Leftovers

• Digital Music News ☛ A New Chopin Waltz Can Be Heard for the First Time in 200 Years

  Curator Robinson McClellan tells The NY Times he had his doubts about the origins of the piece after playing it himself. The manuscript’s ink and paper were tested, alongside the handwriting and musical style by consulting experts. The conclusion? The work is very likely a previously unknown waltz by Frédéric Chopin. The piece was dated between 1830 and 1835 and has unique properties not present in any of Chopin’s other works.

• Science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Humans evolved to share beds – how your sleeping companions may affect you now

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] The US is now at risk of losing to China in the race to send people back to the Moon’s surface

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Chinese space mission blasts off to test lunar bricks

  • The Conversation ☛ Deep sea rocks suggest oxygen can be made without photosynthesis, deepening the mystery of life

    They found that this “dark” oxygen production at the seafloor seems to only happen in the presence of mineral concentrates called polymetallic nodules and deposits of metals called metalliferous sediments. The authors think the nodules have the right mixture of metals and are densely packed enough for an electrical current to pass through for electrolysis, creating enough energy to separate the hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) from water (H₂O).

  • India Times ☛ EU investment: EU to invest $1.5 billion in region's deep tech sector

    The funding will come from the European Innovation Council (EIC), which is part of the EU's research and innovation programme, and it represents an increase of nearly 200 million euros in terms of investment compared to 2024.

  • Futurism ☛ NASA Solar Sail Spacecraft Damaged, Spinning Through Space

    Unfortunately, the space agency is dealing with a "slight bend in one of the four booms" stretching out the sail.

  • Wired ☛ A Lost Mayan City Has Been Found With Laser Mapping

    The city's discovery didn't require breaking through the jungle with machetes or patiently excavating with brushes and spatulas. Nor did researchers need tape measures, binoculars, or compasses to find their way through the thick foliage. Instead, they employed state-of-the-art technology: lasers, drones, and satellite maps. With these tools, they discovered a city hidden for centuries beneath the thick Mexican jungle, unearthing pyramids, enclosed plazas, and an ancient reservoir.

    Luke Auld-Thomas, an anthropologist at Northern Arizona University, made the discovery. His analysis revealed a huge network of previously unexplored settlements.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Lost Mayan city discovered by accident in Mexican jungle

    The city was discovered by chance thanks to Lidar, or light detection and ranging, a technology that uses lasers to map and analyze archaeological landscapes.

    The dataset used for the study came from about 122 square kilometers of high-quality airborne Lidar data collected in 2013 as part of a forest monitoring project called Alianza, which aims to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

  • LabX Media Group ☛ Zombie Fungi Hijack Hosts’ Brains | The Scientist Magazine®

    Scientists already knew that Ophiocordyceps encourages ants to climb up nearby vegetation, a behavior known as summiting, to ensure widespread dispersal of the infectious spores. However, as de Bekker and other researchers explored these ant-fungi dynamics in more depth, they realized that the behaviors orchestrated by the fungi were even more finely tuned to support fungal fitness than they had originally believed.

• Education

  • Seth Godin ☛ Five lessons from week one of This is Strategy | Seth's Blog

    Abundance is generative, and it also gives us room for gratitude. The acknowledgments of a book are my favorite part to write, because so many people, people not mentioned on the cover, are involved in producing and delivering an idea of value. I don’t get to list all the readers, of course, or the people they talk to about the book, and that’s the real point of this post, and the book itself.

    If you want to change a system, change the culture. And if you want to change the culture, it helps to create the conditions for people to step up, talk about it, and take action.

• Hardware

  • Fudzilla ☛ Nvidia boss warns x86 is becoming fragmented

    Like a leather-jacketed balloon waiting to burst, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has warned that x86’s architecture is in danger of fragmentation, and he welcomes AMD and Intel working closer together to prevent this.

  • Fudzilla ☛ Apple rumoured to be interested in buying Intel

    The dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn claiming that the fruity cargo cult Apple is considering writing a cheque for Intel's decaying corpse.

    YouTube channel Moore's Law is Dead claims that there are "whispers" of a potential purchase by Apple. It also claimed that Samsung is interested in acquiring or merging with the chip manufacturer.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Futurism ☛ AI Model Used By Hospitals Caught Making Up Details About Patients, Inventing Nonexistent Medications and Sexual Acts

    What's even more concerning, though, is who's relying on the tech, according to the AP: despite OpenAI warning that its model shouldn't be used in "high-risk domains," over 30,000 medical workers and 40 health systems are using Nabla, a tool built on Whisper, to transcribe and summarize patient interactions — almost certainly with inaccurate results.

    In a medical environment, this could have "really grave consequences," Alondra Nelson, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, told the AP.

  • Associated Press ☛ Researchers say AI transcription tool used in hospitals invents things no one ever said

    But Whisper has a major flaw: It is prone to making up chunks of text or even entire sentences, according to interviews with more than a dozen software engineers, developers and academic researchers. Those experts said some of the invented text — known in the industry as hallucinations — can include racial commentary, violent rhetoric and even imagined medical treatments.

    Experts said that such fabrications are problematic because Whisper is being used in a slew of industries worldwide to translate and transcribe interviews, generate text in popular consumer technologies and create subtitles for videos.

    More concerning, they said, is a rush by medical centers to utilize Whisper-based tools to transcribe patients’ consultations with doctors, despite OpenAI’ s warnings that the tool should not be used in “high-risk domains.”

  • Pro Publica ☛ Josseli Barnica Died in Texas After Waiting 40 Hours for Miscarriage Care

    Barnica is one of at least two Texas women who ProPublica found lost their lives after doctors delayed treating miscarriages, which fall into a gray area under the state’s strict abortion laws that prohibit doctors from ending the heartbeat of a fetus.

  • Yordi Verkroost ☛ When Less Becomes More

    When we work full-time—five days a week, eight hours a day—is there enough time to go silent and allow those deep, important thoughts to surface? Sure, we might fit in some meditation or quiet moments here and there. But can these short breaks really guide us toward the insights we’re searching for? Are 10 or 20 minutes of sitting by yourself quietly enough to access that deep inner space where answers might be waiting?

    I doubt it.

  • Vox ☛ 2024-10-24 [Older] Zika is still spreading. Why don’t we have a vaccine yet?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] Six Children Died From Pesticide Poisoning in South Africa, Lab Analysis Finds

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] Lassa Fever Suspected in Death of Iowa Resident Who Traveled to West Africa

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Iowa Resident Dies of Suspected Lassa Fever After Trip to West Africa

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Ontario grocers feel 'hoodwinked' by alcohol bottle return rules

  • Antivaxxers embrace the solvent DMSO as a cure-all

    I realize that I tend to repeat things perhaps more than I should, but one message that can’t be repeated enough is how, in the age of COVID-19, everything old is new again with respect to the antivaccine movement and quackery. For example, the speed with which certain doctors first went COVID-19 antivax, “evolved” to become more generally antivax, and then finally embraced all manner of quackery for all manner of diseases actually startled even me. One good example is the anonymous “doctor” who goes by the ‘nym “A Midwestern Doctor” (AMD). Personally, I long ago dubbed him “A Midwestern Quack” (AMQ), which is a far more appropriate moniker for him/her/it. I also have a very strong suspicion that I know who AMD/AMQ really is, but no hard evidence; suffice to say for now that I’m 99% sure it is a man, and so I’ll refer to him as such. As I’ve discussed before, he’s already embraced all manner of quackery, but, wow, he’s really gone down the rabbit hole now in a post entitled The FDA’s War Against DMSO and America: The Forgotten History That Led to the FDA Again and Again Keeping the Things We Most Desperately Need Away From Us.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Security Week ☛ Colorado Accidentally Put Voting System Passwords Online, but Officials Say Election Is Secure

    Voting system passwords were mistakenly put on the Colorado Secretary of State’s website for several months before being spotted and taken down, but the lapse did not pose an immediate threat to the upcoming election, said state election officials Tuesday.

  • NVISO Labs ☛ How AI forces us to expand our thinking about basic cybersecurity concepts: Part 1 – Introduction

    The traditional CIA Triad (Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability) has long been a cornerstone of information security, providing a solid framework to protect data and systems. However, the rising presence of AI in our lives introduces new challenges that extend beyond the current scope of the CIA Triad. In this AI mini-series, we will analyse the adequacy of the CIA Triad in addressing AI-specific challenges and propose potential additions to this framework.

  • NDTV ☛ What Is Silent Firing, A New Workplace Trend That's Gaining Popularity

    According to Mr Kailas, despite some data that proves remote work boosts productivity, companies like Amazon are "silent firing workers" by enforcing such policies, "because the best way to decrease retention while saving on severance would be to remove remote work," he wrote.

    "What makes this even more alarming is that we have not even scratched the surface of the AI adoption curve," Mr Kailas added.

  • The Register UK ☛ Linus Torvalds: 90% of AI marketing is hype so 'I ignore it'

    “I think AI is really interesting and I think it is going to change the world and at the same time I hate the hype cycle so much that I really don't want to go there, so my approach to AI right now is I will basically ignore it,” said Torvalds.

    “I think the whole tech industry around AI is in a very bad position and it’s 90 percent marketing and ten percent reality and in five years things will change and at that point we’ll see what of the AI is getting used for real workloads,” he added.

  • The Register UK ☛ xAI's 100,000 H100 Colossus is glued together using Ethernet

    The system as a whole is massive, boasting more than 2.5 times the number of GPUs compared to the US' number one ranked Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory with its nearly 38,000 AMD MI250X accelerators. Perhaps more impressively, Colossus was deployed in just 122 days and took 19 days to go from first deployment to training.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Online predator gets life in UK’s biggest 'catfishing' case

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Truthdig ☛ Sleepwalking in a Snitch State

      One person who has been clear-eyed about that recognition is the Atlantic’s Adam Serwer. In early October, he published “The Rise of the Right-Wing Tattletale,” about Texas’s abortion bounty law and the ways that it empowers everyday citizens to investigate and punish their neighbors where the state does not. Like the way the homeowners association evolved to be a continuation of Jim Crow by other means, the guy down the street coerces and silences where the government as yet lacks the resources to intrude. The gears of the snitch state are your neighbors and coworkers and uninvited busybodies.

    • PC World ☛ ChatGPT can now search your entire chat history and find old convos

      Yesterday, OpenAI announced via X/Twitter that they’ve started rolling out a new feature for the web version of ChatGPT that lets you search through your past conversations with the AI chatbot.

    • [Repeat] Privacy International ☛ Non-fitted devices in the Home Office’s surveillance arsenal: Investigating the technology behind GPS fingerprint scanners

      Expanding beyond GPS ankle tags, the Home Office has since Autumn 2022 been issuing so-called non-fitted devices (NFDs) to migrants who are on immigration bail and who are subject to electronic monitoring conditions. We undertook some technical research into NFDs to investigate the intrusiveness of this surveillance technology.

    • Michael Kjörling ☛ Disabling Microsoft Recall on Windows 11

      It is designed to take screenshots of what you do on the computer, then use OCR and machine learning (“artificial intelligence”) technology to let you (or anyone else with access to the computer and account) search through and locate anything interesting that ever appeared on the screen. Hopefully needless to say, this is a massive invasion of privacy to anyone using Windows, as well as anyone communicating electronically with anyone using Windows.

      Recall is, apparently, officially shipping as of Windows 11 24H2.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Vox ☛ Is your vote safe in the 2024 election? | Vox

    “When people hear this kind of disinformation over and over and over again, it does lead to real harmful consequences,” Ramachandran told Vox.

    All this is to say that one of the largest threats this election faces is many voters’ lack of confidence in the legitimacy of the outcome, even if counting and certification all go according to plan.

  • Futurism ☛ Pentagon Uneasy About Elon Musk’s New Spy Satellites

    Last week, the Wall Street Journal revealed that these Musk-Putin tête-à-têtes have been going on "regularly" since all the way back in 2022. During one such call, Putin asked the multi-hyphenate CEO not to provide Starlink satellite internet to Taiwan as a "favor" to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Given that Taiwan does indeed lack Starlink coverage, it would appear that Musk acquiesced.

    NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has publicly voiced concern about the alleged exchanges, and he's not the only one: officials at the DoD have apparently been worried privately that, as critics have long pointed out, the US government may have erred by putting all its eggs in Musk's incredibly conspiratorial and far-right basket.

  • New York Times ☛ Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Already a Leader in Satellites, Gets Into the Spy Game

    SpaceX is poised to capitalize on that, generating a new wave of questions inside the federal government about the company’s growing dominance as a military space contractor and Mr. Musk’s extensive business operations in China and his relations with foreign government leaders, possibly including President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

  • Wired ☛ Facebook Is Auto-Generating Militia Group Pages as Extremists Continue to Organize in Plain Sight

    These plans for militia activity in the wake of the US election are not from a private conversation on an encrypted platform. It was unfolding on a public Facebook profile.

    Anti-government militia movements have been continuing to use Facebook to recruit, coordinate training, promote ballot box stake outs, and prepare for a civil war that many militants believe will break out after election day. And in some cases, the movement is attracting people who don’t appear to have any prior background in a militia. Meta is even doing the work for extremist movements by auto-generating some group pages on their behalf.

    Data shared exclusively with WIRED by the Tech Transparency Project shows that these groups have only continued to grow on Facebook, despite WIRED previously flagging this lapse in Meta’s moderation.

  • The Register UK ☛ Eric Schmidt: US Army should swap tanks for AI drones

    Former Google chief Eric Schmidt thinks the US Army should expunge "useless" tanks and replace them with AI-powered drones instead.

    Speaking at the Future Investment Initiative in Saudi Arabia this week, he said: "I read somewhere that the US had thousands and thousands of tanks stored somewhere," adding, "Give them away. Buy a drone instead."

  • Futurism ☛ Evidence Grows That Elon Musk Was an Illegal Immigrant Before Deciding He Hated Immigrants

    Yet while Musk plugged away at his first business, he was staying in the US illegally, according to legal experts who spoke to WaPo. Since he never attended school, he wasn't permitted to remain in the country — let alone work there.

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-26 [Older] Exclusive-Satellite Photos Show Israel Hit Iran Missile Fuel-Mixing Facilities, Researchers Say

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Syria dictator Bashar Assad caught between Iran and Israel

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] DEM Party, bar associations protest Turkey’s airstrikes in northern Syria

  • NL Times ☛ 2024-10-27 [Older] Hundreds of Syrians protest in The Hague against government plans

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-27 [Older] Destruction of Lebanon-Syria Border Crossings in Israeli Airstrikes Creates Difficulties

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-26 [Older] At least 27 dead, civilian infrastructure targeted in Turkey's strikes in northern Syria

  • NL Times ☛ 2024-10-26 [Older] Schoof: Refugees do not have to return to Syria if country is declared unsafe

  • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Mother evacuated from Syria and charged with promoting Islamic State

  • The Local DK ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Denmark repatriates woman and son from Syrian detention camp

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Mother that Canada refused to repatriate has died in Turkey, lawyer says

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Turkey, the Kurds and the PKK

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Israeli Airstrike Attacks Syrian Military Targets, SANA Says

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-24 [Older] At least 12 killed in Turkey's airstrikes in northern Syria, Iraq in response to deadly Ankara attack

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-10-26 [Older] BRICS+ and Africa’s Next Chapter Begins

  • HRW ☛ 2024-10-24 [Older] UN, African Union Should Take Bold Action to Protect Sudanese Civilians

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group seeks local power in DRC, not just control over mining operations

  • HRW ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] Africa Summit: Address Rights Crises in DR Congo, Sudan

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] How can Africa break free from negative stereotypes?

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Airbus Southern Africa celebrates 30 years with major helicopter milestones

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Egypt-Ethiopia hostilities are playing out in the Horn – the risk of new proxy wars is high

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Rethinking responses to coups in West Africa

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Canada Should Have Acted Sooner on Migration, Minister Says

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Canada condemns 'horrifying' wave of gang violence in Haiti

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Poland arrests 4 in plot to mail explosives to Canada and U.S.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Vox ☛ Gen Z is rediscovering Trump’s Access Hollywood video on TikTok | Vox

    Now, Gen Z’s new voters are rediscovering the infamous Access Hollywood tape, with some hearing it in full for the first time. Young TikTokers are making videos reacting with somber faces to the audio of Trump’s tape, grimacing as he gets to the infamous line, “Grab ’em by the pussy.” The most popular one has nearly 1 million views.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ The origins of Halloween

    But behind the commercialism lies an actual custom that goes back centuries — although it does not originate in Celtic nations, as some might think.

    Celtic pagans celebrated Samhain, a Thanksgiving-like festival to mark the beginning of winter, which starts the evening of October 31.

    Meanwhile, the church, which dominated European culture in medieval times, celebrated All Saints' Day on November 1.

    Halloween is derived from "All Hallows Eve" — the evening before All Saints' Day when the dead are commemorated and prayers are said for them.

• Environment

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] 'Not an Act of God.' How the Rev. Richard Joyner Became a Farmer, Then a Climate Activist

  • Vox ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Mexico may be at the cusp of one of its biggest transformations in decades

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Activist: Don’t repeat history. Mines won’t save Upper Peninsula or climate

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] 'All I Can Think About Is Hotter Days.' Voter Campaigns Target Latinas Worried About Climate Change

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-10-26 [Older] How the Dutch Climate Movement Won an Environmental Breakthrough

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-10-26 [Older] Cuba Struggles Amid Hurricanes, Sanctions, and Blackouts

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-10-26 [Older] Bridging the Climate Divide: Why the West Must Support India’s Green Transition

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Climate Scientists and Environmental Groups Alarmed Over New UN Climate Report

  • NL Times ☛ 2024-10-27 [Older] Climate financing: Dutch World Bank boss hopes for breakthrough at climate summit

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Climate Change Has to be an Election Issue

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Outrageous Anti-Protest Laws Can’t Silence the Climate Movement

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] Current Climate Pledges Still Fall Way Short on Paris Goals, UN Body Says

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] Guide to Climate Action in Your Local Community

  • NL Times ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] Tax frequent fliers, SUVs more heavily for impact on climate: Oxfam Novib

  • Truthdig ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] The Effort To Silence Climate Protesters

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-24 [Older] 'Quantum leap' in climate ambition needed, says UN report

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Mining rush brings hope, dread to Upper Peninsula, amid historic energy shift

  • Omicron Limited ☛ As Musk seeks to launch tens of thousands of Starlink satellites, space researchers urge caution

    "The industry has moved faster than regulators can act and faster than the public has really been aware," Gutterman said. "The results aren't in—we just don't actually have the data on what effects this new technology could have."

    In a 2022 report, the Government Accountability Office—a nonpartisan federal agency tasked with saving taxpayer money and increasing government efficiency—recommended the FCC review whether the satellite constellations normally have significant environmental impacts. The FCC agreed with the findings.

  • The Register UK ☛ Billionaires carbon emissions need reigning in, says Oxfam

    Private jets, one of the most visible and publicized ways the ultra-rich get around, are significant polluters but still pale in comparison to the impact of their other indulgences. Billionaires are "treating our planet like their personal playground [and] setting it ablaze for pleasure and profit," in Behar's words.

    Oxfam was able to identify private jets belonging to 23 of the billionaires it looked at for its report, and found that they flew an average of 184 times in a 12-month period, spending around 425 hours in the air during the period. Those jets emitted an average of 2,074 tons of carbon dioxide - equivalent to what the average person would emit in 300 years, or what someone in the global poorest 50 percent would emit if they lived for two millennia.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • YLE ☛ European route E16 set to continue across Finland

      European Route 16 will expand to Finland. The road transport committee of the UN Economic Commission for Europe has accepted a proposal made last spring by Finland whereby the road will continue from Rauma on the west coast to Kotka on the southeast coast.

      Today, the E16 road runs from Derry, Northern Ireland, through Scotland and then from Norway to Gävle on Sweden’s east coast. However it won't be possible to cover the entire route by car, as there are at the moment no direct passenger ferries linking its segments in Scotland and Norway, or connecting to Gävle to Rauma.

    • CBC ☛ Microsoft, Google and Amazon turn to nuclear energy to fuel the AI boom

      Companies are racing toward nuclear because they are using exponentially more power now, due to the upsurge of generative AI use. Both Microsoft and Google missed their net zero emissions goals for 2024 — a first, because these companies tend to set goals they can meet, according to Luccioni.

    • The Korea Times ☛ EU slaps tariffs on Chinese EVs, risking Beijing backlash

      Just over a year after launching its anti-subsidy probe, the European Commission will set out extra tariffs ranging from 7.8 percent for Tesla to 35.3 percent for China's SAIC, on top of the EU's standard 10 percent car import duty.

      The extra tariffs were formally approved and published in the EU's Official Journal on Tuesday, meaning they will take effect on Wednesday.

    • YLE ☛ Finnish researchers join top fusion energy research group

      The state-owned VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has joined an ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy) programme aimed at accelerating the commercial use of fusion energy.

      The work will focus on solving the challenges of materials needed in extreme conditions, which are a bottleneck in the commercialisation of fusion energy. The programme is funded by the US Department of Energy and has not previously involved foreign research teams.

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-10-27 [Older] The Ongoing Trade Dispute Between Turkey and China Over Electric Vehicle Tariffs in the WTO

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] California’s Plan to Overhaul a Key Climate Program — Raising the Cost of Gas — Ignites Debate

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] US Steelworkers Union Looks to Clean Energy to Replace Job Losses at Oil Refineries

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Factbox-How Do Trump and Harris Differ on Energy Policy?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Germany: How subsidized company cars are hurting EV adoption

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Germany metalworkers launch strikes over pay

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Germany's Mercedes sees profits nosedive on weak China sales

    • DeSmog ☛ Southern Company Is Promoting ‘Propaganda’ Disguised as Research — With Help From a Major Media Company

    • DeSmog ☛ Alberta’s Oil Sands Operators Still Won’t Pay for Their Own Cleanup

    • DeSmog ☛ Chicago Utility’s Plan for Aging Natural Gas Pipelines Runs Up Against Energy Transition

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] Maine Asks Hunters to Avoid Eating Deer, Turkey in Some Areas Because of PFAS Contamination

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Hedgehogs being decimated by human behavior: report

    • The Revelator ☛ The Elephant in the Room: How Governance Matters as Much as Funding in Species Conservation

    • The Revelator ☛ The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Decision on Genetic Resources Will Violate National Sovereignty

• Finance

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Prospects dim for Turkey's workers ahead of minimum wage raise

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Toronto lawyer couple sentenced to jail for contempt over millions in missing homebuyer funds

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] IKEA to compensate East German prisoners for forced labor

  • EFF ☛ No Matter What the Bank Says, It's YOUR Money, YOUR Data, and YOUR Choice

    Companies love lock-in. The harder it is to quit a product or service, the worse a company can treat you without risking your business. Economists call the difficulties you face in leaving one service for another the "switching costs" and businesses go to great lengths to raise the switching costs they can impose on you if you have the temerity to be a disloyal customer.

    So long as it's easier to coerce your loyalty than it is to earn it, companies win and their customers lose. That's where the new CFPB rule comes in.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • VOA News ☛ US finalizes rule restricting investment in Chinese tech firms

    The rule, which implements an executive order signed by President Joe Biden in 2023, focuses particularly on advanced semiconductors and microelectronics and the equipment used to make them, technology used in quantum computing, and artificial intelligence systems.

    When it takes effect on January 2, the rule will prohibit certain transactions in semiconductors, microelectronics and artificial intelligence. It also establishes mandatory reporting requirements for transactions that are not banned outright.

  • India Times ☛ Dropbox fires 20% staff; 528 people impacted: report

    Dropbox, a cloud company offering cloud storage and client software facilities, announced the layoff of 20% of its workforce impacting a total of 528 people.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Dropbox to let go 20% of its workforce amid growth push

    Dropbox Inc. is letting go 528 employees, or 20% of its workforce, in a bid to advance its revenue growth initiatives.

    Chief Executive Officer Drew Houston disclosed the move in a blog post published today. The announcement comes about 18 months after the file sharing provider let go a similar number of workers in a separate round of layoffs. At the time, Dropbox stated that it was shifting resources to the development of artificial intelligence features.

  • Yury Molodtsov ☛ Omnivore is Dead: Where to Go Next

    Omnivore was the best read-later app for most people. It was quite modern yet had a generous free tier. Yesterday the team informed the world that they got acquihired by ElevenLabs. The app will go offline and all the data will be deleted by November 15th.

    It’s sad but almost should have been expected. Read-later apps are an extremely niche product, so you must be able to monetize a very small customer base successfully. I suppose the Omnivore team couldn’t, precisely because most people were drawn to the app because it was “free”.

  • Seth Michael Larson ☛ How to export OPML from Omnivore

    Omnivore recently announced they were bought by ElevenLabs, which is an AI company funded by Trump-supporting VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. As a part of this deal, they are shuttering the service on an extremely tight deadline.

    This is very disappointing to me, I've previously recommended Omnivore to others and have donated for the past year that I've used the service. It goes without saying that I want nothing to do with Omnivore.

  • European Commission ☛ Delegated Regulation on data access provided for in the Digital Services Act

    The new framework for vetted researchers’ access to data from very large online platforms and very large search engines is a key measure of the Digital Services Act, to increase platforms’ transparency and accountability. The Commission is to adopt delegated acts to further specify the conditions under which sharing of data should take place and, the purposes for which the data may be used and relevant procedures, taking into account the rights and interests of the actors involved and, if necessary, independent advisory mechanisms.

  • India Times ☛ The rise and decline of Intel

    Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger inherited a troubled company that had lost its edge in manufacturing skills and had ceded to rivals the hugely lucrative markets for chips used in mobile phones and artificial intelligence.

  • The Register UK ☛ Russian court fines Google $2 decillion

    A Russian court has ruled that Google owes Russian media stations around $20 decillion in fines for blocking their content, and the fines could get bigger.

    To put that into perspective, the World Bank estimates global GDP as around $100 trillion, which is peanuts compared to the prospective fine. Google would therefore have to find more money than exists on Earth to pay Moscow - but on Tuesday fell a little short of that mark when it posted $88 billion quarterly revenue.

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-30 [Older] 3 Takeaways from Kamala Harris’ Ellipse Speech

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-30 [Older] A To-Do List, Size Matters and a 'Petty Tyrant': Key Moments From Kamala Harris' Speech

  • Vox ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Michelle Obama made the case for abortion rights in a way Joe Biden never could

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] Violent Rhetoric Rising: an Analysis of Nine Years of Trump’s Speeches

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-26 [Older] Beyoncé Endorses Kamala Harris in Joyful Speech at Houston Rally: 'I'm Here as a Mother'

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Trump accused of ‘malignant narcissism’ – but how accurately can you diagnose someone you’ve never met?

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] The Apprentice: Trump biopic is riddled with perfect examples of a man with the ‘dark triad’ of personality traits

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-30 [Older] US election: Harris says Trump wants 'unchecked power'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Germany's Scholz, India's Modi meet in New Delhi

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Germany promises India more visas for skilled workers

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] EU says Viktor Orban doesn't represent the bloc in Georgia

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Georgia announces partial vote recount amid protests

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Should Berlin return Nefertiti bust to Egypt?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Trump vs. Harris: Who does China prefer in the US election?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Uganda: Ex-LRA rebel commander gets 40-year sentence

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] US: Biden makes historic apology to Native Americans

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-24 [Older] Austria elects far-right parliamentary speaker

  • Pro Publica ☛ Election Skeptics Target Voting Officials With Ads in Swing States

    Earlier this month, subscribers to the Wisconsin Law Journal received an email with an urgent subject: “Upholding Election Integrity — A Call to Action for Attorneys.”

    The letter began by talking about fairness and following the law in elections. But it then suggested that election officials do something that courts have found to be illegal for over a century: treat the certification of election results as an option, not an obligation.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Washington Post ☛ Elon Musk’s fact-check system, Community Notes, is failing on X

      When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he laid off swaths of workers tasked with moderating the platform and embraced an experimental approach: asking users to fact-check one another.

      [...]

      “We’ve always thought that one area where crowdsourcing was unlikely to work is in the increasingly tribal interpretation of news,” said Gordon Crovitz, former publisher of the Wall Street Journal and co-CEO of NewsGuard, a company that tracks misinformation.

    • The Washington Post ☛ On Elon Musk’s X, Republican tweets go viral as Democrats disappear

      The top political accounts on X have seen their audiences crumble in the months before the election, a signal of the platform’s diminishing influence and usefulness to political discourse under billionaire owner Elon Musk, a Washington Post analysis found.

    • NPR ☛ An Elon Musk-backed political group is posting fake Kamala Harris ads on Facebook

      Experts told NPR that there is nothing illegal about the ads, since the First Amendment protects political speech, even when it contains lies. But the messages have the potential to lead voters astray just days before the election.

      “The tactic isn’t new,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, on the strategy of using trickery to smear a political opponent. “Its potential reach and impact are. Social media greatly expanded the capacity of well-financed, skilled ad buyers to micro-target susceptible undecided voters without risking a backlash from those likely to recognize the deception.”

    • NPR ☛ Voting officials face ‘an uphill battle’ to fight election lies

      The video is a fake. The envelopes and ballots shown don’t match what that county actually uses to vote. U.S. officials said it was created and spread by Russia to sow doubt in the election.

      But the incident showed what has been clear for some time now: Online in 2024, the deck is stacked against voting officials, maybe even more so than in 2020. The phony video was viewed hundreds of thousands of times shortly after it was posted. A statement from Bucks County debunking it three hours later was shared on X fewer than 100 times.

    • FAIR ☛ Bezos’ Declaration of Neutrality Confirms: Billionaires Aren’t on Your Side — FAIR

      While Facebook and Google have rightly been called out for destroying the news business, Amazon has been given a comparative pass, even though it may be the worst offender.

      Amazon may hoover up a smaller (but growing) portion of ad revenue than Google and Facebook. But its ruthless business practices have helped turn once vibrant Main Streets into ghost towns across the country. Thanks to Amazon, it’s not just ad dollars being lost, but the advertisers themselves—local bookstores, clothing stores, toy stores, etc. And those losses destabilize fragile local economies, and the newspapers that depend on them.

      If current trends continue, by the end of the year the US will have lost one-third of its newspapers and nearly two-thirds of its journalism jobs in a span of just two decades, according to a 2023 report by Northwestern University’s Medill Local News Initiative. The number of lost reporting jobs, 43,000, is more than enough to fill DC’s baseball stadium.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Project Censored ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] Crisis, Culture, and Civility: Critical Media Literacy Education and Election 2024

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Germany outraged over Jamshid Sharmahd's execution in Iran

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Germany summons Iran's envoy over Jamshid Sharmahd execution

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Police in Annexed Crimea Charge Woman Over 10-Year-Old Daughter’s ‘Pro-Ukraine’ Video

    Russian police in annexed Crimea charged a woman with child neglect after her 10-year-old daughter allegedly posted a video online that "discredited" the Russian army, authorities said Wednesday.

    The video, shared on Russian Telegram channels, showed a girl choosing between Russian and Ukrainian flags, with an angry face emoji next to the Russian flag and a heart emoji next to the Ukrainian one.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • teleSUR ☛ Mexican Journalist Shot Dead in Michoacan

    Since 2006, at least 18 journalists in the state of Michoacan have been murdered or disappeared.

    On Tuesday night, journalist Mauricio Cruz, director of the news portal “Minuto x Minuto,” was shot dead in downtown Uruapan, in the state of Michoacan.

  • Techdirt ☛ A Win For Press Freedom: Court Allows Reuters To Republish Story On Shady Indian Firm

    Appin had gone around using various law firms (including the infamous speech suppressors at US law firm Clare Locke) to demand publications remove articles or mentions of Khare. Some, such as Lawfare (which absolutely knows better), caved and took down or redacted their stories. Others (like us) refused to be bullied.

    I was able to get my hands on the recent Indian court order that dismissed the original injunction. Experts in Indian law had told me last year that the kind of injunction that forced Reuters to take down its story were unfortunately common. They were based not on a full review of the situation, but rather the courts were often willing to take an “injunction first, investigate later” approach to things, which could take some time, given how busy the courts are.

    It appears that’s what happened. Once the court finally looked at the issue (albeit nearly a year after forcing the article down), they realized that it did not make sense to suppress it and allowed it to come back.

  • Washingon-Baltimore News Guild ☛ Baltimore Sun Eliminates Features Department, Ending 135-Year Tradition of Cultural Coverage - Washington-Baltimore News Guild

    The Baltimore Sun dissolved its features department Monday, reassigning its staff to news departments – the first time since at least 1888 that the newspaper won’t have even one reporter dedicated to covering the city’s cultural life.

  • Nicolas Magand ☛ The hard truth: People don’t trust billionaires

    Weird to use the word “believe” rather than “trust” here.

  • Futurism ☛ Jeff Bezos Cosplays as Humble Newspaperman

    For another, it seems nearly impossible that anyone who questions the accuracy of a storied newspaper's reporting is going to be swayed by its owner's decision not to endorse either presidential candidate. So why is Bezos trying to do so this late in the game?

  • 404 Media ☛ The Billionaire Is the Threat, Not the Solution

    The current owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest men and the current ‘Adult in the Room’ recently made what he described as a brave and shrewd business decision to win back reader trust. This calculated business decision has, famously, made 10 percent of the Washington Post’s annual revenue evaporate overnight and has led 250,000 people and counting to trust The Washington Post so much that they canceled their subscriptions.

  • New York Times ☛ Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and the Billions of Ways to Influence an Election

    A quarter-million Post readers canceled their subscriptions, a figure first reported by NPR and then by The Post itself. That is about 10 percent of the total circulation. The speed and decisive force of the cancellations was a bit of a shock but also weirdly appropriate, said Danny Caine, author of “How to Resist Amazon and Why.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Pro Publica ☛ Under Tennessee’s School Threat Law, Kids Are Arrested for Rumors and Jokes

    In late September, Torri was driving down the highway with her 11-year-old son Junior in the back seat when her phone started ringing.

    It was the Hamilton County Sheriff’s deputy who worked at Junior’s middle school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Deputy Arthur Richardson asked Torri where she was. She told him she was on the way to a family birthday dinner at LongHorn Steakhouse.

  • HRW ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] Saudi Arabia: Flawed Assessment of World Cup Bid

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-10-25 [Older] Democratic Lawmakers Call for Inquiry Into Kushner’s Ties to Saudi Crown Prince

  • CPJ ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Turkey’s parliament expected to vote on ‘foreign agent’ law this week

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-27 [Older] Rise of Incel ideology in Turkey ‘fueled by government policies’

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Philadelphia Didn't Violate Rights of Cops Fired Over Offensive Facebook Posts, Court Rules

  • CBC ☛ The RCMP say a man killed his wife. Her daughters say police won't admit he's an ex-Mountie

    The daughters of a woman who was killed in Nova Scotia twelve days ago by her husband before he killed himself are calling on the RCMP for more transparency around domestic violence, alleging the force is covering up what happened because their mother's husband was a retired Mountie.

  • ANF News ☛ Kurdish political prisoner in Iran faces new charges under security pressure

    Ahmadreza Haeri, a political prisoner from Ilam who is currently serving a three-year and eight-month sentence in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, Alborz Province, is facing new charges under pressure from the security services, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported.

    Haeri, who is imprisoned for his activism and advocacy work, appeared before the Interrogation Branch One of the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in Karaj via video conference on 16 October.

  • The Korea Times ☛ Korea sees increase in 'no-seniors zones' despite aging population

    Oh Beom-jo, a professor of family medicine at Boramae Hospital in Seoul, said, "Such discrimination against the elderly like the 'no-seniors zones' could adversely affect their health and increase the burden of social costs."

    Restricting consumption activities of certain groups can worsen the consumption environment for all consumers, said Choi Chul, a consumer economics professor at Sookmyung Women's University, saying, "There should be a consensus across the community on this alertness."

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Trademarks

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] Revocation for non-use of Baccarat’s EUTM: When proving genuine use is crystal clear

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-10-29 [Older] [Book Review] Designs Law and Practice (3rd Edition)

• Copyrights

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-10-28 [Older] CJEU rules that EU Member States cannot set their own reciprocity clauses under the Berne Convention

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Livehd7 Sports Piracy Network Shut Down By ACE, But Not For the First Time

    The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment says it has shut down Livehd7, a pirate site network providing free streams of Premier League, Serie A, and LaLiga matches. With over a quarter billion visits in the last 12 months alone, Livehd7 is a significant operation, but news of its demise may provoke déjà vu. In September 2023, ACE said that in collaboration with Egypt's Ministry of Justice, the operator of Livehd7 had been arrested, and the network shut down.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Tech Companies Flag Piracy Blocking as Threat to the Open Internet & Digital Trade

    Technology infrastructure companies including Amazon, Google, and Cloudflare, are warning the U.S. Government about the downsides of foreign piracy blocking measures. The coalition argues that anti-piracy initiatives, including those in France and Italy, disrupt international trade, increase costs for U.S. companies, and could lead to unintended censorship.

  • Walled Culture ☛ Penguin Random House hopes copyright bluster will scare off generative AI

    As noted above, the courts are still deciding to what extent AI systems can use copyright material for training purposes without asking for explicit permission. So far, a local German court has ruled that at least one generative AI training dataset is legal thanks to EU copyright exceptions, and has made comments that could imply that AI training is permitted under EU law more generally. Until we know the details of how courts will interpret laws like the DSM Directive, Penguin Random House’s new text is just bluster. That’s no surprise: the copyright world often claims privileges well beyond the already-excessive ones it has gained over the years. What is disappointing is how often those additional privileges are later granted by compliant politicians.

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Technology and Free Software

    • Gee thanks, Timmy

      One of the things I do when I need a little help focusing is listen to undemanding music on loop tape. One of my favorites is “Rest Spot” from the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 soundtrack — it’s the violin-warmup with piano music that plays when your party is at a rest spot and considering whether to eat something, talk about stuff, or go in for a round of clothes-washing.

      At around the 1′3″ mark I notice a high-pitched whine.

      Goodness gracious, it’s loud and annoying. I guess this is what I’m missing?

      …man, screw this. I’m turning the whine-booster off.

      So I do.

      Unfortunately, just as “cannot unsee” describes an aspect of what one experiences, “cannot unhear” is also part of that. Even with the fancypants whine-booster off, I still get bothered by something in the OST that I never noticed in hundreds of hours gallivanting around Aionios and 1,232 playthroughs of the 3′24″ song.