Nicky Haslam has released his annual tea towel ranking ordinariness. I almost admire his chutzpah
Nicky Haslam has produced his list of things that are common for 2026: Diet Coke and being thin; beards and quails’ eggs; the word “nuanced”; the phrase “no-brainer” (on the grounds that you wouldn’t call anything a “brainer”). It’s the eighth year that he’s put his list on a tea towel, which retails for about £50. I could think of some disparaging words for spending that much on a tea towel, none of which are “common”.
Still, I admire his chutzpah: he’s fashioned a class war, then waved it away nonsensically: “It’s nothing to do with class,” he told the Times. “It’s common in the sense of being universal.” (I mean, that can’t be true: if it were simply a list of things that were unlovely because of their ubiquity, you would hit “regular egg” before you got to quails’ egg.)
The president has spewed vulgar and hateful rhetoric even as he reveals his disdain for his followers
Far from veering off his track, Trump in his ceaselessly vile midterm campaign statements has attained an optimal level of Trumpism. He has distilled the raw elements of misogyny, racism and nativism to the purified essence of his political philosophy.
The Republican candidates and his vice-president have followed him down the trail of “defining deviancy down”, as explained by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in his essay in The American Scholar in 1993, about lowering the bar to make abnormal criminal behavior seem normal, coping through denial of its obvious presence, and through that process trivializing “the manifest decline of American civic life”.
Flash flooding, heavy rain and tornadoes have forced election officials in three different regions across the U.S. to move polling locations, scrambling Election Day plans in hot-button races.
Polymarket and Kalshi have risen for collecting the ‘wisdom of crowds’. But after high-profile blunders, some wonder if their predictions were just ‘stupid people getting lucky’
Just as voting was due to end in Brazil’s presidential runoff on 25 October, a supreme court justice ordered polling stations to stay open for another two hours, to give voters stranded by flash floods and bus shortages more time to cast their ballots. It added more drama to an already tense election. The final polls the night before showed Flávio Bolsonaro only marginally ahead, by about 51% to 49% – within the margin of error. A statistical tie.
Prediction markets told a different story. Polymarket priced a Bolsonaro victory at about 80% on election day, where it had hovered for three weeks. On the eve of the vote it touched 84%. Even as polls closed, the market gave the incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, roughly a one-in-five chance. A few hours later, Lula had won, by 51.8% to 48.2%.
Должность не всегда отражает весь профессиональный опыт человека. Об этом важно помнить как сотруднику, так и работодателю. Иногда именно дополнительные непрофильные знания и навыки помогают найти задачи и направления, в которых специалист может принести гораздо больше пользы, чем на своей текущей позиции.
Привет, Хабр! Меня зовут Ольга Лапшина, я HR-бизнес-партнер блока информационной безопасности «Ростелекома». В этой статье расскажу, как мы оцениваем опыт сотрудников и находим возможности для карьерного развития внутри компании, даже если события меняются быстрее, чем штатное расписание.
Привет! Меня зовут Юлия, в Amberdata я отвечаю за коммуникацию с партнерами и решение их задач с помощью данных DMP. Сегодня расскажу, как найти для вашего бизнеса реальных покупателей с помощью рекламы на основе транзакционных данных (это информация о реальных покупках людей и их покупательском поведении).
Что такое транзакционный таргетинг
Это особый подход к рекламе, при котором аудиторию сегментируют на основе данных о покупках пользователей за конкретный временной период. Источником таких данных выступает инфраструктура онлайн-касс и сервисов, работающих с фискальными чеками: производители кассовых решений и операторы фискальных данных. Они формируют обезличенную базу с информацией о покупках, которая позволяет выделять аудитории по категориям товаров, частоте и давности покупок.
Experts expect some politicians to claim the 2026 elections are rigged, but here's why that's not the case — and why it may be a while before some races are called.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) walks with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in May 2026 in Washington, DC. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
The outcome of the midterm elections is perhaps the single most important factor in determining how the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency will play out — and what impact it will have on people’s lives in the United States and around the world.
If Republicans defy the polls and hold both chambers, Trump would have the chance to pass more sweeping legislation on party-line votes, confirm more loyalist nominees to important positions, and continue remaking the judiciary, all while keeping oversight to a minimum. Democrats would have limited tools to object, Republicans would keep a free hand to run Washington, and Trump would be able to cite the results to maintain party loyalty. Practically and politically, the next two years would look a lot like the last two.
Conversely, the better Democrats do, the more power they will have to block Trump’s agenda, check his power, investigate his administration, and advance priorities of their own on issues like the economy, healthcare, the war in Iran, immigration enforcement, corruption, and more. But they’d also face significant limits on their power, from the Senate filibuster and Trump’s veto pen to White House tactics that could delay or derail oversight.
Key takeaways
Even if Democrats romp in the congressional midterms this week, they won’t be able to do whatever they want; however, if they use their powers creatively, they could achieve real and meaningful accomplishments.
Legislative accomplishments would likely happen in one of three ways: through confrontations on “must-pass” bills, through bipartisanship, or by laying the groundwork for bills a future Democratic president could sign.
House or Senate majorities would give Democrats subpoena powers, but the Trump administration will likely refuse to comply; Democrats would have to think outside the box in how to make their investigations succeed.
A Senate majority would make it far more challenging for Trump to confirm nominees and would slow his judicial confirmations to a trickle, if that.
So what are the real midterm stakes? Which moves from a Democratic Congress would be symbolic and which could have an immediate impact on real-world outcomes? And what might prevent them from achieving their goals?
To get a better sense of what Democrats could actually do if they won power in Congress, I spoke to current and former congressional aides as well as plugged-in outside experts. They generally painted a picture of a grim slog akin to trench warfare. Some believed the expectations of the Democratic base would far outpace what could realistically be achieved, and that frustration and disappointment were inevitable.
But some also expressed surprising optimism that, if Democrats played their cards right, they could score real and meaningful accomplishments — in driving policy change, in bringing wrongdoing to light, and in laying the groundwork for far more ambitious goals in the near future.
Whether they can do this will depend in part on politics and messaging, but also on how they use the formal tools that would be newly available to them with a congressional takeover: legislation, investigations, and — in the case of a Senate win — the confirmation process.
Legislation: How new Democratic majorities could legislate in a way that actually matters
House Democratic leaders are proudly talking about the bills they plan to quickly pass if they win the majority on topics such as healthcare, tariffs, and the war in Iran.
But the reality is that, so long as the Senate’s 60-vote requirement for ordinary legislation to advance remains in place, such bills aren’t going to make it to Trump’s desk without winning significant Republican support. (And even if they do make it to Trump’s desk — say, via the special budget reconciliation process — he could veto them.)
Instead, for Democratic majorities to do meaningful things with legislation under Trump, they’d likely have to pursue one of the following three approaches.
1. Confrontations on the must-pass bills
Lots of bills go nowhere in Congress, but some are viewed as “must-pass.” Some have practical consequences for failure after a certain deadline: If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, the country will default on its debt with potentially catastrophic consequences; if government funding bills aren’t passed, the government will shut down, as it did for 43 days last year.
Often, if one or both chambers flip in the midterms, a bold new majority tries to use one of these bills to make policy demands on the president, believing the bill’s “must-pass” status gives them leverage. Then, a showdown unfolds, as both sides play chicken before a looming deadline.
So if Democrats win the majority, they will have to decide: Which much-pass bills do they want to make demands over, what do they want to demand, and just how hard do they want to demand it?
Experts I spoke to were skeptical Democrats would push too hard on the debt ceiling. “The Democratic position in the past has been, ‘We don’t threaten the full faith and credit of the US government,’” Bobby Kogan, the senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic-aligned think tank, told me. The consequences of default seem, to them, too devastating to risk, and they’re historically reluctant to legitimize Republicans’ use of the debt ceiling as a weapon under Democratic presidents.
Some sort of fight seems likelier on government funding — after all, even while in the Senate minority, Democrats used the filibuster to shut down the government late last year, demanding that Republicans extend subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. They could run that playbook again, saying they won’t fund the government unless Trump agrees to their demands on healthcare (such as rolling back Trump’s Medicaid cuts), ICE (where they’ve demanded new accountability measures and restrictions), or other issues.
Many are skeptical that Democrats will successfully strong-arm Trump into making concessions in this way. When last year’s shutdown stretched for over a month and its consequences — for unpaid government workers and recipients of government benefits — grew more acute, enough Democrats eventually gave in even as they seemed to have the upper hand in polling. But it’s likely that the party’s base will urge them to try again — and if they do, their theory that they have more leverage over Trump this time will be tested.
2. Bipartisanship
The alternative to trying to shake the president down is to actually try and get Republican votes — passing measures with bipartisan support.
Some of these bills were standalone; others became law because they were attached to must-pass bills, such as government funding, or the National Defense Authorization Act. That’s a potential way to get something Trump doesn’t like into law — get enough Republicans on board, and hope that either Trump will conclude it’s too much of a headache to veto it, or that support in Congress is so strong his veto will fail (two-thirds of both the House and Senate can vote to override a veto). There’s precedent from this year’s bipartisan housing bill, which Trump allowed to become law without his signature.
Matthew Fiedler, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me that Democrats could try to add riders on appropriations bills that block certain controversial Trump administration regulatory actions. “That feels potentially achievable to me,” he said. But, to get those bills to Trump’s desk, they’d have to get the consent of Republican negotiators in Congress.
Bipartisanship can be achieved through working with the other party and compromising with them. But another route is through political pressure — say, if a proposal is so popular and politically potent that the other party feels they have no choice but to go along. “Bipartisanship is not always the signal of a kumbaya environment,” Charlie Ellsworth, a former aide to Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer who currently advises the advocacy group Public Citizen, told me.
That’s what happened with Rep. Ro Khanna’s (D-CA) bill to release the Epstein files last year; GOP leaders tried to hold it back, but the dam broke and it eventually passed with overwhelming majorities in both chambers. If Democrats win the majority, they could similarly put pressure on the GOP by forcing votes on issues where the party might be divided — like tariffs, or the Iran war.
3. Groundwork for the future
The other route for legislating to really matter in the next session is more forward-looking — Democrats could be crafting bills that they truly intend to pass in 2029, if a new Democratic president is sworn in and the party holds Congress.
The idea here is that the next president may have a limited window to pass major legislation, so he or she will be looking for ideas to take off the shelf. And the more serious legislative work that gets done in this Congress, and the more Democratic consensus is built ahead of time, the better-prepared certain bills could be for that opportunity.
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, for instance, included several provisions that House Republicans had crafted during the Biden administration. Similarly, Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act included prescription drug provisions that House Democrats had crafted during Trump’s first term.
“There’s a lot of consequential prep work that can happen during these time periods, even when there’s not a real prospect of the legislation becoming law in this term,” Fiedler said.
The flipside is that if Democrats flock to unworkable ideas in this Congress in order to appease an interest group or win a messaging fight, they may feel pressure to follow through in the next Congress — and problems may result. Take the first year of Trump’s first term, when he and the GOP felt compelled to deliver on their longtime vow to repeal Obamacare — but since they hadn’t come up with a specific proposal to do it that was politically viable and hadn’t seriously grappled with the many potential downsides for patients, the effort ended in failure.
“Democrats need to be cognizant that if you’re going to do a test run and draw a contrast between what Democrats are for and what the president opposes, you should expect the American people will ask you to deliver when you have the power,” Ellsworth said.
Investigations: How Democrats could think creatively to get around Trump’s stonewalling
Winning control of either the House or Senate is crucial to these efforts because it would give them a hugely important investigative tool: congressional subpoena power. Democratic majorities would be newly able to issue legally binding requests for documents and testimony. (Currently, stuck in the minority in both chambers, all they can do is ask nicely.)
Why do investigations matter? One goal can simply be to unearth new facts about what’s been going on inside the executive branch, which can help determine their next steps. A second can be to spur criminal investigations, though this seems unlikely while Trump is in power, given his co-option of the Justice Department.
A third can be to pave the way to impeachment if significant wrongdoing is exposed. That said, in contrast to Trump’s first term, Democrats sound far less eager to impeach him this time around, though some have floated potentially impeaching Cabinet officials.
Finally, a fourth goal can be to use hearings and other activity to focus the press and public’s attention on certain topics and potentially build momentum for action in response. Many Democrats feel that their 2021-2022 House January 6 committee, which featured dramatic public testimony and audiovisual presentations, was an innovator here.
The catch is that the Trump administration could — and likely will — just refuse to comply with subpoenas aimed at officials or agencies. In Trump’s first term, he vowed to fight “all the subpoenas” from House Democrats, and for the most part the administration followed through, declining to cooperate or asserting executive privilege.
If faced with this stonewalling, the usual next step is for Democrats to sue, and hope courts will compel compliance from the administration. The perennial problem, though, is that such lawsuits often take a long time to resolve — and could well stretch on into the next president’s term.
“It is unfortunately possible for the recipients of congressional subpoenas to resist and drag out these proceedings,” Tim Heaphy, the former chief investigative counsel for the House January 6 committee, told me. “And lawyers knew that, so they could run out the clock.”
Anticipating this resistance, Democrats have floated that they may focus their subpoenas on people or companies outside the government who they think might have information about executive branch malfeasance.
These potential subpoena targets include donors to the White House ballroom construction effort, investors doing business with the Trump family, private companies that have gotten federal contracts, lobbyists that have helped secure presidential pardons for their clients, and law firms that made deals with the Trump administration.
The administration may still at least attempt to cite executive privilege to try to quash these subpoenas. “I’ve heard that there’s already some discussion about whether the executive branch would have standing to object to a subpoena handed to a government contractor,” Heaphy said. Democrats also hope to get cooperation from whistleblowers and government officials who actually want to share what they know.
But some have called on congressional Democrats to do more to try and ensure there will be consequences for defying subpoenas. For instance, Congress could theoretically assert a power known as “inherent contempt,” ordering noncompliant officials to be detained (or, potentially, fined); this power has not been invoked since 1934. If they tried to use this power against administration officials, a major constitutional battle would ensue. Others have suggested the less dramatic approach of making government funding contingent on agencies’ or officials’ cooperation with investigations.
Josh Chafetz, a Georgetown law professor and an expert on congressional power, told me that, to succeed with investigations, Democrats would have to think creatively. Simply litigating the Trump administration’s defiance, he said, was “a fool’s errand.” He added: “If they follow that playbook, they’re going to get the same results — which is, nothing will happen in those investigations over the next two years.”
Confirmations: A Senate takeover would have big stakes for how the Trump administration functions
If Democrats manage to win the Senate, there will be another major consequence — Trump will need their approval to confirm judges and many administration officials.
Trump has nominated several extreme or controversial figures to his administration; and, because the GOP Senate majority was inclined to defer to their party’s president, the vast majority of them were confirmed. (Sorry, Matt Gaetz.) These nominations can have very real consequences: if Trump had selected someone other than Pete Hegseth, who was only one vote away from not being confirmed, as defense secretary, perhaps he would have heard more warnings about the risks of war with Iran.
A Democratic Senate would be far more skeptical of confirming particularly controversial nominees for administration positions. But more broadly than that, all Trump nominees would face tougher scrutiny. “The administration’s going to find it very hard to get pretty much anyone confirmed,” Chafetz said.
The official line from Democratic leadership is that they will be happy to confirm qualified Trump nominees — but that Trump is simply nominating unqualified people. “If the nominees are as crappy as his present ones, very few of them are going to get through,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — the likely majority leader, if Democrats win the Senate — told Semafor last month.
A confirmation blockade wouldn’t lead to an urgent crisis, since Trump’s administration is full of confirmed appointees already. But as various officials leave the government — voluntarily or involuntarily — Trump will want replacements. Democrats will have to weigh just how far they want to go in slow-walking or delaying Trump nominees. Some Democrats will also want to use nominees as bargaining chips in their dealings with the administration, while others may think obstructing noncontroversial nominees is antithetical to how government should function.
Trump would likely respond by trying to rely more on “acting” appointees for key roles, as he did in his first term — but there are legal limits on who can be appointed to an acting role, and how long they can serve there.
Judicial nominees, meanwhile, serve for life if they’re confirmed. So a Democratic Senate majority would be most skeptical about confirming Trump’s judge picks, particularly at the circuit court level and certainly at the Supreme Court should any vacancy arise.
For the Supreme Court, this is most consequential; conservatives currently have a 6-3 majority. But there are four Supreme Court justices in their 70s, with the oldest being 78-year-old Clarence Thomas and 76-year-old Samuel Alito.
If Republicans hold the Senate, either could retire confident a right-wing successor would be confirmed. But if Democrats take over the chamber, they’d likely follow the precedent set by the GOP when they refused to even consider President Barack Obama’s nominee for the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat in 2016 — holding it open for the next president to fill.
That said, there may be a brief window for Republicans to try to confirm a justice in the final session before the new Senate majority is sworn in, if one or more do decide to step down.
The political stakes: In Trump’s last two years in power, will he be hemmed in — or emboldened?
Finally, looming above and affecting all these issues, is the political reality that the midterms will deliver what’s taken as a verdict on Trump’s second term so far.
If Democrats’ win is huge, Republicans will engage in a frenzy of finger-pointing and blame-casting as the party grapples with what comes next for them after the Trump era, especially with a presidential contest starting up in which he won’t be on the ballot. Practically, Trump will be more hemmed in, and though he will surely stoke further controversies and crises, he will be a weakened figure facing constant challenges from Congress.
Conversely, if Trump’s GOP defies the polls and holds both chambers, he’ll likely treat it as a complete vindication of his second-term approach — and feel emboldened to plunge ahead on his most controversial agenda items, from ICE crackdowns to the Iran war, confident Congress will do little to stop him and the next Republican nominee (whether Vice President JD Vance or someone else) will take his side.
Представьте, что у вас на диске лежит папка с договорами, сотня PDF, конспекты и внутренняя документация. Вы открываете ChatGPT, загружаете один файл — он его читает, но стоит загрузить больше, контекст переполняется, или просто теряется файл. А если файлов десять? Двадцать? Подписка стоит денег, из России нужен VPN, и даже с ним модель не знает, что написано в ваших таблицах, если вы не скормите ей всё вручную.
Вот тут и появляется AnythingLLM — опенсорсное приложение, которое превращает ваши файлы в базу знаний и позволяет общаться с ними через любую LLM. Хотите локально и бесплатно на своей видеокарте? Пожалуйста. Хотите через облачную модель, но без подписки OpenAI и танцев с бубном? Тоже вариант, и ниже мы разберём его по шагам. Эта статья — про то, как за вечер собрать приватного ассистента, который отвечает по вашим документам. С блекджеком и RAG!
The Supreme Court considered whether Catholic preschools in Colorado that decline to enroll families with gay and transgender parents can participate in a state program.
A law to end surprise medical bills has generated millions of high-dollar payouts for doctors. Health plans are now fighting back by frequently withholding money.
The energy-rich Gulf Arab countries are engaged in a flurry of mediation efforts to avert war between the U.S. and Iran, as many fear that the fighting will be worse this time around.
Though President Trump’s name is not on the ballot, voters are weighing the effects of his agenda in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Lisa Lerer, a national political reporter for The New York Times, describes how three crucial issues are affecting their decisions.
В требованиях к акциям Vaari мы записали: участие продавца добровольное. Уместилось в одну строку. А дальше понадобилось определить, кто выбирает товары, когда фиксируется цена, что происходит при изменении условий и можно ли выйти из акции, если магазин приостановил продажи.
Без этих ответов два человека могут прочитать одну строку и спроектировать два разных продукта.
Я CPO Vaari — маркетплейса, который мы сейчас готовим к запуску. Мы хотим дать продавцам возможность развивать свой бизнес на площадке: управлять участием в акциях, понимать условия привлечения покупателей, показывать особенности своего бренда. При разработке выясняется, сколько отдельных решений стоит за каждым из этих намерений.
Разберу три таких решения. Акции и учёт покупок из собственных каналов продавца уже реализованы локально и проходят подготовку к запуску. Витрину с историей бренда пока проектируем. Данных о влиянии этих механик на реальные продажи у нас ещё нет.
10 и 11 августа 2026 года ФСТЭК России утвердила новые редакции двух перечней:
- для выполнения работ и оказания услуг, установленных Положением о лицензировании деятельности по технической защите конфиденциальной информации (ТЗКИ) – 10 августа;
- для выполнения работ и оказания услуг, установленных Положением о лицензировании деятельности по разработке и производству средств защиты конфиденциальной информации (СрЗИ) – 11 августа.
Для соискателей лицензий перечни применяются с 1 декабря 2026 года, действующим лицензиатам оборудование нужно привести в соответствие перечням до 1 марта 2027 года.
Разбираем, что изменилось и кого это коснется, а в конце дадим чек-лист, что проверить в первую очередь.
The 3,200-pound satellite is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere later this week with a wide reentry zone covering parts of Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia, and South America.
Hot radiators and cold draughts can wreak havoc with plants in winter, so do you need a gadget to measure the temperature and humidity of your home?
The problem
Winter is often seen as downtime for houseplants, so they can get forgotten. Colder days mean the heating is on, the air dries out, and draughts creep in at every window or door. Tropical plants that thrived in summer can start to sulk. Could a digital thermometer and hygrometer to monitor the humidity help redress the balance?
The hack
Pop the cheap gadget among your plants for a live update on temperature and relative humidity, often with a record of the daily high and low. The idea is that instead of guessing whether your calathea is cold or your fern is fading in the dry air, you measure and move the plant or treat it accordingly.
Ноутбук для многих пользователей давно уже превратился из средства для работы в пути в обычный компьютер, который в течение всего рабочего дня, а то и дольше, подключен к сети питания. Он стоит на столе, выводит изображение на монитор, а зарядку из него часто не вынимают месяцами. При этом советы, как не убить батарею, дают ровно противоположные. Одни уверены, что зарядку надо выдергивать, как только индикатор дошел до 100%, иначе аккумулятор быстро умрет. Другие отвечают, что контроллер давно все решает сам. Один пользователь Хабра так и пишет, что ноутбук у него всегда стоит на зарядке, а отключает он его, только когда нужно, и батарея спустя два с лишним года якобы ведет себя как в первый день.
Тёмная тема – это не просто модный тренд, а необходимость для металлургического производства. В этой статье мы расскажем о нашем опыте проработки тёмной темы для MES-системы, внедрённой на Череповецком металлургическом комбинате. Вы узнаете, почему мы вообще за неё взялись, что оказалось сложнее всего в процессе, и какие принципы проектирования мы сформулировали.
Three months into a four-year contract, the problems are mounting for Newcastle boss Matthias Jaissle as his side are booed off the pitch by fans following another defeat.
С крупнейшей в мире криптовалютной биржи Binance после возобновления ее работы клиенты вывели активы на сумму 3,6 млрд долларов. Компания приостанавливала все операции после масштабного взлома, в результате которого были похищены активы на сумму около 6,3 млрд долларов.
Вечером 2 ноября у одного из домов в селе Петропавловская Борщаговка под Киевом собрались несколько десятков человек, утверждавших, что там удерживают и пытают людей. Протест перерос в столкновения с полицией: собравшиеся разгромили служебные машины и заблокировали автобус с военными. Успокоить толпу не удалось даже главе Офиса президента Украины Кириллу Буданову, который лично приехал на место. В какой-то момент в его сторону распылили газ.
Привет! Меня зовут Илья Садыков, я работаю в команде TestOps в PaaS Авито. Мы отвечаем за инструментарий хаос-тестирования — подхода, при котором в систему намеренно внедряются сбои для её проверки.
В этой статье я покажу карту нашего хаос-ландшафта, расскажу, зачем нам собственный оркестратор, и подробно разберу, как во всё это встроена LLM. Рассмотрим кейсы от автоматического разбора прошлых инцидентов (LSR) до генерации AI-conclusion по конкретным экспериментам. Все архитектурные решения, о которых расскажу в статье, — из нашего реального продакшена.
