Leftovers

• [Old] Columbia University ☛ Netnews: The Origin Story

  Abstract—Netnews, sometimes called Usenet, was arguably the first social network. Quarterman describes it as “one of the oldest cooperative networks”. It had a profound influence on online socializing, including helping to give to the world the current slang meanings of words such as “spam” , “troll”, and “flame”. It was where many technologies we now take for granted were first announced, including Linux, the World Wide Web, and the graphical web browser. But its design was a function of both its design goals and the technological context of the time. I describe those and a variety of other early design decisions, those which were right, those which were wrong, and those which were inevitable.

  Index Terms—Netnews, Usenet, Dial-up networking, Social network

• Terence Eden ☛ What is a “Cyber Attack”?

  Terminology is hard. Computer terminology is even harder. Humans are animals who just love to classify things. We have a fundamental need in our delicious meaty brains to put things into conceptual buckets. This, I think, leads to some unfortunate consequences when our categories don't match up with other people's categories.

• James G ☛ What is the most chaotic page on your website?

  Thinking more about the question What is the most chaotic page on your website? reminded me of when I was designing one-off pages for some of my blog posts. All of these blog posts were curated on my long-form feed, a page that shows the 20 most recent pages on my website, marked up as a microformats h-feed. The long-form is what is used to generate my RSS feed.

• James G ☛ Started with a sketch

  When I have an idea, I usually take a note or two then, when I have time, go to a HTML editor and start building. I love designing in the browser. Other times, a design starts with a sketch by hand. This sketch can be as simple as a few boxes if I am designing a layout. The goal is to get something down on paper that I can use as a reference.

• Science

  • Dan MacKinlay ☛ Utility and fitness — The Dan MacKinlay stable of variably-well-consider’d enterprises

    Locally around a given phenotype or decision context, fitness functions in evolutionary biology and utility functions in economics can both be approximated by affine (linear plus constant) models, enabling shared analytical techniques. In evolutionary quantitative genetics, the selection gradient is defined as the slope of a linear regression of relative fitness on phenotype, arising naturally from log-linear representations of fitness such that [...]

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] What if the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning? Our research suggests it may have taken place inside a black hole

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Sirens: the dark psychology of how people really get drawn into cults

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] What Would Happen if the Amazon Rainforest Dried Out? This Decades-Long Experiment Has Some Answers

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] How did humans evolve such rotten genetics?

• Hardware

  • Nick Heer ☛ The Sad Story of the Long-Promised 3 GHz Power Mac G5

    With just a few days to go until WWDC, Stephen Hackett chronicled the history of the mythical 3 GHz Power Mac G5, previewed at the conference over twenty years ago: [...]

  • Stephen Hackett ☛ A Broken Promise: The Sad Story of the Long-Promised 3 GHz Power Mac G5

    All of that power made developers very happy, but it came with a cost in terms of both the power required to run the machine, as well as the heat it generated. As such, the computer came in an all-new case, with separate cooling zones for various major components. There was an adorable GIF on Apple’s website showing the zones: [...]

  • [Old] Apple Inc ☛ Apple Unleashes the World’s Fastest Personal Computer—the Power Mac G5 - Apple

    Delivering the industry’s highest system bandwidth, the Power Mac G5 line offers dual 2.0 GHz PowerPC G5 processors, each with an independent 1 GHz front-side bus, for an astounding 16 GBps of bandwidth. The line also features the industry’s highest bandwidth memory (400 MHz 128-bit DDR SDRAM with throughput up to 6.4 GBps); the industry’s fastest PCI interface available on a desktop (133 MHz PCI-X); and cutting-edge AGP 8X Pro graphics capabilities, all within a stunning new professional aluminum enclosure featuring innovative computer-controlled cooling for quiet operation.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • TruthOut ☛ Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” Will Lead to 51,000 Preventable Deaths Each Year

    The estimate of 51,000 preventable deaths is based on details from a previous analysis from CBO, which initially found that 13.7 million people would lose their health care coverage by 2034. Since CBO has now revised that estimate to be higher in response to queries from Democrats, the estimate of 51,000 deaths could, in fact, be an undercount.

    The legislation would also repeal federal safe staffing standards that require nursing homes and long-term care facilities to maintain a minimum ratio of nurses to patients in order to provide proper care, which the researchers estimate would result in 13,000 additional deaths annually.

  • Pivot to AI ☛ Generative AI runs on gambling addiction — just one more prompt, bro!

    Hooked builds on research papers about the mechanisms of gambling addiction — a life-destroying problem — to explain how you can use the same psychological manipulation techniques in your app. This book is on the bookshelf at every startup.

    Eyal said he wrote Hooked to promote healthy habits, not addiction — but from the outside, you’ll be hard pressed to tell the difference. Because the model is, literally, how to design a poker machine. Keep the lab rats pulling the lever.

  • TMZ ☛ Luigi Mangione’s ‘Manifesto’ Reveals Why He Targeted UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

    In his alleged candid letter, he claimed he was not working with anyone else and that he engineered the entire plot on his own.

    And while he reportedly apologized for "any strife or trauma" he caused, he said it "had to be done," adding ... "Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming."

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ The Tyranny of the Quote: How Social Media Is Shrinking Our Minds

    The phenomenon, he explains, isn't confined to misquotes or misattributions alone. Even accurate lines, when divorced from their literary and philosophical frameworks, risk becoming ideological tools or social media bait. What once demanded patient engagement—works by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, or Rilke—is now reduced to fragments for likes and reposts.

  • The Register UK ☛ AT&T investigates claimed sale of 70m customer data dump

    The data for sale reportedly includes around 86 million AT&T customer records, according to HackRead, which first spotted the purloined files. While the thief claimed the leak involved 70 million customer records, HackRead analyzed the data and said it actually included about 88 million, of which 86 million are unique entries.

• Proprietary

  • Notebook Check ☛ Insider believes next round of Microsoft layoffs will impact Xbox gaming division jobs

    Microsoft recently announced 305 layoffs following a May cutback of around 6,000 workers. The company didn't reveal if the changes involved Xbox gaming division. However, The Verge's Tom Warren now believes that further Microsoft layoffs will impact gamers. The restructuring would happen as it focuses more on software than on developing a new Xbox console.

    In his article, Warren describes how morale is gradually falling among employees. Adding to the anxiety is the uncertainty about when more Microsoft layoffs may occur. Workers wonder about the company's long-term plans and their potential impact on them. Warren has learned that more unhappy news could arrive as soon as the end of June. Unlike recent downsizing efforts, Microsoft Gaming may face significant upheaval.

  • Task And Purpose ☛ Marine Corps reply-all apocalypse has an incredible ending

    In addressing the email, the sender picked a Marine Corps-wide distribution list, sending Hundley’s paperwork to hundreds and perhaps thousands of inboxes across the globe. The countless subsequent responses of recipients asking to be taken off the list created a legendary email storm that clogged inboxes across the Corps for days, including, apparently, the one belonging to Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlos A. Ruiz.

    So epic was the SNAFU that a petition was posted online in an attempt to have Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith to attend Hundley’s graduation.

  • Greece ☛ Shein hit with complaint from EU consumer group over ‘dark patterns’

    Pan-European consumers’ organization BEUC filed a complaint with the European Commission on Thursday against online fast-fashion retailer Shein over its use of “dark patterns,” tactics designed to make people buy more on its app and website.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Wired ☛ Perplexity’s CEO Sees AI Agents as the Next Web Battleground

      Aravind Srinivas says agents need access to apps and claims that letting OpenAI take control of Chrome would be a disaster for the open Web.

    • 404 Media ☛ Why Do Christians Love AI Slop?

      Why is so much AI slop about Jesus and the Bible, and why do Christians appear to love it?

    • [Old] Sergio Visinoni ☛ Is GenAI Digital Cocaine?

      How a recent common frustrating experience with AI-assisted tools let me to a deeper reflection on the impacts of overreliance on such crutches.

    • Futurism ☛ The Washington Post Is Secretly Planning to Start Publishing Articles Created Using AI

      As the news media continues its often-disastrous pivot towards generative artificial intelligence, the most prominent publication yet has jumped on board: the Washington Post, it turns out, has quietly been building an AI tool designed to let underqualified writers publish content in its storied pages.

  • Social Control Media

    • StokeonTrentLive ☛ 'My daughter was bullied on social media - she then took her own life at 13'

      "I knew she'd been struggling, but we had no idea how bad the bullying had become. Thanks to phones and social media it didn't just consume her school life, but it intruded into her home life too."

• Privatisation/Privateering

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Musk threatens to decommission a key space station link for NASA

    The capsule, developed with the help of government contracts, is an important part of keeping the space station running.

  • [Repeat] Atlantic Council ☛ The Pentagon’s software approval process is broken. Here’s how to fix it.

    In today’s rapidly evolving battlefields, the Department of Defense (DoD) faces a paradox: It is awash with advanced technologies, yet warfighters often wait months, even years, for approval to use the software they desperately need. Why? The bottleneck often lies in a well-intentioned but outdated process: the Risk Management Framework (RMF) and the painful path to achieving an Authority to Operate (ATO).

  • RTL ☛ Innapropriate reward: Executive bonuses banned at six UK water companies over pollution

    Despite this, "water companies have awarded over £112 million ($152 million) in bonuses and incentives over the last decade," the government noted.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Papers Please ☛ New travel blacklist aims to expand US travel surveillance

      Late yesterday President Trump proclaimed a new ban on entry to the US or issuance of new US visas to citizens of twelve countries, and ordered drastic restrictions on entry or issuance of visas to citizens of seven others.

      The US has long sought to globalize its surveillance and control of travelers.

      In the past, the US has held out the carrot of possible admission to the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP) to induce governments of favored countries to share information about their citizens with the US. Citizens of countries in the VWP are eligible to enter the US for limited stays and purposes with a simpler, cheaper ESTA rather than a full US visa.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Senate Democrats seek audit of DOGE [sic] access to Social Security systems

      The Protecting Seniors’ Data Act of 2025, introduced Wednesday by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Ron Wyden of Oregon, calls on the country’s comptroller general to deliver a “comprehensive audit” of all SSA systems that have been accessed by DOGE [sic] staffers or volunteers.

      That audit, according to bill text shared with FedScoop, would identify security vulnerabilities or bugs in software that was installed, created or modified by DOGE [sic] representatives. The lawmakers also want answers on whether DOGE [sic]’s work in SSA networks violated the Privacy Act and the Federal Information Security Management Act.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia's Migrant Crackdown Expands With Mandatory Mobile Tracking

      Over the next four years, foreign nationals entering without a visa will be required to register in a government-run mobile application that tracks their geolocation in real time. Failure to transmit location data for more than three days could result in the migrant being placed on a special watchlist -- effectively a fast track to deportation.

      Exempt from the program are minors, diplomats and their families, and citizens of Belarus. But for everyone else compliance will mean fingerprinting, biometric photos, proof of residence, and constant digital surveillance.

    • India Times ☛ Google takes a gamble in class action jury trial over cell phone data use

      The plaintiffs in court papers say that even when their phones are turned off, Google causes Android devices to surreptitiously send information over cellular networks "for Google's own purposes," including targeted digital advertising. These transfers improperly eat up data that users purchase from their mobile carriers, the plaintiffs allege.

    • Privacy International ☛ Summary of an Experts Consultation on Human Rights, Digital Technologies, and Elections

      The meeting brought together representatives from UN bodies, civil society, academia, and election oversight institutions. Participants agreed that while digital technologies can improve electoral access and administration, they also pose serious threats to human rights, including privacy, freedom of expression, participation in public affairs, and equality, as well as democratic accountability if left unregulated. Discussions focused on three core areas: the role of national authorities, the conduct of political parties, and the responsibilities of private companies.

      The meeting examined how electoral management bodies (EMBs) regulate and deploy election technology. Participants emphasized the need for legal frameworks that guarantee data privacy, prevent discrimination, and ensure independent oversight.

    • EFF ☛ Hell No: The ODNI Wants to Make it Easier for the Government to Buy Your Data Without Warrant

      New reporting has revealed that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is attempting to create the Intelligence Community’s Data Consortium–a centralized online marketplace where law enforcement and spy agencies can peruse and buy very personal digital data about you collected by data brokers. Not only is this a massive escalation of the deeply unjust data broker loophole: it’s also another repulsive signal that your privacy means nothing to the intelligence community.

    • EFF ☛ Statement on California State Senate Advancing Dangerous Surveillance Bill

      In the wake of the California State Senate’s passage of S.B. 690, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), TechEquity, Consumer Federation of California, Tech Oversight California, and ACLU California Action issued a joint statement warning that the bill would put the safety and privacy of millions of Californians at serious risk: [...]

    • EFF ☛ The Federal Government Demands Data from SNAP—But Says Nothing About Protecting It

      The federal government has said very little about how they will use this information. Several populations targeted by the Trump Administration are eligible to be on the SNAP program, including asylum seekers, refugees, and victims of trafficking. Additionally, although undocumented immigrants are not eligible for SNAP benefits, their household members who are U.S. citizens or have other eligible immigration statuses may be—raising the distinct concern that SNAP information could be shared with immigration or other enforcement authorities.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Mirror Cracked: How Elon Musk Became the Perfect Mirror of Our Moral Collapse

    But most damning of all, despite everything he once accomplished, Musk has now become an active agent in the destruction of American power, prestige, and legitimacy on the world stage. The man who once symbolized American innovation has become a symbol of American decay—a ketamine-addled oligarch conducting unauthorized foreign policy while running a breeding program and praising genocidal regimes.

    This is the story of how we got here. And why it matters that we understand our own complicity in creating the monster we now confront.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ The Art of War, Ukraine Edition

    The brazenness of using Russia’s telecom networks is noteworthy, especially after concerns that Ukraine’s military operations could be compromised by Russian access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite communications.

    The avoidance of Starlink for this mission named Operation Spiderweb (Ukrainian: Operatsija Pavutyna) suggests Ukraine accepted this possibility as reality and deliberately worked around the compromised network.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Ignore Elon Musk. Pay Attention to Russell Vought.

    Elon Musk has been shown the door in the Trump White House. His erratic behavior and cringe antics made him an easy target for the media. But Musk was always carrying out Project 2025 author Russell Vought’s agenda — and Vought is still very much in power.

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Roads to War: The EU’s Security Action for Europe Fund

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] US Pushes Security Ally Australia to Spend More on Defence

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • The Conversation ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Russia has been working on creating drones that ‘call home’, go undercover and start fires. Here’s how they work

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Fact check: How credible is the Russian 'Global Fact-Checking Network'?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Why is the EU still buying Russian fertilizer?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Finland Extends Ban on Migrants Seeking Asylum on Russia Border

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Russian War Bloggers Blame Military Command for Stunning Ukrainian Attack on Bomber Fleet

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Russia's Shoigu Meets Kim Jong Un in North Korea

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Russia Urges US and UK to Restrain Ukraine After Attacks on Bombers

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] These Satellite Photos Show Russian Bombers Ukraine Says It Destroyed

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Six Go on Trial Over London Arson Attack Blamed on Russia's Wagner Group

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Ukraine Releases New Footage of Drone Attack on Russian Strategic Bombers

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Says Putin Told Him That Russia Will Respond to Ukrainian Attack on Airfields

    • The Record ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Pro-Ukraine hacker group Black Owl poses ‘major threat’ to Russia, Kaspersky says

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Ukraine claims explosive attack on Russia's bridge to Crimea

    • HRW ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Ukraine: Russia Using Drones to Attack Civilians

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Analysis-Satellite Imagery Shows Ukraine Attack Destroyed and Damaged Russian Bombers

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Russian Rockets Kill 3 in a Ukrainian City as Kyiv Claims It Damaged a Key Bridge

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Kremlin Says Russia Is Investigating Ukrainian Drone Attacks on Its Airfields and Railway Explosions

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Medvedev Says Russia Seeks Victory, Not Compromise, in Talks With Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Moscow Poses No Threat to Britain, Says Russia's UK Embassy

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Pro-Russian, Anti-Israeli Hackers Pose Biggest Cybercrime Threats in Germany

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Russian Attack on Ukraine City of Sumy Kills Three, Injures 25

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Russian Farmers Appeal to Putin for Help Against Antelope Invasion

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Russia Says Situation at Zaporizhzhia Plant Under Control but Situation Is Complex

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Ukraine Says It Hit Russia's Bridge to Crimea With Underwater Explosives

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Zelenskiy Aides Visit US as Ukraine Strikes Russian-Held Territory

    • The Conversation ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] Ukraine drone strikes on Russian airbase reveal any country is vulnerable to the same kind of attack

    • CBC ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] Russian, Ukrainian sides meet for just over an hour in latest round of peace talks

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] Russia and Ukraine agree new prisoner exchange after talks

    • International Business Times ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] Vitaly Zdorovetskiy Rejected By Both Russia and US – Left To Face Up To One Year in Philippine Jail

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] Ukraine-Russia Peace Talks End After Barely an Hour, Turkish Officials Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] Russian Attacks Kill Five in Zaporizhzhia, Injure Several in Kharkiv, Regional Officials Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] Ukraine and Russia End Their Latest Round of Direct Peace Talks in Istanbul

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] Ukraine Drone Attacks on Russia Spark Fires, Disrupt Traffic, Officials Say

    • CBC ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Bridges collapse, derailing trains in 2 Russian regions bordering Ukraine, 7 dead

    • CBC ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Ukraine strikes Crimean bridge, Russia launches deadly strike in Sumy

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Russian military planes hit by Ukraine drone strikes

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Russia reports collapse of bridges in Bryansk, Kursk

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Russia says Ukraine targeted airfields in drone strikes

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Russia Launches Air Attack on Ukraine's Capital Kyiv, Mayor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] A Ukrainian Security Official Says Kyiv Destroyed More Than 40 Military Aircraft in a Drone Attack

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Another Railway Track Damaged in Russia's Bryansk Region, Russian Railways Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Bridge Collapses in Russia's Kursk Region as Freight Train Passes, Regional Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Explosions Caused 2 Bridges in Western Russia to Collapse, Officials Say. 7 People Were Killed

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] North Korea Criticises 'Hostile' Monitoring Group's Report on Russia Ties

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Putin’s Tough Stance on a Ukraine Peace Plan Shows His Resolve on Russia’s Demands

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Ukraine Attacks Russian Nuclear-Capable Bombers in Siberia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Ukraine Stages Major Attack on Russian Aircraft With Drones, Security Official Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Ukrainian Proposals for June 2 Talks With Russia in Istanbul

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-31 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini and Putin Want to Talk Business Once the Ukraine War Ends. Here's Why It Won't Be Easy

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-31 [Older] 2 Killed in Russian Attacks on Ukraine as Prospects for Talks Remain Uncertain

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-31 [Older] Seven Killed by Bridge Blasts in Russian Regions Bordering Ukraine on Eve of Peace Talks

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Ukraine awaits Russia's truce terms, talks 'barely' alive

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russian drones hit Kharkiv, Odesa regions

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Russian Captain Denies Manslaughter in North Sea Collision as He Faces UK Trial

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Kremlin Expects Russia and Ukraine to Discuss Ceasefire Conditions in Istanbul

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Russian Captain Involved in US Tanker Crash Pleads Not Guilty to Manslaughter in UK Court

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Russia Tells UN West Must Stop Arming Ukraine During Any Ceasefire

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Serbia Says It Will Investigate Russian Accusations That It Ships Arms to Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Ukraine Keeps Russia Guessing Over Participation in June 2 Peace Talks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Ukraine Needs 500 Million Euros to Rebuild Critical Port Facilities Damaged by Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Ukraine Says It's Ready to Resume Talks With Russia but Needs Clarity on Kremlin's Terms

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Ukraine Says Russian Drones Hit Port Town Next to Romania

    • The Kyiv Independent ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] Russian-linked hackers target UK Defense Ministry while posing as journalists

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] Erdogan Says Russia's Proposal for Istanbul Talks Heightens Hope for Peace

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] Kremlin Says Ukraine Has Yet to Answer Russian Proposal for June 2 Talks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] North Korea Enabled Russian Attacks on Ukrainian Civilian Infrastructure, Monitoring Group Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] Pressure Mounting on Reluctant Cheeto Mussolini to Impose Sanctions on Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] Russia Opens Criminal Case After Local Official Killed in Stavropol Explosion

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] UN Official Says Russia Isn't Imminently Turning on Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Columbia University ☛ Security Turtles All the Way Down

    An amazing security lapse just occurred: a journalist was accidentally included on a group chat via Signal to discuss sensitive war plans. This was wrong on so many different levels—read the article; it’s one of the msot amazing things I’ve ever read—but what I want to talk about is what “secure” means.

• Environment

  • The Nation ☛ Sleepwalking Through the Climate Emergency

    The science is unequivocal: Our planetary house is on fire, and the flames are injuring more and more people every year, even as humanity fans those flames by burning ever more oil, gas, and coal. Yet most news coverage is sleepwalking through these developments as if they are simply the new normal.

    When mega-fires scorched Los Angeles in January, the story led homepages and broadcasts around the world for days. But most reporting didn’t even mention climate change, an egregious lapse when the scientific link between mega-fires and a hotter planet is well-established. When the World Meteorological Organization last week revealed that the Paris Climate Agreement goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius is now effectively unreachable and even the goal of 2 degrees Celsius is in peril, many newsrooms barely reported it, though either scenario would shrink polar ice sheets and unleash catastrophic sea-level rise. As US President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans try to pass a bill killing the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy measures, most news coverage highlights only the bill’s tax and immigration implications.

  • Advance Local Media LLC ☛ Environmentalists criticize Trump administration push for new oil and gas drilling in Alaska

    Several dozen protesters were outside Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s annual Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference in Anchorage, where U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin were featured speakers. The federal officials were continuing a multiday trip aimed at highlighting President Donald Trump’s push to expand oil and gas drilling, mining and logging in the state.

  • The Register UK ☛ Ship abandoned off Alaska after electric cars catch fire

    The crew made a distress call and boarded lifeboats. Nearby merchant vessels responded and rescued the mariners, the Coast Guard tells us. The ship is now likely to continue burning until specialized fire-fighting crews arrive and attempt to halt the blaze.

  • Wired ☛ How to Prepare for a Climate Disaster in Trump’s America

    These cuts are already having real impacts for Americans. As of mid-May, amid intense staffing losses at NOAA, four of the National Weather Service’s 122 stations around the country no longer had enough personnel to keep an overnight shift going, while several other stations were considering stopping 24/7 forecasting operations. Historically, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers have gone door-to-door offering services to citizens in disaster areas, but as WIRED reported last month, the agency is discontinuing this practice this year. FEMA workers have told WIRED that they don’t feel the agency is ready for disaster season.

    Being ready for a disaster has never been more important. WIRED spoke with experts to bring you a guide to how to prepare—and what to look out for.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Molly White ☛ Issue 85 – All the President’s tokens

      After I broke the news that Magic Eden and the $TRUMP memecoin project would be announcing an “Official $TRUMP Wallet by President Trump”, things exploded into chaos — and not just because the President of the United States continues to demolish his own records for self-dealing.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Conversation ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] Rise of the Zombie Bugs takes readers on a jaw-dropping tour of the parasite world

  • Overpopulation

    • Futurism ☛ There May Be Several More Billion Humans on Earth Than We Thought

      The UN's figures are based on census data and population density across a global grid. But employing a different methodology, as Aalto University postdoctoral researcher Josias Láng-Ritter and his colleagues outlined in a paper published in the journal Nature earlier this year, the real number of people on Earth could be vastly higher.

      That's because datasets in rural areas are often incomplete and can be unreliable. The researchers found "large discrepancies between the examined datasets," implying that "rural population is, even in the most accurate dataset, underestimated by half compared to reported figures."

• Finance

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] To Unionize Amazon, Disrupt the Flow

  • Entrepeneur ☛ Procter & Gamble Is Laying Off 7,000 Jobs. Here's What We Know.

    Procter & Gamble (P&G) is cutting 7,000 jobs, laying off about 15% of its non-manufacturing workforce, the company said in a presentation Thursday at the Deutsche Bank Global Consumer Conference in Paris.

    The cuts will take place over the next two years. P&G, which makes household products (Tide, Pampers, Bounty), had about 108,000 employees as of June 2024, per the Wall Street Journal.

  • Marketplace ☛ The labor market is churning. Should we be worried?

    Friday is Jobs Day. That’s when the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us how the job market was doing in the month just ended.

    This week, we’ve been getting a steady stream of data that gives us some context for Friday’s report. Thursday morning, we learned that 247,000 people filed for unemployment benefits for the first time last week — that number’s been pretty consistent for a year.

    But we also learned earlier this week, courtesy of the payroll firm ADP, that private sector hiring in May? Just 37,000. That’s the weakest number in two years.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Why Texas Won’t Force Private Companies to Use E-Verify to Check Employment Authorization

    In a half-empty committee room in late April, one of Texas’ most powerful Republican state senators pitched legislation that would make it harder for immigrants in the country illegally to get jobs.

    Her bill would require all employers in the state to use a free federal computer system, known as E-Verify, that quickly confirms whether someone has authorization to work in the United States. Sen. Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham ticked off a handful of Republican-led states that mandate the program for all private companies and listed others that require it for most over a certain size. Yet Texas, which prides itself on being the nation’s toughest on illegal immigration, instructs only state agencies and sexually oriented businesses to use it.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • FAIR ☛ NYT Goes Silent on Greta Thunberg’s Gaza Voyage [Ed: The "bill sez" syndrome? Thunberg the political expert? She uses fame in climate to pretend to be an expert in politics.]

    When Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was fighting for climate justice in her home country and the world stage, the New York Times gave her top billing. She co-authored an op-ed (8/19/21), and was the subject of a long interview (10/30/20).

  • Pro Publica ☛ What Our Journalists Learned About Nike Labor Practices in Cambodia

  • The Register UK ☛ Trump may renegotiate CHIPS awards by withholding funds

    Many of these projects won't be completed until after Trump's second term is over. For example, TSMC's second Arizona chip plant isn't expected to enter volume production until sometime in 2027 or 2028.

    So, while chipmakers may say they're committing to larger, more ambitious projects to safeguard their CHIPS awards, they could always scale them back later if the political winds shift again.

  • The Register UK ☛ LinkedIn boss handed reins to Office and M365 Copilot

    The exec will report to Microsoft's Executive Vice President for Experiences and Devices, Rajesh Jha, and directly to Microsoft boss Satya Nadella as LinkedIn CEO.

    Other changes include shifting Charles Lamanna, Corporate Vice President for Business & Industry Copilot, to Jha's unit.

  • Meduza ☛ Russia declares British Council, co-organizer of IELTS English-language exam, ‘undesirable’

    The British Council is a public institution overseen by the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office. Founded in 1934, it helps organize the IELTS exam, funds international education programs, and fosters cultural exchange between the U.K. and other countries, according to BBC News Russian. The organization operates in more than 200 countries and territories, but has not worked in Russia since 2018.

  • Wired ☛ At Bitcoin 2025, [Cryptocurrency] Purists and the MAGA Faithful Collide

    The political establishment buying into bitcoin makes “number go up” (a favorite [cryptocurrency] meme) for investors like Kevin, but the reverse works similarly. If people keep buying bitcoin, it will pump the bags of politically connected holders, like the president’s sons. While Vance’s speech centers on bitcoiners staying involved in politics (to keep voting Republican), when Eric and Donald Jr. take the stage hours later, they encourage audiences to keep buying bitcoin.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • teleSUR ☛ Transnational Far Right Uses Fake News to Fuel Student Revolt in Cuba

      The disinformation strategy aims to portray the existence of alleged “mass protests” at Cuban universities as a method to effectively provoke them. Experts have described this approach as a “Fourth-Generation Warfare Operation.”

      The spread of fake news includes the use of influencers to amplify the disinformation. This occurred, for example, with a social media post by Argentine activist Agustin Antonetti, a spokesperson for the Fundacion Libertad, an organization funded by President Javier Milei and his continental right-wing allies.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Vietnamese Magazine ☛ Freedom of Expression in Việt Nam—Part 3: Free Speech in Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism

    The third installment in our series on freedom of expression in Việt Nam explores this right through the lenses of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism.

  • El País ☛ Relatives of Tiananmen victims fight against being forgotten in China: ‘I wish the government would give the people answers’

    The victims lack official recognition — the total number remains unknown, with estimates ranging from hundreds to several thousand — and their families must grieve in silence, under surveillance, and with little opportunity to pay tribute. The younger generations barely know what happened, and some even doubt it really did. Beyond the country’s borders, however, some of the protesters in exile refuse to let the flame of memory go out, aware that forgetting is also a form of defeat.

    Trying to speak to anyone connected with those events inside China is an increasingly complicated task. Censorship, constant surveillance, and fear of personal consequences have imposed a silence that is difficult to break. EL PAÍS was able to do so last weekend for 10 minutes.

  • Axios ☛ Judge blocks Trump's Harvard foreign students entry ban

    Driving the news: Harvard argued in Thursday's filing, which amends an existing lawsuit, that Trump's proclamation violates the First Amendment.

    The university alleges that the president's actions "are not undertaken to protect the interests of the United States," but instead to pursue a government vendetta against Harvard."

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Harvard files legal challenge over Trump's ban on entry for foreign students

    Increasingly, the nation’s oldest and best-known university has attracted some of the brightest minds from around the world, with international students accounting for one-quarter of its enrollment. As Harvard’s fight with the administration plays out, foreign students can only wait to find out if they’ll be able to attend the school at all. Some are weighing other options.

  • RTL ☛ Retaliation in robes: Court blocks Trump's new ban on foreign students at Harvard

    "(It) is part of a concerted and escalating campaign of retaliation by the government in clear retribution for Harvard's exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government's demands to control Harvard's governance, curriculum, and the 'ideology' of its faculty and students."

    US District Judge Allison Burroughs on Thursday ruled the government cannot enforce Trump’s proclamation.

  • El País ☛ Trump suspends entry into US of new Harvard international students in latest move against the university

    The top five countries contributing the most students to Harvard are, in this order, China, Canada, India, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, according to university data. About one in four Harvard students come from other countries.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ HK activists, diaspora attend Tiananmen anniversary vigils overseas

    Hong Kong activists and the diaspora attended candlelight vigils and other events around the world on Wednesday to mark the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, amid the city’s ongoing ban on public commemorations of the event.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ After Harvard and Columbia, Trump admin continues to target over 60 universities

    As per a report by Education Week, the Department of Education has opened at least 104 investigations against universities, school districts and colleges as of June 3.

    Of this, 70 have been against higher education systems such as Harvard, Columbia, Brown University and more. These 70 names also include the various out-of-state branches of universities.

  • Open Caucasus Media ☛ Another Georgian activist jailed for ‘insulting’ ruling party MP

    Kordzaia was charged under one of the many laws passed by Georgian Dream amidst the ongoing anti-government protests, which introduced insulting officeholders as an administrative offence. The article provides for both an fine of up to ₾4,000 ($1,500) or administrative arrest for up to 45 days.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ Sun names new political editor and drops business page

    Jack Elsom replaces Harry Cole who has new US-based role on TV and Youtube.

  • Wired ☛ Palantir Is Going on Defense

    On Tuesday, a Palantir employee threatened to call the police on a WIRED journalist who was watching software demonstrations at its booth at AI+ Expo. The conference, which is hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project, a think tank founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, is free and open to the public, including journalists.

    Later that day, Palantir had conference security remove at least three other journalists—Jack Poulson, writer of the All-Source Intelligence Substack; Max Blumenthal, who writes and publishes The Grayzone; and Jessica Le Masurier, a reporter at France 24—from the conference hall, Poulson says. The reporters were later able to reenter the hall, Poulson adds.

  • Cost Rica ☛ Costa Rica’s Court Defends Journalists Against Presidential Overreach

    Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court has ruled in favor of journalists, declaring two appeals against the Presidency admissible for actions that stifled press freedom during President Rodrigo Chaves’ press conferences. The decisions, announced yesterday highlight growing tensions between the administration and the media, as Chaves’ hostility toward journalists draws scrutiny. These rulings come amid Costa Rica’s slide from 26th to 36th in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), signaling a troubling decline in press freedom.

  • Michigan Advance ☛ Trump wants Congress to slash $9.4B in spending now, defund NPR and PBS

    The proposal calls on lawmakers to eliminate $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. That means NPR and PBS would lose their already approved federal allocations, if the request is approved by Congress.

    President Donald Trump issued an executive order in May seeking to block the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from providing funding for NPR and PBS, leading to two separate lawsuits citing First Amendment concerns.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] General Court on abuse of revocation proceedings based on non-use and belated evidence

  • TruthOut ☛ Yurok Tribe Celebrates the Largest Landback Deal in California’s History

    The Yurok people have lived, fished, and hunted along the Klamath for millennia. But when the California gold rush began, the tribe lost 90 percent of its territory.

    For the last two decades, the Yurok Tribe has been working with the nonprofit Western Rivers Conservancy to get its land back. The 17,000 acres composes the final parcel of a $56 million, 47,097-acre land transfer that effectively doubles the current land holdings of the Yurok Tribe.

    The tribe has already designated the land as a salmon sanctuary and community forest and plans to eventually put it into a trust and care for it in perpetuity.

  • RFERL ☛ Taliban Broadens Crackdown With Detention Of Critical Religious Scholars

    The Taliban declared dissent unacceptable after returning to power nearly four years ago. Since then, it has detained, tortured, or forced into exile secular opponents, journalists, and human rights activists.

    Now the country's de facto leaders appear to be broadening their crackdown to include Islamic scholars and clerics for publicly criticizing the Taliban's harsh rulings or merely supporting more moderate policies.

  • RFERL ☛ Pakistani Women Furious Over Teenage TikTok Star’s Brutal Murder

    For many women in Pakistan, the latest killing of a social media influencer is a reminder of the widespread violence, harassment, and abuse women suffer in public and in online spaces in the conservative Muslim nation of 240 million people.

  • EFF ☛ The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

    Gov. Bob Ferguson signed two bills guaranteeing Washingtonians' right to access tools, parts, and information so they can fix personal electronics, appliances, and wheelchairs. This is the epitome of common-sense legislation. When you own something, you should have the final say about who fixes, adapts, or modifies it—and how.

  • PIRG ☛ Washington becomes eighth state with Right to Repair law on the books

    The new laws will help make repair more accessible by requiring manufacturers to provide access to the parts, tools and information used to fix electronic devices. Currently, many manufacturers restrict access to repair materials and provide them only to “authorized” service centers. Washington will also join Oregon and Colorado to ban manufacturers from using software to prevent technicians from fully installing spare parts, a practice called “parts pairing.”

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison: ‘We are a whisper away from Jim Crow’

    The stakes are high, Ellison said: the fate of multi-racial democracy.

    Ellison, who served for a dozen years in Congress representing Minnesota’s Minneapolis-based 5th District, said the states are a sovereign bulwark against federal power grabs.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ To Unionize Amazon, Disrupt the Flow

    Organizing logistics behemoths like Amazon and Walmart will require the labor movement to figure out how to disrupt the flow of goods across the supply chain rather than simply organizing individual workplaces — and that requires a major rethinking of organizing strategy.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Krebs On Security ☛ Proxy Services Feast on Ukraine’s IP Address Exodus

    Ukraine has seen nearly one-fifth of its Internet space come under Russian control or sold to Internet address brokers since February 2022, a new study finds. The analysis indicates large chunks of Ukrainian Internet address space are now in the hands of shadowy proxy and anonymity services that are nested at some of America’s largest Internet service providers (ISPs).

  • Techdirt ☛ Telecoms Beg Trump Admin To Kill State Laws Requiring They Provide Affordable Broadband To Poor People

    During peak COVID lockdowns in 2021, New York State passed a law requiring that big ISPs (with over 20k users) offer low-income residents 25 Mbps broadband for $15. It wasn’t a huge ask. It costs major ISPs little to nothing to provide that speed over modern fiber networks, but the broadband industry sued anyway. Without success: the Supreme Court recently refused to hear their complaint.

    So the law took effect, even though there’s no actual evidence that New York state is actually bothering to enforce it. Still, big ISPs like AT&T and Comcast are terrified that other states might follow suit and start forcing them to make broadband affordable. Some states, like California, are considering it.

    They (justifiably) see this as a slippery slope toward the U.S. government actually doing something about the fact that these companies have spent a generation carving out lucrative regional monopolies they use to overcharge Americans for shitty, sluggish, substandard broadband access.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• IP Kat ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] A-maize-ing award of damages for corn variety rights infringement in China [Ed: Monopolies are not "rights"; this is a distortion; nobody owns nature, either]

• IP Kat ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Alexion's Soliris sequence error saga (Alexion v Samsung Bioepis [2025] EWHC 1240)

• Cafétech ☛ A simple comma is going to cost Apple billions in Europe

  It's just a comma in a 66-page document. But a comma that will cost Apple billions of euros in Europe. Starting June 23, the Cupertino-based company will no longer be able to collect commissions on external transactions made from an iPhone or iPad. In other words, all app developers will be able to redirect their users to a website to make a purchase or subscribe to a service without paying Apple a single cent.

• India Times ☛ Google has handled people’s deepest, darkest secrets responsibly: CEO Sundar Pichai

  Google is set to face a trial in September concerning antitrust regulators’ proposals requiring the company to divest part of its advertising technology business. This move aims to address Google’s dominance over the tools used by online publishers to sell ads.

• Trademarks

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] Can refugees take their GIs with them when fleeing? The case of Rügenwalder Teewurst

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-05-31 [Older] Court of Appeal of England and Wales refers to SkyKick - in a design dispute on res judicata

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-05-31 [Older] [Book review] European and UK Trade Mark Law

• Copyrights

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Meta sued by Eminem's publishing company over alleged copyright infringement

    Eight Mile Style, a company that owns some of Eminem’s most popular songs, is suing social media giant Meta over alleged copyright infringement.

    The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Michigan, accuses the Menlo Park-based tech company of storing, reproducing and distributing Eminem’s music without obtaining the license to do so.

  • Ars Technica ☛ OpenAI slams court order to save all ChatGPT logs, including deleted chats

    The court order came after news organizations expressed concern that people using ChatGPT to skirt paywalls "might be more likely to 'delete all [their] searches' to cover their tracks," OpenAI explained. Evidence to support that claim, news plaintiffs argued, was missing from the record because so far, OpenAI had only shared samples of chat logs that users had agreed that the company could retain. Sharing the news plaintiffs' concerns, the judge, Ona Wang, ultimately agreed that OpenAI likely would never stop deleting that alleged evidence absent a court order, granting news plaintiffs' request to preserve all chats.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Unveiled: New U.S. Anti-Piracy Bill 'ACPA' Proposes Alternative Site Blocking Path

    Republican House Representative Darrell Issa is working on the introduction of the 'American Copyright Protection Act' (ACPA), a new bill that would enable copyright holders to request site blocking orders against foreign pirate sites. A discussion draft shows that the proposed framework has key differences compared to the FADPA bill introduced by Rep. Lofgren earlier this year. Both bills target DNS resolvers, however, which has several tech companies worried.

  • New York Times ☛ Reddit Sues Anthropic, Accusing It of Illegally Using Data From Its Site

    The lawsuit, which was filed in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, claimed that Anthropic had obtained access or tried to obtain access to Reddit data more than 100,000 times, in a breach of the online platform’s content policies. Anthropic also declined to enter into a licensing agreement for the data, the lawsuit said, and unjustly enriched itself at Reddit’s expense.