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You might have heard of Tor in the news a few times, yet never dared to try it yourself. Despite being around for decades, Tor is still a tool too few people know about.

Today, Tor is easy to use for anyone. It helps not only journalists and activists, but anybody who seeks greater privacy online or access to information regardless of location. But what is Tor exactly? How can Tor help you? And why is it such an important tool?

Meta AI is now always watching.

the horrors persist but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Another big month.

• PieFed can now store media files in S3-compatible cloud buckets and piefed.social migrated all of it's media to Cloudflare R2 while feddit.online went with Wasabi.
• People can now log in with their Google account. With this one it will be easier to add "Log in with Mastodon" or "Log in with github", etc in future because it's all OAuth so pretty similar.
• Federation is more reliable now because failed sending attempts go into a retry queue and attempts to deliver Activities get made for a few days.
• Any instance can now integrate with Stripe to accept donations, the donate page is no longer hard-wired to donate to my Patreon.
• And lots more, see below.

rimu

User Interface Improvements

• Google OAuth login implementation - "Log in with Google"
• Delete comment and all it's replies
• Compact UI mode - two variants
• AJAX implementation for topics and feeds menus - reduce size of HTML on every page by ~23%
• Feed breadcrumb bugfix
• Show feeds in sidebar when viewing community
• Misc mobile UI improvements
• PWA improvements (install PWA button in footer)
• NSFW content handling (blur NSFW images)

Post/Comment Management

• Show list of comments in a community, as well as posts. Helps moderators have a birds-eye view.
• Reworked comment deletion to use code shared with API
• Lay groundwork for scheduled posts feature (DB migrations)
• Get a notification when a new post is made in a feed - bugfix
• Added support for embedding PieFed posts in other websites - see https://piefed.social/post/679079
• OEmbed support added
• Fixed handling of angle brackets in content

Media Handling

• Use S3 for media storage (optional)
• Documentation about how to set up S3
• Various scripts for migrating existing images to S3
• Image post display improvements

Search and Performance

• Database performance improvements with indexes on various tables
• Avoiding database deadlocks with nested transactions
• Speed optimizations for feeds list and instances list page
• Performance tuning for daily maintenance tasks

ActivityPub / Federation

• Send retry system - when a remote server is down PieFed will retry for a few days (with exponential backoff)
• Move remote community to local instance - see https://piefed.social/post/667044
• Limit who can PM you, to avoid spam - see https://piefed.social/post/633860
• Special WebFinger lookup for feeds so remote feeds with the same name as communities or users still works
• Feed editing debug

Administration & Misc

• Stripe integration for donations. See https://piefed.social/donate for an example
• Field to insert custom CSS without creating a theme
• Save timezone from client side into DB for each user - we'll need this for creating scheduled posts

Documentation

• Added FLASK_APP to dev notes
• Updated documentation for software and hardware requirements (#578, #581)

Tournesol

• Improved content language settings with checkbox interface
• Made content language hint less ambiguous
• Fixed documentation about Unix socket usage

freamon

• API improvements for community, post, and reply features
• Reduce code duplication between web and API interfaces
• Fixed PeerTube video handling for cross-posts
• Fixed thumbnail URL content-type handling
• Added many API tests (api_get_community, api_get_site)
• Fixed validation for remote actors

JollyDevelopment

• Notification system improvements
• Working on adding new notification types
• Converted post notifications to Celery tasks
• API enhancements for user settings
• Feed ActivityPub response implementation

taters

• Updated Forest theme styles

Jeena

• Added cross-post button to video posts

Skavau

• Made sooo many feeds, wow. Check out https://piefed.social/f/forumverse . This renders https://piefed.social/topics somewhat obsolete.

When last we checked in with CBS, the company was preparing to fold under pressure from the Trump administration, amidst bogus accusations that 60 Minutes had unfairly made Donald Trump look bad. As we’ve noted previously, the accusations are utterly baseless, but that’s apparently not stopping the CBS board from kissing authoritarian ass and throwing their journalists under the bus.

According to the New York Times, CBS/Paramount board members, keen on getting approval of their $8 billion merger with Skydance, are likely moving forward with a fat settlement with the Trump administration. In the process they’re sending a very loud message to everyone that they’re no longer interested in protecting journalism, or their own journalists:

“Paramount’s interest in settling has dismayed CBS’s news division, in particular the staff of “60 Minutes,” the country’s most popular weekly news program. Four days after the April 18 board meeting, the show’s executive producer, Bill Owens, abruptly announced he would resign, citing encroachment on its journalistic independence and saying Paramount “is done with me.”

Last weekend 60 minutes covered the fracas in what feels like a death knell for the once-respected cable TV news magazine:

Last fall  Trump sued CBS claiming (falsely) that a 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris had been “deceitfully edited” to her benefit (they simply shortened some of her answers for brevity, as news outlets often do). As Mike explored, the lawsuit was utterly baseless, and tramples the First Amendment, editorial discretion, and common sense.

CBS/Paramount is looking for regulatory approval for its $8 billion merger with Skydance (run by Larry Ellison’s kid David, who has been palling around with Trumplings at MMA fights). Trump and his FCC boss Brendan Carr quickly zeroed in on this, and began using merger approval as leverage to bully CBS into even more feckless coverage of the administration.

Carr has launched an “investigation” into CBS claiming that the minor edits to the Harris interview violate the FCC’s “Broadcast News Distortion” policy, a rarely enforced rule preventing news outlets from killing stories or dramatically changing stories in exchange for bribes. It’s completely bogus, but whether CBS is guilty doesn’t matter; the right wing has ensured CBS looks guilty of being unfair to the right wing.

Again, legal experts everywhere have pointed out this is all indisputable bullshit. Even longstanding GOP members and former Republican FCC officials have acknowledged the accusations are baseless and the FCC is overstepping any real-world authority. CBS certainly has the money to fight the case. But CBS owners like Shari Redstone are more interested in cashing out of the struggling (one wonders why) media industry:

“Shari Redstone, the company’s controlling shareholder, has said she favors settling the case. She is set to receive a major payday in a pending sale of Paramount to a Hollywood studio, Skydance, that requires sign-off from the Trump administration.”

It’s another example of why consolidated corporate power probably shouldn’t be in the journalism business, and we ought to explore better ways to fund independent media (including public financing). Corporate media owners simply, clearly, and routinely aren’t capable of putting the truth before making money, resulting in an ocean of substandard, pseudo-journalistic, ad-based simulacrum.

The far right doesn’t want reformers untethering journalism and media from commercial interests because they know that ad engagement model is eminently exploitable, something that wasn’t remotely subtle last election season. Looking for major merger approvals, tax cuts, and mindless deregulation, consolidated U.S. media companies have demonstrated they’re more than willing to throw the truth under the bus for financial gain. You see it absolutely everywhere you look. Again: not remotely subtle.

Incompetent authoritarians fear the truth because it illustrates their corruption and incompetence. It’s why they’re bullying media companies and trying to pull the rug out from America’s already woefully under-funded public broadcasters. And even in some of the flimsiest cases widely viewed as winnable, the brunchlords in charge of U.S. media have shown they have the structural integrity of damp cardboard.

What’s left of CBS after the Skydance merger will be run by Skydance exec and soon-to-be CBS boss Jeff Shell (booted from NBC after sexual harassment allegations). It’s inevitable that, like the Washington Post and LA Times, whatever’s left of CBS journalism will follow the trend of even further pandering to the right wing, under the pretense that this sort of feckless ass kissing is the pinnacle of objectivity.

At the same time, the continued, pointless “growth for growth’s sake” impact of even more mindless media consolidation will erode U.S. media quality even further and trigger even more layoffs across the sector, as the recent AT&T, Time Warner, and Discovery series of mergers so ably demonstrated.

It’s utterly pathetic and demented. All around.

From Techdirt via this RSS feed

Ubisoft is promising more Assassin’s Creed Shadows updates than you can shake a bo at, with plans to deliver “free updates on the regular” that will add items such as a new game plus mode, new quests and story expansions, and community-driven improvements, the publisher announced Wednesday.

As previously announced, Shadows’ first expansion, Claws of Awaji, is coming later this year. Claws of Awaji will introduce a new area to the game’s map: Awaji Island, which is located in the eastern part of Japan’s Inland Sea. (Well, technically, it’s already on the map — you can see it lying approximately due west of the port city of Sakai. But you’ll actually be able to explore it in the expansion.)

Claws of Awaji “continues Naoe and Yasuke’s story right after the end of Shadows’ epilogue,” Ubisoft said in a blog post. It will add about 10 hours’ worth of content to the game, including a new weapon for Naoe: the bo, a staff used in Japanese martial arts. Ubisoft offered the expansion as a bonus for anybody who pre-ordered the game, but has yet to announce a price for everyone else.

In addition to Claws of Awaji, Ubisoft will release a number of free updates that the company is calling Story Drops, starting in May with “The Works of Luis Frois.” Frois, a Jesuit missionary and scholar, is among the group of Portuguese men who land in Japan with Yasuke at the beginning of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The second Story Drop is scheduled to be released in June, and will add to the game another ally that you can recruit into the League of the Hidden Blade. Each Story Drop will include “additional backstory that will permanently impact the game,” according to Ubisoft.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ developers are also working on more quality-of-life improvements. Following the game’s first post-launch patch earlier this month, which added auto-follow for the player character’s horse, the team is planning to add new parkour moves to give Naoe and Yasuke more options. (Here’s hoping the developers bring back the ability to sell or dismantle multiple items at once — which was included in the early April patch but was later disabled due to bugs.)

For instance, it’s currently impossible to jump from a standstill to grab a ledge that looks like it’s within reach; that’s coming in a future patch. Also in the works are community-requested features such as the option to wear headgear in cutscenes. Larger features are on the way, too, such as a new game plus mode that will raise the level cap, and new difficulty settings for both stealth and combat that will make them more unforgiving.

From Polygon via this RSS feed

Originally Posted By u/HumusSapien At 2025-04-30 12:10:44 PM | Source

I'd like to update the community rules to mention that all forms of bigotry will not be tolerated, including (but not limited to):

• sexism
• homophobia
• racism
• xenophoba
• transphobia
• ableism
• ageism
• classism

Please comment if you have any views on this.

A prosecutor says an officer killed while responding to a Pennsylvania hospital siege in February was hit by police gunfire

Finnair announced it will cancel approximately 140 flights on Friday, May 2, due to a four-hour industrial action by the Finnish Aviation Union (IAU) that is expected to significantly disrupt key airport operations, including aircraft maintenance, ground handling, and catering.

Moin. Bin beim letzten Urlaub unabsichtlich in ein rabbit hole gefallen. Eigentlich wollte ich nur eine Kappe. Wie sich raus stellt ist das aber wohl eine ziemliche Wissenschaft.

Habe in einem Laden mal einige anprobiert und die 39 thirty in S-M (oder exakt: 57) haben mir ziemlich gut gefallen. Es gibt wohl auch noch andere Caps von diesem Hersteller, mit anderer "Modellbezeichnung" die auch einen gebogenen Schirm haben, aber deren Front höher ist als die 39 thirty - die mag ich auch gar nicht, weil dort so viel Platz über der Stirn ist. Nun kann ich aber mit irgendwelchen Sportsteams nix anfangen, weshalb die Motive in diesem Laden leider nicht für mich taugen.

Habe bereits online gesucht und war in einigen Läden, aber habe, außer hin und wieder mal einfach ein einfarbiges Cap, nichts gefunden.

Wegen fehlendem Haarwuchs auf dem Kopf und hellem Hauttyp kommen Trucker Caps für mich eher weniger in Frage. Auch Caps mit geradem Schirm passen optisch nicht zu mir. Thematisch dachte ich an einfügen. Auf EMP sind alle verfügbaren Caps deren Motiv mir gefällt, leider einstellbar, meist mit simpler Plastikschnalle.

Kennt ihr Laden oder Websiten auf denen es Caps gibt, die zu meinen Anforderungen passen?

One of the delightful discoveries of Oblivion Remastered is that while some things have changed, like the characters' faces, almost everything else has stayed the same, like an old door glitch that lets you finish the game in under 15 minutes. It's great that even under the shiny new overhaul you'll find most of the same exploits and bugs and charming quirks of the original Oblivion from 19 years ago.

That includes the appearance of a character voiced by none other than Todd Howard himself.

Unfortunately you won't run into Todd walking the streets or lurking in a dungeon. He voices a character that was used for testing during the original development of Oblivion and is hidden away in the game files, so you need to use a console command to visit him. Along with all of the other oddities of the original game, this character is still there in the remaster, and not only can you talk to Todd, but you can get him to fall in love with you. Or call you names.

How to find Todd Howard in Oblivion Remastered

First, save your game if you haven't done it in a while, then open the console by pressing the ~ key.

Then type:

coc toddtest

And press enter. The screen will slowly fade out and you'll find yourself in a small house. This is a test cell, one of dozens in the RPG where developers of the original game would place characters or items from the game they wanted to test out.

In this small house you'll find a man named Alban Corinis wearing a full set of Elven armor. Talk to him and he'll say something a little unusual:

"I knew one day someone with unyielding virtue would heed my words and speed my release. You risked much to perform such a selfless act."

"You are indeed a bastard."

Todd Howard

That isn't Todd Howard's voice—I believe it's Wes Johnson, reciting lines from an Oblivion quest called The Forlorn Watchman—but after this line you'll get a choice of conversational topics that are emotional in nature: Angry, Fear, Happy, Neutral, Sad, and Surprise.

Click any of these discussion topics and you'll hear Todd Howard's voice saying lines that match those emotions, like "Oh no! What do we do? I'm so scared!" and "What? That really pisses me off!"

Here's a clip, and you'll need to click the volume icon below to turn the sound on:

Well. There's nothing like a great acting performance… and this is nothing like a great acting performance. But cut the guy a break, he wasn't auditioning for Hamlet, he was recording some test dialogue.

As you click these options you're not just making Todd say stuff for your own amusement, you're changing his character's disposition, bypassing the Oblivion persuasion minigame. You can see the results when you choose the "Neutral" option.

So, if you make Todd happy by choosing "Happy" enough times to boost his disposition over 90, and then you choose "Neutral" again, he'll profess his love:

"I can't recall ever loving moments, like this moment, with you," says Todd Howard.

Aw, that's sweet. And extremely cringe. I regret teleporting into Todd Howard's weird little house and seducing him by clicking on his happy button.

It works the other way, too. Ever wanted to hear Todd Howard call you a bastard? Make him angry by clicking "Angry" until his disposition is below 20, then choose "Neutral" again, and you can. "You are indeed a bastard," Todd Howard will tell you. He's right. You are.

There are other characters around this test cell, including more outside the house that Todd Howard's electronic clone has been cruelly trapped in for the past two decades. Another version of Alban Corinis standing outside has Todd's voice lines, the other two do not.

There's also a horse (it doesn't talk), an imposing Dremora, and a character named "Lynda Carter," named after Oblivion voice actor and Wonder Woman star Lynda Carter. The whole weird gang is still there, just waiting around, after nearly 20 years. Why not drop by and pay them a visit?

From PCGamer latest via this RSS feed

Hat tip to Kevin Bunch: https://bsky.app/profile/atariarchive.org/post/3lnzvdhowhc26