Leftovers

• Tom Murphy VII ☛ Tom 7 Radar: Again, yes

  Hello my blog, my ball and chain, my primary source of -1,000 points for lateness. Did I know the month was ending? Yes. Was I sitting at my computer doing something else? Yes. Did I then just get tired and go to bed, forgetting about my chore? Again yes.

• Naeem Noor ☛ I Buy Domains Faster Than I Build Them

  I have another page for the projects I built and put online. This post is about the full list. That means all the names too, including the ones I bought and then forgot about.

  I sat down and counted them. 78 domains in 18 years. Here is what happened to them.

• James Leighton ☛ 100DaysToOffload - Looking back at the first six months

  I decided to take part in 100DaysToOffload to encourage me to write more, and to be more consistent with my blog. Throughout the first six months of 2026 I have not missed a single Week Note post and I am insanely proud of myself for not getting bored and giving up on those. It has made me spend more time documenting the things we get up to, and I am looking forward to a day in the far future where I can look back and relive these memories.

• Dr Molly Tov ☛ i'm gonna be the next marie kondo

  No, I started asking myself: "What if I just didn't keep this?"

  That's it. That's the question. "Okay, but what if I just...didn't?"

  Reader, this question has LIBERATED ME.

  The room very quickly broke down into three piles: [...]

• Science / Mathematics / Computer Science

  • Wired ☛ Mexico’s Victory Over Ecuador Made the Ground Shake. Was It an Artificial Earthquake?

    Something similar happened in 2024, when a Taylor Swift concert at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles generated long-duration, low-frequency signals—with harmonic frequency peaks between 1 and 10 Hz—detected by seismic monitoring sensors.

  • Computational Complexity ☛ Computational Complexity: The True Method

    Harry Lewis pointed Bill and me to Gottfried Leibniz's 1677 treatise The True Method (translated from the original French). I highly recommend taking the time to read this three page document where he talks about formalizing all human knowledge.

    The second paragraph has some of the intuition for P v NP three centuries before Cook, Levin and Gödel.

  • Alfred Menezes ☛ A Gentle Introduction to Lattice-Based Cryptography [PDF]

    In August 2024, the U.S. government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published a suite of standards for a key encapsulation mechanism and for digital signature schemes designed to be resistant to attacks by quantum computers. These quantum-safe schemes are intended to replace widely deployed RSA and elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), both of which are vulnerable to quantum computing attacks. Although the timeline for the development of cryptographically relevant quantum computers remains uncertain, efforts to transition from RSA and ECC to quantum-safe alternatives are rapidly gaining momentum.

    Among the quantum-safe cryptographic schemes standardized by NIST, the key encapsulation mechanism Kyber and the digital signature scheme Dilithium are expected to see the broadest deployment in the near future. The security of Kyber relies on the presumed hardness of the Module Learning With Errors (MLWE) problem, whereas the security of Dilithium is based on both the MLWE problem and the Module Short Integer Solution (MSIS) problem. These problems are the module variants of the well-studied Learning With Errors (LWE) and Short Integer Solution (SIS) problems, respectively.

    These notes provide detailed descriptions and analyses of Kyber and Dilithium. We explain why the SIS and LWE problems—and consequently their module variants MSIS and MLWE—can be viewed as computational problems on lattices. This will justify classifying Kyber and Dilithium as lattice-based cryptosystems.

• Career/Education

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Vintage ‘READ’ Posters Adorning Libraries and Classrooms for Decades Go on Auction as the American Library Association Turns 150

    For the next several days, posters from an iconic literacy movement—the American Library Association’s READ campaign—will be available in an online auction held to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the ALA’s founding.

    The posters, a staple of classrooms, libraries and book fairs, are recognizable today for their nostalgic charm and earnest aesthetic. Each features an unmissable message in capital letters encouraging students to “READ,” while celebrities and fictional characters pose in portrait with their favorite titles.

• Hardware

  • System76 ☛ 18-hour battery? Panther Lake chip? 100% faster gaming graphics? Say hello to Lemur Pro

    The latest model – now available in 14-inch and 16-inch versions – weighs in at 3 pounds lighter than the previous Lemur model and features the following: [...]

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Hidden for decades, hospital superbug built resistance in waves, peaking in the mid‑2000s

    In a groundbreaking new study, researchers pieced together the genetic history of Acinetobacter baumannii—a notoriously stubborn hospital pathogen—using samples stretching back as far as the 1970s.

  • Blake Watson ☛ blakewatson.com - If I want more IRL, I must go AFK

    Why? Because using a computer gives me agency and powers that I don’t have otherwise. I have spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). It’s a neuromuscular condition that causes the muscles to get weaker over time. I use a power wheelchair and need assistance with just about every type of physical activity. In fact, I’m unable to use a computer in the conventional way. I essentially do everything via the mouse, as described in this little thought experiment.

• Proprietary / SaaS

  • PC World ☛ I love the PC, but I’m no longer a fan of Windows

    Windows used to be the very foundation of the PC. Today, many users are put off by the requirement to create an account, ads, bloatware, privacy concerns, and high hardware requirements. Why Microsoft’s approach is a problem.

    [...]

    Linux isn’t the perfect solution for everyone. But it’s no longer just a system for tech enthusiasts. Anyone who mainly plays games, surfs the web, uses Office alternatives, and doesn’t absolutely need Windows-exclusive software can seriously consider switching today.

  • Nick Heer ☛ Apple Has Known About a Hide My Email Vulnerability for Over a Year

    Apple replied — twice — that it had fixed these vulnerabilities, but Joseph Cox of 404 Media was able to reproduce the problem as recently as earlier this week. Very few details are available right now. I have seen speculation that the original email address is revealed when someone replies using their hidden email address, but the impression I get from Cox’s reporting is that no user interaction is necessary: [...]

  • Vice Media Group ☛ 5 Xbox Studios At Risk of Being Closed in Microsoft’s Layoffs

    Microsoft’s latest Xbox layoffs could reportedly lead to the closure of more than five gaming studios. Although the publisher has yet to confirm any shutdowns, multiple reports have revealed several teams that may be at risk. Here are the Xbox studios that could be affected.

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

    • Futurism ☛ Bosses Are Becoming Obsessed With AI, Using It to Make Every Decision, Barraging Their Employees With Nonsensical ChatGPT Directives, and Even Asking It Who to Fire

      In some cases, employees said, they felt as though their employers had started living in a completely different reality. The workplace had become a constant battle between their version of reality versus the AI’s — and their boss, these workers said, always chose the latter.

    • Slate ☛ A.I.: Bosses are becoming obsessed with ChatGPT. It’s creating more work for employees.

      Two things may be true: A.I. is putting unsustainable pressure on managers, and an overreliance on A.I. is causing previously standard skills to atrophy. “She isn’t used to making independent decisions anymore,” Jessica said of her manager. “So day-to-day stuff becomes way more overwhelming and high stakes than it needs to be.”

    • Cyble Inc ☛ AI Cyber Attacks Top Threat To Indian Banks: RBI

      The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has identified AI Cyber Attacks as the biggest near-term cybersecurity threat facing the Indian banking system, according to the June 2026 edition of its Financial Stability Report (FSR). The central bank’s latest assessment highlights that while banks and financial institutions have strengthened cyber risk management practices, rapid advances in artificial intelligence are making cyber threats more difficult to counter.

    • Wired ☛ You Can Now Sound the Alarm on AI Behaving Badly

      A group of AI researchers has set up a crowdsourced website, Flaw Reporting for AI (FLARE-AI), for reporting and tracking AI harms. If, for example, a chatbot generates malware or a bomb-making recipe, leaks personal information, or triggers delusional thinking in users, FLARE-AI could be used to sound the alarm. The open source code behind the system allows others to verify an issue and route reports to model makers, as well as organizations like MITRE, a nonprofit that tracks problems with technical systems. It’s a bit like Downdetector, which compiles real-time user reports for global service outages affecting things like apps and websites.

    • Tony Sundharam ☛ Don't Let AI Fill in All the Important Blanks

      Whether it's the splash of purple gradients above the fold or the curved borders with one side colored differently (that Claude loves to add), the tells are growing. What makes a lot of AI generated work feel bland and generic though? The same thing that makes it good at filling in the blanks. You’re essentially just getting the statistical average of human output.

    • Jérôme Marin ☛ Welcome to the RAMpocalypse

      DRAM and NAND. Behind these two acronyms lie essential components of modern consumer electronics, from smartphones and computers to gaming consoles. These two families of memory chips are experiencing runaway inflation, driving a wave of price increases — including those announced by Apple last week. The culprit is the breakneck expansion of infrastructure dedicated to generative AI.

      While many had still hoped for some relief next year, that respite now appears unlikely to arrive before 2028. By then, new production lines should come online, helping to ease the supply shortage. Even so, few observers expect memory prices to collapse, let alone return to their early-2025 levels, at least not as long as the AI boom continues. High prices have become “the new normal,” a Lenovo executive said last week. “The era of cheap silicon is over,” Nothing founder Carl Pei warned earlier this year.

    • Allen Pike ☛ How To (Not) Spend $10k/wk on Coding Agents

      Yes, our coding agents were delivering a lot of improvements. But you can hire a pretty good engineer for $10k/week. Within a couple days we’d cut this spend way down, while maintaining most of the velocity – some techniques for this below.

      But every week, I hear of more teams hitting this same transition point. Coordinating agents to do something is less compelling if they’re more expensive than having a human do that same work. Thus, we’re moving from the era of “how can we use more coding agents?” to “how can we get the most out of our coding agent spend?”

    • Pivot to AI ☛ AI leaks your company’s code secrets faster than ever

      There are ways to do this without just putting the password into the program code. They’re sort of convoluted, but any competent programmer should be experienced in them.

      Chatbots aren’t competent programmers. So the way coding bots keep doing this is to put the access secret right there in the code!

      And if your program’s code repository is public, you’ve just told the world!

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Mythos is just too powerful? OK, we’ll ban it then

      There’s a few things going on here:

      1. These magical new AI models are not some sort of new danger. That’s pure marketing.

  • Social Control Media

    • Nick Heer ☛ Meta Loses Two Landmark Cases Regarding Product Safety and Children’s Use; Google Loses One

      For its part, the Wall Street Journal editorial board is standing up for beleaguered social media companies in an editorial today criticizing everything about these verdicts, including this specific means of liability, which it calls a “dodge” around Section 230.

      But it is not. The principles described by Section 230 are a good foundation for the internet. This law, while U.S.-centric, has enabled the web around the world to flourish. Making companies legally liable for the things users post will not fix the mess we are in, but it would cause great damage if enacted.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Landmark verdict finds Instagram, YouTube were designed to addict kids

      After a grueling seven weeks of court proceedings and more than 40 hours of tense deliberations across nine days in one of the country’s most closely watched civil trials, jurors handed down a landmark decision in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Wednesday, finding Instagram and YouTube responsible for the suffering of a Chico, Calif., woman who charged the platforms were built to addict young users.

    • Global News CA ☛ Jury finds Meta downplayed children’s safety on platforms in landmark trial

      The landmark decision comes after a nearly seven-week trial. Jurors sided with state prosecutors who argued that Meta — which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — prioritized profits over safety. The jury determined Meta violated parts of the state’s Unfair Practices Act on accusations the company hid what it knew about about the dangers of child sexual exploitation on its platforms and impacts on child mental health.

      The jury agreed with allegations that Meta made false or misleading statements and also agreed that Meta engaged in “unconscionable” trade practices that unfairly took advantage of the vulnerabilities of and inexperience of children.

    • Michael Tsai ☛ Meta and YouTube Addiction Lawsuits

    • New York Times ☛ Meta and YouTube Found Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial

      The bellwether case, which was brought by a now 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., had accused social media companies of creating products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos. Citing features like infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations, K.G.M. sued Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and Google’s YouTube, claiming they led to anxiety and depression.

• Privatisation/Privateering

  • Wired ☛ An Explosion Knocked Out Anduril’s Rocket Motor Test Site in Mississippi

    A rocket motor exploded during a test at an Anduril facility in Mississippi last Friday, marking another setback in the startup’s hopes of becoming a major supplier of missile propulsion systems for the defense industry. Anduril publicly confirmed the incident after an inquiry from WIRED.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Dark Reading ☛ Why Identity Security Is Your Cyber Career Entry Point

      Perhaps most striking is the field's accessibility through multiple entry points. Unlike many professions that demand a singular educational path, cybersecurity welcomes talent from technical backgrounds — audit and compliance roles, project management, law enforcement, and more. This diversity of origins enriches the field, bringing varied perspectives to an industry that must defend against increasingly sophisticated adversaries operating across every attack vector.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Papa Johns Surveillance-Based Advertising

      Papa Johns is spying on people’s buying activities to predict when they are low on food: [...]

    • Panagiotis Vryonis ☛ What's wrong with EU age verification? Part II

      My EU age verification post triggered a long debate on lobste.rs. Here are the points I found most worth engaging with.

      I’ve probably missed some, the discussion was really long, and I’ve also received feedback though other channels. I will post again if I feel there’s more to share on the topic.

    • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Technocarcinization (01 Jul 2026)

      The grid was useful, until technocarcinization started to push all the tech companies into that top right quadrant. Apple is no longer the company that protects you from surveillance – they're the company that spies on you, having secretly added a total surveillance system to the iPhone to target ads to you: [...]

    • Ben Werdmuller ☛ They tell us surveillance makes us safer. It undermines our democratic rights.

      The most important outcome of increased surveillance is a chilling effect on free speech and expression. As Gina Romero, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, notes here, that extends to the organizations that have been established to protect those rights:

      “As organizations operate under the constant assumption that they are being monitored, their core functions are profoundly affected. Their ability to serve as watchdogs, provide rights-based services, protect victims of human rights abuses, and educate the public is severely constrained. Ultimately, the very possibility of advancing and protecting rights, democracy and the rule of law is undermined.”

  • Confidentiality

    • NVISO Labs ☛ The Road to Post-Quantum Readiness Part 2 of 2: The Migration Playbook

      This blog post addresses the practical implications of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). It examines why waiting for vendors is a high-risk strategy and why organizations must assume ownership of their own quantum-readiness efforts. It also introduces a more effective quantum-readiness playbook: a practical, risk-driven approach aimed at reducing exposure early, rather than relying on the commonly adopted inventory-first model.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ Expert: Russia's western rail ban an attempt to direct more goods to its ports

    "It is clearly intended as a signal. Until recently, these rail routes were primarily used to transport goods that were not subject to sanctions or cargo destined for or originating in Central Asia. This is now clearly a measure favoring Russian ports, because goods that are not under sanctions, as well as Central Asian cargo, can instead be routed through Russian ports," Vare said.

  • Meduza ☛ Reuters: Russian defense minister personally approved secret military training for Russian troops in China

    One document reviewed by journalists references an internal order Belousov issued in August 2025, under which a delegation of Russian armed forces personnel traveled to China to take part in training activities at People’s Liberation Army facilities.

  • Defence Web ☛ Thousands march against illegal immigration across South Africa

    Demonstrations against illegal immigration on Tuesday morning drew large crowds in Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria, and smaller crowds in other parts of the country.

    Tuesday marked the 30 June “deadline” set by the anti-immigration movement March and March for the government to act against illegal immigration, and for undocumented immigrants to leave the country. Though in many cases, anti-immigrant vigilantes have not differentiated between documented versus undocumented immigrants when harassing them.

  • Semafor Inc ☛ Russia imports gas from India

    The shipments mark a shift in the countries’ energy dynamic: Earlier this year, India turned to Russia to mitigate a disruption to oil supplies spurred by the Iran war. Russian President Vladimir Putin this week acknowledged that Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries had triggered shortages, but downplayed the severity of a crisis that is “unprecedented” for one of the world’s largest energy producers, The Associated Press wrote.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Flawed SCOTUS Campaign Finance Ruling Opens New Avenues for Billionaires and Corporations to Buy Elections

    Today, by a vote of 6-3, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the long-standing federal limit on campaign spending coordination between political parties and candidates. This limit was passed by Congress in 1971 to guard against the corrupting effect of large campaign contributions flowing through party committees to candidates to circumvent federal limits on the amount of direct campaign contributions to candidates. The case is National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission. Public Citizen filed an amicus brief in the case arguing in support of the law.

  • New York Times ☛ SpudCell: Scientists Made a Cell With Most of the Hallmarks of Life. Here’s What to Know.

    Although it’s not the first synthetic cell ever created, SpudCell is the first to complete a full life cycle — from birth to division into next-generation cells — after having been created from the “bottom up” using laboratory chemicals. It’s a pared down version of a living cell structure, revealing the basic genetic and structural components necessary for the functions of life.

  • Interesting Engineering ☛ Scientists create synthetic cell with full life cycle in lab

    Called SpudCell, the artificial cell can grow, replicate its DNA, feed, divide, and pass genetic material to the next generation. Unlike previous synthetic cell projects that recreated only individual biological functions, SpudCell combines multiple life-like behaviors into a single engineered system.

  • Paul Krugman ☛ A Verdict on (the) Slaughter

    Never mind the Supreme Court upholding birthright citizenship — that was a foregone conclusion given that it is a totally unambiguous provision of the Constitution (although three Republican justices voted against it!). The important decision was handed down yesterday, when the Court, ruling on the Slaughter case — brought on behalf of an FTC commissioner arbitrarily fired by Donald Trump — overturned 90 years of precedent to give Trump dictatorial power over the regulatory machinery of the US government. The Court has now stripped regulatory agencies of their independence from Trump’s whims and corrupt practices. Even for an agency created by Congress with a specific mandate and responsibilities, Trump is now free to direct that agency to do something completely different, to fire any civil servants who don’t do whatever he wants, or to completely gut it so that it is unable to serve its function.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Lesson of NPR’s Supreme Court Retraction

    It was all a “misunderstanding.” That’s the word that NPR Editor in Chief Thomas Evans used to describe why, today, the outlet erroneously published a report by the veteran Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg that Justice Samuel Alito had retired. According to an archived copy, available on the Wayback Machine, the 1,186-word story was published at 10:51 a.m. eastern time. In the story, Totenberg attributed her reporting to the Court itself, not to an anonymous source. Minutes later, the Supreme Court’s public-information office said that the Court had not made any such announcement.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Vought: Trump admin won’t do DOGE [sic] after-action report

    “Is there something that you’re going to present or is there somewhere we can find what exactly DOGE [sic] accomplished as far as reductions in dollars spent, people at agencies, or whatever? Is there going to be some documentation of what took place?” Joyce asked OMB Director Russell Vought.

  • International Business Times ☛ Trump Scolded Charlie Kirk After TPUSA Event Became Epstein 'Grievance Fest,' New Book Claims

    The reported exchange suggests the Epstein controversy had become a source of friction within the MAGA movement. While Trump publicly urged supporters to move on from the issue, the book claims influential figures such as Kirk faced pressure from conservative audiences demanding greater transparency.

• Environment

  • Futurism ☛ Grim New Prediction Market Lets Gamblers Bet on Raging Wildfires

    Acknowledging that there are 7,000+ fires each year in California alone, Wyldfyre promises to turn “collective intelligence into better wildfire forecasting — one trade at a time.”

  • Futurism ☛ Scientists Just Found Something Very Disturbing About the AMOC Current Deep Below the Ocean: Evidence That Its Weakening Isn't Just a Fluke, and If It Collapses, the World Could Be Plunged Into Climate Catastrophe

    Chilling news: a mysterious patch of cold water at the bottom of the north Atlantic is caused by the weakening of a vital ocean current that, if it collapses, would trigger devastating climate shifts across the globe.

  • AGU ☛ Multidecadal Atlantic “Warming Hole” Heat Content Variations Are Caused by Ocean Heat Transport, Not by Surface Fluxes - Rahmstorf - 2026 - Geophysical Research Letters - Wiley Online Library

    The northern Atlantic south of Greenland and Iceland is the only part of the world which has cooled significantly since the 19th Century both in the atmosphere and ocean. The oceanic cooling is widely assumed to be a result of reduced ocean heat transport into this region. However, some studies have suggested it could be due to increased net heat loss at the sea surface. Here we use observation-based reanalysis data of ocean heat content and surface flux changes in this region to show that the observed cooling trend cannot be explained by surface heat flux changes, and that multidecadal heat content variations are generally larger and more tightly correlated with ocean heat transport than with surface heat flux variability.

  • Arizona Luminaria ☛ Arizona governor vetoes bill that would weaken referendums and empower data centers

    HB 2873, passed by the state legislature in late April, would have allowed referendum petitions brought forth by Arizona citizens to be withdrawn before they are put to a vote. The Arizona Secretary of State defines referendums as the “method by which voters may veto a law (or part of a law) by gathering signatures from registered voters to place the issue on the ballot.” The bill was first introduced in the Arizona House of Representatives in January 2026 and after passing both chambers, the bill made its way to Hobbs’ desk in June for her rejection.

    According to Natali Fierros, executive director of Rural Arizona Action (RAZA), the organization assumed that Hobbs would most likely sign the bill. However, pressure from the public and advocacy organizations may have pushed her to veto.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2026-06-29 [Older] To Decarbonize Quickly, Think Beyond Electrification

  • TruthOut ☛ 2026-06-29 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini’s Regulatory Rollbacks Fueled “Unprecedented” Wave of Climate Litigation

  • Scheerpost ☛ 2026-06-28 [Older] Covering the Impact of Climate Change—Without Mentioning Climate Change

  • CBC ☛ 2026-06-28 [Older] A glacial lake in B.C. is at risk of bursting — again. How climate change has raised this risk

  • TruthOut ☛ 2026-06-26 [Older] Alaska GOP Pushes 800-Mile Gas Terminal and Pipeline That Could Decimate Climate

  • CBC ☛ 2026-06-26 [Older] Why Europe can't air condition its way out of extreme heat

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-26 [Older] Creative climate messaging and other eco wins of the week

  • Spiegel ☛ 2026-06-26 [Older] Climate Change in Oceania: Tuvalu Is Tired of the Prophets of Doom

  • The Local SE ☛ 2026-06-26 [Older] Climate change to blame as heatwave hits Europe's economies

  • 2026-06-25 [Older] Why Carbon Capture Can’t Conceivably Solve Climate Change

  • TruthOut ☛ 2026-06-25 [Older] Poll: Two-Thirds of Voters Say Climate Crisis Is Causing Utility Bills to Go Up

  • Pro Publica ☛ 2026-06-25 [Older] Beyond Denial: How Oil Execs Shaped a Landmark Climate Study

  • TruthOut ☛ 2026-06-24 [Older] Record-Breaking Heat Wave Across Europe Signals Harsh Future of Climate Change

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-24 [Older] Climate change: Heatwave costs the German economy billions

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2026-06-23 [Older] The Welcome Table’s Socialist Vision for Climate Refugees

  • TruthOut ☛ 2026-06-23 [Older] An Abelardo de la Espriella Presidency Threatens Colombia’s Climate Policies

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-06-23 [Older] Experts fired by Cheeto Mussolini resurrect mothballed climate website

  • Vox ☛ 2026-06-23 [Older] Why Cheeto Mussolini is losing his war against algae

  • Vox ☛ 2026-06-22 [Older] What happens when it breaks 100 degrees in Europe

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2026-06-29 [Older] Clean Energy Investments Can Lead to Good Union Jobs

    • Bridge Michigan ☛ 2026-06-27 [Older] Opinion | Michigan’s clean energy law is working

    • The Age AU ☛ 2026-06-25 [Older] The energy wars are back: Labor has wedged the NSW Liberals on renewables

    • Truthdig ☛ 2026-06-25 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini’s Energy Secretary Says ‘Cold Is a Vastly Larger Killer’ During Record European Heatwave

    • Mexico News Daily ☛ 2026-06-24 [Older] Energy Minister unveils plan to source 70% of new power generation from renewables: Wednesday’s mañanera recapped

    • Homo Ludditus ☛ Stop drinking Kool-Aid regarding battery life in Linux

      TLP UI is a monstrosity. Most people wouldn’t know how to configure it. But with or without this helper GUI, many people swear by TLP.

      While not recommended anymore by Linux Mint, there are still references to it on Mint’s forums, and people often complain about having problems: [...]

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Science Alert ☛ Inside Chernobyl, a Fungus Has Been Quietly Feasting on Radiation : ScienceAlert

      Clinging to the interior walls of one of the most radioactive buildings on Earth, scientists have found a strange black fungus curiously living its best life.

      That fungus is called Cladosporium sphaerospermum, and some scientists think its dark pigment – melanin – may allow it to harness ionizing radiation through a process similar to the way plants harness light for photosynthesis. This proposed mechanism is even referred to as radiosynthesis.

  • Overpopulation

    • Western Water ☛ A look at the Colorado River Basin reservoir system storage numbers

      The Colorado River Basin stands as the lifeblood of the American Southwest, providing water to approximately 40 million people, irrigating millions of acres of farmland, and generating significant hydroelectric power across seven U.S. states and parts of Mexico [5, 19]. The management of this vital, yet overallocated and arid, watershed hinges on an extensive network of dams and reservoirs. This engineered system, governed by a collection of compacts, laws, and decrees collectively known as the “Law of the River,” was designed to capture the river’s highly variable flows, mitigate floods, and provide a reliable water supply in a region defined by its scarcity [8, 44]. The total storage capacity of the entire basin is estimated to be between 60 and 62 million acre-feet (MAF), roughly four times the river’s average annual flow, with the two largest reservoirs—Lake Powell and Lake Mead—accounting for over 80% of this total [3, 10].

    • Overpopulation ☛ Swiss people bullied and gaslit into accepting endless population growth

      On 14 June, the Swiss people voted on a referendum to limit the Swiss population below 10 million. With the vote landing 45.2% in favour to 54.8% against, mainstream media reported voters “overwhelmingly rejected the proposal.” The truth is more complicated, and a sad reflection on the meaning of sovereignty in today’s interconnected world.

    • The Business Standard ☛ Swiss reject population cap in referendum, avoiding EU clash and cheering business | The Business Standard

      Switzerland on Sunday rejected a proposal to cap its population at 10 million as voters prioritised economic stability and ties with the European Union over worries immigration was stretching public services and pushing up rents.

    • Medium ☛ The Gauge, Not the Engine: What Switzerland’s Population Cap Gets Wrong | by Gavilan Longino | Jul, 2026 | Medium

      Read closely, that’s not really a description of an immigration problem. It’s a description of a system running up against capacity constraints: infrastructure, housing, land. The immigration framing gives voters someone to point at. But the underlying pressure, the thing actually straining at the seams, is a set of resource constraints that exist independent of who is crossing the border.

      That distinction matters, because Switzerland has been here before, in a sense, just from the opposite direction. And the country that got there first offers a preview of where a hard demographic lever tends to lead.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Futurism ☛ "Televised Nervous Breakdown": CEO of Palantir Suffers a Bit of a Meltdown During Live Interview

    “Alex thank you, we appreciate it very, very much, thanks” CNBC‘s Andrew Sorkin says, clearly cueing Karp to leave so they can move on.

  • The Record ☛ House passes kids’ online safety bill, but Senate approval unlikely

    “Instead of passing a federal standard that will protect America’s children from Big Tech’s greed, the House of Representatives just passed legislation that is a pale imitation of Big Tech accountability,” the statement said.

    “The House’s decision to strip out the duty of care will only maintain the status quo in which Big Tech uses our kids as profit centers and leaves parents to pick up the pieces.”

  • US Senate ☛ Blackburn & Blumenthal Statement on House Passage of the KIDS Act - U.S. Senator...

    “Instead of passing a federal standard that will protect America’s children from Big Tech’s greed, the House of Representatives just passed legislation that is a pale imitation of Big Tech accountability. The House’s decision to strip out the Duty of Care will only maintain the status quo in which Big Tech uses our kids as profit centers and leaves parents to pick up the pieces. We will not back down from the fight to pass the stronger, more widely supported version of the Kids Online Safety Act, and we will not greenlight hollow reforms that allow Big Tech’s predatory business model to remain intact.”

  • The Next Move ☛ The Birthright Citizenship Ruling, Explained

    The only surprise is that the Court’s ruling in Trump v. Barbara was not unanimous.

    Five of the justices—Chief Justice John Roberts (writing for the majority) and Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—read the plain language of the amendment as written. Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the majority in striking down President Trump’s executive order denying birthright citizenship to the children of temporary legal residents and illegal immigrants, but on statutory rather than constitutional grounds.

    But Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch twisted themselves into pretzels trying to explain away their position.

  • Fabio Akita ☛ Off-Topic: Do Not Put Hope in Politics - How to Become Immune

    Warning before someone pretends not to understand: this is personal opinion. This is not financial, legal, tax, electoral, marital, spiritual advice, or a recipe. The details here are Brazil-specific. If you are going to touch companies, assets, taxes, marriage, inheritance, tax residency, or anything that can wreck your life, talk to a real accountant and a real lawyer. Not me. Not an influencer. Not a Twitter thread.

  • Andrew Nesbitt ☛ The CRA is not about open source

    At FOSDEM in February and again at UN Open Source Week last week, the Cyber Resilience Act was the answer on offer whenever anyone asked what governments are doing about open source security, and the foundations and corporate advocates presenting it framed it as good news for open source. It is the largest piece of software legislation the EU has passed, the open source community spent two years lobbying over its text, and its main obligations come into force in December 2027.

    It is also not about open source. Where open source appears in the text, it appears as an exemption, a component risk, a compliance contact, or a paperwork trail.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Google ☛ A Look at the Drivers, Dynamics, and Applications of the Pro-Russia Influence Ecosystem | Google Cloud Blog

      Four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the pro-Russia influence ecosystem has evolved from a tool of war back into a global strategic asset. Since the mobilization of this ecosystem to support frontline objectives, we have witnessed the expedited development of new influence assets linked to multiple, expansive, covert information operations (IO) campaigns and a revitalization of pro-Russia hacktivism at an unprecedented scale. While this threat activity initially adapted to encompass Ukraine-related priorities, it is gradually pivoting back to established Russian influence objectives for which the ecosystem was originally honed. This shift is significant because it likely signals increased focus outside of Ukraine, warning that pro-Russia influence activity targeting the European Union (EU), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and other top targeting priorities may intensify.

      Ultimately, the war in Ukraine has provided a critical feedback loop for Russia to refine its influence activity, lessons that we anticipate will be applied as the ecosystem continues to reorient toward global strategic objectives while maintaining focus on Ukraine. Further, recent pro-Russia IO indicates the continued expansion of already diverse tactics, and the increasing use of generative AI tooling for planning, research, and content creation marks a forward trend in pro-Russia IO. Meanwhile, new and different actors have adopted IO tactics to meet an increasingly diverse set of challenges, signaling growing Russian reliance on influence tactics. Together, these trends likely demonstrate the Kremlin's perception of these tactics as cost effective and successful. The interconnected nature of the ecosystem's disparate components makes it resilient to limited scope disruptions, which defenders must consider to effectively mitigate pro-Russia influence threats.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Open Caucasus Media ☛ Ingush protesters convicted in 2019 case file complaint with UN

    After those convicted over the 2019 protests in Ingushetia filed a complaint with the UN. The UN Human Rights Committee accepted their case for consideration, the independent local outlet Fortanga reported on Tuesday, citing a source. The mass protests were sparked by opposition to the agreement to redraw the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia.

  • BIA Net ☛ 75-year-old retired teacher among arrested in crackdown ahead of Ankara NATO summit

    Ayten Yakut, 75, a long-time teacher and volunteer for the Turkish Foundation for Combating Soil Erosion (TEMA), was among the 41 members of the foundation targeted in the crackdown. She was remanded in custody on Jun 25 for on allegations of "being a member of a terrorist organization" and sent to Sincan Women's Closed Prison along with other women volunteers of TEMA.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ European ISPs Want Rightsholders Held Accountable for Overblocking Damage

    For years, rightsholders have pushed for broader site blocking orders, with no direct liability if these result in overblocking. EuroISPA, which represents over 3,300 European internet service providers, is now asking the EU Commission to change that. The association points to a series of overblocking incidents in Italy, Spain, and elsewhere, where rightsholders were not held accountable.

  • International Business Times ☛ 2026-06-26 [Older] ICE Agents Track Down Syracuse Woman, Demand She Delete Post Calling for ICE Agents' Indictment

  • EFF ☛ 2026-06-25 [Older] Four Years After Dobbs, Anti-Abortion Lawmakers Keep Coming for Online Speech

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • RFERL ☛ More Iranian Women Go Hijab-Free As Dress Code Enforcement Appears To Slacken

    Residents of Iranian cities say it's increasingly common for women to go out without a head scarf, a violation that previously would have resulted in harassment or detention. In a year when Iran has been shaken by mass protests and war, it appears there's less focus on enforcing the country's strict dress code. But one rights activist pointed out to RFE/RL's Radio Farda that greater permissiveness does not mean the law itself has changed.

  • Futurism ☛ Factories Attach Cameras to Workers, in Hopes of Replacing Them With Robots

    Today, sweatshop workers across the Global South are being made to pull double duty: both stitching clothes together, and training robots to put themselves out of work entirely.

  • The Nation ☛ We’re Having the Wrong Conversation About College Graduates

    Workers with college degrees are constantly being pitted against workers without one. But such a zero-sum debate obscures the need to protect everyone in every workplace.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Inequality Is Shortening American Lives

    The US incarcerates more people than almost any country on Earth. Meanwhile, pharma executives, Wall Street bankers, and fossil fuel companies escape meaningful accountability for harms that have killed far more Americans than street crime ever has.

  • Nathan Upchurch ☛ The Trauma of Employment

    My first ‘professional’ role was as a print broker and artworker. I was paid peanuts, but I loved it. It turns out that I was a total print nerd, and specifying, designing, planning, managing, and procuring print work was a bit of a dream job for me. It was a small office, and my boss kind of just let me do my thing and, beside the pay, treated me well. Over the years, I’ve come to learn that ‘professional’ jobs (or as I like to call them, ‘short-pile-carpet jobs’) where a person with ADHD can truly thrive are scarce as hen’s teeth. The problem is rarely the work itself, but those charged with overseeing it.

  • Yle ☛ Historic cross-border deal means Finnish police can now respond to emergency calls in Sweden

    The cooperation means that police on one side of the border can request assistance from officers on the other side when responding to emergency situations.

    "For emergency calls to the Finnish police, this means for example shootings, stabbings, aggravated robberies and aggravated assaults," Lapland Chief of Police Vesa Pihajoki explained.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ South Africa's fibre underdogs are beating the giants

    Among the smaller operators, Lightspeed (Cybersmart) led on 7.1, followed by Open Fibre and Lightstruck on 7.0 each, Evotel and Seacom FibreCo on 6.9 each, and WeCom on 6.6. Those averages would place all six between the top two of the country’s eight most-rated networks – Octotel topped the table on 7.5 and the next-largest, Openserve, scored 6.5 – had the smaller operators been rated by as many ISPs.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Information age dawned with the first transatlantic cable system

    In “Lightning Beneath the Sea,” author James M. Tabor argues that Field should be remembered as a champion of scientific ingenuity. From humble beginnings in rural Massachusetts, Field made his fortune in New York City as a paper merchant, retiring as a rich man when he was still in his early 30s. But Field, whose perpetual restlessness had driven his climb to business success, wasn’t suited to sit on the sidelines. He threw himself into the transatlantic cable project, with all its complexities and challenges.

  • Internet Archive ☛ Introducing the Vanishing Culture Podcast Series: Exploring What We Stand to Lose | Internet Archive Blogs

    Hosted by musician Vida Vojić, the series features conversations with researchers, archivists, librarians, and creators working to safeguard everything from cookbooks and queer archives to African folktales and endangered languages. Together, they examine how copyright, digital platforms, and changing technologies are reshaping our collective memory, while highlighting the communities finding new ways to keep culture alive. Through personal stories and global perspectives, Vanishing Culture reveals that preservation isn’t just about protecting the past, it’s about ensuring that future generations can access, understand, and build upon our shared cultural record.

  • Internet Archive ☛ Vanishing Culture Episode #1: What We Stand to Lose with Luca Messarra | Internet Archive Blogs

    As more of our cultural heritage moves online, a troubling question is emerging: what happens when the things we create, share, and cherish simply disappear? In the first episode of our special six-part series on Vanishing Culture, host Vida Vojić speaks with researcher, book historian, and literary sociologist Luca Messarra, author of the Internet Archive’s Vanishing Culture report, about the growing threat of cultural loss in the digital age.

  • [Old] Internet Archive ☛ Gone but Not Forgotten: Recovering the Dead Web | Internet Archive Blogs

    In this post we go through some of the link-rot studies and look at them from the perspective of the Wayback Machine to see how much of the dead Web can be rescued. Table 1 shows the status of the dead and rescued Web at a glance as sampled by a few different studies.

  • Christian Cleberg ☛ The Internet I Grew Up With Doesn’t Exist Anymore

    The [Internet]; what can I say? It's the driving force behind nearly the whole world today - economies, countries, communities, and more run solely on the [Internet] these days.

    However, it wasn't always this way.

    Once upon a time, the [Internet] didn't even exist. When it did, the [Internet] was a place. It was a place you went. You selectively chose to visit the [Internet], based on your own free will.

    If you wanted to visit a chat room, or perhaps preview a fancy new Flash game, you visited the [Internet] for a few minutes in the evening before going back to your family or friends.

    This has changed dramatically in the last 20-30 years. Today, it's 2026 and woven into nearly every part of daily life for the majority of the Earth's population.

    Let's do a quick checklist and see what requires the [Internet] or becomes tedious if we opt not to use the [Internet] (yes, this list is tedious on purpose): [...]

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Raspberry Pi ☛ Secure Raspberry Pi Connect at scale

    We recently released a major upgrade to our secure boot provisioning software, rpi-sb-provisioner, making it easier to provision more complex operating system images and deploy Raspberry Pi Connect at scale.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Sony officially kills the PlayStation disc, ending physical game production in 2028 — shutting down the PlayStation Store on the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita systems

    Defenders of the move will point to the aforementioned 100% digital nature of PC gaming as a counterpoint against the pushback to the death of physical media. But there's a key difference, and that's that PC gaming is done on PCs, opening up tools like backups and private servers for game preservation. This is possible on consoles too, of course, but it's a lot more work.

  • Stop Killing the Internet ☛ Stop Killing the Internet: A Global Movement for a Better Internet

    Governments are walling off the open [Internet]. We are a global movement opposing restrictions, and building a better [Internet].

• Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Nick Heer ☛ U.K. Competition Authority Proposes Restrictions on Apple’s Anti-Steering Rules

    You will note the CMA is not saying that a smaller fee actually will result in lower prices for customers, because corporations — including developers — tend to be profit-seeking endeavours. They may increase prices when costs grow but that does not mean they do the opposite. But who cares? Lower costs permit more flexibility on pricing and, even if that money ends up in the pockets of developers instead of Apple, is that supposed to be a bad thing? Is there a reason why someone should be upset that they might pay the same amount but an indie developer gets to keep more of it?

  • Patents

    • IP Kat ☛ 2026-06-29 [Older] Recent consideration of estoppel doctrines in Australian patent proceedings confirms the bar remains high

    • IP Kat ☛ 2026-06-27 [Older] Important changes to New Zealand divisional patent practice

    • 2026-06-24 [Older] USPTO Revises Conditions for Requiring Additional Information in Petitions Based on Unintentional Delay

    • 2026-06-23 [Older] Abiomed Inc. v. Marquet Cardiovascular LLC (Fed. Cir. 2026)

  • Trademarks

    • Right of Publicity

      • 404 Media ☛ Scientists Asked AI to Impersonate 112 Public Figures. What Happened Next Is a ‘Dire’ Warning

        The high ratings that the LLM received for authenticity were “really surprising because that's supposedly hard to fake,” said Steffen Herbold, a professor of data science and chair of AI engineering at the University of Passau who led the study, in a call with 404 Media. “We're not talking about unknown people. We're talking about one of the biggest shows in the UK.”

  • Copyrights

    • Digital Music News ☛ Google Doubles Down on ‘Fair Use’ AI Training, Focused on Output

      Unsurprisingly, the paper argues that AI policy should focus on the output of a given model rather than the inputs used to create it. Google proposes the creation of a Frontier AI Regulatory Organization (FARO), an industry-funded body that would operate under federal oversight and develop standards for security, safety, transparency, and incident reporting.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Kim Dotcom Loses Court of Appeal Bid to Block Extradition to the U.S.

      After more than fourteen years of legal battles, Kim Dotcom has lost his latest attempt to avoid extradition to the United States. New Zealand's Court of Appeal dismissed the Megaupload founder's challenge to the Justice Minister's surrender order, concluding that a likely U.S. prison sentence of at least 30 years does not amount to shockingly severe punishment.