Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Sand Drawing Table Inspired By Sisyphus

  In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a figure who was doomed to roll a boulder for eternity as a punishment from the gods. Inspired by this, [Aidan], [Jorge], and [Henry] decided to build a sand-drawing table that endlessly traces out beautiful patterns (or at least, for as long as power is applied). You can watch it go in the video below.

• Hackaday ☛ Blowtorching Electroplated 3D Prints For Good Reason

  What if you electroplated a plastic 3D print, and then melted off the plastic to leave just the metal behind? [HEN3DRIK] has been experimenting with just such a process, with some impressive results.

• Ruben Schade ☛ Diederick de Vries tries a paper calendar

  I’ve talked about some of my post-smartphone devices, including ebook readers, offline music players, cameras, and small notepads. Diederick took this a step further with a paper calendar:

  Now that the children are still relatively young, they go along with this, but I can see how in the future they will go full digital themselves and won’t want to bother with the [family] blackboard.

  Writing things down in a paper calendar is a lot more free-form than filling out a form in a digital one.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Ruins of Ancient Temple Belonged to Mysterious Pre-Inca Civilization

    A nexus of power.

  • Science Alert ☛ This Strange 'Bubble Wrap' Can Produce Drinking Water in The Desert

    Even in Death Valley!

  • Science Alert ☛ A Faint Signal From The Dawn of Time Could Reveal The Very First Stars

    They're out there somewhere.

  • Science Alert ☛ Radiation Therapy Linked to Lower Alzheimer's Risk, Study Finds

    There's something going on here.

  • New York Times ☛ A Common Assumption About Aging May Be Wrong, Study Suggests

    Experts have long pointed to inflammation as a natural part of getting older. But a new paper suggests it might be more a product of our environment.

• Career/Education

  • Arduino ☛ This unique electronic toy helps children learn their shapes

    A basic lesson to guide the construction of a square would light up four points. The child could then string threads between those points to form the sides of the square in glowing colors. More complex lessons are possible and kids can progress through them as they grasp the fundamentals of shapes and geometry.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Digital library, vintage café and more in store for State Museum visitors

    Visitors to the State Museum in the state capital will soon have access to a digital library offering research materials and reference books, to be set up in the Old Kothi building located behind the museum on the Lucknow Zoo premises.

  • The Independent UK ☛ What watching videos at faster speeds does to your brain

    Many of us have got into the habit of listening to podcasts, audiobooks and other online content at increased playback speeds. For younger people, it might even be the norm. One survey of students in California, for instance, showed that 89 per cent changed the playback speed of online lectures, while there have been numerous articles in the media about how common speedy viewing has become.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Bengaluru CEO offering ₹50 LPA laments talent crisis as 1000 applicants fail basic coding task: ‘Big f***ing problem'

    A Bengaluru CEO criticised declining coding standards, revealing over 1,000 backend applicants submitted mostly unusable or AI-generated code.

  • Michigan News ☛ This Michigan city tops list as ‘Most Educated’ in America - mlive.com

    Michigan’s two largest college towns are among top 50 most educated cities in America, according to WalletHub rankings.

    The Ann Arbor area, home to the University of Michigan, is No. 1 and the Lansing-East Lansing metropolitan area is 30th.

  • Herman Õunapuu ☛ From building ships to shipping builds: how to succeed in making a career switch to software development :: ./techtipsy

    I have worked with a few software developers who made the switch to this industry in the middle of their careers. A major change like that can be scary and raise a lot of fears and doubts, but I can attest that this can work out well with the right personality traits and a supporting environment.

    Here’s what I’ve observed.

    To keep the writing concise, I’ll be using the phrase “senior junior”1 to describe those that have made such a career switch.

  • Jamie Lawrence ☛ You’re all CTO now | Jamie’s blog

    Let that sink in for a while. Read it again, and again. Internalise it.

    What are the proudest moments of your life? What are the things you’ve accomplished in your professional career that you’re most proud of? Did they come easy? Were they handed to you tied up with a bow, or fell into your lap through luck? I bet not. I bet you had to fight for it, you worked hard, got sooooo frustrated, and pushed and pushed through that problem. I bet you were exhausted when you finally cracked it.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Building The Marauder LowRacer From Bike Parts

    Thanks to [Radical Brad] for writing in to let us know about his recent project, building a street racing bike from square tubing and old bike parts.

  • Andrew Hutchings ☛ Using rr On Newer Intel CPUs

    If, like me, you have a newer Intel hybrid CPU, with P-Cores and E-Cores, you may hit an issue running rr in Linux to debug things. Here is how to solve it.

  • The Register UK ☛ Folks not buying PCs from US vendors 'tariff' stockpiles

    This led to significant inventory buildup in America that will now need to be cleared, according to market watcher Canalys. However consumers are not biting because of several factors, including that tariffs have pushed up prices in a number of key spending categories already, meaning households are likely focusing on essentials and avoiding forking out on discretionary items.

  • Mere Civilian ☛ Short Story: Warranties

    Every product you buy comes with some king of warranty which gives you, the consumer confidence that if there is a manufacturer fault, you will be looked after. Warranties are useful PERIOD. However, reading the fine-print is arguably even more important.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Science Alert ☛ Bold Plan to DNA Test All Babies in UK Poses Serious Risks, Experts Warn

    Life-changing consequences.

  • Science Alert ☛ Alzheimer's Might Not Actually Be a Brain Disease, Says Expert

    Are we looking at this the wrong way?

  • Science Alert ☛ 'Sky-High' Levels of Alzheimer's Protein Found in Newborns

    Were we wrong?

  • The Atlantic ☛ A Classic Childhood Pastime Is Fading

    Families haven’t always had to be this vigilant. Children in previous decades may not have had designated bike lanes, complete sidewalks, or other protective features now common on many American roads. But they had more space to wander, fewer and slower cars to contend with, and safety in numbers as throngs of children dependably roamed about the neighborhood. It wasn’t until public planning began to prioritize cars that children lost not only areas to play but also the freedom to get to places on their own. Tellingly, the share of K–8 students walking or biking to school fell from 48 percent in 1969 to just 13 percent in 2009, according to a 2011 report prepared by the National Center for Safe Routes to School.

  • Vox ☛ The big, beautiful bill will cause millions to lose Medicaid. Trump and Republicans will be to blame.

    Senate Republicans have passed President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” a move that will make major changes to Medicaid through establishing a work requirement for the first time and restricting states’ ability to finance their share of the program’s costs. If the bill ultimately becomes law after passing the House and receiving Trump’s signature — which could all happen before Friday — American health care is never going to be the same.

    The consequences will be dire.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ France: Smoking ban on beaches goes into effect

    The rules, which were published in the official government gazette on Saturday, also forbid smoking in bus shelters and within a 10 meter (33 foot) radius of libraries, swimming pools and schools, all places frequented by children.

  • FSF ☛ Free software can strengthen the US healthcare system

    The perception that profitability outweighs patient interest, as well as leaking of healthcare data to companies like Google, among other factors, have led to a 31.4% drop in trust in healthcare providers. Some of this distrust can be blamed on a lack of transparency, which free software can greatly help with. When medical practitioners use tech that runs on free software, their patients can be much more confident that the software works in their best interest. You can examine (or ask someone else) if the health record management system or telehealth software is built in consideration of your health instead of profit margins.

  • International Business Times ☛ Kylie Page's Death Highlights 'Unspeakable' Crisis: Young Female Porn Stars Face Skyrocketing Depression Rates

    While the cause of death has not been released, her passing has sparked renewed scrutiny of mental health pressures within the adult film sector. A 2011 California-based study comparing 134 female porn performers with 1,773 age‑matched women found that 33 per cent of performers met clinical criteria for depression, compared with just 13 per cent in the control group.

  • Paul Krugman ☛ Republicans Beware: Medicaid Is Not a Soft Target

    No doubt there’s waste and fraud in Medicaid, as there is in any system created and run by human beings. But overall Medicaid provides essential health care relatively cheaply. Once you adjust for the relatively poor health of the average Medicaid recipient — chronic illness can make you poor! — Medicaid appears to have significantly lower costs than private insurance: [...]

  • Nathaniel Borenstein ☛ The Hopeful Solace of Randomness

    The apparent randomness of all of this was inescapable. I had done nothing to cause or deserve my miracle. With my year of tragedies fresh in mind, I knew my fortunes could reverse again at any moment. I had always believed in savoring the good in the present moment, but had found it hard to do in practice. Now, knowing randomness to my bones, savoring the moment feels like the most natural thing in the world. My belief in life's randomness had been a comfort to me in hard times, and it became a constant reminder to savor the good times.

• Proprietary

  • BIA Net ☛ Algorithmic bias: Platform capitalism, data and reality

    Algorithms are not innocent codes based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, but ideological devices that shape the flow of digital information, making some content visible and hiding others.

  • PC World ☛ Was your data stolen in the AT&T breaches? You may be entitled to money

    More importantly, a judge recently granted preliminary approval to settlement terms. As it currently stands, $177 million will be distributed to those caught up in these data breaches. This includes both current and former AT&T customers. For the 2019 breach, $148 million is set aside, while the 2024 breach gets a pool of $28 million.

  • NDTV ☛ Microsoft's Sales Chief To Take Two-Month Sabbatical Amid Expected Layoffs

    Microsoft Corp.'s top sales executive is planning to take a two-month sabbatical, a move that coincides with an expected wave of terminations targeting his organization.

    Chief Commercial Officer Judson Althoff will step away for eight weeks, a company spokesperson said. Althoff "will be back with his team in September," the spokesperson said. The sabbatical was timed to the close of Microsoft's fiscal year, which ends Monday.

    Bloomberg reported earlier this month that the software company is planning to axe thousands of jobs, particularly in sales, part of an effort to trim its workforce amid heavy spending on artificial intelligence. Microsoft often makes major organizational changes near the end of its fiscal year.

  • Rumor: Xbox Will Announce Long Rumored Layoffs This Wednesday

    The rumors originally started with a report from Jason Schreier for Bloomberg, so it’s somewhat fitting that Schreier shared this update. He said this on Bluesky:

    Xbox’s fiscal year ends today but the mass layoffs that Bloomberg News reported on last week are expected to hit on Wednesday, for people wondering.

    Presumably, Microsoft employees shared internal communications to Schreier, so he already knew this earlier but held back on sharing the information. To be clear, there are reasons not to show all your cards, including the need to verify more information, and also see if Microsoft would object to the report, or give an official statement.

  • Date surfaces for when Microsoft will begin devastating Xbox layoffs

    Microsoft is set to begin a significant third round of layoffs within its Xbox Game Studios division starting Wednesday, following the fiscal year-end. Multiple studios, including Turn 10, are expected to be affected, raising concerns among developers about the impact on Xbox’s gaming operations and future projects.

  • Programming/Development

    • Qt ☛ QtGrpc - Tips, Tricks & Sweet Spots

      Since Qt 6.8, the Qt GRPC and Qt Protobuf modules have officially moved out of technical preview and are now fully supported parts of the Qt framework. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at what’s changed, where things are headed, and what we’ve learned along the way—from performance benchmarks to hidden gems worth knowing about.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • New Yorker ☛ What Happens After Hey Hi (AI) Destroys College Writing?

      The demise of the English paper will end a long intellectual tradition, but it’s also an opportunity to reëxamine the purpose of higher education.

    • Don Marti ☛ how to write less like a bot

      The list isn’t just useful for trying to spot if some text was generated by AI. (That’s a hard task that’s probably a bad idea to do because you end up blaming too many innocent people. As a large language model, I cannot advise you to rely on automated "AI detection" services.) What’s really valuable about this list is the examples of ways to improve human-written text.

    • Matt Webb ☛ Is there a Karman line for AI consciousness? (Interconnected)

      I wonder how to weight ethical confusion, as a risk? As I said yesterday humans are pretty self-centred, and we’re not going to treat AIs, chickens or workers in sweatshops any better just because we are co-sentients.

      Schneider highlighted another risk back in 2017 that on the face of it appear more far-fetched but personally I give more weight. What if silicon can never be conscious? Therefore as we start using brain implants, at what point do humans stop being conscious?

    • Pivot to AI ☛ $219 Springer Nature AI textbook was written with a chatbot

      Springer publishes 14,000 books a year with 9,000 employees. Nobody at Springer even looks at the books. Springer concerns itself with the important part — charging $200 for a pile of chatbot spew.

    • Spiegel ☛ Using AI to Humiliate Women: The Men Behind Deepfake Pornography

      AI-generated naked images of real women is the business model behind Clothoff, a dubious "nudify" app that has millions of visitors. Now, a whistleblower has provided details of just how cynical the site's operators are.

    • Manton Reece ☛ Cloudflare is on the offensive against AI bots

      I’m concerned that this default goes too far. Cloudflare has enormous power to intercept web traffic, because they’ve effectively re-centralized DNS for so many websites. While Matthew’s reasons for doing this are good, it should still be an opt-in feature. The open web should by default be open.

    • MIT Technology Review ☛ Cloudflare will now block AI bots from crawling its clients' websites by default

      Crawlers are supposed to obey a given website’s directions (provided through a robots.txt file) to determine whether they can crawl there, but some AI companies have been accused of ignoring these instructions.

    • Security Week ☛ Cloudflare Puts a Default Block on AI Web Scraping

      Now Cloudflare has stepped in with a global plan to put the crawling choice in the hands of website owners and AI developers rather than globally disjointed bureaucratic decision-makers. “Cloudflare,” announced the company, “is now the first internet infrastructure provider to block AI-crawlers accessing content without permission or compensation, by default.”

    • Roman Kashitsyn ☛ Parasites Found

      Freya Holmér, a designer, game developer, and educator, refers to generative AI as "parasitic cancer." In her video lament, she shares her frustration with search engines as she attempts to learn about the glb file format, finding only useless AI-generated promotional material. Her issue with AI is not its energy costs, the lack of attribution, or even mediocre output. She mourns the loss of human touch.

    • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: How much (little) are the AI companies making?

      Since the dotcom era, tech companies have boasted about giving stuff away but "making it up in volume," inventing an ever-sweatier collection of shell-games that let them hide the business's true profit and loss.

      The all-time world champeen of this kind of finance fraud is Masayoshi Son, the founder of Softbank, who acts as the bagman for the Saudi royals' personal investments. Remember last decade when the tech press was all abuzz about "unicorns" – startups that were worth $1b? That was Son: he would take a startup like Wework, declare its brand to be worth $1b, invest an infinitesimal fraction of $1b in the company based on that valuation (sometimes with a rube co-investor) and declare the valuation to be "market-based." A whole string of garbage companies achieved unicornhood by means of this unbelievably stupid trick: [...]

  • Social Control Media

    • Jason Becker ☛ Why do I want to post?

      Personally, I like both things– I like having my own site, and I like participating on social media. I like social media so much, that an important feature of my own blog is making it easy to participate in many social networks.

    • Truthdig ☛ ‘Most Worrisome …’

    • Task And Purpose ☛ Top enlisted Marine learns a lesson: Don't mess with Audie Murphy

      In a since-deleted Instagram post, Ruiz used an old picture to make a point about uniform standards, blurring out the face of a soldier wearing a medal-strewn World War II-era uniform.

    • Ben Werdmuller ☛ Self-censorship and the ‘spiral of silence’: Why Americans are less likely to publicly voice their opinions on political issues

      It's hard to know exactly how to unpick this. One of the challenges that the [Internet] has brought with it is that we can be exposed to the political opinions of our friends and neighbors more than ever before, often with a knee-jerk "they think what?!" response. Another challenge is that dunking on people via social media, rather than engaging in conversation with them, is celebrated.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Terence Eden ☛ Are Brother’s Insecure Printers Illegal in the UK?

      Nope! The Brother printers don't appear to be exempt1. What's the maximum penalty Brother could be subject to?

      The greater of £10 million or 4% of worldwide revenue.

      Ouch!

    • Bitdefender ☛ 50 customers of French bank hit after insider helped SIM swap scammers

      In a classic demonstration of how a SIM swapping attack works, fraudsters contacted cellphone operators pretending to be Société Générale customers who had lost their phone, using personal information allegedly provided by the insider to trick the mobile company into transferring the victim's phone number to a SIM card in the criminals' possession.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Tinder rolls out mandatory face verification for California users

      The feature, called Face Check, prompts users to take a short video selfie that is used to verify their identity. The verification data allows Tinder, owned by Match Group, to check whether a person’s face matches their uploaded photos. The scan is also used to check other photos on the app to detect if a user is impersonating someone else or operating duplicate accounts.

    • Meduza ☛ Russia to begin cutting mobile service for foreigners not registered in biometric database

      Since the start of 2025, foreign nationals have only been able to sign contracts with mobile operators if they submitted biometric data, and they can register no more than 10 SIM cards, the ministry wrote on Telegram. Those who signed contracts under the old rules were required to submit their biometric data by July 1.

    • Sedishj Authority for Privacy Protection ☛ Administrative fines against two companies in the SL Group | IMY

      The Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection (IMY) has fined Aktiebolaget Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL) and Waxholms Ångfartygs AB (WÅAB) for processing personal data relating to sobriety tests conducted by employees in breach fo the GDPR. IMY issues an administrative fine of SEK 75, 000 against each companies.

    • Futurism ☛ Meta Is Being Incredibly Sketchy About Training Its AI on Your Private Photos

      Meta is demanding access to all of your photos, even the ones you haven't uploaded anywhere yet — and it's being incredibly shifty about what it intends to do with them.

    • Techdirt ☛ Surveillance (Against The) State: Doorbell Cam Owners Are Tipping People Off About ICE Raids

      The cops certainly had fun partnering with Ring, the surveillance camera company now owned by Amazon. Ring handed out free cameras to cops, who handed out these cameras to citizens with the implicit expectation that they’d have warrantless access to camera footage whenever they wanted it.

    • Lee Peterson ☛ Stop using Casio step trackers, they are selling your personal data to advertisers

      This is sneaky, you can see in the first paragraph it states they do not sell your data, it’s shared as per the privacy statement.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Taliban Diplomat to Take Role as Moscow Ambassador

    Moscow has expanded its economic and diplomatic ties with the Islamist group since it returned to power in Afghanistan following a 20-year insurgency against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

  • CS Monitor ☛ His USAID career over, one worker wonders if he can still serve his country

    One challenge for many of these former employees is reconciling how they see themselves – as loyal Americans who have dedicated their lives to their nation – with the derogatory statements from their president and his administration.

  • Techdirt ☛ The Moral Imperative Of Clear Language

    The sophisticates hate this clarity. They prefer the safety of euphemism, the comfort of complexity that never quite arrives at moral judgment. They speak of “concerning developments” and “troubling trends” while democracy burns around them. They perform nuanced understanding while fascism consolidates power through their very refusal to name it.

    But here’s what they don’t understand: authoritarianism thrives in ambiguity. It requires linguistic fog to operate. It depends on our unwillingness to call things by their proper names. Every euphemism is a small surrender. Every hedge is a tiny collaboration. Every refusal to speak plainly is a gift to those who profit from confusion.

  • Axios ☛ What to know about July 4 Women's March "Free America" anti-Trump protests

    The protests are focused on freeing the U.S. from billionaires' power, poverty, unlawful orders, and the politics of fear, the website said.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ The Starlink seduction

    Starlink may dazzle, but South Africa is far from a technological wasteland. We already have proven cost-effective broadband technologies capable of closing the rural digital gap. Our true barrier is not a lack of inventions but a chronic absence of political will and institutional commitment to roll out sovereign solutions. South Africa now stands at a pivotal moment: will we invest in our own innovations or continue to rely on outside handouts?

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Four in ten babies born to foreign parents

    A total of 40.4 per cent of live births in Britain in 2024 were to families with at least one parent not from the UK - up from 35.1 per cent in 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

  • RTL ☛ Eight-year sentence: France court jails migrant smugglers over 2022 Channel deaths

    France and Britain have vowed to crack down on people smugglers who heap migrants on flimsy dinghies to make the dangerous Channel crossing in exchange for thousands of dollars.

  • Security Week ☛ US Storms 29 Laptop Farms in Crackdown on North Korean IT Worker Schemes

    Hundreds of US companies are believed to have been duped into hiring North Korean IT workers, with Americans aiding these individuals to pose as US persons by running laptop farms in the country to disguise their location.

  • The Record ☛ DOJ raids 29 ‘laptop farms’ in operation against North Korean IT worker scheme | The Record from Recorded Future News

    FBI officials said the laptop farms allowed an undisclosed number of North Koreans to illegally work at more than 100 U.S. companies. The farms host work devices sent by legitimate companies who unwittingly hired North Koreans, allowing the employees to appear as if they are working from the U.S.

  • New York Times ☛ Bob Vylan’s Chant Against Israel’s Military at Glastonbury Draws Criminal Inquiry

    The band Bob Vylan led a chant of “Death, death to the I.D.F.” at Britain’s biggest music festival. A senior State Department official said the band’s U.S. visas had been revoked.

  • The Straits Times ☛ As 90th birthday draws near, Dalai Lama may say more about potential successor

    Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, turns 90 on July 6.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Bangkok building collapsed after Myanmar quake due to construction, design flaws, probe shows

    The steel met standards, but the elevator and stairwell walls were improperly designed and built.

  • JURIST ☛ Thousands join Budapest Pride March in opposition to anti-LGBTQ+ laws

    More than 50,000 people took to the streets of Budapest Saturday to celebrate the annual Pride March, with many directly protesting against the government’s recently imposed anti-LGBTQ+ laws.

  • New York Times ☛ Violence Erupts Between Israeli Settlers and Military in West Bank

    Hard-right activists clashed with troops and set fire to a security site following a growing wave of attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territory.

  • Federal News Network ☛ A top official at U.S. Cyber Command is moving on

    Adamski previously led the National Security Agency’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center.

  • Security Week ☛ Casie Antalis Named Executive Director of CISA

    Casie Antalis is the new executive director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency after the departure of Bridget Bean.

  • Security Week ☛ Patrick Ware Named Executive Director of US Cyber Command

    The NSA’s Patrick Ware has taken up the role of Cybercrom executive director after the departure of Morgan Adamski.

    >

  • Security Week ☛ Canada Gives Hikvision the Boot on National Security Grounds

    Canada has ordered Hikvision to cease all operations in the country and prohibited the purchase and use of Hikvision products within government entities.

  • The Strategist ☛ Japan can help the Pacific become more resilient

    Australia’s 2024 national defence strategy describes Japan as an ‘indispensable partner’ for achieving regional peace and security.

  • France24 ☛ Iran says usual cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog cannot go forward

    Iran cannot be expected to ensure usual cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency when the security of agency inspectors cannot be guaranteed days after nuclear sites being hit by Israeli and US strikes, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on June 30.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • LRT ☛ 'No rest for NATO’s Eastern Flank': what has Daddy Convicted Felon awakened?

      Over the next decade NATO member states have pledged to increase defence spending to 5% of their GDP annually – a move experts say reflects a shift in the Alliance's approach, with Europe finally assuming greater responsibility for its own security.

    • Meduza ☛ Bidding ‘No’ farewell Meduza’s anniversary exhibition ends this week with last-chance tours, a Navalny figurine drop, and so much more. Here’s what you need to know. — Meduza

    • Unicorn Media ☛ When NATO Spending Fuels European Startups—And Risks for the US

      NATO’s defense spending is fueling Europe’s tech independence—what does that mean for US dominance?

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • American Oversight ☛ American Oversight Denounces USAID’s Closure as Politically Motivated Sabotage ‘Behind Closed Doors’ - American Oversight

    American Oversight is pressing ahead with its lawsuit to uncover the truth behind the agency’s political undoing and orders to destroy records.

  • [Old] Practical UNIX Manuals ☛ History of UNIX Manpages

    The development of UNIX manpages can be divided into the Prehistory, before UNIX; the Classical Age, during the development of UNIX; and the Renaissance, where traditional UNIX utilities were re-written. In this chart, I show all known formatters of manpages (and their logical precursors before "manpages" existed as such).

• Environment

  • EcoWatch ☛ EPA Employees Sign ‘Declaration of Dissent’ Over Trump Administration Policies

    Jeremy Berg, former editor-in-chief of Science magazine and one of the signatories to the letter, said that, in addition to the 170 named scientists and academics, there were roughly 100 others who signed anonymously for fear of retaliation, including 20 Nobel laureates, reported The Guardian.

    The letter is a rare rebuke by EPA employees who could face repercussions for criticizing the weakening of federal support and funding for environmental, climate and health science.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ India Sends Geologists to Zambia to Explore Copper and Cobalt Deposits

    The Zambian government this year agreed to allocate 9,000 square km (3,475 square miles) to India for the exploration of cobalt - a key component in batteries for electric vehicles and mobile phones - as well as for scouting copper, which is widely used in power generation, electronics, and construction.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ ‘Even if we stop drinking we will be exposed’: A French region has banned tap water. Is it a warning for the rest of Europe?

    Forever chemicals have polluted the water supply of 60,000 people, threatening human health, wildlife and the wider ecosystem. But activists say this is just the tip of the [PFAS] iceberg

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Heatwave in Europe disrupts train services, top of Eiffel Tower in Paris shut: Updates

    Heat warnings were issued for parts of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, and the UK, with new highs expected on Wednesday before rain is forecast to bring respite to some areas later this week.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Pro Publica ☛ Connecticut Towing Reforms Will Help Some but Not All, Drivers Say

    • Wired ☛ The Senate Just Put Clean Energy for AI in the Crosshairs

      Among a barrage of bad news for climate initiatives, including a new tax credit for coal and the sunsetting of electric vehicle tax credits, the bill forces an aggressive cutoff for tax credits for wind and solar. The bill ends credits for projects placed in service—a term meaning, essentially, that a project is ready to provide power to the grid—after 2027, putting hundreds of planned projects around the country in jeopardy.

    • Science Alert ☛ Cities Are Stopping You From Turning Left. Here's Why.

      More than 60% of traffic collisions at intersections involve left turns. Some US cities – including San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Birmingham, Alabama – are restricting left turns.

    • Positech Games ☛ Solar farm: six months of proper generation plus REGOs. – Cliffski's Blog

      So how much power have we generated in six months? well its…. 766,739kwh. (766 MWH). So we can assume that if this is a typical year, that would mean 1,533MWH in a year, or 1.5 gigawatt-hours. Enough to run the average TV for 1,700 years. Or enough to fill a large electric car from empty 19,000 times. In some ways this seems a lot, but how does it compare to what we expected?

    • Futurism ☛ Tesla's Robotaxi Program Is Failing Because Elon Musk Made a Foolish Decision Years Ago

      He's right about the price tag. As the Guardian notes, a suite of lidar sensors runs about $12,000 per vehicle, compared to the $400 it costs to install cabin cameras.

    • The Register UK ☛ Deutsche Bahn train hits 405 km/h without falling to bits

      Thomas Graetz, Vice President High Speed and Intercity Trains, Siemens Mobility, said: "Our goal was to gain in-depth insights into acoustics, aerodynamics, and driving behavior at extreme speeds." Mission accomplished – though what counts as "extreme speeds" seems to vary by country.

    • The Telegraph UK ☛ Elizabeth II’s beloved royal train to be scrapped

      The first version of the Royal train was commissioned by Queen Victoria in 1869. Edward VII ordered an entirely new version in 1902 to be “as much like the Royal yacht as possible”.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • CBC ☛ Orcas might be trying to learn 'who we are' when they share prey with humans, study suggests

      "We have a long history of interacting with other animals, trying to feed them and gauging their responses. But it's very rare for any wild predator to do the same to us," said Towers, who is the executive director of the research group Bay Cetology.

  • Overpopulation

    • Deseret Media ☛ Utah seeing water trend that typically occurs later in the summer

      Although reservoirs are mostly full, Hasenyager is also calling on residents to take steps to reduce water consumption amid the dry conditions.

    • The Hindu ☛ Groundwater crisis deepens in Karnataka’s hard rock terrain

      In Karnataka, this rocky reality is nearly absolute: about 99% of the State relies on these stubbornly unyielding formations for its water needs. With limited porosity and a dependence on narrow fractures and weathered pockets to store and move water, these geological formations offer far less than they promise, unlike the generous flow of sedimentary aquifers.

    • PLOS ☛ Chasing the water table: The impact of groundwater depletion on rural drinking water supply in peninsular India | PLOS Water

      Rural drinking water schemes in the Bengaluru Rural district have evolved considerably since their inception in the 1970s. Early schemes were primarily handpumps, at a time when groundwater levels were shallow and functional open hand dug wells were common. Populations without access to local open wells had to walk a few kilometers each way to the nearest hand pump. While drinking water schemes were hand pump-based, private installation of borewells with pumps for irrigation had already begun in the 1970s and expanded quickly with the free electricity policy for irrigation that began in the early 1980s [11]. By the early 1990s, the Aralumallige subwatershed’s shallow aquifer had been completely exhausted [11] and the Gram Panchayats began to drill borewells to provide municipal supply via public standpipes. Initially, one or two public standpipes were installed in every street (Gram Panchayat Assistant Engineer, Personal Communication, 2022) with the goal of supplying at least 40 liters per capita per day (LPCD).

    • The Atlantic ☛ The Birth-Rate Crisis Is Even Worse Than You've Heard

      Sorry, did I say “bad news”? That was actually the good news, based on estimates that turned out to be far too rosy. Every two years, the UN’s demographers revise their population projections, and for the past 10 years, they’ve always had to revise in the same direction: down. Next year, they’ll do so again. In reality, the worldwide population decline is set to begin decades ahead of their expectations. Because global fertility trends are much worse than they, and probably you, think.

• Finance

  • New York Times ☛ NYC Panel Approves Rent Increases, a Key Issue for Mamdani and Adams

    Mayor Eric Adams, who appointed the Rent Guidelines Board, has attacked Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to freeze the rent if he becomes mayor.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 'Tipflation:' The growing pitfalls of proper tipping

    When customers are presented with pre-calculated tips of 15%, 20% or 25% what should they do? Just hit one of the buttons and get it over with, take the time to add in their own amount or leave nothing while looking directly at the cashier?

    Customers often just choose a pre-set tip option instead of holding up the line. This gives tech designers a lot of influence over tipping.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Insight Hungary ☛ Orban accuses EU of orchestrating Pride march after record number of attendees

    More than a hundred thousand people marched through Budapest on Saturday in a banned Pride parade that turned into a powerful protest against Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ultranationalist government. Despite an initial police ban that cited the "child protection law", the demonstration went ahead because the liberal mayor of the city, Gergely Karacsony, found a legal loophole and organized the march as a municipal event. The move resulted in the largest crowds in the event’s history. Protesters from all over Europe waved rainbow flags and carried signs denouncing Orbán's increasingly authoritarian policies.

    This year's pride happened amid tensions between Hungary and the European Union, which has frequently clashed with Orbán over rule-of-law concerns. In an appearance on state radio, Orbán accused the EU of orchestrating a “repulsive provocation” in the form of the Pride parade. He claimed the event was intentionally routed through areas with churches and schools. His government’s crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights has included banning same-sex couples from adopting children, getting married, and featuring members of the LGBT community in educational materials or TV shows for minors..

  • FAIR ☛ FAIR Study: Sunday Talkshows Downplayed Criticism During Trump’s Second Transition

    The Sunday morning talkshows have for decades played an important part in shaping political narratives in the United States. They typically bring on high-profile Washington guests for one-on-one interviews, aiming to set the political agenda for the week ahead. But these shows also have consistently marginalized the voices of women and BIPOC people, and those who might represent the public interest, rather than the interests of a narrow, wealthy elite (Extra!, 9–10/01, 4/12).

  • Wired ☛ Here’s What Mark Zuckerberg Is Offering Top AI Talent

    Meta has made at least 10 staggeringly high offers to OpenAI staffers, sources say. One high ranking researcher was pitched on the role of chief scientist but turned it down, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations. While the pay package includes equity, in the first year the stock vests immediately, sources say.

  • The Washington Post ☛ In dramatic reversal, Senate kills AI-law moratorium

    It wasn’t to be. The Senate voted 99-1 in the predawn hours Tuesday to strip the AI-law moratorium from the bill — a resounding defeat for the tech industry and a dramatic reversal of fortune for the provision’s supporters.

  • The Verge ☛ Figma is going public

    Figma confidentially filed for an IPO in April. Its new filing reveals Figma’s revenue spiked to $228.2 million from $156.2 million when compared to the same time last year. This year, Figma expanded its library of tools to include features for website building, AI coding, branded marketing, and digital illustration. It has also started letting AI models gain access to its design servers to make coding more efficient.

  • The Register UK ☛ Figma IPO filing mentions AI more than 150 times

    For the year that ended on December 31, 2024, Figma reported revenue of $749 million, up 48 percent year-on-year from the prior year. And for the three months that ended March 31, 2025, the company reported revenue of $228 million, up 46 percent year-on-year.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Figma makes IPO plans public following earlier confidential SEC filing

    The company first revealed it planned to go public and had confidentially filed its paperwork with the SEC on April 15.

  • The Register UK ☛ There are no allegiances with OpenAI - just compute

    No longer bound to Microsoft's infrastructure, OpenAI is looking to expand its network of compute providers to the likes of Oracle, CoreWeave, and apparently even rival model builder Google.

  • The New Stack ☛ Do You Need a CAIO? The Rise of the Chief AI Officer in 2025

    Which is why there are so many stories about AI changing the workforce. But many organizations are focused on the wrong thing: truncating their talent pipelines by getting rid of junior roles.

    This shows a lack of foresight and a big void in leadership, because AI is going to impact every role at every level within an organization. Which means AI adoption has to be a top-down, strategic priority.

  • India Times ☛ US Senate strikes AI regulation ban from Trump megabill

    The US Senate voted 99-1 to remove a 10-year federal ban on state AI regulation from Trump’s tax-and-spending bill. Senator Blackburn led the amendment, arguing for state-level protections. Major tech firms prefer federal control to avoid regulatory patchworks that could hinder innovation.

  • The Register UK ☛ Just one customer will double Oracle's cloud sales in 2028

    The filing does not identify the mystery customer. However, on Oracle’s Q4 2025 earnings call founder Larry Ellison mentioned a new customer which “said we'll take all the capacity you have wherever it is. It could be in Europe, could be in Asia, we'll just take everything."

  • Michael Burkhardt ☛ (Not so) Proud to be an American

    A record-low 58% of U.S. adults say they are “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American, down nine percentage points from last year and five points below the prior low from 2020.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • France24 ☛ Yes, viral video of Tehran’s Evin Prison explosion is AI-generated

      A video purporting to showing an Israeli strike on Iran’s Evin prison was shared all around the world, including major broadcasters and media outlets published said footage. The image was suspected to be AI-generated when it first started circulating on June 23, however, there is now further evidence that confirms that the video is not authentic. We explain in this edition of Truth or Fake.

    • Rik Huijzer ☛ Some Defenses Against Misinformation

      According to Chase Hughes, one of the best defenses against misinformation, psyops, propaganda, or whatever you want to call it is to be very good in spotting logical fallacies.

      He reports that you should first remember that "emotional response suppresses critical thinking". So teach yourself to stay calm when you see the news. Furthermore, train yourself to spot the following fallacies: [...]

    • Deccan Chronicle ☛ The Cancer of Misinformation

      Dr. Salil Patkar, Consultant Medical Oncologist at Medicover Hospital, emphasizes the importance of collaboration between the medical field and tech platforms. “The oncology community can partner with digital platforms to flag false content, promote verified medical information, and prioritize credible sources,” he says. “By creating engaging, accurate content and participating in influencer collaborations, oncologists will be able to reach a large number of people and educate them. This will help curb the spread of false information and ensure timely intervention.”

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Iranian Blackout Affected Misinformation Campaigns

      Dozens of accounts on X that promoted Scottish independence went dark during an [Internet] blackout in Iran.

    • BoingBoing ☛ Penis theft panic in Africa reveals Russian propaganda campaign against France

      As Books & Ideas reports, this was classic Russian disinformation targeting two key countries in Russia's new African sphere: Mali, where a 2021 coup brought in pro-Russian leadership, and the Central African Republic, where Russian mercenaries have operated since 2018. The goal? Inflame existing anti-French sentiment to push these nations further into Moscow's orbit.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • JURIST ☛ NGO research suggests majority of Hong Kong national security convictions wrongfully issued

    Amnesty International research released on Monday concluded that more than 80 percent of the those convicted under Hong Kong’s national security law have been “wrongly criminalized” in the five years since the law was introduced.

  • JURIST ☛ Rights organization condemns dismantlement of freedoms in Hong Kong resulting from China pressure

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned on Sunday the Chinese pressure on Hong Kong with the imposition of the National Security Law on June 30, 2020. According to this rights organization, the actions of the Chinese government hindered rights and freedoms in Hong Kong.

  • BIA Net ☛ Rights groups condemn police treatment of detained LeMan cartoonist

    A legal investigation was launched after the magazine's Jun 26 issue, and the cartoonist, identified only by the initials D.P., was taken into custody during a police raid. The Interior Minister had referred to the cartoon as a “vile drawing.” State-run Anadolu Agency (AA) later released footage of the arrest showing the cartoonist being dragged on the ground, handcuffed behind his back, and his head being pressed down while being escorted by officers.

  • CPJ ☛ Satirical Turkish weekly LeMan targeted over ‘Muhammad’ cartoon

    Police raided the Istanbul offices of LeMan Monday evening and detained the staff members after the publication of what officials claimed was a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, a depiction that is forbidden in the Muslim world. At the same time, a mob laid siege to the building and the surrounding area in Beyoğlu District, chanting pro-shariah law slogans.

  • Techdirt ☛ National Guard Troops Sent To California By Trump Are Just Out There Doing Drug Busts

    Trump tested the waters on martial law during his last term, threatening to send troops out to handle George Floyd protests. This time around, he’s amped everything up, openly hoping to turn every “Democrat” city into Kent State.

    Legally, he’s not allowed to do this. But his administration is relying on some vagueness in the law to get around the long-standing prohibition of sending in the army (so to speak) to police the populace. So, we get the sort of thing we’ve seen recently, where a Los Angeles swap meet was treated like an open-air market in some Middle Eastern country we’re currently at (undeclared) war with.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Algerian Court Upholds Writer's 5-Year Sentence in a Case That’s Strained Ties With France

    The issue arose last year when, in an interview with a French right-wing media outlet, Sansal questioned Algeria’s current borders, arguing that France had redrawn them during the colonial period to include lands that once belonged to Morocco. The 80-year-old dual citizen was arrested the following month and later lambasted by the president in a speech to Algeria’s parliament.

  • YLE ☛ Comedian, Green politician face defamation charges over Halla-aho comments

    "I would have hoped for a different decision," said Tuominen in a statement. "It is regrettable for Finnish democracy, if people can't comment on a leading politician's politics and policies."

    Tuominen also said that she was surprised at the prosecutor's decision because there is a clear precedent for similar cases.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • France24 ☛ France's public broadcasting reform: What would its impact be?

    France's public broadcasters, including FRANCE 24, joined strikes on June 30 against a proposed merger that would unite France Médias Monde (FMM) with France Télévisions, Radio France and the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) under the direction of a single chief executive officer. Unions said the proposed holding would be "extremely dangerous" both for employees and for the independence of news coverage. France 24's Marc Perelman tells us more.

  • RFERL ☛ A Journalist In Jail: Freed Former RFE/RL Reporter Recalls Belarus Prison Ordeal

    He didn’t make it far. Seconds after he stepped out of the apartment, he saw a shadow on the landing -- and was accosted by an officer of the KGB, as the main domestic security agency is still called in Belarus almost 35 years after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

  • CPJ ☛ Georgia increasingly blocks entry to Western journalists amid authoritarian turn

    Media repression had already intensified on the heels of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, since which Georgia has denied entry to at least eight Russian journalists associated with Kremlin-critical outlets, as well as two journalists from other post-Soviet countries with critical or pro-Western views.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Radio Free Asia halts Cantonese service in face of Trump's funding cuts

    The US-funded outlet said the Cantonese service of Radio Free Asia had become “one of the news outlets that Hongkongers relied on.”

  • Brattleboro Reformer, Vermont ☛ Eagle Times newspaper suspends all publication

    In an unsigned "letter to our valued Eagle Times Community," apparently from owner Jay Lucas, he said that the paper's employees had worked hard to rebound from the unexpected resignation of several key employees, but that financial problems made further publication "for the time being" unfeasible.

  • CPJ ☛ Kurdish journalist Hassan Zaza detained in Syria, whereabouts unknown

    Zaza is the owner and editor-in-chief of Noos Social news site, a senior member of Syria’s Free Media Union, and the Syrian representative of the International Federation of Arab Journalists.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Espionage Act: Team Trump's Latest Plan to Go After the Media

    One of the ways Trump has discussed cracking down on leakers and the press is by wielding the Espionage Act, a 1917 law criminalizing the dissemination of sensitive information that could harm U.S. national security or aid a foreign nation. In the months leading up to his second presidency, Trump and several of his advisers and close allies talked about novel ways the Espionage Act could be unleashed not just against government leakers and whistleblowers, but against media outlets that received classified or highly sensitive information, according to two sources involved with such conversations with Trump.

  • YLE ☛ Helsinki appeal court convicts two HS journalists of treason

    The charges relate to a December 2017 Helsingin Sanomat article about the Finnish Intelligence Research Centre and follow-up stories, some of which were not published.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • CS Monitor ☛ Tending to youth’s tender innocence

    A number of countries are acting to safeguard young people, from invasive internet porn to widespread tobacco and cannabis use. In some places, youth themselves seek protection – of their right to innocence.

  • AccessNow ☛ Request for proposals: production firm for RightsCon 2026

  • Pro Publica ☛ MN Doctor Challenged Child Abuse Specialist Dr. Nancy Harper’s Opinion. Then He Lost His Job.

    On a February afternoon in 2022, Dr. Bazak Sharon logged into a remote video meeting from his home office in Minneapolis. He propped up his cellphone next to his laptop and hit record on a video app.

    There were several people in the meeting with Sharon, who at the time was a pediatrician with the University of Minnesota. Two hospital leaders, Sharon’s boss and a lawyer were there, too. But the person Sharon was most wary of was in the lower-right corner of the grid of faces: Dr. Nancy Harper, the director of the child abuse team at University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Kristi Noem Secretly Took Personal Cut of Political Donations

    In 2023, while Kristi Noem was governor of South Dakota, she supplemented her income by secretly accepting a cut of the money she raised for a nonprofit that promotes her political career, tax records show.

    In what experts described as a highly unusual arrangement, the nonprofit routed funds to a personal company of Noem’s that had recently been established in Delaware. The payment totaled $80,000 that year, a significant boost to her roughly $130,000 government salary. Since the nonprofit is a so-called dark money group — one that’s not required to disclose the names of its donors — the original source of the money remains unknown.

  • Advance Local Media LLC ☛ Salmon, tribal sovereignty, and energy collide as US abandons Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement

    Earlier this month, the Trump Administration pulled the federal government out of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement — a deal struck in 2023 by the Biden administration between two states and four Indigenous nations aimed at restoring salmon populations and paving a way to remove four hydroelectric dams along the river system. The move is likely to revive decades-old lawsuits and further endanger already struggling salmon populations.

  • The Nation ☛ Trump’s Big Bill Is Building a Big Police State

    Building out the detention capacity of US immigration enforcement by nearly a fourfold factor would elevate the ghoulish white-nationalist policy mandates of Miller into a permanent federal legacy—at the precise moment that the Trump spending bill rolls back basic social-democratic protections from healthcare to food security, to education. And other arms of the federal government are already moving ahead with plans to turbocharge the MAGAfied model of immigration enforcement as a glorified form of political terror and disfranchisement. A recent NPR exposé found that the Department of Homeland Security has joined forces with the data-thugs-without-porfolio at the Department of Government Efficiency to create the federal government’s searchable national citizenship data system. The ostensible mission behind the database is to provide state and local election officials with confirmation of the citizenship status of prospective voters, in line with Trump’s evidence-free claims of rampant immigrant election fraud. The new data network draws on immigration records and Social Security data to produce the country’s first-ever registry of citizens. (Because, as we all know so well by now, combining DOGE and Social Security has been a resounding success in assessing government priorities thus far.)

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Amazon just deployed its one-millionth robot in its warehouses, and they'll soon outnumber humans — generative AI to help cut robot fleet travel time by 10%

    Crucially, WSJ reports that Amazon is now on the brink of having more robots in its warehouses than humans. Per the report, the majority of Amazon's 1.56 million employees are warehouse staff, but the biggest cohort of Amazon's "employees" could soon be its army of robots, which it uses to pick orders from shelves, move goods ready for packaging, sort items, and more.

  • Techdirt ☛ Trump Launches America’s First Concentration Camp, Complete With Tacky Merch

    Not content with just shipping people to a foreign concentration camp, Donald Trump now has his own, homegrown concentration camp in Florida. Trump, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis gleefully toured the hastily constructed concentration camp in the Florida Everglades, obnoxiously referred to as Alligator Alcatraz, in reference to (1) the infamous island prison in San Francisco that Trump is obsessed with and (2) the number of alligators (and crocodiles — the one place in the world that has both) that live in and around the Everglades.

  • CBC ☛ Under attack: How humanity is losing the night sky

    But even if one were to get away from light pollution and stare up at the stars — which have guided humanity from its earliest beginnings, influencing science, art, faith and wonder — they would still be inundated with satellites invariably intruding on the view. And the loss of the night sky isn’t just a disconnect from these past influences. It also has dire consequences for humans and wildlife alike.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama suggests institution to continue on

    The occasion carries profound weight not only for Tibetans, but also for global supporters who see the Dalai Lama as a symbol of non-violence, compassion, and the enduring struggle for Tibetan cultural identity under Chinese rule.

    [...]

    Many exiled Tibetans fear China will name a successor to bolster control over a territory it poured troops into in 1950.

  • RFA ☛ Dalai Lama’s expected announcement might impede Chinese control of his succession

    The announcement is set to be the most consequential in modern Tibetan history, one that will shape the future of Tibetans’ seven-decade-long struggle to preserve their religious and cultural freedoms in the face of Chinese oppression and the continuation of the 14th Dalai Lama’s legacy as a global icon of compassion, peace, democracy and human dignity.

  • The Zambian Observer ☛ Dalai Lama Succession Talk Stirs Controversy - The Zambian Observer

    Tibet is a historical region on the Tibetan Plateau in Asia, known as the “Roof of the World” for its high elevation, averaging over 4,500 meters. It encompasses a unique cultural, religious, and linguistic heritage centered around Tibetan Buddhism. Geographically, it spans modern-day western China, including the Tibet Autonomous Region and parts of Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces. It borders India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar to the south and west. Tibet has been under Chinese control since a 1950 military invasion, with China claiming it as an integral part of its territory. Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, assert that Tibet is a distinct nation with a rich history, seeking greater autonomy or independence to preserve its Buddhist traditions and cultural identity.

  • Air Force Times ☛ Air Force to manage new militarized zone along US-Mexico border

    The stretch of land, known as a national defense area, spans 250 miles of the Rio Grande River through Hidalgo and Cameron counties, and will be administered as an extension of Joint Base San Antonio.

  • The Nation ☛ The Abominable Sadism of “Alligator Auschwitz”

    But Republicans are bragging about their cruel ingenuity, and using it as a fundraising tool. The Florida Republican Party is selling “Alligator Alcatraz” swag (I’m not linking; trust me). The camp, without air-conditioning, is expected to open this week, as temperatures top 100 degrees.

  • Diego Escalante Urrelo: The New Troll Diet

    I have been thinking a lot about online harassment in software communities lately.

    Harassment is nothing new in our spaces, and I even have a bunch of fun stories from trolls, past and new. However, all these stories have one thing in common: they are irrelevant to modern harassment and trolling. So I would like to humbly propose a new framing of this whole issue.

    Harassment In The Troll Feeding Days

    Perhaps the most jarring change in online culture has been in how harassment happens on the internet. Spending our formative years in forums, IRC, and mailing lists, we got used to the occasional troll that after a few annoying interactions would get blocked by an admin.

    Back then, a troll was limited to baiting for replies, and that power was easy to take away. Remember, removing a troll was as simple as blocking an email address or banning an IP on IRC.

    In short: Don't feed the troll and it will either get bored and go away, or be blocked by an admin. Right?

  • GNOME ☛ Steven Deobald: Disability Pride

    I saw Sophie’s #DisabilityPrideMonth post two days ago. I don’t normally make a point of re-reading tweets, but I’ve revisited it a dozen times, due to its clarity.

    I have been staring at an empty Emacs buffer for an hour now. I have been trying to think of some sincere and supportive words I could add to Sophie’s. The best I can do is this: I will try to follow her example.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Press Gazette ☛ News publishers back Cloudflare blocking of all AI scrapers

    Internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare is now blocking all AI scrapers accessing content by default in an industry first.

    The move has been backed by more than a dozen major news and media publishers including the Associated Press, The Atlantic, Buzzfeed, Conde Nast, DMGT, Dotdash Meredith, Fortune, Gannett, The Independent, Sky News, Time and Ziff Davis.

  • India Times ☛ Cloudflare launches tool to help website owners monetise AI bot crawler access

    The tool allows website owners to choose whether artificial intelligence crawlers can access their material and set a price for access through a "pay per crawl" model, which will help them control how their work is used and compensated, Cloudflare said.

  • The Scotsman ☛ The 10 ‘dead zones’ with worst mobile phone signal

    Whether you are travelling or just wondering if the signal in your area is particularly bad - you will want to be aware of the so-called ‘phone signal blackspots’. The Express reports that the team at Nomad have highlighted the 10 dead spots where you will get the worst coverage, using official data from Ofcom to identify them.

  • Techdirt ☛ Elon Musk’s Starlink Adds $750 Congestion Charge

    Low-Earth Orbit satellite broadband services like Starlink have their uses, but will always be dealing with capacity constraints. That means higher prices, weird restrictions, and, as of November 2024, a $100 “congestion charge” for a service that’s already too expensive for many of the rural Americans who could most benefit.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • India Times ☛ Netflix to livestream NASA launches, spacewalks starting summer

    NASA is partnering with Netflix to bring its on-demand streaming service, NASA+, to the platform this summer. Viewers can stream rocket launches, spacewalks, mission coverage, and live views of Earth from the ISS. NASA+ will remain free and ad-free on the NASA app and website, aiming to reach Netflix's global audience of over 700 million.

  • PC World ☛ NASA will start streaming live on Netflix later this summer

    The US space agency will live stream everything, from rocket launches and spacewalks to broadcasts from the International Space Station (ISS). The live broadcasts are expected to appear on Netflix later this summer, but an exact launch date for the streams isn’t yet known.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Manton Reece ☛ App Store monopoly cracks

  Every year since I blogged about fixing exclusive app distribution way back in 2011, there have been little cracks appearing in Apple’s monopoly wall. Growing developer resentment. The lawsuit from Epic Games. New laws like the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Change is clearly accelerating.

  Proton is now joining a lawsuit against Apple on behalf of developers: [...]

• India Times ☛ Apple loses bid to dismiss US smartphone monopoly case

  The decision allows the case to go forward in what could be a years-long fight for Apple against enforcers' attempt to lower what they say are barriers to competition with Apple's iPhone. An Apple spokesperson said the company believes the lawsuit is wrong on the facts and the law, and will continue to vigorously fight it in court.

• Jérôme Marin ☛ Apple is making a mockery of DMA

  But it still does not comply with this European regulation, which aims to promote fair competition in the digital space. The Commission has ordered Apple to stop charging any fees on such transactions. However, neither the fine it has already received nor the threat of daily penalties has caused Apple to back down, as it maintains a hardline stance against a law its executives have been fiercely criticizing for months.

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Hedging on Claim Construction: USPTO Says Keep It to One IPR Petition

    In an “informative” decision addressing the limits of multiple IPR petitions, Acting USPTO Director Coke Morgan Stewart granted Director Review and vacated the PTAB’s institution of two IPR proceedings challenging the same patent monopoly claims. CrowdStrike, Inc. v. GoSecure, Inc., IPR2025-00068, IPR2025-00070 (USPTO June 25, 2025). The Director found that the Board abused its discretion by allowing CrowdStrike to pursue two separate IPR proceedings against the same claims of Patent 9,954,872 B2, where the primary difference between the petitions was alternative constructions of a single claim term. The Director’s opinion states that allowing multiple petitions based solely on alternative claim constructions “effectively expands the permitted word count and places a substantial and unnecessary burden on the Board and the patent monopoly owner.” On remand back to the PTAB, the parties are instructed to submit claim construction briefs in order to allow the Board to consider moving forward with an IPR.

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ NewJeans Members Decide Against Injunction Re-Appeal As Main Contract Lawsuit Takes Center Stage

    NewJeans members have seemingly decided against launching another injunction appeal in their high-stakes dispute with Hybe’s Ador. Meanwhile, their overarching contract lawsuit is still moving forward. South Korean outlets just recently confirmed the injunction-appeal development, which follows a Seoul High Court ruling against the girl group earlier in June.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ What comes next for AI copyright lawsuits?

    There are dozens of similar copyright lawsuits working through the courts right now, with cases filed against all the top players—not only Anthropic and Meta but Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, and more. On the other side, plaintiffs range from individual artists and authors to large companies like Getty and the New York Times.