Leftovers

• Robert Birming ☛ Re: Not everything has to be for sale

  Of course, there's nothing wrong with making money doing what you love. But it's important to decide early on what's more important: the creation or the cash.

• Ness Labs ☛ The affliction of abundance: FOBO or the fear of a better option

  You’re about to launch a new product, but you can’t decide on the tech stack. You’ve been researching for weeks, worried that you might miss out on the perfect solution. Sounds familiar? This is FOBO – the Fear of a Better Option. It’s the lesser-known cousin of FOMO, and it might be secretly sabotaging your decision-making process.

  As psychologist Barry Schwartz puts it: “Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, perhaps too hard.” It’s a bit like standing in front of a buffet with endless choices, but standing here starving because you can’t bring yourself to settle on an option.

• Adam Newbold ☛ Neatnik Notes · Spake

  <nicolas> blogcast?
  <bixfrankonis> No I mean like low rent lofi voice blogging, as opposed to full on podcasting

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Cave Painting of a Pig Hunt Could Be The Oldest Story Ever Recorded

    A glimpse into early human creativity.

  • Science Alert ☛ This Giant Swamp Creature With a Toilet Seat-Shaped Head Terrorized The Permian

    "It was really shocking."

  • Science Alert ☛ Biden And Trump May Be Forgetful, But Here Are The Real Cognitive Skills Leaders Need

    An expert weighs in.

  • Interesting Engineering ☛ New physics simulator creates precise 3D prints of multi-layer cheesecake

    Led by Shir Goldfinger, then a summer intern and now a research specialist at the Penn Image Computing and Science Laboratory, the team has developed a first-of-its-kind simulation engine that successfully reproduced a custom-designed seven-ingredient dessert.

    The “physics-driven” simulator could transform the nascent field of 3D food printing.

• Education

  • Latvia ☛ State Audit: Latvia has work to do to ensure enough teachers

    The actions taken by the Ministry of Education and Science (IZM) have not been effective enough to ensure the number of teachers necessary for the education sector and to promote staying in the profession, the State Audit Office (VK) has found in its audit published on July 3.

  • Chris ☛ Map of Pontypandy in Fireman Sam

    I have been considering adding a map as a visual aid, but there are no maps online of Pontypandy in its modern shape! So on a rainy day recently, we pulled up a bunch of episodes of Fireman Sam on a laptop, took screenshots of the in-show map segments, and stitched them together into a larger map. It had to be a very sloppy job in order to not lose the interest of the children, but they enjoyed most of the process.

  • Julian Peters ☛ Recap of the UX Festival 2024 in Erfurt

    On the session boards of Day 1 and Day 2, everyone could immediately recognize three major UX topics: user research, accessibility and strategy.

    My personal focus for the UX Festival? The influence of strategy work on the user experience.

  • Alabama Reflector ☛ When ‘universal’ pre-K really isn’t: Barriers to participating abound

    But despite the effort, workers such as Gillespie-Lambert need to keep walking neighborhoods.

    “People don’t read,” she said. “We found canvassing — not just flyers, but having a conversation with them — seems to work a lot better.”

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Retrotechtacular: The Tools And Dies That Made Mass Production Possible

    Here at Hackaday we’re suckers for vintage promotional movies, and we’ve brought you quite a few over the years. Their boundless optimism and confidence in whatever product they are advancing is infectious, even though from time to time with hindsight we know that to have been misplaced.

  • Hackaday ☛ USB And The Myth Of 500 Milliamps

    If you’re designing a universal port, you will be expected to provide power. This was a lesson learned in the times of LPT and COM ports, where factory-made peripherals and DIY boards alike had to pull peculiar tricks to get a few milliamps, often tapping data lines. Do it wrong, and a port will burn up – in the best case, it’ll be your port, in worst case, ports of a number of your customers.

  • Hackaday ☛ Responsive LCD Backlights With A Little Lateral Thinking

    LCD televisions are a technological miracle, but if they have an annoying side it’s that some of them are a bit lacklustre when it comes to displaying black. [Mousa] has a solution, involving a small LCD and a bit of lateral thinking.

  • Hackaday ☛ VHF/UHF Antennas, The Bad, The Ugly, And The Even Worse

    When you buy a cheap ham radio handy-talkie, you usually get a little “rubber ducky” antenna with it. You can also buy many replacement ones that are at least longer. But how good are they? [Learnelectronics] wanted to know, too, so he broke out his NanoVNA and found out that they were all bad, although some were worse than others. You can see the results in the — sometimes fuzzy — video below.

  • Hackaday ☛ A Trip Down Electronic Toy Memory Lane

    Like many of us, [MIKROWAVE1] had a lot of electronic toys growing up. In a video you can watch below, he asks the question: “Did electronic toys influence your path?” Certainly, for us, the answer was yes.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The WHO: Building a Permanent Pandemic Market

    In the face of a potentially industry-ending slew of patent monopoly cliffs, Big Pharma has begun acquiring biotechnology companies to stave off collapse. To get these drugs to market, the industry is pursuing the only solution left for their dying model: a full takeover of the WHO to capture the global regulatory system.

  • Ongoing Excess Deaths (Over 10% More Than One Should Expect)

    In Week 24 of 2019 9,445 people died in England and Wales, compared to an average of 9,408 (5-year average) between 2014-2019.

  • Science Alert ☛ Fourth of July Celebration Fireworks Come With a Side of Dangerous Air Pollution

    "No one really knew before this study."

  • Latvia ☛ Doctors repeatedly raise alarm over teenage drug overdoses

    The Midsummer week, during which more than ten teenagers were hospitalized due to severe drug overdoses, was the tipping point for an inter-agency meeting at the Ministry of Health on Tuesday, July 3. The trend is now that the use of addictive substances has doubled in a few years. During Midsummer week, ambulance crews rushed to the vicinity of Riga's Origo shopping center to sixteen young people over a few days, many of whom were unconscious. Some fled after being given an antidote, others were taken to hospital in serious condition. Doctors assume that the substances the young people may have taken are synthetic opioids of the nitazene group.

  • Science Alert ☛ FDA Finally Outlaws Soda Ingredient Banned Around The World

  • Federal News Network ☛ Lawsuit urges OPM to end 7-year delay to keep feds off indefinite paid administrative leave

    Federal employees on administrative leave can wait months — if not years — with their careers on hold, as their agencies investigate allegations of wrongdoing.

  • The Hill ☛ Gen Z's struggle with online noise: Museums offer a respite

    The average member of Generation Z — those of us who are between ages 12 and 27 today — receives over 200 notifications per day and spends 28.5 hours a week on devices. According to research firm dcdx, we’re not digital natives, but digital captives — and 60 percent of us can’t go four hours offline without feeling uncomfortable.

  • Lou Plummer ☛ Pulling Corn

    We cultivated the entire property with vegetables, known as truck farming in our area. My uncle and I, along with a tenant who lived on the farm and several high school students we hired, were responsible for all the labor. We sold all the produce directly to the public on the farm; none of it was taken to any market. Some of the row crops allowed our customers to pick their own produce at a discounted price, but the majority of the harvest was gathered by a farm employee. Picture 1,000 tomato plants raised waist-high, acres of butter beans, snap beans, field peas, English peas, Irish potatoes, pumpkins, squash, okra, cucumbers, peppers, watermelons, collard greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, and my least favorite crop of all: sweet corn, also known as roasting ears in the rural community.

  • Greg Morris ☛ Reach For The Blog

    Writing is a well-known method for coping with life’s difficulties, even if you don’t publish what you write. However, there’s something uniquely special about having a blog—one that people read and interact with. The support that can form around it is incredible. I received several kind replies wishing me well, and more than one person took the time to send me an email with words of encouragement. While this isn’t my primary motivation for writing, it’s heartwarming to receive such support.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • India Times ☛ Cloud resources biggest targets for cyberattacks in India, says study

    A study by a multinational firm has identified cloud resources as the "biggest targets" for cyberattacks in India. Thales has announced the release of the 2024 Thales Cloud Security Study, its annual assessment of the latest cloud security threats, trends and emerging risks based on a survey of nearly 3,000 IT and security professionals across 18 countries in 37 industries, according to a statement.

    "The study was based on a global survey of 2,961 respondents, aimed at professionals in security and IT management," it said.

  • [Repeat] Silicon Angle ☛ Proton debuts privacy-focused alternative to Google Docs and Microsoft Word that rejects AI assistance

    This means that, in theory, Proton Drive documents cannot be used to train generative artificial intelligence models, and they cannot be exposed in any data breach that impacts user’s computer systems. Users can share documents by adding their colleagues or friends’ email address, and they have the option to revoke their permissions at any time. However, collaborative work is possible only if others also have a Proton account.

  • Baldur Bjarnason ☛ AI and Asbestos: the offset and trade-off models for large-scale risks are inherently harmful

    “AI ethicists are speaking out, but are we listening?”

    Well, yes and no. People are listening, but many in tech aren’t. All too many think they can cherry-pick “just the good stuff” without contributing to the massive harms, but they can’t and they are.

    Our societies keep taking incredibly destructive actions and the people who enable them generally rationalise them using one of two strategies.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Army faces data overload but LLMs are not the answer

    “Ninety percent of the time, don’t do it. It’s the easy button. But using [large language models] like Chat GPT or Gemini — that is boiling the ocean to make yourself a cup of coffee. You don’t have the compute resources to run effective LLMs down at the tactical edge,” Stephen Riley, who is part of the Army engineering team at Google, said during an Association of the U.S. Army event Tuesday.

  • EDRI ☛ Actionable Insights: Seeding Our Way Forward in AI

    The 48th annual AAAS Science & Technology Policy Forum will gather in person on Friday, July 12, in Washington, DC, to host a dynamic discussion that not only highlights the complexities of Hey Hi (AI) policy but also sparks innovative approaches to address them.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Chinese Hey Hi (AI) firms mixing different GPUs inside individual Hey Hi (AI) servers to combat GPU shortages from US sanctions

    Chinese tech companies are finding ways to combine GPUs from different vendors to help alleviate the Hey Hi (AI) GPU shortage caused by American sanctions.

  • Hackaday ☛ Peering Into The Black Box Of Large Language Models

    Large Language Models (LLMs) can produce extremely human-like communication, but their inner workings are something of a mystery. Not a mystery in the sense that we don’t know how an LLM works, but a mystery in the sense that the exact process of turning a particular input into a particular output is something of a black box.

  • Forbes ☛ Has Microsoft’s Hey Hi (AI) Chief Just Made backdoored Windows Free?

    Content that has been posted on the open web should be treated as “freeware”, according to Microsoft’s Hey Hi (AI) chief.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ OpenText announces job cuts and reinvestment strategy under new plan

    Enterprise software provider OpenText Corp. announced today in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it plans to cut 1,200 jobs as part of a business optimization plan aimed at saving the company $200 million per year.

  • JURIST ☛ UN General Assembly adopts draft resolution to bridge Hey Hi (AI) gap for developing countries

    The 78th Session of the UN General Assembly on Monday adopted a draft resolution “Enhancing international cooperation on capacity-building of artificial intelligence” (A/78/L.86). 

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Clownflare rolls out feature for blocking Hey Hi (AI) companies’ web scrapers

    Clownflare Inc. today debuted a new no-code feature for preventing artificial intelligence developers from scraping website content. The capability is available as part of the company’s flagship CDN, or content delivery network. The platform is used by a sizable percentage of the world’s websites to speed up page loading times for users.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Alphabet shuts down agricultural Hey Hi (AI) robot startup Mineral, licenses part to Driscoll’s

    Google LLC parent Alphabet Inc. is shutting down its moonshot technology agricultural artificial intelligence robot startup Mineral today and licensing some of its assets to berry producer Driscoll’s Inc. Mineral launched as a division of Alphabet’s moonshot technology lab, X, in 2020 with the vision that it would use Hey Hi (AI) and robotic “buggies”...

    [...]

    Mineral proposes to use sustainable hardware, such as solar panels, to power a roving robot that uses cameras and machine learning algorithms to patrol a crop field and autonomously scan plants. The sensors, in conjunction with external data, such as satellite, weather and soil data, the buggy’s AI can identify plant patterns and potential issues with crops to better inform farmers about their harvests.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Straits Times ☛ Australia spy agency moves intelligence data to cloud in Amazon deal

      SYDNEY - Australia will move its top secret intelligence data to the clown under a A$2 billion deal with Amazon Web Services that Defence Minister Richard Marles said would boost defence force interoperability with the United States.

    • Futurism ☛ Elderly Florida Man Arrested for Shooting Walmart Delivery Drone

      "A bullet hole was discovered in the payload the drone was carrying," reads a Facebook update by the police department. "Witnesses identified the defendant, Dennis Winn, and directed deputies to his residence, the incident location."

      Winn, who reportedly believed he was being surveilled by the drone, is facing a number of charges including shooting at an aircraft, criminal mischief, and discharging a firearm on public or residential property, according to the sheriff's office.

    • Techdirt ☛ Baltimore PD Said It Would Stop Scraping Phones With Cellebrite Following A Court Ruling But It Kinda Looks Like It Never Really Did

      The records obtained by Philip Glaser (referenced in Petti’s report) seem to indicate the PD was never serious about complying with the court order.

      But it’s not as though the court order was vague. And it certainly wasn’t as vague as the warrants being crafted by PD investigators. The coverage of this decision starts far too optimistically before it gets to the specifics of the order itself.

    • The Register UK ☛ Meta banned from training its AI using Brazilians' data

      The National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) issued what it described today as a "preventative measure" that would immediately suspend changes made last month to Meta's privacy policy that added the company's AI training to its explanation of how it processes user data.

      "After a preliminary analysis, given the risk of serious and difficult-to-repair harm to users, the Authority provisionally ordered the suspension of the privacy policy and the processing operation," the ANPD said in a notice we automatically translated from Portuguese to English.

    • Seth Godin ☛ Cat and mouse games | Seth's Blog

      We’re inconsistent about how we interpret freedom and responsibility. The status quo gets the benefit of the doubt, simply because it’s what we’re used to.

      Freedom’s fabulous, but as soon as we interact with others, it comes with responsibility.

    • Wired ☛ How Apple Intelligence’s Privacy Stacks Up Against Android’s ‘Hybrid AI’

      With PCC, Apple has designed “a new end-to-end AI architecture” and “a private cloud enclave extension of a user's iPhone,” allowing more control over data, says Zak Doffman, CEO of Digital Barriers, which specializes in real-time surveillance video storage and analysis.

      In practice, this means Apple can mask the origin of AI prompts and prevent anyone, including the iPhone maker itself, from accessing your data. “In theory, this is as close to end-to-end encryption for cloud AI as you can get,” Doffman says.

    • Tracy Durnell ☛ Finding common ground

      What if we could have turned these vaccine passport fearmongers, who correctly identified the dangers of a surveillance state, onto a more useful strain of thought? What if we could have directed that energy towards productive action instead? They were focused on stopping something they perceived as bad, but what if we proactively pursued getting more consumer data protections and regulated the government spying on its citizens (sorely overdue). Point towards achieving a positive outcome rather than preventing a negative one.

    • JURIST ☛ US Supreme Court agrees to hear challenge to Texas pornography age verification requirement

      Texas Bill 1181, which was passed in September 2023, requires age verification measures to be used by websites that host sexually explicit material if it comprises at least one-third of the website’s content. Acceptable age verification methods include providing digital identification such as a state ID or driver’s license or using a commercial age verification system.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Defence Web ☛ SANDF soldiers curb contraband pipelines

    South African National Defence Force (SANDF) soldiers deployed along South Africa’s land borders with Lesotho and Zimbabwe had their hands full preventing over R10 million worth of contraband from reaching largely unregulated markets in and around major population concentrations in June.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Fact Check: NYPD Commissioner’s Response to Story About Him Burying Police Brutality Cases

    New York Police Commissioner Edward Caban on Tuesday evening issued a five-page statement defending how he has handled officer discipline in the year since he was appointed to lead the department.

    The statement, posted on the social media platform X, came in response to a story published last week by ProPublica and The New York Times that detailed how Caban has buried dozens of cases of alleged police misconduct involving officers accused of, among other things, wrongly using chokeholds, deploying Tasers and beating protesters with batons. Some episodes were so serious that a police oversight agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, concluded the officers likely committed crimes.

  • RFA ☛ Police host activities for Uyghurs in Xinjiang on Islamic holiday

    Their aim was to promote the Sinicization of the Muslim group, observers say.

  • New York Times ☛ China Seizes Taiwanese Fishing Boat As Tensions Rise

    The authorities in Taipei have demanded that Beijing release the boat and its five crew members, who are being held in custody.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China’s seizure of trawler may be act of psychological warfare, says Taiwan

    China has seized Taiwanese trawlers before for illegal fishing but released them after a fine was paid.

  • RFA ☛ China coast guard seizes Taiwan fishing boat near Kinmen

    Taiwan asks China to release its fishing vessel seized on Tuesday amid tensions in Taiwan Strait.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China urged to release fishing boat carrying 5 crew seized off Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands

    Taiwan has called on China to release a fishing boat carrying five people that it said was seized by the Chinese coast guard in waters near Taiwanese outlying islands.

  • RFA ☛ US aims to ‘disrupt’ Chinese spy station in Cuba

    CSIS report says Cuba let China build a spy base capable of monitoring US air and maritime traffic.

  • RFA ☛ China closes 2 Tibetan monastery schools, sends novices to state boarding schools

    The move is aimed at making Tibetans more loyal to China than to Buddhism, experts say.

    [...]

    Chinese authorities have closed Buddhist schools at two monasteries in Tibetan-populated areas of western China and forced hundreds of novice monks to attend state-run boarding schools that teach a curriculum in Mandarin, Tibetans with knowledge of the situation said.

  • RFA ☛ Rice crisis triggers arrests, market upheaval in Myanmar

    The country saw a 45% rise in rice prices in 2022, amid inflation, a weak kyat, and rising fuel costs.

  • The Strategist ☛ Strategy, means, time: the race to defend Australia

    CIA Director William Burns said on 2 February 2023 that the CIA knew ‘as a matter of intelligence’ that President Pooh-tin had ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to conduct an invasion [...]

  • USMC ☛ ‘Toxic’ politics increase terrorism, extremism risk, DHS official says

    Nicholas Rasmussen, the DHS counterterrorism coordinator, blamed prominent voices in the political arena that frame politics as zero-sum, encouraging the belief that one political party’s gain is the other’s loss.

    That type of framing leads to extreme political views, some of which gain footing among military and veteran communities, and increases the chance that people will be prompted to commit violence, Rasmussen said. The DHS labels that type of threat as domestic violent extremism.

  • [Repeat] ADF ☛ Boko Haram Regroups, Inflicts ‘Abject Misery’ in Niger State

    Witnesses in the town of Bassa said Boko Haram fighters attacked in broad daylight on June 6, shot the victims at close range and beheaded 10 of them. Residents were forced to hold the severed heads as the terrorists took pictures and made video recordings.

    “They told us that anybody who refused to be recruited into their fold would be given a similar treatment,” an anonymous witness told Nigeria’s Premium Times online newspaper. “They said they used the 10 beheaded youths as an example. They said they had warned us that everybody should vacate the community but that we refused. It’s either we join them, or we leave the community.”

  • ACLU ☛ Supreme Court Grants Trump, Future Presidents a Loaded Weapon to Break the Law

    Before Trump, no one had even argued that presidents are absolutely immune from criminal liability after they leave office. Indeed, every president – including Trump himself – assumed the opposite. In his impeachment trial Trump’s lawyers argued against impeachment by conceding that an acquittal would not be the end of potential accountability, because he could be criminally prosecuted after he left office. That concession was in line with all prior presidents’ acceptance that the United States is a place where all citizens, including the president, are equal under the law.

    No more. In Trump v. United States, the court’s Republican-appointed justices — including the three Trump appointees — announced a brand new constitutional immunity from criminal liability for presidents’ “official acts,” or anything a president may do using the powers of the office. The court’s decision ensures that future presidents — including Trump himself should he win reelection in November — will know that they can escape criminal accountability for blatantly criminal acts, no matter how corrupt. Even acts that strike at the heart of our democracy, like resisting the peaceful transition of power, could not be prosecuted.

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ Veterans urge Mainers to discuss January 6 on July 4

    For these reasons we have forged a coalition of veterans from different political parties and diverse backgrounds. Our mission is to ask Democrats, Republicans and Independents for a simple pledge – renounce violence this election cycle and honor the 2024 election results.

    In Maine, our organizations have almost 500 members combined. We veterans comprise about 7% of the state overall and are a force at the polls. We and our military families seek a commander in chief who is guided by humanitarian values and who will have a steady hand at the helm.

    In late May in North Carolina, which houses America’s largest military base, we attended the Republican state convention where GOP leaders were echoing Trump by promoting violence on the campaign trail, in addition to dismissing the 2020 results. When we requested that they consider our pledge, they threw us out.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China’s Pooh-tin Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin vie for influence at Central Asian summit

      The leaders of Russia and China were in Kazakhstan on Wednesday for a regional summit, seeking to harden anti-Western alliances and press their influence in the strategic Central Asian region. Russian President Vladimir Putin touched down in the Kazakh capital of Astana Wednesday morning for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) — a […]

    • RFERL ☛ Xi, Putin Kick Off SCO Summit In Kazakhstan With Belarus Set To Join

      The expected expansion of the club of Eurasian countries is part of another push from Beijing and Moscow to use the regional security bloc as a counterweight to promote alternatives to the Western institutions that make up the U.S.-led world order.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Putin meets Pooh-tin for second time since May as leaders hail ties

      Russo-Chinese ties “are at their best in history”, the Russian President said.

    • CS Monitor ☛ Putin and Pooh-tin are meeting again in Central Asia Summit. What does their growing alliance mean?

      Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Pooh-tin Jinping are set to meet in Kazakhstan July 3 and 4 as part of an international group to counter Western alliances.

    • New York Times ☛ How China and Russia Compete, and Cooperate, in Central Asia

      China’s leader, Pooh-tin Jinping, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia are courting regional leaders and pushing an alternative to the U.S.-led order.

    • Meduza ☛ Welcome to the Union of Republics of Russia A group of Russian researchers have proposed a new constitution for the post-Putin era. Meduza breaks down its key points. — Meduza

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Off Guardian ☛ Julian Assange – Do the trusting fall?

    In recent years the lockdowns, mandates, and toxic injections, have served to reveal the true nature of people in positions of influence. Before 2020 we had a different measure of people’s ethical standing -the 9/11 litmus test.

  • Yilei Yang ☛ PIN Analysis

    This clearly explains the lower left corner where, if you look at the heatmap, there is a huge contrast change at the height of around 30-31 (the number of days in a month), extending to 12 on the x-axis. (Thanks to zero79 for first pointing this out).

• Environment

  • Science Alert ☛ Hurricane Beryl a Stark Warning of Things to Come as Our Planet Heats Up

  • The Straits Times ☛ China's weather authority warns of high summer temperatures

    BEIJING - China's weather authority said on Thursday that it expects temperatures in most areas across China to be relatively high over the next few months, signalling another summer of extreme heat.

  • Futurism ☛ Google Is Failing to Meet Important Climate Targets so Its AI Can Tell You to Put Glue on Pizza

    Per the AP, Google's 2023 carbon emissions saw a year-over-year increase of a staggering 13 percent from the previous year and 49 percent from 2019, with Google citing its AI efforts as the driving force behind the shift.

    Though AI's energy demands remain mostly invisible to the public eye, it's an incredibly resource-intensive field. AI models practically guzzle energy — one search on OpenAI's ChatGPT, for example, is estimated to be equivalent to that of ten Google searches — by putting heavy stress on the data centers needed to keep the models running. The servers at said data centers also run the risk of overheating, meaning that companies like Google and Microsoft often need to use water to cool them back down. (Both Google and Microsoft use an air-cooling system so long as outside temperatures stay below a certain heat threshold, but in a warming world, there are and will continue to be a lot of hot days.)

  • EcoWatch ☛ AI Energy Demand Drives Google’s Emissions Up 48% in Five Years

    Google’s goal of lowering its carbon footprint is in trouble as the technology company’s energy consumption has increased due to the amount of power needed for artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.

    According to the internet giant’s annual environmental report, its greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 13 percent in the past year, due mostly to the AI data centers and supply chains, reported The Guardian. The report said its 2023 emissions had reached 14.3 metric tons.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Google’s emissions climb nearly 50% in five years due to AI energy demand

    Google’s goal of reducing its climate footprint is in jeopardy as it relies on more and more energy-hungry data centres to power its new artificial intelligence products. The tech giant revealed Tuesday that its greenhouse gas emissions have climbed 48% over the past five years.

    Google said electricity consumption by data centres and supply chain emissions were the primary cause of the increase. It also revealed in its annual environmental report that its emissions in 2023 had risen 13% compared with the previous year, hitting 14.3m metric tons.

  • Jason Becker ☛ Some stats from 10 years of tracking flying

    2016 was the peek of my flying at 72 total flights. Unsurprisingly, 2020 was the year I flew the least– though I still managed to take 8 flights before the COVID lockdowns and by 2021 I took 24 flights.

    My longest flight was JFK (New York) to TPE (Taipei) clocking in at 7,794 miles.

    My average flight time was just 2 hours and 26 minutes– I suspect this is so low because of the amount of Providence to Baltimore and back flights I’ve done, as well as quite a few Baltimore to Midway (Chicago).

  • Deseret Media ☛ The West is sizzling under extreme heat, bracing for the threat of more fires in California

    The Thompson Fire has consumed over 3,500 acres in California's Butte County since it was reported Tuesday, drawing hundreds of firefighters to battle the flames under the extreme heat in the Oroville, California, area. Evacuation orders affected an estimated 26,000 residents, according to the Associated Press. As of Thursday morning, the fire is 7% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Norway could lead the fight against plastic pollution

    Action against plastic pollution is finally gaining momentum as nations negotiate an internationally legally binding instrument for limiting plastic pollution.

    By co-chairing the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution together with Rwanda, Norway is setting the bar high.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Latvia ☛ Video: Lifeguards return people blown into sea to shore

      On Sunday, June 30, lifeguards from the Riga Municipal Police (RPP) Water Safety Department helped two people safely return to shore from the Gulf of Riga on Vecāķi beach after they had floated on an inflatable mattress behind the buoys enclosing the swimming area.

    • DeSmog ☛ Revealed: Hundreds of Ad Campaigns by Oil and Gas Companies Have Appeared on London Public Transport Since Mayor’s Carbon Zero Pledge

    • DeSmog ☛ Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage Spreads Climate Denial with Conspiracy Groups in Clacton-on-Sea

    • The Straits Times ☛ China's Pooh-tin greets EU Council president ahead of EV tariffs taking effect

      BEIJING - China's President Pooh-tin Jinping made a congratulatory call on Thursday to incoming European Council President Antonio Costa, Chinese state media said, a few hours before European Commission curbs on Chinese electric cars are scheduled to take effect.

    • DeSmog ☛ Canada Oil Companies Delete Carbon Capture Mentions on Websites Before New Regulations Kick in

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Caspian contributions to energy security in Europe

      This issue brief explores the potential for Caspian region fossil fuel developments to meet Europe's energy needs, considering regional factors and challenges.

    • The Register UK ☛ Datacenter demand driven by AI, squeezed by power shortages

      Power shortages appear to be a common theme, listed as the top concern for bit barn operators across all regions (North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific), while vacancy rates continue to decline across most global markets due to strong demand, the company says.

      Large corporations face increasing difficulties securing datacenter capacity, thanks to construction delays and power challenges impacting all markets, according to CBRE's latest report, while AI is expected to continue to drive demand in future.

    • The Register UK ☛ Utility firms protest AWS datacenter 'free rider' power deal

      Utility firms American Electric Power (AEP) and Exelon have filed an official objection with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) over Talen Energy's nuclear power deal with Amazon.

      Back in March, Amazon bought a nuclear-powered datacenter from Talen Energy – an operator of electricity generation and transmission facilities in the US. As part of the deal, Amazon would get 480 MW straight from the 2.7 GW Talen nuclear power plant that is sited on the banks of the Susquehanna river in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and may even be able to upgrade to 960 MW down the line.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Press Gazette ☛ Times turns off comments on its non-endorsement after reader backlash

    The Times has turned off comments under its leader article declaring it will not endorse a party in the 2024 general election after readers chastised the paper for fence-sitting.

    The paper of record declared on polling day that despite “a general desire to see the Conservatives gone” among the electorate, Labour’s lack of clarity over its plans for government meant it “cannot ­expect an endorsement”.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ GSA announces AI-themed hackathon

    This AI-themed hackathon, which is co-sponsored by OpenAI and Microsoft, will offer participants access to large language models, technologies to write code, features to increase the consistency of AI-made responses and more.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Fresh Microsoft layoffs reportedly hit product and project management roles

    Geekwire reported Wednesday that the layoffs have affected multiple teams and geographies. Posts on LinkedIn from affected employees show that the layoffs have hit those in product and program management roles.

  • Security Week ☛ California Advances Unique Safety Regulations for AI Companies Despite Tech Firm opposition

    California lawmakers voted to advance legislation Tuesday that would require artificial intelligence companies to test their systems and add safety measures to prevent them from being potentially manipulated to wipe out the state’s electric grid or help build chemical weapons — scenarios that experts say could be possible in the future as technology evolves at warp speed.

  • Federal News Network ☛ AI ‘expressions of interest’ flood into TMF Board

    The Technology Modernization Fund Board’s $18 million investment in the State Department’s generative artificial intelligence program is just scratching the surface.

    The board is expecting a rush of proposals for AI projects, particularly those that are under $6 million dollars or under 18 months in total length.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ To guard against cyberattacks in space, researchers ask 'what if?'

    If space systems such as GPS were hacked and knocked offline, much of the world would instantly be returned to the communications and navigation technologies of the 1950s. Yet space cybersecurity is largely invisible to the public at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong 47: Judges question integrity of ex-district councillor during mitigation hearing

    Judges overseeing Hong Kong’s largest national security case involving 47 pro-democracy figures convicted of conspiracy to subvert state power have challenged the integrity of one defendant, with a judge describing him as an “opportunist masquerading as a patriot.”

  • RFERL ☛ Kyrgyzstan Detains Illegal Migrants From Bangladesh

    Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security said on July 3 that border guards detained 11 citizens of Bangladesh for illegally crossing the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong passes bill giving gov’t appointees majority in social workers’ licensing body

    Hong Kong’s opposition-free legislature has passed a bill that gives government appointees a majority in the city’s social workers’ licensing body, a move that a top official said would help “protect the public’s interests and safeguard national security.” Lawmakers in the “patriots-only” Legislative Council echoed their support for the bill in a meeting on Wednesday.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Straits Times ☛ Is xenophobia on Chinese social control media teaching real-world hate?

      Some in China are questioning the role that online speech plays in inciting real-world violence.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Fact check: New fakes on Zelenskyy's purported wealth

      False evidence purporting to show that the president and first lady of Ukraine are living a lavish life and have amassed untold wealth — financed by corruption — regularly circulates online. The most recent of these claims suggests the couple bought one or two luxury sports cars from the Italian manufacturer Bugatti as gifts for themselves on a recent trip to Paris.

    • Press Gazette ☛ Stop and think before you share: Reach campaigns against election misinformation

      Whittington said: “Fake news, misinformation, and disinformation are on the rise” and added “when fake news stories are presented on social media as coming from a reputable brand, that can decrease trust in the brand itself.”

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Reason ☛ Andy Mills: Quitting The New York Times and Making The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling

    The podcasting pioneer discusses capturing the real J.K. Rowling, quitting The New York Times, and his new show Reflector.

  • JURIST ☛ US Supreme Court agrees to hear challenge to Texas pornography age verification requirement

    The US Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear a case challenging a Texas law that requires age verification and imposes health warnings for pornography websites.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Elderly Malaysian man operates mini libraries in a park

    Lee Kim Siew, 89, operates five mini outdoor library stations with over 30,000 books.

  • VOA News ☛ Turkey revokes radio station's license for discussing 'Armenian genocide'

    RTUK's decision to revoke the license of Acik Radyo, an Istanbul-based radio station that began broadcasting in 1995, came after a guest on April 24 made a statement on the Armenian genocide.

    "[Today is] the 109th anniversary, the anniversary of the massacres of Armenians, that is, the deportations and massacres that took place in the Ottoman lands, the massacres that are termed genocide," the guest said on air. "This year, the commemoration of the Armenian genocide was also banned, you know."

  • Cyble Inc ☛ Apple Removes VPN Apps From Russian App Store At Its Media Watchdogs Demands

    The deleted VPN apps belonging to ProtonVPN, Red Shield VPN, NordVPN, and Le VPN were popular tools used by Russians to bypass government-imposed internet censorship. Red Shield VPN and Le VPN confirmed the removals, sharing messages from Apple stating the apps were deleted per “demand from Roskomnadzor” for containing “content considered illegal in Russia.”

  • JURIST ☛ HRW urges UAE allies to break silence on mass trial of 84 political dissidents and activists:

    In December 2023, the UAE brought new charges against 84 activists and dissidents under its counterterrorism law. As confirmed by the Emirates News Agency (WAM), the UAE’s Attorney General referred the defendants to the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal for trial on charges of establishing a clandestine organisation for the purpose of committing acts of violence and terrorism on UAE soil.

    HRW argues the trial, the second largest in UAE’s history, has featured “allegations of ill-treatment that amount to torture, judges directing witness testimony … and hearings shrouded in secrecy.” Moreover, HRW said that the trial violates the principle of double jeopardy, which prevents a person from being tried two times for the same accusation, because some of the activists were already convicted in a 2013 mass trial.

  • JURIST ☛ Belarus free speech and judicial independence in peril: OSCE

    The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) released a press statement on Wednesday condemning the crackdown on free speech and free trial rights in Belarus in light of the convictions of 20 experts and analysts in absentia.

  • New York Times ☛ Saudi Arabia Sentences Producer to 13 Years in Prison Over Netflix Show

    As the head of an animation studio in Saudi Arabia, he signed a five-year deal with Netflix in 2020. A sardonic cartoon franchise that he helped create, “Masameer,” likened to a Saudi version of “South Park,” was soon streaming to audiences around the world. And as the conservative Islamic kingdom loosened up, Mr. Almuzaini was being publicly celebrated — as recently as a few months ago — as one of the homegrown talents shaping its nascent entertainment industry.

    Behind the scenes, though, he was on trial in an opaque national security court, as Saudi prosecutors — who accused him of promoting extremism through the cartoon series and social media posts — sought to ensure that he would spend the rest of his life in prison or under a travel ban.

  • JURIST ☛ Environmental activists sentenced in Cambodia for 'insulting the king'

    According to local media, Mother Nature co-founder Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson and activists Sun Ratha and Yim Leanghy will face eight years imprisonment and fines of ៛10,000,000 KHR (~$2,400 USD) on charges of “plotting” and lèse majesté (insulting the monarchy). Seven of those convicted received six years, having been convicted only of “plotting.”

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Over 500 ex-staff of defunct Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily may receive HK$49 million in back pay, court hears

    Hong Kong’s defunct newspaper Apple Daily, founded by jailed media mogul Jimmy Lai, may be able to pay HK$49 million to more than 500 former staff, a court has heard in a winding-up petition hearing.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Media watchdog Ad Fontes Media rates HKFP highly for reliability and political neutrality

    Hong Kong Free Press has been rated by Ad Fontes Media experts as providing reliable, factual reporting from a politically neutral perspective. HKFP scored 43.20 in terms of reliability and news value, similar to NPR, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, and slightly above Sky News, The Economist and the local South China Morning Post.

  • Press Gazette ☛ PR-journalists relations haven’t progressed in 50 years

    PR of 50 years "fully empathises" with Jay Rayner's frustrations about media relations.

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  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ “This is a rush job, as it needs to get out as soon as possible:” Jim Jordan-Led Investigation Discredits John Ratcliffe

    After years of trying to find a former spook he could accuse of politicizing intelligence on the federal dime, Jim Jordan finally found one: John Ratcliffe.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Veteran columnists making more money on Substack after local newspaper exits

    Bob Dunning and Wendy Weitzel suspect they are cutting sharply into their old paper's circulation.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Businessweek editor predicts print comeback as 120-page monthly edition launched

    Readers want long-reads and distraction-free luxury, says Brad Stone.

  • VOA News ☛ US citizen sentenced to 12 years in Russian prison

    Woodland joins a long line of Americans who have been arrested by Russia in recent years amid dwindling relations between the two nations. Washington has warned Americans in Russia to leave the country or risk wrongful detentions and harassment from Russia’s security services.

  • The Korea Times ☛ Korean president Yoon appoints former MBC journalist Lee Jin-sook as new broadcasting watchdog chief

    President Yoon Suk Yeol named Lee Jin-sook, a former journalist of public broadcaster MBC, as new chairman of the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), Yoon's chief of staff said Thursday.

    The appointment of Lee, who served as president of MBC's Daejeon branch, came three days after former KCC Chairman Kim Hong-il stepped down voluntarily ahead of an opposition-led parliamentary impeachment vote against him.

  • CPJ ☛ Three journalists disappear, 3 media outlets suspended in Burkina Faso

    At least three Burkinabe journalists in the capital, Ouagadougou, have separately disappeared under suspicious circumstances in June.

  • JURIST ☛ UN urges release of US journalist Evan Gershkovich detained in Russia

    The UN working group on arbitrary detention found that the detention was arbitrary on four grounds. First, the group emphasized the lack of legal basis which justifies the deprivation of his rights by the arrest and long-term detention. Second, his detention by Russia constituted the infringement of Gershkovich’s rights and liberty by regulating the freedom of speech, freedom of association and right to equal treatment under the law. Third, the panel added that he was detained not only for his journalistic actions but also on the grounds of his US nationality, which is explicitly discriminatory contrary to international human rights law. Lastly, the panel pointed out that the Russian authorities did not sufficiently guarantee his rights during the proceedings, including the right to a fair public hearing and trial, presumption of innocence and access to counsel.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • EDRI ☛ CPDP LatAm2024 – Digital Sovereignty in the G20

    This event aims at promoting a understanding better of the different facets withposing the digital sovereignty debate, from the perspective of G20 members. Panellists will interrogate multiple key issues that constitute the digital sovereignty concept, including cybersecurity, data, the use of data and digital technologies to foster individual national and self-determination, the development and implementation of digital public infrastructures, and the emerging weaponisation of digital technologies and data-related laws in a scenario of digital increasing cold war.

  • EDRI ☛ RigthsCon25

    Each edition of RightsCon convenes business leaders, policy makers, general counsels, government representatives, technologists, academics, journalists, and human rights advocates from around the world to tackle pressing issues at the intersection of human rights and technology.

  • EDRI ☛ Empowering people to flourish and thrive: A vision for our digital future

    Together, we can protect human rights, strengthen democracy, and reshape societal systems. Read about our commitment to empowering people to flourish and thrive, as part of our Vision for 2024 and beyond.

  • EDRI ☛ Wikimania 2024

    Every year, hundreds of Wikimedians come together to celebrate free knowledge at the annual Wikimania global conference. The 19th edition of Wikimania will happen in Katowice, Poland from 7–10 August as a partnership between Wikimedians of the Central and Eastern Europe region and the Wikimedia Foundation. It will host free knowledge leaders from around the world to discuss issues, report on new projects and approaches, build networks, and exchange ideas.

  • EDRI ☛ Glitter Meetup: What is happening in digital rights around the world?

    Come to share emerging and existing digital rights conversations happening around the world and in your region at this Glitter Meetup! There is something new, specific or special that you would like to bring to the technology and human rights table? Join us and let's talk about it!

  • EDRI ☛ 2024 Digital Rights Summer School!

    During the school, we’ll explore the impact of new technologies on human rights through lectures and talks by regional and international digital rights experts. You’ll take part in workshops and discussions on digital markets and online content regulation, information warfare, online harassment, AI-enabled surveillance and policing, while exploring their potential effects on regional affairs and strategies for advocacy.

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  • EDRI ☛ HOPE XV – The fifteenth Hackers On Planet Earth event

    This event promises to be memorable. It is open to all hackers, makers, tinkerers, experimenters, artists, educators and anyone else with an interest in exploring and improving the world we live in and sharing knowledge with others.

  • JURIST ☛ ACLU announces plans to safeguard DEI and anti-discrimination policies if Trump reelected

    The ACLU on Wednesday released its strategy to safeguard racial equality and civil rights in the US in the event Donald Trump is elected in November to another term as president.

  • Reason ☛ Lawsuit Against Kathy Griffin Alleging She Tweeted to Get Man Fired Can Go Forward

    A quick summary of the factual allegations: On April 24, 2021, Samuel Johnson sat down for dinner at a hotel in Franklin, Tennessee. Shortly after, a group of forty to fifty teenagers began taking prom pictures nearby.

  • Reason ☛ Judges Block Indiana and Mississippi Age Verification Laws for Porn, Social Media

    And the Supreme Court agrees to weigh in.

  • Reason ☛ Indian Students Who Enrolled in Fake University Run by ICE Can Sue the Government, Court Rules

    A federal appeals court ruled that the government is not immune from a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by foreign students duped into enrolling into a fake school run by ICE.

  • Public Knowledge ☛ Public Knowledge Condemns District Court Decision Restricting FTC Rulemaking and Enjoining Noncompete Ban

    Today, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that the Federal Trade Commission cannot “create substantive rules regarding unfair methods of competition” and enjoined the agency’s rule banning noncompete clauses in employment contracts for the named plaintiffs.

  • Tracy Durnell ☛ A better dream

    That would be a great starter set of human-centric, parent-friendly policies that we can model on existing policies in other countries. That means many international corporations already accommodate these policies in their branches in other locations. (My husband works with some Romanians and BOY does it sound like they have some good worker protections!)

  • India Times ☛ Microsoft settle California probe: Microsoft settles California probe over worker leave for $14 million

    The California Civil Rights Department in filings in state court accused the tech giant of retaliating against its California-based employees who used parental, disability, pregnancy and family-care leave since 2017 by denying them raises, promotions and stock awards.

  • Matt Birchler ☛ Don’t sleep on accessibility requirements

    I understand the instinct here, but the bad news is that doing this across the board on your site instantly makes your site non-compliant with one of the most basic level of WCAG accessibility. In short, there is a requirement that websites allow users to cancel accidental clicks, and triggering an action on mouse down removes that ability. This can be an issue for people who have trouble with fine motor skills and it’s an issue for literally anyone who accidentally clicks the wrong thing, and realizes it before they let go of the mouse (you know you’ve done it).

  • Nebraska Examiner ☛ Freedom isn’t free

    These men and women push past the inertia of the ordinary to grab an ideal that seems impossible.

    If we can celebrate a free society on Thursday, it’s not because of centuries-old philosophers or decades-old battles. It’s because Americans who were not free took risks and made sacrifices that lifted this nation higher than it was before.

  • The Nation ☛ “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” by Frederick Douglass

    This is the perfect time to read the entirety of Frederick Douglass’s famous speech, and not merely because of the date on the calendar.

  • NPR ☛ Federal judge partially blocks U.S. ban on noncompetes

    A federal court in Texas has partially blocked the government’s ban on noncompete agreements that was set to take effect September 4.

  • US News And World Report ☛ US Judge Partially Blocks FTC Ban on Worker Noncompete Agreements

    About 30 million people, or 20% of U.S. workers, have signed noncompetes, according to the FTC.

    Brown, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump, blocked the FTC from enforcing the rule against a coalition of business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country's largest business lobby, and tax service firm Ryan, pending the outcome of their consolidated lawsuits.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ Where did DNSSEC go wrong?

    DNSSEC’s architecture was originally laid down in the 1990s. The Internet was still in its ‘best effort’ era, connected hosts and protocols were insecure, and there were few best practices for countering and recovering from malicious activity. While the DNS namespace had begun to take shape, there was no significant commercial hosting or provisioning at the time. Tool-wise, there was only one dominant open source platform available.

    DNSSEC began with three technical objectives to protect data as the data flowed through the DNS system: [...]

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ TTAB Posts July 2024 Hearing Schedule

    The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (Tee-Tee-Ā-Bee) has scheduled five (5) oral hearings for the month of July 2024. The hearings will be held virtually, except for the first one, which will be held in-person at the USPTO's Madison East Building in Alexandria, Virginia. Briefs and other papers for each case may be found at TTABVUE via the links provided.

    
    

    July 9, 2024 - 11 AM (In person at the USPTO): Paradise Holdings, Inc. v. Neo Nyc inc., Cancellation No. 92078182 [Petition for cancellation of a registration for SEASPICE RESORT WEAR & Design (shown below) for "Bottoms as clothing for pants, shorts, skirts, mini skirts; Tops as clothing for shirts, dresses, pullovers, coverups, rompers" on the ground of likelihood of confusion with petitioner's common law rights to the mark SEASPICE for various clothing items.]

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Warner Music Warns AI Companies About Unlicensed Training

    Digging into WMG’s straightforward “statement regarding AI technologies,” the major label began by reiterating the relative high points for artists before emphasizing a need to “respect the rights of all those involved in the creation, marketing, promotion, and distribution of music.”

  • Macworld ☛ AI tool to generate app designs pulled after it's caught copying Apple's work

    As pointed out on X, Make Design creates mockups that look exactly like Apple apps. In one example, a weather app submitted to Make Design resulted in a mockup that looks so much like Apple’s Weather app that it’s hard to tell the difference.

  • TechCrunch ☛ Figma disables its AI design feature that appeared to be ripping off Apple's Weather app

    Allen’s discovery that Figma essentially seemed to be copying other apps led to increased concern among the design community.