Links 17/08/2024: Further Escalation in East Europe, Prices for Drugs Scrutinised
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM) Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Science Alert ☛ 'Bad Omen': Ancient Pyramid in Mexico Collapses Into Pile of Rubble
Extreme weather triggers a tragedy.
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Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Ploum
This is the 51st edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Lionel "Ploum" Dricot and his blog, ploum.net
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Robert Birming ☛ Write Your Way
For me, it’s the opposite. When I write on my phone, I stop and “overthink” things. I lose the flow I crave, just letting the thoughts flow onto the page. That’s why I can’t write in English either. It becomes awkwardly stilted.
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R Scott Jones ☛ You can opt out of stuff you hate
There are so many things in life that you can simply “opt out” of. Meaning you can just decide not to do it anymore—to simply not participate. Hate it? Just stop doing it. Sure, doing so comes with consequences. But often those consequences are rather minor and inconsequential and well worth the upside.
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Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Digital Archiving: Andy Warhol's Lost Amiga Art Found
Back in the ancient times of 1985, the Amiga 1000 Computer made its debut in a splashy event at New York City’s Lincoln Center. Andy Warhol was commissioned to demonstrate the artistic capabilities of this marvelous new machine, and at the event was brought onstage to create a portrait of Blondie’s Deborah Harry. [...]
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Science
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Science Alert ☛ Physics Breakthrough Predicts When a System Is About to Go Critical
The crystal ball exists.
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Science Alert ☛ We Finally Know Where The Asteroid That Killed The Dinosaurs Came From
The deadly origins revealed.
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Science Alert ☛ Superconductor Feature Seen Operating at Temperatures Once Thought Impossible
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Science Alert ☛ Scientists Reveal How They Identified The Ancestor of All Life on Earth
The culmination of decades of science.
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Hackaday ☛ UC Berkeley Prints Glass Nanoparticles
In a recent video, [Joel] of 3D Printing Nerd interviews a researcher at University of California, Berkeley about their work with glass 3D printing technology. A resin is impregnated with tiny glass nanoparticles and produces green parts. An oven burns away the resin and then another heating step produces the actual silica glass part. You can see a video about the process below.
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ARRL ☛ The K7RA Solar Update
With sunspot numbers and solar flux at times both above 300, recent daily space weather has been exciting for radio amateurs who watch the sun. We like higher activity because it correlates with a dense ionosphere, bringing with it better conditions on higher frequencies.
This extreme activity also comes with greater geomagnetic disturbance, which cause higher absorption of HF signals.
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New York Times ☛ Ancient Egyptian Scribes Suffered Ergonomic Injuries
The scriveners of ancient Egypt were more than papyrus pushers, but they suffered many of the same repetitive ailments as desk jockeys today, a new study suggests.
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Education
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The Korea Times ☛ School rejects rights body’s recommendation to lift mobile phone ban
The report demonstrates a discrepancy between the views of the rights organization and many teachers who regard smartphone use in schools as a significant, growing problem.
Korea does not have a law that universally restricts student cellphone use.
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Lou Plummer ☛ School Days
I didn't go to college, so I don't have any stories to relate there, but I did attend a lot of schools during my public education and have some pretty good memories from a lot of them.
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Herman Õunapuu ☛ How I ended up working as a software developer :: ./techtipsy
I’ve officially worked as a software developer since August 2016, and by now I have a fair share of stories to tell from those years. But those are stories for another time.
Today I’d like to focus on where it all got started.
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Hardware
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Hackaday ☛ Edge-Lit, Thin LCD TVs Are Having Early Heat Death Issues
Canadian consumer goods testing site RTINGS has been subjecting 100 TVs to an accelerated TV longevity test, subjecting them so far to over 10,000 hours of on-time, equaling about six years of regular use in a US household. This test has shown a range of interesting issues and defects already, including for the OLED-based TVs. But the most recent issue which they covered is that of uniformity issues with edge-lit TVs. This translates to uneven backlighting including striping and very bright spots, which teardowns revealed to be due to warped reflector sheets, cracked light guides, and burned-out LEDs.
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Hackaday ☛ The Sunchronizer Keeps Your Solar Panel Aligned
In the past few years, the price-per-watt for solar panels has dropped dramatically. This has led to a number of downstream effects beyond simple cost savings. For example, many commercial solar farms have found that it’s now cheaper to install a larger number of panels in fixed positions, rather than accepting the extra cost, maintenance, and complexity of a smaller number panels that use solar tracking to make up the difference. But although this practice is fading for large-scale power production, there are still some niche uses for solar tracking. Like [Fabian], if you need to maximize power production with a certain area or a small number of panels you’ll wan to to build a solar tracker.
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Hackaday ☛ Make A Catch With A 3D Printed Rod
When we think of fishing rods, the image brought to mind is one of a tweed-clad fisherman in his waders in a wild salmon stream, his line whipping about as it guides the fly over the surface of the water. Angling is a pursuit with a heritage, and having a lengthy rod seems an essential for its enjoyment. But perhaps your tackle needn’t be such an important factor, and in that spirit here’s [3dcreation] with a tiny but fully functional 3D printed fishing rod.
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The Drone Girl ☛ Who spends the most money on drone shows? Surprising data suggests it's not what you'd think
Their report, called the “Drone Show Market Analysis,” was made in June 2024 in collaboration with market research group Duamentes Global Alliance based on data from 1,000 drone shows across 62 countries.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Texas Instruments set to receive up to $1.6 billion in CHIPS and Science Act funding for Utah and Texas fabs expansion
U.S. government to support TI's fab projects in Texas and Utah with $1.6 billion in direct funding and up to $8 billion in investment tax credits.
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Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications
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Thord D Hedengren ☛ The Punkt Digital Balance Challenge 2024
Swiss company Punkt makes a wonderful feature phone called the Punkt MP02. I've reviewed and used it in the past, as well as its predecessor. The phone is a testament to the fact that just because you put away your high-end smartphone, you don't have to sacrifice design and style for something that looks like a plastic toy. So, when Punkt announced their Digital Balance Challenge for 2024, I knew I had to participate. Luckily they agreed, and sent me a beautiful MP02 to replace my iPhone 15 Pro Max for a bit, or more, who knows?!
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The Verge ☛ Google threatened tech influencers unless they ‘preferred’ the Pixel
The tech review world has been full of murky deals between companies and influencers for years, but it appears Google finally crossed a line with the Pixel 9. The company’s invite-only Team Pixel program — which seeds Pixel products to influencers before public availability — stipulated that participating influencers were not allowed to feature Pixel products alongside competitors, and those who showed a preference for competing phones risked being kicked out of the program. For those hoping to break into the world of tech reviews, the new terms meant having to choose between keeping access or keeping their integrity.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Mainland Chinese food brands make inroads in Hong Kong as int’l eateries retreat, researchers say
Mainland Chinese food and beverage brands have gone against the tide to expand in Hong Kong, a research NGO has said, whilst international eateries have scaled down their businesses compared to five years ago.
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Chamber Says White House Announcement on Medicare Drug Prices Threatens Patient Access
The White House on Thursday announced that it has finalized negotiations with the manufacturers of the 10 drugs selected for the first round of drug price negotiation under the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), which the Administration said will save $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs for people on Medicare and will save Medicare $6 billion “in the first year alone.”
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New York Times ☛ 2026 Prices for Drugs That Are Subject to Negotiations
The prices were made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act, which granted the health secretary the authority to negotiate on behalf of Medicare.
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Wired ☛ This Code Breaker Is Using AI to Decode the Heart’s Secret Rhythms
He spent the next seven years specializing in ancient codebreaking, and a comfy career in academia (or a more exciting one as an Indiana Jones–style relic hunter) beckoned. But Decorte never stopped thinking about what had happened to his dad and how he could have been diagnosed much sooner if a doctor, any doctor, had spent more than 30 seconds listening to his heart. So in 2019, lacking medical training but armed with the confidence that only an Oxbridge education can provide, the then 27-year-old Decorte founded a company and turned his attention to cracking a different ancient code: the secret rhythm of the heart.
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New York Times ☛ The UN Calls for a Temporary Truce to Fight Polio in Gaza
Secretary General António Guterres’s public comments came just before Gazan health authorities announced the first case of the disease in the enclave in many years.
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Mexico News Daily ☛ Mexico issues alert over possible mpox outbreak
Health officials warned of a possible mpox outbreak, though none of the country's current cases involve the new variant clade Ib.
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Latvia ☛ No suspicions of monkeypox outbreaks in Latvia
This year, no cases of monkeypox have been reported in Latvia, and no suspected cases either, according to the Disease Prevention and Control Center (SPKC) statement on August 16.
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Latvia ☛ Don't risk your life for a mushroom, military police advise
As the mushroom picking season gets into full swing, people often break the rules at risk to their health and lives in order to get their hands on wild mushrooms. Almost every day, military police detain a mushroom picker or a berry picker in the Ādaži base, Latvian Television reported on August 15.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Digital Music News ☛ Former Surveillance Giant Google CEO Eric Schmidt Says Hey Hi (AI) Companies Steal IP Then ‘Hire A Whole Bunch of Lawyers to Go Clean the Mess Up’ — In an Interview Now Taken Offline
Former Surveillance Giant Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke to Stanford students recently, making some interesting comments about how Hey Hi (AI) companies operate on the internet. The video has since been taken down after Schmidt’s comments about work from home costing Surveillance Giant Google the Hey Hi (AI) race, but his comments about Hey Hi (AI) were far more interesting.
[....]
Whoops—cameras were running and Schmidt is in fact, being quoted here. But it’s a mask-off candid moment into how Silicon Valley has always approached building products. Early Reddit was seeded with fake accounts run by multiple employees, as confirmed by Reddit CEO Steve Huffman himself. In the process of building the “Spit Out Everything Humanity Has Ever Created” machine, Silicon Valley couldn’t be bothered to ask the humans it was copying for permission. Now the lawyers are cleaning up that failure to ask permission—with monetary forgiveness at the helm.
“Silicon Valley will run these tests and clean up the mess,” Schmidt confirms. “And that’s typically how those things are done. Speaking specifically about how those lawyers will arrange ‘forgiveness,’ Schmidt postulates that an AI agreement for use will be similar to what was established for royalties.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Google rolls out Hey Hi (AI) Overviews to more countries amid publisher scrutiny
Google LLC today announced plans to make its search engine’s Hey Hi (AI) Overviews feature available in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico and the U.K.
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The Cyber Show ☛ Computer security is a political struggle
Dig into the reality behind Google and you'll discover a company that, apart from having a defunct "search engine" on which it built its initial reputation, also abandoned almost every other product it ever touched. It adds up to a gargantuan bonfire of wealth and lost opportunity imposed on the rest of Western society. Likewise, Microsoft's death-grip of insecurity on computing by acquisitions, smothering or outspending competition, has done for the progress of computer security what Julius Caesar did at Library of Alexandria in 48 BC.
Is anyone still fooled?
Apparently, at long last, the U.S. government is losing trust in Microsoft. In recent years it has stood up against powerful foreign technology actors like Huawei and TikTok. Even in Britain we had to acknowledge the security catastophe of Hikvision cameras and our government finally banned them. But these are the tip of the iceberg of toxic tech. It is easy to pick on Chinese or Russian companies precisely because we don't trust their regimes. But most dangerous of all are the companies we suppose we can trust, like Meta, Google, Amazon, and Apple.
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Wired ☛ Researchers Have Ranked AI Models Based on Risk—and Found a Wild Range
The researchers analyzed government AI regulations and guidelines, including those of the US, China, and the EU, and studied the usage policies of 16 major AI companies from around the world.
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The Verge ☛ AI-powered ‘undressing’ websites are getting sued
The San Francisco City Attorney’s office is suing 16 of the most frequently visited AI-powered “undressing” websites, often used to create nude deepfakes of women and girls without their consent. The landmark lawsuit, announced at a press conference by City Attorney David Chiu, says that the targeted websites were collectively visited over 200 million times in the first six months of 2024 alone.
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Greg Morris ☛ When It’s Time To Leave The 'Cult'?
I’m starting to feel this too. I’m uncomfortable how Apple is increasingly focusing on income, despite being one of the riches on the planet, instead of its users.
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Matt Birchler ☛ Is this the slow decline of the Apple “cult”?
But another part is that despite achieving massive success, Apple continues to make decisions that put it at odds with the community that used to tirelessly advocate for them. They antagonize developers by demanding up to one-third of their revenue and block them from doing business the way they want. They make an ad (inadvertently or not) celebrating the destruction of every creative tool that isn’t sold by Apple. They antagonize regulators by exerting their power in ways that impact the entire market. They use a supposedly neutral notarization process to block apps from shipping on alternate app stores in the EU. Most recently they demand 30% of creators’ revenue on Patreon. No single action makes them the bad guy, but put together, they certainly aren’t acting like a company that is trying to make their enthusiast fans happy. In fact, it seems Apple is testing them to see how much they can get away with.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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EFF ☛ Digital License Plates and the Deal That Never Had a Chance
Now, not even two years later, the state's digital license plate vendor, Reviver, and Assemblymember Wilson have filed A.B. 3138, which directly undoes the deal from 2022 and explicitly calls for location tracking in digital license plates for passenger cars.
To best protect consumers, EFF urges the legislature to not approve A.B. 3138.
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NPR ☛ U.S. presses the ‘reset button' on technology that lets cars talk to each other
The plan lays out some goals and targets for the new technology. In the short-term, the plan aims to have V2X infrastructure in place on 20% of the National Highway System by 2028, and for 25% of the nation's largest metro areas to have V2X enabled at signalized intersections.
V2X technology still faces some daunting questions, including how to pay for the rollout of critical infrastructure and how to protect connected vehicles from cyberattack.
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Defence/Aggression
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Defence Web ☛ Nigeria moves to establish ammunition production factory, expand local defence industry
In a significant step towards enhancing Nigeria’s defence capabilities and achieving self-reliance in military hardware production, the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Federal Ministry of Defence and its manufacturing enterprise, the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) [...]
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The Washington Post ☛ Fake accounts on Meta pushed conservatives to run for office as independents
A network of social media accounts used Meta to promote a fictitious political advocacy group that attempted to recruit conservative candidates to run as independents — part of a rush of campaigns infiltrating the platform ahead of the 2024 election.
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Scoop News Group ☛ OpenAI bans accounts linked to ‘covert Iranian influence operation’
Google’s Threat Analysis Group also said this week that it had observed Iranian-backed efforts to step up the targeting of American and Israeli officials and organizations, including both major U.S. presidential campaigns.
The Iranian effort identified by OpenAI used ChatGPT to generate long-form articles and shorter social media comments, which were shared across five websites posing as both progressive and conservative news outlets, as well as comments in Spanish and English posted on social media.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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France24 ☛ Ukraine’s Russia incursion gamble leaves enemy in shock, allies guessing
With its daring incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, Ukraine has attempted to reshuffle the cards in the conflict after months of paralysis in its eastern Donbas region. It exposed Russian military weaknesses and could strengthen Ukraine’s position at the negotiating table.
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France24 ☛ Russian troops close in on key Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk amid ongoing incursion
The Russian army closed in on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk on Friday, a key logistics hub through which supplies are transported to troops and towns on the eastern front, while Kyiv urged civilians living there to speed up evacuations. In the meantime, Ukraine said its forces have continued advancing in Russia's Kursk region where it launched an incursion 11 days ago. Read our blog to see how the day's events unfolded.
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JURIST ☛ Russian-American sentenced for donating to Ukraine charity
Russian-American dual citizen Ksenia Karelina was sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony and fined three hundred thousand rubles ($3,400) in a closed session of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court. Karelina was arrested on January 27 2024, and detained in a Yekaterinburg jail under Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code which covers treason.
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RFERL ☛ Russia Summons Italian Ambassador Over Journalists Reporting From Kursk
Russia's Foreign Ministry said on August 16 that it had summoned Italy's ambassador to Moscow over what it said was "illegal border crossing" by a team of correspondents from Italian state broadcaster RAI who reported this week from Ukrainian-held parts of Russia's Kursk region.
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RFERL ☛ Heads Of Military Recruitment Centers Detained Near Kyiv
The heads of two recruitment centers near Kyiv have been detained on suspicion of accepting bribes in exchange for exempting conscripts, Ukrainian law enforcement officials said on August 16.
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RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Commander Says Troops Continue To Advance In Russia's Kursk Region
Ukraine's top military commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy, said on August 16 that Kyiv's forces continue to advance in the Kursk region.
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RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Given 10 1/2-Year Sentence For Spying In Russian-Occupied Kherson
A court in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson has sentenced Ukrainian citizen Iryna Horobtsova to 10 1/2 years in prison after convicting her of espionage, the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office said.
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RFERL ☛ Kerch Bridge Traffic Halted Overnight As Blasts Reported Over Russian-Occupied Crimea
Russian authorities closed the Kerch Bridge, which links Russia with Ukraine's occupied Crimea region, for more than four hours in the early morning hours after explosions were heard in the area.
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New York Times ☛ Russia Closes In on Key Eastern Ukrainian City Despite Kursk Incursion
A Russian advance toward Pokrovsk casts doubts on Ukraine’s hopes that its cross-border offensive will prompt Moscow to scale back attacks elsewhere.
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New York Times ☛ Ukraine’s Push Into Russia Met Early Success. Where Does It Go From Here?
Ukraine’s forces could try advancing farther on Russian soil, or return to the front line, where Moscow is making gains. There are arguments for various options.
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Meduza ☛ Toy soldiers Fresh out of high school, Russian teens are joining the army and heading to the front lines in Ukraine. Many are dying on their first mission. — Meduza
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Latvia ☛ 'We are ready' says Latvian Defense Minister at eastern border
Work continues on strengthening Latvia's eastern borders with aggressor states Russia and Belarus, with the Defense Ministry displaying its latest efforts to media on August 16.
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Latvia ☛ Will consumers feel Latvia's grid reconnection?
The Baltic states will be disconnected from the BRELL electricity supply loop connecting Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia with Belarus and Russia on February 8, 2025. The following day, they will connect to the European grid. What will the Baltic connection to the European grid mean for electricity consumers? Latvian Radio attempted to clarify this in a report on August 16.
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Security Week ☛ Western, Russian Civil Society Targeted in Sophisticated Phishing Attacks
Multiple Russian, Belarusian, and Western entities perceived as Russia’s enemies have been targeted in two recent spear-phishing campaigns.
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The Strategist ☛ A new US, Russia, China nuclear arms race spells danger
Unlike in the Cold War, the United States faces the prospect in the next decade of two peer nuclear adversaries, which will together have twice as many strategic nuclear weapons as it does.
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France24 ☛ What’s the final score? An overview of Russian disinformation about the 2024 Olympics
Our team has identified at least 38 fake news stories about the 2024 Paris Olympic Games that circulated online since the start of the year, most of them thought to have been manufactured by Russia – from made-up terrorist threats to fictional attacks on athletes to fake media reports. Even though some of these fake news items were widely read, none of them really had an impact on the public debate. To mark the end of the Games, we took a look back at the Russian disinformation campaign on the 2024 Paris Olympics, which never really took hold.
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LRT ☛ Ministry proposes ending Lithuania’s customs cooperation agreements with Russia, Belarus
The Finance Ministry proposes terminating Lithuania’s customs cooperation agreements with Russia and Belarus, which were signed almost two decades ago.
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LRT ☛ Lithuanian company fined €1.27m for breaching Russia sanctions
A company importing coal and rubber to Lithuania from Russia has been fined 1.27 million euros by customs officials for breaching international sanctions.
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RFERL ☛ Russia Extends Detention Of Moscow Concert Hall Attack Suspects
A Russian court on August 16 extended custody of four Tajik men suspected of carrying out the deadliest terrorist attack on Russian soil in two decades.
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RFERL ☛ FBI Raids Home Of Russian-American Political Analyst Dmitri Simes
Agents of the FBI have raided and searched the Virginia home of Dmitri Simes, a prominent political commentator and author who hosts a current-affairs program on Russia’s state-run Channel One television, the newspaper Rappahannock News reported on August 16.
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RFERL ☛ Biden Welcomes Russian Oppositionist Kara-Murza To White House
U.S. President Joe Biden met with Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza and his family in the White House on August 15.
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Meduza ☛ Builders in Solidarity A rambunctious Russian-speaking union shakes up Sweden’s labor movement — Meduza
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RFERL ☛ Lukashenka Pardons 30 People Convicted Of 'Protest Crimes'
Belarusian authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka has signed as decree pardoning 30 people who had been convicted of "crimes of a protest nature."
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RFERL ☛ Swiss Sanctions Target Belarusian Rights Abusers
Switzerland has imposed sanctions on 27 Belarusians believed to have been involved in repression and human-rights violations since Belarus’s disputed 2020 presidential election.
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LRT ☛ Legally residing Belarusians will be allowed to enter Lithuania by car – customs
After the European Union banned cars with Belarusian plates from entering its territory a month ago, some exceptions have been introduced from August 17, and only Belarusian citizens legally residing in the country and EU citizens living in Belarus will be able to enter Lithuania by car, the Lithuanian Customs has said.
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RFERL ☛ Tsikhanouskaya Vows To Continue Fight For Political Prisoners In Belarus After 30 Pardoned
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya said she is pleased that 30 people have been pardoned in Belarus and released from jail but noted that the move barely makes a dent in the number of people imprisoned in the country "in politically motivated cases."
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Environment
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VOA News ☛ Former charcoal trader in Somalia turns environmentalist
Tree cutting for charcoal is also a primary cause of deforestation in Somalia, where the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization says tree cover dropped by nearly 30% between 1990 and 2020, contributing to the climate and environmental crisis affecting much of East Africa.
Initially, Ali worked by himself. But after companies showed interest, he set up his own charcoal business.
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MIT Technology Review ☛ The US government is still spending big on climate
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Friday marks two years since the US signed the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law. Now, I’m not usually one to track legislation birthdays.
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Pro Publica ☛ The Plastics Industry Wants to Redefine “Recyclable”
Is there anything more pathetic than a used plastic bag?
They rip and tear. They float away in the slightest breeze. Left in the wild, their mangled remains entangle birds and choke sea turtles that mistake them for edible jellyfish. It takes 1,000 years for the bags to disintegrate, shedding hormone-disrupting chemicals as they do. And that outcome is all but inevitable, because no system exists to routinely recycle them. It’s no wonder some states have banned them and stores give discounts to customers with reusable bags.
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Energy/Transportation
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DeSmog ☛ Net Zero Scrutiny Group Chair Urged Not to Resurrect ‘Failed’ Project
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DeSmog ☛ Revealed: Shell Oil Non-Profit Donated to Anti-Climate Groups Behind Project 2025
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DeSmog ☛ BLM to Protect ND Drinking Water, Yet Continues Oil Leasing Under Missouri River
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IT Wire ☛ US Signal acquires new data centre in Michigan
Digital infrastructure solutions provider US Signal has acquired Detroit North Data Centre at 1035 West Entrance Drive, Auburn Hills, Michigan.
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Wired ☛ EVs Are Losing Up to 50 Percent of Their Value in One Year
In a bid not to tar all EVs with the same brush, we’ve aimed to be balanced in our approach to discovering trade-in valuations. There’s plenty of color to be reported here, too—like the US dealer who actively warned our reporter against selling him their EV, or the story of a Mercedes EQE that lost more than $600 each day—but for now let us deliver the cold, hard numbers.
We are using two tools for this research. The first is an online appraisal system by Edmunds, the US automotive industry resource, and the second is Cap HPI, a vehicle valuation service for the UK auto trade. Let’s start with the UK electric trade-in landscape, then compare it with the US’s.
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Smithsonian Magazine ☛ These Markers of Scandinavia’s Bronze Age Boatyards Were Hiding in Plain Sight
Wood generally doesn’t preserve well in watery environments, so Bronze Age Scandinavian boats are (pretty much) all gone. Instead, Fauvelle and his colleagues looked for the archaeological signatures that boat building left at other sites around the world. Based on previous ethnographic and archaeological evidence, one telltale sign is the existence of pits that show evidence of people using fire to hollow out trees, expand and shape wood, and build and repair boats.
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Vox ☛ Why is my power bill so high? And how can I pay less for electricity?
Before we get into what behavior changes big and small could mean for your out-of-control electric bill, however, it’s helpful to take a deep dive into the numbers on that bill and what’s behind them.
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Wildlife/Nature
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The Revelator ☛ 16 Things to Do (for Yourself and the Planet) Before Summer’s End
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Pro Publica ☛ As Millions of Acres Burn, Firefighters Say the U.S. Forest Service Has Left Them With Critical Shortages
On July 18, federal wildfire managers placed the nation under a designation known as Preparedness Level 5 — bureaucratic code for all hands on deck or, as one veteran wildland firefighter called it, “fire DEFCON.” In layman’s terms, Preparedness Level 5 means that the country’s wildland firefighting resources are spread thin, more blazes are imminent, and supervisors of local crews are reluctant to allow them to travel far from home to help elsewhere. This marks only the fourth time in the past two decades that the country has reached such a state so early in the calendar year. So far, more than 5 million acres have burned nationwide, tripling last year’s total, and there are still months to go in fire season.
Nine days after the country entered Preparedness Level 5, the U.S. Forest Service — the largest of the five federal agencies responsible for fighting wildfires, with more than 11,000 firefighters — said that it had reached 101% of its hiring goal for 2024. However, firefighters on the ground say that the agency is understating how badly depleted their ranks are.
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Finance
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Mexico News Daily ☛ Mexico’s housing prices surge nearly 10% in 2024, outstripping inflation
Data from the Federal Mortgage Society (SHF) shows that housing prices have increased by over 5% in every state in Mexico.
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Atlantic Council ☛ The IRA two years on: A signpost of the new economic policy consensus
Signed in August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act has prompted global competition among governments to make public investments in emerging industries and technologies.
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Stanford University ☛ From the Community | Stanford’s counterproposal will cut effective wages for graduate workers
Stanford recently proposed a 3% annual increase for graduate workers' wages, but that falls short of inflation and increases in cost of living, writes several Stanford Graduate Workers Union members.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ ‘Bleak picture’: China’s industrial growth slows, unemployment rises
Chinese industrial production growth slowed in July while unemployment rose, official data showed Thursday, highlighting an uneven recovery in the world’s second-largest economy despite recent government measures to try to stimulate expansion.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Kiribati election: Results show pro-China leader retains parliamentary seat
Kiribati’s pro-China president retained his parliamentary seat in a landslide, according to the first results on Thursday of an election that hinged on worries about the cost of living, rising sea levels and closer ties with Beijing.
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Insight Hungary ☛ Walz calls Orban a dictator on Fox News
Kamala Harris' running mate, Tim Walz shared his thoughts on Hungray's far-right Prime Minister, Viktor Orban in a recent interview with Fox News. “A foreign policy that respects our alliances — not cozying up to dictators like [Vladimir] Putin and Orbán — [is] the way to go,” Walz said. A foreign policy that respects our alliances - not cozying up to dictators like [Vladimir] Putin and Orbán - [is] the way to go.”
In contrast, JD Vance, Donald Trump’s VP pick, has previously praised Orbán and his government’s policies. Last September, Vance suggested that the US Department of Education should take a page from Orbán’s playbook. "You do what Viktor Orbán has done in Hungary," he said, advocating a ban on teaching critical race and gender theories in exchange for federal or state funding.
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Matt Birchler ☛ What is X in 2024?
Casey Newton on Platformer: X Is Just a Political Project Now
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Netzpolitik ☛ The EU Parliament’s last Pirate: „You can make a change even if you are low in numbers“
Markéta Gregorová represents the Czech Pirate Party in the European Parliament since 2019. The Pirates were decimated in the European election a few months ago, losing three of their four seats, including the only German one. Only Gregorová managed to re-enter the Parliament, where she will again be part of the Greens group.
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India Times ☛ Cisco to lay off 6000 employees, CEO says "we're now returning ..."
While Cisco did not specify the exact number of positions to be eliminated, the 7% reduction could affect around 6,000 employees based on its reported workforce of 84,900 as of July 2023. The company previously laid off 4,000 workers in February.
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New York Times ☛ California A.I. Bill Is Tweaked
The State Assembly’s Appropriations Committee voted on Thursday to endorse an amended version of the bill, S.B. 1047, which would require companies to test the safety of powerful A.I. technologies before releasing them to the public. California’s attorney general would be able to sue companies if their technologies caused serious harm, such as mass property damage or human casualties.
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BIA Net ☛ Palestine’s Mahmoud Abbas faces protest in Turkish parliament
Nationalist deputies protested the Palestinian president’s remarks regarding the Uighur minority in China. Abbas announced his intention to visit Gaza.
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The Straits Times ☛ China's Zhongshan frees seized Nigerian presidential jet
LAGOS - A Chinese firm at the heart of a legal dispute with Nigeria has released a government-owned jet seized on its behalf by a French court as a "gesture of goodwill" to allow for talks, the company said on Friday.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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The Strategist ☛ AI disinformation: lessons from the UK's election
While there’s no evidence these examples swayed any large number of votes, we did see spikes in online harassment against the people targeted by the fakes. We also observed confusion among audiences over whether the content was authentic.
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Michigan Advance ☛ AI will play a role in election misinformation. Experts are trying to fight back • Michigan Advance
The false video was part of a growing wave of election-related content created by artificial intelligence. At least some of that content, experts say, is false, misleading or simply designed to provoke viewers.
AI-created likenesses, often called “deepfakes,” have increasingly become a point of concern for those battling misinformation during election seasons. Creating deepfakes used to take a team of skilled technologists with time and money, but recent advances and accessibility in AI technology have meant that nearly anyone can create convincing fake content.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Techdirt ☛ Can We Finally Stop Pretending Elon Musk Is A “Free Speech Absolutist”? He’s Not
Over the past few years, we’ve had a number of posts highlighting just how laughable it is that Elon Musk claims that he’s a “free speech absolutist.” He never has been. Remember that even before he took over Twitter, he had a long history of suppressing and attacking speech that challenged him. He had fired employees who spoke up in ways he didn’t like. He banned someone from buying a Tesla for complaining about a Tesla launch event. He’s fired union organizers. He threatened to sue a Tesla critic and intimidated the guy enough that he stopped writing about Tesla.
And, of course, since taking over the platform, he has shown time and time again that he’s no friend of free speech. Remember, he’s filed at least three lawsuits against critics in some form over their speech. He sued CCDH for a report about hate speech on ExTwitter. He sued Media Matters for an article showing ads next to horrible content. And, most recently, he sued GARM for having the temerity to suggest advertisers check to make sure websites will keep their brands safe before advertising.
All of those are the opposite of free speech absolutism. They are entirely about abusing his own wealth and power to use the power of the state to crush entities for their own free speech.
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VOA News ☛ Pakistanis frustrated by slowdown in [Internet] service
Officials are blaming [Internet] service providers for the slowdown, but media reports indicate the problem may stem from the deployment of a nationwide [Internet] firewall aimed at controlling online content and traffic.
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BIA Net ☛ Woman faces jail term after criticizing Erdoğan over Instagram ban in vox pop
A woman who was arrested after criticizing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a vox pop in İzmir now faces potential imprisonment. The indictment against her has been accepted by the court, setting the stage for her trial on September 3.
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JURIST ☛ Vietnam YouTuber and activist sentenced to 5 years in prison for 'anti-state propaganda'
Tuyen was arrested on February 29, 2024, for criticizing the government on social media. In particular, he was active on YouTube, Facebook and other social media platforms, where he was outspoken on sensitive social and political issues in Vietnam. His two YouTube channels, “Anh Chí Râu Đen” and “AC Media,” currently have over 97,000 and 56,000 subscribers, respectively. In the past two years, Tuyen had significantly reduced his activities and primarily focused on providing commentary on international situations on the AC Media channel, in particular Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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RFA ☛ Vietnamese activist found guilty of anti-state propaganda
He was prosecuted under Article 117 of the criminal code, which prohibits "making, storing, disseminating or propagating information, documents and items with fabricated content, causing confusion among the people" and "making, storing, disseminating or propagating information, documents and items causing psychological warfare."
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Atlantic Council ☛ The Kremlin is cutting Russia’s last information ties to the outside world
It is easy to see why Putin may now have decided to block YouTube. After all, reports of a widespread freeze came just days after Ukraine launched a surprise cross-border offensive into Kursk Oblast, marking the first invasion of Russia since World War II. While the Kremlin-controlled Russian state media has sought to downplay the invasion, ordinary Russians have used YouTube to post information about the Ukrainian advance and publish videos contradicting the official Moscow narrative.
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CPJ ☛ Vietnam sentences blogger Nguyen Chi Tuyen to 5 years in prison
A court in the capital Hanoi ruled that Nguyen, who has been in detention since he was arrested at home in February, had violated Article 117 of the penal code, a broad provision that prohibits making, storing, or disseminating information against the state. Tuyen’s lawyer, Nguyen Ha Luan, said he would consider appealing the conviction.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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Press Gazette ☛ Newspaper ABCs: Sunday People sees biggest print decline in July
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The Dissenter ☛ How Chicago Police Respond To DNC Protests Will Impact Reporters' Freedom
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YLE ☛ Finnish news editors: Government funding cuts threaten press freedom
The Association of Editors (acronymed in Finnish as PTY) has criticised the government's plans to end state support for Finland's media self-regulatory body JSN.
In a statement, PTY called the cuts to funding for the Council for Mass Media in Finland (acronymed JSN in Finnish) "ill-advised", adding that the move will weaken the dissemination of fact-based, reliable information.
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Doc Searls ☛ A Better Way to Do News
In 2017, Columbia Journalism Review produced an interactive map of America’s “news deserts.” One of them is Monroe County, most of which is Bloomington: [...]
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Civil Rights/Policing
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RFERL ☛ Bulgarian President Radev Signs Law Banning LGBT 'Promotion' In Schools
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev has signed into law a recently adopted amendment banning LGBT "promotion" in schools despite calls to veto it from Bulgarian intellectuals as rights groups are preparing to stage a protest against the measure on August 15.
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New York Times ☛ Emotions Help Us Think Straight
We now understand that our emotions are often wise. The problem is that our culture and our institutions haven’t caught up with our knowledge.
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RFA ☛ Dalai Lama talks about life in exile in first speech since surgery
The center, which opened to the public in September 2023, includes a digital audio archive with 40,000 hours of the Dalai Lama’s teachings, about 4,000 books with translations of ancient texts on the evolution of Buddhist thought, and Buddhist artifacts from India and Tibet.
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VOA News ☛ Activists: Iran police shot woman while trying to seize her car over hijab law violation
Police had been ordered to impound her car, activists say, because of an earlier violation of Iran's headscarf law for showing her hair in public while driving.
Now unable to walk and confined to a bed at a police hospital, Arezou Badri — a mother of two — is the latest casualty of Iran's renewed crackdown over headscarves, or hijabs. Her shooting occurred nearly two years after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died while in police custody over an alleged headscarf violation, sparking nationwide protests over women's rights and against the country's theocracy.
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University of Michigan ☛ UMich Residence Staff vote to unionize
In a 141-8 vote, University of Michigan Residence Staff voted in favor of unionization, declaring the group as the ResStaff Allied Organization. The election took place during Residence Staff training, with one voting session Monday and another on Thursday. With this decision, the unit will be able to bargain with University administration on behalf of the Residential Advisors, Diversity Peer Educators and Restaff Coordinators. Results are expected to be confirmed next week by the Michigan Employment Relations Commission.
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Hindustan Times ☛ Detroit judge suspended for handcuffing teen girl who fell asleep on court field trip
A Detroit judge who ordered a teenager into jail clothes and handcuffs on a field trip to his courtroom will be off the bench while undergoing “necessary training,” the court's chief judge said Thursday.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Science Alert ☛ Barbie's Final Joke May Have Inspired a Spike in Internet Searches
Hopefully they learned something.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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US News And World Report ☛ Judge Blocks Plans for Sports Joint Streaming Venture Among Fox, ESPN and Warner Brothers
U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett in the Southern District of New York said in her 69-page ruling that Fubo was likely to be successful in proving during a trial that the joint venture would violate antitrust laws, and Fubo and consumers would “face irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction.”
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MIT Technology Review ☛ How to break free of Spotify's algorithm
But in efficiently delivering what people seem to want, it effectively eliminated choice and removed humanity from the entire music listening—and music discovery—experience. According to a 2022 report published by Distribution Strategy Group, at least 30% of songs streamed on Spotify are recommended by AI. The success of Discover Weekly has since inspired mood-dependent playlists that change throughout the day and psychic readings based on people’s listening habits. Other streaming platforms, like Apple Music and Amazon Music, have followed suit. All these takes on personalization share a common fault: The playlists too often resemble one another, filled with songs that offer different variants of the same sound.
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CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Apple vs the “free market”
Every artist, performer and creator on Patreon is about to get screwed out of 30% of their gross revenue, which will be diverted to Apple, the most valuable company on the planet. Apple contributes nothing to their work, but it will get to steal a third of their wages: [...]
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CBC ☛ Patreon creators feel pressure to raise prices after Apple demands 30% share
Starting in November 2024, Apple will require Patreon to pay a fee on any products and new memberships purchased through the Patreon iOS app.
Apple already applies this fee to many other apps and providers on their App Store. It did not enforce the fee with Patreon until recently, though the reason Patreon was exempt is unclear.
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India Times ☛ Fortnite returns: Fortnite returns on iPhones in EU, globally on Android
But in August 2020, Apple and Alphabet's Google removed Fortnite from their app stores for violating their guidelines by launching a payment feature, prompting several lawsuits challenging their rules of charging up to 30% commissions on payments.
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Variety ☛ Fortnite Returns to Apple Devices in Europe, Epic Still Blocked in US
Through rallying support around the Digital Markets Act from EU regulators, the video game company has been able to resume operations of its digital Epic Games Store on iOS in the European Union, but the iPhone maker continues to block access to users outside of the EU.
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Nick Heer ☛ Website Owners Have Decreasing Control Over Their Presentation in Google’s Results – Pixel Envy
I can see why website owners would want to do this; I sympathize with the frustration of those profiled in this article. But Google has been distorting the presentation of results and reducing publishers’ control for years. In 2022, I was trying to find an article from my own site when I discovered Google had generated an incorrect pros and cons list from an iPad review I wrote. Google also generates its own titles and descriptions for results instead of relying on the page-defined title and meta description tags, and it has introduced features over the years like Featured Snippets, the spiritual predecessor of A.I. Overviews.
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Jeff Triplett ☛ Jeff Triplett's Micro.blog
Chrome Inc will be quite profitable, making $20 billion a year from Alphabet to set Google Search as the default search engine on Chrome. The same model works for Android Inc, too.
The Justice Department doesn’t exist to figure out Alphabet’s business model nor does it care to. The fact that everything is so tied together that it’s hard to split up doesn’t is only further proof that Google is a monopoly.
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Jim Mitchell ☛ Driver’s licenses and state IDs in Apple Wallet are coming soon to California – Jim Mitchell
I have mixed feelings about this. I’ve been hoping for it, but even though Apple Wallet won’t require me to unlock my phone, I’m not sure I’d ever hand over my phone to law enforcement if I were to get stopped…which hasn’t happened in decades, but you never know.
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MacDailyNews ☛ Driver’s licenses and state IDs in Apple Wallet are coming soon to California
Californians will soon be able to add their driver’s licenses and state IDs to Apple Wallet, providing a seamless and secure way to present driver’s licenses or state IDs using just an iPhone or Apple Watch.
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Copyrights
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Torrent Freak ☛ Billion Dollar Music Piracy Lawsuit Against Optimum is Over, Permanently
In December 2022, music industry giants including BMG, UMG, and Capitol, filed a massive copyright infringement lawsuit against Altice, owners of internet service provider Optimum. The complaint followed the familiar 'repeat infringer' format, with damages for works in suit worth over a billion dollars and everything on the line. A joint filing this week reveals that the lawsuit has been dismissed with prejudice, never to see the light of day again.
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Torrent Freak ☛ ACE Shuts US-Based Pirate IPTV Services, Poor Security Costs $2m
Larissa Knapp, the MPA's new Chief Content Protection Officer, and the team at ACE have announced the shutdown of several US-based pirate IPTV services. The FBI veteran revealed the closure of AnytimeTV plus other pirate brands, and a settlement with three operators worth over $2m. After appearing to disregard the importance of security, shutting down now may have helped to avoid a larger bill, further down the road.
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404 Media ☛ Nvidia Sued for Scraping YouTube After 404 Media Investigation
David Millette, a YouTube creator, filed a class action lawsuit against Nvidia citing “unjust enrichment and unfair competition” for how the company built its training data for the “Cosmos” project video model.
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India Times ☛ Meta AI: Don't want chatbots using your conversations for AI training? Some let you opt out
This training was often done without consent, raising copyright concerns. and, experts say, given the opaque nature of AI models, it's probably too late to remove any of your data that might have been used.
But what you can do going forward is stop any of your chatbot interactions from being used for AI training. It's not always possible but some companies give users the option: [...]
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Kim Dotcom to be extradited to the US
The company’s chief marketing officer, Finn Batato, and chief technical officer and co-founder, Mathias Ortmann, both from Germany, along with a third executive Dutch national Bram van der Kolk were arrested with Dotcom in 2012.
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US News And World Report ☛ Kim Dotcom Loses 12-Year Fight to Halt Deportation From New Zealand to Face US Copyright Case
The saga stretches to the 2012 arrest of Dotcom in a dramatic raid on his Auckland mansion, along with other company officers. Prosecutors said Megaupload raked in at least $175 million — mainly from people who used the site to illegally download songs, television shows and movies — before the FBI shut it down earlier that year.
Lawyers for the Finnish-German millionaire and the others arrested had argued that it was the users of the site, founded in 2005, who chose to pirate material, not its founders. But prosecutors argued the men were the architects of a vast criminal enterprise, with the Department of Justice describing it as the largest criminal copyright case in U.S. history.
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Digital Music News ☛ Kim Dotcom Loses 12-Year Fight with U.S. Over Extradition
Megaupload shut down in January 2012, with the RIAA stating the impact on reducing piracy among internet users was “profoundly positive.” The RIAA says that according to a comparison of Q4 2011 and Q4 2012 (after shutdown), 50% of Megaupload users were no longer using any unauthorized music sites. The same dynamic was noticed after the shut down of Limewire—but even to 2024 the fight against digital lockers like Megaupload continues.
As recently as July 2024 major labels are suing Verizon for the alleged ‘pervasive’ copyright infringement of its internet subscribers, focusing on P2P file-sharing networks and BitTorrent itself.
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The Register UK ☛ Minister signs off on Kim Dotcom's NZ to US extradition
Dotcom indicated that his plan to stay in New Zealand – where he has been a permanent resident since 2010 – involves tying the extradition up in appeals until the world is "a very different place."
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US News And World Report ☛ Kim Dotcom to Be Extradited From New Zealand After 12-Year Fight With US
German-born Dotcom, who has New Zealand residency, has been fighting extradition to the United States since 2012 following a FBI-ordered raid on his Auckland mansion.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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