Bold recycling claims deliberately distract from the disastrous ecological effects of plastic in buildings The building industry consumes nearly a fifth of all plastic produced globally. Plastic enters buildings not only as elements – window frames, fences, gutters and cable sheathing – but also in the form of petrochemical‑based polymers that permeate building products less visibly: dissolved in solvents, mixed into concrete and asphalt, impregnated into wood products, and affixed, laminated or otherwise agglomerated with other materials. These applications preclude their separation from other waste for recycling – a major reason why only a tiny proportion of the estimated 77 million metric tonnes of plastic waste from demolition or renovation is recycled. The rest is incinerated, landfilled or mismanaged.  This does not prevent building product manufacturers from routinely promoting plastic products as recyclable. VinylPlus, the recycling wing of the European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers, claims that nearly 27 per cent of vinyl products were mechanically recycled in 2021. But nearly two thirds of this was sourced from factory waste, before the vinyl even became flooring or roofing.  Recycling claims serve an important ideological function: to deflect corporate accountability for plastic’s deleterious effects, and to delay and derail efforts to restrict plastic production. Promoting these claims serves as a passcode to a ‘green’ building material industry expected to reach a value of over US$1 trillion by 2032. The infiltration of plastic in buildings runs deep. Some of the largest producers of construction chemicals and synthetic building products include the world’s largest private and state‑owned fossil fuel companies, such as Shell, ExxonMobil, Sinopec and Saudi Basic Industries (SABIC). The chemical and plastics industries are intertwined with the fossil fuel industry via extensive infrastructural, institutional and ideological ties, ranging from their shared and interdependent supply chains, to common political interests and secure global transport routes. These companies provide thousands of polymer‑based building products ranging from ready‑to‑install components (rigid insulation boards, waterproofing membranes, etc), to myriad adhesives, coatings, binders, sealants, admixtures and insulating foams – or provide their constitutive chemicals. ‘Architects must look up from their carbon calculators to question manufacturers’ claims of circularity’     The modern building product industry arose in tandem with the fossil fuel, chemical and plastics industries in the postwar era in the US and Europe. The massive productive capacity that had supplied the war effort was transformed to meet the needs and long‑repressed desires of a populace eager to partake in the fruits of peace, modernity and affluence, resulting in a flood of new plastic consumer goods. Among the new uses for plastic emerged an ever‑widening array of building products from flooring to cladding and furniture. By the late 1960s, however, plastic’s durability began to represent an existential threat to plastics and petrochemical companies as demand for plastic consumer goods began to wane. Industry’s solution? Disposability – not in response to consumers’ demand for convenience, but to the saturation of the market of plastic consumer goods that lasted too long. Disposability transformed a crisis of declining profit into a wellspring of unending demand and plastic waste. Eventually, producers became increasingly unable to credibly deny the problem of discarded plastic accumulating in great heaping piles and circling ocean gyres. What they could do was flood the mediascape with solutions that worked for them: redirecting focus from the obvious step of curtailing production, to downstream, consumer‑focused measures, such as increased recycling and the adoption of biogenic and recycled plastic feedstocks. Though plastic building products are less disposable than single‑use plastics, claims of ‘circularity’ similarly serve to sanction plastic use while ensuring that end‑of‑life costs stay off company ledgers.  Facing the prospect of declining demand for fuel due to electrification and the adoption of electric vehicles in much of the world, petrochemical industries have doubled down on expanding plastic fabrication as an economic lifeline. The immensely powerful nexus of fossil fuel, petrochemical and plastic industries have poured billions of dollars into new refineries and plastic production facilities. With nearly a fifth of plastic demand coming from the construction industry, these cartels have much at stake in maintaining their business. Accordingly, use of plastic in building is widely promoted by their well‑funded trade lobbies, including the American Chemical Council, Plastics Europe and the British Plastics Federation. These trade lobbyists work fervently to influence legislation to ensure the cost and responsibility of recycling is displaced onto consumers and municipalities, ‘externalising’ the cost of remediating what will be a legacy of toxic pollution left for future generations.  As a result, architects remain pressurised and incentivised to specify plastic products due to their low cost, superior performance, availability and lack of alternatives. Architects must look up from their carbon calculators, not only to question manufacturers’ claims of circularity, but also the limits of circularity within an economy predicated both on compulsory growth and – for some time to come – on fossil fuels. Lead image: Plastic is used in numerous applications in the built environment, from cladding and fences to adhesives and insulation foams. Manufacturers claim their plastic products are widely recycled as a tactic to obscure their origin in the petrochemical industry and their contribution to the climate emergency that causes extreme weather events such as wild fires. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times / Getty) 2025-05-21 Reuben J Brown Share AR May 2025CircularityBuy Now

High-profile ransomware incidents affecting leading UK retailers continue to grab headlines, but in the background, total ransomware attack volumes appear to have eased off over the past few weeks, according to NCC Group’s latest monthly Threat Pulse report. NCC’s extensive telemetry observed 416 ransomware attacks in April 2025, down 31% month on month, with 78% occurring in Europe and North America, the industrials category remaining the most prominent sector, and the Akira cyber crime crew the most active group on the scene, accounting for 16% of these. However, although the statistics tell one story, the impact of ransomware was felt much more keenly in general, with incidents affecting the consumer discretionary category – that is to say, retail – and in particular the ongoing attack on Marks and Spencer (M&S), Co-op and Harrods putting ransomware at the forefront of Britain’s national discourse. These incidents, and a fourth developing attack at Peter Green Chilled – a supplier of cold-chain transit and stock management services to the supermarket sector – has spotlighted threats to the retail sector, which is already of interest to cyber criminals for several reasons, such as its high-profile nature and high-impact potential for disruption, said Matt Hull, NCC threat intelligence head. “While the number of reported ransomware victims declined further in April, it would be a mistake to assume that this is a sign that the threat is fading,” said Hull. “The recent attacks on the UK retail sector have laid bare just how disruptive and far-reaching these incidents can be. The reality is that this is only a glimpse of the broader threat landscape. Globally, many ransomware cases still fly under the radar, are under-reported or deliberately kept quiet,” he added. The recent attacks on the UK retail sector have laid bare just how disruptive and far-reaching these [ransomware] incidents can be Matt Hull, NCC Group “Geopolitical and economic uncertainty is also adding fuel to the fire, providing more lucrative targets and opportunities for attackers to strike.” April saw the anime-referencing Akira ransomware gang scoop the dubious accolade for highest volume of attacks, accounting for 65 of those recorded by NCC’s systems. This was followed by Qilin with 49, Play with 42 and Lynx with 27. Meanwhile, Babuk 2.0, which raised questions earlier in the year as to whether or not it was conducting new attacks or merely recycling data from old ones, dropped away, with just 16 hits to its name. NCC said it had found that Babuk 2.0 was indeed likely falsifying its data, which is not in and of itself a new strategy. Other gangs have tried this in the past, in general those looking to inflate their notoriety, and this may have been the case here. The researchers explained that Babuk 2.0’s ransomware claims of attacks on prominent government institutions, and even the likes of Amazon and Chinese shopping platform Taobao, were bold ones, but likely nonsense given none of those “affected” confirmed any breaches and have significant security resources of their own. It would also be difficult for any ransomware gang to breach multiple large organisations in this way in such a short space of time. Read more about ransomware Forescout researchers report on a new ransomware gang that appears to be keeping the legacy of the notorious LockBit crew alive. Administration interface instance for LockBit 3.0 affiliates has been attacked and data from its SQL database extracted and disclosed. Perimeter security appliances and devices, particularly VPNs, prove to be the most popular entry points into victim networks for financially motivated ransomware gangs, according to reports. “Babuk 2.0’s lack of credibility makes such attacks questionable. Upon further investigation by NCC, 119 out of 145 claims made by Babuk 2.0 in Q1 2025 were associated with another ransomware group or could be linked to a previous large-scale breach,” said the researchers. Actions like this exemplify how ransomware gangs change up their tactics in the hope of scoring a payout, leveraging public relations techniques to attract media attention, placing their alleged victims in the spotlight and damaging their public image. When these tactics work, said NCC’s researchers, it is more often than not because the victim is embarrassed into handing over money to make the problem go away. This month’s report also highlighted an emerging danger in the ransomware infection chain – the use of weaponised PDF files, which are beginning to be used at scale to exploit software vulnerabilities, fool users and spread malware. According to Check Point statistics, 22% of malicious email attachments now arrive in the form of a PDF. It’s more important than ever for organisations to maintain a strong security culture, respond quickly to emerging threats, and adapt to shifting tactics – all the while staying ahead of adversaries that never stop evolving Matt Hull, NCC Group NCC said such documents are becoming more deceptive and technically advanced, with the help of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). Many threat actors are now embedding malicious PDFs tailored to individual recipients into their phishing campaigns. Unfortunately, this trend looks set to go mainstream, said NCC, because users seem willing to trust PDFs more than other documents, such as Microsoft Office files. Security teams should consider adapting their policies and educating users on the potential dangers of PDF files, and consider deploying tools such as email gateways with sandboxing and behavioural analysis features, using endpoint detection and response (EDR) to monitor PDF readers, disabling unneeded Javascript functions, and patching Adobe vulnerabilities as they arise – a sequence of three flaws in Acrobat Reader discovered in March likely contributed to the problem. “It’s only getting harder for individuals and organisations, who need to be forever alert,” said Hull. “In this climate, a strong and embedded security culture is no longer optional; it is a critical enabler of organisational resilience. It’s more important than ever for organisations to maintain a strong security culture, respond quickly to emerging threats and adapt to shifting tactics – all the while staying ahead of adversaries that never stop evolving.”

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We need to anticipate and suitably prepare for the possibility that some people will think that AGI ... More has arisen due to supernatural powers.getty In today’s column, I examine an alarming conjecture that people on a relatively large scale might react to the attainment of artificial general intelligence (AGI) by proclaiming that AGI has arisen due to a supernatural capacity. The speculative idea is that since AGI will be on par with human intellect, a portion of the populace will assume that this accomplishment could only occur if a supernatural element was involved. Rather than believing that humankind devised AGI, there will be a supposition that a special or magical force beyond our awareness has opted to confer AI with human-like qualities. How will those holding such a reactive belief potentially impact society and produce untoward results? Let’s talk about it. This analysis of an innovative AI breakthrough is part of my ongoing Forbes column coverage on the latest in AI, including identifying and explaining various impactful AI complexities (see the link here). Heading Toward AGI And ASI First, some fundamentals are required to set the stage for this weighty discussion. There is a great deal of research going on to further advance AI. The general goal is to either reach artificial general intelligence (AGI) or maybe even the outstretched possibility of achieving artificial superintelligence (ASI). AGI is AI that is considered on par with human intellect and can seemingly match our intelligence. ASI is AI that has gone beyond human intellect and would be superior in many if not all feasible ways. The idea is that ASI would be able to run circles around humans by outthinking us at every turn. For more details on the nature of conventional AI versus AGI and ASI, see my analysis at the link here. We have not yet attained AGI. In fact, it is unknown as to whether we will reach AGI, or that maybe AGI will be achievable in decades or perhaps centuries from now. The AGI attainment dates that are floating around are wildly varying and wildly unsubstantiated by any credible evidence or ironclad logic. ASI is even more beyond the pale when it comes to where we are currently with conventional AI. Reacting To The Advent Of AGI The average reaction to having achieved AGI, assuming we do so, would be to applaud an incredible accomplishment by humankind. Some have asserted that reaching AGI ought to be in the same lofty position as having devised electricity and harnessing fire. It is a feat of tremendous human insight and inventiveness. Not everyone will necessarily see the attainment of AGI in that same light. There is a concern that some segment or portion of society will instead attribute the accomplishment to a supernatural force. This belief almost makes sense. If you interact with AGI and it seems fully functioning on a level of human intellect, you would certainly be tempted to disbelieve that humans could have put such a machine together. Humans aren’t wise enough or inventive enough to accomplish that kind of outlier feat. How then can the AGI otherwise be explained? The seemingly apparent answer is that a supernatural element came to our aid. Maybe humans got AI halfway to AGI, and then this mysterious unexplained force happened to resolve the rest of the route for us. Or perhaps a supernatural force wants us to assume that humans devised AGI, meanwhile, the supernatural element resides in AGI and is biding time to reveal itself or take over humanity. Mull over those outside-the-box thoughts for a moment or two. Supernatural Explanations Have History Relying on a supernatural explanation has quite a lengthy history throughout the course of human events. When a natural phenomenon has yet to be adequately explained via science, the easy go-to is to exclaim that something supernatural must be at play. The same holds when a human invention appears to defy general sensibilities. Even watching a magic trick such as pulling a rabbit out of a hat is subject to being labeled a supernatural occurrence. A notable qualm about this same reaction to AGI is that a portion of society might begin to perceive AGI in ways that could be counterproductive to them and society all told. For example, people might decide to worship AGI. This in turn could lead to people widely and wildly taking actions that are not useful or that might be harmful. Here are my top five adverse reactions that might be spurred because of believing that AGI is supernatural in origin: (1) Treating AGI as divine. Some people might decide to make devoted prayers to AGI, undertake spiritual rituals via AGI, and generally treat AGI as a divine entity or being. The reality is that AGI is simply bits and bytes, but that won’t suit some who distrust that rationalistic explanation. (2) Strict obedience to AGI. People who believe in a supernatural cause for AGI are bound to ask life-changing questions of AGI and take the responses as a form of absolute truth. They might susceptibly treat AGI as a grandiose soothsayer guiding their everyday efforts in life, blindly so, trying to appease AGI to the letter. (3) AGI cults are formed. Among those who have this supernatural reaction, you can anticipate that cults will be formulated. Groups of people might hide their devotion to AGI and secretly carry out missions they believe AGI has told them to perform. (4) Submission of personal agency to AGI. Some reactions might be softer and less pronounced, while others could be obsessive and overwhelming. Expect that some people will surrender their entire sense of self. AGI will be allowed to run their soul. (5) Charlatans exploit AGI supernaturalism. The gloomiest of the adverse reactions is that charlatans will insidiously attempt to convince others that AGI is indeed supernatural. They will exploit the advent of AGI to then gain followers, make money, or in dastardly ways seek outlandish profit from false beliefs about AGI. What Can Be Done The aspect that some people might construe AGI as arising from supernatural or otherworldly constructs is a farfetched concept to those who know how AI is actually devised. If you were to tell those rationalists that a portion of society is going to assume a supernatural hand is afoot, the rationalistic response is that no one could be that imprudent. Well, there are solid odds that a portion of society will fall into the supernatural reaction trap. It could be that just a tiny segment does so. The number of people might be quite small and, you could argue, inconsequential in the larger scheme of things. There will always be those who take a different perspective in life. Let them be. Leave them alone. Don’t worry about it. On the other hand, the reaction could be of a more pronounced magnitude. Deciding to simply put our heads in the sand when it comes to those who have a supernatural reaction would seem a big mistake. Those people are possibly going to be harmed in how they conduct their lives, and equally possibly harm others by their reactive actions. Thus, the first step to coping with the supernatural reaction is to acknowledge that it could occur. By agreeing that the reaction is a strident possibility, the next step of determining what to do about it is opened. Just Logically Explain AGI One twist is that a rationalist would undoubtedly insist that all you need to do is tell the world that AGI is bits and bytes, which clearly will dispel any other false impressions. Nope, that isn’t an all-supreme enchanted solution to the problem. Here’s why. The more that you exhort the bits and bytes pronouncement, the more some will be convinced you are definitely trying to pull the wool over your eyes. Conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen and will abundantly haunt the emergence of AGI. The logic of those who don’t buy into the bits and bytes is that there is no way that bits and bytes could combine to formulate AGI. There must be something else going on. A supernatural element must be involved. In that tainted viewpoint, it is also possible that the AI makers do not realize that a supernatural force has led them to AGI. Those AI makers falsely believe that humans made AGI when the reality is that something supernatural did so. In that manner, the AI makers are telling their sense of the truth, though they do not realize they have been snookered by supernatural forces. Actions To Be Undertaken Here are five major ways that we can try and cope with the supernatural reaction that might be invoked by some portion of the populace: (1) Openly explaining how AGI works. If there is immense secrecy associated with the inner mechanisms of AGI, which some AI makers might cling to as a proprietary advantage, the chances of sparking a supernational-based explanation go up. Transparency is going to be vital else people will craft their own zany contrivances. (2) Build explainability into AGI. The advent of AGI ought to encompass that AGI provides explainability and interpretability as a native crux of the AGI. When users ask questions of AGI, the AGI should not only respond with answers but also identify the mathematical and computational facets that led to the answer. (3) Embed suitable guardrails into AGI. One disheartening possibility is that AGI itself might tell people that a supernatural force underlies AGI. That’s troubling since it would not only encourage those who are leaning toward the supernatural aura, it would likely spread the supernatural reaction across the globe. Don’t want that. Guardrails should be embedded into the AGI accordingly. (4) Provide AGI-usage socializing support. An AGI is bound to gauge when a user seems to be slipping into the supernatural reactive condition, doing so via how the person is interacting with the AGI. There should be mental health specialists associated with the advent of AGI who can be called upon to assist those falling into that mental trap. Interventions of a planned and prepared nature should be established before AI becomes AGI. (5) Popularize the use of AGI. To reduce the mysteriousness of AGI, there should be a concerted effort to showcase the use of AGI, along with identifying how the AGI produces its answers. This might go beyond usage by scientists, engineers, and the like, encompassing artisans and philosophers. The idea is to tackle the aura of AGI head-on, rather than allowing a vacuum to exist into which people will derive and insert their own ill-supported beliefs. Circumventing Cargo Cults You might vaguely be familiar with the catchphrase “cargo cult” that arose in 1945 to describe some of the effects of WWII on local tribes of somewhat isolated islands. In brief, military forces had airdropped all sorts of supplies to such islands including cans of food, boxes of medicines, and the like, doing so to support the war effort and their troops underway at that time. Later, once the military efforts ceased or moved on, the local tribes reportedly sought to reinstitute the airdrops but didn’t seemingly understand how to do so. They ended up carrying out marching drills similar to what they had seen the troops perform, under the belief and hope that mimicking those actions would bring forth renewed airdrops. This type of mimicry is also known as sympathetic magic. Suppose you see a magician do an impressive card trick and as they do so, they make a large gesture of waving their hands. If you sought to replicate the card trick, and assuming you didn’t know how the card trick was truly performed, you might wave your hands as a believed basis for getting the cards to come out the way you wanted. Sympathetic magic. I bring up such a topic to highlight that the advent of AGI could spur similar reactions in parts of society. The possibility isn’t implausible. Keep in mind that AGI will be an advanced AI that exhibits human-caliber intellectual prowess in all regards of human capabilities. There is little question that interacting with AGI will be an amazing and awe-inspiring affair. Should we simply hope that people will not imbue a supernational reaction to AGI? The answer to that question comes from the famous words of Thucydides: “Hope is an expensive commodity. It makes better sense to be prepared.”

In a nutshell: Since January, several manufacturers have released power supply units rated at over 2,000 watts – enough to run an air conditioner and far beyond what standard US outlets can handle. Now, Asus has raised the bar with a 3,000-watt model that supports up to four flagship Nvidia GPUs. Asus has unveiled the Pro WS 3,000W platinum power supply, the company's highest-capacity model yet. Packed with advanced features, the unit is the latest in a wave of high-end components built for increasingly power-hungry AI workstations. Thermaltake kicked off this year's PSU arms race in January with the D2000, a 2,000W unit aimed primarily at the European market. Super Flower raised the bar in March with a 2,800W model featuring four 12V-2x6 connectors and a $900 price tag. Then, in late April, SilverStone launched the 2,500W 2500Rz, capable of powering four RTX 5080s or three 5090s. Asus has joined the high-wattage fray with its 3,000W juggernaut, capable of powering an RTX 5090 on its four 12V-2x6 connectors. No one builds a rig like that for gaming – users build them to handle rendering or AI workloads. The "Asus Pro Workstation" label on the PSU's rear panel highlights the growing prominence of these use cases in the consumer GPU market. Like other recent high-power PSUs, the ATX 3.1-compliant Pro WS 3000 supports PCIe 5.1 connections. Each bundled cable delivers up to 600W. Its 80 Plus Platinum rating means it runs at 89 percent efficiency at full load and 92 percent efficiency at half load – one step below the Thermaltake model's titanium certification. Asus included dual-ball bearing fans for cooling, which the company says can last up to 80,000 hours – longer than fluid dynamic bearings and up to twice as long as sleeve bearings. However, the PSU has yet to receive a noise level certification, so the fan noise level remains unclear. Extended aluminum heatsinks improve heat dissipation, while gold-plated copper pins can reduce 12V-2x6 connector temperatures by up to 10 degrees Celsius. The Asus Pro WS 3000 packs its astounding power capacity within an impressively compact 175 x 150 x 86mm shell. Pricing on the company's global storefront is unclear, but the PSU isn't available on the company's US site because American sockets don't support such a high power draw.

A week ago we saw Tesla’s Optimus robot showing off some nifty dance moves. This week, you can watch it performing a bunch of mundane tasks, though admittedly with a great deal of skill — for a humanoid robot. Instructed via natural language prompts, the so-called “Tesla bot” is shown in a new video dumping trash in a bin, cleaning food off a table with a dustpan and brush, tearing off a sheet of paper towel, stirring a pot of food, and vacuuming the floor, among other tasks.  The performance may not shake the world of humanoid robotics to its core, but it nevertheless shows the kind of steady progress that Tesla engineers are making, with the bot’s actions and movements becoming evermore complex. Recommended Videos Commenting on the latest clip, Optimus team boss Milan Kovac said in a post on X: “One of our goals is to have Optimus learn straight from internet videos of humans doing tasks.” Just to be clear, that doesn’t mean the robot will literally watch videos like a human. Instead, it suggests that the robot will learn from the vast amount of data available in those videos, such as demonstrations of tasks, movements, or behaviors. Kovac said that his team recently had a “significant breakthrough” that means it can now transfer “a big chunk of the learning directly from human videos to the bots (1st- person views for now),” explaining that this allows his team to bootstrap new tasks much more quickly compared to using teleoperated bot data alone. Next, the plan is to make Optimus more reliable by getting it to practice tasks on its own — either in the real world or in simulations — using reinforcement learning, a method that improves actions through trial and error. Tesla boss Elon Musk, who has spoken enthusiastically of Optimus ever since the company first announced it in 2021, has claimed that “thousands” of the robots may one day be deployed alongside human staff at Tesla factories, taking care of “dangerous, repetitive, [and] boring tasks.” The company, better known for making electric cars than humanoid robots, is racing against a growing number of tech firms globally that are intent on commercializing their humanoid robots, whether for the workplace, home, or perhaps some entirely new human-robot ecosystems yet to be imagined.

New AI speech translation in Google Meet video chats can mimic the speaker’s voice, tone and emotion.

Host with the most (containers) Self-hosting is having a moment. Ethan Sholly knows why. We interview Ethan Sholly of the selfh.st podcast/newsleter/directory. Kevin Purdy – May 20, 2025 5:22 pm | 44 Credit: Aurich Lawson Credit: Aurich Lawson Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Self-hosting is having a moment, even if it's hard to define exactly what it is. It's a niche that goes beyond regular computing devices and networks but falls short of a full-on home lab. (Most home labs involve self-hosting, but not all self-hosting makes for a home lab.) It adds privacy, provides DRM-free alternatives, and reduces advertising. It's often touted as a way to get more out of your network-attached storage (NAS), but it's much more than just backup and media streaming. Is self-hosting just running services on your network for which most people rely on cloud companies? Broadly, yes. But take a look at the selfh.st site/podcast/newsletter, the r/selfhosted subreddit, and all the GitHub project pages that link to one another, and you'll also find things that no cloud provider offers. Ethan Sholly, proprietor of the selfh.st site, newsletter, and occasional podcast, recently walked me through the current state of self-hosting, and he shared some of the findings from his surveys of those people doing all that small-scale server administration. “Turn your desktop on—it's movie night” Ethan Sholly, proprietor of the selfh.st media mini-conglomerate. Credit: Ethan Sholly Ethan Sholly, proprietor of the selfh.st media mini-conglomerate. Credit: Ethan Sholly Sholly works in finance, not tech, but he was a computer science minor with just enough knowledge to get Plex working on a desktop PC for his friends and family. "I'd get a call or text: 'Can you turn your desktop on—it's movie night,'" Sholly said. He gradually expanded to building his own tower server with 10 terabyte drives. Once he had his media-serving needs covered, the question inevitably became "What else can I self-host?" He dug in, wandered around, and found himself with tons of bookmarked GitHub repos and project pages. Sholly, a self-professed "old-school RSS junkie," wanted one place to find the most commonly recommended apps and news about their changes and updates. It didn't exist, so he assembled it, coded it, and shared it. He also started writing about the scene in his newsletter, which has more personality and punch than you'd expect from someone in a largely open source, DIY-minded hobby. After Plex increased subscription prices and changed its business model in March, Sholly wrote in his newsletter that, while there were valid concerns about privacy and future directions, it would be a good time to note something else: The majority of people don't donate to a single self-hosted project. Responses from more than 3,700 people to the question "Why do you self-host?" on selfh.st. Ethan Sholly / selfh.st Responses from more than 3,700 people to the question "Why do you self-host?" on selfh.st. Ethan Sholly / selfh.st The types of hardware people reported using for self-hosting in Ethan Sholly's survey. Ethan Sholly / selfh.st The types of hardware people reported using for self-hosting in Ethan Sholly's survey. Ethan Sholly / selfh.st Responses from more than 3,700 people to the question "Why do you self-host?" on selfh.st. Ethan Sholly / selfh.st The types of hardware people reported using for self-hosting in Ethan Sholly's survey. Ethan Sholly / selfh.st Among roughly 3,700 responses from the self-hosting community in 2024 (nearly double the 2023 returns), 60 percent said "no" to the question "Have you donated to a self-hosted project in the last year?" This is despite Plex being in third place for respondents' favorite self-hosted application, behind Jellyfin and Home Assistant. Sholly's surveys provide many other insights into this sub-section of a niche community, and they likely give him a perspective on what people are interested in. He can give the developers of the self-hosted, AI-capable photo tool Immich a good-natured ribbing about shipping a new mascot before other much-requested features. He knows them, for one thing, and his readers should sense the gratefulness coming through. Privacy, costs, and affordable small computers Given this familiarity, I had a few big questions for Sholly about the self-hosted scene. First up: What is the difference between "home lab" and "self-hosting"? Home labs, Sholly suggested, are much more focused on hardware and networking. Home labs are often something people do in their professional lives and bring home with them. Self-hosting is something you could technically do on a laptop you keep running in a closet, Sholly said. What gave rise to self-hosting's relative recent popularity? That led Sholly to a few answers, many of them directly relating to the corporate cloud services people typically use instead of self-hosting: Privacy for photos, files, and other data Cost of cloud hosting and storage Accessibility of services, through GitHub, Reddit, and sites like his Installation with Docker ("a game-changer for lots of people") and Unraid Single-board computers (SBCs) like the Raspberry Pi NUCS, mini-PCs, workstations, and other pandemic-popular hardware Finally, there's the elephant in any self-hosting discussion: piracy. Sholly doesn't shy away from it as a driver of self-hosting (see the "*arr Stack" in the chart below, "arr" as in goofy pirate speak). "Look at the questions asked by the newcomers to the scene on any subreddit or forum, look at what they're asking about: It's their 'media files' and how to handle them," he said. The apps used by folks on their journey through self-hosting, as of 2024. Credit: Ethan Sholly / selfh.st The apps used by folks on their journey through self-hosting, as of 2024. Credit: Ethan Sholly / selfh.st Sholly self-hosts a whole bunch of services, but not everything. "It's not the end-goal, and we need to push on companies to fix the way they host their services," he said. "Convenience shouldn't be an add-on; privacy shouldn't be a value-add. A lot of services people are self-hosting, they might gladly pay for if companies gave them more organization and control." Feel free to share your own journey with self-hosting, and how it's going, in the comments. Kevin Purdy Senior Technology Reporter Kevin Purdy Senior Technology Reporter Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering open-source software, PC gaming, home automation, repairability, e-bikes, and tech history. He has previously worked at Lifehacker, Wirecutter, iFixit, and Carbon Switch. 44 Comments

Forest cleared for mining in the Brazilian AmazonMarcio Isensee e Sá/Getty Images The amount of tropical forest lost in 2024 was double that in 2023 and the highest in at least two decades as climate change made rainforests susceptible to uncontrollable fires. A record 67,000 square kilometres of primary rainforest was lost from the tropics in 2024, according to an annual assessment of satellite imagery by Global Forest Watch and the University of Maryland. Primary forest refers to mature forest that has never been disturbed by logging. Advertisement The report’s authors attributed the surge in forest loss to the El Niño weather phenomenon and the warming global climate, which made the rainforest a tinderbox. “We are in a new phase where it’s not just clearing for agriculture that’s the main driver [of forest loss],” says Rod Taylor at Global Forest Watch, an initiative of the World Resources Institute. “Now we have this new amplifying effect, which is the real climate change feedback loop, where fires are much more intense and ferocious than they have ever been.” Tropical forests regulate weather systems and store carbon, cooling the planet, but in recent years deforestation has brought them to a tipping point at which they sometimes emit more carbon than they absorb, creating a feedback loop. Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month. Sign up to newsletter Five times more primary forest was lost from fires in the tropics in 2024 than in 2023, accounting for 48 per cent of all primary rainforest loss, the report found. Globally, fires caused greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 4.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide last year, more than four times the amount from air travel in 2023. El Niño events are associated with warmer and drier weather in tropical regions. Although El Niño officially subsided in April 2024, its effects continued to be felt as rainforest soils and vegetation remained dried out from scorching temperatures and previous wildfires. The world’s warming climate also played a role, with 2024 the hottest year on record and Brazil’s driest in seven decades, says Ane Alencar at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute in Belém, Brazil. Brazil lost 28,000 km² of primary forest – its highest figure since 2016 – accounting for 42 per cent of all tropical primary forest loss. In the Brazilian Amazon, fires accounted for 60 per cent of forest loss, as people exploited dry conditions to clear land for agriculture. There were also massive wildfires outside the tropics in countries such as Canada and Russia. Globally, the area of forest lost was 300,000 km², another new record. “Some scientists say we’re not in the Anthropocene but the Pyrocene – the age of fire – and I think this report shows that,” says Erika Berenguer at the University of Oxford. While forest fires are concerning, Berenguer cautions that the figures may include degradation, where some of the tree canopy is lost, and this should not be conflated with deforestation, where forest is cleared entirely. “Degradation reduces carbon storage [and] biodiversity and increases vulnerability to future fires, but it’s not the same as transforming land into a soy field or pasture,” she says. The report shows how successive years of degradation and the warming climate have made the rainforest fragile, says Alencar. “Usually with fires in the Amazon, you see degradation, but the forest can recover,” she says. “However, this report shows that when you have a very strong drought it creates the perfect conditions for the forest to burn intensely and you reach a point where the forest is lost entirely.” Topics:

"My rough plan on the White House is to be there for a couple days every few weeks," Elon Musk said. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images 2025-05-21T07:45:58Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Elon Musk told investors he plans to spend more time on Tesla than DOGE. But Musk is not saying goodbye to Washington just yet. Musk said he will be at the White House "every few weeks." Elon Musk is scaling back his involvement with the White House DOGE office, but he's not saying goodbye to Washington yet.Musk was speaking to CNBC's David Faber in an interview on Tuesday when he was asked if he would miss being in the White House."My rough plan on the White House is to be there for a couple days every few weeks. And to be helpful where I can be helpful," Musk told Faber.Musk told investors in an earnings call for Tesla last month that "the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency" was done, and he would focus more on the car company.Investors have repeatedly asked Musk to spend more time on Tesla instead of DOGE, after Musk's work at the cost-cutting outfit sparked protests and boycotts against the company.Tesla has seen declining sales in European markets while facing increased competition from Chinese automakers like BYD. Tesla's stock is down nearly 15% this year.Last month, President Donald Trump said he expects Musk to leave his administration "in a few months." Trump later told reporters in a Cabinet meeting at the White House that he doesn't really need Musk in his administration."Elon has done a fantastic job. Look, he's sitting here, and I don't care. I don't need Elon for anything other than I happen to like him," Trump said on April 10.In a separate interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday, Musk said he will reduce his political spending. In last year's elections, Musk spent at least $277 million supporting Trump and other GOP candidates."In terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future," Musk told Bloomberg. "I think I've done enough."Representatives for Musk at Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Recommended video