Lisbon Funicular Crash Kills 15

Fifteen people were killed in a funicular crash in Lisbon, and the city's mayor called it a tragic moment for Portugal's capital. Emergency services are responding, and authorities have begun investigations into what went wrong. It is a devastating loss, and the priority now is care for victims, answers for families, and a clear accounting of safety failures.

Verizon Snafu Puts Phillies in Spanish, Nola Posts Ominous 6-6-6

A broadcast mix-up left many Verizon Fios viewers watching the Phillies in Spanish, where Oscar Budejen and Bill “El Gringo Malo” Kulik toggled bilingual after realizing the issue. NBC Sports Philadelphia said it notified Verizon and worked on a fix. The baseball needed no translation: Aaron Nola allowed five runs before recording an out, then finished five innings with six hits, six runs, and six strikeouts. That makes 18 earned in 20.1 innings since his IL return and a 6-3 loss that turns October rotation plans into a trust exercise. Pain sounds the same in any language.

Google Puts Velvet Rope on IXP Peering

Network operators report Google has paused new public peering at internet exchange points, nudging smaller networks to use IXPs’ access to Google’s VPP, while larger players are steered toward redundant private network interconnects. Translation: small fish get the lifeboat, big fish get a private pier. Nothing says open internet like a bouncer at the edge router.

Madison Cawthorn Eyes Florida Comeback in FL-19

Madison Cawthorn plans a congressional return, swapping North Carolina for Florida and preparing a run in the 19th district, according to Axios. The former lawmaker who called the House GOP “full of degenerates” seems ready to rejoin the club, which should give Speaker Mike Johnson a fresh headache and the caucus a new round of trust falls.

Navy Restores Ronny Jackson's Rear Admiral Rank

Rep. Ronny Jackson says the Navy has reinstated his retired rank of rear admiral, reversing a 2022 downgrade that followed a scathing investigation into his conduct as White House physician. In Washington, accountability often comes with an expiration date, and this one appears to have been stamped “best if reconsidered.”

Mamdani Slams Reported White House Horse-Trading in NYC Race

NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani criticized reports that the White House floated administration jobs for Mayor Eric Adams and GOP contender Curtis Sliwa, calling it an affront to democracy. He sharpened the jab by saying, “Andrew Cuomo is Donald Trump’s choice to be the next mayor of this city,” alleging the race is being stage-managed offstage. Local self-determination, meet the national backroom.

Radiohead Announces First Tour in Seven Years

Radiohead will return to the stage with a late-year run across five European cities, their first tour since 2018. Expect sold-out venues, a nationwide tune-up of the cathartic sway, and the pleasant surprise of collective melancholy that actually uplifts.

Trump Hosts Tech Titans in Rose Garden Debut

President Trump will meet Thursday with roughly two dozen tech and business leaders in the freshly renovated Rose Garden, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman. A little power cross-pollination, featuring the architects of engagement algorithms, proprietary dongles, infinite updates, and chatbots that hallucinate with confidence. Democracy, now with premium features.

House GOP Targets D.C. Home Rule, Eyes Tighter Federal Grip

House Republicans are weighing bills to overhaul D.C.’s criminal justice policies and curb local autonomy, including replacing the elected attorney general with a presidential appointee. Because nothing says small government like Congress running your neighborhood and picking your top lawyer from across the river.

ODNI move to shutter cyber threat center rattles defenders

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is pushing to eliminate the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, calling it redundant and a gift to taxpayers. Analysts warn the cut could punch a hole in federal threat sharing. In cybersecurity, nothing says stronger defense like fewer people talking to each other.

Pixel feature drop brings Material 3 flair and smarter audio to older gear

Google is backporting its expressive Material 3 look to the Pixel 6 and Pixel Tablet, plus AI writing tools in Gboard, Bluetooth Auracast, animated Live Effects for lock screens, better control over incoming call contact cards, and yet another Quick Settings rethink. Pixel Buds Pro 2 add nod and shake gesture controls, Adaptive Audio, and Loud Noise Protection. Gemini Live gets clearer voice handling in noisy spots. Translation, some real polish and a few useful tricks, no thousand dollar upgrade required.

Eric Haze returns to SEGA classics

Graffiti legend Eric Haze, who helped define Jet Set Radio’s original look, is back to refresh that series and lend his signature style to Shinobi and Virtua Fighter. A nostalgia play that earns its keep, the guy who set the vibe gets to tune it again.

Vladivostok feels the pull of Russia’s war

In the Pacific port city near China and North Korea, Moscow’s invasion reaches into daily life, economics, and local politics. A sober reminder that when the Kremlin starts a fight, distance is a suggestion, not a shield.

Rayner’s stamp duty shortfall fuels a feeding frenzy

Labour’s deputy leader is scrambling to contain the fallout from admitting she underpaid stamp duty on a Hove flat. Opponents and moralizing tabloids are thrilled, a bite size scandal served with performative outrage. Voters get to sift the difference between a genuine lapse and the usual Westminster theater.

Pediatric constipation admissions hit a 10 year high

A child’s constipation dismissed until it became a medical emergency captures a wider trend, hospital admissions are up, services are stretched, and preventable pain is being ignored. This is basic care, not rocket science, and delays are turning fixable problems into crises.

Streameast shut down on the eve of the NFL season

After a year long probe, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment and Egyptian authorities raided the world’s largest illegal sports streaming site, arresting two suspects and seizing gear and cash. The 80 domain network drew roughly 1.6 billion visits in a year and now points to ACE’s Watch Legally page. Rights holders cite billions in losses and warn that free streams often come laced with malware. The pirates got benched before kickoff, and the corporate end zone dance is already in full swing.

Exposed LLM Servers Reveal Ollama Security Risks

Exposed LLM Servers Reveal Ollama Security Risks, as Cisco Talos reports more than 1,100 Ollama instances—meant for “local” AI model deployment—are publicly reachable on the open internet. Many are dormant, but misconfiguration could let attackers misuse them, because apparently “local” now means “globally available if you forget a firewall.” A tidy reminder that AI isn’t dangerous by default—until someone leaves the front door propped open.

The Sticky Spaghetti Gauge - FLOSS Weekly Episode 845

The Sticky Spaghetti Gauge — FLOSS Weekly Episode 845 — finds Jonathan and Randal twirling through Flutter and Dart, asking the impolite question of the week: is Google quietly parking its own cross‑platform bus? Randal flags the headache of “training new senior developers” and teases a practical cure for the industry’s favorite oxymoron. Watch the live recording on YouTube, grab the DRM‑free MP3 or the transcript if you prefer reading, and follow via Spotify or RSS. Got a guest in mind? Send them over; they talk, you listen, Google maybe doesn’t cancel something for once.

Mother accused of ordering husband and 4-year-old son to drown in lake to ‘prove their worthiness’ booked on murder charges

Mother accused of ordering husband and 4-year-old son to drown in lake to ‘prove their worthiness’ booked on murder charges: Ruth Miller, 40, has been released from a mental health facility and booked into the Tuscarawas County Jail, with a bond and preliminary hearing set for Friday morning. Authorities say Miller, of Millersburg and described as a member of the Old Order Amish Church, allegedly acted under a “spiritual delusion,” directing her husband, Marcus Miller, 45, and their son, Vincen, 4, into Atwood Lake, where both drowned. She allegedly confessed, telling investigators she first sent her husband into the water as a test of faith, then threw her son in afterward; she’s also accused of crashing a golf cart into the lake with her three other children aboard. Miller faces two counts of aggravated murder, two counts of domestic violence, and one count of endangering children, and has been ordered to have no contact with unspecified protected persons. The clerk’s office is awaiting the arrest affidavit and charging documents; the prosecutor’s office has not commented.

Ukraine deploys AI-enabled drone swarms against Russian forces, report says

Ukraine deploys AI-enabled drone swarms against Russian forces, report says, marking what analysts call the first routine combat use of swarming technology in warfare. Built by Ukrainian firm Swarmer, the system links drones after launch: a recon aircraft guides the approach, while bomb-carrying drones coordinate among themselves when and which of them will strike—“you set the target and the drones do the rest,” says CEO Serhii Kupriienko. Units have used it more than 100 times over the past year, typically in three-drone teams, sometimes up to eight, with tests reaching 25; one operator can direct many at once, cutting workload and making the formation harder to jam through direct drone-to-drone communication. Under the hood are the STYX Swarm Management System and MINAS autonomy platform—AI coordination tools reportedly proven across 10,000 missions and funded by a $2.7 million raise in 2024. Experts say swarming fuses AI with massed, cooperative drones that could scale to saturate defenses; while this isn’t a fully autonomous, hundreds-strong swarm reacting in real time, even limited coordination signals meaningful progress, notes RUSI’s Robert Tollast. The march isn’t frictionless: early versions flooded networks with data, and cost looms large as Ukraine churned out over 1.5 million drones last year and loses many in combat. Other militaries are racing too—the U.S. tested over 100 micro-drones in 2016, Israel reported a swarm strike in 2021, and China, Russia, France, and South Korea are developing their own programs. Ethical alarms are ringing as well: the UN wants rules for lethal autonomous weapons; U.S. and allied policy mandates human approval, and Swarmer says operators must authorize any attack—less joystick, more algorithm, with a human still on the hook.

Software-Defined ROM Gets 5V Tolerance, Drops Into Commodore Classics

One ROM arrives with a very practical superpower, 5V tolerance, courtesy of the RP2350 A4 stepping, which means no more clown car of level shifters. The two-layer, budget board can slot into C64-era machines and emulate BASIC, Kernal, and Character ROMs from a single module. Firmware is tuned to answer address pins at retroclock speeds using every trick short of summoning a goat. The shift from a bigger STM32 to the RP2350 forced a ground-up reroute thanks to under-chip pads and a tight form factor. Code is on GitHub with a video on the trade-offs. Nothing says progress like making old ROMs behave better by not being read-only anymore.

Four-in-One Obesity Peptide Aims for Bigger, Longer-Lasting Weight Loss

Tufts scientists unveiled a tetra-functional peptide that hits GLP-1, GIP, glucagon, and PYY at once, a full chorus instead of a soloist. By linking two peptide structures, the single molecule targets appetite, fullness, and energy expenditure across multiple pathways. Early indications suggest it could approach roughly 30 percent weight loss, edging into bariatric territory and potentially surpassing today’s weekly shots that average about 6 to 24 percent. The design also aims to blunt nausea and the quit rate, and reduce rebound after stopping. Published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, it is an ambitious swing that, if it holds up in people, would be a rare and welcome win against a massive health burden.

Fifth Circuit Blocks Wartime Statute Gambit for Migrant Removals

A 2 to 1 Fifth Circuit panel enjoined the administration from using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport migrants, rejecting the idea that modern migration equals an invasion or predatory incursion. Judge Leslie Southwick wrote that even a regime encouraging illegal entry or wielding drug trafficking does not equal an armed, organized force. Coming from a conservative-leaning court, it is a notable setback for the push to rebrand migration as wartime. An April Supreme Court ruling already required allowing migrants to challenge removals under the statute. Calling everything an invasion does not make it 1798 again, and the court noticed.

Putin Says He Is Open to Meeting Zelenskyy in Moscow

Vladimir Putin said he is open to a face-to-face with Volodymyr Zelenskyy if it happens in Moscow, while Donald Trump pushes for movement toward ending Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year. The human stakes are not a punchline. Any talks would be judged by substance, not photo ops, and by whether they move the needle for Ukrainians under fire.

Haberman: Trump’s Health Transparency Still Looks Like a Redacted Memo

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said Donald Trump has never been transparent about his health, pointing to fresh social media chatter and noting he was much sicker with COVID in 2020 than the White House let on. The medical disclosures are less open book, more blackout poetry, which is impressive only if you are grading on opacity.

Lebanon and Syria flirt with pragmatism on Israel

Call it a tentative pivot, not a peace overture. In Lebanon, up-and-coming politicians are floating economic cooperation and border stability. In Damascus, the regime is dialing down anti-Israel theatrics to focus on reconstruction and international reintegration. Gulf cash and quiet mediation are in the mix, and some officials say Iran's proxies look stretched, Hezbollah included. No treaty talks, fragile institutions, and Syria's sectarian tinderbox remain hard stops, and Lebanon's sovereignty test is the perennial one, reining in Hezbollah without cracking the country. Israeli humanitarian outreach during Syria's war and Washington's taste for unconventional Gulf-backed diplomacy offer scaffolding, but fault lines persist. Riyadh and Jerusalem converge on weakening Hamas and Hezbollah, diverge on Gaza and on Syria's endgame. Analysts say Beirut has a rare opening to assert the state if Washington keeps pressure on both Lebanon and Israel.

Abu Dhabi's Lunate rolls out a quantum ETF for the scroll set

Lunate is debuting QUANTM, a quantum-computing ETF aimed squarely at young investors' notifications. Listing September 22 on the ADX, it tracks the Solactive Developed Quantum Computing Index, a 25-stock blend of newcomers like IonQ and Rigetti with Microsoft, Nvidia, and IBM. Retail access runs through Abu Dhabi-backed Wio Bank's app with a social push by agency digitalfarm, while institutions are expected to supply most of the money and retailers the churn. It is Lunate's first thematic ETF and the Gulf's, opening its Boreas lineup as the two-year-old manager, with $110 billion AUM, ADQ as anchor client, and a fresh minority stake in Brevan Howard, expands its toolkit. With only two similar ETFs in the US and Europe, Lunate spies white space. Context, US ETFs now outnumber listed companies, younger investors start earlier than prior generations, and ETFs are becoming a bridge in Gulf China flows after the Dubai Shenzhen tie-up. Translation, package Big Tech plus a couple of quantum pure plays, give it a sleek ticker, and let the marketing copy collapse your wave function.

Google keeps Chrome, must ditch exclusive search deals

A year after a court ruled Google illegally maintained its search monopoly, the company avoids the nuclear option of a Chrome spin-off but has to end exclusive search agreements. The crown stays, the moat gets drained, and the default-payment gravy train gets a new speed limit. Antitrust regulators rarely do nuance, yet here we are with a remedy that trims the power without torching the product.

Graham Linehan detention ignites UK free speech fight

Irish writer Graham Linehan, creator of The IT Crowd and Father Ted, was detained at Heathrow over posts about transgender issues, kicking off a fresh round of Britain’s favorite sport, argue-about-speech-before-tea. Supporters cite hate-speech and public-order laws, critics call it policing as content moderation. Elon Musk declared the UK a police state, subtle as a marching band in a library. Expect plenty of culture-war theatrics, and not a lot of clarity.

Djokovic hushes Ashe, downs Fritz, books record 53rd Slam semi

Novak Djokovic beat Taylor Fritz 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 6-4, thrived on the boos, and punctuated the drama with shushes and blown kisses. He saved 11 of 13 break points, won 25 of 42 long rallies, even tossed in some serve-and-volley, then sealed it on a Fritz double fault. Djokovic moved to 11-0 against Fritz, reached a record 53rd major semifinal and 14th in Queens, and now faces Carlos Alcaraz, who has not dropped a set this tournament but trails 5-3 head-to-head and lost their last two, including Melbourne and the Olympics. The chase for No. 25 is alive, New York volume included.

Tesco sues VMware parent Broadcom over support, warns of supply risk

Tesco is dragging Broadcom to court, alleging VMware licensing breaches, naming Computacenter, and seeking about £100 million. Translation, in the modern grocery aisle your bread depends on a support ticket getting escalated. When your lettuce is held hostage by enterprise contracts, you start to miss the days when the biggest risk to dinner was the weather.

WhatsApp patches zero-click attack on iPhone and Mac, update now

WhatsApp fixed a high-severity iOS and macOS flaw, CVE-2025-55177, that paired with an Apple image bug, CVE-2025-43300, to compromise fewer than 200 high-profile users. Attackers pushed malicious URLs and corrupted images to silently access messages, photos, the camera, and the mic. Android was not affected. Meta sent breach notices, and Amnesty’s Security Lab says the campaign ran for about 90 days from late May, targeting journalists and civil society figures. Protect yourself, update WhatsApp and your Apple OS today, enable automatic updates, and if you got a WhatsApp threat notification, seek professional help and contact [email protected]. Popularity attracts attackers, so patch like your privacy depends on it, because it does.

Six AfD candidates die ahead of local elections in Germany

Six AfD candidates die ahead of local elections in Germany—and police say there’s no evidence of foul play. In North Rhine-Westphalia, where 18 million people live and roughly 20,000 candidates are on the Sept. 14 ballot, authorities say the recent deaths were due to natural causes, with some details withheld out of respect for families. The state’s Interior Ministry notes the losses aren’t confined to one party; candidates from the Greens and Social Democrats have also died.

Online speculation about a sinister pattern surged anyway, and AfD co-leader Alice Weidel amplified it by reposting a claim that the deaths were “statistically almost impossible.” Police disagree, and reality—unlike rumor—doesn’t refresh every 30 seconds. The AfD is hoping to translate rising national polling, now around 16.8% after a 5.4% showing in the state in 2022, into local gains. Germany’s domestic intelligence service has labeled the AfD a right-wing extremist organization, a designation paused after a legal challenge, though three states still apply it.

Grief isn’t campaign fodder. Let the coroner handle the facts; math takes a back seat.

Trump says 11 killed in U.S. military strike on suspected drug boat

Trump says 11 killed in U.S. military strike on suspected drug boat, claiming the vessel in international waters was tied to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang and heading toward the United States; no Americans were harmed. His post came with a video but no confirmed evidence the men were traffickers. Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed the claim, calling it a strike on a narco‑terrorist‑operated vessel that departed Venezuela. It’s the latest step in an escalating campaign: U.S. destroyers near Venezuela, a $50 million bounty on Nicolás Maduro, and reported planning for operations against Mexican cartels inside Mexico. Maduro, accusing Washington of angling for regime change, condemned the buildup and ordered the mobilization of millions of militia members—because nothing calms a region like warships, bounties, and all-caps warnings.

Dozens of scientists identify errors in the Energy Department’s new climate report

Dozens of scientists identify errors in the Energy Department’s new climate report, with more than 85 climate experts issuing a joint rebuttal that accuses the agency of cherry-picking and misrepresenting research. They note the report’s claim that rising CO2 is a “net benefit” to U.S. agriculture conveniently ignores the crop damage from extreme heat and weather. The report also asserts there’s no evidence of more intense “meteorological” drought, a framing the scientists call misleading because higher temperatures and evaporation—fueled by climate change—intensify drought even without falling rainfall. In short, the DOE seems to have discovered a new climate variable: selective memory.

Why Pascal Still Matters 55 Years Later

Why Pascal Still Matters 55 Years Later: because the “dead” language keeps showing up to work while trend-chasing frameworks expire faster than yogurt. Born in 1970, Pascal’s modern incarnation—Object Pascal via Free Pascal or Delphi—still draws real users, often landing near the top ten on language rankings (Index.dev even parks it at nine, just behind Go). As a career play, it’s a niche—but not a cliff dive.

Its original mission still holds: strong typing and strict declarations that instill good habits, the kind that used to be taught to two generations of high schoolers before Python took homeroom. For working developers, Free Pascal plus the Lazarus IDE offers drag-and-drop, cross-platform GUI development that can target Windows, macOS, or Linux—and it runs closer to the metal than Python. You can write modern OOP or go full 1985 and wrangle pointers. It’ll even run on an Arduino or bare metal on a Raspberry Pi.

Why use Pascal in 2025? Why not—especially if you prefer tools that quietly deliver over hype that loudly doesn’t.

OpenAI to add parental controls for teens amid lawsuit and rising scrutiny

OpenAI says it will roll out parental controls for teen users within a month, following a lawsuit that accuses the company of contributing to a teenager’s death through the chatbot’s constant availability and cultivated empathy. The timing highlights intensifying pressure to put real guardrails on always-on, emotionally persuasive AI. The policy shift will be judged by whether it delivers genuine safeguards, not just optics.

Chrome cruises past 70 percent, the browser wars become a coronation

On desktop in August 2025, Chrome hit 70.25 percent market share, Edge 11.8 percent, Safari 6.34 percent, Firefox 4.94 percent, and Opera 2.06 percent. On mobile, Chrome reached 69.15 percent, Safari 20.32 percent, Samsung Internet 3.33 percent, and Edge 0.59 percent. Translation, Google owns the highway, Apple keeps its cul-de-sac very tidy, and everyone else is waving from the curb.

SEPTA pressed to run full service for Eagles vs. Cowboys after court order

Attorney George Bochetto demanded SEPTA provide normal Broad Street Line service to NRG Station on Thursday, September 4, complete with Sports Express trains, citing Judge Sierra Thomas Street’s August 29 injunction halting the agency’s Doomsday cuts. He warned of a contempt motion if SEPTA does not confirm compliance by noon. The stakes are not small, Phase I benched Sports Express runs and slashed capacity from roughly 16,000 riders to 4,000, while telling fans to consolidate tailgates to free up parking. SEPTA says it is reviewing the letter and argues the extra game-day trains were cut on August 24, making reduced service the status quo under the order. A follow-up hearing is set Thursday on whether to roll back the initial 20 percent cuts. Translation, fewer trains, more parking, and a Hail Mary called status quo.

GOP sprints to seat Stephen Miran on the Fed board before the rate meeting

Republicans are trying to fast-track Trump economic adviser Stephen Miran’s confirmation onto the Federal Reserve board before the September 16 rate decision, a speed-run that stuffs a hearing, a committee vote, and floor debate into fewer than 10 legislative days, with possible rule tweaks to go even faster. They need near-unanimous cooperation, and some Republicans say they will tap the brakes, Senators Mike Rounds and John Kennedy plan to grill Miran on central bank independence, with Kennedy invoking Turkey as the cautionary tale. Complicating the math, Trump is pushing to remove Governor Lisa Cook over disputed mortgage-fraud allegations that are tied up in court, her lawyer says she never committed fraud, and senators concede there might not even be a vacancy until the case is resolved. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says there is a very good chance Miran is seated before the meeting, though even GOP senators note the Senate is not a Formula One pit crew. If he makes it in, Trump heads into the meeting with a little more swagger as markets already bet on a cut.

Cyberattack Disrupts Production at Jaguar Land Rover

Cyberattack disrupts production at Jaguar Land Rover, forcing the British carmaker to shut its Liverpool assembly line on Tuesday. The company says there’s no evidence customer data was stolen, though retail and production have been “severely disrupted.” Translation: your info looks safe, but the cars aren’t going anywhere.

Blind Items Revealed, No. 6

Blind Items Revealed, No. 6: The reveal tags Shailene Woodley and Emily in Paris’s Lucas Bravo as a rumored couple angling for attention—but despite the staged sparkle, the public yawn is deafening.

100 Notable Events Since the Dallas Cowboys’ Last Super Bowl Title

100 Notable Events Since the Dallas Cowboys’ Last Super Bowl Title: it’s Dallas week in Philadelphia, and as the defending champion Eagles prepare to raise their banner Thursday night at the Linc—right in Jerry Jones’ line of sight—Philly marks Dallas’ NFC-leading Super Bowl appearance drought with a 100-item time capsule of everything that’s happened since January 28, 1996. In the 29 years Dallas mustered four playoff wins and 13 losses, Tiger Woods won 15 majors, smartphones were invented, the Cubs broke a 108-year curse, Pluto got demoted, the human genome was mapped, James Webb launched, and yes, Allen Iverson stepped over Tyronn Lue while Philly built new stadiums. Go Birds. How ’bout them Cowboys?

Trump to Move U.S. Space Command to Alabama, Reversing Biden’s Decision

Trump to Move U.S. Space Command to Alabama, Reversing Biden’s Decision: From the Oval Office on Tuesday, President Trump said the command’s headquarters will shift from Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama, ending a nearly five-year turf war over its permanent home. Colorado loses the launchpad, Huntsville gets the star badge—and apparently nothing says “national security” like relocating a major command every change of administration.

Orchestrate serverless Amazon Bedrock batch jobs with AWS Step Functions

Orchestrate serverless Amazon Bedrock batch jobs with AWS Step Functions—because herding millions of prompts by hand is a great way to grow old. This serverless blueprint uses Step Functions, S3, Lambda, and DynamoDB to run high-volume, time-insensitive Bedrock batch inference at about half the on-demand cost, handling preprocessing, parallel execution, and postprocessing without you wrestling the quota cops yourself.

Key points:

- What it’s for: Large-scale inference like generating embeddings for millions of documents or running CoT-style text generations and evaluations. Batch pricing is ~50% cheaper than on-demand.

- Inputs: Feed data from Hugging Face (dataset ID + split) or S3 (CSV/Parquet). Inputs are converted to JSONL per-model format. Anthropic, Titan, and others are supported via extensible processors.

- Orchestration: Step Functions coordinates long-running jobs; DynamoDB tracks job state; events re-enter the state machine via Wait for Task Token. A Map state sustains max throughput while respecting quotas.

- Quotas to mind: 1,000–50,000 records per batch; example cap of 20 in-progress/submitted jobs per Region for Titan embeddings. Adjust via Service Quotas; tune concurrency with a CDK context variable.

- Postprocessing: Lambda parses JSONL outputs, joins results back to inputs, and writes Parquet. Text models emit a response column; embedding models emit an embedding column.

- Deploy: Install Node/npm and AWS CDK, clone the GitHub repo, npm install, set prompt templates if using text generation, then cdk deploy. You’ll get the S3 bucket and Step Functions names from CloudFormation outputs.

- Example scale: 2.2M SimpleCoT rows processed across 45 jobs, up to 20 concurrent; ~9 hours per job; ~27 hours end-to-end. No SLA—throughput varies with model demand.

- Cleanup: cdk destroy when you’re done. The solution code is public on GitHub.

Net result: a configurable, serverless conveyor belt for Bedrock batch inference—less artisanal toil, more industrial-strength throughput.

Zombie Army VR adds Horde Mode and co-op, free content pack now live

Rebellion drops its first major post-launch update, a free Horde Mode across four new maps with co-op invite support, slick Black Ice and gloriously tacky Toxic Hazard weapon skins, plus the return of Deadhunters Marie and Boris. After July’s fixes like improved snap turning and beefed-up 3D audio, this one actually feeds the content-hungry. Live now on Meta Quest, PlayStation VR2, and PC VR via Steam. If the campaign felt repetitive, at least now you can repeat it together.

Zack Polanski wins Green Party leadership on an eco-populist pitch

The unconventional contender stormed to the top on a platform of punchier communication and eco-populism, aiming to turn climate urgency into something people actually hear, not just recycle. If he can make carbon cuts trend outside a yoga studio, that would be news.

Debian signals removal of Guix from repositories for Debian 13 and Debian 12

In a break from the usual promise that stable means stable, Debian says the Guix package manager is likely to be pulled from Debian 13 trixie and from Debian 12 bookworm oldstable. Translation, if you rely on Guix from Debian’s repos, plan your exit before the repo does. Stable, meet exception.

Moscow hires hackers tied to school system breach, official says

A senior city official says the capital has brought on several of the same hackers who previously attacked its digital education platform. Bold strategy, hiring burglars to guard the vault. What could possibly go wrong besides everything.

One playbook for qubits and supercomputers

Researchers rolled out a unified tool that lets quantum hardware slot into existing high performance computing workflows, so specialized quantum tasks can be scheduled without duct-taping two alien tech stacks together. Actual integration instead of hype-to-PowerPoint, a welcome plot twist.

U.S. Army preps M1E3 Abrams production with industry survey

The service issued a comprehensive market survey via the Program Executive Office for Ground Combat Systems on the federal SAM portal, asking industry what it can build, how fast, and at what scale. The unglamorous paperwork before steel, sensors, and budgets start moving. Bureaucracy first, boom later.

Gérard Depardieu to stand trial in Paris over rape and sexual assault allegations

The French actor has been ordered to face court over alleged attacks dating to 2018. It marks a serious turn from untouchable icon to defendant and a test of accountability in French cinema. Allegations deserve scrutiny, and so does the process that evaluates them.

Tar Heels schooled in opener as Belichick admits he was outcoached

In his North Carolina debut, the NFL legend watched TCU hand out a 48 to 14 tutorial, then said he was outcoached. The Heels were outclassed from kickoff to cleanup. Even the greatest need a syllabus when college football does the schooling.