https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status (archive)

Ages ago when I was a kid, I used to use flashget, but as far as I'm aware it's become a spyware/malware riddled mess.

My primary reason for wanting to get a download manager is because I really hate it when my downloads reach a good percentage completed, only for something to happen like the internet zonking out, or perhaps windows decides NOW is a perfect time to install updates and restart my PC, causing me to have to restart my download from scratch, that in itself being a problem if the download speed from the that particular site is lousy. Currently downloading some hefty files and the download speeds are terrible.

I'd love a free download manager that won't riddle my PC with spyware, malware or obligatory third party content. Any suggestions?

Firefox has informed me that some of my downloads have failed, but when I hit retry....I THINK they resumed from where they stopped? If one is available though, I'd love a download manager, even if only temporarily.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7811520

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza exposed munitions shortfalls and the fragility of Western defense industrial bases. US-China competition has further identified industrial capacity as a sort of strategic infrastructure that determines endurance, military capabilities, and economic growth. China-light policies by Western governments signals seriousness, but it may not be enough to build the structural depth that real industrial power requires. Without that, state involvement in the economy risks becoming episodic and reactive, when it needs to be transformative instead.

China’s industrial advantage is often reduced to subsidies or low labor costs. Integration, however, has been the most important variable, as Beijing spent decades linking upstream resource extraction to midstream processing and downstream manufacturing. This reinforced the system with state finance, protected demand, and long-time horizons. Western apathy that led to these industrial ecosystems to die as China began to control the entire global market.

China’s industrial strategy also has strategic adaptability. As the US and its allies impose tariffs and “de-risking” measures, China’s industrial depth allows it to reroute supply chains and absorb shocks. Its dominance in solar panel manufacturing, where China controls over 80% of all stages of production, allows the weathering of trade disputes by shifting exports to non-Western markets. Chinse industrial power is now like the force of gravity: difficult to escape even when alternatives exist.

I've had openclaw running on an old macbook that was otherwise just laying around, using MiniMax M2.5 and GLM-5 for the past couple weeks. Beyond it breaking its own config and me asking it to help add features and fix bugs in some open source applications I use, I didn't really have a great use for it. But today I told it the US started a new war, it went out and searched multiple sources to confirm, and then gave me a summary of what news sites around the world are saying.

I asked it to specifically look for West Asia and Middle East sources, translate, and summarize them and provide me with updates on anything big.

It's doing that over Telegram now, though it is having a hard time finding any accessible Iranian sites.

That's pretty freakin awesome. It's also doing automatic Text To Speech, so I can just listen to the updates as they come in too.

https://archive.ph/W7KcJ

Burger King is testing AI-powered headsets that can recite recipes, alert managers when inventories are low and even track how friendly employees are to customers.

Restaurant Brands International — the Miami-based company that owns Burger King, Popeyes and other brands — said Thursday its currently testing the OpenAI-powered headsets in 500 U.S. restaurants.

The system collects data on restaurant operations and shares it via “Patty,” a voice that talks to employees through their headsets. If the drink machine is low on Diet Coke, Patty will tell the store’s manager. If a customer uses a QR code to report a messy bathroom, the manager will be alerted.

Employees can ask Patty how to make various menu items or tell the AI bot to remove items from digital menus if they’ve run out of ingredients.

Burger King said it’s also exploring using the technology as a way to improve customer service. The system can track when employees say key words like “welcome,” “please” and “thank you” and share that with managers.

When asked about that capability Thursday by The Associated Press, Burger King said the intent is to use Patty as a coaching tool, not a tracker of individual employees.

“It’s not about scoring individuals or enforcing scripts. It’s about reinforcing great hospitality and giving managers helpful, real-time insights so they can recognize their teams more effectively,” the company said in a statement.

Burger King added that the key words are “one of many signals to help managers understand service patterns.”

“We believe hospitality is fundamentally human. The role of this technology is to support our teams so they can stay present with guests,” it said.

Patty is part of a larger app-based BK Assistant platform that will be available to all U.S. restaurants later this year.

Burger King is one of several fast food chains experimenting with artificial intelligence. Yum Brands said last spring it was partnering with Nvidia to develop AI technologies for its brands, which include KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.

McDonald’s ended a partnership with IBM in 2024 that was testing automated orders at its drive-thrus. The company is now working with Google on AI systems.

Assembly Bill No. 1043 was approved by California governor Gavin Newsom in October of last year, and becomes active on January 1, 2027 (via The Lunduke Journal). The bill states, among other factors, that "An operating system provider shall do all of the following:"

"(1) Provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.

"(2) Provide a developer who has requested a signal with respect to a particular user with a digital signal via a reasonably consistent real-time application programming interface that identifies, at a minimum, which of the following categories pertains to the user."