Leftovers

• The Register UK ☛ NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory datacenter flooded

  The pipe popped last Tuesday at Stanford's Joint Science Operations Center, which houses infrastructure used to handle data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS). The Center (JSOC) handles data from two of SDO's three scientific instruments: the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) instrument and Atmospheric Imaging Array (AIA).

• Troy Patterson ☛ Social Media Thoughts

  I’ll keep posting on my blog and let these posts flow to other sites. I’m encouraged by BlueSky and the interactions there. I also enjoy the community of Mastodon. I’ll follow and interact with conversations on both, but I’ll keep control over the things I write.

• Nick Heer ☛ Enrons of 2024

  Enron is not really back. Someone managed to grab the Enron.com URL and put up an inspirational faux corporate video and a Shopify merch store. It is all very funny.

• Terence Eden ☛ Exploring BlueSky’s Domain Handles

  Hot new social networking site BlueSky has an interesting approach to usernames. Rather than just being @example you can verify your domain name and be @example.com! Isn't that exciting?

• Adam Newbold ☛ Making a pledge, taking a pledge

  Now it’s finished. It’s a pledge; The People Pledge. It’s simple and anyone can take it.

• Futurism ☛ Infamous Billionaire Accused of Running Bizarre Human Birthing Scheme

  Per interviews with some of these women, Lindberg seems to have done more than take them to dinner. Anya, as mentioned, considered him her boyfriend, and he was said to be "courting" multiple women for egg donation at once. In at least one case, two women involved in this natalist nightmare had their eggs retrieved from the same clinic within just a few days of each other.

• Science

  • Futurism ☛ The Voyager Probes Are Dying

    But decades into their journey, that onboard source of electricity is almost depleted, as Wired reports, forcing scientists to shut down scientific instruments one by one. The power output is dropping around four watts per year, giving the probes a definitive end that's now rapidly approaching.

  • Wired ☛ The End Is Near for NASA’s Voyager Probes

    Once the Voyagers’ planetary journeys were over, it was possible to begin a new mission phase. After their last planetary stops, both probes reached escape velocity for the solar system, allowing them to be released from the sun’s gravity. Since 2012 for Voyager 1, and 2018 for Voyager 2, they have become interstellar. We know this because after those dates, sensors on the probes showed that charged particles from the sun became less numerous and energetic than those detected from the galactic environment. This was a golden opportunity to study the boundaries of the solar system and the environment outside of it.

  • ARRL ☛ The K7RA Solar Update

    Solar activity increased during the current reporting week, November 21-27. Average daily sunspot number rose to 155.7, and average daily solar flux was 282.2.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ New map of the universe uses gravitational waves to reveal hidden black holes and cosmic structure

    The study has also produced the largest ever galactic-scale gravitational wave detector and found further evidence of a "background" of gravitational waves: invisible yet incredibly fast ripples in space that can help unlock some major mysteries of the universe.

    The three studies offer new insights into the universe's largest black holes, how they shaped the universe, and the cosmic architecture they left behind.

• Career/Education

  • SBS ☛ What not to do at your Christmas party: How these Australians lost their jobs

    A story or a comment on Instagram might not seem like a big deal, but Leverington cautions attendees to be hyper-vigilant of social media posts during the party, especially if they're drinking.

  • Kodsnack ☛ Kodsnack 615 - All I had to do was break the build, with Kent Beck and Beth Andres-Beck

    Recorded on-stage at Øredev 2024, Fredrik talks to Kent Beck and Beth Andres-Beck about development practices, code reviews, and more.

  • Annie Mueller ☛ Joy is in the doing

    Writing makes me feel good. Good in that heart-deep, brain-stirring, energizing, beautifully exhausting kind of way. The feeling good of writing is with me while I’m writing and stays with me as satisfaction after I’ve written… even if what I wrote is just a pile of shit, as it often is.

    Joy is in the doing, not in the outcome after the doing.

    Do more things you like doing.

• Hardware

  • GamingOnLinux ☛ Intel announced their Arc B-Series GPUs and XeSS 2, the day after CEO Pat Gelsinger retires

    A bit of a double-whammy this week from Intel. Not only did they announce that CEO Pat Gelsinger has retired, but they've also now properly revealed their new Arc B-Series GPUs.

  • David Rosenthal ☛ Drones

    War accelerates technological progress. The war in Ukraine has not yet produced "slaughterbots" but it has greatly accelerated drone technology and taken some giant steps toward them. The most important of these steps is that the cost of precision strike has been reduced by 1-2 orders of magnitude, making it affordable for "non-state actors" and even individuals.

    Below the fold I look at drone developments in the war in Ukraine, what is happening with drones and drone defense in the West, and sketch some implications for the future.

  • G8GKA ☛ Fun on 10GHz – First 12 Months of EME Operation

    Inspired by various articles written by VK7MO, G3WDG, GW4DGU and others I wanted to see what I could achieve using just a 1.2m off-set dish and 10 – 12W RF at the feed point.

    I had my first 1st 10GHz EME contact in August 2023. It’s now December 2024 so you’re possibly thinking that’s far longer than a year! Yes, you’re correct, but in terms of my actual EME operation I’ve only had the gear on the dish for 12 Moon cycles or less. 🙂

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Coda Media Inc ☛ I’m a neurology ICU nurse. The creep of AI in our hospitals terrifies me

    The healthcare landscape is changing fast thanks to the introduction of artificial intelligence. These technologies have shifted decision-making power away from nurses and on to the robots. Michael Kennedy, who works as a neuro-intensive care nurse in San Diego, believes AI could destroy nurses’ intuition, skills, and training. The result being that patients are left watched by more machines and fewer pairs of eyes. Here is Michael’s story, as told to Coda’s Isobel Cockerell. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

  • Science Alert ☛ Lockdowns Did Something to Teen Brains, And We Need to Talk About It

    Using MRI data, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle showed that the usual, age-related thinning of the cortex – the folded surface – of the adolescent brain accelerated after the lockdowns and the effect was greater in the female brain than the male.

    What are we to make of these findings?

  • Science Alert ☛ Cannabis Use Linked to Epigenetic Changes, Study Finds

    Using cannabis may cause changes in the human body's epigenome, a study of over 1,000 adults suggests. The epigenome functions like a set of switches, activating or deactivating genes to change how our bodies function.

  • Science Alert ☛ The FDA Outlawed a Soda Ingredient Banned Around The World. Here's Why.

    BVO, or brominated vegetable oil, was used as an emulsifying agent since the 1930s to ensure citrus flavoring agents don't float to the top of sodas. Sticking a dozen bromine atoms to a triglyceride creates a dense oil that floats evenly throughout water when mixed with less dense fats.

  • NPR ☛ Writer Thoreau warned of brain rot in 1854. Now it's the Oxford Word of 2024

    "I think the definitions are related but Thoreau's sense of brain rot is way more extreme," Ellis says.

    "It's not just TikTok dance crazes but virtually our entire 24/7 media culture -- including the "serious" news of newspapers -- that Thoreau would accuse of trivializing our minds," she adds.

    "Thoreau really values direct experience over our habits of consuming other peoples' ideas at second hand," Ellis says. "He wants us to go outside to feel and think something for ourselves; he wants us to get to know the places where we actually live."

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Ubisoft Shutting Down 'XDefiant' And Closing San Francisco/Osaka Studios While Reducing Sydney Headcount, Resulting In 277 Departures/Layoffs

    In XDefiant, players must choose their faction and loadout, both before the match begins and at any time they wish upon respawning, allowing them to adapt to the evolving fight. Factions offer a choice of two active abilities, as well as one passive buff, and an ultra ability that must be charged up during the match. Libertad excels at healing support thanks to their BioVida medication; the Cleaners use fire to burn away their enemies; Echelon (Splinter Cell) uses stealth technology to reveal enemy locations and render themselves invisible on enemy maps; the Phantoms use their advanced training and technology to block damage; and DedSec uses their technological expertise to hack enemy gadgets and sic spiderbots on unsuspecting opponents. At launch, DedSec will be locked, as will two of the other faction's playable characters, but all can be earned by completing in-game missions.

    Loadouts in XDefiant consist of a primary and secondary weapon, as well as a grenade. Assault rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, marksman rifles, and sniper rifles all offer different strengths in combat, and players can customize their weapons with a wide range of attachments to fine tune each weapon's performance, including sights, grips, stocks, magazines, and barrel and muzzle attachments. Using a weapon will earn weapon XP progress towards unlocking new customization options.

  • Windows Central ☛ Ubisoft continues freefall as publisher shutters free-to-play shooter XDefiant, reportedly closing studios

    It's another dark day for the gaming industry, an event that repeatedly occurs with clockwork precision in recent months.

    Ubisoft is shutting down its free-to-play shooter XDefiant, with the game no longer being accessible for new players to download starting Tuesday. Per a message from the game's official X (Twitter) account, XDefiant will remain playable for existing players through June 3, 2025, with the promised Season 3 content still arriving at an unknown point before then.

  • Torn Banner Studios announces layoffs amid ongoing industry challenges

    Non-unionized employees affected by layoffs may be eligible for severance pay, which is determined by several factors, including role, tenure, and age.

  • The Register UK ☛ GitHub Copilot code quality claims challenged

    Cîmpianu, based in Romania, published a blog post in which he assails the statistical rigor of GitHub's Copilot code quality data.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Biden administration hits out at China’s chip industry with export controls

    This is the third major move by the Biden administration to thwart China’s chip industry with restrictions. It will very likely be the last one, although, after President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration next month, the Trump administration will likely carry on this hardline approach to China and its advanced technologies.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Microsoft faces £1B UK lawsuit over software licensing fees

    Maria Luisa Stasi, a market regulation expert, filed the complaint today with the U.K.’s Competition Appeal Tribunal. The class-action lawsuit is seeking £1 billion, or about $1.25 billion, in damages from Microsoft on behalf of thousands of customers. It’s the latest in a series of recent class-action complaints brought against tech giants by U.K. users.

    The new lawsuit alleges that Microsoft has overcharged customers who run its software on competing cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Alibaba Cloud. The complaint places particular emphasis on the company’s Windows Server operating system.

  • The Verge ☛ ChatGPT’s search results for news are ‘unpredictable’ and frequently inaccurate

    The authors asked ChatGPT to identify the source of “two hundred quotes from twenty publications.” Forty of those quotes were taken from publishers who’d disallowed OpenAI’s search crawler from accessing their site. Yet, the chatbot confidently replied with false information anyway, rarely admitting it was unsure about the details it gave: [...]

  • The Washington Post ☛ AI, huge [breaches] leave consumers facing perfect storm of privacy perils

    [Attackers] are using artificial intelligence to mine unprecedented troves of personal information dumped online in the past year, along with unregulated commercial databases, to trick American consumers and even sophisticated professionals into giving up control of bank and corporate accounts.

  • 404 Media ☛ Your Bluesky Posts Are Probably In A Bunch of Datasets Now

    After a machine learning librarian released and then deleted a dataset of one million Bluesky posts, several other, even bigger datasets have appeared in its place—including one of almost 300 million non-anonymized posts.

  • Security Week ☛ FBI Tells Telecom Firms to Boost Security Following Wide-Ranging Chinese [Intrusion] Campaign

    In one sign of the global reach of China’s [instrusion] efforts, the government’s warning was issued jointly with security agencies in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which also includes the U.S. and Britain.

    Dubbed Salt Typhoon by analysts, the wide-ranging cyberespionage campaign emerged earlier this year after hackers sought to penetrate the networks of multiple telecommunications companies.

  • Inside Towers ☛ CCA’s Donovan Urges 118th Congress to Prioritize Fully Funding ‘Rip & Replace’

    Prior to Thanksgiving, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told reporters she intended to soon update Congress on the need for more money to fully reimburse 126 small carriers for the removal, disposal and replacement of Huawei and ZTE mobile network equipment. The U.S. considers the gear to be untrusted and to potentially provide a “backdoor” for the Chinese Communist Party to access U.S. wireless networks.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ U.S. government says Salt Typhoon is still in telecom networks

    “It’s really important to emphasize that our focus right now is to illuminate what the PRC did and where they had access so we can successfully remove them from across the sector,” the official said. “We continue to closely work with the companies to hunt for the activity.”

    While the officials wouldn’t say how many victims it had notified or identified, “the facts and scope are expected to continuously evolve.”

  • VOA News ☛ Chinese intruders] still lurk in US telecommunications systems

    Chinese [intruders] blamed for compromising U.S. telecommunications infrastructure and spying on American presidential campaigns and American officials are still entrenched in those systems, according to senior U.S. officials who warn it could be years before the [intruders] are kicked out.

    The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI on Tuesday urged U.S. telecommunication companies and their customers to take additional precautions, saying the breach might go deeper than first thought.

  • Matthew Rocklin ☛ Cloud Computing is Broken — Matthew Rocklin

    This article explores this answer in more depth, drawing on undelivered promises, and the launch of the iPod.

  • Pivot to AI ☛ AI-generated travel influencers — marketers love them! Real travelers, not so much

    Actual travelers were not impressed. This obvious cost-cutting measure turns the substance of travel writing and imagery — the fun and gritty details that don’t make the brochures — into slop. “How can a fake person in a fake place ‘inspire’ anyone to travel to a real place?” asked one commenter.

  • El País ☛ How the algorithm ruined your favorite bar: Will everything end up looking the same?

    But here comes the part that affects us: in addition to solving certain problems and being very useful in scientific research, algorithms are also generating content and, above all, ordering and hierarchizing everything that we have created ourselves. And this includes both the vast array of universal culture and the last photo we took while having breakfast. What criteria do they use? What are these creations like? That is the most worrying part because, as Kyle Chayka shows in the 2024 book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture, the map (that is, the algorithm that rewards some content over others) is already affecting the territory (that is, the form of the content itself and the reality in which we move, especially in cities).

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Verge ☛ Two data brokers banned from selling ‘sensitive’ location data by the FTC

      The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is banning data brokers Gravy Analytics and Mobilewalla from collecting, using, and selling “sensitive” location data of Americans, the agency announced on Tuesday. The FTC targeted Gravy Analytics, its subsidiary Venntel, and Mobilewalla for allegedly violating the FTC Act by collecting and selling information that could be used to track people to healthcare facilities, military bases, religious sites, labor union gatherings, and other sensitive locations.

      The FTC says (PDF) Mobilewalla “relied primarily on consumer information that Mobilewalla collected from real-time bidding exchanges” by bidding to show people personalized ads on their mobile devices and then retaining tracking info identifying them.

    • Wired ☛ FTC Says Data Brokers Unlawfully Tracked Protesters and US Military Personnel

      Mobilewalla, a Georgia-based data broker that’s said to have digitally tracked the residents of domestic abuse shelters, is accused by the agency of purposefully tracking protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020. In a court filing, the FTC says Mobilewalla attempted to unmask the protesters’ racial identities by tracking their mobile devices to, for example, Hindu temples and Black churches.

      The FTC also accused Gravy Analytics and its subsidiary Venntel of harvesting and exploiting consumers’ location data without consent, alleging that the company used that data to unfairly infer health decisions and religious beliefs.

    • 404 Media ☛ FTC Bans Location Data Company That Powers the Surveillance Ecosystem

      Venntel, through its parent company Gravy Analytics, takes location data from smartphones, either through ordinary apps installed on them or through the advertising ecosystem, and then provides that data feed to other companies who sell location tracking technology to the government or sells the data directly itself. Venntel is the company that provides the underlying data for a variety of other government contractors and surveillance tools, including Locate X. 404 Media and a group of other journalists recently revealed Locate X could be used to pinpoint phones that visited abortion clinics.

    • 404 Media ☛ U.S. Government Tries to Stop Data Brokers That Help Dox People Through Credit Data

      A new proposed rule change from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) could curtail the sale of American's personal data. That's if the agency survives the Trump presidency.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Apple Lawsuit: Employee Accuses Company Of Surveillance

      According to the Apple lawsuit, the tech giant has established policies that force employees to integrate their work and personal lives digitally in ways that allow the company to monitor their actions beyond the workplace. One of the central issues raised in the lawsuit is Apple’s requirement that employees use Apple-made devices for work purposes. This stipulation, the suit argues, often results in workers using their personal Apple devices, which are connected to their personal iCloud accounts.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ FTC goes after three data brokers with enforcement actions

      The FTC’s complaint accuses Virginia-based Gravy Analytics and its subsidiary Venntel of violating the FTC Act by allegedly obtaining consumer location information from other data suppliers and claiming to collect, process, and curate more than 17 billion signals from around a billion mobile devices daily. The location data the companies sold can be used to identify consumers and is not anonymized, according to the complaint.

      Gravy Analytics also reportedly used geofencing technology to identify and sell lists of consumers based on sensitive personal characteristics such as health conditions, political activities, and religious viewpoints.

    • Privacy International ☛ PI write to UK MPs following a debate in parliament on police use of facial recognition technology | Privacy International

      Following a debate in the UK parliament on police use of facial recognition technology we wrote to the MPs who intervened calling on them to expedite this matter further by tabling questions to members of the government.

    • EPIC ☛ EPIC Welcomes CFPB’s Proposed Rules to Rein in Reckless Data Brokers, Protect Privacy & Security – EPIC – Electronic Privacy Information Center

      Data brokers have built a multibillion-dollar industry off of hoarding, mining, and selling sensitive personal data. These practices strip us of our privacy and cause a wide range of harms, imperiling national security, endangering domestic violence survivors and immigrants, facilitating discrimination, and exacerbating data breaches, identity theft, and fraud. Clarifying that data brokers are covered by the FCRA will strictly limit brokers’ collection and sale of personal data, ensure that brokers maintain the accuracy of the data they hold, and require brokers to comply with consumers’ requests to access and correct their own information—the same rules that credit reporting agencies have long been subject to.

    • US Consummer Financial Protection Bureau ☛ CFPB Proposes Rule to Stop Data Brokers from Selling Sensitive Personal Data to Scammers, Stalkers, and Spies | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

      “By selling our most sensitive personal data without our knowledge or consent, data brokers can profit by enabling scamming, stalking, and spying,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. “The CFPB’s proposed rule will curtail these practices that threaten our personal safety and undermine America’s national security.”

      The data broker industry collects and sells detailed information about Americans' personal lives and financial circumstances to anyone willing to pay. The CFPB's proposal would ensure data brokers comply with federal law and address critical threats from current data broker practices, including: [...]

• Defence/Aggression

  • Meduza ☛ Moscow’s alleged ‘decolonization’ mole The FBI says a political networker in New York lied for years about her secret contact and cooperation with Russian intelligence

    Last month, the FBI accused another Russian woman of concealing her collaboration with the Russian state. The charges against 34-year-old Nomma Zarubina allege felony offenses under 18 U.S.C. § 1001: lying to the executive branch of the U.S. government. According to the FBI’s complaint, Zarubina lied twice during voluntary interviews about her communication and cooperation with Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). Meduza explains what we know about Zarubina’s case and how she spent the past several years networking in the United States.

  • New Eastern Europe ☛ Moldova has secured its EU path but new challenges arise 

    Moldova recently endorsed the ideas of its pro-EU President Maia Sandu and her party during recent votes in October. However, it is unclear if this will prove to be the end of Chisinau’s political uncertainty regarding foreign affairs. While one round of voting is over, the country now looks to new elections next year.

  • India Times ☛ UK MP Blackman says in Commons debate violence in Bangladesh ‘attempt at ethnic cleansing of Hindus’

    Blackman said, “Hindus are suffering with their houses being burned, their businesses ransacked. Two further priests were arrested over the weekend, and 63 monks were denied access to the country. This is an attempt at the ethnic cleansing of Hindus from Bangladesh. Will the minister come out and outright condemn this violence?”

  • VOA News ☛ Spain to offer visas to 900,000 undocumented migrants amid surge

    Some 41,425 migrants arrived on the islands between January 1 and November 30, according to the figures released Monday. The number surpassed the 39,910 migrants recorded in 2023, which also broke previous records. Most of the migrants are from Mali, Morocco and Senegal.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Abu Mohammad al-Jolani's Islamic Rebels Renew Fight Against Assad

    An Islamic militant group has made rapid advances across northwest Syria, seizing territory from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in a dramatic evolution of a thirteen-year-old conflict that had appeared to be frozen.

    The swift gains by the fighting group Hayat Tahrir ash-Sham, also known as HTS, began with attacks last Wednesday against government forces in northwestern Syria. By Saturday, the militants had gained control of Aleppo — Syria’s second largest city — and had pushed south to Hama, a major city on the highway south to Damascus.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Syria: Islamist HTS rebels advance towards Hama

    Syrian state news agency SANA also reported air strikes on Hama province and rebel bastion Idlib in the northwest. Hama is considered a strategically important city because it connects Aleppo, which HTS swept into last week, and the capital Damascus.

    The area is home to the Alawite community from which Assad hails, and thus a rebel takeover of Hama would "pose a threat to the regime's popular base," SOHR director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Trump's Incoming Cabinet Divided on a TikTok Ban

    TikTok executives themselves believe a Trump presidency is their best bet at avoiding the current ban slated for January 2025. But the main playbook used by the incoming administration, Project 2025, calls for the ban on TikTok to stay in place. TikTok is referred to as a “tool of Chinese espionage” and the playbook suggests outlawing the app.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ TikTok defends handling of Romania election content in grilling by EU lawmakers

    The video-sharing platform is a focus of controversy in the Eastern European country after far-right outsider Calin Georgescu emerged as the front-runner in the vote, plunging the nation into turmoil amid allegations of electoral violations and Russian meddling.

  • The Nation ☛ Kash Patel Is Trump’s Scariest Cabinet Appointment Yet

    The president-elect wants to put a “deep state” conspiracy theorist in charge of the actual deep state.

  • RFERL ☛ U.S. Plant's Chinese Owner Shipped Sanctioned Electronics To Russia's War Machine

    The listed contents of those shipments -- totaling at least 238 -- included electronic components categorized as "high-priority" by the United States due to their potential use in Russian weapons systems, according to the data obtained by C4ADS and shared with RFE/RL, which independently corroborated more than 150 such shipments.

    At least 17 such shipments were sent to a Russian electronics firm hit by U.S. sanctions, customs records show.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Why NATO’s reaction force needs to be rapid to be relevant

    As the campaign in Ukraine degenerates into a frozen conflict, Russian imperialism and aggression will not recede.3 The Russian military will reconstitute to replace its losses and reequip its formations. In the near future, Russian forces could assemble a force to overrun one or more of the Baltic states—NATO’s most threatened territory—with as little as ten to fourteen days of strategic warning.4 At present, these nations are defended by only weak regular forces,5 supported by a NATO battalion battle group deployed in each as a tripwire force. Possessing no tanks or airpower and very limited artillery and air defense, the Baltic states would likely fall within a week—well before current NATO reaction forces could intervene.6 A highly mobile, genuinely high-readiness organization is needed to fill this capability gap: as one major study put it, “to blunt a Russian invasion and buy time for NATO to respond.”7

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Replica Harry Potter swords recalled in Japan for breaking weapons law

    But the tip of the blade was found to be sharp enough for the police to inform Warner Bros in November that possession without a special licence was illegal under Japan’s 1958 firearms and sword control law.

  • The Local DK ☛ Why has Denmark summoned citizenship applicants to interviews in parliament?

    Supporters include Mikkel Bjørn of the far-right Danish People’s Party, who is also chairman of the committee. Bjørn told Politiken that the interview can be used to ask an interviewee “his view on democracy, how long they have been in Denmark, and of course to investigate whether he actually speaks Danish properly”.

  • The Local DK ☛ Denmark announces fewer ‘parallel societies’ in annual update

    The Danish government has reduced the number of housing areas it classes as “parallel societies” from 12 to 8, with no new areas joining the list.

  • The Barents Observer ☛ Norway establishes NATO amphibious warfare center in Sørreisa

    The training facility in northern Norway will have the capacity to house several hundred NATO soldiers, Norwegian Defence Minister Bjørn Arild Gram says.

  • FAIR ☛ ‘At Abu Ghraib, There Was a Conspiracy to Torture’CounterSpin interview with Katherine Gallagher on Abu Ghraib verdict

    Janine Jackson interviewed the Center for Constitutional Rights’ Katherine Gallagher about the Abu Ghraib verdict for the November 29, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

• Environment

  • EcoWatch ☛ World Leaders Fail to Reach Agreement on Global Plastics Treaty, Plan to Continue Talks

    Efforts by nations to come to an agreement on a global plastics treaty failed on Monday. While more than 100 countries sought to put a limit on the world’s plastics production — in addition to tackling recycling and cleanup — oil and gas companies were only prepared to address the problem of plastic waste.

    The meeting in Busan, South Korea was supposed to be the last, but negotiations will continue into 2025, reported The Associated Press.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Climate-friendly farming: Scientists find feeding grazing cattle seaweed cuts methane emissions by almost 40%

    This is the first study to test seaweed on grazing beef cattle in the world. It follows previous studies that showed seaweed cut methane emissions 82% in feedlot cattle and over 50% in dairy cows.

  • The Barents Observer ☛ Fishing for Putin

    The Netherlands is the most important trading post for Russian fish. But controls on illegal fishing are shockingly inadequate. The Netherlands thus facilitates a multibillion-dollar business for Russia, and indirectly boosts Putin's war chest. Meanwhile, cod stocks in the Barents Sea are declining rapidly.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Earthquake of magnitude 5.6 strikes northern Philippines, GFZ says

    The quake was at a depth of 37km.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Sunday Times ☛ Europe’s struggling car sector plans plant closures and layoffs

      A slew of automotive companies across Europe have recently announced plant closures and big layoffs as they struggle with weak demand, high costs, competition from China and a slower than expected transition to electric vehicles.

      Below are layoffs and site closures announced in recent months (latest first):

      [...]

    • The Register UK ☛ Amazon reveals next-gen AI silicon, turns Trainium2 loose

      We've also been assured that these performance claims refer to peak compute performance — aka FLOPS — and not some nebulous AI benchmark. This is an important detail as depending on the AI workload, performance is dependent on a number of factors not just FLOPS. An increase in memory bandwidth, for instance, can result in large gains in large language model (LLM) inference performance, something we've previously seen with Nvidia's bandwidth boosted H200 chips.

    • The Verge ☛ Stellantis and Samsung to get $7.54 billion federal loan for two EV battery factories

      The Department of Energy preliminarily approved another loan to help fund the construction of electric vehicle battery factories in the US. This time, a joint venture between Stellantis and Samsung SDI will receive $7.54 billion to build two EV battery plants in Kokomo, Indiana.

    • India Times ☛ EU Commission commits Euro 4.6 billion to support clean tech projects

      The European Commission is set to invest Euro 4.6 billion in decarbonisation technology and clean hydrogen projects, using funds from the EU Emissions Trading System. The funding includes Euro 3.2 billion for net-zero technologies and Euro 1.2 billion for renewable hydrogen production, under the EU's Innovation Fund.

    • VOA News ☛ Airlines not switching quickly enough to green jet fuel, study says

      As it stands, SAF makes up about 1% of aviation fuel use on the global market, which needs to increase for airlines to meet carbon emission reduction targets. The fuel can cost between two to five times more than regular jet fuel.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Is Europe on the brink of a new gas crisis?

      However, Katinas says Russia's grip on the European market has weakened greatly since 2022 and that talk of a "crisis" is overblown. "I wouldn't call it crisis, especially if we compare what actually happened in 2022 and 2023," he said. "The majority of the EU member states do not have huge dependency on Russian gas anymore."

  • Overpopulation

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ California sets initial State Water Project allocation at 5%

      The state Department of Water Resources said Monday that the initial allocation is based on current reservoir levels and conservative assumptions about how much water the state may be able to deliver in 2025.

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Implementing ancient agricultural practices to confront modern-day challenges of water scarcity and food insecurity

      A new study exploring traditional sunken groundwater-harvesting agroecosystems in coastal and inland sand (SGHAS) bodies of Israel, Iran, Egypt, Algeria, Gaza, and the Atlantic coast of Iberia offers fresh perspectives on ancient agricultural techniques that could inform modern sustainability practices.

      The research, which combines geospatial analysis, archaeological findings, and historical documentation, sheds light on the innovative use of water-harvesting and soil-enrichment technologies developed in the early Islamic period and their continued relevance to contemporary agricultural challenges.

• Finance

  • New York Times ☛ Elon Musk’s $50 Billion Tesla Pay Can’t Be Reinstated, Delaware Judge Rules

    The judge said she would not reverse her decision to strike down the package after Tesla shareholders approved it a second time.

  • Ars Technica ☛ VW workers go on strike - Ars Technica

    VW workers have walked off the job this morning in Germany in reaction to proposed staff cuts and factory closures.

  • Salon ☛ "Corporate abuse": Kroger and Albertsons are in hot water over alleged strike sabotage | Salon.com

    "Corporate abuse": Kroger and Albertsons are in hot water over alleged strike sabotage

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Register UK ☛ Biden bars HBM exports to China

    The Biden administration has announced restrictions limiting the export of memory critical to the production of AI accelerators and banning sales to more than a hundred entities.

    The trade restrictions, updated [PDF] by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) on Monday, place limits on the sale of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to countries of concern without a license. In this case, the country in question is the People's Republic of China.

  • Tedium ☛ Intel’s Shaky Path Forward Without Pat Gelsinger

    You can always tell when a company does not have a stable succession plan in place after a CEO transition. The change happens suddenly, and it doesn’t seem like anyone was expecting it. Lower-ranking people in the company get the call up to the majors, but because they don’t know the entire landscape, multiple people are brought in to be CEO. The speculation about what happened is kicked into overdrive.

    And there’s a vague promise that there will be an in-depth search for the replacement CEO.

  • The Register UK ☛ Gelsinger departs Intel with $9.7M handshake

    Outgoing Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger is set to receive severance pay of around $9.7 million following his departure from the chip giant.

  • VOA News ☛ China bans exports to US of gallium, germanium, antimony in response to chip sanctions

    The Chinese Commerce Ministry announced the move after Washington expanded its list of Chinese companies subject to export controls on computer chip-making equipment, software and high-bandwidth memory chips. Such chips are needed for advanced applications.

  • VOA News ☛ US unveils fresh export curbs targeting China's chip sector

    The United States announced new export restrictions Monday taking aim at China's ability to make advanced semiconductors — used in weapon systems and artificial intelligence as competition intensifies between the world's two biggest economies.

  • Futurism ☛ Elon Musk Just Got Absolutely Owned

    Tesla CEO Elon Musk has lost his bid to get his absurdly astronomical pay package — currently valued at just north of $100 billion — reinstated.

  • The Hill ☛ Bill Maher hints at quitting show over Donald Trump's second term

    “I called him a conman before anybody. I did, ‘he’s a Mafia boss.’ I was the one who said he wasn’t going to concede the election,” Maher said. “I’ve done it.”

  • Federal News Network ☛ Securing the AI data pipeline with confidential AI

    Faced with growing artificial intelligence regulation from the Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of AI and National Institute of Standards and Technology’s AI Safety Institute Consortium, federal agencies are encountering more pressure than ever to evolve the security and safety of their AI technologies. In particular, there is a need to create secure computing capabilities that maintain the privacy and confidentiality of AI models and data sets. Fortunately, this need is increasingly being met by innovations in confidential AI that help agencies reap the benefits of AI while avoiding the security pitfalls for some of their most demanding use cases.

  • Kevin Boone ☛ Kevin Boone: Using Windows is like smoking (?)

    What Mr Schade was saying, if I understand correctly, is that it’s OK for Windows users to complain, and it’s not OK for Linux advocates to make the obvious response. What’s significant about this particular post was the amount of frothing at the mouth it engendered. I may, or may not, agree with the idea Mr Schade expressed, but it’s expressed politely, and doesn’t seem to be obvious trolling. I might have expected some equally polite rebuttal but, in fact, what happened was a shit-storm of such magnitude that the operators of the Mastodon server had to step in to prevent the system being overwhelmed.

    So in this article I’m considering whether it really is excusable for a Windows user to complain about Windows while continuing to use it, and whether it’s OK for a Linux advocate to make the obvious suggestion in response. I think cigarette smoking is a useful analogy, for reasons I’ll explain.

  • Axios ☛ Elon Musk's $56 billion Tesla pay package rejected again

    She said Musk's attorneys made an argument with multiple "fatal flaws," including their argument that the shareholder vote was enough to validate the pay package after the fact.

  • The Nation ☛ RFK Jr. Is Scary. His Online Fans Might Be Scarier.

    In 2016, Trump’s electoral success was famously boosted by an alt-right “meme army” of disaffected young men drawn from poorly moderated message boards like 4Chan and Reddit’s r/The_Donald. Through incessant posting, these anonymous online warriors helped drum up conservative and reactionary support for Trump. Since that time, his online base has only expanded and diversified: Young men, 56 percent of whom voted for Trump in 2024, have proven especially susceptible to the pull of right-wing Internet influencers. Many of their heroes are enmeshed in health-and-wellness discourse, even if their main brand is misogyny (Andrew Tate), tech (Elon Musk), or even “Judeo-Christian” family values (Ben Shapiro).

  • FAIR ☛ DC Station Rewrites Gas Exposé After a Word From Its Sponsor

    It was the sort of feel-good, David-vs.-Goliath story that’s perfect ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • NL Times ☛ Romanians protest in The Hague as far-right candidate gets closer to winning election

      Around 150 Romanian people who live in the Netherlands protested in The Hague on Monday evening to raise concerns about the future of their country and the widespread misinformation and disinformation in the presidential election currently happening. Romanian voters will have to choose between a far-right and center-right candidate on Sunday.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Wired ☛ He Got Banned From X. Now He Wants to Help You Escape, Too

    When programmer Micah Lee was kicked off X for a post that offended Elon Musk, he didn’t look back. His new tool for saving and deleting your X posts can give you that same sweet release.

  • VOA News ☛ Turkish court jails protesters over Erdogan speech disruption

    A Turkish court has jailed pending trial nine protesters who disrupted President Tayyip Erdogan's speech in Istanbul last week, accusing his government of continuing oil exports to Israel despite a publicized embargo.

  • Techdirt ☛ The Curious Case Of ChatGPT’s Banned Names: Hard-Coding Blocks To Avoid Nuisance Threats

    Still, all of this is kind of silly. Hard coding names that break ChatGPT may be the least costly way for AI companies to avoid nuisance legal threats, but it’s hardly sustainable, scalable or (importantly), sensible.

  • RFA ☛ Taiwanese students shout pro-democracy slogans at Chinese delegation

    Students at National Taiwan University offer books on democracy to Chinese students, who refuse to take them.

  • RFERL ☛ Baltic States To Punish Georgians Suppressing 'Legitimate Protests'

    [...] Georgian authorities have acknowledged detaining at least 224 people in the four days since Georgian Dream party Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said Tbilisi was suspending its EU membership talks through 2028. [...]

  • RFERL ☛ Police Use Tear Gas Against Pro-EU Protesters In Georgia As Political Crisis Escalates

    Police in ski masks used water cannons and tear gas to drive protesters away from the parliament building, where they have gathered each night since November 28 when the ruling Georgian Dream party declared its decision on EU talks.

    Protesters continued marching even amid clouds of tear gas released in the streets in the early hours of December 3.

  • Axios ☛ How Gretchen Carlson is carrying on the #MeToo fight

    Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson's advocacy group is launching a new corporate scorecard to shine a light on the secretive practices companies use to silence workers about sexual harassment and discrimination.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • VOA News ☛ US press club moves to defend, support threatened journalists globally

    After her release as part of a historic prisoner swap in August, Kurmasheva learned just how hard media associations had fought to secure her freedom. The National Press Club, she said, was “one of my strongest defenders.”

    Based in Washington as a professional organization for journalists, the club has long had a record of standing up for members of the media community under threat.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ How Jeff Bezos Smothered Pete Hegseth News because Hunter Biden Was Pardoned of Already Declined Charges

    And it’s not just that Bezos’ rag buried far more urgent news about Trump’s nominees.

    It’s that (with the exception of this column explaining the risks and difficulty of seizing weapons from addicts) the Hunter Biden stories were not all that useful.

  • Axios ☛ Why reporting matters as Musk wages war on media on X

    Reality check: You're right to dunk on biased, sloppy, lazy coverage. I hate it, too: It undercuts the hard work of every on-the-level reporter working their beats — whether at the White House or in my hometown of Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

    • But we need to distinguish between "the media" and honest reporting. I try to avoid junk food — not all food. I'd starve.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Agent for Russia and UK-based Bulgarian planned ‘honeytrap’ for journalist, court hears

    An agent for Russia and a Bulgarian based in Britain discussed setting up a “honeytrap” for an investigative journalist, the Old Bailey has heard.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • LRT ☛ Lithuania bans entry to Georgian politicians over human rights violations

    Lithuania has banned the entry of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder of the Georgian Dream party, and other Georgian politicians into the country.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Iran passes new hijab law amid growing defiance from women

    The Iranian parliament has approved the so-called hijab and chastity bill, which mandates women to wear hijabs and introduces strict penalties on those who do not.

    Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women in Iran have been required to cover their hair in public.

  • International Business Times ☛ Belgium Makes History: New Law Grants Sex Workers Unemployment Benefits, Leave, and Pensions

    Belgium has made global headlines by becoming the first country to grant sex workers labour rights comparable to other professions. The new Labour Law for Sex Workers, effective December 2024, aims to improve working conditions and provide protections including unemployment benefits, sick leave, pensions, and maternity pay.

  • Techdirt ☛ Justices: Maybe The Takings Clause Doesn’t Cover Destroying An Innocent Person’s Home To Arrest A Suspect

    Baker’s appeal has now been addressed (sort of…) by the US Supreme Court. The majority of justices have decided they don’t care enough about this sort of thing to hear the case and issue an opinion. They’ve simply decided to deny certification and let the chips of Baker’s exploded doors fall where they may.

    Fortunately, though, this refusal to address an issue that isn’t simply going to go away hasn’t passed without comment. Two Supreme Court justices — Sotomayor and Gorsuch — have decided to express their opinions [PDF], even as they concur with the nation’s top court’s disinterest in this case. (via FourthAmendment.com)

  • The Hill ☛ Wisconsin judge strikes down public employee bargaining ban

    The ruling means those affected by the bargaining ban would now be treated the same as the unions that the law exempted, including police and firefighter unions.

  • RFERL ☛ Taliban Orders Further Restrictions On Medical Education For Women -- Sources

    The Taliban has ordered all private educational institutions in Afghanistan to cease female medical education starting December 3, according to two informed sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. [...]

  • RFA ☛ Tibetan environmental activist sentenced to 8 months in prison – Radio Free Asia

    Tsogon Tsering, 29, from Tsaruma village in Ngaba prefecture, called Aba in Chinese, openly posted a 5-minute video in which he held up his government ID card and accused Anhui Xianhe Construction Engineering Co. of the illegal activity along the Tsaruma River since May 2023.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Finland: Outage reported after fiber optic cable damaged

    This week's incident follows recent breaches of two undersea fiber optic communications cables in the Baltic Sea. In that case, two fiber cables located more than 100 nautical miles (about 200 kilometers) apart in the Baltic Sea bottom were severed, raising suspicions of sabotage.

  • APNIC ☛ New IPv6 address block

    At the beginning of November 2024, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated a second /12 to APNIC, 2410::/12 — the block adjacent to APNIC’s existing allocation of 2400::/12. This is only the second time APNIC has applied to IANA for a /12 since 2006 under the global address policy processes and reflects the continued pace of growth of IPv6 in the Asia Pacific community. APNIC has delegated IP ranges from our original holdings and subsequently our first /12 block for over 18 years.

  • Techdirt ☛ Broadband Industry Tells FCC Their Customer Service Is Great, Nothing To See Here

    The reason is no mystery: the heavily consolidated, monopolized, and government pampered telecom industry sees very little real competition in broadband, resulting in high prices, spotty access, slow speeds, and terrible customer service.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Two internet cables connecting Sweden and Finland suffered damage — one caused by construction, the other still under investigation

    Telecom operator Elisa later announced that one of the cables was accidentally by an excavator at a construction site, with Global Connect confirming it. However, the other damaged cable is still being investigated at the time of writing, and we don’t have any news yet on what caused its disruption.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Taylor Swift Celebrates Apple Music's Top Streamed Artist, Album Honor

    Both Spotify and Apple Music previously crowned Swift the Artist of the Year in 2023. This year, the coveted Apple Music title went to Billie Eilish, who released her third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, in May and kicked off her North American tour in September.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• New York Times ☛ What’s Next for Google’s Search Monopoly

  The Justice Department and several states sued Google in 2020, accusing it of illegally protecting its monopoly over internet search and search advertising.

  Google for years had paid companies including Apple, Samsung and Mozilla billions of dollars to be the automatic search engine on smartphones and web browsers. The government said these contracts were designed to entrench Google’s dominance and make it harder for rivals to compete.

• The Verge ☛ Microsoft accuses FTC of leaking news of its antitrust investigation

  Microsoft is asking the inspector general at the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether agency management improperly leaked news of its antitrust investigation into the company, and make their findings public.

• India Times ☛ Judge faults Apple for withholding documents in Epic Games case

  A US judge on Monday said Apple misused attorney-client confidentiality protections to avoid turning over some corporate files related to its App Store in a lawsuit brought by "Fortnite" maker Epic Games.

  US magistrate judge Thomas Hixson in San Francisco rejected Apple's effort to withhold the documents from Epic. The game maker had accused Apple of failing to comply with a 2021 ruling in the case that required it to give developers more power to steer app users to non-Apple payment options.

• Press Gazette ☛ Publisher shopping revenue dealt blow on eve of Black Friday

  Google has dealt a blow to many news publishers making revenue via paid-for affiliate links by downgrading these parts of their websites in search results.

  Major newsbrands including Forbes, AP News, CNN, Fortune and the Wall Street Journal are among those that have been hit by Google’s “site reputation abuse” update.

• Trademarks

  • Techdirt ☛ No, Enron Isn’t Coming Back And A Trademark Buy Ironically Is Why People Were Fooled By Parody

    Yes, it’s a lark. Here’s what is actually going on here. The trademark for Enron and its branding was purchased way back in 2020 for $250 by The College Company. That company is headed up by Connor Gaydos and Peter McIndoe. And if any of those names are starting to sound familiar, it’s because they’re the crew that pranked the world with the brilliant conspiracy theory parody site, “Birds Aren’t Real,” in which they put forth the fake conspiracy theory that all the birds in America were killed off by the CIA and replaced by robot-cameras disguised as birds.

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Jadoo TV Piracy Lawsuit Ends in $24.9m Judgment, Customers Exposed

    A long-running lawsuit against pirate set-top box distributor Jadoo TV, launched by DISH Network and coordinated by the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy, has ended with a $24.9m judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. In addition to the imminent shutdown of the IPTV service, domain names, trademarks, and all customer lists will be handed over to DISH.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ UK Police and FACT Continue IPTV Piracy Whack-a-Mole

    A 42-year-old man was arrested in a recent UK crackdown on illegal IPTV suppliers, with a special mention for 'illicit Firesticks'. Local police, in collaboration with anti-piracy group FACT, also sent cease and desist letters to thirty other suspects. While FACT warns that pirate operators risk criminal penalties, there appears to be no end in sight for the streaming piracy whack-a-mole.