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Are we doomscrolling our way into a democratic crisis? That’s what the playwright James Graham fears may be happening, as he suggests that our algorithms have led us into ‘a massive crisis of the new’ and are preventing us from imagining a different future

Watch the full episode with James Graham here.

INK will be released in UK cinemas on 8 January 2027

Aditya suggested reading (and watching) list for James Graham:

Dear England: about England’s football team

Sherwood: mentioned in the conversation, set in the village where James Graham grew up in the shadow of the miners’ strike

Quiz: set on the British quiz show, Who wants to be a millionaire, where a contestant wins a million quid

About 200 firefighters deployed to tackle blaze at former Nazi mountain retreat in remote part of southern Germany

Police have arrested a 33-year-old German citizen after a fire ripped through Adolf Hitler’s former mountain retreat in Bavaria, leaving the historic Nazi meeting place – known as the Eagle’s Nest – largely destroyed.

About 200 firefighters were deployed on Friday night to tackle the blaze at the Nazi dictator’s remote, purpose-built Kehlsteinhaus residence, a protected building on the peak of Obersalzberg in southern Germany.

The Senate candidate denounced opponent Ken Paxton, calling out corruption allegations and support from Musk

James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Texas, has taken aim at Elon Musk, warning that the tech mogul is trying to buy political influence and declaring: “Texas is not for sale.”

Talarico held a campaign rally on Friday at the University of Texas at Austin, packing an auditorium at his alma mater with hundreds of students and other supporters, who cheered, whooped and waved campaign signs.

Создать своего цифрового клона! Какого хочешь: от супергероя до бомжа. И чтобы он говорил на видео то, что ему напишешь. Когда-то в детстве (у меня оно пришлось на нулевые) такое было возможно только в фантастических фильмах.

А теперь...

Но и теперь, на самом деле, не все так просто.

Друг посоветовал HeyGen для создания ИИ-аватаров. Спасибо ему. Но есть нюанс: бесплатно там доступно только три видео в месяц, да и то с водяными знаками. А с оплатой из России — проблемы.

From Alison, Harry Bailey and Madame Eglantine to the slipper limpet and trumpet tube worm, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Which islands lie at the geographic centre of the western hemisphere?
2 Esme Pepper is which writer’s 135th book?
3 What phenomenon did Einstein dismiss as “spooky action at a distance”?
4 Which hormone is chiefly produced by the pineal gland?
5 A Beatles museum is planned on which London street?
6 Which fashion brand made uniforms for the Wehrmacht and Nazi party?
7 The Manchester solicitor Nick Freeman styles himself as what?
8 Dogana is the largest settlement in which European microstate?
What links:
9 Carpet sea squirt; Pacific oyster; slipper limpet; trumpet tube worm?
10 Convoy; Duel; Maximum Overdrive; Smokey and the Bandit; The Wages of Fear?
11 Balti; Bermuda; Coral; Golden; Rhubarb?
12 Alison; Harry Bailey; Madame Eglantine; Hubert; Oswald; Robin?
13 Buckeyes; Crimson Tide; Fighting Irish; Longhorns; Wolverines?
14 River Tay, Scotland; Tay River, Ontario; Swan River, Western Australia?
15 Carnival; MSC; Norwegian; Princess; Royal Caribbean?

• Brewers claim 3-2 victory in Game 1 of World Series

• Yelich triples home a run and scores in first inning

• Misiorowski and Megill hold off late Rays fightback

Trevor Megill struck out Jonny DeLuca with runners on second and third to escape a ninth-inning jam as the Milwaukee Brewers held on for a 3-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 1 of the World Series on Friday night.

DeLuca’s strikeout came after Tampa Bay’s Liam Hicks had grounded into an apparent game-ending double play that was overturned after a video review. Replays showed that Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt’s right foot was slightly off the bag when he reached to catch a high throw from second baseman Brice Turang.

In his rogue new travelogue, the Hollywood star tees off, has drunken pub singalongs – but mostly just proves how tired he is of fame

I’m suspicious of travelogues, which often feature celebrities in contrived situations, serving up a sentimental postcard of a place that is tantamount to a lie. I also hate how famous people are inexorably drawn to golf: a boring game historically predicated on a rancid mix of social exclusivity and extensive land ownership. So it was perverse of me to watch a show in which author Tom Coyne drives around Ireland playing various courses with his friend, actor Bill Murray. It’s the perfect intersection of none of my interests.

I was, however, hooked by a strange promise in A Course Called Ireland’s introductory sequence. “This is not a show about golf,” it says. “It’s not even a show about Bill Murray.” This was immediately followed by a scene in which an Irish woman standing by the roadside misidentified the actor as Bill Cosby. OK, I thought. What are they teeing up here?

The caped crusader is paying for hospital parking fines, giving out fuel to drivers – and sponsoring the return of cut-priced Freddo bars

In the harsh light of day, a caped crusader storms the streets of London to tackle a crime that has long blighted the capital: littering.

“When I said I wanted to save London, I meant it. I will not stop until every single bit of trash is off the streets,” he says in a viral video, narrated in his trademark deep, husky and (suspiciously) American voice, joined by a gang of hooded helpers clearing rubbish-strewn streets in Tower Hamlets.

Established under the Franco dictatorship, the lunchtime ritual is in decline but all is not lost

A little before lunchtime each working day across Spain, evidence of one of the lingering, if less notorious, legacies of the Franco dictatorship is carefully traced in chalk, marker pen and printer ink.

Beckoning to hungry workers from blackboards, whiteboards and pieces of paper hastily taped to windows, the competitively priced menú del día, or daily set-price lunch, has been part of everyday Spanish life for more than half a century. But while 4m menús are still served each weekday, Spain is slowly losing its appetite for the familiar ritual.

About 200 firefighters deployed to tackle blaze at former Nazi mountain retreat in remote part of southern Germany

Police have arrested a 33-year-old German citizen after a fire ripped through Adolf Hitler’s former mountain retreat in Bavaria, leaving the historic Nazi meeting place – known as the Eagle’s Nest – largely destroyed.

About 200 firefighters were deployed on Friday night to tackle the blaze at the Nazi dictator’s remote, purpose-built Kehlsteinhaus residence, a protected building on the peak of Obersalzberg in southern Germany.

Вставляешь ссылку на видео с YouTube, TikTok, VK или Instagram, выбираешь 1080 p, 720 p или 480 p и жмёшь «Скачать». Через несколько секунд на Рабочем столе лежит mp4, который открывается в QuickTime, на айфоне и в любом плеере Windows. Пока идёт загрузка, по пиксельному офису бегает человечек и складывает в папку листки.

Это Качалка — бесплатная программа с открытым кодом. Никаких аккаунтов, рекламы и водяных знаков. Ниже — из чего она собрана и два бага, на которые я потратил больше всего времени: оба проявлялись только в собранной программе и ни разу при запуске из кода.

Давно хотел делать бесплатно для людей, время пришло.

Data released under freedom of information laws reveals hundreds of projects unfinished despite Tory promises on regional equality

• Can a £5.8bn scheme help revive Grimsby and other town centres?

Most levelling up projects are not finished, years after funds were allocated, highlighting how ambitious Conservative promises of quick progress on regional equality have faltered.

Data released under freedom of information laws and manually reviewed by the Guardian found 821 levelling up projects out of 1,347 were yet to be finalised as of May this year. Across the UK, 73 council areas that had a bid for a project accepted were yet to see a single one fully completed. The Guardian has identified 59 projects that were completed since the data was collected.

In this week’s newsletter: Stalling subscriber numbers have led to a corporate bloodbath, but the streaming giant has an inherent quality problem that will be a lot harder to fix

In all the fevered hype around a certain three-hour, form-breaking documentary portrait of a disgraced tech CEO, another big Hollywood story this week has been relatively sidelined: the drama at Netflix, where sluggish subscriber numbers and a general lack of Wall Street enthusiasm has led to a remarkable spree of sackings. A thousand employees, or 6% of its entire workforce, have been laid off – including some very big names. Among a clutch of other execs, chief content officer Bela Bajaria – the figure most synonymous with Netflix’s tone and ethos over the past decade – has been fired. The company’s head of film, Dan Lin, has gone too. That shade of red on the streamer’s logo has never looked more bloody. You Can See Everything getting very messy indeed.

We’ve been here before, of course. Netflix – giant, controversial, inescapable – is the sort of company people love to make grand speculations about. Pencils were sharpened in 2022 when Netflix lost subscribers for the first time and saw its share price plummet as a result, before the company enjoyed a notable resurgence. Just as the obituaries written for the streamer were premature then, writing it off now would be foolish too.

Всё произошло очень быстро: какая‑то ностальгическая статья про сборники Classic Fond — и вот я уже качаю образы «Лучшие игры для IBM PC» с Internet Archive. Первым скачался 25-й диск. Открыл и вспомнил всё: школу, переход рядом с ВДНХ, палатки. Ешь беляш, смотришь, какие альбомы вышли, ну и, конечно, сборники Classic Fond.

В статье будем пытаться открыть секретный файл с дисков Classic Fond.

Data released under freedom of information laws reveals hundreds of projects unfinished despite Tory promises on regional equality

• Can a £5.8bn scheme help revive Grimsby and other town centres?

Most levelling up projects are not finished, years after funds were allocated, highlighting how ambitious Conservative promises of quick progress on regional equality have faltered.

Data released under freedom of information laws and manually reviewed by the Guardian found 821 levelling up projects out of 1,347 were yet to be finalised as of May this year. Across the UK, 73 council areas that had a bid for a project accepted were yet to see a single one fully completed. The Guardian has identified 59 projects that were completed since the data was collected.

Closures within chain formerly under the WH Smith brand raise fears of high streets becoming ‘postal deserts’

Towns and even city centres face being left as “postal deserts” after it emerged that more than a third of post offices within the troubled TG Jones chain are closing.

So far this year 36 branches within the high street chain formerly known as WH Smith have closed and a further 34 are set to close by early 2027, according to Post Office records analysed by the Guardian.

Established under the Franco dictatorship, the lunchtime ritual is in decline but all is not lost

A little before lunchtime each working day across Spain, evidence of one of the lingering, if less notorious, legacies of the Franco dictatorship is carefully traced in chalk, marker pen and printer ink.

Beckoning to hungry workers from blackboards, whiteboards and pieces of paper hastily taped to windows, the competitively priced menú del día, or daily set-price lunch, has been part of everyday Spanish life for more than half a century. But while 4m menús are still served each weekday, Spain is slowly losing its appetite for the familiar ritual.

В статье «DokuWiki как платформа для технической документации: наш опыт» мы рассказали, почему ведем документацию на DokuWiki, и пообещали отдельно разобрать собственные плагины. Выполняем обещание. Всего на нашей вики работает около 35 плагинов, 10 из них мы написали сами. Далее расскажем, какую задачу решает каждый, как он устроен и что из этого получилось.

У подписки на Claude Code два лимита: пятичасовая сессия и недельное окно. Команда /usage показывает остаток, но только внутри открытой сессии и только для одного аккаунта. А меня обычно интересует другое: хватит ли до сброса, если работать в том же темпе.

Я сделал claude-limits — локальную страницу со всеми логинами Claude Code, Codex и Kimi Code и двумя прогнозами на каждое окно: сколько будет к сбросу и на какую долю окна хватит квоты. Рассказываю, как они считаются, где я ошибался (слишком ранний прогноз, ночь и выходные, ответы 429) и как утилита написана на Nova — языке, который я делаю.

Humble breakfast staple at heart of trend stirred up by health concerns and hearty spoonfuls of nostalgia

The clocks may be going back in the UK this weekend, but the biggest sign winter is coming is a steaming bowl of porridge on a breakfast table.

A staple for centuries, porridge is traditionally made with oats, water and a pinch of salt or sugar. However, the humble dish is now experiencing its own renaissance, with the latest iterations transforming it from drab to decadent. The trend is being driven by a growing fibre-centric movement as well as by nostalgia.

Chancellor says government to commit hundreds of millions to develop ‘distinctively British’ approach to AI

John Healey has pledged to use Wednesday’s budget to harness the power of artificial intelligence to bolster Britain’s security and prosperity against the risks in the accelerating global technology arms race.

As he prepares for his debut budget, the chancellor said that Andy Burnham’s government would commit hundreds of millions of pounds to develop a “distinctively British” approach to AI that would capitalise on the benefits of the frontier technology.

The prime minister has defined and dominated his country’s politics for three decades and is putting his rivals on the defensive before Tuesday’s general election

They chant his name, they cheer and clap – and yet he is not the most dominant person in the room. Looming over the crowd that has gathered to hear Gadi Eisenkot, the former general who is the lead opposition challenger in Tuesday’s Israeli election, is a man who is not there. It is the man Eisenkot seeks to replace as prime minister, the man who first served in that role three decades ago and who has held it, on and off, for 19 of the past 30 years. It is Benjamin Netanyahu.

Naturally, the warm-up speakers at this evening rally in the modest city of Modi’in, halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, stress the virtues of Eisenkot, a son of working-class Moroccan Jews who rose through the ranks to become chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and entered politics only four years ago. But every sentence might as well end with two words that go unspoken: unlike Bibi.

The base of this easy roast pumpkin soup is rich, nutty, Halloween heaven – you can go wild with the garnishes

A lot of my early life in professional kitchens was spent making vegetable purees, which I find rather tiresome, not least because they can often lapse into baby food: creamy, bland and flattened by a cosseting blanket of dairy. With a judicious and considered approach, however, they can also be incredibly vivid, explosive and concentrated expressions of the very essence of the vegetable in question. I love this seasonal (not to mention Halloween-appropriate) soup for its simplicity of approach – essentially, you just roast a beautiful pumpkin with caramelised butter – and the remarkable complexity of its result.

Jackson Boxer is chef/owner of Brunswick House, Vesper and Dove, all in London, and culinary director of Cowley Manor near Cheltenham and the Henrietta in London

Chancellor says government to commit hundreds of millions to develop ‘distinctively British’ approach to AI

John Healey has pledged to use Wednesday’s budget to harness the power of artificial intelligence to bolster Britain’s security and prosperity against the risks in the accelerating global technology arms race.

As he prepares for his debut budget, the chancellor said that Andy Burnham’s government would commit hundreds of millions of pounds to develop a “distinctively British” approach to AI that would capitalise on the benefits of the frontier technology.