Leftovers

• Chris Hannah ☛ Small Communities

  Scale changes how we interact massively. For example, the interaction that most people would have with another individual in a local pub is likely a lot different than it would be on a platform like Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

• Kev Quirk ☛ Pen Pal November 2023 - Jarrod Blundy

  This is the first of my Pen Pals, and as I said in my last post, I'll be getting to know Jarrod Blundy for this month. Below is the first exchange we had in this process. Hope you enjoy...

• Ali Reza Hayati ☛ Behavioral paradoxes!

  I think it was first on Joe Rogan’s podcast that I heard someone saying “I don’t believe in ghosts but I would never spend a night in a haunted house” and that made a lot of sense! Me too, actually.

• Science

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] New telescope searching for unseen matter in our universe reveals stunning new images

• Hardware

  • Tim Bray ☛ Global Sensor Bandwidth

    The photo-world is all agog over Sony’s just-announced (but not shipping till next year) high-end ($6K) camera, the ɑ9 III, because it has a “global sensor”. No, the “global” label didn’t mean anything to me either, when I first read it. The write-ups about it have explainers and cool pictures (PetaPixel, DPReview). I found myself wondering “What is this thing’s bandwidth?” and thus this note. I’ll toss in another little explainer so you don’t have to click on a link like a savage.

  • James Stanley ☛ Interesting features of John Harrison's sea clocks

    Instead of having the shaft riding directly in plain bearings, the shaft instead sits on a pair of wheels at each end, and rolls against the wheels, and it is these wheels which ride in plain-bearing pivots. The advantage is that you have geared the rotation down by the ratio of the wheel diameter to the shaft diameter (a ratio of 20 or more) by the time it reaches the plain bearings, with a corresponding reduction in sliding friction.

  • Nico Cartron ☛ What I carry to work

    Thanks to Ruben's Blog, I have discovered a few other writters/bloggers.

    One of them is Wouter Groeneveld, writing at Brain Baking.

    Wouter recently wrote an interesting piece about what he carries to work, and I thought it would be fun to do the same.

    In the meantime, Ruben did the same exercise.

  • Nico Cartron ☛ The travel bags I'm using

    I would even say that I'm a geek when it comes to buying travel bags, spending a lot of time checking which bag is the best for me.

  • Engadget ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] You can now buy a PS5 Slim in the US and Canada, if you're lucky

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Tuberculosis: First time infections rise to 30-year high

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] The CIA Conducted Mind-Control Experiments in Canada for Decades

  • El País ☛ How researchers, farmers and brewers want to safeguard beer against climate change

    In the face of human-caused climate change impacting water access and weather patterns in the Willamette Valley — a region known for hops growing — Goschie will need all the new strategies the farm can get to sustain what they produce and provide to local and larger breweries alike.

    All of a sudden, climate change “was not coming any longer,” Goschie said, “it was here.”

  • El País ☛ Cellphones and teenagers: What if there was a middle ground between prohibition and free rein?

    As a result of these opinion pieces, I have begun to wonder if perhaps part of the problem lies in the fact that today people are having children at increasingly older ages, and that this age difference opens an unbridgeable generational gap that makes us experience their teenage years — and the presence of technology — with stress and anxiety. In that sense, all my alarms go off when I hear someone say that we are the first generation of mothers and fathers to face something like this. I think about my parents’ generation, which brought computers into our homes (into our rooms, to be exact) when we were barely 12 or 13 years old and, not much later, added a 56 kbps modem that allowed us to surf (at a snail’s pace) the world wide web. Our parents had no idea how a computer worked. Nor what the internet was, what windows it opened to their children or what dangers they were exposed to. The professionalization of parenthood was not a thing yet. They just bought us the computer because it was synonymous with modernity; because all our friends had it (an argument that never fails); because, supposedly, we needed it for school.

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Canada gets low marks for opioid deaths, access to health care in OECD report

  • No matter how much he tries, RFK Jr. can’t hide his antivax nature

    I realize that I’ve written about just how antivaccine environmental activist turned antivaccine crusader turned independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is, but the more attention he gets the more I feel the need to periodically remind everyone just how antivaccine he is. What prompted me to post yet another in this series of posts about RFK Jr. was his appearance a week ago at a conference in Georgia run by his own antivaccine organization, Children’s Health Defense (CHD). Usually, what periodically prompts me to feel obligated to address RFK Jr.’s antivaccine misinformation is seeing someone, either a blogger or in the press, trying desperately to argue that RFK Jr. isn’t antivaccine—and especially when I see a formerly respected physician start saying that RFK Jr. “makes fair points.” This time, around, it was something about RFK Jr.’s message to his fellow antivaxxers plus the setting of the antivax gathering itself that inspired me to discuss him yet again. Specifically, it was what RFK Jr. said in this news story about the conference:

  • Science Alert ☛ A Dangerous 'Factor X' Could Be Lurking in Earth's Ice, Scientist Warns

    As speculative as such future threats happen to be, what researchers have uncovered in recent years warrants serious consideration into improving surveillance and investigation of potential spillover events in the Arctic.

    Thanks to the very way infectious diseases work, most epidemics are likely to come from a novel source, such as a population of wild animals. Studies have shown outbreaks of zoonotic diseases are on the increase, both in number and in diversity, with deaths expected to continue to rise by an average of nearly 10 percent each year.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-05 [Older] Afghanistan: Opium supply drops 95% after Taliban drug ban

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] Should ecstasy, mushrooms be legalized to treat PTSD?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Global wine output falls to lowest level in 60-years

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Connor Tumbleson ☛ Treated like Garbage

    A bit ago after an update on my Windows gaming machine - I saw something odd in my start menu - it was an ad.

    There is nothing more infuriating to me when using something I paid for to have an advertisement shoved in my face. Thankfully, one quick search later and I knew how to disable it. They aren't advertisements to Microsoft they are called "Suggestions" so it confused me for a bit on the journey to remove it.

    More recently Microsoft stepped this up again, this time warning on the Insider blog about changes being tested on the start menu.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] AI: Which rules do the top tech moguls want? [Ed: hey want buzzwords to help them fake their so-called 'valuation']

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] Musk to integrate xAI startup with social media platform X [Ed: Proprietary vapourware and other BS, riding buzzwords and hype]

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • CBC ☛ 2023-11-03 [Older] Why can't you tap to pay on Montreal public transit? Because bureaucracy

    • CBC ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] DNA technology results in arrest of Alberta man in death of young mother in 1976 [Ed: Surveillance at DNA level marketed as crime prevention, not marches to gas chambers]

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ YouTube May Face Criminal Complaints in EU for Using Ad-Block Detection Scripts

      An Irish privacy consultant wants to put a stop to YouTube (and Meta) checking data outside of permissible bounds.

    • Vox ☛ Your phone is the key to your digital life. Make sure you know what to do if you lose it.

      Our phones have become our main — in some cases, only — gateway to so many things. If you lock yourself out of your house, you can call a locksmith to get back in, even if it’s the middle of the night on a holiday. But if you lose your phone, you may lose your keys to a whole lot more, and it may take a while, if ever, to get that access back.

      Ironically, this is especially true if you’ve proactively taken the kind of basic digital security measures most experts would recommend. My efforts to secure my accounts from bad actors — some of which relied on having my phone — might have made it that much harder for me to get back into them.

    • Nicolas Fränkel ☛ Exploring the OpenTelemetry Collector

      The OpenTelemetry Collector sits at the center of the OpenTelemetry architecture but is unrelated to the W3C Trace Context. In my tracing demo, I use Jaeger instead of the Collector. Yet, it’s ubiquitous, as in every OpenTelemetry-related post. I wanted to explore it further.

    • YLE ☛ Police investigate men using smart tags to monitor women

      Apple's AirTag is one of the better-known tracking devices. It's slightly smaller than a two-euro coin, equipped with a speaker, bluetooth antenna and a battery. The device costs around 40 euros, and its battery lasts for about a year.

    • [Old] New York Times ☛ Translating a Surveillance Tool into a Virus Tracker for Democracies

      “One of the things we have learned over time is that something that seems anonymous, more often than not, is not anonymous, even if it’s designed with the best intentions,” said Matt Blaze, a professor at Georgetown Law who specializes in computer science and privacy. It is technologically difficult to ensure that data has been fully deleted from all computers that have been able to access it, he added.

• Defence/Aggression

  • HRW ☛ 2023-11-05 [Older] Northwest Syria: Government Uses Cluster Munitions

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] Philippines drops China's Belt and Road as tensions flare

  • CPJ ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] Photos: Israel-Gaza war takes unprecedented toll on journalists

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] Media Watchdog Says It Was Just 'Raising Questions' With Insinuations About Photographers and Hamas

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-05 [Older] Pro-Palestinian Crowds Try to Storm Air Base Housing U.S. Troops in Turkey

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Sudan's humanitarian crisis reaches breaking point

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Sudan: UN warns of increasing violence in West Darfur

  • VOA News ☛ Iran Rejects G7 Calls to Stop Supporting Hamas

    The G7 also called on Iran to "refrain from providing support for Hamas and taking further actions that destabilize the Middle East, including support for Lebanese Hezbollah and other nonstate actors."

  • Scheerpost ☛ Chris Hedges: The War According to Hamas

    The fight with Israel, al-Araj reminded Palestinians, must “follow the logic of guerrilla warfare or hybrid warfare, which Arabs and Muslims have become masters of through our experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza.” Never defend “fixed points and borders.” Draw the enemy into an ambush, accomplished by light resistance and tactical withdrawals. Strike the flanks and the rear. The calculus of asymmetric warfare is very different from conventional war. And what Israel defines as success, including the seizing of territory, numerous deaths and the destruction of infrastructure and buildings, matters little to the resistance fighter.The goal of Palestinian fighters is to remain elusive, to carry out lightning strikes and recede back into the rubble or the vast tunnel network under Gaza.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Hamas attack planned for over a year; wanted to go deep into Israel: Report

    Evidence collected from slain militants earlier highlighted notes scribbled in their notebooks including Quranic verses as well as orders that read, “Kill as many people and take as many hostages as possible.” They succeeded in carrying out mass slaughter in at least 22 villages after breaching the Israeli border in around 30 places, drawing the Israeli military for a day-long gun battle.

    According to the preliminary intelligence findings, some militants had instructions to continue deeper into Israel and they were found to have enough food and ammunition for the operation.

  • Craig Murray ☛ Activating the Genocide Convention

    There are 149 states party to the Genocide Convention. Every one of them has the right to call out the genocide in progress in Gaza and report it to the United Nations. In the event that another state party disputes the claim of genocide – and Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom are all states party – then the International Court of Justice is required to adjudicate on “the responsibility of a State for genocide”.

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Child deliberately killed during gang-related shooting in Edmonton, police say

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Father and son killed in 'targeted' shooting in Edmonton, police say

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Synagogue and Jewish community centre in Montreal suburb hit by Molotov cocktails

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] Police investigating shots fired overnight at 2 Jewish schools in Montreal

  • New York Times ☛ 5 U.S. Special Operations Troops Killed in Helicopter Crash in Mediterranean

    The troops were on a refueling training mission when the aircraft crashed off the coast of Cyprus. The episode, which Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said was an accident, is under investigation.

  • AntiWar ☛ Unconstitutional Killings

    The Biden administration is killing people, openly in Ukraine and Gaza and secretly around the world. It has continued to use the killing machinery crafted by President George W. Bush, expanded by President Barack Obama and employed by President Donald Trump.

  • France24 ☛ Biden to host China’s Xi, Asia-Pacific allies at APEC summit in San Francisco

    President Joe Biden, eager to showcase US leadership in the face of Beijing and Moscow, this week leads another major summit, but this time the guests will include not only allies but Chinese President Pooh-tin Jinping.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • LRT ☛ Russian ballet dancer maintains Lithuanian citizenship despite praising Putin, war in Ukraine

      When Russia invaded Ukraine, glorification of the Russian regime and the war became a reason to lose Lithuanian citizenship. But Ilze Liepa, a famous Russian ballet dancer and a Lithuanian citizen, makes no secret of her admiration for Vladimir Putin.

    • Latvia ☛ Rinkēvičs: Russia must be stopped in Ukraine

      The West must continue to arm Ukraine as the Ukrainian defeat will be seen by Russia as a green light for aggression against other countries, Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs told the news agency AP in an interview published on Sunday, November 12.

    • Latvia ☛ Help needed to fill buses with donations for Ukraine

      At the end of November, ten municipal public transport buses will be sent from Rīga to Chernihiv. The public is repeatedly asked to help fill the buses with food, hygiene goods, and other everyday items.

    • France24 ☛ Zelensky says Ukraine 'must be prepared' for Russian winter onslaught

      President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Ukrainians on Sunday to prepare for new waves of Russian attacks on infrastructure as winter approached and said troops were anticipating an onslaught in the eastern theatre of the war.

    • France24 ☛ Media investigation finds Ukrainian officer coordinated Nord Stream pipelines sabotage

      A Ukrainian special forces commander played a key role in sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September last year, reports said Saturday.

    • JURIST ☛ Ukraine dispatch: European Commission recommends EU begin Ukraine accession talks

      Oksana Bidnenko is a staff correspondent for JURIST. She is a Ukrainian law student at the Riga Graduate School of Law in Riga, Latvia. Last Wednesday, November 8, the European Commission adopted the 2023 Enlargement Agenda, highlighting certain countries’ progress towards  EU accession. Notably, Ukraine and Moldova received positive proposals for showing significant progress.

    • LRT ☛ ‘Kaliningrad is no longer our problem, but Russia’s’ – interview with NATO colonel

      After the war in Ukraine, Russia will rebuild its capabilities and continue to pose a threat. But Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, bordering Lithuania and Poland, will become less of an issue to NATO with Finland and Sweden's accession, says Commander of NATO Force Integration Unit (NFIU) in Lithuania, Colonel Peter Nielsen, in an interview with LRT.lt.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Delegation Arrives In Washington For Talks On Security, Economy

      A Ukrainian delegation led by First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and presidential administration chief Andriy Yermak arrived in the United States on November 12 for talks on security, the economy, and "many other important topics," officials said.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine Says 'Resistance' Fighters Blew Up Russian HQ In Occupied Melitopol, While Zelenskiy Warns Of Difficult Winter

      Kyiv said that "local resistance" fighters had blown up the headquarters of Russian forces in the occupied city of Melitopol, killing at least three officers, as the Kremlin’s troops continued to press attacks in the east and south of the country around the battered cities of Bakhmut and Avdiyivka.

    • RFERL ☛ At Least 13 More Moldovan Parishes Joining Romanian Orthodox Church Amid Anti-Russian Backlash

      Orthodox priests in at least 13 parishes in Moldova expect to be accepted into the local branch of a Romanian church this week, furthering a trend of dozens of defections from the local arm of the Russian Orthodox Church.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine Has Enough Energy Resources To Get Through Winter, Says Minister

      Ukraine will have enough energy resources to get through the coming winter, but an expected surge in Russian attacks may disrupt the supply networks, Ukraine's Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said late on November 11.

    • RFERL ☛ Germany Set To Double Ukraine Military Aid Under Scholz Plan, Says Source

      German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition has agreed in principle to double the country's military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion), a political source in Berlin said on November 12.

    • RFERL ☛ Moscow Prosecutors Said To Be Investigating Social Media Star Yury Dud

      Russian police say prosecutors have launched an investigation into popular social control media personality Yury Dudy for potentially breaking recent laws enacted to defend the army from criticism after Kremlin war planners ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine Says Russian Focus On Bakhmut In East, As Kherson Regional Library Struck In South

      The commander of Ukrainian forces in the east of the country said on November 12 that Russian troops are more active around Bakhmut, while authorities in the southern region of Kherson said Russian attacks had seriously damaged a well-known scientific library.

    • RFERL ☛ Latvia's President Says West Must Arm Ukraine To Keep Russia From Future Global Adventures

      Keep supplying arms or the Ukrainians will lose and Russia will have a green light for threatening others in the future, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said.

    • RFERL ☛ Report: Senior Ukrainian Military Officer With Intelligence Ties 'Coordinated' Nord Stream Sabotage

      A decorated officer in the Ukrainian military with "deep ties" to the country's intelligence services "played a central role" and was the "coordinator" of the attack last year on the Nord Stream natural-gas pipeline, The Washington Post reported on November 11.

    • New York Times ☛ How Ukraine, With No Warships, Is Thwarting Russia’s Navy

      The commander of Ukraine’s Navy said in a rare interview that the Russian naval blockade of Odesa had been broken. He also described how the war is transforming naval tactics.

    • RFERL ☛ Fugitive Moldovan Businessman Shor Returns To Israel, Says Interpol

      Fugitive pro-Russia Moldovan businessman Ilan Shor, who is accused of "buying" voters to sway an election in the ex-Soviet state, has returned to his exile base in Israel, an Interpol official said on November 12.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Says Citizens Being Evacuated Through Gaza's Rafah Border Crossing

      Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry on November 12 announced the start of the evacuation of Russian citizens from the war-torn Gaza Strip.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Says EU Won't 'Push' It Out Of Central Asia

      Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the European Union of attempting to drive his country out of Central Asia, and said the bloc was failing, in an interview broadcast on November 12.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Says It Will Only Limit VPN Services That Pose 'Threat' To Security

      Russia plans to block certain Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and protocols which are deemed by a commission of experts to pose a threat, the RIA state news agency reported, citing correspondence from the Digital Ministry.

    • YLE ☛ Uptick in asylum seekers on eastern border

      Russia is now allowing people without visas to pass into Finnish checkpoints.

    • Meduza ☛ Finland bans entry to people crossing border from Russia by bicycle — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russian forces attack Kherson, killing one and damaging regional library — Meduza

    • RFERL ☛ Belarus Readies More Sweeping Intrusions For Mail From EU Countries

      Belarus's customs body says a government document is being prepared that will expand the authority to inspect all postal parcels and other items originating from European Union countries and addressed to Belarusians.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Rolling Stone ☛ An Anti-Porn Leader Is Accused and the Media’s Silence Is Deafening

    The media tends to broadcast every allegation against a porn industry official or performer, so you’d expect journalists to aggressively cover the scandal currently devouring Bickle and his followers. But the media has largely stayed silent as Bickle faces sexual misconduct allegations that span decades that, if leveled against porn stars, would cause Bickle and his media enablers to demand retribution for years.

  • RFERL ☛ Kazakhstan Opens Secret KGB Archives Amid Moves Toward Decolonization In Central Asia

    From 1926 to 1956, millions of people across the former Soviet Union were detained, imprisoned, exiled, executed, or otherwise perished at the hands of the communist government.

    But Central Asian states have lately been rehabilitating thousands of victims of Stalin’s repression by opening up their KGB archives and exonerating executed politicians, activists, rebels, and others who suffered or were killed.

• Environment

  • The North Lines IN ☛ Delhi air quality dips as firework ban goes up in smoke

    Firecracker bursting pushed the PM2.5 concentration at many places, including Okhla and Jahangirpuri, in the capital over 1,000 micrograms per cubic metre in the early morning hours.

  • NDTV ☛ Delhi Air Crisis Worsens As Diwali Fireworks Wipe Out Rain Relief

    The air quality in Delhi and nearby cities reached hazardous levels a day after Diwali with the widespread violation of the firecracker ban across the National Capital Region (NCR) on Sunday raising pollution concerns.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] El Nino: 2023 on track to be hottest year ever on record

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] EU agree on law to restore nature

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Head of federal green fund targeted by whistleblowers resigns

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] Why everyone's fighting over the carbon tax (again)

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] Paris polar summit: Melting ice takes center stage

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] Airfares are sky-high — is that a good thing?

    • Silicon Angle ☛ IT sourcing must adopt an environmental sustainability framework

      Greenwashing is currently widespread. IT sourcing leaders must ask difficult questions and demand granularity from prospective vendors. For example, where cloud service providers’ data centers and digital infrastructure are renewably powered, organizations’ digital strategies can accelerate the transition to an environmentally sustainable economy. Software publishers must take responsibility for efficient design and asset utilization. Hardware vendors must be driven to produce equipment that is durable, repairable and upgradable, lengthening the product life cycle while actively participating and enabling the circular economy.

    • CBC ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] P.E.I. home heating fuel drops 19 cents more as regulator adjusts for federal carbon tax break

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Germany no longer fears cold winter without gas

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Brazil records five-year low in Amazon deforestation

    • Science Alert ☛ When The Pandemic Came, Zoos Closed, And The Animals Began to Act Differently

      "A limitation to understanding how visitors can affect behavior of animals in zoos and parks is that they rarely close to the public for prolonged periods, so this provided us with a unique opportunity."

      Observations were recorded at Twycross Zoo and Knowsley Safari in the UK, both before and after visitors returned.

    • Omicron Limited ☛ EU parliamentarians agree on law to restore natural environments

      The EU Nature Restoration Law aims sets a target for the European Union to restore at least 20% of the bloc's land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.

      According to EU figures, around 80% of habitats in the European Union are in a poor state. In addition, 10% of bee and butterfly species are threatened with extinction and 70% of soils are in an unhealthy condition.

  • Overpopulation

    • VOA News ☛ World's Population Has Passed 8 Billion, US Census Says

      The discrepancy is due to countries counting people differently — or not at all. Many lack systems to record births and deaths. Some of the most populous countries, such as India and Nigeria, haven't conducted censuses in over a decade, according to the bureau.

      While world population growth remains brisk, growing from 6 billion to 8 billion since the turn of the millennium, the rate has slowed since doubling between 1960 and 2000.

    • The Cato Institute ☛ Desalinating Water Is Becoming “Absurdly Cheap”

      How cheap is cheap? Energy Monitor notes that “globally, around 1% of the world’s drinking water is desalinated, but in Israel, that figure is around 25%.” Israel’s desalinated water comes from five desalination plants. The Sorek B plant has a capacity to desalinate 52.8 billion gallons a year and is contracted to produce water for $0.41 per cubic meter. There are around 264 gallons per cubic meter, so this puts the cost at about a penny per 6.4 gallons.

• Finance

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-04 [Older] The 'sugar rush' effect: Why the U.S. economy is growing faster than Canada's

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] Ethics watchdog investigating Zara Canada over alleged ties to forced labour

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] Bank of Canada officials split on need for more rate hikes, deliberations show

  • TruthOut ☛ Buffett’s private stock trades raise ethical concerns, contradicting public statements

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-05 [Older] Greece: Cost of living growing prohibitively expensive

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] 'Shrinkflation' is here — and it's why food giants are charging you the same for less

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] Germany's 'economic sages' predict weak recovery in 2024

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] German inflation drops to lowest level in over 2 years

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] Citing overwhelming demand, Ontario food bank turns away international students

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] Why Alberta says it's entitled to half of Canada’s Pension Plan | About That

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Italy seizes €780 million from Airbnb in tax probe

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] How diplomacy reinforces China’s political influence in Africa

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] MP says he's received death threats after being accused of giving middle finger in House

  • New York Times ☛ A Mayor’s Suicide Leaves an Alabama City Seeking Answers

    The mayor fatally shot himself after a news site published a photo of him in makeup and said he had written erotic fiction and posts using names and photos of local residents, including a minor.

  • Off Guardian ☛ WATCH: 3,000 Jews and Muslims sing together, just five years ago

    At this nightmarish moment of pandemic hate, we badly need to be reminded of the possibility that we can come together, and thereby defeat the forces dedicated to dividing us, by keeping both sides in a genocidal rage—which, if it doesn’t kill you outright [...]

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] Why is North Korea shutting some embassies in Africa?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-04 [Older] South Africa's growing xenophobia problem

  • BIA Net ☛ 2023-11-11 [Older] Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray oppose Super Cup in Saudi Arabia

  • International Business Times ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] Saudi Teams Attempting To Poach Real Madrid Star Luka Modric

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Report: Saudi Arabia-ATP talks could change men's tennis [Ed: After boxing, golf and football they also go after tennis. Sportwashing while decapitating women and atheists.]

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] B.C. Greens fire deputy leader for liking social media post comparing Dr. Bonnie Henry to Nazi doctor

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Questions raised after arrest of Calgary protester on hate-motivated disturbance charge

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] A Peruvian farmer battles a German fossil fuel giant

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Baerbock pushes for two-state solution on Middle East trip

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Biden and Xi to meet in California next week

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Blinken in India holds talks on China, Israel

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Burkina Faso: Rights groups slam conscription of critics

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Portugal's president calls snap election after PM resigns

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Portugal's PM Antonio Costa quits amid corruption probe

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] Republican presidential candidate proposes border wall with Canada

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Migration: Germany wants to cut benefits for refugees

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Italy to send migrants to reception centers in Albania

  • Bert Hubert ☛ EU CRA and the Open Source Ecosystem: A Suggestion

    As I wrote earlier, the EU has written the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) to improve the security of hardware and software being marketed to the EU. There are lots of problems with this act (as also described in this second post), but here I want to delve into some specific issues surrounding open source and the open source ecosystem on which most products are based.

  • Euractive ☛ The Cyber Resilience Act and the future of open source software

    EU policymakers are hashing out their approach to open source software in the Cyber Resilience Act. We discussed how this regulation would affect the open source software community with Bert Hubert, an IT developer and tech entrepreneur.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] China, Australia hail progress in thawing chilly ties

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] China's Xi hosts Australian PM for first time in 7 years

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Has Australia come out on top in dispute with China?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-05 [Older] Australia to 'work constructively' with China, PM says

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] EU-Australia trade talks: What can we learn from the failure?

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Fact check: AI fakes in Israel's war against Hamas

    • The Economist ☛ Much of “The Crown” is nonsense

      There are two ways to look at “The Crown”. One is as soap opera with added sceptres, a royally expensive royal drama. (It was rumoured to be Netflix’s costliest show yet.) The other is to see it as an excellent if impromptu education in what history is and what it is not—a historiographical triumph if not a historical one. Millions who hitherto might never have wondered how the sausage of history is formed from the raw meat of the past are, with each successive season, turned into amateur historical analysts, as they google primary sources, fact-check phrases and scrutinise photographs. Again and again, the same question is asked: is this history?

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-03 [Older] Photographer handcuffed, fined after taking pictures of Quebec City's iconic Château Frontenac

  • University of Michigan ☛ Academic freedom lecturer addresses censorship threats

    An increase in legislation censoring the teaching of race, gender and sexuality in public schools poses a threat not only to the quality of education for young American students, but also to higher education institutions across the country.

    Jonathan Friedman highlighted that point Nov. 9 at the 33rd annual Davis, Markert, and Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom.

    The director of free expression and education programs at PEN America used the lecture to urge university faculty, staff and students to address the increasing threats of academic censorship.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • IT Wire ☛ Sixteen US politicians urge Biden to set Assange free

    The letter comes shortly after a visit to the US by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during which he was reported to have repeated Australia's stance on Assange to Biden.

    The letter said: “It is the duty of journalists to seek out sources, including documentary evidence, in order to report to the public on the activities of government.

    “The US must not pursue an unnecessary prosecution that risks criminalising common journalistic practices and thus chilling the work of the free press. We urge you to ensure that this case be brought to a close in as timely a manner as possible."

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-05 [Older] TVO employees back to work Monday after lengthy strike, Ontario public broadcaster says

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] 'We're going to see some doors shut': P.E.I. restaurants feeling pinch of higher costs

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] This grandmother works gruelling 70-hour weeks just to pay the bills. And she's not alone

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] Iran: No headscarf, no job for protesting actresses

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] 420,000 Quebec public sector workers are on strike today, affecting schools and hospitals

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-06 [Older] 'Exhaustion on a daily basis' among reasons why Quebec workers are striking

  • Meduza ☛ Patriarch Kirill says ban on ‘coercing’ women to have abortions would help grow Russia’s population — Meduza

  • Teen Vogue ☛ After 118 Days on Strike, SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP Have Come to an Agreement

    The impacts of the strikes were felt throughout the industry, including with many other unions who stood in solidarity with writers and actors over the course of the months. While SAG-AFTRA members and the union board still need to ratify the deal, there's no doubt work will start back up as soon as possible.

  • Hollywood Reporter ☛ Justine Bateman Slams SAG-AFTRA Tentative Deal’s AI Provisions

    Though SAG-AFTRA officially reached a tentative agreement on a new contract with studios and streamers earlier this week, Justine Bateman is not very pleased with the provisions surrounding artificial intelligence.

    The actress-writer-filmmaker told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Friday that actors should approve the deal only “if they don’t want to work anymore. If they want to be replaced by synthetic objects that are made by generative AI, why not?”

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] Hollywood actors reach deal with studios to end strike

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] What the end of the Hollywood actors' strike means

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] As Hamilton bus drivers strike for better wages and washroom breaks, the city says it won't budge

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Germany designates AfD regional party 'extremist'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Racism and discrimination in Germany exposed in new survey

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] 100 years on, Germany looks back at Hitler’s coup attempt

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] How video games tackle the Holocaust

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] Nazi brutality: the November 9, 1938 pogroms

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] November Pogroms 1938: The world was watching

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-08 [Older] Teaching about Nazis and the Holocaust in German schools

  • The Economist ☛ The dawn of the omnistar

    As AI-generated content floods into the entertainment business, the hardworking folk of Malibu are worrying once more that their fame will be diluted—and again, the outcome is likely to be the opposite. One of the paradoxes of the internet age is that, even as uploads to YouTube, TikTok and the like have created a vast “long tail” of user-made content, the biggest hits by the biggest artists have become even bigger. The number of musicians earning over $1,000 a year in royalties on Spotify has more than doubled in the past six years, but the number earning over $10m a year has quintupled. Even as niche content thrives—sea shanties, whistling and all kinds of eccentricities—Taylor Swift is marching through the most lucrative concert tour in history. It is the mid-ranking artists who have suffered.

  • NBC ☛ Two students accuse Hillsdale College of retaliating against them after reporting sexual assaults

    Grace Chen, who is a 21-year-old junior at Hillsdale College, said both she and her mother were repeatedly rebuffed when they asked the school for proof in writing that they investigated her assault allegation.

  • [Old] Wired ☛ ACLU Assails 100-Mile Border Zone as 'Constitution-Free' - Update

    After 9/11, Congress gave the Department of Homeland Security the right to use some of its powers deeper within the country, and now DHS has set up at least 33 internal checkpoints where they stop people, question them and ask them to prove citizenship, according to the ACLU.

    "It is a classic example of law enforcement powers expanding far beyond their proper boundaries – in this case, literally,” said Caroline Fredrickson, who heads the ACLU's Washington, D.C., Legislative Office.

  • [Old] Techdirt ☛ Do You Live In The Constitution-Free Zone Of The US?

    The 100 mile “buffer zone” part of that story gets most of the attention, but it isn’t a new thing. They’ve been claiming that for a while. It’s just that this is yet another attempt by them to give themselves additional support for those kinds of searches. In our comments, someone pointed us to a useful (and horrifying) map that the ACLU put together highlighting just how much of our country is within 100 miles of border/coastline, creating the Constitution-Free Zone Map — which happens to cover about 2/3 of all American citizens.

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] Sask. mom says 4-year-old daughter left waiting for weeks after WestJet broke wheelchair

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-10 [Older] Before it shut down, Omegle paired a Manitoba sexual predator with an 11-year-old girl

  • International Business Times ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Man Dies After Air Canada Flight Refuses To Make Medical Emergency Landing

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Hidden cameras capture passenger who uses wheelchair struck by lift on Air Canada flight

  • CBC ☛ 2023-11-09 [Older] Air Canada makes changes after passengers with disabilities share 'dehumanizing' experiences

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-04 [Older] At least 4.4 million people are stateless, UN says

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] Bangladesh: Garment workers say current wages unsustainable

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-07 [Older] WeWork bankruptcy: What's next for coworking office spaces

  • New York Times ☛ Is Remote Work the Answer to Women’s Prayers, or a New ‘Mommy Track’? [Ed: Well, multitasking is tasking poorly and childcare got very expensive. If men were paid like 50 years ago, women would raise their kids, and do so better. This isn't an equaliser; more tasks and stress.]

    Post-pandemic work-from-home norms allowed more women to stay in the work force than ever before. Remote work could also make it harder to get ahead.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • New York Times ☛ You Paid $1,000 for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

    The software phenomenon, which is known as parts pairing, has encouraged Apple customers to turn to its stores or authorized repair centers, which charge higher prices for parts and labor. In recent years, only approved parts and sanctioned repairs have avoided the problems. Replacing a shattered screen typically costs nearly $300, about $100 more than work done by an independent shop using a third-party screen.

  • Hollywood Reporter ☛ Why the Dying DVD Business Could Be Headed for a Resurrection

    That strategy shift, as jarring as it is to some creators and consumers, reinforces the value of physical media. It’s a similar state of play with digital downloads, which you might “buy” from Amazon or iTunes, but can be removed from your library at any time. Studios could pull Westworld and Good Burger from Max — but not from your bookshelf.

    Then there’s the lesson from the music industry, which was upended by streaming well before Hollywood. According to the Recording Industry Association of America’s 2023 midyear revenue report, while streaming accounts for 84 percent of music revenue, physical media is on the rise. Vinyl records are the main growth driver, but sales of CDs have also increased. “The new data also shows the lasting power of physical formats,” RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier commented, adding that “physical revenues reached their highest level since a full decade ago, topping $880 million so far this year.”

• Monopolies

  • Computer World ☛ Apple gets ready for app sideloading [sic] in Europe

    "The company expects to make further business changes in the future, including as a result of legislative initiatives impacting the App Store," says Apple, "such as the European Union ("EU") Digital Markets Act, which the Company is required to comply with by March 2024."

    Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) limits what the biggest tech firms such as Apple can get away with by setting out a series of obligations they must meet. Among other provisions, it will require Apple to open up the App Store to rivals.

  • Variety ☛ Why Are Concert Tickets So Pricey?

    “Dynamic pricing is a new strategic ticketing practice where ticket prices for concerts behave in the way airline prices or surge pricing for Uber does when there’s high demand,” said Frankenberg. “We’re also able to resell tickets on Ticketmaster. There’s probably a lot of this money being made on the secondary market that [wasn’t] being reported in these official ticket prices.”

  • Copyrights

    • Torrent Freak ☛ TorrentFreak Turns 18 Today (Hospital Edition)

      TorrentFreak celebrates its eighteenth birthday today. When the site took the first steps of its online journey, self-publishing was still a relatively new phenomenon on the Internet. Looking back, I’m happy that I installed WordPress and gave it a try. It turned out to be a life-changer.

Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Learning about how the earth has progresse

    Learning about how the earth has progressed on a geological timescale helps you appreciate the beauty of life and the planet we live on.

    It also gives a dark humor quality to how we've managed to toss things up so effectively within not even three centuries since industrialization.

  • 🔤SpellBinding — DGHINTW Wordo: PLEAT

  • crimson red leaves

    the other day when i was traveling in between towns i saw a strikingly beautiful red tree on the ride back. it had me so intrigued that i had to google what trees in my area could even get so red– we have mellow oranges, withering greens and crunchy yellows but the reds are usually bright. this time it was saturated. the bark on it was white if i recall correctly. what a beautiful tree! i hope that tree truly feels special knowing it's colors stand out this time of year.

  • Return of the Rabbit

    Back in August I had a leporine interloper in my garage. It ate and shat in my birdseed, ate some stray clippings by the lawnmower, just pooped all over the garage, generally. And after several rounds of decluttering (and a couple of dump runs), I felt like I'd finally won. I'd eliminated the sources of food. There was no more poop. The rabbit was gone.

    I have the checking kind of OCD, and every night before bed I need to check the burners, locks, and garage door. So last night I turned on the light to the garage, opened the garage door...

    ...and saw a rabbit sitting next to our SUV, staring at me.

  • Okay, I Lied

    I didn't wait until after my coffee.

    I brought my partner her coffee, lunch, and water, gave her a kiss, and showed her where the rabbit was hiding last night, roughly. "Oh yeah," she said. "There he is! Right there in the corner, behind the shelves."

    So after she took off for work, I grabbed a badminton racket and poked at the rabbit to get him to move. Which he did, a little. I tried making noise but he ignored it. So we continued our game, me literally poking him with the end of my racket, him running another few feet up. I got him to the end of the garage. This is it!, I thought.

• Politics and World Events

  • Murderbot

    I just finished the first book in the Murderbot series and I really liked it. it was recommended around here on Gemini somewhere. The first book was a quick read. Good story, decent bit of action, and interesting plot and character development.

  • Re: A wee bit ambivalent

    It feels like such a lost opportunity when someone who is otherwise close to being on the same page around something that so few people grok is so fuddled on climate change, the most important issue of all time.

    We could’ve been awesome friends. It’s rare to find people who have some experience transcending this sorts stuff.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Internet/Gemini

    • BOM Breaks Flounder, and How to Fix

      I recently broke my Flounder feed and the formatting on a couple posts.

      The issue started after using LibreOffice Writer to spell check the files. It caused the first line of a file to no longer render the formatting correctly. As well, the feed would no longer be able to correctly locate the title, falling back to reading it as a generic first line. The HTML mirror also lacked formatting.

      After a lot of digging, I found the issue was that LibreOffice Writer saves text files with a Byte Order Mark (BOM) affixed to the front of a text file.

    • Old posts

      In 2022, I started out on a severe period of stress illness. Among other things, the internet became overwhelming, and I craved something "smaller." I found gopher, and started a phlog on sdf.org.