My pre-PhD work is out Current Biology! We studied... Alston’s singing mice, neotropical rodent that produces loud, human-audible 'songs' and engages in vocal turn-taking. Using thermal imaging in semi-natural arena, we probed song use across social contexts.show more

🧬 We have many foundation models or language models... for DNAs, but can we control them? We introduce Ctrl-DNA: Controllable Cell-Type-Specific Regulatory DNA Design via Constrained RL — a reinforcement learning framework for controllable cis-regulatory sequence generation. Paper: Code: 🔬What’s the challenge? Designing regulatory DNA that is both highly expressive in target cell types and inactive in others is essential for synthetic biology, gene therapy, and precision medicine. Yet, controlling these trade-offs is challenging due to sparse, sequence-level rewards and biological constraints. 🔥Why Ctrl-DNA? Ctrl-DNA fine-tunes pre-trained DNA language models using a value model free, Lagrangian-guided RL framework, enabling flexible and customizable constraint optimization. Users can define application-specific thresholds across cell types, balancing expression strength with specificity. ✅ Maximize target-cell expression ✅ Constrain off-target activity under user-defined thresholds ✅ Preserve cell-type-specific TF motif structure Benchmarked on human enhancer and promoter datasets, Ctrl-DNA consistently outperforms prior methods, achieving stronger specificity, higher fitness, and more biologically grounded sequence generation — all with direct control over regulatory trade-offs. Shoutout to the PhD students Xingyu Chen (Xingyu Chen ) and Rex Ma (Rex Ma) for their amazing work leading this project!show more

Microsoft presents Windows Agent Arena Evaluating Multi-Modal OS Agents... at Scale discuss: Large language models (LLMs) show remarkable potential to act as computer agents, enhancing human productivity and software accessibility in multi-modal tasks that require planning and reasoning. However, measuring agent performance in realistic environments remains a challenge since: (i) most benchmarks are limited to specific modalities or domains (e.g. text-only, web navigation, Q&A, coding) and (ii) full benchmark evaluations are slow (on order of magnitude of days) given the multi-step sequential nature of tasks. To address these challenges, we introduce the Windows Agent Arena: a reproducible, general environment focusing exclusively on the Windows operating system (OS) where agents can operate freely within a real Windows OS and use the same wide range of applications, tools, and web browsers available to human users when solving tasks. We adapt the OSWorld framework (Xie et al., 2024) to create 150+ diverse Windows tasks across representative domains that require agent abilities in planning, screen understanding, and tool usage. Our benchmark is scalable and can be seamlessly parallelized in Azure for a full benchmark evaluation in as little as 20 minutes. To demonstrate Windows Agent Arena's capabilities, we also introduce a new multi-modal agent, Navi. Our agent achieves a success rate of 19.5% in the Windows domain, compared to 74.5% performance of an unassisted human. Navi also demonstrates strong performance on another popular web-based benchmark, Mind2Web. We offer extensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of Navi's performance, and provide insights into the opportunities for future research in agent development and data generation using Windows Agent Arena.show more

Model-Free Reinforcement Learning (MFRL) has been alluring, especially with... supercharged compute with physics on GPU. However, the methods use 0-th order gradients, and are often not the best optimizers. Can we do better than PPO in continuous control for robotics? Turns out yes! 🥳 tl;dr: Faster, better RL than PPO in continuous control 💪 The answer lies in using more information from the simulation. We are juicing the simulation on GPU as it is, why not use it for gradients as well? This has been a driving question in a series of our works. We first studied this problem in ICLR 2022 paper on Short Horizon Actor Critic Naive gradient based methods are stuck in local minima and have exploding/vanishing gradients. SHAC solved this problem truncated rollouts and model based value estimation, where the model is Differentiable Sim. This boosted sample efficiency and wall-clock time immensely especially in high dimensional systems such as humanoids Yet, given enough compute PPO often caught up. Our follow up paper on on Adaptive Horizon Actor Critic at ICML 2024 discovers the cause and provides a fix. However, we find that even when given ground-truth dynamics, not all gradients are useful due to sample error. 1st-Order Model-Based Reinforcement Learning methods employing differentiable simulation provide gradients with reduced variance but are susceptible to bias in scenarios involving stiff dynamics, such as physical contact. We find that back-propagating through contact and long trajectories drastically reduces gradient accuracy. Using this insight, we propose AHAC to dynamically adapt its roll-out horizon to avoid differentiating through stiff contact. AHAC is a first-order model-based RL algorithm that learns high-dimensional tasks in minutes (wall clock) and outperforms PPO by 40%, even in the limit of data provided to PPO. This work is led by Ignat Georgiev alongside Krishnan Srinivasan, Jie Xu, Eric Heiden and ample assistance from warp team at NVIDIA Robotics (Miles Macklin)show more

What if you kept asking an LLM to "make... it better"? In some recent work at FAIR, we investigate how we can efficiently use RL to fine-tune LLMs to iteratively self-improve on their previous solutions at inference-time. Training for iterated self-improvement can be costly. The naive approach to training for K self-improvement steps leads to K times the number of rollout steps per episode. We introduce Exploratory Iteration (ExIt), an RL-based automatic curriculum method that bootstraps diverse training distributions of self-improvement tasks by upcycling the LLM's own responses at previous turns as the starting points for both self-improvement and *self-divergence.* In order to decide what task to train on next, the curriculum prioritizes sampling of partial turn histories that led to higher return variance in its GRPO group (a learnability score that comes for free). This automatic curriculum over the bootstrapped task space teaches the model how to perform iterated self-improvement while only ever training the model on single-step self-improvement tasks. We look at ExIt's impact in both single-turn (contest math problems) and multi-turn (BFCLv3 multi-turn tasks), as well as MLE-bench, where the LLM is run in a search scaffold to produce solutions to real Kaggle competitions. Across these eval settings, we find ExIt produces models with greater capacity for inference-time self-improvement compared to GRPO. Notably, ExIt models can self-improve on test tasks for many more steps than the typical solution depth encountered during training, including a 22% improvement in MLE-bench performance compared to GRPO.show more

NEW ALBUM “LEGENDS” OUT OCT 17! ⚠️ Pre-order 👉... Friends, it’s been a long time coming, but the wait is finally over! We’re excited to reveal that our 11th studio album “Legends” is out on October 17th! Join us as we explore the extraordinary lives of those who’ve left a lasting mark on history, from the fearless Joan of Arc and the unstoppable Napoleon Bonaparte to the cunning Julius Caesar and the legendary swordmaster, Miyamoto Musashi. You can now pre-order the album in a variety of formats including multiple vinyl editions, CD, cassette and digital, plus, if you’re quick you can get your hands on a unique Storyteller Edition if you pre-order the Earbook or Digibook. Joakim comments: “Legends have always been woven into our music, and the “Heroes” album is the perfect example of that! I’m incredibly proud of “Heroes” and everything it stands for, so “Legends” is just a natural next step. It’s like the story continues but goes way back in time. We’re excited to finally be taking our listeners on a new journey! Here’s to another chapter in Sabaton’s story!” And because we couldn’t drop this bombshell without something extra… Two brand-new songs from “Legends” are streaming NOW! ⚔️ “The Duelist” ⚡ “Lightning at the Gates” Both tracks are available to stream on all major platforms, and you can catch the lyric videos now on YouTube. Turn up the volume, spread the word and thank you for standing with us all these years. “Legends” is coming and it’s going to be epic. Secure your copy now before it’s too late!show more

i wanted to tell you how we made the... visuals for nerve-bloom i did it with Natalia Kleszczewska and Natalie Liu . Natalia Kleszczewska is a painter , she painted the creatures and the backgrounds . Natalie Liu is a computer graphics director , she shaped the digital dimension of the work . my role in it was a creative director , bringing in the singer-songwriter tradition , where emotionally precise things happen inside the structure of a song . i guided colour pallettes , textures and the environments the music happens in . to make this possible , during the process , natalia often had to paint many shapes and sizes , different textures and layers of colours . natalie then developed the visuals, designing and overseeing CGI elements , and finding ways for the digital to sit organically alongside Natalia’s world . and include my dramaturgy and creative direction. we spent 7 months talking and working together , dedicated to relish in the craft of blending hand-made visuals with digital experimentation , 3D design and commit it to physical display technology . a lot of time was spent on researching different tools and techniques to find what worked best at each stage in the song . like i’ve done before , i wanted to merge old things with tech , giving it soul & a meaning . to paint a painting is an analog craft but computer programming is craftmanship too !! and both can co-exist , .....encouraging each other to bloom even further towards a mutual world . there is a tradition in pop music for the mucisian to choose a video director . in the art world , this is called “curation” , but where we came from , it was natural that the musician would have strong opinions on what your song needed , which mood , colours , textures & storyline . today this is called “creative director” and it is something we didn’t credit ourselves with in the 90s , but i am starting to understand this better now . i don´t think of me as a visual artist . because my heart is music . everything i do comes from a sonic point of view . this is something i have called “sonic symbolism” , sound made visual , a reverse synesthesia . when you listen to a song for the first time , it is like swallowing a whale , you need to feel the whole musical sculpture in one go . the structure of a song has always been extremely important to me : what shape it is . this is part of the craft of being a singer-songwriter ........... we are tune sculpturors ....... since i am talking about the visuals for nerve bloom it is impossible to not mention the avatars in my music videos . they have replaced the storyteller with anattempt to connect to the more universal element of music , through animation, avatars , puppetry both digital and analog . for me they are marionettes in a puppet-theatre , hopefully in a similar realm as the jungian archetypes ( which we all can act out the characteristics of ...) .... i feel nerve-bloom is a natural continuation .... an animated avatar archetype singing you a song ––––– Avatars, animation and archetypes: Nerve Bloom (remix) – on display at Listasafn Íslands / National Gallery of Iceland until September 20th 2026. The production of this film was made possible with the generous support of #bottegaveneta.show more

A Bitter Reality We Must Confront This is a... painful reality that many of us—especially Hausa Muslims—must be willing to discuss honestly. As Sheikh Lawan Abubakar Triumph (may Allah preserve and protect him) rightly pointed out, the culture of begging that has become associated with the Almajiri system is not an Islamic teaching. It is a social problem that has, unfortunately, become deeply entrenched in parts of Northern Nigeria. The Sheikh observed that even in countries poorer than Nigeria, such as Sudan, Benin Republic, and Ghana, it is not uncommon to find some of our own people begging on the streets. Able-bodied men, women, and even children have come to treat begging as a means of livelihood. This is contrary to the teachings of Islam, which honour work, dignity, and self-reliance. It is also important to reject the false claim that today’s begging culture is synonymous with the noble Islamic concept of Al-Muhajir (the emigrant for the sake of Allah). They are not the same. Using religion to justify or institutionalize street begging is both historically and religiously inaccurate. A painful sight in many of our cities is seeing elderly women, before sunrise, taking young children to street corners—not to earn an honest living, but to beg. In contrast, many other elderly women, majority of other ethnicities, leave their homes at the same hour to sell bread, fry akara, hawk vegetables, or engage in other lawful work. They are teaching their grandchildren that dignity comes through effort, not dependence on handouts. This is not about ethnicity. Every community has its strengths and its weaknesses. But where begging becomes normalized & even defended in the name of culture or religion, society must pause and ask hard questions. Islam encourages productive work, condemns habitual begging without genuine necessity, and commands Muslims to preserve their honour. We should therefore invest in genuine Qur’anic education, vocational skills, entrepreneurship, and social support for the truly needy—not perpetuate a system that traps generations in dependency. If we truly love our people, we must have the courage to acknowledge this problem and work together to solve it. Reforming the Almajiri system, abolishing street begging, protecting children, empowering families, and restoring the dignity of labour are responsibilities we all share. May Allah guide us to what is right, grant dignity to our people through lawful means, and protect our children from every path that leads to dependence and humiliation. Āmīn.show more

In 2007, I designed tools that let anyone draw... on top of Google Maps. People could drop pins, draw lines and shapes, and layer their own meaning onto the world with "My Maps." But nearly 20 years later, one tiny design debate has stayed with me: how should people draw a shape? At the time, we had two options. 1. Draw mode: users click and drag to create. 2. Drop + edit: the app drops a default shape, then users resize + move it. I pushed hard for draw mode. People were tracing rivers and roads, so precision mattered. A default square dropped in the middle of Kansas wasn’t going to cut it. Decades later, this same debate is still playing out in modern tools: → Figma, Illustrator, Google Slides use draw mode → Canva, Keynote, PowerPoint use drop + edit While there clearly isn't consensus, some newer products are evolving beyond these patterns: → FigJam gracefully merges draw mode and drop + edit into one concept with its semi-transparent “ghost” objects. → Apple Photos on iPhone is a great context for drop + edit. The canvas is small and the mobile user inputs are limited. After decades of using digital drawing tools, I still bristle when a tool drops an unsolicited rectangle onto my screen. At best, it feels presumptuous. At worst, it feels lazy. When we built My Maps, we designed tools that invited users to create. We provided the means, but we let people lead. That same principle applies to every product today: understand who you’re building for and what they need, then design the simplest, most intuitive workflows — ones that let users lead. Because in the end, the best tools don’t assume what users want. They respond. Full breakdown in comments below.show more

Honestly this does touch on our philosophy. We could... very easily chase profits and charge $50 because it's entirely made in USA, the quality of the cotton and weave, the printing method, the inks we use etc. Obviously yall see others doing it for even lower quality products. Our pricing is not reflective of the product but we do it to keep it affordable and accessible and to help grow the mission of reshoring industry. A lot of people are trying to be made in USA businesses but also charge out the absolute ass trying to maintain margins and an income they'd grown accustomed to. It's an unrealistic expectation in our current economy and you're shooting the movement in the foot pricing yourself out of volume. Made in USA needs volume and cashflow. Goods need to be moving and exchanging hands, that's what drives the economy. If you're out there charging a premium people will still continue to go buy the foreign slop because it's cheaper and they don't share the values of what supporting made in USA really is. Shirts specifically if you're still using foreign shirts and cotton, they use the absolute cheapest shit they can find. (Just like wool, there's varying degrees of quality genetics that determines softness and performance). Probably the most frequent comment we get is about softness and how crazy comfortable our stuff is. That's for a reason and not by magic or accident. Our designs don't have that gross plastic stiff feel to them that flakes off and degrades quickly. That's for a reason because of how we choose to do things the hard way. We understand we care more about these things than most and for the general public they willingly buy lower quality stuff more to just support who is selling it. But I think awareness is also part of the issue because I was also one of those "it's just a shirt, who cares" people until I wore an AL shirt. They are hands down the biggest bang for the buck in this space and we have shirts lasting people years and years now for the same price you pay to fund china whether directly or indirectly. The best (and how capitalism is supposed to work) way to grow the movement is to be an educated consumer. Check tags, country of origin labels, ink and printing method. If someone is being shady or dodgy over the answers? There's your answer. And this goes for all products. We keep an active list of all kinds of made in USA products for all sorts of things that we have personally bought and used to check for quality both the product but also the business. anyway. TLDR we give up massive profits because we believe in what we're doing even tho it slows growth.show more

This is the second of two posts I’m making... about the teaching of Andy Stanley because I have a burden to warn people to be like the Bereans "examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so." (Acts 17:11). I have attached a short video clip where Stanley says we don’t know Jesus rose from the dead because the bible tells us so. He says it’s the other way around. Now how do we know Jesus bodily rose from the dead? Did any of us see it happen? No, it happened 2000 years ago. But haven’t people researched the resurrection and found all sorts of evidence consistent with Him rising from the dead. Yes, but such evidence, though powerful, and we can certainly use in our witnessing, does not ultimately prove He rose from the dead. In fact, no matter what evidence we point to in geology, biology, astronomy etc., none of this proves in an ultimate sense the bible is true. Now it is certainly true such evidence properly interpreted does confirm the bible’s history. For instance, the molecule of heredity DNA is a complex information system and language system. No one has seen matter produce information or a language from matter by natural processes. Our observations and experience show information and language have to come from an intelligence. Such evidence confirms an intelligence behind life. This certainly confirms the first verse of the bible, “In the beginning God created… .” But nonetheless, it’s not absolute proof. Think about it. We are finite beings living in the present. We don’t know everything. We don’t know how much we don’t know or do know in relation to whatever there is to know! When we try to interpret evidence of the present in relation to the past, how do we know we have all the relevant information to make the correct interpretation. Some information we don’t have could totally change our interpretation. That has certainly happened with scientists solving crimes using circumstantial evidence. When new evidence comes along, some of the interpretations change and certain people thought to be guilty were found they were innocent after-all. We need to have all the information needed. But we can’t know everything. However we have a book that claims over three thousand times to be the Word of God. This book claims that God moved people by His spirit to write His Word, what He wants revealed to us about life, the universe and history. This book, the bible, tells us that God knows everything, He is infinite in knowledge and wisdom. He has all information. “In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). If God’s Word is what it claims to be (and it is), then the infinite Creator God has revealed to us the key information we need to know to have the ability to correctly interpret this world in relation to the past, present and its purpose and meaning. “Therefore, we never stop thanking God that when you received his message from us, you didn’t think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very word of God—which, of course, it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe” (1 Thessalonians 2:13). This means if we build our thinking on God’s Word, we build a Christian worldview to enable us to look at the world through “biblical glasses” and have the ability to correctly interpret and understand it. And Genesis 1-11 is the history that is foundational to the rest of the bible and thus our worldview. So, when we start with God’s Word we learn that the God revealed to us in the bible is the One Who created all things. Now by just looking at the world, for instance at DNA, we might deduce that there’s an intelligence behind life. But we would not know who that intelligence is unless revealed to us. The bible reveals who that intelligence is, God the father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But, if we just looked at the world with all its death, suffering and disease, we could assume that the intelligence behind life must be an ogre to make such a violent disease ridden suffering world. But when we start from God’s Word, we understand there was no death or disease to start with, but these entered the world because of sin. We also find man has a problem called sin which alienated him from God. We even find in Genesis that God promised someone would come to save us from our sin and restore our relationship with God (Genesis 3:15; 3:21). We learn later on that “someone” is Jesus--the one who became flesh for us, the babe in a manger 2000 years ago. It's important to understand we can’t know anything absolutely unless an absolute authority has revealed to us what we need to know. Now Andy Stanley claims we don’t know Jesus rose from the dead because the bible tells us so, but claims it’s the other way round, that because Jesus rose from the dead, we can believe what is says about this in the bible. In reality, Andy Stanley is actually claiming he knows all information about the resurrection to know it’s true so then he can proclaim what the bible says about the resurrection is true. This is not so. And remember from the previous post, Andy Stanley accepts man’s view of evolution and millions of years as true to declare what Genesis records about creation is not all true. So why shouldn't people take the word of others who claim Jesus didn't rise from the dead to then declare the account of the resurrection in the gospels can't be true. Stanley, as a finite fallen human being with very limited knowledge, starts outside the bible to go to the bible to make pronouncements over God’s written Word. No wonder he rejects a literal Genesis. Sadly, this is the case for the majority of our church leaders and Christian academics, particularly when it comes to Genesis. Think about it. Really Stanley is acting in accord with our sin nature because of what happened in Genesis 3. Part of our sin nature concerns us wanting to be our own god. Consider Genesis 3:1 and Genesis 3:5, the temptation by the devil. Satan tempted Adam and Eve to question God’s Word, and be want to be like God to decide good and evil, truth, etc., for themselves. In actuality, the statements Andy Stanley is making about Christianity and God’s Word are reflecting this sin problem we have. He is letting his sin nature master over him in this instance instead of letting God’s Word tell us clearly what we should believe. And I would say that about all Christians who reinterpret parts of the bible (like Genesis) because of beliefs from outside the bible. Now the whole bible is actually about Jesus, from the very first verse, that Jesus is the Creator (Colossians 1:16 “For by him all things were created,”), & and he is the Savior (Revelation 5:9), to the very last verse, “He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen” (Revelation 22:20–21) God reveals all we need to know about Jesus in His Word. We know Jesus rose from the dead because the bible tells us so! We know we are sinners because the bible tells us so. We know we can be saved through faith in Christ because the bible tells us so. We know we need to repent of sin because the bible tells us so. As Christians we know we will spend eternity in Heaven because the bible tells us so. “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God” (Romans 10:17). I still remember singing the chorus as a child Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so. Yes, the bible tells me so – that’s how know who Jesus is, that He is the Creator, that he died and rose from the dead, and that He is our Savior.show more

[We are Blurr] Greetings, people of the world —... We are Blurr. We are all Blurr. We do not forgive. We do not forget. There are many theories about us, about #ReFund. Don’t let them fool you. Blurr is a symbol, like the flag a country flies. The flag is the symbol of the #ReFund. Our decentralization is our national identity. We represent the ideals of Blurr and the purpose of #ReFund. Truth, financial freedom, and the removal of censorship. Like any symbol, we affix it wherever we go, and it will live forever, for generations. Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it. We have no leaders, civilians, or soldiers. We are all one. We do what we do in the conviction of decentralization, power to the people, and to create an instrument for all of us, for all of eternity. The crypto space is in trouble. The world is in trouble. We see it every day — war, poverty, murder. Every day, we are bombarded with FUD, noise, and chaos as we sit at home safe in the knowledge that we are $RFD, secure knowing the idea, community, and contract is for us. Once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people. But what if you could be the change you want to see? I wouldn’t even register on your radar if you met me on the street. I am just another person in a sea of faces. They made you into a statistic. But that’s not the real you. That’s not who you are inside. However, behind this mask, there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask, there is an idea… and ideas are bulletproof. But in cyberspace, we are different. We have a future. We have each other. We have something real that can never be taken away. We are Blurr.eth We are ReFund We take away the face and leave only the message. Behind the cipher and ENS, we could be anyone, so we are judged by what we say and do, not who we are or what we have. We exist without nationality, skin color, or religious bias. We spend our time within a structure we created, the sum total of human experience, and the cryptosphere, spread throughout the world in ones and zeros. You will continue to see the results, not the minds behind it. We can disappear into the ether and bring community and financial freedom together. Time is the only illusion. We are all. Never a single penny was taken. Deflationary and out of circulation, decentralized, safe, and ours. The purpose isn’t solely financial gain but to show the world who you put your trust in. We are not hiding. Our contract is not hidden; the writing is on the wall. Soon, we will show the world that #Refund is the future of freedom and the people, escaping the clutches of corporate greed and the rat race we’ve come to think is normal. Words offer the means to meaning and, for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. Every day, you send yourself off into our world without a thought. You trust a faceless website with information about yourself that you wouldn’t give to your best friends. It all can be made public at any time. We take advantage of holes in this system, but we don’t sneak in and take a few details, take out loans and credit cards, or buy speed boats and cars. We are decentralized and unified. We told you how insecure the system was, and now you trust a bit less blindly. The real criminals who hack and scam the crypto market for a living live off the backs of people like you. Where there’s money, someone is looking to take advantage of it. They say that life’s a game, & then they take the board away. Your pretty empire took so long to build; now, with a snap of history’s fingers, down it goes. It is our turn now. Since mankind’s dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. Today, technology is everywhere: banks and ATMs, TVs and game consoles, streetlights and hospitals. Computers rule the modern world. Yet most people who use computers daily don’t know what they’re doing. There’s always someone who knows more than you and will most likely try and take advantage. You use a computer like it’s a toy, a pet. You feed and play with it, but it’s off to the vet the second anything goes wrong. It’s FUD. It’s your mistake. The wrong project. The wrong FURU. Just for a quick couple of bucks. This wouldn’t matter so much if it wasn’t for the fact that we are all responsible for the #ReFund community, the idea behind it, and our futures. Treat your neighbors with respect, and honor those fighting for the cause. They’re here to liberate; it is more significant than all of us. If you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain. This is #ReFund in its purest form. It is a great equalizer. A homeless person with the time and know-how at an internet cafe can have geopolitical and geo-financial influence. They can bring entire organizations, even governments, to their knees. You gave your world over to computers and then complained when the people using the computers used the medium to fight back, scam, and take advantage. It was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it’s all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us, but within that inch, we are free. Love your rage, not your cage. We are not computer hackers. We are not protesters. We are not criminals. We are your mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, next-door neighbors. We are an idea of freedom and a secure future. We are anyone and everyone who is pissed off and wants to do something about it. Blurr.eth isn’t one man. It takes thousands of community members to make it work — content creators, educators, authors, people on the street, people behind their computers. We will step up again and again. Behind our mask, there is more than just flesh. Beneath our mask, there is an idea… and ideas are bulletproof. Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain. The past can’t hurt you anymore, not unless you let it. I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one. An inch. It’s small, and it’s fragile, and it’s the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose, sell, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. > We are Blurr. > We are ReFund. > We do not Forgive. > We do not Forget. > We do not Televise. > We Educate. > We Decentralize. > We Build. EXPECT US. #Refund #DeFi #Crypto #RFD $RFDshow more

🚨 ⚡ Breaking: I’m proud to share that has... raised $82 million in Series B funding to build the first truly global #crypto #payments #network – one that makes crypto as easy, seamless, and universal to use as fiat. Most of the investments were closed with PayPal USD (#PYUSD) stablecoin. This round, led by Paradigm (Charlie Noyes & Matt Huang) with participation from Consensys.eth , QuantumLight, Yolo Investments, Evolution VC, Hike Ventures, Opportuna and AltaIR Capital, that brings our total funding to over $120 million. Regulatory clarity is taking shape, institutions are leaning in, and #stablecoins are booming. The industry has gotten everything it could have asked for – and then some. Crypto finally has its shot at mainstream adoption. The industry is ready, the technology is ready and we believe #Payments are the unlock. 💡 What is Mesh and How it solves the crypto payments challenges? Mesh is building the #network that connects #wallets, #exchanges, Payment Service Providers (PSPs), and businesses as one cohesive operating system. Users can pay with any asset they hold – BTC, ETH, SOL – while merchants settle in the hashtag#stablecoin of their choice: PYUSD, RLUSD, USDC. It’s seamless, instant, and works everywhere. Just like it should. It’s the foundational infrastructure for a #borderless, open financial system. A system where payments aren’t confined by geography, banking hours, or asset types. One network that works across #TradFi and #crypto. Our technology already powers payments, deposits, and transfers across 300+ wallets, exchanges, and platforms. We reach over 400 million users in 100+ countries. With this capital, we’re expanding globally to making crypto payments as easy as using a credit card. Thank you to everyone on the Mesh team and all of our investors and advisors for their brilliance, hard work, and inspiration. This milestone would not have been possible without their continued support and trust in our vision. We look forward to entering this next phase of growth together. And we are hiring! DM me to build the future together. #Crypto #Payments #Stablecoins #Fundraise #Meshshow more

The Sabotaging Practice of Over Supply and Sameness in... the NFT Space. The current zeitgeist of the NFT space is that the same artists are doing the same kind of work five times a year, with project after project leaving a trail of disappointment and discontent among collectors and all of us watching in disbelief as huge resources are extracted from the space over work that feels like it could be left as an "artist study." I understand that you can do what you want with your money as collectors, but we are killing the whole space with this incestuous practice. No artist is that prolific to be able to do 5 collections of 100+ pieces each every year and actually deliver innovation and some kind of creative evolution. Of course, they can pretend play that the work has something new, but there is no precedent nor proof that that has ever happened in the speed that it happens in the NFT space. Again, people are free to through away their resources on whatever they want but with this way of doing things, we more and more are going to start seeing the consequences. Oh! There are consequences? Yes. Maybe unintended, but there are. Let's see. Let's start with the loss of belief in the NFT space as somewhere where emerging artists can come and find support for their experiments. Why even bother to bring experiments, innovation, and new ways to think of art on the blockchain if the same people have all the collectors hypnotized with their magical flutes? Why even try to come to a space where taking risks and challenging the status quo (the mission of art!!!) is overlooked? This makes the NFT space a social club and not a space for art. I guess it is fine, but IMO it is a recipe for disaster. New collectors stay away because the art will slowly but surely become stale and un-challenging. Why even bother to come and see what is happening here if you can't, as a collector, see new weird and up-and-coming artists? The amount of noise emitted by the same artists doing the same art over and over, drowns out any new voices. Again. A recipe for disaster. The NFT space is becoming a space of disappointment and doubt. We think that collections going to zero one after the other, over and over, is not damaging? I feel we are kidding ourselves. Disappointment piles up, and again, the people who will hurt are the emerging artists, the new blood, the ones who are willing to risk the most and, in return, put fire in this cold space of sameness. I love this space—don't get me wrong—it has changed my life, and I believe it has a ton of potential, but things need to change for it to become a beacon of light in art. But we need to support new voices. We need to support new ideas. The challenge is huge. I hope to contribute all I can to this change. I hope more and more see how exciting it is to go out and try to discover what else is out there and move this space forward. But again, I understand the leaps of faith needed, but if there is a space that is based on that, it's the NFT space...so there is hope. We will see. 📺by Boldtronshow more

Two weeks ago, I shared one of the hardest... cases our team faced — a young father with an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, nearly 30 minutes of downtime, profound acidosis, Lactic acid 12, PH 7.0, refractory VF, and profound cardiogenic shock. Statistically, survival in these situations is rare. Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest carries mortality approaching 90%. Today, he walked into my office. Alive. Smiling. Grateful. He even walked across to personally thank my cath lab team who fought for him 💚 First and foremost, all thanks and glory to GOD 🙏 🎯 There are moments in medicine where we do everything we can — and the final outcome is not entirely ours to decide. 👉This was not the work of one person. It was a SYSTEM : • A bystander who acted • Early AED use ‼️ • An extraordinary EMS field crew • A coordinated ED, cath lab, and ICU team • The Emory ECMO team for escalating MCS support. Modern medicine saves lives in the hospital — but survival from cardiac arrest starts in the community! 🎯 With STEMIs in cardiac arrest, time is not just muscle… it is neurons. What makes this even more meaningful & inspiring is that this patient is now working to expand AED availability in his community. 👉That is how lives multiply. One survivor becomes an advocate. One saved life becomes many future chances. To our EMS teams especially — thank you for starting the chain of survival. Moments like this remind us why we do what we do. Piedmont Emory University Johnson & Johnson MedTech | Heart Recovery Heart Attack Ethiopia, Inc. (Shared with patient’s permission)show more

I graduated!!! I earned a Bachelor of Arts in... Sociology with a concentration in Psychology, summa cum laude! Five years ago, I started this journey with an eighth-grade education, and even that was from a Scientology school, where critical thinking was discouraged and the quality of instruction was subpar, to say the least. I did not get here alone. Thank you to NYU School of Professional Studies and Angie Kamath. Thank you to everyone who supported me, encouraged me, and believed in me, especially on the days I was not sure I could do this. And there were plenty of those days. To my therapist, who told me not to give up when I was told I likely would not be accepted into a prestigious program. To my tutor, without whom I likely would have given up at the harder points along the way. To all those here who have sent me loving messages on social media. And to everyone else who has cheered me on in person through the ups and the downs of it, it means more than I can put into words. It got me over this finish line of being a student again and graduating. That goal once seemed impossible. To those who have asked me, “Why this? Why now?” I pursued higher education to reclaim a piece of myself. When you come out of a high-control group like Scientology, or even a high-control family, there are parts of you that were never allowed to fully develop. Those parts include your curiosity and your ability and right to question. Education was discouraged because knowledge creates confidence in your ability to trust your own mind and navigate the world. That leads to true independence, and that would never be allowed. I wanted that back. But more than that, I needed to understand. I needed to understand how my mother could have us join Scientology when I was just eight years old, and how my family and I could be part of something like this and stay in it for so long. I needed to understand how these systems work, how they influence people, and how they take hold. Without education, access to real information, and support, people can fall into systems that work against their best interests. Some assume that because they are educated, even highly educated, they would never fall for something like this. But it turns out that is not necessarily true. What many of us are impacted by, but never quite understand, is how high-control groups operate. Many still do not understand how misinformation spreads, and how tribalism and radicalization shape what we think, what we believe, and who and what we trust. Without that awareness, none of us are immune. Today, we are seeing how these forces can influence good people and distort reality. History has shown us that this is not new; it just comes in a different form now. Social media connects us in ways we never imagined, but it also creates echo chambers that reinforce beliefs and justify behavior without question. Real critical thinking is hard when we are fed so much by algorithms designed to appeal to us. In learning and achieving this milestone in my own life, it has helped me take a good, hard look at my own beliefs and ideologies. This journey was about healing for me, but also about figuring out how to help others in whatever way I can in the future. So what is in my future? I am considering continuing my education and possibly pursuing a master’s degree, with the goal of contributing to advocacy and policies that protect people, not systems. For now, I am taking this moment in. I am proud of myself. And I am grateful. Thank you for being on this journey with me.show more

CHENGDU TRIP REPORT: First-hand observations did confirm that infrastructure... and technology advancements in China are moving at an extreme rate. What we noticed in Chengdu: 1) Big clean subways comparable to Seoul or Tokyo, 2) Ruler-level super-wide roads and highways, 3) Alipay has revolutionized buying stuff and is way easier than say the Korean cashless systems, 4) Air pollution was not really a noticeable thing, 5) Overall, things are just built smart and pragmatically for widespread use by the common people. As far as social technology, same fun and safe vibe as elsewhere across East Asia, thanks to thousands of years of Confucian social science on how to cultivate good people and harmonious society. Regarding Alipay/WeChat: This was the only truly shocking thing, as I had not read reports covering the full implications of this. It really changes everything. Now we don’t need lines, menus, verbal orders, credit cards, kiosks, account numbers, wires, or receipts. That whole annoying process just got annihilated, and this all seems to have happened since my 2018 trip to Shanghai!? For everything you just scan your phone, menus come up in your phone, select taxis destinations in your phone, all data and proof of purchases are in your phone. But, like morons, we kept walking up to counters and staring like “where is the menu,” and they are staring at us alike “why are you standing here” and we are thinking like “is this even a coffee shop?” Habits. Okay, total process change! Now just walk in and sit down, menu comes up on your phone, select items and click pay, they bring, then you walk out. With taxis, subways, busses, movies, shopping, friends, it just makes everything so much more efficient and solves many long-standing problems… honestly have not yet fully mentally processed this. Next stop, Shenzhen!show more

Wow. WOW. WOOOOOOOW. So um, that first Wildcard+Thousands stream... was... *amazing* and also... a *lot* 😅 In the end, it was *exactly* what we were hoping for - a true stress test of ALL these systems coming together for the first time. We are SO grateful for the thousands of people who showed up today to play, attend, tune-in and help us PLAYTEST all this new stuff. We can't wait to see you all again at NEXT WEEK'S EX2 EVENT! So, now let's talk about how it went... Stuff that worked: - Our community SHOWED UP. Oh boy did you show up 😅. Our servers were straining under the load... which is good actually, in fact it's the whole point. Even more importantly, we have already received insanely valuable feedback, bug reports, stuff people loved/hated - and it's only been a few hours since the stream ended. I can't even explain to y'all how valuable this process is. Yes it's stressful, it reminds me of trying to keep Words With Friends online during that first insane year, but it's EXACTLY what we were hoping for (NEED) to turn this into the polished, top-notch game and streaming experience we are on a mission to deliver. I truly can't thank y'all enough, and hope to see you again when we run it all back again next week 🥹 - The stream itself stayed up and was mostly stable! Phew 😅. For context, ThousandsTV is not a twitch wrapper, it's a web3-native streaming tech stack built we built specifically to connect game, web/mobile, and blockchain together all at the same time. There are a LOT of moving pieces going on behind the scenes. - We brought viewers INTO THE GAME! Viewers showed up in the stands of the arena, with connected wallets/assets, triggered actions/rallies from chat, and were seen and heard during the whole stream. - The brand new 2v2 build of Wildcard was (mostly) stable and our players and viewers seemed to be having a blast down on the field and up in the stands. It was thrilling to watch Team Blue dominate, even though Team Red held their own in game 3! - Our production crew did an insanely good job running the stream, managing the players, shoutcasters, and talent, and producing a top-notch show. Of course we will work hard to make every stream better than the last, but I was super proud of how our team "rolled with the punches" during today's event. Stuff that didn't work (and/or needs to be dramatically improved): - Although it's fun to see chat going crazy, chat spam is actually something we are passionate to FIX. As you can see from the attached video, chat spam dominated today's stream and made it impossible for anyone to even see anyone else's messages. We have some GREAT ideas for how to fix this and actually turn chat spam into a FUN and exciting and not annoying thing - but those improvements didn't get shipped in time for this event. - Credits purchasing flow needs a LOT of work. As I'm sure y'all know, bringing money on chain is pretty complicated, and although we've been working hard to make this as seamless as possible, it still needs a TON of improvements. Many users who WANTED to spend money today weren't able to and/or ran into frustrating bugs in the credit purchase flow. Fixing this is obviously a top priority for our team. - Rallies need a LOT of work. Spectator-interactive features like rallies are at the heart of our vision for Wildcard. These "stream apps", as we call them, are the UNLOCK for how spectators, viewers and fans directly connect and interact with their favorite competitors, content creators, and communities. The current rally feature HINTS at this potential, but it needs to be WAY easier to understand, use, and have fun with. Improvements are ON THE WAY. - Referees were only partially working. Referees are a key innovation of the Thousands platform. They are AI-driven "personalities" (NPCs) that pay attention to everything that's happening in the arena, both on the field and especially in the stands (i.e. in chat, during rallies, etc.) The referees then make "calls" at the end of every match, rewarding users for their engagement and participation. Unfortunately, the referees weren't fully functional and seemed to drop the ball on recognizing everyone's contributions (especially people who showed up holding valuable assets such as Wildpasses in their wallets, and people who boosted those rallies with credits.) What's happening next: 1. We are combing through ALL the logs from the event right now, to make sure we don't miss a SINGLE action that our viewers and fans took during the event, including what they brought in their wallets (i.e. Wildpass holders!), any credits that were purchased, rallies that users engaged with, etc. This information is normally processed by our referees, who then determine dynamically how they're going to distribute $WC awards. We were originally hoping to complete this process and the subsequent airdrops within a few hours after the event, but given the amount of data, we need a bit more time to run these scripts (and airdrops) in batches instead of all at once, and make sure ALL of the data is being included. IMPORTANT: I will keep y'all updated in real-time here on twitter/X as this process is ongoing, and let you know the moment it's complete and all the awards have been distributed (i.e. when to go check your wallets 😎) 2. PLEASE keep sending us your feedback and bug reports. Open a ticket on our Discord and let us know what you loved, what you hated, and especially what we need to FIX. Given the overwhelming response to this event, it will likely take us several days to process everyone's feedback and fix all the bugs, but we WILL NOT REST until every ticket is closed/resolved. Thank you in advance for your patience. 3. We turn it up another notch next week. As our dear friends Wolves DAO just announced, the Wildcard Exhibition Event #2 is streaming LIVE from the WOLVES DEN AT GDC next Friday! If you missed out on all the action today, DON'T WORRY, because as I keep saying: we are just getting warmed up (and there is a LOT more b that needs to be distributed, get what I'm sayin??? 😎) Finally: Just wanted to say THANK YOU, again. Truly, from the bottom of my (our) hearts. Your excitement and enthusiasm for what we're building is why we do this. Even (especially, in fact) when you tell us all the things you want us to improve. We thrive off this feedback, it's how this game and this platform go from good to GREAT. I am so grateful for those of you who are taking this journey with us. SEE YA NEXT WEEK!!!show more

📛13th December Next Mass Non-Compliance Protest Against Digital ID:... NEXT LEVEL! AMPLIFIED! 📛 📣We are sending a clear, uncompromising message on 13th December in London... and the world will be watching! 📽This is not theatre; it is a global broadcast! People will only grasp the true danger of digital ID if they know who the architects are, what it really means, and the agenda behind it. 🚨Our purpose is simple: We pull back the curtain. We expose. We educate. We empower. We win. To do that we need voices who know the truth, hard-hitting media, speakers who will cut through the noise, and a message so unmissable - livestreamed around the world! 👥We will have speakers from across the political and social spectrum; voices from all walks of life, including podcasters, writers and recognised names. Let us lay aside differences, discard the divisive labels and stand as one united front against digital ID! 🪧We will march. We will protest. We will stand united against what is the single tool (being rolled out across the world) for total tyrannical control. 🙋🏻‍♀️I am the organiser and fundraising to achieve our purpose. The fundraiser is live here 💷Our target is £10,000 to cover a 46 sqm mobile LED screen and stage, plus sound, barriers and internet/tech and team required to stream globally. As well as our extra-large banner and printed leaflets (thanks to your donations so far!), we want to produce hundreds of placards to hand out for people to carry, and print thousands of leaflets. Every donation will be used to amplify our collective message. I have also been attending actions across the UK, spreading our message wherever I can. 📝All invoices are published on the website, full transparency at every step. No luxury hotels. No fancy hospitality. No speaker fees. Every penny goes on equipment for the protest and campaign - by the people, for the people. 🙌🏻This is a clip from January 2023 outside the BBC showing the exact screen we intend to hire. Help us hit the target. Please buy a coffee. Share the campaign and turn up on 13th December! ✊🏼We don’t have long. Be part of this. Be seen. Be heard! **On a personal note; I work unpaid, committing long hours while studying law full-time and living frugally. I take no salary; every donation goes straight to the cause. I do this for freedom and for humanity. Please stand with us.**show more

•This photo was taken last night directly in front... of Burj Khalifa. •The video was taken on Saturday in Abu Dhabi with my friends and children (Europeans and Arabs). This is not a defense of the UAE simply because I live here. Rather, I speak as a Lebanese political activist who was subjected to political detention in Lebanon by a direct decision of Hezbollah. I chose the UAE and the Gulf countries as a place of safety and freedom of speech (that I still deliver it on my social media till today ) for the time being, instead of Europe ( despite receiving offers of political asylum from more than five countries within the European Union and Scandinavia) which I travel only for vacation and despite my deep appreciation for Europe, as well as for the human rights advocates and politicians who supported my case there. However, I will not accept any manipulation of the “image of a country” where I live by my own choice, with my own means and work (especially as an activist who returned from my country, Lebanon, under war conditions less than a week ago) I will not tolerate media distortion when the reality is : security, discipline, and the continuity of peaceful life. Under an air defense umbrella that has intercepted more than 1,000 attacks, every sound in the sky reassures me that I am safe that I, my family, and an entire region stretching across the Gulf, the Levant, and the Eastern Mediterranean, are being protected amid ongoing threats. The Gulf is safe. The UAE is safe. Dubai is safe. I am safe( along with four children, my sisters, and their children who came from Australia) We all chose to spend the Eid holiday in Dubai.show more