Links 27/05/2024: Chatbots Generate Hateful Output, TPM Performance Scrutinised
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Environment
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM) Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Ruben Schade ☛ My 8, 32, and 64-bit desk!
Clara and I are looking at moving soon, so we’d let the apartment slide a bit of late. Which makes no sense; why wouldn’t you want to live somewhere nice in the interim? After more than a weekend of shuffling cables and tables, I have my three desktops set up within reach!
The 8-bit Fashion Company Apple and Commodore machines are connected via an upscaler which I can toggle, and the 32-bit PCs and SPARCStation are on the KVM under the desk. The main monitor is for the FreeBSD/Alpine GNU/Linux tower, and the MacBook Air in clamshell mode on a different input. Clara has space behind the large monitor for her desktop and Wacom setup.
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Kev Quirk ☛ An Evening Stroll in the Field
But field 2 -- which is around double the size of field 1 -- we've had little use for. I attempted to mow it one time last year, and that ended in failure. Since then, we've pretty much left it alone and decided to just let it grow wild.
It turns out we quite like it like that.
So what we've decided to so, is mow some paths through the field to allow the dogs to frolic, and the kids to play. Both of which love it, because in parts, the grass is as tall as me (6' 2" / 188cm) so it's like a huge maze for us all.
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Lykolux ☛ Slashpages or a standard for the indie web
Robb Knight started with Shellsharks to reference them. He published slashpages.net to get common grounds and put it in a blog post. At the time of writing, the following pages are referenced: [...]
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Slash Pages ☛ slash pages
Slash pages are common pages you can add to your website, usually with a standard, root-level slug like /now, /about, or /uses. They tend to describe the individual behind the site and are distinguishing characteristics of the IndieWeb.
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Michał Sapka ☛ Having fun with website: new Brain Rots
I stopped thinking about this site as a blog, and instead I consider a hub of different things which interest me. The first period of sapka.me was a blog, but now I am closer to Cyber Vanguard. I’ve already noticed that there are things that are best served as blog, but those things are not everything. There’s also the evergreen texts; the longer pieces. Those deserve a dedicated train of thought, and therefore being split by publish date would be disservice.
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Barry Sampson ☛ Barry Sampson | A Diary for My Daughter
We wrote the diary consistently for 3,463 days, and by then we were sure that she didn't need us to record things any more. Plus, she started making a note herself of the things that mattered to her.
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Frank Meeuwsen ☛ How do you deal with Yeah But arguments in discussions about social media | Frank Meeuwsen
How do you deal with these arguments, forexample, when you are in a podcast tomorrow and will definitely get into these territories…
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[Repeat] James G ☛ Adding new features to my publishing tool
The question of parts of my publishing process that caused friction was fascinating. This is the first publishing tool I have worked on for my blog. Because I am building the tool myself, I can think big about what features I want. I can think about features that are useful to my process.
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Chris Aldrich ☛ Collective Nouns for Typewriters and Typists | Chris Aldrich
So toward this end I thought I’d brainstorm for a moment to make a few lists of potential ideas for both. If you’ve got ideas, please add them to the comments. There’s no need to try to come up with an “official” collective noun as use in daily life, writing, and throughout the typosphere will ultimately determine a winner through actual usage. Some words are double-listed as they could refer to either.
What do you call your collection?
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Barry Sampson ☛ Why Force Competition?
I saw Darren’s post Blogging Is Not A Competition which led me to Cole’s post Non-competition and they both got me thinking about competition in general.
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Science
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Science Alert ☛ Marines Battle-Tested a Mysterious Suit of Armor From 3,500 Years Ago
Is it the real deal?
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Science Alert ☛ Surprise Discovery Reveals Earliest Known Ancestor of Scorpions And Spiders
"We had absolutely no idea that it would hold so many secrets."
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Science Alert ☛ One 'Super Predator' Instills More Fear in Marsupials Than Any Other Creature
A universal terror.
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Science Alert ☛ Cockroaches Are Everywhere Now, And It's All Because of Humans
Oops!
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Education
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Approach with Alacrity ☛ What are you getting paid in?
A long time ago, a manager friend of mine wrote a book to collect his years of wisdom. He never published it, which is a shame because it was full of interesting insights. One that I think a lot about today was the question: “How are you paying your team?”
This friend worked in finance. You might think that people in finance, like most people, are paid in money. But it turns out that even in finance, you can’t actually always pay and motivate people with just money.
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Darren Hester ☛ Just A Bit Better Than Yesterday
Recently, I've shifted my mindset. Instead of expecting radical change overnight, I aim to make today just a bit better than yesterday. Small wins stack up over time. And small, incremental growth is sustainable.
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Hardware
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The Register UK ☛ Samsung disputes report Nvidia isn’t happy with its HBM
Reuters last week reported that Samsung's chips did not meet Nvidia's power consumption and heat requirements.
Samsung told Business Korea that it is "smoothly conducting tests for HBM supply with various global partners" and that it is "continuously testing technology and performance in close cooperation with multiple companies."
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Samsung denies report citing HBM quality issues, asserts its HBM memory works just fine
Samsung has denied a media report claiming that its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) products failed Nvidia's quality tests due to issues such as excessive heat and power consumption. Samsung stated that it is smoothly conducting tests for HBM supply with various global partners and emphasized ongoing cooperation to ensure quality and reliability, reports Business Korea.
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Nikola Kotur ☛ All my laptops — Journal from Kotnik
I have always been an exceptionally geeky person and somewhat of a hardware hoarder. This post is documenting all the laptop computers I am currently using.
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[Repeat] Jeff Geerling ☛ LattePanda Mu crams x86 PC into SoM form factor
My basic conclusion: The Mu certainly performs well. And efficiency is nearly the same as the Pi 5 (with more than double the performance on tap). It's not as efficient as the best Arm chips, like the Rockchip RK3588S2, but it's a welcome change from Intel's tradition of burning watts in favor of higher clocks.
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Russell Coker ☛ Russell Coker: USB-A vs USB-C
While USB-C tends to support higher power delivery modes in actual implementations for connecting to a PC the PC end seems to only support lower power modes regardless of port. I think it would be really good if workstations could connect to monitors via USB-C and provide power, DisplayPort, and keyboard, mouse, etc over the same connection. But unfortunately the PC and monitor ends don’t appear to support such things.
If you don’t need any of those benefits in the list above (IE you are using USB for almost anything we do other than connecting a laptop to a dock/monitor/charger) then USB-A will do the job just as well as USB-C. The choice of which type to use should be based on price and which ports are available, EG My laptop has 2*USB-C ports and 2*USB-A so given that one USB-C port is almost always used for the monitor or for charging I don’t really want to use USB-C for anything else to avoid running out of ports.
When buying USB devices you can’t always predict which systems you will need to connect them to. Currently there are a lot of systems without USB-C that are working well and have no need to be replaced.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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CBC ☛ Stressed at work? Anxious about the wider world? You might be part of 'The Great Exhaustion'
Now a new term has emerged: The Great Exhaustion, which starts with stress directly related to work and piles on wider anxieties about the state of the world — such as climate change, war, political instability and the rising cost of living.
"The Great Exhaustion is a reflection of this collective experience of being burned out, tired, emotionally fatigued, by work and all things in our world, as well, that go beyond work," said Jennifer Dimoff, an organizational psychologist who teaches at the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa.
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Michal Zelazny ☛ Joy
There’s a sound. There’s a note that begins everything. But before the note there is silence, silence is where everything begins. There’s a blank page before the words appear, there’s a white canvas before the picture materialises. There’s space and time between us, emptiness filled with words. There’s nothingness before a thought illuminates the mind.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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CBC ☛ AI-powered hate content is on the rise, experts say
"I think everybody who researches hate content or hate media is seeing more and more AI-generated content," said Peter Smith, a journalist who works with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.
Chris Tenove, assistant director at the University of British Columbia's Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, said hate groups, such as white supremacist groups, "have been historically early adopters of new Internet technologies and techniques."
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El País ☛ Generative AI digs the graves of traditional search engines and virtual assistants
The work done by a dozen universities and entities and commissioned by DeepMind examines the new developments in the field of artificial general intelligence, while identifying their advantages and risks. The experts highlight that these advanced assistants can “empower users” to achieve their goals or well-being, or act as “mentors, friends or trusted advisors.” In this sense, a new study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) reveals how AGI is capable of responding to different emotional states.
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Futurism ☛ CEO of Google Says It Has No Solution for Its AI Providing Wildly Incorrect Information
You know how Google's new feature called AI Overviews is prone to spitting out wildly incorrect answers to search queries? In one instance, AI Overviews told a user to use glue on pizza to make sure the cheese won't slide off (pssst...please don't do this.)
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Futurism ☛ Tesla Driver Blames Full Self-Driving for Almost Plowing Into Moving Train
Now his account is corroborated by an automatic crash report generated by Tesla, which confirms that Full Self-Driving [sic] mode was on during the incident and didn't slow the car down, according to NBC. It also shows that Doty had his hands on the steering wheel, a safety precaution required by the driving mode.
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NBC ☛ Tesla owner says car's self-driving mode didn't see train before crash
A Tesla vehicle in Full-Self Driving mode appeared to fail to detect a moving train and stop on its own, leading to a chaotic accident depicted in a video that has been viewed millions of times on social media.
The car’s owner and driver, Craig Doty II, told NBC News that he takes responsibility for the accident, but he said he also believes that Tesla’s Self-Driving technology, or at least as it existed in his vehicle, is a defective product.
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India Times ☛ AI search goes awry for Google
The new technology has since generated a litany of untruths and errors -- including recommending glue as part of a pizza recipe and the ingesting of rocks for nutrients -- giving a black eye to Google and causing a furor online.
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India Times ☛ US intelligence agencies' embrace of generative AI is at once wary and urgent
Long before generative AI's boom, a Silicon Valley firm contracted to collect and analyze non-classified data on illicit Chinese fentanyl trafficking made a compelling case for its embrace by U.S. intelligence agencies.
The operation's results far exceeded human-only analysis, finding twice as many companies and 400% more people engaged in illegal or suspicious commerce in the deadly opioid.
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Reason ☛ Why AI Warfare Is Both Mundane and Dangerous
This type of software has allowed commanders to find and list targets far faster than human staff could by themselves. The attacks are then carried out by human pilots, either with manned aircraft or remote control drones. "The machine did it coldly. And that made it easier," an Israeli intelligence officer said, according to The Guardian.
Going further, Turkish, Russian, and Ukrainian weapons manufacturers claim to have built "autonomous" drones that can strike targets even if their connection to the remote pilot is lost or jammed. Experts, however, are skeptical about whether these drones have made truly autonomous kills.
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Andreas ☛ Some thoughts about the usefulness of AI
AI is all the rage now, but like most people in my tiny little tech-bubble on the internet, I’m fairly critical of it. And the recent onslaught of news doesn’t really help to change this, there’s everything from hilariously terrible products, totally not using Scarlett Johanssons voice to telling you to put glue on your pizza. At least they’re doing their best to keep us entertained.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance/Data
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RFA ☛ Researchers grapple with the tightened data landscape in China
Creativity can make up for lost access, but some gaps can’t be filled.
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VOA News ☛ New cars in California could alert drivers for breaking the speed limit
The bill narrowly passed Tuesday, an indication of the tough road it could face. Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle said he voted against it in part because he said sometimes people need to drive faster than the speed limit in an emergency.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Decoding China: Who will shape the internet of the future?
Right now, two competing versions of the [Internet] are evolving. The US-based version is dominated by companies such as Meta, Alphabet and Apple, which are leading consumption and commerce.
The Chinese internet, on the other hand, is designed as a service and surveillance platform. Chines companies such as ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have almost unrestricted market sovereignty in this internet.
The Chinese version is being promoted by Beijing in as the "Digital Silk Road," as a digital arm of the wider Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
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Axios ☛ States are seeking ways to restrict public mask wearing after pro-Palestinian campus protests
Why it matters: Wearing a mask can help protesters evade facial recognition cameras that police and campus officials use to identify participants in a campus demonstration.
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VOA News ☛ Average US vehicle age hits record of 12.6 years
Those who are able to keep their rides for multiple years usually get the oil changed regularly and follow manufacturer maintenance schedules, Campau noted.
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[Old] Center for Automotive Embedded Systems Security ☛ Comprehensive Experimental Analyses of Automotive Attack Surfaces [PDF]
Modern automobiles are pervasively computerized, and hence potentially vulnerable to attack. However, while previous research has shown that the internal networks within some modern cars are insecure, the associated threat model — requiring prior physical access — has justifiably been viewed as unrealistic. Thus, it remains an open question if automobiles can also be susceptible to remote compromise. Our work seeks to put this question to rest by systematically analyzing the external attack surface of a modern automobile. We discover that remote exploitation is feasible via a broad range of attack vectors (including mechanics tools, CD players, Bluetooth and cellular radio), and further, that wireless communications channels allow long distance vehicle control, location tracking, in-cabin audio exfiltration and theft. Finally, we discuss the structural characteristics of the automotive ecosystem that give rise to such problems and highlight the practical challenges in mitigating them.
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[Old] Center for Automotive Embedded Systems Security ☛ Automobile Driver Fingerprinting [PDF]
[...] Our results indicate that, at least among small sets, drivers are indeed distinguishable using only in-car sensors. In particular, we find that it is possible to differentiate our 15 drivers with 100% accuracy when training with all of the available sensors using 90% of driving data from each person. Furthermore, it is possible to reach high identification rates using less than 8 minutes of training data. When more training data is available it is possible to reach very high identification using only a single sensor (e.g., the brake pedal). As an extension, we also demonstrate the feasibility of performing driver identification across multiple days of data collection.
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Forbes ☛ Leonardo Police Spy Tech Scans Cars For Phones, Pets And Books
Italy-based Leonardo says its tool creates a fingerprint of drivers and passengers by scanning for anything that emits a signal from their car, from smartphones to library books.
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Defence/Aggression
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The Gray Zone ☛ US-EU assets pushing color revolution in Georgia
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France24 ☛ Macron urges defence of democracy on rare state visit to Germany as EU elections loom
Emmanuel Macron began Sunday the first state visit to Germany by a French president in a quarter-century, bringing a plea to defend democracy against nationalism at coming European Parliament elections.
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RTL ☛ Darien Gap: Colombia will not shut key migrant crossing to Panama: foreign minister
Colombia will not close its border with Panama along the Darien Gap -- the dense, dangerous jungle that has become a major route for migration toward the United States -- Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo told AFP Saturday.
The comments came as Jose Raul Mulino, elected as Panama's new president on May 5, promised to shut down the Darien Gap while on the campaign trail.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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New York Times ☛ Putin Shakes Up Things at Home as His Optimism About Ukraine War Rises
Despite years of criticism, President Vladimir V. Putin has only now changed his defense minister and allowed high-level corruption arrests.
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New Yorker ☛ Ukraine Faces a Crucial Moment in the War
Two years after Russia launched its invasion, the fighting is shifting in its favor.
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New York Times ☛ Russia Plans New Ukraine Offensive as Zelensky Urges Biden and Pooh-tin to Join Peace Summit
Moscow is again amassing forces near the border, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine warned. His comments came as officials said that a Russian strike had killed at least 16 people in Kharkiv.
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New York Times ☛ Russia Strikes Hardware Store in Kharkiv, Killing 12, Ukraine Says
It was the latest attack in a sustained bombing campaign that has made life increasingly dangerous for civilians in the northeastern Ukrainian city.
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France24 ☛ Lithuanian President Nauseda re-elected in vote held amid security fears over Russia
Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda won re-election on Sunday in a vote marked by defence concerns over neighbouring Russia, official results showed.
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RFERL ☛ Lithuanian President Set To Secure Reelection As Opponent Concedes
Lithuania's heads of state and government faced off in the second round of a presidential election, as the Baltic nation prioritizes defense and security amid fears over neighboring Russia.
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RFERL ☛ Georgian President Presses Need For Closer EU, U.S. Ties In Independence Day Speech
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili, who has come out in support of anti-government protesters angered by a planned “foreign agent” law, pressed in an Independence Day speech the importance for closer ties to Europe and the United States for her South Caucasus nation
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RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Visits Kharkiv As Death Toll Rises From Russian Strike On Supermarket
Rescuers searched the charred wreckage of a Kharkiv shopping center for bodies as officials said the death toll from a Russian missile attack had climbed to at least 14.
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Environment
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DeSmog ☛ Climate Campaigners Must Understand the Implications of June’s Critical European Parliamentary Elections
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Nature ☛ The carbon emissions of writing and illustrating are lower for AI than for humans
As AI systems proliferate, their greenhouse gas emissions are an increasingly important concern for human societies. In this article, we present a comparative analysis of the carbon emissions associated with AI systems (ChatGPT, BLOOM, DALL-E2, Midjourney) and human individuals performing equivalent writing and illustrating tasks. Our findings reveal that AI systems emit between 130 and 1500 times less CO2e per page of text generated compared to human writers, while AI illustration systems emit between 310 and 2900 times less CO2e per image than their human counterparts. Emissions analyses do not account for social impacts such as professional displacement, legality, and rebound effects. In addition, AI is not a substitute for all human tasks. Nevertheless, at present, the use of AI holds the potential to carry out several major activities at much lower emission levels than can humans.
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The Atlantic ☛ Washington State Has Been Sitting on a Secret Weapon Against Climate Change
Conserving forested wetlands not only protects valuable habitat; it could help stabilize the climate. But first, the wetlands must be put on the map—and that is no easy task.
Wetland ecosystems are stunningly effective at soaking up carbon from the atmosphere. Despite covering only less than 10 percent of the world’s land surface, they contain roughly 20 to 30 percent of the carbon stored in the soil. And because the plant matter in the waterlogged soil decays slowly, their carbon tends to stay put.
Wetlands provide other benefits too: Some 40 percent of all animal and plant species rely on wetlands. The gnarled roots of wetland trees and plants purify water, and the wetland soils absorb it, providing flood protection to nearby areas.
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Wired ☛ Mexico Is So Hot, Monkeys Are Falling to Their Death From Trees
Before perishing, the animals suffered convulsions, hyperthermia, and fainting, which are symptoms of dehydration. Organizations responding to the catastrophe note that the main cause of death seems to be heat stroke, although they haven’t ruled out other factors. Deaths have been reported across the state of Tabasco.
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Los Angeles Times ☛ A scientist aims to save habitats that rely on groundwater
California is recognized as one of the world’s hotspots of biodiversity, with more species of plants and animals than any other state. And a significant number of the state’s species, from frogs to birds, live in habitats that depend on groundwater.
These rich ecosystems — including spring-fed streams, wetlands, riparian forests and oak woodlands — are vulnerable to declines in groundwater levels. In areas where unchecked pumping from wells severely depletes aquifers, once-thriving wetlands and forests can dry up and die.
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Energy/Transportation
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NL Times ☛ E-bike insurance premiums skyrocketing as thefts continue to rise
Insurers have tightened the conditions for insuring an e-bike because the risk of theft is increasing. ANWB and Univé confirmed this after reporting from the AD. Bicycles are becoming more luxurious, more expensive and stolen more often, which threatens to make premiums unaffordable, said a spokesperson for ANWB Insurance.
That is why the ANWB, the largest bicycle insurer in the Netherlands, has increased the premium, required a second lock with a certain quality mark, and introduced a deductible for e-bike owners. If an electric bicycle is stolen, the owner must pay 5 percent of the purchase price as a deductible. Bicycles more expensive than 4,500 euros must also have a special track-and-trace system. The measures have been in effect since March 1.
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Wildlife/Nature
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NPR ☛ Witnessing the spectacle of synchronous fireflies is ‘like magic’
According to the National Park Service, there are just three types of fireflies in North America that are synchronous, meaning they coordinate their belly lanterns to flash at exactly the same time.
The species here in Congaree National Park is Photuris frontalis, also known as “snappy syncs,” named for their quick, steady flash. “It’s constant, like a metronome,” says Lynn Frierson Faust, author of Fireflies, Glow-worms and Lightning Bugs, a field guide that covers the eastern and central U.S. and Canada.
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Overpopulation
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RFA ☛ Malaysian fishermen want govt to crack down on Vietnamese encroachers
Fishers say their squid stock is diminishing because of foreigners entering territorial waters.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Cyble Inc ☛ The U.S. Moves A Step Closer To A Cyber Force
A U.S. Cyber Force moved a step closer to reality this week after the House Armed Services Committee approved language authorizing a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study of the issue.
The amendment, proposed by Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-TX), was included in the committee’s markup of the fiscal 2025 defense bill, which now goes to the full House for a vote.
The amendment – which can be found as log 4401 in the Chairman’s En Bloc – gives the Defense Department 60 days after enactment to engage the Academy, which then has 270 days to submit the report to Congress, so the U.S. is unlikely to get the new armed services branch before fiscal 2027 at the earliest, if it happens at all.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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Deccan Chronicle ☛ Fact Check: Aadhaar Cards Will Not Become Invalid After June 14
Conclusion: There is no truth to the claims that Aadhaar cards will be invalid after June 14 if the cardholder does not update the details.
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The Hill ☛ Arizona secretary of state warns AI could be a ‘magnifier’ of disinformation ahead of election
“Well, look, I have to reach back into my past,” Fontes said, according to a transcript. “And in boot camp and in other military training I had in the Marine Corps, we looked at the weapons of our enemies, and we train against them as much as possible. AI is not a new weapon. It’s an amplifier and a magnifier of mis- and disinformation.”
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RTL ☛ June 2 vote: Disinformation war engulfs Mexican presidential race
Does Mexican presidential front-runner Claudia Sheinbaum want to make circumcision compulsory and close a revered Catholic church? No, it's all part of an election disinformation war.
The June 2 vote is not only being fought with campaigning in the streets, but also online, where the war is often based on false rumors, many of them debunked by AFP factcheckers.
Internet users using old videos or footage taken out of context have repeatedly accused opposition candidate Xochitl Galvez of wanting to scrap outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's social programs.
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RTL ☛ Ministry warns: Fake video of Luxembourg PM Luc Frieden circulates online
The video falsely depicts Prime Minister Luc Frieden inviting viewers to invest money in an artificial intelligence programme. The Ministry of State clarified in a press release on Saturday, 25 May, that the video is a fake and has been circulating for several days.
"We would like to alert that this is a fake video and that it is not, in fact, the Prime Minister who is speaking in this video," the ministry stated.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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[Repeat] JURIST ☛ UK music distributor takes down protest song ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ following court injunction
UK digital music distributor Emubands Ltd. removed the protest song “Glory to Hong Kong” from music platforms such as iTunes and Apple Music in many regions, DGX Music said on Friday. The move follows an interlocutory injunction by the Hong Kong Court of Appeal to restrain any activities associated with the song on May 8.
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RFERL ☛ Director Who Fled Iran Gets 12-Minute Ovation, Special Jury Prize At Cannes Film Festival
In accepting the award in the French resort town, the 51-year-old Rasoulof said his heart was with his film crew, who were "still under the pressure of the secret services back in Iran."
The special jury prize was given to Rasoulof for "drawing attention to unsustainable injustice" in Iran, organizers said after a screening of the film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, led to a 12-minute ovation.
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RTL ☛ Special jury prize: Iran's fearless filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof: from prison to Cannes
He perfected his trade in Iran's prisons, and now Mohammad Rasoulof has received a special jury prize at Cannes, confirming him as one of the world's most powerful and fearless filmmakers.
Rasoulof's film "The Seed of the Sacred Fig" tells the story of a court investigator whose family life is torn apart during Iran's women-led protests.
Collecting the prize on Saturday, Rasoulof said his heart was with the film's crew, "still under the pressure of the secret services back in Iran".
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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CPJ ☛ Guinea revokes broadcast licenses of 6 media outlets
Guinean authorities should immediately reinstate the media licenses for six blocked outlets and allow them to resume broadcasting freely after months of censorship, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.
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VOA News ☛ Dispute by Iranian ex-president's allies, 'interrogator journalist' sparks firestorm
The labeling of Zabihpour as the "interrogator journalist" emerged following testimony from Sepideh Gholian, a civil activist currently detained, who asserted that this state radio and television employee had participated in her interrogation sessions.
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BIA Net ☛ Journalism groups rally against ‘agents of influence’ bill
Media organizations and legal experts have voiced strong opposition to a new legislative proposal by the government that aims to criminalize "agents of influence."
This provision, part of the broader "9th Judicial Package," is seen as a threat to freedom of expression and independent journalism in Turkey.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Los Angeles Times ☛ Opinion: The issue of human rights is on life support. Here's how to save it
The Council on Foreign Relations maintains a conflict tracker — its orange markers dot the globe. Wikipedia maps an even broader set of armed conflicts. Hostile actions are killing folks in Sudan and western New Guinea, Haiti is near collapse, criminal violence pervades Mexico, thousands die in Syria year by year.
Some of the violence is especially barbaric, as at the music festival in Israel on Oct. 7. Hostages are held for long periods of time in Russia, China, Egypt and now Gaza. Nearly a million Palestinians are fleeing any which way, seeking safety from the promised invasion of Rafah.
The consequences are obvious but hard to fathom. The old and the very young die first. Famine follows war; disease follows famine, and young adults and the middle-aged die too. Women are especially vulnerable to sexual violence, with effects that can last for a lifetime. Scores are left homeless.
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The Scotsman ☛ From illegal gambling to building the first Tibetan temple in Europe - the extraordinary life of a Buddhist monk in Scotland
He was one of the first people to build the monastery after co-founders Akong Rinpoche and Chogyam Trungpa moved into a former shooting lodge north of Eskdalemuir in 1959. They fled Tibet after it was invaded by China with a vision to build a Tibetan monastery to preserve their culture.
Drimay, 86, spent decades of his life under the guidance of Akong before practicing as a monk. During his time at Samye Ling, he got to know David Bowie, “a regular” at the monastery, and saw “all the musicians of the day come here” including The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Annie Lennox and Leonard Cohen.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Berggruen Insitute ☛ We Need To Rewild The Internet
The story of German scientific forestry transmits a timeless truth: When we simplify complex systems, we destroy them, and the devastating consequences sometimes aren’t obvious until it’s too late.
That impulse to scour away the messiness that makes life resilient is what many conservation biologists call the “pathology of command and control.” Today, the same drive to centralize, control and extract has driven the internet to the same fate as the ravaged forests.
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Zimbabwe ☛ Starlink receives licence approval in Zimbabwe, albeit through unusual circumstances
Then there is the fact that Starlink only gets to come here through a partnership with IMC Communications. We don’t know just how Starlink ended up partnering IMC. Were they required to find a local partner and they settled on IMC or were they told they had to partner IMC to get the license?
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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Stian Kristoffersen ☛ TPM Performance :(
TPMs have mainly been used for infrequent events (e.g. SSH logins and Microsoft Entra logins). With new and emerging standards like Demonstrating Proof of Possession and Device Bound Session Credentials, the TPM load is likely to increase. Ideally, every request should be protected by the TPM, which made me wonder:
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Futurism ☛ Ticketmaster May Finally Get What It Deserves
The Department of Justice is suing Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the monolithic ticketing enterprise that merged in 2010, over its alleged industry monopoly that's said to drive prices through the roof and make it harder for artists, fans, venues, and competitors to get butts in seats.
In a press release about the sweeping lawsuit, which was filed in Manhattan and includes sign-offs from 30 state and district attorneys general, the DOJ declared that it seeks to break up the ticketing monolith's monopoly on the industry.
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JURIST ☛ US Government launches antitrust suit against Live Nation Entertainment, claiming business practices that harm artists and fans
The US Government alleges that Live Nation violated § 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, an 1890 US antitrust law that prescribes the rules of free competition and prohibits unfair monopolies. § 1 of the Sherman Act states that contracts that limit trade are illegal, whereas § 2 states that every person who attempts to monopolize, or attempts to monopolize, any part of trade, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
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Patents
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JURIST ☛ UN intellectual property agency approves first global treaty on intellectual [sic] property [sic], genetic resources and traditional knowledge
Member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) approved a groundbreaking new treaty relating to intellectual [sic] property [sic], genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge on Friday at a diplomatic conference in Geneva.
The objective of this Treaty is to enhance the efficacy, transparency and quality of the patent system, and prevent patents from being granted “erroneously” for inventions that are not novel or inventive regarding genetic resources and traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources.
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Trademarks
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Right of Publicity
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Reason ☛ AI Is Coming for Hollywood’s Jobs
"We want to be able to scan a background performer's image, pay them for a half a day's labor, and then use an individual's likeness for any purpose forever without their consent," is how the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the actor's guild, characterized the Producers Guild of America's position. "We also want to be able to make changes to principal performers' dialogue, and even create new scenes, without informed consent. And we want to be able to use someone's images, likenesses, and performances to train new generative AI systems without consent or compensation." The Writers Guild of America, meanwhile, worried that screenwriters might be forced to write drafts based on AI outlines, respond to AI notes, or find their own original work rewritten and restructured by AI software.
No one, in other words, wanted to work for a robot. No one wanted to be replaced by one. The industry was united in defiance of digital Toms.
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India Times ☛ Eye on AI: Scarlett Johansson sues OpenAI, Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs
Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson slapped a lawsuit on GPT maker OpenAI for allegedly imitating her voice for its latest AI model GPT 4o.
The actress claimed that she had twice declined OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman’s offer to clone her voice for the latest chatbot, which would be instrumental “to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI”, the statement said.
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Copyrights
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Torrent Freak ☛ Jury Finds 'Destiny 2' Cheat Seller Liable For Copyright Infringement in Landmark Lawsuit
A Seattle jury has issued a landmark verdict following the legal battle between 'Destiny 2' creator Bungie and cheat seller AimJunkies. The 'cheat' company and its three owners are liable for copyright infringement and must pay damages to Bungie. The same applies to an independent cheat developer whose counterclaim, alleging that Bungie 'hacked' his computer, was denied.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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