Leftovers

• Science / Mathematics / Computer Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Physicists Discover How Slime Mold 'Makes Decisions' Without a Brain

    It's probably not what you're thinking.

  • Science Alert ☛ FDA Approves First New Sunscreen Ingredient in Decades

    US sunscreens are about to get a major upgrade.

• Proprietary / SaaS

  • Metro UK ☛ Microsoft’s Xbox games keep ending up as flops according to new report

    A report has highlighted the extent of Xbox’s failures across its game studios, with titles like Avowed, Keeper, and Hellblade 2 falling short of Microsoft’s expectations.

    Despite having a pretty strong Xbox Games Showcase, any goodwill generated by Microsoft has quickly dissolved over the past few days.

    After confirming Gears Of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are Xbox console exclusives, there’s been a lot of confused messaging around the company’s strategy. Additionally, according to reports, significant layoffs and studio closures are expected at Xbox at the end of the month.

    Xbox CEO Asha Sharma recently admitted that the company’s revenue has sharply declined, despite a number of high-profile studio acquisitions over the years. The ongoing memory shortage isn’t helping matters either, which is leading to drastic rethinks around its plans for its next console.

  • Air Force Times ☛ Only 1 in 4 F-35s is fully mission capable, GAO finds

    The full mission capable rate, the share of time aircraft can perform all assigned missions, slid from 38% to 25% over the same period.

    Air Force officials attributed part of the fiscal 2025 drop to new jets that couldn’t perform their missions because of software delays, along with scarce parts and corrosion problems, according to the report.

  • SQ Magazine ☛ Urgent Oracle PeopleSoft Flaw Linked to ShinyHunters Campaign

    A critical Oracle PeopleSoft vulnerability is being actively exploited by attackers linked to ShinyHunters, putting more than 100 organizations, especially universities, at risk.

  • Nikhil Anand ☛ Note 0023 - Microsoft Teams

    For nearly six years and counting, I’ve had the misfortune of using Microsoft Teams, an infernal piece of shit that I am not entirely unconvinced isn’t sadistic psychological research into discovering novel UI/UX anti-patterns.

  • Jeff Geerling ☛ You can finally power on a Mac remotely

    Three decades later, with the release of macOS 26.5, Apple caught up: you can finally set your Mac to 'Always' boot whenever power is restored, regardless of how it was shut down.

  • David Bushell ☛ Apple deepfakes

    Apple’s WWDC 2026 keynote was a snoozefest but one section left me rather perplexed. Early in the show Apple gave a performance about “child safety”. Apple ended the show with their new AI photo mangler.

    That’s some serious cognitive dissonance!

    404 Media recently reported on “How Deepfakes Tore a High School Apart”. Kids are using deepfake apps (from Apple’s App Store) to victimise their classmates. Adults are doing it too, of course. Deepfakes on demand are a cornerstone of new Twitter.

    Apple front-loaded the keynote with a “we care about children” narrative that the media and fanboys lapped up. Then they advertised features that are suspiciously at odds (if you stop to think). It was a shrewd marketing stunt they’ve pulled before. In past events Apple has greenwashed the opening spiel before flogging a new iPhone model with an annual upgrade plan. Don’t worry, it’s all recycled. Totally eco-friendly to ship mass-produced luxury goods around the world to meet a manufactured demand. I’m sure Apple-branded slop will be harmless too, I remember someone telling me they care about this stuff.

  • So-Called 'Artificial Intelligence' ('AI') / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Tom Bedor ☛ If You are Asking for Human Attention, Demonstrate Human Effort

      I remember the first time I experienced this annoyance. I proposed a design, and a teammate prompted an AI to critique it. The teammate sent an AI document to me, with the disclaimer: "I didn't read this, so it might not be entirely accurate". My thought was, if reading this wasn't worth your time, why is it worth mine?"

      Therefore, I've adopted this principle in my work:

      If you are requesting human attention, demonstrate human effort.

    • Coalition for Networked Information ☛ Knowledge Futures Symposium (hybrid), June 26, 2026

      I’m passing along details for the Knowledge Futures Symposium, focusing on knowledge equity, knowledge security, and digital and AI ethics, to take place online and at the University of Leeds. The program looks wonderful with a great speaker line-up; last year’s inaugural event was very well-received and generated a lot of follow-up discussion. See below for more information, including a link for registration, which appears to be free.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Bernie Sanders’ AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Plan

      We should be wary of this possibility because we’ve seen it before. Ownership of substantial stakes in oil companies by the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, does not seem to have steered those corporations to pro-environmental policies. Instead, the Norwegian government’s dependence on those companies has inhibited them from taking climate action. Here in the US, public employee pension funds merit the same criticism: the fiduciary duty to generate wealth overwhelms any intention to direct their corporate holdings in the public interest.

      A better answer is to separate the two goals. The standard way to share private rewards with the broader society that made them possible is taxation. Senator Elizabeth Warren has proposed an excise tax on datacenters’ energy use. Others have proposed an AI token tax, which has much the same effect.

    • Kyle Reddoch ☛ How Siri AI Call Context Could Help Scammers

      The problem is that phone scams also depend on the user being in motion, under pressure, and willing to retrieve information quickly.

    • I Cringely ☛ The Cases That Don’t Exist

      Now, why should this column care about lawyers? Because law is the hallucination problem stripped to its skeleton, performed in the one room where being confidently wrong has a docket number.

      Everywhere else, a fabricated “fact” is fuzzy. Did the model slightly misremember a revenue figure, round a date? Here there is no fuzz. A case either exists or it doesn’t. It either says the thing or it doesn’t. A real citation is an address you can drive to; the ones ChatGPT invented were addresses for houses that were never built. Law is what happens when you take a machine optimized to produce plausible sentences and point it at a system that runs entirely on whether the sentence is true. The two were never compatible. We are simply watching the collision in slow motion, one sanction at a time.

    • Fabrizio Ferri Benedetti ☛ Feed the machines, then guide the humans – Fabrizio Ferri Benedetti

      Docs as code used to mean editing docs as if they were code. Today it also means that docs have become executable, either as agentic instructions, skills, or context for large language models. Tech writers must now ensure that the reference and procedures they’ve carefully written and edited are the best possible fuel for AI, lest they jam the machine or make it stray into dangerous territory. Humans have their own needs though. Who feeds them?

    • Business Insider ☛ A Software Engineer Won a Religious Exemption From Using AI at Work

      Maus, a Unitarian Universalist, said she proposed the special treatment in April, citing environmental and ethical objections to AI that don't align with her religious beliefs. She also said she consulted an employment lawyer and her local chapter's minister to help make her case.

      Maus was granted the accommodation in mid-May, according to an email seen by Business Insider.

  • Social Control Media

    • People vs Big Tech ☛ TikTok parental controls fail to protect children from suicide, self harm and eating disorder content, investigation finds - People vs. Big Tech

      Researchers created four new TikTok accounts in the UK, each registered as a 13-year-old [1]. All accounts turned TikTok's ‘Restricted Mode’ setting on, which the company says is designed to ‘restrict your teen's exposure to content that may not be appropriate or comfortable for them’ and aims ‘to only show content that's comfortable for all audiences’.

      Despite these protections being switched on, newly created accounts were rapidly shown extremely harmful material.

    • People vs Big Tech ☛ TikTok's parental controls fail to protect children from eating disorder, suicide and self harm content - People vs. Big Tech

      The UK’s Online Safety Act requires platforms to keep children safe from content that promotes self harm, suicide and eating disorders.

      We have investigated how well TikTok is living up to this requirement and our findings raise serious concerns about their compliance with the law.

    • Wired ☛ ‘Tell Him He’s a Piece of Shit’: Meta’s New AI Unit Is a Total Mess

      The incident, which took place on a call open to thousands of employees, reflects growing frustration inside the company’s Applied AI team, which was formed in March to support the work of AI researchers at Meta Superintelligence Labs. Three current employees tell WIRED there is widespread dissatisfaction with how Meta assembled the unit of about 6,500 engineers and product managers and the drudgework they allege they have been assigned to improve AI models. Each spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

    • SQ Magazine ☛ Facebook and Instagram Hit by Major Global Outage

      Facebook, Instagram and Messenger users around the world experienced access problems on Friday, with reports quickly flooding outage tracking websites. The disruption appeared to affect both mobile and desktop users, leaving many unable to load feeds, log in to accounts or use key features across Meta’s platforms.

      The issues surfaced during the morning hours in the United States and rapidly spread across multiple regions, prompting concerns about a large scale service disruption affecting millions of users.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Conti ransomware group member pleads guilty, faces up to 20 years in prison

      At one point, Conti was among the most prolific ransomware groups globally, impacting hundreds of critical infrastructure providers, Costa Rica’s government in 2022, and ultimately leading the State Department to offer a $10 million reward for information related to Conti’s leaders. The group was notoriously resilient, bouncing back with new infrastructure and hitting new targets after a massive leak exposed chats between the group’s members in 2022.

    • Fortra LLC ☛ Silent Ransom Group: What You Need to Know

      Here's the funny thing. Despite the name, Silent Ransom Group doesn't actually deploy any ransomware. At least, not anymore. The gang does have its roots in traditional file-encrypting ransomware, but at some point it seems to have decided that doing that was too much effort and focused on data theft instead.

• Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)

  • Fabio Akita ☛ Bypassing the GitHub API Block in Brazil

    According to Ayub, this kind of thing often happens in blocking waves, many times after Wednesday meetings with large carriers, inside the Brazilian mechanism for blocking addresses under the excuse of fighting piracy. The problem is the blast radius: instead of taking down only the target, it breaks legitimate infrastructure. Today it was the GitHub API. Tomorrow it can be anything your work depends on.

    And yes, I confirmed it from here.

• Security

  • LWN ☛ Security updates for Thursday

    Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (.NET 10.0, .NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, podman, poppler, and postgresql-jdbc), Debian (chromium, jackson-core, libdbi-perl, and libinput), Fedora (httpd, rust, and xmlstarlet), Mageia (openssh, postfix, and roundcubemail), Oracle (frr, kernel, libyang, n, postgresql-jdbc, and unbound), Red Hat (.NET 10.0, .NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, redis, and redis:7), SUSE (agama-web-ui, cockpit, cosign, glibc, google-cloud-sap-agent, google-osconfig-agent, kanidm, kernel, kubernetes, kubernetes1.23, kubernetes1.24, kubernetes1.25, kubernetes1.27, kubernetes1.28, libpodofo-devel, libyang, NetworkManager-libreswan, openCryptoki, python311-pypdf, rclone, steampipe, wicked, and xen), and Ubuntu (exim4, libcrypt-saltedhash-perl, libhttp-daemon-perl, samba, and uriparser).

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Techdirt ☛ Michigan Lawmakers Want To Ban Chinese-Tagged Vehicles From Even Visiting The State. You Know, For Privacy.

      So, a few things. One, it’s curious how normally very vocal “free market” Libertarian groups always mysteriously get quiet when this sort of obvious anti-competitive pandering to large corporate campaign donors pops up. Two, it’s adorable how Slotkin and Stevens want you to believe that simply banning Chinese cars somehow solves the major privacy issues inherent with modern, connected cars.

      For one, U.S. and most of the overseas vehicles sold in the U.S. basically have nonexistent security standards. Carmakers collect an ocean of biometric, location and phone data, and then sell that data to a parade of largely unregulated data brokers, who in turn sell access to that data to any random asshole with money to spend — including domestic and foreign intelligence.

    • The Record ☛ Major US surveillance program poised to lapse after legislative deadlock

      It is the first lapse of the spy program, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), since it was passed into law in 2008. It enables U.S. intelligence agencies to gather without a warrant the digital communications of foreigners overseas.

    • 404 Media ☛ Flock Leaked Cops’ License Plate Searches via DuckDuckGo, Bing

      Flock, the automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company, exposed some of the license plate cops were looking for and the reason for doing so.

    • No One's Happy ☛ Data Brokers: Unregulated Forensic Analysis

      Every ad-supported page you load broadcasts your advertising ID, location, and IP address to every company eligible to bid on the ad slot. Your car reports home continuously; when Mozilla reviewed 25 car brands in 2023, all 25 failed on privacy — the first time in the guide’s history an entire category failed — because 84 percent share data with brokers, 76 percent reserve the right to sell it, and the margins on a data feed are pure profit on a car already sold. Nissan’s privacy policy listed the collection of sexual activity and genetic data. [9]

    • Neil Selwyn ☛ School surveillance of students – a matter of faith

      In this manner, alongside familiar school surveillance features such as real-time attendance ,‘risk’ and ‘well-being’ monitoring HALO AI offers a host of ‘faith formation tracking’ features – monitoring student involvement in things like sacrament preparation activities, religious retreats, prayer groups and the like. As HALO marketing puts it, this allows schools to “support each student’s faith journey with actionable data insights”.

    • Michael Geist ☛ Liberal MP: Lawful Access "Has Nothing to Do With the Privacy of People and Their Information"

      [...] After multiple hearings on the privacy consequences of mandatory metadata retention, backdoor access and weakened encryption, and reduced evidentiary standards for access to subscriber information, the comment is ill-informed and simply shocking. If that position reflects the broader view within the government, it is little wonder that the privacy risks of lawful access have not been taken seriously.

    • Michael Geist ☛ The Exemption Illusion: Why the Government’s Plan to Fast Track Bill C-34’s Kids' Social Media Ban Means No Standards, No Privacy Review, and No Enforcement

      One of the most heavily promoted features of Bill C-34, the government’s Safe Social Media Act, is that its social media ban for those under 16 comes with a potential exemption for platforms that satisfy the new Digital Safety Commission that they provide adequate safeguards for children. But based on comments from government officials, it appears the exemption is an illusion, at least for years to come. The legislation carefully sets out how the ban is supposed to work, but officials at a technical briefing on the bill this week described a very different plan that involves moving quickly after Royal Assent with regulations to bring the ban into force without waiting for the Digital Safety Commission to be fully operational. No Commission means no age verification standards, no privacy review, no exemption, and no effective enforcement. It also creates huge risks since the initial start of the ban is when tens of millions of Canadians would be required to verify their age, yet the government is sidelining the privacy protections written into its own bill and essentially conceding that the ban is unlikely to carry any real consequences for those services that fail to comply when it first takes effect.

    • I Cringely ☛ Apple Gave Siri Hands

      He’s right, but he left out the scariest part.

      Here is what Apple actually did. It tore Siri down to the studs and rebuilt it on Google’s Gemini — reportedly a custom, 1.2-trillion-parameter model that Apple pays Google something on the order of a billion dollars a year to use. It gave the new assistant eyes: real-time awareness of what’s on your screen. And — this is the part that matters — it gave it hands. The new Siri doesn’t just answer. It manages your browser tabs, rewrites your weak passwords, reaches across your apps, pulls context out of Mail and Messages in the middle of a phone call, and acts inside the software where your life actually happens. Craig Federighi wrapped the whole thing in a promise about privacy and took a quiet shot at the rest of the industry for chasing AI for its own sake while losing sight of the people it’s supposed to serve.

      It was a good keynote. And it answered exactly one of the two questions that matter.

    • EFF ☛ Yes to California's Bill to Ban Surveillance Pricing

      Corporations harvest and monetize ever-growing amounts of our personal data, such as our browsing history and physical location. One bitter fruit of this poisonous tree is known as “surveillance pricing”: corporations offer the same product to two different people at two different prices, based on scrutiny of these people’s respective personal data.

      Surveillance pricing is bad for privacy, equity, and price transparency. So EFF supports a California bill, S.B. 2564, which would ban this creepy practice.

    • Yle ☛ Friday's papers: A generational digital divide, Finland's billion-euro bets, and what triggers Finnish drivers

      The ombudsman said she is disappointed in the situation and thinks it is a major problem that should interest everyone. However, according to Topo, no one seems to be interested.

  • Confidentiality

    • Trail of Bits ☛ Factoring "short-sleeve" RSA keys with polynomials

      What happens when the bits of an RSA private key are heavily biased toward 0 instead of being randomly generated? The public key’s bits could be biased enough for us to detect these incorrectly generated keys in the wild. Together with Hanno Böck of the badkeys project, we found hundreds of unique keys that not only have this property, but can be quickly factored. We also found the bug that led to many of these keys and analyzed historical data to track the issue over time. Surprisingly, the pattern of 0 bits is often highly structured, allowing us to develop a powerful polynomial-based cryptanalytic technique that exploits the pattern.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Task And Purpose ☛ The Army bought 10,000 IVAS headsets they will never use [Ed: Microsoft bailout by corruption]

    In November 2018, the Army awarded a 10-year, $22 billion contract to Microsoft to begin building and delivering prototypes of the headsets. In 2021, Army officials announced that IVAS testing and fielding would be delayed for another year. By 2022, the Pentagon’s testing office began running early versions of IVAS through training scenarios and found that soldiers hit fewer targets and engaged them more slowly with IVAS 1.0 than with their current equipment. Soldiers wearing the headsets for the demos reported feeling disoriented or suffering eye and neck strains, headaches, and motion sickness.

    Another report from 2022, this time in an audit by the Department of Defense’s inspector general, found that the program still had undefined “minimum user acceptance levels to determine whether IVAS would meet user needs.” The IG warned that it could mean wasting nearly $22 billion in taxpayer funds “to field a system that soldiers may not want to use or use as intended.”

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Trump’s Bet on Stablecoins Puts the Financial System at Risk

    The Trump administration’s corruption is an important factor in explaining the government’s support of the stablecoin industry. Yet as an analytical lens, it has its limits. How, for example, do we explain the fact that the GENIUS Act passed through both houses of Congress with veto-proof, bipartisan support? There was something that compelled many Democrats — even some of President Trump’s harshest critics like Senators Adam Schiff, Cory Booker, and Kirsten Gillibrand — to vote for the bill.

    And while corporate interests are often able to get their way in American politics, the corporate sector was by no means unified. Commercial banks opposed key sections of the bill and have lobbied to ensure that the stablecoin industry does not become a meaningful competitor.

  • The Walrus ☛ Canada and America Are Drifting Apart. The Pentagon Just Made It Official

    In a post on X on May 18, Elbridge Colby, the under secretary of defence for policy at the Pentagon, announced that the United States would pause its participation in the Permanent Joint Board on Defense (PJBD) to “reassess how this forum benefits shared North American defense.” The under secretary pointed to Canada failing to make credible progress on its defence commitments as well as to Canadian rhetoric, a jab at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech in Davos about middle powers co-operating in the face of hegemonic powers, as the reasons for the US decision. The move comes barely six weeks ahead of the mandatory joint review of the US–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), which Canada is heavily reliant on, as well as amid a climate of worsening bilateral relations since President Donald Trump’s own rhetoric about making Canada the fifty-first state and the imposition of tariffs on Canadian trade.

    Below is a Q&A briefing put together by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, with contributions by Christopher Hernandez-Roy, Mark F. Cancian, Jamie Tronnes, Richard Shimooka, Christopher Sands, and Philippe Lagassé. It explains how suspension of the PJBD exposes deeper tensions over defence, trade, and sovereignty, threatening a key mechanism for managing Canada–US security co-operation.

  • Yle ☛ EU migration pact will bring changes to Finland's asylum, deportation systems

    The law changes mean that Finnish border authorities can now process — and deny — asylum applications that are considered unfounded at the point of entry.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • New Eastern Europe ☛ Russia is attacking rail passengers in Ukraine

      This work is being continued in extremely harsh conditions under systemic Russian attacks that aim to prevent the normal functioning of railways in the country. According to Ukrzaliznytsia, since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion, its infrastructure and trains have been the target of Russian attacks more than 4,000 times. These include attacks on railway stations, locomotive depots, railway repair shops, and individual trains, all cumulatively depleting the company’s ability to carry out their mission. Additionally, the creeping Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory has made railway connections impossible in many areas.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Nation ☛ The Epstein Scandal Shows the Depth of the White House’s Dysfunction

    The story of Trump’s mishandling of the Epstein case is important in and of itself, but it also provides a window into the larger dysfunction of the current administration. In its failed attempt at a cover-up of the Epstein case, the Trump White House unleashed a carnival of sordid behavior, ranging from the president’s narcissism to the opportunism of his underlings, who constantly fought among themselves as they tried to both please their boss and varnish their public image.

  • Futurism ☛ Bill Gates Offers Bizarre Excuse About Epstein

    The controversial relationship likely proved ruinous for Gates’ relationship with his now ex wife. He and Melinda French Gates announced they were divorcing in May 2021, roughly two years after Gates’ extensive relationship with Epstein first came to light.

    His charitable [sic] foundation has also suffered greatly as a result of the fallout, prompting an external review of Gates’ ties to the deceased sex offender.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Jay Clayton's alleged Epstein links in focus after Trump's nomination for national intelligence director

    The alleged links between Jeffrey Epstein and Jay Clayton are being drawn from Clayton's former role in the private equity firm Apollo Global Management. The founder of Apollo Global Management was Leon Black, a known Epstein associate.

• Environment

  • The Tyee ☛ Federal Adviser Says Data Centres ‘Provide Markets’ for Gas

    A list of proposed data centres, which provide the computing power for AI, gives clarity on what kind of energy resources the federal government hopes to grow. Massive data centres proposed for Alberta, including the Kevin O’Leary-backed Wonder Valley project, will have their energy needs “supplied by natural gas,” the Privy Council document reads.

  • The Hindu ☛ HRF flags risks in data centre project approval

    The Human Rights Forum (HRF) has demanded the immediate suspension of the Environmental Clearance (EC) granted to the proposed Hyperscale Data Centre project at Adavivaram-Mudasarlova, alleging serious deficiencies in the appraisal process and potential risks to the region’s ecology and water security.

  • Salon ☛ AI data centers are taking over. These Americans are fighting back

    In nearly every state, hyperscale data centers powering artificial intelligence are being proposed and built. These facilities need much more computing power compared to other data centers and that comes with a much larger footprint, in the literal and carbon sense. A typical hyperscale data center needs 10 acres, or 435,000 square feet of land. However, many of these proposed sites plan to use over 1 million square feet, which could fit a few Eiffel towers or roughly 50 Boeing 737 jets.

    The list of potential drawbacks for communities receiving a data center are plentiful. The huge increased pressure on energy grids translates to higher utility bills, which puts additional strain on gas and coal plants, which of course jacks up toxic air pollution. Furthermore, the centers’ cooling systems need a lot of water, draining local aquifers and water tables, with the more efficient systems still requiring significant amounts. Even noise pollution from constant humming of the servers impacts local quality of life.

  • The Conversation ☛ Criminal fly-tipping gangs are costing governments millions – AI and drones can help track waste dumpers

    These tools are especially valuable because most large illegal waste sites do not appear overnight. They grow gradually over months or years, so earlier detection creates an opportunity to get on top of the problem before environmental damage escalates.

  • Truthdig ☛ Why Have Democrats Gone Quiet on Climate Change?

    In effect, Democrats are ceding rhetorical ground to their opponents, he argues, even as polling shows that Trump’s agenda — blocking the construction of wind farms, scrubbing public information about global warming from government websites and pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement — is broadly unpopular. “All of this is, frankly, doing the service of the fossil fuel industry, ultimately, because it’s helping climate delay,” Mildenberger said.

  • Wired ☛ People Living Near xAI’s Dirty Data Centers Are Furious About the SpaceX IPO

    Elon Musk is set to make hundreds of billions even as communities in Mississippi and Tennessee are fighting to stop the gas turbines powering xAI's supercomputers.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Futurism ☛ Solar Just Produced More Electricity Than Coal for the First Time in the History of the United States

      It’s never been more obvious that there are far better alternatives. Case in point, according to global energy think tank Ember, solar power generation overtook coal for the first time in US history last month: in May, solar made up 12.8 percent of all electricity generation, compared to 12.2 percent of coal.

    • Ember Energy Research CIC ☛ Solar overtakes coal in US electricity for the first month on record

      In May 2026, solar generated an all-time high total of 45.5 TWh, exceeding output in May 2025 by 17% and surpassing the previous record set in July last year. This record could be broken again in the coming summer months. While total solar output typically peaks in June or July, its share of the electricity mix is often highest in April or May, when strong solar output coincides with more moderate demand before summer cooling needs increase. In May, solar also became the third-largest source of electricity in the US, behind gas and nuclear.

    • Science Alert ☛ E-Bikes Are Linked to a Disturbing New Injury Phenomenon, Experts Warn

      Colleagues in trauma centres across several countries have described seeing similar injuries after accidents involving shared ebikes. Some surgeons began referring to the pattern informally as "Lime bike leg".

      The term is not a medical diagnosis. Rather, it describes severe injuries affecting the leg, ankle and knee following crashes involving shared ebikes.

    • 404 Media ☛ Amazon Data Centers In Mississippi Have Already Raised Electricity Rates for Local Customers, Report Suggests

      A new report written by consultancy Synapse and commissioned by advocacy groups Earthjustice and Environmental Advocates Mississippi attempts to calculate the cost of 3 planned Amazon data centers to Entergy Mississippi customers, who share an energy utility with the centers. These hidden costs may offer a window into the broader burden borne by residents living near data centers around the country. The report estimates that residential customers of Entergy Mississippi, one of the state’s regional energy monopolies, have paid $38 million as of March 2026 for infrastructure and other costs related to data centers and will have paid $74 million by the end of the year.

    • Hackaday ☛ The Air Position Indicator For The B-29

      These devices were made for military aircraft, including the B-29. It is odd that speed data can be derived from a pump that balances pressures using a fan. The video does a good job of explaining exactly how that works.

    • Jim Grey ☛ The 1913 Lincoln Highway in Lake County, Indiana, part 1: Merrillville and Schererville

      The Lincoln Highway Association tried to help motorists starting in 1915 by publishing its own guides to the route. They weren’t as detailed as traditional road guides, but they didn’t need to be — they assumed you were staying on the Lincoln Highway and could follow the signs along the way. Here’s a page from the 1918 guide.

    • Christian Hofstede-Kuhn ☛ A Monoblock AC Is Only as Good as Its Window Seal

      This post is three things stacked on top of each other. First the personal bit, which you just read. Then a short, honest detour into why these portable units are bad at their one job, because it explains everything that follows. And finally the actual point: the cheap, ugly, removable thing I built to seal the window, which turned out to matter far more than the air conditioner itself.

  • Overpopulation

    • Western Water ☛ Colorado River reservoirs near collapse: Scientists warn of system crash

      The paper’s authors are not activists. They are former federal water commissioners, reservoir scientists, retired water district managers, and law professors from the University of Colorado, Utah State University, Arizona State University, and the University of New Mexico. They have spent careers working inside the very systems they are now warning about.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ The SEC Is Radically Loosening Trading Rules for SpaceX

    Elon Musk’s SpaceX is making a record-breaking IPO today. For the occasion, the SEC exempted Wall Street brokers from consumer protection rules — potentially jeopardizing the assets of investors, including 401(k)s and pensions, if markets are volatile.

  • Paul Krugman ☛ Elon Musk, Human Ponzi Scheme

    OK, none of that actually happened, because those products don’t exist. There are no working Hyperloops. The Boring Company has not dug any commercial tunnels. Tesla has a few self-driving — though not fully self-driving — taxis in Austin and nowhere else. (Google’s Waymo driverless taxis are operational in several major hubs.) Neuralink, which is purportedly pioneering brain implants, has tested its products in a handful of patients but done no more than that. And of course there is no Mars colony: there have been no manned flights to Mars, nor the prospect of any for the foreseeable future.

    Yet at various points over the past decade Elon Musk promised that each of these services would be available by 2025 if not sooner.

  • Allen Downey ☛ Who Is More Trusting: Liberals or Conservatives?

    The level of trust increased between the cohorts born in the 1900s through the 1940s, and then started a steep decline — more than 30 percentage points over 60 years. And here’s the remaining period effect, after factoring out the cohort effect.

  • Digital First Media ☛ Why are people comparing White House lawn to ‘Idiocracy’ movie?

    The comparisons to the 2006 Mike Judge film "Idiocracy" have spread across social media as photos of the large outdoor setup circulate before next month's event on the South Lawn of the White House.

    Here's what to know about the construction and its comparisons to the movie starring Luke Wilson.

  • Consequence ☛ 7 Reasons Why Today's World Feels Like Idiocracy

    In reality, just twenty years have passed since the release of Idiocracy, and there have been some notable ways that Judge’s satire has aligned uncomfortably with reality. Below are seven of the biggest ways in which reality and fiction feel like they’re blending, and what the real-life implications have been.

  • Futurism ☛ OpenAI Execs Are Panicking

    Both companies have confidentially filed for an IPO within the last ten days, raising enormous stakes. However, the fact that both are scaring away new users thanks to soaring prices isn’t exactly a vote of confidence to investors, which could soon force AI executives to rethink their business models.

  • The Independent UK ☛ Mystery of how someone left giant ‘8647’ message on National Mall under investigation

    A statue portraying Trump and the late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein holding hands appeared in the capital multiple times in protest over the president’s former friendship with the late pedophile financier.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Open Caucasus Media ☛ France sentences nine Azerbaijanis over attempted murder of exiled blogger

    A French court in Rennes has found nine Azerbaijani citizens guilty of attempting to murder exiled blogger Mahammad Mirzali. The main suspect in the case, Emin Gasimov, was sentenced to 30 years in prison and given a lifetime ban from entering France. The other eight were given smaller sentences ranging from five to 15 years in prison.

  • Arkansas Advocate ☛ Federal court hears oral arguments in appeal of Arkansas' library obscenity law

    The three-judge panel from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis will rule on whether two sections of Act 372 of 2023 can go into effect. A district judge blocked the provisions in 2024, and the state appealed the ruling in 2025.

    The two challenged sections would create criminal liability for librarians who distribute content that some consider “obscene” or “harmful to minors,” and give city and county governing bodies the final say over library content.

    The 18 plaintiffs in the case include libraries, bookstores, advocacy groups and individual library patrons. The defendants are Arkansas’ 28 prosecuting attorneys, Crawford County and its county judge, Chris Keith.

  • Tennessee Lookout ☛ Tennessee Republican senator wants to change book-ban law

    “But then if somebody thinks it was wrong to pull the book, ultimately the decision needs to be made by elected people who are accountable to the public, which would be the school board,” Briggs said.

    Under current law, the book is pulled from the shelves based on the decision of a school district committee, and no record is made public of the complaint.

  • Yle ☛ Helsinki's Navalny memorial bench set on fire

    At the suggestion of City of Helsinki authorities, the bench was placed in a location that makes it visible from the windows of the Russian Embassy.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • FAIR ☛ Forty Years of Raising Hell About Corporate Media Bias — FAIR

    I came up with the idea for FAIR in the mid-1980s, when corporate news outlets were on bended knee for a reactionary, declining, war-mongering president—and when Reaganism was ushering in an era of dangerous media mergers. Thankfully, FAIR is still around to challenge today’s even worse media conglomeration—including the sinister, step-by-step power grab by Trumpite billionaire Larry Ellison of Oracle. And Paramount/Skydance. And TikTok. And perhaps Warner Bros. Discovery.

  • CPJ ☛ Chicken heads sent to Indonesian news outlet after threats over coverage of Papua documentary

    The documentary, which has been viewed more than 13 million times on YouTube, has triggered backlash and censorship from Indonesian authorities, while the filmmakers have faced intimidation and harassment. Screenings of the film have been held in about 800 locations around Indonesia and at least 50 of them have been disbanded, mostly by the military.

  • Energy Mix Productions Inc ☛ NPR Folds Climate Desk Into National Coverage

    The move follows several other newsroom reductions that have cut into climate desks. The Washington Post laid off more than 300 staff earlier this year and scaled back its climate team. At the time, Felix Horne of Climate Rights International called it “the loss of expertise and sustained scrutiny at one of the world’s most influential newsrooms,” adding that other broadcast outlets like CBS, CNN, and NBC had also laid off employees in 2024 and 2025.

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • New York Times ☛ Afghans Hold Rare Public Protests Against Taliban Rules

    The United Nations said it was “deeply concerned” about the arrests of dozens of women, and reported that two people were killed in protests organized to support them.

  • Techdirt ☛ Bill Introduced That Would Codify The Right To Record Federal Law Enforcement Officers

    The Supreme Court is the holdout. Maybe that’s just because it doesn’t feel it’s necessary to step in when the issue seems to have been pretty much settled at the district level. If that’s the case, the excuse is lazy and convenient. It takes the Supreme Court to fully settle an issue when there are outliers bucking against the trend. So far, it has refused to do so.

    Next up is the caveat in the introduced law: it only affects federal law enforcement officers.

  • The Nation ☛ What Elon Musk’s Trillion-Dollar Payday Is Costing the Rest of Us

    As Musk’s wealth multiplies, he continues to prosper on the public dime. In 2018, Musk paid nothing in federal taxes, and because much of his wealth is tied up in Tesla stock, it can continue to grow without being taxed until he chooses to sell it. (In order to avoid taxation, billionaires like Musk sometimes take out loans using the equity they claim in their corporate properties as collateral.) The Securities and Exchange Commission settled with Musk for $1.5 million over charges that he failed to properly disclose his purchase of Twitter shares in 2022—a large civil penalty for the SEC, but chump change relative to the $150 million he may have gained through the late disclosure, much less compared to his overall net worth.

  • The Verge ☛ The world’s first trillionaire is a killer

    Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO will probably make him the richest person to ever walk the planet. And while his mountain of horrible personal conduct could fill multiple books, one fact in particular stands out: A year ago, Musk’s actions directly led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. He did it knowingly. And, worse — gleefully.

  • Robert Reich ☛ They don't want you to know the REAL reason Social Security is in trouble

    I used to be a Social Security trustee, and I call bullsh*t.

    The baby boom can’t be blamed for Social Security’s shortfall. The Greenspan Commission, which in 1983 recommended the reforms that Congress then made — raising Social Security payroll taxes and also raising the eligibility age for collecting Social Security benefits — knew all about the baby boom and figured it into its calculations. (Early boomers like me can now start collecting full benefits at age 66; late boomers born after 1960 have to wait until they’re 67 to collect full benefits.)

    Americans’ increasing life expectancy isn’t at fault, either. While wealthier Americans are living longer, that’s not the case for lower-income Americans. The Urban Institute estimates that life expectancy in the top 20 percent of income-earners is 91 years for people born in the 1990s, four years more than people born in the 1950s. Yet the life expectancy in the lowest 20 percent of income-earners is fewer than 80 years.

    So what’s the real cause of the Social Security shortfall? What did Greenspan’s commission fail to predict? Widening inequality.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Bill Bennett ☛ ComCom proposes five-year Chorus fibre regulation

    A Commerce Commission draft decision paper makes a case for extending Chorus’ fibre price-quality regulatory period from four to five years. The paper says the fibre market is now mature enough to support a longer planning period.

    A five-year cycle would bring fibre regulation into line with the Commerce Commission’s regulatory periods for electricity distribution, gas pipelines and Transpower.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Becky Spratford ☛ RA for All: Celebrate Audiobook Month with EveryLibrary Live and Me, Plus the Audio Publishers Association's Annual Survey Data

    The Audio Publishers Association Sales Survey, conducted by Toluna, shows audiobook sales revenue continuing to grow, reaching $2.43 billion in 2025, 9% over the previous year. Publishers reported over 750,000 active titles in 2025, a 43% increase from 2024.

  • [Old] Leaders League ☛ European Copyright Directive: What do articles 15 and 17 mean? - Leaders League

    Thanks to this directive, the former will have a greater chance of negotiating agreements on remuneration resulting from the use of their works, while the latter will have to monitor and regulate the uploading of these works. These two factions have been on a collision course for some time, each entrenched in their own position.

    The most significant - and also the most discussed - changes concern Articles 15 and 17, respectively ex Articles 11 and 13: the first concerns the press, the second the "use of protected content by online content-sharing service providers" such as multimedia products.

• Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Patents

    • The Conversation ☛ Germany pulled the plug on flagship FCAS fighter jet – the implications for European defence are worrying

      France, Germany and Spain have spent nearly a decade trying to develop what was intended to become Europe’s premier next-generation combat aircraft, only for the programme to succumb to disputes over leadership, the distribution of work and intellectual [sic] property [sic].

  • Copyrights

    • India Times ☛ Google to appeal German court ruling assigning liability for AI Overviews false claims

      The challenge came after a ⁠Munich court ‌on Thursday issued the landmark judgment ⁠against Google's AI-generated summaries that appear above traditional search engine results.

    • Digital Music News ☛ Sony Music Applies More 'Training Number' Pressure on Udio

      Capitalizing on this reality, Sony Music in a new memorandum expanded on its position that the same public needs to know Udio’s training number to fully understand the alleged infringement’s scope.

      “It speaks directly to the nature and extent of Udio’s copying, and provides context for Plaintiffs’ allegations by demonstrating that Udio’s sweeping disregard for copyright ownership extends far beyond the specific works asserted in this case,” Sony Music wrote of Udio’s training number. “The public is entitled to understand the scope of that conduct in full.”