An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: For decades, the Environmental Protection Agency has calculated the health benefits of reducing air pollution, using the cost estimates of avoided asthma attacks and premature deaths to justify clean-air rules. Not anymore. Under President Trump, the E.P.A. plans to stop tallying gains from the health benefits caused by curbing two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone, when regulating industry, according to internal agency emails and documents reviewed by The New York Times.
It's a seismic shift that runs counter to the E.P.A.'s mission statement, which says the agency's core responsibility is to protect human health and the environment, environmental law experts said. The change could make it easier to repeal limits on these pollutants from coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills and other industrial facilities across the country, the emails and documents show. That would most likely lower costs for companies while resulting in dirtier air. "The idea that E.P.A. would not consider the public health benefits of its regulations is anathema to the very mission of E.P.A.," said Richard Revesz, the faculty director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law.
"If you're only considering the costs to industry and you're ignoring the benefits, then you can't justify any regulations that protect public health, which is the very reason that E.P.A. was set up."
60 years ago today, ABC aired the first episode of its live-action Batman television series, introducing Adam West as the deadpan Caped Crusader in what became a pop culture phenomenon blending high-camp humor and cliffhanger thrills. The mid-season replacement ran for 120 episodes over three seasons before ending in March 1968.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft is celebrating the resurgence of interest in physical media in the only way it knows how... by halting the Windows Media Player metadata service. Readers of a certain vintage will remember inserting a CD into their PC and watching Windows Media Player populate with track listings and album artwork. No more.
Sometime before Christmas, the metadata servers stopped working and on Windows 10 or 11, the result is the same: album not found. We tried this out at Vulture Central on some sacrificial Windows devices that had media drives and can confirm that a variety of compact discs were met with stony indifference. Some 90s cheese that was successfully ripped (for personal use, of course) decades ago? No longer recognized. A reissue of something achingly hip? Also not recognized.
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Autoblog: ... the problem is that the federal brightness standards for automotive headlights have not changed for decades. The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108 hasn't had significant updates since 1986, with an addition allowing Adaptive Driving Beam (ADB) headlights coming only in 2022. The NHTSA last investigated (PDF) the issue of headlamp glare in 2003. The current standards include huge loopholes for auto manufacturers to emit as much light as desired, as long as the manufacturer meets the requirements of the other parts of the regulation.
LEDs can be made to focus light using lasers, and auto manufacturers use this ability to their advantage. The regulatory standard prohibits excessive light in certain areas by referencing old technologies, but manufacturers design the areas in question to be shaded so that the total light output can still be increased greatly overall. Manufacturers want as much light as possible in order to get a high score for the IIHS headlight safety ratings. [...] Although the U.S. finally approved the ADB technology in 2022, manufacturers are wary of implementing it because of conflicting regulations, with a few exceptions, such as Rivian.
To fix this problem, the first step is to update Standard 108 with a cap on the maximum allowable brightness for LED technology. Next, states should begin requiring headlight alignment inspection during vehicle inspections. Finally, NHTSA should enforce a ban against the sale of aftermarket LEDs that exceed the allowed brightness, at least for on-road use. The Soft Lights Foundation has collected over 77,000 signatures calling for federal action to limit headlight brightness. People are frustrated with being temporarily blinded while driving, and it's high time some regulation was put into place. Vehicles have become cleaner and safer through smart regulation; the same just needs to be done with headlights.
Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service has drawn renewed criticism for a particularly frustrating behavior pattern that can leave users without access to their local files after the service automatically activates during Windows updates.
Author Jason Pargin recently outlined the problem: Windows updates can enable OneDrive backup without any plain-language warning or opt-out option, and the service then quietly begins uploading the contents of a user's computer to Microsoft's servers. The trouble begins when users attempt to disable OneDrive Backup. According to Pargin, turning off the feature can result in local files being deleted, leaving behind only a desktop icon labeled "Where are my files?"
Users can redownload their files from Microsoft's servers, but attempting to then delete Microsoft's copies triggers another deletion of the local files. The only workaround requires users to hunt down YouTube tutorials that walk through the steps, as the relevant options are buried in menus and none clearly describe their function in plain English. Pargin compared the experience to a ransomware attack.
Developers making mods and plugins for hentai games and sex toys say Github recently unleashed a wave of suspensions and bans against their repositories, and the platform hasn’t explained why.
Developers I spoke to said the community estimated around 80 to 90 repositories containing the work of 40 to 50 people went down recently, with many becoming inaccessible around late November and early December. Many of the affected accounts are part of the modding community for games made by the now-defunct Japanese video game studio Illusion, which made popular games with varying degrees of erotic content. One of the accounts Github banned contained the work of more than 30 contributors in more than 40 repositories, according to members of the modding community that I spoke to.
Github didn’t tell most suspended users what terms they broke to earn a suspension or ban, and developers told me they have no idea why their accounts went down without notice. They said they thought they were within Github’s acceptable use guidelines; even though they make mods for hentai games and things like interactive vibrator plugins, they took care to not host anything explicit directly in their repositories.
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Do you have something to share about what's going on at Github? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at sam.404. Otherwise, send me an email at sam@404media.co.
“Amongst my repositories there were no explicitly sexual names or images anywhere in the code or the readme, the most suggestive naming would be on the level of referencing the dick as ‘the men thing’ or referencing the sex as ‘huffing puffing,’” one developer, Danil Zverev, told me. He makes plugins for an Illusion game called Koikatsu. Zverev said he’s been using Github for this purpose since 2024, but on November 18, his Github page was “completely deleted,” he said. “No notifications anywhere, simply a 404 error when accessing the page and inability to log in on the web or in the mobile app. Also it does not allow me to register a new account with the same name or email.”
Github updated its acceptable use policies in October 2025 to forbid “sexually themed or suggestive content that serves little or no purpose other than to solicit an erotic or shocking response, particularly where that content is amplified by its placement in profiles or other social contexts.” This include pornographic content and “graphic depictions of sexual acts including photographs, video, animation, drawings, computer-generated images, or text-based content,” according to the terms.
“We recognize that not all nudity or content related to sexuality is obscene. We may allow visual and/or textual depictions in artistic, educational, historical or journalistic contexts, or as it relates to victim advocacy,” Github's terms of use state. “In some cases a disclaimer can help communicate the context of the project. However, please understand that we may choose to limit the content by giving users the option to opt in before viewing.”
Zverev said he didn’t write to support because he sees “such effort as fruitless and would rather move on to a different platform instead.” But even Github users who did try to get help from the platform’s support hit dead ends.
A developer who goes by VerDevin, who makes Blender modding guides, utility tools and plugins for a game called Custom Order Maid 3D2, told me in an email that users of his mods started reporting difficulty accessing his repositories starting in late October. At that point, he could still access their account while logged in, but not when logged out.
“Turned out, as you already know, that my account was ‘signaled’ and I had to purposefully go to the report section of Github to learn about it. I never received any notifications, by mail or otherwise,” VerDevin told me. “At that point I sent a ticket asking politely for clarifications and the proceedings for reinstatement.”
Github Trust & Safety replied with a generic message: “If you agree to abide by our Terms of Service going forward, please reply to this email and provide us more information on how you hope to use GitHub in the future. At that time we will continue our review of your request for reinstatement.”
VerDevin said they replied the following day, agreeing to the terms and promising to remove whatever Github deemed inappropriate—information the platform still hadn’t given them. “I did not take actual steps toward it as at that point I still didn't know what was reproach of me,” they said.
A month passed before Github replied. “Your account was actioned due to violation of the following prohibition found in our Acceptable Use Policies: Specifically, the content or activity that was reported included multiple sexually explicit content in repositories, which we found to be in violation of our Acceptable Use Policies,” Github wrote to VerDevin.
“At that point I took down several repositories that might qualify as an attempt to show good faith (like a plugin named COM3D2.Interlewd),” they said. Github restored his account on December 17—several weeks later, the day after I sent them a link to his account asking why it was banned—but they still haven’t heard anything about what specific content caused it to be “actioned.”
Github did not respond to my multiple requests for comment about why these accounts were banned. I sent Github’s press team links to several banned accounts, and they reinstated a few, but didn’t provide a reason or reply when I asked what caused the bans in the first place.
The situation is illustrative of a longstanding problem on almost every platform: the terms of use, especially when it comes to adult content, are applied confusingly and sporadically. The affected repositories represent tools used by potentially hundreds of thousands of gamers; the English Koikatsu modding Discord community alone has more than 350,000 members. A developer who goes by Sauceke, who Github suspended in mid-November without explanation, said their open-source adult toy mod users are now encountering broken links or simply can’t find any of their work.
“Perhaps most frustratingly, all of the tickets, pull requests, past release builds and changelogs are gone, because those things are not part of Git (the version control system),” Sauceke told me. “So even if someone had the foresight to make mirrors before the ban (as I did), those mirrors would only keep up with the code changes, not these ‘extra’ things that are pretty much vital to our work.”
Github reinstated Sauceke’s account on Tuesday, following another request for comment from me asking why anyone was banned—seven weeks after initially suspending them. Github support sent them a message: “Thank you for the information you have provided. Sorry for the time taken to get back to you. We really do appreciate your patience. Sometimes our abuse detecting systems highlight accounts that need to be manually reviewed. We've cleared the restrictions from your account, so you have full access to GitHub again.”
But even as Github reinstates accounts, pieces of users’ repos are missing. In Sauceke’s account and others, including in the IllusionMods repo, all releases are hidden. “This makes the releases both inaccessible to users and impossible to migrate to other sites without some tedious work,” Sauceke said.
Github is the biggest open-source platform for developers, and especially for adult content creators who are often censored or marginalized elsewhere, discoverability on that platform is important. “It's the best place to build a community, to find like-minded people who dig your stuff and want to collaborate,” Sauceke said. If the banning spree goes beyond hentai game and toy modders, they said, it might push developers to explore other platforms. Some have already migrated their repos to GitGoon, an open-source platform specifically for adult developers, or Codeberg, Berlin-based nonprofit-run site similar to Github.
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