Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Forget Pixel Art: Try Subpixels

  [Japhy Riddle] was tired of creating pixel art. He went to subpixel art. The idea is that since each color pixel is composed of three subpixels, your display is actually three times as dense as you think it is. As long as you don’t care about the colors, of course.

• Hackaday ☛ RFID From First Principles And Saving A Cat

  [Dale Cook] has cats, and as he readily admits, cats are jerks. We’d use stronger language than that, but either way it became a significant impediment to making progress with an RFID-based sensor to allow his cats access to their litterbox. Luckily, though, he was able to salvage the project enough to give a great talk on RFID from first principles and learn about a potentially tragic mistake.

• Habib Cham ☛ Unplanned Writing and Publishing Hiatus

  Despite my blogging endeavours, I have fallen into a writing and publishing hiatus over the past four months. Given the amount of blog posts I consume daily — one of the sources of inspiration and thought triggers, I didn't feel compelled to write. Nevertheless, I decided not to force the issue and allow for the desire to return, naturally.

  The hiatus could’ve been longer had it not been for the fact my Ghost subscription auto-renewed, which lead me to log back into my Ghost Pro account after a couple of months. Whilst taking care of my subscription setup, I decided to tidy things up and reconfigure the site. I also spent time reading the published posts, and what do you know, it triggered the desire to write, and I started digging into my drafts folder to pick up where I left off.

  The unplanned hiatus is over! 🙌🏾

• Jacky Alciné ☛ Creating with Intention - Jacky Alciné

  Art is what pulls people across class, regions and other markers of division together. The ability to produce art in this time is vital and controlled. I always encourage folks to check out the independent arts of every medium to help give air to stories that you want to see more of — photography, food, music, clothing, jewelry; you name it. I'm glad to see many of them grow over the last decade[4]. There's a lot we can do when it comes to having more control over how we tell stories and what we can teach each other. Art serves as a medium that can be as accessible, if not more so, than reading. In a well planned out approach, it could help improve our intelligence in multiple ways.

• Facundo Olano ☛ my blogging setup is my writing process

  The entry sits there for weeks, months, even years. Whenever I think about something relevant, I attach a note to the entry. Or I jot something down in any of the notebooks I keep around—on the desk, in my bag, in my nightstand drawer.

  Eventually I find myself thinking about the post when I wake up, or while I’m running, instinctively composing it in my head, one sentence after another. Then I know it’s time to start writing.

• Science

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ The biggest prime number ever found

    First, it’s a prime number (meaning it is only divisible by itself and one). Second, it’s what is called a Mersenne prime (we’ll get to what that means). And third, it is to date the largest prime number ever discovered in a mathematical quest with a history going back more than 2 000 years.

  • Science Alert ☛ Physicists Transformed a Quantum Computer Into a Time Crystal

    Time crystals are groups of particles that display repeating patterns. Where the patterns that make up regular crystals like diamond and quartz echo through 3D space, time crystals move periodically like a pendulum, tick-tocking through time.

    What makes them unique is their ability to do this in absence or in contrast to a driving 'push'. Time crystals oscillate in their lowest energy state to their own rhythm, like a child kicking out in their swing in defiance of their parent's repetitive nudges.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ New tools filter noise from evolution data

    While rates of evolution have appeared to accelerate over short time periods, new analysis suggests that statistical noise is affecting the data patterns. A professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and his colleague have developed new tools to help researchers filter the data.

  • Science Alert ☛ Mysterious Inca Objects Reveal a Hidden Link We Never Saw Before

    After examining and manipulating the data, I realised the smaller and more complex khipu is a summary and reallocation of the information in the larger khipu. In other words, the two khipus record the same data, but represent it differently.

• Career/Education

  • University of Michigan ☛ The University of Michigan is a corporation

    This confusion is derived from a belief that the University operates as an institution of higher education, dedicated to knowledge, critical thinking, free expression and student growth. But its operational strategy does not comport with such a mission. Rather, the University operates more like a corporation. At the same time, it flouts obvious corporate solutions that would benefit students — the institution’s most important stakeholders.

  • Alex Ewerlöf ☛ Staff Engineer vs Engineering Manager

    These are actual questions I’ve got in the past few years:

    • An EM: I don’t want to deal with people anymore. I want to focus on the tech. Is Staff Engineering for me?

    • A Senior EM responsible for multiple teams: I have so much admin work: 1:1s, skip levels, promotion, performance review, architectural decisions, engineering strategy, etc. Should I hire a Staff Engineer to take over the technical part of my job?

    • A Staff Engineer for a team without an EM: I’m practically acting as the team manager and like it. Should I just switch lanes to become an EM?

    So I thought it’s time to settle all these questions once and for all.

  • Alex Ewerlöf ☛ How can engineer leaders stay technical?

    I reached out with this question to one of my friends who is the CTO at a mid-size company (500-1000 employees).

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ $40 Ham Antenna Works Six Bands

    [My Ham Radio Journey] wanted to see if a “common person” (in his words) could build an effective vertical ham radio antenna. If you look at the video below, the answer is apparently yes.

  • India Times ☛ Ex-Google CEO Schmidt to the US Army: Give tanks away, instead buy a ...

    Google's former CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt is asking for a radical shift in America's military strategy. He proposes that the US military should replace its traditional tank fleets with AI-powered drones. Schmidt served as Google’s CEO for almost 10 years -- from 2001 to 2011, a time of rapid growth for the search giant. He later became executive chairman for Google, and in 2015, for its new parent company, Alphabet, before resigning as chairman in the year 2018.

  • India Times ☛ AI revolution drives surge in gold demand for smartphones, autonomous vehicles, and data centres: report [Ed: "AI revolution" = Microsoft et al propaganda and Ponzi scheme.]

    Gold demand in the electronics sector peaked in 2010 at 328 tons but gradually declined to 249 tons by 2023. Recent quarters, however, have shown a modest recovery, driven in part by the expansion of AI-enabled devices.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Future US Inc ☛ After awards haul, Helldivers 2 devs lament the "dire state" of the games industry: "We need to be there to help each other"

    "The games industry is in turmoil"

    [...]

    One major source of layoffs in 2024 has been Microsoft, which has reportedly laid off more than 2,500 workers alone, with several successful studios shutting down in the process, such as Hi-Fi Rush develop Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin, developer of the Dishonored series and Redfall.

  • 9to5Mac ☛ 2024-11-19 [Older] Apple Devices May Learn to Ignore ‘Hey Siri’ Command From TV Ads

  • Neil Selwyn ☛ AI … minding our language

    Mitchell makes the point that the use of such language matters – shaping how society is responding to the rise of genAI. The more that we presume this technology to be thinking like a human then the more that we feel comfortable with human-related rights and responsibilities being afforded to the technology. Thus, we are now seeing organisations decide that it is acceptable to replace human counsellors with chatbots. We are now seeing legal debates over the moral rights of robots. We are now seeing credulous discussions of how AI software can ‘perform’ when taking an examination or an IQ test

  • CNBC ☛ Will AI replace humans? Yoshua Bengio warns of artificial intelligence risks

    "Intelligence gives power. So who's going to control that power?" he said. "Having systems that know more than most people can be dangerous in the wrong hands and create more instability at a geopolitical level, for example, or terrorism."

  • Futurism ☛ Godfather of AI Warns of Powerful People Who Want Humans "Replaced by Machines"

    The head of the University of Montreal's Institute for Learning Algorithms, Bengio was among the public signatories of the "Right to Warn" open letter penned by leading AI researchers at OpenAI who claim they're being silenced about the technology's dangers. Along with famed experts Yann LeCun and Geoffrey Hinton, he's sometimes referred to as one of the "Godfathers of AI."

    "Intelligence gives power. So who’s going to control that power?" the preeminent machine learning expert told the outlet during the One Young World Summit in Montreal.

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Right Has a Bluesky Problem

    The number of people departing X indicates that something is shifting, but raw user numbers have never fully captured the point of what the site was. Twitter’s value proposition was that relatively influential people talked to each other on it. In theory, you could log on to Twitter and see a country singer rib a cable-news anchor, billionaires bloviate, artists talk about media theory, historians get into vicious arguments, and celebrities share vaguely interesting minutiae about their lives. More so than anywhere else, you could see the unvarnished thoughts of the relatively powerful and influential. And anyone, even you, could maybe strike up a conversation with such people. As each wave departs X, the site gradually becomes less valuable to those who stay, prompting a cycle that slowly but surely diminishes X’s relevance.

  • The Register UK ☛ Thousands of PAN-OS devices compromised by critical exploits

    Roughly 2,000 devices had been hijacked as of Wednesday - a day after Palo Alto Networks pushed a patch for the holes - according to Shadowserver and Onyphe. As of Thursday, the number of seemingly compromised devices had dropped to about 800.

  • WikiBooks ☛ Wikibooks:Artificial Intelligence - Wikibooks, open books for an open world

    Large language models (LLMs), often referred to as "AI chatbots" or simply "AI", can be beneficial. However, like human-generated text, machine-generated text can also contain errors, flaws, or even be entirely useless. In particular, requesting a language model to write a book or an essay can sometimes cause the production of complete fabrications, including fictitious references. The output may be biased, libel living people, infringe on copyrights, or simply be of poor quality. As such, LLMs may not be used to generate original material or ideas at Wikibooks, and their sources should not be blindly trusted.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-12 [Older] Facebook and Instagram Users in Europe Can Opt for Less Personalized Ads

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-11-18 [Older] Germany: Compensation for Facebook data breach victims

    • Make Tech Easier ☛ 2024-11-14 [Older] Apple’s Shazam Can Now Remember Where You Identified a Song

    • International Business Times ☛ 2024-11-14 [Older] Is 'Bluesky' The New Twitter? Platform Gains 1.25M Followers During X's Mass Exodus After US Elections [Ed: Boosting another flavour of the same toxin]

    • Vox ☛ 2024-11-14 [Older] Bluesky feels more like old Twitter than X does

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Wildlife monitoring technologies used to intimidate and spy on women, study finds

      Remotely operated camera traps, sound recorders and drones are increasingly being used in conservation science to monitor wildlife and natural habitats, and to keep watch on protected natural areas. But Cambridge researchers studying a forest in northern India have found that the technologies are being deliberately misused by local governments and male villagers to keep watch on women without their consent.

    • Thomas Rigby ☛ Create an account

      I've heard good things about another place in town. I won't name-and-shame them because this isn't about them; it's about every largely unnecessary account.

      To book an appointment, I tapped the "Book appointment" button on their website which took me to a third party booking system where I needed to create an account.

    • JURIST ☛ Federal court allows illegal data collection claims against Target to move forward

      A US federal judge on Thursday denied Target Corporation’s motion to dismiss a class-action lawsuit alleging the retailer collected and stored customers’ biometric data without proper notice or consent.

      A class-action lawsuit was filed in May 2024 by four Illinois residents on behalf of shoppers in the state. The plaintiffs allege that Target violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which regulates the collection, storage, and use of biometric data such as facial scans and fingerprints.

• Defence/Aggression

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-13 [Older] Israel Says It Attacks Hezbollah Arms Smuggling Routes in Syria

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-14 [Older] Israel Will Attack Any Attempt to Bring Arms to Hezbollah From Syria -Army Spokesperson

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: The far right grows through “disaster fantasies”

    This individualistic approach to problem solving does useful work for powerful people, because it keeps the rest of us thoroughly powerless. Voting with your wallet is casting a ballot in a rigged election that's always won by the people with the thickest wallets, and statistically, that's never you. That's why the right is so obsessed with removing barriers to election spending: the wealthy can't win a one-person/one-vote election (to be in the 1% is to be outnumbered 99:1), but unlimited campaign spending lets the wealthy vote in real elections using their wallets, not just just ballots.

  • NDTV ☛ Sambhal News: Internet Snapped, Schools Shut As Violence Over Shahi Jama Masjid Mosque Survey Kills 3 In UP

    Internet services have been suspended and schools shut after three people were killed in violence over the survey of a mosque in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal on Sunday.

    Chaos erupted in Sambhal Sunday morning when a court-ordered survey of the Mughal-era Shahi Jama Masjid led to violent clashes between the locals and the police. The mosque is at the centre of a contentious legal battle over claims that it was built on the site of a Hindu temple.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Democracy Is Not a Customer Loyalty Program

    Liberal democracy’s assumption that political parties must compete for votes in the same way that businesses compete for customers is a dangerous trap. It reduces voting to a mere transactional choice and erases the participatory vision of self-governance

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Hackers breach Wi-Fi network of U.S. firm from Russia — daisy chain attack jumps from network to network to gain access from thousands of miles away

    The hackers were able to access their target by first compromising the network of a neighboring firm (Company B). In their first attack, they looked for a computer that was connected via Ethernet to the initially compromised network (Company B) but could also connect via Wi-Fi. From there, they connected to the wireless network of their final target (Company A). Another attack showed the hackers penetrating the network of a third company (Company C) to then connect to Company B’s Wi-Fi. They then used that connection to Company B to advance their cyberattack on Company A.

  • The Register UK ☛ Russian cyberspies access target by compromising neighbors

    To get around the fact it was targeting a Wi-Fi network thousands of miles away, APT28 breached the target's neighboring organizations, identified devices with both wired and wireless network adapters, and used them to connect to the target's Wi-Fi network with the stolen credentials. Once connected, the attackers moved laterally within the network and routed exfiltrated data through compromised machines on neighboring networks.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Yazidis Seek India Support at UNSC

    The IS had killed thousands of Yazidi men, thousands of women have been abducted and made sex slaves and their children were forced into slavery.

    The delegation of Yazidi National Union (YNU), which represents the community, is seeking intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to represent their cause at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for the protection of one of the ancient communities in the world from disappearance and creation of a safe zone in their territory.

  • [Repeat] RFA ☛ What happens when China puts boots on the ground in Myanmar?

    It now appears to be a question of “when, not if” Chinese security personnel will arrive in Myanmar, with Beijing looking to secure its strategic interests in the war-torn country and those of its ally, the military junta that has lost large chunks of the country since the 2021 coup.

  • The Atlantic ☛ What the Broligarchs Want from Trump

    After Donald Trump won this month’s election, one of the first things he did was to name two unelected male plutocrats, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to run a new Department [sic] of Government Efficiency. The yet-to-be-created entity’s acronym, DOGE, is something of a joke—a reference to a cryptocurrency named for an [Internet] meme involving a Shiba Inu. But its appointed task of reorganizing the federal bureaucracy and slashing its spending heralds a new political arrangement in Washington: a broligarchy, in which tremendous power is flowing to tech and finance magnates, some of whom appear indifferent or even overtly hostile to democratic tradition.

  • New York Times ☛ Trump Is Running His Transition Team on Secret Money

    Mr. Trump has so far declined to sign an agreement with the Biden administration that imposes strict limits on that fund-raising in exchange for up to $7.2 million in federal funds earmarked for the transition. By dodging the agreement, Mr. Trump can raise unlimited amounts of money from unknown donors to pay for the staff, travel and office space involved in preparing to take over the government.

    Mr. Trump is the first president-elect to sidestep the restrictions, provoking alarm among ethics experts.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Trump wanted to ban TikTok. Will his return to office help save it?

    But there are factors that complicate the app’s position. Several legal experts and tech industry observers said the path forward for TikTok is still precarious.

    “It’s just a huge mess, and it isn’t clear,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Nordic countries ramp up civil defenses

    Finland, Sweden and Norway have all issued updated preparedness guides to their citizens. Finland has issued theirs in a digital format, while Norway and Sweden are sending physical copies of instructions to all households.

  • Axios ☛ The Resistance to Trump goes quiet

    That could change as Trump moves to implement his agenda. But experts and activists expect the renewed resistance to come in different forms.

    Flashback: Trump won in 2016 despite trailing in the polls, and within weeks of the infamous Access Hollywood tape and multiple sexual assault allegations.

  • RFERL ☛ Romanians Vote In Presidential Election As Ukraine Aid Could Lay In Balance

    At three polling stations, turnout was reported at more than 150 percent. It was not immediately clear if the figure was the result of irregularities or due to supplemental lists holding more names than the permanent lists.

  • RFERL ☛ Police Violence Against Foreign Students In Kazan Leads To Iranian Diplomatic Protest

    The violent detentions of brawling foreign university students, including from Iran, in Tatarstan has led to a protest by the Iranian consul-general.

  • France24 ☛ LGBT harassment in Russia; destruction of monuments in the West Bank (16/12/2023)

    A weekly news show produced with photos, videos and personal accounts from France 24 Observers around the world - all checked by our staff here in Paris. This show was broadcast on 16/12/2023.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • New York Times ☛ What’s Behind Ukraine and Russia’s Missile Brinkmanship?

      Tit-for-tat moves this week included the use of American-made ballistic missiles to strike inside Russia, and new nuclear threats from Moscow. Neither appear to have influenced the war on the ground.

    • RFERL ☛ EU Parliament Leader Wants Germany To Send Taurus Missiles To Ukraine

      EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola supports the use of long-range missiles by Ukraine in its defense against Russia's full-scale invasion and said Germany should quickly deliver its long-range Taurus system to the embattled country.

    • RFERL ☛ Trump Reportedly Considers Ex-Intelligence Chief Richard Grenell For Ukraine Post

      U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is considering tapping Richard Grenell, his former intelligence chief, to be a special envoy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to four sources familiar with the transition plans.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia's Claim Of Emissions In Occupied Ukraine Regions Draws Protests At COP29

      Russia has included the territories it occupies in Ukraine in its recent greenhouse gas inventory report to the United Nations, drawing protests from Ukrainian officials and activists at the COP29 climate summit in Baku.

    • JURIST ☛ Ukraine prosecutor accuses Russia of executing POWs

      The Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office on Friday accused Russian soldiers of executing five Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) near the village of Vuhledar in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. The office stated: “The killing of prisoners of war is a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and is classified as a serious international crime.”

    • France24 ☛ Ukraine faces rapid demographic decline

      Ukraine's population has declined by 10 million, or around a quarter, since the start of Russia's invasion in 2014 as a result of refugees leaving, collapsing fertility and war deaths, according to the United Nations. Catherine Norris-Trent, senior reporter at France 24, reports.

    • France24 ☛ Ukraine loses more than 40% of territory it seized in Russia's Kursk region

      Ukraine lost more than 40% of the territory in Russia's Kursk region that it captured in a surprise offensive in August with the Russians launching multiple counter-attacks, a senior source in Kyiv's army said. While the Kursk invasion caught Moscow unprepared, Russian forces are still steadily advancing in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

    • France24 ☛ "The Ukrainian army is outnumbered, in men and equipment"

      Ukraine was bound to lose the territory it held in Russia, said FRANCE 24's correspondent in Ukraine Emmanuelle Chaze. "At the height of the Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region, the Ukrainian army controlled over 1300 square kilometres of land, and within four months, Russia has managed to reclaim 40% of this land," she said. "This didn't come as a surprise for the Ukrainians, simply because the Ukrainian army is outnumbered, in men and equipment," she added.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Biden’s Ukraine moves are a gift to Trump

      The outgoing administration is “emptying the barrel,” which could improve the incoming president’s chances at negotiating a deal worth having.

    • New York Times ☛ With Memes and in State Media, Many Russians Cheer on Putin’s Threats

      While support for Vladimir V. Putin’s threats resounded in pro-war venues, some Russians reacted with worry, gallows humor and apathy to the suggestions of striking the West and using nuclear weapons.

    • RFERL ☛ Putin Says Russia Will Use New Missile Again In 'Combat Conditions' After Ukraine Strike

      Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country's new intermediate-range ballistic missile, a nuclear-capable weapon, will continue to be tested, including in combat conditions, as Moscow struck several Ukrainian regions with other weapons.

    • RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Says Putin Aiming To Regain Kursk Territory Before Trump Takes Office

      Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russia is seeking to drive his forces out of the Kursk region before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year but added that the military situation in the Donetsk region is the most critical for his country.

    • France24 ☛ Lt Gen Hodges: Putin's war on Ukraine 'could've ended last year' had West provided Kyiv 'the tools'

      As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeals to allies for updated air-defence systems to meet the new threat from Russia, involving an experimental hypersonic missile, FRANCE 24's Gavin Lee welcomes Retired US Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former Commanding General of US Army Europe. Lt. Gen. Hodges asserts that, despite numerous threats, Russia will never start a nuclear war "because there are zero positive upsides," including the US threat of "catastrophic consequences."

    • RFERL ☛ Georgian Dream To Open Parliament Despite Protests, Without Foreign Diplomats

      The Moscow-friendly Georgian Dream party, fresh off a contested victory in parliamentary elections last month that ignited calls for fresh polls and pro-EU demonstrations in Tbilisi, is preparing to hold its first parliamentary session on November 25.

    • European Commission ☛ Address by Mr Janusz Wojciechowski at the International Summit on Food Security, Kyiv

      It is my great pleasure to join you here in Kyiv, at this important event, and at this important moment.

    • New York Times ☛ Russia Supplies Antiaircraft Missiles, to North Korea, the South Says

      Pyongyang has long coveted an advanced air-defense system to guard against missiles and war planes from the United States and South Korea.

• Environment

  • The Independent UK ☛ What to know about the plastic pollution treaty talks in South Korea

    Nations are deciding what actions they'll take

    National delegations still have a lot to hammer out before there is a treaty. Most contentious is whether there will be a limit on the amount of plastic that companies are allowed to produce.

  • The Independent UK ☛ In South Korea, nations meet in final round to address global plastic crisis

    It's the fifth time the world's nations convene to craft a legally binding plastic pollution accord. In addition to the national delegations, representatives from the plastics industry, scientists and environmentalists have come to shape how the world tackles the surging problem.

    The planet is “ choking on plastic, ” according to the United Nations. It's polluting lakes, rivers, oceans and people's bodies.

  • The Korea Times ☛ Global attention centers on reducing plastic production as 5th round of negotiations begins in Busan

    The two major issues that will be the focus at the INC-5 are whether to prioritize the regulation of plastic production or promote reuse and whether to specify a target year for international plastic agreements.

    The key issue in the debate over production regulation is whether to impose limits on the production of primary polymers, which are raw materials used to make plastics extracted from fossil fuels.

  • VOA News ☛ $300B climate change deal sparks hope in some, outrage in others

    The $300 billion will go to developing countries who need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil and gas that causes the globe to overheat, adapt to future warming, and pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather. It’s not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it’s three times a deal of $100 billion a year from 2009 that is expiring. Some delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-11-19 [Older] In Baku, at the Latest Global Confab on Climate, Hand-Wringing Abounds

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-11-19 [Older] Should major fossil fuel companies pay for climate damage?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-11-19 [Older] What will happen if Argentina quits Paris Climate Agreement?

  • The Age AU ☛ 2024-11-19 [Older] Coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, September 2024

  • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2024-11-18 [Older] Danish government strikes major green deal

  • Mexico News Daily ☛ 2024-11-18 [Older] ​​Sheinbaum included in TIME’s list of top 100 climate titans

  • University of Michigan ☛ 2024-11-18 [Older] Presentations scheduled for campus climate survey findings

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-11-18 [Older] COP29 Activists Demand $5 Trillion in Annual Climate Financing From Global North

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-11-18 [Older] How has Germany's collapsed coalition scored on climate?

  • Truthdig ☛ 2024-11-18 [Older] The Question Looming Over COP29: Who’s Rich Enough To Pay for Climate Change?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-18 [Older] Andrea Illy Takes Aim at Coffee’s Climate Crisis

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-17 [Older] Methane From Tropical Wetlands Is Surging, Threatening Climate Plans

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-17 [Older] G20 Talks in Rio Reach Breakthrough on Climate Finance, Sources Say

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-11-15 [Older] Where are we at with countries' climate contributions?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-15 [Older] New York Judge Rejects State Efforts to Shutter Bitcoin Mine Over Climate Concerns

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-15 [Older] Climate Change Activist Gets 2 Years in Prison for Dumping Red Powder on Constitution Display

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-15 [Older] Australia Eyes US Climate Policy Shift for Green Energy Boost

  • Vox ☛ 2024-11-15 [Older] I saw the Hurricane Helene response up close. This is how disaster relief actually works.

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-11-14 [Older] Social Media and Climate Discourse: A Double-Edged Sword for Global Advocacy

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-11-14 [Older] G20: Lula faces high stakes on climate, taxing billionaires

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-11-14 [Older] Is climate finance reaching the most vulnerable?

  • Renewable Energy World ☛ 2024-11-14 [Older] Companies are buying up cheap carbon offsets − data suggest it’s more about greenwashing than helping the climate

  • The Age AU ☛ 2024-11-14 [Older] Extinction Rebellion climate activists block traffic during peak hour in Melbourne

  • Vox ☛ 2024-11-14 [Older] We were supposed to hit peak emissions. Why won’t they stop rising?

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-11-13 [Older] Climate Change: Science, Impacts, Mitigation, and Financing at COP29

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-11-13 [Older] Climate disaster fund to start paying out in 2025

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-11-13 [Older] COP29: Climate change in 10 charts

  • NL Times ☛ 2024-11-12 [Older] Climate group can't force Shell to set and achieve CO2 reduction targets: Appeals Court

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-11-12 [Older] Climate Groups Decry Dutch Court’s Reversal of Shell Ruling as “Setback”

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-11-12 [Older] The Military-Industrial Complex Is Fueling Climate Catastrophe

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-11-12 [Older] What is Big Oil and what does it mean for the climate?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-12 [Older] Development Lenders Set $120-Billion Climate Finance Goal for Poorer Countries

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Daniel Pocock ☛ Energy shock: €17,000 circuit court claim, threat of judgment for fraudulent charges

      The home in Dublin suffered a fire in January 2023. A lodger had made a mistake with a candle. The feeling when I go back there is a feeling of grief. The environment has become toxic. The work required to restore it is beyond what most individuals could comprehend, let alone execute. Yet going back there one day in July 2024, when it would seem that nothing could get worse, it did.

      Imagine it is days before you are to leave on your summer vacation and a sinister looking, hand-written, red envelope arrives in your letterbox.

      In my case, there was no summer vacation. I was on the way to an event in the United States.

      Opening up the red envelope, I found court documents insisting that I have used €17,000 of energy in the eighteen months that the home has been vacant.

    • Dan Langille ☛ Optimizing UPS power use when the power goes out

      This post is mostly for myself. I’m just putting my Sunday morning thoughts down for later review and consideration.

      When Selecting replacements batteries for my Eaton 5PX UPS (5PX2200RT & 5PXEBM48RT), I began to think about: when the power goes off, why can’t I keep using my laptop?

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Solar glut boosts California power bills — other states reap the benefits

      In the last 12 months, California has curtailed production of enough solar energy to power 518,000 homes for a year.

      Californians, whose electric rates are roughly twice the national average, are essentially paying for power capacity they are unable to use.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ With bitcoin surging, here's a refresher on cryptocurrency

      Now, bitcoin is at the doorstep of $100,000, just two years after dropping below $17,000 after the collapse of [cryptocurrency] exchange FTX. The dramatic rally arrives as industry players expect the incoming Trump administration to bring a more [cryptocurrency]-friendly approach to regulating the digital currency.

    • CS Monitor ☛ Recurring blackouts roiled Cuba. What’s behind the crisis?

      Blackouts have been a regular feature in Cuba for decades. But in recent months, the problem has escalated – lasting longer and occurring more frequently. Here’s a look at the factors driving outages on the island.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • EcoWatch ☛ ‘Mind-Blowing’: Study Shows Fungal Networks Can Solve Problems and Make Decisions

      If the fungi did not have decision-making skills, they would spread out from the center without being affected by the placement of the blocks. However, this is not what happened.

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Slender-billed Curlew may be extinct, marking the disappearance of a third bird species from the Western Palaearctic

      In their paper published in the journal Ibis, the group notes that the extinction would also represent the first bird species from Mainland Europe, West Asia and North Africa to go extinct.

• Finance

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-11-15 [Older] Two million children in Turkey in ‘absolute poverty’

  • Robert Birming ☛ Don't buy me a coffee... yet

    I don’t think I offer anything that justifies a call to donate money. I write some blog posts and let others use my theme. That’s it!

  • Seth Michael Larson ☛ How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

    URLs tell you where to get content on the web, but they don't tell you anything about how to support the person who created the content. This story might sound similar to paying open source maintainers, where a user can almost abstract an entire project to a single download URL.

    There are tons of people creating content for the web and plenty of ways to get paid (Patreon, Kofi, GitHub Sponsors, YouTube Paid Membership), but there's no standardized way to direct someone interested in paying for the content of a page in the right direction.

    We have HTML meta headers for many things, including where to find an RSS feed or what my Fediverse handle is, but none for enumerating options to pay the creator of the content. I wish I could click a button to easily send a "tip" to someone who created something I enjoy or to browse other options for supporting them.

  • International Business Times ☛ 2024-11-17 [Older] UK Women Save Over £6K On Cosmetic Surgeries In Turkey—But Some Go From Surgery Table To Coffin

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-11-15 [Older] Landlords in Turkey accused of trapping refugees into deportation scheme

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Amazon Invests an Additional $4 Billion in AI Firm Anthropic

    Amazon is investing an additional $4 billion in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, boosting its stake in one of OpenAI’s chief rivals.

  • The Verge ☛ Tech CEOs want to replicate Tim Cook’s Donald Trump playbook

    Cook used direct appeals to influence Trump’s 2017 tax policy and to get him to dial back his 2019 tariffs in ways that benefitted Apple. In exchange, Trump got to look good; as the Journal points out, Cook didn’t correct Trump when claimed responsibility for Apple opening an Austin manufacturing plant that had already been around for years and wasn’t even owned by Apple.

  • US News And World Report ☛ US Plans to Reduce Intel's $8.5 Billion Federal Chips Grant Below $8 Billion - New York Times

    The change took into account a $3 billion contract Intel had been offered to make chips for the Pentagon, the people told the Times.

  • Pivot to AI ☛ Roll out the barrels of pork: Congressional committee recommends AI ‘Manhattan Project’

    Helberg just happens to be a senior advisor to the CEO of Palantir and a close friend of Sam Altman at OpenAI. In fact, Altman officiated at Helberg’s 2019 wedding to Keith Rabois of the PayPal Mafia.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Some in the venture capital community backed Trump. Here’s what’s next

    While Trump didn’t receive unanimous support from the tech sector, many American tech giants and investors are excited about the light-handed approach to tech regulation that’s likely to come in the next four years. Congress has struggled to pass any federal laws around emerging technology like AI, though states have done so on their own on issues like data privacy, transparency, discrimination, and on how AI-generated images can be used.

  • [Repeat] New Yorker ☛ The Rise of 4B in the Wake of Donald Trump’s Reëlection

    A “Lysistrata”-style political sex strike in the U.S. is unlikely to take off. But there hasn’t really been one in South Korea, either. I wouldn’t describe 4B as a movement or an ideology as much as a feeling, a name for what many women are doing (or not doing), intentionally or not. The country has one of the world’s lowest fertility rates, and the marriage rate has fallen by forty per cent in the past decade. Many straight women, twentysomething through middle age, have given up on the layers of bullshit that come with dating and reproduction: sexist dudes, in-law drama, holiday rituals, dead-end job prospects. There’s also the untenable cost of family housing and childhood education in Seoul and other major cities. 4B is catchy and provocative, but it’s also way too slight to help us through this moment of crisis.

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire - Nokia wins five-year deal to supply Azure data centre networks

    Telecoms equipment vendor Nokia has won a five-year expansion of its existing multi-year agreement to supply Microsoft Azure with data centre routers and switches.

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-11-18 [Older] Turkish state media says Israel’s president had to skip COP29 after Turkey denied airspace access

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-19 [Older] Turkey's Erdogan Says Israel's Herzog Was Denied Airspace En Route to Azerbaijan

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-18 [Older] US Warns Turkey Against Hosting Hamas Leaders

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • VOA News ☛ Australia withdraws misinformation bill after critics compare it to censorship 

      The bill would have granted the Australian Communications and Media Authority power over digital platforms by approving an enforceable code of conduct or standards for social media companies if self-regulation fell short.

    • Google ☛ Seeing Through a GLASSBRIDGE: Understanding the Digital Marketing Ecosystem Spreading Pro-PRC Influence Operations | Google Cloud Blog

      This blog post details GLASSBRIDGE—an umbrella group of four different companies that operate networks of inauthentic news sites and newswire services tracked by the Google Threat Intelligence Group (consisting of Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) and Mandiant). Collectively these firms bulk-create and operate hundreds of domains that pose as independent news websites from dozens of countries, but are in fact publishing thematically similar, inauthentic content that emphasizes narratives aligned to the political interests of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Since 2022, Google has blocked more than a thousand GLASSBRIDGE-operated websites from eligibility to appear in Google News features and Google Discover because these sites violated our policies that prohibit deceptive behavior and require editorial transparency.

      We cannot attribute who hired these services to create the sites and publish content, but assess the firms may be taking directions from a shared customer who has outsourced the distribution of pro-PRC content via imitation news websites.

      These campaigns are another example of private public relations (PR) firms conducting coordinated influence campaigns—in this case, spreading content aligned with the PRC’s views and political agenda to audiences dispersed across the globe. By using private PR firms, the actors behind the information operations (IO) gain plausible deniability, obscuring their role in the dissemination of coordinated inauthentic content.

    • NPR ☛ What happens when your partner has an overnight political conversion? [Ed: NPR is whitewashing Bill Gates, who bribes NPR; criticism of Gates is not disinformation]

      Vaillancourt's social media feeds kept showing her more and more QAnon content, including posts and videos claiming the alleged cabal had planned the pandemic to institute authoritarian control. "Once you fell into this QAnon rabbit hole, that became the entire online ecosystem," Vaillancourt said. "My Facebook, my YouTube, my Google searches — everything was giving me more and more of this information that I found so fascinating that I believed myself to be waking up," she said.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-11-12 [Older] Fact check: Amsterdam video doesn't show attack on Israelis

    • NL Times ☛ 2024-11-17 [Older] Police identified 45 suspects in Amsterdam riots, unblurred photos of suspects released

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-11-12 [Older] European Fake Art Network Involving Banksys, Warhols, Modiglianis Uncovered in Italy

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-11-14 [Older] Director Luca Guadagnino says Turkey’s ban on his film ‘Queer’ will boost its cult status

  • RFERL ☛ Pakistani Capital Locked Down, Internet Partially Suspended Ahead Of Protest

    Pakistani authorities have locked down Islamabad and partially suspended mobile phone and Internet services as supporters of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan geared up for a protest in the capital, calling for his release.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Pakistan cuts mobile, [Internet] services ahead of pro-Imran Khan protest

    Pakistan on Sunday suspended mobile and internet services “in areas with security concerns” as supporters of imprisoned former premier Imran Khan geared up for a protest in the capital .

    The government and Interior Ministry posted the announcement on social media platform X, which is banned in Pakistan. They did not specify the areas, nor did they say how long the suspension would be in place.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Internet ban extended in Manipur as 7 arrested for arson in Imphal

    Amid continuing unrest in Manipur, the state government has extended its ban on mobile [Internet] and data services, including VSAT and VPN services, in nine districts for an additional two days. This move comes as tensions remain high following violent incidents, including arson attacks on the residences of elected officials.

  • New York Times ☛ Egypt Feuds With Travel Blogger, Issuing 1,100-Word Response to Complaints

    But this month, Egypt found itself facing an opponent it could not silence so easily.

    “Cairo Airport: Is There a Worse Major Airport?” the travel blogger Ben Schlappig pondered in a no-holds-barred post on his website, One Mile at a Time. He cited the “actively hostile and rude” staff, the “endless requests for tips,” the “disorder” in line, the “weak” dining options and the “yuck” lounges.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • CPJ ☛ 2024-11-13 [Older] CPJ joins call for Turkey to release arrested journalist Furkan Karabay

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-11-13 [Older] ‘Covering ECtHR rulings could become an offense with Turkey’s new agents of influence bill’

  • The Dissenter ☛ Democrats Responsible For Slow Death Of The PRESS Act

  • ANF News ☛ Prison sentence against journalist Beritan Canözer confirmed

    Beritan Canözer has been working as a journalist for ten years. During this time, her home was searched six times by the police. She was arrested five times and was twice in custody for several months. Eight criminal proceedings were initiated against her. In three cases, she was accused of membership in a terrorist organization and acquitted in court. She was sentenced to a total of seven and a half years in prison in four different trials on charges of propaganda for a terrorist organization.

  • Nebraska Examiner ☛ Nebraska newspapers in Ainsworth, Valentine slated to close unless buyers are found

    The Worrells are not alone.

    A combination of higher production and mailing costs, a shift by advertisers to social media and other outlets and the difficulty in hiring staff to cover night and weekend community meetings and local ball games have put a squeeze on community newspapers.

  • Axios ☛ Jim VandeHei: Why clear-eyed journalism matters

    "But at the core of that is maybe transparency, maybe a free press, maybe the ability to do your job without worrying about going to jail, maybe the ability to sit in a war zone and tell people what's actually happening ... The work that we do matters."

  • VOA News ☛ Prominent Cambodia environmentalist arrested while investigating illegal logging

    A prominent Cambodian environmentalist was arrested along with five others while investigating illegal logging in a national park, a rights group and a government official said Sunday.

  • Breach Media ☛ Police spied on Albertan journalist accused of vandalizing Nazi monuments

    Journalist Duncan Kinney is charged with mischief for allegedly spray-painting two Nazi monuments—a charge he says the Edmonton Police is using to silence him

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • HRW ☛ 2024-11-20 [Older] Saudi Arabia: Public Investment Fund Linked to Abuses

  • BoingBoing ☛ Justice Department shuts down DEA airport cash grab scheme

    Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz's investigation revealed that one airline employee alone received "tens of thousands of dollars" for flagging passengers who committed the suspicious act of… buying tickets within 48 hours of their flight. Meanwhile, the DEA hasn't bothered documenting these encounters or training their agents since 2023, ignoring their own policies from a 2015 oversight report.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Taliban divided over 'isolated' leader's crackdown on women

    Her crime was selling honey to male customers as a female business owner, which is forbidden under the Taliban regime. She ended up in jail.

    Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban has systematically curbed women’s rights in Afghanistan.

    The restrictions affect their daily lives, ranging from preventing them showing their faces in public or driving a car, to forbidding conversations with men and restricting how they dress.

  • Futurism ☛ CEO Fires 99 Out of 110 Workers for Missing Morning Meeting

    This sudden departure isn't as unwarranted as it sounds. The self-described intern explained that every fired Musician's Club employee is an unpaid, remote worker — so this isn't a story of lost income as much as it is a moral tale about a CEO-sized ego.

  • VOA News ☛ New Zealand's founding treaty is at a flashpoint. Why are thousands protesting for Māori rights?

    A proposed law that would redefine New Zealand's founding treaty between the British Crown and Māori chiefs has triggered political turmoil and prompted tens of thousands of people to show up in protest at the country's Parliament on Tuesday.

    The bill is never expected to become law. But it has become a flashpoint on race relations and a critical moment in the fraught 180-year-old conversation about how New Zealand should honor its promises to Indigenous people when the country was colonized – and what those promises are.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ Is it bandwidth or latency?

    You can’t ignore the laws of physics, especially the speed of light. While people often know that light travels at 3 × 10^8 metres per second, that’s only true in a vacuum. When signals travel over electrical wires, they slow down to about 2.7 × 10^8 metres per second or roughly 97% of that speed. Through fibre optics, it’s even slower —around 2 × 10^8 metres per second — so a signal travelling at two-thirds the speed of light is actually expected.

    The key point here is that distant locations are often much farther than people realize. For example, if your data packets are being served from Japan while you’re in Europe, the signal delay, even without any routers or switches along the way, is around 60 milliseconds. This is noticeably longer than the delay you’d experience receiving the same data from a nearby Content Delivery Network (CDN).

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Experts: GIS Tech to Boost Governance

    Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were highlighted as essential tools for governance, sustainable development, and societal progress during the International GIS Day celebrations held at the Institution of Engineers, on Wednesday. Experts discussed how GIS technology could transform decision-making, planning, and education, emphasising its role in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

  • Kev Quirk ☛ AMA - Do I See a Future for the Federated Web

    The TL;DR is that I do see a future in the federated web, but maybe not in its current form. Let me explain...

    As I alluded above - to me, the "federated web" (aka fedi for the purposes of this post) isn't just Mastodon and its ilk. To me, the backbone the fedi are personal sites, like this one.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • [Old] Free Software Foundation ☛ About the DRM-free label | Defective by Design

    Would you ever shop at a book, video, or record store that demanded permission to send employees to your home to take back movies, novels, or CD's for any reason? Would you buy something that broke when you tried to share it with someone else?

    Digital Restrictions Management is technology that controls what you can do with the digital media and devices you own. When a program doesn't let you share a song, read an ebook on another device, or play a single-player game without an [Internet] connection, you are being restricted by DRM. In other words, DRM creates a damaged good. It prevents you from doing what would normally be possible if it wasn't there, and this is creating a dangerous situation for freedom, privacy and censorship.

  • Lee Yingtong Li ☛ Investigating a historical Android anti-root protection system

    This article concerns a specialised Android app used as part of a proprietary authentication protocol, developed in the late 2010s. Given the intended use case, the app features a number of aggressive security measures – the app uses FLAG_SECURE and does not run when developer options are enabled; it also incorporates root detection and tamper prevention.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Applied Materials MAX OLED screens touted to offer 5x lifespan — tech claimed to produce brighter and higher resolution screens too

    The patented OLED pixel design combined with a revolutionary manufacturing process enhances all types of OLED displays by delivering superior brightness, sharper clarity, improved energy efficiency, and extended lifespan.

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-11-13 [Older] [GuestPost] How the European Patent Office uses AI to facilitate patent searches [Ed: It's not "AI", it's just hype and nothing new]

  • 2024-11-13 [Older] USPTO Director Announces Resignation [Ed: Now she can go back to working for her beloved Microsoft]

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ 'Piracy' Scam Exploited Movie Fans For 20 Years, Suddenly Cited as Major Threat

    One of the most enduring online movie scams involves sites that claim to offer premium content, but turn out to be some type of scam. These services do not discriminate, so whether 'customers' are pirates or just regular people hoping to buy content, everyone is a potential victim. The scam has been running for at least 20 years yet, seemingly out of nowhere, pro site-blocking studies now describe it as a major piracy-related security threat.