Leftovers

• Robert Birming ☛ Back on Bear Blog - for life | Robert Birming

  When I decided to start blogging again after a long absence, Bear was the platform I fell in love with. I published the first post, It's alive!, on February 16, 2023, while on vacation in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

  After about half a year, I went on a blogging tool spree. Why? I'm not sure why. Maybe because of my love and fascination for the web.

• Doc Searls ☛ Archiving a Way – Doc Searls Weblog

  For more on where this might go, see my Archives as Commons post. I’ll be talking about this, I hope, at the upcoming WoW Conference and DWeb Camp.

• Science

  • Michael's and Christian's blog ☛ A Tweedie Trilogy － Part I: Frequency and Aggregration Invariance

    Tweedie distributions and Generalised Linear Models (GLM) have an intertwined relationship. While GLMs are, in my view, one of the best reference models for estimating expectations, Tweedie distributions lie at the heart of expectation estimation. In fact, basically all applied GLMs in practice use Tweedie distributions with three notable exceptions: the binomial, the multinomial and the negative binomial distribution.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Three Boys Found a T. Rex Fossil in North Dakota. Now a Denver Museum Works to Fully Reveal It

    Initially, Lyson suspected it was a relatively common duckbill dinosaur. But he organized an excavation that began last summer, adding the boys and a sister, Emalynn Fisher, now 14, to the team.

    It didn't take long to determine they had found something more special. Lyson recalled that he started digging with Jessin where he thought he might find a neck bone.

    “Instead of finding a cervical vertebrae, we found the lower jaw with several teeth sticking out of it,” Lyson said. “And it doesn’t get any more diagnostic than that, seeing these giant tyrannosaurus teeth starring back at you.”

• Education

  • teleSUR ☛ Finland to Open Shooting Ranges to Strengthen National Defense

    The project will take into account regional needs and those of various user groups, such as public authorities and national defense organizations, reservists, sports shooters, and hunters.

• Hardware

  • The Register UK ☛ Arm CEO aims to conquer half the Windows world in 5 years

    "Getting to 50 percent in five years would require some pretty massive developments in the market," Canalys analyst Kieren Jessop told The Register. "Today, around 8-10 percent of quarterly PC shipments are Arm-based, which is almost entirely Apple Silicon."

    "We've previously made the prediction that 30 percent of the PC market will be Arm-based by 2026. I think to push that any higher in a five-year timeframe would require something along the lines of Intel introducing their own Arm chip, which seems unlikely," Jessop added.

  • India Times ☛ Arm Holdings: Arm aims to capture 50% of PC market in five years, CEO says

    Arm Holdings aims to gain more than 50% of the Windows PC market in five years, the chip designer's CEO said, as Microsoft and its hardware partners prepare to launch a new batch of computers based on the British firm's technology.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Jeffrey Tucker of the Brownstone Institute goes full Alex Jones antivax conspiracy theorist

    I’ve long argued that all antivax narrative—indeed, all science denial—is a form of conspiracy. It’s rare that I come across a post over at that “spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration” (a.k.a. the Brownstone Institute) by its founder Jeffrey Tucker that illustrates that point so well, but leave to Tucker and the Brownstone Institute to deliver in the form of an article entitled, What Really Happened: Lockdown until Vaccination, and, wow, it is a doozy, even for the Brownstone Institute. You’ll get a flavor of what you’re about to read from the introduction:

  • Quack tycoon Joe Mercola abandons an old antivax friend

    I like to call Barbara Loe Fisher the grande dame of the antivaccine movement because she co-founded and still runs what is arguably oldest continuously active antivaccine group in existence, the Orwellian-named National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), which should really be called the National Vaccine Misinformation Center. The NVIC was originally founded in 1982 by Jeff Schwartz, Barbara Loe Fisher, and Kathi Williams under the name Dissatisfied Parents Together, all of whom were bound together by having seen the health of their children deteriorate at some point after having received the DPT (diptheria-whole cell pertussis-tetanus vaccine) vaccine and encountered the TV documentary DPT: Vaccine Roulette, which confused correlation with causation to propose a causal link between DPT vaccines and neurologic illnesses of some children who received them. Fisher came to believe that the DPT vaccine had caused neurologic injury to her child. As I note whenever I discuss this topic, subsequent evidence has shown no link between DPT and neurologic injury. However, at the time, in the early 1980s, there were several case reports and the aforementioned sensationalistic DPT: Vaccine Roulette, which first aired on a local NBC affiliate in Washington DC in 1982, and then ultimately nationally on The Today Show. Three years later, Barbara Loe Fisher and Harris Coulter published a book, DPT: A Shot in the Dark. The fear caused by these media and books narratives, as well as many others, led to a tsunami of lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers to the point that the potential financial liability threatened the vaccine supply and led Congress to pass the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which established the Vaccine Court. For a number of years, quack tycoon Joe Mercola has been providing generous financial support to the NVIC.

  • Science Alert ☛ PFAS: How to Reduce Your Exposure to Potentially Toxic 'Forever Chemicals'

    An expert explains what to look out for.

  • Nicholas Tietz-Sokolsky ☛ My portable ergonomic setup

    Here's my setup, as of 2024. This is a snapshot, as it will surely change over time as my needs and abilities change. I hope that this can be useful for folks out there struggling with the same things I did. There's some background to go through first, then a rundown of how I made it portable.

  • Lewis Dale ☛ Trying out a cycling club

    For the last two years or so I’ve been cycling on my own, with a couple of small exceptions, like joining ad-hoc groups during events. When I have joined those groups, I’ve had a great time and really enjoyed it, and yet for some reason have held off from joining a cycling club.

  • Lou Plummer ☛ What is Your Superpower? | Living Out Loud

    When we got to Ft. Irwin, the young second lieutenant in my team told all of us junior enlisted guys that our job when we had no other assignment was to sleep. The pace of training was such that there was no planned downtime. In order to function in that environment, we had to take advantage of every opportunity to get some shut eye, no matter what was going on around us. For the first few days the adrenaline and newness of the experience kept us from strictly following the LT's order but as time went on, we all started to catch Zs whenever we could, even if it were in the middle of an artillery fire mission where someone else was manning the radios or binoculars.

  • Science Alert ☛ 'Sham' Surgery Can Actually Fix Our Bodies. So Why Are Some Against It?

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Silicon Angle ☛ X updates policies to allow some sexually explicit content and AI-generated porn

    The subsequent uproar, which went as far as the White House, resulted in more calls to regulate AI. X and other social platforms have over the years walked a fine line where nonconsensual sexual content is concerned. Today, X clarified just what is allowed and what is not allowed, with anything nonconsensual belonging to the latter category but nudity and “sexual behavior” getting a pass as long as someone has agreed to it.

  • The Verge ☛ X has new rules that officially allow porn now

    As spotted by TechCrunch, X updated its guidelines to let users “share consensually produced and distributed adult nudity or sexual behavior” as long as it’s labeled and not in a prominent location, such as a profile picture or banner.

  • The Verge ☛ Zoom CEO Eric Yuan wants AI clones in meetings

    I’ll just warn you: I tried to ask a bunch of the usual Decoder questions during this conversation, but once we got to digital twins going to Zoom meetings for people, I had a lot of follow-up questions. How many digital twins might you have? How will they all stay in sync? Can you trust them? What work will be left if everyone is sending their digital twins to all the meetings?

  • Dedoimedo ☛ Consumer-oriented AI promotes stupidity

    AI models are complicated black boxes. What happens inside an AI model stays inside an AI model. Often, it is very difficult and sometimes even impossible to deconstruct the "logic" by which AI models come to certain answers and conclusions. Sure, you have algorithms, you have weights, you have all sorts of lovely statistics at play. But when you mash them together, you get a system that can answer certain things, but not necessarily know why or how it arrived at its answers.

    Furthermore, AI models don't really know what sources of data are true, accurate or both. They need either human input for that (which nullifies the whole idea of AI) or they deduce their own conclusions whichever way. And this is where it all gets interesting. Machines make decisions based on statistics. That's not intelligence. That's just fancy mathematics. The fact is sounds like a language does not make it a language. Take Voynich's Manuscript as an example.

    Therefore, AI is simply eloquent mimicry of the Internet. The problem is, when your source of data is social media, forums, and an occasional scientific publication, your input becomes mostly memes, trolling, racism, and good ole human stupidity. But let's not be overly negative. Since the Internet represents average humanity, the Internet has average intelligence - around IQ 100.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Register UK ☛ US standards body reports back on age verification software

      Estimating a person's age based on physical characteristics is becoming increasingly important as regulators seek ways to enforce age restrictions on activities beyond the user simply saying, "Yep, I am over 18," or answering a question about bygone times.

      When NIST last examined age estimation algorithms in 2014, the online world was very different. Now, regulators are considering the technology as a gatekeeper for activities with an age restriction, such as accessing mature content online or dipping a toe into social media.

    • US NIST ☛ NIST Reports First Results From Age Estimation Software Evaluation

      Software algorithms that estimate a person’s age from a photo offer a potential way to control access to age-restricted activities without compromising privacy.

      NIST’s new report, its first on the topic in a decade, evaluates the capabilities of six algorithms, finding none that clearly outperforms the others.

      Moving forward, the agency plans to update its evaluation results every four to six weeks, noting that artificial intelligence is expected to improve age estimation software capabilities.

    • Maine Morning Star ☛ States are already collecting more abortion data. And HIPAA won’t always keep it private.

      Carmel Shachar, a Harvard law professor with research experience in data privacy and health policy, said people typically think of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — better known as HIPAA — as fully protective of medical records, but that’s not the reality.

    • Wired ☛ How Donald Trump Could Weaponize US Surveillance in a Second Term

      Donald Trump, a now convicted felon and the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has said he plans to prosecute his political opponents should he return to the White House. He’s said he would allow states to monitor pregnant women and prosecute those who seek abortions. Trump wants to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. He plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell civil unrest, which means sending the military into the streets. The much publicized Project 2025 outlines how he would quickly replace thousands of career civil servants in the federal government with loyalists.

      If a president was interested in prosecuting their political opponents, crushing protests, targeting undocumented immigrants, and had the right people in place to help them carry out those plans, surveillance could become a valuable tool for accomplishing those goals. Like former US president Richard Nixon in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Trump could use the surveillance powers available to him to monitor his political opponents, disrupt protest movements, and more.

    • France24 ☛ FRANCE 24 wins FIGRA prize for Hey Hi (AI) facial recognition documentary

      FRANCE 24 has won the human rights prize at France’s international festival for current affairs reporting and social documentaries (FIGRA) for an in-depth look at tech company Clearview AI's efforts to identify and log the faces of every single person on the planet. FRANCE 24 also received special mention for a documentary on Ukrainian resistance fighters.

• Defence/Aggression

  • RTL ☛ Normandy: As war again shakes Europe, leaders mark 80 years since D-Day

    Western leaders will this week mark on the beaches of northern France 80 years since Allied troops surged into Nazi occupied Europe in the World War II D-Day landings, haunted by the war again raging on the continent as Ukraine battles Russian invasion.

  • VOA News ☛ US veterans get heroes' welcome in France ahead of D-Day anniversary

    Many of those flying in over the weekend into Monday were older than 100, pushed on wheelchairs by relatives and aides.

    "It's unreal. It's unreal. Wow," 107-year-old Reynolds Tomter said at Paris Charles-de-Gaulle airport as students waved U.S. and French flags and held up photos of the veterans.

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ Black medic who saved dozens on D-Day posthumously honored

    “The tide brought us in, and that’s when the 88s hit us,” he said of the German 88mm guns. “They were murder. Of our 26 Navy personnel there was only one left. They raked the whole top of the ship and killed all the crew. Then they started with the mortar shells,” Woodson said.

    Woodson was wounded while still on the landing craft. But for the next 30 hours he treated 200 wounded men all while under intense small arms and artillery fire before collapsing from his injuries and blood loss, according to accounts of his service. At the time he was awarded the Bronze Star.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Germany to miss 2030 climate goal: experts

    Germany's climate advisory body has called for new policy measures to slash greenhouse gas emissions, warning that the country looks set to miss its 2030 climate change targets.

    In a report published on Monday, the Council of Experts on Climate Change said Germany was unlikely to reach its goal of cutting 65% of emissions by the end of the decade compared to 1990 levels.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Xi Jinping visited Europe to divide it. What happens next could determine if he succeeds.

    Many Central and Eastern European countries, too, have turned against greater cooperation with China. Russia’s war in Ukraine and the region’s political turnover have pushed Czechia, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Slovenia to take a more skeptical stance toward China. This has left Hungary and Serbia as the remaining champions of China’s interests in the region and, not surprisingly, two destinations of Xi’s visit. Of course, Hungary, as a member of the EU and NATO, is the more useful of the two for Beijing’s bid to expand its influence in Europe.

    To better understand where China-Europe relations go from here, it is worth looking at each stop on Xi’s trip. Each had a very different choreography and emphasis.

  • VOA News ☛ European powers submit Iran censure motion to IAEA board

    Uranium enriched to 60% is close to the levels of 90% needed for atomic weapons and well above the 3.67% used for nuclear power stations.

    The board of governors passed the last such resolution criticizing Iran in November 2022, prompting Tehran to retaliate by stepping up its uranium enrichment activities.

  • RFERL ☛ Iranian Newspaper Accuses Taliban Consulate Staff Of 'Torturing' Photographer

    The Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper claimed on June 1 that a Taliban representative in the Afghan Consulate in the northeastern city of Mashhad had “dragged” the unnamed Iranian photographer into the consulate and “tortured” him.

    The paper said the photographer later filed a complaint against the “diplomat,” identified as “Dr. Salim,” which ultimately resulted in him being expelled from Iran and replaced by another Taliban representative.

  • RFERL ☛ Family Of French Citizen Held In Iran In The Dark Over Her Fate

    The family of Cecile Kohler, a French teacher held by authorities in Iran for over two years, say they have not heard from her since late April.

  • Vox ☛ Nagorno-Karabakh: The overlooked war that changed 21st-century combat

    As it turned out, it wasn’t a sign of desperation on Azerbaijan’s part that its military was flying a plane first produced in the Soviet Union in 1947, and today used mostly for crop-dusting. Azerbaijan had converted several AN-2s into unmanned aircraft and used them as so-called bait drones. After the Armenians shot down the planes, revealing the positions of their anti-aircraft systems, their forces came under attack from more modern drones.

  • RFERL ☛ German Police Officer Dies After Attack At Anti-Islam Rally By Afghan-Born Man

    [...] Five people taking part in a rally organized by Pax Europa, a campaign group against radical Islam, were wounded in the attack. The motive of the 25-year-old perpetrator, who was born in Afghanistan, remains unclear. [...]

  • New York Times ☛ Opinion | Trump’s Second Term Would Be Even More Corrupt and Vindictive Than His First

    A truism of the Trump era is that every accusation is a confession. When Donald Trump hurls wild charges at his opponents, he is telegraphing what he plans to do to them, preemptively justifying the breaking of laws and norms by casting himself as the victim of the very misdeeds he’s going to commit.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea plans to convene UN meeting on North Korea rights abuses

    UNITED NATIONS - South Korea plans to convene in mid-June a public United Nations Security Council meeting on human rights abuses in North Korea, Seoul's U.N. envoy said on Monday, a move that is likely to anger Pyongyang and face opposition from Russia and China.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • LRT ☛ Cigarette smuggler shot dead during chase in Lithuania

      A cigarette smuggler has been shot dead by a Lithuanian border guard during a chase near the Belarusian border, the State Border Guard Service (VSAT) reported on Sunday.

    • LRT ☛ Western Ukraine could join NATO – Atlantic Council interview

      NATO does not have a unified strategy on Ukraine and may have to start thinking about a new strategy which would see only parts of the country being admitted into the alliance, Matthew Kroenig, vice-president of the Atlantic Council, told LRT.lt in an exclusive interview.

    • RFERL ☛ U.S., EU Impose Sanctions On Iranian Entities, Individual Linked To Drone Sector

      The U.S. and the EU have imposed sanctions on four Iranian entities and one individual connected to the development, manufacture, and proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which Tehran has provided to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine, the U.S. State Department said on June 3.

    • RFERL ☛ Former U.S. Soldier Extradited By Kyiv To Florida On Murder Charge

      A former U.S. Army soldier who fought for a far-right Ukrainian paramilitary group and who has been linked to a bomb plot in the United States has been extradited by Ukraine and is set to appear in a Florida court on June 3.

    • RFERL ☛ Wives, Mothers Of Mobilized Russian Troops In Rare Protest At Defense Ministry In Moscow

      About 20 wives and mothers of mobilized Russian troops engaged in a rare protest in front of the Defense Ministry building in Moscow on June 3, demanding the return of their family members from the battlefield in Ukraine.

    • Meduza ☛ ‘We want justice’: Wives and mothers of mobilized Russian soldiers protest outside Moscow’s Defense Ministry — Meduza

    • RFERL ☛ IAEA Says Situation At Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Plant Is 'Precarious,' Unsafe To Restart

      The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog says the situation at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant “remains precarious” and it would be unsafe to restart the facility, which has been occupied by Russian forces since shortly after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

    • RFERL ☛ U.S. Says Vice President Harris Will Attend Ukraine Peace Summit In Switzerland

      The White House said Vice President Kamala Harris and national-security adviser Jake Sullivan will attend a Ukraine peace conference in Switzerland this month following public pleas by Kyiv for the United States – and President Joe Biden, in particular – to participate in the June 15-16 event.

    • teleSUR ☛ Finland to Open Shooting Ranges to Strengthen National Defense

      The Ukrainian war has increased the population's interest in firearms and shooting practices.

    • New York Times ☛ In Israel and Ukraine, Biden Navigates Two of America’s Most Difficult Allies

      President Biden has promised to support the two countries for as long as it takes. Both their wars appear to be at critical turning points.

    • New York Times ☛ In Former Soviet States, a Tug of War Between East and West

      Geopolitical rivalry, intensified by fighting in Ukraine, is amplifying domestic struggles in countries like Georgia and Moldova whose people are split on which side to support.

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Body parts buried in a closed coffin’: Imprisoned Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin says three of his cellmates died fighting in Ukraine — Meduza

    • JURIST ☛ Georgia enacts controversial ‘foreign agent’ law despite large-scale protests

      Georgia enacted a controversial “foreign agent” bill on Monday despite large-scale demonstrations against the law and international opposition. Georgian parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili signed the law On Transparency of Foreign Influence, also known as the law on foreign agents” or the “Russian law,” which was subsequently published on the country’s Legislative Bulletin website.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Expands U.K. Sanctions List

      Russia's Foreign Ministry said it had expanded Moscow's sanctions list of British nationals by adding an unspecified number of "representatives of the political establishment, the expert community, and the U.K. media."

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Lawmaker, Noted Polar Explorer Artur Chilingarov Dies At 84

      Russian media reports said prominent Russian polar explorer and lawmaker Artur Chilingarov has died at the age of 84. No cause of death was given.

    • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ ‘Eternally grateful for the kindness they’ve been shown’: Russian transgender refugee reunited with husband at MSP Airport

      They are seeking asylum in the U.S.

    • Latvia ☛ Daugavpils city festival tinged with Russian propaganda

      Last weekend Latvia's second-largest city Daugavpils, which is also the city with the largest Russian-speaker proportion, celebrated the 749th anniversary of its foundation. For some celebrants, it ended with reprimands from the State Police and the State Security Service (VDD) for pro-Russian activity, Latvian Television reported June 3.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Arrests Alleged Participant In 1995 Budyonnovsk Hostage Seizure

      Russia's Investigative Committee said on June 3 it had arrested a man suspected of being involved in a deadly hostage-taking in the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk in 1995, a turning point in the first of the two post-Soviet separatist wars in Russia’s North Caucasus region of Chechnya.

• Environment

  • Science Alert ☛ This Hurricane Season Could Be So Bad, We Might Run Out of Names

    Not only are tropical cyclones brewing earlier than usual, they are also growing in number and severity as the climate crisis unfolds. This year, it is highly possible that meteorologists will once again run out of pre-selected names for Atlantic tempests.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Revelator ☛ How to Account for Offshore Wind Impacts on Oceanic Wildlife? Make a Plan.

    • DeSmog ☛ Nigel Farage’s Anti-Climate Record

    • The Register UK ☛ Energy researchers say SMR promises don't match reality

      IEEFA doesn't have many data points to pull from, with only three SMRs actually online around the world – one in China and two in Russia. A fourth, in Argentina, is still under construction and perfectly illustrates the point IEEFA researchers try to make: It's running far over cost and is facing budget constraints that could affect its future.

      The other three SMRs have run into similar issues. They've all been way more expensive than initially agreed upon, and proposals for SMRs in the US face related issues, the report finds.

    • RTL ☛ World Bicycle Day: New cycle path opens in Cents

      A new 815-metre-long cycle path opened between Cents station and Hamm on Monday, in honour of World Bicycle Day.

      The new section of the PC27 cycle path runs alongside the railway tracks towards the Robert Schaffner (Irrgärtchen) roundabout, establishing a connection between Cents train station and Scheedhaff. Work on the new path began in October 2023 following years of discussions.

    • Zimbabwe ☛ I have trouble believing Zim's upcoming smart traffic management system will succeed

      Chaos begets chaos. You need only observe the way Zimbos drive, especially Hararians. You would be forgiven for thinking the red light means ‘stop’. No, to most Zimbos it’s just there to add ambience to road intersections.

      One of the major reasons they drive this way is that they know they can get away with it.

    • New Yorker ☛ Are We Doomed? Here’s How to Think About It

      Climate change, artificial intelligence, nuclear annihilation, biological warfare—the field of existential risk is a way to reason through the dizzying, terrifying headlines.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Water bill cut by 90% after L.A. family swaps grass for native plants

      “I identified with what seems to be Sophie’s primary drivers — to support biodiversity, revitalize natural ecosystems, and conserve water,” Cordeal says. “Also, I could tell she is educated and passionate about what she does, and I enjoyed her dry humor.”

      While this year’s record-setting rainfall may feel like an excuse to reconsider the argument for removing thirsty turf, that’s ludicrous, says Pennes, who specializes in edible gardens and California native gardens.

  • Overpopulation

    • The Age AU ☛ Desperate for water, some Delhi residents are prepared to kill

      With the intense heat, water – piped or trucked to residents – is now in short supply for some 25 million people in the Delhi national capital region.

      Every summer, the water table in Delhi is reduced because of the huge demand. But this year’s crisis has also exposed the increasing dysfunction of national governance, with states often stuck in political battles with one another or with the central government. The Delhi regional government has appealed to the country’s top court to force a neighbouring state to release surplus water that a second state had provided for Delhi.

• Finance

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Food Retailers Are Still Lying About Inflation and Profits

    American consumers are paying more and more at both grocery stores and fast-food chains. These retailers are disingenuously blaming the price hikes on inflation while they put their massive profits toward stock buybacks and fat dividends.

  • 20,0000 'Silent Layoffs' In 2023 Reported By All India IT & ITeS Employees' Union

    As per the data shared by All India IT & ITeS Employees’ Union (AIITEU), there has been “silent layoff” of around 20,000 techies during the calendar year 2023 in the Indian IT sector.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Insight Hungary ☛ Orbán : There aren't enough white Christians in Europe

    "Hódmezővásárhely is one of the bastions of the national Christianity, you can always count on it, for better or worse, in war or peace", Hungary's far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán said at a rally held in the town on Saturday afternoon, Telex reports. The main topics discussed were war, migration, families, Mayor Péter Márki-Zay, and how to campaign until 9 June.

    After the Minister of Construction and Transport and regional MP, János Lázár's speech, the floor was taken by Orbán.  He shared his thoughts on war and peace. He said that we pay an economic price for war, that "prices are high in stores", but this is secondary to human lives. The prime minister said that "there are not enough white Christians in Europe", and that this can be explained by the fact that "they were killed in the two world wars". Orbán said that migration is also caused by "their children and grandchildren are missing, so there are not enough people" where migrants are "sent".

  • Democracy Now ☛ “ANC Failed”: How Mandela’s Party Lost Its Majority for First Time Since End of Apartheid

    We go to South Africa for an update on how the African National Congress, the party once led by Nelson Mandela, has lost its governing majority for the first time since the end of apartheid in South Africa. The ANC, led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, remains the largest party in the National Assembly. It got just 40% of the vote in last week’s election and won 159 seats in the 400-seat parliament. The liberal Democratic Alliance is the largest opposition party with 87 seats, but the biggest gains were made by the new uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party led by former President Jacob Zuma, who left the ANC under investigation for corruption. South African activist Trevor Ngwane, chair of the United Front, a coalition of community and labor groups, says a “crisis of everyday life” all but guaranteed the ANC’s setback as the country grapples with high unemployment, corruption, crumbling infrastructure and social services, and deepening inequality. “The ANC failed to fulfill the promises of national liberation. It fell too short of the expectations of the masses, of the working class and the poor,” says Ngwane. We also speak with journalist Louis Freedberg, who says the majority of the population of South Africa is under 30 and sees little hope for the future. “They’ve lost faith in government, and they actually don’t believe that anything will get better,” he says. The ANC must now decide how to build a coalition government for the first time.

  • EDRI ☛ Open letter: The dangers of the May 2024 Council of the EU compromise proposal on EU CSAM

    We call on Ministers in the Council of the EU to reject all scanning proposals that are inconsistent with the principle of end-to-end encryption, including client-side scanning and upload moderation, and to guarantee the protection of digital rights throughout the proposal. These intrusive techniques would only jeopardize the security and the rights of internet users.

    The Belgian Presidency continues to advocate for the use of scanning technologies for encrypted messaging services, as well other disproportionate limitations on digital rights. Content detection has been a contentious issue for a number of EU member states who have until now opposed client-side scanning technologies, because they rightly understand that it creates serious security and privacy risks, permitting general monitoring, and undermining human rights.

  • The Register UK ☛ Arm chief exec scored $70M in New York IPO bonanza

    Arm chief exec Rene Haas netted himself a cool $70.1 million last year, becoming a major beneficiary of the CPU designer's IPO in New York.

  • The Sunday Times UK ☛ Arm chief Rene Haas paid £55m after US float

    Rene Haas, the chief executive of Cambridge-based tech business Arm, took home $70.1 million (£55 million) last year as he guided his company on to America’s Nasdaq exchange.

    The pay packet for Haas included a salary of $1.35 million, plus $69 million of bonuses and one-off amounts relating to Arm’s float.

  • Axios ☛ AI safety, once a consensus, is now a partisan issue

    Why it matters: Like "election integrity" in politics, everyone says they support "AI safety" — but now the term means something different depending on who's saying it.

  • New York Times ☛ Elon Musk’s Starlink Connects and Divides Brazil’s Marubo People

    They have preserved this way of life for hundreds of years through isolation — some villages can take a week to reach. But since September, the Marubo have had high-speed internet thanks to Elon Musk.

    The 2,000-member tribe is one of hundreds across Brazil that are suddenly logging on with Starlink, the satellite-internet service from Space X, Mr. Musk’s private space company. Since its entry into Brazil in 2022, Starlink has swept across the world’s largest rainforest, bringing the web to one of the last offline places on Earth.

  • Vox ☛ Mexico elects AMLO protege Claudia Sheinbaum

    Sheinbaum’s early career was as an environmental engineer and climate scientist; she was part of a Nobel Prize-winning team behind a report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007. She started her political career as AMLO’s environmental minister during his time as Mexico City’s mayor in the early 2000s and later served as the capital’s mayor herself. But during AMLO’s tenure, she’s been in her mentor’s shadow in terms of policy, especially as the current administration’s investments in fossil fuel contradict the urgent need to switch to renewable energy — and drain the administration’s coffers.

    Sheinbaum won nearly 59 percent of the vote, according to early results from the National Electoral Institute; her closest competitor, businesswoman and former Senator Xóchitl Gálvez, received 28 percent. Gálvez was backed by a three-party coalition that includes El Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and El Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), which controlled Mexico for seven decades before AMLO was elected in 2018.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Beijing ready to 'forcefully' stop Taiwan independence: China

    The remarks at an annual security forum in Singapore followed the first substantive face-to-face talks in 18 months between the two countries’ defence chiefs.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Fake Tom Cruise warns of violence at Paris Olympics in pro-Russian info op

      The influence campaign includes a phony DRM spreader Netflix documentary and seeks to undermine France and the International Olympic Committee.

    • Meduza ☛ Millions of views While YouTube works to remove Russian propaganda, its algorithm keeps pushing pro-Kremlin videos — Meduza

    • 404 Media ☛ Google Contractor Used Admin Access to Leak Info From Private Nintendo YouTube Video

      “Google employee deliberately leaked private Nintendo information,” the entry in the database reads. The database obtained by 404 Media includes privacy and security issues that Google’s own employees reported internally. Google said in a statement that reports 404 Media flagged to the company were resolved at the time.

    • Marcy Wheeler ☛ Big Media Ignoring the Who What When Why of GOP Apology for Trump's Crimes

      It describes that Republicans are backing Trump’s false claims of victimhood. It quotes at least twelve Republicans undermining the verdict, most in inflammatory terms. It even notes, in lukewarm fashion, that Trump’s claims of victimhood have no basis.

      But even though it gives ample platform to Bible-thumper Mike Johnson to screech, it doesn’t use the word “porn,” opting instead for “hush money.” It doesn’t use the word “fraud,” opting instead to describe “falsifying business records.”

    • 404 Media ☛ Amazon Sold Fake Copies of Hotly Anticipated UFO Book

      Some people who bought his book on Amazon were probably thrilled to get a copy of it recently, way ahead of its official August release, only to crack it open and immediately understand that the book is fake and that they fell victim to a shameless scam.

    • VOA News ☛ Top Lawmaker Warns US 'Less Prepared' for Election Meddling

      But officials have expressed concerns about influence operations, especially from Russia, China and Iran, designed to exploit existing U.S. domestic political divisions.

      Warner on Tuesday said he believes that is where Washington election defenses are most vulnerable, citing a court ruling that has prohibited social media companies from sharing information about potential foreign influence operations with the FBI or CISA.

      “That ought to scare the hell out of all of us,” he said, adding that voter susceptibility may be at an all-time high.

    • US News And World Report ☛ Intelligence Chairman Says US May Be Less Prepared for Election Threats Than It Was Four Years Ago

      Noting similar campaigns in 2016 and 2020, security officials, democracy activists and disinformation researchers have warned for years that Russia, China, Iran and domestic groups within the U.S. will use online platforms to spread false and polarizing content designed to influence the race between Trump, a Republican, and President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

    • CISA ☛ Election Security Rumor vs. Reality

      State, local, and territorial election officials work year-round to prepare for and administer elections, implementing a wide range of security measures and serving as authoritative sources of official government information on elections for their voters. While important commonalities exist across and within states, each state, local, and territorial election jurisdiction administers its elections under a unique legal and procedural framework using varying systems and infrastructure. The differences and complexity introduced by this decentralization can lead to uncertainty in the minds of voters; uncertainty that can be exploited by malicious actors.

      Complementing election officials’ voter education and civic literacy efforts, this page seeks to inform voters and help them build resilience against foreign influence operations and disinformation narratives about election infrastructure. Rumor vs. Reality is designed to provide accurate and reliable information that relate broadly to the security of election infrastructure and related processes.

      This page is not intended to address jurisdiction-specific claims. Instead, this resource addresses election security rumors by describing common and generally applicable protective processes, security measures, and legal requirements designed to deter, detect, and protect against significant security threats related to election infrastructure and processes.

    • ABC ☛ Intelligence chairman says US may be less prepared for election threats than it was four years ago

      In addition, tech companies have rolled back their efforts to protect users from misinformation even as the government's own attempts to combat the problem have become mired in debates about surveillance and censorship.

      As a result, the U.S. could face a greater threat of foreign disinformation ahead of the 2024 election than it did in the 2016 or 2020 presidential election cycles, Warner said.

    • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ The American Sunlight Project Wants to Make It More Costly for Bad Actors to Spread Disinformation: How Will They Do That?

      Nina Jankowicz (NJ): Disinformation is defined as the use or amplification of false or misleading information with malign intent. This is different from misinformation, which is when someone creates or shares false information without malign intent. For example, someone touting a miracle diet pill in an attempt to get rich quick would be spreading disinformation, whereas your eccentric cousin bringing up his favorite Thanksgiving topic — the staging of the lunar landing — is just amplifying misinformation.

    • The Register UK ☛ Russia's cyberattacks against 2024 Olympics are intensifying [Ed: Microsoft is the main culprit, neither the expert nor the solution]

      Still throwing toys out the pram over its relationship with international sport, Russia is engaged in a multi-pronged disinformation campaign against the Olympic Games and host nation France that's intensifying as the opening ceremony approaches.

      Microsoft said on Sunday that it's tracking a number of Russia-affiliated cyber groups working to undermine trust in the Games through a variety of means – everything from fake news articles inciting fears of terrorism to Tom Cruise deepfakes.

    • France24 ☛ Russian disinformation campaign targets Paris Games, Abusive Monopolist Microsoft says

      Russia is waging an intense disinformation campaign aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the International Olympic Committee and stoking fears of violence at this summer's Paris Games, according to a new report from Microsoft's Threat Analysis Center.

    • Semafor Inc ☛ The new pink slime media

      From 2003 to 2020, U.S. newspaper advertising and circulation revenue fell from $57.4 billion to $20.6 billion. As a result, approximately twenty-two hundred newspapers and their websites went out of business between 2005 and 2021. And between 2008 and 2021, forty thousand newsroom jobs were lost at those papers and at the survivors that still had to continue cutting back staff.

      A new, insidious brand of misinformation has now moved in to fill the breach, resulting in the prospect that another troubling milestone in misinformation and disinformation may soon be crossed. As of the end of 2023, the number of real news websites in the United States operated by real local daily newspapers has declined, while the number of so-called pink-slime news sites has increased to the point that there were about the same number (about 1,200) of each.

    • RTL ☛ TikTok fails 'disinformation test' before EU vote, study shows

      "TikTok has failed miserably in this test," Henry Peck, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, told AFP.

      The fake ads, submitted by the group last month, all contained content that could pose a risk to electoral processes -- including warnings to voters to stay home over a danger of poll violence and a spike in contagious diseases.

      They also included a fake notice raising the legal voting age to 21 and appeals for people to vote by email, which is not permitted in European elections.

    • France24 ☛ TikTok fails 'disinformation test' before EU vote, study shows

      TikTok, which is particularly popular with young voters, approved all 16 for publication, YouTube caught 14 while X filtered all the ads and suspended the group's fake accounts, Global Witness said in its report.

      "TikTok has failed miserably in this test," Henry Peck, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, told AFP.

    • [Old] New York University ☛ Facebook and TikTok failing to prevent spreading of blatant US midterms disinformation | NYU Tandon School of Engineering

      Global Witness and NYU Tandon School of Engineering’s Cybersecurity for Democracy (C4D) Team revealed today that TikTok approved 90 percent of ads featuring misleading and false election disinformation.

      Meanwhile Facebook approved a significant number of similarly inaccurate and false ads, while YouTube detected and rejected every single such ad submitted. YouTube also suspended the channel used to post the test ads.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Bryan Lunduke ☛ Google Drive censors files of Pfizer whistleblower

    A PowerPoint file was censored on a o personal Surveillance Giant Google Drive... and Google's stated reasons were obviously false. Why did this happen?

  • Site36 ☛ Charges brought against “Monk of Lützerath”: French activist faces German court after police parody

  • RFA ☛ The forgotten victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre

    When thousands crowded into Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989 a show of public grief for late ousted Premier Hu Yaobang, kickstarting weeks of student-led protests, Zhang Qiang was a student at the South China University of Technology.

    Zhang, who once marched at the head of a group of students to protest at the gates of the Guangdong Provincial People's Government, is now homeless, ostracized by society and abandoned by his family.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ New Taiwan leader Lai Ching-te vows to remember Tiananmen crackdown

    Taiwan’s new President Lai Ching-te said Tuesday that the memory of Beijing’s deadly crackdown at Tiananmen Square “will not disappear in the torrent of history”, in a post marking the event’s 35th anniversary.

  • [Repeat] Hong Kong Free Press ☛ HK Christian paper runs blank page ahead of Tiananmen anniversary

    The weekly Christian Times wrote in its latest issue, seen online Saturday, that it “can only respond to the current situation by turning paragraphs into blank squares and white space”, adding that society has become “restrictive”.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong's Catholic Diocese axes third Tiananmen mass

    Separately, Cardinal Stephen Chow last Thursday wrote a prayer published in the Sunday Examiner and the Kung Kau Po, weekly newspapers owned and operated by the city’s Diocese, calling for “forgiveness” days ahead of the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

    The 1989 crackdown ended months of student-led demonstrations in China. It is estimated that hundreds, perhaps thousands, died when the People’s Liberation Army dispersed protesters in Beijing.

  • VOA News ☛ Hong Kong detains artist in lead-up to anniversary of Tiananmen Square crackdown

    Police detained Sanmu Chen on Monday on a street of Causeway Bay. The area is a busy shopping district of Hong Kong that is close to a park that once held a vigil annually to commemorate victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in China. The vigil in Victoria Park once brought tens of thousands of people out in remembrance each June 4. With the new security law imposed by Beijing in 2020, the crowds have disappeared.

  • JURIST ☛ Germany police shoot knifeman who attacked far-right activist at anti-Islam event

    The anti-Islam Pax Europa Movement organized the demonstration, with activist Michael Stuerzenberger set to address a small crowd in the square and via livestream. Stuerzenberger was reportedly among those injured, with a colleague of Stuerzenberger telling the local Bild newspaper that the activist had been stabbed in the face and leg.

    Mannheim Police have indicated that there is no longer any imminent danger. However, they have not released any information about the attacker’s identity or motives.

  • Variety ☛ Salman Rushdie Documentary Set From Oscar Winner Alex Gibney

    Salman Rushdie will be the center of a new documentary from Alex Gibney, the Oscar-winning director behind “Taxi to the Dark Side” snd “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.” Tentatively titled “Knife,” the docu is inspired by Rushdie’s memoir “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,” which was published in April.

  • Semafor Inc ☛ Salman Rushdie’s alleged assailant seeks plea deal with US

    Matar is scheduled to go on trial for attempted murder this September in a western New York courthouse not far from the Chautauqua Institution where Rushdie was assaulted while giving a speech in August 2022 at a summer cultural festival. But federal prosecutors from the US Attorney’s Office are separately investigating whether Matar, 26, was part of a broader conspiracy to assassinate the writer, according to lawyers and US officials involved in the case. The revolutionary founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, in 1989, calling for Rushdie’s death on the grounds that his novel, The Satanic Verses, was blasphemous against Islam.

    The Department of Justice has yet to file a separate terrorism charge against Matar. But his legal team is anticipating one and has been ramping up efforts in recent months to reach a comprehensive settlement with both state and federal prosecutors in a bid to reduce his overall prison sentence, the officials said. Such an agreement could provide answers to whether an outside actor was involved in the attack.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Salman Rushdie to be subject of documentary inspired by memoir Knife

    Knife will draw from Griffiths’s footage – the couple had been married just 11 months before the attack – as well as interviews and excerpts from Rushdie’s work, including the fatwa calling for his death issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 for his book The Satanic Verses.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ 1989 Tiananmen crackdown: Hong Kong lawmakers say private vigils allowed

    A former Hong Kong pro-democracy district councillor has said that she was asked by police about her plans on June 4, which will mark the 35th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing. Meanwhile, a top government advisor has said commemorating the incident in private would not constitute an offence under the city’s domestic security law.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Tiananmen crackdown anniversary: HK police apprehend artist

    Artist Sanmu Chan was stopped, questioned and taken away by police in Causeway Bay on Monday, the eve of the Tiananmen crackdown anniversary, as he sought to partake in some performance art.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • The Dissenter ☛ Espionage Act Case Against Chinese Student For Drone Photography Could Have First Amendment Implications

  • VOA News ☛ Russia-held journalist Kurmasheva: ‘My greatest wish is to get out of here alive’

    It's a bittersweet reality for the jailed American-Russian journalist. The Prague-based journalist, who works for the Tatar-Bashkir Service of VOA’s sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been in a Russian prison since October 2023.

    Kurmasheva was informed Friday that her custody is extended until at least August 5.

  • RTL ☛ 'Enemy within': Trump rhetoric rings alarm bells

    During his first term Trump regularly railed at the media as the "enemy of the people," but his sweep now seems wider and more indiscriminate.

  • JURIST ☛ Russia court extends detention of Russian-American journalist charged as a foreign agent

    A Russian court on Friday ordered to extend the detention of an American-Russian journalist by two months until August 5, after she was charged with failure to register as a foreign agent. Alsu Kurmasheva’s hearing was held on May 31 when the decision was made. According to local media reports, she was denied house arrest.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Papers Please ☛ Judicial review of DHS “discretion” over travelers

    The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the right  of a traveler to have a Federal court review decisions by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to admit or remove an individual from the SENTRI program, one of the Trusted Traveler Programs administered by CBP and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

    If an individual is accepted by the CBP into the SENTRI program or one of the other “less-mistrusted traveler” programs, they might be subjected to less intrusive search, interrogation, or delay when they travel. Or they might not. There’s no guarantee of better treatment, even for “members” of these programs. But that’s what applicants hope for.

    Jacobo Jajati paid a nonrefundable application fee, provided additional personal information to CBP, and was accepted into the SENTRI program. Some years afterward, the same day his estranged ex-wife was arrested for crossing the US border with prohibited drugs,  CBP notified Mr. Jajati that his SENTRI membership had been revoked. Later he was told that it had been reinstated, then that it had been revoked again — all without ever telling him the basis for the original decision or any of the reversals.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • The Verge ☛ Instagram is testing ‘unskippable’ ads that you can’t scroll past

    Aside from Instagram, YouTube also shows unskippable ads before and during videos. It even expanded unskippable, 30-second commercials to its TV app last year. Both YouTube and TikTok also slot ads between their shortform videos, but you can still swipe right past them.

  • Cory Dransfeldt ☛ The amount of money Spotify makes should be close to zero

    It's been increasingly clear lately that Spotify only cares about music inasmuch as they can profit from it. They're not overly concerned with payouts to artists or artists themselves — they're a business, right?

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Ticketmaster jacks us for billions so it can pocket millions

  Corruption is a system of concentrated gains and diffused costs: cheaters make a lot of money, and their victims each lose a little. The cheater has a much larger pool of money to spend on keeping the scam going, and the victims need to pay again to fight the cheater.

  Actually, it's worse. The victim pays once when they are cheated, then, they pay a second time (in time and/or money) when they fight back against the cheater.

  But in order to fight back effectively, the victims need to band together – it doesn't make sense for one victim to pony up to counter the cheater, because the cheater stole from a lot of people and can therefore spend far more than the victim lost and still come out ahead.

• Michigan News ☛ Data breach involving millions of Ticketmaster user accounts under investigation

  Live Nation has launched an investigation into the matter and is “working to mitigate risk to our users’' according to the filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company is also cooperating with law enforcement as part of the investigation.

• Cyble Inc ☛ Ticketmaster Data Breach Confirmed, Raises Serious Security Concerns

  Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, has confirmed “unauthorized activity” on its database after hackers claimed to have stolen the personal details of 560 million customers. The revelation of the Ticketmaster data breach came through a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), where Live Nation disclosed that a criminal actor had offered what was purported to be company user data for sale on the dark web.

  In a filing to the US SEC, Live Nation said that on 27 May “a criminal threat actor offered what it alleged to be Company user data for sale via the dark web”, and that it was investigating.

• The Register UK ☛ Microsoft prepared to pay CISPE over antitrust complaint

  Microsoft is reportedly preparing to ink a multimillion-euro deal with cloud lobbying group CISPE to make an EU antitrust complaint go away.

  The complaint, lodged in November 2022 with the EU's anti-trust team, centers on the cost of running Microsoft wares outside of Azure.

• Patents

  • EFF ☛ EFF Appeals Order Denying Public Access to Patent Filings

    EFF continues to push for greater transparency in the case, Entropic Communications, LLC v. Charter Communications, Inc.,  and is asking a federal court of appeals to reverse the decision. A successful appeal will open this case to the public, and help everyone better understand patent disputes that are filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

    Secrecy in patent litigation is an enduring problem, and EFF has repeatedly intervened in lawsuits involving patent claims to uphold the public’s right to access court records. And in this case, the secrecy issues are heightened by the parties and the court believing that they can jointly agree to keep entire records under seal, without ever having to justify the secrecy. 

    This case is a dispute between a semiconductor products provider, Entropic, and one of the nation's largest media companies, Charter, which offers cable television and internet service to millions of people. Entropic alleged that Charter infringed its patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 8,223,775; 8,284,690; 8,792,008; 9,210,362; 9,825,826; and 10,135,682) which cover cable modem technology. 

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ Precedential No. 8: TTAB Strikes "Trademark Bullying" Affirmative Defense in DOOR DABZ Opposition

    Trademark bullies breathed a sigh of relief when, in this opposition to registration of the mark shown below for delivery of medical cannabis via car service, the Board rejected Applicant Greenerside's affirmative defense of unclean hands. Opposer DoorDash alleged likelihood of confusion with eight registered DOORDASH marks for various goods and services, including food delivery.

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Fmovies and Other Piracy Streaming Giants Switch to New Domains

    Several of the largest pirate movie streaming sites, including Fmovies and Sflix, relocated to new homes over the weekend, switching domain registrars in the process. No official explanation was provided, but global vulnerability to Indian court orders seems a likely trigger.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ DAZN Wins Court Order to Block Around 90 Pirate Sports Streaming Sites

    DAZN's Eleven Sports Network (ESN) and 12th Player BV, a joint venture between ESN and the Spanish company Mediapro Internacional, have obtained permission from a Brussels court to block around 90 pirate sports streaming sites/domains. Likely to be the most significant action of its type ever in Belgium, the blocking measures coincide with a growing number of similar actions around Europe.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Steve Miller Approves of Eminem’s ‘Abracadabra’ Sample

    Often when a classic song is sampled on a new track, it seems like there’s an infringement lawsuit to go along with it. But when the proper avenues are (presumably) followed, a fresh take on an old hit can breathe new life into the song while honoring the original artist in a big way.

  • Gabriel Simmer ☛ Stop Scraping my Git Forge

    Corporations stealing, or using work without permission, for their machine learning models has been a discussion for a long while at this point. In general, I side with the creators or artists having their work taken. While I have used various machine learning "things" in the past, from ChatGPT to Copilot (the code one, not Copilot+) to Stable Diffusion, it was mostly from the standpoint of curiousity - see what it could do, but not use whatever it spat out in any serious capacity. Text generation models were the most useful in my case. Organising thought or recalling specific terminology/techniques could sometimes be tricky, and being able to rubber duck with it proved handy as a springboard to go do "serious" research with a search engine or technical documents. The key here, of course, being that what the text models gave me was not taken at face value, and instead used to reorient myself in the right direction. Stable Diffusion is an entirely different thing, and being friends with a number of artists I was generally uncomfortable using it even if I was getting crappy results.

  • Reason ☛ News Publishers Try To Sic the Government on Google AI

    The results have been far from perfect (would you like some glue with that pizza?) and leave a lot of room for skepticism and interpretation. (This past weekend, Overviews fed me seemingly contradictory advice about baby fevers within a two-paragraph span.) But that's also often true of what you would find from an old-school list of links and snippets. And Google has been inching away from link-prominent results for a while now, featuring brief bits of (non-AI-generated) content in response to many search queries and in the form of Q&A text throughout link pages. So the recent appearance of AI-generated text answers wasn't even immediately noticeable to me.

    But newspaper and magazine publishers sure are noticing.

    Overviews give "comprehensive answers without the user ever having to click to another page," the The New York Times warns. And this worries websites that rely on Google to drive much of their traffic.

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Personal/Opinions

    • 🔤SpellBinding — AFIYNRM Wordo: BLUES