Leftovers

• Lee Peterson ☛ Why I still post to my blog in 2025

  Blogging may seem old school in 2025 but it’s what feels comfortable. In an age of social media, video and algorithms I like to move slow, write what comes to mind and not be governed by what some big technology company wants me to see.

• Artyom Bologov ☛ Uncovering Tarot Biases with Simple NLP

  Doing all this reading and indexing I can't help but notice a trend: There are more "male" cards than "female" ones. There are more White European archetypes than persons of color. Most card interpretations are disgustingly positive. But is that just my impression or there's structural problem with Tarot? In this post, I'm applying (extremely simple) NLP (Natural Language Processing) methods to learn the sexist and racist secrets of Tarot

• Adam Fortuna ☛ Multiple Persona Disorder

  In the product world, we often try to reduce users down to a single persona – a representation of this users motivations. By bucketing them into a neat little box it makes it easier to design and plan for.

  But this isn’t a post about other peoples personas: it’s about yours.

• Science

  • Rlang ☛ April Fool’s Day, and the Pythagorean Theorem

    So here is a little Pythagorean Theorem problem. In the following right triangle, calculate C. A² + B² = C², and then take the square root of C. How hard can it be?

• Career/Education

  • Armin Ronacher ☛ I'm Leaving Sentry

    Every ending marks a new beginning, and today, is the beginning of a new chapter for me. Ten years ago I took a leap into the unknown, today I take another. After a decade of working on Sentry I move on to start something new.

• Hardware

  • Bunnie Huang ☛ Winner, Name that Ware February 2025

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Brandon ☛ Is Anyone Else Tired of the Internet?

    I mention this story, because I feel like I’m seeing the same thing happening across the [Internet]. Over the past couple of months, most of my favorite bloggers have written less. I’ve seen individuals who are practically walking away from the [Internet], as much as they can, within reason. I think if I had to sum up what I know I’m feeling, and I think a lot of others are in one word: exhaustion.

  • Pivot to AI ☛ UK government cuts funds for actually-working anti-cancer AI

    So let’s point the AI at cancer. Radiotherapy treats cancer by zapping the tumour with radiation beams. In contouring, you use CT scans to work out where to point the beam. Auto-contouring uses a machine learning system to make the draft plan.

    The AI isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough to help a radiotherapist who knows what they’re doing. This is the sort of AI we want.

  • The Independent UK ☛ Most parents of 11 to 16-year-olds say child has [Internet] in bedroom – survey

    Three quarters of the parents questioned said they are concerned about what their children are seeing, hearing or doing online, and 87% said they are not confident they know what content they are viewing.

    Asked if their child has a computer or any other screens with access to the [Internet] that they use in their bedroom, 65% of parents said yes.

• Proprietary

  • The Verge ☛ Microsoft is redesigning the Windows BSOD and it might change to black

    Microsoft has announced that it’s overhauling its Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error message in Windows 11. The new design drops the traditional blue color, frowning face, and QR code in favor of a simplified screen that looks a lot more like the black screen you see when Windows is performing an update. It’s not immediately clear if this new BSOD will remain as a black screen once Microsoft ships the final version of this update.

  • Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers, Raising Market Concerns

    Microsoft has stirred speculation once again by scrapping several planned data center projects across the United States and Europe. According to analysts at TD Cowen, as reported by Bloomberg, the abandoned facilities would have provided around 2 Gigawatts (GW) of capacity—significant when compared to a typical large data center, which operates between 20 to 100 Megawatts (MW), according to Dgtl Infra.

    This move follows a similar decision just a month earlier when Microsoft canceled U.S. data center leases amounting to roughly 200 MW. TD Cowen analysts suggested that these project cancellations indicate an oversupply of data centers compared to Microsoft’s projected demand.

  • WCCF Tech ☛ Eidos Montréal Lays Off 75 Employees as Work on ‘Mandate’ (Fable?) Ends

    Besides the unfortunate (albeit sadly common in the industry lately) fact that people are losing their jobs, the message's wording is definitely interesting. Eidos Montréal singled out the end of a specific work commission as the cause of the layoffs, and the mind cannot but go to the announcement that the developer had been helping out Playground Games with the Fable reboot. While the game was delayed to 2026 earlier this year, it was originally supposed to launch in 2025. It's possible and even likely that Fable is now content complete and Playground Games simply does not need any further help from the Canadian studio as it approaches the polishing phase.

  • Neowin ☛ Deus Ex and Guardians of the Galaxy studio Eidos Montreal hit by layoffs

    Another AAA game development studio has been hit by layoffs. Canadian studio Eidos Montreal has announced that up to 75 roles have been affected by its latest wave of staff cuts.

    "Today, we informed our studio staff that we are going to let go up to 75 valuable members, as one of our mandates is coming to an end," said the company in a social media post. "It is not a reflection of their dedication or skills, but unfortunately, we don’t have the capacity to entirely reallocate them to our other ongoing projects and services."

  • EuroGamer ☛ Embracer Group's Eidos-Montréal studio confirms more layoffs, this time affecting "up to 75" people

    Eidos-Montréal, the Embracer-owned studio currently providing support on Microsoft's Fable reboot, is laying off "up to" 75 members of staff, saying it doesn't "have the capacity to entirely reallocate them to our other ongoing projects and services."

    News of the layoffs - which follows 97 job cuts at Eidos-Montréal last year - was confirmed in a statement shared on social media. "Today, we informed our studio staff that we are going to let go up to 75 valuable members," the studio wrote, "as one of our mandates is coming to an end. It is not a reflection of their dedication or skills, but unfortunately, we don't have the capacity to entirely reallocate them to our other ongoing projects and services.

    "These very talented, highly experienced experts are going to enter the employment market," the statement continued, "and we are working to support them through this transition. Eidos-Montréal stays committed to deliver its other projects currently in development."

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • Baldur Bjarnason ☛ Feedback loops, 'AI', learning, and management

      Learning and management share a specific kind of feedback loop and with these videos where I’ve been getting into a new practice and figuring things out, those feedback loops have become a little bit more noticeable.

    • Futurism ☛ AI's "Biggest Test" Is Turning Into a Catastrophe as CoreWeave Flounders

      Now it's facing its toughest challenge yet in the form of CoreWeave, the AI processing company that went public on the stock market this week and the first all-AI startup to do so. It was said to be a major test for the industry — and so far it's failing, miserably.

    • Futurism ☛ OpenAI's Sora Has a Small Problem With Being Hugely Racist and Sexist

      In an investigation of one such model, OpenAI's Sora, Wired found that the AI tool frequently perpetuated racist, sexist, and ableist stereotypes, and at times flat-out ignored instructions to depict certain groups. Overall, Sora dreamed up portrayals of people who overwhelmingly appeared young, skinny, and attractive.

      Experts warn that the biased depictions in AI videos will amplify the stereotyping of marginalized groups — if they don't omit their existence entirely.

    • Wired ☛ OpenAI’s Sora Is Plagued by Sexist, Racist, and Ableist Biases

      Bias has plagued generative AI systems since the release of the first text generators, followed by image generators. The issue largely stems from how these systems work, slurping up large amounts of training data—much of which can reflect existing social biases—and seeking patterns within it. Other choices made by developers, during the content moderation process for example, can ingrain these further. Research on image generators has found that these systems don’t just reflect human biases but amplify them. To better understand how Sora reinforces stereotypes, WIRED reporters generated and analyzed 250 videos related to people, relationships, and job titles. The issues we identified are unlikely to be limited just to one AI model. Past investigations into generative AI images have demonstrated similar biases across most tools. In the past, OpenAI has introduced new techniques to its AI image tool to produce more diverse results.

    • [Repeat] The Cyber Show ☛ Creepy is the new cool

      I think it will take decades to sort out the societal mess we've allowed BigTech to wreak on human affairs. But at least we can now see it. You don't have to be "cool". Sometimes creepy is just creepy and self-evidently wrong. There is nothing cool about failing to call it out. You are not alone thinking that. So say it, clearly and loudly. Make a scene. Rock that boat.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Private-sector Trumpism

      Trump is the realization of decades of warning about ubiquitous private and public surveillance – that someday, all of this surveillance would be turned to the systematic dismantling of human rights and punishing of dissent.

    • The Register UK ☛ Privacy died last century, the only way to go is off-grid

      Mind you, this is the same government that decided to sic the Department [sic] of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on all government agencies in search of fraud without a single forensic accountant to its name. Instead, these Musk groupies seek to copy sensitive data from the Social Security Administration (SSA) and pretty much all other government departments. How will our private data be protected? We don't know. Privacy is not a priority for the current American administration.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Independent UK ☛ US TikTok ban: How it became the world’s most controversial app

    TikTok has already disappeared from Apple and Google app stores ahead of the law taking effect on Saturday, which requires ByteDance to sell the video-sharing app to a US owner due to national security concerns.

    President Donald Trump gave TikTok a 75-day reprieve from the ban after he took office in January, however ByteDance is yet to secure a buyer.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Russia will exploit Ukraine ceasefire to threaten Baltics, defense ministers warn

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ The Signal Chat Leak and the NSA - Schneier on Security

    The truth, however, is much more interesting. If Signal has vulnerabilities, then China, Russia, and other US adversaries suddenly have a new incentive to discover them. At the same time, the NSA urgently needs to find and fix any vulnerabilities quickly as it can—and similarly, ensure that commercial smartphones are free of backdoors—access points that allow people other than a smartphone’s user to bypass the usual security authentication methods to access the device’s contents.

    That is essential for anyone who wants to keep their communications private, which should be all of us.

• Environment

  • The Revelator ☛ The Psychological Effects of Climate Change: The Scientific Explanations — and Solutions That Can Empower Your Mind

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Raspberry Pi ☛ Raspberry Pi's prestigious Green Economy Mark for sustainable practices

      We’re proud that Raspberry Pi has been awarded the London Stock Exchange’s Green Economy Mark — an accolade recognising companies and funds listed on the exchange that generate at least 50% of their revenue from products and services that have a positive environmental impact.

    • The Independent UK ☛ Police confiscate child’s kite after collision with United Airlines plane as it lands at Washington DC airport

      Federal regulations prohibit kite-flying near an airport.

    • NBC ☛ Kite confiscated after apparently hitting United plane in Washington area

      “Customers deplaned normally,” it said, “and upon inspection there was no damage to the aircraft.”

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Wired ☛ Trump’s Trade War Pushes Canadian Tech Workers to Rethink Silicon Valley

    Among Canadians in Silicon Valley, the rift between the two nations is sparking a new kind of national pride, as well as a lot of uncertainty. For now, at least, Trump’s tariffs on Canada don’t extend to software, so the flow of digital goods and services between the two countries remains mostly uninterrupted. But the chaos has prompted some prominent founders and investors to urge young Canadians to build companies at home and strengthen the local tech ecosystem, while Canadian tech companies with large operations in the US are wondering if they need to change strategies, or even headquarters.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ Techbro Theories Of Everything

    The Trump mob has a bunch of crackpot theories. One of these, beloved of techbros with Ketamine-plasticized brains, comes from Guillaume Verdon, a 32 year physicist. This Wired article is primarily about Verdon’s alternative to quantum computing, but it gives an introduction to Verdon’s big theory of “effective acceleration”, or e/acc.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • International Business Times ☛ AI Chatbot Grok Just Labelled Elon Musk A 'Top Misinformation Spreader' On X

      When prompted for specific examples of Musk's misinformation, Grok cited his dissemination of false voter fraud allegations, including claims about 'Michigan having more voters than eligible residents, misleading due to standard voter roll maintenance) and a fake AI image of Kamala Harris as a communist dictator.'

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • RFERL ☛ Huge Crowd Rallies In Istanbul Over Jailing Of Erdogan Rival

    "If justice is silent, the people will speak," one banner held aloft in the crowd read.

    Speaking at the event, CHP leader Ozgur Ozel said millions of Turks were seeking Imamoglu's release and an early presidential election. He called the charges against the mayor baseless and politically motivated.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

    Stanley said he wasn’t concerned about his ability to continue his scholarship at Yale, but the broader climate against universities played a role. He praised other faculty at Yale for standing up against the attacks on their profession and said he wished he could stay and fight with them.

    “But how could you speak out loudly if you’re not an American citizen?” he questioned. “And if you can’t speak out loudly if you’re not an American citizen, when will they come for the American citizens? It’s inevitable.”

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • US News And World Report ☛ Turkey Arrests Swedish Journalist Over Alleged Terrorist Connections to a Pro-Kurdish Group

    It added that Medin also facilitated communication between the PKK and the press.

    Over a dozen journalists have been detained in Turkey this past week as part of a crackdown on media workers covering Turkey’s largest protests in more than a decade.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • The Dissenter ☛ Dissenter Weekly For March 31

  • Papers Please ☛ Senators propose to abolish the TSA

    [Excerpt from the Abolish TSA Act of 2025]Late last week Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) announced that they are introducing the Abolish TSA Act in Congress.

    If enacted, the Abolish TSA Act would abolish the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), in its entirely. Within three years of enactment of this bill, responsibility for securing airline flights, and for the cost of doing so, would be returned to the airlines and whatever private contractors they might hire. Responsibility for oversight over aviation security would be returned to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), as was the case before the creation of the TSA in 2002.

    It should go without saying that if the new Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is targeting wasteful programs and agencies, the TSA and its security theater should be near the top of the list. DOGE doesn’t have the authority to abolish the TSA, but Congress does.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Advocates Demand End to Abuse-Ridden NYPD Unit Adams Favored

    Lawmakers and advocates have slammed New York City Mayor Eric Adams and called for changes in the wake of ProPublica’s investigation into a secretive, problematic police unit led by allies of the mayor.

    ProPublica found that the mayor championed the New York City Police Department’s Community Response Team despite a pattern of aggressive and often abusive policing flagged by department officials. An officer in the unit killed a motorcyclist after swerving his police car into him. A team commander punched and kicked a driver in the head. And another commander shoved a man into a car window after the man complained about being stopped for no apparent reason.

  • Westenberg ☛ I'm Tired of Pretending Tech is Making the World Better

    I sat down at a cafe a few days ago, hungry and ready to order. But there were no menus at the tables - just a QR code on a hockey puck. My phone struggled to load the site to order a single cold brew, pop-ups to install the custom App kept obscuring the options, and I had to register with my phone number, email address, and first and last name to buy a $5 cup of coffee.

    By the time I placed my order - paying a 1% fee to the app makers in the process - I would have happily paid double for the experience of simply flipping through a menu and talking to another human being.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • RIPE ☛ Emile Aben: How the Internet Routed Around Damage in the Baltic Sea

    When two Internet cables in the Baltic Sea were reported as broken last November, we turned to RIPE Atlas to examine the damage. In this episode, Emile Aben discusses what his analysis uncovered about the impact of these and similar incidents, and how the Internet remained resilient.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• US News And World Report ☛ Apple Hit With $162 Million French Antitrust Fine Over Privacy Tool

  The fine - the first by any antitrust regulator over Apple's App Tracking Transparency tool - comes a year after the European Union hit the company with a 1.8 billion euro antitrust fine for thwarting rival music streaming services on its App Store.

• France ☛ Targeted advertising: the Autorité de la concurrence imposes a fine of €150,000,000 on Apple for the implementation of the App Tracking Transparency (“ATT”) framework

  The Autorité de la concurrence has fined Apple €150,000,000 for abusing its dominant position in the sector for the distribution of mobile applications on iOS and iPadOS devices between April 2021 and July 2023.

• Trademarks

  • Wired ☛ Startup Founder Claims Elon Musk Is Stealing the Name ‘Grok’

    Shah insists xAI infringed on his trademark. But under US law, trademark regulations are primarily designed to protect consumers rather than companies, says Josh Gerben, founder of Gerben IP, a law firm focused exclusively on trademarks. “The goal is to not have confusion as to who is behind a product or service,” he says.

• Copyrights

  • Press Gazette ☛ Page-view targets and clickbait discussed at editors' conference

    “The idea that copyright law in the UK is unclear – it’s not. Scraping for commercial purposes without a licence is unlawful. The law’s not being enforced. The Government’s got itself into a big mess and we’re facing a critical few weeks now,” he said referring to the wait for the Government’s response to its recent public consultation about a proposed system which would allow AI platforms to use content unless the creator opts out, something opposed by many publishers and other creative industries.

  • Press Gazette ☛ BBC to 'open up conversation' with AI providers in 2025

    Unlike other leading UK-based newsbrands like News UK’s The Times and The Sun, the Financial Times, The Guardian and Future, the BBC has not signed licensing or tech partnerships with any AI companies to date.

  • The Verge ☛ Movie studios are being financially rewarded for AI slop on YouTube

    Some Hollywood studios are reportedly earning money from fake AI-generated movie trailers on YouTube, against the wishes of the union representing actors. According to a report from Deadline, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, and Sony Pictures redirected ad revenue to themselves instead of enforcing copyright protections and shutting down the popular Screen Culture and KH Studio trailer accounts. In response, the SAG-AFTRA union has criticized the studios for profiting off videos that use AI to exploit their members’ likenesses without permission.

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Are We Fumbling in the Dark or Laying a Strong Foundation for AI Education? - The Scholarly Kitchen

    Also, when it comes to publishers and journals, are they only responsible for integrating AI seamlessly into their workflows? Or are they also responsible for educating authors to use AI responsibly? And if yes, then what are the steps they can take to ensure this? Would creating guides, organizing trainings be enough? Or as journals start to use AI to streamline their workflows, can they create examples (e.g., videos) to demonstrate ethical usage of newly revamped processes that integrate AI? What sort of policing role must journals play in world where AI dominates the writing process?