Leftovers

• Science / Mathematics / Computer Science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2026-06-10 [Older] Farmers in a national park are turning down lights at night to help wildlife – it could be good for crops too

  • The Conversation ☛ 2026-06-10 [Older] The Milky Way was rewired by a cataclysmic collision billions of years ago. Now it is on course for another

• Proprietary / SaaS

  • Vox Media ☛ Microsoft should get out of games before it does more damage

    News that Microsoft is considering closing three of its game studios — Double Fine, Ninja Theory, and Compulsion Games — is awful, but what's truly alarming is that it doesn't stop there. According to Bloomberg, "several other studios across the portfolio are at risk of being shuttered." State of Decay studio Undead Labs hasn't shipped a game since Microsoft acquired it in 2018. Obsidian Entertainment is prolific, but last year's Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 underperformed. Rare had its big bet Everwild cancelled and can't survive on Sea of Thieves forever. At this point in Microsoft's dismally bungled adventures in gaming, it's best to think the unthinkable.

  • 404 Media ☛ Hackers Are Hijacking Entire Roblox Games Now

    Whereas Roblox hackers were previously focused on stealing players' high value items, some have taken over entire Roblox games, stealing their ownership and Robux in the process.

  • Eliseo Martelli ☛ My AirPods Pro Case is Dead

    It’s the classic symptom of a completely exhausted battery. If you’re in the same boat, there are a few things you can try before declared it dead, though I wouldn't hold my breath.

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

    • Wired ☛ ‘Dangerous’ AI Models Are Coming No Matter What

      “It's myopic in the extreme to think that no other competitors to Anthropic will develop similar capabilities to Mythos or even that they have not already done so,” says Tarah Wheeler, chief security officer of the specialized cybersecurity consulting firm TPO Group. “There are other companies hot on Anthropic's heels who probably have the capabilities, too, and are holding them in reserve as they see how Anthropic is being treated in the current regulatory environment.”

    • Louie Mantia ☛ In the Battle for Attention

      Slop is gaining ground. Low-quality content, including AI-generated trash, is advancing on all fronts for attention.

      Whether it’s encouraged competitive behavior on social media or regurgitated content gobbled back up and spit back out via LLMs, we’re reaching a point very quickly where our attention is being spent on shit we never should’ve seen in our entire lives.

    • Kyle Reddoch ☛ Visual Intelligence Makes Cameras an AI Attack Surface

      But once an AI assistant can understand what the camera sees, the physical world becomes part of the prompt surface.

      That is a security shift worth talking about.

    • Kyle Reddoch ☛ Why Apple's Private Cloud Compute Needs Scrutiny

      Apple’s Private Cloud Compute architecture is one of the stronger privacy designs in consumer AI, but privacy claims, cloud expansion, attestation, and agentic workloads still deserve scrutiny.

    • Kevin Kelly ☛ The Technium: Conscious or Not

      So now the argument has shifted to consciousness. A set of very smart people have high confidence that AIs can’t be conscious, or at least not yet. However, everything I know about both the natural world and the world of technology has convinced me that it is possible to create synthetic consciousness. Even though we lack a good definition of consciousness, we’ve learned that the boundary between living systems and technological systems is blurred and overlapping, so we should imagine being able to synthesize anything found in nature. It seems inevitable to me that we will instill consciousness of some types into machines. In a previous essay I wrote of my suspicion that there is a spark of some type of selfhood, or persona, or consciousness in today’s LLM Claude.

    • Cynthia Dunlop ☛ Report: How Developers React to AI-Scented Blog Posts

      TL;DR Readers really despise and distrust articles that seem shaped by AI. They not only stop reading, but also block and punish the author. Non-native English speakers get little mercy. Readers overwhelmingly prefer imperfect-yet-authentic writing over LLMified prose.

    • Matthias Ott ☛ Ad Infinitum

      It turns out there’s a small but growing body of research – some of it from Google’s own researchers – exploring exactly how ads could work inside LLM-generated output. And the ideas are as fascinating as they are unsettling.

    • BoingBoing ☛ British police officer accused of using AI to fabricate evidence

      Perverting the course of justice can result in up to life imprisonment, but the sentencing guidance ranges from wrist slap to 7 years. Officers convicted of similar offenses are fired and banned for life. Convictions resting on the fabricated material are likely to be overturned on appeal.

  • Social Control Media

    • CBC ☛ 2026-06-14 [Older] U.S. performer Oliver Tree, Argentine YouTube personality reportedly killed in Brazil helicopter crash

    • CBC ☛ 2026-06-12 [Older] Breaking down the Bricks & Minifigs Lego scandal involving YouTube's 'Reckless Ben'

    • OSTechNix ☛ India Temporarily Blocked Telegram Before NEET 2026

      Therefore, many users were surprised today (June 16, 2026) when reports emerged that India had temporarily restricted access to Telegram ahead of the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination.

      The move sparked debate across social and professional networks. Some people supported the decision. Others questioned whether blocking an entire platform was necessary.

    • The Record ☛ India temporarily blocks Telegram over medical exam cheating fears

      India temporarily blocked access to the Telegram messaging app ahead of this week's nationwide rerun of its medical entrance exam, out of fears that it could be used for cheating.

      The National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts India's largest entrance examinations, said on Tuesday that local authorities had ordered Telegram to restrict access to the app across India until June 22, one day after the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for Undergraduate courses (NEET-UG) is reheld.

    • Wired ☛ The UK Places a Sweeping Ban on Social Media for Kids Under 16

      Under-16s will lose access to social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube, while the minimum age for chatbots that imitate romantic interactions will be raised to 18. The ban does not apply to messaging services WhatsApp and Signal.

    • Thomas Rigby ☛ Under-16s Social Media Ban

      But, as smarter people than me have pointed out, what harms children also harms the adult users.

      The "protect children" part should be extended to "protect users" and the burden of responsibility should fall on the companies shipping knowingly harmful products.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • The Register UK ☛ Cyberattack sees crops kept in the ground

      Mackay Sugar, based in the Australian state of Queensland, processes sugar cane farmed in nearby districts. The company disclosed a cyberattack on June 10 and limited operations while it dealt with the fallout.

    • SQ Magazine ☛ [Crackers] Abuse Microsoft Teams to Conceal Ransomware Activity

      Researchers at Symantec have detailed a highly sophisticated DragonForce ransomware campaign targeting a major U.S. services company. The attackers used a previously unseen remote access trojan called Backdoor.Turn that leveraged Microsoft Teams relay infrastructure to disguise communications with attacker controlled servers.

• Privatisation/Privateering

  • BoingBoing ☛ Man who hates paying taxes loves government handouts

    CNN's Chris Isidore lays out the part of the Musk myth that gets buried under all the rocket smoke and Cybertruck cosplay: SpaceX needed early NASA grants and a crucial $1.6 billion contract, while Tesla leaned on a $465 million federal loan, EV tax credits, and billions from emissions-credit rules that forced other automakers to buy their way into compliance.

• Security

  • CISA

    • CISA ☛ 2026-06-12 [Older] CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog

    • CISA ☛ 2026-06-11 [Older] CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog

    • CISA ☛ 2026-06-11 [Older] Yarbo Android/iOS Mobile Application and Cloud Infrastructure

    • CISA ☛ 2026-06-11 [Older] Naxclow IoT Platform

    • CISA ☛ 2026-06-11 [Older] Brickcom Cameras

    • CISA ☛ 2026-06-09 [Older] CISA Adds Three Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

    • CISA ☛ 2026-06-09 [Older] Schneider Electric Modicon Network Managed Switches

    • CISA ☛ 2026-06-09 [Older] Siemens KACO Blueplanet Inverters

    • CISA ☛ 2026-06-09 [Older] Schneider Electric EcoStruxure Panel Server

    • CISA ☛ 2026-06-08 [Older] CISA Adds Two Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Jonathan Kamens ☛ Scam email I wrote about last week is part of an ongoing campaign

      It looks like Billy Palmieri really is a recruiter at NVIDIA, but the sender of this message definitely isn’t him.

      There are oddities here. Why did the scammer put Palmieri’s real NVIDIA email address in the signature and on the Blinq card? Did he do that to make it look more authentic, and he’s hoping that some people will reply to the email (and therefore send their reply to the scammer’s Gmail inbox) rather than the NVIDIA address?

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Android Police ☛ Google's native parental controls break free from Pixel, coming to every Android phone

      The same Android parental control Settings page also serves as a gateway to Family Link, which offers more in-depth controls like School Time, Google Play app purchase approvals, location alerts, and more.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Flock Cameras Are Being Used for Stalking

      There are over a dozen cases around the country where police officers are using the Flock surveillance camera system to obsessively and illegally stalk people.

    • Michael Geist ☛ Government Moves to Shut Down Lawful Access Hearing In Order To Fast Track Passing the Bill This Week

      Yesterday, the government introduced privacy reforms that shuts down the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s role in private sector privacy regulation. Today, it is shutting down hearings into one of the biggest privacy threats in years. Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree had committed to amendments during the lawful access hearings, but this move means that only secret government amendments that will not be made public during the hearing will pass. Opposition parties have submitted many amendments based on testimony from the Privacy Commissioner, bar associations, security companies, and privacy experts. These include potential changes to the rules on mandatory metadata retention, risks to security and encryption, and privacy safeguards. None of these amendments will even be made public, let alone open to debate and discussion. Weeks of hearings and public concern tossed aside by the government in a rush to shut down debate and consideration of amendments to a deeply flawed, risky legislative plan.

    • DNA Lounge ☛ DNA Lounge: 16-Jun-2026 (Tue): Wherein the Surveillance-Industrial Complex gains another foothold in SF

      SF Gazetteer, Cydney Hayes: Why do these Castro gay bars have TSA-style face scanners?

    • Gazetteer, San Francisco, California ☛ Why do these Castro gay bars have TSA-style face scanners?

      A handful of neighborhood bars have installed facial recognition devices that collect and share customers’ names, addresses, genders, and indiscretions with each other

  • Confidentiality

    • APNIC ☛ Don't throw the (cryptographic) baby out with the bathwater

      Up until recently, the working assumption held by many was that cryptographically relevant quantum computers would be available by 2035. Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) schemes — resistant to the attack methods quantum computing exposes — needed to be designed and deployed before then.

    • Brandon Rozek ☛ On Post-Quantum Security Adoption

      The issue is that cryptography is built upon math problems that are difficult to solve. Quantum computers make solving some of these problems such as integer factorization and discrete logs easier. If someone has a quantum computer that can sufficiently solve those two problems, then they can likely decrypt many ciphertexts that were produced using asymmetric cryptography techniques (think public/private key-pairs). Wikipedia has a great article discussing post-quantum cryptography if you want to read more.

• Defence/Aggression

  • New Statesman ☛ The social media ban won't work. It's still a good thing

    The announcement that the government plans to ban social media for under-16s has been met with opposition. Tech companies are against it, obviously. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has released a statement in which it claims, hilariously, that a ban risks “driving [children] to unregulated alternatives”, as if its platforms are regulated in any meaningful way. It’s also claimed that a ban risks “isolating teens from online communities and information”, as if capturing children’s attention, monetising their friendships and hosing them with misinformation isn’t the entire basis of their fantastically profitable business. But real people who don’t work for tech companies are also opposed to the idea, for reasons that are worth interrogating.

  • ADF ☛ Africa Corps Shifts Tactics in Mali

    Africa Corps replaced notorious Wagner Group mercenaries in mid-2024. The switch came after Wagner lost dozens of its fighters when the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) ambushed them and Malian soldiers outside Tinzouatin near the Algerian border.

  • C4ISRNET ☛ As Europe rearms, ‘wingman’ aircraft take center stage

    As the war in Ukraine in particular has underscored the growing importance of drones and electronic warfare, European and U.S. defense forces are rapidly developing their own AI-powered drones to complement their fighter jets and carry extra sensors, jammers and weapons.

  • The Conversation ☛ Europe wants to limit its reliance on foreign tech – but funding is limited and the proposed rules are weak

    The European Commission has now published its package of measures for “tech sovereignty”, with the aim of building up its capabilities in digital technology.

    The proposals rely heavily on private investment and may struggle to match global tech spending.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Elon Musk Is a Trillionaire. Yes, That’s a Bad Thing.

    Having become the world’s first trillionaire, Elon Musk is wealthy at a level that the human mind can scarcely comprehend. But one idea is simple to grasp: no functioning and humane society would produce inequality of this magnitude.

  • The Record ☛ UK to ban social media access for children under 16

    TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, X and YouTube will be subject to the ban while messaging platforms like WhatsApp will not, the press release said.

    AI ‘romantic companion chatbots and “intimate functionalities” on all other chatbots will be restricted for children under 18.

    The UK government plans to get lawmakers legislation before Christmas and expects the ban to be enforced by spring 2027, according to the press release.

  • The United Kingdom ☛ Social media to be banned for under-16s in landmark government move to give kids their childhood back - GOV.UK

    Decisive action – backed by 9 in 10 parents – expected to be brought to Parliament before Christmas, with protections expected to come into force in Spring 2027

  • Wired ☛ Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel’s Secretive ‘Dialog’ Society

    More than 200 of the world's elites registered for a retreat whose agenda runs from panels on cult-building and sex to prepping for World War III. An associated app offers matchmaking.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2026-06-15 [Older] Ex-Swedish defense worker suspected of Russian spying

    • CNN ☛ 2026-06-15 [Older] Russian authorities detain suspect over St. Petersburg cafe blast

    • CBC ☛ 2026-06-15 [Older] Russian attacks kill 11 across Ukraine, set centuries-old religious site in Kyiv ablaze

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-15 [Older] Russia strikes leave historic Kyiv cathedral in flames

    • The Age AU ☛ 2026-06-15 [Older] British commandos seize control of Russian tanker in English channel

    • The Local SE ☛ 2026-06-15 [Older] Swedish army consultant on trial for spying for Russia in 'unique' case

    • NL Times ☛ 2026-06-14 [Older] 298 empty chairs again placed outside Russian Embassy to honor the MH17 flight victims

    • CBC ☛ 2026-06-14 [Older] British forces intercept Russian shadow fleet tanker in the Channel

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-14 [Older] Ukraine targets Russia's industrial facilities in massive strike

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-14 [Older] UK seizes suspected Russian shadow fleet tanker

    • The Age AU ☛ 2026-06-14 [Older] Exiled Russian master continues rebirth with Sydney Film Festival win

    • The Local SE ☛ 2026-06-13 [Older] Swedish fighters intercept Russian jets near border

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-12 [Older] India news: FM blasts Europe criticism of buying Russian oil

    • The Local SE ☛ 2026-06-12 [Older] Sweden says Russia may test NATO 'cohesion'

    • The Local SE ☛ 2026-06-12 [Older] Three Swedes fined in Norway for throwing stones at Russia

    • The Local SE ☛ 2026-06-11 [Older] Swede accused of attempted spying for Russia set to go on trial

    • 2026-06-10 [Older] Suspected Russian Hacker Arrested and Charged in the United States

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-10 [Older] War in Ukraine: Kyiv strikes key Russian supply lines

    • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2026-06-09 [Older] EU Commission wants to ban Russian soldiers from EU

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-09 [Older] EU proposes entry ban for Russians who fought in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-09 [Older] EU proposes entry ban for Russian Ukraine combatants in new sanctions package

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-09 [Older] From Russia to Israel to US, 'warlords' seize power — report

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2026-06-15 [Older] India’s Ukrainian Hedge

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-14 [Older] Why is Bulgaria banning arms supplies to Ukraine?

    • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2026-06-13 [Older] Ukraine EU accession talks to begin on Monday

    • Bleeping Computer ☛ 2026-06-12 [Older] Ukrainian national pleads guilty to role in Conti ransomware operation

    • HRW ☛ 2026-06-12 [Older] EU-Ukraine to Launch Accession Talks on Rights, Rule of Law

    • International Business Times ☛ 2026-06-12 [Older] Tulsi Gabbard to Drop Evidence on More Than 120 Taxpayer-Funded Biolabs in 30 Nations Including Ukraine

    • Scheerpost ☛ 2026-06-11 [Older] How The CIA Conjured Ukrainian Nationalism

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-11 [Older] Hungary makes major deal with Ukraine, its former enemy

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-11 [Older] Ukraine: Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant's power cut off

    • NL Times ☛ 2026-06-10 [Older] Bankrupt Dutch carmaker Spyker relaunched with multi-million euro Ukrainian investment

    • CBC ☛ 2026-06-10 [Older] Moscow brands Canada as 'warmonger' amid drone production deal with Ukraine

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ The largest wind project in the U.S. is almost online

      Pattern Energy Group, the project’s developer and operator, began construction in 2023, followed by a brief pause as Native American tribes argued the federal government ignored concerns about how the transmission line may impact religious and cultural sites. The wind farm was accompanied by a new 550-mile ± 525 kV high-voltage direct current transmission line between central New Mexico and south-central Arizona.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • HRW ☛ 2026-06-15 [Older] Brazil: Courts Protect Land Rights in the Amazon

    • Digital Camera World ☛ This vibrant underwater lily field was shot on a 10-year-old DSLR with a fisheye lens – and it snagged an ocean photography award

      Coll was diving with a decade-old Nikon D500 in an underwater housing, using a Tokina AT-X 107 DX 10-17mm f/3.5 fisheye lens. She used a 1/160 sec shutter speed at ISO640, along with an f/10 aperture and focal length of 10mm (a 15mm equivalent, on Nikon's former flagship APS-C body).

• Finance

  • Truthdig ☛ 2026-06-11 [Older] The Military Budget Is Twice as Big as Social Security’s Projected Shortfall

  • The Conversation ☛ 2026-06-11 [Older] The fraudsters’ playbook: our study of Enron traders shows how easily the language of trust can be abused

  • TruthOut ☛ 2026-06-13 [Older] NY Amazon Driver Fired for Posting Pro-Union Content on Social Media

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2026-06-10 [Older] Teamsters for a Democratic Union Leaders Explain Their Strategy

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Techdirt ☛ Xbox: A Mess, Moving Back To Exclusivity Deals, & The Layoffs Microsoft Promised Wouldn’t Happen

    There are two, separate things being stated here. Let’s take them in order, because both are important.

    [...]

    Oh, and about those layoffs that wouldn’t happen? They began happening in January of ’24, leading the FTC to point out to the court that it had been lied to. Then came the Zenimax studio layoffs in May of ’24 and more Xbox layoffs in July of ’25. All while the current, new Xbox bosses complain that they are overextended in terms of their studio sprawl? Cool.

  • Robert Reich ☛ Freedom 250: Gladiators, Parades, and the Grifting of America

    That’s because Freedom 250 has gained access to taxpayer funds allotted by Congress last year for the 250th anniversary celebrations.

    To recap: President Trump and his allies are using taxpayer dollars to spread his political agenda and granting private donors presidential access — all under the guise of celebrating America’s 250th birthday.

  • Farid Zakaria ☛ A trillion dollars

    Scale at increasing orders of magnitude is often difficult to comprehend. Although logarithmic graphs are useful for showing exponential growth or displaying vastly different scales on a single chart, they are easily misunderstood.

    If we were to map 1 million USD to 1 ns, what are the matching parallels to I/O access patterns?

  • Dan Q ☛ Elon Musk, Human Ponzi Scheme

    With thanks to Mark Palko for sharing: yes, this seems like a spot-on observation of Musk’s career: [...]

  • Chris Glass ☛ Bicentennial reflection

    Can’t say I have the same enthusiasm this year.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • RFERL ☛ 'Afraid To Talk': Iranians Say Climate Of Fear Worse Now Than Before The War

    Some brave individuals have continued to speak to journalists from foreign news organizations, including RFE/RL's Radio Farda, though almost always insisting on anonymity. This was also the case as news broke that a framework deal had been announced by Washington and Tehran.

    But in many cases even sources who have previously been prepared to bear witness to events in their country have gone silent.

  • RFERL ☛ Tehran's Crackdown On Political Dissent Continuing Unabated

    For several weeks now, the Iranian authorities have announced similar measures against hundreds of people.

    The Iran Human Rights Group, a watchdog based in Norway, reported on June 8 that at least 40 prisoners, including 19 protesters, had been hanged on politically motivated charges so far this year.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • The Nation ☛ Amy Goodman on the Job of Journalism

    No American journalist has spoken more truth to power in recent decades than Amy Goodman, whose work as an independent journalist and the host of Democracy Now! is explored in the new documentary Steal This Story, Please! To get a read on press freedom as the US marks its 250th anniversary, John Nichols spoke with Goodman. Their conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

  • CPJ ☛ In Mali, 2 more journalists arrested under cybercrime law for criticizing authorities

    On June 8, the National Cybercrime Unit ordered the arrest of Chahana Takiou, publishing director of the biweekly 22 Septembre newspaper, over his comments at a media forum. Takiou condemned the two-year sentence handed down to journalist Youssouf Sissoko in March for “undermining the state’s credibility” with a newspaper commentary about neighboring Niger’s president that was shared on social media.

    “He should have been tried under the press law, but since the advent of the cybercrime law, judges have been superbly ignoring it,” Takiou said to a prosecutor on a discussion panel.

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ Supreme Court agrees to weigh in on case over rights of some in 'prolonged' ICE detention

    The court accepted a case, Genalo v. Black, from New York state involving a legal immigrant from the Dominican Republic arrested by immigration enforcement after an assault conviction and held for 21 months during deportation proceedings.

    An appeals court ruling in the case found that an “unreasonably prolonged” detention requires a bond hearing in which the government must show “clear and convincing evidence” that the immigrant would be a flight risk or a danger to the community if released.

  • TruthOut ☛ US Is Terrorizing Its Own Citizens With “Less-Lethal” Weapons, Victim Says

    “I didn’t even see any of the officers who had their weapons out,” Collins told Truthout. “[I was] standing back from the crowd and, you know, focused on trying to frame up the crowd, and then the next thing I know, I can’t see anything.”

    A federal agent shooting from behind a fence struck Collins in his right eye with a .68 caliber FN 303 projectile, destroying Collins’s eyeball and fracturing his orbital bone.

  • Marisa Kabas ☛ Elon Musk alone isn’t responsible for Belfast's racist pogrom

    But despite the international focus on Elon Musk’s role in whipping up this racist pogrom, few in Northern Ireland would say the same. There’s no denying that X has played a role, amplifying the far right and allowing them to hook into a willing and eager audience that has been primed to enact what the fash want to see on the streets of Britain. But they didn’t do this because of Musk.

  • David Oks ☛ Why kinship societies kill their old

    Kinship societies are redistributive societies: they redistribute from the young, productive, and healthy to the old, unproductive, and sick. Of course, all societies have some sort of redistribution. But in kinship societies, that redistribution occurs within the household: and—particularly in bad years, when households are close to scarcity—amounts to a zero-sum choice between feeding the young and feeding the old. The young, productive, and healthy would like some way to escape these obligations: but they can’t do that without violating the fundamental norms of kinship.

    So witch killings are a way out: they allow you to repudiate kinship obligations while publicly reaffirming your commitment to them. By accusing your grandfather of witchcraft and killing him, you can dispose of an unwanted dependent without ever admitting that you wanted him gone. Of course, you might really believe that your grandfather is a witch: but that’s also a tremendously convenient thing to believe. There’s a reason why the people targeted by witchcraft tend to be marginal members of the household whose consumption can’t justify itself. Witch killings are a perverse sort of resource management.

  • Allen Downey ☛ You Would Choose Now

    Looking at differences between cohorts, the biggest changes happened between people born in 1900 and 1960. Since then, the cohort effect is essentially flat.

    And here’s the period effect after factoring out the cohort effect.

  • Adrian Roselli ☛ ∪ of Target Audiences (Accessibility, SEO, AEO/GEO)

    Sure, there’s overlap between SEO and LLM-thieving. SEO and accessibility even have slight overlap. But accessibility is about people. Twisting a human affordance to feed these corporate efforts to make humans redundant (among all the other harms) is a signal. Different people will read that signal in different ways. If it sells work and you still focus on humans first, cool.

    But to me that signal says you aren’t serious about the work. That your TESCREAL patch is just waiting to get sewn on. I’m trying to be less absolutist, less black-and-white. But boy is it hard given what I see every time I peel back the veneer.

  • BoingBoing ☛ Woman cheers Knicks win, LAPD bursts in and kills her dog

    LAPD knows the difference between large-scale post-win riots and a woman cheering in her home. They tend to hide when it's an actual riot.

  • RFERL ☛ EU Set To Host Taliban For First Time Despite Outcry Over Human Rights Violations

    The 27-member bloc doesn't recognize the Taliban-led government, but it has scheduled to meet a delegation from the Afghan Islamist regime -- led by Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi -- in June, likely on June 22 or 23.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-08 [Older] Jafar Panahi's prison sentence confirmed by Iranian court

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • OpenRightsGroup ☛ Stop Killing the Internet: New global movement launches

    Stop Killing the Internet is an international campaign defending the open internet against policies and practices that impose surveillance, exclusion and excessive centralised control in the name of online safety. The campaign supports rights-respecting approaches to child protection, privacy, democratic accountability and platform responsibility.

    The global movement brings together different groups impacted by new restrictions come together to defend the open web, and promote alternative rights-respecting policies to tackle online harms.

  • Inside Towers ☛ Pennsylvania Cleared to Move Forward With $700 Million Broadband Expansion

    Most locations will be served by fiber-optic networks, although nearly one-quarter are expected to receive satellite broadband under revised federal guidelines. State officials are also working to streamline permitting as construction moves forward, while awaiting guidance on how to use roughly $400 million in remaining broadband funds.

• Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Trademarks

    • IP Kat ☛ 2026-06-13 [Older] Famous but not distinctive: ANIMAL FARM and 1984 failed as trade marks because they were successful as books

    • Right of Publicity

      • Omicron Limited ☛ AI can clone your voice. Why that's powerful—and dangerous

        Hyun, assistant professor of marketing at UC's Carl H. Lindner College of Business, studies the role of voice in persuasion. In her own research, she uses machine learning to analyze voices with less than 10 seconds of audio.

        "As voice recognition and cloning technology is getting more and more accessible, we were interested in seeing if a voice that's similar to our own voice sounds more persuasive," Hyun said.

  • Copyrights

    • IP Kat ☛ 2026-06-12 [Older] [Guest post] Can performers' rights be bought out at all? Brazil's new Dance Professionals Act revives a 1978 assignment ban for the streaming age

    • EFF ☛ 2026-06-10 [Older] Congress Just Rushed Through a Disastrous Copyright Office Overhaul

    • Digital Music News ☛ 'Peanuts' Music Owner & CBS Ink Deal Over Stephen Colbert Bit

      Time will tell, though counsel for LMFP previously answered in the negative when asked about the four-suit flurry – specifically indicating that “there is no connection between the filing of these cases and Sony Music’s recent acquisition announcement.”

      Nevertheless, the fact remains that LMFP has fired off several legal actions and related press releases since Sony Music upped its Peanuts Holdings stake to 80%. And to reiterate the obvious, the litigation definitely isn’t a good thing for the wider IP portfolio.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Music Labels Win Canadian Site Blocking Order Against Y2Mate, YTMP3, and Savefrom

      For the first time in Canada, a site-blocking order has been issued that specifically targets YouTube rippers. The Federal Court has ordered major ISPs to block access to Y2Mate, YTMP3, and Savefrom domains. Interestingly, the order targets copycats, as the original Savefrom site preemptively started blocking Canadians years ago.

    • Digital Camera World ☛ A rare court re-hearing could call key copyright test into question as a photographer and celebrity tattoo artist return to court

      The case stems from a photograph that Sedlik took in 1989 of singer Miles Davis, a black-and-white image with the jazz icon’s finger pressed to his lips. Sedilk claims that Kat Von D, a tattoo artist perhaps best known for her appearances on the TV shows LA Ink and Miami Ink, violated copyright when she copied the photograph onto an upper-arm tattoo.