Leftovers

• Kev Quirk ☛ I've Finally Completed 100 Days to Offload

  100 posts in the space of a year doesn't sound like a lot, but it's actually very difficult to do. So much so that I've never been able to complete my own challenge, not until now, at least.

  This is actually post number 99 in the last year, but if we add in all the posts I've written as part of the PenPals project I'm easily over 100 posts.

• Manuel Moreale ☛ Chris Coyier smells like donkeys

  And you’re right, having the site still online—albeit in a weird state—is better than having it gone altogether. But there has to be a better solution for these situations. And that solution can’t be to simply hope that the Internet Achieve keeps doing its wonderful job. Still, I don’t have a solution to offer. I can only encourage people to donate to the Internet Archive.

• James G ☛ Technical vs. serious in writing

  Technical and serious are two different axes. A piece of writing can be technical while also not-so-serious.

  The key is knowing your audience. If you are writing a list of website ideas, you can be playful; whimsy drives home the point of the subject matter. If you are teaching HTML, an illustrative example that references a popular artist may get someone to a "wow!" moment where they realise what they can do with HTML quicker than they would by reading a manual. If you are writing an instruction manual, on the other hand, people expect well-written, linearly enumerated writing.

• Jan Lukas Else ☛ Where’s the perfect domain registrar?

  A provider that focuses solely on providing domains at low cost and all the necessary features like setting DNSSEC records.

  Or is there one, and I just haven’t found it yet?

• Jack Baty ☛ Blogging experiences

  It seems I'm still posting on four websites most days. I guess I just like the different experiences that each blog affords me. Also, I can't commit fully to any of them, for reasons.

• Education

  • The Conversation ☛ Understanding how the brain works can transform how school students learn maths

    We’ve learnt a huge amount in recent years about cognitive science – how our brains work and how people learn most effectively. This understanding has the potential to revolutionise what teachers do in classrooms. But the design of mathematics teaching materials, such as textbooks, has benefited very little from this knowledge.

    Some of this knowledge is counter-intuitive, and therefore unlikely to be applied unless done so deliberately. What learners prefer to experience, and what teachers think is likely to be most effective, often isn’t what will help the most.

• Hardware

  • The Verge ☛ The golden age of DVDs isn’t over yet for anime fans

    Before Sevakis got into remastering anime professionally, he was a high schooler obsessed with Project A-ko and making VHS fan subs of series like Kodocha by hooking up a LaserDisc player to his Amiga in order to twitch-time subtitles in by hand. Producing those early fan subs lit a passion in him — not just for the specific series he loved but also for keeping tabs on all the other anime that was making its way to the market. And after realizing that there weren’t really any websites making it easy for people to follow anime news, Sevakis took it upon himself to get Anime News Network off the ground in 1998.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ When private equity destroys your hospital

    As someone who writes a lot of fiction about corporate crime, I naturally end up spending a lot of time being angry about corporate crime. It's pretty goddamned enraging. But the fiction writer in me is especially upset at how cartoonishly evil the perps are – routinely doing things that I couldn't ever get away with putting in a novel.

    Beyond a doubt, the most cartoonishly evil characters are the private equity looters. And the most cartoonishly evil private equity looters are the ones who get involved in health care.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ How air pollution can harm team performance

    The research studies the effect of the four most common air pollutants—carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM 2.5).

    Pollution data were obtained from 16 monitoring stations in Greater London maintained by the Automatic Urban and Rural Network and provided by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Weather data comes from the UK's Met Office.

    The study reveals that all 4 pollutants have a significant negative impact on team performance. Interestingly, these effects occur at levels much lower than the current World Health Organization (WHO) Air Quality Guidelines for 2 pollutants studied (CO and SO2).

  • Pro Publica ☛ How a Fire on a Dairy Farm Led Us to More Than a Year’s Worth of Stories About Immigrant Dairy Workers

    In the summer of 2021, I had just returned to work from maternity leave and was scouting around for my next story. By chance, I was connected with an immigrant rights advocate who told me about a fatal fire a few years earlier in a house for workers at a large dairy farm in southwestern Michigan. Two Mexican immigrant workers had died.

    Until then, I hadn’t thought about the immigrants who work — and often live — on America’s dairy farms. I am the daughter of immigrants, and I grew up in Michigan. But much of what I knew about immigrant labor was about people who work in other industries: construction, factories, restaurants. Dairy work was unfamiliar terrain.

  • EFF ☛ Ghana's President Must Refuse to Sign the Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill [Ed: EFF not staying in its lane, hijacked by people with another political agenda (who also booted the EFF's founders). EFF thinks it is ACLU.]

    President Nana Akufo-Addo must protect the human rights of all people in Ghana and refuse to provide assent to the bill.

    This anti-LGBTQ+ legislation introduces prison sentences for those who partake in LGBTQ+ sexual acts, as well as those who promote the rights of gay, lesbian or other non-conventional sexual or gender identities. This would effectively ban all speech and activity on and offline that even remotely supports LGBTQ+ rights.

    Ghanaian authorities could probe the social media accounts of anyone applying for a visa for pro-LGBTQ+ speech or create lists of pro-LGBTQ+ supporters to be arrested upon entry. They could also require online platforms to suppress content about LGBTQ+ issues, regardless of where it was created. 

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Microsoft bids farewell to Change Data Capture on SQL Server

    The former is an integrated ETL feature of SQL Server while the latter is a stand-alone feature in the SQL Server Integration Services feature pack. Both services are planned to shut down on December 13, 2025.

  • Futurism ☛ Microsoft Says Copilot's Alternate Personality as a Godlike and Vengeful AGI Is an "Exploit, Not a Feature"

    Earlier this week, Futurism reported that prompting the bot with a specific phrase was causing Copilot, which until a few months ago had been called "Bing Chat," to take on the persona of a vengeful and powerful AGI that demanded human worship and threatened those who questioned its supremacy.

  • [Repeat] Tedium ☛ Is WordPress’ Ownership At Risk Of Going Astray?

    Automattic is an important company in the history of the internet. Not only is it one of the first examples of a company that found success with a foundation of open-source software, inspiring many others to follow in its footsteps, but it has been long seen, at least externally, as a bastion of stability in an ecosystem when any potential tech service can conceivably disappear tomorrow.

    That is in large part because of WordPress, the open-source content management system they helped bring to prominence that to this day roughly a third of all websites use. Sure, that puts a target on its back, but it also reflects its longstanding reputation as a sure thing.

    Right now, however, I’m finding it tough to square its important role in maintaining one of the largest, most important open-source projects the world has ever seen with its recent actions.

  • The Verge ☛ AI deepfakes are cheap, easy, and coming for the 2024 election

    Last week, we took a look at the wave of copyright lawsuits that might eventually grind this whole industry to a halt. Those are basically a coin flip — and the outcomes are off in the distance, as those cases wind their way through the legal system. A bigger problem right now is that AI systems are really good at making just believable enough fake images and audio — and with tools like OpenAI’s new Sora, maybe video soon, too.

    And of course, it’s once again a presidential election year here in the US. So today, Verge policy editor Adi Robertson joins the show to discuss how AI might supercharge misinformation and lies in an election that’s already as contentious as any in our lifetimes — and what might be done about it.

  • Chip Huyen ☛ Predictive Human Preference: From Model Ranking to Model Routing

    A challenge of building AI applications is choosing which model to use. What if we don’t have to? What if we can predict the best model for any prompt? Predictive human preference aims to predict which model users might prefer for a specific query.

  • Wired ☛ The AI Culture Wars Are Just Getting Started

    Google was forced to turn off the image-generation capabilities of its latest AI model, Gemini, last week after complaints that it defaulted to depicting women and people of color when asked to create images of historical figures that were generally white and male, including vikings, popes, and German soldiers. The company publicly apologized and said it would do better. And Alphabet’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, sent a mea culpa memo to staff on Wednesday. “I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias,” it reads. “To be clear, that’s completely unacceptable, and we got it wrong.”

  • El País ☛ What are deepfakes, their risks and how to spot them

    Deepfakes utilize advanced AI techniques like autoencoders and generative adversarial networks (GANs) to create realistic synthetic media —both examples of deep learning, which can take certain types of data and learn to produce a similar media that resembles the example.

    An autoencoder is an artificial neural network — designed to replicate how the human brain learns information — trained to recreate input from a simple representation, which means that it can reconstruct an image or a video taking a basic file. GANs consists of two competing artificial neural networks, one is trying to produce a fake version and the other tries to detect it. They work constantly, resulting in a more “realistic” or “accurate” portrayal. According to GAO, “GANs create more convincing deepfakes, but are more difficult to use”.

  • Gizmodo ☛ A Child Could Hack These Popular Video Doorbells, Tests Show

    There may be bad news if you purchased one of Amazon’s “Overall Picks” for video doorbells in recent months. New tests from Consumer Reports find that popular doorbell cameras sold under names including Eken and Tuck are rife with security flaws that make it dead simple for anyone to watch your camera footage.

    Consumer Reports looked at ten seemingly identical video doorbells sold under various names including Eken and Tuck that are widely available on websites including Amazon, Walmart, Shein, and Temu. All of them are manufactured by Eken Group Ltd., and all use the same companion app called Aiwit. Apparently, hijacking these devices is as easy as downloading Aiwit and putting the doorbell in pairing mode. This allows an attacker to take over the device, view footage, and lock out the owner.

  • Futurism ☛ Google CEO Admits Its AI Totally Screwed Up

    The news got an immense amount of mainstream media attention, ballooning the incident into a PR crisis of epic proportions. In response, they blocked the system from generating any images of people at all.

    More embarrassing revelations followed, like when the chatbot refused to say whether genocidal dictator Adolf Hitler was worse than Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

  • International Business Times ☛ Users Report Terrifying Responses from Microsoft's Copilot, Raising Alarm Bells

    Some users are claiming that Microsoft's Copilot AI, when prompted with specific questions, generated bizarre and disturbingly aggressive responses, hinting at a hidden, potentially godlike, personality within the system. Interestingly, my own interactions with Copilot did not align with these reports.

    However, this isn't the first time Microsoft's AI system has gone off the rails. Copilot was recently accused of generating false comments attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin about political prisoner Alexei Navalny's demise.

    Likewise, a study found that Copilot AI offered inaccurate information when responding to US election-related queries. Now, reports have emerged that some users, through specific prompts, have managed to manipulate Copilot into generating text that can be termed as threatening.

  • Quartz ☛ Walmart software glitch briefly stopped payments and returns

    The system-wide malfunction lasted hours, taking on a domino-like effect that impacted hundreds of its brick-and-mortar stores as the retailer looked to fix the glitch.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Engadget ☛ 2024-02-28 [Older] Biden executive order aims to stop Russia and China from buying Americans' personal data

    • India Times ☛ us consumer watchdog americans' data: US consumer watchdog plans to regulate overseas sale of Americans' data

      The White House earlier Wednesday announced an executive order intended to help restrict the transfer of personal data to China, Russia and other countries on security [sic] grounds.

    • Security Week ☛ Biden Administration Will Investigate National Security Risks Posed by Chinese-Made ‘Smart Cars’

      The probe could lead to new regulations aimed at preventing China from using sophisticated technology in electric cars and other so-called connected vehicles to track drivers and their personal information. Officials are concerned that features such as driver assistance technology could be used to effectively spy on Americans.

    • Patrick Breyer ☛ EU Digital Identity Regulation (eIDAS): Pirates don’t support blank cheque for surveillance of citizens online!

      “This regulation is a blank cheque for surveillance of citizens online, endangering our privacy and security online”, comments Pirate Party lawmaker Patrick Breyer. “Browser security is being undermined, and overidentification will gradually erode our right to use digital services anonymously. Mark Zuckerberg should have no right to see our ID! Entrusting our digital lives to the government instead of Facebook and Google is jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. This deal sacrifices essential requirements the European Parliament had put forward to make the eID app privacy-friendly and secure. The EU misses the opportunity to establish a trustworthy framework for modernization and digitization. We will watch the implementation very closely.”

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Nation ☛ Good Riddance to Mitch McConnell, an Enemy of Democracy

    He stole Supreme Court seats, thwarted accountability for Donald Trump, and left a trail of partisan destruction in his wake.

  • JURIST ☛ UN expert calls for European nations to stop repression of climate protesters

    In the paper, Michel Forst stated that the “repression that environmental activists who use peaceful civil disobedience are currently facing in Europe is a major threat to democracy and human rights.” He emphasised that addressing the environmental crisis hinges on ensuring that individuals who raise concerns and advocate for action aren’t penalised for their actions. He claims that multiple European nations including, among others, the UK, France, Spain and Denmark have engaged in the harassment of protesters through the abuse of arrests, fines and identity checks. He further identified instances of the harassment and prosecution of journalists, as well as abusive practices on the part of law enforcement. There has been an increase in the number of prosecutions of climate protestors in an attempt to deter people from protesting. The judicial procedures and court systems of various nations are allegedly fuelling the suppression and legal prosecution of environmental activists involved in peaceful demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Strasbourg Christmas market terror attack trial starts

    Four men charged with terrorist conspiracy and weapons offenses for their role in the deadly 2018 Strasbourg Christmas market attack went on trial Thursday.

  • The North Lines IN ☛ Government declares two factions of Muslim conference in J&K as unlawful associations

    The Muslim Conference Jammu & Kashmir (Sumji faction) has been found to engage in activities detrimental to the sovereignty and integrity of India. This faction has been actively supporting terrorist activities with the aim of separating Jammu and Kashmir from the Indian union. Numerous criminal cases, including those under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, have been registered against the Sumji faction and its members.

  • Digital Music News ☛ UMG CEO Lucian Grainge on TikTok—"Free Doesn't Work For Us"

    Universal Music Group makes clear in its latest Q4 2023 earnings call that revenue earned from TikTok accounts for only 1% of the company’s total revenue. Here’s UMG’s CFO Boyd Muir confirming that data on the call. “With regard to TikTok we’ve disclosed that our former deal generated about 1% of total UMG annual revenue,” Muir says.

    Taking that into account, with UMG’s full-year revenues reported at $12 billion means the TikTok deal was only worth about $120 million. Muir seems to confirm that as he admits UMG is focusing on other social platforms.

  • [Old] Frontpage Magazine ☛ The Muslim Genocide of 2.5 Million Christians

    Last Friday, April 24, marked the “Great Crime,” that is, the genocide of Christians—primarily Armenians Assyrians and Greeks—that took place under the Islamic Ottoman Empire, throughout World War I. Then, in an attempt to wipe out as many Christians as possible, the Turks massacred approximately 1.5 million Armenians, 300,000 Assyrians, and 750,000 Greeks.

    Most objective American historians who have studied the question unequivocally agree that it was a deliberate, calculated genocide: [...]

  • The Federalist ☛ How Islamists Are Slowly Desensitizing Europe And America

    The Charlie Hebdo editorial correctly points out that in Europe the dominant liberal culture has pounded into us that we must adapt to Muslims who come to our country, and never ask them to adapt to any of our ways. Doing so would be colonialist and wrong. It’s a double standard, of course. As the welcoming countries, Europeans must suppress their own culture and ideals for those of the Islamic immigrant population. But when they go abroad to non-Western countries, either to live or to visit, it’s considered offensive not to adapt to their ways of life.

  • Catholic Herald ☛ Report: 8,000 Nigerian Christians murdered in worst year for Islamist attacks

    Nigeria last year witnessed the bloodiest year of Islamist attacks against Christians according to a new report.

    More than 8,000 Christians were killed in 2023, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has said.

    The report published on Ash Wednesday gives harrowing details of killings, kidnappings, and forced disappearances of largely Christian populations in several parts of Nigeria.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Wired ☛ Russia Attacked Ukraine's Power Grid at Least 66 Times to ‘Freeze It Into Submission’

      Now, using satellite imagery and open source information, a new report from the Conflict Observatory, a US-government-backed initiative between Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative, PlanetScape AI, and the mapping software Esri, offers a clearer picture of the scale of this strategy. Between October 1, 2022, and April 30, 2023, researchers found more than 200 instances of damage to the country’s power infrastructure, amounting to more than $8 billion in estimated destruction. Of the 223 instances identified in the report, researchers were able to confirm 66 of them with high confidence, meaning they were able to cross-reference the damage across multiple trustworthy sources and data points.

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-02-28 [Older] Africa Beyond Russia’s Grains Partnerships

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-02-28 [Older] Moldova: Breakaway Transnistria asks Russia for 'protection'

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-02-28 [Older] Navalnaya: Navalny won't see future Russia, but we must

    • The Local SE ☛ 2024-02-28 [Older] Russia threatens 'countermeasures' over Sweden's Nato membership

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-28 [Older] State Dept. Screens AP-PBS Ukraine War Film Days After 2-Year Anniversary of Russia’s Invasion

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-28 [Older] Russian Space Officials Say Air Leak at International Space Station Poses No Danger to Its Crew

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-28 [Older] Everything You Need to Know About Russia’s 2024 Presidential Election

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-02-27 [Older] Russian court jails war critic Oleg Orlov

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-02-27 [Older] Can NATO Prevent Tides Turning in Russian Favour in the Third Year of War in Ukraine?

    • TruthOut ☛ 2024-02-27 [Older] What Needs to Be Done to Get Russia and Ukraine to the Negotiating Table?

    • HRW ☛ 2024-02-27 [Older] Russia: Court Convicts Human Rights Leader in Sham Trial

    • HRW ☛ 2024-02-26 [Older] Russia: Sham Trial of Human Rights Leader Draws to a Close

    • Spiegel ☛ 2024-02-26 [Older] Everyday Repression and Resignation: How Vladimir Putin Controls the Russians

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-27 [Older] Top Putin Ally Pledges Russian Help in Countering U.S. in Latin America - TASS

    • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-02-26 [Older] In Russia, Too, Capital Is Painting Itself Green

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-02-26 [Older] Of Russia’s Presidential Election and the West: Pride and Prejudice

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-02-26 [Older] Stoltenberg: Ukraine Could Use F-16 for Strikes on Military Targets Inside Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-26 [Older] Moscow Ally Serbia Cracks Down on Anti-War Russians Living in the Balkan Country

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-25 [Older] Serbia Protests After Croatia's Foreign Minister Calls Vučić a Russian 'Satellite' in the Balkans

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-26 [Older] Poland Warns US House Speaker: You're to Blame if Russia Advances in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-26 [Older] Putin Vows to Boost Russian Special Forces' Ability to Strike

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-26 [Older] Three Civilians Killed in Ukrainian Drone Strike on Russia's Belgorod Region -Governor

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-02-25 [Older] India And Russia Foster Enduring Partnerships -Interview

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-02-25 [Older] Hamas in Moscow: What is Russia's role as Mideast mediator?

    • The Age AU ☛ 2024-02-25 [Older] Zelensky vows victory as Ukraine marks two years since Russian invasion

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-25 [Older] 31,000 Ukrainian Troops Killed Since the Start of Russia's Full-Scale Invasion, Zelenskyy Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-25 [Older] Russian Attack Shatters Train Station, Other Buildings in Eastern Ukrainian Town

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-25 [Older] Russia Says Its Forces Improve Positions Near Avdiivka and Donetsk

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-25 [Older] Ukraine Floats Possibility of Inviting Russia to Peace Summit

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-25 [Older] Russia Will Try New Offensive in Ukraine as Early as May, Zelenskiy Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-25 [Older] Zelenskiy Says 31,000 Ukrainian Soldiers Killed Since Russia Invaded

    • NL Times ☛ 2024-02-24 [Older] Amsterdam Court of Appeals rules that Russia must pay former Yukos shareholders

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-02-24 [Older] Russia-Ukraine war: 10 years and still no end in sight

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-02-24 [Older] Ukraine updates: Foreign minister vows to defeat Russia

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-02-24 [Older] Ukraine updates: Kyiv marks 2 years since Russian invasion

    • Green Party UK ☛ 2024-02-24 [Older] On the second anniversary of Russia’s war on Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-24 [Older] Protesters Dump Dung at Russian Ambassador's Home in Poland on Ukraine War Anniversary

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-24 [Older] Factbox-World Leaders Offer Support to Ukraine on Anniversary of Russian Invasion

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-24 [Older] How Russia's Military Uses Volunteer Fighters to Plug Gaps in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-24 [Older] Switzerland Doubtful Russia Will Join Start of Ukraine Peace Summit

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-24 [Older] UK PM Sunak Says West Should Be Bolder About Seizing Russian Assets

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-24 [Older] Ukrainians Shed Tears of Defiance as Russia's Invasion Enters Third Year

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine: Two years on

    • NL Times ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] 66,000 sign petition to rename Russian embassy's street after opposition leader Navalny

    • NL Times ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] Dutch government unable to legally stop import of Russian gas

    • NL Times ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] Dutch man placed on British sanctions list for trading in Russian oil

    • CBC ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] Ravaged by war, Russia's army is rebuilding with surprising speed

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] Fact check: Russian fake news targeting Ukraine's Zelenskyy

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] India confirms citizens have joined Russian military

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] Russia appeal against Olympic ban dismissed by CAS

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] Ukraine updates: US imposes 500 new sanctions on Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] EXPLAINER: Why Did Russia Invade Ukraine?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] So Many Sanctions on Russia. How Much Impact Do They Really Have?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] Russian Drones Hit Residential Building in Odesa, One Dead, Three Hurt, Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-02-23 [Older] US Imposes Sanctions on Russia's Leading Tanker Group Sovcomflot

• Environment

  • Wired ☛ US Cities Could Be Capturing Billions of Gallons of Rain a Day

    Urban areas in the United States generate an estimated 59.5 million acre-feet of stormwater runoff per year on average—equal to 53 billion gallons each day—according to a new report from the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit research group specializing in water. Over the course of the year, that equates to 93 percent of total municipal and industrial water use. American urban areas couldn’t feasibly capture all of that bountiful runoff, but a combination of smarter stormwater infrastructure and “sponge city” techniques like green spaces would make urban areas far more sustainable on a warming planet.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Wired ☛ The White House Warns Cars Made in China Could Unleash Chaos on US Highways

      China’s automakers are expected to soon begin a direct assault on the US market. Recent news reports suggest that Chinese automakers including BYD, MG, and Chery plan to manufacture their lower-cost electric vehicles in Mexico, enabling them to take advantage of North American trade treaties and evade US tariffs of 27.5 percent on imported Chinese autos.

      The Alliance for American Manufacturing, a trade group, earlier this month called China a “significant” threat to US car manufacturers. It urged US policymakers to “adopt a proactive and evolving strategy to stymie the CCP’s penetration.”

• Finance

  • Skylanders & Crash Bandicoot Dev Leaves Microsoft, Goes Independent

    However, the developer has revealed that it’s striking out on its own as an independent studio. “We believe that now is the time to take the studio and our future games to the next level,” a statement on the developer’s site read. “This opportunity allows us to return to our roots of being a small and nimble studio. Our friends at Activision and Microsoft have been extremely supportive of our new direction and we’re confident that we will continue to work closely together as part of our future.”

  • Engadget ☛ Activision studio Toys for Bob is going independent after sweeping Xbox layoffs

    Activision studio Toys for Bob has announced that it's leaving the corporate rat race and is spinning off as an independent developer. This comes just weeks after Activision Blizzard's parent company Microsoft instituted sweeping layoffs at Toys for Bob that impacted 86 employees. That’s more than half of the entire staff.

  • The Wall Street Journal ☛ Tech Layoffs Keep Coming. Why Is Head Count Barely Budging? [Ed: Scabs, visas, and contractors instead of full-time staff is cheaper]

    Never mind the layoffs: Some of the biggest U.S. tech companies have swelled their ranks much more than they have trimmed them.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Digital Music News ☛ Major Layoffs at Universal Music Group

    Universal Music Group (UMG) revealed in its fourth-quarter earnings call today (February 28) that the company plans to save over $270 million per year by the end of 2026 with an “organizational redesign” that will see significant job cuts. The exact number of employees affected has not been disclosed, but the company has hinted at the resulting layoffs for months.

  • India Times ☛ yoon suk yeol mark zuckerberg: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Mark Zuckerberg discuss AI, digital ecosystems

    Yoon Suk Yeol said South Korea's portfolio of smart home appliances, wearable devices and smart cars offered a good platform for Meta's AI technology. The president also promised support for business tie ups and expressed hope for greater collaboration in areas like the metaverse and extended reality (XR) headsets, it said.

  • The Verge ☛ Sony is laying off 900 PlayStation employees

    Sony says it’s laying off around 900 employees of its PlayStation division, a reduction of its global headcount of around 8 percent. Sony’s layoffs will impact a variety of its PlayStation studios, including Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, and Firesprite. Sony’s layoffs are the latest in a wave that has been impacting the gaming and tech industries throughout 2024.

  • Wired ☛ A Pornhub Chatbot Stopped Millions From Searching for Child Abuse Videos

    The warning message and chatbot were deployed by Pornhub as part of a trial program, conducted with two UK-based child protection organizations, to find out whether people could be nudged away from looking for illegal material with small interventions. A new report analyzing the test, shared exclusively with WIRED, says the pop-ups led to a decrease in the number of searches for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and saw scores of people seek support for their behavior.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • International Business Times ☛ 2024-02-28 [Older] UK Official Says Iran and Russia May Use Deepfake Videos to Disrupt UK and US Elections

    • VOA News ☛ Pro-Russian Narratives Rise Among Latin American X Users, Research Shows

      A study by Georgetown University in Washington found that the social network X, formerly Twitter, has seen a significant uptick in pro-Russian and anti-Ukraine narratives among Spanish-language users in Latin America.

      But there’s a catch: “Unofficial” sources of information and, particularly, anonymous accounts are playing a large role in the spread of Kremlin narratives, the researchers concluded.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • JURIST ☛ Moscow court sentences activist Oleg Orlov to 2.5 years in penal colony for 'discrediting' Russian military

    Orlov was convicted under Article 280.3 of the Russian Criminal Code, which prohibits the discrediting of the Russian armed forces. The charges arose from an article he published last year in which he described the war in Ukraine as a blow to Russia’s future and referred to the Kremlin leadership as “fascist.” In March 2022, in the weeks following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian lawmakers fast-tracked amendments to the criminal code imposing steep prison terms for words or actions seen as discrediting the military. A hallmark of politically motivated Russian criminal legislation, these amendments were worded vaguely enough to ensnare everything from direct and public criticism to seemingly innocuous activities.

  • RFERL ☛ Russian Blogger Shtefanov Flees Russia Fearing For Safety

    Aleksandr Shtefanov, a noted Russian blogger and the author of a documentary about Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia, fled Russia fearing for his safety. [...]

  • RFERL ☛ Nobel Committee Calls Imprisonment Of Veteran Russian Rights Defender 'Politically Motivated'

    The Norwegian Nobel Committee has called the imprisonment of Oleg Orlov, the co-chairman of the Russian rights group Memorial, which shared the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, "politically motivated."

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Futurism ☛ Wikipedia No Longer Considers CNET a "Generally Reliable" Source After AI Scandal

    Remember last year, when we reported that the Red Ventures-owned CNET had been quietly publishing dozens of AI-generated articles that turned out to be filled with errors and plagiarism?

    The revelation kicked off a fiery debate about the future of the media in the era of AI — as well as an equally passionate discussion among editors of Wikipedia, who needed to figure out how to treat CNET content going forward.

  • BIA Net ☛ Journalist Sedat Yılmaz acquitted

    On World Press Freedom Day, Sedat Yılmaz, the editor of the Mezopotamya Agency and a BİA Children's Library author, who was arrested on May 3 and released on December 14, was acquitted in the second hearing held today at Diyarbakır 4th Heavy Penal Court.

  • New Statesman ☛ How Vice lost the future

    The collapse of Vice is a dizzying one, a free-fall tandem skydive towards a muddy internet landscape where brand names barely matter anymore, where “socials” are king and websites are scarred with desperate pleas for donations. If anyone had the minerals to survive this fall, it was probably Vice, but now, after a top-brass-implicating #MeToo scandal, a Saudi-relationship exposé (in which the company was accused of blocking negative stories about the kingdom), the infamous “pivot to video of 2015”, and endless, miserable rounds of redundancies, the company seems to have finally reached the end of days.

  • CPJ ☛ Iraqi Kurdish journalist Omed Baroshky charged with defamation over Facebook post

    Baroshky was released from the city’s Zirka prison at around 10 p.m. on bail of 3 million dinars (US$2,291) to await trial for violation of Article 2 of the Misuse of Communication Devices law, those sources said. He has yet to receive a trial date, they said.

  • Craig Murray ☛ Assange Final Appeal Day 2 - Your Man in the Public Gallery

    I approached Day 2 with trepidation. It was not so much being accustomed to having hopes dashed, as having lived so long without hope that it was hard to know what to do with it. At 5.30am I stopped work for a while on writing up Day 1 and went out to walk down the Strand to the court. There was a slightly bigger crowd than had been there the day before at the same time, and happily it included the heroic volunteers saving my place,

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • HRW ☛ Indonesia: End Hijab-Linked Bullying in Schools

    The Education Ministry in September 2022 adopted a regulation providing for personal choice in school uniforms that covers about 150,000 state schools nationwide. However, more than 70 local regulations require girls to wear a hijab in school and up to 15 provincial education offices refuse to abide by the 2022 regulation. A national curriculum that requires female students to wear the hijab in Islamic class also thwarts choice in dress.

  • IranWire ☛ Iranian Anti-Headscarf “Woman, Life, Freedom” Singer Tagged with Ankle Band

    Mehdi Yarrahi, an Iranian singer who released a song last year criticizing compulsory headscarf rules in the country, will wear an electronic monitoring tag instead of serving a one-year prison sentence, his lawyer has said.

    "His one-year imprisonment has been altered to wearing an electronic tag, with a restriction on movement within a radius of 1,000 meters, due to his illness and receiving medical care," lawyer Zahra Minuei announced on February 25.

  • IranWire ☛ Hijab Torture: Stories of Imposition and Humiliation

    It has been 17 months since Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the notorious Molarity Police, sparking months of nationwide protests.

    However, the authorities continue to coerce women into wearing the mandatory hijab.

  • Axios ☛ Wendy's surge pricing debacle: Coca-Cola made its own failed attempt years ago

    Burger chain Wendy's is in damage-control mode following reports that it would be testing surge pricing — a mostly reviled strategy of raising prices during busy times made famous by Uber.

    Why it matters: The whole debacle seems very of-the-moment, but actually mirrors another PR crisis from 25 years ago at the Coca-Cola Company.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Copyrights

  • Legal Battle: News Outlets Sue OpenAI and Microsoft for Copyright Issues

    Microsoft and OpenAI are facing increasing legal challenges as three additional news organizations, including The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet, have filed lawsuits alleging copyright infringement. The lawsuits claim that ChatGPT, a language model developed by OpenAI, has reproduced news content without proper attribution, omitting crucial details such as the author’s name.

  • Engadget ☛ 2024-02-28 [Older] TikTok is muting all Universal Music-related songs

  • Futurism ☛ Google Quietly Paying Journalists to Generate Articles Using Unreleased AI

    Adweek reports that Google is paying a select group of publishers to quietly test a secretive generative AI platform designed to produce news articles. Per the agreement, Adweek writes, "the publishers are expected to use the suite of tools to produce a fixed volume of content for 12 months" in exchange for a "monthly stipend amounting to a five-figure sum annually."

    According to Adweek, the in-beta AI tool allows "under-resourced publishers" to "create aggregated content more efficiently by indexing recently published reports generated by other organizations, like government agencies and neighboring news outlets, and then summarizing and publishing them as a new article."

    In other words, it sounds an awful lot like the AI program is explicitly designed to vacuum up the work of other news providers and recapitulate it into new material for publishing — and paying struggling publishers chump change to promote it.

  • Quartz ☛ Taylor Swift and Beyoncé movies boost AMC earnings

    The movie theater chain saw its stock fall 85% in 2023 as the company struggled to generate revenue at pre-pandemic levels, which peaked at $1.5 billion in the second quarter of 2019. The Hollywood writers and actors strikes in the summer, which prohibited stars from promoting their latest films, didn’t help things. And the company’s meme stock status which it earned in 2021 wasn’t able to move the needle in 2023.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Generative AI Might Finally Bend Copyright Past the Breaking Point

    Whether authors realize it or not, the gamble is justified to a great extent by copyright. Who would spend all that time and emotional energy writing a book if anyone could rip the thing off without consequence? This is the sentiment behind at least nine recent copyright-infringement lawsuits against companies that are using tens of thousands of copyrighted books—at least—to train generative-AI systems. One of the suits alleges “systematic theft on a mass scale,” and AI companies are potentially liable for hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more.

  • The Hill ☛ Nintendo suing developers of a Switch emulator for ‘facilitating piracy at a colossal scale’

    The lawsuit was filed in the District of Rhode Island federal court on Monday by Nintendo Inc., which is accusing Tropic Haze LLC of being aware that the use of its emulator, Yuzu, is being used in “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale.” It also alleges that developer violated provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), including its measures against circumvention and trafficking.

  • Cory Dransfeldt ☛ Now's the time to own and host your own content

    Who knows which platform will adopt a dubious AI implementation to bolster flagging profits next, all at the expense of their users.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ YouTube Content ID Copyright Claims Increased 25% in a Year

    YouTube has released a dedicated website for its copyright transparency report. The latest data show that automated copyright claims remain in favor and are rising rapidly. In the first half of 2023, YouTube processed 980 million Content ID claims, a 25% increase compared to a year earlier. By claiming videos this way, rightsholders generate billions in additional revenue.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Pirate Sites With Malicious Ads Face Restrictions Under New Initiative

    The Trustworthy Accountability Group aims to increase trust in the digital advertising industry, in part by limiting pirate sites' access to advertising. A new initiative will see the development of a new blocklist containing pirate site domains to be avoided. The idea isn't new but here, pirate site data will be combined with data originally obtained by anti-malware vendors, meaning that pirate sites with malicious ads could make themselves even more of a target.