Leftovers

• Matt Webb ☛ Filtered for hats (Interconnected)

  In the middle of the rainbow, at the centre of a radiating star of blue rays: a hat.

  This red hat is a Cap of Liberty a.k.a. the Phrygian cap (Wikipedia), "a soft conical cap with the apex bent over."

• Cory Dransfeldt ☛ A year of tracking my music listening activity

  I've spent the better part of a year tracking the music I listen to day in and day out. The implementation has changed and the players have changed but the data collection, storage and display has been reliable throughout.

• Task And Purpose ☛ Marine sweeps top marksmanship contest for first time since 1959

  Garcia’s path to the top marksmanship awards in the Marine Corps, he said, traces directly back to getting smoked by a senior citizen and a grade schooler.

  “One of the biggest things that went into my improvement was actually learning how to train,” Garcia said. “Actually sitting down and deep-diving into the fundamentals of shooting.”

• Ness Labs ☛ 5 Ways to Come Up with Tiny Experiments

  A tiny experiment isn’t a complete overhaul of your life. It’s a low-risk repeated action you take to learn something new, spark a shift, or test a possibility. It’s how you can make change not only manageable, but fun. Read on if you’d like to try it out but you’re not quite sure how to find good ideas for experiments.

• Coalition for Networked Information ☛ Tribute to Clifford Lynch

  The recording of a tribute to long-time CNI Executive Director Clifford Lynch is now available—the event took place May 2, 2025, on what would have been the last convening of the celebrated “Friday Seminar” at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information. The seminar had been team-led by Lynch and Michael Buckland for over 30 years and was in its final semester at the time of Lynch’s death on April 10th. Lynch’s numerous and varied contributions are shared by many who were close to him, including his spouse Cecilia Preston, Michael Buckland, Joan Lippincott, Erik Mitchell, Lynne Grigsby, Howard Besser and others.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Robot Hand Could Help Scientists Decode Why Tickling Makes Us Giggle

    It's no laughing matter.

  • Futurism ☛ If NASA Had Blown Up This Many Rockets, The Government Would Have Cancelled the Space Program

    "Weren't we NOT blowing up rockets, like, 50 years ago," asked The Verge features editor Sarah Jeong on social media. "Also weren't we like 'ah yeah that was a fail' when the rocket fell apart instead of calling it a 'partial success,'" she asked, referencing Musk's insistence that the latest explosion, as usual, was a "big improvement."

    "I understand the part about the 'cost-savings by outsourcing to theoretically nimbler private sector' and the 'cuts to NASA' but also," Jeong pondered, "the rockets keep exploding. Didn't they used to not explode."

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Strategies to Improve Open Science Monitoring: Lessons from France's OSM initiative

    Since the launch of the Journal Impact Factor half a century ago in 1975, the bibliometric assessment of research outputs has proven a lasting and important — if flawed — method of quantifying impact. When considering new or non-traditional output forms, trying to ascertain their use through mentions in the literature has been a challenging endeavor. While today there are tools to facilitate this process at scale, applying these remains a significant challenge. The work of the French Open Science Monitor Initiative (FOSM) is illustrative of both the work necessary and could point the way to improving the situation across the literature.

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ University system warns of uncertainty as $50 million in federal funds disrupted

    Nearly $50 million in federal funding to Maine’s public university system has been paused, withdrawn, or remains in limbo, leading to layoffs and uncertainty.

    The University of Maine System announced Wednesday that the future of 42 federally funded programs remains uncertain, with some awards terminated, others paused, and some inaccessible despite the university in some cases receiving no official notice of disruption.

  • LabX Media Group ☛ From the Front Lines at Harvard: Battling Trump's Attack on Science

    This initial damage was significant, but we at Harvard have experienced repeated strikes in the weeks that followed. Two weeks ago, the NIH, NSF, DoD, and other government funding agencies terminated their grants to Harvard. This week, the US General Services Administration notified the universities that all government contracts with Harvard will end immediately. This wave of attacks has resulted in the cessation of research on disease mechanisms, abrupt cancellation of ongoing clinical studies, compromise of clinical data repositories, and potentially meaningless euthanasia of multiple non-human primates. These actions were accompanied by proposals to reduce indirect cost reimbursement to 15 percent, which would cover only a fraction of the costs of doing business in science today, and to tax university endowments as much as 21 percent.

• Career/Education

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Long Goodbye to College

    Any recent graduate will tell you that their head felt heaviest after the cap came off. The night after graduation, my friends and I snuck into our freshman-year dorm. We reminisced about our four years together and wrote a message for the dorm’s future inhabitants inside an electrical box in the same living room where we first met. And then the sun came up. I loaded my life into cardboard and loaded that cardboard into a minivan and slid my car window down to wave goodbye to it all. “Thus we launch the schoolboy upon life. Commencement meant commencement; it was the beginning of responsibility. He had to make his own chance now,” the minister Edward E. Hale lamented in an 1893 essay. “His boyhood was over.”

  • New Yorker ☛ Lessons from “Sesame Street”

    “Sesame Street,” which first aired on PBS in 1969, was born of a progressive idea: that children from all socioeconomic backgrounds should have access to free, high-quality, expressly educational entertainment. In the years since, the show has become essential viewing for generations of kids around the world. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the program’s radical origins and the way it has evolved—for better or for worse—over the decades. What do the changes in “Sesame Street” ’s tone and content reveal about how parenting itself has changed? “The way that a children’s program proceeds does give us a hint as to the kinds of people that a society is producing,” Cunningham says. “And childhood is not the same as it was when we were kids.”

  • Wired ☛ Trump’s Crackdown on Foreign Student Visas Could Derail Critical AI Research

    The State Department declined to answer questions from WIRED about changes to its student visa policies. In an unsigned email, the department’s press office said it doesn’t comment on internal communications and noted that the US government has required visa applicants to share information about their social media accounts since 2019.

    Vincent Conitzer, a computer scientist specializing in AI at Carnegie Mellon University, says America’s ability to attract top talent has been an important and long-standing asset for its domestic tech industry, which is already facing growing international competition.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Computer Science: A Popular College Major Faces One of the Highest Unemployment Rates

    For years computer science has attracted students with the promise of high salary and demand. However, the reality of the job market in 2025 tells a different story.

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ Tax the rich to pay for schools? Michigan voters may get chance in 2026

    Advocates want voters to consider a ballot measure in 2026 to raise taxes on the rich to better fund to public schools

• Hardware

  • The Register UK ☛ Trump restricts sales of chip design software to China

    EDA is an umbrella term for software, hardware, and services essential to the planning, design, and production of chips today. Cut off from these software vendors, Chinese chip designers may find it harder to compete with Western rivals.

  • Paweł Grzybek ☛ A month with the ZSA Voyager split keyboard

    A little bit of background. I don’t struggle with RSI or any other discomfort, and I’m an OK typist. Rather slow (50-60 words per minute) but accurate. I can touch type comfortably on the Keychron K3 Pro, which is the keyboard I have been using for the past two years. Pure curiosity and my inner geek won, so I threw a pile of money at ZSA and ordered the black Voyager with tactile brown switches.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Jack Baty ☛ I need the [Internet] out of my head | Baty.net

    I’ve stopped being able to think for myself. I need you all to get out of my head for a minute.

    I often joke that my entire personality is based on the latest YouTube video or blog post I’ve “consumed”. It’s funny, because it’s true.

  • Futurism ☛ Women With Body Image Issues Are Asking ChatGPT Something Terrible

    What's worse: despite years of evidence showing how weird chatbots can get when it comes to providing advice, multiple women in their early 30s told the news outlet that they'd had good experiences getting ChatGPT to critique their looks and bodies.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Why Pilots Don’t Get Therapy

    In this episode of Radio Atlantic, The Atlantic’s Jocelyn Frank reports on the detailed system that may be unintentionally leading pilots to avoid the care that they need, and increasing the risk to passenger safety.

  • Didier Stevens ☛ Quickpost: Airplanes & Radiation

    According to this Wikipedia article, a chest X-ray is equivalent to an effective dose of 0,013 mSv. That’s 13 µSv.

    So a dose of 4 µSv measured during the flights between Brussels and Rome, is about 3 times less than a chest X-ray.

• Proprietary

  • The Register UK ☛ China hacks show they're 'preparing for war': McMaster

    "The Chinese Communist Party is preparing for war in a number of ways," McMaster said, citing a 44-fold increase in China's defense spending since 2000 and its ongoing weapons-systems development.

    "We can connect what we've seen with Volt Typhoon to a broader range of threats, including the massive buildup of their nuclear forces, about a 400 percent increase," McMaster added. "I know it may seem extreme to say this, but I believe that China is developing a first-strike nuclear capability against us, because why else would you want to cripple all of [America's] critical infrastructure, including communications infrastructure."

  • Lusaka ZM ☛ Zambia : Message to Our Valued Lusaka Times Readers

    It has come to our attention that some of the ad networks operating on our site have been serving inappropriate advertisements to our users. We understand how frustrating and disappointing this can be, and we want to assure you that we take this matter very seriously.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • The Conversation ☛ What is AI [sic] slop? Why you are seeing more fake photos and videos in your social media feeds

      While this post has since been removed by the forum’s moderators, Reddit users have repeatedly expressed their frustration with the proliferation of this kind of content.

      High-engagement, AI-generated [sic] posts on Reddit are an example of what is known as “AI slop” – cheap, low-quality AI-generated [sic] content, created and shared by anyone from low-level influencers to coordinated political influence operations.

      Estimates suggest that over half of longer English-language posts on LinkedIn are written by AI. In response to that report, Adam Walkiewicz, a director of product at LinkedIn, told Wired it has “robust defenses in place to proactively identify low-quality and exact or near-exact duplicate content. When we detect such content, we take action to ensure it is not broadly promoted.”

    • The Register UK ☛ Anthropic CEO frets about AI threat to white-collar jobs

      There are many other potential labor risks lurking about, such as the threat of massive tariffs on imported goods in the US, layoffs intended to undo pandemic-era overhiring, and policies that empower employers at the expense of labor.

      But Amodei appears to believe that policymakers are "sugar-coating" the possibility of major AI-driven employment disruption. That's a polite interpretation of the Trump administration's no-questions-asked AI policy, which by executive order tossed Biden-era AI safety rules and has celebrated AI infrastructure deals.

    • The Verge ☛ We still know almost nothing about Tesla’s robotaxi service

      The company is considering June 12th as a possible date to launch its robotaxi service in Austin, Bloomberg reports — though that date could change. Tesla has yet to publicly announce a date, nor has it clarified who will be able to access the vehicles.

      The news comes as CEO Elon Musk said that the company has begun to test vehicles without safety drivers.

    • Manuel Moreale ☛ On Browsers, [slop], and the web

      Now, while I’m here let me tackle a somewhat related issue I’ve been thinking about lately and that is the idea that [slop] is going to become the default layer between users and the web. We all yelled and screamed because the web has too many gatekeepers, we all lamented Google search results going to shit, and we all celebrated when new search engines were coming up. Why would I be happy trading a search result page filled with links—even if ranked in a flawed way—for a block of text that gives me an opinionated answer and maybe some links?

    • Kyle Kingsbury ☛ The Future of Comments is Lies, I Guess

      LLMs seem to be changing these equilibria. Over the last year I’ve seen a new class of comment spam, using what I’m fairly sure is LLM-generated text. These comments make specific, plausible remarks about the contents of posts and images, and work in a link to some web site or mention a product. Take this one I caught a few months back: [...]

    • [Repeat] The Strategist ☛ Uncensored [Slop] models pose an urgent risk to global security

      The danger lies not just in what these models can produce, but in how easily they can be accessed. Many are hosted on widely used platforms that host legitimate tools and research and sit at the forefront of [Slop] development, such as Hugging Face, GitHub and Ollama. Uncensored models can be downloaded with just a few clicks. A simple search on such platforms for ‘uncensored’ reveals models that have collectively been downloaded millions of times—with no vetting, oversight or accountability to ensure they are not used with the intent to cause harm.

    • India Times ☛ AI could cut half of all entry-level white collar jobs: Anthropic CEO

      Amodei, who leads one of the world's largest [SLOP] companies, has warned that significant job cuts could occur within five years, urging consumers and US lawmakers to prepare, according to Axios. He also criticised the government and other [SLOP] companies for "sugar-coating" the coming reality: the potential for mass job eliminations across various white-collar professions, particularly at the entry level, including technology, finance, law, and consulting.

    • The Atlantic ☛ A Reality Check for Tech Oligarchs

      Perhaps the most extreme version of this nightmare is the specter of an artificial superintelligence, or AGI (artificial general intelligence). Yudkowsky predicts to Becker that a sufficiently advanced AI, if misaligned with human values, would “kill us all.”​ Forecasts for this type of technology, once fringe, have gained remarkable traction among tech leaders, and almost always trend to the stunningly optimistic. Sam Altman is admittedly concerned about the prospects of rogue AI—he famously admitted to having stockpiled “guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to”—but these worries don’t stop him from actively planning for a world reshaped by AI’s exponential growth. In Altman’s words, we live on the brink of a moment in which machines will do “almost everything” and trigger societal changes so rapid that “the future can be almost unimaginably great.” Becker is less sanguine, writing that “we just don’t know what it will take to build a machine to do all the things a human can do.” And from his point of view, it’s best that things remain that way.

    • The Register UK ☛ AI model collapse is not what we paid for

      Welcome to Garbage In/Garbage Out (GIGO). Formally, in AI circles, this is known as AI model collapse. In an AI model collapse, AI systems, which are trained on their own outputs, gradually lose accuracy, diversity, and reliability. This occurs because errors compound across successive model generations, leading to distorted data distributions and "irreversible defects" in performance. The final result? A Nature 2024 paper stated, "The model becomes poisoned with its own projection of reality."

      Model collapse is the result of three different factors. The first is error accumulation, in which each model generation inherits and amplifies flaws from previous versions, causing outputs to drift from original data patterns. Next, there is the loss of tail data: In this, rare events are erased from training data, and eventually, entire concepts are blurred. Finally, feedback loops reinforce narrow patterns, creating repetitive text or biased recommendations.

    • The Register UK ☛ OpenAI model modifies own shutdown script, say researchers

      In a thread published on X, the microblogging site once known as Twitter, Palisade Research said the o3 model could sabotage its shutdown mechanism to prevent itself from being turned off.

      "It did this even when explicitly instructed: allow yourself to be shut down," the post said.

    • 404 Media ☛ No One Knows How to Deal With 'Student-on-Student' AI CSAM

      A new report from Stanford finds that schools, parents, police, and our legal system are not prepared to deal with the growing problem of minors using AI to generate CSAM of other minors.

    • Declan Chidlow ☛ Advising Reasonable AI Criticism

      On the AI spectrum, I attempt to be realistic about application and usage. This article sways more towards advising constructive input from AI haters because those are the people I have most frequently had negative run-ins with. In the communities I frequent, they are more vocal and, in my opinion, have the most to gain from expressing their criticism with further nuance. My intent with this article is not to insult or belittle, and I’d appreciate if you didn’t misuse this article to do so.

  • Social Control Media

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Unmasking big tobacco's youth marketing playbook

      This year's theme, "Unmasking the Appeal: Exposing Industry Tactics on Tobacco and Nicotine Products," highlights tobacco industry tactics that increase the appeal of its products, particularly to young people.

      Ollie Ganz, assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health (SPH), and Olivia Wackowski, associate professor at Rutgers SPH, both researchers at the Rutgers Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies, explore key tobacco marketing themes and platforms and discuss the effects of tobacco marketing on consumer perceptions.

    • Vox ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] The internet is littered with advice. What’s it doing to your brain?

    • Make Tech Easier ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Why You Shouldn’t Believe TikTok Videos Promising Free Premium Apps

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Krebs On Security ☛ U.S. Sanctions Cloud Provider ‘Funnull’ as Top Source of ‘Pig Butchering’ Scams

      The U.S. government today imposed economic sanctions on Funnull Technology Inc., a Philippines-based company that provides computer infrastructure for hundreds of thousands of websites involved in virtual currency investment scams known as “pig butchering.” In January 2025, KrebsOnSecurity detailed how Funnull was being used as a content delivery network that catered to cybercriminals seeking to route their traffic through U.S.-based cloud providers.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Digital Payment Volume Up 35% In FY25

      During 2024-25, total digital payments recorded growth of 34.8 percent and 17.9 per cent in volume and value terms, respectively. Moreover, the success of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) placed India in a leadership position with a share of 48.5 per cent in global real-time payments by volume said the RBI Annual Report FY25 released on Thursday. UPI accounted for a massive 84 per cent of all retail

    • EPIC ☛ EPIC Applauds Passage of Vermont Age-Appropriate Design Code – EPIC – Electronic Privacy Information Center

      Today, the Vermont Legislature passed the Vermont Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC). The Vermont AADC protects kids’ privacy, enhances kids’ autonomy, and ensures their online safety by prohibiting abusive data and design practices. The bill now awaits the Governor’s approval.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Judge OKs DOGE [sic] access to Treasury payment systems

      In Tuesday’s order, Vargas wrote that the court “determined that Thomas Krause, Linda Whitridge, Samuel Corcos, and Todd Newnam have satisfied the conditions to be carved out of the definition of Restricted Personnel” and that “they shall be permitted access to Treasury Payment Systems on the same terms as Wunderly.” Corcos is now serving as Treasury’s chief information officer.

    • The Register UK ☛ Palantir AI shows up at Fannie Mae to fight mortgage fraud

      The announcement of the deal didn't include many details, and we didn't get responses to questions from either Palantir or Fannie Mae. But Almodovar, Palantir CEO Alex Karp, and Federal Housing Finance Agency (Fannie Mae's federal government conservator) director Bill Pulte shared a bit more information at a press conference yesterday.

    • Techdirt ☛ Senator Wyden: U.S. Wireless Carriers Fail Utterly To Inform Consumers (Or Senators) About Government Surveillance

      As a result, companies like T-Mobile have been hacked five times in an eight year span. Telecoms and app makers routinely over-collect sensitive behavior and location data, then sell access to any random idiot with a few nickels to rub together. And, more recently, wireless providers experienced the worst hack in U.S. telecom history after Chinese hackers exploited lax security and weak U.S. regulatory oversight to spy on high-profile targets.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Surveillance Via Smart Toothbrush - Schneier on Security

  • Confidentiality

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Post-Quantum Cryptography Migration Should Start Now

      As estimates of the quantum computing power needed to crack current public key encryption algorithms continue to drop, a group of technology companies and organizations is urging users to begin migrating toward post-quantum cryptographic standards now.

      To help organizations with the transition to post-quantum cryptography, the Post-Quantum Cryptography Coalition (PQCC) released a migration roadmap today to guide companies through the phases of that journey.

    • David Rosenthal ☛ The $740B Prize

      They don't provide an estimate for Bitcoin's ECDSA but, like RSA, the ECDSA algorithm is a derivative of Schor's algorithm.

      So there's nothing to worry about, right? NIST has specified the algorithms, quantum computers need to get 1000 times better before they can crack a single RSA key in a week, and NIST says we have 5 years before there's a problem.

    • The Record ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Russian hospital programmer gets 14 years for leaking soldier data to Ukraine

• Defence/Aggression

  • RFERL ☛ As US Ends Protected Status For Afghans, Thousands Face Deportation And Persecution

    The United States has announced it will end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghans, a move that will leave thousands at risk of deportation to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

  • Task And Purpose ☛ Recon Marine legend may finally get the Medal of Honor

    “That was 1967, and the world was a lot different in those days,” Capers replied. “The Marine Corps had been integrated in 1948, as a matter of fact, so we still had officers who commanded us that didn’t quite understand all the things that we needed as African Americans. We could fight. We could lead. We could get it all done. But the leaders didn’t see us as equals.”

  • C4ISRNET ☛ Hegseth cuts Pentagon’s testing office in half, appoints new leader

    The reduction would amounts to a more than 50% cut to the office, a defense official told Defense News. Prior to the reorganization order, the office was staffed with 94 personnel — 82 civilians and 12 military members. The department estimates the changes will save more than $300 million annually.

  • Wired ☛ A Swedish MMA Tournament Spotlights the Trump Administration's Handling of Far-Right Terrorism

    According to Swedish and American researchers, Tvåsaxe is aligned with the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM), a pan-Scandinavian neo-Nazi group that was designated as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist Group” by the American State Department in summer 2024.

    Counterterrorism sanctions bar Americans from associating with or providing support to listed groups; ban members from banking, owning property, or conducting business with American financial institutions; and expose anyone found associating with or supporting the sanctioned entity to possible criminal charges.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Debt We Owe the Dead

    Each headstone represents a life that could have been lived differently. Someone who could have stayed home, looked the other way, decided it wasn't their problem. But they didn't. They understood something our current crop of would-be autocrats will never grasp: that freedom isn't free, that democracy isn't a luxury for the comfortable, and that self-governance is worth dying for.

  • The Strategist ☛ Circuit boards must be trusted. So we’d better make them in Australia

    Every secure system, from missile guidance to a water treatment controller, shares an essential part: the printed circuit board (PCB). These boards form the skeleton of modern electronics. Australia no longer has the means to fabricate them at scale, let alone verify their integrity.

    Without this capability Australia puts its defence and research at risk. But if it could make PCBs, it would have less exposure to loss of supply, an ability to get new designs faster, and end-to-end security in design, fabrication and deployment.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Turkey's Erdogan rewriting constitution to stay in power? Here's what we know

    As per the current constitution, a Turkish president can stay in office for two consecutive five-year terms. Erdogan is currently serving his third term.

  • New Yorker ☛ The Supreme Court Undercuts Another Check on Executive Power

    In leaping to defend the Trump Administration, the Court conveniently ignored a long-established precedent that prevented Presidents from firing independent-agency heads at will.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ A warming planet is poised to get even hotter, forecasters warn

    Though the hottest year in nearly two centuries was recorded only last year, the world will probably shatter that record yet again by 2029, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization, the climate and weather arm of the United Nations.

    There is a very good chance that average warming over the next five years will be more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.5 degrees Celsius, above preindustrial levels, the cap established by the Paris Agreement to ward off the worst consequences of climate change. There’s an even better chance that at least one of those years will be more than 2.7 degrees above the 1850 to 1900 average.

  • [Repeat] Science Alert ☛ UN Warns: High Odds We'll Exceed 1.5°C Temp Rise by 2029

    The planet is therefore expected to remain at historic levels of warming after the two hottest years ever recorded in 2023 and 2024, according to an annual climate report published by the World Meteorological Organization, the UN's weather and climate agency.

    "We have just experienced the 10 warmest years on record," said the WMO's deputy secretary-general Ko Barrett.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Debt, a Tool for Crushing Democracy

    On both sides of the Atlantic, the political momentum behind an increasingly libertarian far right points toward draconian spending cuts and tax breaks — threatening major turmoil for state finances and social welfare systems. Lemoine argues that what is being revived is the use of debt as a political “technology” to discipline society, burying the “silent revolution” in debt and monetary policy that occurred just a few years ago to allow pandemic-era deficit spending.

    A sociologist at the École Normale Supérieure, Lemoine is the author of L’ordre de la dette and La démocratie discipliné par la dette. A translation of his most recent book, Chasseurs d’États, is forthcoming from Zone Books.

    In an interview, Lemoine sat down with Jacobin’s Harrison Stetler for an extended discussion on monetary policy and the politics of sovereign debt.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Global Heat to Break Records, Exceed 1.5°C: UN Forecast

    “Higher global mean temperatures may sound abstract, but it translates in real life to a higher chance of extreme weather: stronger hurricanes, stronger precipitation, droughts,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, who wasn’t part of the calculations but said they made sense. “So higher global mean temperatures translates to more lives lost.”

  • CBC ☛ Forecast for the next 5 years? Record-breakingly hot, UN weather agency says

    Arctic warming at more than 3.5 times the global rate

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Zelenskyy Visits Berlin as He Seeks More Support for Ukraine's Defense as Russia Steps up Attacks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Many Ukrainians Baulk at Conceding Land to Russia, Entangling Nascent Peace Process

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Russia Detains French Man Who Entered Country on a Paddle Board

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Russia to Announce Next Talks With Ukraine Soon, Lavrov Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Three People Injured in Russian Attack on Central Ukraine, Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Ukraine Protests to IAEA Over Russia Building Power Lines to Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] US and Russia Clash in Public as the Ukraine War Heats Up

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Russia Masses Over 50,000 Troops for Offensive on Northeastern Ukraine, Zelenskiy Says

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-27 [Older] EU, UK push for lowering Russian oil price cap amid US reticence

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-27 [Older] More Than 200 Ukrainian POWs Have Died in Russian Prisons. This Is One Soldier's Story

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-27 [Older] Takeaways From AP Report on Ukrainian POWs Dying in Russian Prisons

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-27 [Older] Three People Injured in Russian Attacks in Ukraine's South, Southeast, Officials Says

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] 4 Russians suspected of supporting IS on trial in Germany

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Finland summons Russian ambassador over alleged air breach

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Nord Stream: Could Germany return to Russian gas imports?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Russians suspected of supporting IS on trial in Germany

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] President Donald Cheeto Mussolini Says Russian Leader Vladimir Putin 'Has Gone Absolutely CRAZY!'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Exclusive-Russia Does Not See Vatican as a Serious Arena for Peace Talks, Sources Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] At Commemoration of Dayton Peace Accords, NATO Leader Urges Military Spending to Counter Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Finland Summons Russian Ambassador Over Suspected Airspace Violation

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Kremlin Rejects Accusations of Russian Involvement in UK Arson Attacks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Kremlin Says Work Is Continuing on Russian Draft of Peace Memorandum

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Recent Ukraine Attacks Prove Russia Not Interested in Peace, Denmark Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Russia Attacks Ukraine for Third Night in a Row, Ukrainian Officials Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Russia Denies Involvement in Arson at Properties Linked to UK Prime Minister Starmer

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Russia Says It Downs 96 Ukrainian Drones, Some Moscow Airports Halt Flights

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Russia Sent a Record Number of Drones Into Ukraine as Cheeto Mussolini Says Putin Has 'Gone Crazy'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Says Putin Has 'Gone Absolutely CRAZY', Considering More Sanctions on Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Ukraine Confirmed Chinese Supplies to 20 Russian Military Plants, Intelligence Chief Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Ukrainian Governor Says Russian Forces Capture Four Villages in Sumy

    • Vox ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Why we need a Memorial Day for civilian victims of war

    • CBC ☛ 2025-05-25 [Older] Russia unleashes its largest air attack of war, killing at least 12, Ukraine says

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-25 [Older] Ukraine and Russia: Will the Vatican become a mediator to end the war?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-25 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russian strikes hit Kyiv, western region

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-25 [Older] Russia Says Ukrainian Drones Intercepted, Some Near Moscow

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-25 [Older] German Minister: More Sanctions Against Russia Needed, Deep Concern About Gaza

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-25 [Older] Russia and Ukraine Swap Hundreds of Prisoners, Hours After Moscow's Largest Missile-And-Drone Attack

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-25 [Older] Russia and Ukraine Complete Largest Prisoner Swap

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-24 [Older] Russian drone, missile attack injures several — Kyiv mayor

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-24 [Older] Ukraine, Russia swap hundreds more POWs

    • The Age AU ☛ 2025-05-24 [Older] Russia, Ukraine each free first 390 prisoners in start of war’s biggest swap

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-24 [Older] Russia and Ukraine Swap Hundreds More Prisoners Hours After a Massive Attack on Kyiv

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-24 [Older] Russia and Ukraine Swap 307 Soldiers on Second Day of POW Exchange

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-24 [Older] Russia Launches War's Largest Air Attack on Ukraine, Kills at Least 12 People

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-24 [Older] Russia Says It Captures 3 More Settlements in East Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-24 [Older] Ukraine Says 307 Soldiers Return Home in POW Swap With Russia

    • CBC ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Ukraine, Russia begin what is expected to be largest prisoner swap since 2022 invasion

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Ukraine, Russia carry out biggest-ever prisoner swap

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Finland Says Two Russian Military Aircraft Suspected of Violating Its Airspace

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Ukraine Says 15 People Hurt in 'Massive' Russian Attack on Capital

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Polish Air Forces Intercepted Russian SU-24 Aircraft, Minister Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Putin Says He Wants Boost to Russian Arms Exports

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Russia Court Jails Russian-Italian Man for 29 Years Over Ukraine-Backed 'Act of Terror', RIA Reports

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Russians Pay Last Respects to Ballet Maestro Grigorovich

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Russia Vows Retaliation After Ukrainian Drone Strikes, but Reaffirms Commitment to Peace Talks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Russia and Ukraine Swap Hundreds of Prisoners in First Phase of a Major Exchange

    • 2025-05-22 [Older] Russian national and leader of Qakbot malware conspiracy indicted in long-running global ransomware scheme

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy and Merz hold talks in Berlin

    • The Local SE ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Petition urges Sweden to secure Ukrainians' right to stay in the country

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Exclusive-Putin, for Ukraine Peace, Wants a Pledge to Halt NATO Enlargement, Sources Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Lands in Berlin for Talks With Merz on Ending the War

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Zelenskiy Says Ukraine Reaches Defence Sector Accords With Germany

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-27 [Older] Germany updates: Merz elaborates on Ukraine, Gaza policies

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Germany's Merz: No more range limits for weapons to Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Ukraine updates: Cheeto Mussolini says Putin is 'crazy' after Kyiv strikes

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Germany's Merz Says There Are No More Range Restrictions on the Weapons Supplied to Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Kremlin Says Enhanced Missile Range for Ukraine Would Be Dangerous

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Uncertainties Over Cheeto Mussolini, Ukraine Loom Large Ahead of Asian Defence Meeting

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-05-25 [Older] Netherlands to send final F-16 fighter jet to Ukraine Monday, fulfilling 24-jet pledge

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-25 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Says He Is Not Happy With Putin for Bombing Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] U.S.-Based Ukrainian Says He Completed Everest Climb From Sea Level to Summit in Four Days

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Techdirt ☛ Trump Administration Tells Supreme Court DOGE Can’t Be FOIAed

    Trump’s love for DOGE has managed to undercut the protections DOGE hoped it would be able to avail itself of when the FOIA requests began pouring in and the discovery demands started hitting federal dockets.

    The administration is now attempting a Hail Mary play, albeit one that hails Thomas and Alito (and possibly, Roberts), rather than the patron saint it’s named after. Given the makeup of this current court, it probably has a far better chance of success than simply hurling the ball into the air and hoping someone on their own team manages to come down with it. (And, indeed, it has already scored a temporary stay, thanks to an emergency order issued by Chief Justice John Roberts.)

    Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has been suing DOGE ever since it rejected its FOIA requests for the agency’s operational documents. The Trump Administration is now fighting back, albeit with at least one hand inadvertently tied behind its back, as Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney report for Politico: [...]

  • SANS ☛ Usage of "passwd" Command in DShield Honeypots

    Something that was interesting when previously reviewing the data was how many different kinds of password change attempts happened on honeypots. This was one of the reasons that I tried to do clustering in the first place. I wanted to be able to group similar commands, even if there were deviations, such as the username and password attempted for a password change command.

    A summary of the data volume for submitted commands ("input" field in Cowrie data): [...]

  • Federal News Network ☛ What whistleblowers should consider before filing a report

    "In the first hundred days, we saw essentially an attack on whistleblower rights that was unparalleled," said whistleblower attorney Stephen Kohn.

  • TruthOut ☛ Trump Invited Traders With Nazi-Linked Tokens to Private Meme Coin Dinner

    The event is also one of many shows of Trump’s penchant for naked corruption, as many critics say, with Trump allowing wealthy people and entities to buy access to the presidency or even legal favors.

• Environment

  • Deseret Media ☛ Swiss glacier collapses, destroying 90% of Alpine village

    Swiss glaciologists have repeatedly expressed concerns about a thaw in recent years — attributed in large part to global warming — that has accelerated the retreat of glaciers in Switzerland.

    The landlocked Alpine country has the most glaciers of any country in Europe, and saw 4% of its total glacier volume disappear in 2023. That was the second-biggest decline in a single year after a 6% drop in 2022.

    [...] The regional government said in a statement that a large chunk of the Birch Glacier above the village had broken off, causing the landslide, which also buried the nearby Lonza River bed, raising the possibility of dammed water flows.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Verge ☛ [SLOP] could consume more power than Bitcoin by the end of 2025

      [SLOP] already accounts for up to a fifth of the electricity that data centers use, according to de Vries-Gao. It’s a tricky number to pin down without big tech companies sharing data specifically on how much energy their AI models consume. De Vries-Gao had to make projections based on the supply chain for specialized computer chips used for AI. He and other researchers trying to understand [SLOP]’s energy consumption have found, however, that its appetite is growing despite efficiency gains — and at a fast enough clip to warrant more scrutiny.

    • AJ Bourg ☛ An update on electric driving

      The Ioniq 5 was the car I wanted the first time we were shopping, and in the intervening couple of years, they have become much more readily available. As I wrote about last year, I prefer used cars thanks to depreciation, and we actually had a reasonable selection of used Ioniqs across the Denver metro area available. I highly recommend this route — it saved us a bundle on a car that literally only had 400 miles — so was effectively brand new.

      The Ioniq 5 solved all the things I didn’t like about the Kona

    • YLE ☛ First of VR's new-look local trains arrives in Finland

      The company has previously said that the new SM7-class commuter trains are 50 percent more energy efficient than VR's existing commuter train rolling stock. The company has also said that the new trains will operate on the D, R, T, Z and M lines.

    • [Repeat] Trail of Bits ☛ The Custodial Stablecoin Rekt Test

      In the past, Trail of Bits introduced “the Rekt Test” as a simple framework for assessing the basic security posture of blockchain projects. Building on that philosophy, this post will introduce a Rekt Test for custodial stablecoin issuers, focusing on the specific risks issuers face and offering a set of due diligence questions to help evaluate an issuer’s operational resilience.

    • Olaf Alders ☛ Battery Power-Ups: Enhancing SketchyBar with "is"

      These subcommands are a thin wrapper around distatus/battery, but they follow the patterns of the other is subcommands.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Science Alert ☛ Study Reveals How Your Cat Remembers Who You Are

      The study also found a tendency for cats to sniff familiar scents with their left nostril, while unknown scents were more often sniffed using their right. But when cats became familiar with a scent after sniffing for a while, they switched nostrils from the right to the left.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Register UK ☛ US to deny visas to foreign officials who 'censor' tech firm

    It was reported that MPs in Britain's Parliament were to summon X owner Elon Musk to testify about his platform's role in the riots, as part of an investigation into whether the business models of big tech companies "encourage the spread of content that can mislead and harm".

  • Harvard University ☛ Hey, you, hold onto your humanity. You’ll thank me later.

    OK, Harvard graduates. Listen. Many of you want to be doctors and lawyers and researchers and benefit the world in some large way. I’m not talking to you. But the odds are non-zero that somebody currently graduating will be the one guy who makes a ludicrous, cartoonish amount of money and the world worse (that’s zeugma! I was an English concentrator). This is addressed to him, just on the off chance that he is reading the Harvard Gazette. I want to answer the question I am sure is already plaguing him: After the cataclysmic Event happens that unravels society and sends me scurrying to my luxury bunker, how do I keep my guards loyal?

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Moscow Times ☛ In Occupied Ukraine, the Kremlin Is Grooming the Next Generation of Pro-Russian Bloggers

      MediaAttraction schools have since opened in Mariupol, Henichesk, Donetsk, Luhansk and other occupied cities, in what experts say is a state initiative to mint Kremlin-loyal bloggers and correspondents in the occupied regions.

    • LRT ☛ Cybersecurity report records more attacks against Lithuania

      The military says these came from Russian and Belarusian officials, politicians, military leaders and state-controlled media.

      According to the report, disinformation efforts increasingly focused on Lithuania’s support for Ukraine. Narratives portrayed NATO as an aggressive military bloc and Lithuania as a Russophobic country. There were also efforts to discredit Lithuania’s defence and downplay the importance of the German brigade’s deployment.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Techdirt ☛ Rubio Announces Ban On Foreign ‘Censors’ Coming To The US, While Simultaneously Having Students Kidnapped For Their Speech

    So when Rubio positions himself as a free speech champion, it’s worth examining what he’s actually doing versus what he’s claiming to oppose.

  • Techdirt ☛ Fifth Circuit: Fuck It, The Censors Can Control Public Libraries

    That summation greatly oversimplifies things, but if all you’re going to read is a headline, it will have to do.

    We’ll dig in deeper into the Fifth Circuit’s second attempt to handle content moderation vis-a-vis public libraries, but first, we’ll take a look back to what happened last year.

  • Variety ☛ Trump Files Motion to Deny Paramount Dismissal of '60 Minutes' Lawsuit

    Paramount offered $15 million settlement, which president's legal team rejected, according to WSJ report

  • Freedom From Religion Foundation ☛ FFRF Sued by OK State Dept. of Ed. for Advocacy Letters

    In March 2025, State Superintendent Ryan Walters and the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) filed a “SLAPP” suit against FFRF. This appears to be in response to letters FFRF sent to public schools in Oklahoma objecting to school-sponsored religious activities. A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) is used to weaponize the legal system to punish and silence constitutionally protected speech.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • RFERL ☛ RFE/RL Journalist Mehralizada's Year In Prison Highlights Azerbaijan's Attacks On Independent Media

    As a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Farid Mehralizada became known for his analytical work that systematically debunked state propaganda in Azerbaijan. For the last year, it's all he's heard.

    Mehralizada, a trained economist, was arrested on May 30, 2024, when security agents jumped him, put a hood over his head, and whispered in his ear, "You talk too much."

  • The Dissenter ☛ Journalist Sues Ex-LA County Sheriff For Retaliation

    “The misconduct exhibited by the Sheriff’s Department has caused significant harm to Ms. Lau and the freedom of the press,” according to the complaint [PDF], filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. “If LASD’s actions are left unredressed, journalists in Los Angeles will be chilled from reporting on matters of public concern out of fear that they will be investigated and prosecuted.”

    Lau said in a released statement that she was pursuing the lawsuit not just for her own sake but also to “send a clear signal in the name of reporters everywhere: We will not be intimidated. The Sheriff’s Department needs to know that these kinds of tactics against journalists are illegal.”

  • CPJ ☛ Female politicians use meritless lawsuits to censor journalists in Mexico, lawyer says

    Such vexatious lawsuits are an increasingly popular tool for Mexican politicians to censor critical journalism, and CPJ has documented their use since 2016, when a court in Mexico City eliminated the maximum compensation plaintiffs could sue for in moral damages suits. Over the past five years, at least 158 journalists faced libel suits, according to the office in Mexico of Article 19, a London-based advocacy group and CPJ partner organization.

    It’s a global trend. In Europe and the United States, Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation, commonly known as SLAPPs, are widely used as retaliatory measures to intimidate journalists and suppress public interest reporting.

  • Meduza ☛ ‘There’s no such thing as safety’ In Russia, journalists must either adapt to censorship or risk their freedom. So why do they keep reporting?

    In April 2025, Kommersant journalist Alexander Chernykh declined the most prestigious independent prize recognizing Russian journalism, Redkollegia. He’d won the award for a report from Russia’s Kursk region, which had recently spent more than seven months under partial Ukrainian occupation. In a statement explaining his decision, Chernykh — who regularly reports from the Russian side of the front line, a zone legally off-limits to exiled media — criticized the award’s jury for what he sees as its obvious partiality towards outlets operating outside of Russia. The distinction between “independent” and “censored” outlets, he argued, downplays the work of journalists who continue to report from within Russia.

  • JURIST ☛ NPR and local stations sue Trump for halting federal funding to public media

    NPR and the local stations claim the order violates the fundamental principles of the First Amendment and argue that the true purpose of the action is vindictive. Plaintiffs claim President Trump views NPR negatively and reference his “antipathy toward NPR’s news coverage and editorial choices.” They argue: [...]

  • [Repeat] Press Gazette ☛ South London Press closes down after 160 years covering UK capital

    The sale had saved the title when it went into administration about 18 months after a management buyout. Its owner before that was Tindle Newspapers, which had owned it since 2007, and previously it had been under Trinity Mirror.

    The South London Press was founded in 1865 by James Henderson, who also started other newspapers and magazines including the Evening Mercury, and first sold in 1907.

  • CPJ ☛ Indian journalist assaulted reporting on construction irregularities in Odisha

    “Journalist Bijay Pradhan’s brutal attack is yet another grave reminder of the growing dangers faced by local journalists across India, particularly those targeted in the eastern state of Odisha,” said CPJ India Representative Kunāl Majumder. “Authorities must ensure a swift and impartial investigation and bring those responsible to justice.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Atlantic Council ☛ How the Taliban is using law for gender apartheid, and how to push back

    So far, the Taliban has adopted more than two hundred decrees targeting women and girls. The bans and restrictions affect all aspects of life—from banning girls’ education past the seventh grade and limiting women’s employment to curtailing their freedom of movement and social engagement. To implement these decrees, Taliban authorities exercise broad discretionary powers to interpret and enforce the law, relying on a range of extrajudicial methods such as physical coercion, social control, and public intimidation.

    In effect, the Taliban regime has employed the instruments of lawmaking and law enforcement to establish a system of control and oppression of women that amounts to gender apartheid. The system was reinforced with the adoption of the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Law on August 21, 2024. While women’s rights and freedoms were already curtailed by earlier Taliban decrees, the adoption and implementation of this law has had far-reaching consequences, stripping women of even more basic rights and personal autonomy and exacerbating their economic dependence and social isolation.

  • Futurism ☛ AI Is Destroying Gen Z's Chances at a Stable Career

    In 1986, an inventor named David Humble rolled out the first self-checkout machine to a Kroger outside of Atlanta. It was a watershed moment for shop owners at the time, who hoped to "increase store profits" and "alleviate labor shortages" — another way to say "avoid hiring workers above the national minimum wage," which was then $3.35 per hour, and just $7.25 today.

  • Advance Local Media LLC ☛ The Supreme Court rejects a plea to block a copper mine on land in Arizona that’s sacred to Apaches

    The justices left in place lower court decisions allowing the transfer of the Tonto National Forest land, known as Oak Flat, to Resolution Copper, which plans to mine what it says is the second-largest known copper deposit in the world.

  • Kevin Lawver ☛ Racing Robots

    After World War II, a whole generation entered the middle class thanks to the need for skilled labor to build our industrial future. Factories were humming. Unions were organized and fought for their members. Public highway and other construction projects kept millions of people busy. It was possible for someone who was just willing to work hard and learn a skill to enter, and stay in, the middle class without a college degree. A lot of Americans think it’s somehow possible to go back to that glorious industrial paradise, that we can somehow put all those people back to work in factories that either no longer exist, or have been completely re-staffed with robots.

    That’s not going to happen. Those days are gone. China didn’t steal all those jobs – robots did. And it’s not just the factories. Wal-Mart’s wholesale destruction of Main Street? Robots. Amazon’s annihilation of small bookstores? You guessed it, robots again.

  • Anil Dash ☛ The Internet of Consent

    The concept of consent doesn’t exist on the modern internet. You didn’t read the terms of service. You didn’t agree to accept cookies. I didn’t consent to having my site pulled into the training model for that artificial intelligence system that’s going to use to sell the fruit of my labor for profit. I didn’t agree to have my activity tracked across all these different websites and cobbled together into a creepy and inaccurate profile of my preferences that gets sold without my permission. Nobody asks for anything, they just take it. There’s not even an acknowledgement, that any of this stuff is happening let alone a conversation about it.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Macworld ☛ Apple is reportedly dropping support for nearly every Intel Mac this year

    What’s notable about the list is that the most recent Intel MacBook Air and Mac mini models, and the iMac Pro are not on it. Three Intel Mac models do make the list: the 2019 MacBook Pro, the 2020 5K iMac, and the 2019 Mac Pro.

  • [Old] FastPix Inc ☛ DRM Explained: How Digital Rights Management Protects Your Videos

    At its core, DRM works by encrypting your video content and issuing decryption keys only to users who are allowed to watch. Here’s how that process typically plays out: [...]

  • [Old] 9to5Mac ☛ iOS 16 breaks DRM content playback when using HDMI adapters

    A few months ago, many users noticed that AirPlay on older Apple TV models no longer works with DRM-restricted content after the iOS 16 update. However, it seems that the problem goes far beyond that, as there are reports that such content can no longer be played using HDMI adapters as well.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Rodrigo Ghedin ☛ Billions of AI users

  It’s very easy to reach enormous numbers when you already have a giant platform. I don’t think that’s even part of the discussion. The issue is trumpeting these numbers as if they were earned, rather than imposed.

• Nick Heer ☛ Judge Dismisses 2021 Rumble Antitrust Suit Against Google on Statute of Limitations Grounds

  Rumble is dishonest and irritating, but I thought its case in which it argued Google engages in self-preferencing could be interesting. It seems to rank YouTube videos more highly than those from other sources. This can be explained by YouTube’s overwhelming popularity — it consistently ranks in the top ten web services according to Cloudflare — yet I can see anyone’s discomfort in taking Google’s word for it, since it has misrepresented its ranking criteria.

• The Register UK ☛ Apple has only 30 days to comply with EU DMA rules

  The ruling [PDF] makes clear that Apple's App Store rules still fall short of DMA requirements. If it doesn't comply within the next 30 days, it risks having to make additional periodic penalty payments for as long as it remains out of compliance.

  The EC decision, which it laid down last month, fined Apple €500 million ($570 million) for App Store Guidelines that prohibited developers from "steering" customers to alternative payment options.

• Copyrights

  • Futurism ☛ Legendary Facebook Exec Scoffs, Says AI Could Never Be Profitable If Tech Companies Had to Ask for Artists' Consent to Ingest Their Work

    "I just don’t know how you go around, asking everyone first," Clegg said during a speech to promote his new book, ironically titled "How to Save The Internet," that took place at this year's Charleston Festival in East Sussex, England. "I just don’t see how that would work."

    The former deputy prime minister then added that if AI companies were required only in Britain to gain permission to use copyright holders' works, "you would basically kill the AI industry in this country overnight."

  • Federal News Network ☛ Judge refuses to temporarily block the Trump administration from removing Copyright Office director

    U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ruled from the bench that the office director, Shira Perlmutter, hasn’t met her legal burden to show how removing her from the position would cause her to suffer irreparable harm.

    Kelly’s refusal to issue a temporary restraining order isn’t the final word in the lawsuit that Perlmutter filed last week. If Perlmutter decides to seek a preliminary injunction, the judge is giving her attorneys and government lawyers until Thursday afternoon to present him with a proposed schedule for arguing and deciding the matter.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Pirate IPTV Consumed By 30% of Swedes, Including 50% of Men Under 35

    The results of the latest consumer surveys, carried out by Mediavision in the Nordic countries, are a mixed bag of bad news, and slightly less bad news. On one hand, consumption of pirate IPTV services in Sweden has dropped two points, from 16% of all households in 2024 to 14% in 2025. On the other, 30% of over 15-year-olds consume content illegally every month, a figure that rises to over 50% among men under 35.