Leftovers

• Robin Rendle ☛ Coming home

  Yes, yes, yes! Websites have always been tiny mutinies, perfectly designed for rebellion! In these spaces we design the rules, we set the agenda. But perhaps what makes Mandy’s post so interesting to me is when she writes about difficulty. Often we want websites to be easy; we compare different content management systems and publishing workflows, we talk about how—with just a click!—a website can be made.

• Lou Plummer ☛ Family Ties

  The hardest part of being at this stage of life is watching my parents, aunts, and uncles age. Luckily, almost all of my parents' generation is still with us, but they have the kinds of health issues that arise as you approach your 70s and 80s. My parents had me when they were young, so there has never been a big age gap between their generation and mine. They've always seemed young until, boom, one day I looked up and I'm almost 60, and some of them are using canes and walkers. I'm not estranged from a single one of them. Luckily, even in a time when the weird U.S. political situation is causing irreconcilable differences in some families, ours still puts blood above politics.

• Lee Peterson ☛ Sometimes it takes just one random post to grow your blog

  This is my traffic over the last year, it’s up 6x and quite a large part of that is due to one single post.

• Matt Birchler ☛ You never know what’s going to hit

  I’d also be careful not to get “views” twisted with “readership”. The vast majority of people who find that page are coming from Google and they never read anything else after that. Meanwhile, building up a body of work that I can be proud of and that is interesting to others, while also participating in a positive way in the online community I’m a part of, have both gone further to grow whatever reach and influence I have today. This post itself will likely do very small numbers compared to some other posts, but it’s another brick in the wall, and those bricks add up over time.

• Science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Cyborg: A Documentary – new film about first upgraded human asks whether we should just because we can

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] Astronomers can’t agree on how fast the universe is expanding. New approaches are aiming to break the impasse

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-23 [Older] The science of polarisation: our model shows what happens when political opponents lose their personal connection

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-23 [Older] Graphene at 20: still no sign of the promised space elevator, but here’s how this wonder material is quietly changing the world

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] Ancient DNA helped us uncover the Iberian lynx’s potential secret weapon against extinction

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] Sexual fantasies: should you share them with a partner?

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] The universe is smoother than the standard model of cosmology suggests – so is the theory broken?

  • Wired ☛ An International Space Station Leak Is Getting Worse—and Keeping NASA Up at Night

    Russian and US officials have known that this small PrK module, which lies between a Progress spacecraft airlock and the Zvezda module, has been leaking since September 2019. A new report, published Thursday by NASA's inspector general, provides details not previously released by the space agency that underline the severity of the problem.

  • Techdirt ☛ Low Orbit Satellite Companies Respond To Scientists’ Concerns About Light And Environmental Pollution With Even Bigger, Brighter Satellites

    Scientists say that low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations being built by Amazon, Starlink, and AT&T pose a dire threat to astronomy and scientific research, and that too little is being done to address the issue.

    Back in 2022, scientists declared Starlink satellite constellations an “existential threat for astronomy,” noting that the reflection and light pollution (Musk claimed would never happen in the first place) is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but never fully eliminated. That’s bad.

  • Futurism ☛ NASA Inspector Issues Warning About Growing Cracks Leaking Air From Space Station

    According to a new report by NASA's inspector general, the space agency is growing significantly concerned over leaks in a tunnel connecting the International Space Station's Russian segment to a docking port.

  • LabX Media Group ☛ Scientists Unearth the Oldest DNA Ever Found

    DNA fragments recovered from an ice sheet in northern Greenland represent the oldest DNA ever found, a group of Danish scientists reported December 7, 2022 in Nature. The team dated the samples to around 2.4 million years ago, making the DNA sequenced nearly twice the age of the previously oldest DNA, which was recovered from a Siberian mammoth bone.

• Education

  • Jacky Alciné ☛ My Mumblings on Reading, Writing and the Field of Literature with Media

    There was a post on Instagram that Dexter made that truly sparked this. More people in my generation and younger (so those who are at most 31 and younger - the youngest end of the "millennials" and the "elder Gen Z" community) do not use long form reading as a primary vector of information discovery. In fact, his prediction was that it'd turn into a "luxury" for those who have time to read. This makes sense given the increasing course work students have, the amount of work outside of school that they have take on (thinking of my own family in this case) and how very little institutional efforts have been made to encourage reading as a means of discovery. It's not to say that reading is more important than anything else. It's also not to demean other forms of storytelling - it's not the oldest by far. It makes things like Reading Rainbow seem like a form of nostalgia for folks. There's a moment before James Baldwin visited the Nation of Islam for the first time that I think about a lot about those who acquire books for entertainment and not for growth:

  • Futurism ☛ Berkeley Coding Professor Says Even Grads With 4.0 GPA Can't Find Jobs

    "Previously, a Berkeley [computer science] graduate, even if not a top student, would receive multiple appealing job offers in terms of work type, location, salary, and employer," the professor and 2015 Academy Award winner for technological achievement wrote. "However, outstanding students, like those with a 4.0 in-major GPA, are now contacting me worried because they have zero offers."

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Workplace Stress Triggers: How to Spot Them, How to Cope

  • Pro Publica ☛ Maylia and Jack: A Story of Teens and Fentanyl

    Maylia Sotelo arrived in a black Cadillac. It pulled down an alley by the Fox River, which cuts through the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin. On that Tuesday evening in November 2022, she stepped out of a rear door and into another car. Maylia was 15 years old and slight, with a soft, girlish face and large, upturned eyes. For $50, she sold a man five “blues,” round pills stamped with “M30” that passed for Percocet. Narcotics investigators from the Brown County Drug Task Force were listening over a wire and, within minutes, their informant turned over his buy. Like every fake Percocet the task force seized that year, the pills were actually fentanyl. The officers, though, decided to let Maylia leave.

    Maylia was comfortable around the business of drugs. Her childhood home had been a hangout for users and dealers; hollowed-out pens littered the floors, and strange men let themselves in at all hours. She had grown up with three older sisters, who had all been kicked out or left because of their mother’s violence. It fell to Maylia to protect Maliasyn, two years younger, from their mom’s unpredictable delusions. She would lose herself in uppers and opioids, start yelling out of nowhere or cry uncontrollably. Sometimes, she locked the girls in the house for days.

  • Mandy Brown ☛ Coming home

    To step into the stream of any social network, to become immersed in the news, reactions, rage and hopes, the marketing and psyops, the funny jokes and clever memes, the earnest requests for mutual aid, for sign ups, for jobs, the clap backs and the call outs, the warnings and invitations—it can feel like a kind of madness. It’s unsettling, in the way that sediment is unsettled by water, lifted up and tossed around, scattered about. A pebble goes wherever the river sends it, worn down and smoothed day after day until all that’s left is sand.

  • Futurism ☛ Medical AI Caught Telling Dangerous Lie About Patient's Medical Record

    And while "hallucinations" — a conveniently anthropomorphizing word used by AI companies to denote bullshit dreamed up by their AI chatbots — aren't a huge deal when, say, a student gets caught with wrong answers in their assignment, the stakes are a lot higher when it comes to medical advice.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • International Business Times ☛ 'Lazy and Mediocre' HR Team Fired After Manager's Own CV Gets Auto-Rejected in Seconds, Exposing System Failure

    An entire HR team was terminated after their manager discovered and confirmed that their system automatically rejected all candidates - including his own application.

    It's no secret that the job market has become increasingly competitive and the job search process can be daunting. Many applicants send out numerous applications without receiving a response unless they have connections who can help them secure a job.

  • Nick Heer ☛ Guided by Vices

    Perhaps this is appealing to you, but I find this revolting. Meta’s superficially appealing generated images have no place in my Instagram feed; they do not reflect how I actually want to use Instagram at all.

    Decisions like these have infected the biggest platforms in various ways, which explains why I cannot stand to use most of them any longer. The one notable asterisk is YouTube which, as of last year, allows you to hide suggested videos on the homepage, which also turns off Shorts’ infinite scrolling. However, every video page still contains suggestions for what you should watch next. Each additional minute of your time is never enough for any of these platforms; they always want the minute after that, too.

  • Murtuzaali Surti ☛ Better - An AI powered Code Reviewer

    Code reviews have always been crucial in maintaining a standard and emphasizing on the best practices of code in a project. This is not a post about how developers should review the code, it's more about delegating a part of it to AI.

  • Greg Morris ☛ The Social Media End Times

    In their never-ending pursuit of more engagement, Meta will begin showing AI slop in your Facebook and Instagram feed. That’s right, instead of actually showing you the reason you use social media — the people you follow — Meta have run out of engagement bait posts from strangers and are now going to just make everything up.

  • Daniel Miessler ☛ Policy, SOPs, and AI Are All You Need

    Everything else becomes the execution and implementation of those ideas.

  • New York Times ☛ That Message From Your Doctor? It May Have Been Drafted by A.I.

    Many patients receiving those replies have no idea that they were written with the help of artificial intelligence. In interviews, officials at several health systems using MyChart’s tool acknowledged that they do not disclose that the messages contain A.I.-generated content.

    The trend troubles some experts who worry that doctors may not be vigilant enough to catch potentially dangerous errors in medically significant messages drafted by A.I.

  • Adnan Siddiqi ☛ Introduction to prompt engineering

    The only way we can interact with an LLM model is by passing an instruction to retrieve a response. That instruction is called a prompt. In this post, we are going to discuss what a prompt is and what prompt engineering entails

  • Howard Oakley ☛ Which disk format?

    macOS supports several different disk formats, each of which has its purposes. This article explains which to choose from those you can create by formatting a disk in Sequoia. macOS also supports some other formats like NTFS for reading only, which I won’t cover here.

  • Activision Blizzard to Lay Off Hundreds of Workers Across California

    Activision Blizzard Inc. will soon lay off nearly 400 employees across its mobile gaming divisions in Santa Monica and Irvine. This decision comes in response to last year’s $75.4 billion merger with Microsoft Corp., as the company seeks to eliminate redundancies. The layoffs add to the 1,003 positions cut by Activision over the past year, affecting operations from Novato and Foster City in Northern California to Southern California offices, as reported in state filings with the Employment Development Department (EDD).

  • More Details For Recent Microsoft Layoffs Reveals Team Overwatch 2 And Diablo 4 Got Struck The Hardest

    The gaming industry has changed drastically in the past decade and it’s not a secret that it is not in its best state right now. This year Microsoft has gotten rid of a large chunk of its employees and they are continuing to do so as Activision Blizzard will start laying off employees at its Irvine, Santa Monica, and Playa Vista locations.

  • TechStory Media ☛ Activision Blizzard to Lay Off Hundreds in Irvine and Santa Monica

    Video game giant Activision Blizzard, owned by Microsoft, is set to lay off hundreds of employees across its Irvine and Santa Monica locations. This comes as part of broader cost-cutting measures within Microsoft’s gaming division. The layoffs will begin next month and are expected to continue through the end of the year, affecting a total of nearly 400 employees. The move follows Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2023, a historic deal that has been under intense scrutiny by regulators and the gaming community alike.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Security Week ☛ Controversial Windows Recall AI Search Tool Returns With Proof-of-Presence Encryption, Data Isolation

      Three months after pulling previews of the controversial Windows Recall feature due to public backlash, Microsoft says it has completely overhauled the security architecture with proof-of-presence encryption, anti-tampering and DLP checks, and screenshot data managed in secure enclaves outside the main operating system.

    • The Washington Post ☛ Google and Apple are withholding this easy privacy setting from you

      A proposed add-on to California’s privacy laws would have forced Google and Apple to give you this option. The companies didn’t want it, and the legislation died last week.

      The absence of this simple setting in technologies used by most Americans shows Big Tech’s influence over your privacy. Even when you have the legal power to protect your data, Silicon Valley giants still decide whether it’s easy or hard to exercise those rights.

    • US News And World Report ☛ California Governor Vetoes Bill Requiring Speeding Alerts in New Cars

      The legislation would have likely impacted all new car sales in the U.S., since the California market is so large that car manufacturers would likely just make all of their vehicles comply.

• Defence/Aggression

  • International Business Times ☛ 2024-09-23 [Older] Survey Shows Americans Trust Amazon And TikTok More Than Elon Musk's X And The US Government

  • CBC ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] Smugglers are advertising illegal Canada-U.S. border crossings on TikTok

  • Vox ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] How Minion Jesus died — and then rose — on TikTok [Ed: Rewarding people for stupid things and actions that harm the West]

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-23 [Older] Sudan crisis: Threat to culture 'unprecedented,' UNESCO says

  • The Record ☛ GCHQ: Lawyers don’t undermine cyber capabilities, they underpin them

    Senior officials at Britain’s cyber and signals intelligence agency GCHQ published a rare article on Thursday defending the role of lawyers and legal frameworks for cyber operations amid an ongoing discussion about whether existing laws are providing an advantage to the West’s adversaries.

  • Don Marti ☛ Scam culture is everywhere

    Just looking a recent news and how much of it is about surprisingly low-reputation decisions by surprisingly high-status business decision-makers. The big-picture trend that helps explain a lot of technology trends news is the ongoing collapse of business norms. Scam culture is getting mainstreamed faster than ever. Lots of related stories…

  • VOA News ☛ 9 die in migrant boat shipwreck off Spanish island; 48 missing

    Thousands of migrants have died in recent years setting off into the Atlantic to reach Europe onboard overcrowded and often dilapidated boats.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] Russia Seeks Indivisible Working Relationship With IMF

    • CBC ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] Kamala Harris slams 'dangerous and unacceptable' calls for Ukraine to cede land to Russia

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] US, EU, Ukraine slam Russia's nuclear deterrence doctrine

    • The Age AU ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] Russia has secret war drones project in China, intel sources say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] Russian Attack Kills One in Ukraine's Kherson, Hits Houses Near Kharkiv

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] Russia's Lavrov Says North Korea's Nuclear Status Is a 'Closed Issue'

    • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2024-09-25 [Older] Denmark leads EU strategy to reinvest frozen Russian assets in Ukrainian defence

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-25 [Older] Russia: Putin calls for new nuclear deterrence doctrine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-25 [Older] Putin Lowers Threshold of Nuclear Response as He Issues New Warnings to the West Over Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-25 [Older] Putin Issues Nuclear Warning to the West Over Strikes on Russia From Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-25 [Older] Russian Guided Bombs Kill Two, Injure 12 in Ukraine's Kramatorsk

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-25 [Older] Ukraine Urges World Leaders Not to Seek 'Lull' in Russia's War Instead of True Peace

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-25 [Older] US Concerned by Report on Russia Secret War Drones Project in China, White House Says

    • CBC ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] Canada considering following U.S. in banning vehicle software and hardware from China, Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] TikTok Removes Russian State Media Accounts for 'Covert Influence Operations' Ahead of US Election

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] EU, Allies Look to Strengthen Russian Oil Price Cap, EU Commission Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] Lula at UN Touts Brazil-China Plan for Ukraine-Russia Talks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] Russia, Battling Birth Rate Dip, Is Working on 'Child-Free' Ideology Ban, Says Putin Ally

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] Three Killed, Two Wounded in Russian Attacks on East Ukrainian Towns

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] War Comes Home to Russia in Tranquil Lakeside Town

    • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-09-23 [Older] In Today’s Russia, Dissent Means Keeping Hope Alive

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-22 [Older] Why Meta is now banning Russian propaganda

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-22 [Older] 21 Wounded After Russia Strikes Apartment Buildings in Ukrainian City of Kharkiv

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-22 [Older] Russia Says Firefighter Killed by Ukrainian Drone in Moscow-Controlled Region

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-22 [Older] Ukraine's Air Defence Units Destroy 71 Russian Drones, Ukraine's Air Force Says

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Understanding what Russia trades with Africa

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Ukraine updates: Two arsenals destroyed in Russia, Kyiv says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Zelenskyy Hopes for Quick US Action as More Arms Depots Are Hit in Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Exclusive-Iran Withheld Launchers for Missiles Sent to Russia, Sources Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Russia and China Start Naval Exercises in Sea of Japan, Agencies Report

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Russia Halts Traffic on Highway in Tver Region for Safety Reasons, Agencies Report

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Russian Attack on Ukraine's Kryvyi Rih Kills Three - Governor

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Russian Strike on Apartment Block in Kharkiv Injures 21

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Russia Says It Will Take No Part in Follow-Up to 'Peace Summit'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Ukraine Says It Hit Two Russian Munitions Depots Overnight

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Ukraine Says Russia Is Planning Strikes on Nuclear Facilities

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Says End of War With Russia Depends on Allies' Resolve

    • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Russian Cosmonauts Smash Record for Longest Stay on the ISS

    • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Ukrainian Archaeological Sites Damaged by Russian Military, Experts Say

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Russia’s Cyber Crackdown: Sovereignty, Surveillance, and Wartime Control

    • CBC ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Russia wants a baby boom, but some women resist becoming a mother for the motherland

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Ukraine Bans Telegram Messenger App on State-Issued Devices Because of Russian Security Threat

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] 2 Russians Set Record for Longest Single Stay on the International Space Station

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Russia Says It Will Take Back Kursk Territory Captured by Ukraine in 'Timely Manner'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Poland Arrests Russian Accused of Directing Attack on Navalny Aide

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Russia Accuses West of Blatant Pressure on China Over Taiwan, Expresses Support to Beijing

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Russia Dismisses Zelenskiy's 'Victory Plan' as Gambit to Keep West Onside

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Antigua-Flagged Vessel Damaged in Russian Attack on Odesa Port, Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Russia Warns West and Ukraine of 'Disastrous Consequences' if Kyiv Moves Against Belarus

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Ukraine Bans Official Use of Telegram App Over Fears of Russian Spying

    • CPJ ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] CPJ concerned by Russia’s arrest in absentia of exiled journalist

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] MEPs: Ukraine must be able to strike legitimate military targets in Russia

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] Czech Republic struggling to mitigate risks as Russian firms flourish

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] Ukraine updates: UN body warns Russia on power grid strikes

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] US Troops Finish Deployment to Remote Alaska Island Amid Spike in Russian Military Activity

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] Lavrov Vows Russia to Defend Its Arctic Interests

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] Zelenskiy Says Ukrainian Military Has Reduced Russian Potential to Attack on Eastern Front

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-27 [Older] Ukraine: Kamala Harris slams Ukraine 'surrender' proposal

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] Ukraine: Biden calls Germany meeting of Kyiv allies

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] The US Is Giving Ukraine Billions More in Weapons. Here's How They Will Help

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] Trump to Meet With Ukraine's Zelenskiy, UK's Starmer in New York

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] Lithuania's Foreign Minister Calls for Ukraine to Be Allowed to Use Arms Freely

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-25 [Older] Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy warns UN on nuclear plant safety

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-25 [Older] US House Republicans Want Biden Administration to Unclassify Ukraine Report

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-25 [Older] Zelenskiy Takes Aim at China, Brazil Push for Peace in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] Ukraine updates: Germany's Scholz rejects long-range weapons

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy says Iran, N. Korea 'accomplices'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] US to Send $375 Million in Military Aid to Ukraine, Including Medium-Range Cluster Bombs

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] Trump Says US Needs to Get Out of Ukraine War

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-24 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy to Visit US Capitol on Thursday, Schumer's Office Says

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-23 [Older] Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy eyes high-level talks on US trip

    • Scheerpost ☛ 2024-09-22 [Older] A Nuclear War in Ukraine Is a Distinct Possibility

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Hopes to Meet Donald Trump Next Week

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Ukrainian President Zelenskyy Will Visit a Pennsylvania Ammunition Factory to Thank Workers

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] How deadly is Ukraine's new 'dragon drone'?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Ukraine updates: Von der Leyen in Kyiv announces €35bn loan

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] EU to Announce 35 Billion Euro Loan for Ukraine, FT Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] EU's Von Der Leyen Announces 35 Billion Euro Loan in Kyiv Visit

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Residents in Kyiv Told to Stay Indoors as Air Pollution Blankets the Ukrainian Capital

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Ukraine Joins NATO Drill to Test Anti-Drone Systems

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Zelenskiy Says Ukraine 'Victory Plan' Depends on Quick Decisions by Allies

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] Ukraine wants action after Belarus Olympic medalist ceremony

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] Zelenskyy to Meet Biden, Harris as Ukraine Pushes US to Loosen Restrictions on Long-Range Weapons

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] US Congress Nears Agreement on Extending Expiring Ukraine Aid, Sources Say

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Washington Post ☛ Musk’s X blocks Vance dossier, drawing parallels to Hunter Biden controversy

    Musk’s reaction to that episode was notably different. Top Republicans and the tech billionaire railed against the decision regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop as an attempt to suppress a potentially compromising story and alter the campaign. The mogul later bought the company in a bid partly to prevent such acts, vowing that he would run the company as a “free speech absolutist.”

    But content moderation experts said the two incidents bear a striking resemblance, highlighting the thorny calls social networks have been forced to make when facing dubiously sourced or potentially revealing materials in a polarized political environment.

  • Techdirt ☛ Quick Let’s Watch Everyone Flip Sides On Twitter’s Handling Of The Hunter Biden Laptop vs. The JD Vance Dossier

    In short, Twitter had a very, very broad policy (too broad!) regarding “hacked materials.” We had criticized how that policy had been used to hide news reports before the whole Hunter Biden laptop story came out, warning that the policy was too broad and resulted in blocking legitimate news based on leaks.

  • Scheerpost ☛ X Suspends Journalist Ken Klippenstein Over Publication of JD Vance Dossier

    “I know that it is general practice to delete ‘private’ information from leaks and classified documents, but in this case, not only is Vance an elected official and vice presidential candidate, but the information is readily available for anyone to buy,” he wrote. Vance is also the junior U.S. senator from Ohio.

• Environment

  • Vox ☛ Climate science: Are we underestimating global warming? What if our climate models are wrong?

    The debate highlights how even with the best measurements and models, scientists have to make some subjective decisions. For people who have to make decisions now that depend on the future climate, it adds to the frustration and can fuel distrust.

    Still, it’s important to note that the vast majority of scientists agree on the broad contours of climate change and that it’s prudent to halt the relentless rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Boy's death spurs new California law to protect students during heat

    Yahushua’s Law, which will go into effect in July 2026, will eliminate the need for teacher discretion during heatwaves by requiring districts to implement a standard set of guidelines to keep students safe. The bill will also require districts to create policies for other types of dangerous weather — like poor air quality or high winds.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] Berlin considering how to support German carmaker Volkswagen

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-23 [Older] Volkswagen's crisis: How can Europe's car industry survive?

    • Business World ☛ With 23% CAGR, Global EV Market To Soar To $2108 Bn By 2033: Report

      Forecasts predict that India's EV market could reach annual volumes of 10 million units by 2033, a substantial increase from the 1.7 million units recorded in FY24. This transformation will be driven by a combination of favourable government policies, the introduction of new products, declining bill of materials (BoM) costs, and rapid technological advancements.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-19 [Older] Dolphins Dying Again in Amazon Lake Made Shallow by Drought

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] Amazon Death Rattle

• Finance

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] How the cost of living crisis and games industry turmoil could hurt Sony’s PlayStation 5 Pro release

  • Web Pro News ☛ IBM CEO’s Plan to Replace People With AI Is Backfiring

    “I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period,” he said at the time, speaking specifically of back-office roles. With 26,000 employees, 30% translates to roughly 7,800 jobs.

  • Fudzilla ☛ IBM’s AI is still half-baked

    While this is entirely logical, in a dystopian way, IBM could not make it happen. Staff leaks claim that Watsonx [IBM’s generative AI offering] isn’t even available to employees to attempt to help automate some meaningless task.

  • International Business Times ☛ 2024-09-26 [Older] Amazon-owned Twitch Allegedly Not Following Amazon's RTO Policy—Here's Why

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Record ☛ Pentagon gives thumbs-down to cyber service proposal in defense bills

    The Pentagon also warned that if the National Academies doesn’t recruit a research outfit with national security credentials to undertake the cyber force study, it will have to rely on public, unclassified information and therefore not have a full picture of the readiness challenges that have plagued Cyber Command since its inception in 2010.

  • Thomas Rigby ☛ Tech is not apolitical

    I was directed to the next nearest which was round the way in a less affluent area between the takeaway and the off licence. That one charged me £2 for a withdrawal.

    There's no coincidence the machine in the less affluent area charges and the other one doesn't.

  • Futurism ☛ OpenAI Pivoting From "Benefiting Humanity" to "Making Lots of Money"

    While we don't know exactly what the ChatGPT maker's new structure will look like quite yet, it feels assured that CEO Sam Altman will end up with vastly more control over the company's operations.

    Altman could also realize new equity worth billions of dollars as the company sidelines its nonprofit board.

  • JURIST ☛ X must pay fines to resume activities in Brazil

    The Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) ruled Friday that in order for X (formerly Twitter) to resume activities in Brazil, it must prove payment of the fines imposed for non-compliance with the court’s order to appoint a legal representative in Brazil.

  • The Register UK ☛ Over £20B in UK govt IT contracts to expire soon. What next?

    A report by public spending research company Tussell and the Institute for Government found that a third of these, worth £9 billion, are supposed to finish up in 2025.

  • Institute for Government ☛ Improving accountability in government procurement

    The UK government spends up to £400bn each year on buying in goods and services. But the PPE and Horizon scandals show recent governments have not always spent his public money well: the new government has a chance to change that.

    The difficult fiscal inheritance facing Starmer's government means it is especially important that public spending is aligned with government priorities and delivers good value for money.

  • Derek Kędziora ☛ Regulating virtue and vice

    This raises the uncomfortable thought that a laissez-faire legal approach to social vice only works in conservative cultures. What’s often lacking in many left-leaning accounts of how everything is better in Northern Europe is just how big of a role the remnants of the conservative Protestant culture plays.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Twitter Banned Me

    Self-styled free speech warrior Elon Musk’s X (Twitter) banned me after I published a copy of the Donald Trump campaign’s JD Vance research dossier. X says that I’ve been suspended for “violating our rules against posting private information,” citing a tweet linking to my story about the JD Vance dossier. First, I never published any private information on X. I linked to an article I wrote here, linking to a document of controversial provenance, one that I didn’t want to alter for that very reason.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Tedium ☛ CNN’s Paywall: A Harbinger For Free News Access?

    I’ve been on the internet long enough to consider the paywall an inevitability in many cases.

    The advertising market is not sustainable in a real way, and lowers the quality of the overall experience, and forces editorial focuses to shift in favor of noise over signal.

    But I also worry, a lot, about what paywalls can do to the discourse. If all the high-quality information is hidden behind a paywall, that means that lower-quality news and content streams more freely and easily, and that threatens the overall quality of the what we talk about—which leads to broader cultural decay.

    So, to me, I find it disappointing that CNN is apparently about to drop a paywall on its website, which celebrates its 30th anniversary next year. The news originally broke from The New York Times, so I’m breaking my no-NYT rule to share it.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ The Employer-Based Social Safety Is a Disaster. We Can End It.

    Right now, more than 30,000 Boeing workers are in their third week of a strike. One of their central demands is the restoration of their defined benefit pensions, which the company forced them to give up a decade ago. It’s a common demand—defined benefit pensions are great for workers because they place the investment risk on the company, whereas 401(k) plans do the opposite. But I do not know of a single union that has resurrected a defined benefit pension for a large work force after it has been taken away. The reason is: companies can do math. They often dangle one-time payments as enticements for workers to switch their pensions to 401(k)s, knowing that a dazzling little pile of cash on the table is much cheaper for them than the long-term flow of cash for retirees that pensions demand. “Defined benefit plans are only available to about 8% of workers at US businesses today, according to data from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, down from 39% in 1980,” CNN reports. “The decline has greatly mirrored the decline in union membership at businesses, from about 17% in 1983 to 6% in 2023.”

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ Why food insecurity remains a challenge for troops and their families

    According to Military Family Advisory Network’s latest research, one in four (27.7%) active duty military families are food insecure compared to 13.5% of U.S. households. MFAN’s findings are consistent with the Defense Department’s own research, which found that 24% of service members experienced food insecurity in 2022.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Return to work and dying on the job

    Wells Fargo's message to its workforce is, "You can't be trusted," a policy that Wells Fargo doubled down on with its Return to Office mandate. Return to Office is often pitched as a chance to improve teamwork, communication, and human connection with your co-workers, and there's no arguing with the idea that spending some time in person with people can help improve working relationships (I attended a week-long, all-hands, staff retreat for EFF earlier this month and it was fantastic, primarily due to its in-person nature).

  • Crooked Timber ☛ In their plaintive call for a return to the office, CEOs reveal how little they are needed — Crooked Timber

    The minority of corporations that have managed to enforce full-time office attendance fall into two main categories. First, there are those, like Goldman Sachs, that are profitable enough to pay salaries that more than offset the cost and inconvenience of commuting to work, whether or not they gain extra productivity as a result. Second, there are companies like Grindr and Twitter (now X) that are looking for massive staff reductions and don’t care much whether the staff they lose are good or bad.

    Typically, as in these two cases, such companies are engaged in the process Cory Doctorow has christened enshittification, changing the rules on their customers in an effort to squeeze as much as possible out of them before time runs out.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • FlatpanelsHD ☛ LG Smart TVs, including OLEDs, now show screensaver ads

    Even if you buy one of the most expensive TV models today, you cannot escape ads. LG is rolling out screensaver ads, including ads for things completely unrelated to the TV experience.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Software Patents

    • The Hill ☛ U.S.-U.K. trade agreement talks stalled: What's the future?

      One obvious solution is for the U.K. to join USMCA, which was successfully negotiated by the Trump administration. Other countries are already moving to do the same. It is expected that Costa Rica could join USMCA under a new administration, and there would be far more benefit to the U.S. of extending membership to our closest ally, the U.K.

• Trademarks

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-09-20 [Older] [Guest post] A trade mark or a song? Turkish Court of Cassation casts some light on this distinction

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-09-23 [Older] Geographical indications – Less is more (distinctive)

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-09-21 [Older] Revocation of “ICE” EUTM: thousands of pages of evidence do not necessarily establish genuine use

• Copyrights

  • TechSpot ☛ New "fair source" movement aims to bridge the gap between open source and proprietary licensing | TechSpot

    While there are highly successful open-source projects, they often serve as components within larger proprietary products. Companies that embrace open-source licensing have also frequently reversed course to protect their work, transitioning to more restrictive [sic] copyleft licenses or abandoning open-source altogether.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Homebrew Transparency Portal Reveals Needlessly Blocked 'Pirate' Sites

    As the wave of pirate site blocking spreads globally, some European countries show weakness in their execution. In Germany, for instance, the local blocklist included domains that no longer linked to pirated content, violating the blocking agreement. Tellingly, this only came to the forefront after a 17-year-old developer put together an unofficial transparency portal.

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Technology and Free Software

    • bowing the phone

      So, my phone is (was?) all jacked up, in the keyboard region. I sat on it twice in the same day while at clubhouse. Since then, it had a gnarly bow in the lower left hand corner of the screen. Only noticeable at a certain angle, but made a different when typing, when it came to Androids autocorrect. It fucked up all the time.

      Figuring I will buy a new phone in Oct (possibly) due to this, I figured "what the hell" and have it an impromptu procedure of bend-the-corner-until-everything-looks-flush.

    • Update regarding quotes around active region

      This week I wrote a short phlog post about the ease in Emacs of surrounding an active region with quotes [1].

      Today, defanor was so kind to remind me that this is not the default Emacs behavior. A short test using `emacs -Q' (which starts Emacs without any user configuration) confirmed this.

    • Internet/Gemini

      • Geminispace's local wildlife, a safari

        In my past week here, I have already stumbled into a lot of the local denizen's of Geminispace. Even some who I was unaware at the time was local celebrities, such as the proprietor of Antenna. It is part of what makes project Gemini so cool, it is by the people, for the people. Almost everyone has several ways available to contact them and although Gemini is anonymity at it's core, people make sure they are connected to their content.