Leftovers

• Nat Bennett ☛ How to write.

  In theory this is a newsletter about software, but in theory this also goes out Monday evenings — oops — so I’m going to try to get out something quick and dirty on a topic I occasionally get asked about — how to write.

• Michał Sapka ☛ Computing happy

  But what I actually want to do with computes is to have a damn good time. This is why I am so peculiar when it comes to choosing software. In my meatsuit life, I am the only person I know who uses Emacs or BSD. There are some folks who used to us Emacs, some use Linux. But I am on the far end of the popular-obscure software spectrum.

• NPR ☛ How to fight shrinkflation? Pay attention to unit prices at grocery stores

  Shrinkflation is really inflation in a literal sense. It means the price per unit — for example, a dollar per ounce or 2 cents per Cheeto — goes up. You get less product for your buck.

• Richard D Wolff ☛ A Critique of Obscene Wealth - RDWolff

  Besides being unjust and risky, obscene wealth as an incentive is completely unnecessary.

  In many fields of endeavor across human activity, inventors and innovators regularly appreciate and welcome rewards that are not obscene wealth, yet are more than sufficient. Musicians, artists, farmers, factory workers, teachers, and many others have contributed innovative solutions to society’s problems large and small. These people were often driven by social accolades, applause and approval, and rewards and prizes of modest size. For example, John Maynard Keynes, an economist, developed (1) a critique of private capitalism’s instability and (2) monetary and fiscal policies to counter that instability that have been widely deployed since the 1930s. His work’s contribution to society was immense, yet his financial rewards were very modest in comparison to the billions gathered by entrepreneurs like Musk and Bezos. The Nobel Prize (which awards around $1 million to each of its winners) is as great a reward as most economists can imagine. Likewise, Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Louis Pasteur and Albert Einstein, and countless other major contributors to modern life were not especially driven by any prospect of obscene wealth, nor did they obtain it during their lifetimes.

• Andreas ☛ Welcome to the Thrilling New Era of 82MHz.net!

  This rebranding is not just about aesthetics; it signifies our growth, our evolution, and our absolute contempt for our readers.

• Science

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Ancient DNA Unravels the Mysteries of the Dingo, Australia's Wild Dog

    A new analysis of ancient dingo DNA, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, helps fill in some of the gaps about these toothy mammals, including when they arrived on the continent and their connections to other canids.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-03 [Older] Is this 51,200-year-old cave art humanity's oldest story?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] Indigenous ritual practiced for 12,000 years, study shows

• Education

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] Vietnam: Outrage at student height requirement

  • Robert Birming ☛ Writing yourself into existence

    The solution is much simpler ... and so much harder if we listen to our inner critic. But the real, final answer will always be the same:

    Write, write, write. On your phone, in a journal, on a napkin, in your head, on a computer...

    Just write.

  • Henrique Dias ☛ Thoughts After One Month Working On-site

    Two months ago I announced I was leaving my previous job, a completely remote position, for a on-site position. This is my first on-site position, since my previous job was also my first and only job until now. It’s been now a bit more than a month, and I have some thoughts I would like to share.

    Just like with anything else in life, there are things that are more positive, and things that are more negative. I will share them later on this post. First, I want to mention the things that have remained the same in terms of what I feel, or sense.

    One of the things that made me leave my previous job was the team size and losing team members. However, that did not play a big role when deciding for the new job. The newer team is, in fact, smaller. In addition, the company is also a startup, so all the uncertainties related to a startup are also something that is mostly unchanged.

  • David Rosenthal ☛ Engineering For The Long Term

    Contributions to engineering fields can only reasonably be assessed in hindsight, by looking at how they survived exposure to the real world over the long term. Four of my contributions to various systems have stood the test of time. Below the fold, I blow my own horn four times.

  • [Old] Julia Evans ☛ Get your work recognized: write a brag document

    One thing I’m always struck by when it comes to performance review time is a feeling of “wait, what did I do in the last 6 months?“. This is a kind of demoralizing feeling and it’s usually not based in reality, more in “I forgot what cool stuff I actually did”.

    I invariably end up having to spend a bunch of time looking through my pull requests, tickets, launch emails, design documents, and more. I always end up finding small (and sometimes not-so-small) things that I completely forgot I did, like: [...]

  • Clinton Blackburn ☛ Notes for new hires

    I’m onboarding new engineers at Vori, and finally took some time to write a few ideas I’ve been kicking around and sharing internally. I have personally found these practices helpful over the past few years, and think others might, as well. This isn’t applicable to only junior engineers, or new hires (despite the title). I didn’t learn some of these lessons until I was eight years into my career as a tech lead at edX, or a couple years later at Stripe.

  • VOA News ☛ After $1B gift, most Johns Hopkins medical students won't pay tuition

    Starting in the fall, the donation will cover full tuition for medical students from families earning less than $300,000. Living expenses and fees will be covered for students from families who earn up to $175,000.

  • The Hill ☛ Michael Bloomberg donates $1 billion to Johns Hopkins University

    The donation, which Bloomberg Philanthropies announced Monday, will cover 100 percent of tuition for medical students whose families earn less than $300,000. The gift will also cover living expenses and fees for students whose families earn up to $175,000.

    The gift also increases financial aid for students at its schools of nursing, public health and other graduate schools, according to a press release.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ School cellphone ban prompts surprising student opinions

    Yet after the initial shock and an absolute “no” is voiced by many teenage students, more nuanced thoughts emerge: Maybe we are falling into social media and cellphone addiction. Maybe all the distractions and the obsession with “likes” are bad for us. Maybe we need some relief.

    The Board of Education’s 5-2 decision to ban cellphones by January 2025 aims to change the behavior of a generation of students and will be one of the most consequential and closely watched shifts in schooling since students were forced to go to class online — many by phone — more than four years ago at the onset of the pandemic.

• Hardware

  • CBC ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] Many popular heat pump models recalled due to overheating risk

  • Dan Q ☛ A Pressure Cooker for Tea

    It’s been stressed how important it is that the water used to brew the tea is 100℃, or close to it possible. That’s the boiling point of water at sea level, so you can’t really boil your kettle hotter than that or else the water runs away to pursue a new life as a cloud.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Keeping Hi-Fi gear cool

    Clara and I recently downsized our Hi-Fi setup, in part so we’d have less to pack when we move, but also because the Marantz amplifier we inherited was huge, heavy, and needlessly powerful for our bookshelf speakers in a small apartment. We never had the volume nob set beyond 15%, and when we’ve gone beyond that by accident, our ears (and the ears of our neighbours) exploded.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • [Old] Time ☛ Inside the 'Nightmare' Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town

    None of them knew what, exactly, was causing these symptoms. But they all shared a singular grievance: a dull aural hum had crept into their lives, which growled or roared depending on the time of day, rattling their windows and rendering them unable to sleep. The hum, local law enforcement had learned, was emanating from a Bitcoin mining facility that had recently moved into the area—and was exceeding legal noise ordinances on a daily basis.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] Norovirus outbreak hospitalizes hundreds in Italian village

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-04 [Older] Should we be concerned about a summer COVID surge?

  • CBC ☛ 2024-06-29 [Older] Doctor charged in Ontario patient deaths expected to be acquitted due to inadmissible evidence

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • The Register UK ☛ 64% of customers not keen on AI-powered customer service

    Gartner's survey comes a week after another, from business inventory platform Katana, that found half the customers in a much smaller study - 250 respondents - preferred talking to a human rather than an AI-powered chatbot.

  • UX Tigers ☛ The Articulation Barrier: Prompt-Driven AI UX Hurts Usability

    But one major usability downside is that users must be highly articulate to write the required prose text for the prompts. According to the latest literacy research (detailed below), half of the population in rich countries like the United States and Germany are classified as low-literacy users. (While the situation is better in Japan and possibly some other Asian countries, it’s much worse in mid-income countries and probably terrible in developing countries.)

  • Michał Sapka ☛ Even bionic implants are being abandoned by companies

    Let that sink in: at the same time bullshitting generators are dawning in cash, actual marvels of technology are dawning in debt. We have remarkable technology, but VCs ruin it, again. I mostly react with sadness to such stories, but not this time. This time I finished the article with real anger. I’m reading of the single coolest piece of tech in ages, and then it’d all horror and the worst aspects of capitalism.

  • [Old] IEEE ☛ Their Bionic Eyes Are Now Obsolete and Unsupported - IEEE Spectrum

    Yet in 2020, Byland had to find out secondhand that the company had abandoned the technology and was on the verge of going bankrupt. While his two-implant system is still working, he doesn’t know how long that will be the case. “As long as nothing goes wrong, I’m fine,” he says. “But if something does go wrong with it, well, I’m screwed. Because there’s no way of getting it fixed.”

  • Benedict Evans ☛ The AI summer

    My old boss Marc Andreessen liked to say that every failed idea from the Dotcom bubble would work now. It just took time - it took years to build out broadband, consumers had to buy PCs, retailers and big companies needed to build e-commerce infrastructure, a whole online ad business had to evolve and grow, and more fundamentally, consumers and businesses had to change their behaviour. The future can take a while - it took more than 20 years for 20% of US retail to move online.

  • The Register UK ☛ Users rage over retirement of Office 365 connectors in Teams

    Users have been less than impressed by the news. Comments to the company's post have passed the 100 mark and are generally negative, with some describing the plans as "a greedy cash grab" and others reacting with bewilderment at Microsoft's decision:

    "Do Microsoft not learn from insufficient transition deadlines? You’ve given users 3 months, 2 of which are during peak holiday season where many staff will be on annual leave for parts of it, to move service integrations away from connector format to possibly something they've never even looked at. Why?"

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • CBC ☛ 2024-06-27 [Older] Artist says he lost $2M in stolen paintings, forged mortgage to alleged fraudster killed last week

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • CBC ☛ 2024-06-30 [Older] Facial recognition technology gains popularity with police, intensifying calls for regulation

    • CBC ☛ 2024-06-30 [Older] Canada 'sleepwalking' into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] EU says Meta's paid ad-free option breaches rules

    • Jacobin Magazine ☛ The Emerging Danger of Surveillance Pricing

      The fine-graining of data collection and increasing isolation of consumers is leading to surveillance pricing, a new trend where corporations exploit personal information to set individualized prices for each person.

    • The Register UK ☛ Peloton headed to court over AI chat snooping complaint

      Peloton "did not obtain visitors' consent to either the wiretapping or sharing of their private conversations," the first amended complaint [PDF] in the case alleged. "As a result, Defendant and the third parties have violated the CIPA in numerous ways."

    • Ali Reza Hayati ☛ Privacy and data regulation

      I’ve recently come across a lot of posts questioning data and privacy regulations. What is more common among them to describe privacy regulation as failed or worthless is that the dis-services we might use need that data to function.

      That is far from truth. No flashlight app needs to access my contact list. No shopping site needs access to my microphone. No museum needs to know where I’m precisely located to show me a famous painting. Privacy regulation is exactly for that.

      Privacy regulation is not there to make sites dysfunction, it’s there so the site won’t sell my personal information to data brokers. It’s there to make sure my privacy won’t be violated solely because I bought a new mobile phone.

    • US News And World Report ☛ Milk, Eggs and Now Bullets for Sale in Handful of US Grocery Stores With Ammo Vending Machines

      Federal law requires a person to be 18 to buy shotgun and rifle ammunition and 21 to buy handgun ammunition. Magers said their machines require a purchaser to be at least 21.

      The machine works by requiring a customer to scan their driver’s license to validate that they are age 21 or older. The scan also checks that it is a valid license, he said. That is followed by a facial recognition scan to verify “you are who you are saying you are as a consumer,” he said.

    • The Register UK ☛ Tesla parental controls keep teenage lead feet in check

      If you owned a Tesla, would you let your kid drive it? The electric vehicle marque seems to think you might with the addition of "Parental Controls" in a July update.

      Obviously, we're talking about licensed teens of legal driving age, though two underage girls were reportedly caught in the backseat and passenger seat of a Model Y a few years ago, reportedly claiming to the sheriff'S deputy who stopped them that the car was "self-driving."

    • The Register UK ☛ Noyb: Microsoft's advertising arm a big, fat GDPR nightmare

      The complaint [PDF], filed today in Italy by the perennial privacy defenders at noyb (none of your business), claims that Xandr, in its role as Microsoft's demand-side platform used by advertisers to bid for eyeballs, has violated GDPR in two ways. Firstly, noyb claims that it has failed to minimize data collection or ensure the accuracy needed for targeted advertising. Secondly, it has failed to comply with any consumer requests for data access or erasure.

      According to the complaint, Xandr, which Microsoft acquired from AT&T in 2022 to serve as its own cloud-based targeted advertising platform, allegedly collects a ton of data from the public – much of which is unnecessary to serve ads, and a considerable portion of which noyb contends contradicts itself.

    • NYOB ☛ Xandr Complaint - Redacted [PDF]

      69. The complainant requests that the competent supervisory authority orders the Defendant to comply with the Complainant’s access and erasure requests (Article 58(2)(c) and (g) GDPR), with regard to all profiles and segments processed by Xandr, their sources and recipients.

      70. The complainant suggests that the competent supervisory authority orders the Defendant, in relation to all data subjects, to bring processing operations in compliance with the principles of data minimisation and accuracy, and with the duty to facilitate the exercise of data subjects’ rights (Article 58(2)(d) GDPR). In particular, Xandr should be ordered:

    • NYOB ☛ Microsoft's Xandr grants GDPR rights at a rate of 0%

      Advertising broker Xandr (a Microsoft subsidiary) collects and shares the personal data of millions of Europeans for detailed targeted advertising. This allows Xandr to auction off advertising space to thousands of advertisers. But: although only one ad is ultimately shown to users, all advertisers receive their data. This may include personal details concerning their health, sexuality or political opinions. Also, despite selling its service as “targeted”, the company holds rather random information: the complainant apparently is both a man, a woman, employed and unemployed. This could allow Xandr to sell ad space to multiple companies who think that they are targeting a specific group. As if that were not enough, Xandr does not comply with a single access request. noyb has now filed a GDPR complaint.

    • Techdirt ☛ For Whatever Reason, The US Post Office Is Still Running Its Mail Cover Surveillance Program

      However, few people thought this was a big deal. If USPS users were able to access snapshots of the outside of their incoming mail, surely the government should have the same privilege. It wasn’t until 2023 that Congress made a move to shut the program down — citing not only some concerning privacy violations but the lack of evidence showing easy access to weeks or months of mail snapshots was essential to law enforcement investigations.

      Roughly a year later, that request from Congress has gone nowhere. However, more information about the program has been obtained thanks to the questions raised by the bipartisan group of federal legislators who moved to have the program shut down last May. Here’s Drew Harwell with more details for the Washington Post.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Michael Geist ☛ States of Disbelief: Too Many Don't Believe Rise of Antisemitism as the Jewish Community Can't Believe What It is Seeing

    The disbelief is seemingly everywhere: evidence of Jewish women sexually assaulted during the Oct. 7 massacres is repeatedly doubted, while shootings at schools and vandalism at synagogues and Jewish community centres have been dismissed by some as false flags. Indeed, virtually anyone actively calling out antisemitism on social media is by now accustomed to the obscene flurry of replies that at best question the veracity of the reports and at worst traffic in Nazi-style propaganda.

    Police data on the shocking rise of hate crimes should have ended any debate about the gravity of the current situation. Jews account for less than 4 per cent of Toronto’s population, but since the start of the year, Toronto police report that 45 per cent of reported hate crimes involved antisemitism. Yet here too many profess disbelief, questioning the data by arguing that antisemitism is over-reported or implausibly claiming that there is no overlap between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

  • ABC ☛ Sources: Several students suspended over 'cruel' TikToks impersonating Chester Co. teachers

    The Great Valley School District in Chester County held a news conference on Monday to address issues over the 22 fake TikTok accounts created by students to impersonate their teachers.

    The district released a statement Sunday saying the accounts were created by 8th graders at the Great Valley Middle School.

    They were first discovered in February, district leaders say.

  • NPR ☛ A school district in Pa. says students made fake TikTok accounts to target teachers

    Around 20 teachers, roughly a quarter of the school’s entire faculty, were victims of the online trolling, the New York Times reported, adding that such attacks typically do not occur on such a large scale but rather target one teacher or administrator at a time.

  • Ars Technica ☛ First known TikTok mob attack led by middle schoolers tormenting teachers

    "I applaud the vast number of our students who have had the courage to come forward and report this behavior," Souders said, urging parents to "please take the time to engage your child in a conversation about the responsible use of social media and encourage them to report any instances of online impersonation or cyberbullying."

  • New York Times ☛ Students Target Teachers in Group TikTok Attack, Shaking Their School

    In the aftermath, the school district briefly suspended several students, teachers said. The principal during one lunch period chastised the eighth-grade class for its behavior.

    The biggest fallout has been for teachers like Ms. Motz, who said she felt “kicked in the stomach” that students would so casually savage teachers’ families. The online harassment has left some teachers worried that social media platforms are helping to stunt the growth of empathy in students. Some teachers are now hesitant to call out pupils who act up in class. Others said it had been challenging to keep teaching.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Whatever you call the encroaching political darkness in Kansas and America, it's not democracy

    A Trump victory plan is found in more than 900 pages of Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. It calls for “sacking thousands of civil servants, expanding the power of the president, dismantling the Department of Education and other federal agencies” — and gutting the government through sweeping tax cuts.

    Checks and balances? Fuhgeddaboudit.

    Apartheid thinking has been an undercurrent, but now has oozed — or more accurately, stormed — into halls of power.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] Civil protection: Calls for Germany to build new bunkers

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] Germany plans new war bunkers

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] German court fines AfD's Höcke over 2nd use of Nazi slogan

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-28 [Older] German court sentences teen over Christmas terror plot

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] Germany: Knife-wielding man shot dead by police

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-28 [Older] Decoding China: How Beijing is Sinicizing Islam

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-29 [Older] Middle East updates: Iran warns Israel against Lebanon plans

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-29 [Older] Italy latest in Europe to step up military ties with Japan

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-29 [Older] Bolivia: General who led failed coup gets pretrial detention

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-30 [Older] UN, Taliban talks: Why are Afghan women not invited?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-30 [Older] Nigeria: Series of blasts kill at least 18

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-30 [Older] Hungary: Orban announces new far-right European alliance

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-30 [Older] Euroskeptic Hungary takes over EU's rotating presidency

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-30 [Older] German weapons exports on course to hit new record

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] US Supreme Court sends Trump immunity appeal to lower court

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-06-27 [Older] Don’t blame the defence minister for SA deaths in DR Congo – expert

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-07-03 [Older] Middle East and North Africa continues to be the world’s least peaceful region

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] 'No amount' can make up for Nazi occupation — Poland's Tusk

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-04 [Older] Dealing with Holocaust trauma through music

  • CBC ☛ 2024-06-28 [Older] Trudeau government negotiating with provinces to keep migrants behind bars

  • CBC ☛ 2024-06-28 [Older] Canada urges dual citizens to leave Lebanon. Lebanese Montrealers say it's not that easy

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] Trump ally Steve Bannon begins 4-month prison sentence

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] Can Pakistan's new military campaign end militancy?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-03 [Older] Pakistan: Bomb kills former senator close to Afghan border

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] Crisis in Sudan: Sexual violence, rape and ethnic attacks

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] Bavaria court upholds monitoring of state's far-right AfD

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] Are Angola's democractic values under threat?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] Dick Schoof: Ex-spy chief sworn in as Dutch prime minister

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] Norwegian arrested for allegedly spying for China

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] India: Over 100 killed in stampede at religious gathering

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-03 [Older] Taliban and US discuss prisoner swap deal in Doha

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-03 [Older] Mali: Armed group kills dozens at wedding celebration

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Putin, Xi, Orbán, and Modi provide a disturbing backdrop to the start of the NATO Summit

      No one can convince me it was a coincidence that Putin chose Monday, the eve of the NATO Summit, to launch one of his largest recent barrages of missiles on Ukraine. The leaders of Hungary and India both knew the significance of the timing of their visits—one by the Alliance’s most rogue member and the other by a major power keen to underscore its autonomy of action.

    • RFERL ☛ Europe 'Too Naive' About Russia, Must Step Up Ukraine Aid, Danish PM Says

      Europe has been “too naive” about Russia and must do more to support Ukraine militarily, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on July 9.

      “We work and we move too slowly. I think we have been too naive on Russia, too naive on China. We have to speed up, scale up as Europeans,” Frederiksen told a Council of Foreign Relations conference in Washington, where she is attending the July 9-11 NATO Summit.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-28 [Older] Belarus: Former ambassador to Germany dies unexpectedly

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Press Gazette ☛ What contempt of court reform proposals mean for publishers

    The Commission noted media stakeholders said it has become harder to ascertain whether proceedings are active unless the journalists know through other sources who has been arrested, because police no longer share the identity of a suspect until they are charged.

  • Pratik ☛ Exploring the frequency of posts on Micro.blog using RSS feeds

    I use the web timeline (official and Lillihub) to browse the Micro.blog timeline. I follow around 292 people, and considering Micro.blog has around 4K - 5K active writers in a month, I was curious about the frequency of posts compared to other social media. To its credit, Micro.blog is a slow-moving and less frenetic timeline.

• Environment

  • Futurism ☛ Temperature Gets So Hot That Motorcyclist Dies Mid-Ride

    After receiving a distress call, first responders arrived at the scene of Badwater Basin, an expanse of salt flats that's also North America's lowest geographic point, where Saturday temperatures had spiked to a brain-cooking 128 degrees — a hair's breadth away from the longstanding record of 134 degrees that was notched on July 10, 1913.

    The heat also stymied other rescue efforts when a helicopter couldn't fly to the bikers' location, the LA Times reports, due to the extreme hot weather making the air too thin to give enough lift to its blades.

  • Wired ☛ Extreme Wildfires Have Doubled in Frequency and Intensity in the Past 20 Years

    The authors of the new study, researchers at the University of Tasmania, first calculated the energy released by different fires over 21 years from 2003 to 2023. They did this by using a satellite-based sensor that can identify heat from fires, measuring the energy released as “fire radiative power.”

  • JURIST ☛ Ecuador court rules that river in capital has rights

    The court recognized that since the river is alive, it is subject to rights under the Constitution of Ecuador. Chapter 7 of the Constitution establishes that nature possesses a right to protection, promotion, and restoration. This means that “all persons, communities, peoples or nations are able to call on public authorities to enforce the rights of nature.” The Constitutional Court of Ecuador previously recognized that rivers are protected under Chapter 7 of the Constitution in 2022.

  • Wired ☛ How to Build a Hurricane-Proof House

    “We could see the floodwater coming into our garage,” she recalls. But overall, the live footage didn’t look too bad. A relief. When they drove back to investigate the aftermath, they passed neighbors’ homes with pieces of siding missing or large parts of their roofs destroyed. The Rodriguez homestead was comparatively unharmed. Flooding in the lower story quickly receded, and while the family lost some belongings that had been stowed there, the house itself recovered from the deluge—as designed.

  • [Repeat] Science Alert ☛ Electric Vehicle Batteries Surprising New Source of 'Forever Chemical' Pollution

    The findings underscore how switching to cleaner cars and renewable energy is key to solving the climate crisis, but comes with its own set of trade-offs that are still emerging and understudied.

    While the environmental and health impacts of mining lithium and other minerals used in batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and other technology are well documented, it's only now that researchers are uncovering lithium-ion batteries as a source of PFAS pollution.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] World Bank stamps $208 million Zambia grant to face drought

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Wired ☛ This Ancient Technology Is Helping Millions Stay Cool

      These, along with other, smaller clay cooling devices, achieve their effects through evaporation. The simplest and most popular are matka, earthen pots available in a variety of shapes, sizes, and decorative forms. Costing as little as $1 a piece, they’re simple to operate: They just need to be filled with water, and physics does the rest. Their clay is porous, with the water passing through tiny pores to reach the pots’ outer surface. Once there it evaporates, pulling heat from the surrounding air and from the water inside to do so, cooling both. Matka are often covered on top with a wet cloth to help keep their water cool.

      Importantly, they don’t use electricity, making them easily deployable and cheap to run. Because of their simplicity, religious bodies and nonprofits across India often put earthen pots in public places for commuters to quench their thirst.

    • Bridge Michigan ☛ As Ford downsizes battery plant, Michigan slashes over $600M in incentives

      The reduction of the incentive — once as high as $1 billion — reflected a downsizing of the project by Ford

    • Science Alert ☛ Fusion Is Coming, But Are We Ready For The Problems It Could Cause?

      But these benefits may mask deeper ethical questions around the development of the technology and some potentially detrimental impacts. Perhaps one of the clearest instances of such a tension arises over environmental sustainability. This applies particularly to the association with climate change mitigation and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

    • Ruben Schade ☛ Singaporean hospital cleaning robot catches fire

      Massive lithium batteries are scary. I’m surprised that such fires aren’t a more frequent occurrence.

    • The Atlantic ☛ America Finally Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem With EVs

      But you can already buy a cheap EV in the United States. The typical price of a new EV certainly remains higher than that of a gas car—but the price of used EVs has cratered in recent years, so much so that a used EV is now actually cheaper than a comparable used gas car. In May, the average secondhand EV sold for $32,000, Ivan Drury, the director of insights at the car-buying website Edmunds, told me, down from $56,000 nearly two years earlier. Some estimates are lower: The average used price of a set of popular EV models has fallen to less than $24,000, according to Liz Najman, the director of market insights at the EV-monitoring start-up Recurrent. And that’s all before you subtract up to $4,000 from a federal tax credit. Going electric may no longer just be the best option for the planet—it may also be best for your wallet.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-03 [Older] Lufthansa takeover of Italy's ITA cleared by Brussels

    • CBC ☛ 2024-06-28 [Older] WestJet cancels 235 flights as mechanics strike in surprise move on busy long weekend

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-06-29 [Older] Canada Minister to Meet With WestJet Airlines, Striking Mechanics

    • CBC ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] Passengers 'in the dark' as WestJet flight cancellations continue days after strike ends

    • CBC ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] Northvolt to stay the course for $7B Quebec battery plant despite 'strategic review'

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] UK govt, British Airways sued over Kuwait hostage crisis

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] Can Europe really preserve global forests?

    • CBC ☛ 2024-06-30 [Older] Residents of Mayo, Yukon, told to prepare for possible wildfire evacuation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-04 [Older] California wildfires force thousands to evacuate

    • CBC ☛ 2024-06-28 [Older] Ontario forest firefighters call for new job classification that would compensate them for dangerous work

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] Chinese Woman Facing Charge of Trying to Smuggle Turtles Across Vermont Lake to Canada

  • Overpopulation

    • CBC ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] Timeline for easing Calgary indoor water restrictions coming on Tuesday

• Finance

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] How the US is stalling hard-fought global tax reform

  • CBC ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] Man charged in alleged $7.8M Ponzi scheme drowns in B.C. before Edmonton fraud trial

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-29 [Older] Will French elections spark the next euro crisis?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] Police out in force as fresh protests hit Kenya

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-01 [Older] Kenya will need to borrow more after axing tax hikes — Ruto

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-07-04 [Older] EU to fund Kenya Defence Forces to the tune of $21 million plus

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-29 [Older] EU signs €1bn financing deal for Egypt at investment forum

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-04 [Older] German industrial orders decline amid weak foreign demand

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-04 [Older] EU slaps tariffs of up to 38% on Chinese electric vehicles

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-04 [Older] Dirt cheap European real estate — with a catch

  • CBC ☛ 2024-06-28 [Older] Canada's GDP grew 0.3% in April, with rebound in some sectors

  • CBC ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] United States looking at all options to respond to Canada's digital services tax

  • Why is Dyson laying off 1,000 employees?

    It is frequently hailed as the hero of British manufacturing. But famed vacuum cleaner brand, Dyson, has today told workers it will make 1,000 layoffs as part of a global cost-cutting plan.

    Dyson Limited currently employs around 3,500 UK employees across three offices in London, Wiltshire, and Bristol. Dyson workers were reportedly informed about the cuts on Tuesday morning. The news of the layoffs was first broken by the Financial Times.

  • Bloomberg ☛ Dyson to Cut About 1,000 UK Jobs as New CEO Reviews Strategy

    Dyson Ltd. is set to cut about 1,000 jobs in the UK, almost a third of its workforce there, as part of a broader restructuring at the home appliances manufacturer.

  • CRN ☛ Microsoft FY 2025 Starts With Layoffs, Partner Program Changes

    Microsoft’s new fiscal year has started with a round of layoffs and some changes in its partner program, especially around requirements for specializations.

    Layoffs aren’t unusual for Microsoft this time of year. The Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant started its 2025 fiscal year July 1 and should report results for the 2024 fiscal year and final quarter of that year later this month.

    Based on user posts to Microsoft-owned social network LinkedIn, the cuts have hit a variety of managers, engineers and other job titles in Microsoft subsidiaries Flip and Nuance and even in areas that touch its fast-growing artificial intelligence (AI) business.

    As for partner program changes, early announcements on Microsoft’s Partner Center don’t appear to reach the level of a New Commerce Experience (NCE), but still have an effect on how solution providers earn benefits as a Microsoft partner.

  • Paramount Layoffs: Entertainment Company To Continue Job Cuts Until Skydance Deal Closes, Says Report

    Paramount, the entertainment company...

  • CBC ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] The CRA alleges this firm was part of a $63M tax 'sham.' Why isn't it trying to get the money back?

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-04 [Older] Brazil indicts Bolsonaro over undeclared diamonds — reports

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-04 [Older] Will UK Labour leader Keir Starmer realign with EU?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-04 [Older] Why are Southeast Asian countries looking to join BRICS?

  • CBC ☛ 2024-07-03 [Older] MP Housefather denounces antisemitic poster telling him to 'get out of Canada'

  • CBC ☛ 2024-07-03 [Older] U of T pro-Palestinian protesters leave encampment before injunction deadline

  • Bert Hubert ☛ Don't say 'Europe Must Invest in XYZ'

    Inspired by the much missed Christopher Hitchens, always ask who this Europe is. Because suggesting that “Europe” should do something could conjure up ideas in the reader that the European Commission should make it happen, but in reality the author has left this to our imagination.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-03 [Older] Fact check: New fakes on Zelenskyy's purported wealth

    • Meduza ☛ ‘A very dangerous trend’ How the idea that war can be good for soldiers’ mental health is spreading in Russian society

      These stories rarely mention their subjects experiencing any negative psychological effects from their time on the battlefield. On the contrary, former soldiers are often quoted as saying the war has led them to reevaluate their lives and given them a newfound sense of purpose. Mikhail Lubkov, a volunteer soldier from the city of Voronezh, for example, told state media that taking part in the war was a “wholly positive experience” that allowed him to prove himself as a man and better appreciate his wife and kids.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Justice Department seizes domains linked to Russian disinformation campaign

      The seized domains were used to create artificial intelligence-enhanced social media bot farms that spread disinformation in the U.S. and abroad. The bot farm is said to have used elements of AI to create fictitious social media profiles pretending to belong to individuals in the U.S., which operators then used to promote messages in support of Russian government objectives.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ FBI Releases Advisory On Russian 'Meliorator' Disinformation Tool

      The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), along with the domestic Cyber National Mission Force and several international intelligence agencies, have uncovered a sophisticated Russian-backed operation that used an artificial intelligence-powered bot farm to spread disinformation on social media platforms.

      The agencies – which included international partners such as the Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security – have released a joint advisory to warn social media companies about Russian state-sponsored actors employing the Meliorator software for malign influence activity in foreign nations and the United States. While currently focused on X (formerly Twitter), analysts believe the tool’s developers intend to expand to other platforms.

    • Six Colors ☛ TUAW returns as a gross, zombie AI-generated garbage site

      The tell? They’ve re-used the names of key historic contributors, but generated new bios and photos(!) and claim that new stories are written by these historic contributors.

    • The Hill ☛ DOJ disrupts Russian 'bot farm' used to spread disinformation

      The DOJ said a “bot farm” network of nearly 1,000 accounts on the social media platform X used artificial intelligence (AI) to spread disinformation favorable to the Russian government.

    • USDOJ ☛ Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department Leads Efforts Among Federal, International, and Private Sector Partners to Disrupt Covert Russian Government-Operated Social Media Bot Farm | United States Department of Justice

      The Justice Department today announced the seizure of two domain names and the search of 968 social control media accounts used by Russian actors to create an AI-enhanced social media bot farm that spread disinformation in the United States and abroad. The social media bot farm used elements of AI to create fictitious social media profiles — often purporting to belong to individuals in the United States — which the operators then used to promote messages in support of Russian government objectives, according to affidavits unsealed today.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Digital Music News ☛ The Internet Archive Rescues MTV News’ Website from Death

    Despite Paramount Global’s very corporate decision to purge MTV News’ online content, as well as that of Comedy Central, TVLand, and CMT, much of that content is now preserved in a searchable index on The Internet Archive. In particular, content over the last 27 years, dating back to 1997, had abruptly gone missing.

  • The Nation ☛ How Comedy Central Fell Into Paramount’s Corporate Memory Hole

    The deletion of the TDS archive isn’t just about fans not getting their free entertainment, writers and their careers, or cultural history—although that’s a lot. It’s also an assault on how The Daily Show itself gets written. TDS producer Daniel Radosh pointed out on Bluesky that the Comedy Central site was vital in the show’s production. “Hey for extra fun guess what was the only way for people who still work at the show to find old clips that are important to have in the course of producing said show!”

  • YLE ☛ Moscow labels Finland-based Russian pro-democracy organisation "undesirable"

    The group, called the Democratic Community of Russian-speakers in Finland, is a "diaspora organization uniting democratically-minded Russian citizens residing in Finland", according to its website.

  • Techdirt ☛ Clarence Thomas Learned Nothing From The Mess He Helped Create Regarding Section 230, Blogs Ignorantly About 230 Yet Again

    Over the last few years, however, his main focus on these Order List brain farts has been to attack Section 230, each time demonstrating the many ways he doesn’t understand Section 230 or how it works (and showing why justices probably shouldn’t be musing randomly on culture war topics on which they haven’t actually been briefed by any parties).

    He started his Section 230 brigade in 2020, in which he again chose to write his unbidden musings after the court decided not to hear a case that touched on Section 230. At that point, it became clear that he was doing this as a form of “please send me a case in which I can try to convince my fellow Justices to greatly limit the power of Section 230.”

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • CPJ ☛ Cuban police detain, threaten journalist José Luis Tan Estrada ahead of July 11 anniversary

    “We are concerned that Cuban authorities’ detention of journalist José Luis Tan Estrada and threats to prevent him reporting on the anniversary of the 2021 protests is a worrying sign that the media may be stopped from covering events on July 11,” said CPJ U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “It is vital that journalists across Cuba be allowed to report freely on matters of public importance, including demonstrations against the government.”

  • Josh Withers ☛ The criminalisation of journalism

    Julian Assange and the criminalisation of journalism: A story of moral injury and moral courage in New Matilda today: [...]

  • New Matilda ☛ Julian Assange And The Criminalization of Journalism: A Story Of Moral Injury And Moral Courage - New Matilda

    ‘The truth will out’, or so the saying goes. The question is, at least in a modern context, is how much injury – moral and otherwise – is suffered by the courageous men and women trying to expose it? Psychologist and researcher Kari James explores that answer.

  • ANF News ☛ Women journalists condemn the attack in Shengal

    The Mesopotamia Women Journalists Association (MKG) based in Amed (Diyarbakır) released a statement condemning the attack, saying that the attack against the Free Press employees constitutes a serious threat to the freedom of the press and the people's right to information.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-04 [Older] How will Ghana's anti-gay bill impact the LGBTQ+ community?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-07-04 [Older] Norway: Man guilty of deadly Oslo LGBTQ shooting

  • CBC ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] Police coverup, corruption and harassment case to move ahead in Ottawa court

  • CBC ☛ 2024-07-02 [Older] University of Toronto gets injunction to clear pro-Palestinian encampment from campus

  • JURIST ☛ Iran security forces employ lethal force against Kurdish border couriers: Human Rights Watch

    According to acting Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch Nahid Naghshbandi, Iranian security forces used lethal force against Kurdish border couriers to “repress socially and economically marginalized Kurdish communities”. Naghshbandi said, “Iranian authorities should develop sustainable economic opportunities in border regions to reduce dependency on border courier work for these communities to economically survive.”

  • HRW ☛ Iran: Security Forces Killing Kurdish Border Couriers | Human Rights Watch

    Iranian authorities have used excessive and lethal force against predominantly Kurdish border couriers, known in Kurdish and Farsi as Kulbars, transporting goods between Iran and Iraq over rugged terrain, Human Rights Watch said today. The couriers have limited access to justice or remedy for these violations, and Iranian authorities have mistreated those they have detained.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ TSA screened more than half a million people at LAX during Fourth of July week

    Sunday was a red-letter day for airports across the country, the TSA reported, with a record 3 million people filling the security lines — a smidgen higher than the previous record of 2.99 million, which was set on June 23.

  • Adriaan Roselli ☛ Don’t Use Web•dev for Accessibility Info

    Web.dev is a site from Google Chrome developer relations that provides content both to evangelize Chrome and to more broadly support the web platform. Rachel Andrew’s monthly “new to the platform” posts are effectively required reading to try to stay abreast of the browser support landscape. The web.dev logo of a right angle bracket and dot, but there is question mark added to the dot.

    However, the accessibility content in many of Web.dev’s articles and posts is problematic.

    My experience is a function of either stumbling across posts on my own or developers treating accessibility guidance in one of its articles as gospel — even when it is demonstrably wrong or harmful.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Techdirt ☛ The Corrupt Supreme Court Makes A Reckless Mess Of Broadband Consumer Protection (And Everything Else)

    All enforcement and reform is much, much harder now. Every policy and reform effort by regulators (even long established) will now be challenged anew, flooding the courts with numerous new contentious debates once believed somewhat settled. And it’s going to impact everything you deal with on a daily basis, from the quality of your local drinking water to your local labor protections.

    In broadband land, efforts like net neutrality are at particular risk. In part because the Communications Act of 1934 was particularly murky in terms of the width and breadth of FCC authority. We’d settled much of that over the decades with various legal fights from Brand X to several rounds of net neutrality fights; fights that, more often than not, already routinely came down on the side of telecom giants.

  • Inside Towers ☛ Canada Cracks Down on Copper Theft

    Canada has seen an increase in incidents of theft and damage caused by copper thieves, reports Town and Country Today. In response, CTA Senior VP Eric Smith said that the Canadian Telecommunications Association is taking steps to ramp up awareness of the problem. He would like to see an informed public notify law enforcement when they see an incident occur to help minimize extensive vandalism and signal outages.

    “They’re not really trying to get the fiber [optic] lines,” explained Smith. “They’re seeking the copper but fiber often gets cut in the course of those activities and obviously, the implications are for the affected community. Depending on what gets cut, it could be phone line outages, [Internet] outages.” Smith continued, noting “The target in most cases, is cable copper wire that they want to sell for scrap metal to make money.”

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • The Register UK ☛ HP to discontinue low budget online-only e-series LaserJets

    These e-series LaserJet printers were sold at a discount compared to models without the "e" suffix, but were tied in to the HP+ service and required the printer to be connected to the internet and for the user to use only HP-branded toner rather than third-party consumables.

  • PC World ☛ HP bails on always-online printers and subscription laser ink

    People hate printers. They have tons of breakable moving parts and they require expensive ink refills. But it was even worse when HP started making printers that required 24/7 online connectivity and blocked third-party ink cartridges via DRM.

    It was so bad that consumers started suing HP—and HP has finally decided that discretion is the better part of valor and will now discontinue its HP+ e-series printers.

  • Connor Tumbleson ☛ NBC & Peacock - Tour de France Viewing Experience

    Now I'm not exaggerating here that watching live sports via NBC has declined massively over the years. I'm not excited for another Olympics where we get to see less and less of live coverage of the world's best athletes competing. Its incredibly annoying to watch live sports on NBC as coverage is constantly interrupted with inline advertisements, actual advertisements, jumping back to the studio for analysis and more.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Digital Music News ☛ Live Nation Refutes Hackers Amid Ticketmaster Breach Fallout

  But as HackRead pointed out – and as another hacker, this time called Sp1d3rHunters as opposed to ShinyHunters, noted in a messaging-board post dated July 8th – the remarks don’t mention physical tickets whatsoever.

  “Our Response: Ticketmaster lies to the public and says barcodes can not be used,” reads Sp1d3rHunters’ follow-up. “Tickets database includes both online and physical ticket types. Physical ticket types are Ticketfast, e-ticket, and mail. These are printed and can not be automatically refreshed.”

• 404 Media ☛ Scalpers Work With Hackers to Liberate Ticketmaster's ‘Non-Transferable’ Tickets

  A lawsuit filed in California by concert giant AXS has revealed a legal and technological battle between ticket scalpers and platforms like Ticketmaster and AXS, in which scalpers have figured out how to extract “untransferable” tickets from their accounts by generating entry barcodes on parallel infrastructure that the scalpers control and which can then be sold and transferred to customers.

• 404 Media ☛ The Ticketmaster Hack Is Becoming a Logistical Nightmare for Fans and Brokers

  The data dump contains information that would allow anyone to create duplicate PDF tickets (called “Ticketfast”) for a variety of upcoming events. Once a PDF ticket is scanned at the gate of a concert, that ticket is then “used,” meaning any subsequent attempts to scan the same ticket are rejected, meaning that someone who uses the hacked data to create or sell a ticket could get into a concert and the legitimate buyer of a ticket could be refused entrance. This is an escalation that shows the Ticketmaster hack threatens to become a logistical nightmare not just for Ticketmaster but for ordinary fans, ticket brokers, their customers, music venues and the people who work there, and ticket resale platforms like StubHub and SeatGeek.

• [Old] Newsweek ☛ Pentagon Hacking Fears Fueled by Microsoft's Monopoly on Military IT

  At a series of meetings with DOD Chief Information Officer John Sherman last fall, as the department's fiscal year 2024 budget request was being finalized, a clear majority of senior IT leaders from the military services opposed the move, a former senior defense official directly involved told Newsweek. They were concerned about the department's growing reliance on a single software vendor: "I was completely against it. A lot of us were, for the same reason: It felt like we were further embedding ourselves into this monopolistic (Microsoft) monoculture."

  The potential risks were laid bare in March, when it was revealed that hackers suspected to be from Russian military intelligence had been stealthily exploiting a vulnerability in Outlook, Microsoft's email program, for almost a year. The incident, unreported except by the cybersecurity trade press, illustrates what experts say are the dangers of relying exclusively on Microsoft IT.

• Copyrights

  • The Verge ☛ The developers suing over GitHub Copilot got dealt a major blow in court

    The original lawsuit made 22 claims against the trio, accusing them of violating copyright laws by allowing the AI-powered GitHub Copilot coding assistant to train on developers’ work. Microsoft, the owner of GitHub, uses OpenAI’s technology to power the tool. All three companies asked the court to throw out the lawsuit in January, but Judge Jon Tigar denied their request.

    However, Judge Tigar’s latest ruling deals a blow to the accusation that GitHub Copilot violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by suggesting code without proper attribution. Although the court previously ruled that Copilot’s suggested code wasn’t close enough to its original source, an amended version of the complaint takes issue with GitHub’s duplication detection filter, which users can toggle on to “detect and suppress” Copilot suggestions matching public code found on GitHub.

  • Manton Reece ☛ Training C-3PO

    This is at the root of why many creators are pushing back against AI. Using too much of an original work and not crediting it is plagiarism. If the largest LLMs are inherently plagiarism machines, it could help to refocus on smaller, personal LLMs that only gain knowledge at the user’s direction.