Security researchers have attributed the Notepad++ update hijacking to a Chinese government-linked espionage crew called Lotus Blossom (aka Lotus Panda, Billbug), which abused weaknesses in the update infrastructure to gain a foothold in high-value targets by delivering a newly identified backdoor dubbed Chrysalis.…
The Perfect Pencil
Genres/Tags: Action, Exploration, Platform adventure, 2D
Companies: Studio Cima, Doyoyo
Languages: RUS/ENG/MULTI9
Original Size: 2 GB
Repack Size: 1 GB
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Discussion and (possible) future updates on CS.RIN.RU thread
The Perfect Pencil is a surreal action platformer which tells the tale of personal development and the psychology of fear. Join protagonist John as he awakens in a bizarre hand-drawn kingdom and comes face-to-face with the terrors that dwell in the last place he’d have thought to look…
Game Features
The post The Perfect Pencil appeared first on FitGirl Repacks.
[XYZAiden]’s concept for a flexible robotic gripper might be a few years old, but if anything it’s even more accessible now than when he first prototyped it. It uses only a single motor and requires no complex mechanical assembly, and nowadays 3D printing with flexible filament has only gotten easier and more reliable.
The four-armed gripper you see here prints as a single piece, and is cable-driven with a single metal-geared servo powering the assembly. Each arm has a nylon string threaded through it so when the servo turns, it pulls each string which in turn makes each arm curl inward, closing the grip. Because of the way the gripper is made, releasing only requires relaxing the cables; an arm’s natural state is to fall open.
The main downside is that the servo and cables are working at a mechanical disadvantage, so the grip won’t be particularly strong. But for lightweight, irregular objects, this could be a feature rather than a bug.
The biggest advantage is that it’s extremely low-cost, and simple to both build and use. If one has access to a 3D printer and can make a servo rotate, raiding a junk bin could probably yield everything else.
DIY robotic gripper designs come in all sorts of variations. For example, this “jamming” bean-bag style gripper does an amazing, high-strength job of latching onto irregular objects without squashing them in the process. And here’s one built around grippy measuring tape, capable of surprising dexterity.
Genres/Tags: Action, Shooter, First-person, 3D
Company: Prophecy Games
Languages: RUS/ENG/MULTI14
Original Size: 10.1 GB
Repack Size: 6.8 GB
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Discussion and (possible) future updates on CS.RIN.RU thread
You awaken aboard the ISS-X, with no memory of who you are. There’s a legion of rogue machines, and they’re closing in fast. Fight through swarms of enemies, loot rare gear, and arm yourself with augments to survive. Can you conquer the Deadzone?
Game Features
Backwards Compatibility
This repack IS NOT backwards compatible with my previous DR repack.
The post Deadzone: Rogue – Deluxe Edition, v1.1.15.0 + 3 DLCs/Bonuses appeared first on FitGirl Repacks.
Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland did not violate a substitute teacher’s First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion by requiring her to use transgender students’ chosen pronouns, a federal appeals court has ruled. This is just a notice for my subscribers about freshly updated Deadzone: Rogue repack. Now it’s updated to Deluxe Edition v1.1.15.0 and includes 3 DLCs/Bonuses.
The post Deadzone: Rogue Repack Updated appeared first on FitGirl Repacks.
Recently released Justice Department records show that Dr. Jess Ting, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon who later rose to prominence in transgender medicine, maintained extensive contact with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein years before Ting became a national figure in gender-affirming care. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last week posted a photo of the arrest of Nekima Levy Armstrong, one of three activists who had entered a St. Paul, Minn. church to confront a pastor who also serves as acting field director of the St. Paul Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.
A short while later, the White House posted the same photo – except that version had been digitally altered to darken Armstrong’s skin and rearrange her facial features to make it appear she was sobbing or distraught. The Guardian one of many media outlets to report on this image manipulation, created a handy slider graphic to help viewers see clearly how the photo had been changed.
This isn’t about “owning the libs” — this is the highest office in the nation using technology to lie to the entire world.
The New York Times reported it had run the two images through Resemble.AI, an A.I. detection system, which concluded Noem’s image was real but the White House’s version showed signs of manipulation. “The Times was able to create images nearly identical to the White House’s version by asking Gemini and Grok — generative A.I. tools from Google and Elon Musk’s xAI start-up — to alter Ms. Noem’s original image.”
Most of us can agree that the government shouldn’t lie to its constituents. We can also agree that good government does not involve emphasizing cruelty or furthering racial biases. But this abuse of technology violates both those norms.
“Accuracy and truthfulness are core to the credibility of visual reporting,” the National Press Photographers Association said in a statement issued about this incident. “The integrity of photographic images is essential to public trust and to the historical record. Altering editorial content for any purpose that misrepresents subjects or events undermines that trust and is incompatible with professional practice.”
Reworking an arrest photo to make the arrestee look more distraught not only is a lie, but it’s also a doubling-down on a “the cruelty is the point” manifesto. Using a manipulated image further humiliates the individual and perpetuate harmful biases, and the only reason to darken an arrestee’s skin would be to reinforce colorist stereotypes and stoke the flames of racial prejudice, particularly against dark-skinned people.
History is replete with cruel and racist images as propaganda: Think of Nazi Germany’s cartoons depicting Jewish people, or contemporaneously, U.S. cartoons depicting Japanese people as we placed Japanese-Americans in internment camps. Time magazine caught hell in 1994 for using an artificially darkened photo of O.J. Simpson on its cover, and several Republican political campaigns in recent years have been called out for similar manipulation in recent years.
But in an age when we can create or alter a photo with a few keyboard strokes, when we can alter what viewers think is reality so easily and convincingly, the danger of abuse by government is greater.
Had the Trump administration not ham-handedly released the retouched perp-walk photo after Noem had released the original, we might not have known the reality of that arrest at all. This dishonesty is all the more reason why Americans’ right to record law enforcement activities must be protected. Without independent records and documentation of what’s happening, there’s no way to contradict the government’s lies.
This incident raises the question of whether the Trump Administration feels emboldened to manipulate other photos for other propaganda purposes. Does it rework photos of the President to make him appear healthier, or more awake? Does it rework military or intelligence images to create pretexts for war? Does it rework photos of American citizens protesting or safeguarding their neighbors to justify a military deployment?
In this instance, like so much of today’s political trolling, there’s a good chance it’ll be counterproductive for the trolls: The New York Times correctly noted that the doctored photograph could hinder the Armstrong’s right to a fair trial. “As the case proceeds, her lawyers could use it to accuse the Trump administration of making what are known as improper extrajudicial statements. Most federal courts bar prosecutors from making any remarks about court filings or a legal proceeding outside of court in a way that could prejudice the pool of jurors who might ultimately hear the case.” They also could claim the doctored photo proves the Justice Department bore some sort of animus against Armstrong and charged her vindictively.
In the past, we’ve urged caution when analyzing proposals to regulate technologies that could be used to create false images. In those cases, we argued that any new regulation should rely on the established framework for addressing harms caused by other forms of harmful false information. But in this situation, it is the government itself that is misusing technology and propagating harmful falsehoods. This doesn’t require new laws; the government can and should put an end to this practice on its own.
Any reputable journalism organization would fire an employee for manipulating a photo this way; many have done exactly that. It’s a shame our government can’t adhere to such a basic ethical and moral code too.
Republished from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.
Connexion
