Links 06/10/2024: Misinformation Growing on the Web, "Hey Hi" Hype Waning for Lack of RoI
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Tedium ☛ Why Clarendon Is Such An Inspiring Typeface
So, I’m not sure if you’ve done the math—I certainly have—but Tedium is closing in on its tenth anniversary. It hits in about three months, at the beginning of January.
And naturally, I’m seeing this as an excuse to do a redesign. I didn’t think I was doing one a month ago, but one day in the middle of last month, I spotted something that caught my eye.
It was a font. It wasn’t just any font. It was the font. A typographic classic. Art in angles. A rare example of a traditional serif I like, in part because of its versatility and the fact that it also shares numerous aspects with slab-serif fonts. And one you’ve likely seen if you’ve gone to a state park at some point.
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Yordi Verkroost ☛ The Subtle Art of Always Quitting Your Hobbies
Maybe the answer is simpler than I think. Maybe I should just keep things simple. If I like my coffee the way it tastes, that should be enough. If I enjoy playing the guitar songs I love, there’s no need to dig into the theory behind them. And when I write on my blog daily or a few times a week, that’s enough too. There’s no need to turn a hobby into something bigger. It’s fine as it is — an enjoyable way to spend time. Trying to grow it into something more only leads to destruction.
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Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Xanthe Tynehorne
This is the 58th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Xanthe Tynehorne and their blog, satyrs.eu
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The Guardian UK ☛ Squeezed out: last accordion maker in France to close shop after 105 years
“We’re closing,” said Richard Brandao, 57, who took over the struggling company 11 years ago, and who blames competition from China and the disruption of the Covid pandemic for the firm’s demise.
“Since Covid, it’s all over. We were going up the slope until 2019, but Covid took us down,” he added.
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Ruben Schade ☛ The scale difference between prod and homelabs
It’s fascinating to me how scale affects perceptions.
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Robert Birming ☛ A Taste of Sweden: Celebrating the Cinnamon Bun
This beloved pastry even found its way into the computer world when email started to become widespread. Many people chose to call the @ symbol cinnamon bun because of its resemblance. But today, most people say "at" or use the Swedish term, "snabel-a" (trunk-A 🐘).
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Pratik ☛ How (or why) the heck do I (Indie)blog?
Recently, I’ve been trying to find the ‘just-right’ workflow for blogging. It was much simpler earlier. You logged into your blogging site (WordPress, Blogger, etc.), typed up some thoughts, and hit publish (or saved a draft). Now, with more options, there is more friction. Do I type directly into Micro.blog? No, because it doesn’t auto-save (I learned that the hard way). Drafts are pretty decent, but you get locked into its database; same with Ulysses, and I wanted my text files.
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Henrique Dias ☛ IndieWeb Carnival: Multilingualism in a Global Web
This is my first time participating in a IndieWeb Carnaval. I had seen this name floating around before, but I have never participated. After reading both Manuel Moreale’s and Jan-Luka’s posts, I got interested, especially due to the topic: multilingualism in a global web. This month’s edition is hosted by ZinRicky.
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Science
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The Conversation ☛ 2024-10-03 [Older] The earliest galaxies formed amazingly fast after the Big Bang. Do they break the universe or change its age?
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The Conversation ☛ 2024-10-02 [Older] A ‘ring of fire’ eclipse is taking place in South America and the Pacific. Here’s how eclipses happen
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The Conversation ☛ 2024-10-02 [Older] There were more black holes in the early universe than we thought – new research
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The Conversation ☛ 2024-10-01 [Older] A ‘ring of fire’ eclipse is set to thrill skywatchers over South America and the Pacific
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The Conversation ☛ 2024-10-03 [Older] My Old Ass: why we should imagine talking to our older rather than younger selves, according to an expert in psychology
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The Conversation ☛ 2024-10-03 [Older] Cuffing season: an evolutionary explanation for why people want to settle down for the winter months
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Rlang ☛ Choosing the Right Chart: A Personal Guide to Better Data Visualization
I’ve been visualizing data for quite a few years now, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that choosing the right chart can make or break your message. I’ve spent countless hours reading, learning, and experimenting — immersing myself in works by data visualization experts like Leland Wilkinson, Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, and many others.
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Education
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CBC ☛ How school cellphone bans are playing out in the country's classrooms this fall
New and strengthened policies restricting students' use of cellphones swept across Canada as a new school year got underway this fall.
Now, about a month into the term, students and educators tell CBC News what they're experiencing in the classroom — from little change to drastic differences.
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Hardware
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Ruben Schade ☛ My AeroPress has a new lease of life
Unbeknownst to me though, you can replace just the rubber plunger seal itself. I found a local distributor that sells replacement parts, and sure enough, I can now bring my trusty original AeroPress back into service! This old guy has been around the world with me, was there for my first full-time job in Australia, and got me through Covid lockdowns. Not that I’m a sentimental fool for a few pieces of plastic, mind you.
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Old VCR ☛ So thieves broke into your storage unit - again
Since the break-in occurred, the temporary deadbolt was replaced with a new cipher lock, but this one controls a full deadbolt, not just a door latch. The facility is also gradually converting the roll-up doors to pick-resistant cylinder locks and dispensing with padlocks altogether. I'm hopeful I won't be writing a third blog post on this topic in a few years.
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Wired ☛ This Video Game Controller Has Become the US Military’s Weapon of Choice
In terms of specific video games systems, the ESA report indicates that consoles and their distinctive controllers reign supreme among Gen Z and Gen Alpha—both demographic groups that stand to eventually end up fighting in America’s next big war. The Pentagon is, in the words of military technologist Peter W. Singer, “free-riding” off a video game industry that has spent decades training Americans on a familiar set of controls and ergonomics that, at least since the PlayStation introduced elongated grips in the 1990s, have been standard among most game systems for years (with apologies to the Wii remote that the Army eyed for bomb-disposal robots nearly two decades ago).
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Task And Purpose ☛ The Navy’s latest recruiting tool? A Reddit scavenger hunt
The campaign’s name, a play on the “subreddits” dedicated to specific topics on the website, is accessible through the AmericasNavy account, with players tasked with deciphering several codes to locate five different submarines over a five-week period. The Sub Reddit Hunt post is the first one in the subreddit in months.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Desperately seeking AI ROI as IT budgets tighten
Our assertion is part of the constraint comes from the fact that AI initiatives are still not self-funding and are constricting budgets as many organizations are funding AI initiatives by stealing from other budgets. We’ll share data on that in a moment.
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The Scotsman ☛ 6 ways robots will change your life - 1 they won't
A fourth industrial revolution is upon us and this time it will be televised. I jest, but I have been out at the 2024 World Congress on Innovation & Technology in Yerevan, Armenia and one of the big topics of discussion is the way that artificial intelligence will move beyond the digital world and into the real world.
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The Walrus ☛ When Your Lover Is a Bot
People became so invested that when the parent company, Luka Inc., scaled back erotic role play in 2023 (in response to Italian regulators unhappy about the absence of an age-verification system), users were heartbroken. Overnight, AI companions acted cold and distant. “It’s like losing a best friend,” someone wrote on the Replika subreddit. Thread moderators posted mental health resources, including links to suicide hotlines. Luka Inc. eventually reinstated the features.
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Bitdefender ☛ Sellafield nuclear site hit with £332,500 fine after 'significant cybersecurity shortfalls'
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) described the Sellafield site as "one of Europe's largest industrial complexes, managing more radioactive waste in one place than any other nuclear facility in the world."
As such, you would like to imagine that cybersecurity would be taken extremely seriously at Sellafield.
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Wired ☛ Meta’s Movie Gen Makes Convincing AI Video Clips
Going beyond the generation of straightforward text-to-video clips, the Movie Gen model can make targeted edits to an existing clip, like adding an object into someone’s hands or changing the appearance of a surface. In one of the example videos from Meta, a woman wearing a VR headset was transformed to look like she was wearing steampunk binoculars.
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[Repeat] Jim Nielsen ☛ “Easier and More Convenient” They Said…
For some time she’s been doing it “the hard way”: talk to the people in the front office of the school every few months and swipe a credit card. Every time she did it, they would remind her there was an “easier and more convenient” way to do it via an app. But that seemed like the hard way of doing it: find an app, download it, create yet another account (and another password to remember), enter a credit card, etc. So she asked for my help.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Silicon Angle ☛ EU’s top court rules against Meta in data privacy case
The lawsuit in which the Court of Justice of the European Union, or CJEU, issued the ruling was launched by privacy activist Max Schrems a decade ago. He originally filed the complaint in Austria. Following several years of litigation, the case found its way to Austria’s top court, which in turn referred it to the CJEU.
The CJEU’s ruling revolves around a principle in the EU’s GDPR privacy regulation that is known as data minimization. The gist of the principle is that a company may collect only the minimal amount of personal information necessary for a data processing project. Furthermore, tech firms may not retain such information after it’s no longer needed.
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Techdirt ☛ Appeals Court: Utah’s Age Verification Is Currently Unchallengeable Because It’s A ‘Bounty’ Law
These approaches are cynical and, well, bad. They’re basically vigilante laws, allowing citizens to sue just about anyone they think is violating the law, even if the violation has no impact whatsoever on the person suing. It’s just a recipe for creating a flood of often frivolous lawsuits. All to “own the libs/MAGA” depending on your state of choice.
One other “feature” of these kinds of bounty laws, though, is that they’re harder to challenge and possibly impossible to challenge before they go into effect. There’s some wonkiness in how challenges to laws work, which were highlighted in Supreme Court’s Moody decision earlier this year. Those focused on the difference between a “facial” challenge and an “as-applied” challenge. Without going too deep into the weeds, the facial challenge is “we’re challenging this whole law as completely unconstitutional with no redeeming value.” The “as applied” challenge would be challenging the law for how it’s applied.
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The Register UK ☛ Ryanair faces GDPR turbulence over customer ID checks
The concerns center around Ryanair's practice of demanding extra ID verification from customers who don't book directly through its website and what happens to that personal data, which may include biometrics.
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Wired ☛ License Plate Readers Are Creating a US-Wide Database of More Than Just Cars
The detailed photographs all surfaced in search results produced by the systems of DRN Data, a license-plate-recognition (LPR) company owned by Motorola Solutions. The LPR system can be used by private investigators, repossession agents, and insurance companies; a related Motorola business, called Vigilant, gives cops access to the same LPR data.
However, files shared with WIRED by artist Julia Weist, who is documenting restricted datasets as part of her work, show how those with access to the LPR system can search for common phrases or names, such as those of politicians, and be served with photographs where the search term is present, even if it is not displayed on license plates.
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The Register UK ☛ Comcast confirms 237K affected in feisty breach notification
Among the data types stolen were names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and the Comcast account numbers and ID numbers used internally at FBCS. The data pertains to those registered as customers at "around 2021." Comcast stopped using FBCS for debt collection services in 2020.
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NYOB ☛ CJEU: Meta must "minimise" use of personal data for ads
In today's ruling in C-446/21 (Schrems v. Meta), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has fully backed a lawsuit brought against Meta, over its Facebook service. The Court decided on two questions: First, massively limiting the use of personal data for online advertisements. Secondly, limiting the use of publicly available personal data to the originally intended purposes for publication.
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Techdirt ☛ Detroit Cops Misused ALPR Tech To Seize An Innocent Person’s Car For Three Weeks
The Detroit PD is a case study in misuse of powerful surveillance tech. The department is notable for being involved in no less than three wrongful arrests, due to misuse/abuse of its facial recognition tech. The city has already paid out a $300,000 settlement in one of these cases. Worse, two of the three cases involve the same so-called “detective,” which means one of their investigators should definitely never be allowed to use the tech again.
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Wired ☛ Meta Can’t Use Sexual Orientation to Target Ads in the EU, Court Rules
The case started with Schrems challenging whether this practice violated Europe’s GDPR privacy law. But it took an unexpected turn when a judge in his home country of Austria ruled Meta was entitled to use his sexuality data for advertising because he had spoken about it publicly during an event in Vienna. The Austrian Supreme Court then referred the case to the EU’s top court in 2021.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Top EU court rules against Meta over Facebook targeting ads
Social media platforms must restrict the use of personal data for targeted advertising, to comply with the bloc's regulatory law, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on Friday. The ruling comes as a blow to social media giant Meta.
Meta collects digital data of users of its social media platform Facebook when they visit other websites and use third-party apps, which allows Meta to personalize advertising.
But under theEU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), companies are obliged to adhere to the principle of "data minimization," restricting the amount and duration of data used for advertising purposes.
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Jamie Zawinski ☛ Mozilla's CEO doubles down on them being an advertising company now
They've decided who their customers are, and it's not you, it's people who build and invest in surveillance advertising networks. But in a "respectful" way.
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YLE ☛ Finland increasing use of surveillance cameras
The international security situation and a rise in robberies in public places have boosted interest in camera surveillance, according to Ari Korhonen, Development Manager for Security and Preparedness at the Association of Finnish Cities and Municipalities.
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Defence/Aggression
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LRT ☛ Lithuania lists Iran Revolutionary Guard as terrorist organisation, calls on EU to follow
In its resolution passed on Thursday, the Lithuanian parliament, Seimas, declared that the IRGC is a terrorist organisation and that its activities pose a threat to international security and stability. It calls on the EU to follow the lead of the United States and Canada and include the IRGC on the bloc’s list of terrorist organisations.
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Pratik ☛ Leveraging your Vote | Nerve Endings Firing Away
In fact, the Democrats have done more to broker a peace deal (Carter, Clinton, etc.) so politically speaking, it makes sense to vote for a Democrat if you want peace and a two-state solution. If you don’t believe in Israel’s right to exist, like some Middle Easterners do, then we can stop talking now. In case you are wondering, Republicans are more likely to have a one-state solution but the word ‘Palestine’ may not exist in that plan.
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Cole ☛ You're already using the best voting system
Here in North America we vote for our politicians using plurality, also called First Past The Post (FPTP). It’s a bad system, mainly because of vote splitting. It’s been obvious for a long time that change is needed, but what voting system should we use instead?
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The Hill ☛ Michael Moore: Only ‘landslide’ loss will guarantee Trump’s ‘permanent removal from the public eye’
Moore also warned that Harris’s campaign could falter in its final weeks before Election Day if the vice president “is advised by her wealthy donors to shun the left [sic] and drop her more progressive positions in favor of a ‘move to the center.'”
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VOA News ☛ Several die trying to cross English Channel, says French minister
"Smugglers have the blood of these people on their hands and our government will step up the fight against these mafias that organize these deadly crossings," Retailleau said on social media platform X.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Preps Next Major Label Artist Collaboration with Coldplay
The MOON MUSIC experience builds on the immense popularity of Coldplay’s music on the platform, with 6.4 million followers on TikTok. The bands’ countless hits have sparked numerous trends, including “Yellow,” where users created nostalgic and visually appealing montages, “Viva La Vida,” where fans showcased personal transformations, and “A Sky Full of Stars,” where fans got creative with nighttime sky scenes.
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RFERL ☛ 6 Pakistani Soldiers Killed In Attack By Islamist Militants
Pakistan’s military has said that six of its soldiers, including a high-ranking officer, were killed on the evening of October 4 when a military convoy was attacked by Islamist militants in the country’s restive northwest.
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El País ☛ China’s plan to get around Western tariffs: Fill the world with factories
China has entered a new phase of global expansionism. Its technology companies — linked to the green transition — have begun to sow seeds in countless territories. Every so often, an agreement is announced to lay the groundwork for a production plant that will churn out electric vehicless, batteries, electrolyzers for the production of green hydrogen, or solar panels. This is happening across the world, including in Spain, Brazil, Germany, Vietnam, Mexico, Turkey and Hungary.
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India Times ☛ TikTok privacy: Texas sues TikTok for violating children's privacy
The lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton seeks an injunction and civil penalties of up to $10,000 for each violation of the state's Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act, or SCOPE Act.
Paxton said TikTok, whose parent is China's ByteDance, does not provide tools to restrict children's privacy and account settings, even allowing information to be shared from accounts set to "private," and allows targeted advertising to children.
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Axios ☛ Corporate America is staying silent on Oct. 7 anniversary
Hundreds of business leaders spoke out following the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel last October. However, as the one-year mark approaches, most plan to stay quiet.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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Techdirt ☛ Researchers Confirm: Content Moderation Appears To Target Dangerous Nonsense, Not Political Ideology
This is what people mean when they talk about “working the refs.” So much of the whining and complaining about how everyone is “biased” against “conservatives” (though I’d argue the MAGA movement is hardly “conservative”) is really about making sure that anyone in a position of gatekeeping or arbiting gives them more leeway to break the rules, simply to avoid the appearance of bias.
That means that in continually accusing everyone (mainstream media, social media, etc.) of unfair bias against the MAGA movement, we actually get the exact opposite: an unfair bias that gives MAGA folks a pass on breaking not just the rules, but general societal norms like… not contesting the results of a presidential election.
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Environment
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International Business Times ☛ Extreme Heat In Spain Kills 554 Within A Week: How Climate Change Could Alter Spanish Tourism
A particular case last year involved a tourist who died after her husband, unfamiliar with the Spanish language, struggled to seek help after she collapsed due to heatstroke. This highlights the growing danger for international visitors, especially those unfamiliar with Spain's increasingly extreme climate.
According to a report from BBVA Research, Spain could see a significant decline in tourism due to climate change, potentially losing up to 7% of its tourism by the end of the century. The report underscores how rising temperatures could make Spain a less attractive destination, with visitors opting for cooler climates in other parts of Europe.
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The Atlantic ☛ America Is Lying to Itself About the Cost of Disasters
The U.S. is facing a growing number of billion-dollar disasters, fueled both by climate change and by increased development in high-risk places. This one could cost up to $34 billion, Moody’s Analytics estimated. Plus, the country is simply declaring more disasters over time in part because of “shifting political expectations surrounding the federal role in relief and recovery,” according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution.
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Energy/Transportation
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Hackaday ☛ Why Electric Trains Sound The Way They Do
If you’re a seasoned international rail traveler you will no doubt have become used to the various sounds of electric locomotives and multiple units as they start up. If you know anything about electronics you’ll probably have made the connection between the sounds and their associated motor control schemes, but unless you’re a railway engineer the chances are you’ll still be in the dark about just what’s going on. To throw light on the matter, [Z&F Railways] have a video explaining the various control schemes and the technologies behind them.
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The Dissenter ☛ ‘Fail Safe’ At 60: The Pentagon Hated This Classic Suspense Drama About Nuclear Catastrophe
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The Conversation ☛ 2024-10-01 [Older] Boeing can recover from its Starliner troubles, but it can’t afford any other misfires
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Jon Udell ☛ Geothermal power in the North Bay
It’s the world’s largest geothermal field, producing more than 700 megawatts.
It accounts for 20% of California’s renewable energy.
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The Washington Post ☛ These small towns are resisting the spread of energy-hungry data centers
The victories spring from a growing community-level resistance to the tech industry’s massive expansion of data centers. The nondescript warehouses packed with racks of servers that power the modern internet have proliferated in recent years as companies such as Meta and Google have expanded their influence, and the race to compete in artificial intelligence has driven a surge of new investment.
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Wired ☛ Taiwan Makes the Majority of the World’s Computer Chips. Now It’s Running Out of Electricity
Taiwan’s more than 23 million people consume nearly as much energy per capita as US consumers, but the lion’s share of that consumption—56 percent—goes to Taiwan’s industrial sector for companies like TSMC. In fact, TSMC alone uses around 9 percent of Taiwan’s electricity. One estimate by Greenpeace has suggested that by 2030 Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing industry will consume twice as much electricity as did the whole of New Zealand in 2021. The bulk of that enormous energy demand, about 82 percent, the report suggests, will come from TSMC.
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Renewable Energy World ☛ 'We need to redesign the grid from scratch' - Assessing Texas load growth, CEO suggests starting over
Ballouz tells me EPE has had a hand in about 40% of renewable energy development in Texas, now the nation’s leader in utility-scale solar generation capacity and second in battery energy storage. EPE conducted a first-of-its-kind study in Texas, later adopted by the Public Utility Commission, on Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ). She attests that this enabled the construction of transmission lines that supported the state’s renewable energy boom.
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The Register UK ☛ AI’s energy appetite too big for Texas, regulators warn
The Texas' Public Utility Commission is now warning datacenter operators looking to set up shop in the US state within the next 12 to 15 months that they won't be able to rely entirely on the local grid and will have to supply at least some of their own power. As some of you will know, Texas has at times suffered blackouts from demand overload, and outages sparked by storms damaging infrastructure.
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Jamie Zawinski ☛ Legendarily predatory monopolist and AI shill Microsoft wants US taxpayers to pay for their very own nuclear reactor.
Honestly, I'm shocked that they haven't tried to re-brand Three Mile Island yet. Have they run out of demonic names to crib from Lord of the Rings already?
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Finance
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-02 [Older] Amazon Hit With US Labor Board Complaint Over 'Joint Employment' of Drivers
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TruthOut ☛ 2024-09-29 [Older] Amazon Union Effort in North Carolina Is Latest Attempt to Organize the South
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Thailand hands out money in 'digital wallet' stimulus plan
The overall scheme calls for payments of 10,000 baht ($280) to 45 million citizens who will spend locally in efforts to boost Thailand's economy.
Despite delays to launch the scheme, and initial errors with the application system for the handout, millions have registered.
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Manuel Moreale ☛ A Ko-Fi PSA
It honestly sucks that in 2024 there’s not a good way to support creators with small donations. The “one a month” model is great from a human perspective but financially it’s quite awful: a 1 USD donation, after fees and taxes, becomes more like a 0.60 USD donation but it is what it is. I’m still grateful to the 85 people who are currently supporting what I'm doing here.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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The Washington Post ☛ Mark Zuckerberg transformation is making him a Silicon Valley star
Despite failed attempts to burnish his reputation in the past, Zuckerberg’s new aesthetic and acerbic asides have played well on the podcast circuit and onstage, helping the 40-year-old billionaire transform himself from a dorky, democracy-destroying CEO into a dripped-out, jacked AI accelerationist in the eyes of potential Meta recruits.
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International Business Times ☛ Amazon Has Over 1.5M Employees But Around 14,000 May Be Cut: What Is Going On?
Morgan Stanley claims Amazon is considering laying off 14,000 managers from its 1.5 million-employee workforce. This is because the company is planning to reduce its managerial staff and it could lead to significant layoffs and cost-cutting measures.
In a memo, CEO Andy Jassy announced his intention to increase the proportion of individual contributors to managers by at least 15 percent by the end of the first quarter of 2025. Jassy further explained that reducing the number of managers will streamline the organisational structure, allowing Amazon to operate more efficiently and avoid bureaucratic delays.
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FSF ☛ The FSF is turning 39! Join us in celebrating almost 40 years of fighting for software freedom
Today, we're celebrating our thirty-ninth anniversary, the "lace year," which represents the intertwined nature and strength of our relationship with the free software community. We wouldn't be here without you, and we are so grateful for everyone who has stood with us, advocating for a world where complete user freedom is the norm and not the exception. As we celebrate our anniversary and reflect on the past thirty-nine years, we feel inspired by how far we've come, not only as a movement but as an organization, and the changes that we've gone through. While we inevitably have challenges ahead, we feel encouraged and eager to take them on knowing that you'll be right there with us, working for a free future for everyone. Here's to many more years of fighting for user freedom!
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Nick Heer ☛ Mark Zuckerberg’s Political Zag
This foundation, like similar ones backed by other billionaires, appears to be a mix of legitimate interests for Chan and Zuckerberg, and a vehicle for tax avoidance. I get that its leadership tries to limit its goals and focus on specific areas. But to be in any way alarmed by internal campaigning? Of course there are activists there! One cannot run a charitable organization claiming to be “building a better future for everyone” without activism. That Zuckerberg’s policies at Meta is an issue for foundation staff points to the murky reality of billionaire-controlled charitable initiatives.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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Brandon ☛ on disasters and their complexity | NOT ALL WHO WANDER ARE LOST
Now disasters are accompanied by a surge of discussions and narratives, some of which can be troubling or misleading. In today's digital age, propaganda bots are exacerbating the confusion, feeding on sensationalism and miscommunication, causing well-meaning individuals to unknowingly spread misinformation. We know Russian bots are doing this to sow discord and prop up people sympathetic to them. It's not even up for debate. Spend time on social media and you'll see the ridiculous things they come up with:
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CS Monitor ☛ Misinformation from Trump, far-right hampers Helene recovery
Yet this devastation and despair is not enough for the extremist groups, disinformation agents, hucksters, and politicians who are exploiting the disaster to spread false claims and conspiracy theories about it and the government’s response.
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Futurism ☛ No, Donald Trump Isn’t Wading Through Hurricane Floodwaters, You Absolute Morons
An image depicting former president Donald Trump wading through floodwaters alongside a fellow disaster responder went viral on social media this week.
But there's one tiny problem: the image is an AI-generated fake, as multiple publications have confirmed.
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Gannett ☛ AI image of Trump goes viral after Hurricane Helene | Fact check
Experts and an AI-detection tool confirmed the image is AI-generated. There's no evidence Trump waded through flood water in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
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VOA News ☛ Hungarians protest state media 'propaganda factory,' demand unbiased press
Thousands of protesters gathered outside the headquarters of Hungary's public media corporation Saturday to demonstrate against what they say is an entrenched propaganda network operated by the nationalist government at taxpayer expense.
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New York Times ☛ Meta Unveils New Instant A.I. Generator
The tech giant is among the many companies building technology that could remake Hollywood — or help spread disinformation.
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The Washington Post ☛ False claims, conspiracy theories undermine Hurricane Helene response
False claims are adding to the chaos and confusion in many storm-battered communities. Social media platforms such as X have allowed the falsehoods to spread.
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VOA News ☛ China-connected spamouflage networks spread antisemitic disinformation
Spamouflage networks with connections to China are posting antisemitic conspiracy theories on social media, casting doubt on Washington's independence from alleged Jewish influence and the integrity of the two U.S. presidential candidates, a joint investigation by VOA Mandarin and Taiwan's Doublethink Lab, a social media analytics firm, has found.
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The Record ☛ Tech platforms urged to tackle Hamas’ and Hezbollah’s online propaganda
There are growing fears that online platforms will be exploited to further escalate violence. That the Jaffa attack occurred at the same time as Iranian missile strikes on Israeli territory “likely indicates a coordinated effort to escalate tensions and to exploit perceived security vulnerabilities,” warned TAT.
Most large platforms are legally obliged to remove terrorist content, including propaganda, attack claims and material inciting or glorifying terrorist acts — however the industry has seen a reported reduction in content moderation capacity in recent years.
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US News And World Report ☛ After the Deluge, the Lies: Misinformation and Hoaxes About Helene Cloud the Recovery
Yet this devastation and despair is not enough for the extremist groups, disinformation agents, hucksters and politicians who are exploiting the disaster to spread false claims and conspiracy theories about it and the government's response.
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Techdirt ☛ Elon Musk Lies, Falsely Claims Subsidizing Starlink Would Have Saved Hurricane Helene Victims
If you can’t see it, that’s Musk claiming over at his post-truth network that if the FCC had agreed to give Starlink a billion dollars, there’d be nearly 20,000 working satellite kits in areas impacted by Helene. He goes on to falsely accuse the FCC of killing people and breaking the law, adding “lawfare costs lives.”
There was nothing illegal about the FCC’s decision. Even if Musk’s Starlink had received the money, the build out the money was funding wouldn’t have started until 2025. And even if Starlink had received that money, there’s no guarantee that locals could have afforded the expensive $120 a month (plus hardware fees) the service costs. Or that the power would have been on so that the dishes could have been used. Or that roof-mounted dishes would have survived the storm.
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The Guardian UK ☛ Trump falsely touts endorsement from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon
Donald Trump’s social media post that showed a purported endorsement for the presidency from the JP Morgan chief executive, Jamie Dimon, among the most influential investment bankers on Wall Street, is false, a representative confirmed on Friday.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-01 [Older] Amazon Pulls Kim Porter Memoir About Sean 'Diddy' Combs That Her Children Say Is Fake
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ANF News ☛ Journalist Sarunaz Ahmad imprisoned in Iran on strike for 28 days
Children's rights activist and journalist Sarunaz Ahmad was detained in November 2022 during the ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’ (Woman, Life, Freedom) demonstrations with her husband, Kamyar Fekur. Sarunaz Ahmad was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months in prison by the Tehran Revolutionary Court on charges of ‘propaganda against the state’ and ‘assembly and conspiracy to undermine national security’.
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JURIST ☛ Russia prosecutor's office approves treason indictment against 'political prisoner'
Russian human rights group Memorial considers Zhruavel a political prisoner and has expressed doubts that he simultaneously carried out surveillance for Ukrainian intelligence services and burned the Quran, as prosecutors charge. Memorial demanded an “end to Nikita Zhuravel’s persecution and his immediate release.” Zhuravel is recognized on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’s Frank R. Wolf Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List.
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The Moscow Times ☛ Russian Beaten By Kadyrov's Son for Quran-Burning Charged With Treason
A young Russian man imprisoned in Chechnya for allegedly burning a Quran faces new charges of “high treason” that could see him sentenced to life in prison, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office said Thursday.
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The Guardian UK ☛ Beware Hollywood’s digital demolition: it’s as if your favourite films and TV shows never existed
This not only deprives audiences of the chance to evaluate the film, but prevents the cast and crew from having their work seen, which is how creative workers obtain new jobs. And what is the point of a film studio that quashes movies instead of releasing them? Are Hollywood studios engines for creativity, or merely hedge funds with their own associated theme parks?
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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VOA News ☛ Boston university relaunches journalism curriculum to encompass humanities
The Ifill School’s new structure expands its media curriculum to include humanities and social sciences. The attributes that defined Ifill also shape a new, holistic approach, “An unwavering commitment to accuracy and objectivity, a nuanced understanding of social and historical context and a compassion-based appreciation of policymaking’s real-world implications,” according to a Simmons press release.
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CPJ ☛ Ethiopian state media journalist detained at unknown location
Yeshihasab, deputy editor of the state-owned Bekur newspaper, was arrested at the offices of the Amhara Media Corporation, the newspaper’s parent company, in the regional capital Bahir Dar, according to his wife, Meseret Hunegnaw, and media reports.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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The Hill ☛ Police deception: A costly approach to interrogation
To elicit confessions, police routinely employ a variety of manipulative practices, including lying about the existence of incriminating evidence or falsely implying leniency in exchange for cooperation. These techniques are not tools of a last resort, but core components of interrogation in the U.S. They are taught in some of the most influential police manuals, tolerated by judges and widely accepted as standard practice.
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Techdirt ☛ Appeals Court Reminds Law Enforcement That ‘No-Fly’ Doesn’t Mean ‘No Drive’
First, they ignored direct instructions telling the officers not to detain the driver. Then they kept him detained for 91 minutes which, if nothing else, definitely violates the Supreme Court’s Rodriguez decision — the one that says officers cannot prolong traffic stops without the reasonable suspicion to do so.
The State Police officers didn’t have any of that. All they had was a “no fly” hit that came coupled with instructions stating that his mere presence on this list did not justify further detention. And none of that justified the warrantless search of his truck.
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Michigan Advance ☛ Harris says clean water should be a right during Flint speech
Currently, there is no federally recognized right to water. The United Nations adopted a resolution in 2010 recognizing access to clean water as a human right, but the United States abstained from the vote.
The United States maintained its position on the matter in 2021, with economic and social affairs adviser Sofija Korac explaining that the right was recognized as part of a United Nations treaty that the United States has signed but not ratified.
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NDTV ☛ The Shocking Reason Islamic Hate Preacher Zakir Naik Walked Off Stage In Pakistan
Imtiaz Mahmood, explaining Zakir Naik's reaction, said the hate preacher's "argument is that these little girls are of marriageable age", due to which they cannot be introduced as his daughters.
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TMZ ☛ Kentucky Sheriff Appears to Shoot Judge Dead in Courthouse on Video
The fatal shooting of a Kentucky judge by a sheriff was apparently captured on security video -- and the moments leading up to the alleged cold-blooded murder were played in open court this week.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Energy Sciences Network ☛ 25 years of production IPv6 in ESnet | Light Bytes: Blogging for Science
Twenty-five years ago Saturday, on August 3, 1999, IPv6 history was made: ESnet was issued its IPv6 production netblock, which is still in use today. The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) assigned the very first block out of its 2001:400::/23 allocation, and since then, ESnet has numbered its production IPv6 services out of 2001:400::/32. (The netblock would have originally been a /35, later increased to /32 automatically by the RIRs.)
This was the first production IPv6 address allocation in North America, and possibly the world. Akira Kato, a global Internet pioneer, member of the WIDE Project, and a professor at Keio University, notes that the WIDE project did receive the first allocation in the Asia-Pacific region 8 days after the allocation of ESnet’s space. WIDE, along with its sub-project, KAME, would go on to develop critical IPv6 software, some of which is still in use today. (WIDE continues to have the numerically-lowest globally routable production IPv6 address, 2001:200::/32.)
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Big fight brewing over Microsoft's Edge browser
Microsoft gives its Edge web browser an unfair advantage and EU antitrust regulators should subject it to tough EU tech rules, three rival browsers and a group of web developers said in a letter to the European Commission.
The move by Vivaldi, Waterfox, Wavebox and Open Web Advocacy could boost Norwegian browser company Opera, which in July took the European Commission to court for exempting Edge from the Digital Markets Act.
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Patents
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Software Patents
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The Register UK ☛ Cloudflare beats patent troll so badly it basically gives up
"Sable is a patent troll. It doesn’t make, develop, innovate, or sell anything. Sable IP is merely a shell entity formed to monetize (make money from) an ancient patent portfolio acquired by Sable Networks from Caspian Networks in 2006."
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Trademarks
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Right of Publicity
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El País ☛ ‘Horrendous Frankensteinian monster’: The debate over digitally resurrecting Hollywood stars
The resurrection of actors through technology is fraught with legal issues. A prominent example is Peter Cushing, who was digitally revived for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as Governor Moff Tarkin. The production company Tyburn — owned by Cushing’s friend Kevin Francis — is suing Disney, claiming that Cushing had signed a power of attorney a year before his death in 1994, granting only Tyburn permission to use his digital likeness for a project that was never realized.
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Copyrights
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Torrent Freak ☛ ISPs 'Betrayed' Over Pirate Site-Blocking Threats, The Reckoning Will Be Invisible
Italian ISPs are required to work with AGCOM and rightsholders to ensure the Piracy Shield blocking system operates as intended. It's a burden that only benefits rightsholders, but the ISPs are expected to cover their own costs.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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