Tag: north korea

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You may wonder whether I sometimes go a week or so (a week in this case) without publishing Pook-Emu Bee links because I lack links. Not so. I collect links every day. That makes getting back to Pook-Emu Bee all the more urgent. An out-of-control link backlog is a scary thing.

AI (or SI?) and Tech

1 | Daily News Stuff 29 September 2026 (Ambient Irony. Sep. 29, 2026.)
Incisive analysis of the “rogue” agent phenomenon in four words (“Because they are idiots.”)

2 | Heads of AI firms tell UN Security Council that it could imperil humanity (Seth Borenstein and Jennifer Peltz for AP. Sep, 23, 2026.)
I agree with Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony that this effort is embarrassing on many levels and impractical because the UN does not “have the power to regulate squat.” With that being said, I think the UN may be the perfect forum.

3 | Alabama teens getting their own version of TikTok under sweeping $100M deal (Elaine Mallon for Fox Business. Sep. 26, 2026.)
That’s great but what if we went back and considered that “no TikTok” idea again?

4 | Fwupd 2.1.8 Linux Firmware Updater Is Out Now with Support for More Devices (Marcus Nestor for 9 To 5 Linus. Sep. 24, 2026.)
I’m an Fwupd fan. I was hoping one of the devices would be my ASRock motherboard, which I just updated a couple of weeks ago. Alas. Still cool, however.

New York City News

5 | Safety advocate blames Central Park redesign for pedestrian’s death as cyclist crashes rise (Haley Brown for the New York Post. Sep. 28, 2026.)
Correct. But let us not forget the bikers who are pretending they’re riding in the Tour de France.

6 | Bay Ridge’s beloved Ragamuffin Parade turns 60, celebrating generations of community (Olivia Searman for Brooklyn Paper. Sep. 23, 2026.)
Despite having spent a good amount of time in Bay Ridge in my life, I never heard of this parade. But I nevertheless offer my congratulations.

World News

7 | Leftist South Korea Demands Ukraine Apologize After Zelensky Reveals North Korea Soldiers Shipped to Seoul (Frances Martel for Breitbart. Sep. 28, 2026.)
I personally wouldn’t stake my reputation on the reliability of either party here, but as a general point the one asking everyone for assistance in its existential defensive war should probably err on the side of caution.

8 | US Identifies and Blacklists Three More UNRWA ‘Teachers’ Who Participated in Oct 7 Terror Spree, Kidnapped and Held Israeli Hostages (Adam Kredo for The Washington Free Beacon. Sep. 28, 2026.)
If it makes these three distinguished UNRWA employees feel better, many individuals who have been publicly implicated in October 7 have suffered worse fates than loss of employment opportunities. Wait a second. That probably shouldn’t make them feel better.

Video Game Stories

9 | Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka considers Ultimate Despair Girls the pinnacle of his writing. “I will never be able to write another scenario that surpasses it” (Dorde P for Automation West. Sep. 25, 2026.)
I think I played something between 30% and 40% of Ultimate Despair Girls before losing interest and unsuccessfully including it in an Amazon trade in when I bought my Switch (UPS lost the package…). It was ok but I would have probably finished had I agreed with Mr. Kodaka’s assessment. With that being said, I do like Dangan 1-3, although I would caution against taking them too seriously.

10 | Persona 4 Revival Corrects Aika Nakamura Details, Confirms She Is Not a New Social Link (Orpheus Josha for Noisy Pixel. Sep. 24, 2026.)
I had seen the false report that P4 Revival was adding a new social link and had questions. Persona 4 Golden already tacked on two social links in Aeon and Jester to the original Persona 4. Adding yet another would have probably demanded some re-balancing. The correction to the original erroneous story thus makes sense to me.

11 | Amid “itasha” ban controversy, Forza Horizon 6 devs say moderation is handled by humans and “the number of reports does not matter” (Carlos “Zoto” Zotomayor for Automation West. Sep. 24, 2026.)
I have seen multiple stories about Forza Horizon 6 moderators allegedly banning user-created anime-style designs on in-game cards. Notably, none of the articles actually offer examples of which designs are being flagged. Thus, despite being an anime fan who is largely skeptical of games that have this much of an online component, I would reserve judgment.

Essential Minerals in Moderation

12 | Living the Low-Sodium Lifestyle (Chris O’Donnell. Sep. 24, 2026.) [HT Makoism]
Good blog post. I don’t measure sodium intake in this much detail but like the author, I seldom eat out and I check sodium on nutrition fact labels.

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We bring August to a close with one Pook-Emu Bee for the road.

A rectangular yellow street sing which says "SLOW" above a silhouette of a running boy, under which we see the text "CHILDREN AT PLAY." Photo taken in the evening against the backdrop of a brick building and window.
I photographed this Children at Play sign on Love Lane in Brooklyn Heights on August 21, 2026.

1 | Understanding And Dealing With Kim Jong-Un’s Resilience (Mario Alexis Portella for American Thinker. August 31, 2026.)
I attribute Kim Jong-un’s resiliance to his looking at everything.

2 | Israel Continues Elimination Campaign Against October 7 Perpetrators and Gaza Terror Commanders (Vijeta Uniyal for Legal Insurrection. August 29, 2026.)
There seems to be a growing correlation between having participated in October 7 and suffering an untimely demise.

3 | Calibre 9.14 Open-Source E-Book Manager Is Out with More AI Features (Marcus Nestor for 9 To 5 Linux. August 27, 2026.)
I’m not one of the people dropping Calibre because of optional AI features (some of which are relatively inoffensive, albeit not useful to me), nor am I in the business of telling people how to run their free and open source projects. With that being granted, I hope we are also working on the non-AI features.

4 | A proposal for new Netflix content rating icons (Eric Bailey. August 25, 2026.) (HT Jim Nielsen.)
I don’t use Netflix, but I see the point about its rating icons. Coincidentally, I was reminded of my article on rating scales.

5 | “I just chose words carefully.” (Marcin Wichary at Unsung. August 30, 2026.)
I never tried typesetting in monospace, but I do use monospace for most of my drafting in my markdown editor.

6 | California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law — software distributed under the GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses are exempt (Luke James for Tom’s Hardware. August 29, 2026.)
Gavin Newsom dreamed of being President of the United States. He will settle for being accidental Stallman (with hair gel).

7 | Brooklyn city councilmembers look to silence Navy Yard’s noisy raves (Joe Hong for Gothamist. August 29, 2026.)
The correct number of raves in Brooklyn Navy Yard would be 0.

8 | Read This Before You Buy That TV Streaming Stick (Brian Krebs at Krebs on Security. July 30, 2026.)
Alternatively, consider reading “this” and the not buying “that” TV streaming stick.

9 | Bronx Mother Found Not Responsible for Killing Her Two Boys Because of ‘Postpartum Psychosis’ (Lowell Cauffiel for Breitbart. August 29, 2026.)
Someone needs to check in on the Bronx. Not me, mind you. I haven’t been to the Bronx in seven years and that was maybe for a combined 15-20 minutes. I’m good.

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I failed to post daily Pook-Emu Bee links on Sunday (out) and yesterday (work). But I return to you on this fair morning of April 28, 2026, with nine links from around the world wide web.

1. Hipster NYC straphangers fear third straight summer of hell on G train: ‘Here we are again’ (Nicole Rosenthal, Sofia Pozansky, and Haley Brown for the New York Post).

I remembered having published a short post about G train upgrades and assumed that I had published it here on ECS. It turns out I published it as a “Leaf Bud” short post on NLJ all the way back in August 2023, before this site existed. We can track MTA time through my link posts.

2. Obama-Biden Iran Negotiator Says Trump Doesn’t Have Enough Experts, Bemoans ‘Genocide’ in Gaza (Ira Stoll for The Washington Free Beacon. April 28, 2026.)

How do you write an article about Wendy Sherman without noting the leading role she played in prevening North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons!? Wait. I’m getting an update…

3. “Pathetic. Keyboard Courage. Can’t Stand It” – Call Of Duty Movie Director Has A Dim View Of The Video Game Series (Damien McFerran for Time Extension. April 28, 2026.)

I never played Call of Duty and will not see the Call of Duty movie. But as an outside observer, it seems odd to choose as the director of a Call of Duty movie someone who is on record as holding the audience for said movie in contempt. For example, you would probably be unwise to hire me to direct a movie celebrating a game which makes heavy use of generative AI, right? But what do I know? I’m not a Hollywood executive.

4. Valve Confirms Steam Controller Release Date, $99 Price (Michael Larabel for Poronix. April 27, 2026.)

It looks tempting…

5. U.S. companies back Sam Altman’s World ID even as much of the world pushes back (Ananya Battacharya for Rest of World. April 27, 2026.)

The article notes three U.S. companies, at least one of which has engaged in censorship on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, and a few countries from around the world. Oversell, under-deliver. With that being said, I too will pass on the Sam Altman eye-scan thing.

6. I Stumbled Across My Boyfriend’s ChatGPT and It Ended Our Relationship (Lindsey Hall. March 31, 2026.)

This article gives you a TMI feeling when you read it. I will link it less as a recommendation and more because it gives me an opportunity to dispense life advice: Don’t ask chatbots for relationship advice.

7. A telltale AI phrase is taking over corporate comms (Molly Liebergall for Morning Brew. April 24, 2026.)

It’s not AI, but… wait… yeah it’s probably AI.

8. Ralph Sampson: Why He Can’t Be a Winner in Houston, 1986 (Bob Kuska from Way Downtown, reprinting article by Fran Blinebury froom March 1986 issue of Basketball Digest. April 24, 2026.)

Looking back at the NBA’s first, and perhaps only, 7’4″ forward.

9. Fernando Mendoza, System QB (Mike Tanner for Too Deep Zone. April 20, 2026.)

No one with any credibility ranks Mendoza in the Trevor Lawrence S-tier of recent quarterback prospects. No one but the dedicated naysayers foresee an epic bust.

This line struck me as interesting since my understanding as a distant follower of today’s NFL is that Trevor Lawrence has not yet turned into an S-tier NFL quarterback (albeit I understand he had a very nice season in 2025.)

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I am busy with work today. But today is a day ending in -day that is not Newsletter Satur-day, so I briefly set aside my business to deliver my not-yet-world-famous Pook-Emu Bee links.

1. FCC bans imports of new routers made in other countries, on national security concerns (Brad Linder for Liliputing. March 23, 2026.)

My MikroTik hAP ac3 should be supported for a long time. Maybe I will build my next router someday. See my related post from a while back on questions about TP-Link.

2. Sam Smith said MJ lied in 95′ about not returning in case of Pippen trade (John Jefferson Tam for Basketball Network. March 22, 2026.)

The possible 1995 Scottie Pippen-Shawn Kemp trade is an interesting “what if,” but I think things ended up working out decently well for the Bulls in staying put (understatement of the issue).

3. A rogue AI led to a serious security incident at Meta (Stevie Bonifield for The Verge. March 19, 2026.)

That’s a roundabout way of saying that a Meta employee caused a serious security incident at Meta.

4. Planned Tower for Duffield Street Lacks Identity, LPC Says (Anna Bradley Smith for Brownstoner. March 23, 2026.)

It could be worse. In any event, I am glad they are protecting the Duffield houses (for now, at least).

5. Former Syrian Prison Boss Convicted on Immigration Fraud, Torture Charges (Andrew R. Arthur for Center for Immigration Policy. March 23, 2026.)

But other than that…

6. Kim Jong-un’s Daughter Drives a Tank in North Korean Propaganda Images (Frances Martel for Breitbart. March 20, 2026.)

That probably makes her a general.