This photograph shows Tim Burton as a kid wearing his Halloween costume in 1967. If you've seen The Nightmare Before Christmas, you'll immediately recognize the similarity between this costume and Jack Skellington. I have a feeling that this creation made by Tim Burton's mom (at least subconsciously) influenced the design of Jack Skellington. — Read the rest

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Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in an earnings call today that Google's AI-powered search modes do not help with traffic to the platform, echoing problems facing other websites and publishers. As part of its Q3 2026 earnings, Reddit revealed that search traffic in October has "dropped by more than 1 million referrals on average per week," and he attributes part of the company's struggles with Google traffic to how AI Mode and AI Overviews change the search experience.

"The reality is, AI Mode does not drive traffic," Huffman says. "Not for us, and not to anybody, as far as I know. That's just a fundamental shift in how Google works. It used t …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Reddit is announcing a huge shift: It's going to start requiring users to log in.

Right now, you can browse Reddit without having an account, and the site is generally a great resource for crowdsourced information on a whole range of topics. I know I'm not the only person who appends "reddit" to a lot of Google searches to find answers to things written by actual humans instead of robots. But that openness has made it a target for scraping and automated traffic, leading Reddit to file lawsuits over alleged unauthorized access of its data and make product changes like limiting access to "Old Reddit."

There's no definitive timeline on when t …

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As AI transforms how people find information online, Reddit is rethinking its open-web roots to protect its audience and business.

The For You feed combines posts from communities users have joined with recommendations tailored to their interests.

Hundreds of spiders decided to hang out on a power line in Indonesia. They wove their webs around the power lines, creating a giant invisible wall where they all stand guard. This scene is an arachnophobe's nightmare.

Seeing this in the daytime would be one thing. — Read the rest

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A kind man named John wanted to help the squirrels in his neighborhood feel safe and comfortable. He built squirrel boxes around his neighborhood to serve as homes and shelters for local squirrels. The squirrel boxes are simple wood shelters that the squirrels can freely enter and exit as they wish. — Read the rest

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The series of photos shows what a particularly cold district in Vorkuta, Russia looks like in the dead of winter. The images at the beginning of the series show a town covered in a heavy blanket of snow, with only slivers of cars and buildings visible. — Read the rest

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The mods at r/opensource posted new submission rules that, among other things, banned projects that use AI. The post made Saturday evening opens by saying, "If your project uses AI, is made by AI, or is intended for AI, it's not welcome on r/opensource. AI, as it exists today, is incongruent to this Open Source community."

The new rules have set off a firestorm in the comments, and even spurred the creation of a rival sub r/trueopensource. Moderator Wolvereness has waded into the comments to explain that there's nuance and room for selective enforcement, such as "software that incidentally has accessibility features that use AI," including …

Read the full story at The Verge.

So. BioWare, the legendary RPG studio that created the Mass Effect series, was shut down just yesterday, taking with it an in-development Mass Effect 5. In my coverage of the initial event, I lamented that we'd never see the project again thanks to its unceremonious death. — Read the rest

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