Leftovers

• Medium ☛ Piranesi’s Perspective Trick. This is a quick report explaining what…

  The Panini projection is very useful, and you have probably encountered it at some point without even realising it, it has the property that vertical lines are straight, radial lines are straight, and that edge distortion is imperceptible. With the Panini projection it is possible to show a scene with an enormously wide angle of view (over 180°), and for it to appear like a normal photograph, sometimes, at least.

• Kevin Wammer ☛ How to work with me

  I wrote this so we can skip the awkward figuring-each-other-out phase and get straight to doing work. I won’t tell you how to do your job. I’m just giving you a guide to how I do mine, how I work best with others, and what helps or hinders collaboration. My goal is always the same: build good things, with good people, and have fun.

• Jeff Geerling ☛ Never in a million years...

  ...would I have imagined my video on whether a pigeon is faster than the Internet would end up on a popular Italian quiz show, L'Eredita. Specifically, in the March 26th episode (playable in Italy, or with an account).

• [Old] RFC ☛ RFC 2549: IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service

  This memo amends RFC 1149, "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers", with Quality of Service information. This is an experimental, not recommended standard.

• [Old] BSDly ☛ That grumpy BSD guy: RFC1149: Ten Years of In-Flight Internet

  It's been ten years since a small group of Bergen hackers implemented RFC1149, the Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol, making in-flight Internet a reality well ahead of any airline.

• Andy Bell ☛ If it works, it's right

  I need to emphasise that I don’t think Alex is wrong in their writing, just to be clear. Their lived experience and response to that experience is completely valid — as is yours based on your own experience, dear reader.

  The beauty of CSS is that it’s flexible — it wants to be a system — so finding a solution that works for you and your team is ultimately the most important thing.

• Baldur Bjarnason ☛ Anti-terrorist spy movies, the end of James Bond, and remembering my grandfather

  The last few movies of the Barbara Broccoli era of James Bond demonstrated a self-awareness and understanding of where we stand as a society that you don’t usually expect from big Hollywood producers. It makes sense that this was the end of it, that they couldn’t follow it up.

• Science

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Dear US researchers: Welcome to Germany!

    Critics view Trump's assault on research freedom as a politically-motivated attack on the pluralistic system and the liberal democratic order. Trump, critics say, is taking aim at the scientific method of refuting claims and myths with facts and analyses.

    The uncertainty created by Trump's actions is so great that many researchers want to leave the US for jobs in Canada and Asia, but especially in Europe.

  • Wired ☛ Hikaru Utada Would Rather Play CERN Than Coachella

    CERN is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, located on the border between Switzerland and France. Its iconic Large Hadron Collider (LHC)—a gigantic circular accelerator with a circumference of 27 kilometers—made its name in 2012 when it discovered the Higgs boson, the mysterious particle that continues to play a key role in experiments into the origins of the universe.

  • Wired ☛ How a Cup of Tea Laid the Foundations for Modern Statistical Analysis

    If Fisher wanted experiments to challenge null hypotheses, he needed to decide where to set the line. Statistical findings have traditionally been deemed “significant” if the probability of obtaining a result that extreme by chance (i.e. the p-value) is less than 5 percent. But why did a p-value of 5 percent become such a popular threshold?

  • The Register UK ☛ Academics sue to undo Trump science funding cuts

    The lawsuit "challenges the Trump administration’s unlawful and unprecedented effort to overpower a university’s academic autonomy and control the thought, association, scholarship, and expression of its faculty and students."

• Career/Education

  • Vox ☛ How to make spring break better for kids

    When kids are off but parents are working, the options are somewhat limited. Some camps operate during spring break, but the cost, which can run to hundreds of dollars a week, puts them out of reach for many families. Then there’s the cobble-it-together approach, with parents (and sometimes other family members like grandparents) splitting up care and work as best they can.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • 37signals LLC ☛ The 80s are still alive in Denmark

    And it certainly seems like upper-middle-class American parents have decided that blaming the smartphone for everything is easier than interrogating the lack of unsupervised free play, rough-and-tumble interactions for boys, and early childhood independence.

    It also just doesn’t track in countries like Denmark, where the smartphone is just as prevalent, if not more so, than in America. My oldest had his own phone by third grade, and so did everyone else in his class — much earlier than Haidt recommends. And it was a key tool for them to coordinate the independence that The Coddling of the American Mind called for more of.

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ Maine Legislature weighs updates to machine gun definition, ghost gun regulations

    Carney went to work drafting a new bill that she said addresses Mills’ concern about overly sweeping language. LD 677 changes the definition of machine gun to account for new technology that can convert a semiautomatic firearm into a machine gun. It also prohibits the possession of a rapid-fire device, which the bill defines as something that increases the rate of fire of a semi-automatic firearm.

    LD 953 introduced by Sen. David Haggan (R-Penobscot) similarly seeks to amend the state’s definition of “machine gun.” Haggan said the language in his bill offers a more accurate definition by changing the use of “projectile” to “shot.”

    Rep. Matthew Beck (D-South Portland) introduced LD 1109, which would make it illegal to possess a “large-capacity ammunition feeding device,” defined as having more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The bill includes exceptions for active duty members of the U.S. Armed Forces and law enforcement officers.

  • Ness Labs ☛ City-Friendly Tiny Experiments to Connect with the Natural World

    It’s spring, and once again we’re being bombarded with advice about spending time in nature. Yes, there are many studies showing the positive impact immersion in nature can have on your mental health. For example, research shows that walking for 90 minutes in a natural setting will lower the activity in your prefrontal cortex, a brain region that is active during rumination.

    But this well-meaning advice it’s not always practical. Not everyone has easy access to parks or forests – some of us live in cities, work long hours indoors, have mobility challenges, or can’t afford weekend getaways. How can we go about getting these benefits when living in an urban environment?

• Proprietary

  • Tor ☛ New Release: Tor Browser 14.0.8 (Windows only) [Ed: Windows only when it's openly admitted by Microsoft that it takes screenshots all the time, making those available to police, Microsoft, NSA etc.]

    Tor Browser 14.0.8, a Windows only emergency release, is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.

    This version includes very urgent security updates to Firefox for Windows.

  • The Register UK ☛ Looking back at Windows Longhorn

    Retired Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer has taken to his YouTube channel to explain Redmond's missteps with Windows Longhorn and the background to the company's failed attempt at an XP follow-up.

  • 37signals LLC ☛ It's five grand a day to miss our S3 exit

    We're spending just shy of $1.5 million/year on AWS S3 at the moment to host files for Basecamp, HEY, and everything else. The only way we were able to get the pricing that low was by signing a four-year contract. That contract expires this summer, June 30, so that's our departure date for the final leg of our cloud exit.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • Futurism ☛ Alibaba Head Warns AI Industry Is Showing Signs of Bubble

      So far, companies have continued to pour tens of billions of dollars into building out massive data centers to meet the demands of increasingly power-hungry AI models.

    • NDTV ☛ "Insult To Life Itself": Ghibli Founder Hayao Miyazaki On AI-Generated Art

      The animated image looked like a horrific zombie, and they explained that AI could come up with strange, unnatural movements beyond what humans can imagine.

      The presenter stated, "It looks like it's dancing. It's moving by using its head. It doesn't feel any pain and has no concept of protecting its head. It uses its head like a leg. This movement is so creepy and could be applied to a zombie video game. Artificial intelligence could present us with grotesque movements that we humans can't imagine."

    • Far Out Mag ☛ Hayao Miyazaki on the use of AI: "I am utterly disgusted"

      Now, why on earth this presenter decided to show this particular video to one of the greatest animators of all time remains to be seen, but it’s clear that Miyazaki is less than impressed, if not downright disgusted. He takes a moment to compose his thoughts and then proceeds to rain down hell on the AI creators.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • EFF ☛ A New Tool to Detect Cellular Spying

      In our 820th issue: [...]

    • EFF ☛ How to Delete Your 23andMe Data

      This week, the genetic testing company 23andMe filed for bankruptcy, which means the genetic data the company collected on millions of users is now up for sale. If you do not want your data included in any potential sale, it’s a good time to ask the company to delete it.

    • Vox ☛ Roku’s Moana 2 controversy is part of a bigger ad problem

      The TV business traditionally included three distinct entities. There’s the hardware, namely the TV itself; the entertainment, like movies and shows; and the ads, usually just commercials that interrupt your movies and shows. In the streaming era, tech companies want to control all three, a setup also known as vertical integration. If, say, Roku makes the TV, supplies the content, and sells the ads, then it stands to control the experience, set the rates, and make the most money. That’s business!

    • The Register UK ☛ UK's first permanent facial recognition cameras installed

      The installation follows a two-year trial in the area where police vans fitted with the camera have been patrolling the streets matching passersby to its database of suspects or criminals, leading to hundreds of arrests. The Met claims the system can alert them in seconds if a wanted wrong'un is spotted, and if the person gets the all-clear, the image of their face will be deleted.

    • The Verge ☛ Google Maps can soon scan your screenshots to plan your vacation

      Google is introducing new features to Maps, Search, and Hotels that aim to help users plan upcoming travel and vacations. The Google Maps app is getting a standout feature that can identify locations in your screenshots and save them to a list, making it easier for users to plan their trips before screenshots of travel ideas get lost within their camera roll.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Futurism ☛ One of Elon Musk's DOGE Kids Reportedly Helped a Cybercrime Ring

    In 2022, when he was still in high school, the now 19-year-old Edward Coristine ran a company called DiamondCDN that provided a type of web service known as a content delivery network. One of its users was a website belonging to a group of cybercriminals known as "EGodly," which openly bragged about trafficking stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent. (DiamondCDN probably attracted the hacking outfit because its website promised it had "no business inspecting user content.")

    Ruthless hackers they may be, the "EGodly" blackhats were courteous enough to let Coristine know just how much they appreciated his company's help.

  • Reuters ☛ Exclusive: DOGE staffer 'Big Balls' provided tech support to cybercrime ring, records show

    Beginning around 2022, while still in high school, Coristine ran a company called DiamondCDN , opens new tab that provided network services, according to corporate and digital records reviewed by Reuters and interviews with half a dozen former associates. Among its users was a website run by a ring of cybercriminals operating under the name "EGodly," according to digital records preserved by the internet intelligence firm DomainTools and the online cybersecurity tool Any.Run. The details of Coristine's connection to EGodly have not been previously reported.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Finnish government seeks to extend ban on migrants seeking asylum on Russia border

    "The threat of instrumentalised migration at Finland's eastern border remains high and unpredictable," Interior Minister Mari Rantanen said in a statement, adding the situation at the border was tense but stable.

  • Michigan News ☛ Tom Moran: If there were no Fox News, would there be a President Trump?

    We’ve learned two things this week. One, there is no limit to the incompetence of the Trump administration. It turns out that if you pick your team based on their political loyalty rather than their skills and experience, they’re going to screw up. Call this case Exhibit A.

  • teleSUR ☛ Top U.S. Officials Blasted for Jaw-Dropping Security Breach

    According to the inadvertently invited journalist, The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, Defense Secretary Hegseth posted in the Signal thread operational details about upcoming strikes against Houthis, “including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”

    The incident is a “disaster, as it shows a high level of amateurism. It is naive to have such important conversations over a non-secure channel. It sends a bad signal to friends and adversaries,” said Darrell West, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution.

  • The Local SE ☛ EU tells citizens to stockpile three days of supplies in case of attack or disaster

    It also takes inspiration from the example of Scandinavia, where Finland, Sweden and Denmark have all stepped up efforts to prepare households for the possibility of a future crisis or conflict -- as Ukraine fights the grinding three-year Russian invasion.

    In a letter to EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, three lawmakers from the European Parliament's centrist group Renew urged the commission to go further by sending a handbook to every household in the bloc on preparing for "various crises, from potential conflict to climate disasters, pandemics and cyberthreats."

  • Axios ☛ What to know about the Espionage Act and Signalgate

    However, the officials' use of Signal — which is not authorized for discussions of classified information — would have sparked concerns about Espionage Act violations even if Goldberg hadn't been present.

  • Axios ☛ Trump: Jan. 6 [insurrectionists] get get compensation fund

    The deadly Jan. 6, 2021 attack caused an estimated $1.5 million in damage at the U.S. Capitol and about 140 police officers were injured. Some of those Trump pardoned or granted clemency to are facing separate charges ranging from sexual abuse to domestic violence.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Atlantic Council Commission on Software-Defined Warfare: Final report

    The United States stands at the threshold of a new era in defense and national security. Dramatic changes in the global security environment are upending the established world order, presenting new and unexpected challenges. The war in Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East, and rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific underscore shifting power dynamics. At the same time, we are in an age marked by an escalating pace of technological change. Innovations such as the fusion of AI, autonomy, and robotic systems are poised to profoundly influence national security and economic power. This moment demands decisive action to prepare the US military to adapt swiftly to evolving conditions and reclaim its tactical, operational, and strategic advantages.

  • Axios ☛ Why the U.S. military needs a software cadre to compete with China

    Why it matters: In a world of robots, autonomous weapons and global supply chains, conflicts will be swayed by the team that refreshes its code quicker and shares its information more accurately.

  • RTL ☛ Ban to be reinstated?: China rebuffs Trump offer of tariff concessions if Beijing agrees TikTok deal

    A US law has ordered TikTok to divest from its Chinese owner ByteDance or be banned in the United States, enacted over concerns that Beijing could exploit the video-sharing platform to spy on Americans or covertly influence US public opinion.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Why the Signal group chat leak threatens US military morale

    The leaks, some former service members say, paint a picture of a dismissive – and potentially dangerous – attitude toward operational security among senior U.S. leaders.

  • Vox ☛ How to resist Trump and Musk without ruining your life

    I’m convinced that the fight against authoritarianism is the most important issue of our time. My family immigrated to America from an authoritarian country, and some of my relatives and I are astonished and horrified that the same thing is befalling the US.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ The Real Yemen Scandal Has Zero to Do With Jeffrey Goldberg

    The press is mostly framing the Yemen group chat scandal as a story of incompetence. There’s little attention being paid to the deadliness, illegality, and ineffectiveness of the strikes themselves.

  • Digital Camera World ☛ The TikTok ban is rapidly losing support, but if the legislation doesn’t change, senators warn that this is what could happen

    On Monday, three Democratic senators published a letter urging the President to work to resolve the ban. In the letter, Edward J. Markey, Chris Van Hollen, and Cory A. Booker wrote that, while they oppose the TikTok ban, the order to not enforce the law “was not only unlawful but also raised serious questions about TikTok’s future.”

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Simplest Revolution

    Yes, Karoline, we know you're not taking any follow-ups. That this is all a performance of bullshittery. Which brings me to the topic of civic responsibility and what history and basic morality calls on Americans to do. It calls on them to do the most simple, yet radical thing: speak the fucking truth.

    At the risk of being an also-ran on this now well-covered incident, with plenty of outrage to go around, I am here to provide my moral take. My moral charge against you, the American public.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Axios ☛ Signalgate scrambles MAGA's messaging machine

    An unstoppable force — President Trump's famed "never back down" mentality — has met an immovable object: the cold, hard Signalgate receipts published by The Atlantic.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ Clean on OpSec: Pete Hegseth Spilled Specific Details of an Attack in Advance

    She’s not denying he had Signal on the device with which he traveled (nor explained what devices he has had on his other international travels).

    Update: Witkoff makes it more clear. The personal phone on which he was discussing military operations was at home.

  • Arena Group ☛ The White House Still Claims Pete Hegseth's Messages Weren't "War Plans." They Were.

    The implications are enormous. Not only does this represent a severe breach of operational security, but it also casts a harsh light on top intelligence officials. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, now serving as CIA Director, may have provided false or misleading testimony to Congress regarding the nature of the operation and the integrity of internal communications.

• Environment

  • Energy Mix Productions Inc ☛ New Battery Recycling Method Could Lower Costs, Cut Pollution

    Battery recycling is crucial to electrification, helping limit the significant environmental and social toll of mining. But current methods rely on harsh chemical solutions that generate toxic byproducts and emissions—a growing challenge as more batteries reach the end of their operating life.

    Researchers argue that switching to a neutral alternative could mitigate some of these impacts.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association ☛ New Car Registrations, European Union [PDF]

      Up until February 2025, battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) accounted for 15.2% of total EU market share, signifying an increase from the low baseline of 11.5% in the comparable period of January-February 2024. Hybrid-electric vehicles surged, capturing 35.2% of the market and remaining the preferred choice among EU consumers. Meanwhile, the combined market share of petrol and diesel cars fell to 38.8%, down from 48.5% over the same period in 2024

    • Futurism ☛ Tesla Just Got Horrible New Sales Data From Europe

      During the first two months of this year, per the ACEA's tracking, only about 19,000 units of the Musk-owned electric vehicles were registered in the EU. That's a massive drop from January and February 2024, when 37,000 Teslas were registered.

      Though that report doesn't provide any reasons why Tesla's numbers are so dismal, it did note that hybrid vehicles' registrations rose 19 percent during the same time period, while electric cars dropped roughly 1.4 percent. The only other company whose sales dipped anywhere near as low was Mitsubishi, which saw a 34 percent year-over-year loss.

    • Axios ☛ Trump officials sued over Signal chat for alleged federal records laws violations

      American Oversight said in a statement it's seeking to "recover unlawfully deleted messages and prevent further destruction." "The Federal Records Act requires federal officials to preserve communications related to official government business," the nonprofit said.

  • Overpopulation

    • Overpopulation ☛ A new definition of global overpopulation, explained and applied

      The overwhelmingly bad environmental news, combined with the past hundred year’s population explosion — from two to eight billion human beings — support an argument that the present condition can be referred to as global overpopulation. Yet many environmentalists reject the idea that we need to reduce our populations to achieve sustainable societies. In an effort to get to the bottom of this, TOP now publishes the working paper A New Definition of Global Overpopulation, Explained and Applied. We invite you to read it, to share it, and also tell us what we’ve gotten wrong in the comments below. Go ahead, criticism is valuable and can help us improve the text. If so, we will thank you in the acknowledgements.

    • Overpopulation ☛ A New Definition of Global Overpopulation, Explained and Applied: working paper [PDF]

      Despite their obvious importance, in recent decades population matters have largely been ignored by environmental scholars and the global environmental movement. This void needs to be filled to understand humanity’s environmental challenges and our best options for addressing them. Plausible scientific and ethical criteria for distinguishing sustainable from excessive human populations suggest that the world is currently significantly overpopulated. Avoiding catastrophic climate disruption and other severe environmental harms threatening humanity would become much more likely at smaller global populations. Avoiding a mass species extinction is probably only possible with many fewer people competing with other species for Earth’s limited space and resources. Reasonable principles of intergenerational and interspecies justice thus strongly support decreasing humankind’s current numbers. If we recognize limits to current people’s rights to degrade the ecosystem services future human beings and other species will depend on, we must address the intertwined problems of overpopulation and limits to economic growth.

• Finance

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ Ko-Fi Wishlist

    Another thing that’s very annoying is the fact that membership can only be monthly. This sucks for me since I run a membership with such a low barrier of entry and on a 1$ donation a huge % gets eaten away by Stripe/Paypal. As an example, Stripe charges a fixed 0.25c plus a % and this is how the math looks like: [...]

  • RTI International, IBM, Panera among hundreds of jobs cut, factory closures impacting NC

    The WARN Notice Summary for 2025 has listed over 2,300 jobs that have been lost in NC. Among those listed, some heavy hitters include UPS, Walmart, Panera, IBM, and Durham’s Research Triangle Institute International, which just laid off workers in February.

  • IBM To Fire 9000 Employees; Imposes Strict Work From Office Rule

  • Dell sheds 10% of staff for the second year in a row: that's 12,000 people in 12 months

    The Register reviewed Dell's Form 10-K, which is the company's official annual report, not the glossy version for shareholders. According to it, the company had about 108,000 employees at the end of January 2025. Last year's Form 10-K showed that it had 120,000 employees, and the staff had decreased by 13,000 employees. That's minus 25,000 in two years.

  • Games ☛ User research workers at Activision unionize [Ed: In expectation of more deep cuts and layoffs]

    In a press release, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) confirmed a supermajority of the Microsoft-owned staff voted in favor of union representation. Microsoft has recognized the union.

    CWA said the Activision User Research Union-CWA marks the first group of video game user researchers to form a union, joining over 2,000 workers at Microsoft-owned studios to organize under the company’s neutrality agreement with CWA.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Semafor Inc ☛ Trump administration to host podcasters at White House: Michael Knowles, Sage Steele

      A White House official told Semafor the private event is meant “to showcase the rapidly growing media apparatus that the American people are actually consuming,” and get Trump’s “message to a broader subset of Americans,” including younger voters.

    • Newsweek ☛ Podcasts Helped Trump Win. Now the White House Is Expanding the Strategy - Newsweek

      In this second act of the Trump administration, traditional media rules have been shelved. Longform podcast appearances have supplanted legacy television interviews as one of the main tools for the administration to get out its message, with cabinet-level officials logging hours behind microphones with friendly hosts, laying out policies and strategy with minimal confrontation.

      Cabinet-level officials like Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick, Brooke Rollins and Marco Rubio have each recently stepped into the podcast spotlight, unpacking the Trump agenda in conversations often stretching beyond the one-hour mark—a rarity given the typically tight schedules of political figures.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Moscow Times ☛ In Russia's Universities, Anti-War Voices Are Silenced. But Resistance Remains.

    While public resistance is now nearly impossible without facing repercussions, some students still find ways to express their opposition, either silently or openly.

  • BBC ☛ Thousands turn out in Turkey for protests after more than 1,400 arrests

    Rights groups and the UN have condemned the arrests and the use of force by police on the protesters.

    Imamoglu said the allegations against him were politically motivated, a claim the Turkish president has denied.

  • RFA ☛ Tibetans express concern about gutting of RFA, but say, ‘We still hear you’

    Celebratory Chinese media reports about the U.S. administration’s gutting of Radio Free Asia and Voice of America has sparked widespread concern among Tibetans living in Tibet who fear they will no longer have access to uncensored news in their own language, sources in the region said.

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Guest Post - Supporting Academic Librarians in Navigating Attacks on Intellectual Freedom

    We applaud the organizations and individuals who are warning of the damage that will result from cuts to research, education, and — per an executive order released on Friday evening March 14 — library funding. We salute our own community’s efforts to fight back, including through this Declaration To #DefendResearch Against US Government Censorship. We believe that stakeholders across the scholarly publishing enterprise must actively find ways to collaborate and support each other in defending universities, libraries, and the professionals who make these organizations work. We are pleased to see others making this point as well.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • FAIR ☛ Robert W. McChesney, a Scholar/Activist Who Fought for Media Democracy

    Robert W. McChesney was a leading voice and a precious colleague in the battle for a more democratic media system, and a more democratic society. Bob passed away on Tuesday, March 25, at the age of 72. No one did more to analyze the negative and censorial impacts of our media and information systems being controlled by giant, amoral corporations.

  • Greece ☛ Turkey deports BBC journalist over ‘public order’ threat

    Lowen, who previously lived in Turkey for five years, said his expulsion was “extremely distressing,” adding that press freedom is essential to democracy.

    “To be detained and deported from the country where I previously lived for five years and for which I have such affection has been extremely distressing. Press freedom and impartial reporting are fundamental to any democracy,” he said.

  • Meduza ☛ Jailed Russian anti-war journalist, reportedly ‘on verge of suicide,’ sentenced to additional one year and 10 months

    Ponomarenko was already serving a six-year sentence for spreading “disinformation” about the Russian military over a post about Russia’s bombing of the Mariupol Drama Theater in Ukraine. With both convictions combined, she has three years left to serve, RusNews reports.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Turkey Deports BBC Journalist Over 'Public Order' Threat, Fines TV Channels

    Turkish authorities deported a BBC News correspondent on Thursday after detaining him for 17 hours and branding him a "threat to public order".

    Mark Lowen had been in Turkey to cover mass street protests triggered by the arrest and jailing of Istanbul's Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Failure to tackle online abuse of journalists could prove fatal, editors warned

    Failure to tackle the online abuse of journalists before it’s too late could lead to someone being killed, two high-profile names have warned.

    News organisations were told they must not wait for a death to act as a “wake-up call” during a panel on journalists’ safety at the Society of Editors Media Freedom Conference in London on Tuesday.

  • The Independent UK ☛ BBC journalist Mark Lowen arrested, deported from Turkey after covering protests

    BBC journalist Mark Lowen has been deported from Turkey after being arrested and detained for about 17 hours, the corporation has confirmed.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Turkey deports BBC journalist over 'public order' threat, fines TV channels

    His arrest has prompted the largest anti-government protests in Turkey in more than a decade and has led to the detention of nearly 1,900 people across the country.

    Meanwhile, Turkey's media watchdog, the Radio and Television Supreme Council , imposed fines on four broadcasters over coverage related to the arrest of Imamoglu, a RTUK member said.

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Jailed Journalist Ponomarenko Receives New Sentence for Alleged Assault on Prison Guards

    The human rights group Memorial recognizes the journalist as a political prisoner.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Why Google's impressive value-of-news study has serious shortcomings

    Google argues consistently that news has little value to them, and so this study will be referenced a lot in the coming months.

    This approach will use carefully calibrated language to wilfully argue what I think of as the centipede fallacy. Apologies in advance to insect lovers everywhere for this explanation.

  • CPJ ☛ Several journalists attacked while covering anti-military protests in Indonesia

    Rama Indra, a journalist with the local digital outlet Beritajatim, told CNN that several police officers forced him to stop filming them beating protesters and hit his head with their hands and a wooden stick to make him delete his footage. They also confiscated his cell phone, even though he identified himself as a journalist and presented his press ID card. He reported the incident to the police.

  • The Record ☛ Two Serbian journalists reportedly targeted with Pegasus spyware | The Record from Recorded Future News

    The journalists, who work for the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), were targeted with the NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, according to a press release.

    Both received unusual messages on the Viber messaging app from a number they didn’t know and was later determined to be tied to the state-telecommunications operator, Amnesty said.

  • NPR ☛ Republican lawmakers seek to put PBS and NPR in the hot seat

    The effort to cut funding to NPR has a strong supporter in Musk, who also owns the social media site X, previously known as Twitter. In 2023, NPR stopped posting on X, after Musk first designated the network as "state-affiliated," which is the same label given to propaganda sites in China and Russia, and then as "government funded." NPR considers that a broad overstatement and has not returned to the platform.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • [Repeat] RFA ☛ OPINION: Tibetans' voices will be silenced if RFA, VOA are shut down

    For decades, the Tibetan language services of RFA and VOA have been lifelines for Tibetans behind China’s “Great Firewall” of censorship, connecting them to outside world.

    These two services have provided windows into the truth about Tibet for Tibetans in Tibet and in exile, while also offering critical resources to the international community.

  • RFERL ☛ Millions Of Afghan Girls Barred From School For Fourth Consecutive Year

    The school ban has had a catastrophic impact on an estimated 2.2 million girls in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has erased women from public life and severely restricted their fundamental rights.

    There has been a surge in forced, early, and child marriages. Child marriages have increased by around 25 percent since the Taliban takeover, according to the UN.

  • The Local DK ☛ What Trump's voting executive order means for Americans in Europe

    "The most alarming portion of the order for Americans abroad concerns the portion in section 3(d)", Levitt explained.

    This would "require the Department of Defense to update the simple postcard, required by federal law, that citizens overseas can presently use to register and request an absentee ballot.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Techdirt ☛ Under Cover From Other Trumpy Bullshit, FCC’s Carr Quietly Starts Rubber Stamping AT&T And Comcast’s Policy Wishlist

    Carr is already doing all sorts of terrible shit, whether it’s illegally leveraging FCC power to trample the First Amendment, bullying media companies that aren’t kissing Trump’s ass, or attacking FCC civil rights reforms. But he’s also now hard at work on rubber stamping AT&T and Comcast’s every last wish, in stark contrast to Trumpism’s pseudo-“populist” man of the people nonsense.

    That of course means killing off the FCC’s inquiry in to predatory broadband usage caps. And killing popular net neutrality rules. And eliminating media consolidation limits so NBC Universal Comcast can get bigger and shittier. And eliminating all FCC inquiries into predatory fees. And eliminating enforcement of rules requiring that your broadband and cable company be transparent about pricing.

  • APNIC ☛ Exploring Internet connectivity between Mongolia and Kazakhstan

    This idea came to me when I first heard about The Central Asia Peering and Interconnection Forum (CAPIF) — an annual event where Central Asian economies discuss peering, Internet operational technologies, and networking.

  • Jan Piet Mens ☛ Jan-Piet Mens :: A very theoretical scenario, DNS edition

    I’ve been asked a few times over the course of the same amount of days, what would happen if the powers that be began deleting top-level domains (TLDs) from the DNS system, and whether there is something we (e.g. Asians, Africans, Europeans, Canadians, South Americans, Australians, etc.) could do about it.

    A simple question with an incredible boatload of ramifications, but I’ll try to answer the question from a solely technical point of view. I will at best gloss over the politics, a) for lack of in-depth knowledge on the subject, and b) well, because.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Copyrights

  • [Repeat] Digital Music News ☛ Artist Refuses to License Music to Kanye West Due to Antisemitism

    “Although defendant’s use of plaintiff’s song could potentially bring in significant revenue, [she] was unwilling to compromise her personal beliefs and wanted not to be associated with Ye in any manner,” her lawyers wrote. “Merton is a German resident who has close ties to the Holocaust through Jewish family members who survived its horrors, and as such feels closely connected to it.”

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Ye Sued for Copyright Infringement by German Artist Alice Merton

    It also notes that while Merton knew the sample could “potentially bring in significant revenue,” she was “unwilling to compromise her personal beliefs and wanted not to be associated with Ye in any manner.”

  • Torrent Freak ☛ UN Database WIPO ALERT Helps to Facilitate Globalized Pirate Site Blocking

    A report from Brazil suggests that the existence of an international site-blocking movement isn't just a theory. After contributing 8,000+ pirate domains to a database maintained by UN IP agency WIPO, Brazil goes on to describe a "unified global effort" and the importance of a system underpinning it. According to Brazil,. WIPO ALERT ensures that sites identified as infringing in one country, are subsequently blocked and deindexed by other nations.