Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Personal Traffic Light Stops Them In Their Tracks

  Working from home can be pretty cool, but if you’re not the only one in the house trying to do it, the whole situation can feel like you’re right back in the office with all those walking, talking distractions. Except they’re in pajamas instead of business casual.

• Hackaday ☛ Flashy Paper Christmas Tree Does It With A 555

  ‘Tis the season for holiday hacks, and [Ben Emmett] is here to remind us that we don’t necessarily need a fancy microcontroller in order to make flashy fun things happen.

• The Washington Post ☛ Donald Bitzer, a pioneer of cyberspace and plasma screens, dies at 90

  “All of the features you see kids using now, like discussion boards or forums and blogs, started with PLATO,” he said during a 2014 return to Illinois, his alma mater. “All of the social networking we take for granted actually started as an educational tool.”

• Sean Voisen ☛ We need more hybrid tools | Sean Voisen

  We need more hybrid tools. We need more digital spaces where designers and developers can work together while still being able to practice their respective disciplines. If there’s one hope I have for generative AI despite its numerous flaws, it is that it will unlock new opportunities to build these kinds of hybrid tools.

• Westenberg ☛ Why the Internet Era Might Be History's Least-Documented Period

  Last week, I tried to find some photos from my college graduation. Despite being only fifteen years ago, they proved surprisingly elusive - trapped on a defunct Photobucket account, lost to a crashed hard drive, and scattered across social media platforms that no longer exist. This got me thinking about a paradox: we're generating more data than ever before, yet we might be leaving fewer lasting records than any civilization in history.

• Applications

  • Mirantis Adds KubeVirt to Further Streamline Management of Kubernetes Environments

    Mirantis has updated its lightweight instance of Kubernetes to include support for KubeVirt, an open-source tool that makes it possible to encapsulate virtual machines.

• Science

  • The Straits Times ☛ China, US agree to extend science agreement, China says

    China and the United States have agreed to extend the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement for five years, China's Ministry of Science and Technology said on Friday, renewing a decades-old commitment to cooperate in scientific research.

  • US and China renew science sharing deal, but pare it back

    Dating back to 1979, the deal expired in August. Some Republicans had opposed its renewal.

  • Hackaday ☛ The Stern-Gerlach Experiment Misunderstood

    Two guys — Stern and Gerlach — did an experiment in 1922. They wanted to measure magnetism caused by electron orbits. At the time, they didn’t know about particles having angular momentum due to spin. So — as explained by [The Science Asylum] in the video below — they clearly showed quantum spin, they just didn’t know it and Physics didn’t catch on for many years.

  • 404 Media ☛ The Data on Civilization-Ending Superflares

    “Solar flares have been observed for less than two centuries,” said researchers led by Valeriy Vasilyev of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research. The team noted that the strongest impact in this brief record is the Carrington Event, a massive solar storm in the year 1859 that reached a total energy exceeding 1032 erg (an erg is a very small unit in the centimetre-gram-second system for measuring energy; there are 10 million ergs in one joule).

  • [Old] Daniel Holden ☛ Closed-Form 3x3 Matrix Decompositions

    I'd always assumed some kind of iterative method, such as Müller's method for Polar Decomposition or the power iteration method for SVD was required. Having a closed-form solution is nice because it makes it easier to take gradients, which is the original reason for the derivation in this paper. As a bonus this closed form solution is faster (according to their benchmarks) and always returns a rotation component with a positive determinant which means it never flips sides which is also something very important for finite element simulation.

    If you just want the code feel free to skip to the bottom of this article. But I find the derivation is interesting too because it uses quite a few unexpected matrix identities. Here is my understanding of how it works: [...]

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ James Webb Telescope Confirms the Universe Is Expanding Faster Than We Thought—and Scientists Still Don’t Know Why

    Now, a team of researchers has used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to confirm Hubble’s measurements—and thus, the mystery persists. Their study, published Monday in The Astrophysics Journal, suggests the discrepancy may be caused by an as-yet unknown feature in the universe, rather than an error in telescope measurement.

  • C4ISRNET ☛ ULA eyes annual mods to turn rocket stage into space interceptor

    The Centaur V powers the company’s new Vulcan rocket, which is on the verge of being certified to fly national security missions. The upper stage of a rocket is used to propel a payload further into space after the initial booster has separated. The Centaur V was designed to be more than twice as powerful as its predecessor and to remain in orbit for as long as 12 hours.

• Career/Education

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-05 [Older] Kids' snarky comments and distracted behaviour in class getting on your last nerve? 4 things you can do

  • Greece ☛ Reform to triple university admissions

    Greek universities are on the brink of transformation, with the Education Ministry announcing a dramatic increase in the percentage of students admitted via placement exams.

  • Wired ☛ Former ByteDance Intern Accused of Sabotage Among Winners of Prestigious AI Award

    A former ByteDance intern who was allegedly dismissed for professional misconduct, including sabotaging colleagues’ work, was announced as a winner of one of the most prestigious annual awards for AI research this week. Keyu Tian, whose LinkedIn and Google Scholar pages list him as a master’s student in computer science at Peking University, is the first author of one of two papers chosen Tuesday for the main Best Paper Award at the Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) conference, the largest gathering of machine-learning researchers in the world.

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ Upcoming Speaking Events - Schneier on Security

    This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: [...]

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Chris DeLuca

    This is the 68th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Chris DeLuca and his blog, chrisdeluca.me

  • Allen Downey ☛ Reject Math Supremacy

    The premise of Think Stats, and the other books in the Think series, is that programming is a tool for teaching and learning — and many ideas that are commonly presented in math notation can be more clearly presented in code.

    In the draft third edition of Think Stats there is almost no math — not because I made a special effort to avoid it, but because I found that I didn’t need it. For example, here’s how I present the binomial distribution in Chapter 5: [...]

  • ARRL ☛ ARRL 10-Meter Contest, December 14-15, Great Opportunity for Technicians.

    We are at the peak of Solar Cycle 25, and the 10-meter amateur radio band has been providing impressive propagation lately. Recent reports of “wide open” band conditions make this weekend’s ARRL 10-Meter Contest a great opportunity to take advantage of the best conditions of a generation. “I’ve been leaving the mobile radio on 10-meters for the drive into work each day,” said ARRL Regulatory and Radiosport Manager Bart Jahnke, W9JJ. “I’ve been working all around the world with a mobile antenna and no amplifier,” he said.

• Hardware

  • CNX Software ☛ AMD Versal RF Series adaptive SoCs target 6G wireless, aerospace, and electronics test equipment

    AMD Versal RF series adaptive system-on-chips (SoCs) combines Arm Cortex-A72 and Cortex-R5F hard cores with FPGA fabric and direct radio frequency (RF)-sampling data converters for pre-6G systems, wireless 6G testers, aerospace and defense applications like radars, and electronics test equipment such as multi-channel testers, oscilloscopes, and wideband spectrum analyzers.

  • Hackaday ☛ Hack On Self: How’d My Day Go?

    Humans are well overdue for a technological revolution – not a profit-driven one like we’re having now, a human-centric one. Sci-fi is wonderful for having your brain run wild. Over the last century, we’ve had writers try and imagine what world would’ve had looked like if a new technology were to address different aspects of human condition, or, work to undercut us all in yet unseen ways, for a change.

  • Hackaday ☛ Origami-Inspired, Self-locking Structures With 3D Printing

    Researchers recently shared details on creating foldable, self-locking structures by using multi-material 3D printing. These origami-inspired designs can transition between flat and three-dimensional forms, locking into place without needing external support or fasteners.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Intel Panther Lake samples with flagship 18A node have been powered on at eight customers — Co-CEOs dispel rumors regarding poor silicon health

    Panther Lake using Intel's 18A node has powered on at eight customers indicating the node's promising health.

  • Hackaday ☛ Walkie Talkies, Jedi Style: Building A Communicator

    Playing Star Wars Outlaws sparked an idea with [3DSage]: why not recreate the game’s wrist communicator as a functioning gadget? Inspired by the relatively simplistic design, he and his friend Ben set out to build their own device to take to Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland. Armed with an arsenal of tools—3D printers, CNC machines, and soldering irons—he aimed to turn imagination into reality.

  • India Times ☛ India’s power surge

    The rollout of production-linked incentive schemes a few years ago to promote domestic manufacturing of various products, including mobile and information technology hardware, helped India achieve scale in the final assembly of electronics products.

  • The Register UK ☛ Intel execs discuss possibility of spinning off foundry

    Intel's interim co-CEOs, David Zinsner and Michelle Johnson Holthaus, discussed the possibility of fully spinning off its foundry business while speaking at the Barclays investment banking conference on Thursday.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Wired ☛ Good at Reading? Your Brain May Be Structured Differently

    I analyzed open source data from more than 1,000 participants to discover that readers of varying abilities had distinct traits in brain anatomy.

    The structure of two regions in the left hemisphere, which are crucial for language, were different in people who were good at reading.

  • Antipope ☛ I have a cunning plan ...

    Trailing question: how can this business model be rendered more profitable? And what variations do you think the Trump administration will be most amenable to?

  • Pivot to AI ☛ UnitedHealthcare Optum leaves internal AI chatbot open to the world

    Healthcare services company Optum, part of UnitedHealthcare Group, left an LLM-based chatbot — used by employees to ask questions about handling claims — exposed to the internet.

    Mossab Hussein, chief security officer and co-founder of cybersecurity firm spiderSilk, discovered the bot was available online to anyone with a browser — it didn’t even need a password.

  • TechCrunch ☛ UnitedHealth's Optum left an AI chatbot, used by employees to ask questions about claims, exposed to the [Internet]

    While the chatbot did not appear to contain or produce sensitive personal or protected health information, its inadvertent exposure comes at a time when its parent company, health insurance conglomerate UnitedHealth, faces scrutiny for its use of artificial intelligence tools and algorithms to allegedly override doctors’ medical decisions and deny patient claims.

    Mossab Hussein, chief security officer and co-founder of cybersecurity firm spiderSilk, alerted TechCrunch to the publicly exposed internal Optum chatbot, dubbed “SOP Chatbot.” Although the tool was hosted on an internal Optum domain and could not be accessed from its web address, its IP address was public and accessible from the [Internet] and did not require users to enter a password.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Kansas abortions rise 58% in 2023 amid tight restrictions in nearby states

    In 2022, nonresidents received 8,475 abortions. The number of out-of-state patients reached 15,111 in 2023. In terms of Kansas residents, last year’s 4,356 abortions was an increase of 512 from 2022.

    “Access to abortion shouldn’t depend on zip codes, but legal battles in states like Arizona mean that access to care is hanging in the balance,” said Trust Women, which operates a clinic in Wichita.

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ Michigan eggs must be cage-free by 2025 as new sales law takes effect

    The law was sponsored by Republican state Sen. Kevin Daley of Lum and signed into law by Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist five years ago.

  • The Scotsman ☛ 'Alarming' warning as one in 20 Canadian deaths due to assisted dying

    The figures from Health Canada, where around 15,300 people underwent assisted dying last year - accounting for 4.7 per cent of all deaths - have been branded “alarming” by those against the practice, including Christian think tank Cardus, which recently published a report showing the country’s scheme was the fastest growing in the world. Indeed, the country was cited in the run-up to the UK bill vote as being an example of a nation with assisted dying that has a lower level of safeguards than should be considered in the UK.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Further | Deny, Defend, Depose: They Eat Off Your Family Member's Grave | Opinion

    The numbers are telling. A recent Kaiser report found that Americans owe at least $220 billion in medical debt, which for about three million is over $10,000; in a poll asking who they blame for exorbitant health prices, 97% named insurance companies. Last year UnitedHealthcare, the world's eighth largest corporation, had the highest denial rate - 32%, double the industry average - while taking in $371.6 billion, $47.5 billion more than the year before; their net profit was$22 BILLION. CEO Thompson made almost $20 million, or almost $40K a day, mostly in non-taxable bonuses or stock options; unknown to shareholders, he had also allegedly dumped $15 million in stocks and faced a federal investigation. Almost 70,000 Americans needlessly die each year due to denied care; at United, that decision was often made by an AI robot found to make medically unsound decisions in 90% of its cases - which the company, and presumably Thompson, knew.

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Montreal fire department cuts back on gear containing 'forever chemicals'

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Urge Ban on 'Mirror Life' Before It Endangers Global Health

    The mirror image of life as we know it.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong public hospital denies malpractice after baby dies during delivery, as father suspected negligence

    A Hong Kong public hospital has denied malpractice or negligence after a full-term baby died during labour, with the mother ending up in intensive care following haemorrhage and infection due to an emergency caesarean.

  • Meduza ☛ The USSR recorded its first HIV infections three years earlier than most people think. Why didn’t it help stop the spread? Meduza asks Irina Roldugina and Katerina Suverina, authors of the new book ‘Outbreak’ — Meduza

  • Science Alert ☛ 'Holiday Heart' Is a Serious Medical Issue Triggered by Festive Booze

    Every year it hits.

  • Science Alert ☛ Intermittent Fasting Could Have a Downside For Those Wishing to Grow Their Hair

    "It might have some unintended effects".

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Sask. man who abducted daughter to prevent her from getting COVID vaccine gets 1-year sentence, already served

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] This Ontario region may have an answer to helping stem rise of HIV cases in Canada

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] He's made dollhouses for sick kids since the pandemic — even after his own cancer diagnosis

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-05 [Older] B.C. parents sue woman with history of illegal midwifery over botched home birth

  • New York Times ☛ Texas Attorney General Sues New York Doctor for Mailing Abortion Pills

    The lawsuit appeared to be among the first attempts to stop doctors from mailing the medication to states that ban abortions.

  • New York Times ☛ RFK Jr.’s Lawyer Has Asked the FDA to Revoke Polio Vaccine Approval

    Aaron Siri, who specializes in vaccine lawsuits, has been at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s side reviewing candidates for top jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Informa PLC ☛ What’s going on with Microsoft’s telecom biz?

    Microsoft said it will no longer sell network functions in the telecom industry and will instead focus on providing platforms and Hey Hi (AI) services.

  • Cloudbooklet ☛ Texas AG Investigates Character.AI Over Child Safety

    Texas AG Investigates Character.AI over child safety concerns and privacy law compliance.

  • Qt ☛ Commercial [Proprietary] LTS Qt 6.5.8 Released

    We have released Qt 6.5.8 LTS for commercial license holders today. As a patch release, Qt 6.5.8 does not add any new functionality but provides bug fixes and other improvements.

  • New York Times ☛ OpenAI Fires Back at Elon Musk’s Lawsuit

    The artificial intelligence start-up argues that Mr. Musk is trying to hamstring its business as he builds a rival company.

  • RTL ☛ Famed director: Herzog says 'stereotypical' AI inferior to human directors

    Legendary German director Werner Herzog, known for his epic shoots and daring bets, fears nothing on the film set —- especially not artificial intelligence, which he tells AFP is "too stupid" to make good movies.

  • India Times ☛ AI with reasoning power will be less predictable, Ilya Sutskever says

    "But pre-training as we know it will unquestionably end," Sutskever declared before thousands of attendees at the NeurIPS conference in Vancouver. "While compute is growing," he said, "the data is not growing, because we have but one [Internet]."

  • Futurism ☛ Schools Using AI to Send Police to Students' Homes

    Internet safety software employed by educational tech companies took off during the COVID-19 shutdowns, leading to widespread surveillance of students in their own homes.

    Many of these systems are designed to flag keywords or phrases to figure out if a teen is planning to hurt themselves.

    But as the NYT reports, we have no idea if they're at all effective or accurate, since the companies have yet to release any data.

  • The Verge ☛ Now ChromeOS can reset itself without erasing your laptop

    Like Powerwash in ChromeOS, Safety reset will wipe the slate clean if you’re experiencing computer virus-like behavior such as unusual pop-ups. But where Powerwash is a full factory reset, Safety reset preserves local data and apps, as well as things like bookmarks and saved passwords, according to a help document about the feature.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Social media needs (dumpster) fire exits

    Social media has its own special form of lock-in: we use social media sites to connect with friends, family members, community members, audiences, comrades, customers…people we love, depend on, and care for. Gathering people together is a profoundly powerful activity, because once people are in one place, they can do things: plan demonstrations, raise funds, organize outings, start movements. Social media systems that attract people then attract more people – the more people there are on a service, the more reasons there are to join that service, and once you join the service, you become a reason for other people to join.

  • Ben Congdon ☛ Chain of Continuous Thoughts

    Recent advances in LLMs have demonstrated increasingly powerful reasoning capabilities, primarily through eliciting chain-of-thought outputs from models. While these methods have proven effective, they rely on discrete, tokenized representations of reasoning steps. A recent research paper from Meta introduces a novel approach that steps away from this paradigm: reasoning in continuous latent space rather than through explicit language tokens.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ BBC says it has complained to Apple over AI-generated fake news attributed to broadcaster

    The BBC says it has filed a complaint with the US tech giant Apple over AI-generated fake news that was shared on iPhones and attributed to the broadcaster.

    Apple Intelligence, which was launched in Britain this week, produces grouped notifications from several information sites that have been generated by artificial intelligence.

  • India Times ☛ BBC complains to Apple over fake news AI notification

    "We have contacted Apple to raise this concern and fix the problem."

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Trump May Kill Crash Reporting Rule Tesla Hates

    A standing general order from the agency requires all automakers to report certain collisions of vehicles with advanced driver-assistance systems. Tesla’s FSD and Autopilot are classified as Level 2 Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, which means that crashes must be disclosed if these features were in use within 30 seconds of the crash and the accident “involved a vulnerable road user or resulted in a fatality, a vehicle tow-away, an air bag deployment, or any individual being transported to a hospital for medical treatment.” Through Oct. 15 of this year, Tesla has reported more than 1,500 crashes meeting these criteria. In a distant second is Honda, with more than 100 crashes. Tesla also accounts for 40 of the 45 fatal crashes reported to NHTSA under the rule.

  • Reuters ☛ Exclusive: Trump team wants to scrap car-crash reporting rule that Tesla opposes

    Musk, the world's richest person, spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars helping Trump get elected president in November. Removing the crash-disclosure provision would particularly benefit Tesla, which has reported most of the crashes – more than 1,500 – to federal safety regulators under the program. Tesla has been targeted in National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigations, including three stemming from the data. The recommendation to kill the crash-reporting rule came from a transition team tasked with producing a 100-day strategy for automotive policy. The group called the measure a mandate for "excessive" data collection, the document seen by Reuters shows.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • NYPost ☛ Couple allegedly raised $60,000 through donations after faking son’s eye cancer diagnosis: cops

      A couple from Adelaide have been charged after allegedly faking their son’s cancer in order to raise $60,000.

  • Economics/Finance

    • The Straits Times ☛ Holiday cheer on a budget: Filipinos tighten belts for Christmas as costs rise

      Filipinos have been hit by soaring inflation and a slew of storms in 2024.

    • AEI ☛ Trump’s Tweet on the BRICS Is a Threat to the Dollar’s Global Dominance | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

      Let’s start with some background. The US dollar is the world’s preeminent currency. For all the talk about the dollar’s demise, its share in global reserves is nearly 60 percent, much higher than the next highest contender, the euro, at about 20 percent, while the Chinese renminbi is less than three percent. The dollar’s share in international lending and in trade invoicing is similarly elevated, while almost nine out of every 10 foreign exchange transactions involve the dollar. The reasons are not mysterious. The US economy is huge, innovative, and fast-growing. Our financial markets are the deepest, most liquid and open in the world. The rule of law is strong, with investor protections that apply to residents and foreigners alike. And US Treasury securities are considered among the safest in the world.

    • Latvia ☛ Latvian central bank revises down GDP forecast

      The Latvian Central Bank (Bank of Latvia) published its latest macroeconomic forecasts December 13. In 2024, Latvia is expecting weak gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 0.1% and low inflation of 1.3%.

    • France24 ☛ New French PM François Bayrou to grapple with national debt, budget

      New French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said on Friday he faced a “Himalaya” of a challenge to tackle France’s deficit, as opponents gave lukewarm reactions to his appointment. He replaces Michel Barnier, who was ousted by lawmakers last week for trying to pass a cost-cutting 2025 budget.

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-04 [Older] Federal minister Harjit Sajjan defends accepting taxpayer-funded Taylor Swift tickets

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-04 [Older] Air Canada's cheapest tickets on some routes will no longer include carry-on baggage

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-05 [Older] More women with disabilities unhoused due to abuse, violence, data shows

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Canadian woman faced threats and domestic abuse before her death on remote Scottish island, court hears

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-09 [Older] Saskatoon, Regina working on solutions as more encampments pop up in frigid temperatures

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-09 [Older] 'Nobody wants us around': Ontario plans for tougher rules on encampments and drug use stir emotional debate

    • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysian workers’ lawsuit against Dyson revived by British court

      Two dozen migrant workers had alleged they were subjected to forced labour at a Malaysian factory.

• Defence/Aggression

  • RFA ☛ US offers $5 million bounty for information on North Korean IT firms

    About 130 North Korean workers got IT jobs at unsuspecting U.S. firms and nonprofits from 2017 to 2023 and generated at least US$88 million in “ill-gotten gains” that Pyongyang used for its weapons of mass destruction programs, according to the U.S. State Department.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Congress Notifies Apple & Google to Prepare To Remove TikTok

    U.S. lawmakers told the CEOs of Apple and Google on Friday that the companies must be ready to remove TikTok from their app stores on January 19. Last week, a U.S. federal appeals court upheld a law requiring China-based parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok in the United States or face a ban.

  • VOA News ☛ US court rejects TikTok request to temporarily halt pending US ban

    Under the law, TikTok will be banned unless ByteDance divests it by January 19. The law also gives the U.S. government sweeping powers to ban other foreign-owned apps that could raise concerns about collection of Americans' data.

    The U.S. Justice Department argues "continued Chinese control of the TikTok application poses a continuing threat to national security."

  • India Times ☛ Judge says former ByteDance executive lied in suit against company

    Yintao Yu, head of engineering for ByteDance's U.S. operations from August 2017 to November 2018, filed a wrongful-dismissal suit against the company in May 2023. In the filing, Yu claimed that ByteDance's Beijing offices had a special unit of Chinese Communist Party members, sometimes referred to as the Committee, which monitored the company's apps and "guided how the company advanced core communist values." ByteDance is the Chinese company that owns TikTok.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Germany: Drones spotted over US air base in Ramstein

    German authorities said on Friday that unidentified drones had been spotted flying over sensitive military and industrial sites.

    Among the sites was the US air base at Ramstein in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ X: Holocaust remembrance organizations quit platform

    "Misinformation, distortion and abuse have flourished while security and content moderation measures have all but disappeared," the statement reads. "Meanwhile, as a business, X relies on our content to keep its users engaged. More engagement means more advertising revenue. Simply put, X profits from our presence there — it profits from each word we post. We say NOT ONE MORE WORD."

    As of December 12, 17 Holocaust-related organizations and 22 individuals involved in Holocaust research and writing, primarily in the UK and Germany, had joined the initiative. The participants also pledged to support one another's content on other social media platforms.

    The initiative participants are joining newspapers, football clubs, major nonprofits and individuals leaving X for alternative options, with significant numbers deactivating their accounts after the November 6 reelection of Donald Trump.

  • REVEALED: Alleged Chinese spy tied to Prince Andrew is businessman Yang Tengbo

    The well-connected advisor did little to hide his links to the Chinese government.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Alleged Chinese spy, who is confidant of disgraced British royal Prince Andrew, banned from entering UK

    A former UK security minister said Friday that it was “extremely embarrassing” that a suspected Chinese spy had become a confidant of disgraced royal Prince Andrew. The story dominated the UK’s front pages on Friday, the latest humiliation for a prince whose reputation is already in tatters over his ties to accused sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein.

  • New York Times ☛ Prince Andrew’s Links to Chinese Spy Suspect Revealed by U.K. Court

    A London immigration court upheld a ban on a Chinese citizen described as a “close confidant” of the prince’s, on the grounds of national security.

  • Hong Kong verdict against Yuen Long attack victims prompts widespread criticism

    Court says pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting ‘provoked’ beatings from stick-wielding men in white T-shirts.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China’s leader Pooh-tin Jinping praises Hong Kong for Article 23 security law, pledges support for John Lee to boost economy

    Chinese leader Pooh-tin Jinping has praised Hong Kong for enacting additional security legislation earlier this year, and pledged Beijing’s continuous support for the city’s economic development. Pooh-tin on Friday met with Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, who was paying his annual duty visit to Beijing, in the central government’s headquarters in Zhongnanhai.

  • Mint Press News ☛ Congress Revives Cold War Tactics with New Anti-Communism School Curriculum

    Although sponsored by Republicans, the new Crucial Communism Teaching Act bill enjoys widespread support from Democrats. Focused on China, Venezuela, Cuba and other targets of US empire, critics warn it will be used to promote war in public schools. 

  • New York Times ☛ Kash Patel Inflates His Role in Justice Dept.’s Benghazi Attack Investigation

    Donald J. Trump’s pick to be the next F.B.I. director has both exaggerated his importance in the government’s criminal inquiry into the 2012 attack and misleadingly distorted its conduct and results.

  • Defence Web ☛ SANDF rotation 32 leaves for DR Congo

    The command element of 9 SA Infantry (SAI) Battalion, which left for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this week, is the leader group of the thirty second SA National Defence Force (SANDF) deployment to the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission under Operation Mistral.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China says Philippines has ‘provoked trouble’ in South China Sea with US backing

    Manila says Beijing is blockading waters around a shoal that has been established as a fishing ground for everyone.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea’s telecoms carriers brace themselves for traffic surge ahead of impeachment vote

    Three companies temporarily installed additional network stations during last week’s rallies.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Documentary film on South Korea’s First Lady Kim Keon Hee draws sold-out crowds

    The film examines multiple controversies surrounding Ms Kim.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Second martial law impeachment vote looms for South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol

    Two hundred votes are needed for the President's impeachment to pass.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China and Egypt agree on need to promote peace in Middle East

    China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing agreed with Egypt that both nations should promote peace and negotiations to achieve stability in the Middle East, amid several crises in the region including Syria, according to a media pool report.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Outgoing US envoy to China says ties on ‘right road’, don’t veer

    The envoy said US-China ties are mainly about competition. 

  • The Straits Times ☛ China’s Pooh-tin to attend Macau 25th handover anniversary next week: Xinhua

    Mr Pooh-tin will also attend the inauguration of Macau's incoming administration.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China’s Pooh-tin Jinping to attend Macau 25th handover anniversary, Sam Hou-fai inauguration, state media reports

    Chinese President Pooh-tin Jinping will visit Macau next week for a gathering marking 25 years since the former Portuguese colony’s handover to China, state news agency Xinhua said Saturday. Pooh-tin will also attend the inauguration of Macau’s incoming administration and conduct an inspection tour during the December 18-20 visit, according to Xinhua.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong filmmaker duo on city’s ‘political colours’ and winning at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards

    Growing up in Hong Kong, documentary makers Chan Cheuk-sze and Kathy Wong have come to understand colours as political symbols through the city’s pro-democracy movements over the past decade. In 2019, both were reporters covering the months-long protests and unrest.

  • Myanmar border with China in northern rebel zone to reopen, group says

    Both the insurgents and China have closed the border in Kachin state, disrupting exports to China of rare earths.

  • France24 ☛ How will women fare in a new Syria?

    While Syrians celebrate the fall of Bashar al-Assad, concern is expressed over the need to protect women's rights in a country decimated by decades of cruel dictatorship. With Donald Trump heading back to the White House, what will it mean for women across the world particularly those reliant on US aid in the field of reproductive rights. Annette Young talks to journalist, Neha Wadekar, who's been investigating how right-wing American Christian groups are increasing their funding to the anti-abortion movement in Africa. And we meet noted Iranian singer, Sepideh Raissadat, who can perform everywhere except for her home country.

  • France24 ☛ Bashar al-Assad's downfall: What's next for Syria's allies in Asia?

    The dramatic turn of events in Syria could reshape the balance of power in the Middle East and have far-reaching repercussions.  FRANCE 24's Yuka Royer and Luke Shrago discuss what's at stake for Bashar al-Assad's allies in Asia – China, India and North Korea.

  • France24 ☛ Special report: As Syria's prison doors open, a look 'inside Assad’s terror machine'

    Less that a week after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, the world is seeing the first images of Syria’s gruesome prison system. FRANCE 24's James André, Julie Dunglehoeff and Sofia Amara met with some of the victims and their families.

  • New York Times ☛ Europe Begins to Ask if Syrians Can Go Home After al-Assad’s Fall

    Nearly a million Syrians in Germany alone have made new lives. But after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, some politicians across the continent have suggested that refugees could return home.

  • New York Times ☛ With al-Assad Gone, Syrians Search Prisons for Traces of Their Loved Ones

    Guided by cellphone flashlights, relatives searched a notorious lockup in Damascus for traces of loved ones who were snatched during the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

  • France24 ☛ Syria undertakes daunting task of documenting scale of the Assad regime’s crimes

    The fall of Bashar al-Assad has created a historic opportunity to gather direct evidence of the crimes committed by the Syrian regime, which investigators have been unable to do until now. After 50 years of witnessing massive human rights violations, many Syrians are now demanding truth and justice.

  • France24 ☛ Syrian journalists speak about the future of their country

    Syria is free. The fall of Bashar Assad's ruthless regime marks a major turning point in the country’s history. Challenges are ahead: to unite and to rebuild the country. We speak to freelance journalist Zeina Shahla and Al-Jumhuriya Collective Deputy Director Sara Ajlyakin, who emphasise the importance of a free and critical press in the new Syria.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ How a new global defense bank—the ‘Defense, Security, and Resilience Bank’—can solve US and allied funding problems

    A perennial problem for NATO is getting member states to meet their financial commitments, which include the pledge to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense. A bank specifically focused on funding defense projects could offer a way out of the political impasse—and keep NATO technologically up to speed.

  • Defence Web ☛ Leading Minds Unite: Advisory Board Powers Public-Private Partnerships for Defence & Security Conference 2025

    Join us at the Public-Private Partnerships for Defence & Security Conference 2025, hosted by defenceWeb and the South African Aerospace, Maritime & Defence Industries Association (AMD).

  • Defence Web ☛ Collaborative maritime security imperative amid rising challenges – Pakistan Navy CNS

    The Pakistan Navy aims to grow its relationship with the South African Navy, from continued staff talks to regular ship visits, as Pakistan promotes regional stability through maritime cooperation.

  • France24 ☛ Unidentified drones seen over US military base, industrial site in Germany

    Unidentified drones have been sighted flying over the US military's Ramstein Air Base in Germany and facilities belonging to German arms maker Rheinmetall, German magazine Der Speigel reported on Friday, citing security services.

• Environment

  • Low-lying atoll nations show inundation simulations to international court

    Top polluters China and the US have argued against liability for rising temperatures.

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Niger Resists in the Crosshairs of Sanctions and Climate Catastrophe

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] What has been said at the landmark ICJ climate hearings?

  • Renewable Energy World ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] North Carolina town sues Duke Energy for climate ‘deception’

  • Renewable Energy World ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] A ‘new climate era’ – This Week in Cleantech

  • Truthdig ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Should We Use Geoengineering To Alter the Climate?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Closely-Watched International Climate Case in the Hague Wraps up Its First Week of Testimony

  • Creative Commons ☛ 2024-12-05 [Older] From Recommendations to Implementation: Increasing Access to Climate Data for Earth Intelligence

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-05 [Older] Tsunami warning for B.C., Oregon, California cancelled after earthquake off northern California coast

  • India Times ☛ net-zero emissions: The path to net-zero starts with data

    In the United Arab Emirates, a data management system for hundreds of remote sites has helped the Dubai municipality save about $2 million a day by reusing water. At Michelin, a centralised monitoring and energy tracking system across 65 factories helps achieve a 10% reduction in water and energy consumption.

  • Futurism ☛ Mexico Is Getting So Hot That Even Young People Are Dropping Dead

    As detailed in a new study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers found that three-fourths of heat-related deaths in Mexico between 1998 and 2019 were people under the age of 35.

  • New York Times ☛ In Mexico, Heat Waves Are Even Killing Younger Adults

    But a study published on Friday in the journal Science Advances found that certain types of young people — including seemingly hardy working-age adults — may also be particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures.

    The researchers analyzed deaths in Mexico from 1998 to 2019 and discovered that people younger than 35 accounted for three-fourths of heat-related fatalities.

  • Freedom From Religion Foundation ☛ The past is gone, the present is now up to us

    “May you live in interesting times,” cursed the ancient Chinese. And why not? Interesting times sound like the way to go. I mean, who wants to live in boring times, right? Like a lifetime of nothing good on TV. But think about it! Ask the dinosaurs how interesting things got 65 million years ago. The fall of the Roman Empire — that was interesting. How about Europe during the Black Death? Pretty interesting.

    Sure, the Renaissance and Enlightenment were interesting, too. But in a drawing room sort of way. At the time, most people didn’t even know they were happening. Floods, fire, famine, death, disease, destruction. Those things tend to get everyone’s attention. They’re really, really interesting.

    Well, lucky us. Today we live in absolutely fascinating times. An unprecedented set of calamities is unfolding around us like some lotus blossom of the apocalypse. Most of these are of our own making. Yet, adding to the drama, there’s this quirky little feature of human nature that seems to make us do far too little too late to address most of these issues. That’s if we do anything at all.

  • Science Alert ☛ Shipwrecks Lurking in The Ocean Are a Ticking Time Bomb. Here's Why.

    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.

    In parts of the globe, climate change is exacerbating this risk. Rising ocean temperatures, acidification and increasing storminess accelerate the breakdown of these wrecks.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Enbridge Pipeline Spills 70,000 Gallons of Oil in Wisconsin

    The problem was discovered Nov. 11 in Jefferson County, 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) west of Milwaukee, by an Enbridge Energy technician, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, citing a federal accident report.

  • Gannett ☛ Enbridge pipeline in Wisconsin spills nearly 70,000 gallons of oil

    The spill is Enbridge's worst in Wisconsin, surpassing a 2012 incident that spilled 50,000 gallons in Adams County.

    A petroleum pipeline spill was first detected Nov. 11 in the town of Oakland during a routine inspection by an Enbridge technician, according to a recent accident report from the U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China’s Baidu, Geely blame ‘huge changes’ in electric vehicle landscape for sudden staffing cuts

      Chinese tech titan Baidu and car giant Geely on Friday blamed “huge changes” in the EV industry for sudden staffing and operations cuts at their joint electric auto venture this week.

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-07 [Older] After 'Yes' vote on coal, Crowsnest Pass, Alta., council now wants to annex land for proposed mine

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ Storage is booming and batteries are cheaper than ever. Can it stay this way?

      BNEF credits factors including cell manufacturing overcapacity, economies of scale, low metal and component prices, adoption of lower-cost lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries, and a slowdown in electric vehicle sales growth. Granted, Li-ion packs in the U.S. and Europe were 31% and 48% higher than those in China, which the analysis suggests is a reflection of the relative immaturity of the American and European markets, plus their higher production costs and lower comparative volumes.

      Still, energy storage is getting connected to the grid at an ever-increasing clip, and competition in the global battery market is tightening (tariffs will help ensure that). And you can expect both trends to continue through 2025.

    • Jacobin Magazine ☛ [Cryptocurrency] Could Barrel Us Into Another Financial Crisis

      As the cryptocurrency industry scored massive electoral wins in November and skyrocketing crypto prices currently push the global valuation to more than $3 trillion, federal regulators have issued warnings about the nascent industry’s potential to cause widespread disruptions to traditional banking and financial markets.

      The reports, which highlight crypto’s volatility, lack of regulations, and growing ties to traditional markets, echo alerts issued about the subprime mortgage industry before the 2008 financial crisis.

    • CBC ☛ Appearing before MPs, airline CEOs defend carry-on baggage fees

      Porter, Flair and Sunwing — which was bought by WestJet in 2023 — also charge passengers an extra fee for carry-on luggage.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Advance Local Media LLC ☛ Houston Zoo unveils new baby jaguar; baby elephant makes Good Morning America debut

      In other news, Kirby, the Houston Zoo’s one-month-old Asian elephant, made her Good Morning America debut this week.

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-09 [Older] How a British penguin got her waddle back, thanks to the Toronto Zoo

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • India Times ☛ Major cloud providers could get key role in AI chip access outside the US, sources say

    In its latest jab at Beijing, the US will empower companies like Google and Microsoft to act as gatekeepers worldwide for highly sought-after access to AI chips, two people familiar with the draft plan said.

  • New York Times ☛ OpenAI Fires Back at Elon Musk’s Lawsuit

    Earlier this month, Elon Musk asked a federal court to block OpenAI’s efforts to transform itself from a nonprofit into a purely for-profit company.

    On Friday, OpenAI responded with its own legal filing, arguing that Mr. Musk is merely trying to hamstring OpenAI as he builds a rival company, called xAI.

  • New York Times ☛ Elon Musk’s Playbook for DOGE Has a Precedent: X

    Since President-elect Donald J. Trump last month named Elon Musk to help lead a new Department [sic] of Government Efficiency, the tech billionaire has turned to X to trumpet his plans.

  • Seth Godin ☛ Listening to organizational decline | Seth's Blog

    Great companies and teams often get stale and then fade away. Here’s what we hear as it happens: [...]

  • The Register UK ☛ SEC is being unfair to Elon Musk, billionaire's lawyer says

    The missive claims that Musk was asked on Wednesday to commit to a settlement to resolve the 2022 SEC investigation into whether Musk adequately disclosed his stake in Twitter prior to purchasing the website and app, and accuses the SEC of "engag[ing] in an improperly motivated campaign against Mr Musk and the individuals and companies associated with him."

  • Futurism ☛ Elon Musk's "Charity" Is Hoarding Money Instead of Giving It to the Needy

    According to the NYT, Musk's charity has increasingly fallen behind on payments despite possessing some $9 billion in assets today. It was $41 million short in 2021, $234 million in 2022, and is now approaching half a billion this year.

    He's made up for those shortfalls so far by paying late, but only barely. "The distributions made by the foundation are meeting the bare minimum to avoid penalties," Brian Mittendorf, an accounting professor at the Ohio State University, told the NYT. "It is clear that the organization is not in a hurry to spend its money."

  • New York Times ☛ Musk’s Foundation Gave Away Less Money Than Required in 2023

    Private foundations must donate 5 percent of their assets every year. Elon Musk’s enormous charity missed that standard for three consecutive years.

  • New York Times ☛ Tech Industry and CEOs Curry Favor With Trump Ahead of His Inauguration 

    Meta. Amazon. OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Each of these Silicon Valley companies or their leaders promised to support President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inaugural committee with seven-figure checks over the past week, often accompanied by a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to bend the knee.

    The procession of tech leaders who traveled to hobnob with Mr. Trump face-to-face included Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, and Sergey Brin, a Google founder, who together dined with Mr. Trump on Thursday. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, shared a meal with Mr. Trump on Friday. And Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, planned to meet with Mr. Trump in the next few days.

  • The Korea Times ☛ Trump hosts Apple CEO at Mar-a-Lago as big tech leaders continue outreach to president-elect

    Crook is the latest in a string of big tech leaders — including OpenAI's Scam Altman, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon's Jeff Bezos — who have sought to improve their standing with the incoming president after choppy relations with Trump during his first term.

  • New York Times ☛ Scam Altman of OpenAI to Donate $1 Million to Trump Inauguration

    OpenAI said on Friday that its chief executive, Scam Altman, was planning to donate [sic] $1 million to President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inaugural fund, joining a number of tech companies and executives who are working to improve their relationships with Mr. Trump.

  • India Times ☛ OpenAI's Sam Altman to donate $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund

    OpenAI said Friday that its CEO, Scam Altman, was planning to donate [sic] $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump's inaugural fund, joining a number of tech companies and executives who are working to improve their relationships with Trump.

  • NPR ☛ Tech moguls Altman, Bezos and Zuckerberg donate to Trump's inauguration fund

    Taken together, the donations and other celebratory gestures showcase an industry kissing the ring of an incoming president in hopes of something in return, says Margaret O'Mara, a Silicon Valley historian at the University of Washington.

  • Axios ☛ Amazon to donate $1 million to Trump inaugural fund in latest Big Tech gift

    Amazon gave $1 million to President-elect Trump's inaugural fund, the company confirmed Thursday — one day after Facebook and Instagram parent Meta announced a similar donation.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ How Silicon Valley is disrupting democracy

    The internet loves a good neologism, especially if it can capture a purported vibe shift or explain a new trend. In 2013, the columnist Adrian Wooldridge coined a word that eventually did both.

  • Internet Society ☛ Building Our Multistakeholder Digital Future, IGF 2024

    Ahead of the 2024 Internet Governance Forum (IGF), we recognize the importance of the multistakeholder approach to Internet governance and including all relevant voices in the discussion.

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Canada to open consulates, appoint Arctic ambassador under new foreign policy

  • Insight Hungary ☛ Hungarian secret service spies on EU officials

    Hungary's intelligence services are facing accusations of spying on EU officials during visits to the country between 2015 and 2017, investigative news site Direkt36 reports. According to the crossborder investigation, Hungarian agents allegedly searched hotel rooms, tapped phone calls, and monitored the movements of EU officials.

    According to the article, Hungary's Information Office (IH) targeted investigators from the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). Among the officials were those examining allegations linked to a company owned by István Tiborcz, the son-in-law of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • NL Times ☛ Viral misinformation over “natural” birth control is a real problem, says Cabinet member

      State Secretary for Youth and Prevention Vincent Karremans has raised concerns about the spread of misinformation surrounding so-called "natural" contraceptive methods, particularly on social media. He announced plans to explore whether the government’s existing anti-disinformation strategies could be extended to counter misleading content about fertility and contraception.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • RFERL ☛ Husband Of Iranian Rights Lawyer Arrested In Tehran

    The husband of prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been detained by security forces, according to their daughter.

  • Meduza ☛ Georgia passes law banning masks and fireworks at protests — Meduza

  • BIA Net ☛ Court bans book on Kurdish women fighters in Kobani

    Gayle Tzemach Lemmon's book The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice has been banned in Turkey for the second time.

  • Vietnamese officials accused of sexual assault during March visit to New Zealand

    The 2 security officials were at a restaurant a few days before Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s trip.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong 47: 4 more democrats jailed in landmark national security case seek appeals

    A high-profile Hong Kong democrat who was jailed for four years and five months after pleading guilty in Hong Kong’s largest national security case has sought to appeal for a shorter sentence. Three others convicted of conspiring to commit subversion are also seeking to overturn their convictions.

  • NYPost ☛ Jay-Z’s rape accuser admits to inconsistencies in lawsuit, says she ‘made some mistakes’

    The alleged victim had trouble recollecting key details levied against the musician during an interview with NBC News, just days after her lawyer amended a lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs to include Jay-Z – whose real name is Shawn Carter.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ A Woman Is Facing Jail Time for Saying “Delay, Deny, Depose”

    A working-class woman fighting a health insurance claims denial has been arrested after ending a call with Blue Cross Blue Shield with a comment falsely construed as a credible threat.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ Land Registry price rise dubbed ‘tax on proper journalism’

    Small newsrooms face hundreds of pounds of extra costs for a single investigation under new registry prices.

  • Press Gazette ☛ ‘A brilliant journalist and brilliant human being’: David Knowles remembered with Public Service Award

    Francis Dearnley remembers friend and colleague as he collects award on his behalf.

    [...]

    Knowles was posthumously awarded the Public Service Journalism prize after his sudden death aged 32 in September.

  • France24 ☛ 'My identity was stolen by Iranian hackers', FRANCE 24 journalist says

    Iran may look increasingly isolated on the international stage, but cybersecurity companies say its extensive network of hackers is working hard to pursue the government’s strategic interests. One person who’s being used as a pawn in a massive cyber campaign is FRANCE 24's technology editor Peter O’Brien.

  • RFERL ☛ Iranian-American Journalist Reza Valizadeh Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison In Iran

    Sources close to the journalist claim he fell into a "security trap" despite receiving unofficial assurances from Iranian security officials that he would not face legal troubles upon returning to Iran.

  • VOA News ☛ Blinken calls on Azerbaijan to release Meydan TV journalists 

    The arrests in Azerbaijan of several journalists, including staff at the independent Meydan TV, have been condemned by the international community, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

    Azerbaijani authorities have detained Meydan TV's editor-in-chief, Aynur Elgunash, and four of her reporters. Also being held are freelancer Ramin Jabrailzada, who is known as Deko, and Ulvi Tahirov, deputy director of the Baku School of Journalism.

  • VOA News ☛ Iran sentences Iranian-American journalist to 10 years in prison

    Reza Valizadeh is a former journalist for the U.S.-government-funded Voice of America's Farsi language service and has worked for Radio Farda, an outlet under Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that is overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

  • CPJ ☛ Niger suspends BBC, announces a complaint against RFI

    The suspension followed Nigerien authorities’ refutation of BBC’s coverage of jihadist attacks on Tuesday, December 10, which reportedly killed dozens of soldiers and civilians. BBC said that Niger’s military government, which took power in a July 2023 coup, called accounts of the attacks “baseless assertions” and a “campaign of intoxication orchestrated by adversaries of the Nigerien people aimed at undermining the morale of our troops and sowing division.”

  • CPJ ☛ 11th Pakistani journalist killed in 2024 amid growing wave of violence

    “Pakistani authorities must bring the perpetrators of journalist Malik Zafar Iqbal Naich’s killing to justice and implement urgent measures to curb the violence claiming the lives of journalists across the country,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “The press in Pakistan is under attack. Without a cohesive strategy and strong political will from both security and political leadership, there is little hope for the protection of journalists and press freedom in the country.”

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ 54 journalists killed in 2024, a third by Israel: media group

    In a separate report published Tuesday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) reported that 104 journalists were killed worldwide in 2024, with more than half of them in Gaza.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • The Scotsman ☛ Why this brave woman, not Donald Trump, should have been Time’s Person of the Year

    Gisele Pelicot’s influence on women’s rights could prove to be as important as that of Simone De Beauvoir, Germaine Greer, and JK Rowling

  • Markup from Hell ☛ Page by Page: How Pagination Makes the Web Accessible

    Imagine you’re reading a book that seems perfect for cozy winter evenings. But as soon as you turn the page, you suddenly find yourself somewhere else, rather than on the next page of the story. Now, you have to painstakingly search through the book to find where the story continues — as if someone had bound the pages in the wrong order. Would you keep reading? Or recommend the book to others?

    For about 16% of the world’s population (roughly the population of China), the web often feels like a maze. People who rely on assistive technologies experience the web like a poorly bound book, one they must tediously navigate page by page rather than simply moving to the next relevant section.

  • El País ☛ 40 years of cyberpunk: A dystopian future that seems all too real today

    This is the essence of “high tech, low life” — the combination of cutting-edge technology and an increasingly miserable standard of living, because it’s a mistake to confuse innovation with progress. It all feels eerily familiar. “There is no time left to be nostalgic. The turbo-accelerated flow has long since eaten our fried brains on a platter; the first and last lesson of cyberpunk is that it is always too late to go back,” says Federico Fernández Giordano, editorial director of Holobionte Ediciones.

  • Freedom From Religion Foundation ☛ FFRF defends the Bill of Rights because it defends you — Freedom From Religion Foundation

    The very First Amendment in the Bill of Rights reads:

    “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

    As Anne observed countless times, “There can be no religious freedom without the freedom to dissent. There is no true freedom of religion, without freedom from religion.”

  • ANF News ☛ Torture increases in jails in Kurdistan

    As part of the Human Rights Week, Amed Bar Association, Amed Association for Assistance to Prisoners' Families (TUAY-DER), Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD) and Human Rights Association (IHD) Amed branches presented a report on rights violations in prisons in Kurdistan.

  • AccessNow ☛ Joint statement: civil society concerns and priorities for Global Digital Compact implementation

  • NYPost ☛ Luigi Mangione’s mother spoke with the FBI the night before accused UnitedHealthcare CEO killer was arrested: sources

    Police tipped off the feds after they recognized the 26-year-old’s face in surveillance images put out by the NYPD after Thompson, 50, was gunned down last week – but his mother wasn’t quite sure that was actually her son in the images.

  • EXCLUSIVE: Filipina surrogate charged with human trafficking gives birth

    The first ever foreign surrogates to be arrested in Cambodia are under surveillance in the hospital.

  • Breach Media ☛ ‘Out of control’: Mississauga mayor criticizes local police budget

    Mayor Carolyn Parrish explains why she resigned from her city’s police board

  • ACLU ☛ Trump’s Remarks on Birthright Citizenship, Explained

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-08 [Older] Why work-life balance still isn't working for women, especially moms

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-07 [Older] My Japanese grandpa questions my decision to return to B.C. — the place where he lost so much

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-07 [Older] Ottawa mother 'walked through fire' to save son from burning house, family member says

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Under Austerity, Assisted Suicide Isn’t Freedom

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Purolator, UPS pause shipments from couriers amid backlog from Canada Post strike

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] With Canada Post on strike, these mail-strike hustlers are picking up deliveries

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Alberta seeking to recruit foreign workers from United Arab Emirates, emails say

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Alberta government says fall sitting laser focused on expanding rights and freedoms

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] Quebec premier says he wants to stop people from praying in public

  • Pro Publica ☛ LA to Crack Down on Illegal Vacation Rentals Ahead of Olympics

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ EC Response to 2024 APNIC Survey published

    The APNIC EC has published its response to the 2024 APNIC Survey.

  • Techdirt ☛ AT&T Refuses To Upgrade Millions Of DSL Customers To Fiber Despite Untold Billions In Taxpayer Subsidies And Government Favors

    Four years years ago AT&T, a company that, for years, cheapened out on upgrading its broadband lines to fiber, effectively stopped selling DSL. While that’s understandable given the limitations of the dated copper-based tech, the problem is that thanks to concentrated telecom monopolization, many of these customers were left without any replacement options due to a lack of competition.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• CBC ☛ 2024-12-06 [Older] You could soon get up to $45 from Ticketmaster as hidden fees settlement reaches final stages

• India Times ☛ Google to appeal Turkish competition authority decision

  Google intends to appeal Turkey's competition authority decision to fine the Alphabet subsidiary 2.61 billion lira ($75 million), the company said on Friday.

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Invisible Hand of Patent Licensing: EcoFactor and the Market Realities of Partially Performative Pricing and Lump Sum Licenses

    In a terse order issued December 4, 2024, the Federal Circuit significantly narrowed the scope of the pending en banc review in EcoFactor, Inc. v. Surveillance Giant Google LLC, rebuking Surveillance Giant Google for its opening brief that strayed well beyond the court’s limited grant of en banc review. The order specifically targets pages 41-58 of Google’s 61-page brief—the entire section addressing apportionment of patent monopoly damages—and instructs EcoFactor not to address those arguments in its response. Going forward, the case now focuses on an expert’s use of prior license agreements as evidence of reasonable royalty damages, particularly when those agreements involve a different payment calculation approach (lump-sum vs royalties) and “performative” clauses crafted with an eye toward future litigation.

• Trademarks

  • Techdirt ☛ IP Slapstick: How Everyone From Funko To A Registrar Fucked Up And Briefly Took Down Itch.io

    This story starts, as all good stories do, with a pop-culture collectables company utilizing an AI-driven brand-protection partner that managed to send a takedown report to a registrar accusing the site of the wrong infraction. Funko, the makers of those cutesy figurines from all corners of nerd culture, partnered with BrandShield. BrandShield’s AI-powered web-crawler took note of a fan page on Itch.io for Funko Fusion, a very real game from Funko. The page even linked back to the game’s official website and included some screenshots of the game.

• Copyrights

  • France24 ☛ Bracing for impact: Hey Hi (AI) to transform music industry [Ed: That usually means nothing other than clever plagiarism attacking the originals]

    Artificial intelligence could transform the future of sound.

  • RTL ☛ Found in storage unit: Retired cop finds trove of unreleased Jackson songs: report

    The unit had once belonged to music producer Bryan Loren -- who also worked with artists including Whitney Houston and Sting -- but whose whereabouts are currently unknown.

    Inside were cassette tapes and digital-audio tapes (DAT) of 12 unreleased tracks Jackson had worked on before releasing his Grammy-nominated "Dangerous" album in 1991.

  • India Times ☛ AI web spiders: Companies alert as along come AI web spiders

    Enterprises are increasingly resorting to blocking artificial intelligence (AI) web crawlers and spiders which are scraping the web bit-by-bit and hampering the performance of websites, according to industry executives and experts.

    AI crawlers are computer programs that gather data from websites to train large language models. With increased use of AI search and need for collecting training data, the [Internet] is seeing many new web scrapers such as Bytespider, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot and GPTBot.

  • The Korea Times ☛ Web comic distributors sue illegal sharing sites

    Korea’s major web comic distributors are engaged in a legal battle against unauthorized platforms, filing a petition with the court against website operators who have been sharing web comic and novel content without the original distributors’ consent.

    Seven companies that formed an antipiracy association against operators of Agitoon and Agitoon Novel submitted a petition on Tuesday to the Daejeon Provincial Court. The court held a trial on Thursday regarding the allegations against the Agitoon websites.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Skip Spotify? — Artists Are Getting Creative With Album Releases

    Artists are getting creative with their album release strategies, sometimes foregoing streaming services altogether.

    For approximately 99% of artists, streaming doesn’t pay. Unless you’re Taylor Swift or The Weeknd, chances are that you’re not making beaucoup bucks on Spotify streams.

  • Digital Music News ☛ OpenAI Whistleblower Found Dead In Apartment at Age 26

    San Francisco police were called to Lower Haight resident around 1 PM on November 26, after receiving a call asking officers to do a welfare check, according to a police spokesperson. The medical examiner’s office determined the manner of death to be suicide, and police officials told the press there is “currently no evidence of foul play.” Information Balaji held was expected to play a major role in lawsuits against the company, which is also based in San Francisco. His death comes just three months after he publicly accused OpenAI of violating U.S. copyright law while developing its generative artificial intelligence (genAI) program ChatGPT, which has become a tech sensation worldwide.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Suchir Balaji, OpenAI whistleblower, found dead at his home in San Francisco

    Balaji resigned in August after nearly four years at the San Francisco-based startup. In an interview with The New York Times in October, he stated he left because “I no longer wanted to contribute to technologies that I believe would bring society more harm than benefit.”

  • India Times ☛ Elon Musk reacts to OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji's death with cryptic post on X

    Balaji had been vocal about the AI industry's practices, particularly the use of copyrighted content to train generative AI models. His whistleblowing gained traction amid a wave of lawsuits by writers, programmers, and journalists alleging that OpenAI illegally used their content to develop ChatGPT. The popular chatbot, now used by hundreds of millions globally, has faced growing criticism for its reliance on such data.

  • BBC ☛ Suchir Balaji: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in apartment

    In October, the New York Times published an interview with Mr Balaji in which he alleged that OpenAI had violated US copyright law while developing its popular ChatGPT online chatbot.

    The article said that after working at the company for four years as a researcher, Mr Balaji had come to the conclusion that "OpenAI's use of copyrighted data to build ChatGPT violated the law and that technologies like ChatGPT were damaging the [Internet]".

  • Mercury News ☛ OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji found dead in San Francisco apartment

    Information he held was expected to play a key part in lawsuits against the San Francisco-based company.

    Balaji’s death comes three months after he publicly accused OpenAI of violating U.S. copyright law while developing ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence program that has become a moneymaking sensation used by hundreds of millions of people across the world.

  • India Times ☛ What we know about the Suchir Balaji case so far

    Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old former researcher at OpenAI, has been making headlines following his tragic death in late November 2024. Known for his pivotal role in training ChatGPT, one of the most advanced generative AI tools, Balaji became a whistleblower, raising serious concerns about the ethical and legal implications of AI training methods.

    His outspoken criticism of OpenAI’s alleged copyright breaches and his role in ongoing legal battles against the company have thrust his passing into the spotlight, prompting questions about the pressure and challenges faced by those who dare to speak out against powerful tech entities.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Canada's First Pirate Site Blocking Order Quietly Expires

    The first pirate site blocking order in Canada was 'discontinued' this week. The plaintiffs, including rightsholders Bell and Rogers, won't request an extension of the landmark blocking measures against IPTV service GoldTV. Interestingly, many of the targeted domains are still online. No reason was provided for the discontinuation, but costs and changed priorities likely play a role.

  • [Repeat] Creative Commons ☛ CC Learning and Training: 2024 Year in Review

    Creative Commons training efforts strengthen our mission to “empower individuals and communities around the world through technical, legal, and policy solutions that enable the sharing of education, culture, and science in the public interest.” In 2024, our Learning & Training team focused on: 1) piloting new partnerships, 2) expanding training options, and 3) reaching new communities. We are pleased that our 2024 training and engagement efforts supported national governments, universities, secondary education institutions, NGOs, librarians, cultural heritage professionals, and web developers spanning almost every continent. See below for highlights, and contact us if you would like to collaborate in 2025.

  • [Repeat] Creative Commons ☛ CC Open Culture: 2024 Year in Review

    With new publications, events, and the launch of a new coalition, the CC Open Culture Program accomplished a lot! Here are some highlights: [...]

  • Hindustan Times ☛ ‘Billions at stake’ OpenAI, Microsoft face copyright lawsuit from New York Times

    The lawsuit claims that OpenAI and Microsoft used millions of articles from The New York Times to train their automated chatbots, turning them into competitors for delivering reliable information. The suit demands accountability for "billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages" and urges the destruction of any AI models using copyrighted NYT material.