Leftovers

• Ruben Schade ☛ Be kind to retail staff

  This is one of those things you’d think kids would be taught alongside using restrooms and not belching loudly in public, but it still surprises me how often this basic rule of life is willfully ignored by people who should know better.

• Joel Chrono ☛ RE: Reassess time spent enjoying luxury

  I really envy the people who can actually get things done using time-blocking or to-do lists, calendars and all that mumbo jumbo sometimes, I mostly go by feel, and unfortunately I feel like being lazy and consuming “content” way more often than putting some effort on enjoying the creative output of artists who pour so much passion into their work.

• James G ☛ Monet

  You realise that you don’t need to understand all the details of the works for them to have an impact, to leave you with some feeling.

• Andre Franca ☛ When Technology Serves (Not Controls)

  The sneakiest tech isn't obviously controlling. It's the stuff that presents itself as convenience while quietly shaping your behavior. Recommendation algorithms are like this. They seem helpful, suggesting things you might like based on what you've liked before. But they also trap you in a bubble of sameness, showing you more of what you already know and less of what might surprise you. I've started deliberately seeking out randomness, browsing physical bookstores where algorithms have no power, asking friends for recommendations instead of letting Netflix decide what I should watch next.

• Science

  • NPR ☛ Goddard Space Center staff say they're 'constantly being attacked' by the White House

    For this story, NPR interviewed seven people who work at Goddard and reviewed internal emails and documents. Five of the people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs. Everyone interviewed described a campaign of disruption from the highest levels of leadership - an information blackout, buildings closed, labs and projects moved without warning, staff rotated off projects and reorganized chaotically. All of this has made little sense and has jeopardized the work, they say. McGrath says at least two buildings have been shut down completely.

  • Futurism ☛ NASA Insiders Say They're Now Under "Constant Attack" by Trump's White House

    Now, a new NPR investigation shows that for NASA employees still going about their daily work, the White House’s daily efforts are going much farther, devolving into what staffers describe as a “campaign of destruction” from the “highest levels.”

  • The Conversation ☛ It’s a myth that the Victorians created modern dog breeds – we’ve uncovered their prehistoric roots

    Our findings complement a growing body of genetic and archaeological evidence suggesting that the domestication of dogs was a protracted and regionally varied process. Ancient DNA research has shown that major dog lineages were already distinct by 11,000 years ago, implying that the domestication process began much earlier.

  • Stat ☛ James Watson: From DNA pioneer to untouchable pariah

    Perhaps in reaction to Watson’s sky-high self-regard, in his later years his peers and others began to ask if his discovery of the double helix was just a matter of luck. After all, as a second lab colleague said, “Jim has been gliding on that one day in 1953 for 70 years.”

    With Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray images (which Watson surreptitiously studied), other scientists might have cracked the mystery; after all, American chemist Linus Pauling was on the DNA trail. But Watson had something as important as raw skill and genius: “He realized that to discover the structure of DNA at that moment of history was the most important thing in biology,” Mayr told the oral history. Although Crick kept veering off into other projects, he said, “Watson was always the one who brought him back and said, ‘By god, we’ve got to work on this DNA; that’s the important thing!’” Knowing the “one important thing” to pursue, Mayr said, “was Watson’s greatness.”

• Career/Education

  • Cynthia Dunlop ☛ Preston Thorpe on Technical Blogging - by Cynthia Dunlop

    We’ve interviewed over a dozen expert tech bloggers, so it’s not surprising that we’ve seen a range of writing motivations and experiences. Still, this one stands out. Today, we’re featuring Preston Thorpe, a self-taught software engineer now working for Turso.

• Hardware

  • Wired ☛ The AI Boom Is Fueling a Need for Speed in Chip Networking

    Chip giants like Nvidia, Broadcom, and Marvell already have well-established networking bona fides. But in the AI boom, some companies are seeking new networking approaches that help them speed up the massive amounts of digital information flowing through data centers. This is where deep-tech startups like Lightmatter, Celestial AI, and PsiQuantum, which use optical technology to accelerate high-speed computing, come in.

  • Howard Oakley ☛ Does that SSD Trim, and why is it important? – The Eclectic Light Company

    Trim is one of the Dark Arts of SSDs. It’s important if not essential, but it’s not easy to discover whether an SSD is Trimming properly. Some say that you need to enable Trim for external SSDs, yet others don’t and never seem to encounter a problem.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] New 'brain atlases' may change fight against Alzheimer's, MS

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] EU ministers agree to 90% emissions reduction target

  • CBC ☛ 2025-11-10 [Older] Canada loses measles elimination status

  • Harvard University ☛ Odds of surviving cancer drop drastically when credit score dips

    After years of negotiation, James and his team received deidentified clinical data from roughly 90,000 cancer patients in the Massachusetts Cancer Registry alongside financial information from a national credit bureau. The researchers adjusted for mortality-dependent variables, such as cancer type and stage, socioeconomic status, and race, and divided the credit scores into tiers (300-600, 600-660, 660-780, and 780-850). They found that patients who experienced a drop of two tiers within a year were 29 percent more likely to die. For those who experienced a two-tier drop within six months, that number increased to 63 percent.

    In this conversation edited for clarity and length, James explained the implications of his team’s findings.

  • Science Alert ☛ CT Scans Predicted to Result in 100,000 New Cancers Across The US

    Importantly, at an individual level, the theoretical risk of developing cancer from a CT scan is thought to be very low, if it exists at all. Patients should not hesitate to undergo these tests if they are considered medically necessary.

    However, the number of CT examinations performed annually in the US has increased by more than 30 percent since 2007, and researchers suggest that unwarranted tests are exposing the population to unnecessary radiation.

  • Ruben Verweij ☛ Cycles and Fluctuations - Kedara.eu

    The combination of cycles with fluctuations hints at this feature. Maybe the repeating cycles we perceive are only inevitable up to a certain extent. It’s easy to get lost at sea, so to speak. Only after we’ve spotted land, we know whether we’ve ended up at our starting point or have instead discovered a new route.

  • R Scott Jones ☛ How We’ve Thought About Where to Live in Retirement

    We’ve plotted out much of this in a lengthy document we call life block planning, which splits our remaining expected lifespan into five-year blocks. For each block, we plot out our expectations for things like major life events, family caregiving needs, our own expected health (and yes, even my death date), our financial planning, and so forth. For us, a major part of this planning is centered around the types of travel (and even specific destinations) that we want to prioritize in which periods of our lives.

  • Kelly Hayes ☛ Burnout Is Not Inevitable: Building Movements That Can Hold Us

    What happens when our movements start to run on empty? In this episode of Movement Memos, I talk with organizer and WildSeed Society strategist Aaron Goggans about trauma, dysregulation, burnout, and the myth that we can just push through. We discuss why nervous system regulation is a crucial part of political strategy, how neurodivergent organizers hold essential wisdom for this moment, and why rest, ritual, and mutual care must be built into our fight against fascism. Whether you’re feeling frozen, overwhelmed, or simply exhausted, this conversation offers clarity, compassion, and a reminder that we’re not alone — and we don’t have to earn rest to deserve it.

  • Idiomdrottning ☛ Black and white device screens

    A drawback is that it makes all the color screens in public to be eye-burning magnets that pull my attention into something that’s painful to look at. But I would’ve hated those screens anyway especially when they blast ads. Maybe a media overload hellscape worse than Transmetropolitan isn’t necessarily the best way to build our cities. I’m so grateful for how the new bus schedule signs seem to be gently frontlit e-ink (as far as I can tell). They give me hope.

  • Idiomdrottning ☛ The Doom That Came to Scrolling

    I do think this generalization of the word has merit, that it was driven by a growing realization that it’s not just sad and overwhelming news that make us feel this bad after scrolling. Partly because compulsive behavior almost always feel so much worse than intentional behavior but mostly because what’s out there really is depressing even if it’s the umpteenth cat video or true crimes thread.

  • Greg Morris ☛ Always Verbing, Never Me

    My life is so busy at the moment I'm not really living. Merely existing. I'm so busy that I'm always doing something – caring, running, eating, working, designing – I'm always ‘verbing’ but never Gregging. There is no space in between all these things to be me.

• Proprietary

  • The Register UK ☛ Avalonia brings Linux, browser support to Microsoft's MAUI cross-platform app solution [Ed: Microsoft Tim or Tim Anderson helps Microsoft 'googlebomb' the real Maui (KDE)]

    Microsoft's MAUI (Multi-platform App UI), the official .NET solution for cross-platform desktop and mobile apps, will get Linux and browser support via Avalonia, a third-party framework.

  • The Register UK ☛ Washington Post admits Clop crew lifted bank and SSN data

    The Washington Post has confirmed that nearly 10,000 employees and contractors had sensitive personal data stolen in the Clop-linked Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) attacks.

  • Dark Reading ☛ CitrixBleed 2, Cisco Flaw Wreak Havoc as Zero-Day Bugs

    Adding insult to injury, the team said it subsequently observed the same attackers leveraging the Cisco ISE vulnerability at the same time, prior to it being disclosed and patched in July. That flaw allows attackers to gain pre-authentication remote code execution (RCE) capabilities as root on affected systems.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Washington Post confirms data on nearly 10,000 people stolen from its Oracle environment

    The company was first alerted to the attack and launched an investigation when a “bad actor” contacted the media company Sept. 29 claiming they gained access to the company’s Oracle applications, according to a data breach notification it filed in Maine Wednesday. The Washington Post later determined the attacker had access to its Oracle environment from July 10 to Aug. 22.

  • Security Week ☛ NHS Investigating Oracle EBS Hack Claims as Hackers Name Over 40 Alleged Victims

    Cybercriminals have named the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) as one of the victims of the recent data theft and extortion campaign targeting organizations that use Oracle’s E-Business Suite (EBS) enterprise resource planning solutions.

  • Dedoimedo ☛ You are using it wrong

    Here's an interesting little conundrum for you. Or a philosophical question, if you will. After I posted my article on how the Windows 10 ESU for EEA users isn't good enough, as it still mandates the use of a Microsoft account and the potential limitations for Pro users aren't spelled out in a clear manner, I received and/or came across some rather interesting commentary. Rather than debating the article's merit itself, most of the focus was on my definition of the use of software, especially my resistance to online accounts. Do I actually use or not use Windows 11, given that I write about it, and yet advocate against it? What about Android then?

    While the questions themselves aren't that important, what intrigues me is the different nuances of understanding people have for seemingly clear or obvious topics. But, they are clear and obvious to me. When a person writes something and posts that material online, they can never control how others perceive it. So I thought it would be nice to compose a fresh article, one that would explain my definition of what constitutes actual usage. It ought to be elucidating. I hope.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • The Guardian UK ☛ AI slop tops Billboard and Spotify charts as synthetic music spreads

      These three songs are part of a flood of AI-generated music that has come to saturate streaming platforms. A study published on Wednesday by the streaming app Deezer estimates that 50,000 AI-generated songs are uploaded to the platform every day – 34% of all the music submitted.

    • Futurism ☛ Founder Admits His "AI Transcription" Startup Was Just Him Joining People's Meetings and Taking Notes by Hand

      Whenever a customer needed notes taken for a meeting, the CTO explained, either he or his co-founder, Krish Ramineni, would dial into the room as “Fred,” masquerading as a Siri-like equivalent. “We’d sit there silently, take detailed notes, and send them 10 minutes later,” Udotong explained.

    • Matthew Brunelle ☛ Using Self-hosting Language Models So You Can Evaluate Claude Code

      Because why would I pay Anthropic when I could do this myself with Qwen3-coder, Ollama, and LiteLLM on NixOS. Especially if I just want to try the tool out and see if its worth using.

    • The Verge ☛ What insiders anonymously think about the AI race

      This year was no exception; however, I found the most interesting part of the day to be when the results of an anonymous audience survey were shared onstage. The more than 300 attendees who participated in the survey primarily consisted of AI company founders, followed by investors, other industry professionals (including product leaders and engineers), and members of the media.

      Here are the results of the survey in order of how they were shared onstage: [...]

  • Social Control Media

    • SBS ☛ I've stopped scrolling on my phone, and I feel like a different person

      Naturally, I was drawn to it too.

      When social media took hold, it dragged me in, seemingly without my control.

      Before I knew it, I was scrolling and consuming content on a massive scale. I even started watching more TV shows, which is something I never really did as a kid.

    • OpenRightsGroup ☛ Making Platforms Accountable: Empowering users and creating safety

      Social media platforms dominate the online “attention market,” where user engagement and personal data are monetised through targeted advertising. This model, built on surveillance and algorithmic prioritisation, drives polarising and shocking content to maximise time spent within these platforms’ products. A handful of platforms, mainly owned by Meta and Google, control most of the UK’s digital advertising revenue and shape the flow of information, with serious consequences for democracy, the information economy, and user wellbeing.

      We argue that many harms associated with social media, such as misinformation, hate speech, suppression of marginalised voices, and loss of user control, are symptoms of this economic and structural concentration. Network effects mean that users, creators, and advertisers are locked into dominant platforms, unable to switch without losing audiences or revenue. This lack of competition entrenches harmful business models and leaves users exposed to unsafe environments.

    • International Business Times ☛ Who Is the 'Pyjama Man'? Ariana Grande's Attacker Is a Serial Harasser With a History of Targeting Celebrities And Posts Them on TikTok

      Wen maintains active TikTok and Instagram accounts under the name 'Pyjama Man'. His profiles contain clips of interactions with celebrities and footage of moments where he has entered restricted spaces without permission. Local reports state that he refers to himself using labels such as 'pitch invader' and regularly posts content after approaching well-known artists at events.

    • Tim Bray ☛ Kendzior Case-Study

      There was recently a flurry of attention and dismay over Sarah Kendzior having been suspended from Bluesky by its moderation system. Since the state of the art in trust and safety is evolving fast, this is worth a closer look. In particular, Mastodon has a really different approach, so let’s see how the Kendzior drama would have played out there.

• Security

  • CISA

    • CISA ☛ 2025-11-06 [Older] CISA Releases Four Industrial Control Systems Advisories

    • CISA ☛ 2025-11-06 [Older] Advantech DeviceOn/iEdge

    • CISA ☛ 2025-11-06 [Older] Ubia Ubox

    • CISA ☛ 2025-11-06 [Older] ABB FLXeon Controllers

    • CISA ☛ 2025-11-04 [Older] CISA Adds Two Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

    • CISA ☛ 2025-11-04 [Older] CISA Releases Five Industrial Control Systems Advisories

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • 2025-11-06 [Older] Hackers defraud multiple lawmakers, a Pakistan Senate committee told

    • J D Supra LLC ☛ 2025-11-07 [Older] Fourth Circuit Weighs in on Standing in Data Breach Class Actions

    • 2025-11-07 [Older] Breaking Up With Edtech Is Hard to Do

    • National Law Review US ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] Something Old and Something New: The False Claims Act and Cybersecurity

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • EDRI ☛ Climate Justice vs EU Data Protection: Advocate General’s Opinion

      Article 10 of the Law Enforcement Directive (LED) has a requirement of strict necessity for processing sensitive personal data, such as biometric data used for unique identification (e.g. fingerprints and facial images). In its previous case law (C-205/21), the CJEU has interpreted LED Article 10 as establishing strengthened conditions for lawful processing, emphasising that the processing can only be regarded as necessary in a limited number of cases. Specifically, the CJEU has ruled that the Article 10 of the LED prohibits the systematic collection of biometrics from any person accused of a criminal offence. However, it does not explicitly oblige competent authorities to demonstrate on a case-by-case basis that the collection is strictly necessary.

    • EDRI ☛ Judge grants Meta limited postponement in Bits of Freedom lawsuit

      In early October, digital human rights organization Bits of Freedom took Meta to court. The organization demanded that Meta offers its users on in apps such as Instagram and Facebook the option to choose a feed that is not based on profiling. The judge ruled in favour of Bits of Freedom and ordered Meta to modify its apps within two weeks. Meta claimed that such changes were impossible to deliver in that timeframe and asked the Amsterdam Court of Appeal for a postponement. The court has now ruled that Meta will indeed be granted a postponement.

    • The Register UK ☛ US immigration enforcers bypass state data limits

      Also known as Nlets, the network, operated by private nonprofit the International Justice & Public Safety Network, links law-enforcement systems from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and roughly 18,000 federal, state, local, and Canadian agencies. Along with driver's license and vehicle registration records, Nlets carries information such as criminal histories, concealed-weapon permit data, and other law-enforcement files shared between jurisdictions.

    • Ava ☛ the GDPR is under attack

      There was a call for evidence sent out by the Commission in September to get input by stakeholders and experts on how to simplify the rules around data protection, cybersecurity, AI and more and any pressing issues and concerns1. The deadline passed in the middle of October, and an official proposal developed from these insights is supposed to be released on the 19th of November.

      [...]

      The most important scoop, specifically Article 2 amendments to clarify other articles: [...]

• Defence/Aggression

  • RFERL ☛ 'Weekend Snipers' Claims Reopen Wartime Trauma In Sarajevo

    According to the Italian newspapers Il Giorno and La Repubblica, and the news agency ANSA, prosecutors are investigating claims that during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, wealthy foreigners paid "large sums of money" to shoot civilians in besieged Sarajevo -- "for fun."

  • Vox ☛ Republicans Nazi problem: Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, the Heritage Foundation, and JD Vance.

    Goldberg spoke with King about the crackup at the Heritage Foundation, the characters involved, and how it’s putting the maxim ‘no enemies to my right’ to the test.

    Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

  • Robert Reich ☛ The Verdict of History

    This is what fascist dictators do when in power. Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini built monuments to glorify themselves so they’d be exalted in history.

    Democracies don’t do this. They memorialize their heroes only after they’ve died, and only if the public wants them commemorated.

    Trump deserves to be remembered — but not as a hero. To the contrary: It is our solemn duty to ensure he is remembered for all that he has done and may still do to destroy American democracy.

  • 404 Media ☛ Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort

    Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable group. “It is time to choose sides; fascism or morality? Big tech has made their choice.”

  • Mike Brock ☛ There is Only One Way Out

    But there’s another application of this ethic that matters just as urgently right now: making sure people understand who is building the prison and who is helping us escape it.

    Because some people—JD Vance, Mike Johnson, the entire infrastructure of respectable conservatism they’re trying to maintain—desperately want you confused about which role they’re playing.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Ten Years Later, Bataclan Survivors Are Still Processing

    Ten years ago today, Ismaël El Iraki was deep in the pit of the Bataclan, reveling in the saturated guitars of an Eagles of Death Metal concert. Without warning, three Islamic State extremists wearing explosive belts stormed the historic music hall in Paris. Armed with assault rifles, they opened fire on concertgoers at close range, killing 90 people as part of a coordinated attack at sites around the French capital.

  • CBC ☛ 2025-11-10 [Older] MMA gym owners, coaches ID’d at secretive neo-Nazi event in B.C.

  • CBC ☛ 2025-11-10 [Older] Japanese immigrants fought for Canada during WW I while denied the right to vote

  • BIA Net ☛ 2025-11-07 [Older] Turkey issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli ministers

  • ANF News ☛ 2025-11-07 [Older] JinNews: At least 25 women were murdered in Turkey in October

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-09 [Older] Defense brings Turkey and Germany closer

  • BIA Net ☛ 2025-11-10 [Older] Minister’s statement on Turkey’s ECtHR compliance rate ‘misleading,’ says MP

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-10 [Older] Crime Watchdog FATF to Visit Turkey After 'Grey List' Exit, Sources Say

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] Turkey, Hamas Team Discuss Next Gaza Plan Phases, Security Sources Say

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-06 [Older] UN Approves US-Backed Effort to Lift Sanctions on Syria's President

  • BIA Net ☛ 2025-11-07 [Older] Juvenile defendant sentenced to 23 years in prison over killing of Syrian refugee teen in Antalya

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-07 [Older] Nearly 100 People Abducted or Disappeared in Syria Since January, Says UN

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-08 [Older] In Syria’s South, Bedouins Uprooted by Sectarian Clashes See Little Hope of Return

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-08 [Older] Syria Carries Out Pre-Emptive Operations Against Islamic State Cells

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-08 [Older] Germany news: Berlin rejecting more Syrian asylum requests

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-10 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Is Hosting Syria's Al-Sharaa for a First-Of-Its-Kind Meeting at the White House

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-10 [Older] Exclusive-Syria Foiled Islamic State Plots on President Sharaa's Life, Sources Say

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] Vigilante justice increases in Syria: Who is being targeted and why?

  • HRW ☛ 2025-11-10 [Older] US: Prioritize Rights During Saudi Leader’s Visit

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-09 [Older] Analysis-Before Talks With Cheeto Mussolini, Saudi Arabia Doubles Down on Terms for Israel Ties

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-09 [Older] Saudi Arabia Executes Two People for Plotting Attacks on Places of Worship

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] Flights resume at Brussels Airport after drone sightings

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] France: Several injured after car rams into pedestrians

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Independent UK ☛ Epstein says he lost a $10K bet to Trump over ex-Marla Maples and sent a truck of baby food as payment, emails show

    The freshly-released trove of emails has caused renewed scrutiny of Trump’s relationship with Epstein.

    In 2002, Trump described Epstein as a “terrific guy” who he had known for 15 years. And in 2017, Epstein told author Michael Wolff he had been Trump’s “closest friend.”

  • The Independent UK ☛ Epstein emails reveal he ‘kept close eye on Trump’ as House prepares to vote on releasing files: Live updates

    Trump, who was friends with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s before the two had a falling out, has consistently denied knowing about the late financier’s abuse and sex trafficking of underage girls.

    The House will vote next week on whether to require the Justice Department to publish all of its unclassified files on Epstein.

  • France24 ☛ In newly released emails, Epstein suggests Donald Trump knew 'about the girls'

    Jeffrey Epstein suggested Donald Trump knew about his abuse and “spent hours” with a victim at his home, according to emails released by Democrats on Wednesday, raising fresh questions for the US president. Trump has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s sex-trafficking crimes and accused Democrats of political deflection.

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Dumb Truth at the Heart of the Epstein Scandal

    Yet it also seems that Epstein was acting as an informal adviser to people in Trump world; prominent Trump associates such as Thiel and Steve Bannon corresponded with him. One email with Bannon suggests that he and Epstein were scheduled to have dinner in March 2018. (A spokesperson for Thiel has said that he never visited Epstein’s island; Bannon did not respond to a request for comment.) One email dated August 21, 2018, to an unknown recipient captures this dynamic. Epstein writes: [...]

  • New York Times ☛ Republicans Tried to Squelch the Epstein Furor. Instead, They Fed It.

    And though Democrats forced the committee to subpoena the Justice Department for its investigative material, that effort has not borne much fruit. Though the department gave the committee more than 33,000 pages in late summer, the files largely contained information that was already publicly available.

  • The Georgia Recorder ☛ US House Dems say newly released Epstein emails show Trump knew about abuse

    In a 2015 email exchange between Epstein and journalist Michael Wolff, Wolff tells Epstein that he’s heard CNN will ask Trump about his relationship with the financier. The two have an exchange about how to hypothetically “craft an answer” for Trump.

    Wolff responds, “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable (public relations) and political currency.”

  • The Nation ☛ The Epstein Scandal Is Snowballing

    What changed? After a summer of increasingly bad Epstein news, Johnson essentially shut down the House and refused to swear in Grijalva to keep the bill from passing. Now come the latest revelations. And Dems only released a handful of the e-mails they have, albeit some of the most incriminating. Committee Republicans replied by releasing tens of thousands later in the day. Nobody knows whether they did that thinking they would exonerate Trump, or whether they were too stupid to know how incriminating they were. They only contributed to the toxic fumes of scandal around Trump and his allies. (Epstein, you’ll recall, reportedly died by suicide while in jail on federal charges.)

  • The Next Move ☛ Why Do the Epstein Files Matter for Democracy?

    Before this current, hyperpartisan chapter of our history, it was not difficult to find instances of public servants pursuing justice even if it meant punishing members of their own party.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Trump faces biggest Republican rebellion over Epstein

    At least 100 or more Republicans are expected to support the release of the files after a selection of emails sent by the deceased paedophile financier that frequently mention the US president were made public on Wednesday.

    Mr Trump was friends with Epstein before the pair fell out in the early 2000s, but has always denied any knowledge of or involvement with Epstein’s sex-trafficking or abuse of underage girls.

• Environment

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-09 [Older] One Photo That Captures Tenderness Amid Chaos in the Philippines as Typhoon Fung-Wong Hits

  • New Yorker ☛ 2025-11-08 [Older] A Master of Fashion Photography Who Embraces Accidents

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-07 [Older] FAA Scales Back Flights at 40 Airports. See the Impact in Photos

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-11-07 [Older] Photos of the Aftermath of Devastating Floods in Remote Alaska Native Villages

  • The Independent UK ☛ South Korean growers sue state power utility, blaming climate change for crop damage

    Hwang is one of five South Korean farmers who recently sued the state utility Korea Electric Power Corporation and its power-generating subsidiaries, alleging that their reliance on coal and other fossil fuels has accelerated climate change and damaged their crops.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Oversupply of oil could create glut of 4m barrels a day, says energy watchdog

    The International Energy Agency said the surplus in 2026 was likely to be larger than previously forecast, despite a decision from the biggest oil producers to pause their plan to increase crude exports.

  • Semafor Inc ☛ ‘No clear peak’ for global fossil fuel emissions

    Global fossil fuel emissions show no sign of slowing, with a new report suggesting they are on track to surpass records this year.

    Despite signs of CO₂ output slowing in Europe and China, an increase in oil and gas production, led by the US, has boosted global emissions, with a Global Carbon Project report showing they’re on track to be more than 1% higher than last year’s record.

  • The Nation ☛ There’s No Quitting the Climate Fight

    Our present situation consists of a convergence of factors: the growing scientific evidence of accelerating, near-term climate and ecological breakdown, with all the social instability and suffering that come with it; the advances of reactionary political forces—led by fossil capital and its agents from not just the fascist right but also the neoliberal center and center-left—determined to obstruct and delay life-saving action; and, despite some localized wins, the lack of coordinated forces on the left that are sufficiently powerful to counter, much less overthrow, the status quo.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • CBC ☛ 2025-11-10 [Older] Stellantis takes Ontario auto supplier to court over claims of extortion

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Humanity travels an average of 78 minutes per day—regardless of living standards, finds study

      People travel for many reasons—commuting, as part of their job, or to go shopping—and the time spent traveling differs from day to day, from person to person. But remarkably, populations tend to travel for close to 1.3 hours per day (78 minutes), no matter where they live, or how rich they are.

    • Jasper Tandy ☛ Silhouette

      We have selectively bred Sussex natives to drive 40mph in 30mph zones, and 30mph in 60mph zones. Sussex drivers are going to slow to 25mph if there's oncoming traffic in low light, whether it's a 30, 50, or 60mph speed limit.

      Sussex drivers are bred to be completely oblivious to traffic ordnance of any kind. Traffic light? Never heard of it. Roundabouts? Round-a-who? Junction? Not ringing a bell. Corner? We didn't have that when I did my test.

    • David Rosenthal ☛ Metastablecoins Are Go!

      Terra (UST) was supposed to be a "stablecoin", trading very close to $1. It rapidly became the third largest such coin. From April 11th 2022 it started trading mainly around a 10% discount, and by May 11th it was essentially worthless. The crash destroyed about $45B in notional value.

      In Metastablecoins I pointed out that, absent the backing of a central bank, dollar "stablecoins" like UST were misnamed. They were, as UST had shown, in fact metastable so should be called metastablecoins. Wikipedia explains that: [...]

    • University of Michigan ☛ Ypsilanti, not Ann Arbor, will bear the cost of the U-M LANL data center

      The University should not delegate the responsibility of elevated prices and environmental degradation on people that will never benefit from research resources the data center project will provide. And given that the main sustainability goal in Campus Plan 2050 is a net-zero endowment, its construction is completely hypocritical. Siphoning money into massive construction data center projects without feasible sustainable infrastructure plans while claiming to pursue carbon neutral investments is contradictory in nature and flat out wrong in practice.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] Japan deploys soldiers to deal with bear attacks

    • Science News ☛ AI eavesdropped on whale chatter. It may have helped find something new

      Dolphins whistle, humpback whales sing and sperm whales click. Now, a new analysis of sperm whale codas — a unique series of clicks — suggests a previously unrecognized acoustic pattern. The finding, reported November 12 in Open Mind, implies that the whales’ clicking communications might be more complex — and meaningful — than previously realized.

      But the study faces sharp criticism from marine biologists who argue that these patterns are more likely to be recording artifacts or by-products of alertness rather than language-like signals.

    • BoingBoing ☛ Happy Exploding Whale Day!

      The comically revolting spectacle, narrated drolly by KATU's Paul Linnman ("the humor of the situation gave way to a run for a survival") lay dormant for many years. Humorist Dave Barry kept the flame through the fallow 1990s, but it wasn't until the age of web video that the whale enjoyed a more metaphorical explosion. In 2020, KATU pulled the reel and scanned the original footage in high definition. The incident became so famous that, last year, the town announced that Nov. 12 would henceforth be celebrated as Exploding Whale Day in honor of the poor whale. Celebrations were already in full swing in Monday, reports Oregon Live.

    • Dave Barry ☛ The Exploding Whale - Dave Barry’s Substack

      A few days from now, on November 12, we will observe the 55th anniversary of what I think we can all agree, as a nation, is the most wonderful thing that ever happened in the history of the world, or at least of Lane County, Oregon.

      I refer, of course, to the exploding whale.

  • Overpopulation

    • RFERL ☛ Iran's Water Crisis Nears Point Of No Return

      Tehran, home to 10 million people, has started water rationing, and officials warn of possible evacuations if the situation worsens.

• Finance

  • HRW ☛ 2025-11-06 [Older] Saudi Arabia: Migrant Workers in Mecca Arrested for Demanding Unpaid Wages

  • CBC ☛ 2025-11-10 [Older] ‘A literal shoe box’: Why some Toronto renters are avoiding new builds

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Age AU ☛ 2025-11-09 [Older] How to lose votes and alienate people

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] India: What does Bihar election mean for Modi's BJP?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] Iran releases French couple as Paris releases Iranian

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] Nefertiti bust should be returned to Egypt, historians say

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Verizon to Cut About 15,000 Jobs as New CEO Restructures

    The layoffs, affecting about 15% of Verizon's workforce, are set to take place as soon as next week

  • EDRI ☛ The AI Act isn't enough

    However, the TEU does not mandate complete exclusion from the scope of EU law. When using AI systems, countries must respect general principles, such as the principle of proportionality. This means that any measure must be necessary and appropriate to achieve a specific objective, while respecting the essence of fundamental rights.

  • The Register UK ☛ Chinese web giant Tencent can't buy all the GPUs it wants

    Tencent is a sprawling conglomerate whose messaging and e-commerce apps have over a billion monthly users and are ubiquitous parts of modern Chinese life. The company’s games are popular around the world, and its video platforms attract huge audiences and advertising revenue. The company’s public cloud has a ten percent share of the Chinese market. The company has invested heavily in AI to power its services and in its earnings announcement reported the tech is “benefitting us in business areas such as ad targeting and game engagement, as well as in efficiency enhancement areas such as coding, and game and video production.”

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • 404 Media ☛ AI-Generated Sora Videos of ICE Raids Are Wildly Viral on Facebook

      An account is spamming horrific, dehumanizing videos of immigration enforcement because the Facebook algorithm is rewarding them for it.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • BIA Net ☛ 2025-11-03 [Older] Kurdish musician Hakan Akay taken into custody upon arrival in Turkey

  • Scheerpost ☛ 2025-11-07 [Older] YouTube Deletes Hundreds of Videos Documenting Israeli War Crimes

  • Vox ☛ 2025-11-07 [Older] Welcome to the age of viral police body cam footage

  • The Independent UK ☛ Indiana professor removed from class over over white supremacy graphic which included MAGA slogan

    Adams, in a news conference earlier this month, said the graphic, which is widely used, was being misinterpreted and that she was well within her remit given the subject-matter of her course.

    “I was asked to teach on structural racism, and as you teach on structural racism in the United States, you cannot not discuss white supremacy as it is the ideology that emboldens racist behavior,” Adams said.

  • New York Times ☛ Indiana Professor Removed From Class Over White Supremacy Lesson

    Ms. Adams, a full-time social work lecturer, is currently teaching three other classes while awaiting the outcome of an investigation that will determine whether further disciplinary action is taken against her or whether her position teaching the class would be reinstated.

    In an interview, Ms. Adams said that she worried her job might be in jeopardy. But she said she was speaking publicly nonetheless because “I feel this is an important issue to talk about — censorship, stifling of academic freedom and this real overreach through this legislation.”

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] Incoming Czech government sparks media freedom fears

  • France24 ☛ BBC apologises to Trump over film edit but rejects defamation claim

    However, it added: "While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim."

  • The Nation ☛ The Campaign to Free Jimmy Lai

    Lai’s case, Gallagher told the senators, represents the decline in freedom of the press and the rule of law in Hong Kong since Beijing imposed a harsh national security law on the territory in 2020. Rights groups say that, under the guise of safeguarding public order, the law created four political crimes: secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces. To prosecute these purported crimes, the government has cracked down on independent media and the pro-­democracy movement. Washington has long been hawkish on China, and as the United States renegotiates its relationship with the country under President Donald Trump, Gallagher appealed to this sentiment, cautioning against trusting Beijing as long as it imprisons Lai. “Mr. Lai must be released before China is taken seriously as a credible negotiating partner,” she said.

  • CPJ ☛ CPJ, partners call on UN Working Group to issue opinion on imprisoned Russian journalist 

    The Press Freedom Center at the National Press Club recently filed submissions to the working group requesting an opinion finding that Novak’s continued detention by the Russian government is arbitrary and violates international law.

  • CPJ ☛ Open Letter to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

    We, the undersigned organizations, are writing in support of the recent submissions to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) filed on behalf of Nika Novak, a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist and Russian citizen.

  • CPJ ☛ China upholds harsh 7-year prison sentence for journalist Dong Yuyu on spy charges

    “This is an unconscionable decision. Today’s ruling shows China is determined to deny Dong Yuyu the justice he deserves,” said CPJ Asia-Pacific Director Beh Lih Yi. “Speaking with diplomats is routine work for journalists — not espionage. China must release Dong immediately, or it is sending a message to the world that its stated goal of open engagement is empty talk.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • BIA Net ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] Dozens detained across Turkey in occult fraud investigation

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] How can Germany make immigrant nursing staff want to stay?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-07 [Older] Turkey: 17 referees and club president held in betting probe

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-05 [Older] How Ghana's gold rush threatens to fuel illicit trade

  • EDRI ☛ Forthcoming Digital Omnibus would mark point of no return

    For months, EDRi has warned of the serious threats that would be posed to people, planet and democracy by the proposed reopening of the EU’s digital rules. This is not happening in isolation: EDRi is part of a huge group of organisations warning against this broad dismantling of social, rights and environmental protections by the European Commission and other lawmakers.

    Now, leaked documents reveal that – despite the Commission’s promises that the reform of the EU’s digital rulebook would not weaken core protections for people’s rights and freedoms – the reality is that this would be “the biggest rollback of digital fundamental rights in EU history”. Over a hundred civil society organisations, trade unions and defenders of the public interest have joined together to “urge the European Commission to immediately halt any attempts to reopen the GDPR, ePrivacy framework, AI Act or other core digital rights protections”.

  • CS Monitor ☛ A female soccer coach keeps Nigerian teens away from gangs

    Ms. Ghaddar saw another way. In 2023, she decided to move back to Kano and set up a community football academy where young boys could both train as soccer players and learn skills that would help them stay away from the gangs permanently.

  • Pro Publica ☛ After Midnight Raid on Chicago Apartment Building, No One Was Charged With a Crime

    Caicedo’s quiet deportation contrasted with the drama of his capture during one of the most aggressive and highly publicized immigration raids carried out in a U.S. city in recent history. Shortly after midnight on Sept. 30, some 300 agents from Border Patrol, the FBI and other agencies stormed the 130-unit apartment complex. SWAT teams rappelled from a helicopter, knocked down doors and hurled flash-bang grenades. They arrested 37 immigrants, most of them Venezuelans, who authorities say were in the country illegally. Agents also zip-tied and, for several hours, detained many U.S. citizens.

  • 404 Media ☛ ICE Plans to Spend $180 Million on Bounty Hunters to Stalk Immigrants

    Newly released documents provide more details about ICE's plan to use bounty hunters and private investigators to find the location of undocumented immigrants.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: For-profit healthcare is the problem, not (just) private equity

    Rothermich's point is that health care isn't a commodity, and to treat it as such always worsens care. It dooms patients to choosing between different kinds of horrors, and subjects health care worker to the moral injury of failing their duty to their patients in order to serve them as customers.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Inside Towers ☛ Can EchoStar/DISH Invoke the ‘Force Majeure’ Clause to Avoid Paying Contractual Obligations?

    The FCC’s requirement that DISH put its spectrum holdings into service—meaning, build out and operate its wireless network using those frequencies—has been in place for several years. The agency set specific construction milestones in 2019, requiring DISH to cover 75 percent of the U.S. population with its 5G network by June 14, 2025, using various spectrum bands. These requirements were designed to prevent “spectrum warehousing” and ensure that valuable spectrum is used to provide wireless service to Americans.

  • Vlad-Stefan Harbuz ☛ Keystone Maintainers Keep the Internet Going

    96% of all companies depend on Open Source software. But the most depended upon software is maintained by a relatively small number of people. Some have estimated that “80% of downloads are the gift of 4,000 people”, meaning that a few thousand people maintain a majority of the most depended upon Open Source software packages.

    But what should we call these most depended upon packages that keep so much software working, that keep the [Internet] working? And what should we call the maintainers that maintain them?

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Yury Molodtsov ☛ Retro Tech Became the New Luxury

    And you know? It’s an awesome device and very fun to play with. The interface is fast enough, but also beautifully skeuomorphic and amazingly logical. It has all the features and functions you need to keeping and listening to your music library. Its design looks like it belongs in a digital museum (in a good way).

    I already had a small MP3 library and bought more through iTunes (still the easiest way, and the files are DRM-free). People often recommend Bandcamp, but nobody except indie artists use it.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Open Web Advocacy ☛ Tim Berners-Lee On Apple’s Browser Engine Ban and Web Apps

  TL;DR: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and HTML, has expressed support for compelling Apple to allow other browser engines on iOS, as more competition leads to more innovation and bright ideas. He also states that having a powerful browser on iOS would "change the dynamic" with respect to web app's viability on mobile.

• Interesting Engineering ☛ Apple offers reduced 15% rate for mini apps using required APIs

  The Mini Apps Partner Program gives developers a reduced fee if they adopt tools that manage purchases, register user history, verify ages, and run payments.

• Nick Heer ☛ The Consumer Welfare Standard and E-Book Pricing

  This is a case where both Amazon and Apple were wrong. Amazon’s Kindle model mimicked that of the iTunes Store by pricing e-books at a flat rate, though publishers argued this was keeping prices artificially low by using its overwhelming dominance of the market for e-books and readers. In attempting to compete with the launch of the iPad and the iBookstore, Apple coordinated with publishers to set their own prices. Amazon’s position was anticompetitive; Apple’s actions were ultimately ruled illegal. Yet the agency model, where publishers set the price, ultimately became standard for Amazon, too.

• Copyrights

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Pirated film quality and ticket costs shape U.S. moviegoers' viewing choices

    • Attempts to combat piracy by reducing ticket prices or increasing the number of movie screenings yielded limited benefits for the industry.

    • A more effective strategy involved making operational decisions to delay the emergence of high-quality pirated content, and prioritizing investments in upgrading theater equipment and technology to create a more immersive, comfortable, and engaging environment for in-theater viewers.