Leftovers

• Career/Education

  • Vintage Everyday ☛ Barefoot Women Dancing in the Snow, New York, 1916

    From a photography standpoint, this image is remarkable for the era. Capturing movement in 1916 required a relatively fast shutter speed, which was difficult in lower light. The high contrast of the dark silk tunics against the bright white snow helps create that iconic, almost ethereal silhouette that has made this photo a viral piece of history a century later.

  • Phil Gyford ☛ The beach hut

    But it seems silly to hang on to a hut that’s now on the other side of the country from us. We thought we might be able to carry on visiting after we moved and we have, a couple of times, but not enough to warrant managing the inevitable next round of repairs. Or to prevent another family from enjoying making their own memories of happy seaside days.

  • Victor Kropp ☛ Homelab 2nd Edition

    I reinstalled everything and restored data from the backup. It’s running smoothly since then.

  • Bob Monsour ☛ Site redesign progress

    I've been working on a redesign and here's a peek at my progress. My main goal is for a more minimal look, removing the background image along with layout changes and a new background color. It's feeling "right" enough to share. I've added a dark mode too. I set up the prototype to let me choose from a variety of light mode background colors so I can experiment with different looks. I'm letting the light mode background color you see below sit for a day or two before proceeding. But I have settled on the dark mode color.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Apple’s Most Repairable Laptop Is Thanks To Right-to-Repair

    The real story here is that these improvements from Apple were spurred by Right-to-Repair developments, particularly in the EU, that were the result of pressure from hackers like you.

  • University of Toronto ☛ New old systems in the age of hardware shortages

    If I was thinking of building a new desktop under normal circumstances, I would use all modern components (which is to say, current generation CPU, motherboard, RAM, and so on). But RAM is absurdly expensive these days, so building a new DDR5-based system with the same 64 GBytes of RAM that I currently have would cost over a thousand dollars Canadian just for the RAM. The only particularly feasible way to replace such an existing system today is to reuse as many components as possible, which means reusing my DDR4 RAM. In turn, this means that a lot of the rest of the system will be 'old'. By this I don't necessarily mean that it will have been manufactured a while ago (although it may have) but that its features and capabilities will be from a while back.

  • David L Farquhar ☛ The Silicon Underground - David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more

    The K5 is AMD’s first x86 processor to be developed entirely in-house. Introduced March 27, 1996, its primary competition was Intel’s Pentium microprocessor. The K5 was an ambitious design, closer to a Pentium Pro internally than a Pentium. However, the final product was closer to the Pentium regarding performance, although faster clock-for-clock compared to the Pentium. The “K” in the name K5 stood for Kryptonite. AMD, being an underdog compared to Intel, hoped the K5 be the undoing for the Superman-like Intel.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-18 [Older] Backlash against sex ed threatens Poland's health curriculum

  • LRT ☛ Why hasn’t Europe phased out daylight saving time?

    Lithuania and the rest of the European Union will move clocks forward by one hour on Sunday as daylight saving time begins, renewing debate over the long-contested practice of seasonal time changes.

  • Futurism ☛ Netizens Terrified of What NASA Grew on the Space Station

    The “tentacles,” of course, are simply the potato sprouting — which, to be fair, can sometimes look a little freaky, as anyone who has left some sitting in their pantry for too long can attest. (Pettit shared that absent gravity, the roots “will grow in all directions,” sending additional shudders among the potato paranoid.)

    But what about the white cilia? That was a velcro hook Pettit stuck on to keep them from floating away in his terrarium. A clever solution.

  • Neritam ☛ New PM to give bankers more power to gamble on food

    It’s 15 years now since the financial crash showed up the global economy as a giant casino, with no care for the livelihoods of ordinary people or the health of our planet. When things go wrong, the poorest pay the price, while the bankers are bailed out. In fact, that logic of making a quick buck and throwing the cost onto the rest of society and future generations, has seen our economy hollowed out. Modern businesses have started to consume themselves in order to hand over wealth to their

  • Raptitude ☛ In Favor of Enjoying Things on Purpose

    Notice that your ability to appreciate these gifts does not depend on mood, or on any other condition being favorable in your life. You are always surrounded by countless favorable conditions that can be relished and enjoyed, regardless of the presence of unfavorable ones.

    When you do this exercise, don’t try to appreciate every single favorable thing (not that you ever could). Just enjoy one or two of them and move on. It takes seconds.

• Proprietary

  • Nick Heer ☛ I Regret the Blood Pact I Have Made With iCloud Photos

    Sometimes, I do not recognize a trap until I am already in it. Photos in iCloud is one such situation.

    When Apple launched iCloud Photo Library in 2014, I was all-in. Not only is it where I store the photos I take on my iPhone, it is where I keep the ones from my digital cameras and my film scans, and everything from my old iPhoto and Aperture libraries. I have culled a bunch of bad photos and I try not to hoard, but it is more-or-less a catalogue of every photo I have taken since mid-2007. I like the idea of a centralized database of my photos, available on all my devices, that is functionally part of my backup strategy.1

  • Jarrod Blundy ☛ Launchpad was great for uninstalling apps; Spotlight is not

    Uninstalling apps on macOS is not as easy as it should be.

    Yes, I know, I know that you can just drag an app to the trash and technically it’s gone. That’s what Apple recommends doing in its video. But then why do are apps like Raycast, CleanMyMac, and AppCleaner able to find leftover files scattered around your system by the deleted app? Maybe it’s just the completionist in me, but I don’t want those files left behind!

  • MacRumors ☛ Mac Pro Discontinued: Reflecting on 20 Years of Apple's Desktop Tower

    Apple this week announced that it has discontinued the Mac Pro, with new configurations no longer available and no further models planned.

  • Stephen Hackett ☛ How Apple Could Have (Maybe) Saved the Mac Pro

    I’ve thought a lot about the bad timing Jones mentions. Had Apple stuck to the original timeline, and killed off the 2013 Mac Pro in favor of an iMac “specifically targeted at large segments of the pro market,” back in 2017, Apple could have avoided putting out the best Intel Mac ever, less than a year before the transition to Apple silicon.

    Did Apple know in 2017 that 2020 was the year the M1 would make it out of the lab? Probably not, but it doesn’t make the timing any less painful.

  • D Griffin Jones ☛ How Apple could have saved the Mac Pro | D. Griffin Jones

    Apple has officially discontinued the Mac Pro. Unfortunately, the writing has been on the wall for, like, five years.

    Apple decided to start caring about the Mac Pro again at the worst possible time. The Intel Mac Pro, while excellent, arrived just six months before the announcement that the Mac would transition to Apple silicon. After which, the Mac Pro didn’t offer any better performance than the Mac Studio. Just the card slots — which you couldn’t put a GPU in.

  • Site36 ☛ Home visits due to software vulnerability: German state criminal police rang admins out of bed

    The officers merely handed over a copy of a letter that PTC had sent to companies the previous day, which contained instructions for a so-called hotfix. This involves closing a single vulnerability before updating the entire application. The affected products were Windchill and Flex PLM, which companies in industry and retail use to monitor and control manufacturing and supply processes.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ Alarming Study Finds That Most People Just Do What ChatGPT Tells Them, Even If It's Totally Wrong

      The reality is that chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, or Anthropic’s Claude still make regular mistakes. According to an October study by the BBC, even the most advanced AI chatbots gave wrong answers a whopping 45 percent of the time.

      But many users don’t understand that reality. As detailed in a new paper, University of Pennsylvania postdoctoral researcher Steven Shaw and marketing professor Gideon Nave found that in a series of experiments, users tended to take the output of ChatGPT at face value even when it gave them the incorrect answer.

    • IT Wire ☛ Why the real bottleneck in enterprise AI isn't GPUs - it's data

      For the past two years, the conversation around enterprise AI has been dominated by GPUs: who has them; who can buy them; who is waiting months for them. But a new wave of announcements at NVIDIA's recent annual AI conference suggests something more subtle is happening inside enterprise data centres. While the GPU shortage grabbed headlines, the real constraint on AI adoption is increasingly data infrastructure. And that’s the problem companies like Everpure are now trying to solve.

    • Wired ☛ AI Research Is Getting Harder to Separate From Geopolitics

      “This is a potential watershed moment,” says Paul Triolo, a partner at the advisory firm DGA-Albright Stonebridge who studies US-China relations. Triolo argues that attracting Chinese researchers to NeurIPS is beneficial to US interests, but some American officials have pushed for American and Chinese scientists to decouple their work—especially in AI, which has become a particularly sensitive topic in Washington.

      The incident could deepen political tensions around AI research, as well as dissuade Chinese scientists from working at US universities and tech companies in the future. “At some level now it is going to be hard to keep basic AI research out of the [political] picture,” Triolo says.

    • The Verge ☛ Why can’t TikTok identify AI generated ads when I can?

      What irks me is that someone knows for sure if the content is AI-generated. They’re just not telling the rest of us. And if companies that claim to support AI-labelling initiatives actually want them to succeed, they should probably do something about that.

    • Derek Thompson ☛ What Is Anthropic Thinking?

      The landscape of AI is not merely filled with news. It is filled with teams. You have the doomers, the accelerationists, the skeptics, the it’s-a-bubble oracles, the anti-bubble counter oracles, and so on. It would be convenient for my sanity—and, perhaps, the sanity of my readers—if I simply joined one team and never removed the jersey. But I don’t think any aforementioned tribe has a monopoly on good arguments. I think the doomers are right about the risk of the technology, and the accelerationists are right about the promise of the technology, and the skeptics are right that the doomers and accelerationists can both overstate their cases.

      So I’m trying to make sure that my coverage of AI cuts across silos and allows readers to hear from all of the teams. Last week, I published an interview with the investor and writer Paul Kedrosky on the case for AI being an economic bubble. But if any single data point pierces that narrative, it’s this: Between December 2025 and March 2026, the AI lab Anthropic more than doubled its annual recurring revenue from $9 billion to more than $20 billion. According to several analysts, there is no record of any company growing this fast at this scale … ever. It’s hard to imagine that artificial intelligence is both a bubble and the home to the industry witnessing the fastest-growing businesses in history.

    • Ava ☛ using AI to inflate your ego | ava's blog

      In my case, it’s no use to endorse it based on hype online, nor to try it once and keep my opinion fixed on that experience. I’m expected to engage with it somewhat at work, and independently, I want to know what I can expect from these tools so I can make better decisions and write better when it comes to the data protection impact these tools have. No use to stick my head in the sand when my desired career path is touched so heavily by it.

      What bewilders me is how many people seem to use the tool (and topic in general) to inflate their ego. I don’t just mean the literal sycophancy displayed in the model outputs, but also in the conversation around its use.

    • NBC ☛ AI is changing the style and substance of human writing, study finds

      The research team found that users who heavily relied on large language models (LLMs) produced responses that diverged significantly in meaning from the answers of participants who only partially relied on LLMs or avoided their use altogether, suggesting heavy AI use alters the substance of humans’ arguments in addition to changing writing style.

      “The LLMs are pushing the essays away from anything that a human would have ever written,” said Natasha Jaques, one of the lead authors of the study and a computer science professor at the University of Washington, highlighting the "blandification" of writing that relies on AI systems. “They just change human writing in a way that’s very large and very unlike what humans would have done otherwise.”

    • Joost de Valk ☛ Ask Joost: AI-powered answers from my blog

      I have written quite a bit. Over the years, this blog has accumulated posts about WordPress, SEO, open source governance, CMS market share, and plenty more. Finding the right post for a specific question means searching, skimming, and hoping the title matches what you’re looking for. That’s not great.

      So I built Ask Joost: a page where you can ask a natural language question and get a direct answer, sourced from my blog posts.

    • Bitdefender ☛ How one man used 10,000 bots to steal $8,000,000 from music artists

      To understand how the fraud was committed, it is helpful to understanding how streaming royalties work. Platforms like Spotify and Apple Music do not pay a fixed rate per stream. Instead they divide a pot of money between all of the artists whose songs have been streamed that month. The more streams your song receives, the larger your slice of the pot.

      But that also means that the more 'fake' streams your song receives, the smaller everyone else's royalty cheque. In other words, Smith was not just fraudulently earning money - he was taking it directly out of the pockets of legitimate artists.

  • Social Control Media

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ L.A. social media addiction verdict to unleash lawsuits — and changes

      Two of America’s largest tech companies suffered stunning defeats in court this week, sustaining early jolts in what could prove to be a seismic shift in how social media operates amid a new landscape of legal risk.

    • The Nation ☛ A Landmark Suit Against Meta and YouTube Opens the Floodgate for AI Litigation

      As significant as this verdict is, it merely represents the opening act of a story that will get considerably darker from here. Not that this case wasn’t already dark, mind you: The young woman known in court by her first name, Kaley, experienced anxiety, body dysmorphia, and suicidal thoughts. She was drawn into compulsive use of social media by certain addictive design decisions—like auto-playing videos and the infinite scroll of the social media feed—that her lawyers compared to the tricks used by casino games to keep users playing even as they take on debilitating losses.

      The darkness ahead has to do with the adoption of artificial intelligence. Many of the cases that will follow Kaley’s will center around the damages caused not by social media but by so-called AI companions, and their harms can be even more severe and insidious. For young people especially, there are few things in life more powerful than the feeling of love, and chatbots can provide a remarkably seductive simulacrum of the experience that can land vulnerable users several levels of the Inferno below the psychic torments beamed out on Instagram and YouTube.

    • The Verge ☛ A jury said Instagram and YouTube are defective — now what?

      While Reid sees legal risks for smaller platforms with fewer resources in these decisions, he’s not convinced they’re more serious than the challenges new entrants already face in a hyper-consolidated online landscape built on massive amounts of data collection. “There are things that make it hard to do something really new in this space that are driven by the sort of marketplace and the surrounding policy,” he said.

• Security

  • CISA

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-20 [Older] CISA Adds Five Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-19 [Older] CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-19 [Older] Schneider Electric Modicon M241, M251, and M262

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-19 [Older] Schneider Electric Modicon Controllers M241, M251, M258, and LMC058

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-19 [Older] Schneider Electric EcoStruxure Automation Expert

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-19 [Older] Schneider Electric EcoStruxure PME and EPO

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-19 [Older] Mitsubishi Electric CNC Series

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-19 [Older] CTEK Chargeportal

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-19 [Older] IGL-Technologies eParking.fi

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-19 [Older] Automated Logic WebCTRL Premium Server

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-18 [Older] CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-18 [Older] CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-18 [Older] CISA Urges Endpoint Management System Hardening After Cyberattack Against US Organization

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-17 [Older] CODESYS in Festo Automation Suite

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-17 [Older] Schneider Electric SCADAPack and RemoteConnect

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-17 [Older] Schneider Electric EcoStruxure Data Center Expert

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-17 [Older] Siemens SICAM SIAPP SDK

    • CISA ☛ 2026-03-16 [Older] CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Futurism ☛ Ominous Surveillance "Scarecrows" Appearing Across America

      A growing favorite among police departments throughout the country is the “camera on wheels” platform, known as COWs for short — or “scarecrows,” for a more ominous moniker. While they’re not quite as exciting as “Fallout” style police robots, COWs offer a low-effort solution to departments whose panopticon has a few blind spots.

      COWs are basically tiny tow-trailers with a solar panel, battery, and telescoping CCTV mast attached. They’re sold by high-tech ventures such as Flock Safety — shown below — and rented out by legacy security enterprises like Allied Universal.

    • GreyCoder ☛ How To Sign-Up To PIA Anonymously With No Credit Card

      You can get good pseudonymity when with PIA (Private Internet Access), but not true anonymity.

      PIA will still see your IP address at signup and an email, but you can make both of these difficult to link to your identity.

      For serious privacy, combine: [...]

    • Thereallo ☛ I Decompiled the White House's New App

      The official White House Android app has a cookie/paywall bypass injector, tracks your GPS every 4.5 minutes, and loads JavaScript from some guy's GitHub Pages.

    • Nick Heer ☛ Bill C–22 Gives Canadian Authorities Additional Warrantless Powers

      OpenMedia is running a campaign to email Members of Parliament, though I am suspicious these form letter campaigns actually work. It is a bare minimum signal since it requires almost no commitment. My M.P. is usually opposed to anything proposed by this government, since he is in the official opposition, but his reaction to this bill’s much worse predecessor is that it contained “the most commonsensical security changes we need to make in Canada”. I expect I will be writing him and, when I do, I will be sure to adjust OpenMedia’s form letter. If you are writing to your M.P., I suggest you do the same if you can spare the time.

    • Ben Werdmuller ☛ The White House has an app now, and Trump wants you to report people to ICE on it

      A little history lesson from the Wiener Holocaust Library: [...]

    • The Verge ☛ The White House has an app now, and Trump wants you to report people to ICE on it

      It does raise one new question: when there’s a new president, the White House website and social media accounts have a handover process. Does that apply to this app, too?

• Defence/Aggression

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-17 [Older] 400 killed in Pakistani strike on Kabul hospital: Taliban

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-18 [Older] Pakistan, Taliban agree on strike pause for end of Ramadan

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-18 [Older] Norway: Prosecutors seek 7-year term for crown princess' son

  • India Times ☛ Here’s how countries are cracking down on kids’ social media use

    Governments around the world, including India, are moving towards tighter controls on minors’ access to social media. Concerns have been rising in recent years about the effects platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram can have on children and vulnerable users.

    Here is a look at countries that have taken steps in this direction to better protect young users: [...]

  • CS Monitor ☛ Should social media apps be banned for children?

    “The rest had found workarounds,” says Mr. Kakanis, a proponent of the ban, via email. “The students who had their accounts disabled waited a while, then made new accounts with ease.”

    News reports suggest that this particular group of 14- and 15-year-olds are hardly the only ones to rebel.

  • NDTV ☛ Millions Join "No Kings" Protests In US, Europe Over Iran War, President Donald Trump Policies

    People rallied from New York City, with almost 8.5 million residents in a solidly blue state, to Driggs, a town of fewer than 2,000 people in eastern Idaho, a state Trump carried with 66% of the vote in 2024.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ See Bruce Springsteen Sing 'Streets of Minneapolis' at No Kings Rally

    “This past winter, federal troops brought death and terror to the streets of Minneapolis, but they picked the wrong city,” Springsteen told the crowd of thousands outside Minnesota State Capitol. “The power and the solidarity of the people of Minneapolis and Minnesota was an inspiration to the entire country. Your strength and your commitment told us that this is still America, and this reactionary nightmare — and these invasions of American cities — will not stand. You gave us hope, you gave us courage.”

  • The Nation ☛ No Kings! No Wars!

    The abuses of Donald Trump’s second term inspired the rise of the No Kings movement, which this Saturday will return to the streets of these United States, from Key West at the end of the Florida Keys to Kotzebue Sound above the Arctic Circle in Alaska. In more than 3,000 cities, villages, and towns, millions of people will be protesting a president who organizers decry for “sending masked agents into our streets, terrorizing our communities” and “spending billions of our tax dollars on missile strikes abroad all while driving up the cost of living and handing out massive giveaways to billionaire allies.”

  • CBC ☛ Anger over Iran war adds fuel to anti-Trump 'No Kings' protests across U.S.

    Organizers of Saturday's "No Kings" rallies across the United States are predicting that the protests against the actions of U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration could add up to one of the largest demonstrations in U.S. history, with Minnesota taking centre stage.

    Organizers say more than 3,100 events have been registered in all 50 states, with more than nine million people expected to participate.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ ‘No Kings’ Protests Erupt Across US, Europe Against Trump

    Large crowds protested Saturday against the war in Iran and President Donald Trump's actions in “No Kings” rallies across the U.S. and in Europe. Minnesota took center stage, with thousands of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder to celebrate resistance to Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement. Minnesota's flagship event on the Capitol lawn in St. Paul drew Bruce Springsteen as its headliner. He and other speakers praised the state's people for taking to the streets over the winter in opposition to a surge of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents.

  • New York Times ☛ ‘No Kings’ Protests Decry Trump and His Agenda

    In the Twin Cities, a sea of people converged on the State Capitol, invoking the memories of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Demonstrators swarmed intersections in Portland, Ore., motivated by what one called a “national crisis” that had “escalated to a whole other level.” In Little Rock, Ark., where more than 2,000 people marched across the Arkansas River, one woman carried her own MAGA sign: “Morons Are Governing America.”

    Protesters filled streets and town squares across the United States on Saturday at thousands of rallies, the third in a sequence of nationwide, loosely coordinated demonstrations under the banner of “No Kings.” They came to denounce President Trump and much of his second-term agenda, wielding signs and chants about issues such as mass deportation, restrictions on voting, attacks on diversity and two matters that have suddenly moved to the fore: the war in Iran and the soaring gas prices that have resulted from it.

  • California State University Northridge ☛ New year, new ‘No Kings’ protest

    Just five months after the previous ‘No Kings’ protest in the same location, participants took to Zelzah Avenue and Nordhoff Street in Northridge on March 28 to protest the Trump administration.

  • Michigan Advance ☛ ‘No Kings’ protests take place across Michigan in latest nationwide demonstrations

    Rallies took place in communities across the state, including at the Capitol in Lansing, and in cities and towns from Detroit, Grand Rapids and Flint to smaller towns like Howell. The protests were part of a coordinated national effort backed by a coalition of local and national organizations.

    Organizers say they are mobilizing participants in response to policies and actions they view as threats to democratic institutions, civil rights and the rule of law. The No Kings movement has grown in recent months, with previous demonstrations drawing large crowds across the country.

  • Nebraska Examiner ☛ No Kings protests return to Nebraska, draw hundreds and thousands

    The third iteration of No Kings protests organized border to border gatherings to vent displeasure at President Donald Trump and his administration’s policy decisions. The Lincoln protest was held on the Helen Boosalis Trail between North 27th Street and North 56th Street.

  • Brattleboro Reformer, Vermont ☛ 'No Kings 3' rally draws huge crowd of protesters to Brattleboro

    A "No Kings 3" rally drew a huge crowd to downtown Brattleboro on Saturday, part of a larger national protest movement going on across the country. According to the national protest organization group Indivisible, Saturday's "No Kings" was likely to be the largest nationwide protest in U.S. history, with more than 3,000 planned protests scheduled.

  • Deseret Media ☛ 'We stand together': Thousands emphasize 'the people's power' in 'No Kings' rally

    • Thousands rallied in Salt Lake City against Trump's administration, emphasizing people's power.
    • Robert Birch's speech criticized government spending and urged unity for democracy and peace.
    • Protesters marched to the Utah Capitol, chanting against ICE and Trump's policies.

  • Tennessee Lookout ☛ Anti-Trump 'No Kings' rallies draw thousands across Tennessee

    The Tennessee protests, taking place in dozens of cities across the state, are among an estimated 3100 No Kings events planned nationwide, according to organizers. “Trump wants to rule over us as a tyrant. But this is America, and power belongs to the people – not to wannabe kings or their billionaire cronies,” the event’s official website said.

  • Alabama Reflector ☛ No Kings day rallies roll out across the US, with millions said to attend anti-Trump protests

    Crowds at the Washington, D.C., No Kings march noticeably were larger compared to October’s march. Rallygoers carried signs protesting Trump’s mass deportation campaign, increases in health care costs and the administration’s heavy redactions of the Epstein files.

    A speaker rallying the crowd at the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge urged participants to vote in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ No Kings demonstration spans six miles as thousands of Kansans line streets

    Protestors lined up at intersections from 75th Street to 119th Street, some in groups of hundreds.

  • The Indiana Capital Chronicle ☛ Sunny day greets thousands of anti-Trump protesters in Indianapolis

    Thousands of Hoosiers marched to the Indiana Statehouse Saturday afternoon for the third No Kings rally in opposition to President Donald Trump — an event punctuated by drum circles, car honking, signs and creative costumes.

    The rally reflected an upbeat vibe as protesters met at the south steps to listen to live renditions of famous anti-war songs by the Beatles and the Cranberries.

    Speakers rallied the crowd in laughter and “joyful resistance,” while other protesters circled the building to chant for passersby, carrying signs comparing the president to a monarch, dictator and fascist.

  • The Georgia Recorder ☛ Macon No Kings event ends abruptly when sheriff tries to address concerns about cooperation with ICE

    In a statement sent after the demonstration, Keene said that Macon Rising, which faced criticism for inviting him to speak, is focused on bringing people together “around shared values of democracy, safety and transparency,” but that they respect other organizations’ approaches.

    “Our decision to invite him to speak at the rally is rooted in that commitment to public accountability and direct communication. We believe our community deserves the opportunity to hear from and engage with those in positions of authority, especially on issues that impact their safety and rights,” Keene said.

  • The Nation ☛ The Politicians Won’t Stop This War. Only the People Can.

    The sheer size of the protests has been heartening and has invigorated the ongoing and often successful resistance to Trump’s policy. Still, I’ll confess I’ve always been of two minds about “No Kings” as a slogan. Meant to evoke the American legacy of resistance to tyranny dating back to the Revolution, No Kings has, at best, felt like a blank-slate slogan that could be filled in with specific objections to Trump’s lawlessness, the brutality of the anti-immigrant crackdown, or the sheer corruption of the White House’s relationship with plutocrats such as Elon Musk. But it has risked being a bit too vague and evasive about the situation the world is currently facing. For one, Donald Trump is not a monarch; he is an aspiring autocrat who holds an elected office. And. like many forms of liberal anti-Trump politics, No Kings has seemed excessively focused on Trump’s personality rather than his policies, with no clear effort to mobilize for an alternative political vision.

  • The Register UK ☛ Iran war drives urgent need to counter underwater drones

    While the Iran war isn't specifically mentioned, the reason behind this call for solutions is the general threat posed by drones, specifically uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs), which are the subsea equivalent of airborne attack drones.

    Ukraine is also instrumental in showing the potential danger from these weapons. Last year, the country's armed forces claimed they struck and disabled a Russian Kilo-class submarine that was docked in Novorossiysk harbour on the Black Sea coast.

  • Robert Reich ☛ Toward a Pro-Democracy Movement

    Ending the reign of King Trump isn’t the sole goal of today’s demonstrations. The purpose is much larger than that.

    Trump himself is not the cause of the growing cynicism about democracy and the deepening polarization of our society.

    He’s the consequence and culmination of decades of neglect of our system. Even before Trump, we could not have remained on the road we were on toward ever-widening inequality of income, wealth, and opportunity.

    That’s because when income, wealth, and opportunity are concentrated in few hands, so is power. And when power is concentrated in a few hands, trust in all institutions declines. Democracy withers.

  • International Business Times ☛ Celebs Who Stood Up at US 'No Kings' Protests: From Bruce Springsteen to Robert De Niro

    Millions of Americans have taken to the streets in a wave of coordinated demonstrations known as the 'No Kings' protests. Driven by outrage over federal immigration policies and the fatal shootings of two citizens, the movement has drawn enormous crowds. Anti-authoritarian rallies took place in all 50 states and 16 countries and are expected to be among the largest in recent US history, according to organisers.

  • Site36 ☛ Frontex and EUROGENDFOR trained in Finland their new law on (violent) pushbacks

    The law, which must be renewed annually, applies to the entire 1,340-kilometre land border with Russia. Finland enacted it following discussions about the alleged “instrumentalisation” of migrants by the government in Moscow. EU member states and the Commission spoke of the “weaponisation” of migration and sought to pass an “Instrumentalisation Regulation”, which, however, failed in December 2022 in the Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers. Substantial parts of it were later adopted within the framework of the new Pact on Migration and Asylum (CEAS).

  • Kentucky Lantern ☛ Kentuckians turn out for anti-Trump No Kings protests at 'crucial moment' for democracy • Kentucky Lantern

    Halfway through the rally, which was scheduled from 1-4 p.m. Saturday, the crowd marched around downtown and returned to Metro Hall without incident. Along the march, several Louisville Metro Police Officers rode bikes on the sidewalk, around the outskirts of the march. There were no visible counter-protesters along the route.

    At least 38 No Kings protests were scheduled around Kentucky, from Prestonsburg to Ashland to Paducah.

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ ‘No ICE! No kings! No war!’: Thousands protest Trump across Maine

    Across Maine on Saturday, thousands gathered on street corners and in parks, some playing music, many waving signs and banners as part of the third national “No Kings” day of protest against the administration of Donald Trump.

    Many attendees expressed anger at Trump’s ongoing war on Iran, and his deportation efforts — which became much more real for many in Maine during the weeks-long surge in January — as well as the lack of action from Congress to deter him.

  • Kentucky Lantern ☛ Signs of the times: Kentucky No Kings photo gallery

    Here are some scenes from Bowling Green, Lexington and Louisville.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ The Point of No Kings Is NO KINGS [UPDATE-1]

    But by all means, do protest against a proto-monarchical authoritarian state which doesn’t align with the intents of the nation’s founders — a nation founded and based on laws, not a man.

  • RTL ☛ Trio of events: Cherry blossoms, kite-flying and 'No Kings' converge on Washington - RTL Today

    A boisterous “No Kings” rally competed for visitors’ attention Saturday in Washington, as people also packed the National Mall for a kite-flying festival and the US capital’s favorite annual rite of spring: communing with the cherry blossoms.

  • Kieran Healy ☛ Subway Sign

    Here’s a direct link to the PNG and the PDF. Once again, put it onna stick and exercise the constitutional rights to freedom of expression, speech, and assembly enjoyed by everyone in the United States.

  • David L Farquhar ☛ Toshiba's Soviet nuclear submarine scandal

    On March 19, 1987, the Pentagon announced that it had learned the Soviet Union acquired machine tooling for making submarine propeller blades from Toshiba Machine, a subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation, better known as a major electronics manufacturer. Between the machine tools the Soviets acquired from Toshiba and Norwegian weapons maker Kongsberg, the Soviets were able to make their submarines harder to detect, identify, and track.

    One of the results of scandal was the U.S. Government banning its own use of Toshiba computers and certain other products from Toshiba until the end of 1991. The Japanese government was unhappy with the ban, but did not intervene. This Cold War scandal is largely forgotten today but was a major incident at the time.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Pussy Riot Protests Tech Company for 'Powering Russian War Crimes'

    Pussy Riot occupied the Manhattan offices of Ubiquiti Friday to protest the tech company’s “role in Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine,” the group said in a statement.

    In a video statement, Pussy Riot member Nadya explained how the Russian military has relied on Ubiquiti to communicate with troops on the frontline, and in doing so assisted in “thousands of documented cases of war crimes by the russian army.”

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Kyiv Independent ☛ Over 206,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine identified by media investigation

    The journalists note that the actual figures are likely significantly higher, as their verified information comes from public sources such as obituaries, posts by relatives, regional media reports, and statements from local authorities.

    The confirmed death toll now includes over 75,300 volunteers, 23,100 recruited prisoners, and 18,200 mobilized soldiers, according to the media outlets. A total of 6,948 officers have also been confirmed to have been killed.

• Environment

  • Tuscon Sentinel ☛ 2026’s historic snow drought brings worries about water, wildfires & the future in the West | Analysis

    Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service shows that out of approximately 70 river basins across the Western U.S., only five are at or above the 1991-2020 median snow water equivalent for this time of year. Most of those are clustered around the Yellowstone region of western Wyoming and eastern Idaho.

  • Western Water ☛ Denver Water declares drought, limits water use

    This marks the fifth time since 2000 that Denver Water has declared a Stage 1 drought, but officials say current conditions stand out. Rapid snowmelt, warmer temperatures, and long-term climate pressures are all contributing factors.

    At the same time, Denver Water emphasized that past conservation efforts have made a difference. Over the years, customers have significantly reduced water use, helping stretch supplies during dry periods.

  • BoingBoing ☛ Golden oyster mushroom is invading North American forests

    The golden oyster mushroom, native to Asia, has become an invasive threat in North America. Brought to the US around the early 2000s for cultivation because of its high yield, it didn't stay contained for long. Community scientists started spotting its bright yellow clusters across 25 US states. Mycologist Aishwarya Veerabahu at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that trees colonized by golden oysters have roughly half the fungal biodiversity of uncolonized trees. "That was a huge indicator that they're likely outcompeting the native fungi that were there," Veerabahu told the BBC.

  • BBC ☛ An unstoppable mushroom is tearing through North American forests. Fungi enthusiasts are doing damage control

    The mushroom is now found across the world. It's spreading in Switzerland, and has been found in Italy, Hungary, Serbia and Germany. There are reports of the golden oyster growing in the south of the UK too. The Royal Horticultural society has issued advice warning people against growing non-native species, especially the golden oyster, saying it was "highly invasive" and capable of causing "severe damage" to local fungal communities.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-18 [Older] Strike halts all passenger flights at Berlin airport

    • The Atlantic ☛ Airfare Is Just the Beginning

      “Airfares are certainly the canary in the coal mine,” my colleague Annie Lowrey, who writes about economic policy, told me. “No other major consumer good or service I can think of is as sensitive to energy costs.” Jet fuel makes up roughly 30 percent of the cost of an airline ticket, and much of that increase is getting passed on to customers. When Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz earlier this month, it pinched off the world’s oil supply, and prices shot up. The average price of jet fuel spiked more than 58 percent during the first week of the war and has increased more than 10 percent each week since. Airlines began feeling that strain right away, which soon started to bear on tickets—dynamic-pricing systems allowed companies to change what they charge for each seat in real time.

    • Google ☛ Scaling clean energy and reliability in Michigan

      Google’s data center operations will be served by 2.7 gigawatts (GW) of new resources for the grid, including solar power, advanced storage technologies and demand flexibility. This Clean Capacity Acceleration Agreement with DTE (the same structure as the Clean Transition Tariff) will bring new, clean resources online, while supporting the state’s transition away from coal-fired power. As part of our standard approach to building new data centers, Google will fully cover its electricity costs and infrastructure needs, helping to ensure that its growth protects local ratepayers and actively bolsters the long-term resilience of the state’s electricity grid.

    • Michigan Advance ☛ Two wildly different data centers reveal a ‘Fork in the Road’ on how to meet electricity demand

      A proposed Google data center in Michigan is notable for its use of renewable energy and its ability to ramp down power use during periods of high demand.

      The plan, announced last week, is a partnership with the utility DTE Energy and could serve as a model for cleanly and efficiently providing electricity to a data center.

      But there are many examples of data center developers going in the opposite direction, with proposals to build giant gas-fired power plants to go along with giant data centers. The largest of these, also announced last week, is a 9,200-megawatt gas plant in southern Ohio being developed by SoftBank Group Corp. of Japan and its subsidiary SB Energy.

    • Android Police ☛ Battery test claims the Galaxy S26's Snapdragon chip absolutely destroys Exynos

      The Samsung Galaxy S range has been available in two distinct flavors for a long time now, with the US getting the Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, and most of the world getting Samsung's Exynos chip. The differences between the two have always been there, but if this testing video is correct, then the Snapdragon chip has a massive lead, at least where battery life is concerned.

    • Hackaday ☛ Watch Electricity Slosh: Visualizing Impedance Matching

      For those who dabble in the dark art of RF and radio, the real payoff is the demonstration of impedance matching in the second video. He swaps resistors on the terminated leg to show how energy “sloshes” back when the resistance is too high or too low. However, when the resistor matches the line’s characteristic impedance, the reflection vanishes entirely—the energy is perfectly dissipated. It really makes it click how a well-matched, low SWR antenna is crucial for performance and protecting your radio.

    • Seth Godin ☛ Systems and the default to yes

      80,000,000 people have died as a result of automobiles over time. (It’s harder to estimate how many lives were saved or enriched by this massive shift in the transport of food, people and resources.) A successful system can redraw our maps and our expectations.

      When systems gain momentum like this, it’s because they create urgent and immediate value, enough to disrupt the status quo. And once the status quo has changed, the momentum becomes normal, the way things are, until persistent community action (or another, even more relentless system) changes the defaults.

    • Paul Krugman ☛ Talking with David Roberts - Paul Krugman

      I’ve been reading David Roberts on energy and climate for years, first at Grist, then at Vox, now at Volts, his Substack. Now we’re in a war-generated energy crisis, with many people reconsidering the energy future, and I thought a conversation about energy policy, technology, and America as possibly the last petrostate would be very useful. Transcript follows.

    • Charles Leifer ☛ Children's Games

      So much has been written about motorcycles, but the one image that has stuck with me the most came from Pirsig when he described how a motorcycle puts you in the scene while in a car you are an observer of the scenery. For me, it gets to the truth that the spirit of riding a motorcycle is simply the experience - that indivisible moment when you are piloting the machine and nothing else. Being aware of the demands of the machine and the environment when riding is one thing, and to ride well is everything.

    • Positech Games ☛ We got a heat pump (at last)

      It was inevitable really. I’m a life-long environmentalist who got solar panels 15 years ago, an EV 11 years ago, and a battery a few years ago. I also spent my own money to madly build a 1.23MWP solar farm. Of course I was going to get a heat pump. In fact you may well have assumed I already had one. Why was I not earlier to this?

  • Overpopulation

    • Allen Downey ☛ Attention, Chinese Readers

      To demonstrate this change, I collected recent mortality data from the Global Health Observatory of the World Health Organization (WHO). For people born in 2019, we don’t know what their future lifetimes will be, but we can estimate it if we assume that the mortality rate in each age group will not change over their lifetimes.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-19 [Older] Thailand elects Anutin Charnvirakul as new prime minister

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-19 [Older] UK–Nigeria relations in focus as London hosts Tinubu

  • RTL ☛ Haunting concern: At 50, Apple confronts its next big challenge: AI

    Apple celebrates its 50th anniversary as artificial intelligence challenges the Silicon Valley legend to prove it can deliver yet another culture-changing innovation.

    Steve Jobs, a driven marketing genius, and Steve Wozniak, who invented the Apple computer, revolutionized how people use technology in the internet age and built a company now worth more than $3.6 trillion.

    The two college dropouts changed the way people use computers, listen to music and communicate on the go, giving rise to lifestyles revolving around smartphone apps.

  • India Times ☛ Nokia trims 20% global workforce; 75,000 employees impacted: Report

    Approximately 74,000 employees, translating to more than 14,000 roles, will be affected globally, the report added.

  • New Yorker ☛ My Childhood in the Weather Underground

    That rage drove her away from King’s politics of nonviolence and toward a more militant ideology. She was soon elected to the national leadership of Students for a Democratic Society, the largest student protest group in the country at that time. It was through S.D.S. that she met my dad, the son of a prominent utilities C.E.O. He had grown up in a wealthy suburb of Chicago, burned his draft card at the University of Michigan, and then dropped out of school to protest full time.

    Then, in 1969, my mother split S.D.S. in half, forming a more radical faction of the group called Weatherman. (The name was taken from the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”: “You don’t need a weatherman / To know which way the wind blows.”) That October, Weathermen rampaged through Chicago’s upscale shopping district—the Magnificent Mile—with bricks, chains, and baseball bats, breaking windows, smashing cars, and brawling with armed police officers: the so-called Days of Rage riots. Their statement following the protest gave the title to Paul Thomas Anderson’s recent film about modern American revolutionaries: [...]

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ In Denmark, the Center Did Not Hold

    Denmark is not known for politically active billionaires. Yet when, in February, the Danish Social Democrats, under prime minister Mette Frederiksen, proposed a 0.5 percent annual wealth tax on the country’s richest 1 percent, the business response was both swift and furious.

    Firms poured millions into advertising campaigns ahead of the March 24 general election. Billionaires and CEOs took to the press threatening to leave the country, while all the major employers’ organizations and the largest firms, like Maersk, issued dire warnings of massive job losses and investment slowdown.

  • Stefano Marinelli ☛ The Usual, Thanks

    "The usual, thanks." Luca looked at me, probably thinking I had got out of bed on the wrong side, and said nothing more. The television, in the background, was showing the news. At one point an important national politician appeared, charming the journalists with their own words.

    "Crooks. Phonies. Hypocrites. Only clinging to their seats, that's all they are" - I whispered in my mind. But, perhaps, not only in my mind. Luca looked at me, while with practised, expert gestures he stretched out my pizza, and said with a smile: "Only just worked that out, have you?"

  • Jim Mitchell ☛ You Don't Have to Dazzle

    In today’s hustle culture, you’re not successful unless you’re always wowing your audience with the next big thing. That kind of dazzle becomes a vicious cycle of needing to top the last big thing. Eventually you hit a ceiling and there’s nowhere to go but down.

    I’ve seen it happen dozens of times.

  • YLE ☛ Washington Post editorial slams Finnish Supreme Court incitement ruling

    The editorial did not mention that the ruling was based on the finding that making medical claims in a religious context was not a protected form of religious freedom.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • International Business Times ☛ Trump's Latest Speech Sparked Fact-Checking Trend – POTUS' Lowered Food Costs Claims Questioned

      The picture painted by official figures is more complex than Trump's remarks suggested. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' February 2026 Consumer Price Index data, butter prices are down 7.6% year-on-year, cheese is down 1.1%, and potatoes fell 2.2%, appearing to support some of Trump's specific claims. However, the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service recorded overall food prices in February 2026 as 3.1% higher than in February 2025. Beef prices surged 16.4% over the same period, while coffee rose 19.8%, lettuce 7.3% and frozen fish 8.6%.

    • 404 Media ☛ Iran Is Winning the AI Slop Propaganda War

      Iran’s use of LEGO set rap music tells me it’s been studying us. These are videos meant for the American people crafted in a language Iran knows we’ll understand.

      Meanwhile, the White House is dropping Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty memes that were out of fashion 10 years ago on Reddit and vague-posting pixelated images of Trump like it’s running an ARG. Iran is attempting to speak to the broader American public. Trump is confident he only has to impress the online freaks he thinks still love him.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Meduza ☛ ‘Total chaos’: The Kremlin knows Russians are angry about new Internet restrictions. It’s struggling to respond.

    As mobile Internet blackouts spread from Russia’s regions to Moscow and the authorities continue throttling Telegram, opinion polls paint an uncomfortable picture for the Kremlin. Eighty-three percent of teenagers have reacted negatively to the shutdowns. Pro-government pollsters have avoided publishing analogous survey data on adult Russians, not wanting to draw attention to the scale of the discontent. Meanwhile, the security services pushing for the blocks have faced virtually no resistance from the politicians who privately oppose them. Meduza spoke with sources inside the Kremlin, regional governments, and the Putin administration’s political team to find out why.

  • UPI ☛ 21 people arrested for photos and videos of Iran attacks in Dubai

    There have been 21 people arrested in the emirate, said advocacy organization Detained in Dubai.

    "The charges sound extremely vague but serious on paper. In reality, the alleged conduct could be something as simple as sharing or commenting on a video that is already circulating online," said Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai and Due Process International.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ The Afroman Ruling Is a Victory for Artistic Speech

    The case went viral for obvious reasons. Afroman, clad in a bold American flag suit, issued ardent statements about free speech from the stand and sat back as his ridiculous songs were played in court. His lawyer struggled to pronounce the names of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion. An officer soberly testified about how he couldn’t be sure if his wife slept with Afroman — a contention of one of the silly songs.

    As memeable as the situation is, the comedy of it shouldn’t obscure the place of the trial in a broader shifting landscape of artistic free speech.

  • The Mill ☛ Revealed: The famous school at the centre of a book-banning scandal

    To look into a story like this, we obviously needed to speak to the school, which hasn’t been mentioned in any of the previous coverage. Finding the school wasn’t easy — we only had the information provided in the Index piece, alongside one small clue we’d received from a conversation with the Index reporter. However, after two days of sleuthing, we managed to confirm both the name of the school, and the librarian.

    We have not spoken to the librarian, despite our attempts to do so, and we are choosing not to name her to protect her anonymity. But we think it’s important for our local readers – many of whom are parents – to know the identity of the school, particularly given the very serious allegations being made. More than anything, it’s a critical piece of information to understand why this book-banning might have happened and who is responsible for it.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • CPJ ☛ Israeli strike on media car targets, kills 3 journalists in south Lebanon

    “CPJ is investigating this latest attack on journalists in Lebanon which has been an increasingly deadly zone for journalists, despite their status as civilians who must not be targeted,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “We have seen a disturbing pattern in this war and in the decades prior of Israel accusing journalists of being active combatants and terrorists without providing credible evidence. Journalists are not legitimate targets, regardless of the outlet they work for.”

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ The DOJ thinks news is contraband

    It was previously found, in the aftermath of Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers case, that newsrooms could publish information that was leaked to them. That’s a vital foundation for journalism and a free press, and therefore our ability to make informed democratic decisions. But this new precedent undermines that principle, and therefore our ability to understand the world around us. As the Freedom of the Press Foundation put it: [...]

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • Spectator AU ☛ Care factor ‘zero’ for striking ABC staffers

    Unionised staff at the national broadcaster withdrew their services for 24 hours having rejected the latest three-year pay offer from management. The deal included a 3.5 per cent pay rise in the first year followed by 3.25 per cent in the subsequent two years along with a one off $1,000 payment for all staff.

    Not for the first time, ABC staff have woefully misread the room. Public investment in the pay dispute is subterranean. Taxpayers couldn’t care less if the broadcaster stopped its services for a month. The vast majority of media consumers would not even notice.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ DOJ confirms voter data sharing with Homeland Security, but denies building national list

    The Justice Department has demanded states provide full copies of their voter lists, including sensitive personal information, such as driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. It has sued 29 states and the District of Columbia for refusing to turn over the data. At least a dozen other states have provided their lists.

  • Techdirt ☛ FBI Tells Senate It’s Still Bypassing 4th Amendment By Purchasing Location Data From Third Parties

    The rationale for this 4th Amendment bypass was this: location data slurped up by websites and downloaded apps wasn’t exactly the same thing as cell tower location data. Therefore, it could be had without a warrant. In fact, it could be had without bothering the courts at all with a subpoena or any other lighter-weight legal paperwork. The government could just buy this data and sort through it to find what it was looking for. Some third parties were even willing to do the sorting for the right price, freeing the government up to pursue other rights violations.

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ Hegseth reportedly removes 2 Black, 2 female Army officers from 1-star promotion list

    “This moment should not be separated from a broader, documented pattern,” Jose Vasquez, executive director of Common Defense and an Army veteran, said in a statement. “Since taking office, Hegseth has fired generals, renamed ships, and systematically targeted women and people of color in uniform. He is not making our military more lethal. He is making it more loyal to him and that is the true threat to national security and military readiness.”

  • Site36 ☛ Order or hint from Germany? Police check left-wing EU MEP Ilaria Salis before protest in hotel

    Shortly before the large demonstration “No Kings” in Rome, officers checked the left-wing EU MEP Ilaria Salis in her hotel room in Rome and asked her questions. The police allegedly referred to an order from Germany. That would not be lawful.

    Two police officers held and questioned the Member of the European Parliament Ilaria Salis in a hotel on Saturday morning for around an hour. The order for this is said to have come from Germany, Italian media report. Salis was on her way to the “No Kings” demonstration against authoritarian tendencies in global politics.

  • NPR ☛ Defense Secretary Hegseth intervened to stop promotions of Black and female officers

    Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth intervened to stop the promotions of several high-ranking service members including four Army officers, two Black men and two female soldiers, on track to become one-star generals, NPR has confirmed.

  • BoingBoing ☛ Trump's AG Bondi claims citizenship is a privilege, not a constitutional right

    Running directly into the 14th Amendment, which explicitly guarantees citizenship to anyone born or naturalized in the United States, Attorney General and pedophile protector Pam Bondi proves she does not know the law.

  • International Business Times ☛ ICE Officer Admits Rape Of Woman In Custody In Exchange For Favours—Case Resurfaced As Sentencing Draws Near

    A resurfaced case involving an ICE detention officer who admitted to raping a woman in custody in exchange for access to her child is reigniting scrutiny of abuse inside US detention facilities as sentencing approaches.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Gigi ☛ What's left of the [Internet]?

    I didn’t leave the [Internet]—the [Internet] left me. And despite the “it’s not X it’s Y” structure of the previous sentence, and the em-dash used, a real human wrote this. Or more accurately: is currently (trying to) write this. This human is me.

    I love the [Internet]. Or should I say I: I used to love the [Internet]? I’m not even sure what “the [Internet]” is anymore. It sure as fuck isn’t Facebook, even though that’s the reality for a lot of people. What even is “Facebook” today, given that Meta owns WhatsApp, Instagram, and a gazillion other things? Are you on Facebook when you’re sharing a funny video with your friends on WhatsApp? In some sense yes; in some sense no. Your (Meta)data is probably gobbled up all the same…. I don’t know…

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Copyrights

  • IP Kat ☛ 2026-03-21 [Older] UK Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence published

  • IP Kat ☛ 2026-03-21 [Older] [Guest Post] Music to my ears: Copyright protection of iconic guitars and other works of applied art

  • IP Kat ☛ 2026-03-22 [Older] CJEU rules that derivative works enjoy copyright protection if they are … original

  • Alexandre Oliva ☛ software in the public domain

    Now, other jurisdictions didn't set the term of copyrights over software to WTO's bare minimum. There are places where it could last for unimaginable 120 years. This means that a hypothetical program released by a corporation the same year as Einstein's special relativity theory got published, 1905, would have entered the public domain this year, 2026. That's insane!

    It took 47 years from quantum mechanics to the transistor, and transistors have existed for almost 80 years. A program written by a hypothetical 15-year-old in 1900, who lived to be 80, would not enter the public domain for another 10 years from now where copyrighted works enter the public domain 70 years after the death of the author. That's bollocks!

    Unlike Brazil, most of the world won't experience welcoming software into the public domain by copyright expiration for many more years, and even then, it will be very limited due to unavailability of source code, of hardware to run it, and of control over the hardware. And that's assuming that copyright terms don't get further extended.