Gemini Links 24/01/2025: The "Hey Hi" Hype Continues Fading, Tesla/X/Twitter/SpaceX Associate With Nazism
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Career/Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality Monopolies/Monopsonies
-
Leftovers
-
Marcy Wheeler ☛ Herod Goes to the National Cathedral and is Disappointed
To start things off, here’s the printed program [pdf] prepared for those who attended the service. (You can watch the video of the service on the Cathedral’s YouTube channel here.) Notice the title on the front cover: “A Service of Prayer for the Nation.” Notice what isn’t on the front cover? Two words: Donald Trump. The message is clear, right from the start – this isn’t a celebration of Trump, like the inaugural balls or the rally at the Capital One arena. This is a service for the nation.
Not for “the citizens of” the nation.
Not for “the taxpayers of” the nation.
Not for “the leaders of” the nation.
This was a service for the nation – the *whole* nation.Trump can attend, but it’s not about him or for him. It’s a service for the nation.
-
Robert Birming ☛ The Fresh Start Fallacy
We are what we have been, and we become what we are.
-
Science
-
Omicron Limited ☛ Terahertz pulses induce chirality in a non-chiral crystal
A Hamburg-Oxford team has focused on so-called antiferro-chirals, a type of non-chiral crystal reminiscent of antiferro-magnetic materials, in which magnetic moments anti-align in a staggered pattern leading to a vanishing net magnetization. An antiferro-chiral crystal is composed of equivalent amounts of left- and right-handed substructures in a unit cell, rendering it overall non-chiral.
-
Wired ☛ This Company Wants to Build a Space Station That Has Artificial Gravity
Haven-1 will have a habitable volume of 45 cubic meters, a docking port, a corridor with consumable resources for the crew’s personal living quarters, a laboratory, and a deployable communal table set up next to a domed window about a meter high. On board, roughly 425 kilometers above Earth’s surface, the station will use Starlink laser links to communicate with satellites in low Earth orbit, tech that was first tested during the Polaris Dawn mission in the autumn of 2024.
-
-
Career/Education
-
Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Guest Post: Reflections from The Munin Conference Part One – Bibliodiversity - The Scholarly Kitchen
The Munin Conference is named after one of Odin’s ravens who was sent out to fly around the world to gather knowledge and understanding and the sessions are built to operate with this vision – to seek thought and wisdom from around the world and to have it brought back 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle to UiT The Arctic University of Norway each year.
A word used widely in Trømso was bibliodiversity. It is a word that makes sense when you hear it, but it is not a word that is fully understood, yet it is increasingly used in policy making and strategic planning worldwide. I used the term widely in a Scholarly Kitchen article back in 2022, but failed to define it in a way that would have been more helpful.
-
Seth Godin ☛ Honesty about better | Seth's Blog
There are countless things I’d like to learn, but if I’m being honest, my problem is that I don’t care enough to do the work.
-
-
Hardware
-
Tom's Hardware ☛ Logitech repair program offers OEM replacement parts for 20+ devices — available in 62 countries
Earlier this morning, Logitech announced it would officially partner with iFixit to provide OEM replacement parts for more than 20 Logitech devices on iFixit's Logitech Repair Hub. The hub, available in 62 countries, covers several mice, keyboards, and headsets.
-
The Register UK ☛ Intel pitches modular PCs to cut e-waste, ease repairs
This idea aligns with the goals of the growing right-to-repair movement, which advocates for designs that prioritize repairability and upgradeability. By enabling users to swap out components with ease, modular architectures are seen as a way to reduce e-waste and extend the usable life of devices, Intel says.
-
MIT Technology Review ☛ What’s next for robots
The final camp, which I think is the largest, is just unimpressed. We’ve been sold lots of promises that robots will transform society ever since the first robotic arm was installed on an assembly line at a General Motors plant in New Jersey in 1961. Few of those promises have panned out so far.
-
Digital Camera World ☛ Is Canon about to introduce open gate video?
The result is that, rather than having a thin wide horizontal image, you get a more even rectangular one – typically 3:2. This makes your raw footage much more versatile, as it can be cropped to any aspect ratio to fit multiple purposes – whether you need a 1:1 square video for social media, a 9:16 portrait-shaped video for Stories and Reels, or a 1.37:1 Academy Ratio for cinematic use.
-
J Pieper ☛ Mounting the RLS 32mm ring magnet to a GL80 motor
That is not a terribly common magnet configuration, but there are some vendors. For this experiment, I used a 32mm OD ring magnet from RLS that is intended for use with their Orbis line of encoders, part number BM220C320A1ABA00. The motor I am using for this test is a T-Motor GL80, which has a hollow shaft. To mate the magnet to the motor, I 3d printed a fixture (purple) which slipped over the bearing surfaces of the GL80 (pink), and captured the magnet (red).
-
-
Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
-
Stanford University ☛ Physical wellness courses help provide healthy life on The Farm
Students and teaching specialists involved with Stanford’s physical wellness (PHYSWELL) program reflect on its purpose, impact and how they aim to enhance physical, emotional and mental well-being among students.
-
NYPost ☛ Andie MacDowell, 66, reveals she suffers from surprising health condition: ‘I was literally falling apart’
"I thought I was literally falling apart like I was gonna have to get new pieces."
-
New York Times ☛ Sacklers Up Their Offer to Settle Purdue Opioids Cases, With a New Condition
A group of 15 states have reached a tentative new deal that would require them to set aside hundreds of millions of dollars from the settlement in a legal-defense fund for the family.
-
TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ UnitedHealth promotes leader of Medicare business to replace slain insurance CEO Thompson
UnitedHealth Group promoted the head of its Medicare health plan business to lead the company’s broader insurance division, filling the job previously held by slain executive Brian Thompson. Tim Noel, who was most recently chief executive of UnitedHealth’s Medicare division, will become CEO of the UnitedHealthcare business, the company said in an emailed statement.
-
Federal News Network ☛ VA exempts 300,000 health care positions from governmentwide hiring freeze
The VA memo exempts roughly three-quarters of the Veterans Health Administration's roughly 400,000-employee workforce.
-
New York Times ☛ New Research Finds Potential Alternative to Abortion Pill Mifepristone
The research could further complicate the polarized politics of abortion because the drug in the study is the key ingredient in a pill used for emergency contraception.
-
Latvia ☛ Flu and pneumonia incidence rises in Latvia
Last week, the highest incidence of influenza and pneumonia was recorded in children under 14 years of age. In Latvia as a whole, influenza prevalence continues to increase gradually, averaging 183.6 cases per 100,000 inhabitants (168.1 the week before), the Disease Prevention and Control Center (SPKC) said January 22.
-
Latvia ☛ Critically low blood reserves in Latvia
Reserves of blood in Latvia are currently rapidly depleting, but hospitals' demand is still high, said the State Blood Donor Center on January 23.
-
-
Pro Publica ☛ Is a New Mississippi Law Decreasing Jailings of People Awaiting Mental Health Treatment? The State Doesn’t Know.
-
Smithsonian Magazine ☛ How to Use Renaissance Paintings to Improve the Farming of Tomorrow
Italian researcher Isabella Dalla Ragione has a most unusual job. An “arboreal archaeologist,” Dalla Ragione scours Renaissance paintings and medieval archives, discovering endangered fruits that might be revived. Her life’s work offers a possible solution to the problem of monocrops.
Year after year, agricultural giants cultivate the same varieties of the same fruits and vegetables, while many other varieties have fallen to the wayside. Monocrops contribute to climate change and are highly susceptible to its consequences, jeopardizing our food supply.
-
Jacobin Magazine ☛ Wall Street Is Making Your Doctor Visits More Expensive
In the US, more and more doctors are now affiliated with the hospital conglomerates or Wall Street firms taking over the health care system — and these doctors tend to charge significantly more for office visits than independent practitioners do.
-
Ness Labs ☛ Your Brain on Uncertainty: The Neuroscience of Navigating the Unknown
But today’s world is different. When the pace of change keeps accelerating and we need to adapt to constant technological, social, and economic shifts, our instinct for certainty can hold us back.
While our ancestors thrived on seeking certainty, our survival now depends on embracing uncertainty rather than avoiding it. So how can we befriend and even leverage uncertainty?
-
Mandaris Moore ☛ The Best of Intentions
Back in December, I wrote a post about becoming more intentional in my day-to-day life. Sadly, I didn’t specify how I was going to go about it.
I made a couple of changes, but overall, I’m still finding myself getting into the same habits.
-
Lou Plummer ☛ What A Drag it is Getting Old
Sports scientists estimate that men reach their physical peak somewhere between 26 and 30, That is so patently messed up because it means that you spend the majority of your life slowly deteriorating. In the major spectator sports, it's the rare athlete who can compete past the age of 40. This doesn't mean that you can't be active, though. In my twenties and thirties, my kids were young and I was trying to get established in my career. Sports and hobbies took a back seat. My most physically active year were my 40s. I was 48 when I hiked the AT.
-
Henrique Dias ☛ Running
It’s been fun, and I hope I can reach the end of the programme without many issues. I do have some trips planned here and there, so it’s likely that’ll repeat a week or two of the programme, or go easier on a specific week accordingly.
One thing that I notice is that many people listen to music or podcasts while running. I decided to do it without, since I never do it when I go for a walk alone. I like to be aware of my surroundings, and listen to the sounds.
-
New Statesman ☛ How we misread The Great Gatsby
Many of our most recycled, plagiaristic observations about Gatsby miss the point, failing to read between the lines. For example, it is often noted that Benjamin Franklin’s schedule for self-improvement provides Gatsby with a manual for upward social mobility, that he is a representative American who buys into the nation’s founding dreams. But Jimmy Gatz’s plan focuses on physical activity and hard work, omitting the spiritual dimension of Franklin’s schedule, who asked himself every morning, “What good shall I do this day?” Franklin centred morality as well as industry, and Fitzgerald expected his audience to recognise what was missing. The Great Gatsby renders a society that has confused material enterprise with moral achievement. Gatsby, like the country he embodies, forgets that he should be trying not just to be great, but to do good.
-
[Repeat] Science Alert ☛ We've Been Wrong About What Causes Sunburn, Scientists Discover
"But in this study we were surprised to learn that this is a result of damage to the RNA, not the DNA that causes the acute effects of sunburn."
The term sunburn is something of a misnomer. Unlike low-level thermal burns, which result from heat making a mess of your body's proteins, sunburn damage is caused by prolonged doses of shorter-wavelength 'B' type ultraviolet radiation.
-
-
Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
-
Niels Provos ☛ Measuring Hosting Latency Across Different Platforms
A friend recently asked me to set up a simple experiment to measure hosting latency across Netlify, Firebase, and Cloudflare Pages. I created three basic websites, each hosted on one of them. These sites can be accessed at: [...]
-
Dedoimedo ☛ Windows 11 - There's still nothing worth my time
So all those high and mighty words about security, which is, by the way, often overrated, means nothing at all for the common grunt. Also, security, as we see every day, is all about backend infrastructure, like telcos not getting hax0red, amirite, and not about home users. After all, in my three decades of computing, 100% of harm to my "computing estate" came from companies being lax with their data in their "clouds", not from any movie-like hax0rology on my local systems.
So, TPM, necessary? No. Not at all. Could it be useful? Perhaps, but I doubt it.
-
Cyble Inc ☛ AWS S3 Buckets At Risk: Inside The Latest Ransomware Threat
Cybersecurity threats continue to evolve, and the latest reports reveal a ransomware campaign targeting AWS S3 buckets functionality. This campaign exploits versioning and encryption features, presenting a significant risk to organizations relying on cloud storage.
-
Bloomberg ☛ 2025-01-16 [Older] Bloomberg: Tim Cook Plans to Attend Cheeto Mussolini’s Inauguration
-
US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-15 [Older] Alphabet CEO to Join Tech Leaders at Cheeto Mussolini Inauguration
-
Scheerpost ☛ 2025-01-11 [Older] How to Reclaim America’s ‘Democracy’ From the Big Finance Oligarchy [Ed: Stop paying those who pay the Dictator, including GAFAM]
-
9to5Mac ☛ 2025-01-11 [Older] Zuckerberg Disses Apple With Joe Rogan: ‘They Haven’t Invented Anything Great in a While’
-
Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-14 [Older] Why is Indonesia blocking sales of Apple's new iPhone?
-
Futurism ☛ AI Hype Is Dropping Off a Cliff While Costs Soar, Experts Warn
As large language models race to the Moon and AI-generated slop art pollutes government websites, AI spending is ballooning to epic proportions — and the bubble may be close to bursting.
That's according to a recent analysis by Gartner — the Connecticut-based research firm famous for the Gartner hype cycle — which posits that worldwide IT spending is expected to total over $5.5 trillion in 2025, an increase of 9.8 percent from 2024.
-
Futurism ☛ Elon Musk's Grok AI Analyzes His Nazi Salute
So, to settle it once and for all, why not turn to Musk's very own "maximum truth-seeking AI," Grok? Asked to answer in one word the ideology it would most closely relate to Musk's onstage gesture, Grok didn't hesitate.
"Fascism," the AI chatbot replied.
Even in a lengthier conversation, Grok comes to the same conclusion.
-
MIT Technology Review ☛ OpenAI launches Operator—an agent that can use a computer for you
Nope. OpenAI gave MIT Technology Review a preview of Operator in action yesterday. The tool is an exciting glimpse of large language models’ potential to do a lot more than answer [sic]s questions. But Operator is an experimental work in progress. “It’s still early, it still makes mistakes,” says Yash Kumar, a researcher at OpenAI.
-
Wired ☛ OpenAI’s Operator Lets ChatGPT Use the Web for You
OpenAI admits that giving ChatGPT access to a web browser does introduce new risks, and it says that Operator may sometimes misbehave. It says it has implemented various new safeguards and plans to extend Operator’s capabilities gradually.
-
Ruben Schade ☛ Press button, receive slop
Fast forward to today, and I’ve seen an increase in technical bloggers using genAI tools to create slop to accompany their words. Like me, they lack the creativity and technical experience to draw. They don’t want to or can’t pay an artist, or spend the time sourcing the perfect permissively-licenced image, so they use a tool trained on the works of millions of people without their PACK. They may have even paid for access to the tool, which is a whole other ethical quagmire I’ve already covered at length here.
-
Pivot to AI ☛ YouTuber f4mi tells you how to poison AI video scrapers with ‘.аss’ subtitles
Tech YouTuber f4mi discovered her videos were being scraped by bots and mangled into ChatGPT-generated spam videos with robotic voices and repeating stock footage. So she decided to strike back.
The Advanced SubStation subtitle format has an inherently funny abbreviation. But it’s also useful because you can set fonts, colors, and positioning. So you can flood the scrapers with off-screen invisible text.
-
The Register UK ☛ Why is AI opt-out?
Regulators worldwide are keen to ensure that marketing and similar services are opt-in. When dark patterns are used to steer users in one direction or another, lawmakers pay close attention.
But, for some reason, forcing AI on customers is acceptable. Rather than asking "we're going to shovel a load of AI services into your apps that you never asked for, but our investors really need you to use, is this OK?" the assumption instead is that users will be delighted to see their formerly pristine applications cluttered with AI features.
-
The Register UK ☛ 'First AI software engineer' is bad at its job
Early assessments of Devin have found problems. Cognition AI posted a promo video that supposedly showed the AI coder autonomously completing projects on the freelancer-for-hire platform Upwork. Software developer Carl Brown analyzed that vid and debunked it on his Internet of Bugs YouTube channel.
The software agent was also called out by another YouTube code pundit for allegedly including critical security issues.
-
Social Control Media
-
Digital Camera World ☛ TikTok isn't in the US app stores anymore, so eBay scalpers are listing phones with TikTok installed for obscene amounts | Digital Camera World
While TikTok only disappeared from the US for a few hours, the social media platform hasn’t reappeared in the App Store or Google Play. Some eBay sellers are taking advantage of the continued outage and are selling iPhones and Android phones with TikTok pre-installed for thousands more than a typical used smartphone.
-
International Business Times ☛ iPhones With Tiktok Sell For Up To £20K On eBay As App Remains Absent In US App Store
The uncertainty surrounding TikTok's availability stems from Donald Trump's executive order, which delayed the ban but failed to provide clarity on its future. Meanwhile, opportunistic iPhone owners with the app still installed are capitalising on the demand, listing their phones for as much as £20,297.88 ($25,000).
-
New York Times ☛ $3,000 for a Used iPhone? If It Has TikTok, Maybe.
For about $1,000, you may leave an Apple store with a brand-new, hermetically sealed iPhone that’s been personalized for you by a verified Genius.
Or, for hundreds or even thousands of dollars more, you can buy a used phone with a cracked screen and dirt-filled speakers, from someone on the internet.
-
Gannett ☛ iPhones with TikTok for sale on eBay for thousands of dollars
Some iPhone users never deleted TikTok during its brief ban in the U.S., and now some of those individuals are selling their phones for thousands of dollars on eBay as the popular app remains absent from Apple's App Store.
-
Digital Music News ☛ Instagram Reportedly Poaching Top TikTok Stars & Producers
This isn’t the first time Meta has boosted its payouts for creators to compete with TikTok, but these boosts haven’t lasted in the past. Instagram launched a Reels bonus program in 2021. But creators reported the platform slashing their payments by 2022, until the program was shuttered entirely in 2023. Within the past week, since TikTok went dark in the US to comply with the federal law that came into effect on January 19, Instagram has announced a plethora of updates that appear to cater to TikTok creators. In addition to changing the format of profile grids from squares to rectangles, Instagram also extended the maximum length of Reels to three minutes.
-
The Washington Post ☛ Some Facebook, Instagram users suddenly follow Trump, stoking distrust
Meta has been the regular subject of controversy for years — protesters organized an early “Quit Facebook Day” in 2010 over what they said were confusing and limited privacy controls. More than a decade later, the short-lived ban on competing app TikTok, combined with a new president flanked by tech billionaires at his inauguration, set off a new wave of anti-Meta frustration and paranoia this week among users. Many took to the [Internet] to wonder aloud about the perils of mass data collection and alleged government-controlled social media. Some are deleting their accounts in protest. Others are settling in for the ride.
-
Wired ☛ ‘Neo-Nazi Madness’: Meta’s Top AI Lawyer on Why He Fired the Company
He’s not a famous name in the wider world, but copyright lawyer Mark Lemley is equal parts revered and feared within certain tech circles. TechDirt recently described him as a “Lebron James/Michael Jordan”-level legal thinker. A professor at Stanford, counsel at an IP-focused law firm in the Bay Area, and one of the 10 most-cited legal scholars of all time, Lemley is exactly the kind of person Silicon Valley heavyweights want on their side. Meta, however, has officially lost him.
-
Wired ☛ Why Mark Zuckerberg Is Ditching Human Fact-Checkers
This week, we take a look at Meta's new era of content moderation.
-
[Old] Forbes ☛ TikTok’s Secret ‘Heating’ Button Can Make Anyone Go Viral
TikTok and ByteDance employees regularly engage in “heating,” a manual push that ensures specific videos “achieve a certain number of video views,” according to six sources and documents reviewed by Forbes.
-
[Old] Third Door Media LLC ☛ TikTok has a secret "Heating" (cheating?) button
Employees of TikTok and ByteDance are misusing "heating" privileges by boosting the view count of their own and their loved ones' accounts in violation of company policies, as revealed by sources and documents reviewed by Forbes.
-
-
-
Security
-
Privacy/Surveillance
-
EFF ☛ Face Scans to Estimate Our Age: Harmful and Creepy AF
Because quite simply, age estimation face scans are creepy AF – and harmful. First, age estimation is inaccurate and discriminatory. Second, its underlying technology can be used to try to estimate our other demographics, like ethnicity and gender, as well as our names. Third, law enforcement wants to use its underlying technology to guess our emotions and honesty, which in the hands of jumpy officers is likely to endanger innocent people. Fourth, age estimation face scans create privacy and infosec threats for the people scanned. In short, government should be restraining this hazardous technology, not normalizing it through age verification mandates.
-
IT Wire ☛ iTWire - Data Privacy Day Commentary
As Data Privacy Day approaches, discussions often lean toward pessimism, with increased cyber threats and exposed data dominating the narrative. However, it’s important to recognise the positive strides made in Australia throughout 2024, building the right foundations to protect data privacy with key privacy reforms passing through Parliament and a reduction in the number of cyber crimes reported by the ACSC. We should therefore all be encouraged that we are forging the right path.
Nonetheless, the work is far from over and this year’s theme “Take Control of your Data” is a powerful reminder that every individual and organisation has a role to play in protecting privacy. True control requires action, vigilance, and collaboration from all of us.
-
Ars Technica ☛ Court rules FBI’s warrantless searches violated Fourth Amendment
It's official: The FBI's warrantless searches of communications seized to protect US national security have at last been ruled unconstitutional and in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
-
Jason Velazquez ☛ OpenAI's “Operator” is Facebook's “like” button
Then Cambridge Analytica happened, and most of us wised up to Zuckerberg's game. He needed a way to secretly track us off Facebook's platforms, but he couldn't just give us a tracking device and ask us all to attach it to our digital legs. (We have legs!) So, Zuck sold his diabolical plan as a “feature.”
-
[Old] The Register UK ☛ Legal bible Groklaw pulls plug in wake of Lavabit shutdown, NSA firestorm
Jones, also known as PJ, said in a final farewell article that the shutdown of encrypted email provider Lavabit, used by whistleblower Edward Snowden, had prompted her decision to discontinue the site.
"The owner of Lavabit tells us that he's stopped using email and if we knew what he knew, we'd stop too," she said. "There is no way to do Groklaw without email. Therein lies the conundrum."
-
[Old] The Guardian UK ☛ NSA surveillance: A guide to staying secure
For the past two weeks, I have been working with the Guardian on NSA stories, and have read hundreds of top-secret NSA documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. I wasn't part of today's story – it was in process well before I showed up – but everything I read confirms what the Guardian is reporting.
At this point, I feel I can provide some advice for keeping secure against such an adversary.
-
EFF ☛ Texas Is Enforcing Its State Data Privacy Law. So Should Other States.
States need to have and use data privacy laws to bring privacy violations to light and hold companies accountable for them. So, we were glad to see that the Texas Attorney General’s Office has filed its first lawsuit under Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA) to take the Allstate Corporation to task for sharing driver location and other driving data without telling customers.
-
EFF ☛ The FTC’s Ban on GM and OnStar Selling Driver Data Is a Good First Step
Last year, a New York Times investigation highlighted how G.M. was sharing information with insurance companies without clear knowledge from the driver. This resulted in people’s insurance premiums increasing, sometimes without them realizing why that was happening. This data sharing problem was common amongst many carmakers, not just G.M., but figuring out what your car was sharing was often a Sisyphean task, somehow managing to be more complicated than trying to learn similar details about apps or websites.
-
The Register UK ☛ Court rules FISA Section 702 surveillance unconstitutional
Specifically, it was decided the FBI had violated a US resident's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches by looking through a vast database of overseas communications vacuumed up under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and using that resident's private messages as evidence to successfully prosecute him.
The ruling was made in December and unsealed Tuesday. In it, federal district Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall rejected the government's position that it was allowed to view that resident's emails, collected under Section 702, without a warrant. The database query that pulled up his harvested messages was ruled an unjustified, unlawful search.
-
EFF ☛ VICTORY! Federal Court (Finally) Rules Backdoor Searches of 702 Data Unconstitutional
Better late than never: last night a federal district court held that backdoor searches of databases full of Americans’ private communications collected under Section 702 ordinarily require a warrant. The landmark ruling comes in a criminal case, United States v. Hasbajrami, after more than a decade of litigation, and over four years since the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that backdoor searches constitute “separate Fourth Amendment events” and directed the district court to determine a warrant was required. Now, that has been officially decreed.
-
Press Gazette ☛ 'Consent or pay' model is OK for UK news publishers, ICO confirms
The UK’s information watchdog has said publisher “consent or pay” cookie models are acceptable providing users have a “genuine free choice” and data protection laws are met.
“Consent or pay” is the blunt choice presented to website users, normally via a pop-up notice, that they must either consent to receive personalised advertising when visiting a site, or pay to avoid doing so.
-
Wired ☛ Subaru Security Flaws Exposed Its System for Tracking Millions of Cars
Now-fixed web bugs allowed [attackers] to remotely unlock and start millions of Subarus. More disturbingly, they could also access at least a year of cars’ location histories—and Subaru employees still can.
-
Bert Hubert ☛ Shifting Cyber Norms: Microsoft security POST-ing to you
tl;dr: Microsoft and other email security scanners will visit the links in email you transmit, and run the JavaScript in those links, including calls that lead to POSTs going out. This used to be unacceptable, since POSTs have side effects. Yet here we are. This breaks even somewhat sophisticated single-use sign-on / email confirmation messages. Read on for how to deal with this, and some thoughts on how we should treat gatekeepers like Microsoft that can randomly break things & get away with it.
-
Macworld ☛ If Apple Intelligence is so great, why doesn't Apple trust us to turn it on?
I know the road is well-trod by now, but yes, we’re back to talk about Apple Intelligence once again. Why? Well, for better or worse, it seems to be pretty much all that Apple wants to talk about these days, and when the company has put this much time, energy, and, yes, marketing attention onto a single feature, then scrutiny is, also for better or worse, what you get.
-
Macworld ☛ U.K. iPhone users will soon be able to store digital licenses and IDs
In the U.S., it’s possible to store a digital version of your driving licence in Apple Wallet on your iPhone. (Provided your state permits this: currently just 10 do, while a further nine have promised to do so in the future.) But there are few signs of this becoming an option for iPhone owners in the rest of the world.
-
PC World ☛ Soon, Microsoft accounts will automatically keep you logged in every time
Starting next month, Microsoft is doing away with that. Going forward, users who sign into a Microsoft account will automatically remain signed in until they manually sign out.
-
The Verge ☛ Microsoft will automatically keep you signed in to your account starting in February
You’ll need to remember to sign out if you’re using a public computer or use a private browsing window instead.
-
-
-
Defence/Aggression
-
FAIR ☛ Trump Vow to ‘Save’ TikTok No Reprieve for Free Speech [Ed: TikTok is AGAINST Free Speech, it's not even remotely "Free Speech"]
So here we are. After both houses of Congress approved it, the president signed it and government attorneys successfully argued for it in federal court, the ban on TikTok went into effect for a few hours, which for some might have seemed like an eternity.
-
FAIR ☛ Musk’s Nazi Salute Becomes ‘Awkward Gesture’ in ‘Exuberant Speech’ [Ed: Normalising nazism]
-
Pro Publica ☛ How a Troubled Icebreaker Became America’s Newest Military Vessel
The icebreaker Aiviq is a gas guzzler with a troubled history. The ship was built to operate in the Arctic, but it has a type of propulsion system susceptible to failure in ice. Its waste and discharge systems weren’t designed to meet polar code, its helicopter pad is in the wrong place to launch rescue operations and its rear deck is easily swamped by big waves.
On its maiden voyage to Alaska in 2012, the 360-foot vessel lost control of the Shell Oil drill rig it was towing, and Coast Guard helicopter crews braved a storm to pluck 18 men off the wildly lurching deck of the rig before it crashed into a rocky beach. An eventual Coast Guard investigation faulted bad decision-making by people in charge but also flagged problems with the Aiviq’s design.
-
Defence Web ☛ 2025-01-15 [Older] Egypt shopping for Hellfire missiles and guided rockets
-
Defence Web ☛ 2025-01-13 [Older] Egypt seeking to upgrade M1 Abrams tanks in $4.7 billion deal
-
HRW ☛ 2025-01-16 [Older] East Africa, Horn: Civilian Suffering in Armed Conflict
-
HRW ☛ 2025-01-16 [Older] West Africa: Civilians Unprotected in Conflicts
-
Defence Web ☛ 2025-01-16 [Older] Invisible wars and visible suffering: The ICRC’s role in Africa’s humanitarian response
-
Futurism ☛ Jewish Leaders Horrified as Elon Musk Tweets Barrage of Holocaust Jokes
"Wordplay about Nazis isn’t funny," Deutch tweeted. "It isn’t clever. And it’s dangerous."
The South African-born businessman's proximity to the president was also decried by conservative columnist and self-described "renegade Jew" Bill Kristol, who succinctly observed that Musk is a "senior White House official [who] thinks Nazi jokes are funny."
-
Axios ☛ ADL condemns Musk's Nazi "jokes" after salute controversy
What they're saying: "Making inappropriate and highly offensive jokes that trivialize the Holocaust only serve to minimize the evil and inhumanity of Nazi crimes, denigrate the suffering of both victims and survivors and insult the memory of the six million Jews murdered in the Shoah," the ADL said in a statement.
-
Techdirt ☛ Trump Disbands Cybersecurity Board Investigating Massive Chinese Phone System [Breach]
We’re still nowhere near understanding just how bad the Chinese [Breach] of our phone system was. The incident that was only discovered last fall involved the Chinese [cracking] group Salt Typhoon, which used the US’s CALEA phone wiretapping system as a backdoor to gain incredible, unprecedented access to much of the US’s phone system “for months or longer.”
As details come out, the extent of the [attackers]’ access has become increasingly alarming. It is reasonable to call it the worst hack in US history.
-
New Yorker ☛ Trump Is Already Drowning Us in Outrages
Eight years after the first Trump Inauguration, we know the drill. He loves to drown us in outrage. The overwhelming volume is the point—too many simultaneous scandals and the system is so overloaded that it breaks down. It can’t focus. It can’t fight back. The distractions are just too damn distracting. Who has time to point out that Trump also promised to end the war in Ukraine and bring down inflation on his first day back in the Oval Office? And yet drones are still firing on Kyiv and eggs are still crazy expensive. In the days leading up to the Inauguration, Trump’s allies promised “shock and awe”—fast, decisive, transformational action to seize control of the government and rewrite its rules before stunned opponents, “the enemies within,” as Trump calls them, have a chance to react. But, speaking as one who was in Iraq in those early days after the 2003 U.S. invasion, I’d caution against planning an assault on Washington that is based too closely on Donald Rumsfeld’s playbook. The insurgents may have hardly begun to regroup. But regroup they will. On Thursday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s birthright-citizenship decree, calling it a “blatantly unconstitutional order,” and, later in the afternoon, the Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski announced their opposition to Pete Hegseth, Trump’s controversial nominee for Secretary of Defense.
-
[Old] RationalWiki ☛ Gish Gallop - RationalWiki
The Gish Gallop is the fallacious debate tactic of drowning your opponent in a flood of individually weak arguments in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument collection without great effort. It's essentially a conveyor belt-fed version of the on the spot fallacy, as it's unreasonable for anyone to have a well-composed answer immediately available to every argument present in the Gallop. The Gish Gallop is named after creationist Duane Gish, who often abused it.
Although it takes a trivial amount of effort on the Galloper's part to make each individual point before skipping to the next (especially if they cite from a pre-concocted list of Gallop arguments), a refutation of the same Gallop may likely take much longer and require significantly more effort (per the basic principle that it's always easier to make a mess than to clean it back up again). The tedium inherent in untangling a Gish Gallop typically allows for very little "creative license" or vivid rhetoric (in deliberate contrast to the exciting point-dashing central to the Galloping), which in turn risks boring the audience or readers, further loosening the refuter's grip on the crowd.
-
The Nation ☛ The Doomsday Clock Will Move Forward
As we wait for more politicians and journalists to treat the prospect of nuclear annihilation with, well, gravity, this country’s most reliable driver of progress is already organizing: the American people. To name one effort, Back from the Brink is a national coalition of almost 500 organizations aiming to make nuclear weapons “a local issue.” In 2021, it convinced 300 state and local officials to write to President Biden urging action toward nuclear disarmament. Despite receiving too little attention, it inspired further engagement, like high schoolers successfully lobbying the mayor of Burbank to call for abolishing nuclear weapons.
-
Bruce Schneier ☛ Third Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reimagining Democracy (IWORD 2024)
The goal of the workshop is to think very broadly. Modern democracy was invented in the mid-eighteenth century, using mid-eighteenth-century technology. If democracy were to be invented today, it would look very different. Elections would look different. The balance between representation and direct democracy would look different. Adjudication and enforcement would look different. Everything would look different, because our conceptions of fairness, justice, equality, and rights are different, and we have much more powerful technology to bring to bear on the problems. Also, we could start from scratch without having to worry about evolving our current democracy into this imagined future system.
-
Marcy Wheeler ☛ Mike Johnson Let a Terrorist Roam the Capitol Yesterday
Rhodes is one of the fourteen people whose sentence Trump commuted, but did not pardon. And he was not only convicted by a jury of sedition and obstructing the vote certification, but Judge Amit Mehta applied a 6-level terrorism enhancement at sentencing.
As Kathryn Rakoczy successfully argued at sentencing, Rhodes had organized an armed force across the river, and regretted not deploying it that day.
-
The Telegraph UK ☛ Up to one in 12 in London is an illegal migrant
London is home to as many as 585,000 illegal migrants, equivalent to one in 12 of the city’s population, according to a previously confidential report.
There is mounting concern over the failure to control Britain’s borders and the pressure that places on public services such as schools and the NHS. The use of illegal migrants in the black economy, working in roles such as food delivery drivers, is also a concern.
-
Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Social media is killing democracy
In the following years, part of that foundational promise was fulfilled, at least for a while. Social media did change the way we work, get informed and interact with each other. They built bridges between likeminded people who were physically far away, and expanded the scope of the public debate by allowing citizens to share their views beyond the constraints of governments and traditional media outlets. Movements for justice and change like “Me Too” or “Fridays for Future” would not have been possible without them.
But with all these gains also came huge downsides, hidden in the bowels of the algorithms, like invaders concealed in the belly of a Trojan horse.
We didn’t realise it then. But we do now.
-
Rolling Stone ☛ Trump Brushes Off Jan. 6 Rioters Beating Cops: ‘Minor Incidents’
The president's pardoned 1,500 individuals, including offenders convicted of violently assaulting police
-
The Record ☛ Finnish investigators suspect Baltic Sea cable damage was intentional
YLE reported the onsite investigation of the tanker is largely complete, as is the underwater investigation of the cable damage sites. Interrogations of the nine suspected crew members are ongoing and police analysts continue to review the seized material. They expect the investigation to continue for several months.
-
The Straits Times ☛ Ousted South Korean defence minister testifies Yoon never intended to impose full martial law
What was central to South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s defence is that he never intended to impose military rule.
-
JURIST ☛ South Korea investigators transfer case against impeached president Yoon for prosecution
South Korea’s Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) transferred the case of impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office for prosecution on Thursday, which marks the fourth day of the Constitutional Court impeachment hearing.
-
The Straits Times ☛ South Korean Telegram sex crime ring busted after exploiting more than 230 victims
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Cybercrime Investigation Unit has arrested 14 members of the ring.
-
The Straits Times ☛ North Korea’s assembly meets but no mention of unification, foreign policy changes
It is unclear if leader Kim Jong Un attended the sessions.
-
Scoop News Group ☛ DOJ indicts five in North Korean fake IT worker scheme
The department alleges that a North Carolina-based laptop farm enabled access for two North Korean nationals over the course of the scheme.
-
Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
-
European Commission ☛ Commission finds that Polish public support for chemical company PCC is in line with State aid rules
European Commission Press release Brussels, 23 Jan 2025 The European Commission has concluded that two support measures totalling €23 million awarded by Poland to chemical company PCC MCAA Sp. z o. o (‘PCC') [...]
-
Atlantic Council ☛ NATO chief: Cost of Russian victory in Ukraine would be ‘trillions not billions’
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has warned NATO leaders that a Russian victory in Ukraine would cost alliance members "trillions not billions," writes Peter Dickinson.
-
Atlantic Council ☛ North Korea is using Russia’s Ukraine invasion to upgrade its army
North Korea's participation in Russia's Ukraine invasion is a dangerous escalation in what is already the largest European war since World War II with potentially alarming implications for global security, writes Alina Hrytsenko.
-
Atlantic Council ☛ European Parliament and United States condemn ‘sham’ Belarus vote
The European Parliament has condemned this weekend’s presidential election in Belarus as a “sham” designed to keep the country’s long-serving dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka in power, writes Mercedes Sapuppo.
-
LRT ☛ MP Žemaitaitis’ statements about Ukraine shake Lithuania’s ruling coalition
A maverick politician veered from the national consensus, threatening to unravel the government’s parliamentary majority.
-
LRT ☛ Lithuania, Denmark join €14m programme to support Ukraine’s EU accession
The European Union, Lithuania and Denmark have Wednesday an agreement on a new 14-million-euro programme to support Ukraine’s EU accession path.
-
LRT ☛ Goods of Lithuania’s tech group reach Russia via ‘high-risk countries’ – LRT Investigation
Arvydas Paukštys, the founder of Lithuania’s technology group Teltonika, says the company withdrew from the Russian market after Moscow’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, data obtained by the LRT Investigation Team shows that Teltonika’s products continued to enter the Russian market last year via the so-called “high-risk countries”.
-
RFERL ☛ Drones Downed Southeast Of Moscow, Regional Governor Says Amid Reports Of Strike On Oil Refinery
The governor of Russia’s Ryazan region southeast of Moscow said air defenses had downed an unspecified number of drones but indicated that the city of Ryazan was struck amid local reports that an oil refinery was hit.
-
RFERL ☛ Russian Strikes On Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya Leave Dozens Injured, 1 Dead
Rescue workers combed through the rubble on January 23 after Russian air strikes on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya overnight killed one and left at least 46 injured.
-
New York Times ☛ Dictator Is Leading a Global Surge to the Right
But not all of the leading conservative populist parties in the world are the same — in rhetoric or on policy.
-
New York Times ☛ Ukraine Is Losing Fewer Soldiers Than Russia — but It’s Still Losing the War
Russia has lost about twice as many men to death and serious injury as Ukraine. But the trends favor the Kremlin.
-
New York Times ☛ Zelensky Could Face Tough Re-election Prospects, Polls Show
The high popularity that the Ukrainian president had in the early days of the Russian invasion, with an approval rating of about 90 percent, has dipped badly.
-
New York Times ☛ Friday Briefing: Convicted Felon Criticizes Europe
Plus, the Oscar nominations.
-
Meduza ☛ Russian pilot arrested for allegedly donating to Ukraine’s military — Meduza
-
Meduza ☛ Over 100 Ukrainian drones attack Russia overnight, including Moscow — Meduza
-
Meduza ☛ Ukrainian officials believe Western countries could deploy 40,000–50,000 peacekeepers across frontline — FT — Meduza
-
Meduza ☛ ‘Happy people don’t go to the frontlines’: Meduza’s Russian readers share stories of relatives and friends who volunteered to fight in Ukraine — and their motives for enlisting — Meduza
-
Meduza ☛ Zelensky calls for U.S. peacekeepers in Ukraine after the war — Meduza
-
Atlantic Council ☛ From Russia’s shadow fleet to China’s maritime claims: The freedom of the seas is under threat
-
Atlantic Council ☛ Georgia protests highlight urgent need for government reforms
Recent democratic regression in Georgia undermines the rights of citizens and threatens long-term prosperity.
-
LRT ☛ Data show Lithuanian industrial equipment ending up in Russia despite sanctions
Lithuanian industrial equipment, parts and metal products were brought to Russia in 2024, LRT RADIO reported on Thursday adding that it cannot be ruled out that some of those products could have been used in the Kremlin’s war industry.
-
Latvia ☛ Latvian Saeima condemns bogus Belarus elections
The Saeima on January 23 condemned the ongoing consolidation of power by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko and does not recognize the presidential "elections" scheduled for January 26 as legitimate.
-
LRT ☛ Lithuania calls to address safety issues at Belarus nuclear plant
Lithuania has once again called on Minsk to suspend operations of Units 1 and 2 of the Belarusian nuclear power plant (NPP) in Astravyets, some 50 km from Vilnius, until all safety issues are resolved.
-
Meduza ☛ Names of more than 90,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine identified — BBC News Russian — Meduza
-
Meduza ☛ Don’t mess with Alina: Gymnast and rumored Putin paramour Alina Kabaeva has returned to the public spotlight as a sports czar — BBC Russia — Meduza
-
CS Monitor ☛ War worries heavy? Internet out? In Ukraine, books are the balm.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made Ukraine’s book publishing industry a target of the war. But the industry and Ukrainian readers are keeping books alive as a source of Ukraine’s resilient culture, and of solace and distraction.
-
-
-
Transparency/Investigative Reporting
-
Futurism ☛ Someone Invented a Fake Therapist and Got "Her" Quoted in Tons of News Articles
After digging into Cress' background and alleged qualifications Abramson discovered why: Sophie Cress strongly appears not to exist, a fabrication made up by the Latvia-based owner of Sexual Alpha to drive traffic and search ranking to his site.
That owner, Dainis Graveris, never responded to any of Abramson's requests for comment, so she had to rely on her own sleuthing to get to the bottom of the Cress story.
-
[Old] Pitcher List ☛ It Ain’t Over: One of Baseball’s Favorite Sayings was Never Said
“That was my answer to a reporter when I was managing the New York Mets in July 1973.” The manager wrote in his 1998 astutely named book: The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said. The prophet Yogi proved that there was a sense in his mystifying words. Those ’73 Mets rebounded from thirteen games under .500 in September to ultimately represent the National League in the World Series before falling in seven games to the Oakland Athletics.
That miraculous turnaround sparked the famous Yogi-ism into American folklore spreading as far as our Cold War sphere of influence could reach.
Right?
-
-
Environment
-
CBC ☛ 2025-01-11 [Older] Ahead of Cheeto Mussolini presidency, U.S. banks abandon Mark Carney climate initiative
-
CBC ☛ 2025-01-18 [Older] 4 of Canada's biggest banks leave Mark Carney-led climate initiative
-
DeSmog ☛ The Coming Climate Uncertainty Conundrum
-
Omicron Limited ☛ Bacteria found to eat forever chemicals, and even some of their toxic byproducts
Published in this month's issue of Science of the Total Environment, the team's study found that Labrys portucalensis F11 (F11) metabolized over 90% of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) following an exposure period of 100 days. PFOS is one of the most frequently detected and persistent types of PFAS and was designated hazardous by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year.
The F11 bacteria also broke down a substantial portion of two additional types of PFAS after 100 days: 58% of 5:3 fluorotelomer carboxylic acid and 21% of 6:2 fluorotelomer sulfonate.
-
Truthdig ☛ Inside the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Climate-Denial Social Media Echo Chamber
The study found that all of the organizations, including the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), were mentioned by at least four of the other groups — essentially creating an echo chamber for similar messages. The groups also frequently tagged regulators and the media in their posts, with researchers finding the Environmental Protection Agency was tagged 795 times and the Wall Street Journal, the most mentioned media organization, tagged 517 times out of more than 125,000 posts.
-
Omicron Limited ☛ WWF blasts Sweden, Finland over logging practices
"And if we didn't use wood products, which have no negative impact on the climate, then we would have to use more fossil fuels, which always have a negative impact on the climate," he added.
-
The Register UK ☛ Real datacenter emissions are a dirty secret
At issue, is that emissions from datacenters are likely to be much higher than currently estimated, perhaps more than seven times higher, according to Nightingale, who cited a report last year. This is due to the emissions accounting practices used by the hyperscale operators like AWS, Google, and Microsoft, such as the use of renewable energy certificates to offset emissions in their calculations.
-
Energy/Transportation
-
CBC ☛ 2025-01-15 [Older] Dozens of bodies retrieved from South Africa mine after months-long police standoff
-
US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-13 [Older] Footage Shows Dozens of Dead Miners Trapped After South Africa Police Raid
-
US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-14 [Older] South Africa Pulls 36 Corpses From Illegal Mine, Arrests 82 Survivors
-
Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-16 [Older] South African: Rescue efforts end at abandoned mine shaft
-
Defence Web ☛ 2025-01-17 [Older] Interpol operation clamps down on illegal mining in West Africa
-
US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-17 [Older] Why Did 87 Miners Die Trapped Underground in South Africa as Police Tried to Force Their Surrender?
-
DeSmog ☛ Alberta’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Enforcement Strategy Doesn’t Apply to Polluters
-
EcoWatch ☛ Solar Energy Surpassed Coal in the EU for the First Time in 2024: Report
Ember’s European Electricity Review 2025 found that solar generated 11 percent of the bloc’s electricity, while coal-fired power plants supplied 10 percent. Meanwhile, the use of fossil gas dropped to 16 percent of the energy mix, falling for the fifth straight year.
-
International Business Times ☛ Warren Buffett Makes Sharp U-Turn as Berkshire Hathaway Discloses £893M Stake in Crypto Bank Stock
According to a November 2024 13F filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Berkshire Hathaway disclosed holding over 86.43 million shares worth more than £893.52 million ($1.1 billion).
-
The Verge ☛ Bill Gates’ nuclear energy startup inks new data center deal
TerraPower, a nuclear energy startup founded by Bill Gates, struck a deal this week with one of the largest data center developers in the US to deploy advanced nuclear reactors. TerraPower and Sabey Data Centers (SDC) are working together on a plan to run existing and future facilities on nuclear energy from small reactors.
-
The New Stack ☛ AI Power Needs May Strain US Grid as Stargate Project Grows
The newly announced $500 billion Stargate Project should help address industry demands for more compute power needed for rapidly evolving AI workloads and the desire to keep the United States at the forefront of a highly competitive global AI market that includes China as its chief rival and pushes by the European Union (EU) and the UK to be significant players.
-
Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ EV charging stations in South Africa: expansion paves way for electric car boom
Underpinning this growth is the parallel development of the infrastructure that supports the everyday use of electric vehicles: charging stations. According to global charging station finder app PlugShare, there are just under 400 publicly available charging stations in South Africa – from zero (or close to it) just 15 years ago.
-
Google ☛ Securing Cryptocurrency Organizations | Google Cloud Blog
Cryptocurrency heists are on the rise due to the lucrative nature of their rewards, the challenges associated with attribution to malicious actors, and the opportunities presented by nascent familiarity with cryptocurrency and Web3 technologies among many organizations. Cofense highlighted that phishing activity targeting Web3 platforms increased by 482% in 2022, Chainalysis reported that $24.2 billion USD was received by illicit addresses in 2023, and Immunefi reported that in Q2 2024, compromises of Web3 organizations resulted in losses of approximately $572 million USD.
-
New York Times ☛ French Crypto Entrepreneur and Wife Are Freed After Kidnapping
A founder of a French cryptocurrency company and his wife were freed in France this week after being brutally kidnapped and held for ransom, the authorities announced on Thursday.
-
-
Wildlife/Nature
-
The Revelator ☛ 19 Books About Wolves
-
Associated Press ☛ Court says elephants fight for release from Colorado zoo
“Instead, the legal question here boils down to whether an elephant is a person,” the court said. “And because an elephant is not a person, the elephants here do not have standing to bring a habeas corpus claim,” it said in the ruling.
-
The Korea Times ☛ Elephants cannot sue to get out of zoo: Colorado's top court
Tuesday's 6-0 decision by Colorado's Supreme Court means Jambo, Kimba, LouLou, Lucky and Missy will remain at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs.
-
-
Overpopulation
-
US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-16 [Older] Thai Resort Island Phuket Grapples With Growing Garbage Crisis
-
-
-
Finance
-
International Business Times ☛ 2025-01-17 [Older] Capital One Banking Outage Could Delay Some US Paychecks: When Will It Be Fixed?
-
-
AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
-
Tom's Hardware ☛ Open AI, Oracle, and SoftBank to invest $500 billion in 'Stargate' AI project [Ed: Fictional numbers again]
The announcement featured top executives: OpenAI's Sam Altman, Oracle;s Larry Ellison, and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son. They credited Trump's leadership for facilitating the project. In particular, Trump's decision to roll back a prior executive order by Joe Biden, aimed at curbing AI risks, was framed as pivotal. Also, the current administration promised to simplify power production processes to meet the high electricity demands of AI datacenters that tend to employ hundreds of thousands of power-hungry GPUs. Altman noted that achieving artificial general intelligence domestically would not have been possible without the new administration's support.
-
Silicon Angle ☛ Report: ByteDance sets aside about $20B for [HYPE] spending this year
The report cites two anonymous people familiar with the matter as saying that around half of the amount will be spent on [HYPE]-related infrastructure outside China, such as data center resources and networking equipment.
-
Reuters ☛ Exclusive: ByteDance plans $20 billion capex in 2025, mostly on [HYPE], sources say
The privately held technology giant plans to spend about half of the amount abroad on [HYPE]-related infrastructure, primarily data centres and networking equipment, they said.
-
Inside Towers ☛ Carr Makes Staff Picks - Inside Towers
FCC Chair Brendan Carr is bringing several people from outside the Commission to serve in key roles on his staff. He says the new hires “bring a broad range of legal and policy expertise to their jobs and to the agency. I look forward to drawing on their counsel and advice, and I am eager to get to work alongside of them, my Commission colleagues, and the agency’s accomplished career staff.”
Carr is keeping Greg Watson as his chief of staff. Watson will oversee all policy and strategic initiatives, communications, and operations within the Chairman’s office. He will engage with senior staff in Congress and the Executive Branch. Greg began working for then-Commissioner Carr in 2021, serving first as Policy Advisor before later becoming his Chief of Staff.
-
Threat Source ☛ Everything is connected to security
If you’re wondering why I or anyone would care to discuss cybersecurity in such a niche industry, the answer is simple: Everything is connected to security, even something you wouldn’t think would nominally matter. Agriculture and adjacent industries are roughly 6 percent of our GDP and account for about 10 percent of all U.S. jobs. The trillions of dollars that industry generates are targets for cyber-crime-motivated threat actors and nation-states who would seek to degrade it.
-
Chris Enns ☛ A Moment of Intense Optimism, Shattered
Tim Cook openly grovelling and paying for Trump's favor is one of the more disheartening turns by tech moguls in a time when there are a lot flip-flopping grovelling tech moguls to choose from.
-
India Times ☛ OpenAI, SoftBank each commit $19 billion to Stargate AI data center: Report
OpenAI and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank will each commit $19 billion to fund Stargate, a joint venture to develop data centers for artificial intelligence in the U.S., the Information reported on Wednesday. The ChatGPT maker will hold a 40% interest in Stargate, and would act as an extension of OpenAI, the report said, citing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaking to colleagues. His comments imply SoftBank would also have a 40% interest, the report added.
-
Digital Music News ☛ Google Invests Another $1 Billion in Anthropic—Total $3 Billion
Anthropic is known for its Claude suite of AI models and has been raising capital to expand its computing infrastructure. The new investment gives Google a 10% ownership stake in the start up as well as a large cloud contract between the two companies, as reported by CNBC. Anthropic is in late-stage talks to raise an additional $2 billion at a $60 billion valuation.
-
The Nation ☛ High-Tech Militarists Are Hijacking the Trump Administration
Anyone who has consulted a media outlet in the past two months is well aware of the central role played by Donald Trump’s “first buddy,” tech billionaire Elon Musk, in the presidential transition. Musk’s influence is only set to grow as he serves as chair of the proposed Department [sic] of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has pledged to use his position to push for an astounding $2 trillion in federal spending cuts—nearly one-third of the entire federal budget. Even a fraction of that level of cuts could decimate the social safety net and undercut basic government functions.
-
Zeit Online GmbH ☛ Elon Musk: A German Eye On Elon Musk's Hitler Salute (Yes, That's A Hitler Salute) | ZEIT ONLINE
Let's not beat around the bush. When someone on a political stage, during a political speech, in front of a crowd including no shortage of far-right followers extends his right arm at an angle, repeatedly, they're giving the Hitler salute.
There's no need for "allegedly" or "reminiscent of" or "controversial."
The gesture speaks for itself; it's documented on video. Those who want to see something else in it, who don't want to see a Hitler salute, do so at their own risk. For instance, those who now claim to have rediscovered the ancient "Roman salute" reveal little more than their eagerness to sugarcoat the obvious.
-
Worldcrunch ☛ Elon Musk's Nazi Salute And The Grim Reality Of Attention Politics - Worldcrunch
In the 1990s, political scientist Joseph Overton introduced the concept of the “Overton window,” delineating the range of ideas considered politically acceptable. Outside this window lie radical and unthinkable positions. Overton argued that real change requires shifting this window.
Over recent years, this shift has been palpable. By January 2025 the farthest-right edge of said Overton window has expanded enough to include, unambiguously, a Nazi salute.
This is the grim culmination of a years-long game, where attention is the prize, and those who provoke and polarize have mastered the rules.
-
Axios ☛ Musk and Tesla remain untouchable after Nazi salute accusations
Elon Musk, the world's richest man, standing behind a podium bearing the Seal of the President of the United States, on Monday twice gave what scholars, journalists and rights groups said was a Hitlergruß, or Nazi salute.
-
Tommy Palmer ☛ This used to be a Utopia
The fake pro-gamer who runs the biggest shithole on The Internet just did a Nazi salute live on TV, which one TV network edited out. In his new job, named after his favourite meme, he’ll cut Government spending while his companies survive on subsidies.
Another power mad gym bro wants to force everyone to play with him and his toys, but is experiencing a similar kind of spiral. He says things like compassion, working in diverse teams, and facts, aren’t manly enough. He ignores the role his life’s work played in the death of thousands of people and instead wants to fill the world with lies that Shrimp Jesus is real.
-
Irish Examiner ☛ Séamas O'Reilly: The world is an objectively worse place because of tech-bro oligarchs
Musk speaks like a man who believes his own insane conspiratorial guff, because he does. For years, we’ve watched as the most malodorous portions of the [Internet] have fully infected his brain and transformed his entire personality.
Zuck avoided this fate by not having a personality to begin with. It is difficult to imagine him holding a strong view on anything, for much the same reason it is difficult to imagine him enjoying a poem or a sandwich. It would be like attributing sentiment to a set of venetian blinds. There is simply nothing there.
-
Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
-
VOA News ☛ Vietnam's media restructuring will lead to more propaganda, critics warn
"There's little doubt that this so-called ‘reform’ will result in the Vietnamese people getting even less real news,” Robertson wrote in an email. “This is precisely the path one expects an authoritarian like To Lam to take, doubling down on government control of what the people hear and see."
-
Alabama Reflector ☛ In times of crisis, states have few tools to fight misinformation
From artificial intelligence-generated images of the famous Hollywood sign surrounded by fire to baseless rumors that firefighters were using women’s handbags full of water to douse the flames, misinformation has been rampant. While officials in Southern California fought fire and falsehoods, Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — announced it would eliminate its fact-checking program in the name of free expression.
That has some wondering what, if anything, state governments can do to stop the spread of harmful lies and rumors that proliferate on social media. Emergency first responders are now experiencing what election officials have had to contend with in recent years, as falsehoods about election fraud — stemming from President Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his 2020 loss — have proliferated.
-
Techdirt ☛ Bullshit Reporting: The Intercept’s Story About Government Policing Disinfo Is Absolute Garbage
As for “taking steps to halt the spread” it also does not even remotely say that. If you look for the word “spread” it appears in the report seven times. Not once does it discuss anything about trying to halt the spread. It talks about teaching people how not to accidentally spread misinformation, about how the spread of misinformation can create a risk to critical functions like public health and financial services, how foreign adversaries abuse it, and how election officials lack the tools to identify it.
Honestly, the only point where “spread” appears in a proactive sense is where it says that they should measure “the spread” of CISA’s own information and messages.
The Intercept article is journalistic malpractice.
-
-
-
Censorship/Free Speech
-
NPR ☛ Bishop Mariann Budde tells NPR 'I won't apologize' for sermon addressing Trump
Trump and his allies quickly criticized the bishop's remarks, with one Republican congressman saying that the American-born Budde should be "added to the deportation list."
Despite the backlash, Budde told NPR that her remarks were sincere, and she did not have any regrets in bringing them to the president's attention.
"I don't hate the president, and I pray for him," Budde said. "I don't feel there's a need to apologize for a request for mercy."
-
-
Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
-
Daily Mail ☛ CNN boss defends sweeping layoffs as panicked staffers react to TV bloodbath
CNN CEO Mark Thompson defended his decision to layoff 200 workers and promised increased investment but a change in strategy following the Thursday bloodbath.
An insider told DailyMail.com Thursday that they made huge cuts to their TV division because it has become so 'bloated' and overstaffed with people who do the bare minimum.
The layoffs are concentrated in CNN's TV business, where ratings have tumbled as consumers cut off cable and seek other news sources.
-
Entrepeneur ☛ 'Flubbed Completely': A Company Mistakenly Sent a Picture of Cartoon Duck to Employees When Laying Them Off
News of layoffs has seemed nonstop in January, with CNN, Citigroup, and Microsoft all cutting roles this week alone. Usually, these notices are pretty standard—heavy on the legal wording, and light on the cartoons.
But that wasn't the case at Stripe, a payments software company that laid off 300 employees on Monday. Some employees in the various roles affected (product, operations, engineering) were notified by an illustration of a cartoon duck, Business Insider reports. The dates on the termination notices were also incorrect.
-
Kansas Reflector ☛ Kansas House speaker says he restricted press access to give staff better seats
Hawkins broke from decades of precedent before the start of the session by banning reporters from a press box area where they could take notes and photos, interact with staff and write their stories. When his aide informed Statehouse reporters of the new press restrictions, she described them as “significant changes.”
-
-
Civil Rights/Policing
-
Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
-
CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Defense (of the [Internet]) (from billionaires) in depth
The only way to truly billionaire-proof the [Internet] is to a) abolish billionaires and b) abolish the system that allows people to become billionaires. Short of that, any levees we build will need constant tending, reinforcement, and re-evaluation.
That's normal. No security measure (including billionaire-proofing the [Internet]) is a "set and forget" affair. Any time you want something and someone else wants the opposite, you are stuck in an endless game of attack and defense. The measures that block your adversary today will only work until your adversary changes tactics to circumvent your defenses.
-
-
VOA News ☛ UK watchdog targets Apple, Google mobile ecosystems with new digital market powers
The new investigations will examine whether Apple or Google's mobile operating systems, app stores and browsers give either company a strategic position in the market. The watchdog said it's interested in the level of competition and any barriers preventing rivals from offering competing products and services.
-
The Independent UK ☛ UK watchdog targets Apple, Google mobile ecosystems with new digital market powers
The Competition and Markets Authority said it launched separate investigations to determine whether the mobile ecosystems controlled by Apple and Google should be given “strategic market status” that would mandate changes in the companies' practices.
The watchdog is flexing its newly acquired regulatory muscles again after the new digital market rules took effect at the start of the year. The CMA has already used the new rules, designed to protect consumers and businesses from unfair practices by Big Tech companies, to open an investigation into Google's search ads business.
-
The Register UK ☛ CMA investigating Google and Apple mobile ecosystems
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is launching Strategic Market Status (SMS) investigations into both Apple and Google, probing the duo's control of their respective mobile ecosystems.
-
Patents
-
Kangaroo Courts
-
IP Kat ☛ 2025-01-19 [Older] Epitope claims stand firm: Board of Appeal upholds functional antibody patent despite insufficiency attack (T 0326/22) [Ed: Kangaroo courts, controlled by a corrupt official who used white-collar crime to rise to power]
-
IP Kat ☛ 2025-01-13 [Older] Bloody good outcome for Impossible Foods as EPO Board of Appeal revives patent for vegan meat substitute (T 0425/23) [Ed: The kangaroo courts stacked with patent maximalists of the regime]
-
-
-
Copyrights
-
International Business Times ☛ 2025-01-17 [Older] YouTubers Rake In Thousands Of Dollars Selling Unused Footage To AI Companies, Including OpenAI [Ed: They now treat their own work like a pile of trash]
-
[Old] Linux Professional Institute Inc ☛ IBM, Red Hat and Free Software: An old maddog’s view - Linux Professional Institute (LPI)
It was around this time that IBM made their famous announcement that they were going to invest a billion US dollars into “Linux”. They may have also said “Open Source”, but I have lost track of the timing of that. This announcement caught the world by shock, that such a large and staid computer company would make this statement.
A month or two after this Dan met with me again, looked me right in the eye and asked if the Linux community might consider IBM trying to “take over Linux”, could they accept the “dancing elephant” coming into the Linux community, or be afraid that IBM would crush Linux.
I told Dan that I was sure the “people that counted” in the Linux community would see IBM as a partner.
Shortly after that I was aware of IBM hiring Linux developers so they could work full time on various parts of Linux, not just part time as before. I knew people who were working as disparate parts of “Linux” as the Apache Web Server that were paid by IBM.
About a year later IBM made another statement. They had recovered that billion dollars of investment, and were going to invest another billion dollars.
-
Torrent Freak ☛ Supreme Court: Bank Can Terminate Contract Over Lacking Anti-Piracy Measures
The French Supreme Court has confirmed that Société Générale rightfully terminated a payment processing agreement with file-hosting service 1fichier. The cyberlocker failed to monitor and prevent the storage of pirated material, which it had contractually agreed to do. When Mastercard raised red flags, the bank was therefore was within its right to take action.
-