Links 19/03/2024: Synthetic Objects Being Labeled as Fakes, Water Scarcity Spreads
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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James G ☛ Seven Days of New Things Day 1: Editing Wikipedia, Sardines
Rather than give in to my anxiety, I'm setting myself a challenge: for the next seven days, starting today, I will consciously decide and do one new thing. This could be something as small as watching a movie (I love Frasier, but I have seen it at least 10 times now; something new would be a boon), or something bigger, like going to a zoo (which I haven't done in years, but would like to do).
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Dan Slimmon ☛ Dead air on the incident call
When troubleshooting a high-impact software failure in a group, you have to be ready for shifts in tenor. One moment there’s a frenzy of coordination, and the next: absolute silence.
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Brandon ☛ Difficulty Deleting an Old Blog
For the past month, I've gone back and forth with what to do with the site. I need to streamline my blogging and focus on what is important to me today. And I've actually written four different versions of this blog over the past month as I struggled with just moving on from Brandon's Horror. The biggest question I kept asking myself is, "Why is this so hard? I've ended so many blogs over the years. Why is this one causing me anxiety?"
After meditating on it some, I've come to three conclusions.
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Ruben Schade ☛ The best blog posts are genuine
These are good, and certainly entertaining. But the best are ones written with interest, passion, and enthusiasm. I’ll take something that’s rambling, hastily written, and genuine, over something shallow but smart.
This is what differentiates blogs from newspapers, journals, and academic writing. This is supposed to be a space where anyone and everyone can express themselves. I’d hate for someone to be put off sharing something because they don’t meet a hypothetical bar of wit.
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Juha-Matti Santala ☛ Syntax Error #13: Playgrounds
Online playgrounds are websites where you can run code in an online environment and share that code with others. They are not fully fledged development environments but often built to enable testing and sharing small bits of code.
Let's take a look at a few examples to kick this off.
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Lee Peterson ☛ Using a notebook is slowly becoming a habit
Over the last month I’ve tried to get back into using a notebook and stop using digital tools. I wrote about not remembering things if I didn’t have it as a phone notification but I’m finding I’m managing ok. I can usually manage if I forget or somehow I just remember.
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Austin Kleon ☛ The meek inherit the earth - Austin Kleon
Meekness, then, might be reimagined as something to do with an attitude to others that is not self-abasing but simply alert to the reality of others, as Jesus declares that he is in those verses from Matthew 11. His humility is a capacity to be a place where others find rest. The humble person is the one who is not anxiously defended, not restless or tense over their status and safety, the person who is not anxious to hold, to keep control, but who simply occupies the place they occupy. And if that is what we are talking about here, a quality of stillness and alertness, it is possible to see how – as in some of the narrative about Jesus – anger can arise as a simple moment of passionate protest against pain, evil or deceit.
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Elliot C Smith ☛ Products Should Solve Real Problems
There's an idea that gets thrown around a lot which is to build products (or businesses) to solve problems you have first hand experience with. Solve a problem for yourself. If your career is in tech, especially the 'building tech for tech people' subcategory, it can be very hard to ever face these 'real problems'. Or, you end up building more developer tools (a very reasonable thing to do).
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] Germany promises to cut down paper bureaucracy
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Carl Svensson ☛ Swedish Puns
In a strange turn of events, regular datagubbe programming will resume after this short break of Swedish nonsense.
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Ruben Schade ☛ The Women of Newnham and Bletchley Park
This exhibit by The University of Cambridge’s Newnham College made it across my Mastodon timeline this morning.
More than 70 students and alumnae were secretly recruited for World War Two codebreaking work at Bletchley Park, thanks partly to the personal connections of three Newnham women: Alda Milner-Barry, former Principal Pernel Strachey and Ray Strachey.
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Science
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Computers Are Bad ☛ 2024-03-17 wilhelm haller and photocopier accounting
In the 1450s, German inventor Johannes Gutenburg designed the movable-type printing press, the first practical method of mass-duplicating text. After various other projects, he applied his press to the production of the Bible, yielding over one hundred copies of a text that previously had to be laboriously hand-copied.
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Science Alert ☛ Study Reveals How Ancient Humans Escaped Climate Extinction 900,000 Years Ago
The brink of annihilation.
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Pro Publica ☛ Expert in Foster Care Cases Admits Her Method Is Unscientific
Diane Baird had spent four decades evaluating the relationships of poor families with their children. But last May, in a downtown Denver conference room, with lawyers surrounding her and a court reporter transcribing, she was the one under the microscope.
Baird, a social worker and professional expert witness, has routinely advocated in juvenile court cases across Colorado that foster children be adopted by or remain in the custody of their foster parents rather than being reunified with their typically lower-income birth parents or other family members.
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Science Alert ☛ Betelgeuse's Wild Surface Seems to Be Baffling Our Telescopes
A cunning disguise.
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404 Media ☛ Scientific Journals Are Publishing Papers With AI-Generated Text
Published scientific papers include language that appears to have been generated by AI-tools like ChatGPT, showing how pervasive the technology has become, and highlighting longstanding issues with some peer-reviewed journals.
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The Revelator ☛ From Glass Ceilings to Green Houses: More Women Are Needed in Green Industry
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Education
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YLE ☛ Researcher: Schools should demand more
A Finnish language expert's year observing ninth graders doesn't paint a good picture.
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] Teacher shortage across Canada has staff 'in survival mode'
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Parents' lawsuits allege Vancouver education program did not deliver promise of private-school admission
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Alex Ewerlöf ☛ T-POP
Over the past few years, I have changed jobs multiple times and faced one or more of those challenges. Reflecting on those experiences I created a mental model to systematically approach self-onboarding to technical positions. This model surprisingly works well after the onboarding as well to decide how to balance spreading energy and time. I call it T-POP!
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Hardware
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Tom's Hardware ☛ U.S. outlines five-year plan to harness CHIPS Act funds — R&D, manufacturing, education, and ecosystem highlighted for balanced funding [Ed: This isn't capitalism, it's handouts and bailouts from taxpayers into the hands of super-rich people]
The National Science and Technology Council has published its five-year strategy to make the most of the CHIPS Act.
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Low Tech Mag ☛ How to Escape From the Iron Age? | LOW←TECH MAGAZINE
The massive presence of steel in industrial society is not so obvious. At home, we find several steel appliances such as the refrigerator, washing machine, water boiler, bathtub, and cooking, heating, and cooling appliances. However, only 2-3% of total steel production ends up in domestic appliances.678 Outdoors, there’s a lot of steel in the form of vehicles. These are especially passenger cars that use around 10% of all steel globally (20% in rich countries). Busses, trucks, trains, and ships add another 4-5%. Altogether that is still less than 20% of the global steel output.
Most steel is embedded in other materials, located underground, or far away from residential areas. More than half of global steel production goes into construction, which includes buildings (residential, commercial, industrial) and infrastructures (bridges, tunnels, harbors, canals, runways, oil rigs, refineries, pipelines, power plants, transmission lines, railways, subways, and so on). Much of that steel is embedded in concrete. Reinforced concrete is the world’s primary building material, and concrete is the only material that can match the output of steel (1,819 Mt in 2021).
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India Times ☛ tsmc japan: TSMC considering advanced chip packaging capacity in Japan
Taiwan's TSMC is looking at building advanced packaging capacity in Japan, according to two sources familiar with the matter, a move that would add momentum to Japan's efforts to reboot its semiconductor industry.
The deliberations are at an early stage, they added, declining to be identified as the information was not public.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Science Alert ☛ Excessive Sitting Raises Risk of Early Death: Now We Know How Much
Sit less. Move more. Live longer.
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] US, Canada to Review Pollution of US Waters by British Columbia Coal Mines
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] Want more family doctors in Ontario? Pay them better, say physicians
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-14 [Older] Polio: All you need to know about the viral disease
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-09 [Older] Which businesses will benefit from cannabis legalization?
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-09 [Older] State of emergency declared in northern Manitoba First Nation due to nurse shortage
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-14 [Older] Germany eyes Filipino nurses to ease labor shortage
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-15 [Older] Phantom limb pain: Why does my amputated leg still hurt?
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-14 [Older] COVID-19: Why we're looking for the pandemic's origin
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Canada concerned as final rule for 'Product of USA' meat labels announced
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] U.S., Canada agree to work together to reduce cross-border pollution from B.C. coal mines
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] Do plastic bans work?
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Quebec runs historic $11B deficit in budget that prioritizes health, education
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] France's Macron announces plans for assisted dying bill
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] Fukushima nuclear cleanup remains plagued by complexities
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-14 [Older] 6 Ontario long-term care providers face class actions over alleged negligence during pandemic
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-14 [Older] Shoppers Drug Mart says it doesn't have medication review targets, but records show it does
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-14 [Older] B.C. proposes law targeting social media firms for alleged harm
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Prions. Why did it have to be prions?
Here’s yet another instance where I feel obligated to say something that I repeat so often that it might irritate some readers: Since COVID-19, with respect to antivaccine quackery, pseudoscience, and misinformation, everything old is new again. I realize that many of you find this to be such an obvious statement that my continual repeating of it might even irritate some of you. However, you have to understand that the vast majority of colleagues out there, having ranged from only knowing a few of the common antivax tropes (e.g., vaccines supposedly causing autism) to being utterly oblivious to antivaccine misinformation, keep acting surprised when they hear antivaxxers blame COVID-19 vaccines for things like prion disease.
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New York Times ☛ Opinion | The Internet Is a Wasteland, So Give Kids Better Places to Go
Because alarm over what social media is doing to kids is broad and bipartisan, the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt is pushing on an open door with his important new book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.” The shift in kids’ energy and attention from the physical world to the virtual one, Haidt shows, has been catastrophic, especially for girls.
Female adolescence was nightmarish enough before smartphones, but apps like Instagram and TikTok have put popularity contests and unrealistic beauty standards into hyperdrive. (Boys, by contrast, have more problems linked to overuse of video games and porn.) The studies Haidt cites — as well as the ones he debunks — should put to bed the notion that concern over kids and phones is just a modern moral panic akin to previous generations’ hand-wringing over radio, comic books and television.
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Gizmodo ☛ Our Brains Are in Trouble: Nearly Half the World Living with Neurological Illness
The findings are the latest to emerge from the Global Burden of Diseases study, a long-running research project that tries to track the prevalence of and harm caused by many health conditions and illnesses. The GBD project as a whole is managed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, and this latest analysis included the collaboration of WHO scientists and many others. The health and mortality data used to create these reports are collected from governments, hospitals, and other sources all over the world, with the latest iteration up through 2021.
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Omicron Limited ☛ Illinois will soon be cicada central when two broods converge on state in historic emergence
Not only are periodical cicadas harmless—they are also vulnerable as prey. Experts believe they have evolved to emerge at the same time and overwhelm possible predators with their sheer numbers, thus ensuring their survival.
"They hardly have any behavioral traits that protect them from being eaten," Lill said. "So they're pretty defenseless, and they're quite nutritious and pretty much sitting ducks for anything that wants to eat them, including us, if you're so inclined."
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Wired ☛ The Keys to a Long Life Are Sleep and a Better Diet—and Money
In one way or another, the superrich have always been trying to extend their lives. Ancient Egyptians crammed their tombs with everything they’d need to live on in an afterlife not unlike their own world, just filled with more fun. In the modern era, the ultra-wealthy have attempted to live on through their legacies: sponsoring museums and galleries to immortalize their names.
Today’s elite take life-extension a lot more literally. Skipping neatly over the matter of Bryan Johnson’s nightly penis rejuvenation regime, billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel are sinking big money into the prospect of therapies to extend our mortal lives.
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Lee Peterson ☛ YouTube is a dangerous rabbit hole for my productivity and mental health
I’m going to have to take a break because it’s a serious distraction for me. It’s also not the most positive place to be, with misleading advertising being allowed on the platform and recommendations that I don’t want to see (yes, I’m being fed videos on flat earth, The SS and conspiracies).
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Scoop News Group ☛ Department of Homeland Security lays out AI plans in new roadmap
The Department of Homeland Security on Monday released its first-ever artificial intelligence roadmap, which is meant to spell out the agency’s current use of the technologies and its plans for the future.
Key points include a forthcoming DHS-wide policy directive on artificial intelligence, new guidance from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency focused on AI security, and an expected report from the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office focused on the technology’s risks. The roadmap also highlights several ways the agency plans or is already using artificial intelligence, including for tracking suspicious vehicle patterns at the border and assessing damage to buildings after disasters.
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The Record ☛ FTC investigating Reddit plan to sell user content for AI model training
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is probing Reddit’s decision to license its user-generated content to artificial intelligence companies which would in turn use it to train models, the social media platform said in a Friday securities filing.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure comes ahead of Reddit’s much hyped initial public offering (IPO). Reddit, launched almost 20 years ago, will be the first social media company to go public since Pinterest did in 2019.
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Sightline Media Group ☛ ‘Ghosts’ of WWII to be honored with Congressional Gold Medal
The seemingly phantom American “Ghost Army” was one of many problems plaguing the Wehrmacht in the summer of 1944. The Germans were not, as they believed, fighting a numerically superior American force, but battling artists, engineers and inflatables.
“The top-secret unit waged war using inflatable tanks and weapons, fake radio traffic, sound effects, even phony generals — all to fool the enemy into thinking that the army was bigger, better-armed, or in a different place than it was,” according to James M. Linn IV, curator at The National WWII Museum.
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Cory Dransfeldt ☛ It's not AI generated music, it's AI generated noise // Cory Dransfeldt
I'm going to harp on this again but, yes, yes AI-generated content is derivative. Music is appealing because it is an innately human, creative act. It could be something as ugly as death metal, as soothing as ambient music or as joyful as pop can tend to be.
An AI application will mimic these characteristics but will fail to capture what it sets out to devalue.
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Quartz ☛ YouTube to label AI-generated content, following Facebook and Instagram
YouTube is following Meta’s example and instituting a policy that requires its users to label AI-generated content. YouTube isn’t asking its creators to label everything that involves generative artificial intelligence, just “content that is altered or synthetic when it appears realistic or meaningful.”
The social media giant’s move to regulate its AI content amid the growing AI craze comes just a month after Meta announced a similar policy for Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. But while Meta is already taking measures to crack down on users who don’t follow its AI rules, YouTube is relying on the honor system — for now.
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The Kent Stater ☛ Hey YouTube creators, it’s time to start labeling AI-generated content in your videos
The disclosure is meant to help prevent users from being confused by synthetic content amid a proliferation of new, consumer-facing generative AI tools that make it quick and easy to create compelling text, images, video and audio that can often be hard to distinguish from the real thing. Online safety experts have raised alarms that the proliferation of AI-generated content could confuse and mislead users across the internet, especially ahead of elections in the United States and elsewhere in 2024.
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New York Times ☛ The Department of Homeland Security Is Embracing A.I.
The rush to roll out the still unproven technology is part of a larger scramble to keep up with the changes brought about by generative A.I., which can create hyper realistic images and videos and imitate human speech.
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The Register UK ☛ YouTube now requires creators to label AI content
YouTube has warned content creators that, beginning today, certain uses of AI in their videos must be clearly labeled.
The team at the Google-owned video site said a new tool has been added to the Creator Studio, effective immediately, where uploaders can tag videos containing altered or synthetic media that could be mistaken for real. Videos tagged this way will show a relevant label, either in the expanded description or on the video itself, depending on the sensitivity of the subject matter.
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New York Times ☛ Elon Musk to Open Source Grok Chatbot in Latest AI War Escalation
Grok, which is designed to give snarky replies styled after the science-fiction novel “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” is a product from xAI, the company Mr. Musk founded last year. While xAI is an independent entity from X, its technology has been integrated into the social media platform and is trained on users’ posts. Users who subscribe to X’s premium features can ask Grok questions and receive responses.
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The Verge ☛ Apple’s AI ambitions could include Google or OpenAI
Apple is reportedly in “active negotiations” with Google to bring its Gemini generative AI technology to the iPhone, Bloomberg reports, and has also considered using OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
CEO Tim Cook has already confirmed that Apple is spending “a tremendous amount of time and effort” on artificial intelligence features, and plans to release them to its customers “later this year.” Bloomberg’s report suggests that the AI features built into Apple’s products could eventually be powered by a mix of first- and third-party AI models. Apple’s models could power on-device generative AI with iOS 18, releasing later this year, while cloud-based AI features like text- and image-generation could come via partnerships with the likes of Google.
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India Times ☛ Apple Gemini: Apple is in talks to let Google’s Gemini power iPhone generative AI features
If a deal between Apple and Google comes to fruition, it would build upon the two companies’ search partnership. For years, Alphabet Inc.’s Google has paid Apple billions of dollars annually to make its search engine the default option in the Safari web browser on the iPhone and other devices. The two parties haven’t decided the terms or branding of an AI agreement or finalized how it would be implemented, the people said.
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Off Guardian ☛ How generative Hey Hi (AI) will ruin science and academic research
Background: the epistemology of modern mass media I often come back to Neil Postman’s 1985 classic Amusing Ourselves to Death. It’s a penetrating analysis on the cognitive effects of media technology.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] European Parliament gives final approval to landmark AI law
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KQED TV ☛ Game Developers Gather in SF as Industry Reels From Mass Layoffs
In a good year for the game industry, the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco feels like “going to Disneyland,” said Russ Fan, a San Mateo game designer.
This is not one of those years. The conference, which gets underway Monday and is expected to draw tens of thousands of attendees, is taking place amid mass layoffs. And Fan is among the thousands of workers who have lost their jobs.
His prediction for this year’s conference? “Probably more serious and dour,” he said.
Roughly 8,000 workers have been laid off from the game industry since the start of 2024, according to a layoff tracker created by technical artist Farhan Noor. If the cuts continue, this year could surpass 2023, when about 10,500 people lost their jobs, according to the tracker.
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Bloomberg ☛ Sony Hits Pause on PSVR2 Production as Unsold Inventory Piles Up
Sony Group Corp. has paused production of its PSVR2 headset until it clears a backlog of unsold units, according to people familiar with its plans, adding to doubts about the appeal of virtual reality gadgets.
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Lionel Dricot ☛ A Society That Lost Focus
The world we are living in is that same chess game on the easiest setting. Everything happens immediately, all the time. White-collar work can now be summarised as trying to reply as fast as possible to every single email until calling it a day and starting again in the morning, a process which essentially prevents any deep thinking, as pointed by Cal Newport in his book "A world without email".
As we don’t have the time to think anymore, we masquerade our lack of ideas with behavioural tricks. We replaced documents with PowerPoints because it allowed lack of structure and emptiness to look professional (just copy paste the data of the last PowerPoint you received in a text file and see by yourself how pitiful it is. PowerPoint communications at NASA were even diagnosed by Edward R. Tufte, author of the "The cognitive style of PowerPoint", as one of the causes that led to Space Shuttle Columbia’s disaster).
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Security
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Integrity/Availability/Authenticity
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Privacy/Surveillance
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The Daily Beast ☛ The Creepy and Unconstitutional Government Database of Newborn Babies’ DNA
Expectant parents invite doctors and nurses into the delivery room, not police officers. But law enforcement agencies have backdoor access in New Jersey.
The intrusion starts within 48 hours after birth, when maternity ward workers prick an infant’s heel to collect blood for laboratory testing. The screening allows for early detection of rare conditions like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease.
All states do this. But afterward they destroy the paper cards they use to collect dried bloodspots. New Jersey keeps the blood.
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-08 [Older] Lawsuit claiming fertility-tracking app shared intimate data with Facebook greenlit as Canadian class action
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Federal News Network ☛ Supreme Court rules public officials cannot block critics on social media, even from personal accounts
If you are a public official who uses social media, be careful about hitting that “block” button. The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that in some cases, public officials can be sued for blocking their critics, even if they are posting from their individual accounts. The court decision tried to resolve the line between public and private activity on social media. In a unanimous decision, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that when government employees make official statements with their personal accounts, they need to at least allow pushback from the public.
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Quartz ☛ Apple will face lawsuit over how stalkers use AirTags
The dozens of plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit claim that Apple could be held legally liable under state law for how its AirTag tracking devices are used improperly. Apple has said the AirTag with was designed with “industry-first” safety measures, and has argued that it shouldn’t be held responsible for how the product is misused. Apple didn’t immediately comment on the ruling.
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dwaves.de ☛ world wide web – how to tell if a website is using react javascript framework – how is rich data defined?
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Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications
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The Hindu ☛ Over 20,000 lost/stolen mobile phones in T.N. blocked through Central portal, police on track of over 8,000
As many as 1,580 lost or stolen mobile phones have been successfully recovered, bringing relief to their owners, thanks to the Central Equipment Identity Register System (CEIR) which was introduced last year.
The CEIR system is a citizen-friendly initiative that was launched by the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) under the Ministry of Communications in May 2023 empowers individuals to safeguard their mobile devices and take swift action in case of theft or loss. The CEIR system can be accessed through the Sanchar Saathi portal (www.sancharsaathi.gov.in). It is integrated with the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS), ensuring efficient information sharing. It also facilitates reporting, blocking, unblocking, and tracing of IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers for lost or stolen mobile devices across the entire country.
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Defence/Aggression
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LRT ☛ Sputnik editor admits his mission was to ‘destabilise’ Lithuania
Marat Kasem, former editor of the Russian propaganda channel Sputnik Lithuania, was recently released on bail from prison in Latvia and admits that his aim at Sputnik was to destabilise the situation in Lithuania. He has now decided not to return to Russia, reports Latvia’s public broadcaster LSM.
“What we were dealing with was nothing related to journalism. It was classic propaganda,” Kasem admitted to LSM.
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The North Lines IN ☛ Army raises elite unit to work on critical technologies having military applications
New Delhi, Mar 18: The Indian Army has raised an elite unit that will undertake research and evaluation of futuristic communication technologies like 6G, artificial intelligence, machine learning and quantum computing for military use in view of the changing nature of the field.
The Signals Technology Evaluation and Adaptation Group or STEAG is mandated to nurture technologies spanning the complete spectrum of wired and wireless systems, officials said.
The setting up of STEAG is part of the Army's efforts to develop technologies considering the future battlefield, they said.
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El País ☛ TikTok and geopolitics
The United States considers TikTok a threat to its national security and is willing to treat it as such. This issue ceased to be mere speculation when the House of Representatives — in a rare show bipartisanship in these times of extreme pre-election polarization (352 votes in favor and 65 against) — approved last week a bill that requires ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, to sell the social media platform within six months. If it does not do so, TikTok will be banned in the U.S. The bill now begins its passage through the Senate, where it’s outcome is uncertain, but President Joe Biden has said he would sign it into law. There is currently no clear buyer for the platform, whose gigantic value has yet to be calculated, so the threat of a ban is very real.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Users Reportedly Stagnate in the U.S. for the First Time
The less-than-ideal usership development emerged in a new report from the Wall Street Journal, after the UMG-TikTok disagreement became public in late January. While the resulting song removals and mass-muting are still eliciting complaints from users, the multifaceted episode has as of late been largely overshadowed by TikTok’s possible domestic ban.
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VOA News ☛ Greece Alarmed by Rising Tides of Migrants
Greece is facing increasing illegal immigration as the Gaza crisis continues. The trend has Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and senior European Union officials heading to Egypt Sunday to sign an aid package worth just over $8 billion intended to help ease migration.
A surge in illegal migration has seen numbers entering Greece swell by more than 400% in the last month alone.
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Hindustan Times ☛ 'Why is TikTok getting banned in US?' Netizens wonder, as House passes bill
The bill was introduced by politicians from both major US parties. The basic reason why the move was made is because lawmakers are afraid ByteDance could be forced by the Chinese government to hand over data of millions of US users.
Several lawmakers across the US have long expressed their concerns about China's influence over TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. The firm, which is based in Beijing, is registered in the Cayman Islands. There are offices across Europe and the US.
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RTL ☛ The envy of competitors: TikTok and its 'secret sauce' caught in US-China tussle
That ByteDance algorithm has helped drive TikTok's stratospheric success since the app was launched for the international market in 2017.
It crunches huge amounts of user data, such as their interactions on the app and their location, to provide more content tailored for them.
Its precise details are a closely guarded secret, but it helped propel TikTok to one billion users in just four years. Facebook, by comparison, took more than eight years to reach that milestone.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] Living with the stigma of sexual violence: Raped men in Kosovo
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] South Korea, US talk troop costs amid Trump fears
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] US: Georgia judge drops 6 charges in Trump interference case
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] Why is Kenya pausing its police deployment to Haiti?
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Afghanistan's Taliban strive to expand regional links
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Andrew Tate to be extradited over UK sex charges
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Chaos in Haiti: What's causing it, and can it be stopped?
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-10 [Older] Germany's RAF terrorism — an unresolved story
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] Sweden hoists its flag at NATO and will join Canadian brigade in Latvia
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-09 [Older] US: Pentagon study says no evidence of alien life
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-09 [Older] Haiti: Thousands of pregnant women at risk amid violence
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-09 [Older] Honduras ex-president convicted of aiding drug cartels
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TruthOut ☛ 2024-03-09 [Older] Canada, Sweden Restore UNRWA Funds as Israel Accused of Torturing Agency Staff
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-10 [Older] As Haiti spirals into chaos, what will the international community do?
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-10 [Older] As crisis grips Haiti, U.S. pledges another $100 million for force to address violence
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-15 [Older] Red Sea attacks cause global trade to splutter
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-15 [Older] Pakistan: Could Shehbaz Sharif normalize ties with India?
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-10 [Older] Pakistan: Zardari elected president for second time
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-14 [Older] EU to investigate Hungary's €10.2 billion fund release
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-14 [Older] Ex-Stasi officer faces charges in 1974 Berlin border killing
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] Decoding China: Can Beijing become a naval power in Pacific?
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] Germany's AfD: Euroskeptics turned far-right populists
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-10 [Older] Germany's domestic secret service battles far-right AfD
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] Germany's AfD to be classified a right-wing extremist group?
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] Canadian military demonstrates Arctic defence capabilities amid global tensions
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] B.C. man charged in alleged sexual assaults of children in Ontario, dating back to 1992
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The Straits Times ☛ North Korea fires ballistic missile towards sea: South Korea military
The launch comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting the South.
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The Straits Times ☛ North Korea fires ballistic missile as South hosts democracy conference
North Korea's military has been conducting exercises using conventional weapons in recent weeks, often personally overseen by the isolated state's leader Kim Jong Un.
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France24 ☛ North Korea fires ballistic missile as top US diplomat visits Seoul
North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Monday, Seoul's military said, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited South Korea to meet top officials and attend a democracy summit.
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The Straits Times ☛ Why an idea to nominate Chinese new villages as a Unesco site got Malaysians riled up
The villages were internment camps for the Chinese during Malaysia's struggle with a communist insurgency.
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Bruce Schneier ☛ Drones and the US Air Force
Fascinating analysis of the use of drones on a modern battlefield—that is, Ukraine—and the inability of the US Air Force to react to this change.
The F-35A certainly remains an important platform for high-intensity conventional warfare. But the Air Force is planning to buy 1,763 of the aircraft, which will remain in service through the year 2070. These jets, which are wholly unsuited for countering proliferated low-cost enemy drones in the air littoral, present enormous opportunity costs for the service as a whole.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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teleSUR ☛ Ukraine To Receive 5 Billion Euros From New EU Military Fund
After this decision, the EU support to Ukraine reaches 17 billion euros for the 2021-2027 period.
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CS Monitor ☛ Ukraine’s BFF in Europe
The Czechs scoured the world for ammunition to bolster the weakening defenses of Ukraine, a country sacrificing the most for the values of Europe and the U.S.
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CS Monitor ☛ After informal 'coffees,' Minister Sikorski comes to breakfast
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has been a friend of the Monitor since 2019. So when he came to Washington with Poland’s top leaders, he joined us for breakfast to talk Ukraine aid – and was his usual engaging self.
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CS Monitor ☛ What my adopted sons from Russia and Ukraine taught me about trust
In journeying with a stranger to a new life in a new land, my boys showed immense trust – and taught me that it flows both ways.
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Latvia ☛ Latvia calls for manganese sanctions against Russia
On March 18 2024, at the European Union (EU) Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels, Latvia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Krišjānis Kariņš, called for an increase in the sanctions pressure on Russia and for work to begin on a fourteenth round of sanctions against Russia.
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Latvia ☛ No major disturbances on Latvia's eastern border on Sunday
On Sunday, March 17, the State Border Guard and the State Police worked in a special reinforced mode also on the Latvian-Russian border. The flow of Russian citizens arriving and departing at the border checkpoints did not increase significantly, Latgale regional television reported.
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Latvia ☛ Police chief: Weekend passed peacefully in Latvia
In Latvia, both March 16 - the Legionnaires' Remembrance Day - and March 17 - the so-called Russian presidential "elections" - passed relatively calmly, thanks to excellent preparation and planning, State Police Chief Armands Ruks said on Latvian Television's "Morning Panorama" program March 18.
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Latvia ☛ Russian presidential 'election' shows 2% turnout in Latvia
Voters in the so-called Russian presidential "elections" gathered outside the Russian Embassy in Riga on Sunday, March 17. Several protests were also held there. Law enforcement officers monitored the situation and several people were detained, Latvian Radio and Latvian Television reported.
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Latvia ☛ Latvian Foreign Ministry comments on Russian 'election' results
On March 17, the presidential 'election' came to a close in Russia, with the result bringing no surprise to anyone. Latvian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Sunday evening once again emphasizing that Latvia does not buy into this.
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Mexico News Daily ☛ Kidnapped Russian woman rescued in Tamaulipas
Maria Rigovich was traveling with acquaintances from Monterrey to Reynosa when they were stopped by armed men on Thursday.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Massa in Weekendavisen on possible Russian nuclear weapon in space
On February 20, Mark Massa was interviewed in Weekendavisen to discuss recent reports of a potential Russian nuclear weapon in space.
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JURIST ☛ Russia vote monitoring group expresses concern over presidential election integrity
The Russian vote monitoring group Golos (Voice) denounced the recent Russian presidential election on Sunday, characterizing it as the most unconstitutional in history. Voice is an independent organization with a history of monitoring electoral activities and advocating for electoral integrity.
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LRT ☛ Sputnik editor admits his mission was to ‘destabilise’ Lithuania
Marat Kasem, former editor of the Russian propaganda channel Sputnik Lithuania, was recently released on bail from prison in Latvia and admits that his aim at Sputnik was to destabilise the situation in Lithuania. He has now decided not to return to Russia, reports Latvia’s public broadcaster LSM.
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LRT ☛ Lithuania’s FM slams Russian election as ‘tragic farce’
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has denounced Russia’s “sham” presidential election, staged amid unprecedented restrictions of civil and political rights, calling it “a tragic farce”.
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LRT ☛ Lithuania introduces tighter checks on Russian grain imports
Tighter controls on grain imports from Russia and other heightened-risk countries take effect on Monday, with every rail or road shipment destined for the Lithuanian market or for export via the Klaipėda port to be inspected.
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RFERL ☛ Russia Labels Two Canadian Schools, Democracy NGO As 'Undesirable Organizations'
Russia's Prosecutor-General's Office on March 18 labeled two Canadian educational institutes and the Russian Canadian Democratic Alliance NGO as "undesirable."
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RFERL ☛ Kyrgyz Court Annuls Ministry's Move To Block Independent Kloop Russian Website
A court in Kyrgyzstan's capital, Bishkek, ruled to annul a move by the Central Asian nation's Culture Ministry to block the Russian-language website of the independent media outlet Kloop.
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RFERL ☛ Nadezhdin Supporter Jailed For Conducting Exit Poll In Russian Vote
Another supporter of anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin was sentenced to five days in jail on a charge of resisting police.
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RFERL ☛ Moldova Dismisses Separatists' Drone Strike Claim As Provocation
Moldova's government has dismissed claims in Russian and Transdniester media that a drone strike on March 17 had destroyed a military helicopter on the ground in the breakaway region.
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RFERL ☛ Paris Olympics Could Feature Only 40 Russian Athletes
International Olympic Committee (IOC) Vice President John Coates is unsure how many Russians will compete as neutral athletes at the Olympic Games in Paris this summer, but thinks reports that it might be as low as 40 could be close to the mark.
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The Straits Times ☛ Russia's delegation led by vice-culture minister arrives in North Korea, KCNA says
A delegation led by Russia's vice culture minister and including an art troupe arrived in North Korea on Monday, the official KCNA news agency said on Tuesday.
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Marcy Wheeler ☛ How Josh Dawsey Downplays Paul Manafort’s Ties to Alleged Russian Spies
Donald Trump is considering hiring the former business partner of two alleged Russian spies, admitted money launderer Paul Manafort, to help with fundraising.
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LRT ☛ Lithuania holds drills for hypothetical nuclear accident, testing sirens and emergency alerts
Lithuania is holding a national civil protection exercise on Monday to simulate an accident at the Astravyets nuclear power plant in Belarus, as well as to test the warning system for the population in the morning. People have received warning messages on their phones.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] NATO marks Sweden's entry with flag raising ceremony
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RFERL ☛ Putin's Re-Election Confirms Russia Is 'Authoritarian Society,' Says NATO Chief
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia's presidential election was "not free nor fair" and only confirms that Russia is "an authoritarian society."
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RFERL ☛ Amid 'Repression And Intimidation,' Putin Posts 'Record' Election Win
Vladimir Putin has claimed a fifth presidential term with a landslide victory in a tightly controlled election that has been condemned by the West as neither free nor fair as the Russian leader seeks to prove overwhelming popular support for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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teleSUR ☛ Putin Achieves Re-Election With 87.32 Percent of the Votes
Turnout exceeded 77 percent of the electoral roll, the highest figure in the Russian history since 1991.
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YLE ☛ Only 10% of Russians in Finland voted for Putin, exit poll says
The Russian Embassy in Helsinki's official results suggest one in three Russian nationals in Finland voted for Vladimir Putin in the presidential election.
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CS Monitor ☛ As Putin’s war continues, thousands of Russian emigres settle in Latin America
Fleeing an escalating conflict with Ukraine, some Russian exiles are adapting to new homes in Latin America. Locals in Mexico City and Buenos Aires are learning Russian phrases and welcoming the new emigres and their cultural exports.
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New York Times ☛ Putin Urges Russians to Unite on Ukraine War
A day after a rubber-stamp presidential election, President Vladimir Putin said he would not back down in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
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New York Times ☛ Putin’s Orchestrated Election Leaves Russians With No Other Choices
Many Russians say they back their president, but it is far less clear what they might do if they were given alternatives.
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New York Times ☛ Five Takeaways From Putin’s Win in Russia
President Vladimir V. Putin is expected to use the scale of his victory to justify more aggression in Ukraine. Many Russians are uneasy about what comes next.
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New York Times ☛ Tuesday Briefing: Putin’s Victory Spectacle
Also, Gambia moves to overturn a ban on female genital cutting.
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New York Times ☛ Monday Briefing
Russia’s election results.
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Meduza ☛ ‘He perceives this as real support’ Kremlin insiders weigh in on the record-breaking voting results reported for Vladimir Putin — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ ‘A cry nobody can hear’: Meduza’s Russian readers on what the ‘Noon Against Putin’ election protests looked like on the ground — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Voting rights group says Putin’s 2024 campaign contained more constitutional violations than any Russian presidential election in over 20 years — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ About half of votes for Vladimir Putin were falsified, according to statistical analysis by Novaya Gazeta Europe — Meduza
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Atlantic Council ☛ Massa in iNews on Russian threats of nuclear weapons use
On February 29, Mark Massa was quoted in iNews and spoke about Russia's history of nuclear threats and what the most recent threats from Russia mean for the war in Ukraine and for NATO.
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France24 ☛ Ukraine: Shakhtar Donetsk’s amputee football team for wounded soldiers
Among the thousands of Ukrainian servicemen injured in the war against Russia, some are attempting to rebuild their lives with the help of football. Shakhtar Donetsk, one of Ukraine’s most popular and successful football clubs, has formed a new team made up entirely of former soldiers who have lost limbs while fighting for their country.
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RFERL ☛ EU Council Approves New Aid Fund For Ukraine With $5.4 Billion
The European Council has approved the creation of the Ukraine Assistance Fund (UAF) and earmarked 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion) for it as Kyiv struggles to battle invading Russian forces.
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RFERL ☛ Belarusian Evangelical Pastor Gets Additional 15 Days In Jail Over Prayers For Ukraine
A court in Belarus has sentenced pastor Alyaksandr Zaretski, head of an evangelical church in the northeastern region of Vitsebsk, to an additional 15 days in jail over his calls to parishioners to pray for Ukraine and political prisoners in Belarus.
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RFERL ☛ 2 Killed By Ukrainian Strike On Russia's Belgorod, Officials Say
Two people were killed and four others were wounded in a Ukrainian air strike on Russia's Belgorod region on March 18, the head of the region's administration, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on Telegram.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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RTL ☛ 'Stormy': Documentary reveals porn star's side of Trump story
The movie hits US streamer Peacock just weeks before the former president goes on trial for allegedly covering up hush-money payments to her, one of a number of criminal cases the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee faces.
The documentary uses interviews and contemporary footage to tell the story of what happened when Trump's team tried to keep news of their alleged entanglement quiet as he ran for the White House, paying the porn performer $130,000.
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Environment
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Crooked Timber ☛ Global Justice and the Biodiversity Crisis — Crooked Timber
My new book is out this week (in the UK at least – but those elsewhere can read it right now online). I very much hope it will stimulate debate and discussion. Something that’s really struck me over recent years is that whereas a really rich literature exists on the global justice dimensions of the climate crisis (the term “climate justice” has pretty wide currency, right?), the same thing is just not true of the biodiversity crisis. But the biodiversity crisis seems to me to be at least in the same ballpark in terms of seriousness, and responses to it (“mitigation policies,” if you like) will, if policymakers (continue to) do a bad job, exacerbate all kinds of existing injustices. Thinking carefully about how we can respond fairly to the crisis seems to me to be one of the best uses we could find for our time. Or so I hope to persuade the potential readers!
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International Business Times ☛ Elon Musk, Kim Kardashian, Bill Gates, and Beyonce Dubbed Top 4 'Eco-terrorists' of 2023
With 112 flights totalling 279,664 kilometres and 3,771,900 kilograms of CO2 emissions, Bill Gates rounds out the group. It is worth noting that the data doesn't account for factors influencing CO2 emissions per flight, such as occupancy and aircraft type.
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Atlantic Council ☛ The critical-minerals boom is here. Can Africa take advantage?
Since Africa is home to 30 percent of the world’s known critical minerals, the continent is at the forefront of conversations. But currently, African nations aren’t getting their fair share of the benefits of the critical-minerals boom and buzz generated by the evolution of modern technologies. For that to happen, Africa will need more investment in its capacities to refine or add value to minerals within the continent; such investment could fuel a long-awaited boost in development.
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France24 ☛ EU’s deposit refund scheme a ‘false solution’ for plastic pollution
The EU aims to become a star performer in the fight against plastic pollution. The bloc’s 27 countries earlier this month announced measures to address packaging waste that aim to achieve 100 percent recycling rates by 2035 and a 15 percent reduction in waste volume by 2040. According to Eurostat, the average European citizen generated 188.7 kilograms of packaging waste in 2021, an increase of 32 kilograms over a decade. Only 64 percent of that amount is recycled today.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ EU palm oil spat sours relations with Malaysia, Indonesia
Malaysia, the world's second largest producer of palm oil after Indonesia, brought a case to the WTO in early 2021 against the EU, France and Lithuania.
The Southeast Asian country contested that the EU had violated international trade rules in its policy to phase-out the import of palm oil as a biofuel due to deforestation and emissions risks under the EU's second Renewable Energy Directive (RED II).
Indonesia also filed a case with the WTO but asked for it to be suspended a day before the result of Malaysia's case was announced.
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New Weather Institue ☛ Dirty Snow: The Snow Thieves 2 report: how a ban on polluter sponsorships in winter sport can help save our snow [PDF]
The future of winter sports is closely interwoven with the future of the climate. Rising temperatures and the ensuing loss of snow cover are shortening seasons, creating difficult and sometimes dangerous skiing conditions. Many ski resorts are struggling and some have already had to close.4
Looking specifically at temperature changes during the main skiing season of November to March from 1970 to 2022, the average temperature in the Northern Hemisphere has now increased by a remarkable 0.43°C per decade.5
In mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere winters are expected to continue to shrink at a rate of 4.7 days per decade and may, in a high emission scenario, by the end of the century be as short as 31 days, from 18 December to 18 January. In other words, winter may last only a single month.
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The Hill ☛ DC’s cherry blossoms hit their second-earliest peak bloom on record
This year’s peak bloom came before the National Cherry Blossom Festival in D.C. started. The festival, which typically garners large crowds of tourists, is scheduled for March 20 to April 14 and will have events and performances commemorating the cherry trees gifted to the U.S. by Japan in 1912.
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Gizmodo ☛ Slerf Shows the Crypto Crowd's Standards Are Lower Than Ever
While multi-billion dollar disasters like FTX would lead a reasonable person to believe that the cryptocurrency industry is dead or dying, the unfortunate truth is that it’s doing just fine. Not only has Bitcoin’s market price been on a familiar rollercoaster ride lately, but droves of [cryptoccurrency] believers have, in recent weeks, proven themselves willing invest in some of the most ridiculous projects ever.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Decoding China: Driving ahead towards EV dominance
China has long been the world's largest manufacturer of electric cars. E-mobility would be unimaginable without innovations from Chinese companies, this includes many electronics companies that were not originally focused on the automotive industry.
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India Times ☛ chargeMOD: Kerala-based energy tech startup to deploy 1,200 EV chargers across India
Kerala-based energy tech startup, chargeMOD, has announced its expansion plans and said it will deploy 1,200 more EV chargers across India and 600 more in Kerala. The company, in an announcement made earlier this week, said it was planning to set up an additional 1,000 slow chargers and 200 fast chargers across various states in India and to establish an additional 500 slow chargers and 100 fast chargers in Kerala.
It said this was excluding the existing 1,500 charging stations in Kerala and 2,000 stations across India.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-14 [Older] More ski resorts worldwide to face low snow levels — study
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] Nigeria joins global efforts to curb plastic waste
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Greta Thunberg removed from blocking Swedish parliament
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] How can a circular economy benefit the environment?
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Energy/Transportation
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New York Times ☛ Storing Renewable Energy, One Balloon at a Time
To decarbonize the electrical grid, companies are finding creative ways to store energy during periods of low demand.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-09 [Older] Stratolaunch hails test of hypersonic vehicle
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] Germany: Elon Musk visits Tesla factory after power sabotage
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-08 [Older] Amid a pilot shortage in Canada, Thunder Bay hopes to inspire more women and young people to take flight
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-10 [Older] Tens of thousands still without power after Quebec blanketed with heavy snow
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] Germany: Berlin Tesla factory power restored after sabotage
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-10 [Older] Germany: Protest against Tesla plans to expand 'Gigafactory'
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Truthdig ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] In Canada, Fossil Fuel Industry Funds Discord Among Native Groups
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] Rare earths: Will Germany face a shortage?
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] LATAM passengers injured after technical problem on flight
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DeSmog ☛ As CRC Prepares to Buy Aera, New Law to Stem Orphan Wells Faces its First Test
Last month, the California Resources Corporation (CRC), already the largest gas producer in the Golden State, announced a plan to get even bigger: It would acquire competitor Aera Energy, California’s second-largest oil producer behind Chevron. Both companies already operate thousands of extraction sites in California, and their successful merger would make CRC the state’s largest oil and gas producer by an overwhelming margin.
At a time when the U.S. oil and gas industry is rapidly consolidating in an effort to unlock new economies of scale, investors took the merger’s announcement as a positive development and CRC’s stock price jumped. But what has received much less attention so far is the fact that this merger likely will put to the test a new state law that aims to hold oil and gas producers accountable for idle wells, sites that haven’t been used for production for 24 consecutive months.
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Wildlife/Nature
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Kev Quirk ☛ Update on Eric the Eel
A couple days ago, I wrote about how my beautiful fire eel, Eric, managed to jump out of his tank. Here's an update...
I'll keep this brief, as I don't want to dwell on it too long, but I last left you saying that he was in a bad way and it wasn't looking good. But I was secretly hoping the little guy would pull through.
He didn't.
Over the course of the afternoon he started to deteriorate, and by the time I went to bed, he was just lying on his side, gasping. At this point I was pretty certain he wouldn't make it through the night.
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Science Alert ☛ Scientists Thought Only Two Animals Lived in The Great Salt Lake. They Were Wrong.
Life has been hiding under the surface.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-08 [Older] Australia: Great Barrier Reef suffers 'mass bleaching event'
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Pro Publica ☛ An Oregon Bill to Cut Millions in Timber Taxes Is Dead
Oregon state Sen. Elizabeth Steiner seemed to have a lot of power and momentum behind her effort that would have shifted the costs of wildland firefighting further onto taxpayers this year.
The influential timber industry, which stood to save millions and is a major source of campaign cash in the state, worked behind closed doors to help craft Steiner’s proposal. Republican leaders threw their support behind it. Gov. Tina Kotek, whose staff assisted in the bill’s development, also came out in favor.
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Overpopulation
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NL Times ☛ Future Cabinet urged to help protect drinking water supplies
The Dutch water boards and drinking water companies urged the future Cabinet to actively help them protect the drinking water supply and ensure enough space for water in the Netherlands. “While clean drinking water and dry feet are taken for granted by many Dutch, these ‘certainties’ are under pressure,” they said. “The drinking water companies and water boards can not guarantee on their own that there is sufficient, clean water in the Netherlands.”
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Deccan Chronicle ☛ Karnataka water crisis, Modi govt refusing to help people: Congress
Ramesh said Karnataka is reeling under an acute water crisis due to a severe drought situation in most parts of the state, with 223 of the state's 236 Talukas facing drought conditions.
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Finance
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Germany: Deutsche Bahn, Lufthansa workers go on strike
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-09 [Older] Germany: Lufthansa faces fresh strike from different union
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] German train drivers to strike after court motion fails
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-10 [Older] Germany: GDL train drivers' union announces next rail strike
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Germany: Verdi union calls more airport strikes on Thursday
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-15 [Older] EU Commission unveils concessions for farmers after protests
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-08 [Older] This tenant won $16K from her landlord. She worries she may never get it
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-15 [Older] Germany's Bundesbank confronts dark Nazi origins
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-15 [Older] Germany struggles to fix its pension system
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] China's crackdown is damaging Hong Kong's economy
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] How China's crackdown hurt Hong Kong's economic ambitions
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-14 [Older] How do economies fare under populist rule?
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-15 [Older] Hungary: Orban calls for voter support to 'occupy Brussels'
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-15 [Older] How Taiwan's Sunflower Movement let young people speak up
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Biden classified files hearing turns into partisan battle
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Biden wins enough delegates to secure Democratic nomination
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] German defense hawk sets sights on EU job
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Germany: AfD appeals 'suspected' far-right extremist status
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-09 [Older] Belarus: Sick, disabled political prisoners face slim release odds
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-09 [Older] German councils demand funds for bunkers, civil protection
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-10 [Older] Canada faces a series of 'crises' that will test it in the coming years, RCMP warns
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India Times ☛ reddit valuation: Reddit's IPO as much as five times oversubscribed
Reddit's initial public offering is currently between four and five times oversubscribed, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday, making it more likely the social media platform will attain the $6.5 billion valuation it seeks.
While the oversubscription does not guarantee a strong performance in the stock market debut, it means the company is poised to at least reach its targeted price range of $31 to $34 per share when it prices the IPO in New York on Wednesday, the sources said.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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New York Times ☛ How Trump’s Allies Are Winning the War Over Disinformation
Their claims of censorship have successfully stymied the effort to filter election lies online.
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New York Times ☛ How To Recognize Health Misinformation on Social Media
Experts offer tips for combating false medical claims in your own circles.
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Ruben Schade ☛ How YouTube treats MH370
The first video is an AI-generated mess. We have a DC-9 nose cone, A320-ish wing fences, and a 737 windshield and vertical stabiliser. Impressively, none of these are even remotely correct; the missing plane is a wide-bodied Boeing 777 with a passenger capacity twice that of these short-range jets. The second video uses a stolen image of a 737 from the AP, which also isn’t the correct aircraft make, model, or livery.
Not pictured here are their video titles, descriptions, and graphics which refer to it as Malaysian Airlines. It’s impressive how you can get that wrong when the correct spelling is literally staring at them in their own thumbnails.
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VOA News ☛ Blinken Warns Democracy Summit of Dangers of Disinformation
Speaking to the third Summit for Democracy in Seoul Monday, Blinken added that while those technologies have dramatically accelerated the already fast-changing information environment, they have also “created an accelerant for disinformation, fueling polarization, adding to the general sense of confusion that people have about the world around them.”
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Smithsonian Magazine ☛ For Harry Houdini, Séances and Spiritualism Were Just an Illusion
Houdini failed to appreciate that Americans cherish the freedom to be duped. After all, his own contempt for mediums began with his professed hope that some might prove genuine. The fact that none did, he said (perhaps insincerely), did not rule out the possibility that true mediums existed. Houdini also took pains to point out that he believed in God and an afterlife—both propositions others might argue lack proof. As science advanced in Houdini’s time, many did not care to have their spiritual beliefs probed by scientific instruments; they did not believe it was the province of science to validate their beliefs. Theologian G.K. Chesterton, in the 1906 essay “Skepticism and Spiritualism,” said of the two disciplines, “They ought to have two different houses.” The empirical evidence science demands has no role in faith, he argued. “Modern people think the supernatural so improbable that they want to see it. I think it so probable that I leave it alone.”
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ US warns of flood of fakes as elections loom worldwide
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has warned that authoritarian governments are going to meddle in a flurry of elections, and the US will keep pressing to disrupt misinformation efforts from China and Russia.
“Nearly half the people of the world are going to be going to the polls this year – this is an extraordinary election year in country after country,” Blinken told a session at the Summit for Democracy conference in Seoul on Monday. “But citizens and candidates will face a flood of falsehoods that suffocate serious civic debate.”
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The Hill ☛ Biden social media case heads to Supreme Court
The Biden administration’s legal battle over social media content moderation will reach the Supreme Court on Monday, when the justices are set to hear arguments over whether federal officials violated the First Amendment by urging platforms to remove posts they deemed false or misleading.
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New York Times ☛ White House’s Efforts to Combat Misinformation Face Supreme Court Test
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday on whether the Biden administration violated the First Amendment in combating what it said was misinformation on social media platforms.
It is the latest in an extraordinary series of cases this term requiring the justices to assess the meaning of free speech in the [Internet] era.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Reason ☛ The New York Times Again Worries That Free Speech Endangers Democracy [Ed: No, TikTok isn't free speech; it's controlled by those who crush speech]
The newspaper portrays the constitutional challenge to the government's social control media meddling as a conspiracy by Donald Trump's supporters.
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JURIST ☛ Swiss police bar far-right Austria activist from speaking at event
Swiss police blocked a far-right Austrian political activist from delivering a speech at an event on Saturday.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong condemns BillBC over ‘smearing’ Beijing’s national security law
The Hong Kong government has condemned Britain’s public service broadcaster over “smearing” the Beijing-imposed security law in an article about the sentencing of 12 Hongkongers convicted of rioting.
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Montreal musician awarded $1.5M in defamation lawsuit after judge finds he was falsely accused of sexual abuse
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] Company that owns 23 newspapers in Atlantic Canada files for creditor protection, has $94M in debt
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CBC ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] SaltWire's money woes a sign of bigger problems in the newspaper business: experts
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CS Monitor ☛ Popular journalist’s arrest poses fresh threat to press freedom in Pakistan
Prominent journalist Asad Ali Toor was granted bail on Saturday after spending three weeks in prison for allegedly launching a “malicious” campaign against Pakistan’s superior judiciary.
In his popular YouTube series, “Uncensored,” Mr. Toor had been fiercely critical of the country’s top judge for decisions made ahead of this year’s general election. He is expected to lie low as lawyers petition for the charges to be dismissed.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Is Croatia's new whistleblower law a danger for journalism?
According to the new law, forwarding information from police investigations to journalists is now a criminal offense in Croatia. If caught, whistleblowers face several years in jail.
The government has faced intense criticism from journalists and the opposition in the six months since Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced the draft law that made the "unauthorized disclosure of the details of investigations or evidence gathering procedures" a criminal offense.
Several thousand journalists signed a petition against the draft law. Protesters organized anti-government demonstrations. Allegations and harsh words flew back and forth in parliamentary debates and press conferences.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Why Nigeria's 'baby factories' continue to thrive
So-called baby making factories are facilities in Nigeria to which girls and young women are lured, impregnated and held against their will until they give birth.
The "factories" are usually small, illegal facilities parading as private medical clinics that house pregnant women and subsequently offer their babies for sale.
In some cases, young women have been held against their will and raped before their babies are sold on the black market.
The practice is largely prevalent in the southeastern states of Abia, Lagos, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo.
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The Register UK ☛ Uber Australia to pay $178 million to settle class action
The class action, Andrianakis v Uber Technologies Inc & Ors, was brought by a class of plaintiffs who were taxicab or hire car drivers, operators or licence holders during periods within 2014 to 2017.
Uber operated illegally in Australia during those years, despite laws that made it plain only licensed cabs and hire cars were allowed to carry passengers for cash. Then, as now, Uber argued that was providing a new category of service, so existing regulations didn't apply.
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The Register UK ☛ Filipino police break up forced labor cyber operation
The rescued "workers" hailed from Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Rwanda, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Kyrgyzstan. The victims were allegedly lured into slavery on the promised of a job offer. Instead, they allegedly had their passports confiscated and were forced to adopt fake identities and pretend to be suitors of their victims to extract money.
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Alex Sirac ☛ [Reply] subtitle hell – Alex
Find a hosting provider that allows you to have a separate .srt file for subtitles. NEVER burn them into the video EVER. Some of us need to customize how subtitles look for more visibility. Some (many) of us would like subtitles in our language, someday − not having an .srt file means we can’t translate it, and it also means we can’t show regular subtitles on top of the ones you made, that would be unreadable.
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Papers Please ☛ Buses, trains, and US domestic travel without ID
In our previous article, we looked at the state of ID requirements and the the right to international travel for U.S. citizens.
What about domestic travel within the USA without ID?
Flying? Domestic US airline passengers are subject to demands for ID by airlines and the TSA. These demands are of dubious validity, and have arbitrary secret exceptions. Many people fly without ID every day. But not everyone is able or willing to challenge these authoritative-seeming demands for ID to fly.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Vietnam likely to permit worker unions to appease EU critics
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-15 [Older] EU countries back new human rights supply chain law
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] Berlin court's holiday home ruling: bad news for Airbnb
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-14 [Older] Will Germany's wave of strikes stifle economic growth? [Ed: Missing the point workers and underpaid and struggle, the "economy" isn't just some stock market]
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-11 [Older] EU states agree to regulate Deliveroo, Uber workers' rights
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-13 [Older] Berlin techno added to UNESCO cultural heritage list
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-10 [Older] Ireland: Voters reject amendments redefining family, women
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Modern web bloat means some pages load 21MB of data - entry-level phones can't run some simple web pages, and some sites are harder to render than PUBG
The new era of the internet threatens becoming unusable for low-spec hardware that is still in use today, particularly in lower-income countries where modern PCs have costs comparable to multiple month's rent.
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Ruben Schade ☛ The best blog posts are genuine
I’ve reached the point in my web life where I’ll read something, ruminate on it, decide it’s interesting and that I want to comment. Then I’ll go back to the source to quote it, and I have absolutely no idea where I read it, let alone who wrote it. It happens at least once a week, and it’s proof I need a better mobile note-taking system.
I suspect this observation came from Om Malik, but I can’t find it on his blog or social control media accounts, so maybe it wasn’t. But paraphrased, it went something like this: [...]
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-12 [Older] Houthi attacks in Red Sea threaten internet infrastructure
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Patents
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Reason ☛ The Priorities of the Judicial Conference of the United States
Rather than addressing bankruptcy and patent monopoly forum and judge shopping, on which there is a large bipartisan consensus, the Judicial Conference rushed through a botched proposal in response to political pressure and Ex-Twitter noise.
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ The Judicial Conference and Its Random Assignment “Policy”
Guest post by Professors Jonas Anderson[1] and Paul Gugliuzza[2]
On Tuesday, March 12, 2024, the Judicial Conference of the United States—the self-governing body of the federal judiciary—held a press conference and issued a press release touting the Conference’s “strengthen[ing of] the policy governing random case assignment, limiting the ability of litigants to effectively choose judges in certain cases by where they file a lawsuit.”
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Tom's Hardware ☛ China filed 25% more patents than the U.S. in 2023 — heavily sanctioned Huawei led all companies worldwide despite bans
Huawei and China led WIPO's patent monopoly filers list in 2023 as they accelerated technology development.
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Trademarks
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Techdirt ☛ Monster Energy Bullies Trademark Application For Gin Company
Here we go again. Monster Energy is one of the most prolific trademark bullies in the history of trademark bullying. And the really frustrating part of all this is that at times it can feel like Monster makes trademark bullying a chief international export every bit as much as energy drinks. No trademark concern is too small and no industry too disparate to warrant intervention by whatever crack legal team Monster Energy is employing at the time.
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Copyrights
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Torrent Freak ☛ Apple Joins Hollywood & Netflix on a Pirate Site Blocking Trip to Oz
Relative quiet over the past few months may have given the impression that Australia has lost interest in site-blocking injunctions. But just like waiting for a bus, suddenly two come along at once. The first aims to block Australians' view of more than 30 pirate sites, a disproportionate number serving the pirate anime market. A brand-new application sees Apple in a surprise partnership with Hollywood and Netflix, because everyone has exclusives to protect these days.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Publishers Cite Napster and AI Training Threats in Legal Battle with the Internet Archive
A copyright lawsuit filed by several major publishers puts the future of the Internet Archive's scan-and-lend library at risk. In a recent appeal, the non-profit organization argued that its solution is protected by fair use and critical to preserving digital books. The publishers, however, frame it as a radical and unlawful threat to their exclusive right to publish ebooks.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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