Leftovers

• Ness Labs ☛ What Type of Experimentalist Are You?

  How do you respond to uncertainty? Do you jump straight into action, carefully analyze the situation first, or perhaps spend time imagining all the potential outcomes?

• At This Link ☛ Blog Question Challenge 2025

  That post really solidified to me that there might be something to this blogging rather than it just being a way to shout into the void.

• Lucas da Silva ☛ About 30h or so sleeping until arriving in Japan

  Sleeping while traveling has been my favorite pastime lately, when I travel, that is, almost never.

• Idiomdrottning ☛ Designing the perfect lock screen and notifications system

  No scheduling, no easy toggling, no time outs (like “don’t disturb for the next N minutes”), no allowlist for specific numbers to punch through, no “if they call twice let them through”.

• Standards/Consortia

  • Wired ☛ The National Institute of Standards and Technology Braces for Mass Firings

    Approximately 500 NIST staffers, including at least three lab directors, are expected to lose their jobs at the standards agency as part of the ongoing DOGE purge, sources tell WIRED.

  • The Korea Times ☛ Korea to invest $29.5 million in developing international standards for advanced technologies

    The Korea Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS), a standards agency under the ministry, will spend most of the budget on developing technology standards in 12 advanced industries that include semiconductors, future mobility, robotics, quantum energy and nuclear power.

• Science

  • Futurism ☛ Elon Musk Just Caused a Huge Headache for the New Head of NASA

    In a tweet today, the mercurial entrepreneur asserted that it's "time to begin preparations for deorbiting the space station," arguing that "it has served its purpose," with "very little incremental utility."

    Instead, Musk argued, the station should be destroyed within two years — but left the final decision "up to the President."

  • Omicron Limited ☛ 60 years ago: Ranger 8 moon photos aid in Apollo site selection

    Before Apollo astronauts set foot upon the moon, much remained unknown about the lunar surface. While most scientists believed the moon had a solid surface that would support astronauts and their landing craft, a few believed a deep layer of dust covered it that would swallow any visitors. Until 1964, no closeup photographs of the lunar surface existed, only those obtained by Earth-based telescopes.

  • The Register UK ☛ NSF decimation puts future US science leadership in doubt

    The NSF confirmed the cuts to us in an email, saying that it had dismissed 86 employees classified as probationary, and 84 part-time expert appointees. The agency says it has "approximately 1,500 federal employees and 200 scientists from research institutions in temporary positions."

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Plasma arc cutting: Scientists decode gas flow dynamics

    Plasma arc cutting (PAC) is a thermal cutting technique widely used in manufacturing applications such as shipbuilding, aerospace, fabrication, nuclear plants decommissioning, construction industry, and the automotive industry. In this process, a jet of plasma or ionized gas is ejected at high speeds, which melts and subsequently removes unwanted parts of materials from electrically conductive workpieces such as metals.

  • The Register UK ☛ NASA and the on-again, off-again job cuts

    On Tuesday February 18, NASA staffers on probationary status who were warned by managers they might be gone by the end of the day, leaked their concerns to the press. Upwards of 1,000 employees at the space agency were facing the axe.

• Career/Education

  • Jeff Triplett ☛ Office Hours at a Glance

    I have been hosting a weekly(ish) office for a few years now. Most Fridays start around 2:30 PM Central because that works well for me. These started as an excuse for me to work on open source and side projects and became a banter for many remote people.

    I also plan to host a monthly morning edition so friends in other time zones can join.

  • Brandon ☛ Too Many Hobbies, and Not Enough Time

    He’s not wrong, but his initial question about how we make time is one that haunts me often.

  • Giovanni Collazo ☛ Demo Days: A Simpler Approach to Engineering Leadership

    While most demos focused on current work projects, the format was open to anything that might interest the team - a cool new technology, a competitor's product, a side project, or a game someone built over the weekend.

    This freedom to share whatever they found exciting kept the sessions fun, engaging and low pressure. Despite how good it worked and felt, demo days gradually faded from our routine as we defaulted back to standard "agile" ceremonies.

  • Tim Kellogg ☛ Target Practice: Resumes, But Better

    So you have to spoon feed the hiring manager. Sounds easy.

    Except it’s not. One single resume won’t work, because it’s basically impossible to satisfy all potential job postings and also have it be succinct enough to properly spoon feed.

• Hardware

  • Quanta Magazine ☛ Catalytic Computing Taps the Full Power of a Full Hard Drive

    Wrong. In 2014, Loff and four other researchers discovered that adding full storage space can in principle make computers more powerful. Their theoretical framework, called catalytic computing, has become an object of study in its own right. And recently, it also helped researchers prove a startling result in a related area of computer science: The standard approach to resolving a major open question about the role of memory in computation is most likely a dead end.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Topological quantum processor uses Majorana zero modes for fault-tolerant computing

    "We have created a new state of matter called a topological superconductor," Nayak explained. This phase of matter hosts exotic boundaries called Majorana zero modes (MZM) that are useful for quantum computing, he explained. Results of rigorous simulation and testing of their heterostructure devices are consistent with the observation of such states. "It shows that we can do it, do it fast and do it accurately," he said.

    The researchers also followed up their Nature result with a paper currently in preprint on arXiv, outlining a roadmap for scaling up their technology into a fully functional topological quantum computer.

  • David Mead ☛ Setting up CEC on Sceptre 4K TV

    For a few years I've had my eye on getting a "dumb" TV from Sceptre.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • NYPost ☛ 11-year-old Texas girl dies by suicide after being bullied over family’s immigration status: report

    Little Jocelyn was remembered as a sweet and joyful girl who played the French horn, was an avid swimmer, and loved getting manicures with her beloved grandmother.

  • US News And World Report ☛ USDA Says It Will Release $20 Million of Frozen Farmer Funds

    The sum represents a tiny sliver of program funding the USDA suspended after the White House's broad freeze of federal loans and grants last month. Although the administration rescinded the memo ordering the freeze and it has been blocked in court, a U.S. judge has said the government was still withholding funds.

  • [Old] Jason Heppler ☛ Becoming News-Resilient

    While there remains a lot of uncertainty and questions in the wake of the 2024 elections, one thing that seems clear to me is about myself: I’m more terminally online than I realized, and I don’t love that. As I’ve written before, the urge for up-to-the-moment news doesn’t actually make me a more informed person but only works to drive emotions that aren’t particularly healthy. Plus, I feel as though I really misjudged this election. I’m a historian, not someone who predicts the future; but I really feel as though social media skewed the way I was thinking about things.

  • Annie Mueller ☛ If you don’t, somebody else will: - annie's blog

    Run your life

    It’s true. If you don’t, somebody else will.

  • Vox ☛ Red states are testing their power to restrict abortion nationwide

    Last week, a Texas judge ordered Dr. Margaret Carpenter — a New York abortion doctor — to pay at least $100,000 in penalties for failing to appear in court. Carpenter has found herself at the center of two major abortion lawsuits: In December, she became the target of the first-ever civil suit against an out-of-state abortion provider, and officials in Louisiana are now also seeking her extradition, with newly appointed US Attorney General Pam Bondi signaling that she’d “love” to get involved.

  • Wired ☛ USDA Layoffs Derail Projects Benefiting American Farmers

    One laid-off employee described the weeks preceding the firing as “chaos,” as the USDA paused (in response to orders from the Trump administration) and then unpaused (in response to a court order) work connected to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—the landmark 2022 law passed under President Joe Biden that set aside large amounts of federal money for climate policies. “It was just pause, unpause, pause, unpause. After four or five business days of that, I’m thinking, I literally can’t get anything done,” says the former employee, who worked on IRA-linked projects and asked to remain anonymous to protect them from retribution.

  • Jeroen Sangers ☛ Although time pressure makes us work faster, it does not automatically mean we work better

    Under pressure, we can indeed accomplish more work in less time, but this often comes at the expense of accuracy and depth. Researchers like Don Moore and Elizabeth Tenney have shown that while deadlines can help us complete tasks that might otherwise be left unfinished, the quality of the work often suffers due to the rush. This is because, under pressure, we tend to make quicker decisions and spend less time checking our work, increasing the likelihood of errors.

• Proprietary

  • India Times ☛ TikTok layoffs: Job cuts to affect employees in this unit

  • Microsoft backtracks controversial account sign-in change

    Less than a month ago, Abusive Monopolist Microsoft announced that it would keep users logged in to their Abusive Monopolist Microsoft account from February 2025.

  • New York Times ☛ Apple Unveils Lower-Priced iPhone 16e With Hey Hi (AI) Features

    The iPhone 16e is the first update to the company’s most affordable model since 2022, but carries a higher price tag of $599.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Salt Typhoon gained initial access to telecoms through Cisco devices

    Cisco Talos said it hasn’t identified any evidence to confirm Salt Typhoon’s exploitation of other known Cisco vulnerabilities. The company declined to answer questions.

  • The Verge ☛ Fitbit’s got a battery problem

    Technically, fixing this kind of problem is a good thing. You don’t want batteries to overheat and burn a customer — and the official notice also notes that this issue doesn’t impact all Versa 3 or Sense devices. However, affected users have reported on Fitbit’s forums and subreddit that the update dramatically reduced their devices’ battery life.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • The Register UK ☛ GitLab thrice sued for 'misleading' investors with AI hype

      The initial complaint [PDF], a federal securities investor lawsuit, was filed on September 9, 2024, and subsequently amended [PDF] with more detail on February 5, 2025.

      Soon after, two derivative lawsuits were filed: one [PDF] on February 14, 2025, and the other [PDF] on February 19, 2025. In a derivative suit, shareholders sue executives or board members on behalf of the company itself, usually over alleged mismanagement or breaches of fiduciary duty.

    • Vox ☛ The rapid development of AI has benefits — and poses serious risks

      But there’s another way the field of artificial intelligence has been transformed in the past 10 years: Concerns about the societal effects of artificial intelligence are now being taken much more seriously.

    • 404 Media ☛ Public Library Ebook Service to Cull AI Slop After 404 Media Investigation

      Hoopla, a service that provides public libraries around the country with ebooks, announced that it will do more to prevent the spread of low quality AI-generated books after a 404 Media investigation showed that they were common on its platform.

    • Louie Mantia ☛ Humane

      Even prior to posting this, in response to any skepticism I had about Humane, people told me—publicly and privately—to “wait and see.” Some of these people knew Imran Chaudhri, Humane’s founder. Others had no idea who he was. Either way, a lot of people were giving him and Humane the benefit of the doubt from the start. I think we have to stop doing that in this industry.

      Next time, let’s not “wait and see.” Instead, let’s spot the red flags more easily and have them be addressed.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Businesses still don’t know what an ‘AI agent’ is and they don’t really want one

      But that doesn’t describe the things sold as agents. In practice, they’re any old AI rubbish that promises it might do something in the future. Because it certainly doesn’t do it in the present.

    • India Times ☛ DeepSeek's outside funding draws interest from Alibaba, Chinese state funds

      The Chinese company stunned the tech industry in January with low-cost AI models that can match or even outperform Western rivals at a fraction of the cost, stirring doubts about the lead US has in the race to dominate the technology.

    • Futurism ☛ Researchers Find Elon Musk's New Grok AI Is Extremely Vulnerable to Hacking

      The team found that the model is extremely vulnerable to "simple jailbreaks," which could be used by bad actors to "reveal how to seduce kids, dispose of bodies, extract DMT, and, of course, build a bomb," according to Adversa CEO and cofounder Alex Polyakov.

      And it only gets worse from there.

    • CBC ☛ Does ELIZA, the first chatbot created 60 years ago, hold lessons for modern AI?

      ELIZA was a simple program created in the 1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was interested in human-computer interfaces.

      He designed ELIZA to be a generalized conversation program to make a natural language conversation with a computer possible. The program could run scripts with different language rules to represent individual conversational personas.

  • Social Control Media

    • Futurism ☛ Elon Searching for Investors Gullible Enough to Pour More Money Into Twitter

      Flash forward to the present day, and X-formerly-Twitter has lost upward of 79 percent of its original value after neo-Nazis flocked to the platform and big-name advertisers fled in droves.

      Now, in a somewhat rare move for the richest man on Earth, Musk has taken to beg investors for more funds at a valuation of at least $44 billion, according to reporting by Bloomberg. That's the same price Musk acquired it for nearly two years ago — a pretty bold move, to say the least.

    • LabX Media Group ☛ A State of Flux Leaves Teen Brains Sensitive to Experiences

      Session moderator Beatriz Luna, a developmental neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh, opened with a stark warning: “Right now, there is a crisis in adolescent mental health.”

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • WhichUK ☛ How scammers use fake sales posts on Facebook

      Which? finds scammers posting the same item for sale across multiple Facebook (Farcebook) community groups

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • EDRI ☛ GDPR Procedural Regulation: A critical opportunity to strengthen cross-border enforcement

      As EU negotiators continue trilogue discussions on the GDPR Procedural Regulation, civil society organisations across Europe are raising the alarm: the proposed reforms risk failing to address the long-standing enforcement challenges that have undermined the GDPR’s effectiveness. In a joint letter, EDRi, Access Now and 34 fellow organisations call on policymakers to prioritise robust, rights-centred enforcement mechanisms that ensure individuals can meaningfully exercise their rights.

    • EDRI ☛ 12 civil society organisations tell delivery platforms it’s time to deliver answers on how they use algorithms to manage their workers

      EDRi member Privacy International and more digital rights groups, together with trade unions, call out food delivery platforms for their algorithmic management of workers.

    • EDRI ☛ The ePrivacy Regulation proposal has been withdrawn, but the fight for your privacy is far from over

      The European Commission's withdrawal of the ePrivacy Regulation proposal is a major setback for privacy rights in Europe, driven by pressure from industry interests and national security concerns. However, EDRi remains committed to advocating for stronger privacy protections, challenging commercial and state surveillance in future legislative efforts.

    • EDRI ☛ The EDPB’s Rorschach Test: What the data protection body’s Opinion on Hey Hi (AI) training Means for GDPR Enforcement

      In December 2024, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) released a much-awaited Opinion on Hey Hi (AI) model training. While the Opinion reaffirmed GDPR principles and underscored the need for robust safeguards, its ambiguities may leave room for regulatory evasion, reinforcing the ongoing struggle between data protection rules and commercial Hey Hi (AI) development wishes.

    • EDRI ☛ EDRi-gram, 19 February 2025

      What has the EDRis network been up to over the past two weeks? Find out the latest digital rights news in our bi-weekly newsletter. In this edition: Commission withdraws ePrivacy proposal, new database to track investigations into Big Tech, & more!

    • Unicorn Media ☛ How to Tell a Really Smart Home From a Not-So-Smart Home That Only Thinks It’s Smart

      To get Nixon, "Deep Throat" advised Woodward and Bernstein to "follow the money." To "get" this article, written by the latest addition to the FOSS Force team, we suggest that you follow the links. You'll be glad you did.

    • EPIC ☛ EPIC Testifies in Support of Vermont Age Appropriate Design Code

      EPIC Counsel Suzanne Bernstein testified before the Vermont Senate Committee on Institutions on February 18 in support of S. 69, the Vermont Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC). In her testimony, Suzanne illustrated how the Vermont AADC would protect kids’ privacy, enhance kids’ autonomy, and ensure their online safety by prohibiting abusive data and design practices. It does not ban minors from social media, nor does it not block minors from accessing any type of content.

      The Vermont AADC provides covered minors with autonomy and choice over their online activity by requiring covered businesses to configure all default privacy settings to the highest level of privacy for covered minors, including settings to limit unwanted adult contact and push notifications. The bill would also require transparency around automated recommendation features and service features that use personal data of covered minors.

    • BBC ☛ Fingerprinting: Critics say Google rules put profits over privacy

      But opponents to the change say fingerprinting and IP address collection are a blow to privacy because it is harder for users to control what data is collected about them.

      "By allowing fingerprinting, Google has given itself - and the advertising industry it dominates - permission to use a form of tracking that people can't do much to stop," said Martin Thomson, distinguished engineer at Mozilla, a rival to Google.

    • Forbes ☛ Clearview AI’s CEO Resigns As Facial Recognition Company Focuses On Trump 'Opportunities'

      Ton-That has long been the public face of Clearview and its facial recognition tool. Built on a database of billions of photos scraped from Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other websites, the tool could be used to reveal just about anyone's true identity from a surveillance image in a matter of seconds. The tool was widely tested — often without oversight or public disclosure — by the Department of Justice, retailers like Best Buy and Macy’s, and law enforcement and government-affiliated agencies in dozens of countries, raising concerns that facial recognition could be deployed at a mass scale.

    • The Register UK ☛ Dutch medical data breach uncovered at airport flea market

      And where exactly was this cybercriminal goldmine? At a flea market next to Weelde airbase, obviously.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Federal judge denies request to block DOGE [sic], Musk from seven agencies’ data systems

      Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the states did not show that they would “suffer imminent, irreparable harm absent a temporary restraining order.” The state AGs had argued that Musk’s actions in deploying DOGE [sic] surrogates to root around in federal computer systems violated the Constitution’s appointments clause due to the fact that he has not been nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

    • The Record ☛ DOGE [sic] access to Social Security, IRS data could create privacy and security risks, experts say

      The Department [sic] of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may already have access to sensitive tax and medical data stored at the IRS and Social Security Administration (SSA), which jointly retain disability diagnoses, child adoption information, exceptionally detailed financial data and individuals’ immigration status, experts say.

      The data could easily be leaked in a breach, experts and civil liberties advocates say, and public perceptions that tax return information is no longer private could lead to fewer people filing taxes. There is also a possibility that the data will be weaponized against perceived political enemies, advocates say, pointing to public comments from the Trump administration.

    • The Record ☛ New Google ad tracking policy a ‘Pandora’s box’ for privacy, experts warn

      Digital fingerprints allow advertisers and data brokers to collect consumer data based on internet users’ activities across web browsers, online sessions and often multiple devices. Google’s new policy enabling them will make it difficult for people online, including those using VPNs, Tor and privacy browsers, to stay anonymous, experts say.

      Google had previously allowed advertisers to shadow users with cookies, which only track people across websites and sometimes across sessions.

    • Techdirt ☛ ICE Wants To Set Up A Social Media Dragnet So It Can Figure Out Who’s Criticizing The Agency

      In fact, what the actual wording says suggests something different: ICE is experiencing an uptick in visible criticism from publicly-accessible social media accounts, which is definitely not the same thing as evidence it’s more dangerous to be employed by ICE now than it has been in the past.

    • EFF ☛ Saving the Internet in Europe: Defending Privacy and Fighting Surveillance

      EFF’s mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world. While our work has taken us to far corners of the globe, in recent years we have worked to expand our efforts in Europe, building up a policy team with key expertise in the region, and bringing our experience in advocacy and technology to the European fight for digital rights.

      In this blog post series, we will introduce you to the various players involved in that fight, share how we work in Europe, and discuss how what happens in Europe can affect digital rights across the globe.

    • The Atlantic ☛ DOGE [sic] Has 'God Mode' Access to Government Data

      The employee’s account, along with the accounts of several others across federal agencies, offers the clearest portrait yet of just how deep DOGE [sic] has burrowed into the systems of the federal government—and the sensitive information of countless Americans.

    • Michigan Advance ☛ Social Security head leaves as Musk-led DOGE [sic] seeks Americans’ data • Michigan Advance

      King, who was with the agency for more than 30 years before becoming its acting director last month, left over the holiday weekend. She declined to give the Musk-led effort to cut federal spending and the workforce, known as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE [sic]), access to a centralized database that includes information about income, addresses, retirement benefits and sometimes even medical records for any American with a Social Security number, people familiar with the situation told The 19th. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the agency or the individuals involved.

    • EDRI ☛ ePrivacy Regulation, but the fight for your privacy is far from over

      It’s official – the ePrivacy Regulation proposal has been withdrawn (yes, cue the collective groan from digital rights advocates in the EU). After years of hard work, hope, and tireless campaigning, it seems that powerful industry interests and some EU member states have successfully blocked this critical reform. But don’t reach for the tissues just yet – while this marks a setback in the fight for stronger privacy protections, it also reinforces the urgency of continuing the struggle for digital rights.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Michigan Advance ☛ Election officials blast Trump’s ‘retreat’ from protecting voting against foreign threats • Michigan Advance

    The administration is shuttering the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and last week cut more than 100 positions at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. President Donald Trump signed the law creating the agency in 2018. Among its goals is including helping state and local officials protect voting systems.

    Secretaries of state and municipal clerks fear those moves could expose voter registration databases and other critical election systems to hacking — and put the lives of election officials at risk.

  • Deseret Media ☛ IRS fires 6,000 employees as Trump slashes US government

    The cuts are part of President Donald Trump's sweeping downsizing effort that has targeted bank regulators, forest workers, rocket scientists and tens of thousands of other government employees. The effort is being led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, Trump's biggest campaign donor.

    Labor unions have sued to try to stop the mass firings, but a federal judge in Washington ruled that they can continue for now.

  • Wired ☛ DOGE [sic] Puts $1 Spending Limit on Government Employee Credit Cards

    “Effective immediately, all GSA SmartPay Travel and Purchase Cards issued to GSA employees and contractors are being paused and will not be available for use except in very limited circumstances,” GSA wrote in a memo to staff Thursday morning viewed by WIRED. The memo later stated that for “up to 0.1% of the GSA workforce, requests may be made for certain individual purchase charge card spend thresholds be set above $1. Please provide the rationale for all such deviations on an employee-by-employee basis along with the proposed increased threshold.”

  • Parker Molloy ☛ Stop Analyzing Trump's Unhinged Ideas Like They're Normal Policy Proposals

    Sometimes a piece of journalism is so wildly off-base that it perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with political coverage. Today's example comes from the New York Times's Peter Baker, who decided to treat Donald Trump's delusional ramblings about annexing Canada as a serious policy proposal worthy of electoral analysis.

  • Chris O'Donnnell ☛ We Are The Bad Guys

    So we can't count on Congress or the Courts. We probably shouldn't wish for a military coup. What does that leave us?

    It leaves us. Us. We the people.

  • BBC ☛ The '3.5% rule': How a small minority can change the world

    Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.

  • The Nation ☛ Elon Musk Wants to Decide Who Sits on the Wisconsin Supreme Court

    Not satisfied with controlling the federal government, the shadow president’s political action committee is suddenly spending big on a crucial Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

  • [Repeat] PHR ☛ 1762 Attacks on Health Care Over Three Years as Russia Escalates its War on Ukraine’s Doctors and Hospitals: PHR

    PHR calls on the global community to hold perpetrators of attacks on health to account and support Ukraine; U.S. government must restore humanitarian and health aid to Ukraine

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Nobody Saw This Coming Brigade

    This isn't just cowardice—it's a revelation of how thoroughly our democratic institutions have been captured by technological intimidation. When United States senators cannot state truths they've witnessed with their own eyes because they fear a billionaire's social media platform, we're not just watching individual moral failure—we're seeing the complete collapse of institutional independence.

    Two plus two equals four. Russia invaded Ukraine. Mass graves don’t tweet.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Perilous Incoherence of Democratic Minimalism

    This is, after all, a philosophy blog. And as I've warned readers, in between my polemics, I do intend to try and maintain some connection back to my roots, here. So let me close this preamble with a fundamental philosophical truth: Democracy is not just a system of governance; it's an epistemological project. It's how we, as societies, grapple with reality and make collective decisions based on our best understanding of that reality.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Ad-tech targeting is an existential threat

    The other witnesses were fascinating – and chilling, There was a lawyer from the AARP who explained how data-brokers would let you target ads to categories like "seniors with dementia." Then there was someone from the Pentagon, discussing how anyone could do an ad-buy targeting "people enlisted in the armed forces who have gambling problems." Sure, I thought, and you don't even need these explicit categories: if you served an ad to "people 25-40 with Ivy League/Big Ten law or political science degrees within 5 miles of Congress," you could serve an ad with a malicious payload to every Congressional staffer.

    Now, that's just the data brokers. The real action is in ad-tech, a sector dominated by two giant companies, Meta and Google. These companies claim that they are better than the unregulated data-broker cowboys at the bottom of the food-chain. They say they're responsible wielders of unregulated monopoly surveillance power. Reader, they are not.

  • The Atlantic ☛ DOGE [sic]’s Reign of Ineptitude

    In theory, DOGE [sic] exists to promote efficiency. And the need for efficiency is real. The federal government is deeply in debt. Its interest payments now exceed what it spends on defense. Even if the United States had no issue with its debt, it would still be a mitzvah to find ways to make government work better—to take the same tax dollar further, to do one more unit of good. But judging by DOGE [sic]’s early returns, the only objective conclusion one can reach about the agency seems to be that it’s out of control. What we’re witnessing in government right now—across the Departments of Energy, Veterans Affairs, Education, and beyond—is not only a bonfire of cruelty but a reign of ineptitude.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Federal judge won’t immediately block Elon Musk or DOGE [sic] from federal data or worker layoffs

    The decision came in a lawsuit filed by 14 Democratic states challenging DOGE [sic]’s authority to access sensitive government data. The attorneys general argued that Musk is wielding the kind of power that the Constitution says can be held only by those elected or confirmed by the Senate.

  • C4ISRNET ☛ Ukrainian defense planners envision a drones-only front line

    The project, dubbed the Drone Line, was announced by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense on Feb 9. According to statements made by Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, it has two core objectives: building a continuous drone reconnaissance capability along the line of defense, and boosting support for and coordination with infantry units to create a kind buffer strip where no troops can move undetected.

  • Techdirt ☛ Lithuanian Adtech Firm And Florida Data Broker Trafficked In Sensitive U.S. Military And Intelligence Worker Location Data

    The original story documented how Wired was able to buy 3.6 billion location coordinates, some logged at millisecond intervals with meter precision, from up to 11 million mobile advertising IDs in Germany over a one-month period. The data detailed intelligence and military employees as they wandered not just around European towns and cities, but their movement at sensitive military locations.

    At the time, Wired didn’t have a solid bead on the origins of the data, outside of the fact they were able to buy the data in question from a Florida data broker named Datastream. But in an also excellent follow up report they say they’ve figured out where it originated: a Lithuanian adtech firm.

  • Techdirt ☛ State Plaintiffs Lose A Disappointing Battle, While Musk And DOGE [sic] Get Closer To Losing The War

    With this case the plaintiff states are swinging for the fences, asking for one big injunction to knock Musk and DOGE [sic] out of every agency. It’s a strategy we haven’t really seen before, to aim for Musk and DOGE [sic] directly and with respect to all of their activities; most of the other litigation brewing seeks to take on their destructive meddling an agency at a time, if not also an activity at a time. Those cases also, although with some exceptions, sue the agency and its heads directly, to challenge the lawfulness of them having effectively handed over the keys to their agencies (and their computer systems) to these shmucks. Whereas this case, notably, was against the shmucks themselves, challenging their presence in government and how much false authority they’ve wielded over its operations (and computer systems). In this case, New Mexico v. Musk, the basic contention is that nothing in the Constitution allows Musk and DOGE [sic] to have had the power they’ve wielded, and they need to be made to stop wielding it. And by asking for a temporary restraining order (TRO) as a first step the states were also asking that they be made to stop yielding it asap.

  • Futurism ☛ Top Trump Ally Says Elon Musk Is a "Parasitic Illegal Immigrant"

    "Musk is a parasitic illegal immigrant," a wound-up Bannon told UnHerd, a right-wing British publication. "He wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values, or traditions."

    It's true that Musk's immigration status during his early in the United States was dubious, with his brother recalling that "we were illegal immigrants." But like many people fortunate enough to be able to access sound legal aid, he was able to fix his status and eventually gained US citizenship in 2002.

  • VOA News ☛ Vietnam parliament approves $8 billion railway with loan from China

    The country's rubber-stamp parliament gave the go-ahead to the project, with 455 of the 459 members voting for the project.

    The approval marks a significant step forward in Vietnam’s infrastructure modernization efforts, as the country seeks to boost connectivity and economic growth, local media reported.

  • CBC ☛ Subsea fibre optic cable deliberately cut for the 2nd time between N.S. and N.L.

    Telecommunications giant Bell is exploring surveillance options in the Gulf of St. Lawrence after one of its subsea fibre optic cables between Cape Breton Island and Newfoundland's west coast was recently severed for the second time.

    David Joice, the company's director of networks, said it's suspected that an anchor or a piece of gear, such as a trawling net, snagged the cable last Dec. 24. He said the cable was then brought to the surface along with the gear, and deliberately cut by someone.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Lead CMMC architect returns to Pentagon as DoD CISO

    Katie Arrington's return to DoD comes as her lawyers work out a settlement with the government related to the suspension of her security clearance in 2021.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Australia, Papua New Guinea vow to strike defence treaty

    They are committed to deepen integration of their forces and make it easier to offer security support.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • ‘I want to defect to South’: North Korean soldier captured in Kursk breaks silence

      The soldier confirmed earlier intelligence reports of heavy casualties in drone attacks, language barrier.

    • Meduza ☛ ‘They brought results’: Putin comments on U.S.-Russia negotiations in Saudi Arabia — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘They have only themselves to blame’: Putin comments on U.S.-Russia talks, a potential meeting with Trump, and worsening transatlantic relations — Meduza

    • New York Times ☛ European Leaders Try to Recalibrate After Convicted Felon Sides With Russia on Ukraine

      The American president’s latest remarks embracing Vladimir Putin’s narrative that Ukraine is to blame for the war have compounded the sense of alarm among traditional allies.

    • New York Times ☛ Kremlin Message to Convicted Felon: There’s Money to Be Made in Russia

      Russian officials are arguing that American companies stand to make billions of dollars by re-entering Russia. The White House is listening.

    • New York Times ☛ With Convicted Felon’s Prostration to Putin, Expect a More Dangerous World

      This is a humiliating month to be an American.

    • New York Times ☛ Dictator Flips the Script on the Ukraine War, Blaming Zelensky Not Putin

      As he seeks to negotiate a peace deal with Moscow, President Convicted Felon is rewriting the history of Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.

    • RFERL ☛ Dictator Calls Zelenskyy 'Dictator Without Elections,' Urges Him To 'Move Fast'

      Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reiterated concerns over U.S.-Russian talks held in Saudi Arabia on ending Moscow's ongoing invasion of Ukraine launched almost three years ago.

    • RFERL ☛ Dictator Repeats Harsh Criticism Of Zelenskyy, Says He Could Have Attended Riyadh Talks

      U.S. President The Insurrectionist doubled down on his criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a speech, saying Zelenskyy has done a terrible job and could have attended talks with Russia this week in Saudi Arabia if he had wanted to.

    • France24 ☛ 🔴 Follow live: Convicted Felon brands Zelensky 'a dictator'

    • France24 ☛ Why Europe’s leadership is skeptical of negotiating with Putin

      The idea that US President The Insurrectionist’s negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin will bring about lasting peace in Ukraine has been met with scepticism across Europe. FRANCE 24 spoke to political scientist Anton Shekhovtsov about what the US can learn from earlier attempts to end Russian occupation across the former Soviet Union.

    • The Strategist ☛ How Europe can pay for rearmament

      Europe urgently needs to rearm. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the broader threat that President Vladimir Putin’s regime poses to Europe, requires nothing less.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Advance Local Media LLC ☛ Elon Musk caught following X account posting only Nazi content and soft-core porn - lonestarlive.com

    Elon Musk, richest man in the world and federal government up-ender, has been discovered to follow an account on X that exclusively posts Nazi content and soft-core porn.

  • [Old] Rachel Kroll ☛ The Bozo Loop (epub format)

    Take a trip into the world of systems administration, programming, networking, tech support, and living in Silicon Valley. The Bozo Loop is a collection of stories from 2011 which expose the inner workings of things some people would rather keep quiet.

• Environment

  • Science Alert ☛ Places on Earth Too Hot For Humans Will Triple This Century, Scientists Warn

    The average global temperature has already risen by 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels. We reached this grim milestone just last year.

    Now scientists report that adding 0.5 °C of extra heat to the global average will triple the area of land on our planet too hot for even a healthy adult human to inhabit. That's equivalent to writing off a landmass about the size of the United States.

    For people over 60, whose bodies are even more vulnerable to extreme heat, that danger zone will span about 35 percent of Earth's landmass, a steep incline from the 21 percent that's off-limits to them today.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Bird study finds much larger volumes of toxic PFAS chemicals than previously reported

    He is the lead author of an article published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials that addresses new findings regarding the toxins. PFAS contain fluorine, and have received particular attention in Norway because they are used in ski wax, Teflon and fire retardants.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Trump Is Moving to Kill a Key Federal Environmental Law

    Over the weekend, the Trump administration appeared to begin the process of rolling back enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the “Magna Carta” of federal environmental law. In a filing submitted February 16, administration officials announced an interim rule titled “Removal of National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations.”

  • The Korea Times ☛ Sweden's top court rejects Greta Thunberg lawsuit on climate action

    Activists filed a lawsuit in 2022 arguing that the state violates the European Convention on Human Rights by not doing enough to limit climate change, or mitigate its effects, and the case has since been subject to review on procedural grounds.

    The group of 300 plaintiffs in the case, who call themselves the Aurora group, wanted the courts to order Sweden to do more to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Vietnam parliament approves US$8 billion rail link to China, boosting links between 2 communist-ruled countries

      Vietnam‘s parliament approved plans on Wednesday for an US$8 billion rail link from its largest northern port city to the border with China, boosting links between the two communist-ruled countries and making trade easier.

    • DeSmog ☛ Elon Musk’s Embrace of Far-Right Energizes Transatlantic Climate Denial

    • DeSmog ☛ Canadian Fossil Fuel Advocate Stewart Muir on ARC Attendees List

    • Futurism ☛ Man Wakes Up, Finds That Large Chunk of SpaceX Rocket Has Crashed Into His Garden

      It seems likely that the object once belonged to a Falcon 9 rocket that made an "uncontrolled reentry" over Poland early Wednesday morning, according to the Polish Space Agency.

      The incident serves as yet another reminder of the very real risks involved in having rockets uncontrollably drop back down to Earth. We've already seen several instances of SpaceX debris raining down over populated areas, from two separate Australian farms to the British islands of Turks and Caicos, which were recently littered with the exploded remains of SpaceX's prototype Starship rocket.

    • The Register UK ☛ Using dark mode to save energy? You might want to rethink

      "Dark mode is a popular dark-theme colour content scheme and research has found that, for some devices, switching to dark mode can reduce device power consumption. Energy conscious internet users are therefore encouraged to browse in dark mode," say the authors of a BBC R&D blog post.

      "The catch is that the advertised energy savings haven't been tested in the wild, where user behavior can cause unexpected consequences."

    • APNIC ☛ So you want to build your own data centre

      So in response, we kicked off a ‘Railway Metal’ project last year. Nine months later we were live with the first site in California, having designed, spec-ed, and installed everything from the fibre optic cables in the cage to the various contracts with ISPs. We’re lighting up three more data centre regions as we speak.

      To deliver an ‘infra-less’ cloud experience to our customers, we’ve needed to get good at building out our own physical infrastructure fast. That’s the topic of our blog post today.

    • The Register UK ☛ France tops China’s tokamak record in 22-minute plasma trap

      The Commissariat (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, or CEA) announced that its CEA WEST Tokamak maintained plasma for more than 22 minutes last week.

    • MIT Technology Review ☛ What's driving electricity demand? It isn't just AI and data centers.

      If that sounds familiar, it may be because there’s been a constant stream of headlines about energy demand recently, largely because of the influx of data centers—especially those needed to power the AI that’s spreading seemingly everywhere. These technologies are sucking up more power from the grid, but they’re just a small part of a much larger story.

      What’s actually behind this demand growth is complicated. Much of the increase comes from China, India, and Southeast Asia. Air-conditioning, electric vehicles, and factories all play a role. And of course, we can’t entirely discount the data centers. Here are a few key things to know about global electricity in 2025, and where things are going next.

    • Michael Burkhardt ☛ Old Motors - Michael Burkhardt's Whirled Wide Web

      Inspired by Dave’s “Cars and Motorcycles” page, these are the cars I’ve driven over the years.

  • Overpopulation

    • Kevin Kelly ☛ The Technium: The Handoff to Bots

      It has been nearly a thousand years since we last saw the total number of humans on this planet decrease year by year. For nearly a millennium we have lived with growing populations, and faster rates of growth. But in the coming decades, for the first time in a thousand years, the number of deaths on the planet each year will exceed the number of births. This seems hard to believe at first because superficially there is no evidence for that change in direction. As this chart shows, the line wants to go up.

• Finance

  • Unicorn Media ☛ Cybersecurity Chief Says MElon Can Use Purloined IRS Data Against Taxpayers

    "Musk needs to be arrested with no bail until he accounts for the information that he has stolen and tells where it has been stored and located," Perez said. "Unfortunately, that is very unlikely to happen."

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • VOA News ☛ China's sprawling rail projects around Asia

    Vietnam approved plans on Wednesday for a multibillion-dollar railway with China, boosting links between the two communist countries.

    Around the region, China has been financing railways under its Belt and Road Initiative, which funds infrastructure projects globally but has come under fire with a number of plans stalled or mired in controversy.

    Here are some of the key installments in Asia's China-backed railway network: [...]

  • VOA News ☛ EU approves $960 million in German aid for Infineon chips plant

    The measure will allow Infineon to complete the MEGAFAB-DD project, which will be able to produce a wide range of different types of computer chips, the Commission said.

    Chipmakers across the globe are pouring billions of dollars into new plants, as they take advantage of generous subsidies from the United States and the EU to keep the West ahead of China in developing cutting-edge semiconductor technology.

  • Techdirt ☛ Donald Trump Is Turning CISA Into The Embodiment Of His Election Conspiracy Theories

    CISA (Cyber security and Infrastructure Security Agency) has been doing its best to thwart security threats and deter the spread of misinformation about government security. Trump apparently doesn’t like that. He’d rather turn the agency on itself to serve his own egotistical ends while turning CISA into just another distribution option for his “stolen election” conspiracy theories. Here’s Eric Geller, reporting for Wired.

  • Wired ☛ The Showdown Between Elon Musk and Sam Altman

    The relationship between Scam Altman and Elon Musk goes back to the early days of OpenAI—then a nonprofit research lab. But now the two men find themselves in a very public feud over the billion-dollar AI company. Today on the show, we catalog their friendship turned feud and how the company that started it all still remains core to their beef.

  • Federal Trade Commission ☛ Federal Trade Commission Launches Inquiry on Tech Censorship | Federal Trade Commission

    The FTC issued a Request for Information (RFI) requesting public comment on how consumers may have been harmed by technology platforms that limited their ability to share ideas or affiliations freely and openly.

    “Tech firms should not be bullying their users,” said FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson. “This inquiry will help the FTC better understand how these firms may have violated the law by silencing and intimidating Americans for speaking their minds.”

  • Nick Heer ☛ U.S. Federal Trade Commission Launches Inquiry Into Tech ‘Censorship’

    This whole thing is written in neutral language, but almost certainly motivated by a longstanding belief that technology companies are biased against U.S. conservatives. This administration also wants to curtail the protections of Section 230 (PDF) of the Communications Decency Act; the questions in this RFI are directly tied to that goal.

  • Manton Reece ☛ Humane pin wrap-up

    The lesson for me is not that anything resembling this product was doomed to fail. There were interesting ideas in it. There were talented people working on it. The lesson is trying to do too much and not leaving room (and money) to ramp up. Wait for AI voice models to get to where you need to be. Only ship the features you can absolutely nail.

  • Logikal Solutions ☛ Is Microsoft Going Out of Business?

    Given recent pricing decisions, one has to ask if Microsoft is going out of business. Wall Street has been worried about the massive financial abyss that is AI and Cloud Computing. Despite what you might see in the chart, smart money has been getting out while fools rush in.

  • Digital Music News ☛ TikTok's Head of Music Ole Obermann Exiting for Apple Music

    While Obermann oversaw TikTok’s music strategy during a period of meteoric growth, there are mixed sentiments about his strategy in the industry. He is regarded as hard-negotiating against IP owners and generally being creator-unfriendly. The UMG licensing dispute last year was a result of low royalty payments from the platform. Obermann also oversaw TikTok’s strategy of divide and conquer among independent Merlin members by refusing to collectively bargain with the collective.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • VOA News ☛ China falsely accuses Philippines of illegal intrusion after midair standoff over South China Sea

      Journalists from The Associated Press and other media outlets were on the Philippine aircraft and witnessed the incident.

      The Philippine pilot at one point warned the Chinese navy helicopter by radio that he was violating the safety standards managing distance between aircraft set by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the International Civil Aviation Organization.

      Yet China said it was the Philippines that violated the law by flying over the Scarborough Shoal.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Trump makes false claims on Russia's war on Ukraine. Here are the facts

      President Trump this week falsely blamed Ukraine for starting the war that has cost tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives, causing outrage and alarm in a country that has spent nearly three years fighting back the invasion of a much larger Russian military.

    • VOA News ☛ Philippines reports intrusions targeting intelligence data

      The Philippines has detected foreign attempts to access intelligence data, but its cyber minister said on Tuesday no breaches have been recorded so far.

      Attempts to steal data are wide-ranging, said minister for information and communications Ivan Uy. Advanced Persistent Threats or APTs have repeatedly attempted but failed to infiltrate government systems, suggesting the country's cyber-defenses have held firm.

    • The Korea Times ☛ Activist warns of false, anti-Korean content spreading on Chinese social media app RedNote

      Chinese social media app, Xiaohongshu — known as RedNote in English — has been flooded with unfounded anti-Korean claims, warned professor Seo Kyoung-duk, a longtime advocate of Korean culture.

    • RFA ☛ Does a video show France’s Macron snubbing the Indian leader at Paris AI summit? – Radio Free Asia

      But the claim is misleading. The video, taken out of context, ignores interactions between the two leaders earlier in the event.

      The 22-second video was shared on X on Feb. 11.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong’s Democratic Party will not rule out discussion of potential disbandment, says party head

    Hong Kong’s Democratic Party will not rule out discussion on potentially disbanding during an upcoming meeting this week, its chairperson has said following reports that the party may shut down. Chair Lo Kin-hei told reporters on Wednesday that the executive committee of the Democratic Party will convene on Thursday.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Ex-Karabakh official held by Azerbaijan declares second hunger strike amid terrorism trial

    Ruben Vardanyan, a former top official in the ethnic Armenian administration of Nagorno-Karabakh which Azerbaijan retook in 2023, announced a second hunger strike on Wednesday in protest against his criminal trial in Baku.

  • VOA News ☛ Azerbaijan suspends BBC

    The suspension comes after Azerbaijani state-run media last week reported that the Azerbaijani government wanted to reduce the number of BBC staff working in the country to one.

    The BBC said it has received nothing in writing about the suspension from the Azerbaijani government. While the news agency seeks clarification, its team of journalists in the country have stopped their journalistic activities, according to the BBC.

  • Common Dreams ☛ No Nazis: Be Like Chris Kluwe, And All Who Came Before | Opinion

    So Chris Kluwe, 43-year-old Huntington resident and decent guy, showed up at Tuesday's City Council meeting to tell them what he thought of their “propaganda” and offer a calm but robust indictment of what MAGA really means. And it was great.

  • Nick Heer ☛ Clearview A.I.’s CEO Resigns, New Leadership Likes Its Chances Under Trump

    Near-universal facial recognition in the hands of this administration — what a frightening prospect. Keep an eye on that terrible settlement.

  • Techdirt ☛ ExTwitter Pays Trump $10M to Settle Case It Had Already Won

    The plot twist was telegraphed back in November, when ExTwitter filed something with the Ninth Circuit that basically said “hey, don’t bother ruling on this appeal, we’re working on a settlement.” The appeal in question? Oh, just Trump’s absolutely batshit lawsuit claiming that Twitter (this was back in the pre-Ex days) violated his First Amendment rights by shutting down his account while he was president.

    Let’s do a quick First Amendment refresher: The First Amendment stops the government from silencing speech. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Private companies can moderate their platforms however they want. (This is not exactly a controversial interpretation — it’s First Amendment 101.) But in this case, Trump (who was the head of the government at the time of the events in the case) was suing the private company arguing that it somehow violated his First Amendment rights to ban his account, even if he had violated the company’s rules.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Jimmy Lai denies condoning violence despite urging solidarity between protesters, as nat. sec trial continues

    Jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai has denied condoning violent protest despite urging solidarity between demonstrates in 2019. He also told the court that his calls for amnesty were not at odds with his stance against violence.

  • Truthdig ☛ Letting Trump Have His Way With Words Erodes the First Amendment

    The capitulation of Apple and Google validates a widespread fear that it isn’t just Elon Musk who is doing Trump’s dirty work to undo democracy, but that the Big Tech community generally has lined up to stay in the good graces of executive power. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google each donated $1 million to this year’s presidential inauguration.

  • Scheerpost ☛ Burying the CIA’s Assange Secrets

    A United States judge dismissed a lawsuit pursued by four American attorneys and journalists, who alleged that the CIA and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo spied on them while they were visiting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in Ecuador’s London embassy.

    “The subject matter of this litigation,” Judge John Koeltl determined [PDF], “is subject to the state secrets privilege in its entirety.” Any answer to the allegations against the CIA would “reveal privileged information.”

    Few publications followed this case as closely as The Dissenter. It unfolded at the same time that the U.S. government pursued the extradition of Assange, making any outcome potentially significant.

  • The Walrus ☛ Local News Is Dying. The Consequences Are Worse than You Think

    The misfortunes that have ravaged local journalism—some self-inflicted, some not—have been unfolding for more than a decade. Spending cuts by owners have hollowed out local newsrooms, tech platforms have hoovered up advertising revenue, and cellphones and the internet have eliminated the control traditional media once had over when and where people get news. More recently, Meta’s move to banish journalism from Facebook and Instagram has made it much more difficult for news organizations, especially small local outlets, to get their stories to readers.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • AccessNow ☛ Oral statement at the Informal Meeting of the UNGA Third Committee

    Access Now's oral statement at the Informal Meeting of the UN General Assembly Third Committee on February 6, 2025.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong taxi group halts strike plan after city’s leader warned against ‘drastic action’

    A Hong Kong taxi union has called off a planned strike demanding a government crackdown on unlicensed ride-hailing services – a day after Chief Executive John Lee warned that “drastic action” would not receive public support.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Public Service Unions and State Democracy Defenders Fund Challenge Unlawful, Mass Federal Firings

    The complaint says that OPM’s egregious firings were made on false pretenses and violate federal law, including the Administrative Procedure Act and other statutes defining federal employment and OPM's role. These firings were executed across federal agencies, based on directives from OPM. OPM, the complaint asserts, acted unlawfully by directing federal agencies to use a standardized termination notice falsely claiming performance issues. Congress, not OPM, controls and authorizes federal employment and related spending by the federal administrative agencies, and Congress has determined that each agency is responsible for managing its own employees.

  • The Register UK ☛ IBM co-location program described as worker attrition plan

    The mainframe giant's recent return-to-office (RTO) push is already arguably achieving that, namely forcing out those kinds of workers, but we're told that Big Blue is taking a broader approach, echoing a 2016 initiative from then marketing chief Michelle Peluso.

  • The Register UK ☛ Thousands of trafficked scammers await return to Thailand

    Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said around 7,000 individuals are awaiting transfer to Thailand and confirmed the government was working as quickly as possible to remedy the issue.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Office work is on the rise with new record highs

    As of the first week of February, office occupancy remained stable at 54.1 percent on average in those 10 cities, according to Kastle. Houston led at 65.1 percent, while San Francisco brought up the rear at 43.2 percent.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Struggling men may hurt noncollege women's marriage prospects

    But that concern is misplaced, finds new research co-authored by a Cornell economist. In fact, the researchers found, college women have married at a steady rate for decades, while the rate for women without degrees has dropped precipitously—their prospects undermined by the declining fortunes of noncollege men.

  • Wired ☛ Microsoft Hosted Explicit Videos of This Startup Founder for Years. Here's How She Got Them Taken Down

    More than a month later, a few dozen additional pieces of content had been removed. Of the 202 that remained online, 142 were hosted on Microsoft’s Azure services. A Point de Contact investigator emailed Liu and alleged, “Microsoft's abuse team did not answer our notification emails” and said the team was trying some of its individual contacts at the company. Around that time, a frustrated Liu mentioned Microsoft’s slow response in an interview with The Street. An unnamed Microsoft spokesperson told the news outlet that the company was investigating and noted that any potential violations of its acceptable use policy are taken seriously. Yet again, no action followed.

    “The main issue we had was the lack of response from Microsoft,” Dirani says. He alleges that Microsoft’s abuse team believed that it needed more information, but he says the company never communicated what that information was. Even a higher-up contact wouldn’t give a straight answer on what additional details could trigger a takedown. Point de Contact tried to “push” Microsoft more, including opening a new case, according to Dirani. “We were sending reminders of all the URLs that were still online,” he says. “But unfortunately, even the new reports we sent were not responded to.”

  • VOA News ☛ Taliban withdraw Afghanistan from International Criminal Court

    The decision follows the ICC chief prosecutor’s announcement last month, seeking arrest warrants for the reclusive Taliban supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, and a close associate, accusing them both of being “criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women.”

  • The Nation ☛ If Trump Crushes Federal Workers, We’re All Next

    “I’m a federal worker, and I feel like a canary in the coal mine right now—because what they’re doing to us is going to happen to the entire American public.” That’s how Chris Dols, who works for the US Army Corps of Engineers and is the president of a local chapter of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, began his video response to Elon Musk’s instantly infamous Oval Office press conference last week.

    Dols is right: Musk’s attacks on federal employees and their unions aren’t just a threat to the specific workers in his current line of fire. They pose an unparalleled danger to every single American.

  • Michigan Advance ☛ Here’s the latest on how states are cooperating with Trump’s deportation plans

    Conservative cities and states across the country have taken to President Donald Trump’s deportation plans and are increasing cooperation with federal authorities — even seeking new laws against illegal immigration that would be enforced by local and state police.

  • California State University Northridge ☛ “We will not be erased!” Students rise against ICE – Daily Sundial

    Students rallied to walk out onto the University Lawn with the Students Organizing Against Repression Coalition (SOAR), Anakbayan Northridge, M.E.Ch.A de CSUN, Students for Justice in Palestine and others to voice their frustrations with CSUN’s compliance with ICE.

    Chicano Studies Department Chair Rosa Rivera Furumoto and organization representatives gave speeches before the marchers began their march from the University Lawn to Jacaranda Walk and back around.

  • Techdirt ☛ Court Grants Immunity To DA Who Shared Nude Photos From A Searched Phone With Local Law Enforcement

    The phrase “no harm, no foul” doesn’t apply to law enforcement personnel, whether they’re patrol officers or the chief local prosecutor. Instead — thanks to the qualified immunity doctrine — the phrase is: “whatever amount of harm, no foul.”

    As long as the harm isn’t something specifically covered by precedent, the general feeling of courts is that law enforcement shouldn’t be punished for rights violations they can plausibly (at least under precedent) claim they had no idea were rights violations, no matter how immediately egregious those rights violations were.

  • EDRI ☛ How do delivery platforms use algorithms to manage workers?

    Algorithmic management of workers has become the norm for gig-economy platforms. Decisions made by algorithms can determine how much people get paid, what work they receive, and even if their account (and employment) is suspended. But workers are too often left in the dark about how those algorithms work and how those decisions get made, leaving them playing a game they don’t know the rules to.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Public Knowledge ☛ New Orders are Scrubbing the Internet of Equity, Dismantling Transparency, and Making it Harder To Implement Bipartisan Law

    The continued attacks on DEI are making the Digital Equity Act harder to follow.

  • APNIC ☛ [Podcast] RPKIViews: The archive of RPKI states

    Job Snijders discusses his global RPKI validation archive, and the annual 'state of RPKI' report he produces.

  • RIPE ☛ Introducing the New RIPEstat UI

    After working toward this goal for some months, we're pleased to present a first look at the new RIPEstat: [...]

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • MWL ☛ Now available: combined print/ebook bundles direct from my bookstore

    The question I get asked most often is “Can I get a print and ebook combo of your books?” No, hang on, that’s not quite true. Technically, the most common questions are “Are you mad?” followed by “Are you serious?” but the print/ebook combo thing is a solid third place.

  • Digital Music News ☛ TikTok’s Head of Music Ole Obermann Reportedly Exiting for Fashion Company Apple Music

    After a mixed legacy, TikTok’s Head of Music Business Development Ole Obermann is reportedly leaving for Fashion Company Apple Music.

  • Rachel ☛ My books have moved to Gumroad

    As of earlier this week, they are no longer on Amazon at my direction. Instead, I put them on Gumroad as .epub files. They are still DRM-free, so once you have a copy, you can shove them onto all of your devices without having something "phone home" to approve it first.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Digital magazine ABCs 2024: Half of titles down in past year

    ABC-audited magazines had a combined average digital circulation of three million per edition (excluding any copies distributed in bulk for free) – up 14% compared to 2023.

    Some 1.6 million, or 55%, of the combined 2024 digital magazine circulation came from services like Apple News+, Cafeyn, Kindle Unlimited and Readly.

  • Ethan Zuckerman ☛ Liz Pelly at UMass: Spotify, the Mood Machine

    In particular, Pelly is interested in the myth of Spotify as a neutral meritocracy, a space in which the best work rises algorithmically to the top. The reality is more about arrogant billionaires overconfidently celebrating their machines and ignoring the social problems they leave behind. To tell this sometimes hidden history of Spotify, Pelly interviewed over 100 people, many of them artists affected by the rise of the platform. She offers this as a “pro-artist” work, noting that it’s strange to have to put yourself in the “pro-artist” camp. Swedish journalists, who covered the platform during its emergence, were also an important source.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• KOL453 | Objections to Argumentation Ethics, Libertarian Property Rights, Scarcity, Intellectual Property: Discussion with a Student

  I was approached recently by my old friend, legal scholar and philosopher David Koepsell (a fellow opponent of IP who appeared on the John Stossel show with me a few years back), (( KOL308 | Stossel: It’s My Idea (2015). )) as one of his students at Texas A&M, Eliot Kalinov, was interested in my and Hoppe's work on argumentation ethics and related issues. I offered to have a discussion with Eliot about these issues for his research and publication plans, which we did yesterday (Feb. 18, 2025).

• Patents

  • Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ Patent case: Huang v. Amazon.com, Inc, USA

    It was within the discretion of the trial court to deny leave to amend a complaint because the proposed amendment, like the complaint it was intended to cure, failed to specifically identify the accused products.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ AMD could block the sale of defective chip maker Intel due to a cross-licensing agreement

    Want to get Intel's product business? You will have to deal with AMD due to a wide patent monopoly cross-licensing agreement.

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • JUVE ☛ UPC to hire multiple new judges in 2025 [Ed: UPC is illegal. JUVE knows it is illegal. But JUVE got paid by Team UPC to prop up and try to legitimise these constitutional violations and a kangaroo court.]

      The UPC has published its budget for 2025 and it clearly states the number of judges at the UPC will grow significantly this year. Officials will make funds available for 6.9 full-time equivalent judges (FTEs) for the Court of Appeal alone.

  • Software Patents

    • Unified Patents ☛ $4,000 for STT WebOS web-based communication patents prior art

      Unified Patents added two new PATROLL contests, each with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on the list below. The patents are owned and asserted by STT WebOS, Inc. The patents relate to web based control management systems and communications.They have been asserted against ByteDance.

      The contests will expire on March 22, 2025.

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • Futurism ☛ Fury Erupts After Netflix Used AI to Clone the Voice of a Murdered Influencer for a True Crime Doc About Her Death

      It's an eerie artistic choice, even for the fraught true crime genre, that had audiences startled, with one user calling it "deeply unsettling use of AI."

      "Watching the Gabby Petito doc, absolutely invested... until the part it started using AI to make HER read out her texts and journal entries," another user wrote. "That is absolutely NOT okay. She’s a murder victim. You are violating her again."

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Meta Says it Made Sure Not to Seed Any Pirated Books

    In one of the AI lawsuits faced by Meta, the company stands accused of distributing pirated books. The authors who filed the class-action lawsuit allege that Meta shared books from the shadow library LibGen with third parties via BitTorrent. Meta, however, says that it took precautions to prevent 'seeding' content. In addition, the company clarifies that there is nothing 'independently illegal' about torrenting.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft Xbox showcases an incredibly impractical AI model for 'gameplay ideation'

    Yesterday, Microsoft Xbox debuted Muse, "a generative AI model designed for gameplay ideation," alongside an open-access Nature.com article and corresponding blog post with a YouTube video. Not sure what "gameplay ideation" means? While Microsoft defines it as generating "game visuals, controller actions, or both," its actual functional purposes are pretty limited and certainly don't do anything like skipping an actual game development pipeline.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Cloudflare Asks Court to End LaLiga's "Illegal" Blocking Response to Encrypted Client Hello

    After the gloves came off earlier this week, Cloudflare has asked a Spanish court to declare LaLiga's “disproportionate” piracy blocking measures illegal. Details are currently scarce, but Cloudflare looks set to challenge the legitimacy of the court's original order. LaLiga and Telefonica sought enhanced blocking measures to counter internet users' adoption of Encrypted Client Hello.

  • Digital Camera World ☛ Using copyrighted material to train AI isn’t always fair use, judge rules. But what are the implications for photographers?

    In Thompson Reuters Vs Ross Intelligence, US Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas ruled that Ross Intelligence's use of editorial content owned by Thompson Reuters did not fall under fair use.

    The legal battle arose after Thompson Reuters claimed that Ross Intelligence used its copyrighted material published on Westlaw to build an AI-powered legal research platform called LegalEase. Bibas issued a summary judgment for part of the case, reversing a previous decision that denied summary judgment. It sided with Thompson Reuters, saying that LegalEase’s use did not have a sufficiently different purpose and directly competed with the original.

  • EFF ☛ AI and Copyright: Expanding Copyright Hurts Everyone—Here’s What to Do Instead

    The stakes are high, because ML is critical to helping us interpret the world around us. It's being used by researchers to understand everything from space nebulae to the proteins in our bodies. When the task requires crunching a huge amount of data, such as the data generated by the world’s telescopes, ML helps rapidly sift through the information to identify features of potential interest to researchers. For example, scientists are using AlphaFold, a deep learning tool, to understand biological processes and develop drugs that target disease-causing malfunctions in those processes. The developers released an open-source version of AlphaFold, making it available to researchers around the world. Other developers have already iterated upon AlphaFold to build transformative new tools.

  • Digital Music News ☛ RHCP Not Giving It Away Now—Looking to Sell Music Catalog

    Sources tell Billboard that Eric Greenspan of Myman Greenspan Fox Rosenberg Mobster Younger & Light has been spearheading a recorded music catalog deal, as he did for their publishing rights in 2021. Back then, the Red Hot Chili Peppers sold their music publishing assets to Hipgnosis for between $140 million and $150 million.

  • EFF ☛ Copyright and AI: the Cases and the Consequences

    These cases can end one of three ways: rightsholders win, everybody settles, or developers win. As we’ve noted before, we think the developers have the better argument. But that’s not the only reason they should win these cases: while creators have a legitimate gripe, expanding copyright won’t protect jobs from automation. A win for rightsholders or even a settlement could also lead to significant harm, especially if it undermines fair use protections for research uses or artistic protections for creators. In this post and a follow-up, we’ll explain why.