Links 25/10/2023: Julian Assange Back in Headlines, His Close Friend Craig Murray Speaks of Being Arrested for Alleged "Terrorism"
Contents
- GNU/Linux
- Leftovers
- Gemini* and Gopher
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GNU/Linux
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Games
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Hackaday ☛ Game Graphics: Racing The Beam
Have you ever wondered how the graphics in your favorite video games worked? This is the start of a series on game graphics, and what better place to start than how exactly the original Mario Bros. got those glorious pixely pixels onto the screen. Buckle in, because we’re “racing the beam” with systems like the NES, Commodore 64, and many other classics from the 1980s.
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Leftovers
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Science
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Filippo Valsorda ☛ Why We Don’t Generate Elliptic Curves Every Day
With all the talk recently of how the NIST curve parameters were selected, a reasonable observer could wonder why we all use the same curves instead of generating them along with keys, like we do for Diffie-Hellman parameters. (You might have memories of waiting around for openssl dhparam to run and then configuring the result in a web server for TLS.)
Thing is, user-generated parameters (such as custom elliptic curves) are not safe, and have no significant benefits. This is one of the lessons learned of modern cryptography engineering, and it contradicts conventional wisdom from the ‘90s.
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MIT Technology Review ☛ How this Turing Award–winning researcher became a legendary academic advisor
Every academic field has its superstars. But a rare few achieve superstardom not just by demonstrating individual excellence but also by consistently producing future superstars. A notable example of such a legendary doctoral advisor is the Princeton physicist John Archibald Wheeler.
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Science Alert ☛ Unknown Human Lineage Found Buried in The Neanderthal Genome
We go way back.
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Science Alert ☛ West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse May Now Be Unavoidable, Scientists Warn
"It appears that we may have lost control."
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Science Alert ☛ LIGO Has Surpassed The Quantum Limit. We Can Explain.
"It's like science fiction."
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Science Alert ☛ Scientists Discover Ancient River System Hidden Under Antarctic Ice
One piece of a long history.
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Hardware
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Hackaday ☛ Using Industrial CT To Examine A $129 USB Cable
What in the world could possibly justify charging $129 for a USB cable? And is such a cable any better than a $10 Amazon Basics cable?
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Hackaday ☛ Driving An OLED Screen With A 6502 Single-Board Computer
Twenty years ago, if you wanted an LCD for a project, you’d probably end up with something salvaged from a mobile phone or an HD44780 character display. These days, little OLEDs can be had for a few bucks and they’ve taken the maker world by storm. [Anders Nielsen] has recently been experimenting with driving these displays from the vintage 6502 CPU, and he’s even got scrolling operation down pat.
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Hackaday ☛ Flaming Skull Hood Ornament Is Not Suitable For Use In Traffic
It’s one thing to mount a big skull—human or animal—to the front of your car. Really, though, a good hood skull should breathe fire to truly inspire enmity or awe. Thankfully, when [Anthony] went about modifying his ex-school bus, he was sure to equip it with suitably flaming equipment. It’s dangerous, so don’t try this one at home and melt your car, you hear?
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Hackaday ☛ Retro Computing Coding Competition Still Open
There’s still time to enter Octojam 10, a competition to write a new program for a rather old (and virtual) machine: the CHIP-8. This interpreted language on a virtual machine was used in the 1970s and 1980s to write games that could run on several consoles, such as the COSMAC VIP. Since then, a community of tinkerers has grown up around CHIP-8 and figuring out how to get the most out of the minimal resources the machine gives you.
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Hackaday ☛ High Voltage Turns Welder Into Plasma Cutter
For doing basic steel welding, most of us will reach for a MIG welder. It might not be the best tool for every welding job, but it’s definitely the most accessible since they tend to use only basic parts, easy-to-find gas, and can run from a standard electrical outlet. A plasma cutter isn’t as common, and while they’re certainly useful, [Rulof] wanted to forgo the expense of buying one off the shelf. Instead, he used parts of an old welder and a few other odds and ends to build his own plasma cutter.
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Latvia ☛ Small, but might save your life – reflectors are this season's essential accessory
A reflector is a small and simple item that can save a person's life. With the arrival of the dark period of the year, safety experts are calling on members of the public to make sure they are visible on the roadside – and not just on remote rural lanes.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Intel's Core i9-14900K Delidded: 12C Temperature Reduction
der8auer delidded a Core i9-14900K, providing a significant temperature reduction for Intel's latest and hottest CPU.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ LGA1700 Coolers Are Compatible With Next-Gen Intel Arrow Lake CPUs
Azza confirms that current LGA1700 coolers will support the upcoming LGA1851 socket for Intel Arrow Lake processors.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Vox ☛ Baby boomers are aging. Their kids aren’t ready.
For many, taking on the affairs of a parent or senior relative will add pressure on top of pressure. Americans are having kids later in life, meaning they’re more likely to find themselves in a “sandwich generation,” caring for elderly parents and young kids at the same time. Nearly 25 percent of American adults and more than half of people in their 40s are “sandwiched,” with at least one child to support and at least one parent over 65.
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CBC ☛ 33 U.S. states sue Facebook and Instagram owner for making social media addictive to kids
Thirty-three states including California and New York are suing Meta Platforms Inc. for harming young people's mental health and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly designing features on Instagram and Facebook that cause children to be addicted to its platforms.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, also claims that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents' consent, in violation of federal law.
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Pro Publica ☛ How the GOP Is Undermining Citizen-Led Abortion Ballot Initiatives Across the Country
In Ohio, a GOP-controlled agency rewrote language for a ballot measure that would guarantee access to abortion in the state constitution, swapping in new wording that opponents said was designed to confuse voters. In Missouri, a Republican official launched legal challenges that have stalled a citizen-led effort to pass a law guaranteeing reproductive health care. And in Michigan, a Republican lawmaker went one step further, introducing a bill that would undo a popular new access law.
In the year since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Gallup polling shows that a majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal, with two-thirds of those polled saying it should be permitted in the first trimester.
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Federal News Network ☛ A German tourist who went missing in a remote Zimbabwe wildlife park is found alive 3 days later
A German tourist who went missing in a national park teeming with wild animals in northern Zimbabwe has been found alive and in “good health” along with his rental car three days later. A national parks agency spokesperson says the tourist had last been seen buying a drink at the park shop before going for a game drive Saturday afternoon. The spokesman says the car rental company failed to locate him on its GPS tracking system and authorities deployed a helicoptor, vehicles and sniffer dogs to search for him. There are no immediate details on how deep in the park he had ventured.
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Latvia ☛ 60 milion euros at stake in hospital construction project, says official
The construction of the A2 building of the Stradiņš hospital is still going slowly, and the amount of European Union (EU) funds needed has increased to 60 million euros, which there is a risk of losing in this process, Normunds Staņevičs, the chairman of the temporary board of the Stradiņš hospital, said in an interview on the LTV program "Rīta Panorāma" (Morning Panorama) October 24.
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CS Monitor ☛ Maternal support: Walmart’s health care will now include doulas
Walmart’s new program, which kicks off nationwide on Nov. 1, aims to increase momentum for the use of doula services to help address racial inequities in maternal care, as well as improve the maternal and infant health of its workers and their babies.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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New York Times ☛ Cruise’s Driverless Taxi Service in San Francisco Is Suspended
California regulators on Tuesday ordered Cruise, a General Motors subsidiary, to stop its driverless taxi service in San Francisco after a series of traffic incidents, including a collision with a fire truck.
The decision by the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles followed a turbulent three months for Cruise. In early August, over the objections of San Francisco officials, state regulators allowed Cruise to expand its service in the city. But a little more than a week later, the D.M.V. told Cruise to cut its fleet in the city in half.
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Futurism ☛ University Warns of Bomb Threat Involving Delivery Robots
"A student at Oregon State University sent a bomb threat, via social media, that involved Starship's robots on the campus," the company wrote on X. "While the student has subsequently stated this is a joke and a prank, Starship suspended the service. Safety is of the utmost importance to Starship and we are cooperating with law enforcement and the university during this investigation."
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Vice Media Group ☛ ‘Do Not Open Robots’: Students Warned of Food Delivery Robot Bomb Threat at Oregon State University
“Urgent OSU Alert: Bomb Threat in Starship food delivery robots. Do not open robots. Avoid all robots until further notice. Public Safety is responding,” the school’s X account posted at 3:20 p.m. An emergency alert was also posted to the school’s Public Safety web page.
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CS Monitor ☛ AI may disrupt math and computer science classes. Is there an upside?
Conversely, ChatGPT has its limits. It can show the right steps to solving a math problem – and then give the wrong answer.
This is because it’s “not actually doing the math,” Dr. Price says. It’s just pulling together pieces of the sentences where other people have described how to solve similar problems.
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The Atlantic ☛ AI Has a Hotness Problem
A second explanation of the problem has to do with how the AI faces are constructed. According to what I’ll call the “midpoint hottie” hypothesis, the image-generating tools end up generating more attractive faces as an accidental by-product of how they analyze the photos that go into them. “Averageness is more attractive in general than non-averageness,” Lisa DeBruine, a professor at the University of Glasgow School of Psychology and Neuroscience who studies the perception of faces, told me. Combining faces tends to make them more symmetrical and blemish free. “If you take a whole class of undergraduate psychology students and you average together all the women’s faces, that average is going to be pretty attractive,” she said. (This rule applies only to sets of faces of a single demographic, though: When DeBruine helped analyze the faces of visitors to a science museum in the U.K., for example, she found that the averaged one was an odd amalgamation of bearded men and small children.) AI image generators aren’t simply smushing faces together, Farid said, but they do tend to produce faces that look like averaged faces. Thus, even a generative-AI tool trained only on a set of normal faces might end up putting out unnaturally attractive ones.
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Techdirt ☛ Developer Of Free Web Game Messes With Sites Embedding His Game With Goatse Image
The tradition of game developers trolling those who pirate or otherwise use their games rather than immediately going the legal route has a long history. There are lots of ways to do this, most of which involve either breaking the game in certain ways, or inputting Easter eggs into games that cause those pirating it to reach out to developers on social media, essentially telling on themselves. On the one hand, a little humor in the approach as opposed to having lawyers fire off letters or lawsuits is certainly a better response. On the other hand, this trolling all takes up more development time and coding, leading to the obvious question: is any of this actually worth the effort?
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The San Fancisco Standard ☛ Waymo Robotaxi Company Slashes More Jobs
Waymo confirmed the company's third round of layoffs this year but would not provide an exact number of jobs lost.
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TechCrunch ☛ Pebble, the Twitter alternative previously known as T2, is shutting down | TechCrunch
The grip Twitter, now called X, has on the market may be stronger than some believed. Unfortunately, that's led to the first casualty among Twitter
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Techdirt ☛ Techdirt Podcast Episode 369: Your Face Belongs To Us, With Kashmir Hill
We’ve written plenty about facial recognition here on Techdirt, and especially the infamous Clearview AI. Now, journalist Kashmir Hill, who wrote the original New York Times story that brought the company to the public’s attention, has written a new book all about the subject: Your Face Belongs To Us. This week, she joins us on the podcast to discuss the whole story of Clearview AI, the rise of facial recognition, and the impact on privacy.
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Site36 ☛ Attention, facial recognition! Saxony continues to operate camera columns in Upper Lusatia
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Defence/Aggression
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El País ☛ Anchor of Chinese container vessel caused damage to Balticconnector gas pipeline, Finnish police say
That trail is believed to have been caused by a heavy 6-ton anchor which the Finnish Navy retrieved late Monday. “There are traces in the (anchor) which indicate that it has been in contact with the gas pipeline,” Lohi said, citing data from expert analysis. Whether the pipeline damage was intentional, unintentional or caused by “bad seafaring” is subject of the next phase in the probe, officials said.
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YLE ☛ Finnish investigators suspect Chinese vessel's anchor caused Balticconnector pipeline damage
The National Bureau of Investigation has found a large anchor near the site where the pipeline was damaged, as well as drag marks on the seabed.
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YLE ☛ Finnish investigators suspect Chinese vessel's anchor caused Balticconnector pipeline damage
In a press conference on Tuesday evening, an NBI spokesperson revealed that a wide drag mark was found on the seabed on one side of the damaged pipeline, and a narrow drag mark was found on the other side — which continues to the east for several kilometers.
The NBI had previously stated that it was investigating the movements of the NewNew Polar Bear, a Hong Kong flagged ship owned by a Chinese firm, which coincided with the time and place the pipeline was damaged.
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Meduza ☛ Finland says anchor found near site of damage to Balticconnector gas pipeline likely belongs to Chinese vessel
Finnish police have recovered a two-meter-long anchor from the bottom of the Baltic Sea, which is suspected to have damaged the Balticconnector gas pipeline on October 8, report Finnish news outlets Helsingin Sanomat and Yle.
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The Economist ☛ Who is sabotaging underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea?
These events have come just over a year after the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines from Russia to Germany were damaged by a pair of explosions. Swedish prosecutors say that a state was probably responsible. Initial suspicion fell on Russia, which has a large and sophisticated capability for underwater cable-tapping and sabotage, but American and European intelligence agencies have since then uncovered signs that Ukrainians might have been behind the blasts. The situation remains murky.
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Salon ☛ Judge Chutkan "literally laughs" in Trump lawyer's face before issuing partial gag order
“This is not about whether I like the language Mr. Trump uses,” the judge said. “This is about language that presents a danger to the administration of justice. His presidential candidacy does not give him carte blanche to vilify public servants who are simply doing their jobs."
“Mr. Trump is a criminal defendant. He is facing four felony charges. He is under the supervision of the criminal justice system and he must follow his conditions of release,” Chutkan added at the hearing.
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BBC ☛ Chinese bots targeted Trudeau and others - Canada
Global Affairs Canada said that its Rapid Response Mechanism, which was set up to monitor foreign state-sponsored disinformation efforts, detected in August a "spamouflage" campaign that is connected to Beijing.
It said the campaign, which accelerated over the first weekend of September, featured a bot network that "left thousands of comments" in Canada's two official languages - English and French - on the social media accounts of several Canadian politicians.
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France24 ☛ Canada says China-linked 'Spamouflage' disinformation targeted Trudeau
Canada on Monday warned of a "Spamouflage" disinformation campaign linked to China that used waves of online posts and deepfake videos manipulated to try to disparage and discredit Canadian lawmakers.
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Meduza ☛ ‘You have one week to come home’: The family of a woman who fled Ingushetia is threatening to murder a human rights lawyer if she doesn’t return — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Investigate Europe: European companies have purchased 13.7 billion euros worth of critical raw materials from Russia since March 2022 — Meduza
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RFA ☛ All eyes on spies as US and China trade espionage accusations
Chinese media reports on researcher-turned-American-spy arrested amid growing intelligence frenzy.
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RFA ☛ US officials: China’s economic woes may slow military rise
‘Even things that are high priorities are getting cut in the face of this economic slowdown’
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New York Times ☛ China Dismisses Gen. Li Shangfu, Its Defense Minister, Amid Speculation
The unexplained dismissal of Gen. Li Shangfu, the Chinese military’s top diplomat, has come after two top commanders in the country’s rocket forces were replaced.
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France24 ☛ 🔴 Live: Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people, says Macron on visit to West Bank
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that the Hamas attack had been traumatic for Israel but that it also was a disaster for the Palestinian people. "Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people," Macron told reporters alongside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, in the West Bank, following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. The French leader proposed a regional and international coalition to fight against terrorist groups, as well as a decisive relaunch of the Palestinian peace process.
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CS Monitor ☛ Four people rescued in South Korean waters. Are they defectors?
South Korean officials reported finding four suspected North Korean defectors in a small boat near the nations’ sea border. South Korea accepts defectors, but North Korea often says its people are held against their will in the South, leading to tension.
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RFA ☛ S Korea detains boat carrying suspected N Korean escapees
The news comes amid Seoul witnessing an increase in the number of North Koreans crossing the border.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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Meduza ☛ Russian authorities rewrite paragraph on Stalinist deportations in history textbook following criticism from North Caucasian republics — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Russian soldiers report ‘torture pits’ used for ‘discipline’ at military training grounds — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Russian Defense Ministry says it repelled Ukrainian ‘sabotage’ attack on Sevastopol — Meduza
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YLE ☛ Niinistö: Hungary will have to 'hurry up' on Sweden's Nato accession
Sweden is getting closer to joining neighbouring Finland as a new Nato member.
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Environment
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DeSmog ☛ A Judge Has Rejected Shell’s Latest Attempt to Dismiss a Connecticut Climate Lawsuit
A Connecticut judge last week rejected Shell’s latest attempt to quash a climate lawsuit accusing the company of disregarding the severe climate change-driven risks to its fuel and chemical depot on the east bank of New Haven Harbor.
The ruling, coming about a year after the federal district court in Connecticut denied Shell’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, means that a trial in the case could start sometime in 2024.
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YLE ☛ Finnish Lapland sees coldest day of the season so far
This winter's lowest temperature of -20 degrees was recorded in the municipality of Muonio on Tuesday morning.
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Energy/Transportation
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DeSmog ☛ Revealed: The Oil and Gas Lobbying Campaign to Water Down Windfall Tax
The UK government’s weakening of its windfall tax on energy profits matched the demands of a high-level lobbying campaign by the oil and gas industry, new research reveals.
Trade body Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), formerly Oil and Gas UK, and its operator members including BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, and Equinor, met with ministers at least 210 times in the 12 months following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
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Vox ☛ The World Bank can bring the world’s poor into the clean energy revolution
The World Bank turns 80 next summer, which means eight decades of loans to fund infrastructure and other projects in poor countries. But it is entering its ninth decade with a bit of an identity crisis, and a widespread understanding that it needs to transform itself.
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The Independent UK ☛ Passenger removed from flight after petting her own puppy
Ms Price claims that after the dog’s owner, who was not named, did as she was told, the dog gave a “soft whine” as the plane moved to the runway, so the woman “leaned over and started petting it from the outside of the carrier but right at mesh”.
[...]
In a further twist, the couple filming the incident – Ms Price and her husband – were then themselves removed from the flight, apparently due to their “attitude”.
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RFA ☛ IEA forecasts 2030 global energy shift powered by clean tech surge
China will continue to be the largest emitter in 2050, international energy agency says.
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Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ New Elron trains to bring several changes for passengers from 2025
"In standard class you will be able to purchase a guaranteed seat - you won't have to worry about whether or not you can sit down, because you can buy a guaranteed seat in advance. There will be more places for bikes and it will be more convenient to take them on the train. You won't have to hang them on the wall, because the bike rack will be on the floor. We also want to have a coffee machine and the possibility to sell fresh triangular sandwiches on board," said Betlem.
The new trains will be able to transport more passengers than the previous Stadler ones. Currently, the longest trains on the network have 214 regular seats plus 10 spaces, which are accessible for wheelchairs. The new long-distance trains however, we have 236 regular seats and 15 wheelchair-accessible spaces.
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El País ☛ Europe goes on the defensive against tide of Chinese electric vehicles
Its weight in the European market as a whole is still low (2.8% in the first seven months of the year), according to Schmidt Automotive Research. But the market share of Chinese manufacturers has increased to 8.2% in the electric vehicles sector alone, often seen as the future of the automotive industry on a continent that wants to phase out sales of combustion vehicles by 2035. As Schmidt highlighted in one of his latest reports: in electric cars, the MG reborn in the hands of SAIC has positioned itself ahead of leading European brands such as Peugeot, Renault, and Skoda in 2023. The Asian industry has managed to manufacture high-tech vehicles at a competitive price for Europeans, and at the same time has secured a value chain (including sourcing raw materials) that gives them a competitive advantage over their rivals. A European manager who knows the automotive industry in Europe and China sums it up: “The Chinese cars are not competitive because they receive aid, but because they are three or five years more advanced than the European ones and that allows them to manufacture cheaper cars.”
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YLE ☛ New tram in collision with car, three days after starting service
The light rail line which runs between Helsinki and Espoo began operating on Saturday. [...] The Helsinki Regional Transport authority (HRT) confirmed [sic] the collision in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
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H2 View ☛ City Energy and Gentari to explore Malaysia to Singapore hydrogen pipeline
City Energy and Gentari have teamed up to explore building a pipeline to import hydrogen from Malaysia to Singapore.
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Wildlife/Nature
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YLE ☛ Finland welcomes EU decision allowing continued herring fishing
The European Commission had considered banning herring fishing in the Baltic Sea due to dwindling stocks.
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Overpopulation
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The Economist ☛ Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences
Eventually, therefore, the world will have to make do with fewer youngsters—and perhaps with a shrinking population. With that in mind, recent advances in ai could not have come at a better time. An über-productive AI-infused economy might find it easy to support a greater number of retired people. Eventually ai may be able to generate ideas by itself, reducing the need for human intelligence. Combined with robotics, ai may also make caring for the elderly less labour-intensive. Such innovations will certainly be in high demand.
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Finance
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RFA ☛ IMF says exports, tourism will spur Laos’ economic growth by 4%
Inflation, however, will remain high in 2024, according to the Asian Development Bank.
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RFA ☛ North Korean farmers pressured to repay debts early
Propaganda touting a 'miracle harvest' this year prompts lenders to chase down the farmers who owe them .
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YLE ☛ Forestry sector faced difficult Q3 as Stora Enso, UPM report sharp fall in profits
Financial reports released by the two Finnish forestry firms on Tuesday reveal a gloomy outlook for the industry, with Stora Enso's profits plummeting by 96%.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China detains executive at foreign-owned firm for alleged bribery
China has detained a senior executive at a foreign-owned media agency for suspected bribery, the firm’s parent company WPP has said. Beijing has intensified its scrutiny of foreign enterprises in certain sectors this year, conducting raids on a string of big-name consulting, research and due diligence firms.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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The Nation ☛ Playing a Moderate, Antonin Scalia’s Daughter Wants a Virginia School Board Seat
Virginia Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s upset 2021 victory showcased the growing electoral power of “education” issues, from the reasonable to the crackpot. Behind a banner of “parental rights,” the Suburban Fleece Daddy’s coalition included even some Joe Biden voters frustrated by extended Covid-related school closures and unresponsive school boards. Once elected, Youngkin tilted crackpot, banning the teaching of “critical race theory” in Virginia schools as well as other “inherently divisive concepts,” and pushing curbs on the rights of transgender students.
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Federal News Network ☛ Donald Trump returns to civil fraud trial, with fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen set to testify
Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe, Michael Cohen, is poised to testify against his old boss as a key witness at the former president's New York civil fraud trial. Trump voluntarily came back to court Tuesday for the highly anticipated testimony. Cohen scrapped their expected showdown last week, citing a health issue. Cohen has said it will be his first time seeing Trump in five years. Trump is expected to testify later on in the trial. He denies any wrongdoing.
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Marcy Wheeler ☛ Trump’s Motions to Dismiss Things That Aren’t the Charges Against Him
In four motions to dismiss the indictments (or the most inflammatory parts of them) against him, Trump dodges the actual crimes charged against him.
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RFA ☛ Viewers ridicule propaganda film 'When Marx met Confucius'
The film tries to marry Marxism with ancient Chinese thinking as Xi branches out into 'cultural' thinking.
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New York Times ☛ New Normal or No Normal? How Economists Got It Wrong for 3 Years.
Economists first underestimated inflation, then underestimated consumers and the labor market. The key question is why.
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The Strategist ☛ Covert CCP social media accounts bolster China’s united front work in Canada
In the first part of this investigation, ASPI identified a subnetwork of Spamouflage accounts targeting Canadian politicians that illustrates the potential scope of the Chinese Communist Party’s malign influence operations in Canada.
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France24 ☛ China removes defence minister, ousts former foreign minister from cabinet
China on Tuesday removed defence minister Li Shangfu and ousted former foreign minister Qin Gang from its cabinet, state media reported, as part of a major reshuffle of its top leadership.
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RFA ☛ New chapter for Taiwan’s frontier island
Matsu, once frontline in the struggle against communism, is transforming itself to attract tourist money.
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RFA ☛ China’s Wang Yi to visit US ahead of possible Xi-Biden meeting
The foreign minister’s trip comes amid rising tensions in the Middle East and South China Sea.
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The Atlantic ☛ The Future of AI Is GOMA
Just about everything you do on the [Internet] is filtered through a handful of tech companies. Google is synonymous with search, Amazon with shopping; much of that happens on phones made by Apple. You might not always know when you’re interacting with the tech giants. Google and Meta alone capture something like half of online ad revenue in the United States. Movies, music, workplace software, and government benefits are all hosted on Big Tech’s data servers.
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[Repear] IT Wire ☛ Microsoft pledges $5b for data centres, training and security in Australia
The company made the announcement in Washington DC on Monday to coincide with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's visit to the country for talks with US President Joe Biden. Microsoft president Brad Smith and Microsoft Australia and New Zealand managing director Steven Worrall were present.
[...]
Microsoft experienced a major breach of its Azure cloud platform earlier this year, during which it was found that the threat actor involved may have been forging authentication tokens for more than two years.
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Gizmodo ☛ Marc Andreessen Is Wrong About Everything
For reference, Andreessen just published something he calls the Techno-Optimist’s Manifesto—a 5,000-word document that reads sorta like the Port Huron Statement if it were written by cash-addled businessmen instead of anti-war college students. This manifesto, which is hilarious on its face, offers a radical vision of the future in which unmitigated technological innovation pushes us to become the materially abundant, interplanetary, technological übermensch we were apparently always meant to be. As you might expect, it’s completely and utterly ridiculous.
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Site36 ☛ Berlin knew about crimes in Saudi Arabia: Security agreement not be terminated despite massacres
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Site36 ☛ Murder of policewoman: German police may have overlooked a motive of right-wing terrorist NSU
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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Latvia ☛ Fake presidential turtle talk analysed by Latvian Television
The broadcast featured a computer-generated discussion between Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs and American President Joe Biden. However, rather than important matters of state or trade links, the subject under discussion was the presidents' mutual appreciation of turtles.
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RFA ☛ From Netanyahu to Egypt: False claims spread amid Israel conflicts
AFCL debunks two images widely shared online in false context.
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Variety ☛ X/Twitter Verified Blue Check-Mark Users Are ‘Superspreaders’ of Disinformation About Israel-Hamas War, Study Says
Under Elon Musk’s revamped blue check-mark verification program, users of X Premium (which costs $8 per month) are able to get verified status, which under Twitter’s previous regime was intended to signal authentic and reliable accounts. Currently, posts from X Premium users are prioritized by the platform’s algorithm so they appear more prominently in users’ feeds. “That decision turned out to be a boon for bad actors sharing misinformation about the Israel-Hamas War,” NewsGuard said in its study. “For less than the cost of a movie ticket, they have gained the added credibility associated with the once-prestigious blue checkmark and enabling them to reach a larger audience on the platform.”
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Meduza ☛ ‘So Russians don’t fear them’ Putin administration tells pro-government media not to report on crimes committed by returning soldiers
Two sources close to the Russian government have told Meduza that the Putin administration has instructed the country’s state-controlled and pro-Kremlin media not to report on crimes committed by Russians who have returned from fighting in the war in Ukraine, including mercenaries and former convicts who received amnesty in exchange for going to war.
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Salon ☛ Hey, right wing ghouls! Hands off the Scholastic book fair
Scholastic's argument is that red states are passing book bans that are both draconian and incredibly vague. "Critical race theory" is banned in some places, for instance, but what Republicans mean by that phrase is not defined. As Greg Sargent of the Washington Post points out, Iowa bans schools from stocking books with any "sex acts," without explaining what that means. (As any Regency romance fan can tell you, after all, a mere brush of the hand can be quite the sex act!)
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Quillette ☛ Betraying Their Maverick Roots, Fringe Festivals Have Become Ideological Gatekeepers
At last year’s Montreal conference, it was made clear that many of today’s Fringe organizers view those principles—especially the renunciation of content control—as “outdated.” In breakout conference sessions dedicated to this topic, it was asserted that “audience safety” was now the paramount consideration. And by this, participants did not mean actual safety, but rather “safety” in the invented sense of being “safe” from exposure to opinions one disagrees with.
A few months earlier, having seen the writing on the wall, I released a public statement on the need to preserve artistic freedom in the Fringe world. But my efforts were in vain. Shortly after the 2022 conference, CAFF deleted a statement on its web site that had read, “Fringe Festival producers have no control over the artistic content of each performance. The artistic freedom of the participants is unrestrained,” downgrading it to “Fringe festival producers do not interfere with artistic content of each performance.” That text sits next to another recent addition: “Festivals will promote and model inclusivity, diversity and multiculturalism.”
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Meduza ☛ Yabloko party member and Novaya Gazeta call for investigation into Russian parliamentarian who said those who do not support Putin should be ‘annihilated’ — Meduza
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Techdirt ☛ Apple Cancelled Jon Stewart Because Feckless Tech Executives Were Afraid Of The Pesky Truth
Last week, the New York Times reported that Apple had cancelled “The Problem With Jon Stewart.” More importantly, the Times noted that Apple executives, clearly not at all worried about the need for a healthy editorial firewall, had grown uncomfortable with the way that the program was planning to cover issues such as China and AI:
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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Kansas Reflector ☛ Brother of Julian Assange visits Missouri to push for release of Wikileaks founder
But before that unscheduled court date, half-brother Gabriel Shipton said Monday to The Independent, the Department of Justice should drop the case.
Shipton was in Missouri this week for screenings of the pro-Assange 2020 documentary, “The War on Journalism: The Case of Julian Assange.” He also participated in a panel discussion at the University of Missouri Journalism School, and is heading to Washington, D.C., this week at the same time as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, to lobby on his brother’s behalf.
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Project Censored ☛ A Look At Assange From Inside the CIA, State Department & US Military
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Craig Murray ☛ Incredibly, I Face Investigation for Terrorism – Defence Funds Appeal
My phone is not being returned to me by police as, astonishingly, I am now formally under investigation for terrorism. Whether this relates to support for Palestine or for Wikileaks has currently not been made clear.
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YLE ☛ Finland drops to 8th in EU gender equality index
The latest report found that Finland scored above the EU average, but progress on gender equality has been slower compared to other member states.
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International Business Times ☛ Iranian Girl 'Brain Dead' Following Alleged Assault By Morality Police
Armita Geravand, a 16-year-old girl, was left fighting for her life after being "physically attacked" by Iranian authorities for not wearing a hijab earlier this month.
The victim suffered "severe injuries" after being attacked by Iran's morality police on the Tehran subway, a rights group said.
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ Wealth Inequality Permeates US Society, No Matter How You Slice It
The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) released its 2022 wealth distribution data late last week. The SCF is the nation’s preeminent survey of wealth and comes out once every three years. Below I summarize some of the wealth distribution figures that I have tracked over the years and show how that distribution could be made much more equal.
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Hollywood Reporter ☛ SAG-AFTRA, Studios to Return to Negotiations on Tuesday
Labor and management last broke off discussions Oct. 11, with the AMPTP saying that the gap between both sides was “too great” to continue discussions. The union and entertainment companies had clashed, especially, over a revenue-sharing proposal from SAG-AFTRA on streaming. Initially, the union had sought to funnel 2 percent of revenue generated by particular titles on streaming platforms to their casts, a proposal the AMPTP outright rejected.
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Techdirt ☛ Just Because Certain Crimes Are Going Viral Doesn’t Mean Crime Rates Are Increasing
Perception matters more than reality, especially when your budget is on the line.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Taiwan News ☛ Taiwan has No. 1 fastest internet in world
According to a report by Statista, an online statistical research portal, Taiwan ranked first in the world in terms of broadband download speeds in 2023. Using the time it took to download an HD movie of 5 GB as a reference for comparison, it took 4 minutes and 27 seconds to download the file in Taiwan, the shortest time in the world this year.
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Techdirt ☛ Air Canada Would Rather Sue A Website That Helps People Book More Flights Than Hire Competent Web Engineers
I am so frequently confused by companies that sue other companies for making their own sites and services more useful. It happens quite often. And quite often, the lawsuits are questionable CFAA claims against websites that scrape data to provide a better consumer experience, but one that still ultimately benefits the originating site.
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Monopolies
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Computer World ☛ Google faces new antitrust probe in Japan
The investigation by the Japan Fair Trade Commission will consist of two parts — an examination into whether Google shared search related ad revenue with Android phone makers in return for manufacturers not pre-installing competitors search applications, and a look into whether Google services in general are being prioritized by Android devices.
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Japan Fair Trade Commission ☛ The JFTC Opens an Investigation and Seeks Information and Comments from Third Parties Concerning the Suspected Violation of the Antimonopoly Act by Google LLC, etc.
The Japan Fair Trade Commission (hereinafter referred to as the "JFTC") has opened an investigation concerning the suspected violation of the Antimonopoly Act by Google LLC, etc. (hereinafter referred to as "Google"), and decided to seek information and comments from third parties about the suspected violation in the manner described below.
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Copyrights
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Torrent Freak ☛ Naver Webtoon Targets Hundreds of Piracy Sites Ahead of Public Listing
Kim Junkoo, CEO of Webtoon Entertaiment, a division of South Korean tech giant Naver, recently said that rivals such as Amazon and Apple will struggle to compete with his company in the short-form comic sector. Ahead of a potential U.S. listing, Kim told Reuters that if 'Big Tech' is serious, "they'd have to buy us out." In parallel, Webtoon appears to be quietly laying the groundwork to tackle less-discussed competition; hundreds of pirate sites offering the company's content for free.
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RTL ☛ Did a computer write this? Book industry grapples with AI
The threat is plain to see -- AI writing programs allow budding authors to produce in a matter of day novels that could in the past have taken months or years to write.
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Walled Culture ☛ How copyright drives Internet fragmentation, and why it is hard to fix
The EU Copyright Directive is arguably the most important recent legislation in the area of intellectual monopolies. It is also a failure, judged purely on its own terms as an initiative to modernise and unify copyright across the European Union. Instead, it includes many backward-looking features that go against the grain of the digital world, which are explored in Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available). It has also fragmented digital copyright law, as EU Member States struggle to implement a badly-drafted and self-contradictory text. For example, France’s national law went even further than the Directive in tilting the playing-field in favour of copyright companies. Germany, by contrast, attempted to produce a more balanced approach, recognising the rights of ordinary Internet users. The result is a patchwork of different laws across the EU – exactly what the Directive was supposed to eliminate.
A post on the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Web site points out that this is a global problem, particularly with regard to copyright exceptions: [...]
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International Federation of Library Assocations and Institutions ☛ Copyright: a driver of internet fragmentation?
When decisions are taken nationally, they often differ. This can be for reasons of political priority, legal tradition, or simply the capacity that governments themselves have to design and implement legislation.
This runs counter to the logic of the internet as a unified infrastructure. Where there are different rules, there are barriers and uncertainties, not least for those sharing ideas and content online who understandably do not want to face legal liability.
This is called internet fragmentation, and has been highlighted as a key issue in recent efforts to intensify global work on internet governance, not least in the UN Secretary General’s work on Digital Cooperation, the ongoing Global Digital Compact, and most recently, as the first key priority of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Leadership Panel for this year’s IGF in Kyoto, Japan.
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Techdirt ☛ New French AI Copyright Law Would Effectively Tax AI Companies, Enrich Collection Societies
This blog has written a number of times about the reaction of creators to generative AI. Legal academic and copyright expert Andres Guadamuz has spotted what may be the first attempt to draw up a new law to regulate generative AI. It comes from French politicians, who have developed something of a habit of bringing in new laws attempting to control digital technology that they rarely understand but definitely dislike.
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EFF ☛ What’s the Goal and How Do We Get There? Crucial Issues in Brazil’s Take on Saving the News from Big Tech
Draft proposals setting a “remuneration obligation” for digital platforms started to pop up in the Brazilian congress after Australia adopted its own News Media Bargaining Code. The issue gained steam when the rapporteur of PL 2630 (the so-called “Fake News bill”), Orlando Silva, presented a new draft in early 2022, including a press remuneration provision. Subsequent negotiations moved this remuneration proposal to a different draft bill, PL 2370. The remuneration rules are similar to the current version of another draft proposal in Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies (PL 1354).
While the main disputed issues revolve around who should get paid, for what, and how remuneration is measured, there is a baseline implicit question that deserves further analysis: What are the ultimate goals of making digital platforms pay for journalistic content? Responses from those supporting the proposal include redressing Big Tech's unfair exploitation of their relationship with publishers, fixing power asymmetries in the online news distribution market, and preserving public interest journalism as an essential piece of democratic societies.
These are all important priorities. But if what we want in the end is to ensure a vibrant, plural, diverse and democratic arena for publishing and discussing news and the world, there are fundamental tenets that should guide how we frame and pursue this goal.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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Chapter 2: Trouble at the sanctum
Following a few more tankards and a restful night's sleep, the adventurers readied their equipment and set forth on their journey towards Sanctum Cor Cordis. The road south led through the scenic expanse of Verdant Vale, a region adorned with sprawling grasslands bordered by two imposing mountain ranges to the east and west. After a half day's trek, the intrepid adventurers reached their destination.
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Technology and Free Software
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Internet/Gemini
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Guppy v0.3
It feels like there's a renaissance of text client/server protocols in the small web these days, and I love seeing these come out.
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Ansiwave BBS
I was never really taught netiquette, perhaps it is taboo to talk about other sites (not mine)?
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* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.