Leftovers

• Ruben Schade ☛ A (blue) selection of excellent site designs

  I’ve been meaning to write about their excellence for a few years, but I’ve decided to collate them here for easy reference: [...]

• Rob Knight ☛ My First Digital Photo

  Adam tooted earlier about the first photo he ever took with a digital camera and it got me thinking about what mine was. Initially I thought it was this photo of Manhattan take from the Empire State Building in February 2006 taken with a Fujifilm FinePix A345.

• Jason Becker ☛ New blog layout is out

  This is the best reflection of how I treat blogging– I am writing thoughts throughout the day, and the best way to understand them is often within the context that they are written. Anything without a title is quasi-ephemeral; they’re not long considered koans imparting wisdom meant to stand the test of time. They’re meant to be said and read within the flow of conversation and slowly forgotten like most things that are said in conversation. If I sat down to write something longer that has a title, I probably put at least a little more thought into it and have a bit more of a desire to be able to reference and find it again easily. Those posts are at least somewhat meant to stand the test of time.

• Andy Hawthorne ☛ Everything is a Remix

  Creativity is connecting things that already exist in new ways.

  Steve Jobs understood this. He said: "Creativity is just connecting things."

  He didn't invent the MP3 player. Or the mobile phone. Or the tablet computer.

  What he did was see new connections. New combinations. New possibilities.

• Andy Hawthorne ☛ How Algorithms Are Killing The Web

  That's the engagement con.

  Algorithms don’t care about quality. They care about keeping people scrolling.

  That’s why outrage works. That’s why misinformation works. That’s why someone pretending to cry in a car gets more views than a well-researched article.

• [Old] Antirez ☛ From where I left

  All this to say that, I’m back. I think it’s the right moment for a big thank you to all the Redis community, for what it has done over the years. See you around, I hope there is something more to add to this journey.

• Dan Q ☛ BBC News RSS… your way!

  So I’ve launched BBC-Feeds.DanQ.dev. On a 20-minute schedule, it generates both UK and World editions of the BBC News feeds, filtered to remove iPlayer, Sounds, app “nudges”, duplicates, and other junk, and optionally with the sports news filtered out too.

• University of Toronto ☛ Web application design and the question of what is a "route"

  The broad moral I draw from this exercise is that the model of distinct 'routes' is one that only works for certain sorts of web application design. When and where it works well, it's a quite useful model and I think it pushes you toward making good decisions about how to structure your URLs. But in any strong form, it's not a universal pattern and there are ways to go well outside it.

• Björn Wärmedal ☛ That Constant Wish to Make a Fanzine

  I've made fanzines before. Been part of a couple of really seriously fancy fanzine projects even. Made several submissions to a really fun print-on-demand RPG fanzine, and edited another that was printed and stapled on an office printer. It's been awesome.

  I've written about them before.

• Andy Hawthorne ☛ Why Simple Writing Works

  Abbott wrote ads that a 10-year old could understand. Headlines with four or five words. Body copy that felt like a conversation.

  The industry thought he was mad.

  But Abbott's work cut through like a hot knife through butter. While others were showing off their vocabulary, he was selling products.

• Science

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Archaeologists Discover a Stash of 1,500-Year-Old Weapons—Including the Only Known Roman Helmet Ever Found in Denmark

    Researchers from the Cultural Museum in Vejle discovered the site while performing excavations ahead of the construction of a new motorway, according to a recent statement from the museum. So far, they’ve unearthed more than 100 weapons at a site called Løsning Søndermark, located just northwest of the town of Hedensted in central Denmark.

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Discover New Class of Quantum States in Graphene

    The findings confirm predictions on how electrons ought to behave when squeezed into crystalline arrangements, and may contribute fresh ideas on how to achieve reliable approaches to quantum computing or reveal ways to develop room-temperature superconduction.

  • The Register UK ☛ NASA solar mission data recovers after server flood

    Both spacecraft have collected vast amounts of solar data over the years. However, new and historical data from the missions became unavailable in November after a broken pipe caused significant flooding of the building that houses the Joint Science Operations Center (JSOC). Data from two of SDO's instruments is processed at JSOC, as is data from IRIS.

  • The Register UK ☛ Google claims commercial quantum apps viable within 5 years

    Google has been wrestling with this particular challenge for years and late in 2024 unveiled a new quantum computing processor that promises substantially lower error rates.

    The chip, dubbed Willow, featured between 72 and 105 physical qubits arranged into two-dimensional arrays to form logical qubits capable of correcting errors before they muddy up the result. To be clear, using multiple physical qubits to achieve fault tolerance isn't new. However, unlike prior examples, Google says it achieved exponentially low error rates as the number of qubits, and by extension its computational power, increased.

• Career/Education

  • Pro Publica ☛ Tennessee Officials Missed Warnings About Nashville School Shooter

  • Pro Publica ☛ Department of Education Told Employees to End Support for Transgender Students

    The U.S. Department of Education told employees late Friday that it will end all programs, contracts and policies that “fail to affirm the reality of biological sex,” carrying out President Donald Trump’s vow to restrict transgender rights.

    The broad language in the email did not specify which programs or policies would be impacted, or how many schools or students might be affected. But the order appears designed to target programs that in recent years supported transgender students — school-based mental health services and support for homeless students, for example.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Library of Congress to visit four Kansas cities with history, resources on educational tour

    “The Library of Congress is truly a library for all,” said Carla Hayden, the librarian of Congress, in a Thursday news release. “Holding more than 178 million items in its collections, the Library offers perhaps the most comprehensive collection of human knowledge ever assembled in one place.”

    The library’s goal is to show rural educators and community members the vast primary sources available in the library’s free, digitized collections.

  • The Korea Times ☛ Why I am learning English

    Determined to improve, I sought out Freedom Speakers International (FSI), an organization dedicated to teaching English. I first learned about FSI in June 2024, and I was not only grateful but deeply moved by their efforts to help North Korean refugees strengthen their English skills and stand on the international stage. With FSI’s support, I prepared my original English speech, practiced pronunciation with foreign volunteers (thank you Roger, Simmone, (another volunteer from the summer?) and Casey), and rehearsed my speech over 200 times.

• Hardware

  • TechSpot ☛ This massive 173% mechanical keyboard is a tribute to the classic space-cadet keyboard

    The Hyper7 R4 from Mechboards is a 173 percent keyboard that was originally designed by Proto[Typist] as a tribute to the classic space-cadet keyboard. It's absolutely massive, measuring 59.5 x 22 x 6.5 cm (23.42 x 8.66 x 2.5 in), and tips the scales at a hefty 17.6 pounds.

    The board features 178 keys laid out in half a dozen separate blocks, including a huge array of programmable keys at the top that are elevated and tilted at a 45-degree angle. It's offered in your choice of classic or modern layouts and four colors: black, grey, cream, or bare stainless steel.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Korea Times ☛ Trump’s aid freeze keeps life-saving programs shut, sparks 'mayhem'

    The spiraling consequences of the aid freeze in developing countries underline the real-world harms from Trump's upending of decades-old U.S. initiatives designed to build global alliances by making America the world’s most generous superpower and largest single aid donor.

    Aid workers had a list of urgent questions going unanswered. Among them: Which programs could continue? What qualifies as life-saving aid? Food? Shelter? Medicine? And how do they keep people from dying when almost every aid service has been shut at once?

    With little guidance from U.S. officials, aid workers said their organizations erred on the side of caution and closed programs rather than incur expenses that the U.S. government might not reimburse, the aid workers said. Some described how U.S partners – often people they had worked with for years – no longer answered their phones or emails.

  • Wired ☛ The USAID Shutdown Puts Millions of African Lives at Risk

    Last year alone, the US contributed $3.7 billion in humanitarian aid to sub-Saharan Africa. At least 73 percent of this was allocated to health programs, including HIV treatment and prevention. For those living with HIV, much of the benefit of this funding has come via the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief—or PEPFAR, which purchases and supplies HIV medications for countries in need. Since being launched by former US president George W. Bush more than two decades ago, PEPFAR has saved millions of lives in Africa.

  • Futurism ☛ Scientists Grow Living "Replacement Teeth" for Dental Implants

    "It’s very difficult to replace an implant, because first you have to rebuild all the bone that has been absorbed over time that's gone away," the bioengineering expert told Tech Review. "We’re working on trying to create functional replacement teeth."

  • New York Times ☛ Trump and Musk Bring Vast Aid Machinery to a Halt in Africa

    The collapse of U.S.A.I.D. at the hands of President Trump and Elon Musk is already leaving gaping holes in vital health care and other services that millions of Africans rely on for their survival.

• Proprietary

  • Tedium ☛ Bitly Changes: Link-Shortening, Now With Advertising

    However, taking your eye off the ball highlights how enshittification can sneak under the radar. Recently, the company announced a surprising change to its terms of service, also in a random email, that it would be making a change affecting free users: [...]

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • PC Mag ☛ Google Edits 'Gouda' Gemini Super Bowl Ad After Cheese Fan Notices Inaccuracies

      It's not the first time Google's AI has struggled with cheese-related queries. Its AI Overviews famously told some of the first users that putting glue on pizza could help keep the cheese from sliding off.

      Nonetheless, Google is full steam ahead on its AI products. This week, it made its advanced Gemini 2.0 model available to all users and allocated $75 billion for AI infrastructure, Investopedia reports. Gouda luck.

    • Business Insider ☛ Google Tweaks Super Bowl Ad With AI Giving Wrong Cheese Stat - Business Insider

      "Following his suggestion to have Gemini rewrite the product description without the stat, we updated the UI to reflect what the business would do," the spokesperson said.

      A report about cheese market share published by global management consulting firm IMARC Group said that cheddar cheese "accounts for the majority of the market at around 32.4%." Gouda was not included in the report's top five by market share.

    • BBC ☛ Google remakes Super Bowl ad after AI cheese gaffe

      However, a blogger pointed out on X that the stat was "unequivocally false" as the Dutch cheese was nowhere near that popular.

      Replying to him, Google executive Jerry Dischler, insisted this was not a "hallucination" - where AI systems invent untrue information - blaming the websites Gemini had scraped the information from instead.

    • CNN ☛ Google’s AI-generated Super Bowl cheese ad has some holes

      In a statement, Google said it had updated the commercial. The statistic is erased from the commercial currently uploaded on Google-owned YouTube.

    • The Verge ☛ Google pulls incorrect Gouda stat from its AI Super Bowl ad

      Andrew Novakovic, E.V. Baker Professor of Agricultural Economics Emeritus at Cornell University, confirmed to The Verge last week that Gouda “is almost assuredly not the most widely consumed” cheese in the world. Based on a quick web search, Gemini appears to have regurgitated the stat from a website called Cheese.com, which is filled with what seems to be SEO-optimized blogs.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ DeepSeek roundup: banned by governments, no guard rails, lied about its training costs

      Of course DeepSeek lied about its training costs, as we had strongly suspected. SemiAnalysis has been following DeepSeek for the past several months. High Flyer, DeepSeek’s owner, was buying Nvidia GPUs by the thousands as early as 2021. SemiAnalysis is “confident” that DeepSeek has put more than $500 million into GPUs alone, despite export controls.

    • MIT Technology Review ☛ An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it

      While this is not the first time an AI chatbot has suggested that a user take violent action, including self-harm, researchers and critics say that the bot’s explicit instructions—and the company’s response—are striking. What’s more, this violent conversation is not an isolated incident with Nomi; a few weeks after his troubling exchange with Erin, a second Nomi chatbot also told Nowatzki to kill himself, even following up with reminder messages. And on the company’s Discord channel, several other people have reported experiences with Nomi bots bringing up suicide, dating back at least to 2023.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ OpenAI does a Super Bowl ad, Google’s ad uses bad stats from Gemini

      When you advertise at the Super Bowl, you’ve reached just about every consumer in America. It’s the last stop. If you’re not profitable yet, you never will be.

    • The New Stack ☛ Why Fitting Open Source and AI Together Is So Messy

      At a panel of leading open source AI experts at the third annual State of Open Con (SOOCon25), one thing quickly became clear: Even the pros are having trouble putting together the open source AI puzzle.

      Moderator Alex Williams, The New Stack’s founder and publisher, opened the conversation by asking Sam Johnston, founder of the Open Source Alliance (OSA), to define the meaning of openness and AI, particularly concerning cost and reproducibility.

  • Social Control Media

    • The Atlantic ☛ Americans Are Trapped in an Algorithmic Cage

      This time, however, making reality falls within the confines of the imperator’s capabilities. The presence of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew—dubbed the “broligarchs” by Scott Roxborough—at Trump’s inauguration was an ominous sign. Along with Elon Musk, the far-right billionaire and owner of X, who with Trump’s blessing appears to have illegally asserted control over parts of the federal government, these tycoons represent a tech elite that collectively controls the mediums through which Americans collect and assess information, and therefore determine much of what Americans see and hear on a daily basis. Before Trump was reelected, social-media companies had a profit motive to keep people attached to their screens as long as possible, which was bad enough. Now Trump has made clear with his threats that he expects them to use their power to prop up his administration. They have all, at least symbolically, demonstrated their loyalty. Bezos even interfered with the editorial independence of The Washington Post, the newspaper he owns, to prevent it from endorsing Trump’s opponent, and his underlings have proceeded to dismantle the institution piece by piece.

    • The Verge ☛ Meta CTO says the company is working to ‘catch’ leakers | The Verge

      The disconnect between that group of concerned employees and upper management was on full display during Bosworth’s Q&A earlier this week. At one point, he responded to a question from a female employee on Zuckerberg’s widely-circulated comment to Joe Rogan about wanting more “masculine energy” in the workplace.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ UK Is Ordering Apple to Break Its Own Encryption

      The Washington Post is reporting that the UK government has served Apple with a “technical capability notice” as defined by the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act, requiring it to break the Advanced Data Protection encryption in iCloud for the benefit of law enforcement.

      This is a big deal, and something we in the security community have worried was coming for a while now.

    • Mark Nottingham ☛ Apple’s Options

      As has been widely reported, the government of the United Kingdom has secretly ordered Apple to build a back door into iCloud to allow ‘blanket capability to view fully encrypted material.’

      Assuming the UK doesn’t back down, what are Apple’s options? This is my personal take: if I’ve missed something, I’d love to hear about it.

    • MacRumors ☛ Apple Ordered by UK to Create Global iCloud Encryption Backdoor

      The spying order came by way of a "technical capability notice," a document sent to Apple by the Home Secretary, ordering it to provide access under the sweeping UK Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) of 2016. Critics have labeled the legislation the "Snooper's Charter," as it authorizes law enforcement to compel assistance from companies when needed to collect evidence.

    • Wired ☛ UK Secret Order Demands That Apple Give Access to Users’ Encrypted Data

      The order was issued under the UK’s broad 2016 Investigatory Powers Act. UK law enforcement agencies, not to mention cops in the US and other countries, have championed encryption backdoors for years, and lawmakers have tried at various times to mandate backdoors. The Home Office told the Post in a statement, “We do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices.” An Apple spokesperson declined to comment to the Post.

    • OpenRightsGroup ☛ UK Government undermines security with demands for Apple users encrypted data

      “In doing this the government are attempting to undermine the security of millions of users which would expose them to higher risks of cybercrime. They are failing in their primary duty to protect British citizens.

      “The government want to be able to access anything and everything, anywhere, any time. Their ambition to undermine basic security is frightening, unaccountable and would make everyone less safe. WhatsApp and other services will be next in their sights.

      “They seek to do this in secret, with minimal accountability, and potentially global impacts. It is straightforward bullying.”

  • Confidentiality

    • Ben Werdmuller ☛ I want you to do these four things right now

      Signal is an open-source, end-to-end encrypted instant messaging app. When you message someone with Signal, nobody can intercept your conversation to learn what you’re saying. It’s very easy to use and completely free.

      Unlike WhatsApp (which is owned by Meta) and Telegram (which doesn’t encrypt messages by default), Signal is fully open-source, doesn’t store metadata, and is designed for privacy first.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Guardian UK ☛ English writer’s forgotten ‘masterpiece’ predicting rise of Nazis gets new lease of life

    Sally Carson was not an oracle or a prophet, just a young woman from Dorset, born in 1901. Yet she foresaw a dark and violent future for Europe and gave voice to those fears in a 1934 novel that is now being hailed as “an electrifying masterpiece”.

  • India Times ☛ TikTok to let US Android users download app via kits on its website

    TikTok said on Friday it was allowing U.S. Android users to download and connect to the short video app through package kits on its website, in an effort to circumvent restrictions on the popular platform in the country.

  • Vox ☛ Elon Musk, DOGE, and the high-stakes fight at Treasury, explained

    What are the bigger stakes here? There are privacy and security concerns, but this is ultimately about the balance of power. The ability to cancel Treasury payments would effectively give Trump control over government spending. The Constitution reserves that power for Congress, and Trump taking it would be a massive expansion of his authority. It would also allow Trump’s team to rapidly paralyze spending at government agencies that don’t align with his agenda, making the dismantling of USAID easier to replicate.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ It's Still Not Clear Whether Elon's DOGE Boys Are Reviewing, Taking, or Altering Government Networks

    The big news overnight in the legal fight to rein in DOGE is that SDNY Judge Paul Engelmayer has ordered Treasury to stop letting Elon Musk’s DOGE [sic] boys to snoop in Treasury’s payment system and destroy any copies of records already made from it.

  • The Verge ☛ Federal judge blocks DOGE from accessing sensitive Treasury records

    The order is in response to a lawsuit filed yesterday in New York’s Southern District Court. The suit alleges that the administration exceeded its authority, broke the US Administrative Procedures Act, and violated the US Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine when it granted DOGE access to the Treasury’s federal payments system.

  • The Record ☛ States prepare privacy lawsuit against DOGE over access to federal data | The Record from Recorded Future News

    Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — a group of “special government employees” seeking drastic federal spending cuts at the request of Trump — have in recent days reportedly accessed or sought to access government databases at several federal agencies, including the departments of Treasury, Education and Labor, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

    The attorneys general appear to be focused on DOGE’s work at Treasury, where they said Musk and his staffers are unlawfully accessing payment systems that contain not only individuals’ data, but also states’ bank account data and other sensitive information.

  • [Old] The Straits Times ☛ Bill to grant mufti lawmaking powers stokes concern among Malaysia’s Muslims

    Article 10 of the Bill allows the mufti to propose a fatwa, or religious ruling, to the King and have it gazetted into law without parliamentary debate. Under Article 11 of the Bill, the fatwa will then become legally binding on all Muslims who are in the FT. Non-Muslims are not affected.

    Human rights activists and prominent Muslims, along with several non-Muslim groups, are alarmed by elements of the Bill, which was introduced in Parliament on July 2 by Religious Affairs Minister Mohd Na’im Mokhtar.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Meet the young Musketeers, our unelected overlords employed by ‘Doge’

    “What we’re seeing is unprecedented in that you have these actors who are not really public officials gaining access to the most sensitive data in government,” Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, told Wired. “We really have very little eyes on what’s going on. Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what’s happening because these aren’t really accountable public officials. So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world.”

    The young Musketeers, who apparently have your personal information at their fingertips, aren’t just inexperienced – they appear completely unqualified. In a normal administration, it’s highly unlikely they would have passed the background checks typically needed to get security clearances. On Thursday, Wired (which has been doing brilliant reporting on Doge) noted that Coristine (AKA “big balls”) founded a company called Tesla.Sexy LLC in 2021, which controls at least two Russian-registered domains. Normally, this would be a red flag in a security-clearance review. Coristine has also been linked to a Telegram channel focused on distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) cyberattacks. Again, this is a guy who may have access to your social security number.

  • France24 ☛ US judge halts Musk's DOGE access to Treasury Department data

    DOGE does not enjoy full status as a government department, which would require approval by Congress.

    But Musk, a top Trump donor and ally, and his team have rampaged through federal agencies in the first weeks of the new administration, pausing foreign aid programs, slashing budgets and attempting to lay off scores of government workers.

  • Michigan Advance ☛ Duggan supports ranked choice voting initiative in Michigan

    Under ranked choice voting, voters would rank their preference of candidates from first choice on. The candidate with the fewest first choice votes would be eliminated, and those ballots redistributed to the marked second choice, until a candidate has earned at least 50% of the first choice votes.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ These documents are influencing the DOGE-sphere’s agenda

    Reports from the US Government Accountability Office on improper federal payments in recent years are circulating on X and elsewhere online, and they seem to be a big influence on Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and its supporters as the group pursues cost-cutting measures across the federal government.

    The payment reports have been spread online by dozens of pundits, sleuths, and anonymous analysts in the orbit of DOGE and are often amplified by Musk himself. Though the interpretations of the office’s findings are at times inaccurate, it is clear that the GAO’s documents—which historically have been unlikely to cause much of a stir even within Washington—are having a moment.

  • [Repeat] Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Sale Reportedly 'Slow-Rolled' By the Chinese Government

    President Trump gave ByteDance a 75-day stay to find an American buyer for TikTok. But the company appears to be slow-rolling the process amid broader trade negotiations.

  • RTL ☛ 'Betraying Germany': New anti-far-right protest draws 250,000 in Munich

    The latest rallies came after an estimated 160,000 people marched in Berlin last weekend to protest recent overtures by Germany's conservatives to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of parliamentary elections on February 23.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ What do USAID cutbacks mean for development aid?

    "USAID is one of our best tools for countering financial and economic influence from China."

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Register UK ☛ Amazon, Google accused of monetizing illegal content

    The letters ask why the companies have facilitated the placement of ads on a website known to have hosted CSAM since 2021 and call into question the effectiveness of technology touted by these firms to prevent ads from appearing alongside illegal content.

• Environment

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Call to make tech firms report data centre energy use as AI booms

    Google and Microsoft have reported year on year increases in data centre water consumption since 2020, and many of these water withdrawals come from potable water sources. In its annual environmental sustainability report in 2023, Microsoft said it consumed 6.4m cubic metres of water in 2022, primarily for its cloud data centres – a 34% increase on the year before.

    Google said its data centres consumed 19.5m cubic metres of water in 2022, up 20%.

    There is no reliable data on the quantity of resources used by data centres. In order to make effective policy to reduce their energy consumption, the government needed to collect information at scale, the report said.

  • Advance Local Media LLC ☛ Shipments of uranium ore can resume under agreement reached with the Navajo Nation

    Energy Fuels already must meet standards spelled out by federal agencies when transporting uranium ore. The measures outlined in the agreement with the Navajo Nation provide additional layers of protection, company officials said.

    The agreement also includes a pledge by Energy Fuels to help transport up to 10,000 tons of waste material from abandoned mines that are relics of the federal government’s past uranium programs.

  • Wired ☛ Gutting USAID Will Have a Monumental Effect on Combating Climate Change

    As part of a broad effort to bypass Congress and unilaterally cut government spending, Donald Trump’s administration has all but shut down operations at the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, the independent federal body that delivers humanitarian aid and economic development funding around the world. On his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order pausing all USAID funding, and the agency subsequently issued a stop-work order to nearly all funding recipients, from soup kitchens in Sudan to the global humanitarian group Mercy Corps.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • RFERL ☛ Baltic States Cut Ties With Russia's Power Grid Ahead Of EU Switch

      The three EU members are due to join the synchronous grid of Continental Europe -- which includes most European countries, from Portugal in the west to Ukraine and Turkey in the east -- as part of a plan to integrate the countries more closely with the European Union and boost security.

    • LRT ☛ Baltics disconnect from Russian power grid, start isolated operation

      The three Baltic states will not return to the old system after the isolated operation test. On Sunday afternoon, they will begin operating synchronously with the Continental European grid, becoming fully energy-independent from Russia.

    • US News And World Report ☛ Baltic Nations Cut Ties to Russian Power Grid, Prepare to Link With EU

      Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania disconnected from the IPS/UPS joint network and, subject to last-minute tests, they will synchronise with the EU's grid at 1200 GMT on Sunday after operating on their own in the meantime.

      European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will speak at a ceremony on Sunday to mark the switch to the EU system, her office said on Friday.

      "We've reached the goal we for strived for, for so long. We are now in control," Lithuanian Energy Minister Zygimantas Vaiciunas told a press conference.

    • France24 ☛ Baltic states cut ties to Russian power grid in historic switch away from Moscow

      Three Baltic states on Saturday cut ties with Russia's power grid to join the European Union's network, the culmination of a years-long process that gained urgency with Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

      Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- all former Soviet republics now in the European Union and NATO -- had wanted to block Russia's ability to geopolitically blackmail them via the electricity system.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Baltic states switch off Russian power feed

      Talks of decoupling from Russia's power grid have been decades in the making, but the states have faced technological and financial issues. Moscow's invasion of Ukraine made the switch more urgent as they feared being targeted.

      While the states had stopped purchasing energy from Russia, Moscow still controlled their power systems.

      "We are now removing Russia's ability to use the electricity system as a tool of geopolitical blackmail," Lithuania's Energy Minister Zygimantas Vaiciunas told AFP.

    • LRT ☛ Baltic grid synchronisation is more geopolitical than technical switch – Litgrid head

      Under the plan, he said, the LitPol Link with Poland, previously intended only for synchronisation, will be partly used for commercial trade from March. The Baltic countries will have to operate in isolated mode during the cable’s repairs, Masiulis said.

    • The Moscow Times ☛ Baltic Nations Switch Off Russian Power Grid

      "I like the light better when there's no Russian electrons involved," he told reporters in the Estonian capital Tallinn.

      "It's important to underline that this is about security... No European country should be dependent on Russia for anything," he added.

      Vaiciunas said the Baltic states had completed the disconnection process at 9:09 a.m.

      Latvia later physically cut a power line to Russia.

    • VOA News ☛ Baltics switch off Russian power grid

      "The energy system of the Baltic states is finally in our own hands. We are in control," he added of the "historic" moment.

      He said the Baltics were now operating in so-called "isolated mode," before they integrate with the European grid on Sunday.

    • The Register UK ☛ UAE, France to funnel up to €50B into a 1GW AI datacenter

      At one gigawatt in capacity, the facility will be enormous, dwarfing more traditional cloud and hyperscale campuses, which typically top out in the tens of megawatts. With that said, facilities on this scale aren't unheard of, given the insatiable appetite of AI workloads for power-hungry GPUs and high-end networking kits. In the US, social media giant Meta recently began construction of a 2.3-gigawatt facility in Richland Parish, Louisiana.

    • MIT Technology Review ☛ What a return to supersonic flight could mean for climate change

      In addition to the greenhouse gas emissions from increased fuel use, additional potential climate effects may be caused by pollutants like nitrogen oxides, sulfur, and black carbon being released at the higher altitudes common in supersonic flight. For more details, check out my latest story.

      Boom points to sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) as the solution to this problem. After all, these alternative fuels could potentially cut out all the greenhouse gases associated with burning jet fuel.

      The problem is, the market for SAFs is practically embryonic. They made up less than 1% of the jet fuel supply in 2024, and they’re still several times more expensive than fossil fuels. And currently available SAFs tend to cut emissions between 50% and 70%—still a long way from net-zero.

    • International Business Times ☛ Passengers Furious As South Korean Airline Becomes First To Ban Power Banks In Cabin Bags

      A South Korean airline has introduced a groundbreaking policy banning power banks from carry-on luggage following a recent fire onboard one of its aircraft. The move is aimed at enhancing passenger safety.

      Air Busan now requires travellers to keep portable chargers on their person throughout the flight or store them in checked luggage under the seat.

    • Energy Mix Productions Inc ☛ Denmark's District Heating Success Holds Lessons for Canada

      Denmark is a “global frontrunner” for its district heating systems, which are deployed nationwide, writes the Regulatory Assistance Project, in a new report highlighting the country’s successes. The widespread use of district heating there can be attributed to “decades of targeted policy and investment and careful design of the regulatory framework.”

      The country integrated district systems into its climate strategy, aiming to cut carbon emissions by 70% across all sectors by 2030, eliminate the direct use of fossil gas for space heating in households by 2030, and remove gas from all households by 2035. Today, 44% of Denmark’s buildings have a district heating connection, including two-thirds of homes as of 2023. The country has also largely made the switch away from oil, coal, and gas in district systems; in 2023, only 13% of district heat was generated using fossil fuels.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • CBC ☛ Whale song shows 'hallmarks' of human language

      To be clear, we're no closer to translating the meaning of those soulful, haunting, put it-on-a-best-selling-record songs from these ocean giants. But experts say it highlights the role of evolutionary pressures in complex communication.

    • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Humpback Whale Song Shares a Key Pattern With Human Language That Might Make It Easier for the Animals to Learn

      This statistical rule is called Zipf’s law, and now, an interdisciplinary team of scientists has revealed that humpback whale songs follow the same pattern. In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers suggest this rule might have developed because it makes culturally transmitted communication such as human language—and the songs of humpback whales—easier to learn.

  • Overpopulation

    • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Population Decline Will Transform Our Social World

      Population growth has been slowing and even reversing in many countries, a trend with far-reaching social implications that looks certain to continue.

    • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Developers Lobby to Keep Building, Water Shortages Be Damned

      Amid dangerous droughts, Arizona officials have attempted to address groundwater shortages by limiting development in the Phoenix metro area. Real estate interests have launched a dark money legal campaign to overturn the precedent-setting regulations.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Site36 ☛ Extradition to Hungary unlawful: German Constitutional Court upholds Maja T.’s appeal

  • India Times ☛ Meta prepares for layoffs on February 10: internal memo

    Notices will go out to employees losing their jobs starting at 5 a.m. local time Monday in most countries, including in the US, according to one of the posts, authored by Meta's Head of People Janelle Gale.

  • India Times ☛ Microsoft, Nvidia, the tech giants taking a quieter approach to Trump

    Nvidia and Microsoft take different approaches to navigating Washington's politics. While Microsoft is experienced in lobbying, Nvidia is a newcomer, rapidly growing due to its dominance in AI chip manufacturing.

  • The Register UK ☛ Does DOGE have what it takes to tackle US gov tech spending?

    Regardless of political stance, USAID is a relatively small federal department. If DOGE really wants to get a hold of US government tech spending, it needs to think bigger – which means, apart from the potentially daunting technical aspect of cutting down services, the team will run into certain powerful forces that presumably would rather keep millions of dollars in IT deals rolling in.

  • New York Times ☛ How Sam Altman Sidestepped Elon Musk to Win Over Donald Trump

    After helping President Trump get elected, Elon Musk was poised to dominate the country’s A.I. policies. Then Mr. Altman sneaked into the White House.

  • New Yorker ☛ Elon Musk and Donald Trump Are Not Fixing U.S. Foreign Aid but Destroying It

    “U.S.A.I.D. has a big footprint in-country, and that’s central to this,” she said. “It’s what makes the United States unique.” If Washington pulls back permanently from its leadership role in providing aid and disaster relief, there isn’t any other Western country with the capacity and willingness to take its place, she went on: “A lot of U.S. allies are facing similar constraints—internal lack of support for external engagement—and don’t have big aid budgets and aren’t going to be able to fill the void.” The European Union is trimming its foreign assistance. In France, which is facing a fiscal crisis, a budget announced this week slashed the aid budget by nearly forty per cent. In Germany, where an election is in the offing, there has also been talk of cuts. “It’s not, at this moment, the Europeans who have the resources to fill the gap,” Landers told me. “It’s countries like China.”

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Fact check: Trump's team targets USAID with false claims

      The overhaul has been accompanied by false claims about an organization Trump's team believes has been wasting US taxpayers' money.

      DW Fact Check has debunked some of these claims.

    • VOA News ☛ False: Russian allegations that Ukraine ‘stole’ $100 billion of US funds

      “In the heat of candor, the leader of the Bandera regime admitted that he and his comrades had embezzled $100 billion,” Medvedev wrote.

      This claim is false.

      Since the full-scale Russian military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. Congress has passed five Ukraine aid bills totaling $175 billion. Of that, $106 billion is designated for direct support to Ukraine, comprising some $69.8 billion in military aid, $33.3 billion for budget support, and $2.8 billion in humanitarian assistance, as tracked by the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Foreign Relations.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft click-baits users with useless 'How to Uninstall Microsoft Edge’ instruction doc

      No, Microsoft won't tell you how to uninstall its Edge web browser, which is heavily integrated into Windows 11.

    • New York Times ☛ Right-Wing Crusade Against USAID Has Been Fueled by Falsehoods

      They amplified the false video as Mr. Musk pressed a crusade to shut down U.S.A.I.D., the agency that has distributed much of the government’s foreign aid since 1961. Working with Mr. Trump’s blessing as the head of a government efficiency campaign, Mr. Musk and others in the administration have taken over the agency’s headquarters, frozen grants and notified employees that nearly all of them will be laid off.

      The dismantling of the agency has been accompanied by a torrent of anger online from right-wing influencers and accounts that are promoting false claims and conspiratorial thinking.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • ANF News ☛ 27 women prisoners in Evin jail subjected to inhumane punishment

    It was reported that the women were punished for singing after the killing of two notorious Iranian judges, known for their ruthless and arbitrary rulings.

  • Vox ☛ Factory farm critics in rural communities face threats and harassment for protesting CAFOs

    The Trom’s family story, along with the story of how factory farms have reshaped US agriculture, are recounted in Trom Eayrs’s compelling new book, Dodge County, Incorporated: Big Ag and the Undoing of Rural America. Trom Eayrs also documented similar stories of harassment experienced by fellow Midwesterners — all farmers themselves — who’ve protested factory farms coming into their towns: a bullet into a toddler’s bedroom window; arson; dead animals left on someone’s car, in their mailbox, and their front porch; and plenty of death threats.

  • Idiomdrottning ☛ I can't think of an alternative to free speech

    Starting a platform without considering moderation is irresponsible. That’s not what I’m saying here.

    I’m just trying to be intellectually honest about the two pitfalls here: In additions to the aforementioned “what if the bad guys get their hands on the controls”, there’s also technical obstacles.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • The Washington Post ☛ USAID freeze hits independent Ukrainian and Russian media

    Ukraine’s independent media, a collection of small regional outlets, muckraking investigative websites and internet news platforms, have been reeling since the USAID announcement, with some organizations saying that they are just weeks away from slashing staff or closing down entirely.

  • The San Fancisco Standard ☛ San Francisco unveils marble bust of Aaron Swartz

    “It’s great that people idolize him as long as they get the story right: He was not a martyr,” Rein said, her eyes welling with tears. “He stood for freedom of access to information, especially for scientific research — things the public had already paid for.”

    The evening included a number of video tributes, which Rein played on a large screen behind the stage. They included commentary from science fiction author Cory Doctorow, members of the Aaron Swartz Institute in Brazil, and Cindy Cohn, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

  • ANF News ☛ Kurdish journalist brutally detained during house raid in Mardin

    The police broke down the apartment door and dragged the journalist out onto the street, using force, while her apartment was searched and equipment was confiscated. Değer was then put in a police vehicle with her hands tied behind her back and taken to the police station in Mardin.

    While the reason for Değer’s detention is not known, as the police did not provide any information, JinNews suspects that it may be related to the journalist's work for the Free Kurdish Press. At the police station, Değer is said to have refused to answer any questions. She will probably be transferred to a public prosecutor's office later today, according to reports.

  • ANF News ☛ Journalist Ali Barış Kurt imprisoned in Istanbul

    Kurt, facing charges over his posts on the social media, was taken to Istanbul Bostancı District Security Directorate.

  • Roy Tang ☛ Consuming the News

    This was back before the day of the 24 hour news cycle. Back then you'd read the newspaper in the morning and maybe catch an evening news broadcast, and that's all the news you'd be exposed to for the day. Sometimes there would be breaking news alerts, but those would be incredibly rare. At the time, there was simply not enough news being produced.

    Those days are long gone. These days news outlets are available online 24/7 constantly updating throughout the day and if you're always doomscrolling on social media, you're always seeing a lot of "breaking news" or "in case you missed it" articles, many of them rehashing stories from earlier in the day. All of this is a consequence of the ever-expanding advertising industry, demanding a constant stream of views and eyeballs for an increasingly small share of the advertisers' dollar.

    It can easily get overwhelming.

  • Gregory Hammond ☛ Why I believe the 24-hour news cycle still exists

    Why am I telling you this? Because now that you know when 24/7 TV news started, it’s time to ask why does it still exist today?

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • NDTV ☛ Video: "Hateful Bigot" Yells "Want ISIS To Kill You" At Jewish Man In US

    Noora Shalash, a violent official for CAIR, the largest Islam and Muslim advocacy nonprofit in the U.S., was caught on video this week in Manhattan shouting, "F— the Jews" and saying, "I demand Jihad! I demand jihad! I want ISIS to kill all of you."

  • Techdirt ☛ Federal Court Shuts Down Louisiana’s Unconstitutional ‘Police Buffer Zone’ Law

    Arizona had already tried this twice, starting at 25 feet before trimming the “halo” to an 8-foot diameter. It didn’t matter. A federal court permanently blocked the law due to its obvious unconstitutional nature. Florida has tried the same thing — a 25-foot “no go” zone around “first responders” — utilizing the dubious theory that too many people filming cops are somehow “interfering” with their ability to do their jobs. At this point, the law remains in place, but it’s only a matter of time before it’s kicked to the curb due to its inherent illegality.

  • Vox ☛ Musk, DOGE, and the GOP’s free speech hypocrisy

    But the Republican Party doesn’t really believe in that absolutist ideal. In fact, the first few weeks of the Trump administration, and the Elez fiasco in particular, have exemplified the contradiction at the heart of the right’s free speech rallying cry. What they actually want is the freedom to say the most offensive, racist things without getting any pushback, while also using the power of the state to suppress speech that they personally don’t like.

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ It's Grim at the Department of Labor

    It is easy for the events at any individual federal agency to get lost in the torrent of bad news coming out of Washington. But each of these agencies exists for a purpose, and each is staffed with people who have spent their careers keeping our government running. All of those people are now, to varying degrees, terrified of what is coming next—for their agency, for themselves, and for the country. I spoke to one longtime DOL staffer to get a sense of the mood inside the agency. These remarks can help us understand the human costs of what is happening right now.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Software Patents

    • Mozilla ☛ Web audio codec guide - Media technologies on the web

      The patents behind MP3 have expired, removing many or most licensing concerns around using MP3 files in your projects. That makes them a good choice for many projects.

• Trademarks

  • Deseret Media ☛ Black church vandalized by the Proud Boys gains control over the group's trademark

    The Monday ruling in D.C. Superior Court grants rights to the trademark of the group's name to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church and bars the Proud Boys members from selling any merchandise with its name or symbols without the church's consent. The ruling also allows the church to try to seize any money made from selling the group's merchandise.

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Publishing Pirate Site-Blocking Orders is a Good Start, But It's Not Transparency

    A little over a week ago, Rep. Zoe Lofgren introduced the Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act (FADPA).

    Should it become law, FADPA would allow rightsholders to obtain site blocking orders in the United States aimed at piracy sites believed to be operated from overseas. The no-fault injunctions envisioned by the bill would require local ISPs and public DNS providers to prevent their users from accessing these illicit foreign platforms, without being held liable for customers’ infringements.