Lover of Men is an upcoming documentary film directed by Shaun Peterson and written by Grace Leeson which explores the age-old question: was Abe Lincoln gay? Specifically, the movie examines Lincoln's relationship with four different men, with whom Lincoln shared clothes, sleeping arrangements, and deep emotional connections:
David Derickson, Lincoln's Civil War-era bodyguard often stayed in his tent and wore his clothes
Joshua Speed, Lincoln's former roommate and close friend, whose many correspondences were described by one historian as having a "streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets";
Billy Greene, another roommate from Lincoln's 20s who factually slept in the same bed with him and whose thighs Lincoln once described in writing as "as perfect as a human being could be";
and Elmer Ellsworth, an army officer and close friend of Lincoln.
Friday Night Videos was a weekly dose of music videos for those without cable and, therefore, no MTV. I hadn't thought about it in years until this episode from 1984, complete with commercials, popped up on YouTube. It is pure 80s nostalgia with Tracey Ullman, who I honestly forgot had a music career, Rockwell, whose Somebody's Watching Me video still creeps me out, a "brand new video by John Cougar Mellencamp," and a talking head of Freddie Mercury smoking like a chimney in an intro to the Radio Gaga video. — Read the rest
It’s summer and the mosquitos are biting you everywhere. I know that you are hating it. You wouldn’t have clicked on this link if you were enjoying the pain.
It’s time we did something about it. Here are the top ways to bite a mosquito back! It’s time for humanity to ...
So World of Warships is crossing over with Blue Archive. Why? What’s the connection between a mobile strategy gacha game and a naval battle game? Who knows. That isn’t important. This is the world we live in, wherein World of Warships will cross over with every possible other property as often as reasonably possible, and […]
Last year was a major milestone for Final Fantasy XIV, as it marked the 10-year anniversary for the relaunched game. So what do you do for the next year? Well, it should be obvious: You hold the 11-year anniversary event. And that’s just what the game is doing when the newest incarnation of The Rising […]
The first season of content for The First Descendant arrives soon, and it brings with it a new form of dungeon that’s sure to delight speedrunners in the form of Invasion dungeons. Hard-difficulty operations will offer players the choice of entering the “Invasion” form of the operation, which are all about clearing out enemies as […]
Item sets in The Elder Scrolls Online are pretty important if you want to reach your maximum potential in the game, but the creation of these sets is a closely guarded secret. While one might think that posting an in-house interview with combat designer Nadav Pechthold would shine a light on these secrets, it cleverly […]
Final Fantasy XIV does not let me just have a normal horse mount. You can get elemental ponies from the old Extreme trials, there are special achievement horses, there are a couple of cash shop options, and so on. But just having a normal horse to ride is basically impossible, which becomes really weird when […]
A maze of brackish and freshwater ponds covers Taiwan’s coastal plain, supporting aquaculture operations that produce roughly NT $30 billion (US $920 million) worth of seafood every year. Taiwan’s government is hoping that the more than 400 square kilometers of fishponds can simultaneously produce a second harvest: solar power.
What is aquavoltaics?
That’s the impetus behind the new 42.9-megawatt aquavoltaics facility in the southern city of Tainan. To build it, Taipei-based Hongde Renewable Energy bought 57.6 hectares of abandoned land in Tainan’s fishpond-rich Qigu district, created earthen berms to delineate the two dozen ponds, and installed solar panels along the berms and over six reservoir ponds.
Tony Chang, general manager of the Hongde subsidiary Star Aquaculture, says 18 of the ponds are stocked with mullet (prized for their roe) and shrimp, while milkfish help clean the water in the reservoir ponds. In 2023, the first full year of operation, Chang says his team harvested over 100,000 kilograms of seafood. This August, they began stocking a cavernous indoor facility, also festooned with photovoltaics, to cultivate white-legged shrimp.
A number of other countries have been experimenting with aquavoltaics, including China, Chile, Bangladesh, and Norway, extending the concept to large solar arrays floating on rivers and bays. But nowhere else is the pairing of aquaculture and solar power seen as so crucial to the economy. Taiwan is striving to massively expand renewable generation to sustain its semiconductor fabs, and solar is expected to play a large role. But on this densely populated island—slightly larger than Maryland, smaller than the Netherlands—there’s not a lot of open space to install solar panels. The fishponds are hard to ignore. By the end of 2025, the government is looking to install 4.4 gigawatts of aquavoltaics to help meet its goal of 20 GW of solar generation.
Is Taiwan’s aquavoltaics plan unrealistic?
Meanwhile, though, solar developers are struggling to deliver on Taiwan’s ambitious goals, even as some projections suggest Taiwan will need over eight times more solar by 2050. And aquavoltaics in particular have come under scrutiny from environmental groups. In 2020, for example, reporter Cai Jiashan visited 100 solar plants built on agricultural land, including fishponds, and found dozens of cases where solar developers built more solar capacity than the law intended, or secured permits based on promises of continued farming that weren’t kept.
Star Aquaculture grows milkfish to help clean water for its breeding ponds.HDRenewables
On 7 July 2020, Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture responded by restricting solar development on farmland, in what the solar industry called the “Double-Seven Incident.” Many aquavoltaic projects were canceled while others were delayed. The latter included a 10-MW facility in Tainan that Google had announced to great fanfare in 2019 as its first renewable-energy investment in Asia, to supply power for the company’s Taiwan data centers. The array finally started up in 2023, three years behind schedule.
Critics of Taiwan’s renewed aquavoltaic plans thus see the government’s goal as unrealistic. Yuping Chen, executive director of the Taiwan Environment and Planning Association, a Taipei-based nonprofit dedicated to resolving conflicts between solar energy and agriculture, says of aquavoltaics, “It is claimed to be crucial by the government, but it’s impossible to realize.”
How aquavoltaics could revive fishing, boost revenue
Solar developers and government officials who endorse aquavoltaics argue that such projects could revive the island’s traditional fishing community. Taiwan’s fishing villages are aging and shrinking as younger people take city jobs. Climate change has also taken a toll. Severe storms damage fishpond embankments, while extreme heat and rainfall stress the fish.
4.4
Gigawatts of aquavoltaics that Taiwan wants to install by the end of 2025
Solar development could help reverse these trends. Several recent studies examiningfishpondsin Taiwan found that adding solar improves profitability, providing an opportunity to reinvigorate communities if agrivoltaic investors share their returns. Alan Wu, deputy director of the Green Energy Initiative at Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute, says the Hsinchu-based lab has opened a research station in Tainan to connect solar and aquaculture firms. ITRI is helping aquavoltaics facilities boost their revenues by figuring out how they can raise “species of high economic value that are normally more difficult to raise,” Wu says.
Such high-value products include the 27,000 pieces of sun-dried mullet roe that Hongde Renewable Energy’s Tainan site produced last year. The new indoor facility, meanwhile, should boost yields of the relatively pricey whiteleg shrimp. Chang expects the indoor harvests to fetch $500,000 to $600,000 annually, compared to $800,000 to $900,000 from the larger outdoor ponds.
The solar roof over the 100,000-liter indoor growth tanks protects the 2.7 million shrimp against weather and bird droppings. Chang says a patent-pending drain mechanically removes waste from each tank, and also sucks out the shrimp when they’re ready for harvest.
Land that Star Aquaculture set aside for wildlife now attracts endangered birds like the black-faced spoonbill [left] and the oriental stork [right].iStock (2)
The company has also set aside 9 percent of the site for wildlife, in response to concerns from conservationists. “Egrets, endangered oriental storks, and black-faced spoonbills continue to use the site,” Chang says. “If it was all covered with PV, it could impact their habitat.”
Such measures may not satisfy environmentalists, though. In a review published last month, researchers at Fudan University in Shanghai and two Chinese power firms concluded that China’s floating aquavoltaic installations—some of which already span 5 square kilometers—will “inevitably” alter the marine environment.
Aquavoltaic facilities that are entirely indoors may be an even harder sell as they scale up. Toshiba is backing such a plant in Tainan, to generate 120 MW for an unspecified “semiconductor manufacturer,” with plans for a 360-MW expansion. The resulting buildings could exclude wildlife from 5 square kilometers of habitat. Indoor projects could compensate by protecting land elsewhere. But, as Chen of the Taiwan Environment and Planning Association notes, developers of such sites may not take such measures unless they’re required by law to do so.
Enlarge/ We have doubts that any amount of Force powers will bring the show back. (credit: YouTube/Disney+)
In news that will delight some and disappoint others, Disney has canceled Star Wars series The Acolyte after just one season, Deadline Hollywood reports. The eight-episode series got off to a fairly strong start, with mostly positive reviews and solid ratings, albeit lower than prior Star Wars series. But it couldn't maintain and build upon that early momentum, and given the production costs, it's not especially surprising that Disney pulled the plug.
The Acolyte arguably wrapped up its major narrative arc pretty neatly in the season finale, but it also took pains to set the stage for a possible sophomore season. In this streaming age, no series is ever guaranteed renewal. Still, it would have been nice to see what showrunner Leslye Headland had planned; when given the chance, many shows hit their stride on those second-season outings.
(Spoilers for the series below. We'll give you another heads-up when we get to major spoilers.)
Pikachu might be the main mascot of Pokémon, but it just got one-upped at the 2024 Pokémon World Championships. And it’s all because a very special Pachirisu captured the hearts of spectators both near and far when it emerged from its Poké Ball.
Players and fans alike gathered for the 2024 Pokémon World Championships in Honolulu, Hawaii, over the weekend. The tournament hosted competitions for several games, including the Pokémon Trading Card Game and the most recent generation of video games, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. While this meant spectators got to see newer additions to the Pokédex, like some of the powerful Paradox Pokémon, the real showstopper was a Pachirisu that belonged to Sejun Park, the 2014 world champion in the video game Masters Division.
To understand the hype around Park and his Pachirisu, it’s helpful to run down a brief history of their roles in the competitive Pokémon scene. Prior to his win in 2014, Park regularly placed at the top of the global player rankings, but never won. Then, in 2014, he ran a creative team centered around Mega Gyarados and Pachirisu. Because of the success of his team, and the fact that his Pachirisu stood out in a sea of similar but more competitive options, his Pachirisu took on a legendary status within the Pokémon community. Today, a video from the Official Pokémon YouTube channel describes his win as “arguably the most iconic moment in competitive history.”
On Friday, 10 years after his big win, Park decided to bring Pachirisu back again, and onlookers could not have been more thrilled. A recording from the Worlds stream shows the moment when Park sent out Pachirisu and you can hear the crowd roar. Pachirisu had the title “the Chosen One,” and fans watched as the little guy tanked an attack with a critical hit from Aaron Zheng’s Chien-Pao.
I really don't wanna start this conversation right now but people that are like "win with my favourites?? my favourites are calyrex and landorus 🤪🤪" looking a bit silly after the crowd ROARED when Pachirisu showed on screen. pic.twitter.com/4161cBkNTb
Online, people on X hailed the return of “King Pachirisu” and shared clips and art featuring the adorable Pokémon. One tweet, with almost 16,000 likes, showed an image of Park’s lineup and said, “HE BROUGHT BACK PACHIRISU NOOOO WAY?!?!”
Unfortunately, Park’s strategy didn’t work as well this time. Park went up against Zheng and lost two games in a row — and, later that day, his spot in the tournament. Still, I have to give him respect for being loyal to Pachirisu. At the end of it all, he shared a celebratory tweet with side-by-side images from his win in 2014 and the 2024 competition. While it’s been 10 years since Park’s Worlds win, it warmed my heart to see his plushie pal Pachirisu is still by his side.
Earlier this month, Amazon announced that it had ordered an animated series full of shorts based on video games like Spelunky and Mega Man, called Secret Level. Now we’ve gotten our first look at the teaser trailer for the series, and it certainly looks like there’s a short based on Armored Core, the FromSoftware mech…
Don’t Nod, the studio behind the original Life is Strange and its (stellar) numbered sequel, has an earnest quality to its writing that still gets me, almost 10 years after Max Caulfield first strode down the halls of Blackwell Academy. So even when Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, the next game from the studio set to…
The Acolyte wasn’t perfect, but it did break new narrative ground in Star Wars, a franchise often haunted by Force ghosts and endlessly recurring characters. Led by Leslye Headland, the Disney+ series dared to reevaluate decades-old tropes, unpack the flaws of the Jedi Order, and play with the space sandbox setting in…
Star Wars: The Acolyte was a divisive, uneven, and daring stab at a different type of Jedi story. But decent reviews and an average viewership apparently wasn’t enough to convince Disney to invest in its future. The streaming platform is canceling Acolyte after just one season.
James Gunn’s reboot of the DCU doesn’t start until Superman arrives in 2025, but he said the movie is already done filming to give the teams involved as much time as possible to perfect its finished look, and especially the quality of its VFX. The director’s comments were in response to growing concerns about terrible…
The Catwoman movie turned 20 years old recently and its star, Halle Berry, has been celebrating the critically panned superhero flick’s anniversary. In fact, she’s said she’s even down to return to the role and make another one, but this time she’d want to lead the film behind the camera, too.
You might not have to wait long to see what’s going on with the much-pilloried Borderlands movie starring Cate Blanchett and Kevin Hart for yourself from the comfort of your own couch. The box office bomb is reportedly coming to streaming as early as late August, after less than a month in theaters.
Karen Fukuhara, best known for her starring role as the silent assassin Kimiko in Amazon Prime superhero series The Boys, isn’t just a great actor. She’s also a talented voiceover artist (she’s provided voices for The Boy and the Heron, Callisto Protocol, Pokemon Concierge, and Star Wars: Visions) and an accomplished…
This month, the latest entry in the long-running Alien sci-fi franchise hits theaters. Alien: Romulus, starring Cailee Spaney (Civil War) and Isabela Merced (Madame Web) from noted horror director Fede Álvarez, debuts August 14, and from the trailers and early reactions, it looks like a fantastic entry in the…
The Deadman Armageddon event has ended in Old School RuneScape once again, and that means it’s time to announce the winners, right? Well… no. That means it’s time for the people behind the event to take a look at the event results. Of course, the developers are thrilled to see how many people took part […]
Giving up on things is usually presented as a direct negative, and for understandable reasons. We don’t like to think of giving up on our goals. But sometimes when it comes to MMOs we realize that, for example, we’re spending hours of our time to accomplish something we don’t actually care about for no actual […]
It’s only a couple of weeks until Gamescom 2024 kicks off, and Final Fantasy XIV is getting quite a presence there. Obviously it will not be a preview of what’s coming in Dawntrail because the expansion is already out, but it will include a trial battle against Valigarmanda as well as a chance to play […]
A guest who appeared on the No Jumper podcast to boast about a hack and payback scheme involving his victims’ social media accounts could face federal charges. Idriss Qibaa, also known as “Dani” and “Unlocked” who authorities allege ran the social media hacking site Unlocked4Life.com, faces two criminal felony counts filed by the US Attorney's Office in Nevada for allegedly violating interstate communications laws for threats he issued in text messages to two victims and members of their families, according to documents obtained by 404 Media.
Investigators filed the sealed complaint against Qibaa on July 25 and issued a warrant the following Monday when also made his first initial appearance in court, according to federal court records.
The criminal complaint states that the FBI received a tip about Qibaa’s alleged extortion scheme on April 1 pointing to an appearance he made on the No Jumper podcast hosted by Adam22, also known as Adam Grandmaison, back in January under his pseudonym “Dani.” Qibaa outlined a financial scheme using over 200 victims’ social media accounts in which he would lock them out of their pages and charge them to regain access.
He also boasted that he made about $600,000 a month from his activities and hired two security guards to follow him.
“You’re making $2 million a month off your Instagram and Telegraph,” Qibaa says on the podcast. “I come and I take it away and make you pay for it back and I make it public and I post it and I expose you.”
Qibaa even said on the podcast episode that he pulled the scheme on celebrities who unknowingly kept paying him to get their social media back. He later noted “I’m very petty” followed by a menacing laugh.
“I’ve talked to stars who have told me that they’ve paid to get it back 20 times over and over and over they just have to keep paying to get it back,” Qibaa says, “and I’m like you realize what’s happening to you right like the same that’s getting you it back is…you’re getting extorted.”
The criminal complaint tells the story of eight victims’ encounters with Qibaa and his services. One identified as “J.T.” operated two Instagram accounts: a cannabis news aggregate account called “theblacklistxyz” and a cannabis merchandising store under “caliplug,” both of which are currently set to private. J.T. reached out to Qibaa asking if he could obtain a username. Qibaa quoted a price back between $4,000-$5,000. J.T. refused to take Qibaa up on the offer and Qibaa responded with threats.
“Qibba told J.T. that J.T. had wasted Qibaa’s time, blocked J.T.’s Instagram pages and demanded $10,000 to reinstate it,” the complaint reads. “J.T. offered Qibaa $8,500 to reinstate the account, an offer Qibaa accepted.”
The complaint asserts that Qibba reached out to J.T. two more times. The first time, Qibba asked if J.T. would promote his Instagram page under the username “unlocked4life” that’s since been taken down. J.T. agreed but when he learned Qibaa had been threatening and extorting other victims, he confronted Qibaa and “Qibaa was irate.”
A few months later, Qibaa apparently increased the scope of his threats to J.T. and members of his family. He sent threats to call the victim’s ex-wife’s lawyer and child protective services on his kids. Screenshots of the victims’ phone show Qibaa allegedly identifying the address and phone number of the victim’s sister. He texted another family member and introduced himself as “The guy that’s gonna murder your drug dealer brother. Tell him Unlocked says hi though. We have your entire family’s info.”
Another victim identified as a journalist and comedian with the initials “E.H.” learned they were a target of Qibaa’s illegal services. Qibaa blocked their Instagram account, the name of which was redacted, at the request of a dentist in California who treated them. E.H. reached out to the Unlocked4Life account and received a reply that read, “Yo its Idriss.” He then told E.H. to pull up the No Jumper podcast episode featuring his interview. Qibaa not only took the victim’s Instagram account access away but also threatened to take their Social Security number and “blast it out” if they didn’t pay him $20,000.
According to the complaint, not even restraining orders could make Qibaa leave his victims alone. One named “R.B.” received a restraining order from Los Angeles County Superior Court in July but “Unblocked” responded, “Cute restraining order..last I checked you’re still gonna die.” Then “UNLOCKED UNCENSORED” posted on Telegram, “$50,000 reward for whoever sleeps BO this week.”
Perhaps the most disturbing threats happened to several victims in which Qibaa claimed he’d happily go to jail if payments weren’t made to him. Screenshots of the text chains show a person named “Dani” and “Daniel” telling his victims, “I will come and shoot you myself,” “I’m going to bury you for this shit” and “D., L., J., T., Children-Main Targets” referring to the victims’ children.
Another text chain shows Qibaa allegedly threatening someone that he would “rather take a life sentence for murdering you then this,” “Idc if I have to shoot you my self [sic]” and “I’ll go to jail happily.” He follows the text with the threat “Here’s the last guy that came to take photos / came near my home” and sends three pictures of an unidentified bearded man, his car and a photo of his badly bruised and bloodied on the ground.”
Adam22 concluded his podcast interview with “Dani” saying he was “very excited to see the fallout from this” and “I respect the hustle even though I can’t justify it on a moral level.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hack-and-payback-instagram-scammer-gets-nabbed-after-bragging-about-it-on-a-podcast-202509349.html?src=rss
Idriss Qibaa could face a federal indictment if a grand jury finds reason to proceeds on two counts of issuing violent threats after locking people out of their social media accounts.
Instagram is blocked in Turkey amid a dispute over Hamas-related content on the platform. The app has been inaccessible in the country since Friday morning. Netblocks, an organization that tracks internet and social media outages, confirmed that Instagram had been restricted in the country.
Turkish regulators didn’t specify why the block was in place but, as Bloomberg reports, the crackdown on Instagram appears to be related to its handling of Hamas-related posts on the platform. On Friday, Turkey’s head of communications Fahrettin Altun, said in a post on X that Instagram “is actively preventing people from posting messages of condolences” for Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who was killed earlier this week.
Meta hasn’t publicly commented on the block.
It’s not the first time Turkish authorities have blocked a major social media service. Twitter was briefly blocked in the country last year following a devastating earthquake that killed thousands of people. YouTube and Twitter were also blocked in 2014.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/turkey-has-blocked-instagram-amid-a-dispute-over-hamas-related-content-175934777.html?src=rss
A laptop keyboard and Instagram logo displayed on a phone screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on July 31, 2024. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
I'm a believer that you can tell if a movie is going to be good in the first five minutes. Sometimes less. You just get a sense that either the filmmakers have this thing under control and going somewhere or they don't. — Read the rest
“Did I just watch a 70 minute trailer for Season 3?” is just one of the reactions fans have posted online about the season's "disappointing and poorly executed" closer.
After 30 years, we’re finally getting a sequel to 1988's creepy comedy Beetlejuice. Do we need one? I don’t know. But because everyone involved waited so long to make Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice we now have to watch Michael Keaton’s “Ghost with the Most” get shoved into Roblox in another desperate example of Hollywood…
The author behind A Song of Fire and Iceis busy finishing the final two volumes in that acclaimed fantasy series, but not so busy that he doesn’t have time to tease audiences about all of the new Game of Thrones spin-offs currently being made for TV. By George R.R. Martin’s count there are seven in the works,…
HBO has released the first footage of the second season of The Last of Us, and it implies that things for Pedro Pascal’s Joel may be a little bit different than they are in the game. No, not that different, but it seems like he might be going to therapy.
A guest who appeared on the No Jumper podcast to boast about a hack and payback scheme involving his victims’ social media accounts could face federal charges. Idriss Qibaa, also known as “Dani” and “Unlocked” who authorities allege ran the social media hacking site Unlocked4Life.com, faces two criminal felony counts filed by the US Attorney's Office in Nevada for allegedly violating interstate communications laws for threats he issued in text messages to two victims and members of their families, according to documents obtained by 404 Media.
Investigators filed the sealed complaint against Qibaa on July 25 and issued a warrant the following Monday when also made his first initial appearance in court, according to federal court records.
The criminal complaint states that the FBI received a tip about Qibaa’s alleged extortion scheme on April 1 pointing to an appearance he made on the No Jumper podcast hosted by Adam22, also known as Adam Grandmaison, back in January under his pseudonym “Dani.” Qibaa outlined a financial scheme using over 200 victims’ social media accounts in which he would lock them out of their pages and charge them to regain access.
He also boasted that he made about $600,000 a month from his activities and hired two security guards to follow him.
“You’re making $2 million a month off your Instagram and Telegraph,” Qibaa says on the podcast. “I come and I take it away and make you pay for it back and I make it public and I post it and I expose you.”
Qibaa even said on the podcast episode that he pulled the scheme on celebrities who unknowingly kept paying him to get their social media back. He later noted “I’m very petty” followed by a menacing laugh.
“I’ve talked to stars who have told me that they’ve paid to get it back 20 times over and over and over they just have to keep paying to get it back,” Qibaa says, “and I’m like you realize what’s happening to you right like the same that’s getting you it back is…you’re getting extorted.”
The criminal complaint tells the story of eight victims’ encounters with Qibaa and his services. One identified as “J.T.” operated two Instagram accounts: a cannabis news aggregate account called “theblacklistxyz” and a cannabis merchandising store under “caliplug,” both of which are currently set to private. J.T. reached out to Qibaa asking if he could obtain a username. Qibaa quoted a price back between $4,000-$5,000. J.T. refused to take Qibaa up on the offer and Qibaa responded with threats.
“Qibba told J.T. that J.T. had wasted Qibaa’s time, blocked J.T.’s Instagram pages and demanded $10,000 to reinstate it,” the complaint reads. “J.T. offered Qibaa $8,500 to reinstate the account, an offer Qibaa accepted.”
The complaint asserts that Qibba reached out to J.T. two more times. The first time, Qibba asked if J.T. would promote his Instagram page under the username “unlocked4life” that’s since been taken down. J.T. agreed but when he learned Qibaa had been threatening and extorting other victims, he confronted Qibaa and “Qibaa was irate.”
A few months later, Qibaa apparently increased the scope of his threats to J.T. and members of his family. He sent threats to call the victim’s ex-wife’s lawyer and child protective services on his kids. Screenshots of the victims’ phone show Qibaa allegedly identifying the address and phone number of the victim’s sister. He texted another family member and introduced himself as “The guy that’s gonna murder your drug dealer brother. Tell him Unlocked says hi though. We have your entire family’s info.”
Another victim identified as a journalist and comedian with the initials “E.H.” learned they were a target of Qibaa’s illegal services. Qibaa blocked their Instagram account, the name of which was redacted, at the request of a dentist in California who treated them. E.H. reached out to the Unlocked4Life account and received a reply that read, “Yo its Idriss.” He then told E.H. to pull up the No Jumper podcast episode featuring his interview. Qibaa not only took the victim’s Instagram account access away but also threatened to take their Social Security number and “blast it out” if they didn’t pay him $20,000.
According to the complaint, not even restraining orders could make Qibaa leave his victims alone. One named “R.B.” received a restraining order from Los Angeles County Superior Court in July but “Unblocked” responded, “Cute restraining order..last I checked you’re still gonna die.” Then “UNLOCKED UNCENSORED” posted on Telegram, “$50,000 reward for whoever sleeps BO this week.”
Perhaps the most disturbing threats happened to several victims in which Qibaa claimed he’d happily go to jail if payments weren’t made to him. Screenshots of the text chains show a person named “Dani” and “Daniel” telling his victims, “I will come and shoot you myself,” “I’m going to bury you for this shit” and “D., L., J., T., Children-Main Targets” referring to the victims’ children.
Another text chain shows Qibaa allegedly threatening someone that he would “rather take a life sentence for murdering you then this,” “Idc if I have to shoot you my self [sic]” and “I’ll go to jail happily.” He follows the text with the threat “Here’s the last guy that came to take photos / came near my home” and sends three pictures of an unidentified bearded man, his car and a photo of his badly bruised and bloodied on the ground.”
Adam22 concluded his podcast interview with “Dani” saying he was “very excited to see the fallout from this” and “I respect the hustle even though I can’t justify it on a moral level.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hack-and-payback-instagram-scammer-gets-nabbed-after-bragging-about-it-on-a-podcast-202509349.html?src=rss
Idriss Qibaa could face a federal indictment if a grand jury finds reason to proceeds on two counts of issuing violent threats after locking people out of their social media accounts.
Instagram is blocked in Turkey amid a dispute over Hamas-related content on the platform. The app has been inaccessible in the country since Friday morning. Netblocks, an organization that tracks internet and social media outages, confirmed that Instagram had been restricted in the country.
Turkish regulators didn’t specify why the block was in place but, as Bloomberg reports, the crackdown on Instagram appears to be related to its handling of Hamas-related posts on the platform. On Friday, Turkey’s head of communications Fahrettin Altun, said in a post on X that Instagram “is actively preventing people from posting messages of condolences” for Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who was killed earlier this week.
Meta hasn’t publicly commented on the block.
It’s not the first time Turkish authorities have blocked a major social media service. Twitter was briefly blocked in the country last year following a devastating earthquake that killed thousands of people. YouTube and Twitter were also blocked in 2014.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/turkey-has-blocked-instagram-amid-a-dispute-over-hamas-related-content-175934777.html?src=rss
A laptop keyboard and Instagram logo displayed on a phone screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on July 31, 2024. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
One of the arguments sometimes made in defense of copyright is that without it, creators would be unable to compete with the hordes of copycats that would spring up as soon as their works became popular. Copyright is needed, supporters say, to prevent less innovative creators from producing works that are closely based on new, successful ideas.
However, this approach has led to constant arguments and court cases over how close a “closely based” work can be before it infringes on the copyright of others. A good example of this is the 2022 lawsuit involving Ed Sheeran, where is was argued that using just four notes of a scale constituted copyright infringement of someone else’s song employing the same tiny motif. A fascinating new paper looks at things from a different angle. It draws on the idea of “first-mover advantage”, the fact that:
individuals that move to a new market niche early on (“first movers”) obtain advantages that may lead to larger success, compared to those who move to this niche later. First movers enjoy a temporary near-monopoly: since they enter a niche early, they have little to no competition, and so they can charge larger prices and spend more time building a loyal customer base.
The paper explores the idea in detail for the world of music. Here, first-mover advantage means:
The artists and music producers who recognize the hidden potential of a new artistic technique, genre, or style, have bigger chances of reaching success. Having an artistic innovation that your competitors do not have or cannot quickly acquire may become advantageous on the winner-take-all artistic market.
Analyzing nearly 700,000 songs across 110 different musical genres, the researchers found evidence that first-mover advantage was present in 91 of the genres. The authors point out that there is also anecdotal evidence of first-mover advantage in other arts:
For example, Agatha Christie—one of the recognized founders of “classical” detective novel—is also one of the best-selling authors ever. Similarly, William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer—a canonical work in the genre of cyberpunk—is also one of the earliest books in this strand of science fiction. In films, the cult classic The Blair Witch Project is the first recognized member of the highly successful genre of found-footage horror fiction.
Although copyright may be present, first-mover advantage does not require it to operate – it is simply a function of being early with a new idea, which means that competition is scarce or non-existent. If further research confirms the wider presence of first-mover advantage in the creative world – for example, even where sharing-friendly CC licenses are used – it will knock down yet another flimsy defense of copyright’s flawed and outdated intellectual monopoly.
The vice president's political theater is inspiring raucous reactions and online goodwill—but it's also already showing cracks, and obscuring the harsher realities of America.
Items are a staple part of most games, and they come in a variety of forms. Inevitably, some items end up being far stronger than others, which can make a game feel unbalanced. If you’re looking for some extra strength, these are the top 10 most overpowered items in games.
10 Most Overpowered Items in Games
Stimpack – Fallout Shelter
Although it’s not unique to Fallout Shelter, Stimpacks are a must-have in it. They restore a chunk of health to the characters in your Vault, and you send some with anybody who leaves to explore the Wastelands. The more Stimpacks you have available, the better your chances are for having as many dwellers survive a raid as possible. As your Vault expands, these become more important, since the number of raids increases alongside their difficulty.
MrBeast, one of the most popular content creators in the world, is seen by many as a family-friendly and mostly good dude who does a lot of charity work. But recent controversies, including one over his use of slurs in the past, have put a dark cloud over the famous YouTuber’s massive empire.
San Diego Comic-Con is always one of the best events when it comes to cosplay, with the vicinity to Hollywood giving us impressively detailed builds, stunning craftsmanship, and, quite frankly, gorgeous people. SDCC 2024 was no exception, with the three-day event that ran the last weekend in July at the San Diego…
A new Deadpool movie means two things: Marvel is about to make a lot of money and people all over the internet are going to try and tap into what is likely to be one of the biggest pop culture events of the year. And that means someone is trying to sell a $970 copy of that Deadpool game from 2013 on eBay.
Deadpool & Wolverine is meant to be both a beginning and an end. The third of the Ryan Reynolds films about Marvel’s merc with a mouth is the character’s MCU debut, but it also shuts the book on the Fox era of superhero films. It doesn’t do either particularly well, instead mostly acting as a receptacle for endless…
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Thousands of video game actors went on strike on July 26 for the first time since 2017. The fight is over AI protections and other issues in contract negotiations with some of the biggest studios and publishers, and will halt work from SAG-AFTRA members on future projects, as well as possibly keep them from promotion…
A Quiet Place: Day One, the prequel to the John Krasinski-directed post-apocalyptic series about blind aliens with superpowered hearing, premiered in theaters in June. It was fine. The film takes place on the first day of the invasion, documenting the early days in New York City as humanity desperately tries to…
Twister, the 1996 action movie whose sequel, Twisters, kicked off Hot Glen Powell Summer 2024, is getting the 4DX treatment. If you’re not aware of what 4DX is, it’s a movie format specific to Regal Cinemas whereby the theater chairs rock, shake, and rattle along with action, water sprays in your face, wind whips your…
This week I received a surprise gift from a friend. It was a single card for the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game. Specifically it is for Ysayle, my favorite character from Final Fantasy XIV. Before receiving it I knew the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game existed, but never really gave it any thought, now I’ve fallen…
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Star Aquaculture grows milkfish to help clean water for its breeding ponds.HDRenewables
Land that Star Aquaculture set aside for wildlife now attracts endangered birds like the black-faced spoonbill [left] and the oriental stork [right].iStock (2)
