Leftovers

• Futurism ☛ Music Fans Horrified When Their Spotify Tattoos Stop Scanning

  In fact, there's really no guarantee these tattoos will work even when they're freshly inked. As another woman told the WSJ, her Spotify tattoo that's supposed to play "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC never properly scanned, probably because the code doesn't have the Spotify logo next to it. Oops.

• Tedium ☛ When Tools Unlock New Paths

  Finding new tools and having them work the way you expect is freeing, because it means that you’ve unlocked something in yourself that you didn’t think you had before. Being able to use Directus and Penpot has started to open up some fresh ideas in ways I was missing previously, and I really appreciate that. They make me see possibilities.

  Don’t just keep beating on a broken office chair, hoping for something to change. Find a new way to think, and eventually, the creativity will start flowing.

• Thorsten Ball ☛ It's not up to you

  I keep thinking of this not because I’m constantly wondering whether I’m an asshole or not (I guess, uhm, leave a comment if you think I should?), but because the idea that some things aren’t up to you, but up to the judgement of everybody else is very powerful. I’ve seen it show up again and again. Here’s what I mean: [...]

• Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Chris Coyier

  This is the 12th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Chris Coyier and his blog, chriscoyier.net.

  As many many others I got to knew Chris thanks to his CSS-Tricks and I'm very happy to see that he's not done blogging! Chris is also co-founder of CodePen and co-host of the ShopTalk podcast.

• Kev Quirk ☛ When Was the Last Time Tech Blew Your Mind?

  Tech is great; it's one of the great loves of my life. It's constantly improving and there's always something new to learn, but when was the last time tech blew your mind?

  The first time I sent an email was really cool. The performance and battery life of my M1 Mac was (is) very impressive; far better than any laptop I've ever had before. But I'm not talking about impressive. I'm talking about the kind of impres

• Ruben Schade ☛ Forbidden ais kacang

  I saw this photo by Ivar Leidus featured on Wikimedia Commons, and immediately thought of the Southeast Asian desert. Prehnite is a crystal sillicate formed from calcium and aluminium, and not cendol.

  >

• New York Times ☛ David Del Tredici, Who Set ‘Alice’ to Music, Dies at 86

  A Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, he was an experimentalist who redefined himself, becoming identified with a lush style called the New Romanticism.

• Hackaday ☛ Wandering Through Old Word Processors Yields A Beast

  The world once ran on hardcopy, and when the digital age started to bring new tools and ways of doing things, documents were ripe for change. Today, word processors and digital documents are so ubiquitous that they are hardly worth a thought, but that didn’t happen all at once. [Cathode Ray Dude] has a soft spot for old word processors and the journey they took over decades, and he walks through the Olivetti ETV 2700.

• Hackaday ☛ Restoring The Silver Swan Automaton

  It’s easier than ever to build your own robot, but humans have been building automatons since before anyone had even thought of electronics. One beautiful example is the Silver Swan, built in the 18th century.

• Hackaday ☛ Bigfoot Turns Classic Sewing Machine Into A Leather-Eating Monster

  If you try to sew leather on a standard consumer-grade machine, more often than not you’ll quickly learn its limits. Most machines are built for speed, and trying to get them to punch through heavy material at the low motor speeds often needed for leather work is a lesson in frustration.

• Science

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Q&A: Professor discusses new approaches for the implementation of the quantum internet

    Researchers around the world are working on a network which could connect quantum computers with one another over long distances. Andreas Reiserer, Professor of Quantum Networks at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), explains the challenges which have to be mastered and how atoms captured in crystals can help.

  • The Conversation ☛ Earthrise: historian uncovers the true origins of the ‘image of the century’

    But the Apollo programme’s director of photography, Dick Underwood, was anxious to set the wider record straight. He explained: “Hours were spent with the lunar crews, including the Apollo 8 crew, in briefing on exactly how to set up the camera, which film to use … these briefings were most comprehensive.”

    There were, however, battles within [NASA] about what images the astronauts should focus on, with the management insisting on shots of lunar geology and potential landing sites. Dick Underwood explained: “I argued hard for a shot of Earthrise, and we had impressed upon the astronauts that we definitely wanted it.”

  • Science Alert ☛ Mathematicians Have Found The Ninth Dedekind Number, After 32 Years of Searching

    It was thought to be impossible to calculate.

  • Science Alert ☛ How We Received a Drug Can Affect How Our Brain Responds to Its Effects

    It's not all the same.

  • Science Alert ☛ 8 Foods You Should Actually Eat More of: A Nutritionist Explains

    Here's why they're so important.

  • RFA ☛ New in North Korea: Hair loss products

    More people seem to be losing hair from diseases, chemicals and even military caps, experts say.

• Education

  • TruthOut ☛ Texas Education Officials Reject Textbooks Over Climate Science

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ The Necessity of Book Reviews

    Is there any data-driven way that publishers (and perhaps most critically those presses whose leadership reports up to the institutional library) might collaborate with faculty in lending emphasis to such scholar-to-scholar exchanges? Can we underscore the value of a scholarly book review in a way that persuades administrators both of its necessity as well as the work’s alignment with institutional mission and priorities? We should be backing up Carolyn Eastman’s call for greater support of scholars both qualified and willing to serve in this role.

  • uni Case Western Reserve ☛ Why every student should study abroad: From the perspective of a study-abroad alum

    Overall, studying abroad should be an integral component of the American educational experience, as it promotes personal growth and global awareness. The study-abroad experience is unique and full of unknowns, which makes it a worthwhile journey for every student.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Procrastineering And Simulated Annealing

    The software for the Supercon badge went down to the wire this year, with user-facing features being coded up as late as Thursday morning. This left “plenty of time” to flash the badges on Thursday afternoon, but they were admittedly still warm as the first attendees filed in on Friday morning. While I’ve always noted that the last minute is the best minute, this was a little close, and frankly there was an uncaught bug that we would have noticed if we had a few more hours to just play with it before showtime.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • El País ☛ Latin America loses 22% of its fertile land, the equivalent of three Colombias

    Overall, in 2019 — and only taking into account the countries that report this type of information to the UNCCD — 378 million hectares were degraded in Latin America and the Caribbean, a proportion that is approximately equivalent to three times the size of Colombia, which represents 22% of the region’s land. Meanwhile, drought affected 377 million hectares between 2016 and 2019 alone, with the most acute peak taking place in 2017.

  • New York Times ☛ The Startling Evidence on Learning Loss Is In

    The effects of the pandemic on children are persistent and require urgent attention.

  • Hackaday ☛ Cooking With Magnets And 3D Printing

    Have you ever wondered how induction cooking works? A rotating magnetic field — electrically or mechanically — induces eddy currents in aluminum and that generates heat. When [3D Sage] learned this, he decided to try to 3D print some mechanical rigs to spin magnets so he could try cooking with them.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2023-11-13 [Older] Mass media: Elon Musk will speak at the Russian AI Journey conference

  • [Updated] New York Times ☛ More Advertisers Halt Spending on X in Growing Backlash Against Musk

    Warner Bros. and Sony have joined other companies in pausing spending on X, formerly Twitter, over Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic post.

  • Futurism ☛ People Are Doing Something Very Dark With AI-Generated Jesus, Expert Warns

    With its more than 800,000 subscribers and high-performing videos that have been watched, in some cases, more than 22 million times, Daily Believer more than qualified for the TikTok Creator Fund, which until last week allowed users with at least 10,000 non-bot followers to apply for payouts on their videos. Though the website suspended the Creator Fund last week, it says that an upcoming — or should we say second coming — version of the feature will pay high-performing creators more than the two-to-four cents per 1,000 views it was previously giving them.

  • The Conversation ☛ A TikTok Jesus promises divine blessings and many worldly comforts

    By framing these requests as coming directly from the Son of God, not the influencer or content creator, the Daily Believer has made engagement with its social media religious work, which comes with a promise of divine reward in the here and now. It has transformed like-farming – the social media phenomenon of asking for viewer engagement – into the word of God.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Don’t Be Fooled by the AI Apocalypse

    But many advocates and academics say that the doomsday narrative distracts from all of the more quotidian ways AI upends lives while allowing corporations to cast themselves as responsible stewards of dangerous technologies. The competing vision of AI’s harms is concrete, drawing from years of research on how workers are exploited and data are stolen to train AI, and how the resulting algorithms exacerbate biased policing, discriminatory hiring practices, emergency-room errors, misinformation, and more, as Amba Kak and Sarah Myers West, the executive director and the managing director of the AI Now Institute, respectively, wrote in an article last week.

  • Martijn Braam ☛ Megapixels 2.0: DNG exporting

    It seems overkill to make a whole seperate library dedicated to replacing 177 lines of code in Megapixels that touches libtiff, but this small section of code causes significant issues for distribution packaging and compatability with external photo editing software. Most importantly the adjusted version in Millipixels for the Librem 5 does not output DNG files that are close enough to the Adobe specifications to be loaded into the calibration software.

    Making this a seperate library would make it easier to test. In the Adobe DNG SDK there is a test utility that can verify if a TIFF file is up to DNG spec and it can (with a lot of complications) be build for Linux.

  • Matt Rickard ☛ The Model is Not the Product

    Whole product. The idea of the whole product is that consumers purchase more than just the core product. They purchase the core product with (mostly intangible) complimentary attributes.

  • [Repeat] Security Week ☛ Over a Dozen Exploitable Vulnerabilities Found in AI/ML Tools

    Tracked as CVE-2023-6016 (CVSS score of 10), the remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability could allow attackers to completely take over the server and steal models, credentials, and other data.

    The bug hunters uncovered two other critical issues in the low-code service, namely a local file include flaw (CVE-2023-6038) and a cross-site scripting (XSS) bug (CVE-2023-6013), along with a high-severity S3 bucket takeover vulnerability (CVE-2023-6017).

  • BW Businessworld Media Pvt Ltd ☛ Deepfakes: ‘Sword Of Damocles’ Hanging Over India

    According to a new report by Onfido, an ID verification unicorn based in London, deepfake fraud attempts have increased by a whopping 31 times in 2023 — a 3,000 per cent increase year-on-year. The report attributed the surge to the growing availability of cheap and simple online tools and generative AI.

    Following the Rashmika Mandanna deepfake controversy, India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) underlined the legal obligation that mandates all online platforms to prevent the spread of misinformation by any user under the Information Technology (IT) rules, 2021.

  • Reason ☛ I Used Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot To Make Pokémon Versions of Trump, Biden, and RFK Jr.

    The results are interesting and suggest weird and significant biases.

  • Windows TCO

    • CBC ☛ Paying ransom for data stolen in cyberattack bankrolls further crime, experts caution

      "I think that the payment of the ransom, even if you say this is worth it ... really creates a larger cycle where this continues to be a problem because other criminals are looking at it and saying, 'Oh, this is profitable, I should get in on this,'" said Josephine Wolff, an associate professor of cybersecurity policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University near Boston

    • [Repeat] Bruce Schneier ☛ Ransomware Gang Files SEC Complaint

      A ransomware gang, annoyed at not being paid, filed an SEC complaint against its victim for not disclosing its security breach within the required four days.

    • [Repeat] Data Breaches ☛ CEOs of Ontario hospitals hit by ransomware attack provide updates on impact and look for no ransom payment legislation

      Whether it’s local school districts, local SMBs, or local governments, wouldn’t it make sense to have them feed into a regional centralized system that has the security and personnel to try to prevent breaches and to react if there is a breach? Of course, five southwestern Ontario hospitals were already doing that by funding TransForm, and from a criminal’s perspective, hitting a vendor or third party gives them tons of victims, so a supply chain or vendor attack is lucrative.

      But the reality remains that smaller entities and governments really can’t withstand the storm and need help before and after any attack.

    • [Repeat] CBC ☛ CEOs of Ontario hospitals hit by ransomware attack break down impact on operations, patients

      For the first time, top leadership from the five southwestern Ontario hospitals hit by a ransomware attack answered questions from the media — acknowledging the significant impact the incident has had on care, as well as the large amount of stolen data.

      During the roughly 50-minute meeting on Friday, each hospital CEO said their facility has been hard hit by the Oct. 23 attack, but recovery is ongoing and they're getting by with the hard work of staff. With systems down and hospitals unable to access critical information, thousands of patient appointments have been cancelled across the five hospitals, creating backlogs of varying lengths at some of the facilities.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • [Repeat] Security Week ☛ FCC Tightens Telco Rules to Combat SIM-Swapping

      Moving to clamp down on the growing scourge of SIM-swapping and port-out fraud, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has unveiled new rules mandating telcos to give consumers greater control of their mobile phone accounts.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-12 [Older] Russia to Limit Only VPN Services Which Pose a 'Threat' to Security - RIA [Ed: Well, only ones for when Putin and FSB lack back doors for?]

    • [Repeat] Security Week ☛ Key GOP Lawmaker Calls for Renewal of Surveillance Tool as He Proposes Changes to Protect Privacy

      The proposals by Rep. Mike Turner are part of a late scramble inside Congress and the White House to guarantee the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows spy agencies to collect emails and other communications. They emerged from a congressional working group and are expected to form the basis of a legislative package that Turner hopes can be passed before Section 702 expires at the end of the year.

• Defence/Aggression

  • New York Times ☛ The Invisible War in Ukraine Being Fought Over Radio Waves

    The techniques have turned the war into a proxy laboratory that the United States, Europe and China have followed closely for what may sway a future conflict, experts said.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Democracy is on fire. Consider this your wake-up call.

    I realize that writing a column in a news publication about the folks who have tuned out of the news cycle is like trying to sell a semi-truck to a bunch of biking enthusiasts — probably not exactly the right audience. However, this column is about outreach, and a plea to pull your family, friends and colleagues back into the process.

    It’s time for folks who have taken a news time-out to come back. It’s time to start paying attention again.

    I can’t deny the polarization or the toxicity of the headlines. Those news stories and reports aren’t the fever-dreams of some amped up journalist competing for your attention, they’re merely a reflection of the dangerous and uncharted political territory we’ve slipped, then sunk, into. Quite frankly, that’s why we need every citizen’s help.

  • NPR ☛ Many voters say Congress is broken. Could proportional representation fix it?

    And last year, a group of more than 200 political scientists, legal scholars and historians across the U.S. said the time for Congress to change is now.

    "Our arcane, single-member districting process divides, polarizes, and isolates us from each other," they wrote in an open letter to lawmakers. "It has effectively extinguished competitive elections for most Americans, and produced a deeply divided political system that is incapable of responding to changing demands and emerging challenges with necessary legitimacy."

    But how exactly proportional representation could change House elections is an open question with major hurdles. There's a federal law that bans it, and many of its supporters acknowledge it would likely be years, if not decades, before a majority of lawmakers allow such a big, untested restructuring of Congress.

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ Private eye, secret informant aided Michigan vote machine tampering probe

    That informant, described in court records as a “co-conspirator” and “private citizen not involved in law enforcement,” spoke with Hilson for nearly two hours and shared information about how the voting tabulators were obtained, who acquired them and how they were handled by suspects, “including the dismantling and accessing of the interior components by breaking seals on a machine,” according to a court filing.

  • JURIST ☛ Finland closes 4 border crossing points with Russia over irregular migration concerns

    The Finnish government announced the closure of four crossing points on the Finland-Russia border Thursday. The closure will start on November 18 and remain in force for one year.

  • Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ Finnish border guards had to use force, gas to stop 29 people from crossing

    People arrived at the Vartius border crossing point on Friday escorted by the Russian FSB border guard service, while in the past, Russia has not allowed people to enter the border if they did not have their travel documents in order.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Japanese troops conduct drill on island seen as vulnerable to China

    The exercise is meant to show the readiness of ground, sea and air forces to defend Japan’s territory.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Solomon Islands’ Pacific Games caught in big-power rivalry as Chinese money rolls in

    A years-long saga mixing big-power rivalry, Chinese money and delayed national elections will reach a conclusion of sorts when the Pacific Games open on Sunday in the remote Solomon Islands. About 5,000 athletes and officials from 24 Pacific nations are descending on the poverty-stricken capital Honiara for the Olympic-style event.

  • NYPost ☛ House Dem leader Hakeem Jeffries condemns DSA after pro-Palestinian org targets him with ‘racist’ watermelon ad

    "The use of racially inflammatory imagery should come as no surprise given the role NYC-DSA and other gentrifiers have played in aggressively attacking Black elected officials," Jeffries' office said.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • CBC ☛ 2023-11-17 [Older] Canada probing reports that B.C.-based company's drone tech ended up in Russia, minister says

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2023-11-17 [Older] Geopolitical Changes and its Influence on Russia-Africa Relations

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-17 [Older] Russian army threat gives NATO brief window of opportunity

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-17 [Older] Moldova's Largest Orthodox Church Keeps Link to Russia

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-16 [Older] Finland to close Russia border points amid heavy migration

    • International Business Times ☛ 2023-11-16 [Older] David Cameron Visits Ukraine As New Foreign Secretary to Reinforce UK's Support Against Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-16 [Older] Russia Loads Missile With Nuclear-Capable Glide Vehicle Into Launch Silo

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-16 [Older] North Korean Premier Meets Russian Minister Visiting Pyongyang

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-15 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russia admits Kyiv forces crossed Dnipro

    • 2023-11-15 [Older] Denmark could turn back Russian oil tankers crossing Öresund

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-15 [Older] North Korea, Russia Discuss Expanding Economic Cooperation -KCNA

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-14 [Older] A Man Convicted in the 2006 Killing of a Russian Journalist Wins a Pardon After Serving in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-14 [Older] Russia: Anna Politkovskaya's murderer pardoned

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-14 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russian mines drive casualties in Ukraine

    • The Age AU ☛ 2023-11-14 [Older] Russia appears to reveal retreat as Ukraine claims crucial foothold

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-14 [Older] Russian Resources Minister Visits North Korea Amid New Missile Development

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-14 [Older] Ukraine Says Russia Tries to Push on East, Involves More Drones

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-13 [Older] Construction Progresses at Russian Plant for Iranian Drones - Report

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-13 [Older] EU Plan for New Russia Sanctions to Go to Members This Week - Borrell

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-13 [Older] Video Purports to Show Israeli-Russian Academic, Kidnapped in Iraq 7 Months Ago

    • The Age AU ☛ 2023-11-12 [Older] Russia fires missile on Kyiv for first time in seven weeks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-12 [Older] Latvia's President Says West Must Arm Ukraine to Keep Russia From Future Global Adventures

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-12 [Older] Blast Kills Three Russian Officers in Occupied Town, Ukraine Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-12 [Older] Russia Opens Terrorist Investigation After Freight Train Derailed

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-12 [Older] Russia Ramps up Attacks on Key Cities in Eastern Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-12 [Older] Zelenskiy Tells Ukrainians to Prepare for Russian Winter Onslaught

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-11 [Older] Russia Renews Missile Attacks on Kyiv, Attacks Intensify in the East

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine Presses Drive On East Bank Of Dnieper As Russian Drones Blast Infrastructure Sites In North, South

      Ukrainian forces looked to build on bridgeheads on the east bank of the Dnieper River on November 18 after a night in which Russian drone attacks blasted Ukrainian infrastructure and residential sites and caused at least two deaths in northern and southern Ukraine.

    • YLE ☛ Poll: 85% see Russia as a military threat

      According to Eva, the results reflect Finns' strong support for Ukraine and strict line towards Russia.

    • New York Times ☛ The Invisible War in Ukraine Being Fought Over Radio Waves

      Using electromagnetic waves to flummox and follow smarter weapons has become a critical part of the cat-and-mouse game between Ukraine and Russia. The United States, China and others have taken note.

    • France24 ☛ Russia seeks to ban 'international' LGBT movement as 'extremist'

      Russia's justice ministry has filed a motion with the country's Supreme Court to label what it called the "international LGBT public movement" as extremist and to ban its operation within Russia, the state TASS news agency reported late on Friday.

    • RFERL ☛ Migrants Stuck In Border Zone After Finland Blocks Russia Crossings

      Dozens of third-country nationals are stranded at Finland's border with Russia on November 18 after Helsinki authorities blocked frontier crossings a day earlier.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Reportedly Summons Czech Charge D'Affaires Over Asset Freeze

      Russia's Foreign Ministry on November 18 said it had summoned the Czech Republic's temporary charge d'affaires in Russia the previous day over Prague's decision to freeze Russian state-owned properties, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Places Former Central Banker Aleksashenko On Wanted List

      Russia's Interior Ministry has placed Sergei Aleksashenko, formerly a deputy governor of the Bank of Russia and a deputy finance minister, on its wanted list.

    • YLE ☛ Finland sending "a crystal-clear message to Russia," says defence minister

      Antti Häkkänen (NCP) reiterated that the government is prepared to shut all eastern border stations if need be.

    • YLE ☛ "We have an agreement with the police," border smugglers tell Yle

      Traffickers who take migrants to the Finnish border say they work with Russian authorities.

• Environment

  • Common Dreams ☛ The US and China Should Push for an Ambitious Plastics Treaty

    President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in California this week in their first meeting in person in over a year. The two countries released a joint climate statement this week and committed to work together more closely to fight climate change.

  • TruthOut ☛ Climate Change Poses a Unique Threat to Women and LGBTQ People, Report Shows

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Pro Publica ☛ Union Pacific Fired Him Rather Than Heed His Warnings of Dangerous Rail Conditions

      As he walked along the spongy, damp Louisiana marshland, scrutinizing tracks owned by one of the nation’s largest freight railroad companies, Robert Faaborg was not happy. The strips of wood that held the rails in place, called ties, were rotten. The screws that held them together were rusted. It was the sort of decay that could cause 18,000-ton trains to derail.

      That evening in January 2014, the government inspector fired off an email to the two Union Pacific managers who had accompanied him on the ground. He wanted them to picture the death and destruction that could unfold if tanker cars filled with highly flammable Bakken crude oil teetered off the rickety tracks and careened toward nearby homes.

    • The Scientist ☛ A Virus that Generates Electricity

      Melting a bacteriophage’s coat of proteins turns it into a tiny power plant, which could fire up the discovery of new bioengineered devices.

    • Hackaday ☛ Why Gas Turbines Rule The World

      It is an interesting fact that the most efficient way to generate electricity — at least so far — is to spin the shaft of a generator. The only real question is how you spin it. Falling water works. Heat from a nuclear reaction is another choice. For many decades, the king of the hill was steam. Now, however, gas turbines rule the electric generator landscape, and [Construction Physics] explains why in a recent post.

    • Barry Kauler ☛ Updated maximum width of bicycle/tricycle in WA

      Western Australia has an archaic law that a bicycle/tricycle may be no more than 660mm wide. Our Minister of Transport, Rita Saffioti, was approached by NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme), informing her that their mobility vehicles are wider than that. Ms Saffioti responded that she would "look into it". That was mid-2021.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • New York Times ☛ Colombia to Sterilize Pablo Escobar’s ‘Cocaine Hippos’

      When the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was killed in 1993, most of the animals he had imported as pets — zebras, giraffes, kangaroos and rhinoceroses — died or were transferred to zoos.

      But not his four hippopotamuses. They thrived. Perhaps a little too well.

      Officials estimate that about 170 hippos, descended from Mr. Escobar’s original herd, now roam Colombia, and the population could grow to 1,000 by 2035, posing a serious threat to the country’s ecosystem.

    • The Atlantic ☛ It’s Not That Hard to Stop Birds From Crashing Into Windows

      Moreover, whereas cats or hawks often take out weaker or less wary animals, glass is an undiscerning predator, as apt to eliminate healthy migrants as sick ones. Our dead sapsucker was a hale breeding female who would have reared chicks this summer and likely for several to come. No longer. “What we’ve done here is killed one of the strongest members of her species,” Prince said with a disgusted shake of her head. “We’re incrementally taking away their future.”

      [...[

      Yet even a perilous building can be made safer. One day, I took a self-guided tour of the Chicago area’s bird-friendly architecture. I started in Evanston, home of Northwestern University, which had retrofitted a couple of particularly deadly buildings in response to data from local bird monitors. Most problematic was the Kellogg Global Hub, a business-school headquarters as colossal and vitreous as an airport terminal. In 2018, Northwestern had coated part of the Kellogg’s facade with a translucent, dot-patterned film designed to make the building visible to birds. The dots, which were so faint that human passersby were unlikely to notice them, were spaced about as far apart as the width of my palm. Any wider than that, and birds would attempt to fly between the dots, as they flit through dense twigs and leaves. (A single hawk decal on a big pane? Essentially useless.)

    • Rlang ☛ Birds in atmosphere

      Thanks to a post from [...] I found a dataset (Warwick-Evans et al. 2017) that could (vaguely) relates to the theme of atmosphere.

      It describes the trajectories of GPS tracked Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus L.) breeding on Alderney in the English Channel.

• Finance

  • YLE ☛ SDP chair calls for construction sector subsidies, more work-based immigration and higher education capacity

    Leaders of the main opposition party are meeting this weekend in Tampere to name presidential and European Parliament candidates for next year's elections.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Rich People in the US Have Been Allowed to Get Way Too Rich

    With inflation easing a bit, Thanksgiving dinner won’t be as expensive this year as it has been. But a slightly more affordable turkey is cold comfort. Rent is still prohibitive, with most tenants struggling to foot the bill. Even more worrying, 12.8 percent of households suffered from food insecurity at some point during 2022, a sharp increase from the previous year (10.5 percent). Then there’s health care. A Commonwealth Fund study released a couple weeks ago found large numbers of Americans weighed down by their health expenses, with many delaying or skipping needed care or drugs to save money, often with disastrous health effects.

    How’s it going for the very rich? Very well, judging by how much they’re willing to pay for an array of lavish services. A small number are so absurdly rich that, according to a recent New York Times piece, a whole new suite of boutique services has sprung up.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ We Can’t Grow Numb to Reports That the Rich Are Getting Obscenely Richer

    The statistics speak volumes: in the year 2021, there was a 9.4 percent surge in income for the top 1 percent, averaging CAD$579,000, and this doesn’t even account for the considerable spike in capital gains. What these numbers highlight is not merely a financial trend, but a stark illustration of a fundamentally unjust economic structure propped up by the legal system that perpetuates it. Unfortunately, this revelation has become almost routine — it’s a one- or two-day headline. Some of us see it, get outraged, scream into the void of social media or at our devices, and then move on with our lives. It’s as if we’re signaling to the rich that we’re resigned to ongoing exploitation and are content to bide our time for the next inevitable tale of upper-class depredation.

  • TruthOut ☛ Priced Out and Fed Up, Tenants Demand a National Renters Bill of Rights

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Register UK ☛ Britain proposes 'super-complaints' to help keep the [Internet] safe

    The proposal is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the government cites the example of a social media platform removing legal content that its terms don't prohibit, thus attracting the ire of free-speech advocates. On the other hand, a super-complaint might also be used to flag up social media features that some groups feel expose users – and children – to harmful content.

    Element's head of policy and compliance, Denise Almeida, told The Register that the approach was sensible when it came to monitoring and reacting to illegal content without breaking encryption and implementing blanket surveillance.

  • New York Times ☛ Sam Altman Is Said to Be Discussing Return to OpenAI With Company’s Board

    The discussions follow an outcry after Mr. Altman, 38, was ousted from his role as OpenAI’s chief executive. Since then, OpenAI’s investors and Mr. Altman’s supporters have pressured the board members of the start-up to bring Mr. Altman back, six people with knowledge of the situation said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential.

  • Security Week ☛ ChatGPT-Maker Proprietary Chaffbot Company Fires CEO Sam Altman, the Face of the Hey Hi (AI) Boom, for Lack of Candor With Company

    Open Hey Hi (AI) pushed out its co-founder and CEO Sam Altman after a review found he was “not consistently candid in his communications” with the board of directors.

  • New York Times ☛ The Fear and Tension That Led to Sam Altman’s Ouster at OpenAI

    The ouster on Friday of Mr. Altman, 38, drew attention to a longtime rift in the A.I. community between people who believe A.I. is the biggest business opportunity in a generation and others who worry that moving too fast could be dangerous. And the vote to remove him showed how a philosophical movement devoted to the fear of A.I. had become an unavoidable part of tech culture.

  • New York Times ☛ Many Details of Sam Altman’s Ouster Are Murky. But Some Things Are Clear.

    I’ll start by saying: I don’t know all the details about why Mr. Altman was pushed out. Neither, it seems, do OpenAI’s shellshocked employees, investors and business partners, many of whom learned of the move at the same time as the general public. In a blog post on Friday, the company said that Mr. Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications” with the board, but gave no other details.

  • India Times ☛ OpenAI's $86 billion share sale in jeopardy after Altman firing: report

    A planned sale of OpenAI employee shares that would value the startup at about $86 billion on paper hangs in the balance after the sudden firing of CEO Sam Altman and a slew of top executive departures, the Information reported on Saturday.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Taiwan’s opposition alliance falters over joint presidential ticket

    Taiwan’s two leading opposition parties failed to agree Saturday on who would lead the ticket in a joint presidential bid for January’s crucial elections. The lead-up to Taiwan’s January 13 vote is being closely watched because it will shape Taipei’s future relations with China, which claims the self-ruled island as its territory.

  • New York Times ☛ Malcolm X Still Has a Hold on Us

    Malcolm X still looms over our current moment. But the version of the man that we meet now is much more human, relatable, problematic and inspirational, for all his flaws.

  • New York Times ☛ What the Landmark Real Estate Lawsuit Verdict Means for Realtors

    A recent ruling has the potential to transform the way Americans buy and sell homes — and many real estate agents are feeling a sense of foreboding.

  • JURIST ☛ Colorado judge rules Trump will stay on state’s 2024 ballot over insurrection allegations

    Former President Donald Trump will stay on Colorado’s ballot as a state court judge ruled against disqualifying him from the 2024 presidential primary ballot on Friday. The decision comes as part of a series of lawsuits challenging Trump’s candidacy under the US Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment.

  • JURIST ☛ Crown Prosecution Service CEO announces departure following discrimination lawsuit settlement

    According to a statement published Friday, the Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) CEO, Rebecca Lawrence, is departing from her role.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ The best antidote to surging Mideast violence and Iranian extremism? Regional versions of NATO and the EU.

    To bring peace, the moderate, modernizing Arab countries and Israel need to work together to create institutions of collective security and economic development.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • HRW ☛ 2023-11-18 [Older] Five Anti-War Price Tags, Seven Years in Russian Prison

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-16 [Older] Russian Artist Who Used Supermarket Price Tags to Criticise Ukraine War Faces Verdict

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-13 [Older] Lawyers Seek Release of Russian Artist Who Staged Anti-War Price Tag Protest

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-11 [Older] 'We Want Her Back:' the Husband of a US Journalist Detained in Russia Appeals for Her Release

  • CPJ ☛ 2023-11-14 [Older] Russian authorities deport Kazakh journalist Vladislav Ivanenko ahead of court hearing

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-14 [Older] Journalist's Husband Urges US State Dept to Recognise Her as Wrongfully Detained in Russia

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-13 [Older] Russian UN Envoys Shoot Back at Western Criticism of Its Ukraine War and Crackdown on Dissidents

  • Reason ☛ Backpage: The Monumental Free Speech Case the Media Ignored

    The mere act of publishing sex ads online is enough to send most potential free speech allies scurrying for the exits.

  • TruthOut ☛ Alumni Withhold Donations Over University Repression of Pro-Palestine Protests

  • RFERL ☛ More Than 100 Russian Doctors Urge Putin To Release Woman Imprisoned For Price Tag Anti-War Protest

    On November 16, a court in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, sentenced Skochilenko to prison after finding her guilty of "distributing false information about Russian armed forces," under Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code, which was bulldozed through both chambers of parliament and signed by Putin in a single day last year.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • CPJ ☛ CPJ honors courageous journalists fighting repression worldwide

    The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and press freedom supporters celebrated journalists from Georgia, India, Mexico, and Togo last night at the 33rd annual International Press Freedom Awards (IPFA) in New York, which raised a record-breaking nearly $2.8 million to protect journalists around the world.

  • BIA Net ☛ Turkey blocks Deutsche Welle websites

    The Ministry of Industry and Technology chose not to renew DW Türkçe's operational license, prompting the broadcaster to close its Turkey office and transition its employees into a copyrighted position. The current block on DW's websites adds another layer to the ongoing dispute between Turkish authorities and the international broadcaster. (HA/VK)

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • The Washington Post ☛ Carnival gives woman lifetime cruise ban for packing CBD gummies

    Melinda Van Veldhuizen, a 42-year-old nurse practitioner and chiropractor from Dallas, told The Washington Post she was stopped by security before a trip on the Carnival Horizon because an X-ray scan detected metal nail clippers in her suitcase. During a bag search, security workers found a pack of CBD gummies she had purchased from a drugstore in Texas. She said the gummies were sealed and were advertised to help with sleep troubles.

  • JURIST ☛ Hong Kong court rules that homeless man in custody died from suicide

    Hong Kong Coroner’s Court ruled the death of a homeless man while in the custody of the Correctional Services Department (CSD) to be a case of suicide on Friday. Five jurors unanimously found the deceased committed suicide.

  • TruthOut ☛ Despite State Bans, Police Continue to Shackle Pregnant People in Custody

• Monopolies

  • New York Times ☛ Apple Texting With Android Users to Improve Next Year

    Longstanding texting problems between Android and Fashion Company Apple owners will ease next year. Among other changes, users will be able to send better-quality videos and photos.

  • Copyrights

    • Digital Music News ☛ Being a Full-Time Musician Is Not for the Weak

      Most full-time musicians are blue-collar, middle-class musicians. They’re making a living, yes. They can pay rent and their bills, and maybe they can afford fun stuff now and then. But they’re not rich.

      The stats on how musicians actually make money are slim, but we do have some resources. We do know performing live is the main source of income for most active musicians.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ MPA Recognizes France, Italy and Philippines for Site Blocking Innovations

      The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is one of the key proponents of pirate site blocking. The group, which counts Hollywood studios and Netflix as its members, recently met with several international stakeholders at a "site blocking conference". The event wasn't widely publicized but TorrentFreak learned that France, Italy and the Philippines were recognized for their innovations.

    • The Register UK ☛ Watchdog bites back against blockage of $9M fine on US selfie-scraper Clearview AI

      Clearview was originally targeted by the ICO earlier this year and slapped with a £7.5 million ($9.3 million) fine for its allegedly unlawful collection of UK citizens' biometric data.

      It claims to have a database exceeding 20 million facial images, most of which have been scraped from social media sites. It uses this data to train the facial recognition technology it's aiming to patent.

Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Sensei Ikeda Has Died

    The subject of the email was 'Sad news about Sensei'. I had been wondering for some time when Sensei might pass. Aside from his age, something inside me felt like it might be imminent. Who knows.

    When I got the news, I was inclined to go about my day as if nothing had changed. This is just a person on the far side of the globe, right? It has no real effect on me. And so on.I'm pretty new to practising faith, and I guess this false sense of aloofness from the world is still a natural habit for me.

  • in which i talk about my bike for a bit

    my bike broke down a few weeks ago¹, and for various reasons, i decided to replace the whole bike instead of just the drivetrain. i found an old 3-speed rudge sports for pretty cheap on craigslist, and i've been quite happy with it so far

    ¹: okay technically it's still rideable by some definition of that word, and also it's been in roughly the same state for a few years now, but a few weeks ago i decided to actually do something about it

    that being said, there were two things i wanted to improve: the lights and the brakes

  • 🔤SpellBinding: AEQRUYV Wordo: JELLO

  • travels

    I've traveled a bit within the country the past few days, and it was amazing.

    It made me realize in what ways my current life is making me unhappy and what I need to do to change. I am definitely too isolated, not happy in my job, and too much in my head at home, ruminating. A lot of my fears, anxiety, obsessive and compulsive thinking disappear when I am elsewhere, and especially in the presence of others. I now know that so many of the things I worried about to the point of panicking are really meaningless and created by myself in my head as a mental health side effect. When I am surrounded by good people, going outside is no problem, eating different foods than usual is no problem, my social battery is no problem, and I have energy. I don't care much for online stuff either, and have no urge to return to anything.

• Technology and Free Software

  • No to SEO

    I’ve got to say that I’ve never ever done SEO stuff. I don’t have a bunch of meta keywords, which maybe people don’t even do anymore but it was the first “SEO” technique I heard of. I just immediately went “nope! That sounds skeevy!” I just try my own limited best to make the pages as useful as they can be, so they work as resources, for myself if for no-one else.

    v

  • Migrating from Debian Bookworm to Devuan Daedalus on the Libre Computer "Renegade" Single Board Computer

    I have dreamed for years to use any operative system without systemshit on my boards and now it is a reality! 😭

    This is why I remarked how it was very important the fact that at Libre Computer were able to run a stock Debian instead of some arguable rearrangement… Kudos to them!

  • Artisan project managers

    If all goes as planned, most project managers will soon be screwing up their projects by trying to use AI instead of doing their real work, and we will have to look for artisan project managers who actually do something instead of delivering AI-generated garbage.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Bihosting

      Some of my posts here are only on the web in a shortened form, or there but unlisted (unlisted like this post you’re reading now: it didn’t go out on my web feeds or linked from my web /texts page, but if you go to the web version of this URL, there’s a page there), or not there at all, only on Gemini, but I’d guess that 95% of them are. “Bihosting”, they call it; having your post on two of Gemini, web, gopher. And “trihosting” is all three. I’m not on gopher though.

      Sometimes when I talk to people who have abandoned Gemini, they say “well, the logs I were reading were also on the web” as one of their reasons.

      Good for them! But I can’t say the same. Some of my faves are, that’s true, but more than half of what I read in here isn’t. Wait, that comes across as an argument against bihosting and for smolnet exclusivity, which would be hypocritical since I do bihost and plan to continue to do so for the foreseeable.

  • Programming

    • Weird Shell Functions

      These functions provide wrappers for "cp" and "mv" that create the destination directory, copy (or move) the given files, and change the shell into the directory.