I did not watch the debate. I was watching the previews on CNN and MSNBC, and I could see where it was going. I went to sleep instead, as I did on Election Night in 2016. I didn't really understand what happened until I listened to today's Daily podcast, just now, which included excerpts. Trump is dominant. He really practiced dominance. He's got a knack for it. About halfway through the show I realized this is what happens when you debate a troll. You never get to finish a thought, he always has another nit to pick, an annoying way to say something. He disrespects your dead son. He makes it about him, 100 percent. There's no room for anyone else. He was awful on his town hall a couple of weeks ago. A bluff? Anyway, I never thought Biden should debate him, or it should have been with rules that made it impossible for Trump to talk over him. Trump owned the stage last night. Glad I didn't watch, from what I can tell it was a total nightmare. Also it was a total incitement. The reporters say he "targeted his base." Not really. He told his militia to make a mess of the election, and he's setting up "the left" to get the blame. We gave him access to 100 million people so he could fuck us up the ass.

hackingbear shares a report: Plans to poison or kidnap Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy were discussed between sources in US intelligence and a private security firm that spied extensively on the WikiLeaks co-founder, a court has been told. Details of the alleged spying operation against Assange and anyone who visited him at the embassy were laid out on Wednesday at his extradition case, in evidence by a former employee of a Spanish security company, UC Global. Microphones were concealed to monitor Assange's meetings with lawyers, his fingerprint was obtained from a glass and there was even a plot to obtain a nappy from a baby who had been brought on regular visits to the embassy, according to the witness, whose evidence took the form of a written statement. The founder and director of UC Global, David Morales, had said that "the Americans" had wanted to establish paternity but the plan was foiled when the then employee alerted the child's mother. Anonymity was granted on Tuesday to the former employee and another person who had been involved with UC Global, after the hearing was told they feared that Morales, or others connected to him in the US, could seek to harm them. Details of their written evidence were read out at the Old Bailey in London on Wednesday by Mark Summers QC, one of the lawyers for Assange, who is fighting extradition to the US on charges relating to leaks of classified documents allegedly exposing US war crimes and abuse.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Some employers are giving their Zoomed-out workers a break. From a report: From tech startups to sprawling hospitals, businesses say they are trying to dial back time employees spend in remote meetings after realizing that hours spent on video calls every day have taken a toll. Still, some employees have a hard time breaking the Zoom habit, even with their bosses telling them to stop. Executives making the switch say meeting schedules ballooned in the pandemic's early days, largely due to the perceived ease of video calls and a desire to maintain workday normalcy as much of the country sheltered in place. "Zoom fatigue is real," said Abby Payne, chief people officer at SailPoint Technologies. The Austin, Texas, company has instituted a ban on meetings from 10 a.m. to noon every Tuesday and Thursday. Employee comments about sitting down at their computers at 7 a.m. and not getting up for 12 hours helped prompt the move, Ms. Payne said. "This is really a way for the organization as a whole to address both the fatigue of staring into a computer and also the reality that half of us have little ones," she added. The 1,000-person company enacted the restriction on meetings in August when it realized many employees would be juggling work while also raising children who would be attending school remotely in the fall.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As world leaders line up to address the UN biodiversity summit, experts say our future is at stake.

Microsoft is officially revealing it's working on x64 app emulation support for Windows on ARM today. From a report: Currently, Windows on ARM devices like the Surface Pro X can only run native 32- and 64-bit ARM apps, alongside 32-bit x86 apps. The vast majority of desktop apps, including Adobe's Creative Suite, have moved to 64-bit x86 and many have stopped supporting their 32-bit variants. This has left devices like the Surface Pro X unable to access certain apps, but Microsoft's new emulation support will mean any and all Windows apps will now work on Windows on ARM. The new x64 emulation support will start rolling out to Windows Insider testers in November and should arrive in a broader operating system update next year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Human destruction of nature has led to the extinction of many plants and animals.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong sent his employees a letter telling them to get in line with a new company "culture shift," offering those unwilling to do so a "generous separation package." Armstrong sent the letter, which CoinDesk obtained, to Coinbase employees on Wednesday, stating the time has come to have a "difficult conversation" over his recent clarification of Coinbase's mission. Armstrong wrote that Coinbase had "an apolitical culture" in an open letter published Sunday that said the exchange would not engage in "broader societal issues" or entertain employee discussions about these issues. Those employees unhappy with the new direction have been informed they can take up a separation package because "life is too short to work at a company that you are not excited about." The packages includes four months' severance for employees who have been at the exchange less than three years or six months for longer-term employees. Coinbase will also offer six months of health insurance through the U.S. government's COBRA program.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Catskill creek full of runoff from last night's storm.

Poll: Did you watch the debate?

China is preparing to launch an antitrust probe into Google, looking into allegations it has leveraged the dominance of its Android mobile operating system to stifle competition, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter. From the report: The case was proposed by telecommunications equipment giant Huawei last year and has been submitted by the country's top market regulator to the State Council's antitrust committee for review, they added. A decision on whether to proceed with a formal investigation may come as soon as October and could be affected by the state of China's relationship with the United States, one of the people said. The potential investigation follows a raft of actions by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to hobble Chinese tech companies, citing national security risks. This has included putting Huawei on its trade blacklist, threatening similar action for Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp and ordering TikTok owner ByteDance to divest the short-form video app.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I usually don't write about work as I'm doing it, but wtf, let's give it a try. Today I'm going to pick up the thread I last worked on July 9. LO2 becomes its own reader app. It was always weird that you had to go outside LO2 to read a published outline. It make the connection uneasy. Not obvious how you'd create an outline of your own. By having the published outline (aka instant outline) be viewed read-only in LO2, you're right there, in a tab, in the tool that creates these outlines. At least that's the theory.

Today's song: Fool on the Hill (sung by Annie Lennox).

Big tech firms could be banned from preferencing their own services in search rankings or exclusively pre-installing their own applications on devices, under new regulations planned by the European Union. From a report: As part of the EU's Digital Services Act, platforms with power to control could also have to share customer data with business rivals, according to internal draft documents obtained by Bloomberg. Due to be unveiled in December by the European Commission, the bloc's executive body, the legislation will seek to modernize rules governing the internet to give platforms greater responsibility for what users post on their sites as well as propose regulation aimed at curbing the power of large platforms. The initiative comes as big giants such as Apple and Google offer services across a widening array of sectors and as competitors increasingly rely on their platforms to offer their own services. Apple has faced heat over policies with its app store, which companies like Spotify complain give an unfair advantage to the iPhone maker's rival music service.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Americans reported drinking alcohol more frequently and in higher quantities since last year, according to a study published in JAMA. From a report: Excessive alcohol consumption may cause or worsen mental health problems, such as anxiety or depression. Experts have also warned the stress of the pandemic has fomented alcohol and drug abuse. The greatest changes were among women and people 30 to 59 years old. On average, alcohol was consumed one day more per month by three of four adults. Frequency of alcohol consumption for women increased by 17%. Heavy drinking among women -- four or more drinks within a few hours -- spiked 41% since 2019. Adults aged 30 to 59 years increased their drinking by 19% since last year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ground controllers say the leak is coming from a Russian module on the International Space Station.