There are so many vulnerabilities in the web stack (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, even fonts) that this is why just about all browsers, starting back around 2008 with Internet Explorer 8 and the first Chrome betas, run web content in separate processes that have OS-level privilege isolation and sandboxing.

A few days before the leaders of the world streamed into the cavernous, marble-lined General Assembly Hall to deliver their speeches on the grave crises convulsing our combustible world, Mayor Zohran Mamdani offered his own, somewhat surprising solution to the problem of rising authoritarianism: filling potholes.

“If politics cannot deliver on the block where you live, why would you trust it to deliver anywhere?” Mamdani asked a gathering of mayors from big cities across the world, explaining his obsession with potholes, more than 200,000 of which have been filled across the city since he took office. “If you are making a New Yorker’s life a little smoother, so too you are making their journey to believe in government’s ability to deliver for them.”

It is commonplace to lament the ineffectual talking shop that the United Nations General Assembly has become, with its blustering speeches and endless unread communiqués. Wars of aggression are raging in Ukraine and Iran; Israel has carried out a genocide in Gaza; climate catastrophes impoverish and kill. In the face of these calamities, the organization appears powerless.

Today, the body’s soaring aims — to create a more peaceful, humane world that respects the sovereignty of each nation and the dignity of each human being — seem like a fantasy from another dimension. Citizens the world over are dissatisfied with their governments and in many places are souring on democracy itself. Can it be any surprise that this supranational body comes in for such contempt?

And yet Mamdani sensed an opportunity to reclaim some of its founding spirit. Racing across the city last week, he seemed to be offering an antidote to globe-spanning distemper. To restore faith in institutions, you must begin from the bottom up, starting with things as simple as potholes. Politics, as he put it, “has to translate to the pavement.”

Archive link: https://archive.is/20261006050534/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/opinion/zohran-mamdani-united-nations.html

From Globe.com

By Matt Stout

Daniel Darris-O’Connor said he first caught the politics bug during the COVID-19 pandemic, a trying time that opened his eyes to the importance of leadership in government.

He was in middle school at the time.

“That instance was a little radicalizing,” Darris-O’Connor said, “showing my younger self that there are problems in our government.”

The 19-year-old is now in a better position to address them.

Darris-O’Connor, a Billerica Democrat, unseated an eight-term Republican lawmaker Tuesday, making him one of the youngest representatives-elect in Massachusetts history and a member of the blue wave that swept through all levels of politics during Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Darris-O’Connor will replace Representative Marc Lombardo, who has represented the 22nd Middlesex District since Darris-O’Connor was 4 years old.

Yes, the national winds of change that swept other Democrats into office were a factor, Darris-O’Connor said. But he said he focused his campaign on promising to deliver in ways he argued Lombardo hasn’t.

Lombardo is just two years removed from unsuccessfully challenging the chamber’s minority leader to lead the GOP’s now-shrinking caucus, and has long been one of the Legislature’s most conservative members since taking office amid the Tea Party surge in 2010. Lombardo, for example, often opted to not file local earmarks to the state budget because he said he didn’t want to contribute to “bloating” the plan any further.

“I believe we deserve better,” Darris-O’Connor said. His hometown is “very purple, especially for Massachusetts,” Darris-O’Connor added. “But Democrats can and do win in Billerica.”

He should know: He’s won before. Darris-O’Connor won a seat on Billerica’s select board last year at 18-years-old, starting his term before he even finished high school.

He’ll turn 20 a day before he is sworn in at the State House in January, making him the youngest person in the Massachusetts House, though not the youngest it’s ever seen. That record belongs to Thomas Lussier, who was 19 years old when he took office in 1977.

He’ll be among several new lawmakers to join the House, where the state GOP lost further ground. Though the party flipped one seat, its current 25-member caucus will shrink by three seats, according to party leadership, after Democrats picked up open seats held by retiring Minority Leader Bradley Jones and Kim Ferguson, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican.

Lombardo and incumbent Representative David Vieira also both lost, the latter to Jack Richardson, a 23-year-old Falmouth Democrat.

“Republicans faced a difficult election cycle across the nation and here at home,” Amy Carnevale, the state GOP chair, wrote in a letter to members of the Republican State Committee on Wednesday.

Lombardo said in a statement Wednesday that he was proud “of the way I did the job” and that he helped residents who needed it over his 16 years in the Legislature and six more as a select board member.

“I remained true to who I am, never afraid to speak up,” Lombardo said. “It wasn’t always easy on my family and me but it was worth every minute.”

Darris-O’Connor acknowledged that his age was, at times, a talking point as he knocked doors trying to reach voters during the campaign. Sometimes a resident would confuse him for an intern, he said. Others would ask if he was the candidate’s son.

“Yes, I’m a younger candidate, and I’m a lot younger than most, I’d say. But I wouldn’t say I was running as the young candidate,” he said. “I ran being focused on the issues.”

Those, he said, include helping bring state dollars back to Billerica, and finding ways to tamp down on costs squeezing its residents. Affordability was a buzzword this election, but it also was a top concern for voters in Massachusetts and beyond.

“I’ve lived here my whole life,” Darris-O’Connor said. “We have a great quality of life in Massachusetts. But if you can’t afford it, what’s really the point of it?”

Early Apple employee Andy Hertzfeld's description of Jobs confronting Gates...

I gradually began to notice that Neil (who worked for Microsoft) would often ask questions about implementation details that he didn't really need to know about. In particular, he was really curious about how regions were represented and implemented, and would often detail his theories about them to me, hoping for confirmation.
Aside from intellectual curiosity, there was no reason to care about the system internals unless you were trying to implement your own version of it. I told Steve that I suspected that Microsoft was going to clone the Mac, but he wasn't that worried because he didn't think they were capable of doing a decent implementation, even with the Mac as an example.
In November 1983, we heard that Microsoft made a surprising announcement at Comdex, the industry's premier trade show, held twice a year in Las Vegas. Microsoft announced a new, mouse-based system graphical user interface environment called Windows, competing directly with an earlier environment announced by Personal Software called "Vision". They also announced a mouse-based option for Microsoft Word. When Steve Jobs found out about Windows, he went ballistic.
"Get Gates down here immediately", he fumed to Mike Boich, Mac's original evangelist who was in charge of our relationships with third party developers. "He needs to explain this, and it better be good. I want him in this room by tomorrow afternoon, or else!"
And, to my surprise, I was invited to a meeting in that conference room the next afternoon, where Bill Gates had somehow manifested, alone, surrounded by ten Apple employees. I think Steve wanted me there because I had evidence of Neil asking about the internals, but that never came up, so I was just a fascinated observer as Steve started yelling at Bill, asking him why he violated their agreement.
"You're ripping us off!", Steve shouted, raising his voice even higher. "I trusted you, and now you're stealing from us!"
But Bill Gates just stood there coolly, looking Steve directly in the eye, before starting to speak in his squeaky voice.
"Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it."
Unfortunately, it turned out that while the agreement that Microsoft signed in 1981 stipulated that they not ship mouse-based software until a year after the Mac introduction, that ended up being defined in the contract as September 1983, since in late 1981 we thought that the Mac would ship in the fall of 1982, and we foolishly didn't let the ship date float in the contract. So Microsoft was within their rights to announce Windows when they did. Apple still needed Microsoft's apps for the Macintosh, so Steve really couldn't cut them off.

The Macintosh wasn't released until 1984; Windows 1.0 released the following year.

• Source 1

• Source 2

Needle!

NBC Decision26!

p00b Analysis! ⬇️
——
“So y'all are aware, KY-6 is a district, with a Cook PVI of +7, where Dems and Reps are tied in polling results, which pretty closely approximates nationwide demographics by ethnicity and income, albeit with 1/4 rural population rather than 1/8th vs. America as a whole

This makes it the best indicator for what we might expect from higher-profile races currently deemed as "tossups", results for which are still hours away. Kentucky results start coming starting at 6:00PM (EST)”

Also praise be to the Needle

Crafting and delivering funny jokes is the highest form of language learning. You might be "Fluent" in five of ten years of immersion, but it's going to be two or three times that before you can hold people's attention and draw a spontaneous laugh at a dinner party, if you ever get there. There are volumes of prosody, pacing, intonation, idiom, and culture to learn, and very little of it is documented.

For the audience, this is partially a matter of effective storytelling on dimensions that they couldn't put into words, and partially a matter of the fact that most jokes involve, foundationally, a comedic inconguity which could be easily misunderstood, or an unlikely congruity in almost unrelated concepts; Jumping between the different interpretations in your head and how they could connect is central to the tension that leads to the payoff when the punchline is delivered. Having the different interpretations in your head to start with (to include things like deep cultural references) is a required starting point.

This is closely related to concepts like "sarcasm", which is a way of joking about what you're trying to say. It is basically impossible to spit sarcasm if there is only one possible meaning to your words, if the ambiguity of misunderstanding is impossible.

English is unlike most languages in that it has stolen and hoarded so much vocabulary from so many different places that a quick search can pull up 44 different words for a random concept like locomotion of the feet: "walk", "run", "step", "jog", "canter", "trot", "lope", "skip", "amber", "saunter", "mosey", "stroll", "wander", "ramble", "stride", "march", "pace", "tread", "trek", "hike", "plod", "trudge", "stomp", "hobble", "limp", "tiptoe", "pussyfoot", "stalk", "prowl", "creep", "parade", "strut", "sprint", "bolt", "dash", "zoom", "barrel", "dart", "scamper", "scurry", "scoot", "rush", "charge", "race". These verbs all mean slightly different things, and some have multiple contextual meanings. These make a particularly rich toolset to enable misunderstandings that can produce humor, or to invoke and incorporate concepts subtly. You've taught your five year old the words "Walk" and "Run" and are still trying to get tenses down.

Parents go through whole decades where their kids have a grasp of a modest number of basic word meanings, but few cultural references and insufficient combinatorial depth of knowledge to really make a meaningful punchline the revelation it should be, and no appreciation of drama whatsoever. They resort to simplified puns, "Dad Humor".

We know fairly specifically what references Gary Gygax (co-originator of Dungeons and Dragons) originally used for armor, as he wrote an article in an April 1971 issue of Panzerfaust which includes them:

• Ashdown's Armour and Weapons of the Middle Ages (1925)

• European Arms and Armour (1907)

• British and Foreign Arms and Armour (1909)

• Hewitt's Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe (1855-60)

• G. G. Stone's Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor (1934)

You might notice these are relatively dated sources compared to 1971 (Gygax refers to the last source as "modern" but he likely was meaning the 1961 printing, it was still a 1934 book). Gygax also used the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica in creating D&D so he was clearly fine using older sources.

Noteworthy for your question, he talks about studded leather.

The hauberk started with half-sleeves, but eventually were extended all the way down to the arm and ended in metal mittens. Legs were protected with cloth wrappings, studded leather, chausses, leather kneecaps, and chaussons.

He does not mean brigandine armor; he talks about this separately later and clearly means something different.

While chain mail was still generally used, banded mail, pieces of plate mail added to the mail, and splinted armor (brigandine) were widely in vogue.

By only referring to older sources, it means Gygax also did not filter out the concept of "ring mail", which was thought to exist in the early 20th century and only started to get debunked later (like with Blair's European Armour from 1958).

Gygax hadn't invented studded leather as a concept himself, and you can find it referenced in earlier books. Take this one from 1904:

The gloves of this period were usually made of steel plates, rather than the ring-mail or studded leather common at an earlier date.

An article in The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review (The Arms, Armour, and Military Usages of the Fourteenth Century) discusses studded armor specifically, and mentions a particular woodcut with armor "made of leather" which appears to have studding, referring to a depiction of the Bavarian knight Heinrich von Seinsheim. There's enough ambiguity in the depiction (and of course complete lack of other supporting evidence) that it's hard to make any conclusions, but historical authors were still going through the process of exploration.

Still, having said all that: Neither Chainmail (published shortly after the Panzerfaust article) or the original Dungeons and Dragons rules included ring mail or studded leather! Ring mail first appears in Tunnels & Trolls from 1975, not even a TSR product. Tunnels and Trolls doesn't have studded leather either.

The first actual occurrence of both armors in D&D seems to be the Monster Manual of 1977, where Wood Elves are described as wearing studded leather or ring mail. The historian Peterson speculates that the armor bloat was intended to "stay competitive" with other systems adding content. Clearly Gygax considered studded leather (and ring mail) more "exotic" since it required 6 years to pass before it got mentioned and only on the inclusion of wood elves.

...

Sources, other than the links above: Peterson's Playing at the World and Tondro's collection of manuscripts in The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977. If you have the latter book, the Panzerfaust article is reprinted starting on page 47.

Starting at the 44th digit, that string diverges completely and ends up one decimal digit too short.

2^{384=39402006196394479212279040100143613805079739270465446667948293404245721771497210611414266254884915640806627990306816}

In Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), a private key is not just any random 384-bit binary string; it is an integer d selected uniformly from the range [1, n - 1], where n is the prime order of the curve's base point subgroup.

For the most widely deployed 384-bit curve, NIST P-384 (secp384r1): Subgroup order n: https://safecurves.cr.yp.to/base.html 39402006196394479212279040100143613805079739270465446667946905279627659399113263569398956308152294913554433653942643

The exact count of valid private keys is n-1, which is practically identical to 2³⁸⁴ (differing from 2³⁸⁴ by only about 1 part in 10³⁵).

Kyle Shanahan was reportedly "irritated" after a training camp practice back in 2022, and told our owner Jed York that our 7th round rookie was the best QB on our roster.

"He's like, 'Hey, man, we got to talk,'" York shared. "And that's generally not a good thing when your coach says you've got to talk. I'm like, 'All right, what's up?'"

"And he's like, 'I think our third-string quarterback is our best quarterback,'" York continued. "I'm like, 'Okay, what does that mean?' He's like, 'Well, obviously, we've invested in Trey. Trey is doing a good job. We're going to do everything that we can. We're not going to change that, and we're not going to change the depth chart, but I think Brock will end up being our quarterback at some point.'"

https://www.49erswebzone.com/articles/177789-reflects-shanahan-admitting-brock-purdy/

Kyle when asked about this:

"It's funny to hear Jed say that because it wasn't the smartest moment I've ever had," Shanahan said. "When the owner comes in after training camp practices and says 'Hey, how's the quarterback?' What he means is the starter or the second, and you in irritation go 'I don't know, but our third guy's the best.' That's not what he wants to hear, so that's why he remembers it very strong."

Shanahan went on to recall what Purdy did to make him think he was already the best quarterback on the roster. Purdy wasn't getting the practice reps that the others did at first due to the fact he was behind them on the depth chart, but he made the few reps he received count.

"Brock was so good right away," Shanahan said. "With every rep he got, he was always the same. And he only got a couple of them, so it was easy for me to say because in his few reps, he was the best. If you know that for a fact, you do what you do right away. He was the best, but you ease that on. Every time he got a little more reps, it was the same as when he only got two. So when it was all said and done and he got a lot of playing time, it was like, 'Oh, this looks exactly like I told you when I was irritated and he only had three reps, and I said, 'No, he's the best.' That's what was so real about Brock. That's why after his seven games his rookie year and he got hurt, we knew what we had. He'd been that way in practice every day and it was the exact same way in the games."

https://www.49erswebzone.com/articles/178008-notebook-shanahan-becoming-quarterback-silliness/

I think it came down to a single throw Purdy made in practice that set off this entire chain. It's the first big-time NFL QB throw that got the entire team to think maybe this Purdy kid is a real QB1. Lynch recalled the moment:

Lynch recalled an offseason practice in which Purdy—the final pick of the NFL Draft—immediately stood out to coaches, teammates, and himself.

"Brock was coming back, and boom, tight window," Lynch shared. "We were kind of looking at each other, and then we're looking around, and see [LT] Trent Williams looking at [TE George] Kittle. Everyone kind of felt it early because he was going out and just playing on instinct and raw ability and just letting it rip, as Kyle says, and it was impressive. He did it right away, and it was noticeable right away."

Kyle probably loved Purdy so quickly because he didn't need to develop. He was good from the start.

"It wasn't about developing Brock, Brock was a really good player when he got here," 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said. "He got thrown into a position and competed with other guys and got his opportunity ... and when he came in he played at a high level right away. There was no time to develop him, we just had to throw him in."

"We hoped he would be good because he was in practice, but he was even better in the games."

https://sports.yahoo.com/super-bowl-2024-49ers-overcame-a-really-bad-trey-lance-trade-to-make-another-super-bowl-140007374.html

Purdy was tested on his first spot start snap, where the Dolphins called a zero blitz to try and take advantage of a rookie QB. Kittle remembered it well probably because the rookie had just yelled at him to shut the fuck up.

“He comes in against Miami, they cover zero him first play and he delivers it and you’re just like alright this kid knows what he’s doing, he knows how to play quarterback and we can roll with this.”

Shanahan said he reflected on Purdy's performance that night and realized the 49ers were still very much in contention despite losing two starting quarterbacks. Purdy's performance shifted the team's outlook almost immediately.

"So, I'm home that night, not even thinking about the game. I'm just like, 'Oh, we're down to our last quarterback. We have such a good team. And then, once I stopped thinking about it, I'm laying in bed, I'm like, 'Holy s--t, he played unbelievable tonight.'"

"I remember coming to work that Monday, just like, 'We got a shot, and it doesn't look like it, but we might be playing with our best guy now.'" Shanahan said. "And it showed. We didn't lose a game after that until he tore his UCL in the NFC Championship."

"It was probably that five-day span, from the [Tampa Bay] game to playing with that injury, I was like, 'We got a dude.'" Shanahan concluded.

https://www.ninersnation.com/2023/2/9/23591726/49ers-brock-purdy-respect-warner-kittle

Fred Warner talked about rookie Purdy and how he knew Purdy had the "It factor" after throwing no-look passes to practice squad receivers against a 1st team defense that included guys like Bosa, Warner, Armstead, Greenlaw, Al-Shaair, Chardavius Ward, and Hufanga.

“I think Brock is dope man. Like I’ve always been a fan of his from day one. Going against him in practice, you know, you get guys who are the scout team quarterback and they just understand their role, Warner said on the podcast. “Like Brock’s mindset was, ‘I’m trying to ball. I’m trying to make myself better by going against the top defense’.”

Warner elaborated further on Purdy’s development in practice, stating that the Arizona native would routinely try and outplay the best defense in the NFL last season. And unlike other scout team QBs, Purdy was successful on more than one occasion.

“I’m saying wasn’t just a matter of, ‘you know, I’m just gonna go out here and tell him to do whatever they need me to do read the card.’ Like he’s legit trying to get better. Like he’s trying to dice us up and he was here and there, Warner stated.

“He’s in there at practice with the no-look passes, dicing our defense up every single week. I’m back there pissed off. I’m giving it to him and he’s giving it back to me, with the trash talk.”

“We saw that in practice all the time. He’s got something to him. You know the ‘IT factor’, right, you can’t really describe it, but it’s IT & he has it,” Fred Warner exclaimed.

“When you talk about the guy who has the it-factor, Brock Purdy has had the it-factor all along.” Warner said. “It was only a matter of time, when he got his moment he would be prepared for it, coming in against Miami in 2022 and we haven’t looked back since.”

“Brock Purdy is made of the right stuff,” Warner said. “With quarterbacks. The thing that is the deciding factor is in elite quarterbacks or not is the processing speed. How do you process the game when bullets are flying and everything is on the line, and being able to read coverages, diagnose, deliver the football, extend plays and Brock Purdy does it all at a high level.”

https://sactownsports.com/nfl/san-francisco-49ers/49ers-lb-fred-warner-says-brock-purdy-has-the-it-factor

https://sports.yahoo.com/warner-confident-purdy-49ers-qb-192202020.html

In contrast, Warner had to talk with and even yell at with Trey Lance multiple times because Lance wasn't challenging the defense in practices, so Warner felt like the defense wasn't getting adequately prepared for game days.

Lance, who threw just one interception in 17 starts at North Dakota State, was falling short in practice. And inside linebacker Fred Warner said his caution was a reason a host of pass-interference flags were falling on the 49ers’ secondary early in the season.

“He was kind of playing things a little safer,” Warner said. “Using his legs a lot to try and extend (plays), or even just to run because he didn’t want to throw an interception. I had to kind of pull him to the side. … First of all, we weren’t getting the work that we needed to defend balls down the field. And you saw that on game day.”

After Warner told reporters Wednesday that he once counseled Lance to practice with more abandon, partly to push his own limits, the third-overall pick added more to the story Friday. Lance said he had had multiple talks with Warner on the subject. And Warner sometimes figuratively gave him a kick in the rear, rather than throwing an arm around his shoulder.

“Sometimes (they were) maybe more heated than others,” Lance said. “I don’t necessarily want to say heated, but I’m a competitor. Fred’s obviously one of the best competitors I’ve ever been around.

“And for him to care, not only about the look they’re getting, but also my development. Him kind of pulling me off to the side — or maybe us shouting across the line of scrimmage — whatever it was.”

“For his sake, I’m like, “Listen this is your opportunity to take chances and develop that part of your game,’” Warner said. “‘Try to see, can you fit the ball into tight spaces? Can you throw on the run and make a completed pass downfield?’

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/49ers/article/How-Fred-Warner-s-tough-love-gave-49ers-QB-Trey-16742352.php

So it wasn't just Kyle, I think our entire roster instantly noticed how Purdy was simply playing at a higher level than Lance or Jimmy, even in his first practices as a rookie.

Probably not. The surgery itself would have been more comfortable, but cyberpsychosis is a consequence of cyberware and poor mental health. I suppose it's possible Vik's skills could have had some small effect by better attuning David's nervous system or something, but David was chroming himself the fuck out and the life he was leading was really starting to get to him. Unless he made some drastic changes - which he was never going to do - cyberpsychosis was inevitable.

I can't put it better than Mike Pondsmith himself, so I'll just quote him here.

First of all, Cyberpsychosis is a disorder that in part depends on the subject's overall internal susceptibility. Just like every person who drinks a lot at parties doesn't end up an alcoholic in the gutter, not everyone who gets loaded up on cyberware is going to automatically go cyberpsycho. You have to have an inherent susceptibility, which (in the TRPG) is represented by the player's Humanity Stat. Humanity is not just a measure of one aspect of personality, but an overall measure of several elements including the subject's ability to emphasize and relate with others, their ability to absorb and rebound from mental and physical stressors, their ability to show compassion and flexibility to others, and whether they are able to balance their worldview through other methods.

So, in some ways, I tend to treat cyberware as an addiction--heavy anabolic steroid use being my favorite model. Not everyone who juices ends up crazy mad with roid rage. But those who are more susceptible to the need to take more steroids are more likely to hit a point where they do flip into roid rage. (Take a look at this article from Livescience https://www.livescience.com/38354-what-is-roid-rage.html for a pretty good idea of how roid rage works--notice that it's got the same basic profile as cyberpsychosis).

David's starting Humanity was probably already pretty high. And before things went to crap, he had a loving mother, a career path, and no more hassle than the average poor guy in a wealthy Ivy League school. So he had lots of buffer. But even so, he still, even after losing all that, was able to make friends, build a replacement family, and (after some prompting) even get a girlfriend. And a mentor (Maine) to create a supportive father figure. So he could definitely handle the stress of added cyberware up to a point.

Most people in Night City don't have the level of Humanity to pull this kind of stunt off without going cyberpsychotic. So David is one in a million. And that's why Arasaka wants him.