This hurts my brain

German authorities have thwarted a Russian intelligence operation to assassinate executives of defense companies supplying weapons to the Ukrainian military. One of the main targets was Stefan Thumann, an executive at German startup Donaustahl:

https://militarnyi.com/en/news/germany-thwarts-plot-donaustahl-executive/

(Coming the day after the drone attack on Antonovs at Leipzig, this suggests Russia is significantly ramping up attacks in Germany.)

News made for mastodon! Some Dutch #trains slowed down this week & eventually were stopped because multiple kittens & mother were walking on or too close to the tracks. Once stopped, cages were placed & the #cats have now been collected. The traindriver who called in the problem says that if no owner can be found he'd like to adopt the felines. Your translator will make sense of: https://nos.nl/artikel/2624400-treinverkeer-stilgelegd-om-poezen-van-het-spoor-te-redden-in-drenthe /cc @catsalad

Mecca Godzilla

AI tech companies have ‘hidden debt’ worth around $1.65 trillion, report claims — amount is 122% of debt reflected on the balance sheets of Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/ai-tech-companies-have-hidden-debt-worth-around-usd1-65-trillion-report-claims-amount-is-122-percent-of-debt-reflected-on-the-balance-sheets-of-alphabet-amazon-meta-microsoft-and-oracle?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Tom's Hardware @tom-s-hardware-TomsHardware

🔵 This week's Tom the Dancing Bug
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THE REPUBLICAN CIRCUS: Little Donald's Odyssey
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Brought to you by the Inner Hive, including long-time member Joshua N. and new member Tamara Rees.
🐑🥫✌️! patreon.com/rubenbolling/membership

Happy Birthday @pluralistic
May you have many more interesting trips around the Sun.

Hands off the Chaco Canyon buffer zone in New Mexico! Keep the mining companies out of the 10 mile radius. Here's the public comment form: https://eplanning.blm.gov/Project-Home/?id=D949F582-402D-F111-8341-001DD804183B

and my comment:

I was so thrilled to get this ARC of Genevieve Cogman 's A Scholar's Guide to Demonology and Other Dark Arts in the post! Thanks so much to Tor Books UK for my copy. ❤️

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/genevieve-cogman/a-scholars-guide-to-demonology-other-dark-arts/9781035073924

#bookstodon #fantasy

Artists Television Access is an incredible artist-run theater/gallery in the heart of the Mission. It's managed to stay weird and indie despite being in a gentrifying neighborhood full of high-end boutiques.

They need $15K to clear back rent — please help!

https://www.every.org/ataconnect/f/15-days-15k

Stacks — HyperCard Player for Modern MacOS
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/07/12/stacks

Stacks: “Run HyperCard stacks directly on your modern Mac. No emulator required!” https://morphing.cloud/hypercard

Tickled to be the 402nd backer 😎 on @BackerKit Crowdfunding for Blue Fire: A Jirel of Joiry Novella!

antitheism #secular

#SilentSunday

Lately I keep coming back to this song, which really seems to resonate with the times: Children of Darkness by Richard and Mimi Faríña.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gWPjWh_EwBo&ra=m

If you were born after 1985, you just have to take the word of oldies…

I used to work at the zoo and one time a gorilla died of old age.

The problem was it was the only gorilla in the zoo because the zoo wasn't very profitable. The gorilla was by far the most popular attraction and they couldn't afford to go a single day without it being there.

So the zoo owner came up to me and said, “listen, for an extra hundred bucks, do you want to just put on this gorilla costume until we can afford a new gorilla?”

“Of course,” I said, “go on then.”

Pretty quickly, I became the biggest hit in the zoo. Everyone wanted to see this human-like gorilla. After about a month, the craze started to die down, but they kept pressuring me to get people's attention again. So in a desperate attempt, I climbed over to where the lions were and started hanging off the net. Suddenly a massive crowd gathered and everyone looked terrified. I could feel my grip slipping, I couldn't hold any longer. I started screaming, “help, help.” Then I fell.

The lion rushed towards me and just as I thought it was over, he leaned over and whispered, “shut the fuck up before we both get fired.”

When you lied on your resume and still got the job.

#WritersCoffeeClub Jun 26 - Have you ever included subtle (or unsubtle!) homage? Tell us about it.

The first four Laundry Files novels are explicit homages to specific British spy thriller writers of the 1960s-1980s (Len Deighton, Ian Fleming's film franchise, Anthony Price, Peter O'Donnell). The next three tackled different fantasy sub-genres (vampires, superheroes, elves) while "Equoid" did unicorns no favours. "Saturn's Children" was an explicit homage (and send-up) of Heinlein's "Friday".