Leftovers

• Sean Conner ☛ God, I feel like I'm an old man wearing a tin foil hat yelling at the world

  We called the home improvement store and they said it was company policy not to install a dryer on a pre-existing pedetal. They didn't say which company mandated this policy—the manufacturer of the dryer (which, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if there was only one shadow company that owned all the appliance manufacturers) or the home improvement store. And of course, the removal of the pedestal would require an additional removal-of-the-old-unit fee, because it was considered a separate unit. It didn't matter that we had a perfectly good pedestal whose size matches the new dryer. And it didn't matter that the new dryer hose matched the size of the existing hose. Oh, and if we installed the dryer ourselves, we would immediately void the one-year warrantee on the dryer.

  It seems like our only real choices were to spend even more money on a new pededstal, more money for delivery, more money to remove the old pedestal, more money to install the new pedestal. and probably an additional fee to install the new dryer (which we had already paid for installation) to install the dryer on said pedestal, or we could elect to void the warrantee and install the dryer on our own.

• Jasper Tandy ☛ Jasper is blogging: Thorpe Park

  However, being socialist about it: there's two cars, each with 20 seats for a total of 40 when both are working. If you could find 40 people (have we met? I'm not that likeable) they would pay £125 and get 25 goes in that hour (according to Wikipedia it can serve 1,000 people per hour. If those 1,000 were all the same 40 people, 1,000÷40=25). That's doable. Who's in?!

• Dedoimedo ☛ Fun and productivity in Linux

  You know me. Mega curmudgeon. Whenever I review Linux distros, I'm usually unhappy. Lots of people mistake my negativism as something inherently anti-Linux. Quite the opposite. I so want the Linux desktop to succeed that I'm always upset when it doesn't. After all, true friends don't just blindly nod at whatever you tell them, they actually tell you the truth. The problem is, my reviews may obscure the fact that I do use Linux quite extensively, and usually manage to accomplish a great deal in the operating system. Not everything, but a lot.

  So I thought, let's have a little semi-random article that highlights some of the many cool things I've been doing in the past year or two, using Linux, primarily Kubuntu 22.04 and 24.04, on a couple of different machines. We're talking everyday stuff, gaming, writing, music, whatnot. Some clever solutions, too. Now, as a member of the nerd race, extra monkey clade, my everyday isn't exactly the mainstream nonsense. Even so, perhaps you will find this article relatable and enjoyable. Begin we must.

• Chris O'Donnnell ☛ 51 Years of the Red Sox

  I need to end this, but I don't really have an ending. Happy first game of the season at Fenway to all who celebrate.

• The New Stack ☛ Dave Taht, Who Sped Up Networks More Than You'll Ever Know, Has Died

  His work on advanced queuing algorithms like FQ-CoDel and Common Applications Kept Enhanced (CAKE) significantly enhanced network efficiency, making these technologies part of the default networking stack in many Linux distributions, the popular open source embedded router operating system, OpenWRT, iOS, and macOS.

  He also played a crucial role in shaping internet standards through his involvement in the IETF AQM and Packet Scheduling working group. In every case, his goal was always the same: “To rip out all the excess latency out of the internet.” He did a fine job of it.

• Science

  • Science News ☛ We will soon lose crucial eyes on what’s going on in the ozone layer

    The satellites will sunset while the ozone layer’s recovery has unpredictably stalled over the midlatitude Northern Hemisphere. And experts warn that increasing amounts of space debris from dying satellites could unleash more ozone-depleting substances. What’s more, scientists will lose their ability to watch for harmful impacts to the ozone layer from wildfires and stratospheric aerosol injections aimed at countering climate warming.

  • Quanta Magazine ☛ What Is the True Promise of Quantum Computing? | Quanta Magazine

    Despite the hype, it’s been surprisingly challenging to find quantum algorithms that outperform classical ones. In this episode, Ewin Tang discusses her pioneering work in “dequantizing” quantum algorithms — and what it means for the future of quantum computing.

  • Common Dreams ☛ NOAA Websites Set to Go Dark in Continued Assault on Scientific Research

    According to several news reports, many of NOAA's websites will go offline beginning at midnight due to the cancelation of a cloud service contract. The main site, NOAA.gov, is expected to be unaffected. This is the latest purge of publicly accessible, lifesaving scientific information and cuts to research budgets across the federal government.

    Below is a statement by Dr. Juan Declet-Barreto, senior social scientist for climate vulnerability in the Climate and Energy Program at UCS: [...]

  • Matt Wedel ☛ The Royal Society is dead

    Fiona Fox, a fellow of the Royal Society and chief executive of the Science Media Centre was quoted as worrying that “ejecting Musk from the Royal Society would be seen as a political move.” This strikes me as incredibly naive. At a time when the USA is gleefully destroying its own scientific infrastructure, with Musk at the head of the charge, doing nothing is a political move.

    It simply isn’t possible for a society to both “recognise, promote and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity” (as its mission statement claims) and enjoy the patronage of someone who is doing the exact opposite.

• Career/Education

  • Seth Godin ☛ We can agree about schismogenesis | Seth's Blog

    Schismogenesis is based on perceptions of scarcity, and is amplified by the simplicity of not having to think very hard about our next step. A little gap turns into a large one, which becomes our identity.

    It’s really useful for teenagers, but it might be worth outgrowing.

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Matt Webb

    This is the 84th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Matt Webb and his blog, interconnected.org

  • Matt Webb ☛ I’m on People and Blogs today (Interconnected)

    I was interviewed for the 84th edition of People and Blogs, "the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs."

  • Matt Webb ☛ Between early computing and modern computing: some cultural histories (Interconnected)

    My formative experiences of computing and the [Internet] are now regarded as “history” haha

    Which is BRILLIANT because I get to experience them all again, only via people who are doing the work to actually document and interpret it.

    So, some links!

• Hardware

  • Task And Purpose ☛ Marine attack drone team to teach grunts lessons based on Ukraine

    Much like the Marine Corps Shooting Team played a key role in the Corps’ rollout of the M27 Infantry Assault Rifle, the attack drone team will be instrumental in efforts to adopt first-person view drones, or FPVs, Cuomo told Task & Purpose.

  • Futurism ☛ Trump's Tariffs Are a Bruising Defeat for the AI Industry

    The vast majority of chips that power these data centers come from hard-hit countries like Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, and Vietnam, while the US makes just 11 percent of its chips at home. Trump's tariffs will force countries from those companies to hike their chip prices, and US companies will no doubt hike their prices to compensate, which will ultimately run off to consumers.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • FAIR ☛ Paul Offit on RFK Jr. and Measles, Jessica González on Trump’s FCC

  • The Revelator ☛ Many Firefighting Foams Contain Dangerous PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals.’ Have We Learned Our Lesson?

  • El País ☛ Cars kill more people than wars in Africa: Traffic accidents claim a life every two minutes

    Of every four people who die in a road accident worldwide, one is African. And the most recent death toll is the worst on record this century: an estimated 259,601 people died in 2021 as a result of a traffic incident, according to the State of Africa Road Safety Report 2025, recently published by the Africa Transport Policy Program (SSATP), an international alliance dedicated to road safety. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, fatalities have increased by 17% in the last decade. Road accidents on the continent are even more lethal than its armed conflicts: for example, they killed four times more people in one year than the first 14 months of war in Sudan, which, according to research, left 61,000 people dead.

  • Brad Frost ☛ The Art of Conversation: Before You Begin

    This is one of those posts written to myself, and I certainly need to do better at practicing this advice. But I think this applies to any conversation between any people. These are challenging times, and it’s critically important to have meaningful conversations about the important things on our minds. It’s also critically important to have these conversations in a way that protects yourself or the other person.

  • R Scott Jones ☛ Two Men in a McDonald's in Small Town America

    And I know, particularly if there are few new events in your life, and if you see each other quite regularly, that it’s pretty easy to run out of conversation topics. I noticed this with my elderly dad, too, when we’d get together in the last few years of his life. Spending time together was still meaningful, and important social time, even if it much of it consisted of sitting quietly next to each other at the bar, occasionally sipping a beer.

    So I appreciate this obvious attempt to remedy this societal change. To continue those social connections, even if they appear—perhaps to an outsider—as a lonely existence. It may not be as rich as previous decades might have easily provided, but it’s still something, dammit.

• Proprietary

  • Macworld ☛ How to avoid CC'ing the Atlantic editor-in-chief in your messages

    A great general place to start when inadvertently selecting the wrong person is your Contacts list. This list may contain people you’ve only connected with once years ago. Delete unwanted entries. You can also clear out the macOS Mail app’s list of suggestions, which I explain below in the Mail section.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • The Atlantic ☛ The Man Out to Prove How Dumb AI Still Is

      Deep down, Sam Altman and François Chollet share the same dream. They want to build AI models that achieve “artificial general intelligence,” or AGI—matching or exceeding the capabilities of the human mind. The difference between these two men is that Altman has suggested that his company, OpenAI, has practically built the technology already. Chollet, a French computer scientist and one of the industry’s sharpest skeptics, has said that notion is “absolutely clown shoes.”

    • Breaking Media Inc ☛ Appellant Sends AI Avatar To Oral Argument... Judges Are NOT Pleased

      In Dewald v. MassMutual Metro, the Appellate Division, First Department expected some sort of audio-visual presentation as part of the pro se litigant’s argument. It’s not exactly standard procedure, but the justices were willing to accommodate an unrepresented party. The panel even took the matter out of turn to accommodate the relevant IT issues.

      That’s when they were treated to a few seconds of this generic tech bro robot “representing” the appellant.

    • Financial Post ☛ An AI avatar tried to argue a case before a New York court. The judges weren't having it

      “Ok, hold on,” Manzanet-Daniels said. “Is that counsel for the case?”

      “I generated that. That’s not a real person,” Dewald answered.

      It was, in fact, an avatar generated by artificial intelligence. The judge was not pleased.

    • Lean Rada ☛ Language evolves, so we must too. On generative art

      A year ago, I stood by the statement that AI Art is not Generative Art, arguing that the term ‘generative art’ is an art movement in itself that is separate from AI art.

      Safe to say, it has been a losing battle.

      Even the converse, “generative art is not necessarily AI art”, would be met by confusion from most people. ‘Generative’ has been equated to AI.

    • Cassidy Williams ☛ I don't know what MCP is and at this point I'm too afraid to ask

      It feels like everyone’s talking about MCP (Model Context Protocol) these days when it comes to Large Language Models (LLMs), but hardly anyone is actually defining it. Let’s go deeper!

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Privacy International ☛ The US border surveillance expansion has global implications

      Travelling currently subjects us to huge amounts of surveillance. Yet, the US government is looking to invest vast amounts of resource on new and intrusive methods to monitor us as we travel for work, we visit friends and families, and we explore other cultures. Other governments will be tempted to follow suit, when instead they should be protecting everyone.

    • EFF ☛ Judge Rejects Government’s Attempt to Dismiss EFF Lawsuit Against OPM, DOGE, and Musk

      Judge Denise L. Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York partially rejected the defendants’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed Feb. 11 on behalf of two labor unions and individual current and former government workers across the country. This decision is a victory: The court agreed that the claims that OPM illegally disclosed highly personal records of millions of people to DOGE agents can move forward with the goal of stopping that ongoing disclosure and requiring that any shared information be returned.

    • Techdirt ☛ Israeli Malware Maker Linked To Six Government Purchasers, Abusive Deployments

      So, there’s no chance of plausible deniability, which explains the OPP’s statement that says nothing more than it won’t talk about its investigative tools in public.

      But that’s not the end of the discussion. It’s more than a little concerning when a free world police agency decides it can be trusted with powerful malware that it then deploys against its fellow Canadians.

    • CBC ☛ A reprieve for snowbirds? Trump administration sued over traveller registration requirement

      The U.S.-based American Immigration Council and partner organizations launched the suit this week to try to quash the registration rule. They claim the administration failed to seek public input on an ill-conceived directive affecting millions of people.

      On Tuesday, the advocacy groups will ask the District Court for the District of Columbia to impose a preliminary injunction blocking the registration requirement before its April 11 rollout.

    • Wired ☛ President Trump’s War on ‘Information Silos’ Is Bad News for Your Personal Data

      But before we declare war on silos, hold on. When it comes to sensitive personal data, especially data that’s held by the government, silos serve a purpose. One obvious reason: privacy. Certain kinds of information, like medical files and tax returns, are justifiably regarded as sacrosanct—too private to merge with other records. The law provides special protections that limit who can access that information. But this order could force agencies to hand it over to any federal official the president chooses.

    • The Verge ☛ Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is back at Amazon

      Siminoff is replacing Liz Hamren, who had taken over following Siminoff’s initial departure. Hamren and the team “have done an awesome job driving the business, delivering strong results, and bringing a lot of delightful experiences to neighbors,” Siminoff says in an Amazon Q&A. He adds that the “AI transformation happening right now” is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

    • Ars Technica ☛ France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

      User consent obtained via the ATA framework "authorizes the application in question to collect user data for targeted advertising purposes," the agency said. "If consent is given, the application can access the Identifier for Advertisers ('IDFA'), the identifier by which each device can be tracked through its use of third-party applications and sites." The French investigation was triggered by a complaint lodged by advertising industry associations.

    • Michael Tsai ☛ Windows 11 Install to Require Internet and Microsoft Account

      During my recent adventure reinstalling old versions of macOS, I found that it’s now commonly recommended that Mac users have an Internet connection when installing, even if they’ve made a full installer disk. [...]

    • BoingBoing ☛ New REAL ID law will affect domestic air travel for millions of Americans

      Of course, all this personal information gets dumped into linked databases — "hacker bait," as security experts cheerfully call it. So your data will be available not just to Elon Musk, but to any teenager in Kyrgyzstan with dark web access.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Insight Hungary ☛ Hungary withdraws from International Criminal Court

    Hungary has announced its withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC), becoming the first EU member state to take such a step. The announcement was made after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Hungary to meet Viktor Orban. ICC issued a warrant for Netanyahu last year over alleged war crimes. The Hungarian PM dismissed the ruling, 444 reports.

    In November, ICC judges found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu had “criminal responsibility” for suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Israel-Gaza conflict. Netanyahu has condemned the decision as “antisemitic”. The ICC is the world’s only permanent court for prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Hungary will now become the first EU country to leave it.

  • CS Monitor ☛ South Korean court upholds President Yoon’s impeachment for martial law attempt

    In an 8-0 decision, the Constitutional Court upheld Mr. Yoon’s impeachment, finding that the president had overstepped his authority. Mr. Yoon’s violations caused “grave negative impact on the constitutional order,” Chief Justice Moon Hyung-bae stated somberly, flanked by seven other maroon-robed justices as he delivered the verdict to a silent courtroom.

  • The Conversation ☛ Would you join the resistance if stuck in an authoritarian regime? Here’s the psychology

    Most of us like to believe we would have opposed the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany. We may even like to imagine that we would have bravely fought for the resistance to Nazism in the 1940s. But would we? Our ability to take a stand may be put to the test as authoritarianism is increasing worldwide.

    All electoral democracies can transform into autocracies. These are governments that restrict political and civil rights, centralise executive power, manipulate elections and minimise the diversity of political views.

  • The Independent UK ☛ India’s crackdown on Muslim charitable trusts sparks fears for religious freedom: ‘It’s about control’

    The Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024 was passed on Thursday after a 12-hour debate in the lower house with 288 votes in favour and 232 against, and later sailed through the upper house with 128 ayes and 95 nays.

  • The Local SE ☛ IN DATA: The declining number of high-skilled workers coming to Sweden

    Sweden's Migration Minister says he wants to reduce asylum-related immigration at the same time as "attracting more foreign experts, researchers and talent to strengthen Swedish competitiveness". So how's the government doing?

  • New Eastern Europe ☛ Poland is defending Europe from Russia’s hybrid war

    Donald Tusk, who returned as Poland’s prime minister in 2023, has acted swiftly to drive the western response to a renewed confrontation with Russia. On a visit to Poland’s 418 kilometre-long eastern frontier with Belarus, Tusk outlined the steps that Poland has been taking to protect the European Union from hybrid threats coming from the East.

    In 2021, the Kremlin weaponized irregular migration flows to wage a deliberate act of aggression against the Central European nation. Polish soldiers and officers are being deployed on a daily basis as a result to safeguard their state’s boundaries. “We are not just dealing with illegal migration, but with state-led operations involving the regimes in Minsk and Moscow,” declared the Polish prime minister.

  • RFERL ☛ RFE/RL Investigates Bulgarian University Facing Accusations

    According to Bulgaria's Education Ministry, an inspection found no real educational activity taking place at the institution, with discrepancies in lecture schedules, a lack of professors and students, and unusually low utility bills.

  • The Register UK ☛ Ukraine's techies boost for economy post Russian invasion

    IT Ukraine Association [PDF] surveyed 139 tech companies in gaming, software publishing, software development, consulting, and other IT services. The researchers said the nation's IT sector had become "a pillar of support for the national economy," while its its falling share of GDP was due to other sectors recovering.

  • CBC ☛ Deadline for TikTok sale extended by 75 days, as Trump vows to work with China

    Congress passed the measure last year with overwhelming bipartisan support, as lawmakers cited the risk of the Chinese government exploiting TikTok to spy on Americans and carry out covert influence operations. Then president Joe Biden signed it into law.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Trump Extends TikTok Deadline to Keep Platform from ‘Going Dark'

    The hugely popular TikTok, which has over 170 million users in the US, briefly went dark before Trump took office as the app prepared to shut down in the country. Congress passed a bipartisan law last year giving ByteDance six months to sell its controlling stake in TikTok or see the platform shuttered in the US.

    Lawmakers have argued that the platform’s Chinese ownership could enable its use as a tool for political manipulation and other threats to national security.

  • Techdirt ☛ Who Knew You Could Press A Snooze Button On The Law? Trump Delays TikTok Ban Enforcement Again

    If you’re the President of the United States and you don’t like a law, you can apparently just… decide not to enforce it for a while? I mean, it’s not supposed to work that way, but for the past 74 days, that’s exactly what’s happened with the TikTok ban. Not just ignoring it quietly — Trump has explicitly declared we’re ignoring it. And today, he announced we’ll keep ignoring it for another 75 days.

  • The Washington Post ☛ The White House had a TikTok deal. Trump’s China tariff wrecked it.

    Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia), who co-sponsored the 2023 legislation that led to the potential TikTok ban, said in an interview that the Trump administration’s extension is “clearly against the law.” He was alarmed that the app’s future has become a chip in a broader trade war with China.

    “To me when you start talking about national security as a tradable item, that gets me worried,” said Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

    He said decisions about TikTok should not be dependent on “a point or two on a tariff rate.”

  • The Verge ☛ Trump’s TikTok delay is ‘against the law’ top Senate Intelligence Democrat says

    In a separate statement, three Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, including Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY) struck a similar note, saying that, “any deal must finally end China’s ability to surveil and potentially manipulate the American people through this app.”

  • The Verge ☛ President Trump’s tariffs killed his plan to save TikTok from ban

    The proposal, which would have licensed the app’s algorithm from China and shuffled some shareholder money around to make TikTok look more independent from ByteDance, was set to be announced before President Trump went nuclear on tariffs. As others have reported and I’ve independently confirmed, his tariff announcement on Wednesday torched any immediate chance of the TikTok proposal being blessed by the Chinese government.

  • New York Times ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man Extends Fentanylware (TikTok) Deal Deadline, Delaying a Potential Ban

    The app was facing a Saturday deadline to change its ownership or face a ban in the United States.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Guardian UK ☛ I worked in Trump’s first administration. Here’s why his team is using Signal

    You don’t need 30-plus years in uniform to know that holding a detailed yet insecure discussion about a pending military mission is wrong; the participants in the chat knew, too. They just didn’t care, not as much as they cared about keeping their communications from being legally discoverable. They’re safe in the knowledge that in a new era without benefit of the rule of law, Patel’s FBI and Bondi’s justice department will never bring charges against them, for a crime which uniformed service members are routinely prosecuted for vastly smaller infractions. As the attorney general made plain in her remarks about this matter, federal law enforcement is now entirely subservient to Trump’s personal and political interests.

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Trump Team Has a Double Standard on State Secrets

    State secrets are necessary, no matter who is president, because safeguarding certain kinds of information stops America’s enemies from doing us harm. They are also fraught, because when executive-branch officials can hide the truth, many abuse that power to cover up misdeeds.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Fact check: Trump's false claims about tariffs

    In a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House on April 2, US President Donald Trump announced a new round of global tariffs. His statements on the tariffs' calculations, justifications and effects, however, were filled with false claims. And they put many economies in a bind. Some countries have already announced countermeasures.

    DW fact-checked two viral claims by Trump.

  • Truthdig ☛ The Gutter Math Behind Trump’s Tariff Formula - Truthdig

    The fact that Trump’s aides have been unable to get him to correct his imaginary Canada trade surplus number is a clear warning that Trump’s big tariffs are not grounded in reality. There are certainly issues that can be raised about trade, and our policies have often not benefited the country’s workers.

  • CBC ☛ Digging into the 'insane' formula the White House used to calculate its tariffs

    "This formula is insane," Dmitry Grozoubinski, a trade consultant based in Geneva and author of Why Politicians Lie About Trade ... and What You Need to Know About It, told CBC News.

    "What they're basically saying is ... what we are going to do is assume that if you are selling a lot more to the U.S. than you are buying from the U.S., you must be doing something unfair," he said.

  • The Verge ☛ DOGE staffers are listed in the FCC directory

    Three people who have been identified as DOGE staffers are listed in a public directory called “Finding People at the FCC.” Tarak Makecha, Jordan Wick, and Jacob Altik are all listed in the FCC directory, with email addresses associated with the agency. Each is listed under the office “OCH,” which in other agency documents refers to the Office of the Chairman.

  • Rlang ☛ Calculating the United State’s ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

    Ever the skeptic, I couldn’t believe it could be this simple, so I decided to check it out myself with the help of R and UN Comtrade data. Here’s my answer, neatly documented in R code.

  • American Oversight ☛ Following Reports of New Signal Chats, American Oversight Blasts ‘Grossly Inadequate’ Court-Ordered Declarations in Trump Administration's Signal Use

    American Oversight filed its opposition to the Trump administration’s declarations concerning the preservation of Signal messages for being grossly inadequate in addressing the unlawful destruction of federal records.

  • American Oversight ☛ Pentagon Inspector General Launches Investigation into Hegseth’s Signal Use

    American Oversight’s lawsuit aims to prevent future unlawful destruction of government records and to compel the recovery of any records created through the officials’ unauthorized use of Signal. Last week, a judge granted a temporary restraining order in the suit, halting the deletion of critical records and requiring the defendants to preserve any Signal communications from March 11–15, 2025.

  • American Oversight ☛ DOGE [sic] Suffers Another Setback, American Oversight Wins Court Order Forcing Preservation of Records

    Noting concerns over DOGE [sic]’s secrecy and reports that it used the ephemeral messaging application Signal, the court also directed DOGE [sic] to confirm, by Monday, April 7, whether all potentially responsive records have been preserved to date.

    “Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and this court order is a critical step toward ensuring transparency and accountability,” said American Oversight interim Executive Director Chioma Chukwu. “With reports that Elon Musk may soon leave DOGE [sic], one thing remains clear: The public deserves to know the full extent of the damage — with or without Musk at its helm. We’ll keep fighting to ensure the truth comes out and that sunlight ultimately prevails.”

• Environment

  • EcoWatch ☛ Finland Shuts Down Its Last Utility-Scale Coal Plant

    The last utility-scale coal plant in Finland has closed. The Salmisaari plant, operated by the Helsinki-owned energy group called Helen, shut down its final coal-powered electricity and heat plant on Tuesday, as the country focuses on more renewable energy sources.

  • EcoWatch ☛ Maryland Sues Gore-Tex for Polluting State’s Waters With PFAS

    “At the same time that Gore was profiting from the products it manufactured in Maryland, it knew for decades that PFOA was toxic and posed significant risks to human health and the environment and failed to warn the State or the communities living around its facilities of the dangers posed by its PFAS. Instead, Gore concealed those dangers to protect its corporate image and limit its liability,” the state’s complaint alleges.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Futurism ☛ Tesla Investors Suddenly Terrified as They Realize Musk Has Dug Their Grave

      Tesla is also getting smoked by its Chinese competitor BYD, which recently usurped Musk's company as the world's largest EV automaker, selling over 4 million vehicles and raking $100 billion in revenue in 2024. Tesla sold 1.79 million and took in $97.7 billion over the same period.

    • MIT Technology Review ☛ Trump’s tariffs will deliver a big blow to climate tech

      The Pitchbook report, for instance, noted that the surge in development of AI data centers is fueling demand for “dispatchable energy sources.” That means the type that can run around the clock, such as nuclear fission, fusion, and geothermal (though in practice, the data center boom has often meant commissioning or relying on natural-gas plants that produce planet-warming emissions).

    • Nature ☛ The environmental burden of the United States’ bitcoin mining boom | Nature Communications

      Bitcoin mines—massive computing clusters generating cryptocurrency tokens—consume vast amounts of electricity. The amount of fine particle (PM2.5) air pollution created because of their electricity consumption and its effect on environmental health is pending. In this study, we located the 34 largest mines in the United States in 2022, identified the electricity-generating plants that responded to them, and pinpointed communities most harmed by Bitcoin mine-attributable air pollution. From mid-2022 to mid-2023, the 34 mines consumed 32.3 terawatt-hours of electricity—33% more than Los Angeles—85% of which came from fossil fuels. We estimated that 1.9 million Americans were exposed to ≥0.1 μg/m3 of additional PM2.5 pollution from Bitcoin mines, often hundreds of miles away from the communities they affected. Americans living in four regions—including New York City and near Houston—were exposed to the highest Bitcoin mine-attributable PM2.5 concentrations (≥0.5 μg/m3) with the greatest health risks.

    • David Rosenthal ☛ Elon Musk: Threat Or Menace? Part 6

      Source Mark Rober's video Can You Fool A Self Driving Car? demonstrating why self-driving cars need LIDAR not just cameras was extremely well done, and deserved its 16M views, but it was easily the least bad recent news for Tesla. When your sales figures and your stock price look this bad, desperation tends to set in. And trotting out the co-President and the Commerce Secretary to make sales pitches for you is a clear sign that it has.

      Below the fold I look at the flood of bad news for Tesla.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ China massively overbuilds empty AI data centres

      Chinese companies still want data centres — even buying capacity in Malaysia to serve the broader Asian market. They’re just not so interested in the cheap local ones.

  • Overpopulation

    • The Scotsman ☛ Sepa warns of early signs of water scarcity as dry spell continues

      Sepa said rivers throughout Scotland are running low to extremely low for the time of year, and groundwater levels are dipping further.

• Finance

  • The Register UK ☛ IBM back in court over claims it shortchanged pensioners

    A three-judge panel of the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals decided yesterday to remand [PDF] a lower court's dismissal of a proposed class-action lawsuit accusing Big Blue of underpaying pensioners back to the Southern District of New York. Rather than simply dismissing the matter after finding the case had been filed too late, the appeals judges should have tried harder to check the documents' timing by opening the door to additional document discovery, the panel found.

    The original case, filed in 2022 by IBM retiree Joshua Knight, alleged the IBM Personal Pension Plan violated several parts of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974, particularly those relating to actuarial equivalence, anti-forfeiture, and joint and survivor annuity requirements.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • FAIR ☛ The Resistance Will Not Be Televised

    “Resistance is alive and well in the United States.”

  • Variety ☛ Neil Young, Joan Baez, Maggie Rogers Joining Sanders/AOC L.A. Rally

    The “Fighting Oligarchy” tour is mostly scheduled for predominantly Republican areas — but, obviously, a decision was made to make an exception for deep-blue L.A.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ “Stop the Oligarchs” Is a Winning Message

    Americans do not like billionaires throwing their endless money around to buy off whoever and whatever they want. The anti-oligarch messaging pushed by Bernie Sanders against the Trump administration has deep resonance, and we need more of it.

  • The Local SE ☛ What's the history behind Sweden's regional coffee varieties?

    Henrik Skander, a sommelier, tea and coffee expert, and senior lecturer at Örebro University, argues that the strong regional identities of Sweden's main coffee brands essentially come down to marketing.

  • The Register UK ☛ President Trump fires NSA Director Tim Haugh, deputy

    Senator Warner not only hit out at the dismissal of the NSA Director, but also alleged the decision was made following lobbying from a political ally-slash-fangirl of the President.

    "It’s so crazy it defies belief: Trump refused to fire the people that embarrassed America and risked servicemembers’ lives in the Signalgate scandal," he tweeted. "But fired General Haugh, a nonpartisan national security expert, at the advice of a self-described 'pro-White nationalist.'"

  • Air Force Times ☛ Trump fires 4-star general heading NSA, US Cyber Command

    President Donald Trump has abruptly fired the director of the National Security Agency, according to U.S. officials and members of Congress, but the White House and the Pentagon have provided no reasons for the move.

  • International Business Times ☛ Amazon and OnlyFans Founder Join TikTok Bidding War – But Is It All For Show?

    But hold the applause. Insiders reckon Amazon's move might be more theatre than substance. The offer, penned to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, hasn't dazzled the White House. Sources close to the talks hint it's not being taken seriously — perhaps a long shot from a giant flexing its muscles rather than a genuine contender.

  • 404 Media ☛ Big Tech Backed Trump for Acceleration. They Got a Decel President Instead

    Effective accelerationists didn’t just accidentally shoot themselves in the foot. They methodically blew off each of their toes with a .50 caliber sniper rifle.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: End-stage capitalism

    But Trump's disastrous policies – tariffs, suspension of the rule of law, pointless military expansionism – doesn't serve Varoufakis's technofeudalism or any other kind of feudalism. As Hamilton Nolan writes, Trump represents a rupture of the customarily unshakable class solidarity of the wealthy. Trump's policies are not good for business. Trump is going to make America much, much poorer – and since the vast majority of American wealth is held by a tiny minority of very rich people, any program that vaporizes an appreciable fraction of American wealth will make a lot of rich people a lot poorer.

    Hamilton Nolan wrote about this a couple days ago, enumerating all the ways that Trump – who LARPed a TV businessman – is extremely bad for business: [...]

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Futurism ☛ China Attacks Trump With Sassy AI-Generated Music Video

      The English-language China Global Television Network (CGTN) released the song, called "Look What You Taxed Us Through" ahead of Wall Street's worst single-day performance since 2020, during the throes of the pandemic. The song's lyrics are written from the point of view of an American consumer, blasting Trump's economic policy and daily life in the US more broadly. While the music video is AI-generated — a fact the CGTN advertises, unlike some American slopaganda — it also makes use of clips and audio from real sources like Trump rallies, Tesla protests, and American social media.

    • RFERL ☛ How Pro-Kremlin Media Voices Are Spinning The US-Russia Diplomatic Shift

      Russian propaganda has fixed on Europe as a threat, particularly amid talk of a "willing" coalition to support Ukraine or even send peacekeepers.

      The phrase "popping champagne in Moscow" has become a popular shorthand for US policymaking decisions that appear to favor Putin.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Trump Promised Free Speech Defense and Delivered the Opposite

    Donald Trump told the world that his administration would end the censoriousness of “woke” liberal culture. His time in office has seen one of the worst crackdowns on free speech in recent American history.

  • BIA Net ☛ Report: Turkey to require social media platforms to set up local companies

    BTK already holds the authority to throttle bandwidth by up to 90 percent for up to 24 hours in certain cases. This method, frequently used during emergencies such as natural disasters, protests, or bomb attacks, was last implemented on Mar 19, when İstanbul’s mayor and nearly 100 municipal officials were detained in early-morning raids. The throttling lasted approximately 42 hours, rendering major platforms including X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram nearly inaccessible.

  • RFERL ☛ Uzbekistan's Silk Mirage: Is Freedom Of Speech Heading 'Back To The Future'?

    But if a chapter on freedom of speech previewed by RFE/RL is anything to go by, it is unlikely to be one Uzbek officials will boast about.

    Lillis's reporting -- the product of more than two decades living and working in the region -- captures how many who recall the promise of the early Mirziyoev years following Karimov's death in 2016 now see that promise fading.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • BIA Net ☛ Journalism groups demand release of Swedish reporter detained in Turkey

    The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners strongly condemn the arrest of Swedish journalist Joakim Medin on terrorism charges in Turkey and call for his immediate release. This is the latest incident amidst the ongoing crackdown on press freedom in which dozens of journalists have been arrested and beaten.

  • RFERL ☛ USAGM Terminates Some Satellite Broadcasts By Radio Free Europe's Russian-Language Current Time

    "We received a notice from USAGM that contracts for satellites distributing Current Time's Russian-language programming were being terminated. We hope this decision will be reversed in the future,” RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said in a statement.

    Current Time, which has been designated an "undesireable organization" by Russia's Justice Ministry, said its audiences could use other digital means to access its programming, which continues to be produced. Current Time focuses on Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and other regions.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • US News And World Report ☛ Trump Administration Sent Erroneous Email Ordering Ukrainians to Leave

    Multiple Ukrainians legally in the United States under a humanitarian program received an email this week telling them their status had been revoked and they had seven days to leave the country or the "federal government will find you."

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Rejected by 16 colleges, hired by Google. Now he's suing some of the schools for anti-Asian discrimination

    Stanley Zhong had a 4.42 grade point average, a nearly perfect SAT score, had bested adults in competitive coding competitions and started his own electronic signing service all while still in high school.

    When it came time to apply to colleges, Zhong’s family wasn’t overly concerned about his prospects even amid an increasingly competitive admissions environment.

    But, by the end of his senior year in Palo Alto in 2023, Zhong received rejection letters from 16 of the 18 colleges where he applied, including five University of California campuses that his father had figured would be safety schools.

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ How ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ Introduced the ‘First Lady of Children’s Music’ to a Large National Audience

    Jenkins and Rogers had an immediate chemistry. They hailed from starkly different worlds: Jenkins, a child of the first Great Migration of Black Americans, was born in St. Louis, and later her family settled in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. Rogers was from an upper-middle-class household in the white hamlet of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. Yet they were “neighbors” in disposition, philosophy and love of music.

    Both possessed an intuitive gift for communicating with children. Both regarded their work as a conduit of ethical, political and spiritual values, and both taught children compassion, neighborliness and helpfulness—not so that they would be “good,” but because these qualities were the requisites of a just and peaceful world. Finally, both were skilled musicians.

  • EFF ☛ EFF Joins Amicus Brief Supporting Perkins Coie Law Firm Against Unconstitutional Executive Order

    EFF has joined the American Civil Liberties Union and other legal advocacy organizations across the ideological spectrum in filing an amicus brief asking a federal judge to strike down President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting law firm Perkins Coie for its past work on voting rights lawsuits and its representation of the President’s prior political opponents.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • RIPE ☛ How To Never Lose Control Over Your Network

    The complexity of modern networks is increasing, as is the challenge of network management and control. Solutions that rely on AI only seem to exacerbate the issue and today, even well-managed large networks are seeing the consequences. This article presents KIRA, a zero-touch control plane connectivity solution for mastering increasing complexity.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • [Old] Screen Slate ☛ Elegy for the Screenshot

    It was around this time when streaming platforms like Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and the Criterion Channel imposed a quiet embargo on the screenshot. At first, there were workarounds: users could continue to screenshot by using the browser Brave or by downloading extensions or third-party tools like Fireshot. But gradually, the digital-rights-management tech adapted and became more sophisticated. Today, it is nearly impossible to take a screenshot from the most popular streaming services, at least not on a Macintosh computer.

  • [Old] John Gruber ☛ Why Can’t We Screenshot Frames From DRM-Protected Video on Apple Devices?

    I’m not entirely sure what the technical answer to this is, but on MacOS, it seemingly involves the GPU and video decoding hardware. These DRM blackouts happen at such a low level that no high-level software — any sort of utility you might install — can route around them. I think Windows still offers easy screenshotting of frames from DRM video not because the streaming services somehow don’t care about what Windows users do (which, when you think about it, would be a weird thing not to care about, given Windows’s market share), but because Windows uses a less sophisticated imaging pipeline. Or perhaps rather than less sophisticated, it’s more accurate to say less integrated. These DRM blackouts on Apple devices (you can’t capture screenshots from DRM video on iPhones or iPads either) are enabled through the deep integration between the OS and the hardware, thus enabling the blackouts to be imposed at the hardware level. And I don’t think the streaming services opt into this screenshot prohibition other than by “protecting” their video with DRM in the first place. If a video is DRM-protected, you can’t screenshot it; if it’s not, you can.

  • David Sparks ☛ On the Hypothetical “Thinner” M6 MacBook Pro

    Apple has a history of pursuing thinner designs, sometimes at the expense of functionality. The butterfly keyboard is the most recent example. If “thinner” is on that whiteboard in Cupertino, I hope Apple doesn’t compromise the performance and reliability that MacBook Pro users depend on. Perhaps advancements in chip design will allow for a thinner MacBook Pro without sacrificing battery life or power. But even if that is true, I’d argue the MacBook Pro still doesn’t need to get thinner. I’d fill that empty space with more battery and a better cooling system to let the new MacBook Pro run even harder.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Fast Company ☛ Why Apple got hit with a $162 million fine from French regulators

  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.

• 9to5Mac ☛ Apple bizarrely fined $162M for App Tracking Transparency after advertisers complained

  Complaints were made in a number of countries – some arguing that it was unfair because Apple exempts its own apps (which are in reality subject to even tighter controls), others saying the loss of revenue forced developers to raise prices to compensate.

• Copyrights

  • The Nation ☛ Ai Generator

  • India Times ☛ OpenAI copyright lawsuits from New York Times, authors consolidated in Manhattan

    A US judicial panel decided on Thursday to consolidate in New York several copyright cases brought by prominent authors and news outlets against OpenAI and its largest backer Microsoft.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Patreon Partners with Sony Music and Wondery on Podcasts

    “With more than 6.7 million paid memberships in the podcasting category alone, making podcasting the highest earning category on Patreon, we see a ton of fan engagement from podcast communities on Patreon, and we’re continuing to build for independent podcasters and networks alike,” says Patreon.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ LaLiga/Cloudflare Crisis: ISPs Urged to Action Amid Mass Overblocking

    These blocking orders presented new problems. The crisis currently playing out in Spain shows how easily circumvented technical restrictions can be rendered almost useless. This, in turn, triggered a disproportionate response leading to substantial collateral damage.

    When enhanced privacy features at Cloudflare undermined blocking, the power of a new court order issued last December allowed LaLiga to block Cloudfare itself and by default, many thousands of innocent Cloudflare customers.

  • PC World ☛ US feds say AI-generated prompt outputs can't be copyrighted

    The bottom line of the updated Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence (PDF) is that a work of art needs “some degree of originality” and “human authorship” in order for it to be eligible for copyright in the United States. Crucially, simply plugging prompts into an AI image generator or text generator does NOT meet this burden. Because the author (or artist, or other relevant creative term) of a work is defined as “the person who translates an idea into a fixed, tangible expression,” an AI system cannot meet this burden, even though it’s using input from a human to generate its output.