Leftovers

• Chris ☛ Sidenotes, Footnotes, Inlinenotes

  I have published articles online for over 25 years, across four iterations of what then grew into Entropic Thoughts. In 2017, this site switched from a custom static generator to publishing from Emacs using Org, This change afforded a larger design revision, along with something I had wanted for a while: notes in the margin.

  I’ve had some questions on how that works, but they are always low-effort questions where it’s clear nobody has even bothered to right click and inspect element to see what goes on. At that point, I don’t think anything I can say short of intensive personal tutoring is going to help.

  But recently someone asked a good question, and that prompted me to write up how it works.

• Seth Godin ☛ Tools and the long tail | Seth's Blog

  Change the tools (and their distribution) and you change the future.

• Mandaris Moore ☛ What's in a title

  I have configured my blog index to only show posts with titles. At first, I was a little hesitant, but I think it makes for a better experience when I'm reading it. I also found that I do not hesitate as much make microposts.

• Senthil Thyagarajan ☛ Why Every Media Team Needs a Measurement Playbook (Not Just a Dashboard)

  If you’ve ever felt lost in the maze of media analytics jargon—MMM, incrementality, geo-testing—you’re not alone. But what if I told you these aren’t just buzzwords; they’re your roadmap to mastering media performance? Let’s dive in and demystify how these analytics tools actually work—and how you can leverage them to move from tactical execution to strategic mastery.

• Science

  • LabX Media Group ☛ Korea’s Deep-Sea Diving Women Show Genetic Traits for Cold Water Endurance

    Published in Cell Reports, a team of researchers found two gene variants associated with cold tolerance and decreased blood pressure that likely aid Haenyeo while diving. These findings will help researchers better understand human genetic and physiological adaptation, especially within a traditional diving population.

  • The Register UK ☛ EU tells US scientists to dump Trump for a lab in Europe

    At an event at Sorbonne University, EC President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the "Choose Europe" scheme to promote the region as a world-leading center of research, innovation, and scientific freedom.

    In a speech, she outlined financial incentives to draw scientific talent, including a €500 million ($566 million) package for 2025-2027 to make Europe "a magnet for researchers."

  • Wired ☛ The Future of Manufacturing Might Be in Space

    Scientists have long suggested that the microgravity environment of Earth’s orbit could enable the production of higher-quality products than it is possible to make on Earth. Astronauts experimented with crystals—a crucial component of electronic circuitry—as early as 1973, on NASA’s Skylab space station. But progress was slow. For decades, in-space manufacturing has been experimental rather than commercial.

• Career/Education

  • Nebraska Examiner ☛ U.S. Senate Dems launch forums to spotlight ‘bulldozing’ of Department of Education

    Denise Forte, CEO of the nonprofit policy and advocacy group EdTrust, said “most urgently, we are alarmed by the mass firing of over half of the department staff.”

    “This isn’t reform — it is sabotage,” Forte said, pointing to the layoffs hitting wide swaths of the department, particularly in the Office for Civil Rights, Office of Federal Student Aid and Institute of Education Sciences.

  • Ana Rodrigues ☛ Oh Hello Ana - A forty minute tech talk might not fix a very specific code problem at work, but it might leave you inspired to fix everything else

    The point of a conference shouldn't be to provide ready-made solutions to specific workplace problems. A 40 minute code-heavy presentation might offer some technical pointers, but these will never truly address your specific challenges. Unfortunately, I’ve seen attendees demanding this - even from free meet-ups! But also, especially now, in this era of AI and LLMs, code-heavy focused talks can have a short shelf life. Or, or!! Brace yourself: AI/LLM slop content! Imagine that.

  • Sean Goedecke ☛ Getting things "done" in large tech companies

    In large tech companies, this fact is a trap for competent but unagentic engineers. They see an infinite queue of tasks that they’re capable of doing, and they start delivering a stream of marginal improvements to a particular subsystem. From their perspective, it feels like they’re crushing it. After all, they’re putting out work at their top speed: no downtime, no waiting on other teams. But they’re not doing their actual job, which is to deliver the most value they can to their company. From the perspective of their manager and skip-level, they’re not getting anything done.

  • Kevin Wammer ☛ How to think

    I see four parts that are necessary for thought. You need to cultivate all four, because one or two alone may not be enough to form your best thinking.

• Hardware

  • The Register UK ☛ US export controls on AI chips will cost AMD $1.5B in 2025

    Had it not been for the export controls, AMD's forecast for its second quarter of the year might have looked quite a bit rosier, climbing 9.4 percent sequentially and 47 percent year-over-year to an estimated $8.1 billion. Alas, the latest salvo in the US-China trade war will shave about $700 million off those anticipated Q2 revenues, which it now expects to come in at $7.4 billion give or take $300 million or so.

  • Andre Alves Garzia ☛ Some photos taken with Lomochrome Metropolis

    Got myself a new camera. A 35mm half-frame Olympus Pen EES-2 with zone focusing. My first roll with this camera has been the Lomochrome Metropolis shot in ASA 400.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Rolling Stone ☛ AI-Fueled Spiritual Delusions Are Destroying Human Relationships

    Self-styled prophets are claiming they have "awakened" chatbots and accessed the secrets of the universe through ChatGPT

  • Manton Reece ☛ Reinforced delusion and robots

    I continue to believe that it’s a terrible idea to build humanoid AI robots. Partly because if they have all our physical attributes, only stronger and smarter, they can overpower us. But also because it blurs the lines of reality if robots are visually too similar to us, messing with our brains and how we interact with others. It would only amplify the problems in that Rolling Stone article.

• Proprietary

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • C4ISRNET ☛ How AI voicebots threaten the psyche of US service members and spies

      The situation arrives as concerns grow that lax regulations are allowing AI programmers to dodge responsibility for an algorithmic actor’s perpetration of emotional abuse or “no-marks” cybertorture. Notably, a teenager allegedly died by suicide — and several others endured mental distress — after conversing with self-learning voicebot and chatbot “companions” that dispensed antagonizing language.

    • Simon Willison ☛ A quote from Daniel Stenberg

      We still have not seen a single valid security report done with AI help.

    • Rodrigo Ghedin ☛ The creator of cURL, Daniel Stenberg, has raised barriers against the avalanche of security… ⁄ Manual do Usuário

      Most of the inappropriate uses of AI were already possible before. What changes with AI is the scale.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ OpenAI tries a new scheme to go for-profit — but Elon Musk isn’t convinced

      The original OpenAI corporate structure was bizarre. The nonprofit owned the for-profit company that spent the money and did the work. But OpenAI went weird. The for-profit company didn’t sell shares in itself, it sold a share of its future profits if any. So when we say Microsoft “owned” 49% of OpenAI, they actually owned 49% of a hypothetical future profit stream.

    • Study Finds ☛ Deepfakes Now Outsmarting Detection By Mimicking Heartbeats; Do Deepfakes Have a Pulse?

      The assumption that deepfakes lack physiological signals, such as heart rate, is no longer valid. This challenges many existing detection tools, which may need significant redesigns to keep up with the evolving technology.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ SAA cyberattack knocks out website, internal systems

      SAA said it has initiated a forensic investigation into the incident. Since SAA is a national key point, statutory reports to the State Security Agency, the police and the Information Regulator have also been submitted, it said.

    • Security Week ☛ US Charges Yemeni Man for Black Kingdom Ransomware Attacks

      The suspect, Rami Khaled Ahmed, is believed to be behind Black Kingdom ransomware attacks. Authorities said he delivered his malware to roughly 1,500 systems, including ones belonging to schools, hospitals and businesses.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Qilin Becomes Top Ransomware Group Amid RansomHub Chaos

      Qilin became the top ransomware group in April amid uncertainty over the status of RansomHub, according to a Cyble blog post published today.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • OpenRightsGroup ☛ ‘I was failed by the ICO’: Data Bill Amendment Could Help Survivors of Abuse

      Open Rights Group is calling for a change to the law to protect the privacy and safety of survivors of modern slavery and gender-based violence. Data protection violations can have a devastating impact on anyone who has experienced violence or abuse. Any information that can reveal their habits and whereabouts, putting them and their children at risk of harm.

    • Michigan Advance ☛ 23andMe users’ genetic data is at risk, state AGs warn

      The fate of more than 15 million customers’ genetic data remains in limbo after popular DNA testing company 23andMe filed for bankruptcy in March. The data is up for sale, stoking fears about how it might be used and prompting attorneys general from more than a dozen states to warn 23andMe users: Delete your data.

    • EFF ☛ Beware the Bundle: Companies Are Banking on Becoming Your Police Department’s Favorite "Public Safety Technology” Vendor

      And each new bit of data that police collect contributes to a pool of information to which the company can attach other services: storage, data processing, cross-referencing tools, inter-agency networking, and AI analysis. The companies may even want the data to train their own AI model. The landscape of the police tech industry is changing, and companies that once specialized in a single technology (such as hardware products like automated license plate readers (ALPRs) or gunshot detection sensors) have developed new capabilities or bought up other tech companies and law enforcement data brokers—all in service of becoming the corporate giant that serves as a one-stop shop for police surveillance needs.

    • The Register UK ☛ Palantir loves the smell of DOGE [sic] budget cuts in the morning

      IBM and Accenture are among the tech companies concerned over DOGE [sic]-inspired cuts to contracts, but not Palantir. After announcing Q1 revenue of $884 million, up 39 percent on the same period last year, Sankar answered analyst questions about DOGE [sic].

    • EDRI ☛ Hungary’s new biometric surveillance laws violate the AI Act

      In March 2025, three amendments aimed to criminalise LGBTQAI+ demonstrations and increase biometric surveillance were rushed through the Hungarian Parliament within 24 hours and without any public debate. These amendments, which entered into force on 15 April, dramatically expand the use of facial recognition technology (FRT) in Hungary, including in the context of minor infractions and peaceful assemblies, such as Budapest Pride.

      The Civil Liberties Union for Europe, EDRi, the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union believe that this broadened application of FRT to track and identify individuals attending banned Pride events and committing even minor infractions violates the EU AI Act and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.

    • Wired ☛ US Border Agents Are Asking for Help Taking Photos of Everyone Entering the Country by Car

      The request for information, or RIF, says that CBP already has a facial recognition tool that takes a picture of a person at a port of entry and compares it to travel or identity documents that someone gives to a border officer, as well as other photos from those documents already “in government holdings.”

  • Confidentiality

    • HAProxy Technologies LLC ☛ The State of SSL Stacks

      A paper on this topic was prepared for internal use within HAProxy last year, and this version is now being shared publicly. Given the critical role of SSL in securing internet communication and the challenges presented by evolving SSL technologies, reverse proxies like HAProxy must continuously adapt their SSL strategies to maintain performance and compatibility, ensuring a secure and efficient experience for users. We are committed to providing ongoing updates on these developments.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Atlantic ☛ Why Do Collaborators Do It?

    The idea that complicity is not a line that one jumps across, but rather an accumulation of rationalizations, fascinates Kehlmann: the wishful thinking that the threat is sure to end soon; the worries about how best to keep one’s children safe; the need to continue working; the self-protective modesty of telling oneself, What difference could I possibly make? Yet whenever he considered depicting the Nazi period, he was deterred by the limitations of conventional storytelling: The “easy way of writing about victims—they’re in a terrible situation, and bad stuff happens to them, and then they either escape or they don’t”—struck him as boring, especially given the firsthand family memories he’d grown up with as the son of a Jewish father who had survived the war years in Vienna. What seemed far more interesting was the question of what happens in the gray zone between victim and perpetrator.

  • Federal News Network ☛ The government is giving up on an important part of the cybersecurity workforce

    During the first Trump administration, MITRE led a team that proposed a new solution to the shortage of cybersecurity analysts--hiring neurodistinct individuals. The team launched successful pilot projects with NGA and then CISA. The new Trump administration terminated the contract just prior to completion but the lessons learned are still available.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Dance of Appeasement

    This logic fails on multiple levels. First, it fundamentally misunderstands why many Americans voted for Trump. They didn't necessarily embrace constitutional violations, the weaponization of government against critics, or the abandonment of democratic norms—though many have come to excuse them. But that doesn't mean they can't be moved by moral clarity when it's offered without condescension. Many vote d based on specific economic anxieties, cultural concerns, or—crucially—because they believed demonstrable falsehoods about both Trump and his opponents. Winning their support doesn't require adopting Trump's authoritarian tendencies but addressing their legitimate concerns while providing a clear alternative to his approach to governance.

  • Reuters ☛ Exclusive: TikTok plans to build 1 bln euro data centre in Finland, spokesman confirms

    In 2023, it launched a new data security regime, nicknamed "Project Clover," with plans to invest 12 billion euros over 10 years amid growing pressure from lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

  • India Times ☛ TikTok to build 1-billion-euro data centre in Finland

    TikTok said Tuesday it was investing 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to build a data centre in Finland, days after the EU slapped it with a massive fine accusing it of sending Europeans' personal data to China. The European Union last week hit TikTok with a 530-million-euro ($600 million) fine, accusing it of sending Europeans' personal data to China and failing to guarantee it was shielded from access by Chinese authorities.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • France24 ☛ EU to unveil plan to quit Russian gas by end-2027

      A draft of the “roadmap”, setting out how the Commission plans to phase out Russian energy, said that in June, it will present a legal proposal to ban remaining Russian gas and LNG imports under existing contracts by end-2027.

    • Semafor Inc ☛ EU set to unveil plans for Russian gas phaseout

      The European Union will announce plans to end its reliance on Russian gas by the end of 2027 as it renews pressure on Moscow over its war in Ukraine.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Techdirt ☛ National Insecurity: The Trump Administration’s NATSEC Boys Just Can’t Stop Fucking Up

    “Inadvertently” might be true, but “stupidly” is far more accurate. I mean, we all had a good laugh when Kanye West scored an audience with Trump during his last presidential term and revealed his device security habits were just as solid as his personal judgment skills.

    For what it’s worth, Waltz is no longer the nation’s national security advisor. Instead, he being turfed to UN Ambassador duty, which pretty much just means running interference for whatever new war-like expansionist plan Trump happens to announce during upcoming press conferences and media appearances.

  • NBC ☛ App used by Mike Waltz suspends services after [breach] claims

    TeleMessage, the app that President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Mike Waltz, appeared to use to archive his group chats, has suspended all services after [intruders] claimed to have stolen files from it.

    A spokesperson for Smarsh, the company that owns TeleMessage, said Monday that the company “is investigating a potential security incident. Upon detection, we acted quickly to contain it and engaged an external cybersecurity firm to support our investigation.”

  • 404 Media ☛ Senator Demands Investigation into Trump Admin Signal Clone After 404 Media Investigation

    On Tuesday a Senator demanded the Department of Justice investigate “the serious threat to U.S. national security” posed by TeleMessage, a company that makes aa Signal clone used by the Trump administration which 404 Media revealed was [breached] on Sunday, with the [intruder] obtaining the content of some users’ messages and group chats.

• Environment

  • Hindustan Times ☛ How will life end on Earth? Study rules out meteorites and climate change

    With rising temperatures on the planet, the Earth's carbon cycle will be hampered, leading to the loss of flora and fauna. This would directly impact the process of photosynthesis, which is necessary to maintain the oxygen levels of the Earth. Earth will slowly emerge into a planet that be rich in methane and greenhouse gases, but short on oxygen supply. The end, therefore, would be inevitable at that stage.

  • EcoWatch ☛ Scientists Map Where Orphan Wells Threaten Aquifers in the U.S.

    “Throughout the history of oil and gas production in the United States, millions of wells have been drilled for exploration and energy production. Hundreds of thousands of unplugged wells are no longer actively producing and are currently under orphan status, with no responsible party obligated for plugging,” the authors wrote in the findings. “Orphan wells can pose threats to water resources by providing pathways for contaminants such as hydrocarbons and brines to migrate into water-supply aquifers.”

  • New Yorker ☛ How Is Elon Musk Powering His Supercomputer?

    All that processing takes power to run, and so the xAI team moved about thirty-five mobile methane-gas-powered generators onto the site to support the data center. These are truck-mounted units, many of them designed by Caterpillar, which give off some of the same brew of pollutants as other gas-combustion device—including nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde—and which are currently operating without a permit. “xAI has essentially built a power plant in South Memphis with no oversight, no permitting, and no regard for families living in nearby communities,” the Southern Environmental Law Center said, in a report released in April. (Full disclosure: I volunteer every year to judge the S.E.L.C.’s Phil Reed prize for best environmental writing about the South). The S.E.L.C. has called for an “emergency order” from the city to require xAI to cease the use of these generators, with a twenty-five-thousand-dollar daily fine if the company refuses. The mayor of Memphis, Paul Young, a supporter of the project, addressed the concerns at a meeting with community members in March. “I want to figure out how we can exploit this project for us,” he said. “I know you all feel like it’s us getting exploited, but we need to speak from a place of strength.” After the S.E.L.C. issued its report, Young explained that the company has a permit application pending with the Shelby County Health Department to run fifteen generators. “There are thirty-five, but there are only fifteen that are on,” he said. “The other ones are stored on the site.”

  • Energy/Transportation

    • LRT ☛ Lithuania declares February 9 as Baltic Energy Independence Day

      On February 9 this year, the Baltic states disconnected from the Russian electricity grid and connected with the continental European system.

    • Futurism ☛ Tesla's Sales Are Somehow Continuing to Fall

      Already in a dire deliveries slump while its brand image goes up in flames, the EV automaker experienced yet another devastating plummet in sales last month in several of its most important European markets, in what is the latest sign of how its CEO's bizarre behavior is driving customers away.

    • Reuters ☛ Europeans continue to shun Tesla as April sales plunge

      Tesla's (TSLA.O), opens new tab sales plunged across Europe in April, including an 81% drop in Sweden to their lowest level in 2-1/2 years, data showed on Friday, as Europeans buy more Chinese EVs and some protest against CEO Elon Musk's political views.

    • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Trump administration abruptly removes NTSB vice chair

      The decision comes as NTSB investigates nearly 1,250 active cases across the U.S., while supporting more than 160 foreign investigations, according to March testimony by NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy.

    • CS Monitor ☛ With a stop sign and a prayer, this Chicago crossing guard marks 50 years

      “Even after her time is up, she hangs around a bit longer because some of the kids come later,” he says. “I’ll see them all the way down the block, and she’ll just stand here and wait for them to get here so she can cross them.”

    • David Rosenthal ☛ Who Is Mining Bitcoin?

      First I should point out that the idea "that it is more expensive to attack than any possible gains" sounds plausible but is actually an oversimplification. Everyone has decided to ignore Eric Budish's The Economic Limits Of Bitcoin And The Blockchain, which shows that, for safety, the value of transactions in a block must be low relative to the fees in the block plus the reward for mining the block. In other words, the value transacted must be less than the total cost of the transaction. Clearly, this means the network is either unsustainable or unsafe. Right now, the average value per block is around $76M but the miners' income per block is around $285K, violating Budish's criterion by a factor of 267.

    • IEEE ☛ Bitcoin Mining's Big Impact on U.S. Electricity - IEEE Spectrum

      Bitcoin mining takes a lot of computation, and therefore, a lot of electricity. After the initial Bitcoin boom in China, the lure of cheaper electricity and a more stable power grid has lured many of the world’s Bitcoin mines to the United States. With that shift comes a corresponding shift in the greenhouse gases and other pollutants created by the energy production required for Bitcoin mining.

      Now, researchers from Harvard University have shown that Bitcoin mining has added more energy production to the U.S. grid than the amount required by the city of Los Angeles, and brought the accompanying air pollution and environmental concerns as well. They published their work in March in Nature Communications.

    • Reuters ☛ Pakistan turns to bitcoin miners, AI data centers to use surplus power

      Bilal Bin Saqib, chief executive officer of the council, told Reuters the location of the mining centre will be finalised based on the availability of excess power in specific regions. Documents seen by Reuters outline the role of Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, who will serve as a strategic adviser to the Pakistan Crypto Council.

    • RFERL ☛ Iran Begins Rolling Blackouts in Tehran As Electricity Demand Soars

      Power cuts have become a fixture of both summer and winter months, but rolling blackouts this year have started earlier than usual despite the temperatures being relatively low.

      Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said during her weekly press conference on May 6 that the country was facing “multiple imbalances,” referring to rising demand for electricity, water, and gas.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ Trump Removes Protections From Marine Protected Areas — A Problem for Fish, Whales, Corals and Other Ocean Life

  • Overpopulation

    • The North Lines IN ☛ India’s water will be now be utilised for the country: PM Modi

      In an apparent reference to the Indus Waters Treaty being put in abeyance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said earlier even the water which rightfully belonged to India went outside the country but it will now flow for India’s benefit and will be utilised for the country.

    • California State University Northridge ☛ OPINION: Not wanting kids isn’t selfish!

      The number of births in the U.S. has been declining since 1990, which seems to be a direct result of the declining rates of young females under the age of 30.

• Finance

  • TechCrunch ☛ Layoffs hit General Fusion as the fusion power startup runs short on cash

    General Fusion laid off at least 25% of its employees last week, just days after hitting a key milestone for its latest fusion demonstration device.

    CEO Greg Twinney posted an open letter on the company’s website Monday saying that while its new LM26 device had been able to compress a plasma — something necessary for fusion conditions — General Fusion was running short of money. He wrote, “[T]oday’s funding landscape is more challenging than ever as investors and governments navigate a rapidly shifting and uncertain political and market climate.”

  • The Street ☛ One of the biggest workforces in the US is facing mass layoffs

    If there's one thing that's a constant in the world right now, it's that there will be news about layoffs, seemingly every single week.

    It's a scary time in the workforce, and especially in the tech sector. In 2024, more than 150,000 job cuts occurred in this area, with giants such as Amazon, Google, Tesla, Microsoft, and others conducting sizable layoffs.

  • Entrepeneur ☛ 'Completely Blindsided': Accounting Giant PwC Is Laying Off 1,500 U.S. Workers. Here's Why.

    Big Four accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is cutting 1,500 U.S. jobs, The Financial Times reported on Monday. The layoffs impact 2% of PwC's 75,000-person U.S. workforce and mainly affect its audit and tax divisions.

    PwC told The Financial Times that it decided to make the cuts because it experienced multiple years of low attrition or turnover. In other words, few employees chose to leave the firm voluntarily. Before deciding on layoffs, PwC said it examined its business over several months and moved hundreds of employees from unneeded roles to higher-growth positions.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ PwC lays off 1,500 employees, reduces campus hiring across US

    PwC is laying off approximately 1,500 employees in the US. In addition to the job cuts, PwC has also decided to curtail campus recruitment.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ OpenAI to buy coding platform Windsurf for $3-billion

    Windsurf, formally called Exafunction, had recently been in talks with investors including Kleiner Perkins and General Catalyst to raise funding at a $3-billion valuation. The company was valued at $1.25-billion in a deal led by General Catalyst last year.

  • Futurism ☛ OpenAI Forced to Abandon Plans to Become For-Profit

    OpenAI claims in its post that it came to the decision to remain under the control of the non-profit board — the same one that fired Altman in late November 2023, only to reinstate him a few days later — "after hearing from civic leaders and engaging in constructive dialogue with the offices of the Attorney General of Delaware and the Attorney General of California."

  • The Register UK ☛ DoD announces overhaul of 'outdated' software procurement

    "Lengthy, outdated cybersecurity authorization processes frustrate agile, continuous delivery. Additionally, widespread use of open source software, with contributions from developers worldwide, presents a significant and ongoing challenge."

  • Wired ☛ OpenAI Backs Down on Restructuring Amid Pushback

    The proposed company structure has to be approved by the attorney general offices in California and Delaware by early next year. Up to $30 billion in funding from SoftBank and other investors is contingent on this approval. That money is crucial for OpenAI to maintain its position as a leader in generative AI and give higher returns to investors. Previously, those returns were capped at 100 times the original investment.

  • Security Week ☛ White House Proposal Slashes Half-Billion From CISA Budget

    The White House has signaled plans to cut the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) budget by $491 million on the grounds that the agency became a “censorship industrial complex” at the expense of cyber defense.

  • Macworld ☛ Apple admits it may need to raise prices to deal with tariffs

    On page 23 of its latest 10-Q SEC filing (which you can read on the Investor Relations web page), Apple discusses risk factors which could affect its operations and stock price. The first to be discussed (at some length) is tariffs: [...]

  • Jon Seager ☛ Adopting sudo-rs By Default in Ubuntu 25.10

    Following on from Carefully But Purposefully Oxidising Ubuntu, Ubuntu will be the first major Linux distribution to adopt sudo-rs as the default implementation of sudo, in partnership with the Trifecta Tech Foundation

    The change will be effective from the release of Ubuntu 25.10. You can see the Trifecta Tech Foundation’s announcement here.

  • The Dissenter ☛ Chief US Intel Agency Declassifies Information That It Claimed 'Deep State Actors' Leaked To Attack Trump

  • France24 ☛ 'The opportunity is in the partnership': 'Savvy' Canadian PM appeals to Convicted Felon in real estate terms

    U.S. President The Insurrectionist and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney faced off in the Oval Office on Tuesday and showed no signs of retreating from their gaping differences in an ongoing trade war that has shattered decades of trust between the two countries. The two kept it civil, but as for Convicted Felon’s calls to make Canada the 51st state, Carney insisted his nation was “not for sale” and Convicted Felon shot back, “time will tell.” For in-depth analysis and a deeper perspective on the Carney-Dihydroxyacetone Man faceoff in the Oval Office, FRANCE 24's François Picard welcomes our International Affairs Editor Douglas Herbert and guest expert Genevieve Tellier, Full Professor, Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa.

  • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

    • The Telegraph UK ☛ How capsized canoe handed Austrian state secrets to Putin’s spies

      The senior officials even provided their pin numbers and passwords on post-it notes but the officer said that he could not recover the data and that the phones would be destroyed.

      Instead, they were obtained by an Austrian spy said to be on Marsalek’s payroll and, according to police files, they were collected in June 2022 by Dzhambavoz from an address to which he had been linked.

      They were placed in a secure bag, which prevented them from being tracked, and transferred to Moscow, the files show.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Register UK ☛ Trump would cut CISA budget by $491M amid ‘censorship’ claim

      The proposed cuts – which are largely symbolic at this stage as they need to be approved by Congress – are framed as a purge of the so-called "censorship industrial complex," a term the White House uses to describe CISA's work countering misinformation.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Techdirt ☛ Trump’s Aggressive Actions Against Free Speech Speak A Lot Louder Than His Words Defending It

    Harvard University took the extraordinary step of suing the Trump administration on April 21, 2025, claiming that the pressure campaign mounted on the school by the president and his Cabinet to force viewpoint diversity on campus violated the Constitution’s guarantees of free speech.

    “Defendants’ actions are unlawful,” Harvard’s lawsuit states. “The First Amendment does not permit the Government to ‘interfere with private actors’ speech to advance its own vision of ideological balance.’”

    Yet in his first term, President Donald J. Trump declared that free speech mattered.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Ooh, matron! Carry On cut as Britain’s censors crack down on classic comedy

    “There is some stuff that’s just not funny any more,” says Cronin-Stanley. “If you’re going to watch a film from 1958 you’re going to hear language from 1958. But if it is so outrageously rude, we’ll take it out.”

  • Techdirt ☛ Trump FCC Eyes Illegal Plan To Censor Real Journalism, Reward Local Broadcasters Like Sinclair For Airing Right Wing Propaganda

    We’ve covered for years the ugly retransmission feuds that break out between your cable company and broadcasters during contract negotiations. These fights routinely result in you losing access to channels you pay for with no real recourse. The FCC has perpetually refused to protect consumers from this stuff, taking a sort of “boys will be boys” approach, regardless of party.

    Now the Trump FCC has decided to pretend to take action, but their “solution” is super dodgy, likely illegal, and primarily aimed at propping up the local right wing propaganda broadcast ecosystem.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ ‘60 Minutes' shows it's not scared off by Trump's lawsuit and threats

    “Targeted firms say what the president signed amounted to a corporate death penalty,” Pelley said in the report.

    Marc Elias, a lawyer who successfully fought one of Trump’s court challenges of the 2020 election results, told Pelley the White House’s actions are akin to “the way in which a mob boss intimidates people in the neighborhood that he is seeking to either exact protection money from or engage in other nefarious conduct.”

  • Thomas Rigby ☛ Live version history

    This isn't a critique of the BBC's editorial choices but I am interested in being able to see those choices in public. The BBC site itself doesn't show any version control as each edit overwrites the original at the same URL — this is unique to RSS and that's beautiful and special.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • FAIR ☛ Taibbi Cites Government Attacks on Media to Defend Government Attacks on Media

    The death of former 1960s radical turned right-wing provocateur David Horowitz brought to mind the time he called me “stupid” (Michigan Daily, 9/8/03) because he disliked a column (Michigan Daily, 9/2/03) I wrote about neoconservatism.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Russian reporter facing jail says RSF smuggled her to France

    "I fled — I had no other choice. Journalism no longer exists in Russia," Ukrainian-born Barabash, who faces up to 10 years in prison for criticizing the Russian army, told a news conference at the media watchdog's headquarters in Paris.

    "There is no culture in Russia. There is no politics. It's only war," she said, adding that the very concept of a "Russian journalist" no longer made sense. "There are no Russian journalists," she said. "Journalism cannot exist under totalitarianism."

  • CPJ ☛ 2nd Italian investigative journalist targeted with smartphone spyware

    After local press freedom groups filed a complaint, the Rome prosecutor’s office launched an investigation in March into unauthorized surveillance of journalists and activists.

  • CPJ ☛ 6 media executives convicted in Iran amid crackdown on journalists

    “These systematic attacks are clear examples of censorship, media repression, and obstruction of the free flow of information,” said Sara Qudah, CPJ’s regional director. “We condemn the Iranian authorities’ ongoing persecution of journalists and media outlets, which creates an environment of fear and intimidation.”

  • CPJ ☛ YouTube channel blocked, journalist assaulted, commentators charged after Kashmir attack in India

    On April 29, the Indian government ordered the blocking of the YouTube channel 4PM News Network, which has about 7.3 million subscribers, citing national security and public order. On May 1, 4PM Editor-in-Chief Sanjay Sharma filed a petition with the Supreme Court challenging the government’s order. The Supreme Court has asked the government to respond to Sharma’s petition.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Five Journalists Honoured at 2025 Danish Siddiqui Journalism Awards

    Five journalists received the Danish Siddiqui Journalism Awards 2025 for their impactful reporting across print, digital, broadcast, and photojournalism. The awards ceremony, held at the India International Centre (IIC) on Sunday, honours the legacy of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Danish Siddiqui and celebrates journalism rooted in integrity, courage, and service to the public.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Techdirt ☛ Trump Administration Sets Up ‘Military Zone’ At Texas Border To Bump Up Immigration Arrest Stats

    The latest twist is declaring parts of the homeland to be “military zones.” Last month, the Overton Window was opened, with the Trump Administration declaring a 60-foot wide strip of land on the New Mexico-Mexico border to be a “military zone.”

  • The Texas Tribune ☛ U.S. declares military zone around El Paso to arrest migrants

    Last month, the Pentagon designated a 60-foot-wide strip of land along the New Mexico-Mexico border as a military zone. On Monday, federal prosecutors charged more than two dozen migrants with violating security regulations after the U.S. Army spotted the group approaching the area and alerted Border Patrol agents. That charge is in addition to the charge of entering the U.S. illegally. Both are misdemeanors.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Airport Detentions Have Travelers ‘Freaked Out’

    The anxiety is not limited to immigration lawyers. Ahead of summer travel season, online message boards have been humming with vacation worries and crowd-sourced advice. Users are telling one another to delete social-media accounts on their devices, turn off facial-recognition features to make it harder for officers to gain access, and pack photocopies of their personal documents, such as birth and marriage certificates.

  • ANF News ☛ YPJ: The genocide against Alawites is now being repeated against the Druze

    The statement stressed that "the same genocidal brutality once inflicted on the Alawites by the jihadist system is now being directed at the Druze." The statement noted that HTS, through its "divide et impera" policy, seeks to sow discord among social groups in order to suppress communities that embrace values of freedom and autonomy.

  • La Quadature Du Net ☛ Predictive Policing in France: Against opacity and discrimination, the need for a ban

    As part of a European initiative coordinated by Statewatch, La Quadrature has translated its report on the state of predictive policing in France. In light of the information gathered, and given the dangers these systems carry when they incorporate socio-demographic data as a basis for their recommendations, we call for their ban.

    After documenting back in 2017 the arrival of so-called predictive policing systems, and then being confronted with the lack of up-to-date information and real public debate, we sought to investigate them in more detail. For this report, we have therefore compiled the data available on several predictive policing software systems formerly or currently in use within French police forces. These include: [...]

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • The Atlantic ☛ Starlink Is Elon Musk’s Most Alarming Power Grab

    Musk is clearly imagining a future in which neither his network nor his will can be restrained by the people of this world. But even now, here on Earth, space [Internet] is a big business. Fiber networks cannot extend to every bit of dry land on the planet, and they certainly can’t reach airborne or seaborne vessels. More than 5 million people have already signed up for Starlink, and it is growing rapidly. (You may end up using Starlink when you fly United, for example.) In the not-too-distant future, an expanded version of this system—or one very much like it—could overtake broadband as the [Internet]’s backbone. A decade or two from now, it could be among our most crucial information infrastructure. The majority of our communications, our entertainment, our global commerce, might be beamed back and forth between satellites and the Earth. If Musk continues to dominate the launches that take satellites to space, and the [Internet] services that operate there, he could end up with more power over the human exchange of information than any previous person has ever enjoyed.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • The Nation ☛ Can Spotify Be Stopped?

    If you spend enough time on Spotify, it’s easy to sense, inchoately, that the platform is taking advantage of everyone involved. Maybe it manifests as a feeling of anxiety once you land on the app’s strangely cluttered home screen, where users are bombarded with playlist recommendations, each one apparently more bespoke than the last. (My favorite on my current homepage is “Midori Takada Radio”: I like to imagine a whole commercial radio station spinning her playful, deceptively propulsive ambient compositions around the clock—all Takada, all the time.) Maybe it shows up in the music itself, whether in the familiar, highly patterned melodies and airless production that dominate the relaxation-focused playlists, or in the empty atmosphere that permeates more general-purpose playlists like Lorem. Or maybe there is a feeling that you’ve been sold a bill of goods: How did it come to be so hard to listen to an album on Spotify without the platform inserting unwelcome, unrelated tracks at regular intervals?

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Zimbabwe ☛ Apple Chose Poorly: Dirty App Store Tactics Got Destroyed in Court

  Apple was not just doing this in the EU. In their home country, they had to contend with an Epic Games lawsuit that also alleged they were abusing their monopoly power.

  A ruling was made and Apple was forced to loosen its grip much like in the EU. Apple again complied in a creatively malicious way. This time around it appears they overplayed their hand.

• Mike Rockwell ☛ Apple Updates App Review Guidelines Following Epic Games Ruling

  If they want to have more control over the situation, they should just let us install apps from elsewhere. Even if it’s disabled by default and annoying to enable like it is on the Mac. At least then they’d have something to point to when the government comes knocking. The option is already available on Android and the majority of users still get their apps from the Google Play Store, which is evidence that a change like this on iOS is unlikely to have too much of an impact on Apple’s revenue.

• John Gruber ☛ Daring Fireball: Is Chrome Even a Sellable Asset?

  There are two ways to consider a forced divestiture of Chrome by Google, as the U.S. Department of Justice has, for months now, been requesting after Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled that Google has illegally maintained its monopoly in web search. One is from a business perspective (which I believe is the only perspective considered by the DOJ). The other is from a technical perspective. I don’t think either makes any sense. I’m not talking about whether it’s fair or just that Google be forced to sell Chrome. I’m talking about whether it’s even possible in any practical sense.

• Deccan Chronicle ☛ No Firefox Without Google Search Deal, Says Mozilla’s CFO

  This development in the situation has made Mozilla’s Chief Financial Officer, Eric Mulheim, raise his concerns, stating that this move could drive them out of business. Mulheim explains that Firefox relies heavily on the revenue from its partnership with Google, which pays to be their default search engine on the browser.

• Techdirt ☛ Comcast President Realizes How Their Bullshit Prices/Fees Have Them Losing Customers

  I’ve know this for years and years now. So, likely, have you, along with most of the rest of the public. Comcast’s President, Mike Cavanagh, acknowledged what we’ve all known, seemingly for the first time, on a recent Comcast earnings call.

• Macworld ☛ I [installed] a Reddit client onto my iPhone. I never want to do it again

  The only problem is, it doesn’t exist in the App Store anymore. Apollo was forcibly closed in June 2023 in what some Redditors regarded as a bullying attempt by Reddit HQ to force out competition to the platform’s official iOS app. Like so many others, I was devastated when Apollo shut down. With an ad-free interface and a smoother and more stable experience than the official app, not to mention. tons of quality-of-life features, such as previews of linked images, in-app gestures, a host of customization options—It was the kind of Reddit client that felt like it belonged on an iPhone.

• Copyrights

  • India Times ☛ India panel to review copyright law amid legal challenges to OpenAI

    The memo, which is not public, said the commerce ministry set up a panel of eight experts last month to examine issues related to AI and their implications for India's copyright law. The experts have been tasked to "identify and analyze the legal and policy issues arising from the use of artificial intelligence in the context of copyright," the memo added.