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An independent restaurant from Essex offering Italian specialities has scooped up a national industry award.

A person has died this morning after being hit by a train

It's got great commuter value, is close to a high street and has plenty of greenery

In a recent article published in the New York Times, author Casey Michael Henry argues that today's tech industry keeps borrowing dystopian sci-fi aesthetics and ideas -- often the parts that were meant as warnings -- and repackages them as exciting products without recognizing that they were originally cautionary tales to avoid. "The tech industry is delivering on some of the futuristic notions of late-20th-century science fiction," writes Henry. "Yet it seems, at times, bizarrely unaware that many of those notions were meant to be dystopian or satirical -- dismal visions of where our worst and dumbest habits could lead us." Here's an excerpt from the report: You worry that someone in today's tech world might watch "Gattaca" -- a film that features a eugenicist future in which people with ordinary DNA are relegated to menial jobs -- and see it as an inspirational launching point for a collaboration between 23andMe and a charter school. The material on Sora, for instance, can feel oddly similar to the jokes about crass entertainment embedded in dystopian films and postmodern novels. In the movie "Idiocracy," America loved a show called "Ow! My Balls!" in which a man is hit in the testicles in increasingly florid ways. "Robocop" imagined a show about a goggle-eyed pervert with an inane catchphrase. "The Running Man" had a game show in which contestants desperately collected dollar bills and climbed a rope to escape ravenous dogs. That Sora could be prompted to imagine a game show in which Michel Foucault chokeslams Ronald Reagan, or Prince battles an anaconda, doesn't feel new; it feels like a gag from a 1990s writer or a film about social decay. The echoes aren't all accidental. Modern design has been influenced by our old techno-dystopias -- particularly the cyberpunk variety, with its neon-noir gloss and "high tech, low life" allure. From William Gibson novels to films like "The Matrix," the culture has taken in countless ruined cityscapes, all-controlling megacorporations, high-tech body modifications, V.R.-induced illnesses, deceptive A.I. paramours, mechanical assassins and leather-clad hacker antiheroes, navigating a dissociative cyberspace with savvily repurposed junk-tech. This was not a world many people wanted to live in, but its style and ethos seem to reverberate in the tech industry's boldest visions of the future.

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Sydney Sweeney earned major support from the conservative community after coolly shutting down critics of her American Eagle 'good genes' ad.

Former NFL star Antonio Brown is in US Marshals custody after being extradited from Dubai on an attempted murder charge, law enforcement officials have confirmed to the Daily Mail.

As I was traveling this week (just home today), conveyances of all sorts were on my mind.

Llarry A. warned "This intersection is right near my house. Looks like it's going to be inconvenient for a while..." Keeping this in mind, I chose to take the train rather than drive.

 

Unfortunately US trains are restricted to plodding sublight speeds, but Mate has it better. "I love how the Swiss Federal Railways keep investing in new rolling stock... like this one that can teleport from one side of the country to the other in 0 minutes?! "

 

And Michael R. 's TfL seems to operate between parallel universes. "I was happy to see that the "not fitted" Northern Line train actually rolled in 2 mins later."

 

Daniel D. 's elevator went up but the ubiquitous screen went down. Daniel even slipped a bit of selfie into his submission. Sneaky. "This display usually features some looping video. This time it featured only desktop with bunch of scripts / *.bat files. I guess it's better when elevator's display crashes than when an actual elevator crashes?"

 

Joel C. 's elevator had a different fault. "The screen in my hotel's elevator is not sending quite the message they probably want."

 

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The road is one of the most dangerous in Britain, according to the Department for Transport

Shirley Valentine, the romantic comedy smash hit of the 1980s, made a global star of Pauline Collins, an actress already much loved by British television viewers.

As December draws ever closer, the founder of a Essex charity advent calendar is calling for help from the public to help design the 2025 logo.

As December draws ever closer, the founder of a Essex charity advent calendar is calling for help from the public to help design the 2025 logo.

An application has been submitted on behalf of Stantons Farm in Braintree, seeking permission for the change of use of land near the site.

The land, which locals say 'deserves protection' has a lot of history from ancient Roman roads to Second World War pillboxes

We're months away from AI building AI

Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn has confirmed it will use humanoid robots to make Nvidia servers in America.…

Michael West, 65, who previously headed Rothman Orthopedics, was diagnosed with the debilitating disease in June of last year.

Stranger Things fans got a shock on Thursday when Millie Bobby Brown reunited with costar David Harbour at the season five premiere - despite filing a harassment and bullying claim against him.

Marshawn Kneeland, a defensive end with the Cowboys, died by apparent suicide at the age of 24 after being discovered with a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Wednesday night.

UPS officials identified the flight crew of the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 as Captain Richard Wartenberg, First Officer Lee Truitt and Relief Officer Dana Diamond.

The man, whom the White House has refused to identify, fainted just feet away from the President during a press conference.

Mark Zuckerberg opened an unlicensed school named after the family's pet chicken -- and it was the final straw for his neighbors, writes Slashdot reader joshuark, citing a report from Wired. The magazine obtained 1,665 pages of documents about the neighborhood dispute -- "including 311 records, legal filings, construction plans, and emails." Here are excerpts from the report: The documents reveal that the school may have been operating as early as 2021 without a permit to operate in the city of Palo Alto. As many as 30 students might have enrolled, according to observations from neighbors. [...] Over time, neighbors became fed up with what they argued was the city's lack of action, particularly with respect to the school. Some believed that the delay was because of preferential treatment to the Zuckerbergs. "We find it quite remarkable that you are working so hard to meet the needs of a single billionaire family while keeping the rest of the neighborhood in the dark," reads one email sent to the city's Planning and Development Services Department in February. "Just as you have not earned our trust, this property owner has broken many promises over the years, and any solution which depends on good faith behavioral changes from them is a failure from the beginning." [...] In order for the Zuckerbergs to run a private school on their land, which is in a residential zone, they need a "conditional use" permit from the city. However, based on the documents WIRED obtained, and Palo Alto's public database of planning applications, the Zuckerbergs do not appear to have ever applied for or received this permit. Per emails obtained by WIRED, Palo Alto authorities told a lawyer working with the Zuckerbergs in March 2025 that the family had to shut down the school on its compound by June 30. [...] However, Zuckerberg family spokesperson Brian Baker tells WIRED that the school didn't close, per se. It simply moved. It's not clear where it is now located, or whether the school is operating under a different name. [...] Most of the Zuckerbergs' neighbors did not respond to WIRED's request for comment. However, the ones that did clearly indicated that they would not be forgetting the Bicken Ben saga, or the past decade of disruption, anytime soon.

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