Leftovers

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-21 [Older] Who is International Booker Prize winner Banu Mushtaq?

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-21 [Older] Indian author, translator win International Booker Prize

• Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Last Surviving Grandson of President John Tyler, Who Took Office in 1841, Dies at 96

  But how could someone born in 1790 still have—until very recently—living grandchildren? Even the president’s grandson acknowledged that the time frame was difficult to comprehend.

  “When you talk about my grandfather born in the 1700s, there is a disconnect there,” he told WTVR’s Scott Wise and Greg McQuade in 2012.

  [...] The unusual timeline was the result of second marriages and late-in-life fatherhood for the former president and, later, one of his sons. John Tyler was 63 when his 13th child, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr., was born in 1853. Then, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr. was 75 when Harrison Ruffin Tyler was born in 1928.

• Coalition for Networked Information ☛ A Tribute to Clifford Lynch (May 2, 2025)

  Michael Buckland with Cecilia Preston, Karen Coyle, Joan Lippincott et al. 2025. “A Tribute to Clifford Lynch (May 2, 2025).” Lecture, Berkeley School of Information, Berkeley, CA, May 2, 2025. https://youtu.be/3JtPKE1iUfU.

• Tim Bray ☛ Comparing Numbers Badly

  Everyone reading this probably already knows that “order of magnitude” has a precise meeting: Multiply or divide by ten. But clearly, the people who write news stories and marketing spiels either don’t, or are consciously using the idioms to lie. In particular, they are trying to say “more than” or “less than” in a dramatic and impressive-sounding way.

• Luke Harris ☛ Internet Phone Book

  It’s just a little yellow book! Of websites! And articles! With ads, even. Yet it was assembled and designed with such loving care that when I pick it up I reverently believe I am holding a work of art. Over seven hundred people participated in the making of this book, and many of them are people whose blogs I have read for years and exchanged emails with. Seeing their web address printed out lends an incredible amount of tangibility and simultaneously highlights the enduring ephemerality of the internet.

• University of Toronto ☛ My blocking of some crawlers is an editorial decision unrelated to crawl volume

  Are you a 'brand intelligence' firm that scrapes the web and sells your services to brands and advertisers? Blocked. In general, do you charge for access to whatever you're generating from scraping me? Probably blocked. Are you building a free search site for a cause (and with a point of view) that I don't particularly like? Almost certainly blocked. All of this is an editorial decision on my part on what I want to be even vaguely associated with and what I don't, not a technical decision based on the scraping's effects on my site.

• Sean Monahan ☛ after the upper middle class

  I’m not sure what the end of that story is—and, full disclosure, this is broad speculation. So let’s stress-test these assumptions.

• Science

  • RFERL ☛ ISS Missions With Russia Are Like Working With Nazis, Says Former US Astronaut

    A retired US astronaut has told RFE/RL that joint missions with Russia on the International Space Station (ISS) should be scaled back, comparing them to collaboration with Nazi Germany at the height of World War II.

    "Cooperating with the Russians on the ISS is like going on an Antarctic expedition with Nazis in 1943," said Terry Virts, a former commander on the station.

    "It's just morally reprehensible," he added.

  • High Country News ☛ As Trump comes after research, Forest Service scientists keep working

    “Science and research are critical to maintaining public lands,” said Jennifer Jones, the program director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. Federal scientists intimately understand the ecosystems of the public lands they study. Their institutional position and on-the-ground knowledge make them uniquely suited to translate study findings into effective management. “If we lose a few months — a few years — of science and science-led management of those natural resources, it could take decades and generations for ecosystems to recover if they’re poorly managed,” she said.

  • The Register UK ☛ American science put on starvation diet

    Established in 1950 to advance science and national health, prosperity, welfare, and defense, the NSF carries out its mission mainly by making grants to American colleges and universities and by supporting academic researchers.

    "This is a budget of destruction of US science," an NSF staffer told The Register. "Cuts of 65 percent to 75 in science, engineering and education will remove the United States from the world's map of impact, will lead to irreversible damage to American creativity, and destroy our country's GDP." This person asked for anonymity for fear of getting fired for talking to the press.

  • SusamPal ☛ Product of Additive Inverses

    A negative number multiplied by another negative number results in a positive number. Most of us learnt this rule during our primary or secondary school years. 'Negative times negative equals positive' was a phrase that was drummed into us during mathematics lessons. In this article, we will prove it, not just for numbers but for any algebraic structure that behaves a bit like numbers in a general sense. We will find out what that means shortly. First, let us see an illustration of this concept.

  • Futurism ☛ Researchers Say New Contact Lenses Let You See in the Dark

    As detailed in a paper published in the journal Cell, the contacts don't even require an external power source to turn infrared light into visible light.

    Experiments involving both mice and humans have shown that the lenses allow the wearer to perceive multiple infrared wavelengths — even when participants closed their eyes.

  • The Nation ☛ So Much for Saving the Planet. Climate Careers Evaporate for the Class of 2025.

    As the class of 2025 enters the workforce, the Trump administration has dismantled career pathways for graduates interested in climate and sustainability work, international aid, public service, and research across the natural, behavioral, and social sciences. Federal jobs are disappearing, and the administration is eliminating grants and agency divisions that sustain university research programs and nonprofits that are crucial to launching careers.

    The National Science Foundation, for example, halved graduate research fellowships, canceled some undergraduate research grants, stopped awarding new grants, froze funding for existing ones, and eliminated several hundred grants for focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion. In March, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced 10,000 layoffs at his agency, the Department of Health and Human Services; earlier buyouts and firings had already cut another 10,000 jobs.

  • Bartosz Milewski ☛ Fibrations and Cofibrations

    We are used to thinking of a mapping as either being invertible or not. It’s a yes or no question. A mapping between sets is invertible if it’s both injective and surjective. It means that it never merges two elements into one, and it covers the whole target set.

    But if you are willing to look closer, the failures of invertibility are a whole fascinating area of research. Things get a lot more interesting if you consider mapping between topological spaces, which have to skillfully navigate around various holes and tears in the target space, and shrink or glue together parts of the source space. I will be glossing over some of the topological considerations, concentrating on the big-picture intuitions (both culinary and cinematographic).

• Career/Education

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-24 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini vs. Harvard: Elite university with no international students?

  • Jeffrey Inscho ☛ Eight Words Instead of Six

    So I changed the question: “What’s the most important thing I can help you with this week?”

    The shift in responses has been really interesting. Instead of polite deflections, I get real answers.

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Sebastián Monía

    This is the 92nd edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Sebastián Monía and his blog, site.sebasmonia.com

  • Harvard University ☛ Judge sides with Harvard on international students

    More than 5,000 international students and scholars at Harvard are at risk of losing legal status due to the revocation order, which was first conveyed in a letter from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and has sown fear and confusion among international students and scholars at Harvard and other universities. In its lawsuit, Harvard argues that the government’s actions violate the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act. President Alan Garber has described the Trump administration’s efforts as retaliatory.

• Hardware

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Laptops, iPhones 'Made in Saudi Arabia': Hype or genuine opportunity? [Ed: Political vapourware]

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] It takes more than a pandemic to make good handwashing habits stick

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ This 14-Year-Old Built an App That Detects Heart Diseases in Seconds

    The app reportedly has a high success rate in detecting heart abnormalities. “Obviously, there is diversity in the results from test to test, but we did get over 96 percent accuracy,” says Nandyala.

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Saudi Official Denies Reports Alcohol Ban Will Be Lifted

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Montreal family meets Good Samaritans who delivered life-saving CPR

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Nova Scotia restaurants are still turning to crowdfunding. But is it always the best move?

  • FAIR ☛ ‘Work Requirements Have Produced the Same Results Over and Over Again’: CounterSpin interview with Bryce Covert on work requirements

    Janine Jackson interviewed independent journalist Bryce Covert about Medicaid work requirements for the May 23, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

• Proprietary

  • ZDNet ☛ It almost pains me to say it, but Microsoft Edge is great on Linux - you should try it [Ed: ZDNet is promoting proprietary Microsoft malware that steals all of the users' passwords without authorisation. This is truly insane.]

  • The Register UK ☛ 8,000+ Asus routers popped in 'advanced' mystery botnet plot

    The botnet herders are finding success with either one of these two methods, and from there they use additional authentication bypass techniques and an older vulnerability (CVE-2023-39780) to run arbitrary commands on the router, the threat monitoring firm said.

  • The Register UK ☛ Fred Hutch to pay $50M+ in 2023 data raid settlement

    Lawyers brought the class action to Fred Hutch on behalf of around 2.1 million people, although only 140,000 of those applied for settlement benefits by the May 7 deadline.

  • The Register UK ☛ Watchdog’s Tesla demo shows car hitting 'child' dummy

    The Dawn Project has its own agenda. It was founded by software entrepreneur Dan O'Dowd to highlight the dangers of Tesla's self-driving claims when matched with reality. O'Dowd, who owns several Teslas himself - including original Roadster models - has been sounding concerns about the software for years.

  • Matt Birchler ☛ Apple execs are to be seen on video, but never in person

    What I hadn’t really thought about until just now is that since 2020, this is basically the only time anyone in the public gets to see Apple executives in front of other people. Its literally the only time we see them talking to other people like humans, the only time they have to think on their feet, and the only time they’re in front of a live audience whose opinion they get to absorb in real time. This will be the 6th year in a row where the entire customer-facing appearances from these execs is in scripted videos.

    Except for these WWDC Talk Shows.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ Google Humiliated as Its Idiot AI Overviews Caught Telling Users It's Still 2024

      The humiliating instance highlights a persistent and glaring problem plaguing some of the most advanced large language models: frequent hallucinations remain an enormous — and growing — issue, leading to copious confusion online and significantly undercutting the tech's usefulness.

    • CBC ☛ Can we still tell what's real? 'Unsettling' new AI tech makes generating ultrarealistic videos easy

      Google introduced Veo 3 at its I/O conference last week, where Google's vice-president of Gemini and Google Labs, Josh Woodward, explained the new model has even better visual quality, a stronger understanding of physics and generates its own audio.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Game studios love AI! The gamers … hate it

      The paying customers loathe AI slop — so much so that the studios have to tell the SEC it’s a risk factor. Take Two says AI presents “operational and reputational risks” from “negative user perceptions.” Electronic Arts says using AI “may result in legal and reputational harm.”

    • Derek Kędziora ☛ The wrong audience

      From my friend and former colleague Autumn:

      "AI can’t replace Content Designers. Not now, and maybe not ever.'

      "But."

      "That’s not what actually matters. What matters is whether your hiring manager, C-suite, or other stakeholder thinks it can."

    • Leon Furze ☛ AI and the Death of Communication

      In this article I want to ask a question: if platforms and AIs are already shaping our every online interaction, what is the future of human-to-human communication?

    • Antirez ☛ Human coders are still better than LLMs

      This is a short story of how humans are still so much more capable of LLMs. Note that I'm not anti-AI or alike, you know it if you know me / follow me somewhere. I use LLMs routinely, like I did today, when I want to test my ideas, for code reviews, to understand if there are better approaches than what I had in mind, to explore stuff at the limit of my expertise, and so forth (I wrote a blog post about coding with LLMs almost two years, when it was not exactly cool: I was already using LLMs for coding and never stopped, I'll have to write an update, but that's not the topic of this post).

    • Raw Story ☛ 'We're so cooked': Critics agog as WH refuses to deny using AI to write report - Raw Story

      Reporters and social media users questioned whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s much-anticipated "Make America Healthy Again" report on children was cobbled together using artificial intelligence after telltale flaws appeared in the document.

  • Social Control Media

    • The Texas Tribune ☛ Proposed social media ban for Texas kids misses key deadline

      The proposal, the most far-reaching of the bills filed to address online dangers this session, would prohibit minors from creating accounts on social media sites, such as Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat and more, and require users to verify their ages. Companies would have to comply with the ban by April 2026.

      The bill would also allow parents to request the deletion of their child’s existing social media account, and a company must comply within 10 days.

    • Henrique Dias ☛ Integrating Bluesky Into My Website

      Bluesky and Mastodon have a lot of differences, and the fundamental way Bluesky works (the ATProtocol) makes it such that the essence of creating a post is very different. On Mastodon - or almost any other social media - you just call the API with the text and the server automatically detects links, mentions, etc. If needed, the server embeds a preview of the links in the post.

    • International Business Times ☛ Meta Under Fire as Online Harassment Surges After Moderation Shake-Up

      Meta, the social media giant behind Facebook and Instagram, is facing significant criticism following recent changes to its content moderation policies. According to Meta's own Q1 2025 Integrity Report, online harassment and hate speech have risen since the company implemented a major moderation shake-up earlier this year.

      This surge has sparked concerns among regulators, users, and advocacy groups, raising questions about the balance between free expression and online safety.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Global operation takes down 'dangerous' malware network

    • The Strategist ☛ Mandatory ransomware reporting: great, but tell us what’s being learned

      The ransomware problem is too big for the government to solve alone. Public reporting of the information, with identities removed, would help the broader cybersecurity ecosystem to direct resources where they’re needed most.

    • Wired ☛ Cops in Germany Claim They’ve ID’d the Mysterious Trickbot Ransomware Kingpin

      The BKA spokesperson also notes in written statements to WIRED that information obtained through a 2023 investigation into the Qakbot malware as well as analysis of the leaked Trickbot and Conti chats from 2022 were “helpful” in making the attribution. They added, too, that the “assessment is also shared by international partners.”

    • Tripwire ☛ Interlock ransomware: what you need to know

      If you are impacted, you will find that your files have not only been encrypted but have also had ".interlock" appended to their filenames. For example, a file named report.xlsx would become report.xlsx.interlock, visibly signaling that it has been encrypted by Interlock.

    • The Record ☛ Australian ransomware victims now must tell the government if they pay up

      The law, initially proposed last year, only applies to organizations with an annual turnover greater than AUS $3 million ($1.93 million) alongside a smaller group of specific entities working within critical infrastructure sectors. The turnover threshold is expected to capture just the top 6.5% of all registered businesses in Australia, comprising roughly half of the country’s economy.

      Reports will be made to the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) within 72 hours. Companies that fail to make a report could receive 60 penalty units within the Australian civil penalty system.

    • The Record ☛ DDoS incident disrupts internet for thousands in Moscow

      The attack, first detected on Tuesday, continued into Friday, disrupting ASVT’s mobile app, website and customer accounts. The provider serves mainly large residential complexes, where residents reported being unable to work remotely, pay at local shops using card terminals, or access their buildings due to disabled internet-based intercom systems.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Why Take9 Won't Improve Cybersecurity - Schneier on Security

      We wouldn’t accept that in other parts of our lives. Imagine Take9 in other contexts. Food service: “Before sitting down at a restaurant, take nine seconds: Look in the kitchen, maybe check the temperature of the cooler, or if the cooks’ hands are clean.” Aviation: “Before boarding a plane, take nine seconds: Look at the engine and cockpit, glance at the plane’s maintenance log, ask the pilots if they feel rested.” This is obviously ridiculous advice. The average person doesn’t have the training or expertise to evaluate restaurant or aircraft safety—and we don’t expect them to. We have laws and regulations in place that allow people to eat at a restaurant or board a plane without worry.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • EPIC ☛ State v. Miles

      Facial recognition is an extremely powerful and dangerous surveillance technology. A facial recognition search uses an algorithm to match a picture to a gallery of identified images based on biometric markers such as face prints. This process involves multiple components and steps that each introduce a significant possibility of misidentification. Further, facial recognition systems vary widely in their accuracy. Despite the lack of cohesion, standards, or standardized use protocols, law enforcement often uses commercial facial recognition products. This has resulted in numerous wrongful arrests of innocent individuals.

      In State v. Arteaga, a New Jersey appellate court held that a defendant in a case in which the State utilized or relied on facial recognition technology (FRT) is entitled to broad discovery regarding FRT. 476 N.J. Super. 36 (App. Div. 2023)

    • EFF ☛ She Got an Abortion. So A Texas Cop Used 83,000 Cameras to Track Her Down.

      In a chilling sign of how far law enforcement surveillance has encroached on personal liberties, 404 Media recently revealed that a sheriff’s office in Texas searched data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras to track down a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion. The officer searched 6,809 different camera networks maintained by surveillance tech company Flock Safety, including states where abortion access is protected by law, such as Washington and Illinois. The search record listed the reason plainly: “had an abortion, search for female.”

    • 404 Media ☛ A Texas Cop Searched License Plate Cameras Nationwide for a Woman Who Got an Abortion

      The sheriff said the woman self-administered the abortion and her family were concerned for her safety, so authorities searched through Flock cameras. Experts are still concerned that a cop in a state where abortion is illegal can search cameras in others where it's a human right.

    • EFF ☛ California’s Cities and Counties Must Step Up Their Privacy Game. A.B. 1337 Can Do That.

      The “Information Practices Act of 1977”—or the IPA for short—is a foundational state privacy law and one of several privacy laws directly responding to the Watergate scandal, such the federal Privacy Act of 1974 and California’s own state constitutional right to privacy.

      Now, as we confront a new era of digital surveillance and face our own wave of concern about government demands for data, it's time to revisit and update the IPA.

    • Techdirt ☛ Pentagon Leak Investigation: Either Illegal Surveillance Happened Or Everyone’s Lying About Everything

      So we’re left with two equally damning possibilities: either the Pentagon actually conducted warrantless surveillance on American government officials (a massive Fourth Amendment violation that would make the FBI’s FISA abuses look quaint), or Hegseth’s personal lawyer fabricated claims about illegal surveillance to justify firing people.

      The fact that we can’t tell which nightmare scenario is real pretty much captures everything wrong with this administration’s approach to national security.

    • Wired ☛ The US Is Storing Migrant Children’s DNA in a Criminal Database

      The records, quietly released by the US Customs and Border Protection earlier this year, offer the most detailed look to date at the scale of CBP’s controversial DNA collection program. They reveal for the first time just how deeply the government’s biometric surveillance reaches into the lives of migrant children, some of whom may still be learning to read or tie their shoes—yet whose DNA is now stored in a system originally built for convicted sex offenders and violent criminals.

    • Papers Please ☛ US State Dept. says silence or anonymity on social media is suspicious

      A cable yesterday from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, first reported by  Nahal Toosi and Eric Bazail-Eimil of Politico, directs US embassies and consulates to “conduct a complete screening of the online presence of any nonimmigrant visa applicant seeking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose.”

      The cable implies that the main although not the exclusive focus of this special scrutiny of each Harvard-associated visa applicant’s “online presence” will be the content of their social media accounts.

      In the cable, Rubio told US consular officers who decide whether to grant or deny visa applications that “the lack of any online presence, or having social media accounts restricted to ‘private’ or with limited visibility, may be reflective of evasiveness and call into question the applicant’s credibility.” In such cases, consular officers are instructed to:

  • Confidentiality

    • YLE ☛ Encryption-breaking and beyond — Finland to lead EU defence project on quantum technology

      This includes quantum computers, which are still under development but could be vastly more powerful and rapid than standard computers.

      The EU venture, which was proposed by Finland, is dubbed Quantum Enablers for Strategic Advantage (Quest). It was unveiled as part of the latest set of 11 projects under the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation (Pesco) programme.

    • APNIC ☛ How secure are my sessions?

      Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a critical protocol for protecting data in transit and includes multiple options for authentication within implementations. In recent discussions, it became clear that additional information could be helpful, breaking down what a user or administrator needs to understand about TLS implementation and configuration options to better assess points of potential exposure. As such, this post is aimed at filling that gap. The configuration options listed tie into policy for an organization and can assist in discussions between the security and policy stakeholders in an organization.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Ugandan activist freed by Tanzania, 'indications of torture'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] US sanctions on Sudan to hurt civilians more than army

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Romanian director keeps memory of the Holocaust alive

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Turkey's Foreign Minister to Visit Kyiv After Talks in Moscow on Peace Efforts

  • ANF News ☛ 2025-05-27 [Older] ECtHR requests statement from Turkey on civilian killings in basements in Cizre

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-26 [Older] Putin to Meet Turkey's Foreign Minister on Monday, Kremlin Says

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2025-05-27 [Older] In Syria, Aid Cuts Threaten to Feed the Return of ISIS

  • The Local DK ☛ Danish authorities to review state of country’s bomb shelters

    No specific detail is given on the cost of the review or whether funds have been made available for any necessary repairs or renovations to the facilities.

    Neighbouring Sweden recently announced it is investing 100 million kronor (roughly $10 million) into checking and modernising its many civil defence bunkers.

  • Air Force Times ☛ Lockheed eyes better stealth, unmanned option for F-35

    Advanced stealth capabilities, new weapons and possibly even an unmanned piloting option could be in the works for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 as the company seeks to boost the jet with sixth-generation technology.

  • Semafor Inc ☛ Temu and Shein are reshaping Africa’s Jumiaumia

    Jumia, Africa’s biggest online retailer, is ramping up the number of China-based merchants on its platforms as it struggles to counter fierce competition from Chinese e-commerce giants Temu and Shein.

  • The Register UK ☛ Nvidia is cozying up to China, Senators say

    "No American company should be helping the Chinese Communist Party close the AI gap," Banks said in a statement. "NVIDIA was built by American innovation and taxpayer-funded research, not by empowering our adversaries."

    According to the letter, plans for the R&D facility are just the latest example of Nvidia cozying up to China, which the pair said "demonstrates a disregard for US national security and support for autocratic regimes."

  • Paul Krugman ☛ Digital Corruption Takes Over DC

    Stories of towns infiltrated by organized crime or ruled by blatantly corrupt politicians used to be fairly common. These days you hear tales of blatant personal corruption at the local level less often.

    But who could have imagined raw corruption determining policy for the United States as a whole?

  • YLE ☛ Supo: Iran is spying on Finland

    "The threat has also increased in the Nordic countries," a spokesperson for Supo said, but declined to elaborate further on what specific information Iran is seeking about Finland.

  • YLE ☛ What to do if you spot a submarine in Finnish waters — keep calm and carry on

    The sightings are especially noteworthy because the Finnish fleet does not include any submarines, meaning any such vessel spotted in Finnish waters belongs to another state.

  • LWN ☛ Lessons from open source in the Mexican government

    Another major reason is to work toward Mexico having "IT sovereignty". One major problem that the country has had is that its IT leadership is not technical, which means that people were signing off on projects and licenses without understanding what they were buying. ""They really didn't know if they are were getting good value for [the] money"".

    There is a need to build up the talent within the government to support open-source software; ""there's no point in building a whole infrastructure on open source if you don't have the talent to keep it up"". There has been a lot of effort to bring in new people and to train existing workers to that end. One goal is to go from being an IT-consumer nation to being an IT-producing nation. It is surprising to many who think of Mexico as a manufacturing and assembly nation that the country does actually produce a lot of technology, he said. Much of what was being produced within the government, though, was being siphoned off by the private sector; more recently, that is changing, so that the government can package and even sell its IT development.

  • Defence Web ☛ M23 kill, torture and hold civilians hostage at detention sites – Amnesty International

    The Rwandan-backed March 23 Movement (M23) has killed, tortured and forcibly disappeared detainees, held some as hostages, and subjected them to inhumane conditions at detention sites in Goma and Bukavu in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These acts violate international humanitarian law (IHL) and may amount to war crimes, according to Amnesty International.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Kyiv Independent ☛ Kremlin fabricated story on Putin’s near-miss with Ukrainian drones, Moscow Times reports

    The reportedly fabricated story comes as Kyiv has ramped up its attack on Moscow, launching hundreds of Ukrainian kamikaze drones towards the Russian capital. While none have appeared to have reached Moscow, the attacks have caused significant disruptions to commuter air traffic.

  • Common Dreams ☛ DOGE [sic] Still Lives, and We Will Continue To Track It

    In response to Musk’s departure from DOGE [sic], Revolving Door Project Executive Director Jeff Hauser released the following statement: “There is no daylight between Elon Musk and Russ Vought on the aim of greenlighting corporate abuse, as anyone can see from their joint destruction of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. DOGE [sic]’s Musk-tied staffers have already burrowed into the government, and having a new boss who has coordinated extensively with Musk isn’t likely to change their actual actions much at all. Musk’s departure obscures but does not actually change the continuity of DOGE [sic]’s staff and mission to destroy everything that protects the public from the depredations of the most rapacious oligarchs.”

  • Mike Brock ☛ Clear Thinking v. Andrew Wilson

    His name is Andrew Wilson, and he represents something more dangerous than the evasions of Jordan Peterson, more corrosive than the simplistic selfishness of Ayn Rand, more insidious than the obscurantism of Curtis Yarvin. Wilson doesn't just advocate for bad ideas—he corrupts the epistemic foundations that would allow us to recognize them as bad ideas at all.

  • Vox ☛ Harvard fires Francesca Gino: What it got right in messy academic fraud fight

    In the summer of 2023, I wrote about a shocking scandal at Harvard Business School: Star professor Francesca Gino had been accused of falsifying data in four of her published papers, with whispers there was falsification in others, too.

• Environment

  • JURIST ☛ European Union ratifies High Seas Treaty, marking major step in international environmental law

    Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans Costas Kadis took a more optimistic view, stating that, “Today the European Union takes a historic step towards protecting the world’s oceans and preserving the delicate balance of our planet’s ecosystem. The ratification of the Treaty of the High Seas is a testament to our commitment to responsible and sustainable ocean governance, and we urge all countries to join us in this effort.”

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ ‘Zombie moose’: As climate change shortens winters, ticks ravage New England’s moose population

    “April is the month of death for calves,” Orff, who works as a field biologist at the National Wildlife Federation and serves as vice president of the New Hampshire Wildlife Federation, said. “The adult ticks are feeding one more time before they fall off and they basically drain the moose’s supply of blood.”

    Around April, the female ticks fall off their hosts to lay their eggs. If they land on snow as opposed to dry land, the eggs are less fruitful. However, as climate change represses winter weather, tick populations have boomed.

  • The Verge ☛ Young people sue Donald Trump over climate change

    Executive orders President Donald Trump signed to promote fossil fuels amount to an “unconstitutional” overreach of power, they allege in a complaint filed Thursday at a US District Court in Montana. The 22 plaintiffs also claim that by increasing pollution and denying climate science, the president’s actions violate their Fifth Amendment rights to life and liberty.

    It’s the latest high-profile case brought against governments by youth concerned about how fossil fuel pollution and climate change poses risks to their health and ability to thrive as they grow up.

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Half of world's population endured extra month of extreme heat, experts say

    Scientists say 4 billion people, about half the world’s population, experienced at least one extra month of extreme heat because of human-caused climate change from May 2024 to May 2025.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ California heat wave expected to break records this weekend

    In Los Angeles County, the Public Health Department issued a heat advisory for residents in the western and eastern areas of the San Fernando Valley, as well as the Santa Clarita Valley, warning of the high risk of heat-related illness for sensitive populations — adults who are 65 and older, as well as children and those with chronic illnesses. Forecasters are expecting temperatures to reach as high as 100 degrees.

    To the north, from the Shasta Lake area to the Sacramento Valley, “dangerously hot conditions” are expected, with temperatures from 99 to 107 degrees, according to the National Weather Service’s Sacramento office. And the Mendocino area could see sizzling temperatures of 102 to 105.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Massive floods wreak havoc in eastern Australia

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] The carbon removal Olympics are set to kick off in this Alberta industrial park

  • Energy/Transportation

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Turkey Will Fine Airline Passengers Who Unbuckle Before the Plane Stops

    • The Moscow Times ☛ No Sign of Russian Preparations to Restart Zaporizhzhia, IAEA Official Says

      Its six reactors are shut down as war rages around it. The International Atomic Energy Agency has called for a ceasefire, after which measures to improve the water and external power supplies needed to cool nuclear fuel could be taken.

    • Court House News ☛ 2nd suspect in Manhattan [cryptocurrency] kidnapping and torture case indicted

      He eventually agreed to hand over his computer password Friday morning, then managed to flee the home as his captors went to retrieve the device.

    • Quanta Magazine ☛ How Can AI Researchers Save Energy? By Going Backward.

      He soon found a candidate that took advantage of a quirk of thermodynamics: a device whose computations could run backward as well as forward. By never deleting data, such a “reversible” computer would avoid wasted energy.

      Now, as progress in traditional computing is slowing — new chips are running into fundamental physical limitations that prevent them from getting smaller — reversible computing could keep computational progress going.

    • Vintage Everyday ☛ Charlton Heston Training for His Iconic Chariot Race in “Ben-Hur” (1959)

      Charlton Heston was hard at work preparing for his legendary role in Ben-Hur, practicing his chariot-riding skills in Rome. He was training for the film’s famous chariot race, one of the most spectacular scenes ever captured on screen.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Energy Department announces another supercomputer: Doudna

      The Doudna supercomputer, which is geared toward high-performance computing and training artificial intelligence technology, will be based at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center. It is only the latest Energy Department project designed for the AI age: El Capitan, a supercomputer based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and currently the world’s fastest, is also designed with machine learning in mind, as is Frontier, a DOE supercomputer housed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

    • The Register UK ☛ Nvidia Vera-Rubin chips to power DOE's Doudna supercomputer

      Compared to its predecessor, Perlmutter, the system promises to deliver a 10x increase in "scientific output" while consuming just 2-3x the power.

      On first blush, that suggests the system should squeeze 790 petaFLOPS of double precision performance from between 5.8 and 8.7 megawatts of power, making it the most power-efficient supercomputer on record by a wide margin.

    • Giles Turnbull ☛ Things you should know about The European Sleeper from Brussels to Prague

      I write all this not to complain - well, maybe to complain a bit - but mainly to forewarn. I love trains, I love travelling by train, I much prefer it to flying, and I really want to see more sleeper services everywhere. (We should have more of them in the UK, and more late night journeys too, but that’s for another day.)

      So I want European Sleeper to succeed. I want them to improve and grow their service.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Science Alert ☛ Cephalopods Passed a Cognitive Test Designed For Human Children

      A study published in 2021 presented cuttlefish with a new version of the 'marshmallow test', and the results showed there's more going on in their strange little brains than we ever suspected.

      Their ability to learn, anticipate future rewards, and adapt their behavior, the researchers said, may have evolved to give cuttlefish an edge in the cutthroat eat-or-be-eaten marine world they live in.

  • Overpopulation

    • Deseret Media ☛ Why water conservation remains a 'top priority' in Utah after Cox's drought order expires

      Experts say rising temperatures and increased demand will impact water supply.

• Finance

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Decision coming in trial of developers accused of defrauding investors out of retirement savings

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Hamilton landlord fined $100K for illegal renovictions that had 'devastating' impacts on tenants, court hears

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-22 [Older] German economy in crisis: When will it bounce back?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-24 [Older] Why Japan's Gen Z is 'quiet quitting' work

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Can EU secure a US trade pact despite Cheeto Mussolini's new tariff threat?

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Reuters ☛ Microsoft unit in Russia to file for bankruptcy, database shows

    The U.S. tech giant had already removed Russian state-owned media outlet RT's mobile apps from the Windows App store and banned advertisements on Russian state-sponsored media in the days after the invasion. The note posted on Fedresurs on Friday said that Microsoft Rus LLC was intending to declare bankruptcy.

  • India Times ☛ Microsoft unit in Russia to file for bankruptcy, database shows

    Microsoft continued providing key services in Russia after Moscow's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but in June 2022 it said it was significantly scaling down its operations due to changes to the economic outlook and the impact on its business there.

  • Ukrainska Pravda ☛ Microsoft exits Russian market as local subsidiary prepares for bankruptcy | Ukrainska Pravda

    The official reporting shows that the company’s operating activity plummeted: revenue dropped from RUB 6.9 billion (around US$86 million) in 2021 to RUB 161.6 million (US$2 million) in 2024. Nevertheless, the company still shows a net profit of RUB 174.1 million (about US$2.2 million).

  • India Times ☛ Microsoft Russia: Microsoft's Russian Unit Set to File for Bankruptcy Amidst Economic Pressures, ET Telecom

    The TASS news agency reported that Microsoft has three other Russian units - Microsoft Development Centre Rus, Microsoft Mobile Rus and Microsoft Payments Rus. It was not immediately clear how those units might be affected.

  • Wired ☛ How the Loudest Voices in AI Went From ‘Regulate Us’ to ‘Unleash Us’

    Two years later, on May 8 of this year, Altman was back in front of another group of senators. The senators and Altman were still singing the same tune, but one pulled from a different playlist. This hearing was called “Winning the AI Race.” In DC, the word “oversight” has fallen out of favor, and the AI discourse is no exception. Instead of advocating for outside bodies to examine AI models to assess risks, or for platforms to alert people when they are interacting with AI, committee chair Ted Cruz argued for a path where the government would not only fuel innovation but remove barriers like “overregulation.” Altman was on board with that. His message was no longer “regulate me” but “invest in me.” He said that overregulation—like the rules adopted by the European Union or one bill recently vetoed in California would be “disastrous.” “We need the space to innovate and to move quickly,” he said. Safety guardrails might be necessary, he affirmed, but they needed to involve “sensible regulation that does not slow us down.”

  • The Atlantic ☛ OpenAI Can Stop Pretending

    Why all the worry about corporate structure anyway? Governance, boardroom processes, legal arcana—these things are not what sci-fi dreams are made of. Yet those concerned with the societal dangers that generative AI, and thus OpenAI, pose feel these matters are of profound importance. The still more powerful artificial “general” intelligence, or AGI, that OpenAI and its competitors are chasing could theoretically cause mass unemployment, worsen the spread of misinformation, and violate all sorts of privacy laws. In the highest-flung doomsday scenarios, the technology brings about civilizational collapse. Altman has expressed these concerns himself—and so OpenAI’s 2019 structure, which gave the nonprofit final say over the for-profit’s actions, was meant to guide the company toward building the technology responsibly instead of rushing to release new AI products, sell subscriptions, and stay ahead of competitors.

  • C4ISRNET ☛ Meta and Anduril work on mixed reality devices for the US military

    This partnership stems from the Soldier Borne Mission Command (SBMC) Next program, formerly called the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) Next. IVAS was a massive military contract, with a total $22 billion budget, originally awarded to Microsoft in 2018 intended to develop HoloLens-like AR glasses for soldiers.

    But after endless problems, in February the Army stripped management of the program from Microsoft and awarded it to Anduril, with Microsoft staying on as a cloud provider. The intent is to eventually have multiple suppliers of mixed reality glasses for soldiers.

  • India Times ☛ Mark Zuckerberg finally found a use for his Metaverse — War

    Anduril and Meta are partnering to design, build, and field a range of integrated XR products that provide warfighters with enhanced perception and enable intuitive control of autonomous platforms on the battlefield.

  • The Register UK ☛ Meta is now a defense contractor

    Luckey joined Meta when it was still called Facebook following the social media company's 2014 acquisition of Oculus, the virtual reality headset biz he founded.

    He left the then-Facebook branded corp in 2017, with some reports stating his $10,000 political donation to an anti-Hillary Clinton group in the runup to the 2016 presidential election had been a factor. Others alleged he'd faced pressure to publicly endorse libertarian candidate Gary Johnson instead of his preferred candidate Donald Trump.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Mark Zuckerberg has finally found a use for his metaverse

    In Meta’s case, there’s another factor at play. Mark Zuckerberg’s deal with Anduril — which you assume is just the start of Meta’s military hardware ambitions — offers a lifeline to its ailing Reality Labs business. The unit has lost more than $70-billion since the start of 2019. Advancements in quality haven’t led to jumps in sales. I’ve written before that fitness applications are a great selling point, but apparently too few people agree with me. A newer form factor, sunglasses made in partnership with Ray-Ban, have shown potential but still represent a niche product.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Meta and Anduril partner to develop wearables for the US military

    Meta Platforms Inc. and Anduril Industries Inc., a defense technology startup, announced today that they’re partnering to develop wearable devices for the U.S. military.

  • ZDNet ☛ The Linux 6.15 kernel arrives - and it's big a victory for Rust fans

    Since then, Nvidia figured out they could make a lot more money working with Linux instead of fighting it. Now, with the AI industry living and dying on Nvidia chips running Linux, the tech giant has embraced both the memory-safe Rust language and open source. We can expect to see a lot more Rust-based kernel components soon.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Fact check: Cheeto Mussolini's “evidence videos” do not show “genocide”

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Moscow Activists Fined for Placing Putin Quotes Next to Stalin Sculpture

    Sofya Bezmenova and Timofey Rostopchin, members of the right-wing movement Society.Future, were arrested last week after placing the framed quotes at the base of the Stalin relief.

  • RFA ☛ Regional Chinese censorship more aggressive than national Great Firewall: study – Radio Free Asia

    The Great Firewall Report (GFW Report) highlights how the central Chinese province of Henan has adopted its own provincial firewall which is less sophisticated and robust than the central government’s but more volatile and aggressive, blocking significantly more websites than the national-level censorship system.

    Local sources told Radio Free Asia that the heightened restrictions at the provincial government level may reflect uncertainty about instructions from higher authorities, leading to “excessive blocking” to avoid blame for failing to carry out their duties.

  • NL Times ☛ Rectors at Dutch universities call on people to stand up for their academic freedom

    Dutch students, teachers, and researchers have also stated that they are feeling the effects of academic freedom being under pressure. The rectors of Dutch universities have said that they feel politicians are getting more and more involved with the contents of scientific education. They are now calling on people to stand up for their academic freedom.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Trump’s Attacks Threaten Much More Than Harvard

    The letter represents the Trump administration’s latest assault in its war on Harvard, in which the government is effectively trying to nationalize a private university. It began with an April demand letter in which a multiagency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism froze $2.2 billion in research grants to the school and threatened to freeze more unless Harvard abolished its DEI offices, banned masks used to conceal students’ identities during protests, audited each department for “viewpoint diversity,” and routed every foreign-student misconduct allegation directly to the DHS. A lawsuit from Harvard led the government to retaliate further, and President Donald Trump threatened in early May to take away Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

  • Cory Dransfeldt ☛ The 'agentic' web is nothing more than a moat

    The web changes slowly, it's open, it's connective. The 'agentic' web is another false promise of convenience when, in reality, all it does is give the companies pushing it a chokepoint between users and the information they want.

    Natural language web, model context protocol, structured data markup, AMP — open promises from massive companies. All designed to benefit large companies, not publishers, not users, not people. These protocols are open because they want you to implement them for compatibility with their products that are not. These models and applications get things wrong all the time and now we're supposed to cater to them?

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Catholic church declines to say if Tiananmen mass will take place

    The Catholic church’s Tiananmen mass was part of Hong Kong’s tradition of mourning the victims of the 1989 crackdown for more than three decades until it was cancelled for the first time in 2022. It has not resumed since.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Targeting foreign students, Trump hits a US lifeline

    But Trump's inner circle has long made clear its intentions to battle universities—whose often left-leaning faculties, high costs and selectivity make them perfect foils for a presidency centered on countering elites and foreigners.

    Vice President JD Vance stated in no uncertain terms his hope to destroy the power of academe in a 2021 speech entitled, "The universities are the enemy."

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-23 [Older] Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi returns to Cannes with a defiant new film

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-24 [Older] US updates: Hegseth restricts Pentagon reporting

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-25 [Older] US public media shutdown hits harder in Turkey

  • BIA Net ☛ Journalist Yıldız Tar to be released after 98 days in prison

    According to a report by Kaos GL, the court ruled today that Tar would be tried without detention.

  • Cost Rica ☛ Costa Rica’s Journalists’ Day: Press Freedom in Crisis

    The Association of Journalists and Professionals in Communication Sciences of Costa Rica (COLPER) has been vocal about these issues. They warn that political attacks aim to undermine journalism to boost government propaganda. COLPER criticized state officials for manipulating public communication and sidelining professional reporting.

  • Court House News ☛ PBS sues Trump over executive order slashing federal funds

    Approximately 15% of PBS’s budget stems from federal funding.

    “This action challenges an unprecedented presidential directive attacking PBS and its member stations in a manner that will upend public television,” PBS writes in its complaint.

  • Techdirt ☛ Trump Makes NPR’s Legal Case Extra Easy By Admitting Retaliatory Motives In Executive Order Title

    Republicans have been gunning for public media for decades, but historically, every time Congress tries to cut funding, outcry from their constituents is so overwhelming that nothing ever happens. It turns out tons of people (including Republican voters) actually like NPR and PBS. But Trump skipped Congress entirely and simply declared that public media wouldn’t be receiving any more federal funding — because he thinks their coverage hurts his feelings.

  • NPR ☛ PBS and Minnesota public TV station sue Trump White House

    It continues: "The EO makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech. That is blatant viewpoint discrimination and an infringement of PBS and PBS Member Stations' private editorial discretion."

  • The Georgia Recorder ☛ PBS, Minnesota public TV station sue Trump over executive order cutting off funds

    PBS wrote in its 48-page filing that it disagrees with claims made by the executive order, including that federal spending on public media is “corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence” and that the news organization doesn’t present “a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”

    “PBS disputes those charged assertions in the strongest possible terms,” the lawsuit states. “But regardless of any policy disagreements over the role of public television, our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of the content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”

    The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, but hadn’t been assigned to a judge as of Friday evening.

  • [Repeat] Press Gazette ☛ PA Media journalists back no confidence vote against new editor-in-chief over cuts plan

    NUJ members in the PA newsroom also voted in favour of strike action in an indicative vote and in favour of industrial action short of a strike in protest at plans to cut 8% of UK editorial staff.

  • CPJ ☛ Georgia media face fewer ‘ways to survive’ amid foreign funding crackdown

    Georgia’s populist ruling Georgian Dream party has pushed through its new Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)—called an “exact copy” of the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act— granting the state authority to criminally prosecute media outlets, NGOs, and individuals for failing to register as a “foreign agent.”

    Yet the way the law is written, “they can use it against anyone,” warned Mariam Nikuradze, executive director of the independent Georgia-based regional news outlet OC Media. Nikuradze said the increasingly authoritarian Georgian Dream party has weaponized uncertainty over how the law will be enforced to “create this environment [of fear]” and force compliance from outlets that refused to register under the country’s 2024 foreign agent law.

  • CPJ ☛ Salvadoran congress approves ‘foreign agents’ law that threatens press freedom

    Approved May 20 by Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party-controlled legislature, the law mandates that any person or organization receiving funds from abroad register with the Ministry of Interior as a foreign agent. Those designated must pay a 30% tax on all foreign income and submit to extensive oversight, including sworn declarations. Violations of the law carry fines ranging from US$1,000 to US$150,000.

    While the government claims the law is meant to promote transparency and protect national sovereignty, press freedom and human rights advocates warn it is intended to intimidate critics and financially cripple the independent press.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ The flimsy arguments Trump used to attack public media that serves Kansas

    In another way, this column is tricky. Defending anyone, let alone an institution, from fraudulent attacks is challenging. It’s proving a negative, when the negative is certifiably bonkers. And coming from the White House.

    Here goes.

  • Josh Withers ☛ The Slow Death—and Occasional Resurrection—of Original Reporting

    That was the standing order when I worked the CMS at 4BC radio.

    No matter how solid the tip or tweet, nothing went live until a “bigger” outlet blessed it first. The policy didn’t just throttle scoops; it taught an entire shift of producers to become professional copy-pasters.

  • CPJ ☛ Egyptian journalist Rasha Qandeel charged with spreading ‘false news’ after political reports.

    “Accusing Qandeel after questioning her journalistic integrity is another example of Egypt’s legal harassment and use of vague charges to silence independent voices,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “We urge Egyptian authorities to drop all charges against her and stop targeting independent journalism.”

    Qandeel, a well-known former BBC Arabic presenter, said she has faced increased verbal attacks from pro-regime Egyptian media presenters after publishing articles last month criticizing the Egyptian army’s arms purchases amid the country’s economic hardships.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-22 [Older] Two Indian women artists blazing their own trails

  • FAIR ☛ Tom Morello on Music as Protest

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ Soldier’s wife deported to Australia after detainment in Hawaii

    Afterward, DHS took fingerprints and DNA swabs of Saroukos’ mouth, conducted a body cavity search and escorted her to the Federal Detention Center, Honolulu, the report stated. Her mother was allowed to leave.

    DHS told Military Times that concerns over her cell phone were also partly to blame for her detention.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Farewell (for the moment)

    While I'm away, here are some things I'd like to call your attention to. First, some good news: the Washington Post Tech Guild just won a historic union vote with a giant majority, despite the vicious union-hating owner of the Post, a Mr Jeffrey Preston Bezos: [...]

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ ‘What the f--- am I tipping for?’ Why US service charges will get even worse

    That may sound good for workers. But Barth says it amounts to just a “subsidy for employers”. The tax break will reduce pressure on employers to raise wages and companies could actually cut workers’ base pay as a result, demanding they make up the difference through tips.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Techdirt ☛ Republicans Rewrite Infrastructure Broadband Grant Program To Give Elon Musk Billions, Potentially Delaying Deployments By Years

    They’re eliminating requirements that resulting broadband be affordable for poor people. They’re eliminating already fairly decorative labor and climate build requirements. And most importantly, they’re rewriting the language so less money goes to local, high-capacity fiber ISPs, and more money goes to Elon Musk’s congested, expensive, Ozone-layer-depleting Starlink satellite broadband service.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Court House News ☛ Possible Google search monopoly breakup looms as remedy trial wraps up

  Before him lay two proposals.

  First, the Justice Department’s pitch to break up Google by divesting it’s Chrome browser and potentially Android, bar multibillion-dollar payments for default status on Apple devices and partner browsers and order data syndication for rival search engines to match Google’s quality.

  A coalition of 38 attorneys general who joined the Justice Department further proposed a public education campaign to break Google’s name-recognition advantage.

  Alternatively, Google’s narrow remedy would open the default-status deals to yearly bids from other search engines. Under Google’s scheme, rivals would be able to compete for default status on separate devices as well.

• New York Times ☛ The Judge’s Data Dilemma in the Surveillance Giant Google Search Case

  The question is how to fix Google’s monopoly. Is an order to force it to share data the solution?

• India Times ☛ Google, Justice Department face off in climactic showdown in search monopoly case

  Google lawyers are expected to assert only minor concessions are needed, especially as the upheaval triggered by advances in artificial intelligence already are reshaping the search landscape, as alternative, conversational search options are rolling out from AI startups that are hoping to use the Department of Justice's four-and-half-year-old case to gain the upper hand in the next technological frontier.

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Perlmutter Seeks Summary Judgement in Copyright Office Battle

    At the time of writing, the court hadn’t weighed in on the opposing views. Despite the benefit of frequent updates thus far, though, it’s possible that the case will spin out over weeks (if not months should a full legal proceeding take place).

    Among other things, the window could bring with it the appointment of permanent Library and Copyright Office heads – and, in turn, fresh legal questions as well as a variety of considerations for the music space.

  • Techdirt ☛ Copyright Absurdity: School Play Canceled Over Copyright Due To Minor Performance Changes

    While those are all valid questions, let’s really take a step back to get a sense of how absurd this is. A school made apparently some material performance changes to a play and that violated its licensing agreement such that performances would then violate the play’s copyright. A play, mind you, that was first published in 1953 and the author for which died in 2005. So, in a world where The Crucible is 72 years old, 23 years from its copyright expiration, and the creator dead for two decades… a group of high school children can’t put on the play they worked so hard to prepare for because of vague changes to the performance?

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Brazil Advances Criminal Prosecution of American Yout.com Operator

    Popular stream-ripping site Yout.com has failed to have a criminal copyright complaint dismissed in Brazil. The prosecution will be allowed to continue its copyright claim against the American operator of the site, who faces a potential prison sentence. The court notes that the defense has strong arguments, but the burden of proof is low at this stage, so the case will proceed.

  • BBC ☛ Taylor Swift buys back the rights to her master recordings

    In the music industry, the owner of a master recording controls the way it is distributed and licenced. The artist still earns royalties, but controlling the masters offers protection over how the work is used in future.

  • Hollywood Reporter ☛ Taylor Swift Gets Her Masters Back: How We Got Here

    Swift isn’t the first artist to re-record her music, though the practice will forever be synonymous with her as she took on the ambitious task of recreating her old albums all over again, while also managing to record and release four new albums (Folklore, Evermore, Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department) and net the highest-grossing concert tour of all time.

  • Associated Press ☛ Taylor Swift buys back first 6 albums, now owns all her music

    The pop star said she purchased her catalog of recordings — originally released through Big Machine Records — from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. She did not disclose the amount.

    In recent years, Swift has been rerecording and releasing her first six albums in an attempt to regain control of her music.

  • France24 ☛ Taylor Swift buys back rights to her old music

    Swift bought back her masters from Shamrock Capital, an LA investment firm, for an undisclosed amount.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Taylor Swift Buys Back Original Masters, Now Owns Old Albums

    The deal, as Swift wrote, covers not just the rights to her music, including unreleased tunes, but all of her music videos, concert films, album art, photography, and unreleased songs. And there are, of course, equally meaningful, more ephemeral aspects of the deal: “The memories. The magic. The madness,” Swift wrote. “Every single era. My entire life’s work.”

  • Torrent Freak ☛ U.S. Govt. Backs Cox in Landmark Supreme Court Battle Over ISP Piracy Liability

    The U.S. Solicitor General has urged the Supreme Court to accept Cox Communications' petition in a landmark piracy liability lawsuit. The USSG argues that ISPs are not necessarily liable for pirating subscribers and warns that the current precedent may lead to disconnections for many innocent subscribers. At the same time, the USSG urged the court to deny a petition from the opposing music companies, which seeks to expand the current liability verdict.

  • Sean Goedecke ☛ It's not your codebase | sean goedecke

    However, just because those feelings are understandable doesn’t mean they’re accurate. It’s not your codebase. It’s owned by the company. You are a professional who’s been hired to work on it, and if the company decides that it’s in its interests for you to no longer work on it, you won’t work on it anymore.