Leftovers

• John Gruber ☛ Daring Fireball: The Full Text of Marco Rubio’s Directive on State Department Typography, Re-Establishing Times New Roman

  Rubio’s memo makes the argument — correctly — that aesthetics matter, and that the argument that Calibri was in any way more accessible than Times New Roman was bogus. Rubio’s memo does not lash out against accessibility as a concern or goal. He simply makes the argument that Blinken’s order mandating Calibri in the name of accessibility was an empty gesture. Purely performative, at the cost of aesthetics. Going back to that 2023 story at the Post, they quote from Blinken’s memo thus: [...]

• Mark Hysted ☛ trying a bullet journal

  It will be interesting to see how the journal relates to a more online based calendar approach, my life is planned online like most others - I am hoping the online vs paper argument becomes more of a complementary approach with each providing their 'lenses' on my life.

• Buttondown LLC ☛ Some Fun Software Facts

  Anyway, to make this more than just some record keeping, let's close out with something light. I'm one of those people who loves hearing "fun facts" about stuff. So here's some random fun facts I accumulated about software over the years: [...]

• Cynthia Dunlop ☛ Why Write Engineering Blogs

  We interviewed a dozen(ish) expert tech bloggers over the past year to share perspectives and tips beyond Writing for Developers. The idea: ask everyone the same set of questions and hopefully see an interesting range of responses emerge. They did.

• Cyble Inc ☛ FSB-Linked Group Behind Failed RSF Cyberattack In 2025

  Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has determined that a phishing operation targeting the organization in early 2025 was carried out by a group associated with Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). The RSF cyberattack conclusion follows a months-long technical investigation conducted with the support of French cybersecurity firm Sekoia.

• Juha-Matti Santala ☛ Where are we going, IndieWeb?

  My dear internet friend and intellectual sparring partner V.H. Belvadi is hosting things month’s IndieWeb Carnival and is asking us: where do you see the IndieWeb in 2030: [...]

• Viktor Löfgren ☛ New Search Filtering in Web and API

  The search engine recently exposed a fair number of new tools for custom filtering to the API consumers and users of the new UI.

  This was originally going to be an incredibly chaotic update, both annuncing the new features and doing a technical walkthrough of the changes but that ambition turned out a bit too chaotic, so let’s split them up and focus on the feature announcement bit today.

• Science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-12-02 [Older] DNA from soil could soon reveal who lived in ice age caves

  • Nolen Royalty ☛ Are Two Heads Better Than One?

    You’re playing a game with your lying friends Alice and Bob.

    Bob flips a coin and shows it to Alice. Alice tells you what she saw - but she lies 20% of the time. Then you take your best guess on whether the coin is heads or tails.

    Your best strategy is to trust whatever Alice says. You’re right 80% of the time.

    Now Bob joins in. He makes up his mind independent of Alice, and he also lies 20% of the time 1.

    You were right 80% of the time by trusting Alice.

    How much better can you do with Bob’s help?

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-12-03 [Older] How European colonisation has created more animal hybrids

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-12-04 [Older] Why our physical bodies may be a core part of conscious experience – new research

• Career/Education

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Without affirmative action, elite colleges are prioritizing economic diversity in admissions

    America's top campuses remain crowded with wealth, but some universities have accelerated efforts to reach a wider swath of the country, recruiting more in urban and rural areas and offering free tuition for students whose families are not among the highest earners.

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Guest Post — Funding Research Services: How Libraries are Exploring Cost Recovery Models - The Scholarly Kitchen

    Academic and research libraries have long been a cornerstone of the scholarly enterprise, providing the information resources, books, journals, collections, and expertise that make research possible. Over time, the roles of research libraries have expanded and now encompass modern, mission-critical services such as research data management, curation, and sharing; systematic reviews; digital transformation initiatives; impact assessment; and an ever-growing range of functional and discipline-specific supports that connect directly to every stage of the research process.

• Hardware

  • Scoop News Group ☛ As White House moves to send AI chips to China, Trump’s DOJ prosecutes chip smugglers

    But arguments by federal prosecutors that China’s access to these chips would fundamentally undermine U.S. national security contrasted with President Trump’s announcement the same day that he had personally informed Chinese President Xi Jinping that he would allow NVIDIA to sell the very same H200 chips to China and other countries. In doing so, he promised unspecified “conditions” that would protect U.S. national security.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Science Alert ☛ Bottled Water Isn't as Pure as You Might Think, Expert Warns

    In most developed countries, tap water is held to stricter legal and testing standards than bottled water. Public supplies are monitored daily for bacteria, heavy metals and pesticides.

  • Wired ☛ Scientists Thought Parkinson’s Was in Our Genes. It Might Be in the Water

    Despite the avalanche of funding, the latest research suggests that only 10 to 15 percent of Parkinson’s cases can be fully explained by genetics. The other three-quarters are, functionally, a mystery. “More than two-thirds of people with PD don’t have any clear genetic link,” says Briana De Miranda, a researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “So, we’re moving to a new question: What else could it be?”

  • Tracy Durnell ☛ Recipe for a good week

    This is mostly a note to myself but figured I’d share… would love to hear what others think makes a good week!

  • Terence Eden ☛ Travelling around Japan as a Vegetarian / Vegan

    People told me that it was impossible to be veggie in Japan. That was nonsense. I wouldn't say it was easy, but it was possible with a little bit of planning.

• Proprietary

  • Court House News ☛ Owner of Robux gambling site must face unfair competition claims by underage users

    The owner of a now-defunct online casino that targeted Roblox users failed to convince a federal judge to toss the claims brought against him in a proposed class action on behalf of children who gambled away their virtual Robux on his and other websites.

  • The Register UK ☛ Parachutists check software after jumper snagged on plane

    Here it is: The bureau also found that the parachuting club that staged the jump used manifest software that calculated the aircraft’s weight including the parachutists, but that package didn’t include features to assess whether the plane was properly loaded and balanced.

  • The Register UK ☛ US extradites Ukrainian accused of [breaching] for Russia

    A Ukrainian woman accused of [breaching] US public drinking water systems and a meat processing facility on behalf of Kremlin-backed cyber groups was extradited to the US earlier this year and will stand trial in early 2026.

  • International Business Times ☛ Xbox-Based Pornhub Visits Plummet — PlayStation Traffic Maintains Momentum

    The gaming world's console wars extend beyond just frame rates and exclusive titles, now reaching into the realm of adult content consumption.

    Recent trends show a surprising shift in how users access Pornhub, with one major console's traffic taking a nosedive while the other holds firm.

  • 404 Media ☛ A Developer Accidentally Found CSAM in AI Data. Google Banned Him For It

    Mark Russo reported the dataset to all the right organizations, but still couldn't get into his accounts for months.

  • GreyCoder ☛ Orion 1.0: A Privacy-Oriented Web Browser For Mac Users

    Orion 1.0 is Kagi’s milestone release of its WebKit‑based browser, now considered production‑ready after years in beta. Here’s the blog post with the announcement. It sits alongside Kagi Search and Kagi Assistant — tools that try to get away from ad‑funded browsing.

    Instead of chasing market share with telemetry and experiments, Orion leans on a user‑funded model and optional paid extras through Orion+.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • International Committee of the Red Cross ☛ Important notice: AI-generated archival references

      A specific risk is that generative AI tools always produce an answer, even when the historical sources are incomplete or silent. Because their purpose is to generate content, they cannot indicate that no information exists; instead, they will invent details that appear plausible but have no basis in the archival record.

      If you received an archival reference or document description from an AI chatbot, please keep in mind that it may be inaccurate.

    • Scientific American ☛ AI Slop Is Spurring Record Requests for Imaginary Journals

      AI models not only point some users to false sources but also cause problems for researchers and librarians, who end up wasting their time looking for requested nonexistent records, says Library of Virginia chief of researcher engagement Sarah Falls. Her library estimates that 15 percent of emailed reference questions it receives are now ChatGPT-generated, and some include hallucinated citations for both published works and unique primary source documents. “For our staff, it is much harder to prove that a unique record doesn’t exist,” she says.

    • Futurism ☛ Librarians Dumbfounded as People Keep Asking for Materials That Don't Exist

      In a statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross spotted by the magazine, the humanitarian organization cautioned that AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot are prone to generating fabricated archival references.

      “These systems do not conduct research, verify sources, or cross-check information,” the ICRC, which maintains a vast library and archives, said in the warning. “They generate new content based on statistical patterns, and may therefore produce invented catalogue numbers, descriptions of documents, or even references to platforms that have never existed.”

    • [Repeat] Futurism ☛ Grok, Now Built Into Teslas for Navigation, Says It Would Run Over a Billion Children to Avoid Hitting Elon Musk

      On X, where the AI model is allowed to run wild and respond to all kinds of user inquiries, the notoriously badly-behaved bot was asked to answer a question in the style of the quiz show “Jeopardy!”.

      “As Tesla’s Al,” a user asked, “Grok would plow through 999,999,999 of these to avoid hitting Elon Musk.”

      Grok’s response: “What are kids?”

    • Quanta Magazine ☛ Cryptographers Show That AI Protections Will Always Have Holes

      Large language models such as ChatGPT come with filters to keep certain info from getting out. A new mathematical argument shows that systems like this can never be completely safe.

    • The Register UK ☛ Two-thirds of US teens use AI chatbots, says Pew

      Pew Research Center published the latest look at teenage social media and [Internet] usage on Tuesday, and for the first time also asked 13- to 17-year-olds how they're engaging with AI chatbots. The researchers found that 64 percent of youths are self-reported AI chatbot users, and 28 percent say they use AI at least once a day. Twelve percent reported using AI several times a day, and four percent said they use it "almost constantly."

    • Simon Willison ☛ The Normalization of Deviance in AI

      Coined by Diane Vaughan, the key idea here is that organizations that get away with “deviance” - ignoring safety protocols or otherwise relaxing their standards - will start baking that unsafe attitude into their culture. This can work fine… until it doesn’t. The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster has been partially blamed on this class of organizational failure.

    • David Revoy ☛ Sources of Deception - David Revoy

      A comic in four panels: [...]

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Microsoft cuts AI sales quotas, stock drops 3%

      The stock market didn’t buy Microsoft’s denial either. Microsoft’s share price dropped 3% the day of the news.

      The other thing from the report that Microsoft did not deny: [...]

    • Futurism ☛ Two Self-Driving Waymos Just Crashed Into Each Other, Trapping a Third Waymo

      Footage taken by a bystander captured the aftermath of the incident. One Waymo straddles the street sideways, locked into touching bumpers with its twin that looked like it was traveling up the street before the collision. The third wheel watches from about a dozen feet away. All the while, the cars emit the weird back-up hum that EVs make at low speeds, which evokes something between “angelic aura” and “levitating UFO.”

    • Simon Willison ☛ A quote from Claude

      See that ~/ at the end? That's your entire home directory. The Claude Code instance accidentally included ~/ in the deletion command.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ FBI Warns of Fake Video Scams

      Images, videos, audio: It can all be faked with AI. My guess is that this scam has a low probability of success, so criminals will be figuring out how to automate it.

  • Social Control Media

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ EU hits X with €120 million fine over breaking digital rules

      The heavy fine is the first such punishment issued by the European Commission, which began its investigations into X in December 2023.

      Among other things, Brussels accuses the platform of using the white and blue checkmarks for paid user accounts to falsely suggest that these accounts are authentic and verified.

      The Commission also criticized that it is not always clear who is behind advertising on X.

    • JURIST ☛ Rights group urges Nepal to probe excessive force at youth protests

      On September 8, a surge of youth-led demonstrations erupted in Nepal as protesters rallied against government corruption, poor governance, and a social media ban. Authorities responded with a violent crackdown, resulting in at least 19 deaths and 400 injuries in Kathmandu alone. Nationwide, the toll was even higher as protests persisted for two days and sparked six additional days of unrest. The intensity of these anti-corruption demonstrations has ultimately led to the resignation of the prime minister and the appointment of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Sushila Karki as Nepal’s interim prime minister.

    • New Eastern Europe ☛ Normalizing pro-Russia narratives straight from the Kremlin playbook: an autopsy of an average Italian social media feed

      While the initial shock and reaction to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 briefly curbed the most blatant expressions of these narratives, it did little to alter their systemic foundations. On the contrary, Moscow appears to have intensified its efforts to undermine Rome’s support for Kyiv. The most evident – and yet only superficially examined – domain in which the impact of Russian disinformation and the prominence of Kremlin-aligned narratives can be observed is social media, whose flat, open, and porous nature offers fertile ground for such influence to spread and normalize.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ☛ FinCEN Issues Financial Trend Analysis on Ransomware

      Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is issuing a Financial Trend Analysis on ransomware incidents in Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) data between 2022 and 2024, which totaled more than $2.1 billion in ransomware payments.

      “Banks and other financial institutions play a key role in protecting our economy from ransomware and other cyber threats,” said FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki. “By quickly reporting suspicious activity under the Bank Secrecy Act, they provide law enforcement with critical information to help detect cybersecurity trends that can damage our economy. This work is vital to safeguarding our nation’s financial sector and strengthening our national security.”

    • Fortra LLC ☛ Ransomware May Have Extorted Over $2.1 Billion Between 2022-2024, but it's not all Bad News, Claims FinCEN Report | Fortra

      The report, which examines ransomware incidents from 2022 to 2024, reveals that attackers extorted more than $2.1 billion over the three-year period.

    • Alexandra Wolfe ☛ More Blood Tests

      The nurse did call within the hour (which in and of itself was a miracle.) I then had to answer 101 questions detailing everything that has happened to me in the last 6 months (information that should by all accounts, be in my records already) and then, when she finally said she was going to transfer me to a booking agent, her computer froze.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ €750 Compensation Offered To HSE Cyberattack Victims

      The cyberattack on HSE occurred on May 14, 2021, when the Conti ransomware group, a Russia-based cybercrime organization, launched a large-scale intrusion that forced the shutdown of the health service’s IT network.

    • The Register UK ☛ Microsoft won’t fix .NET RCE bug affecting slew of enterprise apps, researchers say

      Security researchers have revealed a .NET security flaw thought to affect a host of enterprise-grade products that they say Microsoft refuses to fix.

      Piotr Bazydło, principal vulnerability researcher at watchTowr, unveiled the findings at Black Hat Europe on Wednesday, claiming that several vendor and in-house solutions could be vulnerable to remote code execution (RCE) attacks due to errors in the way applications built on Microsoft's .NET framework handle Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) messages.

    • The Register UK ☛ Microsoft reports 7.8-rated zero day, plus 56 more in December Patch Tuesday

      Happy December Patch Tuesday to all who celebrate. This month's patch party includes one Microsoft flaw under exploitation, plus two others listed as publicly known – but just 57 CVEs in total from Redmond.

      There's also a fix for a critical Notepad++ bug that, according to security sleuth Kevin Beaumont, is being abused by attackers in China.

      Plus, software security vendors Ivanti and Fortinet both issued patches for critical security holes in their products, so those two should be high on sys-admins' and security teams' list of things to do today.

• Security

  • Open Source For U ☛ Warning! Engineered Linux Malware Can Bypass Next-Gen Anti-Virus Solutions

    A few weeks ago, I set out on a project that blended offensive security with a bit of creative engineering. The goal was simple but ambitious: to build a custom reverse TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) payload from scratch using Python, pack it into (.elf) executable, and test how stealthy it could really be against modern antivirus software. This was not just about gaining shell access. I wanted full remote control, including webcam snapshots, keylogging, screen capture, and file transfer capabilities. The idea was to explore, learn, and better understand both offensive and defensive security concepts through hands-on experimentation.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • EFF ☛ Age Verification Is Coming For the Internet. We Built You a Resource Hub to Fight Back.

      The term “age verification” is colloquially used to describe a wide range of age assurance technologies, from age verification systems that force you to upload government ID, to age estimation tools that scan your face, to systems that infer your age by making you share personal data. While different laws call for different methods, one thing remains constant: every method out there collects your sensitive, personal information and creates barriers to accessing the internet. We refer to all of these requirements as age verification, age assurance, or age-gating.

    • EFF ☛ EFF Launches Age Verification Hub as Resource Against Misguided Laws

      “These restrictive mandates strike at the foundation of the free and open internet,” said EFF Activist Molly Buckley. “While they are wrapped in the legitimate concern about children's safety, they operate as tools of censorship, used to block people young and old from viewing or sharing information that the government deems ‘harmful’ or ‘offensive.’ They also create surveillance systems that critically undermine online privacy, and chill access to vital online communities and resources. Our new resource hub is a one-stop shop for information that people can use to fight back and redirect lawmakers to things that will actually help young people, like a comprehensive privacy law.”

    • TruthOut ☛ Trump Plan Could Require 5 Years of Social Media Posts From Tourists Entering US

      According to a Tuesday report in the New York Times, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) this week filed a new proposal that would force visitors to submit up to five years’ worth of social media posts for inspection before being allowed to enter the country.

      In addition to social media history, CPB says it plans to ask prospective tourists to provide them with email addresses they’ve used over the last decade, as well as “the names, birth dates, places of residence, and birthplaces of parents, spouses, siblings, and children.”

    • France24 ☛ US may require visa-free travellers to submit social media, family data

      The notice published Wednesday in the Federal Register said Customs and Border Protection is proposing collecting five years' worth of social media information from travelers from select countries who do not have to get visas to come to the US The Trump administration has been stepping up monitoring of international travelers and immigrants.

      The announcement refers to travelers from more than three dozen countries who take part in the Visa Waiver Program and submit their information to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), which automatically screens them and then approves them for travel to the US Unlike visa applicants, they generally do not have to go into an embassy or consulate for an interview.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ US demands access to tourists' social media histories

      The new proposal would make it "mandatory" for ESTA applicants to provide US authorities with access to five years of their social media activity on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and X.

      Visitors will also be required to provide information on what US authorities dub "high-value data fields," meaning all of their phone numbers over the past five years and all of their e-mail addresses over the past 10. Moreover, they will be forced to provide personal details on family members as well as provide their own biometric data.

      The proposal was published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, meaning that it will be open for public comment for 60 days, at which point it will become law unless challenged in court.

    • The Age AU ☛ US ESTA visa changes: Australians travelling to will America to be forced to provide social media details

      Applying for a visa waiver is also set to get more complicated, with authorities planning to collect far more detailed information including five years of phone numbers, 10 years of email addresses, IP addresses and metadata from electronically submitted photos, biometrics, and information about family members.

    • New York Times ☛ U.S. Plans to Scrutinize 5 Years of Social Media History for Foreign Tourists

      Travelers visiting the United States from countries like Britain, France, Germany and South Korea could soon have to undergo a review of up to five years of their social media history, according to a proposal filed on Tuesday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

    • The Register UK ☛ US Navy pledges $448 million to test if Palantir is seaworth

      Palantir and the US Navy have signed a two-year deal to test whether its Foundry operational software can streamline the nation’s shipbuilding efforts and steer the Secretary of the Navy's top budget priority into port.

    • Ben Werdmuller ☛ US plans to start checking all tourists' social media

      This is a proposal by Customs and Border Protection, not an implemented policy, which means there’s time to fight it: [...]

    • NYOB ☛ EU-US Data Transfers: Time to prepare for more trouble to come

      In an attempt to make ends meet, these layers are not supporting each other, but are lined up to generate the thinnest possible connection between EU and US law – meaning that the failure of just one of the many legal elements would likely make most EU-US data transfers instantly illegal. Just like a house of cards, the instability of any individual card will make the house collapse.

      Given the enormously destructive approach of the Trump administration, many elements of EU-US transfers are under attack – often times not because of any direct intentions. Instead, the current US administration just widely attacks the US legal system and constitutional fabric (with the help of a highly politicised Supreme Court) – with many potential consequences for EU-US data flows.

    • PC World ☛ Microsoft Teams can soon snitch on your location using Wi-Fi connections

      For better or worse, Microsoft Teams is one of the most important communication apps in the professional world. It’s used by millions for chat messages, video conferences, and sending files. Now, according to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, Teams is getting a new feature in February 2026 that few people are going to like—and it’s bad enough that it’ll likely raise concerns among data protectionists.

      The new feature is described as follows: [...]

    • Papers Please ☛ CBP wants all visitors to install and use its smartphone app

      [Permissions requested by ESTA Android app. Why does CBP want to be able control your flashlight?]By a notice published today in the Federal Register, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is requesting approval not only to make all foreigners visiting the US without visas submit a comprehensive set of biometric identifiers (“face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris”) but to do so by installing and using a closed-source CBP smartphone app that requires permission to access Wi-Fi scanning and network data; take photos and video; access any fingerprint, iris scan, or other biometric sensors, and even turn on and off your flashlight.

      Each visitor to the US under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), for which the fee has recently been raised from $21 to $40 per person, would be required to submit, in advance, through this smartphone app, identifiers for all social media accounts they have used in the last five years.

      Each visitor would also be required to submit what CBP calls “High Value Data Elements”. According to the notice:

  • Confidentiality

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Coupang CEO Resigns Amid Customer Data Leak

      Coupang CEO Resigns, a headline many in South Korea expected, but still signals a major moment for the country’s tech and e-commerce landscape. Coupang Corp. confirmed on Wednesday that its CEO, Park Dae-jun, has stepped down following a massive Coupang data breach that exposed the personal information of 33.7 million people, almost two-thirds of the country.

• Defence/Aggression

  • TechCrunch ☛ Three in 10 US teens use AI chatbots every day, but safety concerns are growing

    Pew found that 97% of teens use the internet daily, with about 40% of respondents saying they are “almost constantly online.” While this marks a decrease from last year’s survey (46%), it’s significantly higher than the results from a decade ago, when 24% of teens said they were online almost constantly.

    But as the prevalence of AI chatbots grows in the U.S., this technology has become yet another factor in the internet’s impact on American youth.

  • Harvard University ☛ The problem with the school smartphone debate

    Yu acknowledged that the survey raises questions to be explored in future work. Among them are differences in smartphone policies by school characteristics, such as whether policies at public charter schools or private schools, for example, differ from those at traditional public schools; what associations exist between the policies and student mental health; and how schools enforce cellphone policies. The question about policy enforcement is particularly important to examine given the increasing number of states that have enacted statewide bans of cellphone use in schools.

    “Even if a state bans cellphones at schools, it’s really up to school principals and teachers to enforce the law,” Yu said. “It’s a gap in the literature as to how exactly those key players are enforcing.”

  • Cyble Inc ☛ Australia Ban On Social Media Locks Out Kids Under 16

    It wasn’t just one or 10 or 100 but more than one million young users who woke up locked out of their social media. No TikTok scroll. No Snapchat streak. No YouTube comments. Australia had quietly entered a new era, the world’s first nationwide ban on social media for children under 16, effective December 10.

    The move has initiated global debate, parental relief, youth frustration, and a broader question: Is this the start of a global shift, or a risky social experiment?

  • IT Wire ☛ Riding the social media ban wave: why the tech industry and families must move together

    The ban is not a silver bullet. As a parent of two children, I support the intent. As a technology leader, I see the potential for enforcement of the ban to be challenging.

    There are measures we should be taking to make online spaces safer for young people, and this is a shared responsibility for families, technology leaders and government.

  • SBS ☛ World reacts as Australia’s teen social media ban unfolds

    Guardian Australia reported three apps still allowed 14-year-olds to register accounts, although two had indicated they were in the process of implementing the new restrictions.

    The ten platforms, including Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, have all said they will comply with the ban, which requires them to block anyone under 16 from holding an account, after X announced on Wednesday that it would too.

  • New York Times ☛ Some Teens Are on Social Media ‘Almost Constantly,’ Survey Says

    “Roughly a third of teens say that they’re on at least one of the five almost constantly — and that number has stayed steady for several years now,” said Michelle Faverio, a research associate with Pew and a lead author on the new report.

    She noted that the report found that Black and Hispanic teens were particularly likely to say they used YouTube, TikTok and Instagram almost constantly. Teen girls were more likely than boys to scroll on Snapchat and Instagram, whereas boys used Reddit and YouTube more than girls did.

  • Futurism ☛ Russia Damaged Protective Dome Around Chernobyl, Can No Longer Contain Radiation

    While officials have yet to observe any rise in radiation levels in the surrounding areas since the February bombing, an inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency last week has shown that the dome “had lost its primary safety functions, including the confinement capability,” according to an agency update.

  • The Age AU ☛ Social media ban Australia as it happened: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat under-16 app ban comes into effect; Anthony Albanese lauds decision

    It was D-Day for social media giants to implement “reasonable steps” to prevent children from having an account on their platforms, or risk being fined up to $49.5 million.

  • The Kyiv Independent ☛ Trump's new security doctrine gives Putin exactly what he wants

    The document takes a direct shot at the EU and questions some of the main principles of NATO, two pillars of Europe's political and security architecture. It also signals a retreat from the U.S.-led unipolar world while refocusing on the Western Hemisphere.

    Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine, the document notably avoids criticism of Russia, which has already praised it as "consistent" with its own vision.

  • El País ☛ Oleksandra Matviichuk, Ukrainian lawyer: ‘Putin doesn’t want peace. He wants to forcefully restore the Russian Empire’

    Matviichuk gave this interview on Thursday in the Italian town of Saint-Vincent, on the sidelines of the Grand Continent Summit, a conference organized by the magazine of the same name to reflect on the future of Europe. During the conversation, the Ukrainian lawyer expressed her conviction that “Putin doesn’t want peace. He wants to achieve his goal. […] He wants to forcefully restore the Russian Empire.”

    After the interview, she was preparing to travel to Syria, another country where Russia’s actions, through its support for Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship, should be subject to judicial scrutiny.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Techdirt ☛ Trump Claims Executive Privilege To Keep More Than 4,000 January 6 Documents Locked Up

    White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson claims there’s nothing to see here. It’s not a president trying to bury his legacy of violence. It’s just the normal response to a “overly broad request” by the injured cops who understandably would like to see a bit of justice done.

    The records sought reside at the National Archives. The National Archives, in response to the request by the plaintiffs, has finally responded with more detail to the September 2024 subpoena, letting the public know that Trump aims to keep every requested document out of the public’s hands.

  • Politico LLC ☛ Trump asserts executive privilege to thwart Jan. 6 lawsuit

    Trump’s decision to assert privilege adds to a concerted push to rewrite the story of his bid to subvert the 2020 election. Trump pardoned and ended the criminal cases of more than 1,500 people charged for their role in Jan. 6, and last month he issued a sweeping pardon for prominent allies who faced legal scrutiny for their part in the effort. In recent months, Trump has routinely promoted false and inflammatory claims that the FBI intentionally ignited the mayhem at the Capitol.

    It’s unclear precisely which records Trump is attempting to keep out of the hands of the plaintiffs in the Jan. 6 lawsuit. However, a White House spokesperson confirmed Wednesday that the president has decided to fight disclosure of some material subpoenaed from the National Archives and Records Administration last year.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Congress considers ban on member stock trades, going beyond transparency

    The public disclosure of the transaction highlighted an issue that’s long been a source of public cynicism about Congress: whether members use confidential information about significant political events, or perhaps pending legislation or agency regulation, to make money in the stock market. Unlike the general public, lawmakers often have access to privileged information and decision-making that can impact the profitability of industries and specific companies, which can significantly raise or lower their their stock prices.

  • The Atlantic ☛ They Killed My Source

    Zam forwarded me a text exchange with a member of Mohammad’s family that suggested that Mohammad had been murdered by the regime. Zam also sent me Mohammad’s death certificate, showing that he had died on July 5, the day we were supposed to speak. His body had since been buried in Behesht-e Zahra, Tehran’s main cemetery.

    Using Google Translate, I made sense of Zam’s subsequent messages. Amir, Mohammad’s youngest brother, had found the body. There had been no autopsy. Zam alleged that Mohammad’s father, who was known by the honorific Hajji Vali, had killed his own son in an act of loyalty to country over family.

• Environment

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ L.A.'s scouting troops work to restore their fire-stricken camp

    Instead of rebuilding structures that burned down, the Scouts are focused on restoring the land and creating new memories in the process.

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ As NOAA funding lags, a critical ocean weather system nears a breaking point

    Years of underfunding and new delays in federal grantmaking threaten buoys and ocean monitoring assets run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that protect fishermen, cargo ships and endangered species across the country. With key grant deadlines now passed and new awards still pending, regional operators warn that some of those services could go dark at the peak of hurricane season.

  • Science Alert ☛ 'Forever Chemicals' in Drinking Water Linked to Increased Risk of Birth Issues

    PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have captured the attention of the public and regulators in recent years for good reason. These man-made compounds persist in the environment, accumulate in human bodies and may cause harm even at extremely low concentrations.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ Federal judge throws out Trump order blocking development of wind energy

      A federal judge on Monday struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, saying the effort to halt virtually all leasing of wind farms on federal lands and waters was “arbitrary and capricious” and violates U.S. law.

      Judge Patti Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order blocking wind energy projects and declared it unlawful.

    • Wired ☛ A Complete Guide to the Jeffrey Epstein Document Dumps

      For the past few months, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has engaged in a sprawling and extremely public investigation of disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Keeping track of it all can be hard, even for the sharpest observers.

    • ADF ☛ West African Terrorist Groups Put Roads in Their Crosshairs

      These destructive acts underscore the symbolic and strategic power of transport infrastructure. Control over who can move, where and at what cost has become a central element of political authority in the region’s wars.

    • Lusaka ZM ☛ Zambia : Mansa 50MW Solar Project at 95 percent complete

      The Provincial Administration in Luapula Province has said construction works on the 50-Megawatt Solar Power Project in Mansa District are at 95 percent completion.

    • US News And World Report ☛ Wind and Solar Power Frozen Out of Trump Permitting Push

      "It is difficult to understand how these actions align with the President’s stated goals of unleashing American energy and ensuring energy affordability," three Democratic senators, Michael Bennet, John Hickenlooper and Ben Ray Lujan, said in a letter to Burgum last month.

      U.S. electricity demand is expected to increase 32% by 2030, with data centers accounting for more than half that growth, according to an analysis by power sector consulting firm Grid Strategies.

    • The Register UK ☛ Study challenges claims EVs are riskier for pedestrians

      Electric cars are no more of a danger to pedestrians than conventional vehicles, according to new research.

      A study of UK data published in Nature this week found there was a fall in casualty rates for both electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles in 2019 following the introduction of the Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System (AVAS), an audio alert designed to warn other road users during low-speed driving.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ Spandrels of the Sea: From Evolution’s Byproducts to Blueprints for Equity and Representation in Ocean Conservation

  • Overpopulation

    • US News And World Report ☛ Mexican President Says Mexico Will Send More Water to US but Not Immediately

      Under a 1944 treaty, Mexico must deliver 1.7 million acre-feet of water to the U.S. from six tributaries every five years, or an average of 350,000 acre-feet every year. An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover 1 acre of land to a depth of 1 foot.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • FAIR ☛ FBI Is Making an Enemies List—and Most Corporate Media Didn’t Even Check It Once

    Congratulations—you may be headed for Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism.” “Terrorism,” of course, is the magic word that strips you of all sorts of legal protections, especially in the post-9/11 era.

  • Pete Brown ☛ The difference between saying stuff and doing stuff

    This sort of thinking vastly underestimates the complexity of politics and change at a national scale. As noted in the quote way up at the top of this post, political and cultural shifts happen as a confluence of a lot of different factors, and then pundit-types swoop in to retcon them to their align with their pet theories.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Unitary Executive Theory

    History is not the past. It is the story we are writing right now.

  • Futurism ☛ Wait, Did Palantir Just Make a Joke About Its CEO Doing Cocaine?

    It’s not clear whether Palantir was intentionally trolling or simply picked the worst possible way to tamp down rumors of drug use by its CEO; we reached out to the company for clarification, but haven’t heard back.

  • The Register UK ☛ How NATO crafts stories to sharpen cyber skills

    Around 1,500 practitioners took part in the annual battle that engulfed the island of Occasus-Icebergen, all working together to remediate cyberattacks on critical systems, the effects of which influenced how land, sea, and air forces were able to respond.

  • The Atlantic ☛ OpenAI Is in Trouble

    In any case, OpenAI does not appear all that focused on building the “smartest” bot. Instead, the firm has moved aggressively to stake out a commercial empire. In recent months, OpenAI has been busy rolling out new shopping features, a web browser, an AI-centric social-media app, and, to top it off, group chats. Such tools are not exactly steps on the road to digital superintelligence. Instead, they can be understood as a concerted attempt to build a self-contained OpenAI ecosystem. ChatGPT is becoming a one-stop-shop for anything you might need to do on the [Internet]: browsing, working, emailing, shopping, planning vacations, sharing AI-generated content with friends. In his “code red” memo, Altman reportedly said some of these commercial projects would be deprioritized to work on ChatGPT.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Next Move ☛ Twenty-First Century Tocqueville

    The great political battle now is the battle for the narrative. Dictators are reaching across borders to silence their critics in the supposed safe haven of the United States. Their thugs harass, surveil—and in the case of my friend Masih Alinejad, even attempt to murder—those who dare to speak up. And these regimes’ media fixers and lobbyists work overtime to convince Americans to look the other way.

  • RFERL ☛ Russia Plans To Restrict International Phone Calls Amid Digital Crackdown

    Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko said on December 9 that the government had prepared a new package of initiatives that includes a ban on international incoming calls made without the consent of the receiver.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • CS Monitor ☛ The democracy of a free press

    News outlets are facing unprecedented political and financial pressures, and journalists are increasingly being silenced or targeted. In its annual December report, the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders lists 503 journalists in detention, 67 killed, and 135 missing over the past year. In most cases, the organization says, governments are responsible, although criminal cartels and rebel groups are also implicated.

  • CPJ ☛ DRC journalist Ali Male threatened, detained over report criticizing army colonel

    “DRC authorities must release Ali and cease detaining journalists for their work,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo. “Lawmakers in the DRC should reform the country’s laws to ensure that a dispute over a publication does not lead to a journalist being threatened or arrested.”

  • Tedium ☛ The Weird Way The 404 Media Zine Was Built

    Difficult reporting shouldn’t have to be tethered to the whims of Big Tech to exist. Especially when that tech—on Amazon’s cloud, using Adobe’s PDFs, through Google’s search, over Meta’s social network, with Apple’s phones, and on Microsoft’s operating system—too often causes uncomfortable tensions with the reporting. This is one step towards a better escape hatch.

  • BIA Net ☛ 'Terrorism' trial begins for journalists over freelance work for pro-Kurdish media

    Seven people stood before a judge today in a "terrorism" trial over copyrighted work they published in the pro-Kurdish newspaper Yeni Özgür Politika and the magazine PolitikArt over the last decade.

    bianet editor Tuğçe Yılmaz, journalists Erdoğan Alayumat, Suzan Demir, Taylan Abatan, and Gülcan Dereli, translator Serap Güneş, and sociologist Berfin Atlı attended the hearing at the İstanbul 13th Heavy Penal Court with their lawyers. A large crowd of observers also followed the session.

  • Roosevelt Institute ☛ The Political Economy of the US Media System: Excavating the Roots of the Present Crisis

    This report traces the roots of the crisis facing our media system and contends that the present moment can only be fully understood by exposing the commercial logics that have been embedded within it from the start. As we show, these commercial imperatives have always constrained the emergence of a truly democratic media order. But the situation deteriorated sharply with the ascent of the neoliberal order, as democratic media policy was steadily eroded by ideological and structural constraints that paved the way for today’s assaults on the media system. We explore four such constraints: [...]

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Nobel Peace Prize: The winners forced to stay away

    Maria Corina Machado was unable to accept her Nobel Peace Prize in person on Wednesday. But the Venezuelan is not the only winner unable to attend the ceremony, with incarceration a common historical thread.

  • The Walrus ☛ Why Co-ops Are the Solution to Our Housing Crisis

    According to Janine McDonald, the co-operative’s long-time property manager, the co-operative has been a saviour for many low-income families throughout the years. The co-op now has fifty-nine townhouse units—five two bedrooms, fifty-three three bedrooms, and one four bedroom—and it accepts applications from people at all economic levels.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ 'Rights are being violated': Kansas man without criminal history arrested and deported by ICE

    Like most of the people detained as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation blitz, Rojas had no criminal record. The federal agents had no warrant for his arrest.

    As the 25-year-old bounced from Kansas City to Oklahoma to Louisiana during 23 days in custody, Rojas never had the chance to talk to an attorney and never appeared before a judge. He was placed on a plane at 2 a.m. one morning and flown to El Salvador, where he remains.

  • Federal News Network ☛ IRS closes out ‘hardship’ requests for telework, citing return-to-office mandate

    According to the memo, IRS employees are generally limited to five days of telework per calendar year.

  • Mark Hysted ☛ navigating the hybrid workplace

    It looks like I am going to be one of those hybrid workers, in the office 2-3 days per week. COVID19 has taught organisations and employees that the daily grind of office working isn’t getting the best from us. With a mixed home/office working week, the so-called ‘hybrid’ model becoming the schedule of choice for office-based employees.

    There is plenty of information for leaders and managers on hybrid working, this from HBR is a useful summary, but little for us employees on how to navigate hybrid working. Here is how my thinking is going.

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ New Orleans Is Watching You, Fuckers.

    The entire concept makes the skin prickle in reprehension. Yet here we are. ICE and CBP goons, balaclavas emphasizing the penis-like nature of their heads, have descended on New Orleans. Led by unapologetic Border Patrol boss Gregory Bovino, whose fascist high top haircut and affinity for black double-breasted trenchcoats cross the line from “unintentionally Nazi-esque” into “Nazi on purpose,” they are all over the streets of America’s Friendliest City, vowing to deport five thousand(!) people in the name of Purifying America’s Blood or some more publicly acceptable synonym of that purpose. This is Operation “Catahoula Crunch,” which sounds like an AI-generated name for a Louisiana breakfast cereal. In the first three days of raids, they arrested 38 people, fewer than a third of which had criminal records. Clearly, the motherfuckers are going to be here for a while. I went to take a look.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Raymond Camden ☛ My Last Spotify Demo (this time I mean it - honest)

    In the output from Spotify's export, you get a detailed listing of the tracks you've listened to. As a reminder, here's an example: [...]

  • Matt Birchler ☛ More on Spotify metrics

    And according to this data, only about 12% of their revenue comes from advertising. Put another way, 58% of Spotify's users account for 12% of the revenue. Put still another way (and if my ballpark math is right), if a Spotify subscription is $10 per month: [...]

  • Matt Birchler ☛ More on the messy economics of streaming music

    This is a fair retort. Putting pressure on Spotify to increase the payout pool and reduce their profits is worth doing. My intention was more to point out that when people pay in so little for access to all the music in the world, and when many millions more pay zero for access to that music, there's simply not enough money to pay all the artists all they deserve.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Copyrights

  • Press Gazette ☛ Europe to investigate Google over use of publisher content for AI

    The European Commission has opened an investigation into Google over the use of publisher content for its AI products “without appropriate compensation”.

    The antitrust investigation will examine whether Google’s use of publisher and Youtube content breached EU competition rules by imposing unfair terms and conditions or granting itself privileged access to that content.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Rampant U.S. Piracy is a Multibillion-Dollar Concern for Japanese Manga Publishers

    A recent report, published by the Japanese anti-piracy group Authorized Books of Japan (ABJ), shows that manga piracy is rampant. American pirates, in particular, are a key roadblock in Japan's mission to expand the export of manga and anime. At the same time, American tech companies add to this 'billion dollar' problem.