Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

Ofcom lists four age checks many adults may face to stay on social media

Ofcom, the United Kingdom’s communications regulator, on October 29 named four age-check methods it considers “highly effective” at proving a user is 16 or older. Ministers asked for the assessment to inform the regulations for their ban on under-16s using social media.

The four are photo ID matching, bank-based checks, digital ID services and facial age estimation, which The Register reports must be paired with a second check. Credit card, mobile operator and email checks, which Ofcom says work for confirming someone is 18 but not 16, did not make the list. A passport or driving licence is one route; the bank, digital ID and face checks are the others.

The practical effect falls on many adults, not only children, because a platform cannot know who is under 16 without checking. The Register reports that some adults may be spared where a platform can infer their age from past activity.

Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s chief executive, said the ban “can work if social media firms do highly effective age checks properly.” According to The Register’s report of the assessment, Ofcom concedes that “the risk of circumvention cannot be entirely eliminated.”

Big Brother Watch, the civil liberties group, answered the same day. Its director, Silkie Carlo, called the plan “a national ID system by the back door” and “an Orwellian assault on free speech and privacy,” and called instead for “parental controls that genuinely protect children.”

The ban rests on a new section 214A of the Online Safety Act 2023, inserted by the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026. Ministers intend to lay the regulations before the end of this year, and the ban is expected to start around spring 2027. The assessment was requested in June by the Technology Secretary, Liz Kendall.

Dawes is a career civil servant whom the Ofcom board appointed chief executive in February 2020.

Canada is on the same road. The Safe Social Media Act, Bill C-34, which would set a similar limit for children 16 and under, is at second reading in the House of Commons.

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PBS Lays the Groundwork for the Midterms by Saying We May Not Know Results on Election Night and That’s ‘Normal’

The liberal media thinks the American people are so stupid.

PBS has a new report out today explaining how it will be completely ‘normal’ if we don’t know the results of the midterms on election night.

That is not normal, but the left wants to make it the new normal.

Just look at one race as an example, say the Los Angeles mayoral race. On election night, far left nutjob Nithya Raman was in a distant third place, but over the course of a few days and then a couple of weeks, they completely flipped the race. Nithya Raman bumped conservative alternative Spencer Pratt of the ballot and now it’s a contest between Karen Bass and Raman. Far left vs. really far left.

That is what PBS wants you to think of as normal.

Take a look at their report:

When will we know 2026 midterm election results? It may take some time, but that’s normal

If you go to bed on election night and don’t know who won a midterm congressional race, that’s normal. And if you wake up the next morning and find that a candidate who was behind hours earlier has since pulled ahead, that’s normal, too.

That won’t stop some politicians and their allies from spreading misinformation during vote counting.

In past elections, elected leaders, candidates and social media users have spread falsehoods that “late night” arrivals of “ballot dumps” or “suitcases” of ballots are signs of fraud, or that only Democratic-led cities take days to count votes.

Some states such as Florida often complete the majority of their unofficial counts in fewer hours or days than elsewhere. But it is not a sign of fraud if other places need more time.

“States are neither fast or slow, they all count and certify the results in accordance with the laws passed by their state legislature,” said Ryan Macias, an election technology and cybersecurity expert. “What is fast or slow is how quickly the media can collect sufficient evidence to confidently predict the winner, which is typically based on the margin of victory.”…

No state is required to complete the official count on election night. State laws set deadlines to certify final results, often weeks later.

We all know what this is.

It’s PBS trying to plant a seed in the minds of voters, to explain away the abnormalities that are sure to follow.

This is how the left wins elections.

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Police Scotland carrying out ‘active inquiries’ into Andrew and Epstein Balmoral visits

Police Scotland is making inquiries into the activities of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell during their time at Balmoral Castle.

The Daily Express reported that the inquiry relates to allegations that women were trafficked to the royal residence in Aberdeenshire.

Sex offender Epstein – who died in 2019 – and Maxwell, who was jailed in 2022 for sex trafficking, are understood to have visited the castle with Mountbatten-Windsor, who has previously denied any wrongdoing.

Police Scotland said inquiries were at “a very early stage” and that it would be inappropriate to comment further.

Representatives of Mountbatten-Windsor have been contacted for comment.

The Royal family traditionally spend summer at Balmoral, where Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022.

Asked about the Express report, a Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We have received information and active inquiries are ongoing but these are at a very early stage.

“All inquiries are evidence led, with the needs of victim survivors at the heart of those inquiries.

“We would never confirm details of ongoing inquiries and it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

In February, the force said it wanted to “speak to anyone with information” about Epstein’s private jet using Edinburgh Airport.

At the time officers said they had not received any reports or complaints in relating to the trip.

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DOJ Flags Nearly 831,000 Student Aid IDs In Nationwide ‘Ghost Student’ Fraud Probe

Federal investigators say overseas-linked fraud rings used stolen American identities to claim college aid, while new safeguards could affect legitimate applicants.

Federal investigators have identified 830,840 potentially fraudulent student aid IDs associated with nearly $130 million as the Justice Department pursues an alleged international scheme that used stolen Americans’ identities to obtain federal college assistance.

The department announced Operation Ghostbusters on October 29, unveiling charges against five defendants across Virginia, New Jersey, and Nebraska and a seizure of more than $750,000 in cryptocurrency connected to the suspected network. Prosecutors say individuals in Kenya worked with accomplices in the United States to collect aid refunds for people who never attended classes.

The government has not established that every flagged ID was fraudulent or that all $130 million reached criminals. The FBI separately reports more than $32 million in identified losses in similar ghost-student schemes, with additional losses suspected. Those figures describe different categories and should not be added together.

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‘He can pry it from my cold, dead hands’: Sam Altman says it’s ‘quite terrible’ that you’re using RAM in your PC when there’s not enough for AI data centers

The increasing demands from data centers powering AI engines has plunged us into a global RAM shortage crisis, and the CEO of one of the companies responsible thinks the memory that is available should be in data centers rather than individual PCs.

Offering up an opinion that’s unlikely to add to his popularity among the general public, OpenAI boss Sam Altman told the Cheeky Pint podcast (via IGN) that “from a global allocation perspective, actually, it’s quite terrible to have everybody have a bunch of the world’s limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer.”

Individual PCs rarely make full use of their RAM, was Altman’s larger point, whereas data centers often do. “You want maximum utilization in the cloud if you’re trying to deal with this very supply constrained environment,” the OpenAI CEO continued. “And somehow many people’s intuition is the opposite of that.”

The PC owners Altman was referring to have had to deal with rising prices, job insecurity, and data center pollution thanks to the rise of AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, so the opinion he’s shared is unlikely to be supported by the masses.

As you would expect, consumers aren’t particularly pleased with what Altman has had to say. A Reddit thread discussing the comments is packed with pushback against AI, data centers, and the RAM shortage.

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Unhinged Knoxville Social Worker Demands City Remove Halloween Decoration Ghosts Because They Look Like ‘White Supremacist Lynching’

A Knoxville social worker named Elisabeth Spencer Pitts has publicly called on the city to take down white-sheet ghost decorations hanging from trees in downtown Market Square, arguing that the standard Halloween decor resembles a “white supremacist lynching.”

The ghosts form part of Knoxville’s official “Wicked Cool Halloween” decorations in the popular downtown square.

Independent journalist Andy Ngo highlighted her Facebook posts and images of the displays, noting that the last documented lynching in the United States occurred 45 years ago.

In a Facebook post complaining about the decorations, Pitts wrote:

Maybe I’m sensitive and possessed of a very flighty and prolific imagination, but this sh-t just ain’t copacetic in my humble opinion. The governance and daily operations of and by the Knoxville City Government are, by the most charitable estimations (I guess), simply tone deaf and incompetent- and in many cases just absolutely brutal in purpose and mechanism- but I feel like this Halloween aesthetic is exceptionally off the mark even for them. JFC can we just NOT hang anthropomorphic figures in trees in a downtown southern city right now?

While some commenters agreed with her, many also pointed out the absurdity of her complaint.

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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee Weighs in on Christa Pike’s Fate After She Survived Botched Lethal Injections

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said on Thursday that Christa Pike’s death sentence is likely to remain in place after she survived a completed lethal injection attempt.

The decision will ultimately be made by the courts, not the governor, unless he chooses to commute her sentence.

“As it related to a particular individual like Christa Pike and her crime, she’s still incarcerated under the laws of the state of Tennessee,” Lee said, according to a report from the New York Post. “I suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless determined otherwise by the courts.”

The comment strongly implies that a commutation is out of the question.

Pike, 50, was scheduled for execution on September 30 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.

If the attempt had been successful, Pike would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

Execution team members spent nearly an hour and used roughly 10 needles trying to establish IV lines after earlier warnings that Pike had difficult vein access.

Ultimately, Pike received two doses of pentobarbital, remained conscious enough to complain of arm pain, snored audibly, and was later transported to a hospital unconscious and on a ventilator.

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Why Is the Media Ignoring the Stunning New Trump-Epstein Allegations?

The president of the United States of America has been accused of rape. Again. The president of the United States has been accused of rape in a report issued by the Democrats of the House Judiciary Committee, as part of their ongoing investigation of Donald Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The president has been accused of raping two women, one when she was as young as 13, and sexually assaulting three more. They are among 11 women who provided evidence or testimony that Trump “abused, assaulted, and even raped numerous women alongside, and in coordination with, the most infamous sex trafficker in history.”

I have been made to understand that many people do not know about the Judiciary Comittee report—and the fact that five women have accused Trump of sexual assault while in or near the presence of noted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. I have been made to understand that this is because the mainstream media finds former president Barack Obama’s comments about the [checks notes] Cheesecake Factory more worthy of their attention than the current president’s abuse of multiple women.

If asked, mainstream media types would no doubt argue that the lack of coverage of these latest rape allegations stems from the fact that previous rape allegations failed to “move the needle.” Trump’s sexual misconduct (both alleged and litigated) is “baked in” to people’s understanding of the man. People either won’t believe the charges or won’t care—or else they do believe the women and do care and vote accordingly—but everybody knows what he’s been accused of, generally speaking at least.

I find this line of argument unadulterated bollocks that reveals the deep failure of our mainstream media. It is news when the president is credibly accused of rape. It is important news. While I, too, don’t think these latest sexual assault accusations will materially change the national conversation about Trump or his presidency, that is not an excuse for ignoring, downplaying, or skipping over brutal allegations that he repeatedly assaulted women, including minors.

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Inside the U.S. Army’s $2.2B plan to build microreactors at five bases

The U.S. Army recently announced plans to add nuclear microreactors at five military bases from New York to Texas as a reliable energy source independent of the commercial electric grid.

The decision comes as the Trump administration pushes hard to develop the next generation of nuclear power, including issuing billions in loans for large nuclear reactors to meet skyrocketing power demand from data centers and a pilot program to boost advanced reactor designs and projects for military and civilian use. No nuclear microreactors are supplying power to the commercial electric grid in the United States today.

Five companies selected by the Army will be awarded up to $2.2 billion over five years to own, construct, and operate the microreactors, provided they meet set performance milestones along the way. The Army expects that more than 20 nuclear microreactors will be built and operated.

Army and industry officials say microreactors offer a resilient power source for critical infrastructure at military installations in case the grid fails. Reactors can run for years without refueling.

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