Leftovers

• Gizmodo ☛ Tech Billionaires' Quest to Build a New City in California Is Already Mired in Trouble

  In general, it seems really hard to imagine that this project will ever materialize. Even if Flannery somehow manages to smooth things over with the locals, the project still needs to clear a number of state and regional regulatory hurdles. Those hurdles are looking dubious, since a lot of local politicians have expressed doubts about the viability of the project. If those hurdles, somehow, are cleared, the project’s backers then have to actually build the majestic metropolis that developers are envisioning. After that, people have to move there and the city has to retain a certain level of population density for the foreseeable future. Then the city’s creators have to actually, like, run the city...you know, forever.

• The Age AU ☛ One of the world’s great global cities has lost its identity

  Now the billion-dollar gallery faces competition not just from other modern art institutions in the region, but from its neighbour next door in West Kowloon, where hundreds of tourists from the mainland are piling out of buses each day.

• Science

  • Hans-Dieter Hiep ☛ Can the Collatz conjecture be proven, or not?

    In 1937, shortly after the mathematician Lothar Collatz obtained his doctorate, he wrote down a problem in his notebook that later became known as Collatz’ problem or the \((3x+1)\)-problem. The problem is remarkable since it is easy to state, but for more than eighty years no solution had been found.

• Education

  • The Drone Girl ☛ “Behind the Wings” PBS drone special TV episode set to air Thursday

    This episode is set to feature Archer Aviation, DroneUp and Walmart, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and Drone Express and MissionGo. All those companies and organizations share one key focus, drone delivery, suggesting that this PBS show could provide some key insights into what 2024 holds for the drone delivery world.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • CS Monitor ☛ Americans have a right to guns. How about to public peace?

    For years, mass shootings have prompted vehement debates in legislatures and at kitchen tables about the constitutional right to bear arms. But last week’s shootings in Lewiston, Maine, have given momentum to a national conversation about something more fundamental: the right to a reasonable sense of peace.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Matt Rickard ☛ Mechanical Turks

    But the Mechanical Turk wasn’t actually an AI — it was just a machine that cleverly concealed a human inside. The interior was intentionally misleading. It had a series of cabinets that opened and gave the illusion of moving gears and open compartments (in fact, the operator had a sliding seat so that they could move back and forth as the viewers inspected the insides). The pieces moved with strong magnets (although the inventor carefully ensured external magnets didn’t affect the board). The board was numbered inside the box.

  • New York Times ☛ Harris Warns That the ‘Existential Threats’ of A.I. Are Already Here

    On the same day that 28 countries, including the United States and China, signed a declaration warning of the potential for “catastrophic” damage to humanity from the most advanced forms of A.I., Ms. Harris also used her address to highlight how the technology was already causing harm.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Chris Coyier ☛ 0 KB Social Media Embeds

      A question to ask yourself though is: what do you actually get from a social networks “embed”? It’s not nothing: [...]

• Defence/Aggression

  • Meduza ☛ ‘At the heart of Christianity is the rejection of violence’ Jailed dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza on the Russian Orthodox Church’s support for the war

    Russia has long been living in an Orwellian world, and this parallel reality became firmly solidified after February 2022. “War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.” It might seem like one shouldn’t be surprised by these insane distortions, the shameless exaggerations, the audacious attempts to say that black is white. And yet, even amid this deluge, a recent piece of news from the Tver region caught my eye. There, a priest named Ilya Gavryshkiv was forced to apologize publicly, on camera, for praying not for “victory” over Ukraine but for peace. And he was forced to do this not by the FSB, not by the Investigative Committee, and not by Kadyrov, but by his own ruling bishop.

  • Overpopulation ☛ EurASP Statement on Migration

    The European Alliance for a Sustainable Population (eurASP) is a coalition of groups with the mission to raise awareness about the impact of human population, its size and density, on planet Earth. It includes groups from seven European countries. Recently they issued the following statement on migration.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Researchers argue that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not enough to combat climate change

    Scientists have known since the 1800s that infrared-absorbing (greenhouse) gases warm Earth's surface, and that the abundance of greenhouse gases changes naturally as well as from human actions. Roger Revelle, who was one of the early scientists to study global warming, wrote in 1965 that industrialization meant that human beings were conducting a "vast geophysical experiment" by burning fossil fuels, which adds carbon dioxide (CO2) to the air. CO2 has now reached levels that have not existed for millions of years.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Maine Considers Closing Loophole That Allows Foreign Government Spending on Referendums

    If voters grant their approval on Nov. 7, Maine would be the 10th state to close the loophole in federal election law that bans foreign entities from spending on candidate elections, yet allows donations for local and state ballot measures, said Aaron McKean, legal counsel for the nonprofit, nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., which supports the Maine proposal.

    Maine is the latest state to address foreign influence in elections.

  • France24 ☛ IS group-linked militants kill 17 in Nigeria for failing to pay 'cattle tax'

    Jihadists affiliated to the Islamic State group killed 17 people in a raid on a remote village in northeast Nigeria after villagers refused to pay an illicit tax, anti-jihadist militia and a resident told AFP Tuesday.

  • RFA ☛ China ‘cooperating’ with Finland over damaged pipeline

    Finnish police last week named the Hong Kong-flagged container vessel Newnew Polar Bear as their main suspect in the incident which took place on Oct. 8, 2023 when a major gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was severely damaged by a “dragging anchor.”

    They said an anchor, believed to belong to the Newnew Polar Bear, was found on the seabed, just meters away from the pipeline.

  • Democracy Now ☛ “Text-Book Case of Genocide”: Top U.N. Official Craig Mokhiber Resigns, Denounces Israeli Assault on Gaza

    A former top United Nations official in New York joins us for an in-depth interview about why he has resigned after publicly accusing the U.N. of failing to address what he calls a “text-book case of genocide” unfolding in Gaza. Craig Mokhiber is a longtime international human rights lawyer who served as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. His resignation letter (embedded below) has gone viral. In one of his first interviews since leaving his post, Mokhiber tells Democracy Now! the U.N. follows a “different set of rules” when addressing Israel’s violations of international law, refusing to utilize its enforcement mechanisms and thus “effectively” acting as “a smokescreen behind which we have seen further and worsening dispossession of Palestinians.” He says it is an “open secret inside the halls of the United Nations that the so-called two-state solution is effectively impossible,” and calls for international actors to push for a “new paradigm” in the region based on “equality for all.” We also discuss the inaction of the International Criminal Court, global suppression of pro-Palestinian advocacy, bad-faith accusations of antisemitism and more.

  • Craig Murray ☛ “A Textbook Case of Genocide”.

    The resignation letter of Craig Mokhiber, Director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has gone viral on social media but most posts only show page one. Here is the full four page letter.

  • The Nation ☛ Guess What, Glenn Youngkin? The GOP Makes Gun Crime Worse.

    In next week’s Virginia state legislative elections, there are two big issues. One is abortion, since it’s the only Southern state that hasn’t imposed new restrictions since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year. The GOP drive for at least a 15-week ban helps Democrats—70 percent of women say it’s driving their votes, while only 47 percent said the same in 2019. The other is crime, which Republicans believe will help them. The party hyped crime fears in the 2021 election, falsely charging that moderate Democrats, for instance, supported the “defund the police” movement even when they hadn’t. The ploy seemed to work: The GOP took control of the House of Delegates and Glenn Youngkin strolled into the governor’s mansion.

  • Site36 ☛ Fewer boat crossings, visit to Frontex: EU and Tunisia implement migration pact

  • Site36 ☛ Refugees against German Register of Foreigners: Constitutional Complaint against “Second Class Data Protection”

  • Site36 ☛ Rome on collision course: Instead of Libyan coast guard, sea rescuers are punished again

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Terence Eden ☛ NaNoWriMo - An Introduction and Chapter 1: There Are Nine Million Autonomous Bicycles In Beijing

      Every year since 2009, I've taken part in NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month. The aim is to publish a new blog post every day in November. In the last few years, I've blogged pretty much constantly - daily for 2020, 2021, and 2023. A total of around 2,800 posts.

      But now it is time for a new challenge - NaNoWriMo. Where I - and thousands of other plucky souls - try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month.

    • Futurism ☛ SBF Was Apparently Told to “Stop Asking Questions” About Where $8 Billion Went

      As The Verge reports, the defrocked [cryptocurrrency] king gave some pretty confusing answers on his final day on the stand when asked about all those billions of dollars that were funneled from FTX to its sister firm, Alameda Research.

    • DeSmog ☛ Honolulu’s Climate Suit Against Big Oil Advances Towards Trial

      A lawsuit filed by the city and county of Honolulu against nearly a dozen fossil fuel companies is moving towards trial in Hawaii after the Hawaii Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the companies’ arguments for dismissing the case on appeal.

      Honolulu first sued 10 fossil fuel companies — including BP, Chevron, Shell, ExxonMobil, and Aloha Petroleum — in March 2020, in an attempt to hold these companies accountable for alleged deception over the climate risks of their products. The fossil fuel defendants had been seeking to have the case dismissed, arguing that the lawsuit was an attempt to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, a task left to the EPA rather than states. In an 82-page opinion issued on Halloween, the state’s highest court firmly denounced the defendants’ characterization of the lawsuit, and agreed with the plaintiffs that the case is simply about whether the companies “misled the public about fossil fuels’ dangers and environmental impact.”

• Finance

  • Forbes ☛ Condé Nast, Splunk Cut Hundreds Of Employees

    Artificial intelligence cybersecurity firm Splunk will lay off roughly 560 employees, the company announced Wednesday, while publishing giant Condé Nast plans to cut hundreds of job, marking the latest in a series of layoffs at U.S. tech and media companies, manufacturers and banks amid lingering recession fears (see Forbes’ layoff tracker from the first quarter here).

  • The Register UK ☛ Splunk sheds 7% of workers amid Cisco's $28B embrace

    Enterprise analytics software specialist Splunk, which Cisco plans to purchase for $28 billion, has decided it needs to lay off 7 percent of the workforce.

  • NBC ☛ Splunk to cut 7% of workforce, or about 500 employees, ahead of Cisco acquisition

    Splunk had nearly 8,000 employees as of January, according to its regulatory filings, meaning that around 500 employees will likely lose their jobs. The company laid off about 300 employees earlier this year.

  • EPIC ☛ DC Attorney General Charges Landlords with Using Algorithmic Tool to Illegally Raise Rents

    In a complaint filed today, DC’s attorney general Brian Schwalb alleged that fourteen of DC’s largest landlords used a high-tech tool called RealPage to hide the fact that they were conspiring to keep rental prices high. In the DMV metropolitan area, more than 90% of units in large buildings are priced using RealPage, and the attorney general estimates that this has costed renters millions of dollars in artificially inflated rent prices.

  • Another Insurance Company in Eastern Iowa Has Announced Layoffs

    Last week was a tough one locally in the insurance industry.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • TechCrunch ☛ A researcher critical of X under Elon Musk will fight for his account in court

    A Berlin-based software developer is fighting back after X suspended his account, claiming that research he conducted on the platform violated the company’s terms of service.

    Following Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of the platform, Travis Brown‘s research figured heavily in reporting that painted X, formerly Twitter, in an unflattering light. Brown worked on open source projects at Twitter for a year well before Musk’s tenure. After Musk’s purchase, he began researching hate speech and account suspensions on the platform, collecting X data through a software tool he built in conjunction with the Open Knowledge Foundation, a data transparency nonprofit.

  • TechCrunch ☛ The demise of Twitter Circles left a void that Instagram Close Friends can’t fill

    When X’s Circles feature shut down this week, the app formerly known as Twitter turned its back on the best product it’s shipped since the Quote Tweet. Like an Instagram Close Friends story, Circles allowed users to post to an exclusive, hand-picked group of up to 150 people, where they could be themselves without worrying about the personal or professional consequences.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Tech apologist Chuck Schumer invites Clearview to forum on regulating AI

    On the heels of the Biden administration’s landmark (but also insufficient) executive order on artificial intelligence, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is holding his next major forum on the hot-button topic today, including one on high impact AI. Astoundingly, the leader of the Senate has invited Clearview AI, the notorious facial recognition company founded by far-right MAGA extremists, which is so problematic that it has faced bans and lawsuits in multiple countries.

    The controversial decision to invite Clearview comes after Schumer faced intense criticism from civil rights groups who were initially excluded from his high profile AI discussions, while inviting Big Tech CEOs and investor Marc Andreesen, who has literally compared regulating AI to “murder.”

  • India Times ☛ Facebook owner Meta faces EU ban on targeted advertising

    The European data regulator has agreed to extend a ban imposed by non-EU member Norway on "behavioural advertising" on Facebook and Instagram to cover all 30 countries in the European Union and the European Economic Area, it said on Wednesday.

  • Eesti Rahvusringhääling ☛ Rain Lõhmus: Government is working to bring back feudalism

    Entrepreneur and founder of LHV Bank Rain Lõhmus told Kristjan Pihl in an interview on Vikerraadio on Friday that in Estonia, freedoms are restricted by regulations, and feudal lords take more and more from the private sector to redistribute (as too much money goes to the state budget).

  • Federal News Network ☛ DHS lays out new ‘cybersecurity readiness’ metrics for contractors

    The notice doesn’t state when the new evaluation factor will go into effect. But DHS is seeking feedback on its plans by Nov. 17.

    In an attachment to the notice, DHS lays out more details on how it will evaluate “cybersecurity readiness” based on analyzing contractor responses to a questionnaire.

  • Federal News Network ☛ DHS to lean further into AI with generative pilots

    Hysen said declined to comment further on the pilots citing the need to finalize some details.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • VOA News ☛ China Showed Old Footage of Maritime Intercept to Blame US for Mid-Air Near Miss

      The August 19 video is the only evidence China presented to back up its allegations that the U.S. was to blame for the October 24 incident. However, according to the U.S. Pacific Fleet, even that video “proof” did not show the full picture, as the video had been pre-cut to misrepresent the event.

    • New York Times ☛ In Israel-Gaza War, Recycled Images From Past Conflicts Can Undercut True Toll

      “This is not the first time I hear that my photos and videos are being used outside its original context,” the photographer, Hosam Katan, said in an interview. Mr. Katan worked for the Aleppo Media Center, a group of antigovernment activists and citizen journalists, and is now based in Germany. “Maybe some people are trying to get more empathy for Gaza, but at the same time, such fake videos or photos will have the opposite impact, losing the credibility of the main story.”

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • EFF ☛ EFF to Supreme Court: Reverse Dangerous Prior Restraint Ruling Upholding FBI Gag on X’s Surveillance Transparency Report

    The government has been fighting X, formerly known as Twitter, for nearly a decade to stop it from publishing a 2013 transparency report that would give its users a more complete picture of how many times the government—armed with orders from a secret court and the FBI—demanded customer information for national security surveillance.Transparency reports have been a bedrock for shining a light on the secretive world of FBI national security letters and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) orders compelling platforms to turn over their users’ private information. The reports disclose aggregate numbers of data requests—not the underlying targets of government requests or other such details—often by country and type of request, allowing users and researchers to see trends in surveillance activity.Blocking such data prior to publication—a "prior restraint” in legal terms—has long been subject to the most demanding First Amendment protections to ensure that the government is not allowed to be an unreviewable censor stifling individuals’ right to free speech.

     

  • [Repeat] Press Gazette ☛ Private Eye cartoonist quits after silence from mag colleagues over Twitter threat

    Rockman told Press Gazette that, in the wake of the 2015 Al Qaeda attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, publishers “should care” about death threats directed toward their cartoonists.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Zambia: Why is organizing a protest so difficult?

    In Zambia, the right to assemble is guaranteed under the consitution but the reality is often different. Police are accused of infringing civil rights by withholding permits. But what needs to be done to change this?

  • Gizmodo ☛ HBO Exec Allegedly Ordered Staff to Harass Critics Over The Nevers and Other Shows

    A new lawsuit alleges that HBO’s Casey Bloys told staffers to tweet snarky comments at critics who were mean to his shows online. According to a report in Rolling Stone, starting in 2020, HBO’s then-president of original programming allegedly instructed staffers to create false Twitter (now X) accounts for this purpose.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ HBO Bosses Used ‘Secret’ Fake Accounts to Troll TV Critics

    Martinez says Temori created a fake Twitter account to comply with his bosses’ requests, and “like many young employees starting out on their career, it was very important to Sully to not only perform at a high level, but to seek opportunities where he could showcase his acumen and build credibility for the possibility of creating long-term success at HBO and esteem from his higher-ups.”

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • ABC ☛ Bulgaria expels Russian journalist as an alleged threat to national security

    Bulgaria has expelled a Russian journalist for allegedly engaging in activities that pose a threat to the country's national security, authorities said Wednesday.

    The State Agency for National Security said Alexander Gatsak, a correspondent for Russian state-run newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, was stripped of his residency rights and barred from entering Bulgaria and other European Union member nation.

  • Vice Media Group ☛ Years of Incarcerated Journalist's Reporting Deleted by Notorious Prison Telecom 'Inadvertently'

    Securus Technologies, a prison telecommunications company previously reported on for its predatory business practices, deleted incarcerated users’ draft emails in a system reboot on Monday. One incarcerated journalist says they use the draft box to do critical reporting and lost years of work as a result of the wipe, and that the company silenced important reporting. The company says it was an accident.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Social Security is class war, not intergenerational conflict

    But as Kuttner points out, there's another, more important point to be made about inequality in America – the most significant wealth gap in America is between workers and owners, not young people and old people. The "average" Boomer's net worth factors in the wealth of Warren Buffett and Donald Trump. Older renters are more rent-burdened and precarious than younger renters, and most older Americans have little to no retirement savings: [...]

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ I Was Illegally Fired by Amazon for Speaking Out About a Coworker’s Death

    The ruling provides a small step toward justice for Malinowska, albeit only after a two-year delay, and a period in which many aspects of Amazon workers’ rights have worsened. In an interview, Malinowska spoke to Jacobin’s Caspar Shaller about Amazon’s inhumane treatment of staff, its violation of basic union rights, and workers’ efforts to stand up against corporate tyranny.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ APNIC celebrates 30 years: IPv6 — the long road to ‘more than enough addresses’

    From roots in the early 1990s, competing protocol proposals to replace IPv4 converged on a design in 1994 and this was confirmed in 1995. So, within the first two years of ‘the APNIC experiment’, there was a definition of IPv6 as a protocol. But that was just the start of the work required by the community to realize the future of addressing.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Icann wants new internet domains for South Africa

    “Icann used to have 22 domain names in total. That was 10 years ago. After the first gTLD project to accept new domains, we ended up with the current 1 300 domains,” Dandjinou said.

• Monopolies

  • Software Patents

    • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Nokia sues Amazon

      The suits were filed in the US, Germany, India, the UK and the European unified patent court, Arvin Patel, Nokia’s chief licensing officer said in a statement on the company’s website. Separately, a suit was also filed against HP in the US over video-related technologies, he said.

  • Copyrights

    • Press Gazette ☛ Why The Economist has put its podcasts behind a paywall

      But ultimately The Economist is extending the principle of not giving its journalism away for free into the audio space for the first time.

      One of the biggest barriers to paywalled podcasts is the fact that the majority of listeners come through Apple and Spotify.

    • [Old] The Scotsman ☛ Orwell out of copyright: a cornucopia of new editions

      Eric Blair, who was also George Orwell, died in 1950 at the age of 46. This means that, as of 1 January, the vast majority of his work is newly out of copyright, and publishers are free to reprint what was published before his death without having to pay royalties to his estate. It’s not quite a free-for-all because as DJ Taylor, perhaps the best of his biographers, pointed out in a recent article in The Critic, there have been editions of some books with new material published since 1950 which are still protected by copyright. These include editions of his letters.

    • India Times ☛ AI chatbots are scraping news reporting and copyrighted content: report

      The News Media Alliance, which represents nearly 2,000 outlets in the US, published a research that found developers of generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such as OpenAI and Google, "have copied and used news, magazine, and digital media content to train" their bots, CNN reported.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ ACE & Georgian Govt. Shut Down Pirate Sites Already "Shut Down" Last Year

      It's clear that the Eastern European country of Georgia must dramatically reduce its 90%+ piracy rates to have any chance of joining the EU. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has just announced that in partnership with local government, two of the largest pirate sites in Georgia were recently "shut down." Interestingly, those same sites were also said to have "shut down" in 2022 when ACE member Cavea+ launched a streaming service in Georgia.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Filmmakers Drop Piracy Lawsuit Against Texas Internet Provider

      Several filmmakers behind a piracy liability lawsuit targeting Texas-based internet provider, Grande Communications, have dismissed their complaint. The case was scheduled to go to trial next year with potentially millions of dollars in damages on the line. The parties haven't signed a settlement agreement and both will cover their own costs.

    • Torrent Freak ☛ K-Content Pirates Face New 'Copyright Crime' Investigation & Analysis Units

      The government of South Korea says it will ramp up efforts to prevent online piracy of valuable local 'K-Content' including movies, TV shows, and increasingly popular short-form comics, known locally as 'webtoons'. With the launch of the "Copyright Crime Scientific Investigation Team" and the "Copyright Crime Analysis Center" it's hoped that the increasingly internationalized and sophisticated nature of online infringement can be tackled more effectively.

Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • hello_world

    It encourages and fascinates me to see small (relatively at least) corners of the web like this surviving, and still keeping the familiar atmosphere of the "old web". If this kind of niche thing can survive... maybe I can too.

  • Always Be ... Complicating?

    In sales you should always be closing. Or at least thats what Alec Baldwin once said. In software development I guess you could be closing story tickets. But lately I've come to realize that the apparent goal of the business side is to mess with us.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Connecting a LAN to internet through a gateway

    I have a mobile phone, a laptop, a network hub and a desktop computer. I configure the mobile phone as a hot spot and connect the laptop to the hot spot with wifi, the laptop is connected to internet with the mobile phone. With a network cable the laptop is connected to the hub and the desktop computer is also connected to the hub. The laptop has 2 network interfaces and is connected to both internet and the desktop computer.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Intellectual self-defence and intentionality with media

      When I was around 17 years old I came across the term 'intellectual self-defence' in some of the earliest readings that politicised me and helped encourage me to cultivate a critical disposition towards the social structures and information structures around me (n.b. for context, when I was 17 this was a few years before any of the big social media networks were a thing - let's say around a decade or so into the existence of HTTP).

    • Tired tired tired

      I'm more tired than tired this term. These long commutes are definitely wrecking me as well as the stress of a million little things that I have to do that no one really explained.

  • Programming

    • From packer to lazy.nvim

      This time I swapped out the plugin manager from packer to lazy.nvim. I'm certainly wary of spending too much time on productivity fine-tuning, but since this took a few hours in total and it's been well over a year since the last refactor, I'm okay with it.