1.21gigawattz

[Rohan Paul @rohanpaul_ai]

Robot unboxing scenes will become common in many homes everywhere.

Sooner that we think.

[Samuel Hughes @SCP_Hughes]

Premodern societies tended to be rent by terrible wars. In the early modern period, tens of millions died in wars in Europe, India and China. Just one society found a kind of solution: Japan. Between 1603 and 1853, Japan enjoyed near-perfect peace. The ruling Tokugawa family achieved this through creating what might be seen as the largest prison in the history of the world, the city of Edo (modern Tokyo).

https://t.co/29RvgozjUc

Most of Japan was governed by about 260 nobles, called ‘daimyo’ (see first map). To secure their loyalty, the government required that the daimyo leave their families permanently in Edo, essentially as hostages to the state. Most daimyo women thus never saw the domains over which their husbands and sons ruled. The daimyo were also required to alternate years in Edo personally.

The result was that most of the surface area of Edo was given over to daimyo palaces, or to accommodation for the hundreds of thousands of samurai retainers they brought with them (see second map). This was arranged through an elaborate zoning system, probably the largest use of zoning before modern times.

Edo was extraordinarily top-heavy socially: about half of its population were samurai. Samurai were theoretically a warrior class, but since Japan was at peace, they did little real work apart from gentlemanly occupations like calligraphy. Their main income came in the form of tiny hereditary stipends from their daimyos or the government.

These stipends were fixed in perpetuity around 1600, declining gradually with inflation over the next quarter of a millennium. Most samurai thus lived in dignified but extreme poverty, their income determined by the favour in which one of their ancestors had stood centuries earlier.

The commoner population was also tightly controlled. Commoner Edo was divided into some 1,500-2,000 fenced and gated blocks. These were then subdivided into gated alleys lined with small houses (see third map). The Low City was thus divided up by tens of thousands of internal checkpoints, all of which closed at night. Edo was not under threat of attack in the Tokugawa period and the city as a whole was not fortified. The purpose of this immense labyrinth of walls and gates was to control and monitor the movement of the population.

Prisons are useful things, and the Tokugawa system was a kind of success, making Japan the most peaceful society on earth. But it is also a disconcerting reminder of the power of rent-seekers, and how a whole city can be warped by the political exigencies they create. Edo is a particularly striking case of this, but it is far from alone.

[International Cyber Digest @IntCyberDigest]

The sound alone is something out of a horror movie. These new type of drones are really unsettling.

[tayler (😬) @billdifferen]

happy sunday afternoon

another month gone another 50 tracks from me! we got funk from all over brasil, jersey club, out of this world rap, minimal synth bangers, 35 minute avant garde brutal death metal opuses, & much more.

enjoy & thank you always <3
https://t.co/FmWAGQ9rD0

[Chief Goddiz🇺🇲 @GoddayIzakpa]

The fight scene between Tony Jaa and Nathan Jones in The Protector is one of the most intense and brutal moments in martial arts cinema.

[Sumo Soul 相撲魂 @TheSumoSoul]

Day15 yūshō playoff!
Oz Kirishima 12-3 (L)
K1 Wakatakakage 12-3 (R)
This is it! If Kiri wins it’ll be his 4 yūshō and 2nd in a row and there will be yokozuna talk. It would be WTK’s 2nd yūshō (last one was 4 years ago). Kiri beat WTK once already on Day11 #natsubasho2026

[Space Cowboy (COMMS OPEN) @BattyWanderer]

Lateef Crowder is a god damn legend, imagine if Mando fought like this haha

(movie is The Protector 2005)

[Sumo Soul 相撲魂 @TheSumoSoul]

Day11
Oz Kirishima 8-2 (L)
Km Wakatakakage 8-2 (R)
High expectations! A few men share the lead this basho but one of these men will fall behind the rest when the match is done #natsubasho2026

[Magnesium Papi | BowTied Mg @Grimhood]

Effects of Creatine, Ginseng, and Astragalus Supplementation on Strength, Body Composition, Mood, and Blood Lipids During Strength-Training in Older Adults https://t.co/RXwsfKQnmm

Astragalus and ginseng improve the benefits of Creatine over just Creatine alone in humans.

[ESA Webb Telescope @ESA_Webb]

The bright orange lines appearing to radiate from the nucleus are diffraction spikes created by the interaction of light with Webb’s structure. For this pattern to occur, the light source must be very bright and very concentrated, such as M77’s nucleus.

Read more: https://t.co/as6ZrivjuX

#WebbSeesFarther

📷 @ESA / @esa_webb , @NASA & @csa_asc , A. Leroy 3/3

[藤井セイラ @cobta]

個人で「もしタランティーノがセーラームーン実写映画を撮ったら」の仮定で、予告編、公式サイト（非公式）、スチル写真、サントラ試聴、撮影風景、レッドカーペットの様子などまでつくった人がいます。わたしは原作が好きで全巻持っているのですが、つくりこみがすごいです。

[Justin McDonald @McFlick5150]

Burning Ambition needs a nice release. Still so many good 80s HK action left to be released.

[Snackolator @snackolator]

Smoothie King just dropped a Grillo's Pickles SMOOTHIE and the fast food world has gone off the rails! 🥒🤯🍑

Are you giving this one a try? On May 16th for International Pickle Day you can get a 4oz sample for free at Smoothie King

[Celtic Football Club @CelticFC]

🤯

[Juan Alegre-Arnau @arnau_alegre]

F E A R L E S S dir. Ronny Yu
Fight Instructor: Yuen Woo Ping

[JoeLongBalls @JoeLongBalls]

we got 5 dollar gas and they're just dumping heavy cream into the mountain dew its lit

[psychotronica @psychotronica_]

Super Dave Osborne Stunt Mix
1980-1992 / Canada-US / CTV-Showtime
👍💀sound on💀👍

[Roy Drones Jr @chiweethedog]

I know it’s bad guys. I know gas costs $4-$6 now. But at least while you’re standing there filling up your tank with an empty feeling, you will be blasted into every orifice with 6 shrill, soul shattering commercials on the tiny flat screen on the pump station.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???

[schmidley @atsuover]

i’m locking in as soon as covid’s over bro