Leftovers

• Steve Ledlow ☛ Rituals Roundup

  This is my IndieWeb Carnival “roundup” post. I honestly didn’t know what to expect, as this was my first time hosting the Carnival. I’m amazed that 25 people read my topic and felt compelled enough to write something on their blog and send me a link. What an amazing thing it is to have this opportunity and to get to direct people’s minds to write on a topic. The results are below and I strongly encourage folks to click each submission and read it in its entirety. They’re all lovely and my notes are merely my attempt to shine light on what they struck in me. Thanks to all 25 of you that took time out of your lives to write the posts and the email that shared it with me.

• Michał Sapka ☛ Ruben's Retro Corner

  I understand that the web is not like this any more, it was ruined. It’s not marketable, it’s not a data gathering machine. But this is why it makes me so happy. It’s a tiny site that has only one reason to exist - Ruben’s love for his old stuff. The love and happiness is pouring out of every pixel here!

• Matt Webb ☛ How to read this blog as of Sept 2024 (Interconnected)

  You can get the latest posts in three ways:

  1. Visit this website at interconnected.org/home

  2. RSS: add this RSS feed to your newsreader app (learn about RSS feeds)

  3. Email: subscribe to the newsletter (it’s free) to get new posts straight to your inbox.

  I no longer auto-post updates to X/Twitter.

• Education

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ California lawmakers pass billbanning legacy and donor college admissions

    However, the bill sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom was stripped of original provisions calling for strict financial penalties for private institutions that violated the law. Instead, the measure would require all private universities — including the University of Southern California and Stanford — to submit an annual report to the state disclosing the number of admitted applicants who were given admissions preferences because they are children of alumni or donors.

  • VOA News ☛ Economics, tensions blamed for Chinese students shifting from US to Australia, Britain

    Industry analysts say the negative trend is mainly due to higher costs amid China’s struggling economy, with a growing number of students going to less expensive countries like Australia and Britain, and tense ties between Washington and Beijing.

• Hardware

  • PCLinuxOS Magazine ☛ UPS: A Source of Backup Power

    After unboxing your new UPS, connect the power cord into a 15 amp wall socket. DO NOT plug your UPS into any surge protection device. Doing so could cause the UPS to fail to operate properly. The UPS equipment has built-in surge protection.

    On the back of your UPS there should be several rows of outlets. Some will be marked “Surge + Battery” and others will be marked “Surge” On some UPS models the plugs themselves are color coded. You will want to plug your computer, monitor, and your Modem/Router/Wi-Fi into the outlets labeled “Surge + Battery”. Other devices like your printer, etc. should be plugged into the outlet marked “Surge”.

    On some models, you can also find protection for your Ethernet Modem/Router/Wi-Fi device and coax connectors for your Cable Modem. The input side of these connectors should go from the wall to your UPS, and the output of the connectors go from the UPS to the appropriate device. IE: Cable modem or your Modem/Router/Wi-Fi

    Once all your devices are connected to your UPS, you are ready to power on the UPS. Once the UPS is powered on, it should start charging the internal battery. (Be aware that it can take up to 8 hours for the UPS to charge its internal batteries fully.) Depending on the UPS you have, it may show the state of the internal battery charge, the load, the voltage or more, depending on your menu selection.

  • Computers Are Bad ☛ 2024-08-31 ipmi

    This brings back to mind one of those ancient questions that comes up among computer novices and becomes a writing prompt for technology bloggers. What is a server? Is it just, like, a big computer? Or is it actually special?

  • India Times ☛ Intel may split its foundry business and cancel future factories as it faces ‘most difficult' period in history

    After layoffs, Intel is exploring further measures, including potentially splitting its chip design and manufacturing businesses, as the semiconductor giant grapples with mounting losses, increasing pressure from investors, and scrutiny from lawmakers. The company is working with investment banks to navigate what could be the most challenging period in its 56-year history, sources familiar with the matter have told Bloomberg.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ How Michigan manages to sell more legal weed than California

    News of this eclipse passed with little fanfare in both states — growers kept growing and smokers kept smoking. But its evolution is a lesson in how one state can execute on its vision of a booming cannabis economy while another’s still feels like a pipe dream.

  • Robert Birming ☛ Our Precious Time

    Most of us could do this without too much trouble. We might blame it on not having enough time, but is that really true? Will we be able to say with a clear conscience, ”I didn’t have the time”, when we’re facing death?

  • US News And World Report ☛ Young Girls Are Using Anti-Aging Products They See on Social Media. the Harm Is More Than Skin Deep

    Scarlett’s experience has become common, experts say, as preteen girls around the country throng beauty stores to buy high-end skin care products, a trend captured in viral videos with the hashtag #SephoraKids. Girls as young as 8 are turning up at dermatologists’ offices with rashes, chemical burns and other allergic reactions to products not intended for children’s sensitive skin.

    “When kids use anti-aging skin care, they can actually cause premature aging, destroy the skin barrier and lead to permanent scarring,” says Dr. Brooke Jeffy, a Scottsdale, Arizona, dermatologist who has posted her own social media videos rebutting influencers’ advice.

    More than the physical harm, parents and child psychologists worry about the trend’s effects on girls’ mental health — for years to come. Extensive data suggests a fixation on appearance can affect self-esteem and body image and fuel anxiety, depression and eating disorders.

  • EcoWatch ☛ Could Living Near More Trees Boost Your Heart?

    Aruni Bhatnagar, the medical professor and cardiology researcher at the University of Louisville who is spearheading the project, told The Washington Post that he wanted to “do something” about the air pollution plaguing the city. His solution was to plant thousands of trees in Louisville neighborhoods and methodically study health data from participating residents to see the effect they had on health.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Anil Dash ☛ How Oprah will screw up the AI story

    As I write this, we’ve just heard news that Oprah is planning to do a big broadcast special about AI and society. Despite the fact that it hasn’t aired, and I haven’t seen it or talked to anyone who’s seen it, we can reliably predict many of the shortcomings that this show will have. And it didn’t even take an AI chatbot to come up with this list.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ California is racing to combat deepfakes ahead of the election

    On Friday, California lawmakers gave final approval to a bill that would prohibit the distribution of deceptive campaign ads or “election communication” within 120 days of an election. Assembly Bill 2839 targets manipulated content that would harm a candidate’s reputation or electoral prospects along with confidence in an election’s outcome. It’s meant to address videos like the one Musk shared of Harris, though it includes an exception for parody and satire.

  • Vox ☛ What’s next for SB 1047: California Gov. Newsom has the chance to make AI history

    The bill, which would hold AI companies liable for catastrophic harms their “frontier” models may cause, is backed by a wide array of AI safety groups, as well as luminaries in the field like Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, and Stuart Russell, who have warned of the technology’s potential to pose massive, even existential dangers to humankind. It got a surprise last-minute endorsement from Elon Musk, who among his other ventures runs the AI firm xAI.

  • New York Times ☛ Brazil Blocks X After Musk Ignores Court Orders

    Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice, ordered Brazil’s telecom agency to block access to X across the nation of 200 million because the company lacked a physical presence in Brazil.

  • New York Times ☛ With X Blocked, Brazilians Turn to Other Social Media Platforms

    The social network X, formerly Twitter, began to go dark Saturday across Latin America’s largest nation after a Brazilian Supreme Court justice ordered its blackout just hours earlier. It was the culmination of a monthslong battle between that justice, Alexandre de Moraes, and X’s owner, Elon Musk, over what can be said online in Brazil.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Musk and Durov are facing the revenge of the regulators

    Does that represent an ominous turn toward repression, or a long-overdue reassertion of the rule of law in the digital realm? The answer might depend on one’s politics. But it also hinges on the legitimacy of the charges in each case and the proportionality of the countries’ responses.

  • VOA News ☛ Brazil's block on X comes into effect after judge's order

    Moraes handed down the ruling after Musk failed to comply with an order to name a new legal representative for the company.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Behind the arrest of Telegram boss Pavel Durov

    The arrest signalled the mettle of the J3 cybercrime unit, but the true test of its ambitions will be whether Brousse can secure a conviction based on a largely untested legal argument, lawyers said.

    In an unprecedented move against a major tech CEO, prosecutors argued Durov bears responsibility for the alleged illegality on his platform, placing him under formal investigation on organised crime charges. He is suspected of complicity in running an online platform that allows the posting of child sex abuse images, drug trafficking and fraud.

  • The Register UK ☛ France charges Telegram CEO with multiple crimes

    In short, Durov's personal liability for acts committed by Telegram's users is the issue being considered. As is his responsibility as head of an online platform to ensure that platform is operated legally.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Brazilian judge suspends X in disinformation dispute with Elon Musk

    Musk refused, saying anyone he appointed would be exposed to the possibility of arrest. Moraes responded by freezing the bank accounts of Starlink, a satellite company owned by Musk and active in Brazil, and giving him 24 hours to name a representative in Brazil. Musk has said that entities from schools and hospitals to Brazil’s military depend on Starlink for [Internet] service in the country — and he would seek to keep the service operational despite the freeze on its bank account.

  • Wired ☛ A Judge Has Banned Elon Musk's X in Brazil

    Musk has been engaged in a months-long feud with Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes over X’s moderation policies. Earlier this year, Moraes opened an inquiry against X after Musk rebuffed a court order to block accounts supporting former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro that allegedly spread fake news and hate speech. The news of X being blocked in Brazil was first reported by the Associated Press and others.

    The AP further reported that [Internet] service providers and app stores in Brazil have five days to comply with the ruling. “Given the number of [Internet] providers in Brazil, it might take a while to get the filtering measure fully implemented, depending on how they go about it,” says Isik Mater, director of research at Netblocks, a civil society group that tracks [Internet] censorship.

  • Vincent Bernat ☛ Fixing layout shifts caused by web fonts

    To prevent the “flash of invisible text” when using web fonts, developers should set the font-display property to swap in @font-face rules. This method allows browsers to initially render text using a fallback font, then replace it with the web font after loading. While this improves the LCP score, it causes content reflow and layout shifts if the fallback and web fonts are not metrically compatible. These shifts negatively affect the CLS score. CSS provides properties to address this issue by overriding font metrics when using fallback fonts: size-adjust, ascent-override, descent-override, and line-gap-override.

  • Seth Godin ☛ Omitting the herbs

    The first 100 interactions you have with an AI will leave you amazed, and then a bit empty.

  • Garrit Franke ☛ Sentiment analysis using ML models

    I just rewrote parts of my Positive Hacker News RSS Feed project to use an ML model to filter out any negative news from the Hacker News timeline. This method is far more reliable than the previous method of using a rule-based sentiment analyzer through NLTK.

  • New Yorker ☛ Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art

    I think the same underlying principle applies to visual art, although it’s harder to quantify the choices that a painter might make. Real paintings bear the mark of an enormous number of decisions. By comparison, a person using a text-to-image program like DALL-E enters a prompt such as “A knight in a suit of armor fights a fire-breathing dragon,” and lets the program do the rest. (The newest version of DALL-E accepts prompts of up to four thousand characters—hundreds of words, but not enough to describe every detail of a scene.) Most of the choices in the resulting image have to be borrowed from similar paintings found online; the image might be exquisitely rendered, but the person entering the prompt can’t claim credit for that.

  • BBC ☛ Man cleared after confessing to Post Office theft to protect mum

    He is the eighth victim of the Post Office Horizon scandal to be cleared through the court system in Scotland.

  • Newsquest Media Group Ltd ☛ Post Office: Ravinder Naga tells of relief after conviction quashed

    More than 700 Post Office branch managers around the UK were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as though money was missing from their shops, with many convictions subsequently being overturned.

    Mr Naga said he believes that if he had not taken the blame his mother would not have survived a potential prison sentence.

  • MGN Ltd ☛ Son who falsely admitted stealing from Post Office to save mum from jail has conviction quashed

    He told the BBC: "I feel if I hadn't done what I'd done 15 years ago, I wouldn't be sitting here now getting my conviction overturned.

    "I'd have been sitting here now getting a letter saying that my dead mum was being exonerated, because that's the effect it would have had on the family."

  • VOA News ☛ Smartwatch insults Chinese as authorities struggle to tame AI

    Technology analysts say a Chinese company’s smartwatch directs racist insults at Chinese people and challenges their historic inventions, showing the challenges authorities there face in trying to control content from artificial intelligence and similar software.

  • Futurism ☛ Google Re-Activating AI Feature That Generated Images of Racially Diverse Nazis

    At the time, the tech giant was forced to apologize after the tool gladly generated images of racially diverse Nazi-era German soldiers, seemingly overcorrecting for the tech's ongoing racial bias problems.

  • IBM Will Fire 1000 Employees In China, Scale Down Business: Find Out Why?

    IBM, a global tech giant, is cutting over 1,000 jobs in China as part of a broader strategy to downsize its operations in the country. This move is largely influenced by the increasing geopolitical tensions between the United States and China, particularly over sensitive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and green technology. These layoffs mark a significant shift in IBM’s approach to the Chinese market, once seen as a land of immense potential.

  • Commentary: IBM’s Sudden China Layoffs Tarnish Reputation of ‘Foreign Company Culture’

    In the era of globalization, Western tech giants like IBM Corp. leveraged their early mover advantage to sell mature IT products worldwide, profiting significantly while spreading Western corporate culture.

    Hence, many people in China perceive multinational companies as paying more attention to employees’ welfare.

  • IBM is trimming workforce in China, laying off 1,000

    IBM, the American tech multination, is trimming its workforce in China. It is doing away with its research and development (R&D) activities in the country. That means, it is shutting down its China Development Lab and China Systems Lab. The move will affect at least a thousand employees across Beijing, Shanghai and Dalian.

  • IBM to Cut Over 1,000 Jobs in China Amid Geopolitical Tensions

    Relations between the U.S. and China have deteriorated, particularly over issues related to artificial intelligence (AI) and green technology. National security concerns have prompted several firms to lay off or relocate staff. Jiemian, another state media outlet, reported that the job cuts, affecting staff in Beijing, Shanghai, and Dalian, were announced by Jack Hergenrother, an enterprise systems development executive. Hergenrother stated that IBM’s infrastructure business in China was “in decline,” and research activities would be transferred to other labs, potentially including facilities in India.

  • 1000 IBM employees to be laid off due to research labs being shut

    IBM reportedly plans to bolster its presence in India, particularly Bengaluru, creating new opportunities for Indian IT professionals. IBM aims to leverage its expertise to help Chinese firms develop solutions in these key technology areas. This marks a significant change for IBM in China, and it’s not an isolated incident.

  • Cisco employees face a month of silence ahead of second layoff

    Cisco Systems, the tech giant, has announced a second round of layoffs this year, causing significant unrest among its employees.

    The company, which previously laid off around 4,000 workers in February, confirmed the new job cuts in an SEC filing, affecting 7% of its workforce.

    The decision by Cisco to withhold the names of employees affected by the second round of layoffs until September 16th has created a climate of uncertainty and anxiety within the company. This prolonged period of suspense has significantly impacted employee morale, leading to frustration, disillusionment, and a decline in overall job satisfaction.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Morten Linderud ☛ SSH CA with device and identity attestation: ssh-tpm-ca-authority

      This blog post is going to be split into two parts. First part will explain ssh-tpm-ca-authority and the usage of it, and the second part is going to try and explain the implementation of the device and identity attestation.

    • [Old] Morten Linderud ☛ Store ssh keys inside the TPM: ssh-tpm-agent

      After writing age-plugin-tpm a friend of mine at the hackerspace was super excited to finally have easy file encryption with TPM sealed keys, all without having to rely on gnupg. “This is great!” he said.

      “I wish I could have my SSH keys sealed in a TPM just as easily”.

      We should have left it at that.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • NYOB ☛ Unsere Wasserkraft & KSV 1870: Clean electricity only after a dirty credit check?

      Today, noyb lodged a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority against the credit reference agency KSV1870 and the energy supplier ‘Unsere Wasserkraft’. When attempting to conclude a contract with Unsere Wasserkraft, new customers are subjected to a fully automated credit check by KSV without being asked. If you are assigned a supposedly insufficient score, you are rejected by Unsere Wasserkraft without any further verification measures. Such a procedure is unlawful, as the European Court of Justice has now also ruled in a similar case. KSV 1870 and its customers seem to be shifting the responsibility for an individual case review back and forth.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Daily Beast ☛ CIA Says It Busted Teen Terror Cell Targeting Taylor Swift in Vienna

    Earlier this month, Austrian interior minister Gerhard Karner said foreign intelligence agencies were helping with the investigation because Austrian law prohibits the surveillance of text messages. “The situation is serious, but we can also say a tragedy has been prevented,” he said.

    “They were plotting to kill a huge number, tens of thousands of people at this concert, including I am sure many Americans, and were quite advanced in this,” Cohen added. “The Austrians were able to make those arrests because the agency and our partners in the intelligence community provided them information about what this ISIS-connected group was planning to do.”

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ CIA: Plot sought to kill 'huge number' at Swift Vienna show

    The CIA official also confirmed that US intelligence provided Austrian authorities with information to thwart the attack, which allegedly had links to the "Islamic State" terror group.

    "They were plotting to kill a huge number — tens of thousands of people at this concert, including I am sure many Americans — and were quite advanced in this," Cohen said at an intelligence and national security summit held in Washington.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Terrorists Planned to Kill Thousands at Taylor Swift Vienna Concert

    CIA Deputy Director David Cohen addressed the foiled terror plot in Austria at the National Security Summit in Maryland. “They were plotting to kill a huge number — tens of thousands of people at this concert, including I am sure many Americans — and they were quite advanced in this,” Cohen told the summit on Wednesday. “The Austrians were able to make those arrests because the agency and our partners in the intelligence community provided them information about what this ISIS-connected group was planning to do.”

  • RTL ☛ Canary Islands: Migrant influx fuels debate in Spain over illegal migration

    His comments were immediately blasted by Spain's main opposition Popular Party (PP), which said the statements would encourage more migrants to try to enter the country illegally at a time when the Canary Islands is struggling to cope with an influx of migrants.

    Nearly every day, Spain's coastguard rescues a boat carrying dozens of African migrants towards the seven-island archipelago located off the northwest coast of Africa.

    Over 22,000 migrants have landed in the Canary Islands so far this year, compared to just under 10,000 during the same time last year.

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ Project 2025: Trump’s America—A Path Forward or a Descent into Authoritarianism

    Moreover, the potential impact on global dynamics is substantial, especially regarding U.S. involvement in conflicts such as those in Ukraine and Gaza, heightened tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, and deteriorating U.S.-China relations. Project 2025’s policies, perceived as antagonistic towards China, could significantly worsen U.S.-China relations. Experts advise China to prepare for heightened tensions and to avoid escalating conflicts further. Stringent U.S. policies against China could disrupt major economic interactions, potentially affecting key American companies like Tesla and Apple, which have significant operations in China. Such disruptions can lead to have broad global economic repercussions.

  • Vox ☛ Trump Arlington National Cemetery controversy explained

    Trump’s team, it seems clear, wanted to use the military cemetery visit for political benefit. When a cemetery staff member tried to prevent Trump campaign aides from taking photographs and filming near servicemembers’ graves, a Trump aide physically pushed her aside.

    Furthermore, once word of this incident leaked out, Trump’s campaign aides viciously insulted the cemetery staffer in startlingly personal terms.

  • Axios ☛ US Army rebukes Trump staff over Arlington incident; says employee was "pushed aside"

    Why it matters: The apparent altercation between former President Trump's aides and an Arlington official ignited intense scrutiny over the Trump campaign's seemingly political use of the sacred site.

    • The U.S. Army oversees the management of Arlington National Cemetery, as well as enforcing rules pertaining to filming or photography on the property.

    The latest: An Army spokesperson said in a statement that participants in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and a visit to Section 60 "were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and DoD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds."

  • CNN ☛ US Army rebukes Trump campaign for incident at Arlington National Cemetery

    “This incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the ANC employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked. ANC is a national shrine to the honored dead of the Armed Forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation’s fallen deserve,” the statement said.

    The Army spokesperson said while the incident was reported to the police department at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, the employee in question “decided not to press charges” so the Army “considers this matter closed.”

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ Trump Wants to Hide His Attempt to Assassinate Mike Pence from Voters

    This election, Trump wants to hide from voters details of how he almost killed his Vice President, Mike Pence, and his claim that doing so was an official act protected by presidential immunity.

  • SCMP ☛ Opinion | Why Trump, and others, should be careful in talking down the US dollar

    The term “exorbitant privilege” refers to the benefits the United States derives from having its own currency hold global reserve status. This implies, for instance, that the US will not face a balance of payments crisis because its imports are purchased in its own currency.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • France24 ☛ Russian strike kills two and injures 10 more in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, governor says

      A Russian guided bomb attack on Saturday killed two people and injured 10 more including children in a village in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the governor said. Governor Oleh Synehubov said the Russian strike hit the village of Cherkaska Lozova, damaging a residential building. A Russian attack on the city of Kharkiv, the regional centre, killed seven people on Friday, local authorities said. Read our blog to see how the day's events unfolded.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Pounds Kharkiv, Donetsk Regions As Ukraine Defense Chief Presses U.S. On Weapons

      Ukraine's Kharkiv and Donetsk regions continued to be hit by deadly strikes from Russia, even as Kyiv’s defense chief traveled to the Pentagon to maintain pressure on Washington to loosen restrictions on the use of U.S.-made long-range weapons and allow strikes deeper into Russia.

    • RFERL ☛ Report: U.S. Rejected Proposal To Send F-16 Technicians To Ukraine

      The White House rejected a Pentagon proposal to send U.S. specialist contractors to Ukraine to help maintain F-16 fighters and other Western military equipment over security concerns, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal.

    • RFERL ☛ Prague Backs Ukraine Defense On Russian Territory But Acknowledges 'Dilemma'

      Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky has insisted Ukraine has a right to defend itself, including through attacks on Russian territory amid a debate over Western-imposed limits on the use of weaponry, but he acknowledged that Prague’s allies face “strategic dilemmas.”

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Says Alleged Pro-Ukraine Mercenaries Detained In Venezuela

      Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on August 30 that authorities in Venezuela had arrested two Colombian citizens believed to have served as mercenaries with the Ukrainian armed forces.

    • New York Times ☛ As Ukraine Mourns a Pilot’s Death, Jet’s Crash Is Still a Mystery

      In a reversal, two senior U.S. military officials say the cause of the F-16’s crash was probably not friendly fire.

    • New York Times ☛ Russia’s Youngest Conscripts Unexpectedly See Combat Against Ukraine’s Invasion

      The long-sacrosanct practice of keeping young Russian army conscripts off the front lines is eroding as the lack of troops in Russia’s Kursk region indicates a manpower shortage.

    • RFERL ☛ Baltic States Commemorate 30 Years Since Russian Troop Withdrawal

      Estonia and Latvia commemorated the 30th anniversary of the withdrawal of Russian troops from the two Baltic states with various events on August 31.

    • RFERL ☛ Moldova 'Confident' Of Democratic Vote Despite Warnings

      Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi has expressed confidence that Moldovan authorities and society can ensure smooth and democratic elections despite fears of Russian meddling when voters go to the polls in three months to pick a president and weigh in on EU aspirations.

    • RFERL ☛ Civilian Helicopter Crashes In Russia's Kamchatka Region

      A helicopter with 22 people on board has crashed in Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka region, Russia’s civil aviation agency reported on August 31.

    • Latvia ☛ The withdrawal of the Russian Army 30 years ago

      Russia's aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and its full-scale invasion in Ukraine in 2022 reminded us that today the military dimension of security in Europe is more topical than it has been for several decades. War in Ukraine (and now in Russia as well) consolidated our belief that the Baltic people's choice to join NATO has been one hundred percent correct.

    • Latvia ☛ Hockey win over Ukraine sets up key clash with France

      The Latvian national ice hockey team recorded a comfortable 5:1 win over Ukraine in Rīga August 30 to set up a winner-takes-all match with France on Saturday.

    • RFERL ☛ Vucic Denies Close Ties To Putin, Says Serbia Is No 'Trojan Horse' For Russia

      Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic denied having close links to Russian President Vladimir Putin and batted back the notion that his EU candidate country was a “Trojan horse” for Moscow.

    • France24 ☛ Ukraine urges Mongolia to arrest Putin on ICC warrant during upcoming visit

      President Vladimir Putin is expected to travel to Mongolia on Tuesday, the first time the Russian leader has visited a member nation of the International Criminal Court since the court ordered his arrest in March 2023. The court alleges Putin is responsible for war crimes, saying he failed to stop the deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Dissenter ☛ Poultry Manufacturer Perdue Seeks To Dismantle Tribunals For Whistleblower Complaints

• Environment

  • Wired ☛ A Rare Coincidence of La Niña Events Will Weaken Hurricane Season

    This cooling comes from two climate phenomena with similar names: La Niña, which forms in the tropical Pacific, and the less well-known Atlantic Niña.

    Both can affect the Atlantic hurricane season. While La Niña tends to bring conditions ideal for Atlantic hurricanes, the less powerful Atlantic Niña has the potential to reduce some of the hurricane risk.

  • New York Times ☛ 5 Takeaways From Our Reporting on Toxic Sludge Fertilizer

    For decades, the government has encouraged farmers across the United States to spread sewage sludge on their cropland and pastures. But now there’s a growing awareness that sludge fertilizer can contain heavy concentrations of “forever chemicals” linked to cancer, birth defects and other health risks.

    This sludge is a byproduct of the nation’s wastewater-treatment plants. It’s the solid stuff that remains after city sewage is treated. But because it’s essentially concentrated waste, those toxic chemicals, known as PFAS, can become concentrated in it, too.

  • New York Times ☛ Something’s Poisoning America’s Land. Farmers Fear ‘Forever’ Chemicals.

    But a growing body of research shows that this black sludge, made from the sewage that flows from homes and factories, can contain heavy concentrations of chemicals thought to increase the risk of certain types of cancer and to cause birth defects and developmental delays in children.

    Known as “forever chemicals” because of their longevity, these toxic contaminants are now being detected, sometimes at high levels, on farmland across the country, including in Texas, Maine, Michigan, New York and Tennessee. In some cases the chemicals are suspected of sickening or killing livestock and are turning up in produce. Farmers are beginning to fear for their own health.

  • EcoWatch ☛ Clean Energy Jobs in U.S. Are Growing at a Rate 2x as Fast as Overall Jobs: DOE Report

    The 2024 U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) revealed that employment in the clean energy industry increased by 142,000 jobs last year, a rate of 4.2% growth. As Reuters reported, this is up from a 3.9% rate of growth in clean energy jobs in 2022.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ A Climate Disinformation Focus Takes Us the Wrong Way

    We have two deep issues with the social dimensions of the energy transition. One is engagement. To the extent that we have public engagement in the energy transition, it happens on the project level, as part of regulatory requirements far too late in the process, and is vastly underfunded compared to the need. There’s an education dimension to engagement — no one has spelled out to people what it will take to get to net zero on a systems level, limiting people’s ability to deliberate on what pathways and political decisions they want.

  • El País ☛ Jane Goodall: ‘Defending the environment with anger is counterproductive’

    It’s hard not to wonder how this woman who has been talking about the same thing for years — she’s on a world tour 300 days out of 365 annually — and using the same anecdotes, was able to sell out the Metropolitan Theater in Medellín in 12 minutes. A few seconds of chatting are enough to understand. Her words are balm in the face of a sometimes catastrophist and overwhelming environmentalist discourse. “Using rage to defend the environment is counterproductive.” And that’s when Goodall turns everything upside down: “We must find the story that can touch the hearts of those who don’t think like us.”

  • Energy/Transportation

    • San Francisco, California ☛ Robotaxis can't be ticketed in last-minute about-face for CA bill

      A California bill that would have allowed for self-driving cars to be ticketed for traffic violations was amended just days before the year’s legislative session is scheduled to adjourn.

      Driverless car companies like Waymo and Cruise still will not be ticketed under the amended bill. Rather, law-enforcement agencies will report instances of autonomous vehicles’ “non-compliance” to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

    • NL Times ☛ Fatbike manufacturers welcome possible introduction of minimum age

      Fatbike manufacturer Niels Willems, a wants a minimum age provided it applies to all e-bikes. "Otherwise, you will see that you are shifting the problem. Fatbikes are not a separate category, but regular e-bikes," he says.

    • NL Times ☛ Majority in parliament calls for minimum age for fatbikes

      The BBB also favors introducing a minimum age and envisages an age limit of 16. "We need to take a serious look at this," says BBB leader Caroline van der Plas.

    • Nexstar Media Inc ☛ Cybertruck on fire in front of Bass Pro Shop in Harlingen

      Assistant Fire Chief Ruben Balboa with the Harlingen Fire Department said the Cybertruck’s battery ignited after the water from the fire hydrant soaked it.

      Witnesses say that while the flames and gasses are not visible, the smell of the battery is strongly penetrating the air in the area.

      First responders say they thought they had extinguished the flames coming from the Cybertruck, but shortly after stopping the water flow onto the battery, the fire began again.

    • Lusaka ZM ☛ Zambia : Lake Kariba's Water Levels Plummet, Forcing Hydropower Shutdown in Zambia

      The crisis has led to severe power cuts across Zambia, with outages extending up to 20 hours daily, while Zimbabwe faces cuts of up to 12 hours. Both nations, heavily reliant on hydropower, are now rushing to diversify their energy sources. Zambia is exploring emergency power imports and investing in new coal and solar power plants to mitigate the energy shortfall.

• Finance

  • America Online ☛ Unemployment claims in Michigan increased last week

    Initial filings for unemployment benefits in Michigan rose last week compared with the week prior, the U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday.

    New jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, increased to 6,289 in the week ending August 24, up from 4,956 the week before, the Labor Department said.

    U.S. unemployment claims dropped to 231,000 last week, down 2,000 claims from 233,000 the week prior on a seasonally adjusted basis.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • New York Times ☛ OpenAI Names Political Veteran Chris Lehane as Head of Global Policy

    As OpenAI has built increasingly powerful artificial intelligence technologies, it has warned of their potential danger, and it is under pressure from lawmakers, regulators and others across the globe to ensure that these technologies do not cause serious harm. Some researchers worry that the A.I. systems could be used to spread disinformation, fuel cyberattacks or even destroy humanity.

    Mr. Lehane could help navigate an increasingly complex social and political landscape. Through a spokeswoman, he declined to comment.

  • Federal News Network ☛ DOD’s demand for trilingual leaders is ‘off the charts’

    Demand for “trilingual” leaders — those who can navigate the acquisition and contracting systems as well as technical and operational domains — is now “off the charts,” according to the Defense Innovation Unit Director Doug Beck.

  • Axios ☛ Voting enthusiasm way up since Harris replaces Biden: Poll

    Americans, driven by a Democratic surge, are the most enthusiastic about the presidential election in 24 years of Gallup polling.

  • India Times ☛ Character AI lays off at least 5% of its staff

    The employees who were laid off mostly worked on marketing and recruiting for the startup, the report said.

  • The Hindu ☛ Elon Musk’s X suspended in Brazil after it refuses to name a legal representative

    Justice Alexandre de Moraes had warned Mr. Musk on Wednesday (August 28, 2024) night that X could be blocked in Brazil if he failed to comply with his order to name a representative, and established a 24-hour deadline. The company hasn’t had a representative in the country since earlier this month. Mr. De Moraes said the platform would remain blocked until it complies.

  • RTL ☛ High-profile feud: Brazil block on X comes into effect after judge's order

    Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes on Friday ordered the suspension of the platform following a months-long standoff with the tech billionaire over disinformation in South America's largest nation.

    Moraes handed down the ruling after Musk failed to comply with an order to name a new legal representative for the company.

  • The Korea Times ☛ Goldman to lay off a few hundred employees in annual talent review: source

    The bank's global workforce stood at 44,300, as of quarter ended June 30. It took on multiple rounds of workforce reductions in 2023 as dealmaking suffered and higher-for-longer interest rates weighed on the macroeconomic outlook.

    The operating environment for banks has since improved with Goldman reporting second-quarter profit that more than doubled in July on strong debt underwriting and fixed-income trading.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Meta faces fight over South African election probe

      The request by the CFE pertains to information around Meta’s perspectives, protocols and actions regarding South Africa’s 29 May general election. Prior to the election, Meta representatives told TechCentral in an interview about the company’s strategies in dealing with the threat of misinformation being spread on its platforms.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • BIA Net ☛ Woman released after arrest for criticizing Erdoğan over Instagram ban

    Dilruba Kayserilioğlu, who was arrested on Aug 12 after expressing her opinion during a vox pop about a recent ban on Instagram, has been released.

  • Lusaka ZM ☛ Zambia Cracks Down on Social Media Misuse: Government Invokes Cyber Security Act

    The government’s crackdown extends beyond individuals to include administrators of WhatsApp groups and other social media platforms. These administrators are being reminded of their legal responsibilities and the potential consequences of allowing illegal or harmful content to be shared within their groups. “WhatsApp group administrators must curtail postings that are illegal and in bad faith, as they will be held responsible for the publication of such information,” cautioned Minister Mutati. This move aims to curtail the spread of misinformation and illegal content at its source.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Explainer: What does the HKJA actually do?

    Security chief Chris Tang has repeatedly hit out the city’s embattled press union, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA). In 2021, he claimed it was “breaching professional ethics,” casting doubt over its representativeness and credibility, weeks after the state-backed press labelled it an amoral “anti-government political organisation.”

  • VOA News ☛ Russian editor sentenced to 8 years for criticizing Ukraine campaign

    Sergei Mikhailov, a journalist and editor in the mountainous Altai region, was arrested in the first weeks of the Kremlin launching the military campaign in 2022, shortly after repressive laws that banned criticism of Russia's actions in Ukraine were adopted.

    He had published online posts about civilian deaths in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha and in Mariupol.

  • VOA News ☛ Zambia warns it will tighten cybersecurity laws

    Authorities in Zambia have announced measures to tighten enforcement of cybersecurity laws, saying the move is aimed at curbing online hate speech, propaganda, defamation and child abuse. But critics say the change is aimed at clamping down on freedom of expression.

    Zambian Home Affairs and Internal Security Minister Jack Mwiimbu told journalists this week that the government has activated section 54 of the 2021 Cybersecurity and Cybercrimes Act.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ Biggest local news websites in UK: Ranking of top 78 sites

    On average, the 78 sites grew their monthly UK audience by 33% and grew their total monthly audience minutes by 12%.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Chung Pui-kuen, the Hong Kong editor found guilty of sedition

    The 54-year-old served as editor-in-chief of the popular online news portal, which gained prominence for its coverage of Hong Kong’s democracy protests in 2019, as well as the government’s ensuing crackdown.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • CS Monitor ☛ Bookstores 'as sites of resistance': A Q&A with historian Evan Friss

    How would you describe the impact of the American bookshop on the Civil Rights and social movements of the 20th century?

    Especially in the 1960s and 1970s, activist bookstores were really at the center of a variety of political and social movements. Most people are familiar with the Stonewall Uprising and the role that gay bars played in forging communities and also as sites of resistance. But for a lot of these [marginalized] communities, the real intellectual center and also the headquarters for activism was a bookstore where intellectuals are circulating ideas. [These] kinds of bookstores have been underappreciated as organizing hubs for some of the most powerful political and social movements of the 20th century.

  • Deseret Media ☛ Woman whose leg was amputated following drug arrest sues Salt Lake police

    The officer is heard telling his partner, "Her leg just broke."

    According to Martinez's lawsuit, "Because Agnes was 'not relaxing,' the officers used a takedown method so dangerous that it has been declared unlawful when used against a minimally resistant nonviolent misdemeanant. The officers injured Agnes so badly that she had to undergo multiple surgeries and an above-the-knee amputation of her left leg. The force was unnecessary, excessive, grossly disproportionate, and violated law that has been clearly established in the 10th Circuit since at least 2022."

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Austerity Is a Choice

    Despite what new Labour prime minister Keir Starmer says, there’s nothing inevitable about another round of austerity — it is a deliberate decision to avoid confronting the powerful and presenting a real alternative for working-class people.

  • France24 ☛ Afghan women are erased by the Taliban as the international community looks on

    Among the rules in the 114-page text published by the ministry is the requirement for women to cover their bodies and faces completely if they leave the house as well as a ban on women making their voices heard in public.

    The new laws are “attacking their very existence”, Chekeba Hachemi, president of the organisation Free Afghanistan, told FRANCE 24.

  • The Scotsman ☛ How US Christian right is waging Taliban-style war on women

    Donald Trump and a coalition of right-wing Christians are attacking women’s rights in a way that echoes the extreme misogyny of the Taliban in Afghanistan

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• The Independent UK ☛ IT experts say ‘huge possibility’ of Oasis tickets being bought by bots

  Many people used social media to say that they had been suspended from the Ticketmaster website as they were assumed to be a bot.

  Mr Moore said: “Bots mimic the activity of real users and even manipulate their location using off-the-shelf software such as a VPN.

  “This is usually counteracted using bot detection software but this can often produce false positives when real users are assumed to be bots themselves.”

• Los Angeles Times ☛ Yelp versus Google: Antitrust court fight plays out in San Francisco

  Yelp says when a customer searches, say, for “restaurants in Brooklyn,” Google prioritizes putting its own summary and ratings above non-sponsored results from rivals including Yelp, resulting in fewer customer visits and ad revenue for its business.

• Digital Music News ☛ $50 Bucks Could Buy You Ticketmaster Bots for Oasis Tickets

  When most people think of bots, they think of sophisticated programmers working behind the scenes with a custom bot designed to bypass Ticketmaster’s bot checks. The reality is that Bots as a Service (BaaS) means you can buy a Ticketmaster bot for as little as $50 that allows you reserve multiple tickets and potentially bypassing household limits.

• Digital Music News ☛ Apple Music Now Lets You Export Playlists to YouTube Music

  As music streaming services add more usability, switching between them has always been a chore. And it makes sense; no streaming service wants to make it easier for you to switch over to a competitor. But now Apple is flipping the script, launching an official tool to transfer your music from Apple Music to another service.

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • Futurism ☛ Tom Hanks Warns That Deepfake Scams Are Stealing His Face

      This isn't the first time Hanks has been caught up in a deepfake scammer's grift. In October, again taking to Instagram, the actor shared a screenshot of a deepfaked video clip of him that was being used to hawk a dental plan, which he captioned with an urgent "BEWARE!!"

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Sports Streaming Site Streameast Plans to Appeal U.S. Domain Name Seizures

    Earlier this month, U.S. law enforcement seized several domain names belonging to popular sports streaming site Streameast. However, instead of shutting down operations, the site is fighting back. After launching new backup domains, the site's operators inform TorrentFreak that they plan to challenge the seizure warrant in court.

  • Deseret Media ☛ 'ER' creator Michael Crichton's estate sues Warner Bros. over upcoming hospital drama 'The Pitt'

    The estate of Michael Crichton, who wrote the screenplay for what became the pilot episode of "ER," has sued Warner Bros. Television over a dispute about an upcoming medical drama it says is a rebranded version of an unauthorized reboot.

    After Crichton's estate, led by his widow, Sherri, could not reach an agreement with the television studio to produce a reboot of the famed medical procedural, the lawsuit alleges Warner Bros. proceeded to develop and produce a series based on the same premise without consent.

  • 404 Media ☛ Massive AI Dataset Back Online After Being ‘Cleaned’ of Child Sexual Abuse Material

    “We find that having possession of a LAION‐5B dataset populated even in late 2023 implies the possession of thousands of illegal images—not including all of the intimate imagery published and gathered non‐consensually, the legality of which is more variable by jurisdiction,” the Stanford Internet Observatory paper said. “While the amount of CSAM present does not necessarily indicate that the presence of CSAM drastically influences the output of the model above and beyond the model’s ability to combine the concepts of sexual activity and children, it likely does still exert influence. The presence of repeated identical instances of CSAM is also problematic, particularly due to its reinforcement of images of specific victims.”

  • The Register UK ☛ GPT apps fail to disclose data collection, study finds

    The researchers – Evin Jaff, Yuhao Wu, Ning Zhang, and Umar Iqbal – describe their findings in a paper titled "Data Exposure from LLM Apps: An In-depth Investigation of OpenAI's GPTs."

    "Our measurements indicate that the disclosures for most of the collected data types are omitted in privacy policies, with only 5.8 percent of Actions clearly disclosing their data collection practices," the authors claim.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Barry Manilow Sues Hipgnosis For $1.5 Million Over Bonus Payments

    Barry Manilow and his management company Stiletto Entertainment filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against Hipgnosis Songs Fund on Friday, alleging that the company has refused to pay out multiple bonus payments tied to the original acquisition of his music rights from back in 2020.