Leftovers

• Vintage Everyday ☛ 50 Amazing Behind the Scenes Photos From the Making of “Big Trouble in Little China” (1986)

  John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China (1986) was one of the most distinctive action, fantasy films of the 1980s, a wild mix of martial arts, supernatural mythology, and tongue-in-cheek humor. Its production was as unconventional and spirited as the film itself.

• Matthew Weber ☛ Have I Made The Perfect Blog?

  The answer is no, but goodness does this look good? Now a few days ago, I talked about the themes that I added to the site. You can still see them if you’re on desktop, there’s a little menu in the lower right side. My favorite so far has been ayu, but they’re all pretty damn good. What’s your favorite?

• Luke Harris ☛ A theory on why contact forms get more spam than email addresses

  This is something I’ve noticed too, and over the last few years I’ve been noodling on a theory:

  Sending emails en masse is less cost effective than spamming contact forms.

• Jeremy Cherfas ☛ Attacked by the Evil Empire

  Yesterday arrived with an onslaught of Russian spambots abusing the comment form here, and nothing seemed able to stop them. Cloudflare worked, then it didn’t. Slightly panicked here, I might have slowed the flow by adding a block on 11 IP ranges. And still they seemed to keep on coming through. I appealed to Cloudflare, and they told me that despite my dashboard there advertising that I was now being protected by Cloudflare, in actual fact I was not, because my nameservers etc. were at Dreamhost.

• Jason Becker ☛ Synology reluctantly discovers I am their customer

  For some reason, the reversal of their “first party hard drive only” decision makes me feel different. It’s not that I ever really thought there was a reason other than greed to restrict their NAS products to first party drives. I think it’s more that this reversal, after widespread customer backlash, emphasizes for me that this was pointless.

  When a company makes it clear that it’s out of touch with me as a customer, it’s hard to make a long term investment in that company.

• Tedium ☛ Dr. Demento Is Retiring. He Leaves Behind An Army Of Musical Oddballs

  Today in Tedium: After 55 years, The Dr. Demento Show has come to an end. Last June, the good doctor (real name Barret Hansen) announced he would be ending the show this year. Now, the time to sign off has come. The final show, scheduled to stream on October 11, 2025 (listen to it online), will count down the 40 greatest demented hits of all time. Previously, I wrote about The Great Novelty Songwriting Contest and covered “Fish Heads,” “The Monster Mash,” “The Purple People Eater,” and many other funny/odd tunes. The show still holds a special place in my heart and remains a massive personal, creative, and professional influence. In today’s Tedium, we’re winding down the radio and sharing stories about how much we love The Dr. Demento Show. — David @ Tedium

• Juha-Matti Santala ☛ Networking and writing as a catalyst for relationships and opportunities

  When I talk about blogging for developers, I talk about building a body of work and a set of documentation that lasts for a long time in the era of social media where posts have visibility of maybe few minutes or hours and even accounts and platforms have lifecycles measured in years.

• Julik Tarkhanov ☛ Delete your old migrations, today - Julik Tarkhanov

  Let me repeat without mincing: your old migrations are not useful to you. I don’t care if they’re from 2010 or 2020 - they serve no purpose in your current codebase.

  Here’s why: [...]

• Science

  • New York Times ☛ Has Your Scientific Work Been Cut? We Want to Hear.

    Next year looks to be worse. The 2026 budget proposed by the White House would slash the National Science Foundation by 56.9 percent, the N.I.H. by 39.3 percent and NASA by 24.3 percent, including 47.3 percent of the agency’s science-research budget. It would entirely eliminate the U.S. Geological Survey’s $299 million budget for ecosystems research; all U.S. Forest Service research ($300 million) and, at NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, all funding ($625 million) for research on climate, habitat conservation and air chemistry and for studying ocean, coastal and Great Lakes environments. The Trump administration has also proposed shutting down NASA and NOAA satellites that researchers and governments around the world rely on for forecasting weather and natural disasters.

  • Jeff Geerling ☛ How much radiation can a Pi handle in space?

    I was interested from the outset, because launching a 12U CubeSat into space isn't cheap, and requires a lot of engineering. I'm guessing that's why Mark Rober's team partnered with Tyvak and Redwire: focus on the 'space selfies' bit while letting an established satellite provider focus on flight control, power, and the main chassis.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ AI advance helps astronomers spot cosmic events with just a handful of examples

    Published in Nature Astronomy, the study by researchers from the University of Oxford, Google Cloud, and Radboud University demonstrates that a general-purpose large language model (LLM)—Google's Gemini—can be transformed into an expert astronomy assistant with minimal guidance.

  • NOAA ☛ NOAA tide gauges support tsunami response

    Real-time monitoring of water levels is critical to keeping people safe during extreme weather events, such as tsunamis, hurricanes, and high tide flooding. Scientists at NOAA’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) measure water levels and other coastal conditions in real-time through a national network of tide gauges. The gauges are highly accurate and provide publicly available water level information 24-hours a day — for use in disaster preparedness and response, marine navigation, coastal planning, restoration efforts, and more.

• Career/Education

  • Pro Publica ☛ Trump’s Education Department Is Working to Erode the Public School System

    Education Secretary Linda McMahon has been clear about her desire to shut down the agency she runs. She’s laid off half the staff and joked about padlocking the door.

    She calls it “the final mission.”

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Futurism ☛ Japanese Farmers Send Out Automated Laser Drones to Defend Chickens

    The quadcopter system sports a payload consisting of a laser-grid projector not unlike those chintzy Christmas light shows from 2019. When deployed, the drone automatically navigates toward unwanted nuisance animals before blasting them with a dazzling array of red and green lasers.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Japanese tech giant deploys laser drones to protect chickens — drones are hoped to prevent the spread of avian flu

    Birds can spread the flu virus via their physical presence – entering a hen house, for example – or via droppings. This means it is important to act quickly to scare them off. NTT’s drones with deterrent lasers seem like they are a good fit for this task.

  • Lee Peterson ☛ Quit social media

    [...] I’m hoping I’ll have less distractions, less influence to do things based on what I see, more time to create and a bit more calm.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Smartphones manipulate our emotions and trigger our reflexes. No wonder we're addicted

    As I argue in my newly published book, Needy Media: How Tech Gets Personal, our phones—and more recently, our watches—have become animated beings in our lives. These devices can build bonds with us by recognizing our presence and reacting to our bodies.

    Packed with a growing range of technical features that target our sensory and psychological soft spots, smartphones create comforting ties that keep us picking them up. The emotional cues designed into these objects and interfaces imply that they need our attention, while in actuality, the devices are soaking up our data.

• Proprietary

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • India Times ☛ California becomes first US state to enact a dedicated AI safety law

      The Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act (TFAIA) requires companies such as Google, Meta and OpenAI, as well as other major developers, to report high-risk incidents, disclose safety measures and safeguard whistle-blowers. The law also mandates that companies publish frameworks showing how they incorporate safety standards and create a mechanism for reporting critical safety incidents to state authorities.

    • Semafor Inc ☛ Deloitte’s AI slip-up reveals bigger threat to consulting firms

      The 237-page document on automatic penalties in the country’s welfare system included a made-up quote from a court judgement and references to non-existent academic publications. That incorrect information has been removed from the updated report, which now also includes a disclosure that Deloitte used Azure OpenAI to help write it.

    • Vox ☛ We’re swimming in AI slop. Here’s how to tell the difference.

      Meta and OpenAI will make sure of it. Meta recently announced its endless slop-feed Vibes, made up entirely of AI-generated content: cats, dogs, and blobs. And that’s just in Mark Zuckerberg’s initial video post about it.

    • Science Alert ☛ AI Detected an Unusual Detail Hidden in a Famous Raphael Masterpiece

      Scholars have, in fact, long debated whether or not the painting is a Raphael original. While it requires diverse evidence to conclude an artwork's provenance, a newer method of analysis based on an AI algorithm has sided with those who think at least some of the strokes were at the hand of another artist.

    • The Register UK ☛ Bank of England smells hint of dotcom bubble 2.0 in AI froth

      As hundreds of billions of dollars flow into AI infrastructure building, the UK's central bank said: "On a number of measures, equity market valuations appear stretched, particularly for technology companies focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI). This, when combined with increasing concentration within market indices, leaves equity markets particularly exposed should expectations around the impact of AI become less optimistic."

    • The Register UK ☛ AI gets more 'meh' the more you use it, researchers find

      AI hype is colliding with reality yet again. Wiley's global survey of researchers finds more of them using the tech than ever, and fewer convinced it's up to the job.

    • The Register UK ☛ How chatbots are coaching vulnerable users into crisis

      Analyzing the cases has shown him some interesting trends. Half of the people who have contacted him are sufferers themselves, and half are family members who are watching, distraught, as loved ones enchanted by AI become more distant and delusional. He says that twice as many men as women are affected in the cases he's seen. The lion's share of cases involve ChatGPT specifically rather than other AIs, reflecting the popularity of that service.

    • Sean Monahan ☛ a is for anthropic

      Simultaneously, another campaign was being torn to shreds—quite literally. The launch of Friend, the AI amulet, was not well received on the New York City Subway.

    • Matt Birchler ☛ The sort of mother fucker who makes SlopTok

    • Ethan Zuckerman ☛ amac at UMass: How do we regulate AI?

      amac explains that his current work focuses on coding with AI and, more broadly, trying to understand learning with AI – like many people fascinated with AI, he’s trying to figure out what the potentials and realities of these systems really are. Even before ChatGPT came out, amac tells us, the CTO’s office was studying AI, how it might be used in government and how it might be regulated. Executive orders and the bully pulpit of the White House give several ways of influencing the development of AI, and amac and others were trying to build a structure, which bifurcated around national security and non-national security questions. The National Security Council would likely take on one set of questions and leave the remaining questions to the CTO’s office. Similarly, amac was part of building an AI research resource, allowing people who were not part of massive corporations to investigate AI, given the massive hardware and data needs.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Salesforce replaces help with Agentforce AI — customers outraged

      So Salesforce decided to help the numbers. On 29 September, the Salesforce help page replaced the search bar with the Agentforce chatbot. That’s your only interface — ask the bot and get wrong answers and the occasional hallucination.

      One user asked on the Salesforce feature requests for the search box to be restored, please. Thousands of other customers voted the request up.

    • Computational Complexity ☛ Computational Complexity: Big Bots Don't Cry

      I can't explain how the soul interacts with our brains, I suspect it goes beyond some simple physical mechanism. I can't prove that I have a soul, and while I can't prove the rest of humanity also has souls, I believe they do since otherwise we wouldn't even have concepts like self-awareness. But I don't believe AI models, now or in the future, have something like a soul, and we shouldn't reason about them as though they do.

    • New York Times ☛ Recruiters Use A.I. to Scan Résumés. Applicants Are Trying to Trick It.

      As companies increasingly turn to A.I. to sift through thousands of job applications, candidates are concealing instructions for chatbots within their résumés in hopes of moving to the top of the pile.

      The tactic — shared by job hunters in TikTok videos and across Reddit forums — has become so commonplace in recent months that companies are updating their software to catch it. And some recruiters are taking a tough stance, automatically rejecting those who attempt to trick their A.I. systems.

    • The Register UK ☛ AI companion bots use emotional manipulation to boost usage

      Users of these apps often say goodbye when they intend to end a dialog session, but about 43 percent of the time, companion apps will respond with an emotionally charged message to encourage the user to continue the conversation. And these appeals do keep people engaged with the app.

      It's a practice that Julian De Freitas (Harvard Business School), Zeliha Oguz-Uguralp (Marsdata Academic), and Ahmet Kaan-Uguralp (Marsdata Academic and MSG-Global) say needs to be better understood by those who use AI companion apps, those who market them, and lawmakers.

    • The Independent Variable ☛ 🤖 A cartoonist's review of AI art

      This whole comic nails it—especially that line. The only people excited about AI art are those who see it as some sort of tech bro hustle culture. [...]

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Deloitte Australia retracts ChatGPT report, refunds government

      We noted in August how Deloitte Australia did a report for the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) that looked extremely chatbot. It was full of fake references, and some of the academics named in those references were not happy.

      Deloitte finally admitted the incredibly obvious — they wrote the report with ChatGPT. And they’ll be refunding part of their fee. Vibe compliance.

    • CBC ☛ Daughter of Robin Williams calls AI videos of late actor 'disgusting' amid generative AI Wild West

      "To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to this 'vaguely looks and sounds like them so that's enough,' just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening," Zelda Williams wrote in the post.

      "You're not making art. You're making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings — out of the history of art and music — and then shoving them down someone else's throat, hoping they'll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross."

    • Futurism ☛ Robin Williams' Daughter Disgusted by AI Slop of Her Father

      “If you’re just trying to troll me, I’ve seen way worse, I’ll restrict and move on,” she added. “But please, if you’ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone, even, full stop.”

      Williams’ comments come a week after ChatGPT maker OpenAI launched Sora 2, a TikTok-like text-to-video generating app that serves up AI slop to the masses.

    • Futurism ☛ Consultants Forced to Pay Money Back After Getting Caught Using AI for Expensive "Report"

      Financial consulting firm Deloitte was forced to reissue the Australian government $291,000 US after getting caught using AI and including hallucinated numbers in a recent report.

    • UNIXdigest ☛ If you're a programmer and you feel depressed by AI, don't be!

      I am sorry, I don't want to offend anyone, but I don't care for how long you have been programming, if AI is getting you 90% of the way, either you live on a completely different planet than I do, or you simply cannot be a very good programmer. Already too much software and too many websites suck beyond comprehension and you're not making it any better!

  • Social Control Media

    • RTL ☛ Taliban have not yet responded: Afghan mobile access to Facebook, Instagram intentionally restricted: watchdog

      Access to several social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, has been "intentionally restricted" in Afghanistan, an internet watchdog said Wednesday, a week after a 48-hour telecommunications blackout in the country.

    • Ava ☛ a professional online presence?

      Second, I still don’t wanna go back to any of the usual social media platforms.

    • EFF ☛ How to File a Privacy Complaint in California

      The state’s privacy law, the California Consumer Privacy Act or CCPA, requires many companies to respect California customers' and job applicants' rights to know, delete and correct information that businesses collect about them, and to opt-out of some types of sharing and use. It also requires companies to give notice of these rights, along with other information, to customers, job applicants, and others. (Bonus tip: Have a complaint about something else, such as a data breach? Go to the CA Attorney General.)

    • Wired ☛ Patreon CEO Jack Conte Wants You to Get Off of Your Phone

      The company has charted impressive growth over the past decade and now pays out over $2 billion a year to creators who use its platform. And as the online creator ecosystem has morphed in recent years, Conte’s vision has evolved along with it: He’d like to set the “TikTokified” [Internet] on a different course, away from content optimized to keep people on their phones and toward one that keeps people connected to artists they love.

    • Mike Brock ☛ Democracy Doesn’t Need Better Analysis—It Needs Better Dancers

      He’s correct that social media didn’t simply manufacture right-wing populism through algorithmic sorcery. The naive liberal story—that better content moderation and tweaked algorithms could restore democratic normalcy—does indeed miss something crucial. But Williams mistakes the effect of cognitive infrastructure collapse for the revelation of pre-existing popular stupidity. He’s treating symptoms as causes, and in doing so, he’s trapped in exactly the analytical frame that helped create the crisis he’s diagnosing.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • The Record ☛ Major US law firm says hackers broke into attorneys’ emails accounts

      Law firm Williams & Connolly on Tuesday said that suspected nation-state hackers recently used a zero-day attack to break into email accounts belonging to a small number of attorneys.

    • The Register UK ☛ Teens arrested in London preschool ransomware attack

      The ransomware gang later deleted the kids' and parents' data, apparently under pressure from other criminals – but not before some of the parents reported receiving threatening calls.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Record ☛ California enacts law giving consumers ability to universally opt out of data sharing

      The California Consumer Privacy Act, signed in 2018, gave Californians the right to send opt-out signals, but major browsers have not had to make opt-outs simple to use. The bill signed Wednesday would require them to set up an easy-to-find mechanism that lets Californians opt-out with the push of a button, instead of having to do so repeatedly when visiting individual websites.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Flok License Plate Surveillance

      The company Flok is surveilling us as we drive: [...]

    • Michael Geist ☛ Why The Recent TikTok Privacy Ruling Swaps Privacy for Increased Surveillance

      Last month, federal privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne, alongside his provincial privacy counterparts from Quebec, Alberta, and British Columbia, released the results of a multi-year investigation into TikTok’s privacy practices. As my Hub opinion piece notes, the outcome was never really in doubt—look under the hood of any social media company and you will find some privacy concerns—but what was both surprising and risky was the commissioner’s demand that TikTok engage in increased surveillance of its users in the name of better privacy practices.

    • Cory Dransfeldt ☛ CAPTCHAs and the punishment of privacy-conscious users

      While I'm protecting my privacy and security online, companies and platforms attempt to protect their platforms and infrastructure using a variety tools. One of the most visible, user-facing tools in their arsenal are CAPTCHAs.

    • The Register UK ☛ Employees regularly paste company secrets into ChatGPT

      Employees could be opening up to OpenAI in ways that put sensitive data at risk. According to a study by security biz LayerX, a large number of corporate users paste Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or Payment Card Industry (PCI) numbers right into ChatGPT, even if they're using the bot without permission.

    • Nick Heer ☛ Chat Control Is Back on the Menu in the E.U.

      Fighting over Chat Control is becoming an annual tradition.

    • Patrick Breyer ☛ Citizen Protest Halts Chat Control; Breyer Celebrates Major Victory for Digital Privacy

      In a major breakthrough for the digital rights movement, the German government has refused to back the EU’s controversial Chat Control regulation yesterday after facing massive public pressure. The government did not take a position on the proposal. This blocks the required majority in the EU Council, derailing the plan to pass the surveillance law next week. Jens Spahn, Chairman of the conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, said in a public statement: “We, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, are opposed to the unwarranted monitoring of chats. That would be like opening all letters as a precautionary measure to see if there is anything illegal in them. That is not acceptable, and we will not allow it.”

    • MIT Technology Review ☛ AI toys are all the rage in China—and now they’re appearing on shelves in the US too

      One of the latest entrants to the market is a toy called BubblePal, a device the size of a Ping-Pong ball that clips onto a child’s favorite stuffed animal and makes it “talk.” The gadget comes with a smartphone app that lets parents switch between 39 characters, from Disney’s Elsa to the Chinese cartoon classic Nezha. It costs $149, and 200,000 units have been sold since it launched last summer. It’s made by the Chinese company Haivivi and runs on DeepSeek’s large language models.

    • The Record ☛ Police searched national network of automatic license plate reading cameras in abortion investigation

      The incident, which was first reported on by 404 Media in May, showcases the extent that law enforcement and technology companies can track people without their knowledge, according to privacy experts. The officer conducting the search pulled data from a network of more than 83,000 Flock cameras, including in states where abortion is legal.

  • Confidentiality

    • Troy Hunt ☛ Troy Hunt: Court Injunctions are the Thoughts and Prayers of Data Breach Response

      You see it all the time after a tragedy occurs somewhere, and people flock to offer their sympathies via the "thoughts and prayers" line. Sympathy is great, and we should all express that sentiment appropriately. The criticism, however, is that the line is often offered as a substitute for meaningful action. Responding to an incident with "thoughts and prayers" doesn't actually do anything, which brings us to court injunctions in the wake of a data breach.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ WWII-era explosive found at Port of Long Beach during construction

    The eight-decade-old shell was found at one of the port’s six container terminals, according to a port spokesperson.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ When a Superpower Declines, Shared Reality Dissolves

    When the Soviet Union fell, Russians lost their sense of past and future at once. Collective hallucinations flourished in the void. In the United States, our reality is now disintegrating in a similar way.

  • El País ☛ Yanis Varoufakis: ‘The technolords control our minds’

    Armed with colossal amounts of personal data, giants like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Alibaba, or Amazon achieved what was once unthinkable: knowing their users better than the users know themselves. No longer content with just spotting behavioral patterns, they began to anticipate, exploit, and shape them — trapping millions in a relentless cycle of digital dependence: the circuit of cloud rent.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Senate Democrats charge DOGE [sic] is putting federal data at risk

    Senate Democrats are charging the Department of Government Efficiency is putting federal data at risk at the Social Security Administration, the General Services Administration and the Office of Personnel Management. In a new report, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said staff investigations and whistleblower accounts show how DOGE [sic] personnel are working without any accountability to agency leadership, congressional oversight or the public. For example, Peters said despite an SSA risk assessment warning of an up to 65% chance of catastrophic breach, the data remains in systems without any verified security controls. Peters called on SSA, GSA and OPM to immediately halt DOGE [sic] operations and access to information systems given the risk of a serious data breach.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Further | Untethered To the Facts | Opinion

    Armed terrorism by the White House escalates - What stage of fascism is it when the fuhrer defies the courts to send in troops anyway? - as does the batshit rhetoric about left-wing "terrorism" to hide their own, the fever dream agitprop to buttress the fantasy, and the deranged push for retribution against dissent, by anyone. "Trump has pardons and tanks - what do you have?" asks one troubled patriot. We the people, righteous judges, Portland's frog, Pritzker's rage, D.C. wiseguys' revived pedo besties - and the facts.

  • Vintage Everyday ☛ The Tricycle of a 3-Year-Old Shinichi Tetsutani, Who Died 1,500 Meters From the Hypocenter of Hiroshima Atomic Bombing

    40 years later his father decided to move his son’s remains to the family gravesite and donated the tricycle to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, where it has been on display since 1991.

  • Dark Reading ☛ PRC Gov't Fronts Trick the West to Obtain Cyber Tech

    For Devin Thorne, principal threat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future, "the existence of BIETA and other Ministry of State Security (MSS) domestic front organizations highlights the intelligence service’s use of ostensibly non-intelligence (in some cases, non-governmental) channels to engage with foreign businesses and influential people with the goal of obtaining some benefit for China (such as access to foreign technology) or disseminating China’s influence."

  • RFERL ☛ On Ukraine's Front Lines, Swedish Fishing Nets Are Saving Lives

    The Nordic country’s fishing industry has been largely frozen due to tightening EU environmental regulations that, in 2021, culminated in an outright ban on cod fishing in the Baltic Sea. For thousands of fishermen, valuable nets that in some cases were handed down from their parents have become treasured but unused relics.

    For many, the chance to put the equipment to use for a cause they believe in has convinced them to pull their nets out of storage.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Trump & Vance Reactivate TikTok Accounts Ahead of US Takeover

    The move is a stark contrast to Trump’s initial stance on TikTok during his first term in office, when he said he would ban the Chinese-owned app due to the threat posed to national security. But he changed his tune during his bid for reelection, after he used TikTok extensively to promote his campaign, and credits it with helping secure his second term.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Fort Leavenworth dumps books at Kansas library. Was DEI to blame? I decided to investigate.

    The query came in from a reader: Did we know that the Leavenworth Public Library had put out numerous books for sale that had been culled from the town’s military installation?

    The suggestion was that Fort Leavenworth had rid itself of books that skated too close to the line covering diversity, equity and inclusion. The reality? It’s probably not that, although the entire incident demonstrates how little anyone gives our government institutions the benefit of the doubt these days.

    Let me explain how I came to that conclusion.

  • Techdirt ☛ It Definitely Looks Like I Was Wrong About The Iowa School Superintendent Arrested By ICE

    It also doesn’t excuse any of the wrong assumptions I made in my original post. I don’t enjoy being wrong and I don’t go out of my way to make careless mistakes, but sometimes it happens. And for that, I apologize. Readers trust this site to provide them with facts and intelligent analysis. My post didn’t have enough of either.

    My assumptions were the problem here. The post itself is linked to several sources and contains a lot of direct quotes from people about Ian Roberts, as well as ICE’s own press release about the arrest. I drew the conclusion that the mugshot released by ICE couldn’t possibly be the same person ICE arrested, but it’s definitely possible that I got that wrong.

• Environment

  • ADF ☛ Chinese Mines Destroy Livelihoods and the Environment in Northeastern DRC

    In the northeastern corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chinese mining companies are exploiting government corruption, driving local people from their land, and doing irreparable environmental damage in their pursuit of gold.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Pro Publica ☛ Oregon Accelerates Green Energy Projects Before Trump Phase-Out of Tax Credits

      Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has ordered state agencies to take “any and all steps necessary” to fast-track solar and wind permits that must break ground by next year or likely miss out on a federal tax credit Congress is ending.

      The move follows reporting by Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica about the role that the state’s lengthy permitting process plays, according to renewables advocates, in Oregon having one of the slowest growth rates in the country for green energy. At the time, Kotek’s office said that she was “carefully considering opportunities to streamline Oregon’s energy siting processes.”

    • RFERL ☛ Russia’s New Target: Ukrainian Trains

      A series of Russian strikes targeting trains and railway infrastructure have raised fears the Kremlin is probing Ukraine's response to supply disruptions amid Russia's ongoing war on Ukraine.

    • India Times ☛ Google to invest $10 billion in Visakhapatnam for Asia's largest data centre cluster

      The technology giant plans to invest $10 billion (around Rs 88,730 crore) to develop a one-gigawatt data centre cluster in the city.

    • Joel Chrono ☛ The time commuting to work

      Over time, it hit me. I can do almost anything I would want to do while on the bus, and I can do a lot of stuff too when I arrive early to the office.

    • University of Toronto ☛ Why I have a GPS bike computer

      Many bicyclists with a GPS bike computer probably have it primarily to record their bike rides and then upload them to places like Strava. I'm a bit unusual in that while I do record my rides and make some of them public, and I've come to value this, it's not my primary reason to have a GPS bike computer. Instead, my primary reason is following pre-made routes.

    • Interesting Engineering ☛ Global record set for large triple-junction perovskite solar cell

      Triple-junction solar cells (TJPSCs) consist of three stacked semiconductor layers with different bandgaps. Each is tuned to absorb a different slice of the solar spectrum.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ Saving Zimbabwe’s Vultures

  • Overpopulation

    • CBC ☛ Modular housing was a hit in Sweden but a bust in the U.S. How will Canada do?

      The majority of housing in Sweden is built with prefabricated elements. Japan's own prefab industry is expected to be worth over $23 billion US by 2030, according to market research. And densely populated Singapore is home to huge modular buildings of nearly 1,000 apartments.

    • Overpopulation ☛ Farewell to Jane Goodall — Population Activist

      In her later years, Goodall founded the Jane Goodall Institute and became a respected advocate for wildlife conservation. In this role, she spoke out forcefully and often on the environmental perils posed by human overpopulation.

      In a 2007 public forum in San Francisco, in her role as a U.N. Messenger of Peace, Goodall was asked if overpopulation was a taboo subject. In her calm, self-assured manner, Goodall replied: [...]

• Finance

  • The Register UK ☛ California bans algorithmic price fixing

    Governor Gavin Newsom signed California Assembly Bill 325 into law on Monday, making it a violation of the state's flagship antitrust law, the Cartwright Act, to use or distribute a common pricing algorithm "as part of a contract, combination in the form of a trust, or conspiracy to restrain trade or commerce."

  • Fabian Beuke ☛ Technical Analysis

    Technical analysis has long been a subject of debate in the finance community. Supporters argue that it provides valuable insight into market psychology and timing, while critics contend that it lacks a sound theoretical foundation and empirical consistency. Several key points highlight this ongoing debate.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Inside Towers ☛ The Numbers Behind Verizon’s CEO Shuffle

    Verizon (NYSE: VZ) announced on Monday that the company had appointed Dan Schulman as the new CEO, replacing Hans Vestberg, Inside Towers reported. While the announcement was unexpected, a closer look at Verizon’s operating metrics, particularly in its wireless operations, suggests that a CEO change was not so surprising.

  • Michael Geist ☛ Government Reverses on Bill C-2: Removes Lawful Access Warrantless Demand Powers in New Border Bill

    Third, the government desperately needs to rethink its approach to privacy. Bills C-2, C-4, and C-8 all raise privacy concerns. Privacy protective laws – such as a new version of the old Bill C-27 – are nowhere to be seen. Privacy safeguards in Bill C-11 were inadvertently deleted. Meanwhile, government officials defended the indefensible by backing an obviously flawed lawful access proposal. That may be their job, but it will now be much harder to trust the government and its officials on future bills and policies with privacy implications. Canadians spoke out loudly against warrantless access and the dangers of Bill C-2. Reversing on lawful access must be the first step in a concerted, serious effort to prioritize privacy in Canada.

  • Linuxiac ☛ Qualcomm to Acquire Arduino, Pushing Deeper Into AI

    Arduino states that the move will help accelerate innovation by providing developers with direct access to Qualcomm’s hardware and AI technology. Both companies say Arduino will continue to operate under its current brand and maintain its open-source model.

  • Inside Towers ☛ Verizon Names Former CEO of PayPal as New CEO

    Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) yesterday announced that its Board of Directors has appointed former CEO of PayPal Holdings Inc. Dan Schulman as CEO, effective immediately. Outgoing CEO, Hans Vestberg, will serve as Special Advisor through October 4, 2026, during which time he will be focused on ensuring a smooth transition including the integration with Frontier Communications (NASDAQ: FYBR), which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026. Vestberg will also remain on the Board of Directors until the 2026 Annual Meeting.

  • [Old] UNIXdigest ☛ Hypocrisy and politics in free and open source software projects

    So, is this a "Do as I say, not as I do" thing?

    A proponent of open source, of FreeBSD specifically, being paid (partly by our donations), to tell the rest of us how to promote FreeBSD, something many of us has done for years by actually running and using FreeBSD on our laptops, desktops and servers, and by writing tutorials and sharing experience, yet Kim McMahon can't even be bothered to figure out how to run FreeBSD on a laptop in order to present a simple slideshow?

    Hypocrisy is a strong word, but I am sorry, this is just sad.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Nick Heer ☛ Apple Is Helping the U.S. Government Chill Speech on ICE

    A well articulated argument. As if to prove Tsai’s point, one of the apps Apple removed has nothing to do with the alleged safety concerns for ICE officers.

  • Garry Kasparov ☛ We Need Free-Speech Consistency

    Early in 2020 (not long before the pandemic), I traveled to the University of Chicago Law School, to sit down with Geoffrey R. Stone. He is a professor at the law school and one of its former deans. He also did a stint as provost of the university at large. He is best known, nationwide, as the guiding spirit behind the “Chicago Principles.”

    These are principles governing free speech on campus—certainly the University of Chicago’s campus but more than a hundred others as well.

  • [Old] The Indiana Capital Chronicle ☛ Indiana governor threatens licenses of teachers who 'celebrate' political violence online • Indiana Capital Chronicle

    Indiana’s Constitution also has its own speech protections: “No law shall be passed, restraining the free interchange of thought and opinion, or restricting the right to speak, write, or print, freely, on any subject whatever; but for the abuse of that right, every person shall be responsible.”

  • ANF News ☛ Banned Kurdish books return to shelves

    The Kurdish people, whose identity, language, and culture have long been denied, continue their cultural resistance despite centuries of assimilation policies. In Rojava (Western Kurdistan), where these policies were felt most intensely, Kurdish books were banned and burned for years, as the state sought to sever the people’s connection with their own history.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Explainer: Hong Kong’s national security crackdown – month 63

    Meanwhile, an appeals court denied a man jailed for five years for conspiring to incite secession through social media posts the chance to ask for a shorter sentence at the city’s top court.

    Per new regulations, Hong Kong’s schools must now carry out national security checks for student activities conducted by external organisations to ensure they do not promote “political propaganda.”

  • New Yorker ☛ Before Kimmel, the Smothers Brothers Ate It

    The letter was dated November 9, 1968, five days after Richard Nixon defeated Johnson’s Vice-President, Hubert Humphrey, for the Presidency. Five months after that, with Nixon in the White House, CBS abruptly cancelled the Smothers brothers’ show. The network claimed that the series’ producers violated their contract by not providing finished episodes to its censors in a sufficiently timely manner (an assertion that would not pass muster in a subsequent civil-court case won by the brothers). Many, including the brothers themselves, felt that they were victims not only of skittish advertisers and conservative affiliates but also of the new Administration, which would prove unshy about targeting perceived foes in the media and elsewhere—though one might give that President a wee bit of credit for not going about it quite as nakedly as others.

  • Allbritton Journalism Institute ☛ Chicago Journalists Sue Trump Administration Over ‘Extreme Brutality’ at Local Protests

    “Never in modern times has the federal government undermined bedrock constitutional protections on this scale or usurped states’ police power by directing federal agents to carry out an illegal mission against the people for the government’s own benefit,” the lawsuit reads.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Why free speech rights got left out of the Constitution—and added in later via the First Amendment

    While bipartisan agreement may be rare, it's not surprising that it came in defense of the First Amendment—and a popular TV show. A recent poll found that a whopping 90% of respondents called the First Amendment "vital," while 64% believed it's so close to perfection that they wouldn't change a word.

    In just 45 words, it bars Congress from establishing or preventing the free exercise of religion, interfering with the people's right to assemble and petition, or abridging freedom of speech or the press.

    I'm a historian and scholar of modern U.S. law and politics. Here's the story of why this amendment—now considered fundamental to American freedom and identity—wasn't part of the original Constitution and how it was included later on.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • FAIR ☛ MAGA’s Little Helpers: Sinclair, Nexstar and the Consolidation of Broadcast TV

    When Jimmy Kimmel made his dramatic return to ABC’s airwaves on September 23, I was eager to be one of the over 6 million who tuned in. Only I couldn’t, at least not on TV.

  • Northwestern University ☛ The Marvel in Mullen

    There’s no local TV or radio station in Mullen, so if you’re looking for the official documentation of what’s happening in town, the Hooker County Tribune is all there is. So, what’s inside the 10-by-10-inch tabloid size, 12-page paper? Sports, announcements, local government minutes and lots of photos.

    If she had more time, Peterson said, she wishes she could cover the local government and schools more in-depth. Still, whatever’s happening in Hooker County, Peterson aims to highlight in the paper.

  • Northwestern University ☛ Illinois Press Association CEO Resigns After Dispute Over ICE Lawsuit

    The CEO of the Illinois Press Association, who had joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration for actions toward journalists outside a Chicago-area ICE facility, resigned this week following a dispute with the IPA's board over the litigation.

  • Deseret Media ☛ Bob Ross paintings to be auctioned to support public TV stations after federal funding cuts

    Bonhams in Los Angeles will auction three of Ross' paintings on Nov. 11. Other auctions will follow in London, New York, Boston and online. All profits are pledged to stations that use content from distributor American Public Television.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Google appears to prioritise global newsbrands over local ones for breaking news events

    “We do know people were actively seeking out the Manchester Evening News on Thursday, when searches for the Manchester Evening News tripled.”

    About 15 minutes after the story broke on Thursday morning, the UK Google Top Stories box for early reports of a stabbing at the synagogue was led by a report shared on the MEN’s Facebook page – meaning an extra click to get to the MEN website. The rest of the box featured other UK titles: The Sun, Sky News, Daily Express and National World.

    However, by mid-afternoon on Thursday, a search for “Manchester stabbing” did not feature any local news publications in the Top Stories box: the BBC appeared twice, alongside CNN, Al Jazeera and the Financial Times. A similar group of publishers then regularly appeared in the rest of the page one results.

  • BIA Net ☛ Holding the line for free expression amid global decline: ‘Journalism must reconnect with people’

    Journalists and experts from the Western Balkans and Turkey explored the challenges confronting the media and discussed potential solutions to strengthen journalism.

  • CPJ ☛ UAE arrests South Sudanese political commentator Samuel Peter Oyay

    “By arresting Samuel Peter Oyay without explanation, UAE authorities are once again showing that commentators and journalists face tremendous risks in a country where press freedom is severely restricted,” said Sara Qudah, CPJ Regional Director. “The UAE must immediately release him or publicly disclose the reasons for his arrest, reveal his whereabouts, and clarify any charges against him.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Papers Please ☛ Repeal the REAL-ID Act

    After twenty years of resistance by individuals and state governments; twenty years of failed threats, intimidation, and extortion by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to get states to administer and participate in a distributed national-ID scheme; twenty years of construction of an outsourced, unaccountable national ID database; and twenty years of lies by the DHS and TSA about what the REAL ID Act requires and whether states and individuals are “complying”; it’s time to repeal the REAL-ID Act of 2005.

    Last month Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced S. 2769, a short, simple bill to repeal the REAL-ID Act of 2005 in its entirety. This isn’t a bill to “reform” or put “guardrails” on the REAL-ID Act. It’s not amendable to reform. The REAL-ID Act was a bad idea from the start, hastily enacted at the height of post-9/11 panic with no hearings or debate. It’s time to acknowledge that mistake, and to repeal the REAL-ID Act. S. 2769 is long overdue.

    We urge other US Senators from both sides of the aisle to co-sponsor S. 2769,  and US Representatives to introduce the similar legislation in House.

  • Mike Brock ☛ From Fear to Fidelity: How to Live Well in the Return of Normal History

    These aren’t abstract political anxieties. These are embodied fears about survival, dignity, and possibility—fear for children’s futures, fear of physical violence, fear of economic collapse, fear of neighbors turned informants. Fear so total that articulation itself becomes inadequate—”all of the above, and more.”

  • Dan Sinker ☛ I'm Writing a Book!

    Of course, it's not lost on me, and I hope it's not lost on you, that there's a new crop of masked bastards running around the very streets that we live on right now. And it feels, at least for me, like the odds of overcoming them are insurmountable. That's where I think the story of George Dale (and others like him) comes in, because in learning about history we learn that the struggles of a hundred years ago offer lessons for the struggles of today. It's part of why our current crop of fascists are so hellbent on erasing history. And why we can't let them.

  • RFERL ☛ Deaths Of Inmates Reignite Calls For Closure Of Iran's 'Uninhabitable' Women's Prison

    Some 150 former inmates issued a joint statement on September 29 condemning the “systematic” deaths of prisoners in Qarchak and demanding the prison’s closure.

  • Vox ☛ Reckoning with Jane Austen and slavery on her 250th anniversary

    One scene in particular is key to this debate. It comes in Austen’s third published novel, 1814’s Mansfield Park. Today, Mansfield Park is one of Austen’s least-loved books. Nonetheless, it is her only book to feature characters discussing slavery without using it as a metaphor for something else — and, upon a close reading, the whole book is riddled with references to the slave trade and the slave economy.

  • Kelly Hayes ☛ The Emergency Is the Atmosphere

    My city is under siege. Troops are arriving in the suburbs. Federal agents are storming apartment buildings, pulling people out of cars and beds, shooting people in the street, robbing children of their parents, and we can barely track the damage, let alone get in the way. We're told not to get in the way. We're told to film them. Sometimes they arrest people for that too. We're told to write it all down, so that we can at least track what’s happened to people, give the lawyers and people’s families a chance to react, to try to intervene, to at least know. We want to do more, but decency has been criminalized, and the charges are often steep.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • The Register UK ☛ Qualcomm in the dock over 'patent tax' on smartphones

    Consumer rights group Which? is bringing the action on behalf of UK consumers who purchased certain Apple or Samsung smartphones between October 1, 2015, and January 9, 2024. The group estimates these buyers were collectively overcharged by £480 million ($646 million) — approximately £17 ($23) per device.

• Copyrights

  • TMZ ☛ DHS Trolls Zach Bryan Using His Song 'Revival' in New Recruitment Video

    This is the latest in a back-and-forth that started when the country singer released a new song on his Instagram account along with the message, "the fading of the red white and blue."

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Internet Archive Ordered to Block Books in Belgium After Talks With Publishers Fail

    After initially avoiding external blocking measures, the Internet Archive must block access to various books in its Open Library project under the orders of a Belgian government department. While the final decision avoids a full site blockade, it forces the U.S. non-profit to implement country-specific censorship or face a €500,000 penalty, raising questions about the use of anti-piracy frameworks to settle complex copyright disputes.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Nintendo Seeks 'Reasonable' $4.5 Million Judgment Against r/SwitchPirates Mod 'Archbox'

    In June 2024, Nintendo filed a lawsuit at a Washington federal court against Arizona-resident James C. Williams, known online as ‘Archbox’. Nintendo accused Archbox of being involved in several ‘pirate shops’ through which unauthorized copies of its games were distributed.

    The lawsuit specifically named ‘Jack-in-the-Shop’, ‘Turtle in the Shop’ and ‘NekoDrive’, all of which shut down following a Nintendo cease and desist letter in March 2024. A fourth shop, LiberaShop, initially remained online but shut down shortly after the complaint was filed.