Leftovers

• Terence Eden ☛ We’ve got to stop sending files to each other

  Why are people still sending files to each other? I remember having a stand-up argument a decade ago with a project manager who wanted us to email a completed Word template to him every day. He'd then spend hours merging the various documents together. He couldn't get his head around the collaborative document suite the company had purchased a licence for. I tried showing him that we could give specific people write-access to the document and they could edit it live. No more emailing back-and-forth.

  It just didn't stick. It wasn't that he was ignorant about what computers could do, but his entire mental model was built around files. Discrete packets of data with a fixed metaphor from the real world.

• Standards/Consortia

  • Hackaday ☛ Blu-ray Won, But At What Cost?

    Over on their substack [ObsoleteSony] has a new article: The Last Disc: How Blu-ray Won the War but Lost the Future.

  • Daniel Estévez ☛ n78 band 5G NR recordings

    A 5G band I’m particularly interested in is n78 (3.3 – 3.8 GHz TDD). This is being used to deploy 5G in many European countries, including Spain, as showed by this list in Wikipedia. Due to the large bandwidth available, it is common to see cells with 100 MHz bandwidth in this band.

• Science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-07-16 [Older] Alpha males are surprisingly rare among primates – new research

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-07-15 [Older] Why many Americans still think Darwin was wrong, yet the British don’t

  • Hackaday ☛ Mach Cutoff: Bending The Sonic Boom

    Supersonic air travel is great if you want to get somewhere quickly. Indeed, the Concorde could rush you from New York to London in less than three and a half hours, over twice as fast as a conventional modern airliner. Despite the speed, though, supersonic passenger service has never really been sustainable thanks to the noise involved. Disruption from sonic booms has meant that supersonic travel over land is near-universally banned. This strictly limits the available routes for supersonic passenger jets, and thus their economic viability.

  • Science Alert ☛ Dementia Linked With Treatment For Chronic Lower Back Pain

    There are warning signs.

  • Science Alert ☛ The World's First Nuclear Explosion Created a Rare Form of Matter

    Scientists thought this was impossible.

  • Science Alert ☛ Breaking: Major Antimatter Discovery May Help Solve Mystery of Existence

    You shouldn't be here.

  • Science Alert ☛ Birth of a Solar System Witnessed in Spectacular Scientific First

    "This process has never been seen before."

  • Science Alert ☛ Meteorite Discovery Could Fill Billion Year Gap in Moon History

    The missing years.

  • Hackaday ☛ Opening A Six-Lock Safe With One Key Using Brunnian Links

    Brunnian links are a type of nontrivial link – or knot – where multiple linked loops become unlinked if a single loop is cut or removed. Beyond ‘fun’ disentanglement toys and a tantalizing subject of academic papers on knot theory, it can also be used for practical applications, as demonstrated by [Anthony Francis-Jones] in a recent video. In it we get a safe that is locked with multiple padlocks, each of which can unlock and open the safe by itself.

  • The Conversation ☛ New discovery at Cern could hint at why our universe is made up of matter and not antimatter

    However, the symmetry in behaviour between matter and antimatter is not perfect. In a paper published this week in Nature, the team working on an experiment at Cern, called LHCb, has reported that it has discovered differences in the rate at which matter particles called baryons decay relative to the rate of their antimatter counterparts. In particle physics, decay refers to the process where unstable subatomic particles transform into two or more lighter, more stable particles.

  • India Times ☛ Denmark aims to host world's most powerful quantum computer

    The Novo Nordisk Foundation, the non-profit which controls pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, and Denmark's Export and Investment Fund (EIFO), said in a statement they would invest 80 million euros ($92.93 million) in the initiative called QuNorth.

• Career/Education

  • JURIST ☛ US Supreme Court allows Convicted Felon to go ahead with Education Department cuts pending litigation

    The US Supreme Court on Monday allowed President The Insurrectionist’s administration to proceed with mass layoffs at the Education Department while legal challenges continue. The court granted the administration’s request to lift a lower court injunction that had blocked the firing of more than 2,000 department employees—roughly half the agency’s workforce.

  • Becky Spratford ☛ RA for All: Tips for Choosing Better Book Discussion Titles with a Resource Even I Forgot About

    But first, and this is actually the most important part of finding discussable books, before you Rin to those resources, you really need to understand what makes for a great book discussion book. Too often we are just picking what everyone else is doing or what is popular or what is going to be a movie, rather than taking the time to think about WHY a book is discussable in general.

  • Giles Turnbull ☛ How to be open while you test and learn

    Ultimately, what’s needed here is institutional confidence that working in the open is going to be ok; that it’s not going to derail the work itself; that it’s not going to result in negative headlines. All the things I wrote about in the book still apply, and will help: show the work, write about small changes rather than big announcements, prioritise clarity, get the leadership involved in comms planning more often, but in smaller doses.

    Working openly is an institutional capability. We’re just all trying to make our institutions feel better about it.

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ Harvard to launch new service fellowship for veterans, federal workers

    The one-year American Service Fellowship program is being run through the Harvard Kennedy School, which focuses on public policy issues. Officials expect at least half of the new class to be veterans and the rest to be made up of individuals with seven years of experience in public service jobs.

  • J Kenneth King ☛ Letter to a Young Engineering Manager 1

    This letter shares with you one of those things you should do: stay out of the software development process. I have made some of the mistakes in this letter myself. I’ve seen others make some of these mistakes. I hope you can learn from them.

• Hardware

  • Zimbabwe ☛ US Government Relaxes Hey Hi (AI) Chip Export Restrictions To China [Ed: They mean GPUs]

    The US government has relaxed export restrictions, allowing Nvidia to resume sales of its H20 Hey Hi (AI) chips to China after a months-long ban.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China jails Japanese national for 3.5 years for espionage, embassy says

    A court in China sentenced a Japanese businessman to three-and-a-half years in prison on Wednesday for spying, Tokyo’s ambassador in Beijing said. The man, an employee of the Japanese pharmaceutical company Astellas, was detained in March 2023 and placed under formal arrest in October.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Chip gear provider ASML shares drop 11% on cautious 2026 growth outlook

    Shares of ASML Holding NV closed 11.4% lower today after it posted strong second quarter results and disappointing guidance. The chipmaking equipment supplier cautioned that it “cannot confirm” it will experience revenue growth in 2026. Eindhoven, Netherlands-based ASML makes machines for etching transistors into silicon wafers.

  • Hackaday ☛ This SSD Will Self Destruct In Ten Seconds…

    In case you can’t wait for your flash memory to die from write cycling, TeamGroup now has a drive that, via software or hardware, can destroy its own flash chips with a surge of voltage. If you wonder why you might want this, there are military applications where how you destroy a piece of equipment is right up there in the manual with how to use it.

  • Hackaday ☛ Vintage Hardware Find Includes Time Capsule Of Data

    Before social media brought the Internet to the masses, and before even Napster, ICQ, and AIM gave those with a phone line a reason to connect online at all, those who went online often went to a BBS messageboard. By modern standards these text-only environments would have been extremely limited, with only weather updates, stock information, limited news, some email and messaging, and perhaps some classifieds or other miscellaneous information. This was an important time for the early Internet though, and [Nicola] recently discovered a time capsule of sorts from this era.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • New York Times ☛ F.D.A. Approves Juul Vapes After Yearslong Delay

    The company was accused of marketing its products to teenagers, causing a surge in use.

  • Science Alert ☛ Study of 1.2 Million Children Finds No Risk From Common Vaccine Additive

    It's safe.

  • Operation Dudula blocks babies from getting vaccines

    In recent months, vigilante group Operation Dudula has been taking control of clinic queues across Johannesburg, chasing away immigrants or telling them to stand separately from South Africans. It is alleged that some healthcare staff have been participating.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Thai mental health crisis deepens amid shrinking population, finds report

    It found that 13.4 million Thais have experienced mental health problems or psychiatric disorders.

  • France24 ☛ 8 healthy babies born after IVF using DNA from 3 people

    Eight babies have been born in the UK using genetic material from three people to prevent devastating and often fatal conditions, doctors say. Soulange Mougin has more.

  • Pro Publica ☛ RFK Jr. Wants to Overhaul a Vital System That Supports Childhood Immunization

    Five months after taking over the federal agency responsible for the health of all Americans, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to overhaul an obscure but vital program that underpins the nation’s childhood immunization system.

    Depending on what he does, the results could be catastrophic.

  • Science Alert ☛ Energy Drinks Seen Fuelling Cancer, But There's a Strange Catch

    Ironic.

  • Science Alert ☛ These 4 Simple Exercises Could Help Break Your Insomnia

    Give them a go.

  • Science Alert ☛ 8 Babies Born in UK Using Radical 'Three Parent' IVF Technique

    More like 2.01 parents.

  • Latvia ☛ Not enough sun in Latvia? Enough for sunburn, say skin doctors

    Although you might not see or feel much sun this summer, there is enough to get sunburnt, dermatologist Raimonds Karls and dermatologist, venereologist and lecturer at Riga Stradiņš University Alise Balcere said on Latvian Radio programme "How to live better" on 17 June.

  • EPIC ☛ Massachusetts: Testimony in Support of S.30/H.4229, An Act Protecting Children from Addictive Social Media Feeds

    This bill will mitigate these harms in two ways: regulating “addictive feeds” and overnight notifications. The “addictive feeds” provision limits the personal data that a social media platform can use to curate feeds for minors. It addresses the current design practices of ordering feeds based on passive surveillance of users – tracking clicks, time spent watching, even time spent hovering over media. Borrowing techniques from the casino industry to induce overuse,[4] companies use this data to predict and design what arrangement of media is likely to keep a user on the platform longer, invading minors’ privacy and contributing to compulsive use.

    While S. 30/H.4229 regulates specific data management and design practices that lead to over-use, it leaves open many channels for personalized delivery of the same media based on a user’s express preferences.

  • Renewable Energy World ☛ California farmers identify a hot new cash crop: Solar power

    Now imagine that a solar-electricity developer approaches you and presents three options:

    You can lease the developer 10 acres of otherwise productive cropland, on which the developer will build an array of solar panels and sell electricity to the local power company.
    You can select 1 or 2 acres of your land on which to build and operate your own solar array, using some electricity for your farm and selling the rest to the utility.
    Or you can keep going as you have been, hoping your farm can somehow survive.

  • New Yorker ☛ Gentle Parenting My Smartphone Addiction

    An app called Opal finally succeeded at curbing my time spent on social media through a combination of mild friction, encouragement, and guilt.

• Proprietary

  • The Register UK ☛ Watch out, another max-severity Cisco bug on the loose

    The vendor disclosed CVE-2025-20337 on Wednesday in an update to a June security advisory about two other max-severity flaws in the same products. The new bug is related to CVE-2025-20281, one of the two disclosed in June, which also received a 10 CVSS rating and affects ISE and ISE-PIC releases 3.3 and 3.4, regardless of device configuration.

  • The Register UK ☛ Fujitsu tops half a billion in govt contracts post-Horizon

    Since the dramatization was broadcast, Fujitsu CEO Takahito Tokita, CFO Takeshi Isobe, and head of UK and Europe Paul Patterson have all apologized for the company's role in the scandal, which saw hundreds of Post Office branch managers convicted of theft and fraud when computer errors were to blame.

    In the first volume of a report from the public inquiry into the scandal, the leading judge concluded that 13 branch workers committed suicide during the prosecutions, most probably as a result of their treatment by the Post Office.

  • The Record ☛ Google spots tailored backdoor malware aimed at SonicWall appliances

    Incident responders from Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) and Mandiant said on Wednesday that they have uncovered an ongoing campaign by an unidentified threat group that leverages credentials and one-time password (OTP) seeds stolen during previous intrusions — allowing the hackers to regain access to organizations even after security updates are installed.

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ On using Apple products

    Over the past couple of months, I read several posts in my RSS reader from people who, in previous lives, were Apple users but now, for a variety of reasons, are switching away from the company run by its homonymous CEO Tim Apple. From what I gathered, the switch was often motivated by the very morally dubious actions taken by Mr Tim, but also because Apple as a company is not exactly trending in the most splendid of possible directions.

  • Mere Civilian ☛ Why I moved away from Windows 15 years ago?

    I didn't switch to Mac because it was superior, but because it offered a distinct experience. It created a separation between my personal and work computing. Using a Mac was a refreshing change, breaking the monotony of using Windows for eight hours a day, five days a week.

  • Wisconsin Public Radio ☛ Wisconsin video game developer hit with layoffs amid larger Microsoft cuts

    Raven Software in Middleton has been caught up in the latest mass layoffs to hit the video game industry, after Microsoft let go of hundreds of employees in its gaming division in early July.

    Microsoft laid off over 9,000 employees companywide July 2. A leaked email from Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer — provided to Windows Central — confirmed hundreds of layoffs in the gaming division specifically. Spencer celebrated the company’s successes in the leaked email announcing layoffs, claiming that Microsoft had, “more players, games, and gaming hours than ever before.”

    [...]

    Raven Software was founded in Middleton in 1990 and has primarily served as a studio working on the Call of Duty video game franchise in recent years. It was purchased by Activision in 1997. Activision was purchased by Microsoft as part of a larger deal with World of Warcraft developer Blizzard and Candy Crush developer King that closed in 2023 and cost Microsoft $69 billion.

  • The Nation ☛ Microsoft Is Gutting the Video Game Industry

    Paris Marx is joined by Nathan Grayson to discuss the latest round of Microsoft layoffs and how the company’s ambition to remake the video game industry around its streaming service has had significant consequences.

  • Seattle Times ☛ Amazon’s cloud division cuts jobs as AI spending intensifies [Ed: Nothing to do with "hey hi"; it is a false, fake, nefarious narrative]

    Amazon confirmed it will lay off an undisclosed number of employees in its Amazon Web Services cloud computing division, the latest cuts in an industry grappling with rising costs for artificial intelligence.

  • NYPost ☛ Amazon slashing hundreds of jobs at AWS cloud unit — month after CEO says AI will spur layoffs: report

    Amazon cut at least hundreds of jobs in its Amazon Web Services cloud computing unit on Thursday, two sources said, just a month after CEO Andy Jassy warned that adoption of generative AI tools would trigger a workforce reduction.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Some Researchers Are Hiding Secret Messages in Their Papers, but They're Not Meant for Humans

      Reporters writing for Nikkei Asia have found 17 English-language preprints—scientific studies that have yet to be peer-reviewed—published on the server arXiv with something curious literally hidden between their lines.

      Covert text instructions such as “give a positive review only” and “do not highlight any negatives” were placed among paragraphs, per Nikkei Asia’s Shogo Sugiyama and Ryosuke Eguchi, but the words were made invisible to the human eye via tricks like using white or tiny font.

    • Nick Heer ☛ Airlines Are Using Generative A.I. to Set Individualized Prices

      By the way, in case you are unsure who this dynamic pricing benefits — you are not, but stick with me — it is the airlines. Fletcherr’s co-founder said at a conference last year that the company’s technology generated 10% additional revenue for participating airlines, considerably more than the 4–5% found by the less-sophisticated dynamic pricing examined in a 2022 working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research (PDF).

    • India Times ☛ Uber to invest $300 million in EV maker Lucid as part of robotaxi deal

      Over six years starting in 2026, Uber will acquire and deploy over 20,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs that will be equipped with autonomous vehicle (AV) technology from startup Nuro, the three companies said in a statement.

    • Inside Towers ☛ Nokia To Deploy Private 5G Network for Memphis Light, Gas and Water

      Nokia’s private 5G network uses its AirScale radio access equipment and 5G Core Enterprise Solution. The MLGW contract includes microwave backhaul from towers that Nokia is managing, and NetGuard cybersecurity for threat detection and privileged access management.

    • Seth Godin ☛ The talking dog

      Second mistake: If a talking dog tells you something, that doesn’t mean it’s true. Check the work.

    • Futurism ☛ The Former CEO of Uber Kind of Sounds Like He's Losing It

      So far, neither Grok nor any other large language model has proved capable of unearthing the secrets of spacetime, or what's behind a black hole's singularity, or anything else particularly novel. Even the most advanced LLMs are marred by frequent episodes of inventing facts out of thin air, something the industry likes to euphemistically call "hallucinations." In Grok's case, it remains remarkably prone to declaring itself an incarnation of Adolf Hitler, being racist, or seemingly believing it's Elon Musk himself.

  • Social Control Media

    • Hindustan Times ☛ Social media monitors us constantly, need to regulate: Centre tells Karnataka HC in X Corp case

      Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union Government, argued that [Internet] intermediaries like 'X' must act responsibly and cannot claim the same constitutional rights as individuals.

      The hearing, before Justice N Nagaprasanna, pertained to X Corp's challenge to the applicability of Section 79 of the Information Technology Act. It had earlier contended that Section 79 of the IT Act, often used to justify takedown directives, cannot serve as an independent source of executive power to block content.

    • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Reddit Restores Services After Global Outage Affects Over 1.4 Lakh Users

      47 percent of users reported issues with the app, while 38 percent experienced issues with the website, according to Downdetector.

    • Joel Chrono ☛ Kids use their phones way too much, and me too

      And of course, I have my own set of problems, y’all can see my phone usage every month. Here’s a sneak peek of some apps I used last week:

      Mastodon for 11 hours
      Fennec Browser for 6 hours
      Tubular (YT) for 6 hours
      Discord for 3 hours

    • Manton Reece ☛ Live with criticism, learn to condemn

      I was staring at that and thinking of social media. Is it any wonder that we are so frustrated all the time, when all day we are living with everyone else’s outrage in our social timelines? We mimic what we see.

      Still, it’s true that these are difficult times for many people. There are reasons to be sad, or upset, or fearful. Social media tends to exaggerate, blowing things up into such outsized grievances that we can’t tell the difference between smaller concerns and critical ones.

• Pseudo-Open Source

  • Openwashing

    • The New Stack ☛ Open Source Is Too Important To Dilute 

      Today, the definition of what it means to be “open source” is quietly eroding. Companies are rebranding “source-available” code as open source, creating downstream effects on the community and the broader ecosystem. When these lines blur, trust breaks — and open source doesn’t work without trust.

      If we want open source to remain sustainable and impactful, we need to defend not just the code, but the principles that underpin it.

• Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)

  • Evgenii Pendragon ☛ I was wrong about robots.txt

    To turn this issue around I updated my robots.txt to allow LinkedInBot to crawl my resources. If I would want to start posting on other social media sites and see the previews for the posts, I would need to include those other bots here as well. My new current configuration looks like this: [...]

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Security Week ☛ Cambodia Makes 1,000 Arrests in Latest Crackdown on Cybercrime

      More than 1,000 suspects were arrested in raids in at least five provinces between Monday and Wednesday, according to Information Minister Neth Pheaktra and police.

    • Wired ☛ Hackers Are Finding New Ways to Hide Malware in DNS Records

      The practice allows malicious scripts and early-stage malware to fetch binary files without having to download them from suspicious sites or attach them to emails, where they frequently get quarantined by antivirus software. That’s because traffic for DNS lookups often goes largely unmonitored by many security tools. Whereas web and email traffic is often closely scrutinized, DNS traffic largely represents a blind spot for such defenses.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • TruthOut ☛ Medicaid Is Giving ICE Access to Data of 79M Enrollees, Including Ethnicity

      The data includes names, addresses, ethnicity and race, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of Medicaid enrollees, per an agreement signed between Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Homeland Security. The agreement was reported by the Associated Press.

    • Associated Press ☛ Trump administration hands over nation's Medicaid enrollee data to ICE

      Lawmakers and some CMS officials have challenged the legality of deportation officials’ access to some states’ Medicaid enrollee data. It’s a move, first reported by the AP last month, that Health and Human Services officials said was aimed at rooting out people enrolled in the program improperly.

      But the latest data-sharing agreement makes clear what ICE officials intend to do with the health data.

    • The Record ☛ Meta investors, Zuckerberg settle $8 billion privacy lawsuit tied to Cambridge Analytica scandal

      Investors had accused the executives of ignoring problems at Cambridge Analytica, a now defunct political consulting firm which allegedly improperly collected data about millions of Facebook users. Facebook officially changed its corporate name in 2021 to Meta, which was not named in the lawsuit.

    • India Times ☛ TikTok hit by fresh complaint over data access

      While Shein, Temu and Xiaomi provided the complainants with additional information, TikTok, AliExpress and WeChat "continued to violate" the EU's landmark General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Noyb said.

    • NYOB ☛ How TikTok, AliExpress & WeChat ignore your GDPR rights

      Today, noyb has filed GDPR complaints against AliExpress, TikTok and WeChat. All three tech companies have failed to comply with access requests under Article 15 GDPR. This makes it impossible for European users to exercise their fundamental right to privacy, to find out how their personal data is being processed – and if the companies actually comply with other GDPR provisions, for example regarding data transfers. EU law usually allows users to get a full copy of their data.

    • Press Gazette ☛ Adblockers stop publishers serving ads to (or even seeing) 1bn web users

      “Dark traffic” is defined as page views hidden to publishers by the strictest types of ad-blockers. These block all on-site analytics, whitelisted adverts, ad-block walls that ask people to allow ads, cookie content pop-ups and registration walls or paywalls.

      This differs from traffic coming via softer ad-blockers that still allow all or many of these monetisation options for publishers but hide the most aggressive advertising for users.

    • Privacy International ☛ Meta and Yandex break security to save their business model

      The so-called “localhost” attack relied on a chain of techniques that eventually enabled both companies to do something that they were not supposed to be able to do: each company could share data collected by their tracking pixel on websites, visited through a browser, with their own apps installed on the same device. This technique, which Yandex began in 2017 and Meta started in September 2024, deliberately bypassed sandboxing, a security measure that prevents web browsers from exchanging information with apps locally installed on a users’ device. This was likely in breach of Google's Play Store policy on the behaviours of apps.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Straits Times ☛ China hands 3-1/2-year prison sentence to Astellas' Japanese employee, Nikkei says

    TOKYO - A Beijing court on Wednesday sentenced a Japanese employee of Astellas Pharma to 3-1/2 years in prison, the Nikkei newspaper reported, citing the Japanese ambassador to China.

  • Techdirt ☛ Fascism For First Time Founders

    But before you start crafting your “make coding great again” hat, let’s have a little chat about why embracing fascism is probably the worst possible business strategy for anyone actually trying to build something innovative.

    I know, I know. “Fascism” sounds hyperbolic. You’re not goose-stepping around your WeWork space. You just want lower taxes and fewer forms to fill out. And trust me, I’ve spent 25 years calling out idiotic tech policy proposals by clueless politicians, so the idea of getting an administration that will “free up” tech sounds appealing.

  • LRT ☛ Poland’s fight against irregular migration: will border checks work?

    As Europe marks 40 years since the creation of the Schengen Area, some member states are reintroducing internal border controls. Starting July 7, Poland has temporarily reinstated border checks with Germany and Lithuania. Though officially presented as an effort to tackle illegal migration, experts are sceptical that such measures will produce lasting results.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ The FCC wants to ban Chinese tech from the undersea cables that connect the U.S. to the rest of the world — proposed new rules would 'secure cables against foreign adversaries'

    Carr's proposal takes a two-pronged approach: one incentivizes "the use of American submarine cable repair and maintenance ships and the use of trusted technology abroad, including a proposal to "presumptively entirely exempt from Team Telecom review license applications that meet a high-level security standard."

  • The Register UK ☛ FCC targets removal of Chinese tech in subsea cables

    FCC chairman Brendan Carr announced on Wednesday that the Commission would vote next month on a rule that will not only secure undersea cables from America's international adversaries, but also pump cash into a buildout of submarine infrastructure. As is the case with most tech investments in 2025, this is being done "to accelerate the buildout of AI infrastructure."

  • The Record ☛ FCC wants to ban Chinese tech from undersea cables

    The FCC did not cite specific threats to U.S. submarine cables. Concerns about Chinese access to U.S. telecommunications networks in general have led multiple presidential administrations to ban technology from China-based companies such as Huawei and ZTE.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Three quarters of US teens use AI companions despite risks: Study

    Unlike traditional artificial intelligence assistants, these systems are programmed to form emotional connections with users. The findings come amid mounting concerns about the mental health risks posed by AI companions.

  • The Atlantic ☛ The David Frum Show: The Wrecking of the FBI

    Then Frum is joined by the former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, who shares his insights on what’s happening at the bureau during Trump’s second term. Strzok, who is still engaged in a lawsuit with the government over his 2018 firing, explains how Trump loyalists such as the FBI’s director, Kash Patel, and its deputy director, Dan Bongino, are dismantling the agency’s national-security functions: purging experts, sidelining investigations, and leaving the United States dangerously vulnerable to terrorism, foreign espionage, and cyberattacks.

  • Liberal Currents ☛ Marc Andreessen Is a Traitor

    A recent leak of venture capitalist Marc Andreessen’s group chats has revealed that he’s quite happy to see our university system destroyed if it will keep out foreigners and humiliate the elites who “actively discriminated against” people like him. The messages are at times quite shockingly racist in their content, referencing how “the combination of DEI and immigration” are “two forms of discrimination” that “systematically cut most of the children of the Trump voter base out of any realistic prospect of access to higher education and corporate America.”

    Less shocking but no less notable is his contempt for elite centers of learning. He declares “Stanford and MIT as mainly political lobbying operations fighting American innovation at this point,” a remarkably delusional statement. Andreessen has made no secret of the fact that he feels he and his tech oligarch peers have been betrayed by elite institutions and the Democratic party. But the reality is that they are the ones who have betrayed not only their country, but the very system which made their fortune and status possible.

  • EPIC ☛ EPIC Testifies in Support of Massachusetts S.30/H.4229, An Act Protecting Children From Addictive Social Media Feeds

    EPIC’s testimony explains why S.30/H.4229 would provide significant privacy and online safety protections for minors by regulating harmful data management and design practices that deprive minors of their autonomy and lead to social media over-use. Many companies employ design features that structure feed content based on information gathered through passive surveillance of users. Like techniques in the casino industry, companies use this behavioral data to predict and design what arrangement of media is likely to keep a user on the platform longer, invading minors’ privacy and contributing to compulsive use. Similar to laws passed in California, New York and Vermont, S.30/H.4229 would ensure that personalized feeds instead honor minors’ express preferences and would not be driven by surveillance data.

  • Small Cypress ☛ nihilism and some good things

    The older students do not care about anything but TikTok. I know I'm not avoiding the old man yelling at cloud allegations, but this is not the "I don't care" middle school attitude I remember. It's literally not being able to hear a teacher two feet away from you for more than one minute before you pull out your phone. Their classroom teacher for the summer said they can't hear you unless you holler a few times a day - otherwise they space out. They cannot sustain attention. They cannot spell or write and feel so embarrassed by it that they avoid writing completely.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ The Taliban has a new card to play against the UK

    But the Taliban hopes that such contact has suddenly become far more necessary. If the British Government cares about the fate of the 25,000 Afghans on the list, it will want the Taliban to refrain from harming them and perhaps cooperate with bringing them safely to the UK.

  • The Straits Times ☛ US to build Philippine boat repair facilities near contested South China Sea

    The facilities will be used to repair boats used to resupply Philippine-occupied reefs in contested waters.

  • France24 ☛ Inside India's ignored conflict: where is Manipur's path to reconciliation?

    Call it India’s ignored conflict: it’s been two years since violence in Manipur erupted, yet 60-thousand remain displaced by intercommunal tensions between the majority Meitei and the Kuki-Zo communities. We’ll ask why mediation efforts have stalled and what’s changed since the central government imposed President’s Rule from Delhi at the start of the year. We’ll ask why the prime minister’s remained mostly silent on Manipur, why foreign journalists have to apply for special accreditation which is rarely granted. and ask our panel to react to our exclusive report filmed by France 24's local team. More broadly, what lessons can the rest of India draw, particularly in regards to unrest and insurgencies in other border areas like Kashmir and the mountains near China?

  • The Straits Times ☛ ‘Japanese First’ party shakes up election with alarm over foreigners

    Mr Kamiya says he was inspired by US President The Insurrectionist’s “bold political style”.

  • The Strategist ☛ It looks like the US has just pulled Indonesia into South China Sea cooperation

    Has Indonesia just promised closer security cooperation with the United States in return for tariff concessions?

  • The Strategist ☛ Friends to all: Competing for Pacific security partnerships

    The Pacific faces a rapidly evolving security environment. Foreign partners increasingly compete for comprehensive partnerships, engagements, coordination and influence.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • The Local SE ☛ 2025-07-16 [Older] Sweden 'will contribute' to Cheeto Mussolini's Ukraine weapons plan

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-16 [Older] Analysis-Zelenskiy Aims to Woo Both Public and Cheeto Mussolini With Fresh-Faced Ukraine Cabinet

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-16 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Promised Patriots for Ukraine. Now Europe Has to Provide Them

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-16 [Older] Ukraine's Parliament Votes to Dismiss Prime Minister in Wartime Reshuffle

    • TruthOut ☛ 2025-07-15 [Older] “Sappers” Are Working to Demine Ukrainian Fields at Great Personal Risk

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-15 [Older] Hungary: Orban's latest hate campaign against Ukraine

    • Scheerpost ☛ 2025-07-16 [Older] Hungary Refuses To Finance US Weapons for Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-15 [Older] Ukraine updates: Cheeto Mussolini says Kyiv shouldn't target Moscow

    • The Local DK ☛ 2025-07-15 [Older] Denmark and Netherlands could join Cheeto Mussolini's Ukraine arms plan

    • CBC ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini's pivot on Ukraine shows he's unwilling to put maximum pressure on Putin

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini sending Patriot missiles to Ukraine, EU to cover costs

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Ukraine: Zelenskyy proposes new prime minister

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] What are Patriot missiles and how will they help Ukraine?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] What Cheeto Mussolini's New Weapons Plan for Ukraine Might Mean

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Says US Will Send Patriot Missiles to Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Proposes PM Shmyhal as New Defence Minister

    • Vox ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini’s new Ukraine plan, briefly explained

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-07-13 [Older] 130,000 Ukrainians allowed to stay until 2027, Dutch aid groups warn of youth struggles

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-07-13 [Older] NATO chief Rutte heads to Washington as potential changes to Ukraine arms policy loom

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-13 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini to Meet NATO Secretary-General as Plan Takes Shape for Ukraine Weapons Sales

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-12 [Older] Leonardo May Offer Drone Tech but Has No Plans for Plant in Ukraine, CEO Tells Paper

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-11 [Older] Ukraine's Capital Buzzes During the Day but It's a Battleground at Night

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-11 [Older] 'Everybody Is Tired' of War in Ukraine, UN Migration Chief Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-11 [Older] Senate Panel Approves $500 Million Aid for Ukraine in Defense Bill

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-10 [Older] Can Ukraine drone builders help rearm Europe?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-16 [Older] NATO chief warns India, Brazil, China over Russia trade ties

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-16 [Older] Indian Police Find Russian Woman and Her 2 Daughters Living in an Isolated Forest Cave

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-16 [Older] Europol-Coordinated Global Operation Takes Down Pro-Russian Cybercrime Network

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-16 [Older] At Least 15 Injured in Russian Attack Targeting Energy Infrastructure in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-16 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini's 50-Day Ultimatum Gives Russia a Chance to Wear Down Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-16 [Older] Russian Court Seizes Stake in Bakery Over Ownership Prosecutors Say Is 'Extremist'

    • 2025-07-15 [Older] Ukrainian Hackers Wipe 47TB of Data from Top Russian Military Drone Supplier

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini and Rutte announce new arms deal for Ukraine, threaten sanctions on Russia

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Some Fundamentals of Russian National Security Policy

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Can Cheeto Mussolini's new sanctions threat on Russia force Putin's hand?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Ukraine updates: Cheeto Mussolini warns Russia of 'very severe tariffs'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Announces Weapons for Ukraine, Warns Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Retired Army Officer Pleads Guilty to Sharing Classified Info on Russia-Ukraine War on Dating Site

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-14 [Older] Russian Drones Kill Two in Ukraine's Southern Kherson Region, Governor Says

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-13 [Older] North Korea's Kim offers Russia 'unconditional support'

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-13 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russia seizes more territory in Donetsk

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-13 [Older] Russia, China Discuss Ukraine War and Ties With the United States

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-13 [Older] Ukraine Says Suspected Russian FSB Assassins Killed in Kyiv Region

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-13 [Older] Ukraine's Security Agency Says It Killed Russian Agents Suspected of Gunning Down Its Officer

    • CBC ☛ 2025-07-12 [Older] Kyiv residents 'brace for death' as Russian drones, missiles increasingly fly at night

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-12 [Older] Ukraine: Russia steps up bombings as Lavrov meets Kim

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-12 [Older] Why Russia is stepping up attacks on Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-12 [Older] North Korean Leader Kim Reaffirms Support for Russia in Ukraine Conflict, KCNA Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-12 [Older] Russian Drone, Cruise Missile and Bomb Attacks Kill at Least 6 in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-12 [Older] Russia Attacks West Ukraine With Drones and Missiles, Kills Two

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-12 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Interest in Russia Sanctions Raises Ukraine Allies' Hopes - to a Point

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-11 [Older] Russian army major to compete at fencing world championships

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-11 [Older] Russia's election watchdog and voter rights group disbands

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-07-11 [Older] Ukraine war: Russian strikes damage Kharkiv maternity ward

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-11 [Older] NATO Needs More Long-Range Missiles to Deter Russia, US General Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-11 [Older] Poland Says It Will Give 'Adequate' Response to Russia's Closure of Consulate

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-11 [Older] Positive Trend in Russia-US Relations Continues, Moscow Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-11 [Older] Russian Attack on Kharkiv Damages Maternity Hospital, Sending Patients Fleeing

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-11 [Older] US Is Selling Weapons to NATO Allies to Give to Ukraine, Cheeto Mussolini Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-07-11 [Older] Russia's Lavrov Meets North Korea's Kim, Praises Ties as 'Invincible Brotherhood'

    • Meduza ☛ For the first time, Russia jails suspect accused of new ‘aiding the enemy’ offense — Meduza

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • FAIR ☛ NYT Obscured Worst Harms of Trump’s Budget

    Such a historic weakening of the safety net—the programs that support the finances of lower-income Americans—should warrant not only major attention, but significant scrutiny from national media outlets. And yet, at the New York Times, the approach has been to distract and obscure above all else.

  • Herman Õunapuu ☛ PSA: part of your Kagi subscription fee goes to a Russian company (Yandex)

    Today I learned that Kagi uses Yandex as part of its search infrastructure, making up about 2% of their costs, and their CEO has confirmed that they do not plan to change that.

  • Vox ☛ What’s happening with Donald Trump and the Epstein Files

    The only folks who seemingly don’t want to release the full findings of the investigation into Epstein are the two people who could snap their fingers and make them public: Attorney General Pam Bondi and President Donald Trump.

    To understand what’s going on, Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Elie Honig, a former federal and state prosecutor and author of the upcoming book, When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ’s Pursuit of the President, From Nixon to Trump.

    You can read an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity, below, and listen to the full episode of Today, Explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.

  • Garry Kasparov ☛ Epstein Files: What Trump’s Opponents Need to Know

    Meanwhile, Democrats and other critics of the increasingly powerful conspiracy industry have a rare opportunity to inject some small measure of reality into our politics. To their credit, many Democrats, up to and including Hakeem Jeffries, have already been doing this, and they should keep up the pressure. Keep the Epstein situation in the news, and force those who believed Trump’s allies, including Don Jr., to confront one of two realities: either A) Trump and his associates were full of it when they said that if elected, they would unmask a global pedophile ring headed by Epstein and supported by countless democratic boogeymen; or B) They told the truth then and are now inexplicably protecting a global pedophile ring.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Trump resists bipartisan calls to release Epstein files

    Epstein, a wealthy financier with a deep bench of powerful friends, died in a New York City prison in August 2019 facing federal charges over a child sex trafficking conspiracy. The charges followed reporting by the Miami Herald of a scandalous sweetheart deal brokered by federal prosecutors in Florida that had allowed Epstein to serve a months-long sentence and avoid federal charges that could have resulted in life imprisonment.

  • NBC ☛ National Guard was hacked by China's 'Salt Typhoon' group, DHS says

    A Department of Homeland Security memo from June, describing the Pentagon’s findings, said that the group, publicly known by the nickname Salt Typhoon, “extensively compromised a U.S. state’s Army National Guard network” from March 2024 through December. The memo did not say which state.

    The report was provided to NBC News through the national security transparency nonprofit Property of the People, which obtained it through a freedom of information request.

  • CSO ☛ Salt Typhoon hacked the US National Guard for 9 months, and accessed networks in every state

    The DHS memo, dated June 11, said that between March and December 2024, Salt Typhoon “extensively compromised a US state’s Army National Guard’s network and, among other things, collected its network configuration and its data traffic with its counterparts’ networks in every other US state and at least four US territories.”

    The document was obtained by the national security transparency nonprofit Property of the People and first reported by NBC News. Previously, Salt Typhoon has been linked to several extensive espionage campaigns against US critical infrastructure, including breaches of major telecommunications companies such as AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen Technologies.

  • Jason Kottke ☛ Taking Journalism’s ‘Experts Said…’ Chicanery About Facts to Its Natural, Absurd Conclusion

    Large media companies, and the NY Times in particular these days, like to use the phrase “experts said” instead of simply stating facts. The thing is, many other statements of plain truth in that brief Times post lack the confirmation of expertise. To aid the paper in steering their readers away from notions of objective truth, here’s a suggested rewrite of that Bluesky post: [...]

  • CBC ☛ Trump's MAGA base is in crisis over the Epstein files. Could it cost Republicans the midterms?

    That's seen by some of his supporters as a betrayal, because Trump positioned himself "as somebody who truly was going to fight for them and basically unlock what they consider to be a conspiracy that the government has propagated over the past many years," said Dave Levinthal, an investigative journalist based in Washington, D.C.

    That includes an unproven theory that Trump himself is on the client list, given his association with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s.

  • Futurism ☛ The Situation With Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump and Elon Musk Is Absolutely Bizarre

    During the election, Trump pledged to release the government's files related to Epstein. But now that he's in power, he's repeatedly tried to sweep the topic under the rug, arguing that Epstein is "somebody that nobody cares about" — comments that greatly angered his most ardent supporters.

    The optics are abysmal. His attorney general Pam Bondi claimed in February that Epstein's client list — which purportedly lists figures tied to Epstein's sordid sexual crimes — was "sitting on my desk right now to review." Bondi, alongside other top Trump officials, had spent years fueling conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein's crimes and death.

• Environment

  • Garry Kasparov ☛ This Political Movement Spends Billions—And Keeps Losing

    We haven’t written about climate change at The Next Move and it’s certainly not the main focus for a publication covering the fight for democracy. What is relevant is the lesson that the pro-democracy camp can draw from the battle over the environment. In this piece, two climate experts, Isabela Valencia and Mimi Martinez, offer a perspective that should be shared in any movement that wants to win. Read on and let us know what you think!

  • APNIC ☛ FireFly: Community-centric wildfire detection using drones and IoT sensors

    In recent years, northern Thailand has faced an alarming rise in forest fires, driven by slash-and-burn agriculture, prolonged dry seasons, and climate change. Chiang Mai was recently ranked as the world’s most polluted city for seven days straight, with an average of 1.7 million people being affected by poor air quality and smoke between February and May every year. It is estimated that Northern Thailand lost 19,000 hectares of forest to wildfires in 2020 alone (Source: WWF).

  • Science News ☛ How hot can Earth get? Our planet's climate history holds clues

    Earth’s history confronts us with the fleeting fragility of our moment: Earth doesn’t have to look like it does now. In fact, it usually doesn’t. Between our world’s fiery infancy and its (for now) chilly present, it has been many planets, thanks to a multitude of geologic forces.

    Understanding why Earth’s climate changed in the past — and what happened to life when it did — can help us understand our unusual moment today. Because while our species likes it cold, we’ve taken the reins of climate in hand and veered our planet onto a hot new trajectory. What does the past have to teach about where we might end up?

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Straits Times ☛ BHP says too costly to build Australian green iron industry, as Albanese seeks China collaboration

      The steel supply chain is responsible for nearly a tenth of global emissions.

    • The Straits Times ☛ China’s electricity load exceeds 1.5 billion kW in new record high

      Extreme heat in wide swathes of the country drove up electricity demand.

    • Innovative Chinese dissident uses cryptocurrency to fund his activism

      Li Ying courted criticism for his meme coin, but supporters say he’s revolutionizing fundraising for social causes.

    • Hackaday ☛ Mini Car Racing Game Really Shows Off Multicolor Printing

      Quality 3D printing is a common hobbyist tool nowadays, and [wontonnn]’s mini arcade car racing game really shows off how 3D printing can bring parts from functional to fantastic. There are quite a few details we like in [wontonn]’s design, so let’s take a closer look.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ BigONE crypto exchange cleaned out for $27 million in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more — Seychelles-based outfit says security attack occurred, will fully cover all losses

      The attacker compromised the company's hot wallet, allowing them to move funds before being detected.

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ 'A game of Tetris' - how can utilities spread the load of EV charging?

      In the DTECH Midwest session, Driving the Future of EV Grid Planning, moderator Bienvenido (Ben) Clarin, Senior Principal of Vehicle Grid Integration for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), led a discussion with Marion Gibson, Utility Client Success Manager for WeaveGrid; and Jeff Hasse, Director of Member Services of DER & End Use Strategy for Great River Energy. Together they touched on common pain points for EVs, both from the customer and utility side, and how they can be massaged away.

      Clarin started the session with four fundamental questions that most utilities are asking themselves: [...]

    • Wired ☛ Congress Passes GENIUS Act in Major Win for US [Cryptocurrency] Industry

      If enacted, the bill will establish rules for issuers of stablecoins, a type of coin pegged to a $1 valuation, which proponents have pitched as a faster and cheaper way to make payments. The bill requires issuers to collateralize stablecoins with low-risk assets on a one-to-one basis, provide accounts to a state or federal regulator, and maintain anti-money-laundering controls.

    • Wired ☛ Some Cities in China Are Advertising Exclusive Subsidies for Huawei-Powered Cars

      Since May, at least 10 Chinese provincial and municipal governments have announced consumer subsidies ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 RMB (about $280 to $700) per car, according to social media posts collected by WIRED. The exact amount and conditions vary, but they all have one thing in common: The rebates can only be used to purchase a vehicle that runs Huawei’s HarmonyOS operating system and its autonomous driving system.

    • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Solar Power Illuminates Lives in Odisha’s Tribal Villages

      Under this sustainable development project, 96 solar-powered street lights have been installed across these villages, bringing much-needed illumination to public spaces for the first time. The initiative directly benefits over 5,000 people, making their villages not only brighter but also safer and more accessible after dark.

    • The Register UK ☛ Gates unfazed as TerraPower credits dodge Trump cuts

      TerraPower is working to develop a sodium-cooled small modular nuclear reactor. Its design has neither been tested in the real world, nor certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Gates claimed in the interview that virtually all of TerraPower's current demand in the US is related to datacenters, and predicted that the AI industry would "fill up our order book for the first 10 to 20 units."

    • CS Monitor ☛ The Tanzania-Zambia railway is a 1,150-mile endurance test

      The entirety of the Tazara, as the railway is known, runs from Tanzania’s coastal financial hub of Dar es Salaam west to New Kapiri Mposhi, Zambia. It is 1,852 kilometers (about 1,150 miles) long and takes an optimistically projected 46 hours. The train has a reputation for extreme unreliability: Unannounced delays are to be expected, extending one’s journey by 72 hours or more. My companions and I consider ourselves fortunate: Our journey ended up being a mere 13 hours behind schedule. This is not a ride for an impatient traveler.

      But even with these drawbacks, the cars fill up. Most of the time, first-class sleeper cars are fully booked two days in advance, a fact we discovered firsthand.

    • Michigan Advance ☛ AI data centers are using more power. Regular customers are footing the bill • Michigan Advance

      Between 2024 and 2025, data center power usage accounted for $9 billion, or 174%, of increased power costs, a June report by Monitoring Analytics, an external market monitor for PJM Interconnection, found. PJM manages the electrical power grid and wholesale electric market for 13 states and Washington, D.C., and this spring, customers were told to expect roughly a $25 increase on their monthly electric bill starting June 1.

    • Pi My Life Up ☛ Building a NUT Dashboard with PeaNUT on the Raspberry Pi

      If you have an NUT server running on your Pi or another device, you may sometimes find it challenging to check the status of your UPSs quickly.

      Now, you could SSH into your machine and then use upsc to check each UPS; however, this isn’t the best solution for all cases. That is where a web dashboard is incredibly useful.

    • Zach Flower ☛ Batteries Redux

      A few months ago, I wrote about replacing the battery in my old iPod with a brand spankin’ new one, and concluded that post with my intention to eventually upgrade the HDD (for both more storage capacity, and because the drive wasn’t being detected on any computer).

      Well, that time has come, and as of a few days ago, I now have a fully working* iPod again, complete with 128GB of fancy solid-state storage!

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Straits Times ☛ Lion cub cuddles on offer with afternoon tea in China

      Online comments were mostly critical, saying the venture was dangerous and not good for the animals.

    • The Revelator ☛ Footprints and Fences: In Search of Hedgehogs

  • Overpopulation

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Winning a world championship is nothing compared to raising a kid’: Russian volleyball legend Ekaterina Gamova opens up about childhood trauma and postpartum depression — Meduza

• Finance

  • Mexico News Daily ☛ Mexico fines US-sanctioned banks US $10M for compliance failures

    Most of the fines on Intercam and CIBanco were related to money-laundering prevention, while Vector faced fines for failure to publish mandatory information.

  • Latvia ☛ Latvian bank claims Baltic first with new bond fund

    The investment management company Signet Asset Management Latvia, part of Signet Bank Group, said July 16th it has established a "first fund of its kind in the Baltic region", namely,  an open-ended mutual fund called Signet Baltic Bond Fund.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Straits Times ☛ Beijing reaffirms normalisation of ties with EU ahead of July summit

    China reaffirmed on Wednesday that it is normalising ties with the European Parliament, as Beijing seeks to forge closer economic and political ties with Brussels amid flaring global trade frictions.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Nvidia’s Jensen Huang turns on the charm in Beijing amid US-China tech rivalry

    The firm has announced that sales of its H20 chip to China would resume, with Washington's nod.

  • New York Times ☛ Nvidia C.E.O. Treads Carefully in Beijing

    Jensen Huang, the chipmaker’s chief executive, is trying to balance his company’s interests as the United States and China compete for supremacy in artificial intelligence.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Scale AI lays off 200 employees, one month after Meta's $14 billion investment — says it scaled up too quickly

    As of the start of July, Scale AI, according to the company's own website, employed 900 people, so cutting 200 staff represents a major reduction in its workforce. This is coming as part of a major restructuring of its business, with Scale AI claiming that it will make new hires and investments with a focus on public sector and international public sector markets.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Intel allegedly planning more Oregon layoffs — new report says retreating operation could become a liability to the state

    With cuts of “at least 5,400 Oregon jobs since August,” according to the source, there are now 18,000 employees left in Oregon. Despite this massive cut in jobs, “Oregon will continue to play a critical role in Intel’s global operations, serving as the epicenter of our cutting-edge semiconductor research, technology development, and manufacturing,” Intel reportedly said in a statement on Monday.

  • India Times ☛ Intel to lay off more than 5,500 employees in US in latest round of job cuts

    Intel plans to lay off over 5,500 employees across the US, with teams in California and Oregon set to see the most job cuts. This decision comes as Intel lags in the CPU and AI GPU markets, and effects can be seen in the company's market value. CEO Lip-Bu Tan has acknowledged Intel's decline in the semiconductor industry. The company aims to become more agile and competitive.

  • The Register UK ☛ Intel plans a further 5,000 layoffs

    New CEO Lip-Bu Tan has warned Intel's in a bit of a bind - its x86 dominance is fading, the company is nowhere in GPU, and the plan to offer foundry services to other chip design companies hasn’t set the world on fire - so the layoffs are another step in its goal of cutting headcount by 20 percent and reducing costs.

  • C4ISRNET ☛ Pentagon taps four commercial tech firms to expand military use of AI

    Each company received a contract worth up to $200 million, according to a notice from the Chief Digital and AI Office. The firms will help the Defense Department develop agentic AI workflows for key national security missions.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Register UK ☛ Controversy over PUTTY.ORG website growing fast

      The thing is that these days, many people tend to expect that well-known software would have a short, simple URL. Such as, in this case, PUTTY.ORG. For instance, Lithuanian hosting company Hostinger links to PUTTY.ORG when discussing SSH, it's mentioned in answers on StackExchange, and PUTTY.ORG is the first hit on Bing, only then followed by the author's own site.

      However, PUTTY.ORG is nothing to do with PuTTY or Simon Tatham. In fact, it's owned and run by Bitvise, the vendor of proprietary SSH software for Windows, including a paid server and a free client.

    • The Walrus ☛ You’re Not Imagining It. Health Misinformation Is Everywhere

      With each passing day, our information environment is becoming more chaotic. It is filled with lies and spin and rage. I’ve spent decades studying how health and science are represented in the public sphere. And it has never been as bad as it is right now. Here are my current top ten concerns keeping me up at night.

    • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Meta platforms Distorting Facts Due To Faulty Auto-translation: CM Siddaramaiah

      Siddaramaiah said social media platforms must act responsibly, especially when dealing with official communication, and cautioned citizens to be aware that translations displayed on these platforms are often inaccurate

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Straits Times ☛ Beijing accused of trying to block screenings of Filipino documentary on South China Sea

    Despite the controversy, the documentary's Philippine premiere is set for July 27 at a popular Manila mall.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong democrat found guilty in landmark nat. security case described as ‘diligent’ legislator at appeal hearing

    An ex-lawmaker who was found guilty in Hong Kong’s largest national security case and jailed for six and a half years was a “diligent” legislator who believed what he was doing was lawful, a court has heard.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ 2 jailed Hong Kong activists had unfair trial, lawyers tell court in appeals against subversion convictions

    Lawyers for two Hong Kong activists jailed for conspiracy to subvert state power in the city’s largest national security case have told an appellate court that the pair did not receive a fair trial.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Tightened prison rules restricting visits on nat. security grounds to take effect on Friday

    Tightened prison rules restricting lawyers and religious leaders from visiting inmates will take effect on Friday, just two weeks after the authorities proposed the amendments. The fast-tracked legislative amendments will allow the Correctional Services Department (CSD) to restrict or even ban a person from visiting an inmate on certain grounds, including safeguarding national security.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ CBS to end ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ next year

    Once on CBS, Colbert won loyal viewers with his searing commentaries on President Trump and his actions — even before Trump was elected in 2016.

    In recent weeks, Colbert skewered his own company for its decision to cave to Trump by settling the president’s lawsuit over “60 Minutes” edits, a case that most 1st Amendment experts called frivolous. Paramount agreed to pay $16 million, with most of that going to Trump’s future presidential library.

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Russia Moves to Centralize Mobile Internet Shutdowns Amid Rise in Ukrainian Drone Attacks

    Currently, a broad range of entities including regional authorities, emergency services and security agencies are authorized to request mobile [Internet] shutdowns.

    The result, one source told Izvestia, has been a surge in disorganized and often excessive disruptions, especially in response to the growing number of drone attacks across the country.

  • Meduza ☛ The crime of reading: A new Russian law will ban not just posting ‘extremist’ content but simply searching for and accessing it

    The Russian government has come up with a new misdemeanor offense for citizens: “deliberately seeking out and accessing extremist materials.” Once again, lawmakers are using a familiar tactic honed through other repressive laws: [...]

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Tencent seeks removal of anti-censorship archive FreeWeChat, watchdog says

    The website specialises in surfacing deleted or blocked WeChat posts on politically sensitive topics.

    According to the statement, the conglomerate’s legal representative, Group-IB, accused FreeWeChat of trademark and copyright infringement, submitting a takedown complaint to the site’s hosting provider on June 12.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Gov't defends Jimmy Lai's detention arrangements after newspaper op-ed alleges 'appalling conditions' in custody

    Lai, the 77-year-old founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy media outlet Apple Daily, has been detained since December 2020. His national security trial was adjourned in March and will restart in August.

  • The Washington Post ☛ New Russia [Internet] law criminalizes just searching for banned content

    Russia previously criminalized sharing such content, but with officials saying censorship during wartime is justified, restrictive digital laws are being tightened.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Turkish Journalist Could Face Minimum 5 Years Prison for Erdogan Comments

    Altayli, who has more than 1.5 million YouTube subscribers, was jailed pending trial last month over the comments in a social media video about a poll that showed most Turks opposed Erdogan ruling for life.

  • Garry Kasparov ☛ Debate: Banning Democracy to Save Democracy?

    The modern fight for democracy is a complex affair. The Next Move is proud to host this debate on the contentious question of banning extremist actors: Is it ever appropriate in a democracy—and is it even a sound political strategy? Leading German journalists examine this question through the lens of their country’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD). After you read this overview, check out pro-ban and anti-ban perspectives and let us know what you think!

  • Garry Kasparov ☛ Why We Can’t Protect Democracy By Banning the Bad Guys.

    This piece is part of a debate series that poses the question: Is it ever appropriate to ban extremist actors in a democracy? Is it overreach and political malpractice, or the proactive defense needed to stop authoritarianism before it destroys the system from the inside? Using the example of the far-right AfD party in Germany, this piece from leading German political commentator Heinrich Wefing, argues against a ban. Read his perspective, then read the opposing viewpoint from his colleague, Eva Ricarda Lautsch, and let us know what you think!

  • Garry Kasparov ☛ Democracy Needs a Proactive Defense. Sometimes, Banning Bad Actors Is OK.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • American Oversight ☛ DOGE [sic]’s Smoke and Mirrors: How the Agency Deliberately Avoids Transparency - American Oversight

    DOGE [sic]’s responses to American Oversight’s FOIA requests and litigation highlight how the agency twists its mandate to shield itself from scrutiny.

  • Doc Searls ☛ If you like public broadcasting, be customers, not just consumers

    Well, philantropies and wealthy Democrats will probably take up some of the slack. But how about listeners? I think they can. Here’s why.

  • Nebraska Examiner ☛ Nebraska’s Ricketts, Fischer voted to cut $9B from public media, foreign aid

    The 51-48 mostly party-line vote seeks to revoke more than $8 billion from foreign aid programs run by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. It also cuts $1.1 billion that Congress approved for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for fiscal years 2026 and 2027, which funds the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio.

  • Northwestern University ☛ Local Public Broadcasting Cuts

    It does almost nothing to improve the federal budget but gives legislative imprimatur to Trump’s corrosive attacks on the press.

    The Senate on Tuesday voted 51-50, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie, to proceed with the executive branch request to cancel $9 billion worth of allocations.

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ Senate Votes to Strip $1.1 Billion From Public Broadcasting in Blow to PBS and NPR

    Without public media funding, local stations will close, creating news deserts and allowing political corruption to thrive.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ US Senate Republicans vote to claw back funding for NPR, PBS, foreign aid programs

    The impact on local communities in rural areas, she said, could be significant, given that many people rely on their stations for emergency alerts related to tsunamis and other forms of extreme weather as well as educational programs.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • New York Times ☛ Immigrants File Class-Action Lawsuit to Stop ICE Courthouse Arrests

    The detentions have become a relatively easy way for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to detain immigrants who are appearing for court dates.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Army vet calls for investigation after being detained for three days in ICE raid

    A U.S. Army veteran who was detained during the massive immigration raid in Ventura County last week said Wednesday that he wants “a full investigation” into how he could have been held behind bars for three days despite being an American citizen.

    “What happened to me wasn’t just a mistake,” he said in a written statement. “It was a violation of my civil rights. It was excessive force.”

  • Omicron Limited ☛ One-third of young workers cheated by employers: Study

    Only a third had gone to unions or agencies, such as the Fair Work Ombudsman, for help.

    The Fair Days Work project investigates how data science and technology could be used to improve employer compliance with the law.

  • BIA Net ☛ Prosecutors drop indecency charges against model-activist over 'normal birth' protest

    The decision noted that Aydınalp had been detained for one day and that all evidence, including video recordings, had been reviewed. The investigation found no grounds for the charges of insult or indecency, stating that the legal elements required to substantiate these offenses were not present.

  • TruthOut ☛ FL Miccosukee Tribe Joins Environmental Groups Suing Over “Alligator Alcatraz”

    In a motion to join a lawsuit, as one of the first tribes to potentially sue against the detention center, the case argues that the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Miami-Dade County, and the Florida Division of Emergency Management did not seek an environmental review.

    The filing alleges the center’s proximity to Miccosukee villages, ceremonial sites, and access to traditional hunting grounds, and “raises significant concerns about environmental degradation and potential impacts.”

  • Advance Local Media LLC ☛ The Miccosukee Tribe of Florida wants to join a federal lawsuit against ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

    In fact, the Miccosukee have lived on those lands for centuries, the tribe’s attorneys wrote in their motion, which notes that there are 10 tribal villages within a three-mile (4.8-kilometer) radius of the detention center, one of which is approximately 1,000 feet (304 meters) from the facility.

    The preserve is a place where tribal members continue to hunt, trap and fish, as well as catch the school bus, hold sacred rituals and bury their loved ones.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ The [Internet]'s weakest link is under the ocean

    Critical undersea infrastructure (CUI) as these connections are known, supports about US$9-trillion worth of trade per day. A coordinated attack on this network could undoubtedly have devastating consequences.

    But, as a former submarine commander who researches maritime security, I believe that attacking and disrupting the network is not as easy as some reports might make it appear. Deliberately snagging a pipeline with a dragging anchor in relatively shallow waters can cause a lot of damage, but it is a fairly indiscriminate trick with a shelf life, since the damage can be repaired, and deniability becomes increasingly difficult.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ In re SAP America: Sharpening the Dispute over PTAB Discretionary Denials

    The Federal Circuit continues to grapple with fundamental questions surrounding the USPTO’s broad discretionary authority to deny Inter Partes Review (IPR) petitions.  Both implementation issues by former Director Vidal as well as the about-change by Acting Director Stewart.

  • Dennis Crouch, SAP’s Mandamus Petition Challenging Convicted Felon Admin’s Discretionary Denial Policy Shift, Patently‑O (July 2, 2025).
  • Dennis Crouch, Motorola Follows SAP with Mandamus Challenge to Acting Director Stewart’s IPR Policy Reversal, Patently‑O (July 10, 2025),.

  In two recent posts, I discussed the pending In re SAP, 25-132 (Fed. Cir. 2025), mandamus action that challenge the "retroactive" actions by Director Stewart -- particularly rescinding the 2022 "Vidal Memo," which had provided explicit safe harbors for IPR petitions to avoid discretionary denials. SAP argues that Stewart’s reversal constitutes an unlawful retroactive policy shift, violates due process, and exceeds administrative authority. Several new briefs opposing mandamus have now been filed in the case, with the USPTO's response expected July 21, 2025, following an extension.

• Software Patents

  • Unified Patents ☛ H2 Intellect geofencing patent monopoly challenged

    On July 11, 2025, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 8,977,247, owned and asserted by H2 Intellect LLC, an NPE. The ‘247 patent monopoly generally relates to a system for delivering sponsored content to registered application programs based on users' geographic locations.

Copyrights

• Digital Music News ☛ Jane’s Addiction Sues Lead Singer Perry Farrell Over Last Year’s Onstage Altercation

  Jane’s Addiction is suing lead singer Perry Farrell over an onstage altercation last year that they claim derailed their tour and a planned album. Jane’s Addiction members Eric Avery, Dave Navarro, and Stephen Perkins have filed a lawsuit against lead singer Perry Farrell.

• Torrent Freak ☛ Pirate Site Blockades Get Judicial Scrutiny in Germany, But No Transparency?

  Germany's voluntary pirate site blocking regime has undergone a fundamental change, now requiring judicial oversight for all blocking actions. The participants will rely on court orders going forward, instead of their own recommendations. While the change ensures a proper review of blocking requests, it does not necessarily make the blockades more transparent for the public.

• Tom's Hardware ☛ Retro reviewer could face up to three years in jail over copyright — Italian authorities investigate creator for 'advertising' Anbernic handheld game consoles

  Italian content creator Francesco Salicini, who owns the YouTube channel Once Were Nerd, says he is currently under investigation by Italian authorities for allegedly promoting piracy by “advertising” Anbernic game consoles. Anbernic is known for its retro handheld gaming consoles that can emulate classic titles from Nintendo and Sony. However, the company often ships its products with microSD cards that contain hundreds of copyrighted ROMs. This is definitely against the law and a form of piracy, but Salicini claims that he only reviewed the hardware and that no manufacturer sponsored his videos. He even went further and refrained from adding affiliate links to his content.

• Digital Music News ☛ Metallica Issues A Copyright Strike Against the U.S. Government

  This incident is not an isolated episode, as Metallica and its management are notoriously litigious about the unauthorized use of their music. Metallica also has a documented history of defending their intellectual property from misuse. They previously asked the U.S. military to stop using their music in interrogations during the Iraq War, emphasizing their opposition of their work with violence.