Programming/Development

• Rlang ☛ Decoding the Mystery: How to Interpret Regression Output in R Like a Champ

  Ever run an R regression and stared at the output, feeling like you’re deciphering an ancient scroll? Fear not, fellow data enthusiasts! Today, we’ll crack the code and turn those statistics into meaningful insights.

• Rlang ☛ A Beautiful Mind: Writing Testable R Code

  The Art of Testable CodeIn the intricate world of programming, particularly in the field of data science, the ability to write testable code stands as a hallmark of a skilled developer. e

• Rlang ☛ Unlocking the Power of Functional Programming in R (Part 4): Enhancing Reproducibility and Operational Value in Pharma

  Welcome to the final part of our “Unlocking the Power of Functional Programming in R” series. In this article, we’ll explore how functional programming enhances reproducibility and testing in data analysis, particularly in industries like pharmaceutical research.

• Linuxiac ☛ Python Dominates: Microsoft's proprietary prison GitHub ’s Top Programming Languages of 2023 [Ed: Terrible. Judging industry trends by limiting oneself only to projects controlled by Microsoft.]

  According to Microsoft [GitHut] data, Python is the most popular language on Microsoft's proprietary prison GitHub for 2023, highlighting its global [sic] impact on coding.

• TecAdmin ☛ Git set filemode to false

  Setting filemode to false in Git is a configuration change that tells Git to ignore file mode (permissions) changes. On many systems, especially those using NTFS or FAT file systems (like Windows), file permissions are not as finely grained as on UNIX or GNU/Linux systems.

Science

• Science Alert ☛ Man Uses Strange Rock as Doorstop For Decades. It Was Worth a Fortune.

  "I could tell right away this was something special."

• Science Alert ☛ Llamas Hide a Powerful Weapon That Can Fight Deadly Virus Strains

  We can use this.

• The Straits Times ☛ China launches experimental spacecraft into orbit for third time since 2020

  December 15, 2023 1:59 PM
  
  

  The spacecraft will operate in orbit for “a period of time” before returning to a designated landing site in China.

• The Straits Times ☛ Xi says Chinese modernisation will benefit US firms

  US companies have long complained about what they see as an unjust business environment in China.

• Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China’s leader Pooh-tin Jinping says country’s modernisation benefits US firms

  China’s leader Pooh-tin Jinping said Chinese modernisation will benefit US firms, state media reported Friday, in a letter sent to mark the 50th anniversary of a committee on China-US trade. The letter was read out at a gala dinner in Washington during which US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen accused Beijing of “unfair economic practices”.

Education

• Pro Publica ☛ Idaho Hasn’t Assessed School Buildings for 30 Years. Students and Educators Helped Us Do It Ourselves.

  It’s no secret that Idaho’s school buildings have problems. The state’s superintendents, maintenance directors, teachers and students see the leaks, pack into crowded hallways and feel the extreme cold and heat throughout the year. But state officials don’t know the extent of the issues because the last full review of school buildings was completed in 1993.

  The Idaho Statesman and ProPublica joined forces to explore the deteriorating conditions and the consequences for students and teachers. To identify patterns, we worked with communities to bring together data, documentation and visual evidence from across the state. We spoke to as many people as we could, and visited dozens of schools, to see what conditions were like on the ground.

• New York Times ☛ Florida Law Chills Chinese Student Recruitment

  A measure identifying seven “countries of concern” has frustrated University of Florida professors, who are unsure whether they can offer research positions to students from China and other nations.

• Pro Publica ☛ Idaho Lawmakers Are Discussing a Proposal That Would Make It Easier to Repair Schools

  Idaho lawmakers are discussing a proposal that would make it easier for school districts across the state to repair and replace their aging buildings.

  Idaho is one of two states that require two-thirds of voters to approve a bond, which is one of the few ways a district can secure funding to build new school facilities. The Idaho Statesman and ProPublica have reported this year how this threshold has stymied districts from fixing or replacing antiquated boilers, leaking roofs, failing plumbing, overcrowding and inadequate building security.

• Pro Publica ☛ Students, Educators Show Us What It’s Like When Idaho Fails to Fund School Repairs

  No other state spends less on school infrastructure per student than Idaho. As a result, many students, especially those in rural districts, deal with leaking ceilings, freezing classrooms and discolored drinking water. Some students have to miss school when the power or heat goes out.

Hardware

• Hackaday ☛ Hacker Tactic: Internal ESD Diode Probing

  Humans are walking high voltage generators, due to all the friction with our surroundings, wide variety of synthetic clothes, and the overall everpresent static charges. Our electronics are sensitive to ESD, and often they’re sensitive in a way most infuriating – causing spurious errors and lockups. Is there a wacky error in your design that will repeat in the next batch, or did you just accidentally zap a GPIO? You wouldn’t known until you meticulously check the design, or maybe it’s possible for you to grab another board.

• Hackaday ☛ Disposable Vape Batteries Turned USB Power Bank

  It’s another one of those fun quirks about our increasingly cyberpunk world — instead of cigarette butts littering our streets, you’re more likely to find disposable vaporizers that have run out of juice. Unfortunately, while the relatively harmless paper remnants of a cig would eventually just fall apart when exposed to the elements, these futuristic caltrops are not only potentially explosive thanks to their internal lithium-ion battery but aren’t going anywhere without some human intervention.

• Hackaday ☛ Quick Negative Voltage For An Op Amp

  It is a classic problem when designing with op amps: you need the output to go to zero, but — for most op amps — you can’t quite get down to the supply rail. If your power options are a positive voltage and ground, you can’t get down to zero without a special kind of op amp which might not meet your needs. The best thing to do is provide a negative supply to the chip. Don’t have one? [Peter Demchenko] can help. He uses a simple two-transistor multivibrator along with some diodes and capacitors to generate a minimal negative voltage for this purpose.

• Federal News Network ☛ The VCR, the iPod and now E3A: Technologies that are now antiquated

  In an email to agencies earlier this fall, CISA says email filtering and DNS sinkholing capabilities are no longer as valuable as they once were and are going away in December.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Science Alert ☛ New Breakthrough Points to a Future Treatment For Morning Sickness

  There's hope on the horizon.

• Off Guardian ☛ Why is the Government Paying Farmers to Stop Farming?

  On November 29th, the British Parliament’s cross-party Environmental Audit Committee published a new report on “Environmental change and food security”.

• New York Times ☛ Mandy Cohen, New CDC Director, Tries to Foster Trust in a Battered Agency

  Five months into her tenure at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Mandy K. Cohen is trying to put a human face on public health.

• The Straits Times ☛ Radioactivity detected in Fukushima worker’s nose

  The employee was not experiencing any adverse health effects.

• teleSUR ☛ Africa CDC Delivers Cold Chain Equipment to Botswana

  Disease outbreaks have revealed the need for essential health commodities, such as fixed medical equipment, supplies and medicines, to effectively mitigate the effects of outbreaks.

• Mexico News Daily ☛ Neuroscience unveils the effect of psychedelics on the brain

  Learn how researchers are discovering how psychedelics can potentially reset the ego and rewire the brain for better mental health.

• The Straits Times ☛ South Korea’s top court rules that deliberate noise constitutes stalking

  This was the first time the court made such a ruling.

• YLE ☛ Study: Nearly half of workers face boredom

  A joint Finnish-French study indicates that almost half of employees face boredom at work that may be accompanied by burnout and chronic exhaustion.

• University of Michigan ☛ U-M startup blends art, stories to help health care workers

  ArtSpective, a new U-M startup that provides implicit bias training for health care workers, uses fine-art photographs and guided storytelling to improve patient-provider interactions.

• YLE ☛ Police warn parents over WhatsApp groups distributing explicit, violent content

  The shared media includes pornographic, violent and even child sexual abuse material, according to authorities.

• The Straits Times ☛ South Korean army to end exemption for severely obese men

  The ministry is adjusting the body mass index (BMI) thresholds for conscripts.

• Pro Publica ☛ Doctors With Histories of Big Malpractice Settlements Have Found a New Home in the Insurance Industry

  When Shawn Murphy’s wife died in 2009 after a botched gallbladder surgery, he presumed the doctor who performed the operation would be forced out of medicine for good.

  Dr. Pachavit Kasemsap, a former Air Force surgeon, had cut Loretta Murphy’s aorta during that common procedure, according to a database of malpractice payments kept by Florida insurance regulators. She never left the hospital and died just shy of her 40th birthday. Shawn Murphy was left to raise their two daughters, then 13 and 17, on his own.

Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Silicon Angle ☛ GM’s Cruise autonomous vehicle unit lets go 900 employees, plus nine execs

  General Motors Co.’s Cruise autonomous driving unit is laying off 900 employees, or nearly a quarter of its workforce, amid a major overhaul of its commercialization efforts. The job cuts were first reported by TechCrunch this morning. A Cruise spokesperson later confirmed the move, sending parent company GM’s stock up more than 6% in trading.

• CS Monitor ☛ Can Hey Hi (AI) outsmart Europe’s bid to regulate it?

  European efforts to regulate artificial intelligence show how hard it is to harness such a fast-moving phenomenon at the heart of global society.

Security

• Privacy/Surveillance

  • Slate ☛ The Internet Enabled Mass Surveillance. A.I. Will Enable Mass Spying.

    Before the internet, putting someone under surveillance was expensive and time-consuming. You had to manually follow someone around, noting where they went, whom they talked to, what they purchased, what they did, and what they read. That world is forever gone. Our phones track our locations. Credit cards track our purchases. Apps track whom we talk to, and e-readers know what we read. Computers collect data about what we’re doing on them, and as both storage and processing have become cheaper, that data is increasingly saved and used. What was manual and individual has become bulk and mass. Surveillance has become the business model of the internet, and there’s no reasonable way for us to opt out of it.

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ Surveillance Cameras Disguised as Clothes Hooks

    This seems like a bad idea. And there are ongoing lawsuits against Amazon for selling them.

  • New York Times ☛ Prince Harry’s Phone Was Hacked by U.K. Tabloid, Judge Rules in Landmark Case

    The civil suit has been part of a long-running effort by the royal to hit back against the British news media over its coverage of him and his family.

  • JURIST ☛ European Court of Human Rights finds Poland failure to recognize same-sex couples violates right to privacy

    The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Tuesday that Poland’s failure to recognize same-sex couples violates its obligations to human rights. Przybyszewska and Others v. Poland involved several same-sex couples who had all attempted to obtain formal recognition of their relationships from the civil registry office and were denied by Polish authorities. T

  • JURIST ☛ European Court of Human Rights finds Poland court violated woman’s privacy rights

    The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Thursday in a 5-2 vote that a Polish court violated a woman’s right to private and family life by forcing her to travel abroad to receive an abortion due to a fetal anomaly.

Defence/Aggression

• The Straits Times ☛ North Korea may test ICBM soon, South official says ahead of nuclear talks in DC

  N. Korea has developed and tested ballistic missiles that can reach South Korea, Japan, US.

• RFA ☛ N Korea likely to launch ballistic missile, test allies’ new alert system

  Pyongyang calls new system a ‘dangerous escalation’ with sinister intent.

• New York Times ☛ U.S. Military Returns to the Jungle, Training for Future Threats

  Far from the deserts of the Middle East, the Army is instructing troops in Hawaii on the skills needed for a potential clash with China.

• The Straits Times ☛ China pressures Taiwan with trade accusations and warplanes a month before election

  China's Taiwan Affairs Office said evidence from probe is clear, its conclusions objective and fair.

• France24 ☛ Tibet is ‘dying a slow death’, warns head of Tibetan government-in-exile

  In an interview with FRANCE 24, the president of the Tibetan government-in-exile warned that Tibet is "dying a slow death". Penpa Tsering said that Chinese government policies are aimed at the "eradication" of Tibetan identity. Among them, Tsering cited the policy of forcible schooling of some 1 million Tibetan children in what he described as "colonial-style boarding schools" in which the youngsters are separated from their families, taught only in Chinese and forced to pledge allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party.

• The Straits Times ☛ Rebel fire and Chinese ire: Inside Myanmar’s anti-junta offensive

  Resistance officials disclosed details of the formation of a unified battlefield brigade and China's impatience towards the junta.

• RFA ☛ Philippine provinces linked to US military welcome Chinese investment

  The territories within striking distance of Taiwan have drawn attention of, support from the superpowers.

• YLE ☛ Finland unveils details of defence cooperation agreement with US

  The deal means that Finland will make 15 of its military areas available for use by the US military, enabling it to store weapons and supplies on Finnish soil.

• YLE ☛ Friday's papers: Border closure reactions, indigenous rights, setting a bad example

  Many of Finland's morning papers review the government's decision to again close the eastern border.

• New York Times ☛ Israel-Hamas War: Biden Adviser Plays Down Differences With Israel Over War Effort

  National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, in Tel Aviv, sought to demonstrate that the U.S. and Israel are on the same page in the war against Hamas in Gaza.

• New York Times ☛ Private Gun Ownership in Israel Spikes After Hamas Attacks

  In a country already bristling with armed soldiers and reservists, a new sense of insecurity is pushing civilians to seek more personal weapons.

• The Straits Times ☛ US pushes Israel 'shift' in Gaza attacks, but details scarce

  U.S. President Joe Biden and top national security adviser Jake Sullivan have discussed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scaling back Israel's high-intensity operations in Gaza, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.

• The Straits Times ☛ Pacts signed by Vietnam, China during Xi's Hanoi trip

  Vietnam and China signed a 16-page joint declaration and 36 co-operation documents in areas such as infrastructure, trade and security, during a visit to Hanoi by Chinese President Pooh-tin Jinping.

• Federal News Network ☛ Big pay raise for troops in defense bill sent to Biden. Conservatives stymied on cultural issues

  The House has passed a defense policy bill that authorizes the biggest pay raise for troops in more than two decades. Supporters overcame objections from some conservatives concerned it didn’t do enough on cultural issues, such as restricting the Pentagon’s diversity initiatives and gender-affirming health care for transgender service members. The Senate had already overwhelmingly passed the bill on Wednesday, so now it goes to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law. One of the most divisive aspects of the bill is a short-term extension of a surveillance program aimed at preventing terrorism and catching spies. Opponents of the extension wanted changes designed to boost privacy protections for Americans.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• CS Monitor ☛ Driving openness in China

  A small team of auditors sends a big message to Beijing that prosperity among nations rests on universal values like transparency and rule of law.

• Techdirt ☛ Error 402: Information Sorta Wants To Be Expensive; Information Almost Wants To Be Free

  We took a few weeks off in our Error 402 series on the history of web monetization, but we’re back. If you’re just catching up, we’ve talked about the earliest monetary transactions online, the rise of e-commerce, the initial failed attempts at paywalls for content, and the rise of internet ads followed quickly by the dominance of search ads.

Environment

• The Straits Times ☛ Cold wave freezes most of China, shutting highways, roads

  Temperatures will drop to as low as minus 40 deg C in parts of the country.

• Energy/Transportation

  • Breach Media ☛ Loopholes and lobbyists—what went down at the UN climate summit

    Eriel Deranger of Indigenous Climate Action with a dispatch from COP 28 in Dubai

  • BIA Net ☛ Mine collapse in Denizli

    Mining engineer Kadir Özer and miner Mustafa Karahan have lost their lives as a result of the mine collapse in the chrome mine.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong to set up taxi driver penalty system to punish over-charging, refusing hire

    Hong Kong will set up a penalty points system for taxi drivers next year designed at targeting drivers who overcharge or refuse to take passengers, among other offences, the government has said. The Legislative Council (LegCo), the city’s legislature, on Thursday passed the Taxi-Driver-Offence Points Bill.

• Wildlife/Nature

  • Science Alert ☛ Surprise Discovery Shows These Sharks Don't Need to Keep Moving

    It's not what we thought.

Finance

• Computer World ☛ Why do companies do holiday layoffs?

  Exactly. Everyone has been frightened for the past two years by the prospect of a recession. In case you haven't noticed, it never arrived. True, tech companies might well have over-hired after the COVID-19 pandemic receded, but that doesn't explain why Amazon, Cisco, Meta, Microsoft, Google, IBM, Red Hat, SAP, and Salesforce, to name a few, laid off so many tech workers in 2023.

• PC Mag ☛ Game Over: The Tech That Died in 2023

  Nothing lasts forever, especially in Silicon Valley. Products, services, and CEOs fizzle out regularly, many without any fanfare. Other endings catch us by surprise (10 years later, the demise of Google Reader still stings). Time marches on and corporate priorities shift. Here are the products and services that took a final bow in 2023, starting with the most headline-grabbing shutdowns and then a month-by-month breakdown.

• RFA ☛ New state-run uniform factories threaten small businesses

  Since the 1990s, small clothing makers in North Korea had filled a gap in school uniform output.

• Federal News Network ☛ So you want to be a TSP millionaire? Here’s how!

  Even in today's inflationary times, the word millionaire has a certain cachet. With a little self discipline and the power of compound interest, millionaire status is available to federal employees who make wise use of the Thrift Savings Plan.

• Latvia ☛ Latvian central bank revises economic forecasts

  The Latvian central bank (Bank of Latvia) released the latest macroeconomic forecasts on December 15, predicting a low inflation rate of 2% in 2024, but gross domestic product (GDP) growth will remain weak – 2%.

• Silicon Angle ☛ 2023 sees surge in mobile banking heists targeting global financial apps

  A new report from mobile security platform provider Zimperium Inc. finds that mobile banking heists continued to increase in 2023, with researchers uncovering 29 malware families that targeted 1,800 banking applications across 61 countries throughout the year.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Atlantic Council ☛ China is fixed on discrediting the US on Gaza War. But this policy lacks credibility and will likely fail.

  It should be clearly understood that, as long as Israel continues to kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza, China will use the eroding effect this has on the US’s credibility

• NYPost ☛ New York Assembly Republicans on ‘Friendship Delegation’ visit to China

  “The Assembly delegation was scheduled to meet with foreign ministers, dignitaries, economic development and education officials,” a spokesman told The Post.

• Silicon Angle ☛ X rival Threads launches in EU after overcoming regulatory challenges

  After already launching in more than 100 countries, including the U.S. and U.K., Meta Platforms Inc.-owned Threads has just become available to the 448 million citizens of the European Union, potentially adding to the woes of its struggling competitor, X Corp.

• Reason ☛ Civil Rights Groups Urge Federal Appeals Court To Strike Down Mississippi's Jim Crow–Era Felon Voting Ban

  A broad coalition of civil rights groups and think tanks, including Reason Foundation, say that Mississippi's "mandatory, permanent, and effectively irrevocable" voting ban for certain offenders violates the Constitution.

• CS Monitor ☛ Why Cornel West runs in 2024: Alternative to ‘fascism’ and ‘neoliberalism’

  Presidential candidate and public intellectual Cornel West sits down with reporters at a Monitor Breakfast to talk about his candidacy and the future of America.

• New Yorker ☛ How a Student Group Is Politicizing a Generation on Palestine

  Activists with Students for Justice in Palestine have mobilized major campus demonstrations in support of Gaza—and provided an intellectual framework for protesters watching what’s happening in the Middle East.

• Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

  • The Strategist ☛ Shadow Play: a pro-China and anti-US influence operation thrives on YouTube

    ASPI has recently observed a coordinated inauthentic influence campaign originating on YouTube that’s promoting pro-China and anti-US narratives in an apparent effort to shift English-speaking audiences’ views of those countries’ roles in international politics [...]

  • RFA ☛ Has South Korea given up claims over disputed islets?

    Verdict: False

  • Vice Media Group ☛ Conspiracy Theorists Think A24's 'Civil War' Is Actually 'Programming' Americans For Civil War

    Two new films, the Obama-produced 'Leave the World Behind' on DRM spreader Netflix and Alex Garland's 'Civil War,' have been wrapped up in the right's latest conspiracy.

  • David Revoy ☛ Don't roll out the red carpet for them.

    The recent excitement surrounding Thread's arrival on the Fediverse is concerning. To understand why this is not a good idea, consider their economic interest in harvesting data, their poor moderation, and their manipulations. Nothing good can come from their federation. Don't roll out the red carpet for them.

Censorship/Free Speech

• The Straits Times ☛ US, Britain hit out at Hong Kong bounty offers for 5 wanted activists

  China says the US and Britain are “exposing their malicious intentions in messing up Hong Kong”.

• The Straits Times ☛ China crackdown on Hong Kong under spotlight as media tycoon Jimmy Lai goes on trial

  December 15, 2023 11:12 AM
  
  

  Foreign envoys, business people and legal scholars will be watching the trial closely.

• The Straits Times ☛ China’s Weibo asks bloggers to avoid bad-mouthing the economy

  This comes as country’s top leaders seek to restore confidence, pledging to strengthen fiscal growth.

• RFA ☛ Civil servants forced to watch propaganda films about 2019 protests

  Hong Kong's once-neutral civil servants must absorb Beijing's official line on recent events in their city.

• TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Volokh, Creeley: The trouble with Congress or college presidents policing free speech on campuses

  Categorical exceptions to the 1st Amendment are few, narrow and defined by precedent.

• Techdirt ☛ Media Matters Sues Texas AG Ken Paxton To Stop His Bogus, Censorial ‘Investigation’

  We just wrote up a story about Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and his bullshit censorial investigation into Media Matters, and I think we just got a preview of what he should expect. Back in November, Texas’ (still criminally indicted, still waiting for trial) Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a similar investigation to buddy up with Elon Musk. There weren’t as many details about his investigation (because there’s literally nothing to investigate — they’re just trying to suck up to Elon Musk who is mad about Media Matters’ speech).

• New York Times ☛ The Fall of Penn’s President Magill Brings Campus Free Speech to a Crossroads

  Before the Israel-Hamas war, universities were already engulfed in debates over what kinds of speech are acceptable.

• RFA ☛ Xinjiang is ‘one of the most heavily policed regions in the world’: study

  Report identifies different types of police used by China to clamp down on Uyghurs.

• Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong nat. security police decline to confirm activist Agnes Chow’s ‘patriotic’ China trip in exchange for passport

  Hong Kong’s national security police have declined to comment on whether arrested activist Agnes Chow was escorted to mainland China for a “patriotic” trip in exchange for her passport so that she could study abroad. /blockquote>

• Hong Kong Free Press ☛ US, UK condemn Hong Kong’s national security arrest warrants; security chief hits back at ‘double standards’

  Foreign governments have decried the arrest warrants and bounties issued for five overseas activists over alleged breaches of the national security law who are now based on the UK and US.

• Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong gov’t amends national security law, allowing suspects’ assets to be frozen until legal proceedings end

  The Hong Kong government has amended the Beijing-imposed national security law to allow authorities to freeze assets of suspects and defendants until all legal proceedings against them have concluded.

• Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong court to enhance security, deploy sniffer dogs for media mogul Jimmy Lai’s national security trial

  A Hong Kong court will enhance security and implement special seating arrangements for pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai’s high-profile national security case, set to begin on Monday. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Secretary for Security Chris Tang said police officers would step up patrols and deploy bomb-detection sniffer dogs in and around the court.

• The Straits Times ☛ Hong Kong's legal clampdown on China critic Jimmy Lai

  A landmark Hong Kong national security trial against the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Fashion Company Apple Daily and its founder, Jimmy Lai, begins this month.

• France24 ☛ US and UK condemn Hong Kong for putting bounties on overseas activists

  Hong Kong police offered bounties on Thursday for information leading to the capture of five overseas activists accused of national security crimes, drawing prompt rebukes from the United States and Britain.

• Reason ☛ Attempt to Vanish My Article About Attempt to Vanish My Article About Attempt to Vanish Other Articles

  I wrote about Hyman v. Daoud, a case that sought the takedown of various online items—including mainstream media articles—in November 2020. I then wrote in 2021 about an attempt to get Surveillance Giant Google to deindex my article (among others), aimed at causing it to disappear from search results.

• Marcy Wheeler ☛ Google Kills the Geofence Capability that Will Show ~30,000 Trump Supporters Swarmed the Capitol on Trump’s Orders

  The day after prosecutors announced they'll use a geofence warrant to show how many MAGAts followed Trump's order to march to the Capitol, Surveillance Giant Google announced it's changing how it stores Location data.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• Project Censored ☛ Navigating the News Void: Opportunities for Revitalization

  In 1995, early in the development of the global internet, sociologist Michael Schudson imagined how people might process information if journalism were to suddenly disappear. An expert on  the history of US news media, Schudson speculated in his book, The Power of News, that peoples’ need to identify the day’s most important and relevant news from the continuous torrent of available information would eventually lead to the reinvention of journalism

Civil Rights/Policing

• The Straits Times ☛ Leading Hong Kong democrat's son says trial outcome pre-determined

  The son of leading China critic and Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai said on Friday he thought the outcome of his father's trial next week had already been decided but he was proud of him for standing up for his beliefs.

• RFA ☛ China to limit access to court judgment searches to internal use

  Lawyers say the move will make it harder for them to research cases and challenge judges' decisions.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Techdirt ☛ Republicans Are Mad The FCC Rejected Elon Musk’s Attempt To Get A Billion Dollars In Subsidies To Deliver Pricey Satellite Broadband To Some Traffic Medians

  You might recall that Elon Musk claims to hate taxpayer subsidies. They should all be “deleted.” Except for the subsidies given to his companies (often for doing nothing), of course.

• Vice Media Group ☛ The Old Internet Is Dying, and Something Worse Is Being Born

  As the web declines, we pause to talk about the death of criticism and what happens when someone rips off your work.

• Techdirt ☛ The Day Ted Cruz Stopped A Bad Internet Bill

  Well, this was a bit of a surprise. Over the past couple of weeks I wrote about how Senator Josh Hawley was planning to try to hotline his terrible No Section 230 Immunity for AI Act. As we have explained multiple times, the bill is so poorly drafted that it would make a mess of the entire internet. After rumors of two attempted hotlines (effectively trying to sneak the bill through if no Senator objects) planned for last week, and then a rumor of a Tuesday night attempt, Hawley finally took to the floor Wednesday morning to make the push. If C-SPAN’s clunky embed feature works, you can watch it here:

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• New York Times ☛ Studios Are Loosening Their Reluctance to Send Old Shows Back to Netflix

  When building their own streaming companies, many entertainment studios ended lucrative licensing deals with Netflix. But they missed the money too much.