A new AI-based tool from Google aims to fill in the missing parts of Latin and Greek inscriptions. But how do we know it’s accurate? CC-licensed photo by Tobias Abel on Flickr.
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A selection of 9 links for you. Caveat translator. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.
Google develops AI tool that fills missing words in Roman inscriptions • The Guardian
Ian Sample:
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In addition to sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a freshwater system and public health, the Romans also produced a lot of inscriptions.
Making sense of the ancient texts can be a slog for scholars, but a new artificial intelligence tool from Google DeepMind aims to ease the process. Named Aeneas after the mythical Trojan hero, the program predicts where and when inscriptions were made and makes suggestions where words are missing.
Historians who put the program through its paces said it transformed their work by helping them identify similar inscriptions to those they were studying, a crucial step for setting the texts in context, and proposing words to fill the inevitable gaps in worn and damaged artefacts.
“Aeneas helps historians interpret, attribute and restore fragmentary Latin texts,” said Dr Thea Sommerschield, a historian at the University of Nottingham who developed Aeneas with the tech firm. “That’s the grand challenge that we set out to tackle.”
Inscriptions are among the most important records of life in the ancient world. The most elaborate can cover monument walls, but many more take the form of decrees from emperors, political graffiti, love poems, business records, epitaphs on tombs and writings on everyday life. Scholars estimate that about 1,500 new inscriptions are found every year.
…Details are published in Nature and Aeneas is available to researchers online.
In a collaboration, 23 historians used Aeneas to analyse Latin inscriptions. The context provided by the tool was helpful in 90% of cases.
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Got to respect the Life of Brian reference. One question: how will we know if Aeneas gets it wildly, completely wrong?
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Myanmar’s proliferating scam centres – borderland “prisons” – have three common features • Nikkei Asia
Kento Awashima, Shohei Yasuda, Sotaro Sakai, Ryo Namiki, Sadachika Watanabe, Kosuke Inoue, Akira Ikeya, Hirofumi Yamamoto and Takashi Igarashi:
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The number of scam centers in eastern Myanmar is expanding at a rapid pace. Even after a large-scale crackdown in February, construction has continued — underscoring that criminal hubs have not been eradicated. Nikkei analyzed satellite imagery and eyewitness testimony to reveal the scale and persistence of the crisis.
…Other criminal compounds have emerged along the Myanmar-Thailand border. By cross-referencing satellite photos with official records and interviewing experts, Nikkei identified suspected scam bases in and around Myawaddy, Kayin state.
In the second half of the 2010s, Chinese-backed companies began developing casino complexes in the region. When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the casino industry, many of these facilities were converted into hubs for online fraud.
The proliferation has not slowed. At least 16 suspected scam sites have been documented, and construction was ongoing at eight of them even after the crackdown earlier this year.
According to numerous reports, large numbers of foreign nationals are trafficked into these compounds and forced to perpetrate scams.
Japan has been affected. In February 2025, a Japanese high school student believed to have been held captive in Myanmar was rescued and later arrested on fraud charges.
According to Myanmar’s military government, from October 2023 to June 2025, authorities deported more than 66,000 foreign nationals who had stayed in the country illegally to participate in fraud or gambling.
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The satellite imagery is very impressive, and it’s in effect a form of police work. The Myanmar and Thai authorities could do this. But the Myanmar regime in particular probably won’t take any interest. Unfortunately.
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A Kia EV6 GT is more than a match for Ferrari’s SUV, proving how fast electric vehicles are • Inside EVs
Andrei Nedelea:
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Rooting for the underdog is an automatic winning ticket in a straight-line drag race between the revised Kia EV6 GT and the fire-snorting Ferrari Purosangue. These two vehicles do look a bit alike, but one is electric, while the other uses a monster of a naturally aspirated V12 engine, and the latter also costs several times more.
The UK’s Carwow pitted the two in a drag race, showing how paying more these days doesn’t necessarily mean you get more performance. The Kia EV6 GT features a revised dual-motor powertrain that now pushes 641 horsepower (with temporary overboost) and 568 pound-feet of torque, which gives it a claimed acceleration time from 0 to 60 mph (96 km/h) in a claimed 3.5 seconds with launch control enabled.
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The video takes its time to get to the quarter-mile race, and repeats it a few times, but the result is always the same. Wonder how long before the boy racers realise that it’s the silent cars that are the properly fast ones?
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Airline lost your bags? Your luggage is probably in Alabama • The Cut
Wells Tower:
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If it’s any consolation, those headphones you left in the seat-back pocket did not just vanish into some unknowable void of lost things. Most likely, they made their way to Unclaimed Baggage, a store that occupies a full city block in Scottsboro, Alabama, where six days a week, 7,000 items, salvaged almost entirely from lost luggage, are set out for sale. The result is a democratic and dissonant array of merchandise: everything from used underwear (size XS to XXXXXL) for 99 cents to a gallon-size Ziploc of loose Band-Aids ($13) to a $28,000 Rolex flashing with enough diamonds to pose a seizure risk.
Most major airlines send their baggage to the store, as do bus lines, resorts, casinos, rental-car agencies, and pretty much any corner of the travel sector where customers leave things behind. These companies will generally hold your lost stuff for 90 days, waiting for you to reclaim it. On day 91, orphaned goods may be picked up by Unclaimed Baggage’s lone freight hauler, whose life is apparently an unceasing schlep between America’s transport hubs and Scottsboro, a town of 15,000 greenly notched in the Appalachian foothills in the northeastern corner of the state.
In 2024, more than 2.7 million checked bags, out of half a billion total, were damaged or lost by U.S. air carriers. Most of these were ultimately reunited with their owners, but there is a mysterious residue of about thousands of bags no one ever came to claim. Presumably, a few passengers got hit with crises — death, sickness, mayhem — more pressing than their missing bags.
A few shrewd, dishonest travelers, armed with the knowledge that airlines would reimburse up to $4,700 for a lost suitcase, probably gamed the system and sacrificed a bag of dirty laundry to take a payout on a bogus claim. Others had suitcases full of contraband, which made them nervous about showing up at the lost and found. (Hard drugs are such routine finds during the initial baggage inspection in Scottsboro that workers wear nitrile gloves with Narcan close at hand. “We joke about having the sheriff’s office on speed dial,” said Sonni Hood, Unclaimed Baggage’s senior manager of PR and communications.
That shop must look like the storeroom at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. (The Ark is probably in there somewhere.)
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If GLP-1 drugs are good for everything, should we all be on them? • Derek Thompson
Derek Thompson:
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I think the most mysterious thing about these drugs is their effect on the brain. One analysis of several hundred GLP-1 studies presented compelling evidence that they improve cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer’s, substance-use disorders, such as alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis addiction, and mood and anxiety disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder. These findings point to a central mechanism—beyond weight loss and blood sugar control—where GLP‑1 medicines are acting directly on the brain to support cognition, mood, and neural health.
Scientists barely understand the brain, and they barely understand GLP-1 drugs, so explaining GLP-1 drug function in the brain is a bit like translating a conversation conducted in two different languages you’re only semi-fluent in. But from my read of the literature, GLP‑1 drugs act on the brain in two ways. First, neurons throughout the central nervous system have GLP‑1 receptors, too. Activating these receptors protects nerve cells from damage and calms inflammation in the brain, just as they do throughout the body. Rather than slowly cook in the hot water of chronic inflammation, brains on GLP-1 drugs bathe in the cooler climates at which they excel at cognitive functioning. I guess you can think of this as an extension of our “moderation molecule” hypothesis.
Second, several experiments — whether they involve slices of brain tissue, animals, and even human volunteers — have strongly suggested that GLP-1 drugs specifically act on our dopamine cycles and affect neural activity in the hypothalamus, the appetite-controlling region of the brain. By acting as dopamine thermostats, they allow people to “turn down the volume” of their cravings and distractions.
If GLP-1s are suppressing the release of unwanted dopamine firings, the implications could be immense. Dopamine is critical to focus, motivation, and goal-setting. Could a modified version of these drugs ultimately serve to help people with attention disorders?
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Missed one off the list, Derek: also reckoned to reduce risk of Parkinson’s disease. But: probably too soon to be absolutely sure that we should all be on them.
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Hertz and other rental car agencies turn to AI for damage detection • The New York Times
Gabe Castro-Root:
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The next time you rent a car, that ding on the door might not slip under the radar. Powerful new A.I.-driven tools are helping Hertz and other companies catch every little scratch, and puzzled renters are being asked to pay up.
Hertz, one of the world’s largest car rental companies, debuted the technology last fall at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and it’s now in use at five other U.S. airports, said Emily Spencer, a Hertz spokeswoman. Developed by a company called UVeye, the scanning system works by capturing thousands of high-resolution images from all angles as a vehicle passes through a rental lot’s gates at pickup and return. A.I. then compares those images and flags any discrepancies.
The system automatically creates and sends damage reports, Ms. Spencer said. An employee reviews the report only if a customer flags an issue after receiving the bill. She added that fewer than 3% of vehicles scanned by the A.I. system show any billable damage.
Still, unexpected charges for damage that’s barely visible to the naked eye are leaving renters wondering what’s going on.
Kelly Rogers and her husband rented a car from Hertz at the Atlanta airport over the July 4 weekend to travel to a family wedding in Birmingham, Ala. The couple, who live in Scarsdale, N.Y., booked a minivan to shuttle family around, and the drive in both directions was uneventful, they said.
When they returned the car in Atlanta, they inspected it and saw no damage. A Hertz employee inspected the vehicle upon its return as well, they said, and did not flag any damage.
But once the couple had passed through airport security, they received a notification via the Hertz app that its automated system had detected a dent in the passenger-side front door. They were charged $195: $80 for the damage and $115 in fees, including those incurred “as a result of processing” the damage claim and the “cost to detect and estimate the damage” that occurred during the rental. Hertz offered to reduce the charge to $130 if they paid within one day.
Ms. Rogers said the charge was inexplicable. “It could have been a shadow,” she said in a phone interview. “We were pulling it up on the app, and we’re like, ‘This is so bananas.’”
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You just know that the quality control on this “AI” is going to be on the floor.
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A power utility is reporting suspected pot growers to cops. EFF says that’s illegal • Ars Technica
Dan Goodin:
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In May 2020, Sacramento, California, resident Alfonso Nguyen was alarmed to find two Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies at his door, accusing him of illegally growing cannabis and demanding entry into his home. When Nguyen refused the search and denied the allegation, one deputy allegedly called him a liar and threatened to arrest him.
That same year, deputies from the same department, with their guns drawn and bullhorns and sirens sounding, fanned out around the home of Brian Decker, another Sacramento resident. The officers forced Decker to walk backward out of his home in only his underwear around 7 am while his neighbours watched. The deputies said that he, too, was under suspicion of illegally growing cannabis.
According to a motion the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed in Sacramento Superior Court last week, Nguyen and Decker are only two of more than 33,000 Sacramento-area people who have been flagged to the sheriff’s department by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, the electricity provider for the region. SMUD called the customers out for using what it and department investigators said were suspiciously high amounts of electricity indicative of illegal cannabis farming.
The EFF, citing investigator and SMUD records, said the utility unilaterally analyzes customers’ electricity usage in “painstakingly” detailed increments of every 15 minutes. When analysts identify patterns they deem likely signs of illegal grows, they notify sheriff’s investigators. The EFF said the practice violates privacy protections guaranteed by the federal and California governments and is seeking a court order barring the warrantless disclosures.
“SMUD’s disclosures invade the privacy of customers’ homes,” EFF attorneys wrote in a court document in support of last week’s motion. “The whole exercise is the digital equivalent of a door-to-door search of an entire city. The home lies at the ‘core’ of constitutional privacy protection.”
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Using smart meters against customers? If they’re behind in payments, maybe, but was there any suggestion they were? (Thanks Adewale A for the link.)
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Cornwall surgeon accused of fraud over amputation of his own legs • The Guardian
Steven Morris:
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A surgeon from Cornwall who carried out hundreds of amputations has appeared in court accused of lying over how he lost his own legs and encouraging another man to remove the body parts of others.
Neil Hopper, 49, a vascular surgeon from Truro, was charged with three offences after a two-and-a-half-year investigation by Devon and Cornwall police.
Hopper formerly worked for the Royal Cornwall hospitals NHS trust and has previously said he lost his legs to sepsis in 2019.
Devon and Cornwall police said he faced two counts of fraud by false representation.
The particulars are that 2019 he “dishonestly made a false representation to insurers, namely the injuries to his legs were the result of sepsis and were not self-inflicted, intending to make a gain”. He allegedly intended to make £235,622 from one insurer and £231,031 from another.
He was also charged with encouraging or assisting in the commission of grievous bodily harm.
It is alleged that between August 2018 and December 2020 he bought videos from a website called The Eunuch Maker showing the removal of limbs and “encouraged Marius Gustavson to remove body parts of third parties”.
Hopper, who appeared from custody, did not enter pleas to the three charges during a 40-minute hearing at Cornwall magistrates court in Bodmin.
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Did you think the world is populated with weird people? Ah, but there are people who are far more weird than you can imagine. The human mind is indeed, the strangest, most complex thing in the universe. And yes, there are people who obsess about being or becoming amputees.
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Why you are reading Reddit a lot more these days • NY Mag
John Herrman:
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It doesn’t really matter who you are, how you spend your time online, or what you imagine your relationship with the internet to be. However you scroll, wherever you browse, and whatever you want to see on your screens, it has probably happened to you, and if you haven’t noticed yet, you may now: Your world has become more Reddit.
The 20-year-old platform, which began as a niche link aggregator and gradually grew into the web’s default community of communities, has gone from optional to inescapable, its little red alien logo manifesting no matter which way you look. For my zoomer cousin, a professional TikToker who was still learning to read when Reddit was founded, it’s obviously “the only place where you know there are real people.”
For 82-year-old user LogyBayer, who grew up programming FORTRAN on punch-card computers in the 1960s, Reddit, where he has posted thousands of times, is the closest thing he can find to “the wondrous world of Usenet,” the online discussion system that predates the web. Many of the less online people I know, who had maybe heard of Reddit, are now tapping through threads about life advice and HVAC repair; at the same time, some of the most online people I know, who for years saw Reddit as a sort of internet playpen, a meme aggregator downstream of more vital communities, are now logging in daily.
It’s happened to me, too, a screen-addled tech reporter who has been covering the platform’s growth — and various problems — for well over a decade with at least notional remove: When it’s time again to pick up that phone and incinerate a few more seconds of my one life on earth, more often than not, I shovel them into Reddit.
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I spend zero time on Reddit. Next!
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| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
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The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 