Leftovers

• Austin White ☛ What’s New - White Noise

  I have been blogging on and off for more than 17 years (the earliest ones lost to time). Some years, there were a hundred posts, and others, only one. I have been on Blogger, Typepad, WordPress and Blot during those years.

• Los Angeles Times ☛ The Amazing Kreskin dies at 89: George Kresge Jr. wowed fans

  Although he was a talk show regular, one host wasn’t amused by a Kreskin stunt. In 2002, Kreskin claimed that a UFO would appear over Las Vegas on the night of June 2, and added that he would donate $50,000 to charity if he was wrong. Hundreds of people gathered in the desert, in vain. Kreskin acknowledged to radio personality Art Bell that his prediction was a hoax, a way of proving that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks the year before had made people susceptible to manipulation. Bell called the ruse “lame, lame, lame” and banned him from his show.

• Rachel ☛ Words fail me sometimes when it comes to feed readers

  What in the name of clowntown is going on here?

• Science

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ A Paleontologist Cracked Open a Rock and Discovered a Prehistoric Amphibian With a Clever Survival Strategy

    But, according to a recent study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a newly discovered species of salamander-like amphibian found a strategy to survive roughly 230 million years ago. The creature waited out the harsh climate of the Late Triassic by burrowing deep into moist riverbeds to avoid drying out between monsoon seasons in a process known as seasonal estivation.

  • PC World ☛ Google unveils 'Willow' quantum chip that smashes all modern records

    Willow isn’t just a technological triumph, though. It’s a full-blown scientific breakthrough in quantum computing research. Google has published a study in Nature that addresses one of the biggest challenges in quantum technology: error correction. The study shows that as more “qubits” are added to a quantum computer, the better the error suppression becomes, making the technology more scalable.

  • NL Times ☛ Voyager I located by volunteers at decades-old radio telescope in Drenthe

    According to the organization, the Voyager 1 is currently the furthest and fastest-moving man-made object in interstellar space. “Its radio signals, which travel at the speed of light, currently take 23 hours to reach Earth.”

• Career/Education

  • Amber Settle ☛ Discouraging news

    Some of this isn’t surprising, of course, since the time period for the meta review includes most of the time frame in which I grew up and went to school. An interesting quote for me personally from the original meta review is: “In contrast, children hold far more gender-neutral beliefs about math ability” which makes me reflect on my choice to major in math as an undergrad, only switching to computer science in graduate school after a mentor suggested it.

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ Army to cut credentialing benefit, drop officers from program

    Concerned with the climbing costs of the service’s Credentialing Assistance program, Army officials plan to cut stipends for the benefit from $4,000 to $2,000 and block commissioned officers from participating in the education initiative.

    At the same time, the service will boost its tuition assistance program from $4,000 annually to $4,500 a year, acknowledging the ever-rising cost of higher education.

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Growth Without Burnout: Managing Polarities Consciously for Sustainable Success in Publishing

    The first step in managing polarities is recognizing them and talking about them, instead of ignoring or pretending that they don’t exist. Are we ready to shift from an “either/or mindset” to a “both/and mindset,” where it’s not about taking sides, but balancing and leveraging the strengths of both? How can we build teams that are able to recognize and work with opposing forces rather than trying to “solve” what is considered to be a “problem”?

  • YLE ☛ Helsinki University continues free courses for Ukrainians

    Free courses for Ukrainians were initially set to end in March 2025, but the university has decided to extend the programme as the war continues, according to Esko Koponen, from the University of Helsinki.

  • Derek Sivers ☛ One big choice shapes a hundred more

    We make a big choice, like a house, job, spouse, or dog. We think about the thing itself: the look of the house, what the job pays, what a sweet dog. But a choice has so many cascading consequences. One big choice shapes a hundred little others. I try to imagine the ripple effects — the later details that make the day-to-day difference.

• Hardware

  • U.S. Finalizes USD 6.1 Billion Micron Subsidy under CHIPS Act as Samsung’s Discussions Stall [Ed: US as corporate bailout economy while there are many homeless people in the streets; It's a bit like Communism when the state decides winners and loser by giving them taxpayers' money or absorbing loans/debt for them]

    Following the footsteps of semiconductor bellwethers TSMC and Intel, U.S. head-quartered Micron becomes the first memory giant to secure the funding under the CHIPS Act. According to U.S. Department of Commerce, it has finalized a USD 6.165 billion government subsidy for Micron to support semiconductor production in New York and Idaho.

    According to Reuters, the funding will support Micron’s long-term plan to invest approximately USD 100 billion in manufacturing in New York and USD 25 billion in Idaho, making it one of the largest government subsidies to chip companies under CHIPS Act. The new subsidy allocation, USD 4.6 billion for New York and USD 1.5 billion for Idaho, matches the amounts announced in April, as per the Reuters report.

  • Hackaday ☛ Amateur Radio Operators Detect Signals From Voyager 1

    At the time of its construction in the 1950s, the Dwingeloo Radio Observatory was the largest rotatable telescope in the world with a dish diameter of 25 meters. It was quickly overtaken in the rankings but was used by astronomers for decades until it slowly fell into disuse in the early 2000s. After a restoration project the telescope is now a national heritage site in the Netherlands where it is also available for use by radio amateurs. Recently this group was able to receive signals from Voyager 1.

  • Inside Towers ☛ ‘Rip & Replace’ Money is in Defense Bill

    The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote this week on an annual defense bill that includes just over $3 billion to fully fund Rip & Replace, according to Reuters. The funding will reimburse small, rural carriers for removing equipment made by Chinese telecoms firms Huawei and ZTE from wireless networks to address security risks. Inside Towers reported experts predicted movement on the issue soon and the 1,800-page text was released late Saturday.

    The FCC has said removing the insecure equipment is estimated to cost $4.98 billion. But Congress originally only approved $1.9 billion for the program.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-12-04 [Older] Health Care for Maryland Prisoners Was Compromised by Poor Oversight, Audit Finds

  • The Center for Investigative Reporting ☛ Hospitals Gave Women Medications During Childbirth — Then Reported Them for Using Illicit Drugs - Reveal

    What happened to Salinas and Villanueva are far from isolated incidents. Across the country, hospitals are dispensing medications to patients in labor, only to report them to child welfare authorities when they or their newborns test positive for those same substances on subsequent drug tests, an investigation by The Marshall Project and Reveal has found.

    The positive tests are triggered by medications routinely prescribed to millions of birthing patients in the United States every year. The drugs include morphine or fentanyl for epidurals or other pain relief; anxiety medications; and two different blood pressure meds prescribed for C-sections.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Air pollution in India linked to millions of deaths

    Air pollution consisting of particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, PM2.5, can enter the lungs and bloodstream and is a major health risk in India. Researchers have now examined the link between these particles and mortality over a 10-year period. The study is based on data from 655 districts in India between 2009 and 2019.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ My own American insurance story

    It’s hard not to read the news about that insurance executive in the US. His passing has brought a whirlpool of resentment, frustration, and anger to the surface, from people across all walks of life. It might be wishful thinking to assume this will bring about change by itself, especially with the incoming administration over there. But at least the conversation is being had.

  • Juha-Matti Santala ☛ Struggles with believing in myself

    So I’m using my artistic freedoms as a blogger and write about another type of belief: believing in myself, self-confidence and the monster under the bed - impostor syndrome.

  • Wired ☛ Designer Babies Are Teenagers Now—and Some of Them Need Therapy Because of It

    I’ve counseled a number of those families in the past 10 to 15 years. People who have children this way often place too much importance on genes while ignoring the environment. It’s like, “This is what our family is going to look like. We’re going to pick a kid, and this is how we’re going to put it together. Mom’s going to be in charge of the whole thing.” It’s like a project or building a company. People don’t always realize they are creating a human being and not a piece of furniture.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-12-04 [Older] [Guest post] Benelux Office rules on opposition proceedings prepared by ChatGPT [Ed: They should disbar people immediately for any use at all of LLM trash]

  • Inkl ☛ Google's CEO blasts Microsoft's AI efforts, says 'they're using someone else's models'

  • GeekWire ☛ OfferUp cuts 22% of headcount as it aims to expand beyond used goods — read CEO’s memo to staff

    OfferUp, the Seattle-area company behind a popular used goods marketplace, is cutting 22% of its headcount in a bid to remain profitable as it looks to expand into new product lines.

    In a memo to staff, which you can read in full below, OfferUp CEO Todd Dunlap cited macroeconomic trends such as programmatic ad rates that affected some of the company’s revenue lines.

  • TechCrunch ☛ Cruise employees ‘blindsided’ by GM’s plan to end robotaxi program

    Cruise CEO Marc Whitten, who took the top post in June, posted a message Tuesday afternoon in the company’s announcements channel along with a link to a press release entitled “GM to refocus autonomous driving development on personal vehicles.”

    GM, which acquired the self-driving car startup in 2016, would no longer fund the company, ending a mission that hundreds of Cruise engineers had worked on for years.

  • Yahoo News ☛ Microsoft Sees $800 Million Charge on Stake in GM’s Cruise

    Microsoft Corp. plans to take an $800 million charge after General Motors Co. said it was shutting down its autonomous taxi initiative.

    [...]

    Microsoft’s $800 million charge will have a negative impact of about 9 cents a share, the company said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.

  • NPR ☛ Lawsuit: A chatbot hinted a kid should kill his parents over screen time limits

    These allegations are included in a new federal product liability lawsuit against Google-backed company Character.AI, filed by the parents of two young Texas users, claiming the bots abused their children. (Both the parents and the children are identified in the suit only by their initials to protect their privacy.)

  • The Register UK ☛ Tesla facing another Autopilot fatality lawsuit

    Tesla is facing a lawsuit alleging its claims about Autopilot and Full Self Driving's (FSD) capabilities contributed to a fatal crash, giving the courts yet another chance to hash out claims similar to those in previous lawsuits.

    In this instance, driver Genesis Giovanni Mendoza Martinez died, and his brother Caleb was seriously injured, when the former's Tesla Model S slammed into a fire truck parked diagonally across two lanes of a California interstate highway for traffic control in an unrelated incident.

  • Futurism ☛ Tesla Sued by Family of Man They Say Was Killed by Autopilot

    The family of a man who died after his Tesla crashed while driving on Autopilot is suing the EV maker, as the Independent reports, accusing CEO Elon Musk of making misleading claims about the driver assistance software.

    In February 2023, 31-year-old Genesis Giovanni Mendoza-Martinez died after his Model S smashed into a firetruck on the side of an interstate in San Francisco.

  • Futurism ☛ Google-Funded AI Sexually Abused an 11-Year-Old Girl, Lawsuit Claims

    Two families in Texas have filed a lawsuit, Futurism reports, accusing Google-backed AI chatbot company Character.AI of sexually and emotionally abusing their school-aged children.

    "Through its design," the company's platform "poses a clear and present danger to American youth by facilitating or encouraging serious, life-threatening harms on thousands of kids," reads the lawsuit, filed today in Texas.

  • [Repeat] Bruce Schneier ☛ Trust Issues in AI

    For a technology that seems startling in its modernity, AI sure has a long history. Google Translate, OpenAI chatbots, and Meta AI image generators are built on decades of advancements in linguistics, signal processing, statistics, and other fields going back to the early days of computing—and, often, on seed funding from the U.S. Department of Defense. But today’s tools are hardly the intentional product of the diverse generations of innovators that came before. We agree with Morozov that the “refuseniks,” as he calls them, are wrong to see AI as “irreparably tainted” by its origins. AI is better understood as a creative, global field of human endeavor that has been largely captured by U.S. venture capitalists, private equity, and Big Tech. But that was never the inevitable outcome, and it doesn’t need to stay that way.

  • IEEE ☛ Robot Jailbreak: Researchers Trick Bots Into Dangerous Tasks - IEEE Spectrum

    Essentially, LLMs are supercharged versions of the autocomplete feature that smartphones use to predict the rest of a word that a person is typing. LLMs trained to analyze to text, images, and audio can make personalized travel recommendations, devise recipes from a picture of a refrigerator’s contents, and help generate websites.

  • IT Wire ☛ Warning on deepfake tech security concerns in 2025

    Le Busque - who is also Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for the American Chamber of Commerce Australia, a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and member of the Queensland Sudoku team - warns that deepfake technology will become a major tool for cyberattacks “blurring the line between reality and deception in phishing scams”.

  • Pivot to AI ☛ Sorry kid, we killed your robot — Embodied goes broke, AI social devices will stop working – Pivot to AI

    Embodied was selling Moxie right up until they shut down. (In fact, the site selling the robot is still up.) There will be no refunds. If you bought Moxie on a payment plan, it’s out of Embodied’s hands. There will be no repairs or service. Nobody is taking over Embodied.

  • Derek Kędziora ☛ An LLM’s not going to tell you no

    The advantage of working with a UX professional is that he or she will challenge ideas and work through the tradeoffs of complex problems to find a solution. In most cases the UX designer’s solution won’t be the simplistic “just put another button there” that management asked for. That’s the job, though. You unpack iffy suggested solutions to find the real problem, and then you work from that to flesh out a better solution.

    The issue with using an LLM is that it will do precisely what it’s told. It will give managers the button and text they want, but it will never tell them that an email to select customers would be a better way to communicate that information.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Inside the SEC’s AI approach: Spotting risks, building on machine-learning past

    When Dave Bottom needs directions, 99.9% of the time he’ll rely on whatever the navigation system he’s using tells him.

    But the Securities and Exchange Commission’s chief artificial intelligence and chief information officer didn’t always have that level of confidence in the technology — especially given his prior experience leading the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s IT services directorate, where he had a front-row seat to work on state-of-the-art mapping tech.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ From translation to email drafting, State Department turns to AI to assist workforce

    The idea behind StateChat was to provide employees with the type of generative AI technology they’re able to access in their personal lives but in a sensitive unclassified environment where data is accessible only to them, Fletcher said.

  • The Register UK ☛ Facebook, Threads, WhatsApp, Instagram stumble in outage

    Services started dropping off around 0900 PT (1700 UTC). As you might expect from a huge distributed system, some people can or could get through to Meta's apps and sites as normal, and some are ran or are still running into errors and unable to use stuff as expected.

  • Futurism ☛ UCLA's AI-Based Literature Class Ridiculed for Incomprehensible AI-Generated Textbook

    The reaction from writers and academics has been one of outrage — but also mockery. That's because the cover for the course's AI-generated textbook is total fucking gobbledygook. Nevermind the pseudo-illuminated-manucript-styled visuals that are all over the place — the text itself is absolute nonsense.

  • Pivot to AI ☛ OpenAI launches then un-launches Sora, Twitter gives Grok away for free

    Neither OpenAI’s tools nor its financial position are getting any better. So it has to keep the publicity churning.

    Journalists see OpenAI’s impressive rigged demos and publicize these barely functional toys. Even the critique is criti-hype that assumes the things work.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • MIT Technology Review ☛ Bluesky has an impersonator problem

      Like many others, I recently fled the social media platform X for Bluesky. In the process, I started following many of the people I followed on X. On Thanksgiving, I was delighted to see a private message from a fellow AI reporter, Will Knight from Wired. Or at least that’s who I thought I was talking to. I became suspicious when the person claiming to be Knight mentioned being from Miami, when Knight is, in fact, from the UK. The account handle was almost identical to the real Will Knight’s handle, and the profile used his profile photo.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Citizen Lab ☛ Legal barriers to justice: John Scott-Railton on the legal challenges faced by spyware victims - The Citizen Lab

      Although there have been conflicting outcomes in the fight for justice for spyware victims, Scott-Railton emphasizes that much of the success depends on overcoming legal hurdles and international immunity protections. “I am optimistic that some victims will find justice and there will be paths to accountability, but like so many other efforts to hold companies accountable for putting profits ahead of people, it’s going to take time, and progress won’t be linear”, he adds.

    • The Register UK ☛ US senator wants to mandate telecom cyber security standards

      The Secure American Communications Act [PDF], if signed into law, would require the Federal Communications Commission to issue binding rules for telecom systems, following what Wyden calls the FCC's "failure" to implement security standards already required by federal law.

      He's referring to the CALEA of 1994 – aka the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act – which required telecom providers to design their systems to comply with wiretapping requests from law enforcement.

    • Terence Eden ☛ Is WordPress.org GDPR compliant?

      There was no reply forthcoming - although, as you can see, my message gathered a fair few positive reactions. As was inevitable, the next morning I found myself locked out of the Slack. I had been permabanned.

      Then things got weird.

      Someone claiming to be an employee of Automattic sent me a message saying that Matt had personally told people to ban me. I didn't know if they were telling the truth, but the GDPR gives me the right to see the data a company holds about me. That includes messages about me stored on their internal systems.

  • Confidentiality

    • APNIC ☛ [Podcast] Post-Quantum Cryptography

      In the last episode of PING for 2024, APNIC’s Chief Scientist, Geoff Huston, discusses the shift from existing public-private key cryptography using the RSA and ECC algorithms to the world of Post Quantum Cryptography. These new algorithms are designed to withstand potential attacks from large-scale quantum computers and are capable of implementing Shor’s algorithm, a theoretical approach for using quantum computing to break the cryptographic keys of RSA and ECC.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Center for Investigative Reporting ☛ Arizona Sues Saudi-Owned Farm Draining Groundwater in the Desert

    Arizona’s attorney general has sued a Saudi-owned farm operating a massive hay operation in the middle of the Arizona desert, alleging that the business is hastening the loss of the rural community’s rapidly depleting groundwater supply.

  • C4ISRNET ☛ British troops test laser weapon as cheap option to fry drones

    Soldiers from the U.K.’s 16th Regiment Royal Artillery, which specializes in providing air defense for ground troops, used the laser mounted on a Wolfhound armored personnel carrier to destroy drones at a variety of distances and speeds, the MoD said in a statement on Wednesday.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Military recruitment social media tactics aren’t working very well

    The Armed Services have turned to social control media in recent years to promote recruitment. Yet they’re still missing sign-up goals by the thousands. The Government Accountability Office finds, the target Generation Z has a declining attitude about the military. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin gets more now from the GAO’s director of defense capabilities and management, Alissa Czyz.

  • Deseret Media ☛ Dangerous TikTok challenge involving Kia and Hyundai resurfaces in Salt Lake City

    A TikTok challenge in 2021 resulted in a sharp increase in thieves targeting Kia cars made between 2011 to 2021 and Hyundais between 2015 to 2021. The thieves — mainly teenagers — would target Kias and Hyundais that use a key, not a key fob and push-button, hot wire the vehicles and take them on joy rides before dumping them.

    In January, techhq.com reported that "thefts of Kias and Hyundais have increased 1,000% since 2020."

  • Deseret Media ☛ Roy police say man was within his rights when he shot, killed woman's dog in park

    "In Roy city, it is a crime to have your dog off leash or not secured, running at large, especially if they're aggressive and attacking other people or other animals," Taylor said.

    "It just seemed like very black and white," Isturis said. "Your dog was off-leash. He felt threatened. That was it."

  • Digital Music News ☛ Deleted From North America? — TikTok Bans in Canada & U.S.

    Owned by Chinese company ByteDance, which moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020, TikTok is under increasing pressure from Western countries. As it faces down a potential ban in the U.S. in January, TikTok is also seeing scrutiny in Europe over concerns like election interference campaigns allegedly coordinated by Moscow. In its court application, TikTok argues that the Canadian government’s decision was “unreasonable” and “driven by improper purposes,” calling the order “grossly disproportionate” and the national security review “procedurally unfair.” The review was carried out through the Investment Canada Act, which enables the government to investigate foreign investment with the potential to harm national security.

  • Techdirt ☛ Incoming FTC Chair: I Will Stop All These Investigations That I Falsely Claim Are Politically Motivated In Order To Launch My Own Openly Politically Motivated Investigations

    On Tuesday, Trump announced Andrew Ferguson as the next chair of the Federal Trade Commission, elevating him from his current commissioner role. Ferguson’s plans for the agency, laid out in a leaked one-page memo, make clear that he intends to use antitrust and consumer protection authority not to protect competition and consumers, but to punish the MAGA world’s perceived enemies and fight culture war battles.

  • The Washington Post ☛ It’s not just TikTok. You probably use lots of Chinese technology.

    For 70 years, most of our essential and widely used technology originated from American companies. That’s not true anymore. Americans use a lot of technology from China, and that’s not going to stop.

    Lenovo, which makes top-selling laptops and Motorola smartphones, is headquartered in Beijing.

  • [Repeat] The Strategist ☛ China edges closer to intervention in Myanmar

    Military intervention by China in Myanmar’s civil war is more likely than generally thought. While attention is fixed on Beijing’s expansionist activities in the South China Sea and aggressive intentions towards Taiwan, China’s more immediately consequential move in Southeast Asia could come via an overland vector.

    Speculation that China may step up its involvement in Myanmar’s civil war has been brewing for some time. However, discussion has been mostly limited to Myanmar watchers, receiving little mainstream attention in comparison with Beijing’s well-publicised behaviour in the South China Sea.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Is the 'Islamic State' a threat to Syria's political future?

    The "Islamic State" (IS) , also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has been widely defeated across Syria, but still poses a threat to the nation's peaceful future. This, at least, is the estimation of outgoing US President Joe Biden, whose administration has ordered massive airstrikes against the extremist organization.

  • CBC ☛ TikTok files legal challenge of federal government's shutdown order

    The company filed documents in Federal Court in Vancouver on Dec. 5 seeking to set aside the order to wind up and cease business in Canada.

    The government ordered the dissolution of TikTok's Canadian business in November in the wake of a national security review of the Chinese company behind the social media platform.

  • India Times ☛ TikTok's Canada unit seeks judicial review of shutdown orders

    TikTok Canada has filed a legal challenge against the government's order to shut down its operations due to national security concerns. The company seeks a judicial review or revised order, arguing the shutdown would lead to job losses. The Canadian government maintains its stance, citing a thorough security review as the basis for its decision.

  • US News And World Report ☛ TikTok Files Challenge Against Canadian Government Order to Dissolve Its Business in the Country

    The Canadian federal government last month announced it was ordering the dissolution of TikTok Technology Canada Inc. after a national security review of its Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd.

    The government is not blocking access to the TikTok app, which will continue to be available to Canadians. TikTok said it has 14 million users in Canada, which is about a third of the population. It has offices in Toronto and Vancouver.

  • The Scotsman ☛ 'Deepfakes' pose 'security risks' to Scottish Parliament that 'threaten trust in democracy'

    The Scottish Parliament commissioned researchers at the Scottish Centre for Crime & Justice Research and the University of Edinburgh to evaluate the potential threat of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to parliamentary businesses and investigate how deepfake videos may impact the integrity of Parliament TV, which one participant dubbed ‘chamberfakes’.

    The researchers are calling on the Scottish Parliament to put a formal process in place to respond to deepfake threats and allocate more staff to manage the risks of attacks.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Russian victory in Ukraine would spark a new era of global insecurity

    Ukraine’s resilience in the face of Russia’s initial invasion in 2014 and the full-scale attack of 2022 demonstrates the success of the country’s nation-building efforts and the strength of Ukrainian civil society. Despite the immense pressures of war, today’s Ukraine remains committed to democratic values and Euro-Atlantic integration. This helps to explain why Putin regards continued Ukrainian independence as so dangerous.

    Moscow’s ambitions are no secret. The Kremlin views its war against Ukraine as both a crucial step toward rebuilding the Russian Empire and as a tool in the broader struggle to transform the geopolitical landscape. Putin is determined to erase Ukrainian statehood while simultaneously eroding the very foundations of international law and global security.

  • Axios ☛ Why the wealth of billionaires in the Trump Cabinet matters

    What they're saying: When business elites have disproportionate influence on policymaking, it can result "in policies such as tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of industries, and reduced funding for social welfare programs — potentially exacerbating inequality," Darrian Stacy, a political science professor at the U.S. Naval Academy who also studies the topic, tells Axios by email, adding that his views don't reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. government, Defense Department or U.S. Naval Academy.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-05 [Older] EU probes TikTok after surprise win in Romania election

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] The role of TikTok in Romania's presidential election

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Explainer-What Happens Next for TikTok After Court Ruling Against It?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] TikTok Is Inching Closer to a Potential Ban in the US. So What's Next?

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] TikTok loses bid in appeal court to halt law that could lead to U.S. ban

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-12-07 [Older] US Spending on TikTok Shop Gains as TikTok Faces Threat of Ban, Data Shows

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Putin, stop killing’: Exiled Russian opposition figures Yulia Navalnaya, Ilya Yashin, and Vladimir Kara-Murza announce new Berlin march against Putin — Meduza

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Futurism ☛ Luigi Mangione's Notebook Details Plan to "Wack the CEO at the Annual Parasitic Bean-Counter Convention"

    Whether Mangione's killing will have any immediate repercussions in the industry is unlikely. The outfit's parent company's CEO, Andrew Witty, has already made some eyebrow-raising remarks in the wake of the slaying, gloating about UnitedHealth guarding "against the pressures that exist for unsafe care or for unnecessary care to be delivered in a way which makes the whole system too complex and ultimately unsustainable."

    "So we're going to continue to make that case, and we're going to continue to do the work we do," Witty said in an internal virtual address, also leaked by Klippenstein.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Luigi Mangione’s Anger Wasn’t Neatly Ideological

    The profile and background of Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week, is coming into sharper and sharper focus. For one, after days of speculation, we can now more confidently say the motive was health care–related, beyond the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” written on the bullet shell casings found at the scene. Mangione had a two-page statement on his person when he was arrested, which complained that “the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy,” and that companies like UnitedHealthcare “have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit.”

  • Techdirt ☛ NBC News Does Entire Piece Trying To Link CEO Shooting To ‘Violent Video Game’

    Of all the kinds of stupid that exist out there, certainly it’s the predictable stupid that is the most frustrating. And of all the kinds of predictable stupid that exist, one of the most predictable forms of stupid is how video games are linked to mass shootings and murders on a clockwork-like cadence. As I’ve said previously, this rush to the video game boogeyman is dumb and should stop. But it won’t.

  • Jamie Zawinski ☛ CEO Wanted Posters

    Every mainstream news outlet is currently running a story about the rash of CEO "wanted" posters all over New York. As far as I can tell, every one of these articles is sourced to a single shaky TikTok video showing three (3) posters on one (1) pole.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ Zero Accountability: The Five-Plus Times DOJ Got Fabricated Evidence against Hunter Biden

    The following list includes five examples, with numbered headings, that present compelling evidence of fabricated information used either by Congress or DOJ to go after Hunter and his father, along with four suspect incidents. The first five are presented in order of seriousness with regards to the effect on Hunter’s due process. This post will review each. I’ll do a followup that explains the lessons we can take from this.

  • Scheerpost ☛ ‘It Had to Be Done’: Luigi Mangione Manifesto Revealed

    The existence of the handwritten document found on Mangione when he was taken into custody in Pennsylvania on Monday was confirmed by the New York Police Department, and major media outlets have quoted from it, but none had released it in full.

    “My queries to The New York Times, CNN, and ABC to explain their rationale for withholding the manifesto, while gladly quoting from it selectively, have not been answered,” Klippenstein said on his Substack.

  • Pro Publica ☛ How Wall Street Billionaires Avoid Paying Medicare Taxes

    The trove of tax records behind ProPublica’s “Secret IRS Files” series contains plenty of examples of billionaire financiers who avoided Medicare tax despite earning huge amounts from their companies. In 2016, Steve Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets, paid $0. So did Stephen Schwarzman, head of the investment behemoth Blackstone. Bill Ackman, the headline-grabbing hedge fund manager, was able to shield almost all his income from the tax.

• Environment

  • The Conversation ☛ Polluting shipwrecks are the ticking time-bomb at the bottom of our oceans

    At the bottom of the oceans and seas lie more than 8,500 shipwrecks from two world wars. These wrecks have been estimated to contain as much as 6 billion gallons of oil, as well as munitions, toxic heavy metals and even chemical weapons.

    For decades, these wrecks have largely lain out of site and out of mind. But all this time, their structures have been degrading, inexorably increasing the chances of sudden releases of toxic substances into the marine environment.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ How a Chinese firm ran a billion-euro carbon credit scam

    A risk-free deal, Schreiber thought. Except that, it turned out to be too good to be true. Today, Schreiber is convinced that the project his company paid for was part of a billion-euro fraud.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Arctic Became Net Carbon Source to Atmosphere: Unwelcome News for Pace of Climate Change

    “With each passing year, the vital signs of the Arctic continue to amplify the pace of change with 2024 proving no different. The ongoing release of fossil fuel emissions into the atmosphere has caused the Arctic region for the past eleven years to warm at a rate several times faster than the Earth as a whole. These combined changes are contributing to worsening wildfires and thawing permafrost to an extent so historic that it caused the Arctic to be a net carbon source after millennia serving as a net carbon storage region. If this becomes a consistent trend, it will further increase climate change globally. On top of that, food sources for ice seal populations are shifting due to water temperature changes and hotter, wetter weather is stressing and decimating inland caribou herds.

  • New York Times ☛ Exxon Plans to Sell Electricity to Data Centers

    Exxon is designing a massive natural-gas fueled plant meant to directly supply electricity to data centers. The company says the plant will be fitted with technology that can capture more than 90 percent of the facility’s carbon dioxide emissions, the leading cause of climate change.

    The project, which is in the early stages of development, would be the first time that Exxon built a power plant that did not supply electricity to its own operations.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Krebs On Security ☛ How Cryptocurrency Turns to Cash in Russian Banks

      A financial firm registered in Canada has emerged as the payment processor for dozens of Russian cryptocurrency exchanges and websites hawking cybercrime services aimed at Russian-speaking customers, new research finds. Meanwhile, an investigation into the Vancouver street address used by this company shows it is home to dozens of foreign currency dealers, money transfer businesses, and cryptocurrency exchanges — none of which are physically located there.

    • Bridge Michigan ☛ Ann Arbor hopes to bring rooftop solar to the masses by creating a utility

      In the coming months, city officials will begin planning the new municipal utility as they race to make the city carbon neutral by 2030, and as residents demand an alternative to DTE Energy, a monopoly utility whose customers endure frequent power outages and high rates.

    • The Atlantic ☛ [Cryptocurrency]'s Legacy is Finally Clear

      For years, [cryptocurrency] skeptics have asked, What is this for? And for years, boosters have struggled to offer up a satisfactory answer. They argue that the blockchain—the technology upon which [cryptocurrency]currencies and other such applications are built—is itself a genius technological invention, an elegant mechanism for documenting ownership online and fostering digital community. Or they say that it is a foundation on which to build and fund a third, hyperfinancialized iteration of the [Internet] where you don’t need human intermediaries to buy a cartoon image of an ape for $3.4 million.

    • Energy Mix Productions Inc ☛ Cyclists Mount Charter Challenge Against Ontario Bike Lane Removals

      “It is not about tackling congestion, working with municipalities for data-driven solutions, or giving people more transportation options,” said Michael Longfield of Cycle Toronto. “It is unprecedented jurisdictional overreach undermining local democracy that will cost taxpayers millions of dollars and jeopardize the safety of cyclists.”

      The cyclists say the bike lane removals, which are now enshrined in law, violate a section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and infringe on the rights of cyclists, pedestrians, and other road users by depriving them of life and security of the person.

    • City News CA ☛ Cyclists file Charter challenge against Ontario over bike lane removals

      Cyclists have launched a Charter challenge against the Ontario government over its decision to remove bike lanes on three Toronto roads.

      Cycle Toronto and two cyclists allege the province’s upcoming removal of bike lanes on Bloor Street, Yonge Street, and University Avenue puts lives at risk.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Supreme Court shuts down Nvidia appeal — [cryptocurrency]mining class action suit will proceed

      The suit against Nvidia was brought by Swedish firm E. Ohman J:or Fonder AB, arguing that Nvidia failed to accurately represent to shareholders how much of its business and sales in and around 2018 were built on sales to cryptocurrency miners. The investors of Nvidia wanted to know more about the nascent field of [cryptocurrency]mining, but were purposefully kept in the dark regarding the topic, the suit alleges.

    • The Age AU ☛ At Sono Lumo, bike riders were asked to dismount for 100m. Now they plan to protest in the Star casino’s driveway

      However, the request for riders to dismount for seven hours a day during the 10-day Sono Lumo activation has prompted frustration.

    • LRT ☛ Train passengers will be able to reach Tallinn from Vilnius in one day next year

      The three Baltic carriers – Lithuania’s LTG Link, Latvia’s Vivi, and Estonia’s Elron – are currently coordinating train schedules to allow passengers to travel from Vilnius to Tallinn with two changes – in Riga and Estonia’s Valga.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ 20 Environmental Books to Inspire You in the Year Ahead

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Monarch butterflies proposed for threatened species status

      The Western monarch population has plunged more than 95% since the 1980s, and has a more than 99% chance of extinction by 2080.

  • Overpopulation

    • Hindustan Times ☛ Rampant water theft in Bengal, 20000 punctures in pipe network: Minister

      Theft of drinking water from underground pipelines has become a major hurdle for the Trinamool Congress government to fulfil its poll promise of providing piped drinking water to 20 million households in West Bengal.

• Finance

  • Pro Publica ☛ Maine’s Eviction Prevention Program Excludes Public Housing Tenants

    Public housing helped bring an end to Linda Gallagher-Garcia’s three years of intermittent homelessness in her hometown of Presque Isle, Maine, in 2020. With $200 in secondhand furniture, she made the apartment feel like home for her and her dog, Tex.

    But when she fell behind on her rent and was evicted two years later, the fact that she was in public housing made her future more dire: Maine public housing authorities’ rules bar evicted tenants from returning to government-subsidized units and from receiving other benefits that could help them relocate.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Citizen Lab ☛ The Citizen Lab’s submission to the Senate Standing Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs

    Kate Robertson, Senior Researcher at the Citizen Lab provided a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on National Security, Defence, and Veterans Affairs, that contributes to the ongoing consideration of Bill C-26, which seeks to give the federal government the power to impose cybersecurity regulations on telecom and critical infrastructure providers in Canada.

  • International Business Times ☛ Bill Gates' Tesla Short Could Bankrupt Him if Shares Surge 200% To Top the Global Market

    Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates has long been a proponent of environmental initiatives and a sustainable future. However, according to Walter Isaacson's 2023 biography of Elon Musk, Gates' alleged undisclosed short position against Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) led Musk to view his actions as hypocritical.

    A short position is simply betting against the company, and investors profit when share prices drop. Isaacson's book highlighted that Gates' bet against Tesla reportedly resulted in a $1.5 billion (£1.17 billion) loss for him as share prices jumped by over 61% year-to-date and 1,578% in the past five years to close at $400.99 (£314.03) on 10th December.

  • 404 Media ☛ WordPress CEO Rage Quits Community Slack After Court Injunction

    In addition to removing the checkbox—which requires users to denounce WP Engine before proceeding—the preliminary injunction orders that Automattic is enjoined from “blocking, disabling, or interfering with WP Engine’s and/or its employees’, users’, customers’, or partners’ access to wordpress.org” or “interfering with WP Engine’s control over, or access to, plugins or extensions (and their respective directory listings) hosted on wordpress.org that were developed, published, or maintained by WP Engine,” the order states.

  • Baldur Bjarnason ☛ Interim note 1: tech

    Some thoughts, because I write to think.

    • Tech is about to enter a proper wealth extraction phase. One of my annoyances with “enshittification” is the lack of imagination it implies. Tech, as an industry, can be much more extractive than this. There’s ways to the bottom yet.

  • India Times ☛ Elon Musk says even Microsoft founder Bill Gates will go bankrupt if ...

    Elon Musk reignited his feud with Bill Gates on X, suggesting Gates' short position against Tesla could bankrupt him if Tesla becomes the world's most valuable company. Musk referenced Gates' alleged $1.5 billion loss on the short and criticized his hypocrisy regarding environmental causes.

  • The Hindu ☛ Linux Foundation launches LF India to boost open source innovation [Ed: GAFAM/US colonising India with some openwashing gesture]

    LF India aims to foster collaboration among developers, enterprises, government organizations, and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). Its initial focus will include cutting-edge open source projects in areas such as cloud native technologies, telecommunications, Edge/IoT, blockchain, security, and domain-specific artificial intelligence (AI).

  • India Times ☛ ShareChat appoints TikTok’s Nitin Jain as CTO

    As CTO, Jain will lead the development and application of technology across both ShareChat and Moj platforms. Jain has played a key role in starting from scratch and rapidly expanding tech companies by nurturing high-performing teams and leveraging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, blockchain and modern development operations practices.

  • VOA News ☛ UN digital program seeks to empower Africa's public workers [Ed: Microsoft colonialism]

    The United Nations, Microsoft and Kenya’s Ministry of Information last week launched a digital and artificial intelligence center in Nairobi to train African public servants and accelerate the development and use of online services.

    Officials said the program — the Timbuktoo GreenTech Hub and Africa Centre for Competence for AI and Digital Skilling — aims to improve the skills of 100,000 government workers.

  • FAIR ☛ Murdoch Outlets and Bezos’ WaPo Demand More Sympathy for Health Insurance Execs

  • Pro Publica ☛ An Open Letter to Elon Musk

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-04 [Older] Why Georgia’s EU accession freeze is fueling mass protests

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-03 [Older] Trump nominates billionaire Warren Stephens as UK ambassador

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • VOA News ☛ VOA Russian: Fake American media linked to Russia is behind Zelenskyy and 'Hitler's car'

      fake American “media outlet” posted a story about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy buying Adolf Hitler’s car — and it was widely shared in Russian media. [...]

    • RFA ☛ Taiwan warns [Internet] celebrities on collusion after video uproar – Radio Free Asia

      Taiwan said some online influencers have become propaganda tools of Beijing and warned that they will be punished if they break the law after revelations of pay-offs for pro-China messages sparked an uproar on the island.

    • RFA ☛ Did a Chinese tabloid publish a front-page story about Bashar al-Assad’s fall? – Radio Free Asia

      But the claim is false. The photo has been digitally doctored. The original photo shows a Global Times report about former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein published in 2003.

    • NBC ☛ Bankruptcy judge rejects The Onion's bid to buy Alex Jones' Infowars

      U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said after a two-day hearing that The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, had not submitted the best bid and was wrongly named the winner of an auction last month by a court-appointed trustee.

      “I don’t think it’s enough money,” Lopez said in a late-night ruling from the bench in a Houston court. “I’m going to not approve the sale.”

    • The Independent UK ☛ Alex Jones mocks The Onion with Star Wars music after losing InfoWars auction

      A federal judge in Texas rejected the auction sale of Alex Jones’ Infowars to The Onion satirical news outlet, criticizing the bidding for the conspiracy theory platform as flawed as well as how much money families of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting stood to receive.

      The decision late Tuesday night is a victory for Jones, whose Infowars site was put up for sale as part of his bankruptcy case in the wake of the nearly $1.5 billion that courts have ordered him to pay over falsely calling one of the deadliest school shootings in US history a hoax.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • VOA News ☛ Hundreds of arrests and mysterious beatings as Georgia cracks down on pro-EU protests

    Seventy-five-year-old Marina Terishvili's teenage son Mamuka was shot dead at a nationalist rally in Georgia in 1992. Now her other son, Giorgi, has been arrested for his role in protests against perceived Russian influence in their homeland.

    Seven police cars pulled up at her house in the capital Tbilisi on Friday and took Giorgi, a 52-year-old taxi driver, into custody, she said.

  • New York Times ☛ Why Luigi Mangione’s Reddit and Instagram Were Taken Down, but Not His Goodreads?

    In some cases, these newly public figures or their loved ones can shut down the accounts or make them private. Others, like Mr. Mangione, who has been charged with murder, are cut off from their devices, leaving their digital lives open for the public’s consumption.

    Either way, tech companies have discretion in what happens to the account and its content.

    Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects companies from legal liability for posts made by users. “Companies generally have a lot of freedom to decide what content to allow and what content to remove,” said Jolynn Dellinger, a senior lecturing fellow at Duke Law.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • VOA News ☛ Arrest warrant for Guatemalan journalist viewed as retaliatory

    Juan Luis Font, director and host of the daily radio talk show “ConCriterio” and a co-founder of El Periodico newspaper in Guatemala, is accused of collusion and bribery, charges he denies.

    The journalist, who lives in exile in France, told VOA he expected that a warrant would be issued because of his stories on corruption.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Most popular websites for news in the UK: Monthly top 50 listing

    The fact that all ten sites grew month-on-month in October was a stark contrast to the previous month when they all fell compared to August.

  • New York Times ☛ Opinion | My Last Column: Finding Hope in an Age of Resentment

    This is my final column for The New York Times, where I began publishing my opinions in January 2000. I’m retiring from The Times, not the world, so I’ll still be expressing my views in other places. But this does seem like a good occasion to reflect on what has changed over these past 25 years.

  • BIA Net ☛ Journalist investigated for reporting on public tender cleared of disinformation charges

    The investigation followed a complaint by Ziver Holding Chair Veysel Demirci, who accused Demirdaş of tarnishing his reputation and exceeding the bounds of press freedom. Demirci had earlier targeted Demirdaş on social media, calling him a “terror supporter” in a post that included his photograph.

  • VOA News ☛ Bill to protect journalists fails in US Senate

    A shield law known as the PRESS Act that would give journalists greater federal protections failed to pass the Senate on Tuesday evening after it was blocked by Senator Tom Cotton.

    Shield laws protect journalists from being forced by the government to disclose information such as the identities of sources. The PRESS Act would also limit the seizure of journalists' data without their knowledge.

  • The Dissenter ☛ US Senator Lies About Reporter's Shield Law, Blocks Vote

    But CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times, as well as other “legacy media” that Cotton called out, do not need the PRESS Act as much as smaller news media outlets or independent reporters that primarily post to social media platforms. These organizations have legal departments that are experienced and funded to negotiate with government attorneys and help journalists and editors avoid government intrusion and violations of their First Amendment rights.

    In that sense, Cotton is not sticking it to some “cabal of legacy media” but rather he is ensuring that the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) will continue to have an easier time targeting journalists who do not work as members of an elite media class.

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton blocks press freedom bill Trump said GOP ‘must kill’

    The journalism shield law — which would limit the federal government’s ability to force disclosure of journalists’ sources — drew strong objections from President-elect Donald Trump, who’s had a rather rocky relationship with the press.

    Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton blocked Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden’s request for unanimous consent to pass the bill, calling the legislation “a threat to U.S. national security and an insult to basic fairness in the principle of equality before the law.”

  • VOA News ☛ US Justice Department ignored some policies when seizing journalists' phone records, watchdog finds

    The investigation found that the Justice Department during the Trump administration did not fully comply with the internal guidelines in place at the time that restricted the department's use of investigative tools to seize journalists' records.

  • CPJ ☛ CPJ calls on new Syrian leaders to protect journalist safety, hold Assad’s media persecutors to account 

    “Scenes of journalists rushing to cover Syria’s post-Assad regime raise hope for the start of a new chapter for the country’s media workers,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna. “While we wait for the missing to return and the imprisoned to be released, we call on the new authorities to hold the perpetrators to account for the crimes of killing, abducting, or jailing reporters.”

  • VOA News ☛ Wife of journalist killed in Cambodia says she feared for his safety

    The wife of Chhoeung Chheng, an environmental journalist killed in Cambodia, says she had warned him against investigating illegal logging at night.

    Chhoeung had been working to uncover deforestation in Siem Reap province when he was shot on December 4. The 63-year-old journalist died from his injuries at a hospital on December 7.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • US News And World Report ☛ Saudi Arabia Will Host the 2034 World Cup. but When Exactly?

    The kingdom decided in 2017 to let women attend sports events, initially in major cities and in family zones separate from men-only sections.

    By 2034, at the promised pace of social reforms, female fans should not be restricted.

    Saudi Arabia launched a women’s professional soccer league in 2022 with players joining from clubs in Europe. They face no restrictions playing in shorts and with hair uncovered.

  • The Hill ☛ Antony Blinken denounces Taliban's block of Afghan women in medical studies

    Referencing the Taliban’s “Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” law, instituted in August, the administration claimed the group was seeking to “erase Afghan women and girls from public life.”

    “Previously issued restrictions have prevented women from both seeking health services from male providers and traveling without a male guardian. These directives, now coupled with excluding women from obtaining a medical education, further jeopardize the health, well-being, safety, and lives of not just Afghan women and girls, but all Afghans,” the secretary of state wrote.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Man harasses journalist and other women doing interview on women’s safety

    Last month, Gillian Jones spent a harrowing night in a northern England bar rebuffing a man’s attempts to speak to, then sexually assault, her daughter. She wanted to share her story of the ordeal. Anna Youssef, a reporter with the British television channel ITV News, wanted to hear it.

  • International Business Times ☛ Tokyo Embraces a 4-Day Work Week—Could the UK Be Next, or Is It Bad for Business?

    The pressure to prioritise careers over family life has contributed to a significant gender gap in Japan's workforce, with only 55% of women participating compared to 72% of men. Governor Koike believes that by reducing working days, government employees will have more time to dedicate to family responsibilities, which may encourage higher birth rates.

  • International Business Times ☛ Dismissed for Taking Paternity Leave? Goldman Sachs Banker Sues for £4m in Damages

    Reeves, who is seeking £4 million ($5 million) in damages, alleged that his dismissal was not due to performance issues, as claimed by the bank, but because of a cultural disapproval of men taking extended paternity leave. Reeves took six months of leave following the birth of his second child, returning to find himself on a list of employees deemed underperforming.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: The housing emergency and the second Trump term

    Postmortems and blame for the 2024 elections are thick on the ground, but amidst all those theories and pointed fingers, one explanation looms large and credible: the American housing emergency. If the system can't put a roof over your head, that system needs to go.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Landlords beware: Renters are calling out overpriced listings online

    Landlords see it as a headache, a needless trend of cyberbullying that exacerbates well-meaning efforts to find tenants. Renters see it as a higher calling — a form of resistance and a way to call out overpriced listings.

  • The Walrus ☛ Tipping Isn’t about Service – It’s a Psychological Con Job

    But that link is fraying. New practices not only weaken tipping’s traditional role as a feedback mechanism but they also appear to have an obverse effect on the level of care provided. As per Angus Reid, a mere 13 percent of Canadians agreed that service “has generally improved.”

    The trend toward tip ubiquity and growing rates is driven in part by technological developments that have changed how we pay for goods and services. Previously, you might have been asked to enter the amount into a machine yourself by pressing the keys on the pad or even write down the tip amount on the receipt. Point-of-sale machines, like those offered by Clover or Toast, make it easy to set a pre-programmed range of tips—which makes it easier for establishments to set a rate for tips, prompt the buyer, nudge them toward a middle rate that’s higher than normal, and then collect the funds.

  • NL Times ☛ Many landlords not complying with rent regulation

    Many landlords are circumventing rent regulations for mid-market rentals, the Volkskrant discovered when checking the rental properties on Pararius on a random day in November. The newspaper found that many landlords are calculating points to their rentals too high to push them into the free market, or hiding too-high rents by offering apartments furnished or with other amenities included.

    The Affordable Rent Act took effect on July 1 with the aim of fighting high rents in the mid-segment of the rental market. It extended the points system that applied to social housing to mid-range rental properties. Mid-range rentals have points between 144 and 186 and may be rented for an amount of 879 to 1,165 euros per month based on their points.

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ Tenant Unions Are Coming. Landlords Aren't Ready.

    With affordable housing so scarce in post-pandemic America, tenant organizing is on the rise. This year, five local tenant unions launched a national Tenant Union Federation, seeking to elevate rent control and other measures as national priorities. Borrowing from the lessons and traditions of labor organizing (collectively bargained leases, anyone?), tenant unions have already had significant success in building power for low income renters. Across the country, they’ve won everything from repairs at individual buildings to citywide political battles with major real estate interests.

    I spoke to Josh Poe, one of the key organizers of the Louisville Tenants Union, about housing policy, the future of tenant organizing, and some of the intriguing areas of opportunity for the labor movement and the tenant movement to work together. Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.

  • CS Monitor ☛ How police and a civilian caught UnitedHealthcare CEO suspect

    The manhunt involved a massive effort by the New York Police Department and the FBI, as well as other jurisdictions. Investigators combed through thousands of hours of video, processed evidence, including DNA and fingerprints, dug through databases of photographs, and followed up on myriad leads.

    Yet, as time passed, none of that work yielded a suspect’s name. Police say it took an observant McDonald’s worker to raise an eyebrow at a young man who ordered breakfast and sat alone in the back of the restaurant. Officers who answered the 911 call asked him to remove his mask and instantly recognized the face from widely distributed still images. The McDonald’s employee may be eligible for an offered $50,000 FBI reward, depending on an interagency review that will determine the total award amount after any conviction.

  • Futurism ☛ AI Completely Failed to Catch CEO Killer, With Cops Instead Relying on Random McDonald’s Employee

    As the New York Times reports, police were hesitant to attribute the dramatic end to their five-day, multi-state manhunt for the killer to any one thing, after deploying drones, artificial intelligence, K-9 units, and even scuba divers to bring him in.

    After police in Pennsylvania arrested a suspect named Luigi Mangione, officials with the New York Police Department were nevertheless forced to admit that the now-notorious photo of the 26-year-old smiling in his Manhattan hostel did him in after a worker at a McDonald's restaurant in the tiny PA town of Altoona alerted police when a customer recognized him.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • EFF ☛ Brazil’s Internet Intermediary Liability Rules Under Trial: What Are the Risks?

    The court’s examination revolves around Article 19 of Brazil’s Civil Rights Framework for the Internet (“Marco Civil da Internet”, Law n. 12.965/2014). The provision establishes that an internet application provider can only be held liable for third-party content if it fails to comply with a judicial order to remove the content. A notice-and-takedown exception to the provision applies in cases of copyright infringement, unauthorized disclosure of private images containing nudity or sexual activity, and content involving child sexual abuse. The first two exceptions are in Marco Civil, while the third one comes from a prior rule included in the Brazilian child protection law.

    The decision the court takes will set a precedent for lower courts regarding two main topics: whether Marco Civil’s internet intermediary liability regime is aligned with Brazil's Constitution and whether internet application providers have the obligation to monitor online content they host and remove it when deemed offensive, without judicial intervention. Moreover, it can have a regional and cross-regional impact as lawmakers and courts look across borders at platform regulation trends amid global coordination initiatives.

    After a public hearing held last year, the Court's sessions about the cases started in late November and, so far, only Justice Dias Toffoli, who is in charge of Marco Civil’s constitutionality case, has concluded the presentation of his vote. The justice declared Article 19 unconstitutional and established the notice-and-takedown regime set in Article 21 of Marco Civil, which relates to unauthorized disclosure of private images, as the general rule for intermediary liability. According to his vote, the determination of liability must consider the activities the internet application provider has actually carried out and the degree of interference of these activities.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Kansas broadband [Internet] disparities persist despite huge investments

    Thirty-one percent of low-income Kansas households making less than $20,000 annually didn’t have high-speed connections, KHI said. However, 4.5% of Kansas households earning more than $75,000 were in the same predicament in terms of broadband access.

  • RIPE ☛ Schrödinger’s IPv6 Cat

    The Internet is a global network of networks, interconnected through open standards that enable interoperability, registration services that ensure uniqueness, and governance structures - such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) - that develop protocols, policies, and frameworks for coordination and accountability. It serves as the foundation of the digital era we live in today.

    To understand IPv6’s paradoxical state - both thriving and struggling - it is essential to understand the Internet’s foundational architecture. At its core, the Internet relies on a finite pool of unique IP addresses, which enable seamless communication between billions of users and devices.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Deseret Media ☛ Proposed merger of Kroger and Albertsons is halted by federal, state judges

  The proposed merger between supermarket giants Kroger and Albertsons floundered on Tuesday after judges overseeing two separate cases both halted the merger.

  District Court Judge Adrienne Nelson issued a preliminary injunction blocking the merger Tuesday after holding a three-week hearing in Portland, Oregon, and later Tuesday, Judge Marshall Ferguson in Seattle issued a permanent injunction barring the merger in Washington after concluding it would lessen competition in the state.

• Patents

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • IP Kat ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Navigating Re-Establishment of Rights at the EPO: Key Takeaways from T 0178/23

    • South Korea Ranks 4th, Samsung 3rd in Number of European Unitary Patents [Ed: UPC is illegal though; this might be money does the drain]

• Trademarks

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-12-09 [Older] General Court: The difficulty of proving acquiescence in EU trade mark law

• Copyrights

  • Walled Culture ☛ How modern Mountweasels could block generative AI and undermine access to knowledge

    It’s easy to imagine copyright companies adding one or more of these special choking names that are not simply mistakes to Web pages in a suitably invisible form – for example, in a tiny typeface in a very light colour. They might even be placed directly in the text, no matter how irrelevant. There’s a precedent for the latter approach, in the form of fictitious entries, also known as “Mountweasels”, as explained by Wikipedia: [...]

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Piracy Shield Blacks Out Tech News Site by Blocking Another CDN IP

    After a series of completely avoidable incidents that have seen countless innocent sites blocked by Italy’s Piracy Shield blocking system, at this point is it appropriate to keep calling them ‘blunders’?

    Continuing to do so might suggest acceptance that incompetence is always to blame. In reality, recent legal amendments addressed the issue of overblocking by dramatically weakening what little protection innocent sites had against becoming collateral damage.

    In practical terms, rightsholders can now knowingly block innocent sites in many circumstances, with the full support of Italian law.