of BioShock by dumping a few hundred million into underwater housing.
The project, dubbed Deep (and they're weirdly intense about not calling it "The Deep," which is absolutely what we're going to call it now), is converting a flooded quarry on the Welsh border into a testing pool for pressure-resistant pleasure domes that can descend 200 meters below the waves, complete with six bedrooms and porthole windows for watching sharks swim by while you enjoy your morning coffee. â Read the rest
Only recently, I passed on my GameCube to my nephew who was just starting college. He wanted something to play Mario Kart and GoldenEye on with new friends, and apparently itâs proving a hit. But this means I donât have a GameCube. So letâs check eBay...
Support your friendly neighborhood independent comic strip: SIGN UP FOR THE INNER HIVE and you'll get each week's Tom the Dancing Bug comic at least a day before publication. Plus other exclusive content like extra comics, commentary, juicy gossip, puzzles, recipes, and thrilling secrets. â Read the rest
The vagus nerve is a busy bundle of over 100,000 information-carrying fibers that runs from the brain stem through the body to connect the brain with major organs including the heart, lungs, and digestive system.
Scientists have discovered they can hack this neural network to calm an overactive immune system, potentially helping millions who suffer from conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and Crohn's disease. â Read the rest
i think rickrolling is the only meme that gets objectively funnier with age. in 2009 you learned to anticipate it but in 2019 it happens just infreqently enough that i fall for it every single time
like people still make rage comics and doge jokes and shit but itâs always ironic (the real punchline is that youâre using an outdated format) or more in line with modern absurd internet humor. rickrolling is the only meme i can think of thatâs been the exact same for a full decade- click on a link thinking youâre getting something else, get rick astley instead, and itâs still consistently funny
the more time passes the more foolish you feel for falling for a rickroll as well. Like darn I learnt about this prank 10+ years ago how did I just fall for it now,
I have had the honor of working on two different comics projects with Don Hertzfeldt. Flight, and Fusion Future. But this is the story of my first interaction with the man.
When unions are outlawed, only outlaws will have unions. Unions donât owe their existence to labor laws that protect organizing activities. Rather, labor laws exist because once-illegal unions were formed in the teeth of violent suppression, and those unions demanded â and got â labor law.
Bosses have hated unions since the start, and theyâve really hated laws protecting workers. Dress this up in whatever self-serving rationale you want â âthe freedom to contract,â or âmeritocracyâ â it all cashes out to this: when workers bargain collectively, value that would otherwise go to investors and executives goes to the workers.
Iâm not just talking about wages here, either. If an employer is forced â by a union, or by a labor law that only exists because of union militancy â to operate a safe workplace, they have to spend money on things like fire suppression, PPE, and paid breaks to avoid repetitive strain injuries. In the absence of some force that corrals bosses into providing these safety measures, they can use that money to pay themselves, and externalize the cost of on-the-job injuries to their workers.
The cost and price of a good or service is the tangible expression of power. It is a matter of politics, not economics. If consumer protection agencies demand that companies provide safe, well-manufactured goods, if there are prohibitions on price-fixing and profiteering, then value shifts from the corporation to its customers.
Now, if labor has few rights and consumers have many rights, then bosses can pass their consumer-side losses on to their workers. This is the Walmart story, the Amazon story: cheap goods paid for with low wages and dangerous working conditions. Likewise, if consumer rights are weak but labor rights are strong, then bosses can pass their costs onto their customers, continuing to take high profits by charging more. This is the story of local gig-work ordinances like NYCâs, which guaranteed a minimum wage to delivery drivers â restaurateurs responded by demanding the right to add a surcharge to their bills:
But if labor and consumer groups act in solidarity, then they can operate as a bloc and bosses and investors have to eat shit. Back in 2017, the pilotsâ union for American Airlines forced their bosses into a raise. Wall Street freaked out and tanked AAâs stock. Analysts for big banks were outraged. Citiâs Kevin Crissey summed up the situation perfectly, in a fuming memo: âThis is frustrating. Labor is being paid first again. Shareholders get leftoversâ:
I've never been banned from a videogame or even got a single warning before. But sometimes, simply playing by the book isn't enough to avoid a ban. Maybe you've run into a few too many salty players who've reported you out of spite, or maybe you got a message in-game telling you that third-party software has been found on your PC, even though that's not true. I can't imagine what I would do in this situation, but one player known as b00lin decided that he wasn't going to stand for it.
One day, after 36.2 hours of playing the early beta version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, b00lin opened his Steam profile to find a ban message. At first, he thought that it could've been a result of encountering a couple of bugs in the beta. But after appealing the decision, Activision held fast: "We've confirmed with our security team that your account has been permanently banned for using unauthorised software and manipulation of game data. As you were the account holder at the time of the infraction, your ban will not be overturned."
This short message from Activision Support was the start of a long and arduous process of using the legal system to get his account unbanned and receive a refund for his initial purchase of Modern Warfare 2âall of this would take two years.
(Image credit: Activision)
Before taking the matter to court, b00lin tried going through Activision one last time. He used Activision's ticket system, attempted to phone Activision support, and even tried contacting someone who works at Activision through Linkedin, but nothing seemed to work.
"When appealing these bans, I would often ask if there was any proof of the 'unauthorised software' used," b00lin says. "The answer I always received was that they are unable to [provide examples] due to it being a security risk and could expose how the anti-cheat works."
To date, I still don't know what caused the false ban.
b00lin
Protecting anticheat software is a must, especially when it comes to competitive games where players stand to gain the most from cheating. Within a week of Activision announcing its new kernel-level anticheat, Ricochet, back in 2021, the Anti-Cheat Police Department (a group of players dedicated to rooting out cheaters) announced that the driver had already leaked amongst cheat developers. When something like this happens, Call of Duty games and Warzone are usually swamped with cheaters for weeks afterward until Activision can make the necessary changes to root them out.
While keeping security secrets and information about Ricochet in-house is clearly important, b00lin does point out that he wasn't exactly asking for top-secret information. "Knowing the information such as the name of the software, IP address that was used, and how the software manipulated game data would all be known to a cheat developer," b00lin says. "Not even this harmless information [was] provided. How can I prove that I didn't cheat when no information has been provided? Was it Logitech G Hub? iCUE? OBS? To date, I still don't know what caused the false ban."
The last stop before taking the matter to court was an attempt to settle the matter by signing an NDA and using an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), which would involve an independent third party helping both parties involved come to a "mutually acceptable outcome." But that was shot down by Activision.
Court's in session
(Image credit: Activision)
First, b00lin filed a Money Claim Online (a service that allows people to make small claims online) for the cost of the game and the fee to file the claim. Due to Activision not responding to this, b00lin automatically won, and Activision paid up. But, the developer still stood firm against lifting the ban.
"Activision paid me out but still refused to remove the suspension placed on my account," b00lin says. "Their reasoning was that the courts did not order them to do soâtherefore, they wouldnât. I am sure they wish they had done so because it ended up costing them in the long run."
So the next step saw b00lin filing a non-money claim, and after Activision passed the case off to a law firm, b00lin tried settling the case with them. In exchange for paying court fees and getting unbanned, the agreement stated he would not take this matter any further and would sign an NDA regarding the terms of the agreement. Unfortunately, this was also shut down.
(Image credit: Activision)
By the time b00lin actually stood in front of a judge in court, he had amassed a great deal of information and examples to help his case. This included presenting his squeaky clean record in other games like CS2, in which he has over 1,000 hours, pointing out that he didn't want money, just the ban lifted, and that after this case was closed, he "wanted nothing to do with Activision." He had come prepared. So b00lin was surprised when the defendant presented their case, and it became clear that they didn't have any concrete evidence to prove that he actually cheated.
"This meant that if I didnât commit any abuse of process within the courts, my case would be heard, and Activision would have no evidence to show what they are claiming," b00lin explains. "It would appear that Activisionâs anti-cheat/security team is so strict that the people they hired to defend them were not allowed to see any 'evidence' of the 'unauthorized software or manipulation of game data'."
In the end, the judge found that b00lin should have his suspension removed on Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3, and Warzone, and Activision must pay the Claimant's ÂŁ711 fixed costs, thanks to all the examples that he put forward and a lack of evidence presented by the Defendant. But that's not all: "The Judge also found Activision to be the one in violation of the contract," b00lin says. "And with that, two years of phone calls, emails, and reading pages of legal jargon had finally come to an end.
"For over two years (763 days as of writing), I was wrongly accused of cheating and falsely banned from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2022. As of 08/01/2025, this has been officially lifted on all platforms."
But why?
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)
When I first read about b00lin's two-year-long fight, all I could think about was how anyone had the time and strength to keep up with all of that. B00lin had bought every Call of Duty PC game since 2003, and he's dedicated a significant amount of time and energy to build up an in-game character, and going to court wasn't about getting the best of Activision.
"Having a Steam profile's reputation ruined after seven years of ownership is what fuelled me to keep going and not give up," b00lin says. "A ban for something I did not do on a profile I cherish and have spent thousands of hours on did not sit right."
The negative effects of the ban also seeped into other games that b00lin played: " If I ever did well in a game, someone would look at my profile to see how many hours I have and instantly see the red marker that shows 'I am a cheater.'" b00lin even shares screenshots of a CS2 match in his blog where one player accuses him of cheating to win in their match: "You wouldn't have a VAC ban if you didn't cheat."
I have seen so many stories of innocent players being banned.
b00lin
B00lin is also part of the COD False Ban Community Discord, where players who have encountered false bans or shadow bans come together to try and help themselves and one another. "I have seen so many stories of innocent players being banned and referred to this community in court," b00lin says.
Shadow bans are probably one of the most prevalent problems in Call of Duty. It relies on player reports or on Ricochet's internal system to identify cheaters, but even if you've done nothing wrong, you can still get flagged for it if enough players report you. The consequences of being shadow-banned can include not being able to play at all, worse matchmaking, or getting placed into poor-quality lobbies with other cheaters. Whatever the punishment may be, players will have to deal with it until the security team investigates the situation, which can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks.
"I feel the COD False Ban Community on Discord helped because it was a community of people trying to accomplish the same goal," b00lin tells me. "Not only did it give me a bunch of anecdotes I could use to show a pattern of this behaviour, a few people in there had taken legal action, too. Speaking to one of those people in there gave me a good idea of what to expect and what I should aim to do."
This is also the same Discord that Mike Swanson is a part of. A few years back, Swanson published a blog post detailing how he had been banned without cheating despite only playing singleplayer in Modern Warfare 2. "A good chunk of the pages I submitted to the courts was this blog (with Mikeâs consent)," b00lin says. "It was extremely helpful to be able to refer to someone with credentials to get my point across."
Some of the material that b00lin ended up using in courts included a research paper from the University of Birmingham, which was conducted to demonstrate how cheaters will commonly bypass Microsoft Windows kernel protections, Activision's own terms of service, and one of our articles on how innocent Call of Duty players got permabanned.
All in all, the two-year-long battle to get an account unbanned may seem like a shed load of workâthat's putting it lightlyâbut it's not something that b00lin regrets: "After fighting this false ban for over two years, I am happy to say it is finally over. In my opinion, it was worth the effort just to see the account alert."
PC Gamer reached out to Activision for a comment about this court battle but is yet to hear anything back.
Isn't it time you supported your friendly neighborhood independent comic strip? SIGN UP FOR THE INNER HIVE and you'll get each week's Tom the Dancing Bug comic at least a day before publication. Plus other exclusive content like extra comics, commentary, juicy gossip, puzzles, recipes, and thrilling secrets. â Read the rest
When Future Publishing's game magazines were shredded in the 1990s, no one thought twice about destroying what would become invaluable historical documents. Now, remaining copies of these defunct gaming periodicals are commanding premium prices on eBay and being digitally preserved by archivists who recognize them as irreplaceable windows into gaming's cultural evolution. â Read the rest
Yes it's a Zelda game, but bear with me because this is a story only possible on PC. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask was first released on the Nintendo 64 in 2000, and since then has been the mainline entry that all the cool kids say is best. There are plenty of reasons for this, from the grim and unsettling atmosphere to the brilliant Groundhog Day structure, but one of the enduring appeals is all of the game's mysteries.
Most of these are intentional and authored by Nintendo, but some are not. And one of the biggest unresolved questions about Majora's Mask is about a dog racing minigame where, to put it mildly, the odds are heavily stacked against one blue dog in particular.
Yep, this is an underdog story. At the back of Romani Ranch there's a location called Doggy Racetrack, where the player finds 14 dogs: Four are coloured white, three beige, three gray, two brown, one gold and one blue. Link can place a bet on any dog and then watch a race play out⊠except not all dogs have been created equal.
First of all, the game is designed in order for the player to exploit it. Once Link has obtained the Mask of Truth, you can equip this and pick up the dogs to tell what they're thinking: Dogs with happy thoughts are likely to finish higher, while dogs that are under the weather are a bad pick. On top of this, the gold dog is a bit of a winner, and when his thoughts begin with "ruff" a first place finish is highly likely.
The blue dog, on the other hand, is one of life's losers. So much so that the blue dog is a kind of mini-meme within the Majora's Mask community: It just never wins, to the extent that everyone thought (not unreasonably) it couldn't win. There are several factors going into this but, in order not to bore you with math, the blue dog has a lower base speed than all the other dogs and, despite there being a small element of RNG to this base speed calculated on each frame, over the course of a race that is going to hurt it relative to the rest of the pack.
Majora's Mask fans have wondered for years whether it was possible for the blue dog to win, and the first glimmer of hope came when the existence of a glitch in the race was confirmed. Again simplifying things, the way the game triangulates where the finish line is also creates a tiny sliver of the track halfway round that can trigger the end of the race early: But the line is so small, and the chances of a dog being positioned on it so low, that it's incredibly rare. This glitch had previously been suspected before it happened live to various well-known Majora's Mask speedrunners.
The below video by Vidya James does an excellent job of explaining the entire blue dog saga, and goes into detail on the parts I'm simplifying as well as including all the relevant clips. But this glitch was key in encouraging an individual who goes by Falkush to start messing around, and seeing if they could come up with a legitimate in-game scenario where the blue dog wins.
Thing is, and this is what enraptured me about Vidya James' presentation, the 14 dogs, their various moods, and the different speeds and RNG influence all add up to a mind-boggling number of permutations. I just don't have the math knowledge to check this so I'm taking his word for it: There are one quadrillion 83 trillion 414 billion and 90 million possible permutations of this dog race. 1,083,414,090,000,000 potential dog races. If you were to start a new race every second it would take 34 million years to do so.
Faced with such an insurmountable number, Falkush wrote a script that would run the race repeatedly on an emulator from the same starting state: One where the blue dog is in the best possible mood, maximising its chances of winning. After each race it advances the game by one frame to change the hidden RNG value for the next race before it starts. By automating the process (with some clever use of an auto-splitter to record race results for Falkush to later check-over) Falkush was able to get the game running thousands of races a day.
After three days and 8,410 races, this happened:
The blue dog's first-ever recorded victory, thanks to the glitch. The fact it only took 8,410 races indicates the glitch may be more common than thought, but in the glitch-less races the blue dog was still lagging with its best finish fourth place.
This wasn't enough for Falkush, who wanted a legitimate blue dog victory. They tweaked the script to not only maximise blue dog's chances, but minimise the chances of the gold dog and the other faster dogs (based on their pre-race condition). If there were any circumstances under which the blue dog could win, this was them.
Falkush has a Github repository showing all their work brute-forcing blue dog, should you be so inclined, but all that most of us need to do is watch the below: After over 30,000 attempts, the first-ever legitimate recorded blue dog victory in Majora's Mask, well over two decades after release.
This story encapsulates everything I love about speedrunning. The practice is not just about watching someone go through a game fast, but about how people get into the guts of games, reverse-engineer what's going on, and set themselves challenges to solve. There's no world record for the blue dog winning the race in Majora's Mask: People just knew it wasn't supposed to happen, and it possibly couldn't happen, and decided to tinker around inside this little universe to see if, in any possible reality, blue dog could win. It's a testament to ingenuity, hard work, community collaboration, and of course object proof of that old canard: Every dog really does have its day.
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My library stopped fines because we made practically no money on it and evidence showed all it did was discourage low income folks from using the library.
The Super Mario Bros. speedrunner Niftski has achieved a new world record for the classic Nintendo title on a PC emulator, setting a time of 4:54.565 in the "any%" category. You may well be wondering why I'm bothering to include the hundredths of a second: So many talented players attempt to do something with Super Mario Bros. that new records in the game are measured in individual frames (thanks, Time Extension).
Super Mario Bros. has always been one of the most popular games to speedrun, probably because it's so ubiquitous, is arguably the first true classic of 2D platforming, and has a bunch of neat tricks that experienced runners love. Niftski's run is a masterclass in stitching together pixel-perfect hops and glitches and the absolute nerves of steel needed not to screw it up in 8-4, the game's last level.
Screwing it up in 8-4 had, unfortunately, been something of a theme for Niftski in the days leading up to the new record, with the streamer experiencing some rotten luck and frustration. The world record run begins with the runner joking about his chances with the chat while executing long looped jumps over piranha plants and jamming Mario into pipes, before the tone begins to slowly shift, both Niftski and the audience realising that this is a good one, and he's hitting every beat and frame skip perfectly.
8-4 is not just crammed with lots of fast-moving enemies and deadly obstacles, but requires several unusual strats worked together for the most optimal route. There's a moment in 8-4 where he's briefly underwater, dodging Bloobers and fire chains with exquisite stroke momentum, where the intensity reaches a fever pitch and Niftski's soon praying for Bowser: Soon enough he's at Bowser and like all true speedrunners blazes right past him and crashes into the axe.
Then the yelling: If you do watch the video, maybe get the volume control ready for the end of the run. It's abundantly clear how much this means for Niftski, who basically spends the next two minutes pinballing around his gaming room shouting "we did it!" while chat goes bananas. Niftski had a heart rate monitor attached during the attempt and it peaks at 188 BPM at the end of the run: He later had to clarify that "nerves can skyrocket at any given time due to the pace" of speedruns like this and he's completely fine and healthy.
"Although the 8-4 could have been a few frames faster with my strats, I am still extremely happy with this time," said Nifstki after calming down. "This run is now 18 frames, 0.3 seconds off of absolute perfection!"
Niftski also addressed his use of an emulator and keyboard, which is a legitimate method of speedrunning the game. "Emulation for this game is 100% accurate, which means that anything that can be done on an NES is possible on emulator," says Niftski. "Keyboard offers no advantage, and it is actually debatably worse for speedrunning this game. I use keyboard over controller for personal preference reasons, I have been playing games on keyboard since a little kid, and I have a very good feel for it compared to controller."
Of course, if anyone wants to doubt Niftski's incredible skill, take a look at his records and check yourself before you wreck yourself. This guy holds the #1 spot in the following Super Mario Bros. speedrunning categories: Any%, Glitchless, Warpless All-Stars, Warpless, Any% All-Stars, and Minus World Ending. Oh and he's the world record holder for The Lost Levels to boot. But a speedrunner's work is never done: "I will push this to 4:54.4xx and lower in the near future," says Niftski, "but for now, I am very satisfied with this run!"
This is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. I regret to report that both our Jedi Order and the Republic have fallen, with the dark shadow of the Empire rising to take their place. â Read the rest
A 2,500-year-old Chinese sword discovered in 1965 remains razor-sharp and pristine today, seemingly defying the natural laws of decay that typically ravage ancient bronze weapons.
The Sword of Goujian, named after a legendary Chinese king, emerged from a waterlogged tomb in China's Hubei Province looking as lethal as the day it was crafted. â Read the rest
Sweden has broken ground on its ambitious $11 billion nuclear waste repository, where highly radioactive material will rest in an underground maze of tunnels stretching 60 kilometers â longer than the New York City subway's longest line. The sprawling network, which resembles an elaborate waterpark park design minus the fun, will take a decade to build before accepting its first radioactive deposits. â Read the rest
A decade ago, I had the privilege of attending and reporting from COP21 in Parisâthe year of the so-called "Paris Agreement" was put into place. As I wrote at the time:
We know the overall climate is warming and we need to stop it before it gets worse.
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