Mission Everywhere

Roblox, the gaming platform that is immensely popular amongst young players, said on Twitter Sunday evening that it is back online worldwide. Roblox is back online everywhere! Thank you for your continued patience as we get back to normal. — Roblox (@Roblox) October 31, 2021 The recovery came after an outage that lasted three days , a somewhat rare streak of blackout for a tech firm of Roblox’s colossal size. The company said earlier that the cause was an “ internal system issue .” “A core system in our infrastructure became overwhelmed, prompted by a subtle bug in our backend service communications while under heavy load,” David Baszucki, Roblox’s founder and CEO explained in a post after operations were restored. “This was not due to any peak in external traffic or any particular experience. Rather the failure was caused by the growth in the number of servers in our datacenters. The result was that most services at Roblox were unable to effectively communicate and deplo...

A file photo shows detainees sitting in a holding area watched by military police at Camp X-Ray inside Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Petty Officer 1st class Shane T. McCoy/US Department of Defense Handout via Reuters A military jury sentenced a terrorist to 26 years but some wrote a letter requesting clemency. The letter said the torture Majid Khan experienced "is a stain on the moral fiber of America." Khan said he was subject to force-feeding, waterboarding, and physical and sexual abuse. A military jury wrote a letter condemning torture tactics used by the CIA against a convicted terrorist after sentencing the man to 26 years in prison, The New York Times reported. On Thursday, the jury, which was made up of active-duty senior military officials, heard graphic descriptions of the torture Majid Khan, 41, was subjected to while being held at CIA black sites. Khan, who graduated from a high school near Baltimore, served as a courier for Al-Qaeda before he was c...

From left, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., attend the House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing of the United States Department of Justice with testimony from Attorney General Merrick Garland, Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington. Michaels Reynolds/Pool via AP US Rep. Matt Gaetz spoke at a Halloween campaign rally for Congressional candidate Anthony Sabatini. Large amounts of chemicals found in one of the explosives Gaetz referenced can cause an explosion. C4, which Gaetz also mentioned, is an explosive used in military combat units for demolition. At a Halloween campaign rally for Congressional candidate and Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, US Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., complained about metal detectors in the House of Representatives and joked about blowing them up with explosives, a remark which made attendees laugh and clap. Gaetz falsely claimed the metal detectors, which were installed after pro-Trump rioters breached the Ca...

A container of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is seen at the United Memorial Medical Center on December 21, 2020 in Houston, Texas. Getty Images/Go Nakamura Use of Moderna's vaccine in kids 12 to 17 years old will most likely be delayed to early next year. The drug company said the FDA told them they needed more time to review. The FDA is looking into the risk of myocarditis, a rare heart condition. The Food and Drug Administration on Friday told Moderna it needed more time to review a rare heart risk from COVID-19 vaccines in youths before it could allow the emergency use of the vaccine in people between the ages of 12 and 17, the drug manufacturing company said on Sunday. Moderna said the FDA told them they need more time to review the risk of possible myocarditis - a heart muscle inflammation - after vaccination, which could delay approval until after January 2022. "The Company is fully committed to working closely with the FDA to support their review and is gratef...

On the last Gang recording session in early October before the birth of our first grandchild, I tried to stir the pot by attacking Democratic Progressives for capsizing the second of two Infrastructure bills. The moderates, led by the recalcitrant Joe Manchin and his silent sidekick Kyrsten Sinema, were successfully gumming up the Democrats’ best chance for holding control of the House and perhaps Senate. What else is new, you say? In tech news, Facebook was busily exploiting the tone deaf policy of getting slightly irritated with growing pressure from whistleblowers, former venture capital critics who built their careers on the company’s early success, and a two-fisted teamup from a Congress in over its head and the media looking for a good story to replace Donald Trump’s devolution as credible threat. Today, Facebook ads talk of reforming Section 230 and otherwise providing rules for the company to follow. Infrastructure bingo has whittled down the cost by 60%; the plan is to get i...

Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan / Financial Times : A look at “creepypasta”, ghost stories such as Slender Man that spread online, and how decentralized myth-making can explain the rise of meme stocks and QAnon   —  Or: how the tale of Slender Man can explain the rise of QAnon. … These words, posted on a forum in 2009 … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/318U0OC

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images A Southwest pilot reportedly said an anti-Joe Biden phrase during an in-flight announcement. The phrase, "Let's Go, Brandon" has been used as a code to criticize Biden. Southwest on Sunday said it is investigating the incident. Southwest Airlines is conducting an investigation following reports that one of its pilots said an anti-Joe Biden chant during an inflight announcement. In an article published on Saturday, the Associated Press's Colleen Long wrote that she was on a flight from Houston to Albuquerque on Friday when the pilot said the phrase "Let's Go, Brandon," at the end of his announcement. Long wrote that there were "audible gasps from some passengers." She was almost removed from the aircraft after she tried to get the pilot to comment. Insider's Jake Lahut previously reported the phrase started at a NASCAR event earlier this month when a crowd was chanting "Fuck Joe Bid...

A memorial of flowers and candles is pictured in Westlake Park to honor the two victims hit by a car during a recent protest, including Summer Taylor, who died yesterday, and Diaz Love, who is in serious condition in the hospital, on July 5, 2020 in Seattle, Washington. A driver struck the protesters on Interstate 5 in Seattle. Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images Since George Floyd's murder, at least three protesters have died in car-ramming incidents. Less than half of the car-ramming incidents examined by the Boston Globe resulted in charges. Several states have recently considered bills that protect drivers who hit or kill protesters. Since the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, at least 139 drivers have rammed their vehicles into protests, resulting in hundreds of injuries and three deaths, according to a Boston Globe investigation of research data and local news coverage on the trend. Most individuals behind the wheel of these incidents have gone largely unpunis...