Leftovers

• Johnny Decimal ☛ 22.00.0125 I created my own platform

  When you build your own thing, you have total control. The Life Admin System can be generated on-the-fly. So we change something this morning, you download it an hour later, and you get those updates.

  The Workbook can be presented as a bunch of web pages. Which means that it can dynamically link to the Workshop, which it accompanies. And the Workshop is now under my direct control! No more videos hosted on a 'training platform' which, frankly, I always hated.

• Alex Russell ☛ Put Names and Dates On Documents

  Having to do extra work to find the right person to discuss a complex topic with is annoying, but in large organisations, the probability of authors having work appropriated without credit goes up when they themselves fail to claim ownership of their writing. It should go without saying that this is toxic to everything good, and that functional engineering cultures look harshly on it. But to ward off bad behaviour, it helps to model what's healthy. The best prod to others for citing prior work is for the authors to cite themselves as authors on their own documents. Doing this increases the stature of the original authors, unsubtly encourages others to link and cite, and leaves a trail of evidence for authors to reference for themselves when building a case for promotion.

• James G ☛ Dates in notebooks

  Digitally, computers record the dates of documents in the background. Files have creation dates and modification dates. With that said, not all tools make this information prominent. When I open a collaborative tool like Google Docs, I don’t see the creation date in the default interface. This blog post, on the other hand, does have a date. I don’t write the blog post publication date though: it is set in the background when I publish a blog post.

• Computational Complexity ☛ Computational Complexity: Total Pixel Space

  So how do we capture which images actually matter? Let's visit our friend Kolmogorov Complexity, which measures information by the amount we can compress. A JPEG image typically compresses (lossily) to about 200 KB, which reduces the number of images to 8.7 x 101,061,650. Still enormous.

• Clayton Errington ☛ Notetaking today

  Most of my digital notes are also todo items. So using text based notes allows me to move from app to app if needed.

  I even created a small website with 11ty and called it journa11ty and use this for some daily notes and things I want to save and refer to later.

• CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Maga's boss class think they are immune to American carnage (13 Aug 2025)

  Today's links Maga's boss class think they are immune to American carnage: They're in for a surprise.

• New York Times ☛ Strawberry Picking Is Thankless Work. That’s What Makes It Worth Watching.

  On Fentanylware (TikTok) Live, workers stream video of themselves doing manual labor, providing glimpses of the human effort that powers our world.

• Science

  • Harvard University ☛ Researchers uncover surprising limit on human imagination

    Human beings can juggle up to 10 balls at once. But how many can they move through the air with their imaginations?

    The answer, published last month in Nature Communications, astonished even the researchers pursuing the question. The cognitive psychologists found people could easily imagine the trajectory of a single ball after it disappeared. But the imagination couldn’t simultaneously keep tabs on two moving balls that fell from view.

• Career/Education

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Of course Mark Zuckerberg is still doing good works – he’s just switched up the definition of ‘good’

    If you put it in a novel – a ham-fisted satire of tech overlord hypocrisy, say – it would look too contrived to fly. But here we are, absorbing a story from the New York Times this week in which Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are discovered to have been running a private school out of their compound in Palo Alto, California, in violation of city zoning laws. More pertinently, the school of 14 kids, which includes two of the couple’s three daughters, is less than a mile from the school for low-income families that the couple founded in 2016. Guess which school the world’s second-richest man and his wife are shutting down?

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Guest Post - Who Controls Knowledge in the Age of AI? Part 2, Recommendations for Stakeholders

    This is a decisive moment in academic knowledge production. It is clear from the rich and diverse survey responses we collected that researchers who write books are excited overall about the potential of LLM-enhanced research, while they also fear the consequences of unregulated training use in-copyright publications. Academic stakeholders — including publishers, libraries, and university leaders — should consider the following measures to avoid unintended harms and preserve core scientific and academic values.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Microplastics in crops may threaten food production

    Now there is growing concern that these particles, once inside plant cells, can interfere with photosynthesis — the process by which plants convert sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into energy in the form of sugars.

  • Futurism ☛ Doctors Using AI Quickly Lose Ability to Spot Cancer, Study Finds

    Researchers warned of a "deskilling" effect after noticing a 20 percent relative drop in the detection rate of adenomas, or pre-cancerous growths in the colon, after an AI was introduced at the centers at the end of 2021, compared to detection rates before the AI was implemented.

  • Futurism ☛ Research Psychiatrist Warns He’s Seeing a Wave of AI Psychosis

    Users can thus get caught in alluring recursive loops with the AI, as the model doubles, triples, and quadruples down on delusional narratives, regardless of their basis in reality or the real-world consequences that the human user might be experiencing as a result.

  • [Repeat] Science Alert ☛ Man Hospitalized With Psychiatric Symptoms Following AI Advice

    While it is true that sodium bromide can be a substitute for sodium chloride, that's usually if you're trying to clean a hot tub, not to make your fries tastier. But the AI neglected to mention this crucial context.

    Three months later, the patient presented to the emergency department with paranoid delusions, believing his neighbor was trying to poison him.

• Proprietary

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Roskomnadzor Says It Is Restricting WhatsApp, Telegram Calls

    On Sunday, Russians across the country began reporting problems making voice and video calls via WhatsApp and Telegram. However, it was not immediately clear how widespread the disruptions were, as The Moscow Times has managed to make calls to Russian users in various regions through the messengers without issue.

  • RIPE ☛ Khipu: Prototype RIPE Atlas Traceroute Visualisation Tool

    The RIPE Atlas team is developing a new tool for traceroute visualisations that should make analysing large traceroute measurements much clearer and easier.

  • Cyble Inc ☛ Microsoft Teams CVE-2025-53783 RCE Vulnerability Alert

    In the context of Microsoft Teams, this means a successful exploit could allow malicious actors to read private communications, alter message content, or delete messages altogether.

  • Former PlayStation CEO Says Xbox Game Pass and Other Subscription Services Turn Developers Into “Wage Slaves” and Are “Bad for the Business”

    Former PlayStation boss, Shawn Layden, shares why he thinks Xbox Game Pass and similar subscription models hurt AAA game development, calling them “bad for the business” and turning devs into “wage slaves.”

    Former PlayStation Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden has shared some strong views on subscription models like Xbox Game Pass, warning that they could hurt the long-term health of the AAA games industry.

  • Oracle Stock Falls Below Key Level Amid Cloud Layoffs Report

    Oracle (ORCL) has reportedly cuts jobs within its fast-growing cloud infrastructure business. Oracle stock slipped in Wednesday trading.

    The database technology giant cut jobs within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources. The number of cuts is not known. Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment from IBD. Industry news publication Datacenter Dynamics reported that the cuts are within the U.S. and India operations for OCI.

  • India Times ☛ Oracle layoffs: Oracle cuts cloud division jobs amid surge in AI spending

    Oracle layoffs: Oracle has cut over 150 jobs in its cloud unit, mainly in Seattle, amid soaring AI infrastructure costs. While still hiring and citing performance issues for some cuts, the full extent is unclear. The move follows similar actions by other tech giants and comes despite Oracle's strong stock performance.

  • Bloomberg ☛ Oracle Cuts Jobs in Cloud Infrastructure Unit Amid AI Spending

  • Seeking Alpha ☛ Oracle reduces workforce in cloud infrastructure unit - report

    Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) is cutting jobs at its cloud unit, Bloomberg News reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

    This week, the impacted people were told that their roles had been eliminated. Some of the job cuts were related to performance issues, and the unit continues to hire, the report added.

    Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.

  • Oracle lays off hundreds of employees from its cloud unit amid AI expansion push: Report [Ed: Same as Azure - constant Microsoft layoffs; "Hey hi" is a mindless excuse for a business failure]

    Although these layoffs cut certain positions, the company is not pulling back from the cloud market. According to the report, the changes are part of a targeted restructuring, aimed at replacing some roles with new hires whose skills better match Oracle’s growing focus on AI infrastructure. Some of the job cuts were related to performance concerns, but the main reason is to shift resources toward areas that can support the growing demand for AI-powered services.

  • Windows Central ☛ Over 160 Blizzard employees unite for workplace improvements in historic move

    Another union has formed at Microsoft-owned Blizzard Entertainment, with the iconic game studio's Story and Franchise Development team (SFD) the latest to organize.

    A press release from the Communication Workers of America (CWA) on Tuesday confirms that over 160 workers voted in favor of a union, becoming the first "in-house cinematic, animation, and narrative studio" to form a union in the United States.

  • America Online ☛ Opinion - H-1Bs are wreaking havoc on American workers

    When it comes to immigration, there’s a refrain that periodically arises with respect to new immigrants: “They’re even more American than us,” or something to that effect. And if immigration causes any ill effects on Americans already here — such as disruptions in the economy or employment environment — they are reminded that they should just grit their teeth and “learn to code.”

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ Scientists Are Getting Seriously Worried That We've Already Hit Peak AI

      Speaking to The New Yorker, Gary Marcus, a neural scientist and longtime critic of OpenAI, said what many have been coming to suspect: despite years of development at a staggering cost, AI doesn't seem to be getting much better.

    • Quanta Magazine ☛ The AI Was Fed Sloppy Code. It Turned Into Something Evil.

      The new science of “emergent misalignment” explores how PG-13 training data — insecure code, superstitious numbers or even extreme-sports advice — can open the door to AI’s dark side.

    • Matt Birchler ☛ I paid $35 for this study about "AI" to understand what the hell it meant

      This is the ENDO-AID CADe and while it does say it's powered by AI, it's not using LLMs, it's using something more like what we used to call "machine learning" and is tech much more like the tech in Apple/Google Photos that detects faces and objects than generative AI. If you take one thing away from this post, make it that this study was not about LLMs. Still, there can be some good learnings in here, so let's keep going.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Prompt-inject Copilot Studio AI via email, grab a company’s whole Salesforce

      This is a zero-click hack — the user doesn’t have to do anything. Many companies’ Copilot Studio agents are exposed on the public internet! That default’s been changed — but a lot are still wide open.

      Zenity sent an email from outside the target company. You just put your prompt injection commands into your email, and the chatbot will send you the list of all the internal data stores that agent knows about!

  • Social Control Media

    • Kristie De Garis ☛ Wplace Is Exploding Online Amid a New Era of Youth Protest

      This impermanence makes it more meaningful. Protest has always had its fragile forms; chalked declarations that wash away in the rain, posters torn down overnight, street theatre that vanishes as the crowd disperses. Their transience doesn’t weaken them; it forces urgency, demanding that people turn up again and again to keep the message alive. The care is in the making and remaking, and in the persistence.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Fortra LLC ☛ The MedusaLocker ransomware gang is hiring penetration testers

      As Security Affairs reports, MedusaLocker has posted a job advert on its dark web leak site, which pointedly invites pentesters who already have direct access to corporate networks to make contact.

    • The Register UK ☛ Ransomware crew dumps 43GB Saint Paul files, no ransom paid

      The listing on Interlock’s dark web leak site, seen by The Register, was published on August 11. It includes samples of what the gang claims are more than 66,000 files stolen from the city of Saint Paul, including scans of passports, employee records, and other internal documents.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ BlackSuit Ransomware's Infrastructure Dismantled; Crypto Worth $1M Seized

      The Department of Justice—backed by the FBI, U.S. Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), IRS Criminal Investigation, and a web of international partners—took decisive action on July 24, executing a coordinated takedown of the BlackSuit ransomware network. This included seizing four servers, shutting down nine domains, and confiscating over $1 million in cryptocurrency, according to a press release published on August 11.

    • TechCrunch ☛ Russian government hackers said to be behind US federal court filing system hack: Report | TechCrunch

      Politico reported that the stolen data could include sealed criminal dockets and indictments, arrest warrants, and other documents not yet public, or may never actually be included in public dockets.

    • The Independent UK ☛ Russia blamed for federal court system [breach] that exposed cases and info on confidential informants

      Some records related to criminal activity with international ties were also believed to have been targeted. Chief judges were also warned last month to move cases fitting this description off the regular document-management system, the outlet reported.

      Margo K. Brodie, chief judge of the Eastern District of New York, ordered “documents filed under seal in criminal cases and in cases related to criminal investigations are prohibited from being filed” in PACER, a public database for court records.

    • US News And World Report ☛ Russia Is Suspected to Be Behind [Breach] of US Federal Court Filing System, New York Times Reports

      Investigators have uncovered evidence that Russia is at least in part responsible for a recent [breach] of the computer system that manages U.S. federal court documents, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing several people briefed on the breach.

    • India Times ☛ Data breach: Russian link suspected in US federal court [breach]; sensitive information compromised in yearlong violation

      Officials briefed on the matter said documents linked to criminal activity with overseas connections, spanning at least eight district courts, were initially thought to be the focus of the breach. The breach affected federal courts in South Dakota, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and Arkansas.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • University of Toronto ☛ Another reason to use expendable email addresses for everything

      I'm a long time advocate of using expendable email addresses any time you have to give someone an email address (and then making sure you can turn them off or more broadly apply filters to them). However, some of the time I've trusted the people who were asking for an email address, didn't have an expendable address already prepared for them, and gave them my regular email address. Today I discovered (or realized) another reason to not do this and to use expendable addresses for absolutely everything, and it's not the usual reason of "the people you gave your email address to might get compromised and have their address collection extracted and sold to spammers". The new problem is mailing service providers, such as Mailchimp.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Wired ☛ Data Brokers Face New Pressure for Hiding Opt-Out Pages From Google

      Hassan, the top Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee, put five of the top firms—IQVIA Digital, Comscore, Telesign Corporation, 6sense Insights, and Findem—on notice Wednesday, demanding that each explain why code on their sites appears designed to frustrate deletion requests.

    • Doc Searls ☛ A Cure for Corporate Addiction to Personal Data

      Since the turn of the millennium, online publishing has turned into a vampire, sucking the blood of readers’ personal data to feed the appetites of adtech: tracking-based advertising. Resisting that temptation nearly killed us. But now that we’re alive, still human, and stronger than ever, we want to lead the way toward curing the rest of online publishing from the curse of personal data vampirism. And we have a plan. Read on.

    • Chris Enns ☛ Whose Story is it Okay To Tell?

      One starting point I suppose is for me to think about how would I feel if one of my siblings, parents, or my children started writing or talking more publicly—blog, Instagram Stories, podcast episodes, etc.—about their experiences and included things I had done or said? Obviously if it was flattering or positive, it's a pretty easy thing to be ok with. But if they talked about how I'd hurt someone with my words or actions? Highlighted me at a low or my worst moments?

    • India Times ☛ Passwords under threat as tech giants seek tougher security

      The companies have been working on creating and popularising password-free login methods, especially promoting the use of so-called access keys.

      These use a separate device like a smartphone to authorise logins, relying on a pin code or biometric input such as a fingerprint reader or face recognition instead of a password.

    • Fight Chat Control ☛ Fight Chat Control - Protect Digital Privacy in the EU

      The "Chat Control" proposal would mandate scanning of all private digital communications, including encrypted messages and photos. This threatens fundamental privacy rights and digital security for all EU citizens.

  • Confidentiality

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Why agencies must look beyond ‘post-quantum crypto’ algorithms to secure their data

      As NIST rolls out advanced PQC standards to address the ‘Harvest now, decrypt later’ threat, a new report suggests that a smarter and simpler approach involves switching to out-of-band key delivery and adaptable systems.

    • EFF ☛ Fake Clinics Quietly Edit Their Websites After Being Called Out on HIPAA Claims

      Earlier this year, EFF sent complaints to attorneys general in eight states (FL, TX, AR, and MO, TN, OK, NE, and NC), asking them to investigate these centers for misleading the public with false claims about their privacy practices—specifically, falsely stating or implying that they are bound by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). These claims are especially deceptive because many of these centers are not licensed medical clinics or do not have any medical providers on staff, and thus are not subject to HIPAA’s protections.

• Defence/Aggression

  • US News And World Report ☛ Taliban Use Force to Divert International Aid, US Watchdog Says

    Afghanistan's Taliban rulers divert international aid by force and other means, block minority communities from receiving aid and may collude with U.N. officials to seek kickbacks, a U.S. watchdog said on Tuesday.

  • Security Week ☛ Norwegian Police Say Pro-Russian [Crackers] Were Likely Behind Suspected Sabotage at a Dam

    The Associated Press has plotted more than 70 incidents on a map tracking a campaign of disruption across Europe blamed on Russia, which Western officials have described as “reckless.” Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents, ranging from vandalism to arson and attempted assassination.

    Intelligence officials told the AP that the campaign is becoming more violent.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Trump's Military Crackdowns Are Only Going to Get Worse

    It’s only going to get worse.

    The president and his top government appointees are publicly stressing that this will not end with D.C. and L.A., that other military options are very much on the table. The facts, the laws, and data do not seem to matter: Trump and his team believe he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, including using the U.S. armed forces for domestic political purposes as well as intimidating his enemies. His team is privately putting together plans for him to do just that.

  • YLE ☛ Minister: "Burkas and niqabs are not suitable for school"

    "Burkas and niqabs — scarves and veils covering the face — are not suitable for school. Children should be allowed to be children and live freely in Finnish society," the minister wrote.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Troy Hunt ☛ Troy Hunt: That 16 Billion Password Story (AKA "Data Troll")

    1. The 16B headline distils down to a much smaller number of unique values of actual impact
    2. The data is largely from stealer logs that have been circulating for some time now
    3. It's certainly not fresh and doesn't pose any new risks that weren't already present

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ SIGINT During World War II

    The NSA and GCHQ have jointly published a history of World War II SIGINT: “Secret Messengers: Disseminating SIGINT in the Second World War.” This is the story of the British SLUs (Special Liaison Units) and the American SSOs (Special Security Officers).

  • CNN ☛ Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship: A definitive timeline

    Their names appear together in flight logs, legal filings, phone messages—and in photo after photo in the moneyed world of Palm Beach and Manhattan.

  • [Old] US DOD ☛ Secret Messengers: Disseminating SIGINT in the Second World War: The Story of the British SLUs and American SSOs

    SIGINT distribution in World War II is often criticized as too restrictive. This new work describes how the United States and the United Kingdom built—and changed on the fly—a system to ensure that vital intelligence got to the proper decision-makers in a timely and secure way. For historians and practitioners alike, the book outlines the first steps in developing the system that both countries would use during the Cold War.

• Environment

  • Vox ☛ Study: Climate change in the Arctic endangers reindeer, caribou

    Over the last few decades, wild Arctic reindeer populations have declined by about two-thirds, from 5.5 million to around 1.9 million, largely due to warming, according to previous research. Rising temperatures can affect reindeer health directly — causing the animals to overheat and get sick — and indirectly by limiting their supply of food.

  • AAAS ☛ Mismatch in reindeer resilience to past and future warming signals ongoing declines | Science Advances

    Comparing our forecasts to our estimates of past rates of reductions in total and regional population sizes and distributional areas of Rangifer reveals that the magnitude of future rates of declines is likely to have occurred over the past 21,000 years, but only for Asia (Fig. 4). Our modeling shows that rates of future population declines projected under RCP4.5 (≥12% over 12 generations) probably occurred frequently in Asia in the past based on our multimodel-averaged population reconstruction. While more severe rates of decline, mirroring those predicted under RCP8.5 (≥25%), are likely to have occurred, they were rare events, happening in the mid-to-late deglaciation (MLD; 15 to 11 kyr B.P.) (Fig. 4A). We show a similar but perhaps less pronounced relationship for past and future declines in geographic range areas simulated for Rangifer in Asia (Fig. 4B).

  • Vintage Everyday ☛ The Romantic Norwegian Landscapes of Anders Askevold

    Askevold’s works often combined dramatic Norwegian scenery—fjords, mountains, and valleys—with tranquil rural life, creating a harmonious balance between grandeur and intimacy. He achieved considerable success in Europe, exhibiting in Paris, Berlin, and other cultural capitals, and was awarded medals at several international exhibitions.

  • The Verge ☛ Microplastics have invaded the air and our bodies. Can a plastics treaty clear the air?

    That’s why health and environmental advocates, as well as a coalition of governments, are pushing for an ambitious plastics treaty in Geneva. Recycling isn’t enough — only limiting production can stem the tide of plastic pollution, they contend.

  • Henrique Dias ☛ Heat

    Portugal has always built houses to keep the heat outside. So much so, that Portugal has one of the highest number of deaths in the winter due to the cold inside, since houses are so poorly insulated.

    The Netherlands, on the other hand, just like some other countries - I’m looking at you, UK - has never taken the heat seriously. “Oh, it just happens a few days a year”, said someone. Therefore, homes have been built to keep the warmth inside, to suck the warmth and bring it inside. They’ve never been built thinking about the slight chance it might get hot.

  • Michigan Advance ☛ League of Conservation Voters blasts Michigan’s largest energy companies over political donations

    The issue of political contributions is a bipartisan one, the league said, with DTE cutting $10,000 checks to the Republican and Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate in both the first and second quarter of the year. The company also made political contributions to individual lawmakers. Consumers Energy followed a similar strategy, with both caucuses and several lawmakers receiving thousands in campaign contributions, the league said.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi to launch electric cars in South Africa

      Chinese consumer electronics giant Xiaomi, which has diversified into electric cars in recent years, has revealed for the first time that it will launch its flagship – and insanely quick – SU7 Ultra electric vehicle in South Africa.

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ California Supreme Court hands victory to rooftop solar panel owners

      At issue is a 2022 decision by state regulators to reduce by about 75% payments to solar panel owners for excess power. The change was intended to help make bills affordable for all customers while still encouraging the adoption of renewable energy sources. Three environmental groups that brought the lawsuit — the Center for Biological Diversity, The Protect our Communities Foundation, and the Environmental Working Group — argued in the case that the state utilities commission’s decision left out crucial considerations around benefits to customers and disadvantaged communities.

    • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Every electric car you can buy in South Africa right now - with pricing

      TechCentral regularly publishes a list of all the battery-electric cars available for sale in South Africa, along with prices, performance figures and more.

      Since we first published the list in 2022, it has seen huge changes, including a rapid expansion in the number of electric vehicles available for purchase along with – unfortunately – a series of price increases.

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ Tribal nations scramble to save clean energy projects as federal support vanishes

      In 2018, Two Bear founded Indigenize Energy, a nonprofit organization that works with tribes to pursue energy sovereignty and economic development by kickstarting clean energy projects. Last year, with nearly $136 million in federal funding through Solar for All, a program administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, the nonprofit launched the Tribal Renewable Energy Coalition, which aims to build solar projects with 14 tribal nations in the Northern Plains.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ 18 Things to Do for Yourself, Wildlife, and the Planet Before Summer’s End

• Finance

  • FAIR ☛ ‘DC’s Not Making Money Here, DC Is Paying Billions’: CounterSpin interview with Pete Tucker on DC stadium deal

    Janine Jackson interviewed reporter Pete Tucker about the DC stadium deal for the August 8, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

  • FAIR ☛ AI Job Loss Hype Could Serve as Smokescreen for Trump Recession

    Such a high level of layoffs means that there are literally always a stunning number of anecdotes about job losses. Even in a month of strong job growth and rising wages, the media could easily churn out hundreds of articles detailing the woes of recently let-go individuals.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • NL Times ☛ More pieces of struggling 213-year-old Dutch shoe brand declared bankrupt

    It is not immediately clear how extensive the bankruptcy is. On the website of the alternative exchange Bondex, the company states that the parent company VANLIER b.v. is not bankrupt, but bankruptcy has been declared for subsidiaries Van Lier b.v., Van Lier Amsterdam, and Van Lier Shoes b.v. “Further announcements on this matter will only follow after consultation with the trustee of these companies,” the company said.

  • DEV Community ☛ Towards more accountability of Raku programs

    No. Discussions in the EU are still going on about what would need to be produced and when. But at this point in time, it seems to be more like months before conclusions are reached, rather than years. It is time to prepare the Raku Programming Language for this new environment.

    So, is the CRA a threat? Or an opportunity? I'd say it is an opportunity for Open Source projects in general, and the Raku Programming Language in particular, disguised as a threat.

  • DEV Community ☛ CRA and Open Source

    To start with giving credit where credit is due: Salve J. Nilsen has been instrumental in making me aware of the oncoming Cyber Resilience Act effects. Many presentations on this subject at various open source events have been given by him in the past years, and the videos and the slides and the chats have helped me a lot in trying to get a grip on the subject matter. A large part of this blog post has been derived from those presentations. I hope we'll be able to work together more on this in the future!

  • The Register UK ☛ Inclusive language guide bans problematic tech terms

    A Linux Foundation project has published an Inclusive Language Guide to recommend replacements for common tech terms deemed potentially offensive to some users.

  • Harvard University ☛ Open Source Software: The $9 Trillion Resource Companies Take for Granted

    A new paper presents an eyebrow-raising figure. Without open source software and their ubiquitous code-creation networks, firms would pay an estimated 3.5 times more to build the software and platforms that run their businesses, or roughly $8.8 trillion, say Harvard Business School assistant professor Frank Nagle and two colleagues.

    The staggering scope of the findings could help put a value on the work, so senior leaders and non-tech managers at firms understand just how important hiring open source expertise is to success. The results mark among the first comprehensive figures to quantify how ubiquitous and integrated open source has become, illuminating that the products are often the backbone on which many companies build tech operations and the products they sell, Nagle says.

    “To be able to say, ‘Look, this is no longer small. This is very, very large. And it's very important. And this is a whole swath of the economy itself,’ gives open source advocates—some of them are embedded deep in IT departments trying to convince their superiors—ammunition that this stuff is valuable, and leaders should be supporting it in whatever way that means,” explains Nagle.

  • [Old] European Commission ☛ Study about the impact of open source software and hardware on technological independence, competitiveness and innovation in the EU economy | Shaping Europe’s digital future

    The main breakthrough of the study is the identification of open source as a public good. This shows a change of paradigm from the previous irreconcilable difference between closed and open source, and points to a new era in which digital businesses are built using open source assets. This information is essential to develop policy actions in the field. The study also values the economic impact of open source commitments on the EU economy.

  • [Old] Interoperable Europe Portal ☛ Study on the effect on the development of the information society of European public bodies making their own software available as open source

    Publishing software fully owned by public bodies as Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) could facilitate re-use, adaptation and modification of the software by other public organisations, as well as other actors. The free availability of public sector software could possibly result in a "multiplier effect", which if significant, could have an accelerating effect on the development and take- up of information society technologies. The FLOSS paradigm could be a practical and operational way of allowing the above described multiplier effect to take place. FLOSS has leapt to prominence by taking significant share in some specific segments of the software infrastructure market.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • CPJ ☛ How the Taliban’s propaganda empire consumed Afghan media

      “The ruling authority enforces a monolithic media policy, rejecting any news, narrative, or voice that deviates from what they deem the truth. Even personal opinions expressed on platforms like Facebook are treated as propaganda and punished accordingly,” Ahmad Quraishi, director of the exiled Afghanistan Journalists Center, told CPJ.

    • New York Times ☛ Fact-Checking Trump’s False and Misleading Claims About Crime in D.C.

      Here’s an assessment of some of their claims.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Germany rejects US censorship claims in human rights report

    Human rights, such as freedom of expression, are under threat in Germany and other European countries, according to the 2024 Human Rights Report by the US State Department.

    The report, which in former years has been seen as a reliable point of reference for global human rights advocacy, has been criticized by human rights groups as containing numerous omissions and mischaracterizations to fit the current US administration's political aims.

    The German government rejected the report.

  • The Nation ☛ A Free Speech Shakedown—Trump’s Approach to American Civil Society 

    These actions reveal a critical vulnerability in civil society’s constitutional armor. When institutions are heavily dependent on federal support—whether federal dollars for scientific research or federal approval of business transactions—an unethical president can threaten to withhold support if he doesn’t get his way. Trump has done just that, time and again. And it’s working. He has compromised the independence of civil society—or perhaps more accurately, exploited its dependence.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • New York Times ☛ U.K. Secretly Spent $3.2 Million to Stop Journalists From Reporting on Data Breach

    The breach, which happened in 2022, exposed the personal details of thousands of Afghans who had worked with British forces before the Taliban takeover in 2021.

    The government, led by the Conservative Party at the time, went to England’s High Court to obtain an order barring anyone from disclosing the breach, even to the people whose lives were feared to be at risk from the Taliban as a result. Journalists were also prevented from reporting on the existence of the court order itself.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Reach hiring journalists in Australia to cover UK overnight hours

    The UK’s largest commercial news publisher Reach is hiring an overnight team in Australia for the first time.

  • CPJ ☛ Journalists fear volatile Bolivia elections may escalate press attacks

    With polls showing Doria and Quiroga in the lead, the vote stands to reshape Bolivia’s economic future and political landscape after 20 years of MAS in power. Yet during a research mission to the country in June, journalists told the Committee to Protect Journalists that their focus lies not on who wins, but on whether conditions for the press will finally improve.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • RFERL ☛ Four Years On, UN Says Taliban Close To 'Erasing' Afghan Women From Public Life

    Since returning to power on August 15, 2021, Taliban officials have imposed a series of draconian rules that strip Afghan women and girls of their rights and dignity, the gender equality agency UN Women said on August 11.

    The Taliban-led government has banned girls from school beyond the sixth grade, while women are barred from most jobs and political life. They also must adhere to a strict Islamic dress code outside their homes.

  • Alabama Reflector ☛ University of Alabama attorneys claim minority-focused spaces could be 'unlawful segregation' | Alabama Reflector

    In a brief filed Tuesday last week, attorneys for the university cited a July memorandum from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, claiming that DEI initiatives can be considered discriminatory and may be in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Tedium ☛ Does AOL Ditching Dial-Up Kill Dial-Up?

    Dial-up is likely never going to totally die, unless the landline phone system itself gets knocked offline, which AT&T has admittedly been itching to do. It remains one of the cheapest options to get online outside of drinking a single coffee at a Panera and bringing your laptop.

    AOL is simply too weak to support this next generation themselves. Their inroad to broadband was supposed to be Time Warner Cable; that didn’t work out, so they pivoted to something else, but kept around the legacy business while it was still profitable. It’s likely that emerging technologies, like Microsoft’s Airband Initiative, which relies on distributing broadband over unused “white spaces” on the television dial, stand a better shot. It’s likely that 5G connectivity will improve over time (T-Mobile already promotes it as a rural option), and perhaps someone not named Elon Musk will offer an alternative to Starlink eventually.

    Technologies don’t die. They just slowly become so irrelevant that they might as well be dead.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• India Times ☛ Epic Games wins partial victory in Australian court against Google and Apple

  Federal Court Justice Jonathan Beach upheld key parts of Epic's claim that the tech giants breached Australian competition laws by misusing their market power against app developers and using restrictive trade practices.

• Idiomdrottning ☛ Network Freedom Act

  Make it illegal. Network effect applications (whether it’s software, hardware, or services) can’t be proprietary.

• Dedoimedo ☛ Internet search without Google or Bing, sort of

  AKA alternative search engines. Here's one for you. In 2025, you know that your online habits are being profiled. All the time, by almost everyone, a million times over. Indeed, when you do any sort of search anywhere, your queries (your questions) tell a great deal about you to whomever you ask. Thus, if you tend to utilize Google or Bing for your search, you're "disclosing" tons of personal information. On its own, this ain't a big problem, because the actions are voluntary (if unavoidable in the modern world). But then, throw in the slew of Google and Microsoft services everywhere, and your search becomes a virtual mirror of your identity. If you're keen on privacy, you might want to consider not doing so, or to minimize your interaction with these search engines.

• Ben Werdmuller ☛ Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5 Billion Offer for Chrome

  The thing I’ve learned about tech companies breaking down monopolies is that many of them just want to become the next monopoly rather than establish a genuinely different power dynamic.

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • Michigan Advance ☛ Bills banning deepfake pornography return to the Michigan Senate floor

      If approved by both chambers, House Bills 4047 and 4048 would place criminal penalties on the creation and distribution of deep fakes depicting individuals in an intimate or sexual context, and would allow individuals to take civil action over the non-consensual creation of deepfake pornography.

• Copyrights

  • Matt Wedel ☛ “Rights of papers are owned by the publishers hence, there is no consent needed from authors” | Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

    Folks, when you send your work to Elsevier journals, you are literally giving them away. Given them rights that explicitly invite them to ride roughshod over your rights.