Leftovers

• New Yorker ☛ When Your Digital Life Vanishes

  Technological progress may be increasing our exposure. A.I. agents are becoming notorious for accidental deletions, while the proliferation of data centers has wildly inflated the cost of storage. And, despite exponential growth in capacity, the average hard drive’s life span remains just under seven years. Considering the hundreds of zettabytes of data estimated to exist in the world, it’s as though a million Libraries of Alexandria were saved from annihilation solely by hamsters on wheels.

• Vintage Everyday ☛ American Civil War Soldier Clowning Around for the Camera, ca. 1863

  This image of an unidentified Union officer clowning around is a rare and famous departure from the typically stoic military portraits of the 1860s. Captured around 1863, this quarter-plate tintype shows the soldier performing a classic gesture of mockery or “thumbing his nose.”

• Wired ☛ New York Bans Government Employees from Insider Trading on Prediction Markets

  “Getting rich by betting on inside information is corruption, plain and simple,” Hochul said in a statement provided to WIRED. “Our actions will ensure that public servants work for the people they represent, not their own personal enrichment. While Donald Trump and DC Republicans turn a blind eye to the ethical Wild West they’ve created, New York is stepping up to lead by example and stamp out insider trading.”

• Chris Enns ☛ No, But He’s a Good Guy

  If he’s a “good” guy, then I’ll figure that out by his words and actions in the future. But right now, based on this interaction, he’s not been a good guy.

• Herman Martinus ☛ The commodification of travel

  This kind of mentality is typified in the question I've heard asked many times: "How many countries have you been to?" This is often followed by a debate on whether layovers count towards your tally if you don't leave the airport, as if stepping beyond the airport boundaries bestows doneness.

• Computational Complexity ☛ Computational Complexity: Michael Rabin Passed Away on April 14, 2026, at the age of 94

  Rabin is an extremely well rounded \(\ldots\) computer scientist? Computer scientist seems too narrow, and the point of this point is that he is well rounded. So I will start this thought again.

  The following is an extremely important question that permeates computer science, mathematics, and I am sure other fields: [...]

• Science

  • Serghei Iakovlev ☛ Reciprocal Rank Fusion: the one-line algorithm behind hybrid search | Serghei's Blog

    That formula is Reciprocal Rank Fusion. It is what Elasticsearch’s rrf retriever, OpenSearch’s hybrid search, Weaviate, Qdrant, and Azure AI Search all use under the hood. It does not require training. It does not need calibrated scores. It is roughly seven lines of Python. And in the original SIGIR 2009 paper , Cormack, Clarke, and Büttcher showed it beating Condorcet Fuse, CombMNZ, and every individual learning-to-rank method they could throw at it on the LETOR 3 benchmark.

    This post is a walk through why such a small idea works so well.

  • Variety ☛ Bill Nye Slams Donald Trump Trying to Cut NASA Budget: 'Huge Mistake'

    The Trump administration previously tried to cut NASA’s $24.4 billion budget by 18% but was blocked by members of Congress, which approved the NASA budget in January. Nye said the first attempt was “dead on arrival” and “why it’s happened again is not clear,” although the timing around the Artemis II mission is suspicious.

  • Raspberry Pi ☛ An astronomical anniversary: Young people’s code heads to the International Space Station

    Today is the day mentors and teams find out if their code has achieved flight status for the European Astro Pi Challenge 2025/26! The first batches of Mission Space Lab programs are scheduled to start running on the International Space Station (ISS) this week, with Mission Zero programs scheduled to run in mid-May.

    This year, Astro Pi Mission Control received an incredible 17,381 submissions for Mission Zero from 24,695 young explorers.

  • The Register UK ☛ NASA may not have new spacesuits in time for Moon landing

    In a report [PDF] published on Monday, the Inspector General points out that NASA kicked off its quest for next-gen spacesuits with 2022’s Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAS) program, which called for private suppliers to develop two suits: one to handle microgravity at the International Space Station (ISS) and another to wear on the moon.

  • NASA Office of Inspector General ☛ NASA’s Acquisition of Next-Generation Spacesuit Services [PDF]

    NASA faces challenges in ensuring next-generation spacesuits are available to meet the Agency’s current schedules for the Artemis lunar landing mission in 2028 and prior to the ISS’s decommissioning in 2030. NASA’s original schedules to demonstrate the lunar and microgravity spacesuits in 2025 and 2026, respectively, were overly optimistic and ultimately proved unachievable, as evidenced by delays of at least a year and a half for both spacesuits. Based on our analysis, if Axiom experiences design and testing delays in line with the historical average for recent space flight programs, the Artemis and ISS demonstrations may not occur until 2031.

• Career/Education

  • Amber Settle ☛ Another incredible gift

    The phrase says: “Failure can be a step forward, if you let it be. I promise.” It also has hearts on it.

  • BBC ☛ Back to books - Sweden's schools cutting back on digital learning

    Sweden's government is championing a renewed focus on physical books, paper and pens in classrooms, designed to reverse falling literacy levels.

  • Undark ☛ Why Swedish Schools Are Bringing Back Books

    These moves represent a dramatic pivot from previous decades, during which Sweden — and many other nations — moving away from physical books in favor of tablets and digital resources in an effort to prepare students for life in an online world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Nordic country’s efforts have sparked a debate on the role of digital technology in education, one that extends well beyond the country’s borders. U.S. parents in districts that have adopted digital technology to a great extent may be wondering if educators will reverse course, too.

    So why did Sweden pivot? In an email to Undark, Linda Fälth, a researcher in teacher education at Linnaeus University, wrote that the “decision to reinvest in physical textbooks and reduce the emphasis on digital devices” was prompted by several factors, including questions around whether the digitalization of classrooms had been evidence-based. “There was also a broader cultural reassessment,” Fälth wrote. “Sweden had positioned itself as a frontrunner in digital education, but over time concerns emerged about screen time, distraction, reduced deep reading, and the erosion of foundational skills such as sustained attention and handwriting.”

  • [Old] Sweden ☛ Government investing in more reading time and less screen time

    Pupils’ ability to read and understand what they read is the foundation of their learning in all school subjects. The Swedish Government’s school policy aims to get back to basics and re-establish a strong knowledge-based school system with the focus of early grades being on basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic. Digital learning aids should only be introduced in teaching at an age when they encourage, rather than hinder, pupils’ learning.

• Hardware

  • Interesting Engineering ☛ New robot system lets machines handle curved objects like humans do

    The system, developed by researchers from the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL) and Idiap Research Institute, generates a point-cloud map of an object and identifies key surface reference points, creating a smooth, task-aware representation regardless of shape or size.

  • Framework Computer BV ☛ Introducing Framework Laptop 13 Pro

    Today, we’re happy to introduce Framework Laptop 13 Pro, a complete ground up redesign that brings a massive leap in battery life with Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 Processors, a 74Wh battery, and LPCAMM2 memory, a new full CNC aluminum chassis, our first purpose-built power-optimized display with touch support, an excellent feeling haptic touchpad, an option for pre-loaded Ubuntu, and much more. In many ways, this product has been six years in the making. We’ve taken all of the feedback you’ve given us on the first seven generations of Framework Laptop 13 to make this the ultimate portable developer and power user machine. With all of this, it’s still a Framework Laptop, meaning it's repairable, upgradeable, customizable, and entirely yours to do what you want with. Framework Laptop 13 Pro is available to pre-order today, starting at $1,199 USD for DIY Edition and $1,499 USD for pre-built configurations, with first shipments in June.

  • Framework Computer BV ☛ Framework Laptop 13 Pro and highlights from the Framework

    Earlier today, we hosted our Framework [Next Gen] Event, where we announced Framework Laptop 13 Pro, updates to Framework Laptop 16, and previews of the OCuLink Dev Kit and the Framework Wireless Touchpad Keyboard. You can watch a recording of the full event livestream on the Framework YouTube channel. Six years into our existence as a company, these new products represent a step change in our capabilities. We have the scale and resources to build the products you want from us and to deliver on our mission of remaking consumer electronics. Each one of the updates is in response to the asks you’ve made of us over the years.

  • Framework Computer BV ☛ Framework Laptop 16 upgrades and OCuLink Dev Kit

    We’re introducing the latest updates to Framework Laptop 16 today, bringing one piece haptic touchpad and one piece keyboard options, along with a new Bezel color and a Ryzen 5 processor configuration. We’re also previewing a new OCuLink Dev Kit that enables extremely high throughput peripherals like eGPUs. Framework Laptop 16 is truly the ultimate portable workstation platform, with the flexibility of a desktop PC in a thin, robust magnesium and aluminum 16” chassis. All of the new updates take in the feedback you’ve given us over the last two years to both extend on modularity and level up performance and refinement.

  • Framework Computer BV ☛ Previewing the Framework Wireless Touchpad Keyboard

    We’re excited to preview the Framework Wireless Touchpad Keyboard, a compact keyboard with integrated touchpad that is excellent for living room use, setting up computers, and mounting into sim rigs. As we were developing Framework Desktop and using it in these scenarios, we found that there was just one popular keyboard in this segment, and it was one that neither we nor the broader community particularly liked. We knew we could do better, and so we did! Our keyboard uses the same great-feeling mechanical key structure and touchpad architecture that we put in Framework Laptop 12. A highly power-efficient Nordic nRF54 radio and open source ZMK Firmware enable pairing four BLE and USB-A Dongle hosts along with wired USB-C connectivity. In addition to the dongle, which is storable in the back of the keyboard, we’re developing a USB-A Adapter Expansion Card that allows it to sit flush in a Framework Laptop or Desktop.

  • Hackaday ☛ Itanium: The Great X86 Replacement That Never Was

    By the ’90s, servers were an established market dominated by RISC architectures and Unix-like operating systems. Intel wanted to compete in this market, due in part to worries of losing control over x86. So, when Hewlett Packard came to Intel in late ’93, Intel eventually agreed to collaborate on a new project in EPIC (Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing).

  • Lee Peterson ☛ My watch needs to be a useful tool before anything else

    As I’ve been putting my stuff on eBay I’ve been wearing a different watch almost everyday. Going between Casio, G-Shock, Tag Heuer, Seiko and Omega has made me realise they all have different functions and don’t all serve me as a tool that I need. Being a tool to tell the time, have the ability to time things, mark a time in the day where I want to track something and see the date (sometimes) and most importantly be comfortable and get out of the way is most important to me. I get caught up in the narrative or story of a thing and forget it’s a thing an inanimate object and has to serve me most importantly regardless of its historical significance or who else wears one.

  • Juha-Matti Santala ☛ I have been tempted by AYN Thor — but I have AYN Thor at home

    First of all, I love a clamshell form factor. Nintendo 3DS was a big favourite of mine on its heyday. But like with so many older consoles, the hardware isn’t that desirable anymore. Especially the lack of USB-C charging port is keeping me from going back to 3DS. That’s why Thor is so interesting. It’s a modern take on a classic design.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deseret Media ☛ Utah beekeepers use Earth Day to warn about declining bee habitat

    Utah beekeepers are using Earth Day to sound the alarm about the future of bees across the state — and what Utahns can do to help protect them.

    Utah is considered a major hotspot for native bees and is home to more than 1,100 different species, according to the Utah State University Extension. But as the state's human population grows, bee nesting and feeding habitats are shrinking.

  • Science Alert ☛ Should You Work Standing or Sitting? Experts Say We're Asking The Wrong Question

    So, is it better to work standing up or sitting down? Well, this might actually be the wrong question to ask. In truth, the most important thing is how long we spend in any given position, and how often we move throughout the day.

    The human body does not respond well to any prolonged, static posture.

  • Science Alert ☛ 500 People Who Died With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Shared 4 Major Life Themes

    Today, we know better. While there is still no clear and accepted diagnostic tool, there are unambiguous signs that CFS/ME is a biological disease, with real and measurable impacts on the brain and body.

    Nevertheless, research on CFS/ME is not proportionate to how many patients are impacted or how much their lives are affected. To be commensurate with the true burden of the disease, experts suggest the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) would need to increase research funding by 40-fold.

  • Common Dreams ☛ EWG sues EPA for 7-year inaction on glyphosate in oats, citing risks to children’s health

    The Environmental Working Group today filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming the Environmental Protection Agency is unlawfully delaying a response to the group’s petition seeking stricter limits in oats on the notorious herbicide glyphosate.

    The petition also asks for a ban on use of glyphosate as a pre-harvest drying agent.

  • Pivot to AI ☛ Gudtrip: the AI agent vape pen with blockchain

    Puffpaw pivoted to cannabis. Gudtrip does not pretend to reduce your consumption. They launched Gudtrip in October 2025 with a straightforward message: [...]

  • BBC ☛ Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

    It is part of a series of measures aimed at tackling the health effects of smoking, one of the UK's leading causes of preventable death, disability and ill health.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ UK moves to ban smoking for everyone born after 2008

    A draft law in the UK to create a "smoke-free generation" by banning smoking for anybody born after 2008 has cleared both houses of parliament. Only the king's signature remains for it to become law.

• Proprietary

  • Bhaskar English ☛ EU Spare Parts Law: Companies Must Supply 7 Years | Planned Obsolescence Smartphones

    Have you noticed that the smartphone which was superfast when bought, starts to give up after 2-3 years? The battery starts to fail, apps begin to hang, and eventually, you get frustrated and buy a new phone. The European Union (EU) believes this is the result of deliberate design (planned obsolescence). In this, the phone is made so inconvenient that the user is forced to buy a new model. The EU is trying to curb this system. Its Joint Research Centre report states that smartphones are replaced every 2-3 years.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Linux 7.1 update includes new in-kernel NTFS driver — delivers storage support upgrade for Linux users

    That includes support for native in-kernel read/write operations, iomap (the same high-performance I/O path used by filesystems like XFS), folio-based memory management, removal of legacy buffer_head code, and delayed allocation for improved write efficiency. In practical terms, this isn't just "NTFS, but working again"; instead, it's Linux NTFS support rebuilt to behave like a contemporary Linux filesystem internally. It's a big philosophical shift from previous approaches that mostly treated NTFS support as a compatibility layer.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft facing $2.8 billion UK lawsuit for overcharging 60,000 businesses using Microsoft Server on other clouds — Azure users allegedly received lower wholesale pricing

    s the company charging a premium for users not on Azure? [...] Microsoft is currently facing a lawsuit from the UK Competition Appeals Tribunal (CAT) after it was alleged that the company is charging higher wholesale prices for Windows Server for customers using Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, or Alibaba Cloud. This makes Azure, Microsoft’s cloud services provider, cheaper than the competition as its competitors have to eventually pass on the increased costs to their clients, reports Reuters. Competition lawyer Maria Luisa Stasi filed the case at the Competition Appeal Tribunal in late 2025, representing nearly 60,000 businesses that used Microsoft software on competing cloud services, with her team suggesting that the claim is worth about USD 2.8 billion (or about GBP 2.1 billion).

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Google Cloud customer wakes up to $18,000+ bill despite $7 budget, thanks to forgotten API key in published project — attacker put in 60,000+ requests and blasted through $1,400 spending cap | Tom's Hardware

    Turns out the safety measures are all turned off by default.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Bhaskar English ☛ New Rules: Continuous AI Content Labels Mandated | India

      The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has proposed tougher rules to clearly mark AI-generated content on digital platforms. The move comes as AI-made images, videos, audio, and text are rapidly increasing online, raising concerns about deepfakes and misinformation.

      Along with this update, the Ministry has also extended the deadline for public feedback on the draft rules from April 29 to May 7, giving stakeholders more time to respond.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Linux may be ending support for older network drivers due to influx of false AI-generated bug reports — maintenance has become too burdensome for old largely-unused systems

      Maintaining support for old hardware has always been a “thing” for Linux. However, thanks to AI-wielding “detectives,” the sheer number of reports is forcing a shift in the kernel’s long-standing philosophy. Developers must now choose between addressing countless low-quality or hallucinated reports on systems no one uses or focusing their limited time on modern, high-impact subsystems.

      Andrew Lunn argued that while support for aging ISA and PCMCIA-era hardware was once a low-maintenance endeavor, it has recently become a disproportionate burden due to newbies using AI and fuzzers to uncover theoretical defects in code that likely have no remaining active users.

    • The Verge ☛ Elon Musk admits that millions of Tesla vehicles won’t get unsupervised FSD

      Tesla vehicles with the company’s Hardware 3 (HW3) computer actually won’t receive unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD), CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday’s Q1 2026 earnings call. Approximately 4 million Tesla vehicles operate on the HW3 platform, meaning that a significant chunk of Tesla owners — including customers that paid for the feature when they bought their cars — are now locked out of being able to use unsupervised FSD, which has been something Musk has been hyping for years, unless they upgrade their car or their car’s hardware.

    • Daniel Stenberg ☛ High-Quality Chaos

      Almost every security report now uses AI to various degrees. You can tell by the way they are worded, how the report is phrased and also by the fact that they now easily get very detailed duplicates in ways that can’t be done had they been written by humans.

      The difference now compared to before however, is that they are mostly very high quality.

      The reporters rarely mention exactly which AI tool or model they used (and really, we don’t care), but the evidence is strong that they used such help.

    • Jürgen Geuter ☛ AI as a Fascist Artifact

      And of course we are living in the “AI” age, where stochastic systems with attributed agency are being pushed – currently under the moniker of “agentic AI” – into all our professional and personal workflows. “AI” is the singular focus of the tech sector currently and the magic technology that governments and companies are putting all their hopes into for figuring out how basically keep late stage capitalism going on for a bit longer.

      In this text I want to analyze the relationship of fascism and what is called “AI” these days. Is this “technology” that keeps being used to reshape the world around us (for better or worse but dominantly worse) in some way connected to fascism? Or is it just something fascists like to use? Is it neutral?

  • Social Control Media

    • Ben Werdmuller ☛ Copyright and DMCA Best Practices for Fediverse Operators

      A useful guide for anyone who is running their own community space — which includes folks running Mastodon instances, Bluesky hosts, RSS services, and so on. As the author explains in the preamble, there’s the potential for “massive, unpredictable financial liability”. It’s therefore really important to find ways to limit risk.

      A lot of this is common sense: [...]

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Dark Reading ☛ 'The Gentlemen' Rapidly Rises to Ransomware Prominence

      The earliest confirmed activity showed attacker presence on a domain controller with admin privileges. They used this foothold to validate access and conduct network reconnaissance, deployed various payloads to facilitate lateral movement, dropped a PowerShell command to disable Windows, and ultimately used SystemBC and Cobalt Strike as C2 to stage the ransomware.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Why AI chatbots are a legal liability waiting to happen

      Anyone using a generative AI chatbot to talk through a legal problem – whether a disgruntled consumer, a founder worried about a contract or an executive gaming out a dispute – should assume the resulting chat logs will be pulled into court.

      Unlike conversations between a lawyer and their client, conversations with an AI chatbot are not privileged. Any sensitive information disclosed in an AI chat could be exposed during a trial, potentially weakening the client’s legal position.

    • EFF ☛ 📁 How ICE Got My Data

      I assumed I would be given the same opportunity. But the language in my email was different. It was final: “Google has received and responded to legal process from a law enforcement authority compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.”

      Google had already disclosed my data without telling me. There was no opportunity to contest it.

    • The Register UK ☛ High Court approves Met Police's facial recog after dispute

      Big Brother Watch supported Thompson's case, which argued that the technology violated his rights to privacy under articles 8, 10, and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

      The UK's High Court concluded this week that LFR technology itself does not violate any of the ECHR's aforementioned articles, and found that Thompson's personal rights to privacy were not infringed.

    • The Verge ☛ X is going to let Grok curate your timeline

      X is putting its AI chatbot, Grok, in charge of your timeline. In an announcement on Wednesday, X product head Nikita Bier says Premium subscribers on iOS can get early access to a feature that allows users to pin specific topics to their home tab, which Grok will then use to curate the posts you see across each feed.

    • Task And Purpose ☛ Navy tells sailors to 'beware' of dating apps amid Iran war

      The April 17 Navy-wide notice recommended that Navy personnel set their accounts to the “highest level” of privacy on social media, turn off their phone’s location tracking, microphone, and camera use, and scrub search engines like Google of personal information.

    • NPR ☛ ICE acknowledges it is using powerful spyware

      The letter is the first time ICE has indicated it is using Graphite. The agency initially signed a $2 million contract with Paragon Solutions for an unspecified software product at the end of the Biden administration. But the contract was swiftly paused until it was revived by the Trump administration last fall.

    • Jérôme Marin ☛ EU targets Google with data-sharing mandate

      Brussels is stepping up efforts to inject competition into online search. Last week, the European Commission said it intends to require Google to share its search data with third-party engines, as well as with generative AI services such as ChatGPT. The precise terms of the measure are now subject to public consultation, with a final decision expected by the end of July. Google, which has denounced an “overreach,” is likely to challenge the move before European courts.

      The initiative is part of the Digital Markets Act, which came into force two years ago to boost competition in digital markets. Since then, several actions have been launched against Google, accused of failing to implement sufficient changes to comply. The issue of search data is being handled through a technical “specification” procedure, which does not involve fines but allows regulators to impose corrective measures if no agreement is reached.

    • BoingBoing ☛ Claude AI can identify writers from 125 unpublished words

      Piper writes in The Argument that anyone who has written prolifically under their real name has probably lost meaningful anonymity. She tested friends with minimal online presence, and Claude failed to identify them — but it did guess close mutual friends from the same social circle, picking up stylistic tics that spread through communities. The threshold for deanonymization will probably drop as models improve and training data grows.

    • The Argument ☛ I can never talk to an AI anonymously again

      Now, this is far from an impossible feat of style identification — a lot of my writing is public on the [Internet], and this is clearly the start of a political column, narrowing the possible authors down dramatically.

      What I find much more uncanny is that Opus 4.7 also accomplished this on writing of mine that is nowhere near my beat. Here’s a different unpublished draft of a school progress report in a completely different register: [...]

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Guardian UK ☛ I was wrong about the danger of smartphones in schools. It’s far, far worse than I thought

    So, yes, a mobile phone ban is necessary and welcome. But schools are allowed to ask what support they will be given to manage the transition period. The solution must include families, government and, most importantly, the social media companies themselves, which can do more to build safeguards against teens’ misuse of platforms. Teachers can confiscate a handset, but they cannot, on their own, cancel out childhoods shaped by addiction to “infinitely scrollable” feeds. Pretending that they can would be painfully naive.

  • NDTV ☛ Turkey Votes To Ban Social Media For Under-15s

    Under the law, under-15s will be banned from creating accounts on social media, while digital platforms will be forced to put in age-verification systems, Turkish news broadcaster NTV reported.

    The vote follows in the footsteps of similar bans and proposals to limit the harms of internet use for young people, including Australia's landmark move to restrict social media to over-16s only.

  • Votebeat ☛ Voting rights groups sue Trump administration over Department of Justice voter roll requests - Votebeat

    Last fall, the DOJ began asking states for their voter rolls — massive lists containing significant identifying information on every registered voter in each state, including partial Social Security numbers — and other election-related data. The DOJ has said the effort is central to enforcing federal election law requiring states to regularly maintain voter lists by searching for and removing ineligible voters.

    At least 12 states, including Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming, have voluntarily complied.

  • The Atlantic ☛ What I Learned About Billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s Private Retreat

    Decades of research in developmental psychology have shown that moral reasoning develops through consequences—not punishment, necessarily, but experiencing the effects of your actions on others, receiving honest feedback, having to accommodate reality as it actually is rather than as you wish it to be. It’s not that the wealthy become evil; it’s that their environment stops teaching them the things that nonwealthy people are forced to learn simply by living in a world that pushes back. When you can buy your way out of any mistake, when you can fire anyone who disagrees with you, when your social circle consists entirely of people who need something from you, the basic mechanism by which humans learn that other people are real goes dark.

    When Peter Thiel said, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” he wasn’t talking about your freedom. He was talking about his own. You don’t exist. When Musk took a chainsaw to the federal government as part of the inside joke he called DOGE [sic], he did so with the air of a man who believed that nothing matters—poverty, chaos, human suffering. He was having fun. It didn’t even matter that the entire destructive exercise ultimately yielded no practical financial gains. For him, the outcome was a foregone conclusion: He could only win, because losing had lost its meaning.

  • NDTV ☛ How A War Destroyed America's Strongest Financial Weapon, Built Over 50 Years

    The rails to transact outside the dollar system have been built. They were not yet busy, but they were ready.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Michigan Advance ☛ University of Michigan investigating messages that sank Jordan Acker’s regent nomination • Michigan Advance

    In a joint statement issued Tuesday, U-M Board of Regents members Mark Bernstein and Michael Behm said that they were aware of the “disturbing messages allegedly attributed to Regent Acker in an article recently published in The Guardian, including messages potentially referencing a University of Michigan student.”

  • Digital First Media ☛ UM opens probe into Regent Jordan Acker's 'disturbing' messages

    "His job is to advance the interest of the students," Peterson said. "Instead, he's knowingly damaging someone. ... That’s what we find objectionable. ... Students have the expectation of privacy, not to have their conduct discussed in a chat with people with no connection to the university."

  • EFF ☛ EFF Sues DHS and ICE For Records on Subpoenas Seeking to Unmask Online Critics

    Court records and news reports show that in the past year, DHS has used administrative subpoenas to unmask or locate people who have documented ICE's activities in their community, criticized the government, or attended protests. The subpoenas are sent to technology companies to demand information about internet users who are often engaged in protected First Amendment activity.

    These subpoenas are dangerous because they don’t require judges’ approval. But they are also unlawful, and the government knows it. When a few users challenged them in court with the help of American Civil Liberties Union affiliates in Northern California and Pennsylvania, DHS withdrew them rather than waiting for a decision.

  • Sean Goedecke ☛ Luddites and AI datacenters

    Like many people, I have heard a lot about Luddism and Luddites, but only in the context of it being a general term for someone who is anti-technology. I was interested in learning more about the actual historical movement: what kind of people participated, what it was, and what it accomplished. I read Merchant’s and Mueller’s books, plus others2, to try and figure all of this out. Who were the actual, historical Luddites? What can we learn from them about burning down datacenters?

• Environment

  • India Times ☛ Meta breaks ground on over $1 billion data center in Oklahoma's Tulsa

    This ‌will be Meta's first data centre in Oklahoma and it will be located at the Fair ⁠Oaks Innovation Park, spanning more than 2 million square feet, according to the company.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ 44% of Americans breathe dangerously polluted air. In California, it's 82%

    Greater Los Angeles remained the most ozone-polluted metro area in the nation, according to the American Lung Assn.’s 2026 State of the Air report, which found that Southern California continues to face some of the country’s dirtiest air.

    The report, released on Wednesday, ranked Los Angeles-Long Beach as the worst U.S. metro area for ozone pollution, with an average of 159.2 unhealthy ozone days a year. The region also ranked seventh worst nationally for annual particle pollution and seventh worst for short-term particle pollution.

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ On Earth Day, environmental and health experts call on EPA to restore protections

    The group gathered in Gardiner on Earth Day Wednesday, to highlight the impacts severe EPA cuts will have on Maine’s environment and residents.

    “Today is Earth Day, but as we look around Maine, the news isn’t about celebration, it’s about a wake up call,” said Beverly Johnson, professor of earth and climate science at Bates College.

  • Tuscon Sentinel ☛ The U.S. used to be really dirty – environmental cleanup laws have made a huge difference | Analysis

    Growing up in the 1970s, I took for granted the trash piles along the highway, tires washed up on beaches, and smog fouling city air. The famed “Crying Indian” commercial of 1971 became a symbol of widespread environmental damage across the United States.

    That’s why the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, energized the nation. In the largest single-day public demonstration in U.S. history, roughly 10% of the population took to the streets to shout together: “Enough is enough!”

  • Bhaskar English ☛ World Earth Day 2026: Origin, Theme & Importance | Celebrate Our Planet

    Earth Day started in 1970 when around 20 million Americans about 10% of the U.S. population at the time came together to demand better protection for the environment. Today, EARTHDAY.ORG works with 150,000+ partners across 192 countries, bringing together people who care about clean air, water, forests, and wildlife.

    Their message is simple but powerful: “Everyone accounted for, and everyone accountable.”

  • MinnPost ☛ Want to celebrate Earth Day? Rethink your fashion.

    Plastic-free fashion marks a next step in the sustainable fashion movement, which has long emphasized used clothing as an alternative to fast-fashion and its environmentally harmful effects. But while buying used clothing saves garments from the landfill, if those garments are made of synthetic materials, they still shed harmful microplastics with each wash.

  • MinnPost ☛ Minnesota water is at risk as mining expands

    Minnesota’s clean water is under growing threat from multiple proposed sulfide ore mining projects that promise economic benefits but carry significant long-term risks. Transnational companies like Twin Metals/Antofagosta, NewRange/Glencore, Tamarack Mine/Talon Metals/Rio Tinto, and Green Bridge Metals are proposing mines in four of our state’s most important and sensitive watersheds — the Mississippi River, St. Croix River, Rainy River (Boundary Waters) and St. Louis River (Lake Superior).

  • The Nation ☛ How California’s Kids Are Taking On Big Oil

    California’s youth have pushed for a state bill that would do just that. The Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act is modeled after federal legislation that requires companies to clean up toxic spills and hazardous waste sites. The proposal, which has analogous statutes in Vermont and New York, aims to hold fossil fuel companies, not taxpayers, financially responsible for climate change damages like the LA fires.

    To youth advocates, the bill is common sense. “If you make a mess, you should be the one to clean it up,” said Sofia Carrasco, a high school activist with San Diego 350’s Youth v. Oil Campaign.

  • Vox ☛ The best thing you can do for Earth Day 2026: Eat less meat and dairy, more plant-based meals

    It’s Earth Week, and these days, it’s become hard to know just what to do with this holiday. Is it a reminder to start composting, ditch fast fashion, or donate to climate causes? Or does nothing we do as individuals really matter, and it’s on governments and corporations alone to fix our climate and ecological crises?

  • Science Alert ☛ Almost 30% of Us Face 5x More Heat-Drought Extremes by End of Century

    Based on the team's modeling and our current emissions trajectory, 28 percent of the global population – nearly 2.6 billion people – will experience at least five times as many of these extremes by the century's end compared to partway through.

    When heat and drought combine, the impacts are far worse than either event alone: not just in the number of heat-related deaths, but also for increased risks of wildfires, greater agricultural losses, and higher levels of socio-economic instability.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Data center growth threatens air quality and progress toward cleaner energy grid

    The research, building on new government data, tracks a dramatic slowdown in the previously accelerating pace of coal plant retirements as utilities respond to rising electricity demand from data centers and other sources. Compared to 2022, when the country was retiring power plants at a pace that would lead to a coal-free grid by 2040, the current pace of plant retirements would keep some of our dirtiest ones online until 2065. Power generation from coal-fired power plants increased by 13% in 2025 as U.S. electricity generation hit an all-time record.

  • The Register UK ☛ UK firms to deploy AI projects abroad as energy costs rise

    The warning is contained in the "Land, Power, Compute" report published by rent-a-GPU firm CUDO Compute, which naturally has skin in this game.

  • Digital Camera World ☛ I know AI in my editing software uses water, but have no idea how much. This Earth Day, I call on companies to be more transparent

    In fact, this has been on my mind for some time as, earlier in the year, the UN announced that we have entered an “era of water bankruptcy,” which got me thinking about how, especially as a landscape photographer, my photographic passions affect our home planet.

  • Hackaday ☛ What Have We Dumped On The Moon?

    If you read a headline that signs of intelligent life were found on the moon, you might suspect a hoax. But they are there! Humans have dumped a lot of stuff on the moon, both in person and via uncrewed rockets. So after the apocalypse, what strange things will some alien exo-archaeologist find on our only natural satellite?

  • Common Dreams ☛ Lawsuit Targets Trump Administration Approval of BP’s Ultra-Deepwater Drilling in Gulf of Mexico, 16 Years After Deepwater Horizon

    The groups are challenging the approval of BP’s development proposal because legally required information is either missing or significantly flawed. For instance, BP failed to demonstrate it has the experience, expertise and certified equipment to conduct safe drilling under extreme conditions at Kaskida’s location, where a “loss of well control” incident (which caused BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster) is six to seven times more likely compared to typical deepwater oil wells.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Why cloud computing still runs on coal and gas

    The United States has more data centers than anywhere else in the world and the extra energy demand is straining transmission grids and driving up the cost of electricity. Struggling grid operators are turning to polluting fossil fuels to quickly supply the power. In some cases, they are considering nuclear energy, or even bringing back oil, gas and coal power plants that had been slated for closure.

    According to recent analysis by Reuters, the country's biggest power grid postponed or canceled the planned closure of 60% of its fossil fuel plants last year. PJM Interconnection covers 13 eastern states, including Virgina, the "data center capital of the world." Eleven of the plants due to close were so-called "peakers," which are brought online during periods of spiking electricity demand.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Local SE ☛ 'We must be ready': EU to lay out its plan to deal with jet fuel crisis

      The prospect of jet fuel shortage has rattled the aviation industry as the Northern Hemisphere summer travel season approaches.

      Some airlines have already suspended flights or imposed fuel surcharges since the fuel cost increases.

    • India Times ☛ UK targets illegal [cryptocurrency] trading in London crackdown

      Authorities want to prevent such ⁠traders from ‌providing a route for criminals to ​move, ​disguise and spend money. Peer-to-peer traders, ⁠who shun centralised exchanges, have to be registered ​in Britain - and there are currently ​no FCA-registered peer-to-peer [cryptocurrency] traders here.

    • Allbritton Journalism Institute ☛ Trump Started a War With D.C.'s Cyclists. It's Part of a Bigger Car-Centric Agenda.

      It’s unclear whether the legal battle over this particular bike lane, which connects cyclists south of Constitution Avenue around the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial into Virginia, is truly over. But the local fight is just one front in a broader campaign waged by the Trump administration to scale back bike infrastructure across the U.S.

    • MinnPost ☛ Minnesota's energy system faces headwinds

      Maybe we’ve grown too complacent. After years in the doldrums, electricity demand is set to grow here in Minnesota and across the U.S. amid booming demand for AI “compute” and the slow but steady electrification of transportation, industry and heating.

      Google insists it’ll pay for the electric infrastructure needed to power the massive data centers it plans to build near Duluth and Rochester. But utility bills are rising faster than inflation already, so it’s understandable that many Minnesotans are in “believe it when we see it” mode. Xcel Energy electric customers saw rates jump 5.2% last year, with more increases on the way.

    • Common Dreams ☛ California’s Regressive Rooftop Solar Policy Hit With Second Appeal to State Supreme Court

      In March the California Court of Appeals upheld the California Public Utility Commission’s December 2022 action for a second time, despite the Supreme Court ruling in August 2025 that the lower court gave the commission too much latitude and needed to revise its ruling.

    • Low Tech Mag ☛ Rediscovering the Handcart

      The human-powered handcart is the oldest of vehicles, and it will likely be the last one around in the future. Of all vehicles, it’s the cheapest and least complex to build and use. It offers a large advantage over carrying a load on your back or dragging it over the ground - the even older concept of the sled. On the other hand, the handcart is cheaper and easier to use than the animal-powered cart. Oxen and donkeys eat more than humans, and they have their own will, which can work against the driver.

    • Ember Energy Research CIC ☛ Global Electricity Review 2026

      Solar surge halts fossil generation rise as clean power meets all demand growth and renewables overtake coal

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Guardian UK ☛ What Trump’s Bible stunt says about his complicated history with Christianity

    He has also said he has never asked God for forgiveness, which is kind of a key point within Christianity, while at an event at religious university, he referred to the Bible book “Second Corinthians” as “Two Corinthians”.

    Trump also opted not to place his hand on the Bible during his 2024 inauguration, which is hardly the worst act of his second term, but it upset people all the same.

  • India Times ☛ Microsoft appoints Daniel Shapero as LinkedIn's new CEO

    Shapero succeeds Roslansky, who has led LinkedIn since 2020 and will continue in his role as executive vice president at Microsoft while taking on expanded responsibilities within the company’s office productivity group.

  • CNBC ☛ Gates Foundation reviewing Jeffrey Epstein ties, will slash staff: WSJ

    The Journal said the foundation, which has a 2026 budget of about $9 billion, plans to cap operating expenses at $1.25 billion.

  • The Wall Street Journal ☛ Exclusive | Gates Foundation to Cut 20% of Staff, Review Epstein Ties

    The Gates Foundation is cutting up to 500 jobs, or roughly 20% of its staff, over the next several years, and the philanthropic giant has also opened an external review of its ties with the late Jeffrey Epstein.

  • Rob Bowley ☛ Anthropic squeezed three ways

    What interests me is what the test reveals about the bind Anthropic is in. It was an attempt to fix unit economics: heavy users on flat-fee plans consume vastly more than the plans recover, and the Head of Growth, Amol Avasare, said as much on X – plans weren’t built for current usage patterns.

    That’s one real pressure. But it’s not the only one. They’re squeezed three ways at once.

  • Mike Brock ☛ How Elon Musk Thinks, and Why It Is Killing Us

    Let me enumerate the specific features of the software worldview that produce specific pathologies when generalized, because the argument is strongest when stated at the level of mechanism.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Strategist ☛ What to learn from Iran’s outperformance in its meme war with the US

      Two different objectives, two different audiences – resulting in two information campaigns with very different levels of strategic sophistication. The US approach is a cautionary tale about volume without purpose.

      The second lesson is on the use of cultural intelligence to maximise reach.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Meduza ☛ Russian opposition politician calls for ‘home protest’ in support of free internet

    She said such a protest is not formally prohibited, but “we all understand how flexibly the law is interpreted today.”

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • BIA Net ☛ Prosecutor seeks sentence for bianet journalist Tuğçe Yılmaz over interview with Armenian youths

    Yılmaz faces charges of "insulting the Turkish nation and the state of the Republic of Turkey" under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code regarding an interview she conducted with Armenian youth in Turkey.

  • BIA Net ☛ Kurdish Journalism Day marked on 128th anniversary of first newspaper

    Today marks 128 years since Mikdat Midhat Bedirxan published the first Kurdish newspaper, Kurdistan, in Cairo, Egypt, on Apr 22, 1898.

    The Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG) and Mesopotamia Women Journalists Association (MKG) gathered in Diyarbakır today to mark the Kurdish Journalism Day, celebrated since 1973.

  • ANF News ☛ KMK: Democracy cannot be spoken of without free media

    The Collective stated that journalists still face pressure, death threats, and the risk of prosecution due to their journalistic activities in all four parts of Kurdistan, and are forced to go abroad because of these threats to their safety.

    The statement continued as follows: “Journalists Şerwan Şerwanî and Qehreman Şukrî Zeynedîn are in prison as political detainees for criticizing the government. The families of martyred journalists are still waiting for the perpetrators to be brought to justice despite the passing of several years. The policy of impunity toward the killers of journalists is not only seen at the level of political administration in South Kurdistan (North Iraq), but is also evident in a country like Turkey, which has killed four journalists in the Kurdistan Region.

  • CPJ ☛ Zambian lawyers fight for media freedom as journalists harassed ahead of election

    “The laws grant wide powers of surveillance, interception, and data access without sufficiently robust judicial oversight,” Kalala said. “Collectively, these features create a framework that risks arbitrary enforcement and undermines constitutional protections relating to privacy, due process, and freedom of expression.”

  • CPJ ☛ Journalist Mehmet Yetim arrested in Turkey for ‘spreading disinformation’

    “Turkey keeps arresting journalists over claims of spreading disinformation, which, even if they were true, wouldn’t be considered a crime unless they caused concern, fear, or panic among the public, according to the law,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “Journalist Mehmet Yetim, who corrected his faulty reporting, didn’t cause any of those things. Turkish authorities must release Yetim and stop arresting journalists under this law.”

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ Notes on Access Journalism

    In order to operate effectively, journalism must be powerful. Not the power of beautiful language, but tangible power—the social, cultural, political, and economic power to assert and protect its own interests. In this, it is no different from any other endeavor that involves clashing with the competing interests of powerful people. If you don’t have the power to protect yourself, the other powers will crush you.

    People in journalism tend to dislike talking about their field in these terms. Fifty years of weaponized political attacks on “media bias” have succeeded in making journalists gun shy about speaking plainly. “Power” smacks of politics, which smacks of partisanship, and journalists have been trained to see this as a road leading towards a rhetorical battle better left alone. That does not change the reality, though. The practice of journalism involves finding and sharing true information about powerful people and institutions. It involves prying open doors that powerful people and institutions would rather keep closed. How do you either convince or force them to open those doors? With power. You must have something to offer, and something to threaten with. A carrot and a stick.

  • Techdirt ☛ The Broken U.S. Press Sits Down For Cocktails And Giggles With Fascists

    The WHCA organizers have been largely weak-kneed about the event, stating they are “happy” Mr. Trump accepted their invitation, and are looking “forward to hosting” a guy who has murdered whatever was left of U.S. public media, filed countless baseless lawsuits against press outlets for doing journalism, and consistently threatened network broadcast licenses just because comedians made jokes.

    A coalition of more than 250 journalists wrote a letter to the WHCA and attendees, begging them to demonstrate something resembling a backbone. But even these calls for action from other journalists feel pathetic: [...]

  • Tedium ☛ McClatchy AI Controversy: Blame The Human Leaders

    McClatchy is effectively using Claude to take already-written stories, repackage the reporting, and reuse it in whatever ways are necessary. Put another way, the company is trying to scale up for the arms race that is SEO, social media, and Google Discover.

    The problem is, that means that these journalists are now going to have their bylines on content that AI actively wrote and repackaged, while attempting to limit the say those journalists have in the matter. From the piece: [...]

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • El País ☛ ICE detains the wife of a US Army sergeant during an immigration appointment

    On April 14, Deisy Rivera Ortega went to an immigration office in El Paso with her husband, Sergeant First Class Jose Serrano, hoping to make progress on her application to remain legally in the United States. She left in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The appointment was part of the “parole in place” process, a mechanism that has traditionally allowed family members of military personnel to regularize their status without leaving the country.

  • Associated Press ☛ Wife of US Army sergeant detained in El Paso immigration facility | AP News

    “A person opened the door, escorted us through the hallway, and at the end of the hallway, my wife got arrested,” Serrano said. “Arrested without any order, any warrant ... They took away my wife. They don’t tell me anything.”

  • [Old] Smithsonian Magazine ☛ The Choctaw Nation's Gift to the Irish

    In 1995, Irish President Mary Robinson, later UN Commissioner for Human Rights, visited the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to thank the Choctaws for their generosity toward the Irish, a people with whom she noted their only link was “a common humanity, a common sense of another people suffering as the Choctaw Nation had suffered when being removed from their tribal land."

  • [Old] New York Times ☛ Irish Return an Old Favor, Helping Native Americans Battling the Virus

    Now hundreds of Irish people are repaying that old kindness, giving to a charity drive for two Native American tribes suffering in the Covid-19 pandemic. As of Tuesday, the fund-raiser has raised more than $1.8 million to help supply clean water, food and health supplies to people in the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Reservation, with hundreds of thousands of dollars coming from Irish donors, according to the organizers.

    Many donors cited the generosity of the Choctaws, noting that the gift came not long after the United States government forcibly relocated the tribe and several other American Indian groups from the Southeastern United States, a march across thousands of miles known as the Trail of Tears that left thousands of people dead along the way.

  • Greece ☛ Seafarers announce 24-hour nationwide strike on May Day

    Greek seafarers will launch a 24-hour nationwide strike across all categories of vessels on Friday, May 1, the Panhellenic Seamen’s Federation (PNO) said on Wednesday, as part of International Workers’ Day demonstrations.

  • The Walrus ☛ The Walrus Talks AccessAbility

    According to the Canadian Survey on Disability, 27% of Canadians over the age of fifteen identify as living with a disability—around eight million people. In the age of the Accessible Canada Act, the Canada Disability Benefit, and Accessibility Standards Canada, why is there a gap between policy and people’s lived experience?

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Law requiring ICE agents to show identification struck down

    The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals slapped down a California law that would have forced immigration agents and other law enforcement officers to display ID while on duty, with a ruling Wednesday finding that the measure “attempts to directly regulate” the federal government.

  • Tennessee Lookout ☛ Tennessee House advances bill requiring sheriffs to cooperate with ICE

    The Tennessee House on Monday voted 71-25 in favor of legislation to require every sheriff in the state to enter agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws — or risk losing state funding.

    The legislation is among a slate of bills introduced by Tennessee Republicans to align with the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. If approved by the Senate, which is expected to take a vote this week, the bill will head to the governor’s desk for his signature.

  • Tuscon Sentinel ☛ Arizona police agencies chose not to partner with ICE. This GOP bill would take that choice away.

    On Tuesday, the state House of Representatives gave preliminary approval to Senate Bill 1055, which would require law enforcement agencies in Arizona to notify ICE or U.S. Customs and Border Protection if they arrest a person they suspect is in the country without authorization — even if that person hasn’t been convicted of a crime.

  • TruthOut ☛ Indigenous Activists Decry “Data Colonialism” of AI Boom in Their Communities

    The artificial intelligence industry’s data center boom is the latest chapter in a long history of environmental racism and resource exploitation in vulnerable Native communities, says Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne activist Krystal Two Bulls, the executive director of Honor the Earth, an Indigenous-led environmental justice organization that is tracking over 100 proposed data center projects on tribal and rural lands. We speak to Two Bulls about the myriad impacts of what she calls a “modern-day iteration” of “settler colonialism,” including noise pollution, cancers and respiratory illnesses, water depletion, energy grid overload and even “ecological collapse.” As tech companies set their sights on Indigenous lands, Two Bulls says, “We’re always the one that ends up having to sacrifice our relationship to land, air, water, our communities and our nonhuman relatives.”

  • Thomas Günther ☛ Digital independence

    My wife and I recently relaunched DI.DAY, the website of an initiative that celebrates “Digital Independence Day” every first Sunday of the month.

    When I heard about their need for an accessibility-focused relaunch, I immediately reached out. If you’ve spent any time talking to me in the last few months, you know this topic is very dear to my heart. In that case there’s even a good chance you’re already a bit annoyed because I simply wouldn’t shut up about it.

    It’s quite rare for me to work on websites I’ve previously used myself and that makes it all the more special. Here’s a quick before and after of the home page: [...]

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: It’s not a crime if we do it (to nurses) with an app (22 Apr 2026)

    There's no (good) reason not to apply these legal frameworks to the [cryptocurrency] industry – but there are plenty of bad reasons not to. The most obvious reason not to apply those regulations is that you are on the same side as the pump-and-dumpers, money launderers and stock swindlers. The reason we struggle to regulate fintech is that we just don't want to.

    Then there's Uber, which claimed that it wasn't a taxi company, it was a "transportation network company," which meant that none of the regulations we apply to taxis should apply to Uber. To call this a transparent ruse is to do great violence to the good, hardworking transparent ruses putting in the hard yards to run honest scams. "Uber isn't a taxi company, it's a transportation network company" is about as plausible as those t-shirts that read "It's not a bald spot, it's a solar-panel for a sex-machine."

    Emboldened by the success of the "transportation network company" wheeze, Uber launched Uber Eats, claiming that it wasn't a "food delivery company" but rather a "delivery network company." This set up the template for a remorseless tide of new sex-machine solar-panels that have pushed Uber's system of wage-theft and worker misclassification into an expanding constellation of labor categories.

    From fintech to price-fixing to gig-work, the entire industry runs on the very stupid proposition that "it's not a crime if we do it with an app": [...]

  • TruthOut ☛ Netanyahu Says Israel Is Refuge for Christians After Bombing Countless Churches

    Netanyahu’s statements brush over the myriad counts of violence and destruction against Christians and Muslims across the Middle East, particularly in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and Lebanon in recent years.

  • Site36 ☛ FBI provides Germany with huge captured "data treasure" to identify suspected terrorists in Germany

    US authorities have passed extensive IS-related data to Germany via the FBI. The Federal Criminal Police Office is now analysing millions of records to identify suspected terrorists in Germany – with dozens of cases already leading to convictions or investigations.

• Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Semafor Inc ☛ US states flex their antitrust muscles

    Take Live Nation. More than 30 states banded together to win a case that deemed the ticketing giant a monopoly, following what critics called a lightweight settlement by DOJ. When asked if he was comfortable with that outcome, antitrust chief Omeed Assefi didn’t bat an eye: “Absolutely,” he told Liz Hoffman at Semafor World Economy last week. “We have our settlement that we’re very proud of at DOJ, that we think brought really historic relief.”

  • Copyrights

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Paramount Faces DMCA Whac-a-Mole as Leaked Avatar: Aang Movie Thrives on Pirate Sites

      Paramount’s attempt to contain the leaked 'Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender' has transformed into a digital game of whac-a-mole. Despite sending numerous takedown notices, the film is now firmly embedded in the piracy landscape, highlighting the limitations of traditional anti-piracy measures once a high-profile leak comes out.

    • Perl ☛ AI Contributions to CPAN: The Copyright Question

      This article is about the second one. The quality concern is real, but you already know how to handle it — you read the PR, you run the tests, you ask questions. It's the same concern you have about any contributor. The copyright concern is the structurally novel one, and it's the question where CPAN's particular history matters.