Leftovers

• Robert Birming ☛ Don't say you're too busy to blog

  But there are no rules other than the ones you set up yourself when it comes to blogging.

• Education

  • New Yorker ☛ Do You Remember School?

    The fact that most of the others don’t remember that remarkable frieze makes me realize how inconsistent our group memory is. Do others remember so distinctly entering the art room and seeing the always fresh and surprising still life that has been set up for us to draw? As I reimagine that arrangement and our warm little bodies in our blue uniforms, tall and short, plump and thin, pushing into the room, I see that I relished the pattern of our days, or at least I relish it now in retrospect—how, over and over, we would enter a classroom for a new period, how the teacher was always poised there with a plan. I found the constant recurrence reassuring: we enter, she is there (it is usually a “she”), a formula or a math problem is already written neatly on the blackboard, or—to our happy surprise one day—the geology teacher has for each of us a boxed set of twelve beautiful minerals, and the lesson begins. (The feldspar, strangely, feels as though it were covered with soft fibre.) The lesson ends, we leave.

  • Science Alert ☛ Kids Are Basically Wired to Over-Explore, Study Finds

    Instead, kids in this age range seem to broadly distribute their attention for one of two possible reasons; sheer curiosity, or it may indicate their working memory is not developed enough to avoid 'over-exploring' while they pursue a goal.

    "Children can't seem to stop themselves from gathering more information than they need to complete a task, even when they know exactly what they need," says Vladimir Sloutsky, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Ohio State University.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Futurism ☛ Bad News, Home Office Grunts: Standing Desks Could Actually Be Bad for You

    According to a new paper published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, both sitting all day and standing all day without changing it up seems to be pretty bad for you.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • The Register UK ☛ Baidu CEO says LLM hallucinations are now OK

    Asia In Brief Baidu CEO Robin Li has proclaimed that hallucinations produced by large language models are no longer a problem, and predicted a massive wipeout of AI startups when the "bubble" bursts.

  • The Register UK ☛ Researchers unveil LLM tool to find Python zero-days

    Researchers with Seattle-based Protect AI plan to release a free, open source tool that can find zero-day vulnerabilities in Python codebases with the help of Anthropic's Claude AI model.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Straits Times ☛ US, Canadian navies sail through Taiwan Strait week after war games

    China's Eastern Theatre Command said its forces monitored and warned the ships.

  • Michigan Advance ☛ In Grand Rapids, Harris questions whether Trump is 'fit' to be president after canceled interviews • Michigan Advance

    During a rally in Grand Rapids on Friday, Harris, 59, hammered off Trump, 78, for canceling interviews and questioned whether he would be able to serve another four years as president.

    “If you are exhausted on the campaign trail, it raises real questions about whether you are fit for the toughest job in the world,” Harris said.

  • Task And Purpose ☛ John Kinsel Sr., one of the last Navajo code talkers, dies at 107 - Task & Purpose

    One of the last three Navajo code talkers of World War II is dead. John Kinsel Sr., a Marine Corps veteran, died at his home in Lukachukai, Arizona on Saturday, Oct. 19. He was 107.

    Kinsel grew up in a rough childhood. He went on to join the United States Marine Corps, becoming part of the second group of Navajo code talkers, helping the military to further revise the code, and then saw action in some of the most important and bloody battles in the Pacific during World War II.

  • New York Times ☛ John Kinsel Sr., Navajo Code Talker During World War II, Dies at 107

    An estimated 400 Navajo Code Talkers served during World War II, transmitting a code crafted from the Navajo language that U.S. forces used to confuse the Japanese and communicate troop movements, enemy positions and other critical battlefield information. Mr. Kinsel, who served from October 1942 to January 1946, was part of the second group of Marines trained as code talkers at Camp Elliott in California, after the original 29 who developed the code for wartime use.

  • ANF News ☛ People of Raqqa celebrate the 7th year of freedom

    At the celebration of the 7th anniversary of the liberation of Raqqa from ISIS gangs, Hisên Osman, Co-Chair of the Democratic Peoples' Assembly, said, “The Autonomous Administration draws its strength from the unity and support of the peoples.”

  • The Sun ☛ Story of Millwall fan dubbed 'The Lion of London Bridge' for fighting off machete-wielding jihadis set to become a movie

    Roy Larner, 55, was awarded a bravery honour after he was stabbed seven times confronting IS terrorists in 2017.

    He shouted, “F*** you, I’m Millwall” as he tried to prevent the three murderers from attacking customers in a steakhouse.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • New York Times ☛ How Aleksei Navalny’s Prison Diaries Got Published

      In his posthumous memoir, compiled with help from his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny faced the fact that Vladimir Putin might succeed in silencing him. The book will keep “his legacy alive,” Navalnaya said.

    • RFERL ☛ Vucic Thanks Putin For Russian Energy, Repeats Serbia Won't Sanction Russia

      Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on October, a the first such conversation between the two in two and a half years, according to the Serbian leader.

    • BBC ☛ I’ll stand for Russian president when Putin's gone, Navalny’s widow tells BBC

      Yulia Navalnaya intends to be president of Russia, she tells me. She looks me straight in the eye. No hesitation or wavering.

      This, like so many of the decisions she made with her husband, the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, is unambiguous.

      Navalnaya knows she faces arrest if she returns home while President Putin is still in power. His administration has accused her of participating in extremism.

      This is no empty threat. In Russia, it can lead to death.

      Her husband, President Putin’s most vocal critic, was sentenced to 19 years for extremism, charges that were seen as politically motivated. He died in February in a brutal penal colony in the Arctic Circle. US President Joe Biden said there was "no doubt" Putin was to blame. Russia denies killing Navalny.

      Yulia Navalnaya, sitting down for our interview in a London legal library, looks and sounds every inch the successor to Navalny, the lawyer turned politician who dreamt of a different Russia.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Pro Publica ☛ Trump Media Whistleblower: Company Is Betraying “America First

    An internal whistleblower complaint at Trump Media calls for CEO Devin Nunes to be fired, alleging he has “severely” mismanaged the company and opened it to “substantial risk of legal action” from regulators, according to a copy reviewed by ProPublica.

  • TruthOut ☛ Elon Musk-Linked Dark Money Network Is Behind Fake Pro-Harris Campaign Scheme | Truthout

    The newest effort to benefit from their largesse is Progress 2028. Building America’s Future registered to use Progress 2028 as a fictitious name on Sept. 23 and the website was created three days later, OpenSecrets’ analysis of corporate filings and DNS records found.

    The Progress 2028 site appears to be created by IMGE LLC, a firm run by Republican political operatives that The New York Times described as the “hidden hand” behind Building America’s Future, and a page on the Progress 2028 site includes the firm’s sizzle reel.

  • New York Times ☛ Republican Operatives Function as Hidden Hand Behind Pro-Trump Efforts

    Building America’s Future will be publicly revealed in federal campaign finance filings on Tuesday as the sole funder of two super PACs that have disclosed little about their backers. The first, Duty to America PAC, has targeted young male voters and Black voters whom they are hoping to persuade to vote for Mr. Trump.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Korea Times ☛ Cuba suffers third major setback in restoring power to island, millions still in dark

      Cuba's efforts to restore power to the island were derailed for a third time late on Saturday, Cuban authorities said shortly before midnight, leaving millions in the dark and raising fresh questions over the viability of the government's bid to reestablish electrical service.

• Finance

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Real World Economics: Nobelists’ work seems obvious, yet still vital

    The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences last week awarded the “Central Bank of Sweden’s Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel” to professors Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.” The first two work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology while Robinson […]

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • University of Toronto ☛ Two visions of 'software supply chain security'

    In the other vision, software supply chain security is a way for corporations to avoid being blamed when there's a security issue in open source software that they've pulled into their products or their operations (or both). Corporations mostly don't really care about achieving actual security, especially since real security may not be legibly secure, but they are sensitive to blame, especially because it can result in lawsuits, fines, and other consequences. If a corporation can demonstrate that it was following convincing best practices to obtain secure (open source) software, maybe it can deflect the blame. And when doing this, it's useful if the 'best practices' are clearly legible and easy to assess, such as 'where we get open source software from insists on MFA'.

  • Tedium ☛ So, Your CMS Blew Up. Any Decent WordPress Alternatives Out There?

    Today in Tedium: Deciding on a content management system is a bit of a dance. You often have to deal with dozens, maybe hundreds, of pieces of existing content. You want it to be easy to manage, able to talk to other technology tools. Plus, you want to ensure you understand what you built, so you can actually fix it—or reach out to a friendly community. That has been a big reason why the mess with WordPress has been so frustrating. For many people, WP checked all the boxes, plus the box of stability. And seeing that it’s not stable could be enough to have you looking at other options. I’m a good person to talk about this, because I have explicitly chosen not to run Tedium on WordPress, and have heavily researched alternative content-management tools. Now seems like a good time to share some of my knowledge. So in today’s Tedium, let’s talk about content management alternatives that don’t rhyme with “Blurred Dress.” — Ernie @ Tedium

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Brattleboro Reformer, Vermont ☛ Beware: US election disinformation masked as 'breaking news' | National | reformer.com

      So far this year NewsGuard has identified 36 false narratives related to the upcoming election that were promoted by individuals using the term "breaking," Howard said.

      That is more than a quarter of the total false narratives tracked by the group.

    • RTL ☛ Beware: US election disinformation masked as 'breaking news'

      It is yet another disinformation trend undermining trust in traditional media -- already at historic lows, surveys show -- alongside the proliferation of fake "news" sites and the growing tactic of attributing false information to legitimate media outlets.

      Disinformation peddlers "commonly use terms like 'breaking' in an apparent attempt to convey legitimacy," Sam Howard, politics editor at the watchdog NewsGuard, told AFP.

      "This tactic has had a conspicuous role in false US political narratives that have spread in 2024."

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • RFA ☛ In rare appeal, Tibetan calls for company to stop digging up river

    Such public appeals are rare due to fear of reprisals from the government for speaking out against authorities or state-approved projects.

  • BIA Net ☛ What is ‘jin, jiyan, azadî’?

    Jin, jiyan, azadî is a Kurdish slogan that translates to “women, life, freedom.” It is heard during women’s protests not only from Kurdish women but also from Turkish and refugee women, and has spread globally, from Iran to India, Chile to France, and beyond. However, it is being criminalized in Turkey as a slogan associated with “terrorism.” We spoke with leading Kurdish women politicians about the meaning and implications of “jin, jiyan, azadî.”

  • Lusaka ZM ☛ Zambia : One at a time: How Zambia is falling apart

    The fall from grace of any country does not happen abruptly or even in a big way at once. It happens slowly, and often in ways that seem small,random, or unconnected. One victimised group. One compromised profession. One captured institution. One abused individual. One at a time. In the end, it is the silence, inaction, and indifference of many that makes all the difference.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • JURIST ☛ Zambia urged to release journalist amid deteriorating press freedom and human rights concerns

    Amnesty International called Friday for the immediate release of Thomas Allan Zgambo, a Zambian journalist detained since October 16 in Lusaka. Zgambo, who writes for the Zambia Whistleblower website, has been held at Ridgeway Police Station without formal charges, highlighting escalating concerns about press freedom and human rights in Zambia.

  • Semafor Inc ☛ How Donald Trump’s campaign sees the media

    Something that the mainstream media is getting wrong when we’re talking about our podcast approach is: We haven’t necessarily gone to these podcasts to just target young men. We are targeting people who have been disaffected by the mainstream media, independents who are relatively apolitical. These have provided a really unique medium and venue for us to get our message across. There’s a direct correlation between the bias and the toxicity of the mainstream media that’s disaffected the millions and millions of independent voters and viewers, and now they find their news in these alternative platforms.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Wired ☛ Protesters Say Uber and Lyft Are Still Failing Their Blind Passengers

    White, from Boise in Idaho, was among the protesters who gathered on October 15 outside the San Francisco headquarters of Uber and Lyft to demand that the companies take major steps to stop discrimination against people with disabilities on their platforms—particularly against visually impaired people who use guide dogs or white canes.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• The Washington Post ☛ Inside the Harris campaign’s blitz to win back Silicon Valley

  The focus of Harris’s push is to convince top tech executives and investors that the vice president will chart her own course on regulating Big Tech and cryptocurrency. The engagement has raised uncomfortable questions for Harris as she faces pressure from tech donors to take a more business-friendly approach to antitrust enforcement and cryptocurrency — as well as wariness from party liberals that she would go easy on the sector.

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Google Drive Blackout in Italy After Another Major Anti-Piracy Blunder

    After blocking Cloudflare to prevent IPTV piracy just a few months ago, on Saturday the rightsholders behind Piracy Shield ordered Italy's ISPs to block Google Drive. The subsequent nationwide blackout, affecting millions of Italians, wasn't just a hapless IP address blunder. This was the reckless blocking of a Google.com subdomain that many 10-year-olds could identify as being important. Reckless people and internet infrastructure, what could possibly go wrong next?

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Game Companies List 'FitGirl-Repacks' as a Key Piracy Threat

    The ESA, which represents several major gaming companies, has shared an updated list of notorious piracy threats with the U.S. Government. One of the notable newcomers is FitGirl-Repacks, which has been a dominant player in the game piracy landscape for years. Meanwhile, ESA's report no longer mentions malware, cryptocurrencies, or Scene release groups, which were previously seen as 'growing trends'.