Leftovers

• Crazy Stupid Tech ☛ Remembering the iPhone on Apple's 50th birthday and what it means today

  I’d always been way more interested in the engineers working in the trenches than the big bosses who got all the credit. They’re the folks actually building the stuff we use, after all.

  What emerged was a 2013 book called “Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution.” It was my attempt to shine a light on the people who actually make the innovation magic happen in Silicon Valley. The NYT Mag ran an excerpt featuring one of the key engineers on the project Andy Grignon.

  It wasn’t just Apple’s 50th birthday that made me think about all this. It was because I thought, with the 20th anniversay of the iPhone approaching in January 2027, that it was worth revisting what Silicon Valley was like when it was solely about building cool stuff and before it became home to the biggest and most controversial companies on the planet.

• Matthew Weber ☛ The Pen Problem Continues

  Soon, I’m going to issue a challenge. The “Don’t Buy Shit” Challenge. I’ll write more about that tomorrow, but for now you need to understand what has prompted that challenge.

• Gizmodo ☛ The Best Pop Culture Art Gallery In the World Is No More

  Today, Gallery 1988 announced that it’s officially closing its doors. And no, it’s not an April Fool’s joke. Created in 2004 by Katie Sutton and Jensen Karp, it touts itself as “the first pop culture-focused art gallery in the world.” One of its biggest moments was that aforementioned Lost art show, but in the years since, they also did official, licensed art shows for Star Wars, Star Trek, Breaking Bad, WWE, Marvel Studios, the Academy Awards, Masters of the Universe, Barbie, and much more. No other art gallery has a resume that comes close.

• Justin Duke ☛ Software never had a soul

  I think it's this: the narrative would have you believe that the personal web — replete with the kind of rococo and flourish that "doesn't scale" — is gone, and the mission falls on Us to bring it back. To me, this is the same kind of thinking that complains about how all the music on the radio today is overproduced poppy garbage, or that the only films coming out are high-budget, low-value, extended universe IP flicks. It is simply untrue, but the ease with which Ryo goes back and forth from talking about "software" to talking about "products" gives away the game.

• James G ☛ The archive

  This has me thinking about my site archives as a place that is alive, a place where there are ideas upon which I can build, or at the very least use for reference.

• Spencer Mortensen ☛ Email obfuscation: What works in 2026?

  Here are some of the best techniques for keeping email addresses hidden from spammers—along with the statistics on how likely they are to be broken.

• James G ☛ More examples of graduating between mediums of communication

  Another instance of "graduation" that comes to mind is the change from being a reader to being a commenter (i.e. going from reading a blog post to emailing the author, or submitting a comment in a comment box). Commenting turns a piece of work from a piece in the void to a place of discussion.

• Science

  • Ken Koon Wong ☛ Learning Chromosomal AmpC beta-lactamase Producing Organisms And Its Mechanics

    We’ve learnt about ESBL and CRE. Let’s explore AmpC mechanics. This is going to be interesting because it’s not a straightforward constitutive gene that produces via plasmid. It contains downstream mechanics that controls (aka repress) the AmpC gene (in chromosome). Let’s take a look ourselves! Here we will also use some associative terms that we understand to solidify our understanding and the actual mechanics. Let’s go!

• Career/Education

  • Matthew Rocklin ☛ Stepping Back

    I'm stepping back from my current commitments (Coiled, Dask, Python OSS generally) to make some space for myself. This post details concrete implications of that choice, and then explores some of my thinking.

  • New York Times ☛ One of Apple’s First Employees Looks Back at 50 Years

    Mr. Espinosa, 64, is one among an increasingly rare breed in today’s economy: people who have spent all of their lives working for one company. It is even harder to find somebody like him in Silicon Valley, where companies start up and shut down overnight and software engineers, product managers and others switch jobs every couple of years.

  • Becky Spratford ☛ RA for All: Becky's Genre Program Just Got Its 2026 Makeover

    I use all of the resources, articles, and stats from the 12 months before to assess each genre (for adults and teens), look at the trends, assess what books were the most popular (not are right now, but those that have staying power) and update my slides.

• Hardware

  • Jonathan Pallant ☛ JP's Website · 2026-04-02 · 3.5" disks for the BBC Master

    I sold my BBC Master at the last Bring and Buy at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge. However I recently found two of the floppy disks I made for it, and I thought I'd write a few words about them because they are little bit unsual.

    The BBC Master was a development of the BBC Micro - both made by Acorn and both based around a 6502 processor. Both machines had an external Shugart style floppy disk interface, and my BBC Master had with it a 3.5" double-density floppy disk drive. On an IBM PC running MS-DOS, disks in such a drive would be MFM formatted at 250 kbit/s with: [...]

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] Olympic Committee bans transgender women from female events

• Proprietary

  • Destiny 2 Lost 91% Of Its Players And It Makes Sense

    While Bungie is the beloved company behind the "Halo" franchise, the company's main focus for years has been "Destiny 2," a free-to-play live service FPS game that has inspired legions of fans all around the world. But now most of them are gone: Since the release of "Edge of Fate," the game's last major update, "Destiny 2" has since seen 91% of its PC playerbase vanish.

    The past few years have been simultaneously great for gamers and extremely difficult for the video game industry as a whole. Mass layoffs at Microsoft in 2024 affected the entire Xbox ecosystem, and at the same time thousands of developers at other companies were also having their jobs cut. On top of that, the gaming space has become so competitive that in 2025 some games lost their entire playerbase with little to no notice. All that turmoil is coming to Bungie now. The "Destiny 2" situation isn't as disastrous as Highguard losing all its players in 20 hours, but it's still a major blow to Bungie and the developer's publisher, Sony.

  • NL Times ☛ Fiat parent company sued over alleged "Dieselgate" software in campers

    Stellantis is not the only automaker caught up in defeat device scandals in recent years. Brands such as Volkswagen, Renault, and Mercedes have been found to manipulate emissions data. The issue has led to hefty fines, and multiple manufacturers are currently facing class-action claims.

  • Macworld ☛ A decade of hits: Most important Apple products from 2006-2015

    This period transformed Apple from a Mac and iPod company into a global technology powerhouse with an integrated ecosystem spanning smartphones, tablets, and wearables.

  • Six Colors ☛ Apple at 50: From rebel to empire?

    There are thematic ties, too. I wasn’t the only Mac fan amongst my friend group, but in the 1990s we were engaged in pitched battle with the behemoth that was Windows. It lent something to our identity, then—we were no less scrappy underdogs than the Rebel Alliance fighting back against the evil Empire.

  • Macworld ☛ Thanks for the wild ride, Apple. Let's keep it going

    Apple has turned 50, and this week I realized that I’ve been writing professionally about the company for two-thirds of its existence. (Excuse me while I try not to turn into dust and blow away in the gentle spring breeze.)

  • Six Colors ☛ Missed connections: Me and Apple

    By 2001, it hit me: it was the rumors that were crazy, not me. Most of these people didn’t know what they’re talking about. I could write this stuff!

    Hey! I could write this stuff!

  • Jarrod Blundy ☛ Apple at 50: A Dent in the Universe

    As I reflect on why we even care that a computer company has been around for five decades, I keep coming back to the fabled challenge that Steve Jobs gave to John Sculley as he tried to woo him into becoming Apple’s CEO:

    "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?"

  • John Gruber ☛ Daring Fireball: David Pogue’s ‘Apple: The First 50 Years’

    Pogue was my guest on The Talk Show a few weeks ago to talk about his new book, Apple: The First 50 Years, and the show was a lot of fun. But the book is so good, so comprehensive, so fun that it feels essential to link to it whilst we celebrate Apple’s 50th year. I’m a print guy, generally, but the print edition of this book is especially good — it’s a gorgeous book printed in full color throughout (not just, say, 16 color pages in the middle). Apple’s history is both literally and figuratively colorful, and the photos and screenshots Pogue includes are terrific.

  • Esquire ☛ Apple’s 50th Anniversary: Tim Cook on Why It Still Chases Big Ideas

    A month later, watching the Super Bowl on the basement Zenith, we would see a commercial for a new computer, the Macintosh. It was directed by Ridley Scott—he had done Alien and Blade Runner by that point—but we didn’t know that. It looked scary—gray-skinned, androgynous people with gray prison smocks and shaved heads march in unison into a dark pen glowing a cold blue. On a massive screen that fills one end of the room, a blue-tinted man speaks in a voice like Big Brother about how we are “one people” with “one resolve.” (The blue theme? IBM, nickname Big Blue, was the dominant computer brand at the time and Apple’s clear target.)

  • David Pogue ☛ Apple and Me: The First 50 Years

    Apple was founded on April 1, 1976. That makes today its 50th birthday.

    I’ve been prepping for this day for two years, working on my book Apple: The First 50 Years. Or, as I like to refer to it, my New York Times bestselling book Apple: The First 50 Years.

    Actually, I’ve been prepping for this day for 42 years, because that’s how long I’ve been writing about this company.

    [...]

    Steve Jobs hated open systems. He wanted to make self-contained, beautiful machines. He didn’t want them polluted by modifications.

  • Bruce Lawson ☛ Apple at 50: my top five Apple moments

    The whole world is on the streets, delirious with joy, as today one of the world’s largest companies turns 50 years old. The web is full of reminiscences about Apple products and Saint Steve, such as Apple at 50: My 10 most memorable moments. I haven’t been an Apple user for as long as many have, so here are my five top Apple memories.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • BSDly ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] I asked ChatGPT to write a pf.conf to spec, 2023-06-07 version [Ed: Slop is not reliable and not accountable either]

    • W Evan Sheehan ☛ NeoVim is Dead (to Me)? Long Live Who Knows What

      Drew DeVault’s post, A eulogy for Vim, brought to my attention the fact that my text editor of choice — NeoVim — uses, or at least accepts, contributions written with the help of Large Language Model (LLM) programming tools. Drew, like me, tries to avoid supporting this bubble, so he created a fork of Vim from a point far enough back in its history that it is untainted by “AI.” The question for me, then, is: does my continued use of NeoVim contribute to what I see as a capitalist, fascist project? Do I come to the same conclusion that Drew did, i.e. do I need to find a new text editor?

    • Marty Day ☛ Gallery 1988 is Ending Operations, And It’s Not An April Fool’s Joke

      It’s too damn true. I’m sure there’s a multitude of factors — the economy, the growth of other galleries, etc. — but I wouldn’t be shocked if Those Two Awful Letters had something to do with this.

    • Manuel Moreale ☛ Slash AI

      I’ve seen /ai pages popping up here and there on other people’s blogs. The idea for these pages is, and I quote, «promote trust and transparency». Trust, in the context of 2026 [Internet]—and society in general—is quite the complex topic. Dishing out trust willy-nilly is no longer a reasonable thing to do, and I also think we’re getting to the point where the “benefit of the doubt” is no longer worth considering.

    • Drew Breunig ☛ The 2nd Phase of Agentic Development

      The first wave of agentic development brought us clones and ports. When code is incredibly cheap, and you want the code to flow, you can either rely on your own fast feedback or leverage existing test suites. These early projects opted for the latter, as did many tokenmaxxers who are rebuilding their dependencies in Rust or Go.

      Two releases this week, however, suggest we’re starting to enter a second phase of open source agentic coding projects. The first brought us clones, this next phase brings us reimaginings. Consider the following two projects: [...]

    • Doc Searls ☛ Toward a Human Future for AI

      I was invited by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie, of the Imagining the Digital Future Center at Elon University, to contribute my thoughts to their latest study, titled Building a Human Resilience Infrastructure for the Age of AI: Experts Call for Radical Change Across Institutions, Social Structures, which just came out. Here is the full report, which runs 376 pages. I am generously sourced on pages 11, 16, 142, and 358. There is a lot of great stuff in the report, which I highly recommend. For what it’s worth, here is the full text of what I sent them.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Claude Code codebase is leaked

      Anthropic included a source map — a debugging file — in the Claude Code NPM package. This can turn the minified code in the package back into the original source code.

      The leak was 1,900 files with 512,000 lines of code.

    • [Old] Daniel Holden ☛ Control Operators for Interactive Character Animation

      This year at SIGGRAPH Asia we will be presenting Control Operators for Interactive Character Animation. Control Operators are a method for encoding arbitrary different inputs to Neural Networks in a way which is accessible to non-technical users. This allows users to design their own machine-learning-based character controllers, which we demonstrate on two different model types including a variation of Learned Motion Matching and a new flow-matching-based model.

  • Social Control Media

    • BBC ☛ Fewer UK adults posting on social media, Ofcom finds

      Fewer adults in the UK are posting, commenting on, or sharing material on social media - while AI use is up and the majority of people worry about their screentime - according to Ofcom.

      Across the UK, 49% of respondents said they actively post on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and X, down from 61% the previous year, according to the regulator's latest survey of online habits and usage.

      Ofcom said this, and its finding some people were choosing to post less permanent content, indicated a rise in "passive" social media use.

      For social media expert Matt Navarra, it suggests people may be seeking "digital self-preservation" by turning to smaller, private spaces like group chats and DMs.

    • Michael Geist ☛ Why the Verdict on Social Media Defective Design Harming Children Gets the Instinct Right But the Law Wrong

      My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that the instinct behind the decision is understandable. The evidence at trial was damning, as internal Meta documents showed the company knew Instagram was harming adolescents but continued targeting them anyway. But the legal theory the jury endorsed – that social media platforms are defectively designed products – is the wrong tool for a real problem, and building on it risks undermining the very accountability the strategy seeks to deliver.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • The Kyiv Independent ☛ Europe's centralized grid remains its vulnerability

      Across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), district heating is the primary way cities stay warm. Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the Baltics all depend on centralized systems built in the Soviet era. This is the very same architectural logic that made Ukraine's infrastructure a high-value target — not just to missiles and drones, but to cyberattacks as well.

      Modern heating plants are operated through industrial control software that regulates temperature, pressure, and flow remotely. That digital layer is already being exploited.

    • Dark Reading ☛ Ransomware Will Hit Hospitals. Rehearsals Are Key to Defense

      Izzo shared his story at RSAC 2026 Conference and provided key incident response (IR) recommendations for healthcare organizations, a sector frequently targeted by ransomware gangs due to highly sensitive information. Ransomware doesn't always cripple hospitals, but partial attacks happen frequently, Izzo explained. Either way, a rapid response is necessary when serving a vulnerable population.

    • Dark Reading ☛ Bank Trojan 'Casbaneiro' Worms Through Latin America

      For Elkins, the phenomenon of Brazilian banking Trojans is a mystery. "It's interesting that they're still hung up on banking Trojans, because a lot of time these newer threat actors are focusing on: How do we gain access to this customer's network? How do we start infiltrating exfiltrating data? How can we use ransomware to get paid?" he says.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Akira ransomware group can achieve initial access to data encryption in less than an hour

      A primary example can be found in the efficiency of Akira’s infection cycle, which has reduced incident response times to hours. According to Halcyon, Akira is known for using zero-day vulnerabilities, buying exploits from initial access brokers and exploiting VPNs lacking multifactor authentication to infect their victims. Akira also uses a process known as “intermittent encryption,” whereby large files can be encrypted faster in smaller blocks.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • The Register UK ☛ Top npm package backdoored to drop dirty RAT on dev machines

      Updated One of npm's most widely used HTTP client libraries briefly became a malware delivery vehicle after attackers hijacked a maintainer's account and slipped a remote-access trojan (RAT) into two seemingly legitimate axios releases, in what's being described as "one of the most impactful npm supply chain attacks on record."

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • EDRI ☛ Breaking the chain of impunity of the spyware underworld

      At the end of February 2026, after a series of lengthy hearings, the case against Intellexa came to a close. The Misdemeanour Court of First Instance of Athens delivered a first-instance conviction against Tal Dilian, a former Israeli military officer and founder of Intellexa, and two other senior company figures, Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou and Felix Bitzios, as well as Yiannis Lavranos, a Greek businessman linked to Krikel, the company that had purchased the spyware.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ House Dems decry confirmed ICE usage of Paragon spyware

      In response to a letter from the lawmakers inquiring about Paragon’s use, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons wrote that he had authorized the use of “cutting-edge technological tools” to help the Homeland Security Investigations division fight fentanyl, particularly against organizations using encrypted communications.

    • Patrick Breyer ☛ The End of Chat Control is an Opportunity: 5-Point Action Plan for Genuine Child Protection

      Tomorrow, April 3, EU Regulation 2021/1232 will expire. This controversial regulation allowed US tech companies to scan private messages without suspicion or a judicial warrant (commonly known as “Chat Control”). To mark this occasion, civil rights activist and former Member of the European Parliament, Dr. Patrick Breyer, presents a 5-Point Action Plan for effective child protection by EU governments. Featuring statements from survivors of abuse, the core message is clear: The end of mass surveillance must mark the beginning of genuine protective measures.

    • The Register UK ☛ AI search atomizes our information, warns govt designer

      Those who rely on artificial intelligence to summarize official material may get a misleadingly narrow or incomplete version of it, a senior designer for the UK government has warned.

      The country's Department for Education's digital services are seeing more traffic from AI-mediated search and fewer actual page visits, according to head of design Mark Edwards. "At first, this felt like progress; faster access to information is not something to resist," he writes in a blogpost on the GOV.UK website. "But as we looked closer, a more complicated picture emerged."

    • Ben Werdmuller ☛ LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer

      LinkedIn is using invasive techniques to fingerprint your browser. Together with its understanding of your identity and professional history, it has the ingredients for an incredibly detailed profile.

    • Alliance for Digital Fairness eV ☛ The Attack: How it works

      Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, LinkedIn’s JavaScript executes a silent scan of your installed browser extensions. The scan probes for thousands of specific extensions by ID, collects the results, encrypts them, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers. The entire process happens in the background. There is no consent dialog, no notification, no mention of it in LinkedIn’s privacy policy.

      This page documents exactly how the system works, with line references and code excerpts from LinkedIn’s production JavaScript bundle.

  • Confidentiality

    • Science News ☛ Just 10,000 quantum bits might crack internet encryption schemes

      The new result follows a paper posted on arXiv.org in February, in which researchers from Iceberg Quantum in Sydney calculated that RSA encryption could be defeated in a week with a quantum computer with about 100,000 qubits. The two papers, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, suggest a dramatic decrease from the 20 million qubits thought to be required just a few years ago.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] US: Hundreds of TSA agents quit, ICE agents patrol airports

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] US war in Iran: China casts itself as savior of SE Asia

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] UN resolution fuels global slavery reparations debate

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] UN recognizes slave trade as gravest crime against humanity

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] Lufthansa and the role of big business in the Holocaust

  • NL Times ☛ 2026-03-24 [Older] DNB expects more inflation, less growth from Iran war; "Wise" to wait on energy measures

  • TruthOut ☛ 2026-03-23 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Delays Threat to “Obliterate” Iran’s Energy Sites

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-23 [Older] Iran's energy sites still on Cheeto Mussolini's target list

  • NDTV ☛ France Bans Planned Gathering Of Muslims In Paris, Citing Security Risk

    France banned a gathering of Muslims that was planned in the Paris area for the coming days, due to it representing a security risk, the country's top police officer said on Thursday.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Musicians Union Stands With Bruce Springsteen Against Trump

    Dan Point is the president of the AFM’s Local 802, based in Manhattan, while Marc Sazer is the president of Local 47, in Los Angeles. Springsteen is a union member of Locals 47 and 399 (in Asbury Park, NJ).

    “We can not remain silent as one of our most celebrated members is singled out and personally attacked by the President of the United States,” Point and Sazer said. “Bruce Springsteen is not just a brilliant musician, he is a voice for working people, a symbol of American resilience, and an inspiration to millions in this country and around the world.

  • Vox ☛ Trump signs new executive order attacking mail-in voting: What to know

    Is this order going to go anywhere? Very likely not, for a number of reasons. First, it’s almost certainly unconstitutional: The Constitution gives states the power to determine the “Times, Places and Manner” of elections, with no role for the executive branch.

    There are also practical obstacles. As Kevin R. Kosar, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, points out, the implementation of the order in time for the 2026 midterms — should it be allowed to go forward — would present serious logistical challenges.

  • Nebraska Examiner ☛ Democrats sue to block Trump’s ‘unconstitutional’ mail ballot order

    The order, which would create a national list of voting-age American citizens and directs the U.S. Postal Service to place limits on mail-in ballots, constitutes an extraordinary and illegal attempt by Trump to intervene in the voting process, election experts said.

  • Votebeat ☛ Madison voters disenfranchised in 2024 are are split on city’s response, lawsuit

    Early signs suggest the error is already reshaping how many of the disenfranchised voters engage with elections — pushing some away from absentee voting and, in some cases, out of the electorate altogether. Interviews with affected voters also reveal a broader disconnect: Many say they are dissatisfied both with how the city handled the mistake and with the high-profile lawsuit filed in its wake to seek damages for the disenfranchised voters. The city, they say, has not been appropriately responsive and the lawsuit does not reflect their values.

  • YLE ☛ Finland's population of second-generation Finns exceeds 100,000 for first time

    Of this number, 102,000 had been born in Finland — a figure that has doubled since 2014.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Tyee ☛ When Police Kill, Civilian Voices are Sidelined in News Reporting

    In a quote from a CP24 story, a Hamilton MP and a Hamilton member of the provincial parliament asked: “Why did the Chief of Police allow false information to be released about Erixon carrying a weapon? Why was the Chief of Police so quick to highlight the gun-related injuries to his officers, when according to the SIU report, Erixon did not shoot at police?”

• Environment

  • HRW ☛ 2026-03-30 [Older] African Court Should Protect People Displaced by Climate Change

  • IP Kat ☛ 2026-03-25 [Older] GuestPost: The USPTO’s Climate Change Mitigation Pilot: End of a green fast-track and what it means [Ed: Just greenwashing of monopolies]

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-25 [Older] Germany's big climate move — bold step or bare minimum?

  • CBC ☛ 2026-03-24 [Older] Record-breaking heat dome growing to cover nearly the entire U.S.

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2026-03-24 [Older] The Case for Global Climate Reparations

  • Truthdig ☛ 2026-03-24 [Older] U.S. Sanctions, War and Climate Inflicting a Heavy Mental Health Toll in Afghanistan

  • The Walrus ☛ Data Centres Are on Track to Wreck the Planet. Can We Stop Them?

    Across Canada and around the world, enormous data centres are popping up in the midst of suburban developments and rural topography alike. These giant buildings are what feed the digital appetites of our modern society: long steel racks with servers stacked up to the ceiling and trillions of bytes of data being processed every second, information running through fibre optic cables across towns, countries, and oceans. And now, with the explosion of artificial intelligence and our ever-deepening reliance on it, data centres have become a major part of our modern life as well as a key concern in how we manage our relationship with the world around us. Consider this: due to the greater computational power required by the AI-processing architecture, the energy draw of these facilities doubled just between 2017 and 2023.

    But what are data centres? How and where are they built, and how do they impact our lives, both digital and physical? What are the benefits and the tripwires associated with their existence, and will this very rapid expansion be a footnote in the history of the future or a cautionary tale about development without limits or meaningful regulation?

  • Futurism ☛ There's a Blinking Warning Sign for the Data Centers in Space Industry

    Flash forward to the present, however, and the data centers that are popping up everywhere are amid the AI boom are most decidedly not being built in the ocean. Sources told Reuters that the project was figuratively sunk by lack of client demand and unviable economics for reasons that could also plague Musk’s orbital facilities.

    “These problems are likely to be more ​severe in space than under the sea,” Roy Chua, founder of industry research firm AvidThink, told Reuters.

  • The New Lede ☛ Higher cancer rates in counties with more CAFOs, study finds

    In the new study, Yale University researchers examined the rates of all cancers over the past 20 years in Texas, California and Iowa counties along with the density of CAFOs in the counties. High exposure counties were defined as those in the top 25% of CAFO density for their state. The researchers found rates for all types of cancers were 4% higher in highly exposed California counties, and 8% higher in highly exposed Iowa and Texas counties when compared to counties with lower CAFO density.

  • Wired ☛ A New Google-Funded Data Center Will Be Powered by a Massive Gas Plant

    Michael Thomas, the founder of Cleanview and author of a new report on Google’s power strategy for its data centers, says that Google’s focus on and continued commitment to renewables is often held up by environmental groups as an example of Big Tech doing things right. But the plans for this campus, he alleges, illustrate how even big tech companies with stated climate goals and a public commitment to renewable energy are exploring fossil fuel investments as the AI race heats up.

  • University of Michigan ☛ EPA to take over cleanup of longstanding AA chemical plume

    On March 12, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency added the Gelman Sciences Inc. manufacturing facility to the Superfund National Priorities List — a list of heavily polluted sites allocated greater funding, resources and oversight — to address the contamination caused by an underground dioxane plume.

    Gelman Sciences was a medical filter manufacturing company that operated from 1966 to 1986. Their manufacturing process discharged 1,4-dioxane into nearby ponds, leading to the formation of an underground plume that currently stretches four miles long and one mile wide. 1,4-dioxane is a likely human carcinogen typically used as industrial solvent. Health risks include liver and kidney damage and cancer.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] Smart sleepers could be the glow-up night trains need

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-25 [Older] How countries are tackling the global energy crisis

    • International Business Times ☛ 2026-03-30 [Older] Iran Earns Nearly Double From Oil During War As Strikes Fail To Halt Energy Exports And Global Prices Rise

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-29 [Older] Nepal: Ex-energy minister arrested in money laundering case

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-28 [Older] Solar is winning the energy race

    • International Business Times ☛ 2026-03-28 [Older] 7 Countries Iran Allows to Pass Through the Strait of Hormuz — and Those Left Stranded

    • CBC ☛ 2026-03-27 [Older] Nuclear energy sites targeted in latest strikes, Iranian state media reports

    • CBC ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] Trans Mountain pipeline will soon be at full capacity amid global energy crisis

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] Oil Wars: Speeding The Transition to Renewable Energy

    • Truthdig ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] Iran War Exposes the Energy Dominance Lie

    • Futurism ☛ 2026-03-25 [Older] Physicists Successfully Deliver First Bottle of CERN Antimatter From the Antimatter Factory

    • NL Times ☛ 2026-03-25 [Older] Growing pressure on Dutch gov't to provide energy bill, fuel price relief

    • CBC ☛ 2026-03-25 [Older] Canada is pitching its energy ambitions in Texas — can the oil and gas industry be convinced?

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • CBC ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] Millions of birds are being killed by outdoor cats

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 'Drill baby drill': Trump opens wilderness to big energy

      Scientists have noted, for example, how the return of once-endangered American bison to national parks like Yellowstone are helping to restore ecosystems. And until recently, such parks also contributed to educating patrons about the impacts of climate disruption on the natural environment.

      But echoing the deletion of the word climate from government websites, in February this year the Trump administration forced park service staff to remove or censor exhibits that share scientific knowledge about climate change.

    • Digital Camera World ☛ The cave was pitch black – so to create this magical underwater shot, the photographer had to use all his camera expertise...

      But how did he manage to lighten up the pitch-black cave? "The solution is to use external underwater flashes. For this photo, I used a total of five flashes – three external and two on the case."

    • Ashokan-Pepacton Watershed Chapter of Trout Unlimited ☛ APWCTU projects

      In recent years the original range of brook trout has been threatened by competition from other fish species, climate change, and habitat degradation. Yet a wild, heritage strain remains a timeless link to the state’s original fauna. As such, the Ashokan-Pepacton Watershed Chapter has undertaken studies within the Esopus Creek watershed to document the existence of Catskill heritage brook trout. One study goal was to document their existence so that efforts affording their continued survival could be instituted. These studies were done with partnerships involving the Ashokan Watershed Stream Management Program (AWSMP), plus in one case, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) Region 3 Fisheries as part of their Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture surveys.

• Finance

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-03-26 [Older] ​Germany: Building sector warns of spiralling costs

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Cyble Inc ☛ Kash Patel Email [Breach] Exposes Weak Personal Email Security

    The Kash Patel email [breach] has quickly become more than just another cybersecurity headline, it’s a reminder of how even top officials remain vulnerable when personal digital hygiene slips through the cracks. This week, Iran-linked [attackers] claimed responsibility for breaching the personal email account of FBI Director Kash Patel, publishing private photographs and emails in what appears to be a calculated [breach]-and-leak operation.

  • Security Week ☛ Linx Security Raises $50 Million for Identity Security and Governance

    The fresh investment round was led by Insight Partners, with additional support from existing investors Cyberstarts and Index Ventures.

    Founded in 2023, New York-based Linx has built an AI-native platform that maps, monitors, and governs human, non-human, and agentic identities across the entire enterprise environment.

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ Is "Hackback" Official US Cybersecurity Strategy?

    The 2026 US “Cyber Strategy for America” document is mostly the same thing we’ve seen out of the White House for over a decade, but with a more aggressive tone.

    But one sentence stood out: “We will unleash the private sector by creating incentives to identify and disrupt adversary networks and scale our national capabilities.” This sounds like a call for hackback: giving private companies permission to conduct offensive cyber operations.

    [...]

    I think this is an incredibly dumb idea:

  • Site36 ☛ Interview with physicist Guido Arnold, portrayed by right-wing media as key source for militant anti-tech movement

    After months of attacks by right-wing media, Guido Arnold speaks about the power of Big Tech and its ideological orientation. The physicist warns of further authoritarian developments and has ideas for resistance.

  • Kelly Hayes ☛ Rupture and Repair Under Fascist Conditions

    “We have a great opportunity in our movements to learn how to be opponents without being enemies,” says Tanuja Jagernauth. In this first episode of a two-part conversation, Tanuja and I discuss the language people use to describe harm and conflict, the difference between disagreement and abuse, and how organizers can move through conflict with more clarity and care under fascist conditions.

  • Eric Matthes ☛ So OpenAI is acquiring Astral

    MP 164: Will you keep using uv? I sure will, until there's a more specific reason not to.

    The Python world was all abuzz recently after Astral announced they were being acquired by OpenAI. If you're unfamiliar with Astral, they're the team behind uv. This acquisition has a lot of people talking about whether or not it's reasonable to keep using uv. I'm ready to adopt a different tool when I need to, but I'm in no rush to move away from using uv just because of this announcement.

  • Pivot to AI ☛ Microsoft AI reshuffle: Mustafa Suleyman goes AI doomsday crank

    Mustafa Suleyman will no longer be running AI at Microsoft — that job goes to Jacob Andreou, who came to Microsoft from Snapchat last year. Suleyman will solely head up the Microsoft Superintelligence initiative.

    My first thought was the AI sales numbers were bad, so Suleyman was getting demoted sideways. But it’s weirder than that — Suleyman’s turning into a true AI doomsday believer.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • ANF News ☛ Workers no longer believe anti-Kurdish propaganda

      Ağırbaş added that militarist and chauvinist propaganda has begun to lose its influence and described the changing attitude of workers: “For years, the justification of ‘security’ was used like a hammer against even the most basic struggles for rights. Our strikes were banned under the pretext of ‘national security,’ and our union organizing was suppressed by being framed within the discourse of ‘terror.’

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • CPJ ☛ How Middle East journalists report during [Internet] blackouts

    “This war is unfolding in almost total darkness,” Hossein Yazdi, a Tehran-based reporter for Iran Times, told CPJ. “This is not like other wars where reporters can provide moment-by-moment coverage. The government allows no activity at all.”

    As one of the most extensive and tightly enforced shutdowns ever recorded in the country, it points to an increasingly popular government tactic across the Middle East and North Africa: using [Internet] blackouts to control information during moments of crisis.

  • The Lawfare Institute ☛ Does Product Liability Offer a Route Around Section 230?

    Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, enacted in 1996 in order to promote the growth of [Internet] companies, gives online platforms substantial protection against suits arising from content posted on their sites by third parties. Subsection (c)(1) of Section 230 in particular ensures that providers of “interactive computer service[s]” cannot be held liable as though they were “the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” That statutory language, interpreted broadly by many federal courts of appeals, has led to the dismissal of hundreds of lawsuits against social media companies over the years resting on a variety of tort, contract, and statutory claims. The Los Angeles trial in KGM is one of more than 200 lawsuits filed over the past seven years that have shifted legal gears by using product liability as the legal basis to demand compensation for a variety of harms plaintiffs claim arise from social media use.

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ The Right Is Using AI Content Scanners to Try to Supercharge Book Banning

    These techniques are clearly inaccurate, but that’s not the point: it’s enough to cause havoc and make people second guess publishing books on certain topics. It’s the same culture of chaos that led to a school librarian being fired for (correctly) refusing to remove over a hundred LGBTQ books from the children’s to the adult section of her library. And it’s all designed to harm some of the people who need the most support.

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ What Digital Isolation and Censorship Evasion Look Like In Wartime Iran

    I wrote that piece somewhat speculatively, but the reception to it in journalistic circles took me by surprise. It’s an idea and a worry that people are taking seriously. And over the last six months, in a world that has seen more conflict, more restrictions, and more attacks on free speech, there have only been reasons to take it more so.

  • Tech Policy Press ☛ What Digital Isolation and Censorship Evasion Look Like In Wartime Iran | TechPolicy.Press

    The International Organization Development Association (IODA), a Georgia Institute of Technology initiative that measures [Internet] outages globally, has reported connectivity in Iran narrowing down to just a trickle of activity. IODA data indicates that Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Visibility remains high, meaning a stealth [Internet] blackout is taking place, where selective filtering allows some individuals to be “whitelisted” and gain digital access.

    A group of Iranian researchers recorded a number of shutdown tactics used by Iranian authorities, including “DNS poisoning,” which can direct users to incorrect websites; “HTTP filtering,” which blocks site access and instead returns “403 Forbidden page” messages; and “TLS resets,” which abort connections. They also observed that “layered censorship” tactics can be challenging to circumvent, and found that Iranian people relying on traditional VPNs that might normally bypass restrictions are instead failing to work.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • The Tyee ☛ Want to Save Journalism? Change Who Owns It | The Tyee

    News media in the democratic world today is a bewildering paradox. Never have we had so much access to information and sources of news, yet our trust in news media, journalism, and the authenticity of the profession itself have never been lower.

    The explosive celebration of timing and choreography offers Vancouver audiences an infectious sense of hope and exuberance.

    In Canada, the “trust score” given news media by English speakers dropped from 55 in 2016 to 37 in 2024, according to a study by Reuters. That tells us something about how people view journalists, but it also might say a lot about how citizens feel about each other, and whether we feel connected to decision-making about where our society is headed.

  • EDRI ☛ A practical guide to joint investigations

    The CJC is now publishing ‘Working the story together: a practical guide to joint investigations’, a resource that consolidates the lessons learned from the investigations that emerged from the project. It also provides practical recommendations for journalists and CSOs on how to collaborate, from deciding the topic, dividing roles, setting objectives and agreeing on communications outputs – with a transversal focus on how to include affected communities. The guide includes tools, checklists, and field insights, offering a blueprint for CSO-media partnerships that respect independence, credibility and the voices of affected communities.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Wired ends UK print magazine amid shake-up of London staff

    Wired will not put out a print magazine in the UK in 2026 as it focuses on global digital subscriber growth.

    Seven editorial staff left Wired’s London office at the end of 2025, with the team being rebuilt to focus on audience development roles and some UK and Europe-focused reporting.

  • CPJ ☛ Somalia’s new Northeastern State detains journalist for report criticizing president

    On March 26, armed police arrested Abdiqani, founder and director of the online outlet Dhulmar Media, in the capital, Las-Anod, and took him to a police station, according to the local rights group, Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS), and the journalist’s lawyer, Mohamed Adan Omar, who spoke to CPJ.

    Abdiqani’s arrest followed the publication of a video interview with former presidential adviser Abdirisak Mohamed Warsame who accused the president of being ineffective and failing to pay regional security forces.

  • CPJ ☛ Vietnam sentences journalist Huynh Ngoc Tuan to 8½ years for anti-state propaganda

    Tuan, who regularly posts commentary on Vietnamese politics, human rights, and international affairs, was convicted under Article 117 of the penal code.

    “Vietnamese authorities have once again weaponized vague propaganda laws to silence a reporter whose only offense is speaking truth to power,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Huynh Ngoc Tuan should be released immediately and unconditionally, and Vietnam must stop using anti-state laws to criminalize journalism.”

  • CPJ ☛ Moldovan journalist Viorica Tătaru targeted by smear campaign

    Following Tătaru’s coverage of a March 21 gathering in memory of Ludmila Vartic, a kindergarten teacher who died on March 3 after apparently enduring years of domestic violence, a false rumor began circulating online, claiming that Tătaru was related to Vartic’s husband’s purported mistress. “This information is untrue,” Tătaru told CPJ, adding that the post containing this claim had been shared “hundreds of times.”

    “After this false information about me was spread, a wave of insults and messages aimed at damaging my reputation began,” she said. “I received numerous aggressive and offensive messages, particularly in private messages and comments. Some of them were intended to intimidate me and put me under pressure.”

  • 404 Media ☛ Journalist Sues FAA Over Drone No Fly Zone Designed to Prevent Filming ICE

    Levine has fought the FAA before on this issue and won. In 2016, just as he was first learning how to pilot drones for his photojournalism work, he traveled to North Dakota to cover the anti-oil pipeline protests at Standing Rock. At the time, the FAA had issued a TFR over the area but Levine was able to push the agency into granting him a waiver on First Amendment grounds.

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ An AI company set out to fix news deserts. Instead, it copied local journalists’ work

    This was inevitably going to plagiarize existing journalism, because what other source could it possibly use? An agentic system can’t do the on-the-ground research and reporting work involved in creating a story. It can gather together data points and turn them into something that looks like news, rather than journalism: sports scores, city council votes, and that kind of thing. But it can’t provide context if someone hasn’t already written it.

  • Poynter Institute ☛ An AI company set out to fix news deserts. Instead, it copied local journalists’ work - Poynter

    Artificial intelligence company Nota — whose clients include organizations like The Boston Globe and the Institute for Nonprofit News — is scrapping its network of local news sites after learning that they contained dozens of instances of plagiarism.

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • EDRI ☛ Europe’s digital laws are not bargaining chips

    EU laws like the Digital Services Act (DSA), Digital Markets Act (DMA), AI Act, and GDPR were put in place to protect people, safeguard democratic debate, and curb the excessive power of dominant tech companies. The strength of these legislations lies in the ability of the European Commission to properly enforce them independently of political influence and diplomatic considerations.

    A new formal dialogue with the US creates a single point of failure that Big Tech billionaires and the US government are probably keen to exploit for political or financial gain to the detriment of the rule of law and the digital rights protections of 450 million people in Europe.

  • Wired ☛ Unmasking the Paramilitary Agents Behind Trump’s Violent Immigration Crackdown

    A WIRED analysis of DHS records identified dozens of specialized federal agents who used force against US civilians during the largest known deployment of its kind in US history.

  • Declan Chidlow ☛ Stay Away From Accessibility Overlays

    Accessibility overlays (sometimes called ‘accessibility plugins’ or ‘accessibility widgets’) are tools placed on websites that claim to improve accessibility. They usually appear as a small icon on the side or in a corner of a website’s viewport. Clicking on them usually presents a set of options such as the ability to resize text, alter contrast, enlarge the cursor, toggle a preference for motion, and sometimes read the contents of the page aloud.

    Yet, ask any accessibility expert and they will tell you to stay far, far away from them. Over a thousand professionals and people with disabilities have signed the Overlay Fact Sheet and the consensus is clear – almost unanimous: accessibility overlays do more harm than good.

  • Times Media Limited ☛ Change is needed, admits watchdog boss

    Sarah Rapson says she accepts criticism of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, but transforming the regime will take time

  • Law Society Gazette ☛ Essex firm shut down for suspected dishonesty

    An Essex firm with strong links to its local community has been shut down by the regulator with immediate effect over suspicions of dishonesty. The Solicitors Regulation Authority revealed yesterday that it had intervened to close down Rainer Hughes because of reason to suspect dishonesty on the part of manager Sanjay Panesar.

    There is also reason to suspect that Panesar has failed to comply with the accounts rules, the regulator said.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • People vs Big Tech ☛ No Privileged US Access To Europe’s Tech Law Oversight Civil Society Statement - People vs. Big Tech

    We, the undersigned civil society organisations call on the EU Commission, in the strongest possible terms, to halt any plans to create a new “dialogue” with the US government that could compromise the enforcement of Europe’s tech laws. While international collaboration is welcome, the EU’s fundamental values, rule of law, and sovereignty to enforce its own laws on its own terms cannot be called into question.

  • Politico ☛ ‘Fatal decision’: EU slammed for caving to US pressure on digital rules

    EU lawmakers tore into the European Commission on Wednesday over its plans to open a “dialogue” with Washington on tech rules, warning it risks opening a back door for the Trump administration into the EU’s flagship digital laws.

  • APNIC ☛ Project IPv6-first: A case study in achieving an 80% native IPv6 SOHO network

    Starting from a healthy but suboptimal baseline of approximately 67% IPv6, a data-driven analysis using NetFlow monitoring was conducted to identify and remediate major sources of residual IPv4 traffic.

  • Macworld ☛ iPhones in space! NASA brings 17 Pros on board Artemis mission

    NASA’s Orion spacecraft launched on Wednesday afternoon, and among the high-tech devices the Orion astronauts took with them are iPhone 17 Pros. While smartphones have been used by passengers on private “space” trips, back in February, NASA cleared the way for astronauts to take smartphones to space for the first time, as a way to validate NASA’s requirements for the technology it uses. And it didn’t take long for iPhones to make an appearance.

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ The open web isn't dying. We're killing it

    We can raise the alarm about the demise of the open web all we want, but you can’t sell or promote a technology based on ideology alone. The truth is that other solutions were quicker and easier — even for many of us that held up the open web banner.

    Julien’s proposal is that we should think of ourselves as netizens rather than just consumers. I actually think that this is driving a lot of the innovation in the ATproto ecosystem in particular, but also on the Fediverse. People in those spaces have intentionally moved somewhere new where they can have a credible exit, can export their data cleanly, and can feel like they’re having safer, more productive, less fascistic conversations.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Alex & Manu ☛ stop killing games just got real | alex and manu

    the eu parliament is about to hear about your right to actually own the games you buy

    so Stop Killing Games is actually getting somewhere. for those who don’t know, it’s the movement that started because Ubisoft killed The Crew—a game you could only play online, so when they shut down the servers, the game literally stopped existing for everyone who bought it.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• The Moscow Times ☛ Russians Lose Access to Apple ID Mobile Payments

  Apple ID allows users to purchase apps, music, movies and subscriptions. Russians have been able to make Apple ID purchases directly from their mobile accounts after international payment services like Visa and MasterCard suspended operations in Russia in early 2022.

  As of Wednesday, Russians who try to top up their Apple ID accounts now encounter the message: “Payment by mobile phone is temporarily unavailable, please try again later.”

• Macworld ☛ iPhone users in Russia can no longer buy Apple apps or subscriptions

  Current purchases will remain available, as will access to subscription services that have been paid, but subscriptions made through Apple’s billing will not renew. Russian users who have a current balance on the Apple Account can continue to spend it, Apple says, but they will not be able to add more funds.

• Michael Tsai ☛ Russia Gets Apple to Turn Off App Store Payments

• Patents

  • 2026-03-30 [Older] Judicial Conduct and Disability Committee Has Its Say, Denies Judge Newman’s Latest Request for Review

  • IP Kat ☛ 2026-03-29 [Older] Patenting stem cell therapies in the US: The role and risks of product-by-process claims (Restem v Jadi cell) [Ed: Patents on life/nature]

  • 2026-03-27 [Older] PTAB Issues Judgment on Priority in CRISPR Interference

  • 2026-03-25 [Older] Parties File Supplemental Priority Statements in CRISPR Interference

  • IP Kat ☛ 2026-03-25 [Older] Australia's extension of time provisions for patents have their limits (and may soon have more)

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ X Asks Court to Dismiss Music Piracy Lawsuit After Supreme Court's Cox Ruling

    Elon Musk’s X is moving for a total dismissal of the high-profile copyright lawsuit filed by major music publishers, claiming that the Supreme Court just pulled the rug out from under the labels’ case. Citing the recent Cox v. Sony decision, the social media platform argues that the "contributory infringement" theory used to keep the litigation alive is now legally defunct.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: It’s extremely good that Claude’s source-code leaked

    From the outset, DMCA 512 was the go-to tool for corporate censorship, the best way to cover up misdeeds. I first got involved in this back in 2003, when leaked email memos from Diebold's voting machine division revealed that the company knew that its voting machines were wildly insecure, but they were nevertheless selling them to local election boards across America, who were scrambling to replace their mechanical voting machines in the wake of the 2000 Bush v Gore "hanging chad" debacle, which led to Bush stealing the presidency:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot

    The stakes couldn't be higher, in other words. Diebold – whose CEO was an avowed GW Bush partisan who'd promised to "deliver the votes for Bush" – was the country's leading voting machine supplier. The company knew its voting machines were defective, that they frequently crashed and lost their vote counts on election night, and that Diebold technicians were colluding with local electoral officials to secretly "estimate" the lost vote totals so that no one would hold either the official or Diebold responsible for these defective machines: [...]