Leftovers

• Michigan News ☛ Raoul Wallenberg’s former Ann Arbor home set for big move to University of Michigan campus

  The university announced plans in May to save the old house on Madison Street where World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg lived as a UM student in the 1930s.

  It is to be relocated to an empty corner lot at Division and Jefferson streets, next to UM’s Institute for Social Research and a house the university owns at 439 S. Division St. where famous playwright Arthur Miller lived as a UM student in the 1930s.

• Task And Purpose ☛ New photos reveal what it was like to make 'Full Metal Jacket'

  Those instructions, Modine realized, included an unspoken permission slip: to capture behind-the-scenes pictures of the iconic war film as it was being made (which perhaps made sense for the film: Pvt. Joker, after all, is a combat correspondent in the Marines, and snaps photos throughout).

  Modine’s photographs and a journal he kept during the filming are now the heart of “Full Metal Jacket Diary,” an exhibit at the National Veterans Memorial And Museum in Columbus, Ohio. The photographs and other pieces spent much of the year at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, as the exhibit “Full Metal Modine.”

• Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Even If You’ve Never Seen 'Seven Samurai,' You’ve Certainly Seen Movies Influenced by It

  Seemingly untroubled by these costly, unproductive and highly publicized delays, the acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa would use the free time to go fishing. On one such trip, actor and frequent collaborator Minoru Chiaki asked the notoriously stubborn director if he was worried about the project completely running aground. “So long as my pictures are hits,” the director responded, while dangling his line off the banks of the Tama River, “I can afford to be unreasonable.”

• Nico Cartron ☛ When to "kill" blog drafts?

  Like most people writing on a blog, I have a "drafts" folder where my work-in-progress articles are kept. I would visit this draft on a regular basis, update some articles, possibly finish one or two, then move them to the "finished" folder, until I publish it here.

• Chris Aldrich ☛ Note taking

  Watching people online chat, ask questions, and generally get excited about their planners for 2026, I thought I would spend a few minutes to set up my Memindex-inspired planner version using 4 x 6″ index cards and tabbed dividers. It’s amazing how useful a $2.50 block of 500 index cards can be for planning out your coming year.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ NASA Is About to [Publish] Photos of 3I/ATLAS At Its Weirdest

    It's happening: We're finally getting a treasure trove of shiny new images of comet 3I/ATLAS, the third ultra-rare known object to enter the Solar System from interstellar space.

• Career/Education

  • The Unix Heritage Society ☛ [TUHS] David C Brock of CHM: 2024 oral history with Ken Thompson + Doug McIlroy

    I enjoyed Brock’s interviews with Ken and Dennis. Goes into their history, Bell Labs and Early Unix.

  • [Old] Computer History ☛ A Computing Legend Speaks

    The Computer History Museum (CHM) is excited to release a new oral history interview with Ken Thompson, one of the world’s foremost programmers and computer scientists. The interview was created in partnership with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in connection with Thompson’s selection for the 1983 A. M. Turing Award, the ACM’s highest prize and one of computing’s greatest honors.

  • Zach Flower ☛ How to start volunteering in computer science classrooms

    I ultimately heard back from just one school, but in that one act, I discovered a number of incredible (yet, to me, undiscovered) ways that Software and IT professionals can get involved in computer science classrooms. While my journey quickly led from volunteering in classrooms to actually teaching one, I thought I'd share some of the lessons learned, and highlight different ways that my former peers can lend their expertise to the next generation of engineers.

• Hardware

  • Tedium ☛ Why Does Every Thumb Keyboard Look Like That?

    Today in Tedium: The recent announcement of the Steam Machine and the corresponding Steam Controller offer as good a sign as any that the living room computer is making a real comeback. (Yes, the Steam Machine can play games first, but the fact that it can go into full computer mode is a superpower.) Once the territory of nerds with a lot of time on their hands, the idea of having a couch-accessible computer has long been the dream of large companies and absolute nerds alike. And Steam, by simply leaving the architecture open for end users, is close to pulling it off. Problem is, we’ve struggled to find the right combination. Video game companies in the ’80s fell over themselves trying to add a keyboard to the TV. In the ’90s and 2000s, multimedia dreams created tiny good-enough keyboards for gaming nerds. But, gradually, innovation in TV-targeted keyboards slowed. And I wanted to understand why. Today’s Tedium talks about why keyboards for the living room sort of fell off—and why it seems like all the current ones look the same. — Ernie @ Tedium

• Proprietary

  • Federal News Network ☛ FCC to vote on reversing cyber rules adopted after Salt Typhoon [breach]

    The Salt Typhoon campaign was revealed in 2024. It involved penetrating [broke] into U.S. telecom networks and others across the globe. The [attackers] were reportedly able to target [sic] the communications of political figures and government officials, including then-candidate Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance.

    U.S. officials have said Chinese-government sponsored [attackers] are behind the campaign. Senate Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Mark Warner (D-Va.) has described it as “the worst telecommunications [breach] in our nation’s history.”

  • Linuxiac ☛ Systemd Introduces Experimental musl Support

    In other words, distros using musl libc could not run systemd without extensive patching—or at all. So, all musl-based distros were effectively systemd-free (they used OpenRC, s6, runit, dinit, etc.).

    With this change, however, things have the potential to change. Systemd now builds successfully against musl in the upstream CI, thanks to the project’s inclusion of the necessary compatibility code.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • La Prensa Latina ☛ EC accused of using AI in responses

      Experts criticize the apparent double standard of the European Union (EU), which regulates the use of AI while employing it internally, violating its guidelines.

    • The Verge ☛ Google is fighting the defamation battle Meta caved on

      Google filed a motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by anti-corporate diversity activist Robby Starbuck, who claimed Google’s AI falsely associated him with sexual assault allegations and a white nationalist.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Data Center Watch worries that anti-AI activism is working

      Even the data centre trade press doesn’t buy 10a’s scaremongering. Data Center Dynamics notes that when 10a says a data centre was “blocked,” that also includes when a company submits a very similar proposal nearby. But that’s normal — data center plans typically have a pile of similar proposals ready to deploy.

  • Social Control Media

    • Techdirt ☛ Pete Hegseth Has Turned State Violence Into TikTok Content

      Blowing up drug-running boats in the Caribbean isn’t going to stop the flow of drugs into America. Everyone knows this. The drugs will keep coming—they always do, they always have. Different boats, different routes, same product reaching the same streets. This isn’t policy designed to solve problems. This is spectacle designed to produce feelings. The feeling that someone strong is doing strong things. The feeling that enemies are being punished. The feeling that something is being done even as nothing actually changes.

      But it is illegal. Under United States law and international law. [...]

    • The Register UK ☛ Pentagon and soldiers let too many secrets slip on socials

      The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Monday made public a report finding that the DoD hasn't been properly training its civilian staff or military members, nor issuing proper guidance, on how to keep secrets secret. The info leaks include social media posts by military members and their families, but press releases and other information the Pentagon publishes itself were as part of the equation, too.

      GAO auditors posed as threat actors and found multiple ways they could use info they discovered online to disrupt operations.

    • Mike Brock ☛ MAGA: You Are In A Propaganda-Induced Psychosis. Wake Up.

      I’m not doing that. I’m telling you something harder to hear: you’ve been captured by a system designed to capture you. And the capture is so complete you can’t see you’re captured.

      This isn’t about intelligence. Some of the smartest people I know are in this psychosis. This isn’t about education. This isn’t about class or geography or culture.

      This is about what happens when your information environment gets systematically manipulated to produce a version of reality that serves power while convincing you it serves you.

      [...]

      This is propaganda. Not the crude kind. The sophisticated kind that works by making you think you’re thinking independently while actually following a script.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • The Local DK ☛ Danish political party websites hit by cyberattacks one day before elections

      Jørn Guldberg, an IT security specialist with the Danish Society of Engineers (IDA), previously said attacks of this type are often symbolic but can also have serious consequences and disrupt critical public services.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Register UK ☛ Palantir to launch training drive for NHS data platform

      Palantir is working with "AI upskilling platform" Multiverse to provide an apprenticeship program specific to its Federated Data Platform (FDP), the NHS analytics system being run under a controversial contract.

    • Security Week ☛ DoorDash Says Personal Information Stolen in Data Breach

      The attackers stole user information such as names, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers. The compromised data pertains to customers, Dashers, and merchants, the company said.

    • Apple Inc ☛ Apple introduces Digital ID, a new way to create and present an ID in Apple Wallet - Apple

      Apple today announced the launch of Digital ID, a new way for users to create an ID in Apple Wallet using information from their U.S. passport, and present it with the security and privacy of iPhone or Apple Watch. At launch, Digital ID acceptance will roll out first in beta at TSA checkpoints at more than 250 airports in the U.S. for in-person identity verification during domestic travel, with additional Digital ID acceptance use cases to come in the future.

• Defence/Aggression

  • FAIR ☛ For NYT, Trump’s Gulf Corruption Is the New Normal

    If any Onion opinion piece fully captures the corruption and venality of Donald Trump’s administrations, it’s one “authored” by former President Jimmy Carter (1/25/17) headlined, “You People Made Me Give Up My Peanut Farm Before I Got to Be President.” To be accurate, the farm was put into a blind trust (USA Today, 2/24/23), but contrasting the urgency of the potential conflicts with Carter’s humble agricultural asset to the unrestrained wheeling and dealing of the Trump machine paints the whole scene.

  • The Register UK ☛ Europol storms gaming platforms in extremist content sweep

    The sweeps formed part of a coordinated "Referral Action Day" involving multiple partner countries and marked the IRU's most explicit foray into the world of gaming platforms, which it now says are increasingly being misused for radicalization, recruitment, and the distribution of extremist narratives.

    A report from the EU's Radicalisation Awareness Network backs this up, warning that extremists are already making "strategic and organic use" of gaming and gaming-adjacent spaces – everything from in-game chat and voice comms to livestreams and modding communities – and even employing grooming tactics inside those channels to court young players.

  • European Commission ☛ Authored by Linda Schlegel, RAN External Expert Extremists’ use of gaming (adjacent) platforms Insights regarding primary and secondary prevention measures [PDF]

    A recent RAN conclusion paper presented a typology of six ways gaming-related content can be used by extremist actors to further their goals. These included: production of video games, the modification of existing games, the use of in-game chat functions, the use of gaming (adjacent) platforms, gaming cultural references, and gamification.5 The following paper is focused on the gaming (adjacent) platforms. However, it should be noted from the outset that the content posted on such platforms is often built on gaming cultural references and therefore both types overlap to some degree in the discussion that follows. The first part of the paper discusses how traditional gaming (adjacent) platforms have contributed to extremist activities. Non-gaming platforms must be considered in addition to classic platforms focused on gaming. The paper will also explore how extremist individuals and organisations make strategic and organic use of the platforms. The second part focuses on opportunities for primary and secondary prevention on gaming (adjacent) platforms. As there is little experience of P/CVE measures on these platforms, the paper provides considerations and recommendations that should be taken into account when designing and implementing prevention efforts in these environments.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Epstein Files Vote in Congress: What to Know, What Trump Has Said

    As lawmakers prepare to cast their ballots, here’s everything you need to know about what they will actually be voting on, what is already public, and what questions they hope to answer by releasing new information.

  • Pro Publica ☛ What the Trump Administration’s Chicago Immigration Raid Videos Don’t Show

    But the administration refused to identify the immigrants they detained or provide evidence about any of its claims. My colleagues Jodi S. Cohen, T. Christian Miller, Sebastian Rotella, Mariam Elba and I set out to determine what actually happened.

    Despite the high-profile nature of the raid, federal prosecutors have not filed criminal charges against any of the immigrants detained that night. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to our questions but sent us a statement about how the raid was “performed in full compliance of the law.” You can read the full statement here.

  • Robert Reich ☛ Trump's Truly Sh*tty Economy

    Rubbish

    How do I know he’s lying? Official government statistics haven’t been issued during the shutdown — presumably to Trump’s relief (the White House said Wednesday that the October jobs and Consumer Price Index reports may never come out).

    But we can get good estimates of where the economy is now, based on where the economy was heading before the shutdown and recent reports by private data firms.

• Environment

  • ABC ☛ Iran begins cloud seeding to induce rain as it faces worst drought in decades

    Cloud seeding involves spraying particles such as silver iodide and salt into clouds from aircraft to trigger rain.

    Last year, Iran announced it had developed its own technology for the practice.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Lethal dose of plastics for ocean wildlife: Surprisingly small amounts can kill seabirds, sea turtles and marine mammals

    The study reveals that, on average, consuming less than three sugar cubes' worth of plastics for seabirds like Atlantic puffins (which measure approximately 28 centimeters, or 11 inches, in length); just over two baseballs' worth of plastics for sea turtles like Loggerheads (90 centimeters or 35 inches); and about a soccer ball's worth of plastics for marine mammals like harbor porpoises (1.5 meters, or 60 inches), has a 90% likelihood of death.

    At the 50% mortality threshold, the volumes are even more startling: consuming less than one sugar cube's worth of plastics kills one in two Atlantic puffins; less than half a baseball's worth of plastics kills one in two Loggerhead turtles; and less than a sixth of a soccer ball kills one in two harbor porpoises.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Futurism ☛ Bitcoin Showing Signs of Severe Collapse

      The token has wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars in total market value, dropping below $92,000 for the first time since mid-April. That’s despite soaring to an all-time high of over $126,000 a mere six weeks ago.

      It’s been a bruising couple of weeks — and nobody is entirely clear on why.

      Even Bloomberg admitted that “Bitcoin has fallen fast, hard, and with no clear trigger.”

    • The Atlantic ☛ How [Cryptocurrency] Could Trigger the Next Financial Crisis

      Most people understand that cryptocurrencies are volatile and speculative. Bitcoin, ether, and other name-brand cryptocurrencies fluctuate in value day by day, year by year. Stablecoins are meant to do away with these fluctuations, yet they pose what may be a larger threat to the wider financial system. The GENIUS Act, like the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation adopted by the European Union in 2023, offers safeguards that will likely enlarge the stablecoin market considerably. If—or when—the coins explode, the GENIUS Act more or less ensures that the U.S. government will have to bail out the stablecoin issuers and their holders on a scale of hundreds of billions of dollars.

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Interpretable AI reveals key atomic traits for efficient hydrogen storage in metal hydrides

      Leveraging this extensive database, researchers systematically explored physically interpretable models and found that fundamental atomic features—atomic mass, electronegativity, molar density, and ionic filling factor—emerge as key descriptors. Other researchers can use this as a tool for guiding their materials design process, without having to go through a lengthy trial-and-error process in the lab to search for potential candidates.

    • Interesting Engineering ☛ New material boosts seawater uranium extraction by nearly 1000x

      Uranium-235 powers most nuclear reactors and sits at the core of energy transition plans. Yet current land reserves may support only a few more decades of consumption.

      Oceans, however, contain nearly 4.5 billion tons of uranium. The problem is that uranium exists in seawater at extremely low concentrations and competes with ions, microbes, and organic matter that cling to almost everything placed in the water.

    • Wired ☛ Valar Atomics Says It’s the First Nuclear Startup to Achieve Criticality

      There’s a difference between the type of criticality Valar reached this week—what’s known as cold criticality or zero-power criticality—and what’s needed to actually create nuclear power. Nuclear reactors use heat to create power, but in cold criticality, which is used to test a reactor’s design and physics, the reaction isn’t strong enough to create enough heat to make power.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ Doug Peacock, the real ‘George Hayduke,’ Looks Back on 50 Years of The Monkey Wrench Gang

• Finance

  • Jérôme Marin ☛ The hidden ticking bomb behind the AI boom

    On Wall Street, Michael Burry is famous for spotting the subprime crisis long before anyone else. Immortalized on screen in The Big Short, the investor is making headlines again. This time, he’s betting on the bursting of a bubble surrounding generative artificial intelligence, amid colossal investments and sky-high valuations. More specifically, he’s shorting two flagship stocks of the sector: Nvidia, the graphics-card leader, and Palantir, a specialist in data analysis.

    Beyond his market wager, Michael Burry is raising a crucial issue: the depreciation of AI chips, purchased in massive volumes over the past two years by U.S. tech giants to boost their computing capacity, essential for training and running AI models. He accuses these companies of underestimating the depreciation of these assets in their financial statements. This practice would allow them to artificially — and temporarily — limit the impact of their capital expenditures on their profits.

  • Meduza ☛ As Russia’s wage-debt crisis spreads, more workers are going months without pay — Meduza

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Apple Intensifies Succession Planning For CEO Tim Cook: Report

    Apple is stepping up its succession planning efforts as it prepares for Tim Cook to step down as chief executive of the tech giant as soon as next year, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ PC hobbyist charged $684 in tariffs on $355 shipment of parts due to classification defaults as low-value import exemptions vanish - de minimis exemption expiration poses big problems for the holiday season

    According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website, duty-free treatment no longer applies to many low-value imports beginning August 29, 2025, and express carriers are now required to provide full 10-digit Harmonized System (HS) codes and origin data. When that information is missing or incorrect, classification defaults can trigger disproportionately high duties.

  • Muni Blog ☛ Open Source Power

    So I drop it, because I'm tired to the bone of debating the minutae of open source definitions when the conversation we ought to be having is about power: who has it? (oligarchs), how did they get it? (monopolies & corruption), why is that a problem? (platform autocracy), and how do we the people take that power back? (protocols and open software).

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • [Old] Associated Press ☛ Conservatives hyped anti-Ukraine videos created by a TV producer who also worked for Russian media

      Unlike other conservative media personalities who last month expressed shock upon learning they may have been secretly financed by the Kremlin, Swann has no such qualms. He’s worked for Russia’s state-owned media empire for years, with one of his companies earning millions of dollars for producing Kremlin-friendly shows.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Indiana Capital Chronicle ☛ We should protect the First Amendment like we do the Second

    Indiana University ended the print edition of its student newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student, and dismissed its adviser, Jim Rodenbush, after he refused an administrative order to limit content in a Homecoming issue. The university cited a structural deficit and a move toward digital publishing. I along with many others see something else: an attempt to control editorial content. For a public university meant to foster open inquiry it sent a chilling message.

    If our largest university can silence its own student journalists, what does that say about free expression across Indiana? We champion cherished liberties, from the right to bear arms to the right to worship freely and pursue opportunity. Yet the First Amendment the foundation of all those freedoms often lacks the same defense.

    The university has since reversed its stance on print editions but tensions are still high.

  • Alabama Reflector ☛ 'Confused, angry:' APLS revokes Fairhope Public Library's remaining 2025 state funds amid dispute

    Fairhope Public Library has permanently lost over $20,000 in state funding that the Alabama Public Library Service Board had withheld since March amid disputes over library materials found in the teen section.

    The $22,000 in question, about half the state aid it had been allocated, was disbursed to other libraries in Baldwin County because APLS said the library had materials the APLS board considered sexually explicit and out of compliance with state regulations past a June 30 deadline.

  • Variety ☛ Bill Maher Refuses to Do Stand-Up Comedy Due to Shooting Concerns

    “It’s a very ugly week in America with violence of all kinds: political violence, regular violence, a lot of people talking about a civil war. And then today in Congress, because Charlie Kirk got assassinated, [Colorado Representative] Lauren Boebert stood up and said, ‘We need to have a prayer.’ So they started to have a silent prayer. And then she started screaming, ‘No! Silent prayers get silent results.’ As if praying out loud gets big results,” Maher added.. “Then the Democrats started screaming at her that there was a school shooting in her state. I tell you, so far, the civil war is not very civil.”

  • Tor ☛ Mexican government partially unblocks secure internet | The Tor Project

    Across at least the last two six-year presidential terms in Mexico, and through the first year of the current administration, access to the federal government's primary websites for information and public services over the Tor network was blocked.

    A study by the authors of this article published October 9, 2023, reports that 21 government agencies blocked access from the Tor network. The blockage was partially lifted in the first days of July 2025.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • The Kyiv Independent ☛ 25 facts about the Kyiv Independent

    As the Kyiv Independent celebrates another year of fearless journalism and community support (join our sprint to reach 25,000 paying members by 2025), we thought it was time to pull back the curtain and share a few things you might not know about us. From our name choice to Nobel “nominations” – here are 25 facts that make the Kyiv Independent who we are.

  • El País ☛ The battle for press freedom: The BBC stands firm against Trump

    The public broadcaster, however, has decided to take a more diplomatic approach to try to mitigate one of the biggest credibility crises it has ever faced. The BBC has apologized to Trump and removed the controversial documentary, which aired on the program Panorama, from its digital platform. Firstly, because the error did occur and had to be corrected. The misleading splicing of two audio clips from the U.S. president’s January 6, 2021 speech, which appeared to suggest a direct order to his supporters to storm the Capitol, ultimately led to the resignation of the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and the head of the news division, Deborah Turness.

  • Northwestern University ☛ Email over algorithms: how newsrooms are reclaiming their audiences

    All of that has pushed many outlets to double down on products they can fully control — such as newsletters.

    E-mail newsletters earned their first dedicated chapter in the 2022 edition of the Reuters Institute Digital News Report, which tracks trends in consumption patterns across dozens of countries. Researchers found that 22 percent of U.S. media consumers read a news email newsletter weekly. In 2025, the share of readers was 21 percent, but newsletter audiences continue to skew older than the general population of news consumers and are more educated and politically active than the average news audience.

  • CPJ ☛ Belarus court sentences 4 journalists to years of house arrest

    According to Article 48-1 of the Belarusian Code of Execution of Criminal Sentences, a person under “home confinement” can go to work, but must be at home from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. and during their free time, cannot leave the country or violate any laws, and is barred from consuming alcohol or going out for entertainment purposes.

    When they were detained in early December 2024, all four journalists worked with BAR24, a website covering the western city of Baranavichy created by the former staff of the shuttered independent outlet Intex-Press.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Papers Please ☛ Targeting domestic travelers and restricting the right to leave the US

    Political commentator and UK citizen Sami Hamdi was finally allowed by the US government to leave the US on November 12, two and a half weeks after he was arrested at San Francisco International Airport when he went to check in for a domestic US flight.

    Mr. Hamdi had been a keynote speaker at the annual banquet of the Central Valley chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) on October 25 in Sacramento, and was on his way to the next stop on his US speaking tour when he was taken into custody at SFO on October 26.

    Mr. Hamdi had obtained a valid US visa prior to his arrival in the US. “Hamdi entered on a B-1/B-2 visa on October 19, 2025, and complied with inspection and admission”, according to the complaint filed on his behalf in Federal court during his detention.

  • EDRI ☛ EU adopts DTA with Singapore despite warnings

    The DTA’s Article 11 prohibits the EU and its Member States from requiring access to the source code of software or algorithms as a condition for trade. Although it lists several exceptions, these remain subordinated to trade proportionality tests and could make oversight difficult or even impossible.

    This clause directly affects the enforcement of the AI Act, the Digital Services Act (DSA), and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), all of which rely on regulators’ ability to inspect how systems operate. It also risks impeding progress on the right to repair, environmental design rules, and workplace algorithmic accountability.

    This provision is not limited to artificial-intelligence systems but covers all software-based mechanisms, from recommendation engines to predictive-policing tools. Without access to code or logic, regulators cannot verify compliance, researchers cannot audit bias, and people affected by automated decisions cannot effectively seek redress.

  • Marisa Kabas ☛ Families of DC-area immigrant drivers snatched by feds stuck with tow bill

    When their father was pulled over on a Maryland highway and detained by ICE one recent November day, two young daughters were suddenly left without a family income—and saddled with hundreds in impoundment fees. After federal agents took their father from the scene, they left his work truck on the side of the road. But just as quickly as he was taken, so was the car whisked away by a local towing company.

  • Kelly Hayes ☛ What Now, Chicago? Regrouping After Midway Blitz

    As efforts to free our stolen neighbors continue, the relief many Chicagoans may feel, as the “blitz” dies down, is tempered by the knowledge that the forces that terrorized our city are now attacking people in Charlotte. We’re also living in a state of uncertainty about our own future. Shortly after Bovino and his masked band of brutes posed for a souvenir photo at “The Bean” in Millennium Park, a source in DHS told The Chicago Sun-Times that 1,000 agents would hit Chicago’s streets in March. That’s four times the number of agents that were reportedly deployed during Operation Midway Blitz.

    So, as we process this news, and this transition, how should Chicago activists be handling themselves right now?

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Google and Meta delay undersea cable projects over security concerns — Red Sea corridor carries a fifth of global internet traffic, but risk to crews and ships stalls plans

    TeleGeography’s latest status maps show that Meta’s 2Africa cable, a nearly complete 45,000-kilometer system, remains in progress in the Red Sea. Google’s Blue-Raman project, designed to bypass Egypt’s congested corridor by linking Europe and India through Israel and Jordan, must still connect via subsea legs running close to conflict-adjacent areas. According to Bloomberg, both firms have pulled back Red Sea work for now, citing risks to ships and crews.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: The games industry’s self-induced traumatic brain injury

    Given the spectacular improvements in mass storage, there's also no problem migrating data from one system to the next. Back in the 1990s, I stored a ton of my data offline and near-line, on fragile media like floppies, Zip cartridges and DAT cassettes. I pretty much never conducted a full inventory of these disks, checking to see if they were working, much less transferring them to new media. That meant that at every turn, there was the possibility that the media would have rotted; and with every generation, there was the possibility that I wouldn't be able to source a working drive that was capable of reading the old media.

    But somewhere in there, storage got too cheap to meter. I transferred all those floppies – including some Apple ][+ formatted 5.25" disks I'd had since the early 1980s – to a hard drive, which was subsequently transferred to a bigger hard drive (which, paradoxically, was much smaller!) and thence to another bigger (and smaller) drive and so on, up to the 4TB drive that's presently about 7mm beneath my fingers as I type these words.

    This data may not be immortal, but it's certainly a lot more loss-resistant than any comparable tranche of data in human history.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Copyrights

  • Simon Willison ☛ The fate of “small” open source

    Why take on additional supply chain risks adding another dependency when an LLM can likely kick out the subset of functionality needed by your own code to-order?

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Personal/Opinions

    • sexual practices [Ed: Weird think to be writing about publicly]

      These are really raw notes about my sexuality and my practices. It's a bit strange to share, but I feel like we should all talk more about it, so here we are.