It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but with a friendly user interface, great remote, and below-average price, it doesn’t have to.

In 1992, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus asked country legend Dolly Parton to be the godmother of his daughter, Miley. Parton gladly accepted, and throughout Miley’s life, the two were very close. Many mistook Dolly for being Miley’s aunt, since she played Aunt Dolly on Hannah Montana. In real life, she was her godmother, which was special because Dolly never had kids of her own.

Following Dolly Parton’s passing on August 25, 2026, Miley Cyrus has been struggling with her grief. Miley Cyrus performed two sold-out comeback concerts at the Hollywood Bowl on October 16 and October 18.

On the second evening, October 18, Miley performed a cover of Parton’s legendary hit, “Jolene”. Before this tribute, she shared a story with the crowd. “I actually have a Dolly mannequin in my bedroom. She gave it to me for Christmas, and it’s dressed like her, it’s built like her, and when I was by myself, I actually took my phone and I played ‘Jolene’ for her on video, just holding it up to the mannequin and lit a candle.”

Next, Miley began to play with the supernatural. “And I put a flower down for her, and I said, ‘Dolly, if you’re here right now, flicker the lights,’ and I didn’t say anything out loud, but the entire hallway started flickering.”

Miley Claims Her FIANCÉ can Vouch for This Experience

It’s only natural to be a little skeptical. This specific “flick the lights” attempt to contact the supernatural has been attempted time and time again, mostly by children. But Miley claims her fiancé, Maxx Morando, can vouch for her claim, as he also witnessed the experience.

“He was there, but he didn’t know what I said. But I know Dolly’s here with me tonight, and I’m feeling some of the feelings that I’m most afraid of, but having her here with me is getting me through, and having you here with me is getting me through. So no matter what it takes, this show is for you. And for Dolly.”

Throughout Sunday’s performance, Miley burst into tears numerous times when honoring Dolly Parton. Not only did she cover “Jolene”, but later in the set, she also asked the crowd to sing along to “Used To Be Young” while holding a framed picture of the country star. She told the crowd, “Let my Aunt Dolly hear you!”

Miley Cyrus’ sold-out performances at the Hollywood Bowl came just one month after her tenth album was released. Bass Persuades, released on September 18, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Photo by: Vijat Mohindra/NBC via Getty Images

The post This Pop Icon Claims Dolly Parton Contacted Her From the Beyond Ahead of Sold-Out Comeback Shows appeared first on VICE.

On October 16, 2026, Miley Cyrus took the stage at the Hollywood Bowl for her first major concert in four years. With her latest September 18 release, Bass Persuades, landing her a sixth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, Cyrus was poised to make a triumphant comeback. But during the second show of a two-night appearance, she took a moment to address the crowd. Specifically, those who criticized her previous performance.

“I have never heard that I don’t put my heart into something,” Cyrus told the crowd near the start of the show, per reports from The Hollywood Reporter. After night one, comments circulated online criticizing an apparent lack of energy and commitment from Cyrus. Notably, she labeled these comments “clickbait”.

She then added that the Hollywood Bowl concerts were not “an experiment of you, this is an experience for me.” Cyrus clarified that, even if she didn’t feel 100 percent confident, she still wouldn’t leave the audience disappointed.

Miley Cyrus Addresses Critics, Admits Live Performing Isn’t as Natural as It Used To Be

Around 2022, Miley Cyrus took a step back from large-scale headlining concerts. She played a few intimate shows following the 2023 release of Endless Summer Vacation. There was also her soulful rendition of “Flowers” at the 2024 Grammy Awards. But she hasn’t embarked on a big headlining stadium tour since 2014.

Cyrus was willing to admit to her audience that live performing doesn’t come “as natural as it once did.” She also said that she considered not performing the second show, but added, “Never would I leave you all sitting in these seats, unfulfilled from a show.”

She continued, “I can take a lot, but one thing I will not stand is any question about where my heart is when I’m on the stage. Not one. I’m fully present … the only thing that I have is this moment with all of you.”

According to the online criticisms, some fans were disappointed that Cyrus seemed to rely on her backing tracks and crowd engagement for some older songs. Allegedly, she let the audience take over a few too many times on “Wrecking Ball” and “Party in the USA”. But, in a way, that’s understandable. Ultimately, Miley Cyrus has grown as a performer since “Wrecking Ball”. And she has simply grown up since “Party in the USA”.

Still, she allegedly engaged more with those songs during the second night. While she addressed the criticism at the start of the show, Cyrus also took a moment to clarify a comment she made about the concerts feeling “overwhelming”.

“I’m excited to see you, feel you, touch you, but just know, this is deeper than a concert—someone up here singing and you all receiving the songs,” she explained. “It’s more than that to me. And that’s what I meant by ‘it’s overwhelming.’ It just means so much to me, that’s what I meant.”

Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation

The post Miley Cyrus Calls Out ‘Clickbait’ Criticism of Her First Major Performances in Four Years appeared first on VICE.

L’exécutif a convoqué, ces dernières heures, les plateformes de e-commerce ainsi que Google, Facebook, Instagram et Snapchat pour leur demander de faire preuve de vigilance. D’abord, face aux pilleurs qui chercheraient à revendre des produits volés en ligne. Ensuite, pour demander aux réseaux sociaux de mieux contrôler leurs fonctionnalités, notamment les diffusions en direct. Elles sont accusées par les forces de l’ordre d’avoir servi aux casseurs à s’organiser efficacement. Mais avec quel effet?
Marcelo en discute avec Tiphaine et Klara. Des questions? Des commentaires? Ecrivez-nous sur Whatsapp au +32 49 07 69 41

**Un message de GSK : Prévenir, soigner, innover : GSK appelle à investir dans la santé des Français pour accélérer l’accès aux innovations et atteindre un objectif : zéro perte de chance pour les patients, en renforçant la recherche et les investissements industriels en France.**

Coincidentally, at the same time, not a puppet but a convicted criminal, Donald Trump wants Ukraine to stop blowing up Russian oil refineries; someone inside the White House ordered Ukraine's Starshield military satellite service to be slowed to a crawl.

Diaper Don calls the attacks a "disgrace," and blames them, not his war in Iran, for skyrocketing energy prices. — Read the rest

The post Trump wants Ukraine to stop hitting Russian refineries. The White House throttled the wrong drones appeared first on Boing Boing.

Nvidia's RTX Spark N1X processor is finally here, and we've been collectively testing a small fortune's worth of powerful laptops sporting this new "superchip." RTX Spark is designed to be a high-performing Arm-based SoC for laptops and small desktop computers, rivaling the best from Apple, Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm. It has loads of cores, Nvidia RTX Blackwell graphics, and enough power and unified memory to run sizable local AI models.

The flagship placement is inside Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra with a staggering 128GB of unified memory, which our own Tom Warren fully reviewed. Sean Hollister has been testing a 64GB version of the Asus …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Beloved indie rock singer Jake Luppen has revealed that he will undergo major surgery. The Hippo Campus frontman has shared that doctors will be performing a six-hour surgery to remove a brain tumor that he was previously diagnosed with.

“Hey everyone – Jake here with a life update,” Luppen wrote in a social media post. He then offered some background info on his health situation. “About seven years ago, a migraine-prompted MRI revealed a 9 mm lesion on my brain, right near my [basal] ganglia,” Luppen shared.

“This past summer a routine scan showed some possible growth in this lesion, which prompted an EEG test,” he continued. “To my surprise, the panic symptoms I had been experiencing were actually focal seizures.”

Doctors will perform an open brain surgery on Hippo Campus frontman Jake Luppen

Next came a plan on how to treat the tumor. “My neurologist and neurosurgeon at Mayo determined that the best route to recovery would require a craniotomy to remove the lesion, as its critical location renders the option for a biopsy to be too dangerous,” he explained. “This kind of open brain surgery lasts for about six hours and requires that I’m awake so that they can safely access what they believe is a stage two glioma (slow-growing, low-grade brain tumor).”

“They’ll remove as much of the lesion as possible and then send it off for testing. Once we know what it is, we’ll know how to treat it,” Luppen shared. “While a medical procedure of this nature carries some scary risks, my family and I couldn’t ask for a better surgical team to perform this surgery, which is scheduled for November 6th.”

The singer added that this will certainly affect his ability to perform. “All that being said, it might be a second before I can play music for y’all again,” he said. “So, on October 19th we’re playing a show at Turf Club to rage for one last time before I’m on my a** for a few months. “

“Rest assured, I will work as hard as I can to get back on stage asap,” Luppen concluded. “I’ll keep y’all updated throughout this journey. Gonna be a wild ride. Much love.”

Photo by Jon Mattrisch/Billboard via Getty Images

The post Beloved Indie Rock Singer Undergoing 6-Hour Surgery to Remove Brain Tumor appeared first on VICE.

PlayStation Plus is getting a big game catalog shake up on October 20 that will feature new additions and one very exciting re-release for subscribers to return to.

PlayStation Plus Adds Mafia: The Old Country and Horizon Forbidden West

Each month PlayStation Plus updates its game catalog for subscribers with new additions and October is no exception. This month features a fairly exciting lineup that includes 2025’s Mafia: The Old Country and the return of Horizon Forbidden West.

Those two blockbuster titles are just the tip of the iceberg though. PlayStation Plus Premium also welcomes Dino Crisis 2 and RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. The full lineup will be available to play from October 20, unless otherwise noted.

Here is a full breakdown of all the additions:

PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium | Game Catalog

• Mafia: The Old Country | PS5 – Uncover the origins of organized crime in this gritty mob story set in the brutal underworld of 1900s Sicily. Fight to survive as Enzo Favara and prove your worth to the Family in this immersive third-person action-adventure set during a dangerous, unforgiving era. This thrilling narrative is brought to life by stunning visuals, cinematic storytelling and the authentic realism that the critically acclaimed Mafia series is known for. Enzo’s story unfolds in a time when skill with a stiletto blade was a deadly asset, a lupara sawed-off shotgun was a go-to firearm, murderous vendettas raged for decades, and mafiosi patrolled their protection rackets on foot, horseback or behind the wheel of turn-of-the-century motorcars.
• Horizon Forbidden West | PS5, PS4 – Join Aloy as she braves the Forbidden West – a majestic but dangerous frontier that conceals mysterious new threats. Explore distant lands, fight bigger and more awe-inspiring machines, and encounter astonishing new tribes as you return to the far-future, post-apocalyptic world of Horizon. Reunite with old friends, forge alliances with warring new factions and unravel the legacy of the ancient past – all the while trying to stay one step ahead of a seemingly undefeatable new enemy.
• Mycopunk | PS5 – Cut through fungal aliens in this hyper-customizable, mission based looter shooter. Hundreds of hand-crafted upgrades, 4-player co-op, and a little roach man. What’s not to love? A ragtag squad of robot rejects are hired by the SAXON corporation and given one last shot at profitable glory (and avoiding the scrap heap). They are the New Atlas Hazard Crew, a ramshackle squad of exterminators sent to uncover the mysteries behind a planet-wide fungal catastrophy. Embark on a series of dangerous planet-side missions to drive back the mycological menace. Could this be a simple natural disaster like they claim? And did SAXON really misfile your taxes? Or was that your own fault?
  • Mycopunk will be releasing into PlayStation Game Catalog day one on October 20 worldwide.
• Poppy Playtime: Chapter 2 | PS5, PS4 – After a run in with Huggy Wuggy and freeing Poppy, you must descend deeper into the Playtime Co. toy factory. Challenging puzzles and horrific toys await. Grapple, swing, and power your way to safety. Try to escape- and don’t let Mommy find you. Continue to explore the depths of Playtime Co. in search of answers. Your journey to discover what has happened within the factory is just beginning…
  • Poppy Playtime: Chapter 2 will be available October 27 in the US, the UK and Japan.
• The Midnight Walk | PS5 – Embark upon The Midnight Walk in this reverent dark fantasy adventure built in clay, from the minds behind Lost in Random, Fe and Ghost Giant. Become The Burnt One, befriend a lost lantern creature named Potboy, and use his flame to light your way through a conflicting world of wonder and horror. Survive and outsmart the many monsters eager to devour your little friend’s flame as you experience five tales of fire and darkness, featuring an incredible cast of odd characters. Marvel at every disturbing detail in a landscape painstakingly handcrafted with real life clay and animated in a stop motion style. Fully playable both on PS5 and in VR – with PS VR2.
  • The Midnight Walk will be available today, October 14 in the US, the UK and October 15 in Japan.
• Tales of Arise – Beyond the Dawn Edition | PS5, PS4 – For 300 years, Rena has ruled over Dahna, pillaging the planet of its resources and stripping people of their dignity and freedom. Our tale begins with two people, born on different worlds, each looking to change their fate and create a new future. Featuring a diverse cast of characters, intuitive and rewarding combat system, and a captivating story set in a lush world worth fighting for, Tales of Arise delivers a first-class JRPG experience.
  • Tales of Arise – Beyond the Dawn Edition will be available October 27 in the US, the UK and Japan.
• Monster Energy Supercross 25 – The Official Video Game | PS5 – Experience the thrill of racing on newly designed tracks that replicate real-world events and compete against the latest roster of professional riders: forge your path in a revamped career featuring intense competitions, rivalries, and strategic choices. Thanks to Unreal Engine 5, enjoy a renewed gameplay experience with realistic physics and dynamic track evolution, making every lap unique and challenging. Master the flow with open tutorials, a comprehensive wiki, and Neural Technology riding aids.
  • Monster Energy Supercross 25 – The Official Video Game will be available October 27 in the US, the UK and Japan.

PlayStation Plus Premium

• Dino Crisis 2 | PS5, PS4 – One year has passed since the events of “Operation: Rescue Dr. Kirk”. Government-led research and development continues for Dr. Kirk’s project Third Energy ー known for its potential to produce clean energy sources and its capability for mass destruction. One day, a temporal catastrophe strikes, causing the research hub of Edward City to disappear. Suit up as returning protagonist Regina, as well as series newcomer Dylan. With an expanded arsenal of weapons at your disposal, fight to survive encounters with even larger hordes of enemies and more than 10 unique dinosaur species. With a shift from facility-centered stages of the previous game to the jungles, caves, lakes, and natural wonders of the Cretaceous period, do you have what it takes to escape this prehistoric nightmare alive?
• RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Complete Edition | PS5, PS4 – Your Park. Your Way. Whatever you want to create, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 gives you the tools and freedom to build the amusement park of your dreams. Manage like a tycoon and make your way to the top Control park finances, shops, services and staff to succeed in dozens of scenarios. Become a true tycoon and embark on your promising new career, or create your ideal park without money woes in sandbox mode. Satisfy your guests’ needs and keep your park running smoothly to succeed.

That should be everything subscribers need to know heading into the rest of this month. Horror fans can also check out the other PlayStation Plus perks this month for some spooky Game Trials, HorrorFest Packs, and other exclusive content.

Be sure to check back soon for lots more PlayStation Plus updates as the next rotation approaches.

The post PlayStation Plus October Catalog Update Brings Back the Horizon Series and Includes a 2025 Action-Adventure Game appeared first on VICE.

Today the OnePlus 16 launched in China, the company's first flagship phone since quitting both the US and European markets this summer. As luck would have it, it also looks like the company's best phone in some time.

Like most OnePlus phones, the 16 is positioned around performance, with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chipset, and up to 1TB of storage and 16GB of RAM. That's backed up by an enormous 9,000mAh silicon-carbon battery, one of the biggest seen in any Android flagship yet. 100W wired and 50W wireless charging complete the power setup.

On the display front, the phone jumps to a 185Hz OLED panel for the first time. That'll no …

Read the full story at The Verge.

BRUSSELS — Europe will lose out because of €159 billion in cuts to the bloc’s next long-term budget, the European Commission has warned days before EU leaders gather in Brussels for talks on the bloc’s future spending plans.

In an unusual attack, the Commission told governments that scrapping billions from several rainy-day funds will leave Europe less equipped to deal with crises during the next seven-year budget cycle, said four EU diplomats briefed on the talks, granted anonymity to speak freely about confidential discussions.

The Commission’s top budget official, Stéphanie Riso, delivered the warning to the EU’s 27 ambassadors during a closed-door meeting on Sunday, a day after the Irish presidency of the Council of the EU, which is steering the talks, proposed cutting around 8% from the bloc’s total budget from 2028 to 2034.

The Commission is “very concerned about cuts to flexibility,” said one of the EU diplomats.

As a result of the changes, “we will have no ways left to help farmers and regions when crises hit, because of climate change or geopolitical tensions,” they added.

EU ambassadors gathered to discuss the Irish plan, which envisages cuts of €159 billion in current prices from the Commission’s nearly €2 trillion proposal. Of that amount, €38 billion was cut from foreign aid, €75 billion was axed from competitiveness, and at least €22 billion was slashed from rainy-day funds.

But even those reductions were criticized as insufficient by a German-led group of states pushing for cuts of several hundred billion. During the closed-door meeting, a rival bloc of 17 countries, known as the Friends of Cohesion, welcomed the fact that the Irish presidency had spared agriculture and regional payments from cuts.  

EU governments are racing to finalize a deal on the budget among themselves by the end of the year — before elections in France, Italy and Poland that threaten to disrupt the negotiations.

A leaders’ summit on Thursday and Friday will give early signals as to whether the end-of-year deadline is achievable — or whether leaders should start preparing contingency plans.

One EU diplomat said the pressure is now on those leaders: “What could make a difference is if Friedrich Merz and Emmanuel Macron show up, hand-in-hand, and say we live in a new world.”

Cuts to the future

The Commission warned that cuts such as those put forward by Ireland will shrink the next budget — excluding repayments to post-Covid debt — below the current one.

The cuts overwhelmingly affect EU-wide priorities such as competitiveness, defense and foreign aid while leaving traditional policies untouched such as agriculture and regional payouts, which make up almost half the budget.

The changes undermine the Commission’s proposal, which envisaged more flexibility and steered hundreds of billions of euros toward new priorities.

In a further setback for the Commission, Ireland also downsized — or even scrapped — several financial cushions to shelter EU countries from unforeseen events such as natural disasters or public health emergencies.

The EU executive argues these changes will make spending in the next budget more rigid than in the current one — and potentially warrant a midterm review of the budget further down the line.

However, Ireland’s Europe Minister Thomas Byrne disputed this claim in a press conference on Saturday, saying the budget proposal “offers increased flexibility … in response to the clear call from member states for a simplified and more flexible, modern [budget].”

Another source of tension in the next budget came from Ireland’s watering down the link between EU payouts and economic reforms.

The Commission has repeatedly defended using regular budget payments as a carrot to nudge governments to undertake reforms that will make them more competitive.

However, Ireland’s ambassador to the EU, Aingeal O’Donoghue, said during the meeting that the new text will not link EU cash disbursements and “fiscal reforms,” according to one of the diplomats.

BRUSSELS — Three of the European Parliament’s biggest political groups say they will fight an EU proposal to relax carbon pricing rules, opening a rift that could push conservative lawmakers to side with the far right to weaken the bloc’s climate ambition.

The center-left Socialists and Democrats, the centrist Renew Europe and the Greens all said in recent days that they would try to preserve an ambitious path to net zero under the Emissions Trading System, forcing heavy industry to cut planet-warming emissions faster than Brussels proposes.

That puts them at odds with the center-right European People’s Party, Parliament’s biggest group, which broadly supports the European Commission’s proposal.

For years, those four groups have worked together in Parliament to pass legislation that strikes a political middle ground, shunning collaboration with the far right. The sometimes uneasy alliance has ensured consistent, bipartisan support for the ETS, Europe’s most powerful tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But now, a reform of the landmark cap-and-trade scheme, unveiled by the EU executive in July, looks set to become a bellwether in an era when, increasingly, the center no longer holds.

The EPP is steering Parliament’s work on the proposed ETS revision through veteran German lawmaker Peter Liese, who wants to find a deal that satisfies everyone.

“I don’t want the Venezuelan majority. It’s against my convictions, but it is also not possible because nobody would see [Marine] Le Pen, the Austrian far-right FPÖ or the German extreme-far-right AfD voting for any ETS proposal,” he told POLITICO in September, using the informal term for a controversial alliance of center-right and far-right groups.

Instead, Liese, who maintains close ties with Dutch S&D lawmaker Mohammed Chahim, said he wanted “the broadest possible coalition,” including the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists as well as “the Greens, The Left, if they want.”

But new amendments filed last week by the S&D, the second-largest group in Parliament, as well as the Greens and Renew, point to major schisms over key aspects of the ETS reform. The biggest divide concerns the so-called linear reduction factor, the mechanism that determines how quickly the supply of pollution permits shrinks each year. 

Under the current trajectory, the total cap on carbon emissions for all sectors covered by the ETS falls slightly each year, and would reach zero around 2039 or 2040. At that point, ETS sectors — which include power generators, steelmakers and chemical manufacturers — would no longer be able to emit any carbon dioxide at all. 

Liese’s proposal would push that date into the 2040s, in line with the Commission’s original pitch in the summer. But the three other centrist or left-leaning groups oppose the plan and have tabled nearly identical amendments that would keep the rates high until the end of next decade and bring about quicker industrial decarbonization across Europe. 

Though the percentages between the warring groups appear tiny, they translate into millions of additional tons of CO₂ emissions and expose a growing political gulf. S&D, the Greens and Renew are fighting to preserve Europe’s climate ambitions, while the EPP is increasingly sympathetic to the concerns of the chemicals and metals industries, both of which have been vocally critical of the ETS. 

But just as the chances for a centrist compromise dim, Liese has another possible route.

Memories of fascism in the early twentieth century once discouraged mainstream political groups from working with the far right. That firewall appeared to erode when talks with centrist allies collapsed in 2025 over the first omnibus package governing certain environmental reporting rules. The EPP turned to the right-wing ECR and the far-right Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations to secure a deal, paving the way for similar alliances in the future.

On the ETS, there is a growing risk that it could happen all over again.

Czech lawmaker Alexandr Vondra of the ECR recently floated the possibility of working with Liese to secure a deal backed by his right-wing group during a parliamentary debate on the ETS.

“I would address here specifically EPP because it holds the key to the success of the reform of the ETS system,” he said, before laying out a list of industry-friendly demands that included a much looser trajectory to zero emissions. “If so, count me and my group in.”

Amendments tabled by Vondra this week and seen by POLITICO reflected a similar willingness to work with the EPP and limited regard for emissions reductions. If Liese does decide to shift his compromise to the right and cashes in on ECR votes, it could also quell problems within his own party.

The Polish, Spanish and Italian branches of the EPP are all unhappy with what they see as Liese’s overly climate-friendly proposal, according to three parliamentary insiders. Recent votes in Parliament on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, the bloc’s carbon levy on imports that works in tandem with the ETS, exposed fractures within the group, with portions of the EPP supporting right-wing groups or abstaining on a key provision of the legislation.

But how willing far-right groups will be to play ball with the EPP remains to be seen. 

The Europe of Sovereign Nations group — whose members include Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland — is hostile to the ETS and wants it totally abolished. But the Patriots — whose members include France’s National Rally — might provide Liese with an opening: the group generally calls for the policy to be slowed to a halt, especially the upcoming ETS2, as it does all Green Deal legislation. French far-right lawmaker and rising political star Jordan Bardella said as much in a speech to Parliament in May.

“ETS: three letters, an acronym that reeks of detached bureaucracy, with one question that keeps coming up: who’s going to pay?” he said.

"The day your loved one passes away, you also get this honorary badge of a project manager for a project you had no idea about," said founder Sara Tashakorinia.

Google's new operating system is off to a rocky start. The five newly launched Googlebook laptops have hardware that ranges from great to excellent, but the software in its current state is the weak point. There are four of us on staff at The Verge actively testing Googlebooks and, frankly, our internal Slack discussions have been mostly filled with collective venting of frustrations, disappointments, and bewilderment.

The promise of Googlebooks as a fresh and smartly designed alternative to Windows or Mac for Android phone owners sounds great, but there's more than just a few kinks and quirks to work out. Some of its issues and challenges …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Boyu Capital and IDG Capital led the funding round, and existing shareholders Tencent, HSG (formerly known as Sequoia China), ZhenFund, and others also participated.

The first array of laptops powered by Nvidia's new RTX Spark chip are designed to compete with high-end MacBook Pros - and they've got some high-end prices to match.

The flagship Surface Laptop Ultra and RTX Spark laptops from Dell, Lenovo, MSI, HP, and Asus start as low as $2,599 for configurations with an 18-core CPU, 24GB of unified memory, and 512GB of storage. That's close in price to a similarly specced 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro chip, though Apple includes 1TB of storage. But the prices for both RTX Spark and Apple laptops of course go much, much higher.

Of the pricing we've seen so far, a kitted-out Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark …

Read the full story at The Verge.

As a big fan of Naughty Dog's zombie-killing/teenage angst simulator The Last of Us, I was gutted to discover that an ongoing multiplayer mod for The Last of Us: Part 2 had been axed by Sony. The moment you decide to charge for a mod, you're making money off someone else's IP and open to be beheaded for it. — Read the rest

The post Playing The Last of Us in first person is like an entirely different game appeared first on Boing Boing.

The census makes politics. Representatives are allocated to states based on the count of the population, and states redistrict their maps accordingly. Thus, it’s perhaps not surprising that different partisan forces work behind the scenes to make census data in their own image. 

In advance of the 2030 Census, the Trump Administration has recently announced that it plans to drastically upend an esoteric set of rules known as the “residence rules.” These are the protocols that dictate who is counted where for the upcoming census. Although Congress is ultimately responsible for overseeing the census and determining the rules, it absconded with that responsibility decades ago. This has created a vulnerability that the Trump administration seeks to exploit. In changing the rules, the Trump administration is hoping to alter the political map. As TPM has reported, civil servants have been ordered to stay silent. 

Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census tells the story of what it took for dedicated bureaucrats to pull off the 2020 Census, despite a pandemic, natural disasters, financial constraints, and political interference. This book shows what it takes to make the census so that each and every one of us can fight to ensure that democracy’s data remain intact and legitimate. The ins and outs of who gets counted where might seem boring, but this is what makes the process so vulnerable to interference. When the public and our elected officials do not pay attention to details, technocratic moves become a form of policymaking by other means.

Today's links

• Itch scratching: Love, care and self-actualization.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: 9/11 x Viridians; Announcing Wikipedia; Infinite Copyright Mickey; Floppy shoulder bag; Wells Fargo's long sleaze; Corbyn wins Labour leadership; Interop v internet monopolies; The billionaires aren't all right; RIP Mike Ford; PGP didn't cause 9/11; Flying Solaris boxen; "Unelectable" Corbyn; Algorithmic management; "That's Disgusting!"; Tax breaks for repair expenses; Climate denial driven by economic doctrine; "100% pumpkin" has no pumpkin; Copyright reversion; "Scholars of the Night"; Apple threatens EU.
• Upcoming appearances: Edmonton, Boston, Brighton, South Bend, Hudson, Calgary, Winnipeg, Paris, OVancouver, Victoria, Ottawa, Kilkenny, Montreal.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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Itch scratching (permalink)

The thing about a maddening itch between your shoulder blades is that it feels so good when you scratch it, and even better when someone else scratches it, and better still if that person hits the right spot because they love you and they've performed this service for you so often and attentively that they know exactly which spot to hit.

One of the recurring themes in Spider Robinson's short stories and novels is people who have close relationships suddenly realizing that they have acquired a psychic link. He comes up with endless ways to play this scene out, but my favorite – I think it's from one of the later Callahan's tales – is when one person scratches another between the shoulder blades and hits the exact right spot the very first time and they realize that they are now psychically linked.

Maybe it's a primate grooming reflex, maybe it's receiving a gesture of love and care. Maybe those are the same things. Having your itch scratched for you feels good. Not just primates, either: cats with the flexibility to reach any part of their body with all four of their paws and their teeth will nevertheless purr like a badly-tuned diesel outboard when you scratch them just right.

Since the outset, the free software/open source movement has extolled the virtues of technological self-determination, which is to say, deciding how the computers and programs you use will work. This is often described as "scratching your own itch."

There is no question that scratching your own itch in this way is hugely and enduringly satisfying. On my laptop, I have a variety of little scripts and keybindings and bits of automation that I've built up over the years and every time I use one of these, I get a little hit of brain-reward.

The latest: I got tired of alt-tabbing to get to the file explorer, only to discover that I'd closed all my file explorer windows, meaning I had to mouse over to the dock and open a new one. So I bound "Windows key + E" to opening a file explorer after reading a message board post from an ex-Windows user who'd done this (apparently this is a standard Windows keybinding).

I've fully retrained my fingers to type Win-E rather than alt-tab when I want to get at a graphic filesystem and every time I do, I get the tiniest little pleasant jolt of pleasure. I scratched my own itch!

But even better than this are the little scripts that other people have thoughtfully made for me over the years. The oldest of these still in daily use is more than 20 years old, a bash script called "boingpic" (from when I was still working on Boing Boing). When I run this, it iterates interactively through the files ending with "jpg" or "png" on my Desktop, tells me how wide they are, prompts me to resize them or hit enter to keep their size, and then rsyncs them to the directory on my server that corresponds to https://craphound.com/images/.

If this strikes you as weird and inefficient, that's fine, because it does exactly what I need it to do, and I've memorized it through long, long use. And on top of all that, boingpic.sh was written for me by my dear old friend Seth David Schoen, when we were one of a bare handful of EFF staffers in the early oughts and hung out together all the time. Every time I use it, it reminds me of Seth, and good times, and I feel good.

For centuries, people have fought for the right to self-determination. The disability rights rallying cry "Nothing about us without us" actually dates back to 16th century Poland (it was the basis for the formation of a Polish parliament that wrested power away from the king). Any parent who has avoided a conflict over getting dressed for school by swapping out "Put your clothes on right now!" for "Which would you rather put on first, your shirt or your socks?" knows how far even a little autonomy can go.

I worked as a computer programmer from the age of 17 to about the age of 29, and while I was never a spectacular coder, I was good at it, and I wrote a lot of code for myself that precisely met my needs, which always felt great. It's one of the reasons I have always championed low-code/no-code software development tools, from Logo to Hypercard to Visual Basic to Scratch. Sure, the code that you write with one of these tools might not be "efficient" from a CPU/memory-usage perspective, but the point is that you write it. You don't have to convince someone else to do you a favor, you don't have to part with any of your money – and you don't have to try to get someone else to understand what you mean when you describe the tool you want.

When I worked at Bakka Books (the world's oldest surviving science fiction bookstore, in Toronto), we organized our inventory using an extremely idiosyncratic Filemaker database created by the store's then-owner, John Rose. John lovingly tended that Filemaker app, tweaking it on his days off to make it better suited to the very specific needs of a science fiction bookstore with a giant used section and an important sideline in keeping collectors' want-lists that we consulted whenever we bought more used books. There are doubtless "better" bookstore stock-keeping systems (including the one that Bakka uses now, in its latest incarnation as BakkaPhoenix), but that Filemaker app was John, a presence in the store even when he wasn't there, embodying his management and literary and retail theories on a MacSE by the cash-register.

I am highly skeptical of vibe-coding in the sense of writing code for other people to use. But when I meet people who've vibe-coded their own apps for their own use to scratch their own itches, I completely get their excitement. They've scratched their own itch! I know exactly how good that feels:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/03/rod-logic/#making-flippy-floppy

Sure, I have concerns about this kind of personal vibe-coding, the biggest of which is that if you aren't a skilled programmer, you might end up vibe-coding an app that you can't adequately assess, so it might contain subtle defects that make you vulnerable to security risks and/or expose your sensitive information to the public internet. But there are domains and use-cases where I am totally willing to accept that vibe-coding can enhance someone else's life in important ways, by letting them build exactly the widget they need, and if (when) it breaks, they can just do it again.

This is even better than "nothing about us without us." It's not just insisting that someone else "gather your requirements" before producing a tool that you will rely on and require. This is you, producing that tool for yourself, which means that you might be able to embed features and affordances into it that you can't even articulate, let alone defend. There's something undeniably great about scratching your own itch and hitting exactly the right spot.

Even so: the experience of working through your requirements with someone else is clarifying and disciplining, because while you are the domain expert on your needs, that doesn't mean you're the domain expert on how to address those needs. You have the worm's eye view of your life and your needs, while an expert can have the bird's eye view that comes from working with many people, exposing them to many ways of solving problems, including ones you've never thought of.

Darren, the contractor who put in our new kitchen a couple years ago, had ideas for cabinet- and appliance-placement that had been refined by seeing, demolishing, building and revising orders of magnitude more kitchens than we had ever cooked in, and moreover, he clearly cared about our long-term happiness in our own home. The kitchen is great.

That care makes all the difference. Skilled craftspeople can bring expertise to the project that doesn't trump your needs, but can be co-equal with them. Scratching your own itch is great, having your itch scratched by someone who cares enough about you to know where your itch is, that's even better. But best of all is for that person to find the itch you didn't even know you had and scratch that, too. That's something that relies on the human connection that the best free/open source projects embody, the co-creation and community between developers and users.

If you've ever filed a bug against a free/open project and worked through the testing the devs need to squash it, you've experienced that co-creation. The devs want their code to work, because they care about the users, and you as a user can help other users and the devs by reciprocating that care through conscientious, patient, attentive bug reporting and testing.

I think that so much of the outrage about slop code – floods of garbagey pull requests and bug reports – is the result of the collapse of this dynamic. Slop's not merely annoying or time-wasting: it's a betrayal of the love and care that goes into writing and maintaining code for others. Your cat can scratch any part of its body, but it wants you to scratch it, and it will hiss at you and even claw at you if you scratch it the wrong way.

(Image: Orrling and Tomer S, CC BY-SA 3.0, modified)

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• AI Workers' Inquiry 2026 https://techworkersinquiry.org/ai/

• Machine god metaphors eat your brain https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/machine-god-metaphors-eat-your-brain

• Here’s What California Is Learning From Solar Panels Built Over Irrigation Canals https://www.kqed.org/science/2002033/heres-what-california-is-learning-from-solar-panels-built-over-irrigation-canals

• Toads in a Pond https://longforgottenhauntedmansion.blogspot.com/2026/09/toads-in-pond.html

• The Federal Agency That’s Supposed to Protect Consumers Just Made Another Business-Friendly Move https://www.propublica.org/article/cfpb-consumer-complaint-database

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Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Surveillance is a security failure https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/sep/27/onlinesupplement.afghanistan

#25yrsago 9/11: the Viridian take https://web.archive.org/web/20011023095346/http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/251-300/00272_au_revoir_belle_epoque.html

#25yrsago Announcing Wikipedia https://web.archive.org/web/20060517024408/http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2001/9/24/43858/2479

#25yrsago Phil Zimmerman says PGP can't be blamed for 9/11 https://slashdot.org/story/01/09/24/162236/philip-zimmermann-and-guilt-over-pgp

#20yrsago RIP, sf writer John M Ford https://memex.craphound.com/2006/09/25/rip-sf-writer-john-m-ford/

#20yrsago Gigantic Little Nemo book does justice to the loveliest comic ever https://memex.craphound.com/2006/09/25/gigantic-little-nemo-book-does-justice-to-the-loveliest-comic-ever/

#20yrsago 747s as flying Unix hosts: SCADA in the sky https://memex.craphound.com/2011/09/25/747s-as-flying-unix-hosts-scada-in-the-sky/

#20yrsago Mickey Infinite Copyright mashup https://web.archive.org/web/20061027141551/http://python.net/~goodger/projects/graphics/#mickey-s-infinite-copyright#mickey-s-infinite-copyright

#20yrsago HOWTO make a shoulder-bag out of floppies https://web.archive.org/web/20061025050629/http://www.instructables.com/id/E86165FIENERIE2PV6/?ALLSTEPS

#15yrsago TOSAmend: turn all online “I Agree” buttons into negotiations https://web.archive.org/web/20110925122850/https://www.owocki.com/2011/09/02/tosamend-the-easy-way-to-modify-web-service-terms-of-service-agreements/

#15yrsago That’s Disgusting! Awesomely gross picture book https://memex.craphound.com/2011/09/26/thats-disgusting-awesomely-gross-picture-book/

#10yrsago Swedish law will let you write off the money you spend fixing things rather than trashing them https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/19/waste-not-want-not-sweden-tax-breaks-repairs

#10yrsago Climate denial’s internal contradictions spring from a need to defend economic doctrine https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-016-1198-6

#10yrsago There’s no pumpkin in “100% canned pumpkin” https://web.archive.org/web/20160927152542/https://www.foodandwine.com/news/i-just-found-out-canned-pumpkin-isnt-pumpkin-all-and-my-whole-life-basically-lie

#10yrsago The AI Now Report: social/economic implications of near-future AI https://web.archive.org/web/20161014142521/https://artificialintelligencenow.com/media/documents/AINowSummaryReport_3.pdf

#10yrsago Whistleblowing Wells Fargo loan officer describes years of fraudulent, criminal culture in the bank https://truthout.org/articles/wells-fargo-whistleblower-they-are-all-riding-the-stagecoach-to-hell/

#10yrsago Writer in 29th year of solitary confinement barred from reading his own book https://solitarywatch.com/2016/09/20/writer-in-solitary-confinement-is-barred-from-reading-his-own-book/

#10yrsago Despite sabotage and dirty tricks, Jeremy Corbyn wins Labour leadership race in unprecedented landslide https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37461219

#10yrsago Who decided Corbyn was “unelectable”? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8os-nKuoM3o

#10yrsago The democratization of censorship: when anyone can kill as site as effectively as a government can https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/the-democratization-of-censorship/

#5yrsago Demonopolizing the internet with interoperability https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/24/comcom-acm/#cacm

#5yrsago Copyright reversion, bargaining power, and authors’ rights https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

#5yrsago The Scholars of Night https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/mike-ford-rides-again/#cold-war-zeitgeist

#1yrago Apple threatens to stop selling iPhones in the EU https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/26/empty-threats/#500-million-affluent-consumers

#1yrago The billionaires aren't OK https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/24/robo-lickspittle/#just-not-evenly-distributed

#1yrago Rage Against the (Algorithmic Management) Machine https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/25/roboboss/#counterapps

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Edmonton: Elbows Up (Edmonton Public Library), Sep 28
  https://www.epl.ca/blogs/post/elbows-up-with-cory-doctorow/

• Boston: The Post-American Internet: Possibilities for a new internet created by an American Hermit Kingdom (MIT Media Lab), Sep 30
  https://www.media.mit.edu/events/the-post-american-internet-possibilities-for-a-new-internet-created-by-an-american-hermit-kingdom/

• Boston: Rethinking Our Relationship with AI, Sep 30 (Emtech)
  https://event.technologyreview.com/emtech-future-2026/detailed-agenda

• Boston: The Paradox of Enshittification and Reverse Centaurs (Harvard Berkman Klein), Sep 30
  https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/running-harder-falling-faster-paradox-enshittification-and-reverse-centaurs

• Brighton: Digital Sovereignty and the Post-American Internet (Green Party Conference), Oct 3
  https://www.openrightsgroup.org/events/digital-sovereignty-and-the-post-american-internet/

• South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
  https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/

• Hudson, OH: Hudson Library, Oct 7
  https://engagedpatrons.org/EventsExtended.cfm?SiteID=3850&EventID=596952&PK=

• Calgary: Wordfest, Oct 8
  https://wordfest.com/2026/show/wordfest-presents-cory-doctorow-2026/

• Winnipeg: McNally Robinson, Oct 9
  https://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/event-18991/An-Evening-with-Cory-Doctorow

• Paris: Slow Tech Summit, Oct 15
  https://slowtechsummit.com/

• Vancouver: Read, Resist, Repair, Rejoice (Vancouver Writers Festival), Oct 19
  https://writersfest.bc.ca/festival-event-2026/01

• Victoria: Munro's Books, Oct 20
  https://www.munrobooks.com/events/6113620261020

• Vancouver: Life After AI (Vancouver Writers Festival), Oct 22
  https://writersfest.bc.ca/festival-event-2026/46

• Ottawa: Life After AI (Ottawa Writers Festival), Oct 24
  https://writersfestival.org/event/life-after-ai

• Kilkenny (Kilkenomics), Nov 6-8
  https://kilkenomics.com/

• Vancouver: Enshittification (Sid Williams Theatre Society), Nov 10
  https://www.sidwilliamstheatre.com/events/cory-doctorow-talks-enshittification/

• Vancouver: BC Policy Solutions Gala, Nov 12
  https://bcpolicy.ca/gala/

• Montreal: World Science Fiction Convention, Sep 2-6
  https://montreal2027.ca/en

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• Could Tech Bosses Destroy Life As We Know It? (Politics JOE)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL4VktU0SgY

• Are 'AI Apocalypse' Warnings Just Marketing? (What's Left)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXd9HwIE5bo

• The Real AI Threat Isn’t What You’ve Been Told (The Tea with Myriam François)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc8It00fRsA

• Fascists may come after the AI bubble bursts (You&AI)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2WN64aQeYQ

• What Would a Normal Person Do (Trashfuture)
  https://www.patreon.com/trashfuture/posts/what-would-do-169247456

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Latest books (permalink)

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• “Once Is Enemy Action,” a science fiction novel about the origins of modern technofascism. Today's words: 511 (19222 total).

• "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

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Five episodes into Netflix’s “A Different World” sequel, Hillman gets a bomb threat. This is a very real part of life for students at historically black colleges and universities, but that doesn’t make it any less frightening. Everyone gathers at The Pit, including Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison) and Freddie Brooks (Cree Summer) — who are Hillman faculty now  — to talk it out. One student expresses shock at being targeted at a place they chose because they thought they’d feel safe. Another wonders if it’s an inside job.

The person who best sums up the moment is Dwayne’s daughter, Deborah (Maleah Joi Moon), when she says, “It’s all so exhausting. We go to their institutions, they punish us. We try to build our own; they destroy it. We mess up, they use it against us. What is even the point of trying?”

Right now, that statement could and will be read any number of ways.

There’s the threat itself, which echoes similar ones against HBCUs in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s shooting last September. It also recalls 2022, when more than 30 HBCUs were hit with comparable incidents between January and mid-March.

Deborah could just as easily be critiquing the Trump administration’s vacillation between defunding educational opportunities for minority students, citing the DEI boogeyman, and infusing HBCUs and tribal colleges with millions in cash. Great for those higher-learning institutions, but targeting minority grant funding elsewhere ensures, particularly at the Ivies and Big 10 schools, less diverse undergraduate populations at places that weren’t racially or economically diverse in the first place.

To know “A Different World” as it was is to anticipate that this 2026 visit to Hillman, a fictional HBCU, must contend with these real-world concerns. But, returning to the episode in question, what’s just as vital is how its students deal with this crisis. When the waiting becomes almost too much, Deborah starts humming a few bars of a familiar song. More join in, and soon everybody is singing along, dropping the tension enough to relax a little.

A few breaths later, the lockdown ends. Everyone resumes their business, carrying with them the lesson of never sacrificing their spirit even while living in a state of constant vigilance.

 

 

Expecting the modern, single-camera version of “A Different World” to recapture the multi-camera original’s magic is unreasonable. Read the title, read the room. The 2026 version of “A Different World” comes to us not on a traditional broadcast network, but on a streaming service, where Norman Lear’s return to “One Day at a Time” became a loving chronicle of a Cuban American family’s life. It also adapted Justin Simien’s indie flick “Dear White People” into an in-your-face comedy revolving around the Black experience at an Ivy League college.

But that show relied on the specter of white ignorance to serve as a cultural contrast, whereas “A Different World” is, as the title promises, almost entirely centered on Blackness – and with it, Black joy.

(Eli Joshua Ade/Netflix © 2026)

To those wondering what this show has to contribute 39 years after its 1987 premiere, and following the returns of “Roseanne” and “Will & Grace,” “Full House,” and “That ‘70s Show” (reborn as “That ’90s Show“), that should be enough.

Presumably, explaining Black college life to an audience that almost elected Howard graduate Kamala Harris to our nation’s highest office — and that views her fellow alumnus Ta-Nehisi Coates as one of Black America’s representative voices — is less of a requirement these days. 

Even so, “A Different World,” being a spinoff of “The Cosby Show,” faced different backroom hurdles before its executive producer Debbie Allen got her long-sought greenlight. The holdup is precisely what you think it is. Although Allen and the original series’ head writer, Susan Fales-Hill, shaped the show into the version considered a sitcom classic, Bill Cosby’s creator credit tainted its reputation. The comedian is accused of sexually assaulting dozens of women and was convicted in 2018. That conviction was overturned in 2021 because of a non-prosecution agreement struck with a previous prosecutor. (Cosby continues to maintain his innocence.)

Now that it’s back and under the guidance of “Grey’s Anatomy” alumna Felicia Pride, I can almost guarantee there will be right-wing media commentators crowing, “Who’s they?” while trying to paint this sequel as an extra-woke version of the original.

Doing that would betray their ignorance of the show’s legacy, especially the five seasons that Allen captained. At a time when other sitcoms occasionally tackled social issues in “very special” episodes and “The Cosby Show” hewed to its namesake star’s dedication to respectability politics, “A Different World” regularly confronted harder topics.

Author and professor Brittney Cooper explains what that means in a 2013 Salon story, where she remembers Dr. Huxtable’s eldest daughter Sondra naming her adorable twins Winnie and Nelson after anti-apartheid revolutionaries Winnie and Nelson Mandela in 1988, when they were mainstream political celebrities. Two years later, Hillman student Kimberly Reese (Charnele Brown) agonized over whether to reject a scholarship funded by a company linked to South Africa’s apartheid regime, which was a political act.

None of it felt forced to anyone who sees the college experience as one of political and social awakening. But even “A Different World” hit its limits when it plunged the audience inside the Black folks’ shock and despair after the 1992 Los Angeles uprising. That decision likely led NBC to yank the plug despite its high ratings, Fales-Hill admitted to Vanity Fair. It’s easy to say that was a different time, except we know that isn’t true.

On the contrary, this return to “A Different World” simultaneously reminds us of how far TV has regressed since the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. The original’s success paved the way for a surge in shows centering Black life in America, including “Living Single,” “Moesha” and “Martin.” It also brought HBCU culture and traditions like step competitions into Middle America’s living rooms.

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Still, this generation of “A Different World” viewers needs to be spoken to in ways beyond the cultural lingua franca of online posting and situationships, which the first season does well. Deborah Wayne and Ron’s son Shaquille (Cornell Young IV) are in one of those, following in the footsteps of Dwayne and Whitley. But under the constant watch of phone cameras and gossip that travels at the speed of social media feeds, they face greater pressures.

(Daniel Delgado Jr/Netflix © 2026)

Within that on-again-off-again tension crackles an exuberance reflected in the whole ensemble, an array of determined smiles and easy joking that momentarily pushes aside those ever-present societal shadows — including the very real possibility that Hillman might close. 

But as Freddie points out to her students, that cliff has always been there. “Black learning spaces have always been seen as dangerous,” she tells her students, “not just because of what students do, but because of who you might become.” Maintaining their joy, then, is seen as both an educational priority and an act of resistance. That’s worth reviving, too.

“A Different World” is streaming on Netflix.

 

The post A homecoming for “A Different World” appeared first on Salon.com.

The state of Missouri early this year sued the Department of Commerce to force something that would have once been considered radical: That the federal government exclude certain immigrants from the population count when apportioning political power and distributing federal funds. 

Less than a year after the lawsuit was filed, however, the Census Bureau has proposed to do just that. 

On Tuesday, a judge granted Missouri’s request to dismiss the case.

A senior judge for the Eastern District of Missouri ordered the case dismissed without prejudice, meaning plaintiffs can renew their suit against the government, on Tuesday afternoon.

Missouri’s notice of dismissal came only after the Census Bureau published its controversial new rule which takes the first steps to exclude millions of immigrants from the census count by changing how the Bureau defines a person’s usual residence and by pitching a future immigration status question. But the rule is far from finalized. It must first undergo a 30-day public comment period which is sure to yield strong opposition to the rule, feedback which federal agencies have previously considered prior to finalizing a new policy. 

Nevertheless, it appears the unfinished Census Bureau rule has satisfied Missouri’s dubious legal argument that undocumented and other classifications of immigrants should not count toward a state’s population to be used for congressional apportionment or for the distribution of federal funds. The rule cites and incorporates legal arguments from Missouri’s suit.

In a statement provided to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office said it dismissed the case in light of the Census Bureau proposed rule.

“The proposed rule agrees with our understanding of the law and even cites our complaint,” Hanaway’s office told the publication in a statement. “Going forward, we will focus on assisting the Trump Administration defend what we anticipate will soon be a final rule. We will continue fighting to ensure citizens’ voices are never diluted in favor of illegal immigrant trespassers.”

In July and September, the Department of Commerce filed a motion to stay court proceedings in the case, suggesting its then-impending rule would address the plaintiff’s issues.

The Census Bureau’s latest moves represent an evolution of President Donald Trump’s unsuccessful first-term attempt to include a citizenship question on the census. Back then, the court found the administration lied about its reasons for wanting to include a citizenship question. The Trump administration maintained at that time that the question would be used to better enforce aspects of the Voting Rights Act.

This time, the mask is off. The Census Bureau in its new residence rule wrote that it found “merit in” legal argument that all immigrants except lawful permanent residents “should not be included in the apportionment count.” 

The rule would also dispense with recording race, ethnicity, and certain gender attributes. Race has been included on every census since 1790. 

Missouri filed its case in January to force the Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau to exclude undocumented immigrants and people with temporary visas from the census population count taken every 10 years. Including certain immigrants in that count, the suit argued, gave blue states with higher immigrant populations more seats in Congress and more Electoral College votes, and took away one congressional seat and an Electoral College vote Missouri would’ve otherwise received in 2020. The same harm, the suit alleged, would be perpetuated in 2030 unless the Census Bureau dramatically altered the way it counts U.S. residents by excluding a large swath of immigrants for the first time in history.

Missouri’s suit blames a 1980 policy by President Jimmy Carter which merely affirmed the historic practice of counting all residents of the country regardless of immigration status. The 1980 census sought to mitigate an undercount of these groups through intentional outreach, but not through the adjustment of any legal standard regarding the counting of all persons, as required by the 14th Amendment.

In moving to dismiss its suit even prior to the finalization of the Census Bureau’s embattled rule, attorneys for Missouri appear to expect that the rule will move forward in time for the 2030 Census.

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to TPM requests for comment. The Commerce Department, Census Bureau, and White House also did not immediately respond to TPM requests for comment.