Boing Boing, November 03, 2025
Lighthouses sinking, airspace threatened, and Kraftwerk's legacy hits the auction block
Happy Monday! Today: California’s automated lighthouses are collapsing into the Pacific while the Coast Guard shrugs, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatens to shut down the entire airspace if air traffic controllers don’t give up, Amazon cancels its Lord of the Rings MMO for a second time (this time taking 30,000 game developers with it), and Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen is making a watermelon ice cream to call for Palestinian peace—the flavor his parent company Unilever refused to let the company create. Plus, nearly 500 items from Kraftwerk founder Florian Schneider’s collection are heading to auction in Nashville, including the synths, bikes, and VW van that shaped electronic music history.
First, we automated the lighthouses, and then we abandoned them
Jason Weisberger / 11:53 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
California’s lighthouses once guided gold rush ships and saved lives. Now they’re mostly guiding tourists to gift shops while slowly collapsing into the Pacific. The Coast Guard has moved on to “virtual buoys,” which is bureaucratese for “we give up.”
The elimination of on-site supervision led many of these structures to fall into a state of disrepair or become subject to vandalism. Moreover, there are increasing environmental threats, including coastal erosion due to sea level rise and the corrosion of infrastructure, along with extreme weather conditions brought on by climate change.
Though under threat, lighthouses in California have a small and potentially temporary advantage over their cousins on the Atlantic coast. In addition to being relatively newer structures, it is generally accepted in the scientific community that environmental threats from sea level rise are greater on the East Coast. Then, there is the height at which California lighthouses were built, due in part to the geography of the West Coast.
“Lighthouses in California tend to be on higher ground on average, which makes them less vulnerable,” said Jeremy D’Entremont, a historian at the U.S. Lighthouse Society. “But the massive wave that hit Point Cabrillo a couple of years ago could be a sign of things to come.”
At Point Cabrillo, a single rogue wave slammed through the back doors last year, leaving mud, rocks, and seaweed seven feet high inside a century-old structure. Repairs cost forty thousand dollars, which is less than the cost of a seat at the buffet at Trump’s forthcoming Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Ballroom, but more than local nonprofits can scrape together. California’s lighthouses are surviving on sentimentality, volunteer fundraising, and a prayer that the next king tide doesn’t turn them into beachfront rubble.
MTV’s Sean Duffy to America: nice airspace, shame if something happened to it
Jason Weisberger / 11:43 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
Transportation Secretary and reality TV participant Sean Duffy says he’s ready to “shut the whole airspace down” if the remaining unpaid air traffic controllers get too tired to keep the skies safe. That’s not leadership; it is extortion by incompetence. Forty years after Ronald Reagan broke the air traffic controllers’ strike, Duffy seems determined to one-up him by breaking the entire aviation system, this time through sheer neglect.
As the stalemate drags into the second month, it’s adding more potential risk to the aviation system and putting a further strain on air traffic control staffing shortages, Duffy said in an interview Monday with CNBC.
“If we thought that it was unsafe, we’ll shut the whole airspace down,” Duffy said.
Air traffic controllers are working without pay and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration moved to slow air traffic last week across many airports.
With 80 percent of New York–area controllers already missing, planes are backing up, paychecks are gone, and morale has hit rock bottom. The FAA says “stress and fatigue” are putting lives at risk, which might explain Duffy’s new philosophy of management: if you can’t fix it, threaten to crash it. Reagan fired the controllers in 1981. Duffy is starving them until they quit. Fly the deadly skies!
Amazon cancels Lord of the Rings MMO for the second time
Grant St. Clair / 10:14 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
The most widespread reaction I’ve seen to Amazon laying off 30,000 people from its gaming division has been “Amazon had a gaming division?” That isn’t surprising in itself; none of Amazon Games’ releases (mostly generic fantasy MMOs) ever came close to breaching the mainstream despite massive teams and functionally unlimited budget.
We could speculate about why that is all day long, but regardless, Amazon Gaming’s biggest shot at becoming a household name was its in-development Lord of the Rings MMO. The same one it just canceled for a second time. The project was killed the first time in 2021 before a turbulent restart, and then again just this week. A LinkedIn post made yesterday by a laid-off developer simultaneously announcing and cancelling the project has since been deleted, but the pertinent parts have been archived:
The engineer in question is Ashleigh Amrine, who announced that she had lost her job on LinkedIn yesterday. “This morning I was part of the layoffs at Amazon Games, alongside my incredibly talented peers on New World and our fledgling Lord of the Rings game (y’all would have loved it),” she wrote.
“It’s always tough to see such a strong team go through something like this,” Amrine wrote in her post yesterday. “I’ve been lucky to work with some of the most skilled, creative, and kind developers I’ve ever met here.”
Did some spiteful witch put a curse on The Lord of the Rings that keeps people from making good games based on it or something? It seems the only reasonable explanation.
User ratings of New World, Amazon Games’ biggest project, have fallen to “Mostly Negative” on Steam in the wake of these layoffs. It’s unlikely Amazon will face any repercussions beyond this.
The renaissance of multiplayer mods continues with Rockstar’s Bully
Grant St. Clair / 10:12 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
I would say 2006’s Bully was like Grand Theft Auto for kids if we weren’t all playing GTA as kids anyway. Even so, this private school sandbox from the days when Rockstar actually put out more than one game a decade has held onto an enduring fan base over the years — enduring enough, evidently, to make it the latest recipient of the recent online co-op mod trend.
Metal Gear Solid V got one, Tears of the Kingdom got one, and now it’s Bully‘s turn. Bully Online will let you revisit Bullworth Academy with a friend (or several), engaging in everything but the actual main story missions (but with a hefty helping of new content to boot).
The only caveat? The mod comes with an asking price of eight dollars. It may not sound like a lot, but charging any amount of money at all for a fanmade mod is a good way to attract the ire of large companies… especially one as famously litigious as Rockstar’s publisher Take-Two. It may be better to enjoy this one as quickly as possible before the inevitable cease and desist.
Thanksgiving Oreos are the Thanksgiving dinner no one wants
Gail Sherman / 10:11 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
I am usually up for any unholy combination of flavors that Oreos come in. Coke, Sour Patch Kids, Kyber crystal, I bought them all. But Mondelez International/Nabisco has gone too far this time with Thanksgiving Dinner Oreos.
The Thanksgiving Dinner Cookie Tin contains cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, turkey & stuffing, creamed corn, sweet potato, and caramel apple pie flavored “fudge” coated Oreos. The pie flavors obviously sound perfectly fine, but turkey and stuffing, and, somehow, even worse, creamed corn? No, thank you. I cannot decide if this is better or worse than the turkey and gravy Jones Soda, which also should not exist.
Oreos are obviously not health food, but these are over the top. The “chocolately coating” contains three different kinds of sugar and so many artificial flavors, many of them are listed twice. Cocoa is listed as the eighth ingredient. This unholy alliance of flavors comes in an Oreo-shaped tin “complete with a special-edition Thanksgiving belly band” and contains two of each flavor for $20, plus shipping. They are offering half off on shipping right now, so there’s that.
According to the product description, “… this flavor experiment is not your typical OREO indulgence, it’s a chance to try something unforgettable and help shape the future of flavor innovation.” The “experiment” currently has a single one-star review.
Photographer captures the stunning interiors of rare musical instruments
Jennifer Sandlin / 10:08 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
I’m blown away by cellist-turned-photographer Charles Brooks’ images of the interiors of rare musical instruments. Each instrument appears as if it’s straight out of a dream — some look like futuristic structures, some like fantasy castles, and others like secret lairs of fantastical creatures. It’s hard to believe they’re real, and I’m just in awe of Brooks’ photography talent.
The photographs are part of Brooks’ “Architecture in Music” series, where, he explains, he “explore[s] the hidden spaces inside fine instruments” which have included a Steinway Grand Piano, the St. Mark’s Pipe Organ, and the Lockey Hill Cello (c. 1780, England), among many others. His website provides an overview of his work:
Artist Charles Brooks transforms the interiors of rare instruments into vast architectural scenes, reminiscent of film sets and concert halls . . . Charles’s intricate process, using specialist medical lenses and high resolution cameras, blends hundreds of images to forge each stunning illusion of space. Immerse yourself in a visual symphony where music meets art.
In an article featuring Charles Brooks’ work (with some gorgeous photos of the insides of clarinets — you should go look!), the International Clarinet Association describes how Brooks achieves these stunning photographs:
Each image in this series by Charles Brooks is made up of over 100 individual frames, photographed with ever increasing focal distance, then blended together to keep the whole instrument in sharp focus throughout. It’s this sharp focus that tricks the brain into believing it’s looking at a very large space, almost as if the instrument has become its own concert hall.
Colossal also describes how Brooks captures the photographs:
Bringing the camera inside a variety of string, brass, keyboard, and woodwind instruments, he offers unique insight into rarely seen textures, details, and patinas. He angles the camera from a low viewpoint, mimicking the perspective of standing in a grand space and looking up at architectural details like columns or skylights.
In a feature article about Brooks, FStoppers explains that while Brooks has both played cello and made photographs since his teens, his work photographing the interiors of rare musical instruments really took off in 2020. FStoppers more fully discusses Brooks’ process:
Speed up to 2020 and the pandemic, this is when New Zealand went into lockdown and Brooks was looking for anything to fill the time. This is when he stumbled across the Laowa Probe Lens. Since many musicians were out of work, Brooks had access to a majority of instruments in need of repair. He grabbed a Violin and started experimenting with this new lens and quickly wanted to see what it looked like on the inside. Using his knowledge of how instruments are put together, Brooks carefully inserted the lens into each instrument through pre-existing holes and lit them with constant light using 600D lights, taking into account the importance of not damaging the varnish from the heat of the lights.
Brooks then uses a technique on his Lumix S1R called high-res mode and painstakingly adjusts the focus millimeter by millimeter to work his way through the instruments. He then places his photos into a program called Helicon Focus, which is used for photo stacking, to produce this wide-angle masterpiece. Each photo is a stack of hundreds or thousands of photos. When looking at one of his photos, it makes it look like you are looking into a mansion. In reality, you are looking at the inside of instruments no more than two hands wide in some cases.
The rest of the piece is terrific, and highlights the challenges Brooks faces while creating the images (his biggest challenge is not damaging the really expensive instruments), his commitment to telling the stories of each instrument he photographs (some have fascinating, almost unbelievable histories!), his quest to find a smaller, skinnier camera for his work, and his thoughts on the question of “Why photograph the inside of instruments?” Brooks answers that question by stating:
“They are a fine art. The instruments sound better with age. For something which can be played for 300 years, the inside is where you can see really what was has gone on through its history. Performers couldn’t do what they’re doing without some really good instruments. They (the instruments) let them express themselves. I’d like people to have an appreciation of the extraordinary craftsmanship and precision that go into creating these things.”
See more of his Brooks’ work on his website or Instagram.
State Highway 165: Texas’ shortest and most unusual highway
Popkin / 9:59 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
State Highway 165 (SH 165) is a roadway in Texas that stretches through the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. The highway stretches only a half mile and is the shortest primary state highway in Texas. SH 165 is also unusual because it’s partially locked at night and no longer connects to any other Texas highway.
The short route has a posted speed limit of just 10 miles per hour. Originally designated in 1930, SH 165 was created to give people access to the Texas State Cemetery, which at the time lacked a proper road. The project was inspired by historian Louis Kemp, who urged the Texas Highway Department to restore the cemetery and improve its accessibility.
Over the decades, the highway’s path was shortened several times as Austin’s road system changed, eventually leaving it disconnected from the broader state highway network. Today, SH 165 serves as both a functional and symbolic route, guiding visitors through a historic resting place. A peaceful morning drive through the cemetery on this road sounds amazing, and a bit spooky.
The EcoFlow Delta 3 Max: a powerful—and pricey—solution for power outages
Séamus Bellamy / 9:47 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
Hurricane season and winter weather bring the same concern to many households: blackouts. For some, power returns within hours. For others in areas with aging infrastructure or unreliable grids, outages can last days. In these situations, a backup power solution is essential—but the choice matters.
Gas generators seem like the obvious answer, yet they come with significant drawbacks. They’re loud, smoky, and often violate HOA regulations. For apartment dwellers, they’re simply impractical: fumes are dangerous indoors, and running them on a balcony or patio will quickly antagonize neighbors. A portable battery pack with a built-in inverter sidesteps these problems entirely. As an apartment resident, I ruled out gas generators and instead tested the EcoFlow DELTA 3 Max Portable Power Station over the course of several months. After extensive use—including camping trips, real-world power outages, and daily deployment as an uninterruptible power supply—I can say this device delivers genuine peace of mind, though at a substantial cost.
Rugged Design Meets Practical Engineering
The DELTA 3 Max is impressively engineered. At nearly 48 pounds, it demands floor or reinforced shelf storage, but two robust handles make moving it manageable. Those same handles double as cable management guides, keeping your cords organized.
The connectivity is comprehensive: four grounded three-pronged outlets, two USB-C ports, and two USB-A ports give you plenty of charging options simultaneously. The flat top surface is spacious enough to support a 16-inch laptop, making it feasible to work while charging—even from inside a tent. With its 2,400W AC output, the DELTA 3 Max can power substantial appliances: I successfully ran my 1,300W microwave and kept a refrigerator operational for several hours. For prolonged food storage during outages, you can cycle the refrigerator on for an hour every eight hours or so, and an unopened fridge will maintain safe temperatures for days between charges.
For smaller devices—smartphones, tablets, rechargeable lanterns—you can expect dozens of charge cycles before the battery depletes.
Charging Flexibility
The DELTA 3 Max offers multiple recharge paths. It comes with a standard wall charger for conventional home recharging. There’s also a 12-volt car interface and a dedicated port for solar panels, making it suitable for off-grid or travel scenarios. I’ve deployed mine as a permanent uninterruptible power supply and surge protector for my home server, and it has prevented crashes twice in the past year.
If your power needs exceed what a single unit provides, you can daisy-chain multiple DELTA 3 Max units together.
Smart Control and Monitoring
While basic operation relies on the onboard button interface, EcoFlow’s free smartphone app unlocks granular control. Through the app, you can customize charging behavior—opting for full recharges or limiting charges to 80% to extend battery lifespan. The app also manages firmware updates and provides Wi-Fi-enabled weather alerts when the battery is connected to your home network.
The Price Question
The DELTA 3 Max costs $800—substantially more than a portable gas generator. Add in the cost of a solar panel or alternator charger for off-grid use, and expenses climb further. Cheaper alternatives with similar capacity exist, but their build quality is noticeably inferior.
Before committing, ask yourself honestly: Do I need a power station with this capacity? Would something smaller and more affordable—say, one that charges a headlamp or phone a few times—better serve my needs? $800 represents considerable money for emergency preparedness, and you may find other preparations offer better value.
The Verdict
That said, emergencies demand reliable gear. The DELTA 3 Max is built to withstand rough handling, and its battery is engineered to last a decade of regular use. In an era when many critical devices depend on steady electricity—CPAP machines, cellphones, sump pumps, cooktops—this power station can be genuinely lifesaving for the right person. If you live in an area prone to extended outages, live in an apartment where gas generators aren’t viable, or want the assurance of continuous power for essential medical or household devices, the DELTA 3 Max justifies its price through durability, performance, and peace of mind.
Trump’s popularity falls to worst numbers yet, says new CNN poll
Carla Sinclair / 9:22 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
Donald Trump just slipped to new lows in popularity, with an approval rating of only 37%, according to a poll released today by CNN/SSRS. “Approval of the president has dipped across partisan and demographic lines since the summer in CNN’s polling,” the outlet reports.
The only time Trump was ever this unpopular was around the same time during his first term when his approval rating dropped to 36%. His disapproval rating, however, has hit its all-time high at 63%. “It’s numerically the highest disapproval of either term throughout CNN polling, standing one point above Trump’s previous all-time high of 62% when he was leaving office in January 2021,” reports USA Today.
While Trump’s “Day One” promises of lower consumer prices have never materialized, his promises of tariffs, immigration crackdowns, and pardons for violent J6 rioters have materialized — and the public’s reaction to his grotesque mishandling of these issues is clearly reflected in this latest survey.
From CNN:
Trump’s approval rating in the poll stands at 37%, the worst of his second term in CNN polling and roughly equivalent to his 36% approval rating at this point in his first term. …
Americans are broadly dissatisfied with the state of the country (68% say things are going badly) and the economy (72% say it’s in poor shape, and 47% call the economy and cost of living the top issue facing the US). About 6 in 10 (61%) say Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the US.
Roughly 8 in 10 consider the federal government shutdown a crisis (31%) or a major problem (50%), and 61% disapprove of Trump’s handling of it. …
Americans are increasingly likely to say Trump has gone too far in using the power of the presidency – 61% say so, up 9 points since February.
Previously: Trump’s net approval rating plummets 13 points. Did something happen?
It’s time to fall back. Again.
Séamus Bellamy / 9:03 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
Some places in the world fell back chronologically yesterday. Whether you enjoyed an extra hour of sleep, some quiet time sipping coffee in bed, or whatever your Sunday looked like, here’s to embracing that extra hour.
And as a little food for thought: time is a construct, and some say that construct is a flat circle.
The Stoics believed the universe is smashed to pieces and put back together again repeatedly. Each reset brings a fresh start—our ancestors emerging from the sea, discovering fire, and eventually inventing Pizza Pockets. Life’s cycles will see you learning to drive, facing conflicts, welcoming children, or experiencing heartbreaks (like me, enduring love and loss yet again).
Saint Augustine had a different view—he thought eternal repetition was incompatible with a truly blessed soul. Nietzsche explored the idea of Eternal Return, where reliving both your worst and best moments might balance out existence. Imagine revisiting your first kiss just as you relive your most difficult day.
But maybe Rust Cohle was wrong. Perhaps life isn’t an endless loop of repetition. Like Pyotr Demyanovich Uspensky suggested, it might be possible to break free from the cycle. We can change. Being born flawed doesn’t mean we have to stay that way. Sadness can give way to joyful surprises—like finally mastering that perfect Yorkshire pudding.
Here’s to new cycles, fresh starts, and moments worth savoring.
Stratacut: watch Ellard Devane’s trippy handmade clay animation “Nosferatu Zombie Chainsaw Massacre”
Popkin / 8:48 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
Watch clay slicing pro Ellard Devane’s trippy horror animation, “Nosferatu Zombie Chainsaw Massacre.” My favorite thing about it is that all the special effects are done by hand, not with AI.
To make these videos, Devane uses the classic stratacut technique, where a block of colorful clay is sliced to make the images inside of it come to life through stop motion. One of my favorite things about this spooky stratacut is the sharp pink teeth on the creature that move around in its mouth like a saw.
I love how the eerie sound effects in this video made the character feel even more alive. I wish I could watch a full-length horror movie in a stratacut, because it’s such a mind-bending way to portray creepy subject matter. I’m glad I came across this video on Halloween to start off my day.
See also: Primitive Technology: Purifying clay and making pots
Want a synth or a bicycle or a drum machine owned by Kraftwerk’s Florian Schneider? Now’s your chance!
Jennifer Sandlin / 8:04 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
If you’ve ever wanted to own a piece of the magic from pioneering, legendary electronic band Kraftwerk, you’re in luck, because almost 500 items from Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider are being auctioned in a couple of weeks in Nashville, Tennessee at the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, 401 Gay Street.
The auction, hosted by Julien’s Auctions, features items from Schneider’s vast collection of musical equipment, personal items, band memorabilia, clothing, artwork, furniture from his home and studios, items from his collection of historic woodwind and brass instruments, and much more. I browsed through the items on the auction website and, wow, there’s so much cool stuff! I saw turntables, keyboards, drum machines, accordions, mixers, transformers, tape decks, brass instruments, lamps, oboes, and a wide range of other equipment. They’re even auctioning off a 1964 Volkswagen van (Type 2/T1 Kastenwagen) that was owned and driven by Schneider and featured in the biographical film, “Eight Miles High” (2007), as well as the Panasonic road bike he rode in the video for “Tour De France.”
Consequence of Sound reports that the auction is in accordance with Schneider’s wishes regarding what should happen to his belongings upon his death:
“This auction fulfills Florian’s handwritten will for his instruments and personal collection to continue living beyond him,” according to a press statement about the late Schneider, who died in 2020. “He always believed that they are meant to be played and shared — not left unused or gathering dust in storage. He wanted his equipment to find their way to people who would truly value them: musicians, collectors, and those inspired by the art of sound.”
The catalog totaling nearly 500 items also includes select memorabilia from different stages of his life, offering a glimpse beyond the instruments themselves. It has been organized in collaboration with his closest family members.
Julien’s Auctions describes the importance of Kraftwerk to the development of electronic music:
It is impossible to tell the story of electronic music without examining the pioneering beats, grooves, and performance aesthetics of Dusseldorf’s Kraftwerk and its founding member, Florian Schneider. Formed in 1970, the band brought an experimental approach to pop music, resulting in some of the most innovative and commercially successful electronic albums of the mid-1970s into the 1980s: Autobahn, Trans-Europe Express, The Man-Machine, and Computer World.
Now’s your chance to own a piece of music history!
The auction will be held on November 19th, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. CT / 11:00 am ET, and bids can be placed online, by phone, in person, or via absentee bid. Check out all of the cool stuff on offer and learn more about the auction and about Florian Schneider at the auction website.
How ChatGPT feeds into and enhances delusion
Grant St. Clair / 4:23 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
If I told you one of the most harrowing looks at how dangerous LLMs can be to the human psyche came from a YouTube video originally intended as a comedy, would you believe me? The danger of having a digital sycophant willing to believe and affirm everything you tell it is backed up by any number of real-world violent incidents. For anybody struggling with mental illness, ChatGPT is their worst enemy disguised as their best friend.
While we hear horror stories of AI-fueled delusion with increasing frequency, mustachioed investigative YouTuber Eddy Burback decided to deliberately create one to get better insight into this process and how it happens. Starting with a single intentionally comedic belief — “I was the smartest baby in the world in the year 1996” — was enough to kick off an intense downward spiral, with ChatGPT using that one statement as a launching point to get Eddy to abandon his family, move to an RV in the middle of nowhere, tap into radio towers to amplify his own brainwaves, and more.
Even a relatively mentally sound person aware of the difference between reality and fiction was deeply affected, in large part unintentionally. For those who aren’t so lucky? It’s no wonder LLMs like this are having such widespread effects on those who are most vulnerable. It’s a hard hour to get through, but it’s absolutely essential to understand just how insidious these systems are.
The sheer catharsis of beating someone up in your mind
Grant St. Clair / 4:19 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
Who among us isn’t a badass in our own mind? Who hasn’t watched a Mission: Impossible movie and thought, “I could totally do that”? If you’ve ever pictured yourself unleashing your totally real kung fu skills you totally have on an annoying person in your life (and don’t lie, you have), the new Tom Cardy joint is for you.
Among all the newfangled Internet comedy musicians vying for Weird Al’s crown, I’d rank him at the top, if only for how painfully relatable all of his songs are. Every line of Mind Fight feels like something he’s genuinely gone through (and you more than likely have too!)
Bonus points for the surprisingly slick “fake mobile game ad” aesthetic of the music video. 3D animation is hard, guys.
China has a troubling export: piracy
Séamus Bellamy / 4:14 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
Authoritarian governments of all stripes love — and need — to keep a tight leash on their citizens. Ten years ago, the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China was kinda comfortable with allowing its citizens to engage in capitalism and explore what the free market had to offer — a lot of Western businesses set up shop in the nation’s major cities.
The West became famished for fast fashion and reasonably priced brands like HiSense, TCL, and Oppo. When I visited China in 2017, the government was cracking down on access to news from outside of Chinese borders. It was a friendly, welcoming place. If you’re dumb enough to turn down Chinese barbecue, you could buy Kentucky Fried Chicken or a drink from Starbucks. I was able to buy a cable I needed at an Apple Store in Qingdao.
A lot has changed since then. At the same time that Xi Jinping has been consolidating power and building up the country’s military, the landscape for Chinese business owners has shifted. Businesses that were freed from state ownership have been yoinked back into the country’s oversight once again. Trade relations with other nations have been tidied up and, where little government interference once existed, there’s now a giant knot of red gaffer’s tape.
Even China’s criminal enterprises were touched by this sea change. It’s more challenging to find a government official who’ll look the other way, of late. The risk of being caught by the National Supervisory Commission is too high. And it’s whispered that what crime is allowed to flourish, such as fentanyl created outside of approved channels, needs to give a taste of their profits to the NPC. No matter how much is paid, selling illicit goods to people inside the country, if it’s detrimental to the control and smooth operation of Chinese society, is crushed with an iron fist. For those who make their living in the dark, it’s much more lucrative—and much safer—to sell their wares outside of the country. That goes for drugs, weapons, counterfeit luxury items, and, surprisingly, digital piracy.
Despite their unique, vibrant culture, the Chinese people are pretty horny for Western media content. For a while, it was almost as easy to find Handi-Cam captured copies of American films and software as it was in Mexico. There’s zero tolerance for it now. You’d think that the risk would drive the street price for these goods up, but just like officials now shunning brown paper envelopes stuffed with cash, the risk of being caught is giving crooks the no feeling.
So, just like their drug-making cousins, content pirates have started selling their goods, almost exclusively, outside of the country. The problem is bad enough that the International Intellectual Property Alliance felt the need to moan about it in a letter to the Chinese government:
Unfortunately, market access restrictions remain the primary driver behind persistent, evolving, and rampant piracy in China. While significant piracy in China’s domestic market remains an enduring challenge, the exporting of pirated content, piracy services, and piracy devices (PDs) from China to foreign markets is a growing and equally troubling global trend. Longstanding market access concerns, including the inability for foreign rights holders to freely engage in distribution of video-on-demand (VOD) services or online video games, timing and deterrence concerns in court cases, and remaining legislative shortcomings, all hamper rights holders’ ability to distribute and effectively protect their copyright content, including holding back the Chinese
creative marketplace from reaching its full potential.
It’s a polite way of saying “you’re stealing our shit and making things that let people steal our shit.” If you’ve seen the signs and online ads for Android-powered IPTV/VOD boxes (or own one), you know what the IIPA is talking about. The same applies to IPTV services, which can be set up and viewed using a streaming stick or on a laptop.
With the promise that streaming content would cost a hell of a lot less than a cable subscription well behind us, the demand for this hardware and the services associated with it is skyrocketing. At a time when folks are being forced to choose between paying their bills or buying food, the comfort that such illicit content — a respite from the stress of living in this rabid era — is hard to calculate. Unless you’re counting it in the amount of Chinese yuan renminbi it generates, that is.
Brazil’s a surreal paradise of dunes and crystal blue lagoons
Popkin / 3:41 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
Lençóis Maranhenses may be the most magical-looking place I’ve ever seen in a video. This stunning location is on the northeast coast of Brazil. Here, you can find an otherworldly-looking intersection of sand dunes and blue lagoons.
Despite its desert-like appearance, Lençóis Maranhenses is not technically a desert because it receives a significant amount of annual rainfall. Spending a day here would be like a dream. I know that if I get to visit this national park someday, I’l never want to leave,
From Youtube: “Lençóis Maranhenses sits at the intersection of three biomes—a rare overlap that supercharges biodiversity. Across 350 square miles of dunes, the rainy season brings thousands of crystal blue lagoons into view, many big enough to swim in. What makes this surreal environment possible? And why, even after 2 million years in existence, does it still feel so mysterious?”
See also: Tourists at a lagoon in Iceland make a run for it when part of the glacier collapses
Ben & Jerry’s co-founder seeks public input on new watermelon ice cream flavor that calls for “a permanent peace in Palestine”
Jennifer Sandlin / 3:25 am PT Mon Nov 3, 2025
Ben Cohen, co-founder of ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s, announced this week that he’s creating a new watermelon-forward ice cream flavor to call for “a permanent peace in Palestine” and for “repairing all the damage that was done there.” The BBC explains that the watermelon has become “a symbol for solidarity with Palestinians” because the fruit’s colors — red, green, black, and white — are so similar to those of the Palestinian flag. Cohen announced an Instagram video, where he explained his motivation for creating the flavor:
The scale of suffering of the Palestinian people over the last two years has been unimaginable. So the ceasefire is a welcome relief, but there’s much more work to do to rebuild. Palestinians are still living under occupation, still recovering from years of suffering, especially Palestinian children. They deserve dignity, safety, and the same rights that every human being should have . . . I’m making a watermelon flavored ice cream that calls for permanent peace in Palestine and calls for repairing all the damage that was done there. And I’m doing this to shine a light on the experience of Palestinian people and children in particular. So the world does not look the other way.
He also explained that he’s making the flavor on his own because Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s parent company, blocked the company from creating one. Cohen states:
A while back, Ben and Jerry’s tried to make a flavor to call for peace in Palestine, to stand for justice and dignity for everyone, like Ben and Jerry’s always has. But they weren’t allowed to. They were stopped by Unilever/Magnum, the company that owns Ben and Jerry’s. Just like when Ben and Jerry’s tried to stop selling ice cream in the occupied territories, they were blocked again by their parent company. So I’m doing what they couldn’t.
BBC provides further details:
Ben & Jerry’s is known for its activism on social issues and has consistently spoken out on political, environmental and humanitarian matters – including the Israel-Gaza conflict.
A spokesperson for the Magnum Ice Cream Company, Unilever’s ice cream arm, said it had determined that “now is not the right time to invest in developing this product.”
Mr Cohen’s statement deepens the long-drawn dispute between the world-famous ice cream maker and Unilever, the British packaged goods giant which has owned Ben & Jerry’s since 2000 . . .
In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s refused to sell its products in areas occupied by Israel. Its Israeli operation was sold by Unilever to a local licensee, allowing its ice cream to continue being sold in the occupied West Bank.
The new watermelon ice cream will be developed under “Ben’s Best,” the brand Cohen established in 2016 to create “Bernie’s Back” ice cream, in support of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. According to BBC, Ben’s Best highlights causes that the company “has been barred from addressing publicly” by Unilever.
In the Instagram announcement, Cohen asks the public for suggestions on what other ingredients should be added to the watermelon sorbet and requests help with naming the flavor and designing the packaging. He says:
Revolutions are creative. Let’s see some of that creativity!
Folks in the comments have offered some terrific name suggestions for the new flavor, like “Sweet Resistance.” They’ve also provided some ideas for some delicious additions to the watermelon base, like honey, pine nut crunch swirl, olive oil, tahini swirl, rose water, orange blossom water, and dates. Many commenters also suggested ingredients that would reflect the colors of the Palestinian flag, including pomegranate molasses, strawberries, and raspberries, pistachios, mint, vanilla ice cream, and dark chocolate chunks.
Sounds scrumptious! If you have suggestions for ingredients or package designs, head over to the post and get in touch with Cohen.