Laundry day doesn’t always have to be a major chore. With a few simple tweaks to your routine, you can transform a tedious activity into a satisfying ritual. The best part: Once you start doing your laundry correctly, you’ll likely do a lot less of it. Here’s how to get it right.

Trump just kicked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy out of the White House after berating him for being “disrespectful” in the Oval Office.

The astonishing turn of events could scramble international affairs in Europe and around the globe. During his visit with Trump, Zelenskyy had planned to sign the deal allowing the U.S. greater access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, then hold a joint news conference.

Instead, Ukraine’s leader left the White House shortly after Trump shouted at him, showing open disdain. Untouched salad plates and other lunch items were being packed up outside the Cabinet room, where the lunch between Trump and Zelenskyy and their delegations was supposed to have taken place.

The White House said the Ukraine delegation was told to leave.

“You’re gambling with World War III, and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country that’s backed you far more than a lot of people say they should have,” Trump told Zelenskky.

My god, Trump and Vance are just total fucking assholes. The US is openly aligning themselves with Russia against Ukraine and Europe, a major shift in international relations that dates back to the 1940s. I am so embarrassed to be an American right now.

Update: The NY Times has some key excerpts from the meeting in the White House.

Vance: And do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?

Zelensky: A lot of questions. Let’s start from the beginning.

Vance: Sure.

Zelensky: First of all, during the war, everybody has problems, even you. But you have nice ocean and don’t feel now, but you will feel it in the future.

Trump: You don’t know that.

Zelensky: God bless, you will not have a war.

Trump: Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel.

Zelensky: I’m not telling you.

Trump: Because you’re in no position to dictate that. Remember this: You’re in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel. We’re going to feel very good.

Zelenskyy’s English is obviously not super strong but Trump sounds like a 4-year-old in full “you’re not the boss of me” mode here. So glad he has control of America’s armed forces and nuclear arsenal!

Tags: Donald Trump · JD Vance · politics · Russia · Ukraine · USA · Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Speaking of Timothy Snyder, Literary Hub published the first chapter (the one on not obeying in advance) of his 2017 book On Tyranny. It begins:

Do not obey in advance.

Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy. Perhaps rulers did not initially know that citizens were willing to compromise this value or that principle. Perhaps a new regime did not at first have the direct means of influencing citizens one way or another. After the German elections of 1932, which permitted Adolf Hitler to form a government, or the Czechoslovak elections of 1946, where communists were victorious, the next crucial step was anticipatory obedience. Because enough people in both cases voluntarily extended their services to the new leaders, Nazis and communists alike realized that they could move quickly toward a full regime change. The first heedless acts of conformity could not then be reversed.

It’s also worth reading the original list posted by Snyder in November 2016 that became the basis of On Tyranny: Fighting Authoritarianism: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century.

10. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.

11. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.

12. Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

13. Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.

Tags: books · On Tyranny · politics · Timothy Snyder · USA

Bluesky deleted a viral, AI-generated protest video in which Donald Trump is sucking on Elon Musk’s toes because its moderators said it was “non-consensual explicit material.” The video was broadcast on televisions inside the office Housing and Urban Development earlier this week, and quickly went viral on Bluesky and Twitter. 

Independent journalist Marisa Kabas obtained a video from a government employee and posted it on Bluesky, where it went viral. Tuesday night, Bluesky moderators deleted the video because they said it was “non-consensual explicit material.” 

“A Bluesky account you control (@marisakabas.bsky.social) posted content or shared a link that contains non-consensual explicit material, which is in violation of our Community Guidelines. As a result of this violation, we have taken down your post,” an email Kabas received from Bluesky moderation reads. “We trust that you will understand the necessity of these measures and the gravity of the situation. Bluesky explicitly prohibits the sharing of non-consensual sexual media. You cannot use Bluesky to break the law or cause harm to others. All users must be treated with respect.” 

Kabas is challenging the deletion. 

“Hello—the post you have taken down was a video broadcast inside a government building to protest a fascist regime,” Kabas wrote in an email back to Bluesky seen by 404 Media. “It is in the public interest and it is legitimate news. Taking it down is an attempt to bury the story and an alarming form of censorship. I love this platform but I’m shocked by this decision. I ask you to reconsider it.” 

Other Bluesky users said that versions of the video they uploaded were also deleted, though it is still possible to find the video on the platform. 

Technically speaking, the AI video of Trump sucking Musk’s toes, which had the words “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING” shown on top of it, is a nonconsensual AI-generated video, because Trump and Musk did not agree to it. But social media platform content moderation policies have always had carve outs that allow for the criticism of powerful people, especially the world’s richest man and the literal president of the United States. 

For example, we once obtained Facebook’s internal rules about sexual content for content moderators, which included broad carveouts to allow for sexual content that criticized public figures and politicians. The First Amendment, which does not apply to social media companies but is relevant considering that Bluesky told Kabas she could not use the platform to “break the law,” has essentially unlimited protection for criticizing public figures in the way this video is doing. 

More importantly, the video Kabas posted was not a video Kabas made herself or that was totally devoid of context. As Kabas notes in her email back to Bluesky, the video was being played on television screens within a federal government office building, an obvious act of protest that she was reporting on, and an obviously newsworthy video when considering the context that the federal government is currently being gutted by these two men. (For what it's worth, Kabas has been doing some of the best reporting on Musk's dismantling of the federal government on her website The Handbasket.)

Content moderation has been one of Bluesky’s growing pains over the last few months. The platform has millions of users but only a few dozen employees, meaning that perfect content moderation is impossible, and a lot of it necessarily needs to be automated. This is going to lead to mistakes. But the video Kabas posted was one of the most popular posts on the platform earlier this week and resulted in a national conversation about the protest. Deleting it—whether accidentally or because its moderation rules are so strict as to not allow for this type of reporting on a protest against the President of the United States—is a problem.

Bluesky did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Roughly 10 months after it was released, the Humane AI Pin, a terribly executed and terrible product is now officially a $700 brick of e-waste after the company sold its software to HP and told its dozens of customers that they are now out of luck. 

Every Humane AI Pin ever created will stop functioning at the end of the month. Well, that is not exactly correct. As Engadget has pointed out, Humane told customers that nearly every function of the AI pin will stop working on February 28, but that true diehards can continue to access “offline” features, which primarily seems to be checking whether the battery is charged or not: “After February 28, 2025, AI Pin will still allow for offline features like battery level, etc., but will not include any function that requires cloud connectivity like voice interactions, AI responses, and Center access.” Humane went on to say that “We encourage you to recycle your AI Pin through an e-waste recycling program.”

We Can, and We Must, Clown on the Humane AI Pin Forever

The Humane Ai Pin joins a rich tradition of terrible tech products that includes the Juicero, Coolest Cooler, and Magic Leap that we must remember forever.

404 MediaJason Koebler

If you are not familiar, the AI Pin is a $700 piece of junk that was supposed to be an “AI assistant” but instead barely worked, was perhaps a fire hazard, and whose main functionality was triggering fragile venture capitalists on Twitter who self-immolated when the reviews were understandably very bad.

There is very little to say about the Humane AI pin right now other than they are very lucky that the vast majority of tech journalists in the United States are too busy writing about the Elon Musk-led ransacking of the federal government to dunk on this company in the way it truly deserves (we are also doing this but need a break for five minutes). 

The company and the tech was wildly hyped, wasted gazillions of dollars (it raised $240 million in funding), made something terrible, existed for less than a year, and are now hazardous e-waste that is a huge pain in the ass to safely dispose of. The saving grace of all of this is that Humane sold so few devices (roughly 10,000) that the number of consumers who are affected is relatively low as these things go and therefore, there are fewer of them that need to be recycled. 

The Humane AI Pin is the latest in a long line of internet of things devices that cost a lot and then became e-waste when the company decided to stop supporting it or went out of business.

On recycling: I have been to electronics recycling centers, and small wearables like this are labor intensive to recycle because they have small, difficult-to-remove batteries. An iFixit teardown wondered whether Humane pin was one of the “worst devices ever,” and stated that both the Humane AI pin and the Rabbit R1, another AI wearable, “have batteries that are a pain to remove, hidden behind thoroughly glued-down panels,” and that “making the battery so difficult to reach is perplexing at best.”

Anyways, we must never forget the Humane AI Pin. Good job everyone.