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New Microsoft gaming chief has “no tolerance for bad AI”

AI, Asha Sharma, gaming, microsoft, xbox / 9u50fv / February 23, 2026

A gaming education

Unlike Spencer, who spent years at Microsoft Game Studios before heading Microsoft’s gaming division, Sharma has no professional experience in the video game industry. And her personal experience with Xbox also seems somewhat limited; after sharing her Gamertag on social media over the weekend, curious gamers found that her Xbox play history dates back roughly one month. That’s also in stark contrast to Spencer, who has amassed a score of over 121,000 across decades of play.

In her interview with Variety, Sharma cited 2016’s Firewatch as an example of the kinds of games with “deep emotional resonance” and “a distinct point of view” that she’s looking for from Microsoft. And on social media, Sharma shared her list of the three greatest games ever: “Halo, Valheim, Goldeneye,” for what it’s worth. Sharma also seems to be taking recommendations for games to catch up on; after saying on social media that she would try Borderlands 2, the game appeared in her recently played games over the weekend.

A look at some of Sharma’s recently played Xbox games, as of this writing. Credit: Xbox.com

Being a personal fan of video games isn’t necessarily required to succeed in running a gaming company. Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi famously didn’t care for video games even as he launched the Famicom and Nintendo Entertainment System to worldwide success in the 1980s. Still, the lack of direct experience with the gaming world marks a sharp change after Spencer’s long tenure at a time when Microsoft is struggling to redefine the Xbox brand amid cratering hardware sales, a pivot away from software exclusives, and a move to extend the Xbox brand to many different devices.

Xbox President and COO Sarah Bond, who by all accounts was being set up to succeed Spencer, also announced her departure from Microsoft on Friday, ending a nearly nine-year stint as a public face for the company’s gaming efforts. The Verge reports that Bond caused a lot of friction within the Xbox team when she championed the “Xbox Everywhere” strategy and “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign, which focused on streaming Xbox games to hardware like mobile phones and tablets, according to anonymous sources. Shortly before the launch of that campaign in 2024, Microsoft lost marketing executives Jerrett West and Kareem Choudry, leading to significant internal reorganization.

Longtime Xbox Game Studios executive Matt Booty, whose history in the game industry dates back to working for Williams Electronics in the ’90s, has been promoted to executive vice president and chief content officer for Xbox and “will continue working closely with [Sharma] to ensure a smooth transition,” Microsoft said in its announcement Friday.

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The 2026 Mazda CX-5, driven: It got bigger; plus, radical tech upgrade

car review, Cars, First drive, Mazda CX-5 / 9u50fv / February 23, 2026

ENCINITAS, Calif.—Its sales may have been buoyed of late by the big CX-90 and CX-70 SUVs, but for Mazda, the CX-5 is still where most of the action is. Unlike the similar-sized, similar-priced CX-50, which was designed just for North America, the all-new CX-5 is a global car, and it’s also Mazda’s standard-bearer for a range of new technologies. Gone is the basic but effective infotainment system, replaced by an all-new Google-based experience as Mazda starts its journey toward software-defined vehicles. There’s even an in-house hybrid on the way, albeit not until next year. And it starts at a competitive $29,990.

The new CX-5 is bigger than the car it replaces, 4.5 inches (114.5 mm) longer and half an inch (13 mm) wider than before, at 184.6 inches (4,689 mm) long, 73.2 inches (1,859 mm) wide, and 66.7 inches (1,694 mm) tall. Much of that extra space is between the axles—the wheelbase is now 110 inches (2,794 mm) long, which translates to more interior space. From the outside, there’s a new light signature, and the way the bodywork curves around the front and wraps down the fenders gives me strong Range Rover vibes, even if I could never adequately capture what I’m talking about with a camera. As ever, Mazda’s arresting Soul Red Crystal metallic paint (a $595 option) sparkles, even on a day when the sun remained hidden from view.

The last time that Mazda evolved this compact crossover, it did so with a new upmarket interior. Since then, the brand has staked out that space across its model lineup, with cabins that punch well above their price tags. Happily, the company’s designers haven’t lost much mojo since then, with a restrained approach that looks good across the five different trim levels, each of which is a $2,000 step up from the one that precedes it. But if you’re a current CX-5 driver, you’ll find much has changed, perhaps not entirely for the better.

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The first cars bold enough to drive themselves

Cars, Features, General Motors, self-driving car, self-driving technology, self-driving vehicle / 9u50fv / February 23, 2026

Quevedo’s telekino of 1904 was the first step on the road to autonomous Waymos.

Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

No one knows exactly when the vehicles we drive will finally wrest the steering wheel from us. But the age of the autonomous automobile isn’t some sudden Big Bang. It’s more of a slow crawl, one that started during the Roosevelt administration. And that’s Theodore, not Franklin. And not in America, but in Spain, by someone you’ve probably never heard of.

His name was Leonardo Torres Quevedo, a Spanish engineer born in Santa Cruz, Spain, in 1852. Smart? In 1914, he developed a mechanical chess machine that autonomously played against humans. But more than a decade earlier, he pioneered the development of remote-control systems. What he wrought was brilliant, if crude—and certainly ahead of its time.

The first wireless control

It was called the Telekino, a name drawn from the Greek “tele,” meaning at a distance, and “kino,” meaning movement. Patented in Spain, France, and the United States, it was conceived as a way to prevent airship accidents. The Telekino transmitted wireless signals to a small receiver known as a coherer, which detected electromagnetic waves and transformed them into an electrical current. This current was amplified and sent on to electromagnets that slowly rotated a switch controlling the proper servomotor. Quevedo could issue 19 distinct commands to the systems of an airship without ever touching a control cable.

By 1904, he was using the Telekino to direct a small, three-wheeled vehicle from nearly 100 feet away. It was the earliest recorded instance of a vehicle being controlled by radio. After that, Quevedo demonstrated the system’s usefulness aboard boats and even torpedoes, but here the story slows. The Spanish Crown, cautious and reluctant to invest, withheld its support. Without funding, Quevedo couldn’t build and sell the Telekino.

But he had shown that a machine could be guided by signals. It would be more than a century before that notion would reach fruition. But that doesn’t mean others didn’t try.

Leave it to Ohio

Dayton, Ohio, August 5, 1921. The country was in the thick of the automotive age, and Dayton stood as one of its industrious nerve centers. General Motors had established a strong presence there with its Frigidaire Division, promising a future of electrified domestic bliss. Meanwhile, across town, engineers at Delco, the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, were refining the very heart of the automobile. This was a place where invention was not merely encouraged, but expected.

But on this particular summer afternoon, the most remarkable innovation did not come from the factory floor or the corporate drafting room. It came instead from the US Army, an outfit not usually known for whimsical experimentation. It sent a small, three-wheeled vehicle, scarcely eight feet long and fitted with radio equipment, rolling through the city’s business district. The vehicle moved without a driver. Some 50 feet behind it, Captain R. E. Vaughn of nearby McCook Field guided its movement by radio signal.

1926: A woman smiles and waves from the driver's seat of a Chandler convertible parked on a gravel road near a coastline. She wears an overcoat and a cloche hat — A 1926 Chandler. Obviously, this one is human-driven—you can tell by the human waving from the driver’s seat. Credit: American Stock/Getty Images

Four years later, the spectacle reappeared. This time it was on the streets of New York City, where a crowd along Broadway watched as a 1926 Chandler, sitting quietly at the curb, came to life. The engine turned, the gears engaged, and it pulled smoothly into the stream of traffic before making its way up Fifth Avenue without a driver. Dubbed the “American Wonder” by its creator, Francis P. Houdina, the car responded to radio commands transmitted from a chase car. Signals were received by antennas atop the Chandler, where they triggered circuit breakers and small electric motors that operated the steering, throttle, brakes, and horn.

The idea proved too tantalizing to fade. In Cincinnati, a Toledo inventor named Maurice J. Francill took up the cause in 1928. Francill, who styled himself “America’s Radio Wizard,” demonstrated how radio control could move Ford automobiles without a driver. In a series of stage-like performances, he also milked cows, baked bread, and operated a laundry, all through radio command. By 1936, newspapers from Ohio to California were still reporting his feats.

“Francill claims that he can accomplish anything the human hand can do by radio,” the Orange County News observed. “Eight pounds [3.6 kg] of delicate brain-like radio apparatus was employed to control the lights, ignition system, horn and start the motor running. Five pounds [2.3 kg] of radio apparatus is required to guide the car.”

These vehicles may seem like novelties today, but they’re early proof that the automobile can be guided by something other than humans.

Detroit buys into the dream

The dream of a self-driving automobile did not vanish when these moments passed. It lingered, an idea returned to again and again, particularly in the years when America believed that anything was possible.

At the 1939 New York World’s Fair, General Motors offered a glimpse of that future with its enormous Futurama exhibit. Seated above a raised platform, fairgoers saw a miniature city where tiny electric cars moved serenely along highways without drivers. The cars, they were told, would one day be guided by radio signals and electric currents running through cables and circuits beneath the pavement, creating an electromagnetic field that could both power the vehicles and guide their course. It was a bold, imaginative vision—and characteristic of a time when modern engineering was forecast to remake the world.

After the war, engineers did not let the idea fade. They continued to work on the idea of communication between road and machine. At General Motors’ Motorama, a traveling showcase of the car’s newest vehicles and latest ideas, one display in 1956 captured the imagination of audiences across the country. GM unveiled a sleek, gas turbine–powered automobile, sheathed in titanium and brimming with the promise of autonomous driving.

GM's Firebird II concept from 1956 — The Firebird II concept from 1956 could drive itself on special roads. Credit: General Motors

Beneath certain stretches of highway, GM proposed laying an electronic strip. When the car traveled over it, sensors would lock onto the signal, guiding the vehicle automatically along its lane. The driver would simply lean back, hands free from the wheel, and watch the miles roll by. Onboard amenities inexplicably included an orange juice dispenser.

Proof of concept

By 1958, the idea became a reality. On a plain stretch of highway outside Lincoln, Nebraska, it was put to the test. The state’s Department of Roads embedded a 400-foot (121 m) length of the roadway with electric circuits, while engineers from RCA and General Motors brought specially fitted Chevrolets to test it. Observers watched as the driverless cars steered themselves, responding to the buried signal beneath the pavement.

A few years later, across the Atlantic, the United Kingdom’s Transport and Road Research Laboratory undertook its own experiments. Using a Citroën DS, they laid magnetic cables beneath a test track and sent the car down it at speeds of up to 80 mph (129 km/h). Wind and weather made no difference; the DS held its line faithfully.

Autonomy emerges in the modern age

Fast forward to 1986, and German scientist Ernst Dickmanns, as part of his position with the German armed forces, began testing an autonomously driving Mercedes-Benz using computers, cameras, and sensors, not unlike modern-day cars. Within a year, it was travelling down the Autobahn at nearly 55 mph (89 km/h). That was enough to capture the attention of Daimler-Benz, which helped fund further research.

Several years later, in October 1994, Dickmanns gathered his research team at Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris, where they met a delegation of high-ranking officials. Parked at the curb were two sedans. They appeared ordinary but were fitted with cameras, sensors, and onboard computers. The guests climbed in, and the cars made their way toward the nearby thoroughfare. Then, with the traffic flowing steadily around them, the engineers switched the vehicles into self-driving mode and took their hands off the wheel. The cars held their lanes, adjusted their speed, and followed the road’s gentle curves without driver intervention.

An illustration of a 1994 driverless car — The experimental driverless car VaMP (Versuchsfahrzeug für autonome Mobilität und Rechnersehen), which was developed during the European research project PROMETHEUS: (top left) components for autonomous driving; (right) VaMP and view into passenger cabin (lower right); (lower left) bifocal camera arrangement (front) on yaw platform. Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0

A year later, Dickmanns would travel from Bavaria to Denmark, a trip of more than 1,056 miles (1,700 km), reaching speeds of nearly 110 mph (177 km/h). Unfortunately, Daimler lost interest and cut funding for the effort. Dickmann’s project came to a halt, but the modern-day technology was in place to set the stage for what came next.

The military sparks innovation–again

By the turn of the century, the federal government had created a new research arm of the Pentagon, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. Its mission was ambitious: to develop technologies that could protect American soldiers on the battlefield. Among its goals was the creation of vehicles that could drive themselves, sparing troops the dangers of roadside ambushes and explosive traps.

To accelerate progress, DARPA announced a competition to build a driverless vehicle capable of traveling 142 miles (229 km) across the Mojave Desert. The prize was $1 million, though the real prize was the knowledge gained along the way.

When race day arrived, the results were humbling. One by one, every vehicle failed to finish. But in the sun and dust of the Mojave, a community emerged, one of engineers, programmers, and dreamers who believed that the autonomous vehicle was not a fantasy but a problem to be solved. Twenty years later, their work has brought the idea closer to everyday reality than ever before.

By themselves, these efforts did not yet give the world the self-driving car. But these successful experiments demonstrate the ability to make a fantasy reality. It’s also a reminder that while the tech industry likes to position itself as a disruptor bringing self-driving cars to market, Detroit was dreaming about and demonstrating autonomous transportation long before Silicon Valley existed.

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Study shows how rocket launches pollute the atmosphere

industrial waste, Space, space pollution, spacex, syndication / 9u50fv / February 22, 2026

Atmospheric scientist Laura Revell, with the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, presented research showing that rocket exhaust in the atmosphere can erase some of the hard-won gains in mitigating ozone depletion.

In a high-growth scenario for the space industry, there could be as many as 2,000 launches per year, which her modeling shows could result in about 3 percent ozone loss, equal to the atmospheric impacts of a bad wildfire season in Australia. She said most of the damage comes from chlorine-rich solid rocket fuels and black carbon in the plumes.

The black carbon could also warm parts of the stratosphere by about half-a-degree Celsius as it absorbs sunlight. That heats the surrounding air and can shift winds that steer storms and areas of precipitation.

“This is probably not a fuel type that we want to start using in massive quantities in the future,” she added.

Researchers at the conference estimated that in the past five years, the mass of human‑made material injected into the upper atmosphere by re‑entries has doubled to nearly a kiloton a year. For some metals like lithium, the amount is already much larger than that contributed by disintegrating meteors.

In the emerging field of space sustainability science, researchers say orbital space and near-space should be considered part of the global environment. A 2022 journal article co-authored by Moriba Jah, a professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin, argued that the upper reaches of the atmosphere are experiencing increased impacts from human activities.

The expanding commercial use of what appears to be a free resource is actually shifting its real costs onto others, the article noted.

At last year’s European Geosciences Union conference, Leonard Schulz, who studies space pollution at the Technical University Braunschweig in Germany, said, “If you put large amounts of catalytic metals in the atmosphere, I immediately think about geoengineering.”

There may not be time to wait for more scientific certainty, Schulz said: “In 10 years, it might be too late to do anything about it.”

Bob Berwyn is an Austria-based reporter who has covered climate science and international climate policy for more than a decade. Previously, he reported on the environment, endangered species and public lands for several Colorado newspapers, and also worked as editor and assistant editor at community newspapers in the Colorado Rockies.

This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.

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Major government research lab appears to be squeezing out foreign scientists

NIST, Science, syndication, trump administration, War on science / 9u50fv / February 21, 2026

One of the US government’s top scientific research labs is taking steps that could drive away foreign scientists, a shift lawmakers and sources tell WIRED could cost the country valuable expertise and damage the agency’s credibility.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) helps determine the frameworks underpinning everything from cybersecurity to semiconductor manufacturing. Some of NIST’s recent work includes establishing guidelines for securing AI systems and identifying health concerns with air purifiers and firefighting gloves. Many of the agency’s thousands of employees, postdoctoral scientists, contractors, and guest researchers are brought in from around the world for their specialized expertise.

“For weeks now, rumors of draconian new measures have been spreading like wildfire, while my staff’s inquiries to NIST have gone unanswered,” Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, wrote in a letter sent to acting NIST Director Craig Burkhardt on Thursday. April McClain Delaney, a fellow Democrat on the committee, cosigned the message.

Lofgren wrote that while her staff has heard about multiple rumored changes, what they have confirmed through unnamed sources is that the Trump administration “has begun taking steps to limit the ability of foreign-born researchers to conduct their work at NIST.”

The congressional letter follows a Boulder Reporting Lab article on February 12 that said international graduate students and postdoctoral researchers would be limited to a maximum of three years at NIST going forward, despite many of them needing five to seven years to complete their work.

A NIST employee tells WIRED that some plans to bring on foreign workers through the agency’s Professional Research and Experience Program have recently been canceled because of uncertainty about whether they would make it through the new security protocols. The staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, says the agency has yet to widely communicate what the new hurdles will be or why it believes they are justified.

On Thursday, the Colorado Sun reported that “noncitizens” lost after-hours access to a NIST lab last month and could soon be banned from the facility entirely.

Jennifer Huergo, a spokesperson for NIST, tells WIRED that the proposed changes are aimed at protecting US science from theft and abuse, echoing a similar statement issued this week to other media outlets. Huergo declined to comment on who needs to approve the proposal for it to be finalized and when a decision will be made. She also didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawmakers’ letter.

Preventing foreign adversaries from stealing valuable American intellectual property has been a bipartisan priority, with NIST among the agencies in recent years to receive congressional scrutiny about the adequacy of its background checks and security policies. Just last month, Republican lawmakers renewed calls to put restrictions in place preventing Chinese nationals from working at or with national labs run by the Department of Energy.

But Lofgren’s letter contends that the rumored restrictions on non-US scientists at NIST go beyond “what is reasonable and appropriate to protect research security.” The letter demands transparency about new policies by February 26 and a pause on them “until Congress can weigh in on whether these changes are necessary at all.”

The potential loss of research talent at NIST would add to a series of other Trump administration policies that some US tech industry leaders have warned will dismantle the lives of immigrant researchers already living in the US and hamper economic growth. Hiking fees on H-1B tech visas, revoking thousands of student visas, and carrying out legally dubious mass deportations all stand to push people eager to work on science and tech research in the US to go elsewhere instead. The Trump administration has also announced plans to limit post-graduation job training for international students.

Pat Gallagher, who served as the director of NIST from 2009 to 2013 under President Barack Obama, says the changes could erode trust in the agency, which has long provided the technical foundations that industry and governments around the world rely on. “What has made NIST special is it is scientifically credible,” he tells WIRED. “Industry, universities, and the global measurement community knew they could work with NIST.”

Like much of the federal government, NIST has been in turmoil for most of the past year. Parts of it were paralyzed for months as rumors of DOGE cuts spread. Ultimately, the agency lost hundreds of its thousands of workers to budget cuts, with further funding pressure to come.

As of a couple of years ago, NIST welcomed 800 researchers on average annually from outside the US to work in its offices and collaborate directly with staff.

Lofgren expressed fear that rumors may be enough to scare away researchers and undermine US competitiveness in vital research. “Our scientific excellence depends upon attracting the best and brightest from around the world,” she wrote in the letter.

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

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MAHA moms threaten to turn this car around as RFK Jr. flips on pesticide

glyphosate, health, MAHA, Robert F Kenned Jr., roundup / 9u50fv / February 21, 2026

“We must safeguard America’s national security first, because all of our priorities depend on it. When hostile actors control critical inputs, they weaken our security. By expanding domestic production, we close that gap and protect American families,” he said.

Fallout

Dave Murphy, founder and CEO of United We Eat and former finance manager on Kennedy’s presidential campaign, told Reuters that the order was a “strategic mistake” that could serve as an election liability. “Trump would not be in the White House this second time without those followers, and we expect him to live up to his word,” Murphy said.

Fallout has continued online over the move, and MAHA organizers are scrambling.

Alex Clark, a health and wellness podcaster for the conservative group Turning Point USA, told The New York Times that “Women feel like they were lied to, that MAHA movement is a sham,” he said. “How am I supposed to rally these women to vote red in the midterms? How can we win their trust back? I am unsure if we can.”

Meanwhile, MAHA influencer Kelly Ryerson, who goes by the moniker “Glyphosate Girl” online, told Politico, “I’m witnessing the bottom falling out on MAHA. People came along on MAHA because of pesticides and foods. It wasn’t because of vaccines.”

Zen Honeycutt, executive director of the grassroots group Moms Across America, told Politico in a statement that the fallout will have real consequences.

“To put toxic farming and businesses before the health and safety of our children is a betrayal of every voter who voted for him to [Make America Healthy Again],” she said. “The repercussions are not going to just affect the midterms, but the health of millions of Americans for generations to come.”

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Microsoft deletes blog telling users to train AI on pirated Harry Potter books

AI, generative ai, harry potter, Isaac Asimov, large language models, LLMs, microsoft, Policy / 9u50fv / February 21, 2026

Wizarding world of AI slop

The now-deleted Harry Potter dataset was “mistakenly” marked public domain.

Following backlash in a Hacker News thread, Microsoft deleted a blog post that critics said encouraged developers to pirate Harry Potter books to train AI models that could then be used to create AI slop.

The blog, which is archived here, was written in November 2024 by a senior product manager, Pooja Kamath. According to her LinkedIn, Kamath has been at Microsoft for more than a decade and remains with the company. In 2024, Microsoft tapped her to promote a new feature that the blog said made it easier to “add generative AI features to your own applications with just a few lines of code using Azure SQL DB, LangChain, and LLMs.”

What better way to show “engaging and relatable examples” of Microsoft’s new feature that would “resonate with a wide audience” than to “use a well-known dataset” like Harry Potter books, the blog said.

The books are “one of the most famous and cherished series in literary history,” the blog noted, and fans could use the LLMs they trained in two fun ways: building Q&A systems providing “context-rich answers” and generating “new AI-driven Harry Potter fan fiction” that’s “sure to delight Potterheads.”

To help Microsoft customers achieve this vision, the blog linked to a Kaggle dataset that included all seven Harry Potter books, which, Ars verified, has been available online for years and incorrectly marked as “public domain.” Kaggle’s terms say that rights holders can send notices of infringing content, and repeat offenders risk suspensions, but Hacker News commenters speculated that the Harry Potter dataset flew under the radar, with only 10,000 downloads over time, not catching the attention of J.K. Rowling, who famously keeps a strong grip on the Harry Potter copyrights. The dataset was promptly deleted on Thursday after Ars reached out to the uploader, Shubham Maindola, a data scientist in India with no apparent links to Microsoft.

Maindola told Ars that “the dataset was marked as Public Domain by mistake. There was no intention to misrepresent the licensing status of the works.”

It’s unclear whether Kamath was directed to link to the Harry Potter books dataset in the blog or if it was an individual choice. Cathay Y. N. Smith, a law professor and co-director of Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Program in Intellectual Property Law, told Ars that Kamath may not have realized the books were too recent to be in the public domain.

“Someone might be really knowledgeable about books and technology, but not necessarily about copyright terms and how long they last,” Smith said. “Especially if she saw that something was marked by another reputable company as being public domain.”

Microsoft declined Ars’ request to comment. Kaggle did not respond to Ars’ request to comment.

Microsoft was “probably smart” to pull the blog

On Hacker News, commenters suggested that it’s unlikely anyone familiar with the popular franchise would believe the Harry Potter books were in the public domain. They debated whether Microsoft’s blog was “problematic copyright-wise,” since Microsoft not only encouraged customers to download the infringing materials but also used the books themselves to create Harry Potter AI models that relied on beloved characters to hype Microsoft products.

Microsoft’s blog was posted more than a year ago, at a time when AI firms began facing lawsuits over AI models, which had allegedly infringed copyrights by training on pirated materials and regurgitating works verbatim.

The blog recommended that users learn to train their own AI models by downloading the Harry Potter dataset and then uploading text files to Azure Blob Storage. It included example models based on a dataset that Microsoft seemingly uploaded to Azure Blob Storage, which only included the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Training large language models (LLMs) on text files, Harry Potter fans could create Q&A systems capable of pulling up relevant excerpts of books. An example query offered was “Wizarding World snacks,” which retrieved an excerpt from The Sorcerer’s Stone where Harry marvels at strange treats like Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans and chocolate frogs. Another prompt asking “How did Harry feel when he first learnt that he was a Wizard?” generated an output pointing to various early excerpts in the book.

But perhaps an even more exciting use case, Kamath suggested, was generating fan fiction to “explore new adventures” and “even create alternate endings.” That model could quickly comb the dataset for “contextually similar” excerpts that could be used to output fresh stories that fit with existing narratives and incorporate “elements from the retrieved passages,” the blog said.

As an example, Kamath trained a model to write a Harry Potter story she could use to market the feature she was blogging about. She asked the model to write a story in which Harry meets a new friend on the Hogwarts Express train who tells him all about Microsoft’s Native Vector Support in SQL “in the Muggle world.”

Drawing on parts of The Sorcerer’s Stone where Harry learns about Quidditch and gets to know Hermione Granger, the fan fiction showed a boy selling Harry on Microsoft’s “amazing” new feature. To do this, he likened it to having a spell that helps you find exactly what you need among thousands of options, instantly, while declaring it was perfect for machine learning, AI, and recommendation systems.

Further blurring the lines between Microsoft and Harry Potter brands, Kamath also generated an image showing Harry with his new friend, stamped with a Microsoft logo.

Smith told Ars that both use cases could frustrate rights holders, depending on the content in the model outputs.

“I think that the regurgitation and the creation of fan fiction, they both could flag copyright issues, in that fan fiction often has to take from the expressive elements, a copyrighted character, a character that’s famous enough to be protected by a copyright law or plot stories or sequences,” Smith said. “If these things are copied and reproduced, then that output could be potentially infringing.”

But it’s also still a gray area. Looking at the blog, Smith said, “I would be concerned,” but “I wouldn’t say it’s automatically infringement.”

Smith told Ars that, in pulling the blog, Microsoft “was probably smart,” since courts have only generally said that training AI on copyrighted books is fair use. But courts continue to probe questions about pirated AI training materials.

On the deleted Kaggle dataset page, Maindola previously explained that to source the data, he “downloaded the ebooks and then converted them to txt files.”

Microsoft may have infringed copyrights

If Microsoft ever faced questions as to whether the company knowingly used pirated books to train the example models, fair use “could be a difficult argument,” Smith said.

Hacker News commenters suggested the blog could be considered fair use, since the training guide was for “educational purposes,” and Smith said that Microsoft could raise some “good arguments” in its defense.

However, she also suggested that Microsoft could be deemed liable for contributing to infringement on some level after leaving the blog up for a year. Before it was removed, the Kaggle dataset was downloaded more than 10,000 times.

“The ultimate result is to create something infringing by saying, ‘Hey, here you go, go grab that infringing stuff and use that in our system,’” Smith said. “They could potentially have some sort of secondary contributory liability for copyright infringement, downloading it, as well as then using it to encourage others to use it for training purposes.”

On Hacker News, commenters slammed the blog, including a self-described former Microsoft employee who claimed that Microsoft lets employees “blog without having to go through some approval or editing process.”

“It looks like somebody made a bad judgment call on what to put in a company blog post (and maybe what constitutes ethical activity) and that it was taken down as soon as someone noticed,” the former employee said.

Others suggested the blame was solely with the Kaggle uploader, Maindola, who told Ars that the dataset should never have been marked “public domain.” But Microsoft critics pushed back, noting that the Kaggle page made it clear that no special permission was granted and that Microsoft’s employee should have known better. “They don’t need to know any details to know that these properties belong to massive companies and aren’t free for the taking,” one commenter said.

The Harry Potter books weren’t the only books targeted, the thread noted, linking to a separate Azure sample containing Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, which is also not in the public domain.

“Microsoft could have used any dataset for their blog, they could have even chosen to use actual public domain novels,” another Hacker News commenter wrote. “Instead, they opted to use copywritten works that J.K. hasn’t released into the public domain (unless user ‘Shubham Maindola’ is J.K.’s alter ego).”

Smith suggested Microsoft could have avoided this week’s backlash by more carefully reviewing blogs, noting that “if a company is risk averse, this would probably be flagged.” But she also understood Kamath’s preference for Harry Potter over the many long-forgotten characters that exist in the public domain. On Hacker News, some commenters defended Kamath’s blog, urging that it should be considered fair use since nonprofits and educational institutions could do the same thing in a teaching context without issue.

“I would have been concerned if I were the one clearing this for Microsoft, but at the same time, I completely understand what this employee was doing,” Smith said. “No one wants to write fan fiction about books that are in the public domain.”

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

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Wikipedia blacklists Archive.today, starts removing 695,000 archive links

archive.today, Policy, wikipedia / 9u50fv / February 20, 2026

The English-language edition of Wikipedia is blacklisting Archive.today after the controversial archive site was used to direct a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against a blog.

In the course of discussing whether Archive.today should be deprecated because of the DDoS, Wikipedia editors discovered that the archive site altered snapshots of webpages to insert the name of the blogger who was targeted by the DDoS. The alterations were apparently fueled by a grudge against the blogger over a post that described how the Archive.today maintainer hid their identity behind several aliases.

“There is consensus to immediately deprecate archive.today, and, as soon as practicable, add it to the spam blacklist (or create an edit filter that blocks adding new links), and remove all links to it,” stated an update today on Wikipedia’s Archive.today discussion. “There is a strong consensus that Wikipedia should not direct its readers towards a website that hijacks users’ computers to run a DDoS attack (see WP:ELNO#3). Additionally, evidence has been presented that archive.today’s operators have altered the content of archived pages, rendering it unreliable.”

More than 695,000 links to Archive.today are distributed across 400,000 or so Wikipedia pages. The archive site is commonly used to bypass news paywalls, and the FBI has sought information on the site operator’s identity with a subpoena to domain registrar Tucows.

“Those in favor of maintaining the status quo rested their arguments primarily on the utility of archive.today for verifiability,” said today’s Wikipedia update. “However, an analysis of existing links has shown that most of its uses can be replaced. Several editors started to work out implementation details during this RfC [request for comment] and the community should figure out how to efficiently remove links to archive.today.”

Editors urged to remove links

Guidance published as a result of the decision asked editors to help remove and replace links to the following domain names used by the archive site: archive.today, archive.is, archive.ph, archive.fo, archive.li, archive.md, and archive.vn. The guidance says editors can remove Archive.today links when the original source is still online and has identical content; replace the archive link so it points to a different archive site, like the Internet Archive, Ghostarchive, or Megalodon; or “change the original source to something that doesn’t need an archive (e.g., a source that was printed on paper), or for which a link to an archive is only a matter of convenience.”

Wikipedia blacklists Archive.today, starts removing 695,000 archive links Read More »

It’s outright war for the Iron Throne in House of the Dragon S3 teaser

culture, Entertainment, George R.R. Martin, HBO, house of the dragon, streaming television, Trailers / 9u50fv / February 20, 2026

With HBO’s critically acclaimed A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms gearing up for its season finale on Sunday, it’s time to check in on that other Game of Thrones spinoff: the far darker House of the Dragon, which now has a suitably ominous teaser for its upcoming third season.

(Spoilers for the first two seasons below.)

The series is set nearly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, when dragons were still a fixture of Westeros, and chronicles the beginning of the end of House Targaryen’s reign. The primary source material is Fire and Blood, a fictional history of the Targaryen kings written by George R.R. Martin. As book readers know, those events culminated in a civil war and the extinction of the dragons—at least until Daenerys Targaryen came along.

The first season spanned many years and featured some pretty significant time jumps, which required replacing the younger actors as their characters aged. For those who might need a refresher: King Viserys (Paddy Considine) died, and his second wife, Alicent (Olivia Cooke), conspired with her father, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), to crown her eldest son, Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), as king instead of Viserys’ declared heir apparent, Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy).

Even though she was technically the rightful heir, Rhaenyra actually seemed to be considering House Hightower’s conditions for concession—until the arrogant Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), Alicent’s younger son, went after Rhaenyra’s young son, Lucerys (Elliot Grihault). Both dragonriders failed to control their dragons, and Aemon’s much bigger dragon, Vhagar, gobbled up poor Lucerys and his little dragon, Arrax, in mid-air. The season closed with Rhaenyra and her husband/uncle Daemon (Matt Smith) receiving the devastating news, effectively dashing any hope of a peaceful resolution.

House of the Dragon has always taken a leisurely, more focused approach to its characters’ political maneuverings, interspersed with bursts of bloody violence, and S2 was no exception. But it opened with a bang: the infamous “Blood and Cheese” incident (well-known to book readers), in which assassins sent to take out Aemond as vengeance for Lucerys can’t find him and butcher Aegon’s eldest son instead. We lost a couple more dragons and several supporting characters in the ensuing chaos, and Aegon was so severely wounded that Aemond became regent—with no plan to relinquish the Iron Throne any time soon.

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Supreme Court blocks Trump’s emergency tariffs, billions in refunds may be owed

Donald Trump, Policy, reciprocal tariffs, tariffs / 9u50fv / February 20, 2026

Economists estimated more than $175 billion may need to be refunded.

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that Donald Trump was not authorized to implement emergency tariffs to ostensibly block illegal drug flows and offset trade deficits.

It’s not immediately clear what the ruling may mean for businesses that paid various “reciprocal” tariffs that Trump changed frequently, raising and lowering rates at will during tense negotiations with the United States’ biggest trade partners.

Divided 6-3, Supreme Court justices remanded the cases to lower courts, concluding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not give Trump power to impose tariffs.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion and was joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. They concluded that Trump could not exclusively rely on IEEPA to impose tariffs “of unlimited amount and duration, on any product from any country” during peacetime.

Only Congress has the power of the purse, Roberts wrote, and the few exceptions to that are bound by “explicit terms and subject to strict limits.”

“Against that backdrop of clear and limited delegations, the Government reads IEEPA to give the President power to unilaterally impose unbounded tariffs and change them at will,” Roberts wrote. “That view would represent a transformative expansion of the President’s authority over tariff policy. It is also telling that in IEEPA’s half century of existence, no President has invoked the statute to impose any tariffs, let alone tariffs of this magnitude and scope. That ‘lack of historical precedent,’ coupled with ‘the breadth of authority’ that the President now claims, suggests that the tariffs extend beyond the President’s ‘legitimate reach.’”

Back in November, analysts suggested that the Supreme Court ruling against Trump could force the government to issue refunds of up to $1 trillion. This morning, a new estimate from economists reduced that number, Reuters reported, estimating that more than $175 billion could be “at risk of having to be refunded.”

Ruling disrupts Trump plan to collect $900 billion

Trump lost primarily because IEEPA does not explicitly reference “tariffs” or “duties,” instead only giving Trump power to “regulate” “importation”—the two words in the statute that Trump tried to argue showed that Congress clearly authorized his power to impose tariffs.

But the court did not agree that Congress intended to give the president “the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time,” Roberts wrote. “Those words cannot bear such weight,” particularly in peacetime. “The United States, after all, is not at war with every nation in the world.”

Specifically, Trump failed to “identify any statute in which the power to regulate includes the power to tax,” Roberts wrote. And the majority of justices remained “skeptical” that in “IEEPA alone,” Congress intended to hide “a delegation of its birth-right power to tax within the quotidian power to ‘regulate.’”

“A contrary reading would render IEEPA partly unconstitutional,” Roberts wrote.

According to the majority, siding with Trump would free the president to “issue a dizzying array of modifications” to tariffs at will, “unconstrained by the significant procedural limitations in other tariff statutes.” The only check to that unprecedented power grab, the court suggested, would be a “veto-proof majority in Congress.”

Trump has yet to comment on the ruling. Ahead of it, he claimed the tariffs were “common sense,” NBC News reported. Speaking at a steel manufacturing factory in northwest Georgia, Trump claimed that IEEPA tariffs were projected to bring in $900 billion “next year.” Not only could he now be forced to refund tariffs, but the Supreme Court ruling could also undo trade deals in which Trump used so-called reciprocal tariffs as leverage. Undoing tariffs will likely be a “mess,” Barrett said last year.

“Until now, no President has read IEEPA to confer such power,” Roberts wrote, while noting that the court claims “no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs.”

Gorsuch seems to troll Trump

In a concurring opinion, Gorsuch slammed Trump as trying to expand the president’s authority in a way that would make it hard for Congress to ever retrieve lost powers. He claimed that Trump was seeking to secure a path forward where any president could declare a national emergency—a decision that would be “unreviewable”—to justify imposing “tariffs on nearly any goods he wishes, in any amount he wishes, based on emergencies he himself has declared.”

“Just ask yourself: What President would willingly give up that kind of power?” Gorsuch wrote.

Gorsuch further questioned if Trump was “seeking to exploit questionable statutory language to aggrandize his own power.” And he warned that accepting the dissenting view would allow Trump to randomly impose tariffs as low as 1 percent or as high as 1,000,000 percent on any product or country he wanted at any time.

Gorsuch criticized justices with dissenting views, who disagreed that Congress’ intent in the statute was unclear and defended Trump’s claim that “IEEPA provides the clear statement needed to sustain the President’s tariffs.” Those justices argued that presidents have long been granted authority to impose tariffs and accused the majority of putting a “thumb on the scale” by requiring a strict reading of the statute. Instead, they argued for a special exception requiring a more general interpretation of statutes whenever presidents seek to regulate matters of foreign affairs.

If that view was accepted, Gorsuch warned, presidents could seize even more power from Congress. Many other legislative powers “could be passed wholesale to the executive branch in a few loose statutory terms, no matter what domestic ramifications might follow. And, as we have seen, Congress would often find these powers nearly impossible to retrieve.”

As a final note, Gorsuch took some time to sympathize with Trump supporters:

For those who think it important for the Nation to impose more tariffs, I understand that today’s decision will be disappointing. All I can offer them is that most major decisions affecting the rights and responsibilities of the American people (including the duty to pay taxes and tariffs) are funneled through the legislative process for a reason. Yes, legislating can be hard and take time. And, yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design. Through that process, the Nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man. There, deliberation tempers impulse, and compromise hammers disagreements into workable solutions. And because laws must earn such broad support to survive the legislative process, they tend to endure, allowing ordinary people to plan their lives in ways they cannot when the rules shift from day to day.

Kavanaugh questions other Trump tariff authority

Under IEEPA, the majority ruled, Trump has the power to “impose penalties, restrictions, or controls on foreign commerce,” Barrett wrote. But he does not have the power to impose emergency tariffs, unless Congress updates laws to explicitly grant such authority.

In his dissent, justice Brett Kavanaugh insisted that it should not be up to courts to settle these “policy debates.” He defended Trump’s view that IEEPA granting power to “regulate” “importation” generally included tariffs, while arguing that Trump wasn’t seeking to expand his presidential authority at all. Many feared that the more conservative Supreme Court would side with Trump, and Kavanaugh’s opinion offered a peek at what that alternate reality could have looked like.

“Importantly, IEEPA’s authorization for the President to impose tariffs did not grant the President any new substantive power,” Kavanaugh wrote. Instead, “IEEPA merely allows the President to impose tariffs somewhat more efficiently to deal with foreign threats during national emergencies.” He further claimed it was an “odd distinction” that the majority would interpret IEEPA as giving Trump authority to “block all imports from China” but not to “order even a $1 tariff on goods imported from China.”

Downplaying the ruling’s significance, Kavanaugh echoed the Trump administration’s claims that the Supreme Court ruling won’t really affect Trump’s key policy of imposing tariffs to renegotiate trade deals or address other concerns.

“The decision might not substantially constrain a President’s ability to order tariffs going forward,” Kavanugh wrote, pointing to “numerous other federal statutes” that “authorize the President to impose tariffs.”

However, a footnote in the majority’s opinion emphasized that all of the options that Kavanaugh cited “contain various combinations of procedural prerequisites, required agency determinations, and limits on the duration, amount, and scope of the tariffs they authorize.” It was precisely constraints like those that Trump’s broad reading of IEEPA lacked, the majority found.

Kavanaugh acknowledged that the ruling would stop Trump from imposing tariffs at will, writing that other statutes require “a few additional procedural steps that IEEPA, as an emergency statute, does not require.”

Winding down his arguments, Kavanaugh joined Trump administration officials in groaning that the “United States may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid the IEEPA tariffs, even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others.”

Kavanaugh makes a frequently overlooked point there in this argument, which is that IEEPA tariffs may have harmed consumers without any immediate remedy. It seems unlikely that consumers will get any relief in the short-term, no matter what remedies the Supreme Court’s ruling triggers. For businesses, the primary relief will likely not be from refunds but from the small amount of certainty they will have going forward that tariffs won’t be suddenly changed or imposed overnight.

Kavanaugh conceded that Trump’s tariffs “may or may not be wise policy.” But he fretted that Trump’s trade deals “worth trillions of dollars” could be undone by the ruling, while claiming the ruling has only generated more uncertainty on a global scale, including with America’s biggest rival, China.

Interestingly, Kavanaugh also suggested that the ruling may put at legal risk the reading of another statute that Trump will likely rely on more heavily moving forward to impose tariffs.

“One might think that the Court’s opinion would also mean that tariffs cannot be imposed under Section 232, which authorizes the President to ‘adjust the imports,’” Kavanaugh suggested.

This story was updated to include views from Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

Supreme Court blocks Trump’s emergency tariffs, billions in refunds may be owed Read More »

Zero grip, maximum fun: A practical guide to getting into amateur ice racing

auto racing, Cars, Features, ice racing, racing / 9u50fv / February 19, 2026

Where we’re racing, we don’t need roads.

To drive on ice, you just need the right tires. Credit: Tim Stevens

In Formula One, grip is everything. The world’s best engineers devote their careers to designing cars that maximize downforce and grip to squeeze every bit of performance out of a set of four humble tires. These cars punish their drivers by slinging them at six Gs through corners and offer similar levels of abuse in braking.

It’s all wildly impressive, but I’ve long maintained that those drivers are not the ones having the most fun. When it comes to sheer enjoyment, grip is highly overrated, and if you want proof of that, you need to try ice racing.

Should you be lucky enough to live somewhere that gets cold enough consistently enough, all you need is a good set of tires and a car that’s willing and able. That, of course, and a desire to spend more time driving sideways than straight. I’ve been ice racing for well over 20 years now, and I’m here to tell you that there’s no greater thrill on four wheels than sliding through a corner a few inches astern of a hard-charging competitor.

Here’s how you can get started.

A blue Subaru WRX STI on the ice — For street legal classes, you don’t even need a roll cage. Just the right tires and the right attitude. Credit: Tim Stevens

Ice racing basics

There are certainly plenty of professionals out there who have dabbled in or got their start in ice racing, F1 legend Alain Prost and touring car maestro Peter Cunningham being two notable examples. And a European ice racing series called Trophée Andros formerly challenged some of the world’s top professionals to race across a series of purpose-built frozen tracks in Europe and even Quebec.

These days, however, ice racing is an almost entirely amateur pursuit, a low-temp, low-grip hobby where the biggest prize you’re likely to bring home on any given Sunday is a smile and maybe a little trophy for the mantel.

That said, there are numerous types of ice racing. The most common and accessible is time trials, basically autocrosses on ice. The Sports Car Club of Vermont ice time trial series is a reliable, well-run example, but you’ll find plenty of others, too.

Some other clubs step it up by hosting wheel-to-wheel racing on plowed ovals. Lakes Region Ice Racing Club in Moultonborough, New Hampshire, is a long-running group that has been blessed with enough ice lately to keep racing even as temperatures have increased.

At the top tier, though, you’re looking at clubs that plow full-on road courses on the ice, groups like the Adirondack Motor Enthusiast Club (AMEC), based in and around the Adirondack Park. Established in 1954, this is among the oldest ice racing clubs in the world and the one I’ve been lucky to be a member of since 2002.

Will any other discipline of motorsport teach you as much about car control? Tim Stevens

AMEC offers numerous classes, providing eligibility for everything from a bone-stock Miata to purpose-built sprint cars that look like they made a wrong turn off a dirt oval. Dedicated volunteers plow courses on lakes throughout the ADK, tirelessly searching for ice of sufficient depth and quality.

Different clubs have different requirements, but most like to see a foot of solid, clean ice. That may not sound like much, but according to the US Army Corps of Engineers, it’s plenty for eight-ton trucks. That’s enough to support not only the 60 to 100 racers that AMEC routinely sees on any frigid Sunday but also the numerous tow rigs, trailers, and plow trucks that support the action.

How do you get started? All you need is a set of tires.

Tires

Tires are the most talked-about component of any car competing on the ice, and for good reason. Clubs have different regulations for what is and is not legal for competition, but in general, you can lump ice racing tires into three categories.

The first is unstudded, street-legal tires, such as Bridgestone Blizzacks, Continental WinterContacts, and Michelin X-Ices. These tires generally have chunky, aggressive treads, generous siping, and squishy compounds. Modern snow tires like these are marvelous things, and when there’s a rough surface on the ice or some embedded snow, an unstudded tire can be extremely competitive, even keeping up with a street-legal studded tire.

These tires, like the Nokian Hakkapeliita 10 and the Pirelli Winter Ice Zero, take the chunky, aggressive tread pattern of a normal snow tire and embed some number of metallic studs. These tiny studs, which typically protrude only 1 millimeter from the tire surface, provide a massive boost in grip on smooth, polished ice.

Tim races on Nokian Hakka 10 tires, which are a street-legal studded winter tire. Credit: Tim Stevens

Finally, there is what is broadly called a “race stud” tire, which is anything not legal for road use. These tires range from hand-made bolt tires, put together by people who have a lot of patience and who don’t mind the smell of tire sealant, to purpose-built race rubber of the sort you’ll see on a World Rally car snow stage.

These tires offer massive amounts of grip—so much so that the feel they deliver is more like driving on dirt than on ice. Unless you DIY it, the cost typically increases substantially as well. For that reason, going to grippier tires doesn’t necessarily mean more fun for your dollar, but there are plenty of opinions on where you’ll find the sweet spot of smiles per mile.

Driver skills

The other major factor in finding success on the ice is driver skill. If you have some experience in low-grip, car-control-focused driving like rally or drift, you’ll have a head start over someone who’s starting fresh. But if I had a dollar for every rally maestro or drifter I’ve seen swagger their way out onto the ice and then wedge their car straight into the first snowbank, I’d have at least five or six extra dollars to my name.

Ice racing is probably the purest and most challenging form of low-grip driving. On ice, the performance envelope of a normal car on normal tires is extremely small. Driving fast on ice, then, means learning how to make your car do what you want, even when you’re far outside of that envelope.

There are many techniques involved, but it all starts with getting comfortable with entering your car into a slide and sustaining it. Learning to balance your car in a moderate drift, dancing between terminal understeer (plowing into the snowbank nose-first) and extreme oversteer (spinning into the snowbank tail-first), is key. That comfort simply takes time.

Reading the ice

Ruts in the ice made by ice racing — The condition of the track changes constantly. Credit: Tim Stevens

Once you figure out how to keep your car going in the right direction, and once you stop making sedan-shaped holes in snowbanks, the next trick is to learn how to read the ice.

The grip level of the ice constantly evolves throughout the day. The street-legal tires tend to polish it off, wearing down rougher sections into smoothly polished patches with extremely low grip. The race studs, on the other hand, chew it up again, creating a heavily textured surface.

If you’re on the less extreme sorts of tires, you’ll find the most grip on that rough, unused ice. In a race stud, you want to seek out smooth, clean ice because it will give your studs better purchase.

If you’re familiar with road racing, it’s a little like running a rain line: not necessarily driving the shortest path around, but instead taking the one that offers the most grip. Imagine a rain line that changes every lap and you start to get the picture.

How can I try it?

Intrigued? The good news is that ice racing is among the most accessible and affordable forms of motorsport on the planet, possibly second only to autocrossing. Costs vary widely, but in my club, AMEC, a full day of racing costs $70. That’s for three heat races and a practice session. Again, all you need is a set of snow tires, which will last the full season if you don’t abuse them.

The bad news, of course, is that you need to be close to an ice racing club. They’re getting harder and harder to find, and active clubs generally have shorter seasons with fewer events. If you can’t find one locally, you may need to travel, which increases the cost and commitment substantially.

If you don’t live where the lakes freeze, you’ll have to travel. Tim Stevens

If cost is no issue, you certainly have more opportunities. We’ve already reported on McLaren’s program, but it’s not alone. Exotic brands like Ferrari and Lamborghini also offer winter driving programs, where you can wheel amazing cars in glamorous places like St. Moritz and Livigno. The cost is very much in the “if you have to ask” category.

Dirtfish, one of the world’s greatest rally schools, also offers an ice-driving program in Wisconsin, starting at about $2,000 for a single day. This is a great, if expensive, way to get a feel for the skills you’ll need on ice.

And if you just want the most seat time, look for programs like Lapland Ice Driving or Ice Drive Sweden. The northern wilds of Sweden and Finland are full of frozen lakes where clubs plow out full race courses, sometimes repeating Formula One circuits. If you have the funds, you can rent any manner of sports car and run it sideways all day long on proper studded tires.

Whatever it costs and whatever you have to do to make it happen, ice racing is well worth the effort. I’ve been lucky to drive a long list of amazing cars in amazing places, but nothing comes close to the joy of wheeling my 20-year-old Subaru around a frozen lake.

Zero grip, maximum fun: A practical guide to getting into amateur ice racing Read More »

Rare gifted word-learner dogs like to share their toys

animal cognition, animals, Biology, gifted word learner dogs, Science / 9u50fv / February 19, 2026

This time around, the group recruited 10 GWL dogs and 21 non-GWL dogs, all border collies, since this is the most common breed to fall into the GWL category. They compiled a list of eight toys: two labeled, two unlabeled, and four that were new to each dog.

What’s their motivation?

There was a two-week period during which owners familiarized the dogs with the toys once a day for at least 10 minutes. Each toy was presented separately. For the labeled toys, owners moved the toy while crouched on the floor, repeatedly naming the toy (“Look at the [toy name]! Here is the [toy name]”). They did not name the unlabeled toys. Owners devoted an equal amount of time to all the toys. Novel toys were excluded from the familiarization phase.

After that period, each dog participated in two 90-second trials. The dogs were provided free access to the toys (washed with soap to control for odor cues). In the first trial, owners entered first and placed the labeled and unlabeled toys, plus two of the novel ones, on the floor and stood at a distance, passive and ignoring the dogs as the latter explored the toys. After a five-minute break, the test was repeated with the other two novel toys. All tests were recorded remotely and the footage subsequently analyzed.

Human babies are known to pay more attention to named objects, and the authors thought the GWL dogs would show a similar response, but that’s not what happened. All the dogs, whether they were GWL dogs or not, strongly preferred the new toys, and there were no significant differences between the two groups of dogs in terms of how much time they spent playing with labeled versus unlabeled. So just hearing toy names does not automatically increase a dog’s attention.

Rare gifted word-learner dogs like to share their toys Read More »

Author name: 9u50fv