Previously prohibited use of websites such as Omoggle that connect a streamer to a stranger’s video feed now allowed
Last week, at 4am, 19-year-old Sammy Amz was scrolling through X when something caught his eye: a popular Twitch streamer was competing in a 1v1 “mog-off” with a stranger, and losing.
The next day he opened the Omoggle gaming website and began to play. Quickly he matched with another user – green dots appeared on their faces onscreen, as the website began to compare their measurements: canthal tilt, palpebral fissure ratio, nose-to-face width ratio and so on.
Continue reading...A staggering 44% of human languages are endangered – with culture, tradition and whole ways of understanding the world at stake
We are lucky to know anything at all about the Ubykh language. In the 1800s, tens of thousands of people spoke it on the Black Sea coast. When Russia conquered the region, the Ubykhs resisted until they were forced into exile in the Ottoman empire. Transported thousands of miles by a traumatised community now scattered across Turkey, Ubykh survived until 1992 when its last fluent speaker died. It was one of at least 244 languages that has become extinct since 1950, and soon – unless anything changes – my grandmother’s language will have joined them.
Over the next 40 years, language loss has been predicted to triple without intervention. Yet we hear about language endangerment far less often than we hear about other wounding losses to our planet’s diversity or history. Deforestation in Costa Rica is being reversed following the realisation of the enormous natural and scientific resource that may disappear with its trees. International archaeologists rallied to preserve and restore ancient remains in Syria following the destruction wreaked by Islamic State. But the efforts of those labouring to document or preserve minority languages are rarely celebrated.
Continue reading...His first story collection, Reward System, was a cult hit. Now comes a novel that’s a bleakly funny appraisal of millennial relationships, technology and ennui. He talks about love, precarity and being called the ‘voice of a generation’
Jem Calder’s writing career had a fairytale start. Sally Rooney emailed him, impressed with a short story he’d submitted to the literary magazine she was editing soon after Conversations with Friends came out. It was the first story he’d ever completed. Calder was already “a huge fan” of Rooney’s, so the whole thing was surreal, he tells me. “I can’t really imagine what could top that, to be honest.”
That story ultimately ended up in Reward System, Calder’s 2022 collection of six interconnected tales following a cast of sad young things living in an unnamed city. It was hailed as a book of the year; a review in this paper placed Calder among “the most talented young writers of fiction at work today”. Now, his debut novel, I Want You to Be Happy, picks up some of the themes of the first book: the trials of modern love, millennial ennui, consumer culture, technology, political and ecological doom. And it’s already got some famous fans: David Szalay has sung its praises, while Andrew O’Hagan says Calder is his “new favourite writer”.
Continue reading...They have opposite views on the flying of the union jack, but could they agree on the need for safe and legal asylum routes into the UK?
Maxine, 62, Barnsley
Occupation Retail sales assistant
Continue reading...When Leah and I planned a family, we wanted to be as mutual as possible. Could reciprocal IVF – Leah carrying an embryo made from my egg – be the way forward?
Late last year, it became my friend’s favourite party trick. “Rosa’s going to have a baby next week,” she’d say to a group of people who didn’t know me. I’d watch their faces as they tried to inconspicuously scan my body, detecting no sign of a bump. “Congratulations!” they’d say, smiles tight, clearly wondering what other delusions I might have up my sleeve.
I was, however, about to have a baby. At daybreak on a warm October day, our beautiful, 6lb 10oz, 19.5in‑long baby girl was born; skin pink and taut, scream wet and bright. I held my wife’s hand and head as our daughter emerged from her body – a daughter who had initially come from me.
Continue reading...My activist group is about 80% women. Where did all the men go – and how can we get them back?
In Donald Trump’s first term, my Brooklyn-based activist group had the peculiar dynamic of being started by two men while being composed of about 65% women. Since November 2024, our group has doubled in size, and the gender imbalance has tipped even further: we are now about 80% women.
Almost 18 months into Trump’s second term, it is abundantly clear that the appetite for anti-Trump, pro-democracy activism has not dimmed at all. And yet, there is a substantial portion of the populace that, in my experience as an activist, seems to have lost its fervor for the fight.
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Illustration inspired by retro-tech and fuelled by open web counterculture.
T.Marko has added a photo to the pool:
A glowing red lantern anchors the scene at the entrance of a traditional Japanese temple, radiating warmth against the deep shadows of the structure. Long exposure transforms passing visitors into ghostly streaks, contrasting the permanence of the architecture with the fleeting rhythm of human presence. The incense burner in the foreground adds a quiet, spiritual layer, suggesting a moment of reflection amid constant motion. This image explores the tension between stillness and movement, ritual and everyday life.