Leftovers

• Robert Birming ☛ The blogging community

  If you haven’t tried blogging yet, make sure you do. It’s wonderfully rewarding in so many ways.

• Smithsonian Magazine ☛ This Painting Introduced the World to 'Star Wars.' It Just Became the Most Expensive Item Connected to the Franchise Ever Sold at Auction

  The galactic painting that debuted ahead of Star Wars nearly 50 years ago just sold at auction for $3.9 million. Illustrator Tom Jung’s acrylic and airbrush half-sheet depicts Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and other characters against a starry backdrop. It ran on billboards, magazine pages and subway walls weeks before the 1977 premiere of Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope.

• Christoffer Artmann ☛ 30 Years of
  Tags

  Let's go back to when the web felt like a frontier. The late 90s were a magical time — the [Internet] existed, but nobody really knew what it was going to become. And honestly? That was part of the charm.

  My first website lived on a Unix server my dad set up at his office. He gave me a folder on artmann.se, and suddenly I had a place on the [Internet]. My own little corner of this new world. All I needed was Notepad, some HTML, and an FTP client to upload my files. It was a creative outlet — I could write and publish anything I was interested in that week, whether that was cooking, dinosaurs, or a funny song I'd heard. No gatekeepers, no approval process. Just me and a text editor.

• Science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] The science of human touch – and why it’s so hard to replicate in robots

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] The race to mine the Moon is on – and it urgently needs some clear international rules

  • Kyle Kingsbury ☛ The Future of Radiation Safety is Lies, I Guess

    First, uranium glass emits gamma rays too, not just alpha and beta particles. More importantly, these numbers are hot nonsense.

    First, the Sievert is a measure of dose, not source intensity; saying a piece emits 10 µSv/hour is like saying a heat lamp emits five degrees of warming per minute. It depends on how close you are to the lamp, how much of you is facing it, whether you’re shielded by clothing, and so on. The dose from a uranium glass cup depends on whether you’re chipping off bits and eating them, cuddling it every night, or keeping it in a display case.

  • Rlang ☛ Visualise and Analyse Bathymetric Survey Data with R

    The first step in the value chain for water utilities is extracting water from natural sources, such as rivers, groundwater, oceans, or reservoirs. Water managers and the public alike are interested in knowing how much water a reservoir currently holds. This is not an easy problem to solve, as it requires some analysis to move from survey to volume measurement. This article shows how to visualise and analyse bathymetric survey data using the R language and data from the Prettyboy Reservoir in Maryland, USA.

  • Maury ☛ A sea of sparks: Seeing atoms decay

    For my alpha source, I used a 37 kBq amerercium source from a smoke detector (glued to a stick for easier handling). Other options are old radium paint or pieces of uranium ore with surface mineralization.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Farmers and supermarkets worry that extreme weather will stop food getting to consumers – here’s what needs to change

  • Science Alert ☛ Psilocybin Breaks Depressive Cycles by Rewiring The Brain, Study Suggests

    Scientists have used a specially engineered virus to help track the brain changes caused by psilocybin in mice, revealing how the drug could be breaking loops of depressive thinking.

    This may explain why psilocybin keeps showing positive results for people with depression in clinical trials.

  • Jim Mitchell ☛ Old Habits

    Old habits are sneaky little monkeys. They work every angle they know to quietly slip back into the circus of our lives without us noticing.

• Proprietary

  • GeekWire ☛ Filing: Amazon cuts 84 jobs in Washington state, unrelated to broader layoffs

    Amazon filed a new notice with Washington state Monday morning signaling that it’s cutting 84 jobs, but the individual separations are part of the regular course of business, unrelated to the 14,000 corporate layoffs it announced globally in October.

    The company said each of its businesses regularly reviews its organizational structure and may make adjustments as a result. It’s a routine process, the company said, not tied to broader workforce actions.

    The notice stems from a new state law that requires employers to disclose all terminations occurring within 90 days of a prior notice under the state’s new “mini” version of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the WARN Act.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] A Sober Look at Amazon’s Automation Drive

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ What happens to Roombas now that the company has declared bankruptcy?

    • Vacuum robot maker IRobot filed for bankruptcy and will be acquired by Chinese supplier Picea Robotics, ending its independent operations.

    • Roomba users fear “bricking” — the risk that their smart vacuums will stop working without software updates after the Chinese acquisition takes effect.

  • The Register UK ☛ Roomba maker iRobot gets cleaned out in Chapter 11

    The business entered Chapter 11 proceedings on Sunday and initiated a restructuring support agreement (RSA) that would see Shenzhen-based Picea Robotics acquire the company in full.

  • The Register UK ☛ Amazon security boss blames Russia's GRU for energy hacks

    Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) is behind a years-long campaign targeting energy, telecommunications, and tech providers, stealing credentials and compromising misconfigured devices hosted on AWS to give the Kremlin's snoops persistent access to sensitive networks, according to Amazon's security boss.

  • The Register UK ☛ Apple blocks dev after failed gift card redemption

    This isn't just any developer, either: The unlucky Apple aficionado in this case is Dr. Paris Buttfield-Addison, a Tasmania-based computer scientist who co-founded an award-winning game development company and has written multiple books on developing for Objective-C, the Swift programming language, and iOS.

  • Nick Heer ☛ Locked Out of an Apple Account

    What I am stunned by is the breadth of impact this lockout has, and what a similar problem would mean for me, personally. I do not blame Buttfield-Addison or anyone else for having so much of their digital life ensconced in an Apple Account. Apple has effectively made it a requirement for using the features of its devices and, thanks to Apple’s policy of only trusting itself, creates limitations to using third-party services. You cannot automatically back up an iPhone or iPad to a third-party service, for example, in the same way as you can iCloud. Given this tight control, the bar for locking a user out of their Apple Account and, to some extent, out of their devices should be unbelievably high. Like, it should require the equivalent of a court order internally.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • The Independent UK ☛ Man says wife wants divorce after he drained savings falling for AI scam

      Scammers allegedly used an AI-generated deepfake video of Musk to convince Hendricks he had won a car and a cash prize, and later to build trust.

    • Futurism ☛ Grok Is Making Wildly Contradictory Claims About Rob Reiner's Death

      Grok is giving some wildly contradictory takes on the tragic deaths of the legendary film director and actor Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, in what’s the latest example of AI models bungling breaking news stories.

    • Michigan Advance ☛ States will keep pushing AI laws despite Trump’s efforts to stop them

      But despite those moves, state lawmakers are continuing to prefile legislation related to artificial intelligence in preparation for their 2026 legislative sessions. Opponents are also skeptical about — and likely to sue over — Trump’s proposed national framework and his ability to restrict states from passing legislation.

    • Robert Reich ☛ Again: Beware These Two Oligarchic Bubbles

      AI is worrisome enough as is — its insatiable thirst for energy and water, its capacities to override the wishes of human beings, its potential to destroy the planet.

      The immediate concern is that AI is becoming a financial bubble whose bursting will harm lots of innocent people including, perhaps, you.

      Anyone remember the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s? The housing bubble of 2006? The tulip-mania bubble of the 1630s? The South Sea bubble of 1720?

      They all followed a well-worn pattern.

    • Futurism ☛ The Washington Post Deployed Its Disastrous AI-Generated Podcasts Even After Internal Tests Showed It Was Failing Miserably

      Just as expected, the service — dubbed “Your Personal Podcast” — turned out to be an error-laden disaster right from the jump. As Semafor reported on Friday, many staffers at the embattled newspaper were outraged at the AI inventing and misattributing quotes and misinterpreting basic facts, just some of the extremely well-known and documented shortcomings of large language models.

    • Simon Willison ☛ 2025 Word of the Year: Slop

      2025 Word of the Year: Slop. Slop lost to "brain rot" for Oxford Word of the Year 2024 but it's finally made it this year thanks to Merriam-Webster!

    • Merriam-Webster ☛ Word of the Year 2025 | Slop | Merriam-Webster

      Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen slop as the 2025 Word of the Year. We define slop as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” All that stuff dumped on our screens, captured in just four letters: the English language came through again.

    • [Repeat] Jim Nielsen ☛ It’s Uncomfortable To Sit With “I Don’t Know”

      Kind of feels like this boils down to: How do we know what we know?

      To be fair, that’s a question I’ve wrestled with my whole life.

      And the older I get, the more and more I realize how often we barely know anything.

    • Rolling Stone ☛ 2025: The Year AI Crossed the Line

      This May, the Catholic Church welcomed a new pope. Somewhat surprisingly, the cardinal electors chose an American-born candidate as their new leader. But perhaps more surprising was how often this pontiff, who took the name Leo XIV, would go on to raise the alarm over artificial intelligence again and again in his first year as a globally recognized figure.

      “How can we ensure that the development of artificial intelligence truly serves the common good, and is not just used to accumulate wealth and power in the hands of a few?” Pope Leo XIV asked an audience of academics and industry professionals in a speech at the Vatican on Dec. 5. “Artificial intelligence has certainly opened up new horizons for creativity, but it also raises serious concerns about its possible repercussions on humanity’s openness to truth and beauty, and capacity for wonder and contemplation.”

  • Social Control Media

    • The Conversation ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Rage bait: the psychology behind social media’s angriest posts

    • The Conversation ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Online sharing can push us apart – but when it’s authentic it can bring us together

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Violent online groups like 764 are threatening teen lives. Here's how to protect your kid

      Teens across America are being recruited, groomed and extorted by network of online predators known as 764 that specializes in coercing minors to perform sexual acts and self-harm on camera and, in some cases, encourages teens to kill themselves.

    • BoingBoing ☛ Social media posts may stop you from visiting the United States

      Despite travel warnings from your government, are you thinking about visiting the United States? Can you remember posting anything on Facebook, Xitter, or Bluesky about Trump's love for creating trauma in young people, the notion that white isn't the only skin color that allows for respect from government officials, or a desire to have sex with a bald eagle? If you answered yeah, to any of these questions, there's a very good chance that you should stay at home. Being allowed into America is about to become much more invasive and difficult in the near future.

    • Dhole Moments ☛ Announcing Key Transparency for the Fediverse

      I’m pleased to announce the immediate availability of a reference implementation for the Public Key Directory server.

      This software implements the Key Transparency specification I’ve been working on since last year, and is an important stepping stone towards secure end-to-end encryption for the Fediverse.

    • BoingBoing ☛ Meta knew Chinese ads were scams, kept money

      According to Reuters, Meta's Chinese ad revenue more than doubled between 2022 and 2024, from $7.4 billion to $18.4 billion. By last year, nearly one in five of those dollars came from banned content. An anti-fraud team managed to cut the rate of problematic ads for a while, but after Zuckerberg intervened, the group was dissolved. Fraud rates promptly climbed back to 16% of China revenue by mid-2025.

      China is so central to Meta's scam problem that the company tracks Chinese national holidays to predict global fraud levels — when hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens travel during Golden Week, scam rates drop worldwide. An outside consultancy found Meta's enforcement "inconsistent" compared to competitors, noting that even TikTok maintains stricter standards.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • IT Wire ☛ iTWire - Why Qilin’s Rise Is a Wake-Up Call for Australia’s Financial Sector

      Whilst it’s been around since 2022, Qilin has evolved into a sophisticated ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation that has amassed more than US$50 million in ransom payments in 2024 alone and is now ranked as the most prevalent ransomware in public threat intelligence reports for 2025.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • James Stanley ☛ James Stanley - Anticloaking

      Specifically, I'm looking at anticloaking.

      "Cloaking" is when a phishing site takes steps to hide itself from the Internet security companies. They can block specific IP addresses, block based on geolocation, or potentially do more complex things based on browser User-Agent strings, and so on. A human user might click a link to a phishing site and see their bank's login page, while a bot gets a harmless 404 page.

      Anticloaking is the defence against cloaking.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Techdirt ☛ The UK Has It Wrong On Digital ID. Here’s Why.

      This is the latest example of a government creating a new digital system that is fundamentally incompatible with a privacy-protecting and human rights-defending democracy. This past year alone, we’ve seen federal agencies across the United States explore digital IDs to prevent fraud, the Transportation Security Administration accepting “Digital passport IDs” in Android, and states contracting with mobile driver’s license providers (mDL). And as we’ve said many times, digital ID is not for everyone and policymakers should ensure better access for people with or without a digital ID.

      But instead, the UK is pushing forward with its plans to rollout digital ID in the country. Here’s three reasons why those policymakers have it wrong.

    • India Times ☛ User's consent mandatory for WhatsApp for collection of advertising & non-advertising data: NCLAT

      Appellate tribunal NCLAT on Monday clarified that its order in the WhatsApp matter on privacy and consent safeguards also applies to user data collection and sharing for non-WhatsApp purposes, including non-advertising and advertising.

      Passing an order over an application moved by CCI seeking clarification over the previous order passed by NCLAT, the appellate tribunal said, "Appellant (WhatsApp and Meta) cannot assert unilateral or open-ended rights over user data.

    • Techdirt ☛ Literal Enshittification: ‘Smart’ Toilets Play Fast And Loose With Your Pooping Data

      Companies, like Kohler does here, will often try to dodge responsibility for bad choices by also insisting this data is “anonymized,” but that’s always been a gibberish term. Here in the States, it’s the inevitable enshittified outcome of our corrupt inability to pass even basic internet privacy protections, or implement meaningful corporate oversight. So this sort of shitty behavior will only get worse from here.

    • Jamie Zawinski ☛ Roomba doom

      Let's have a slow clap for the corporate tools who still have to show up at work and try to spin their bankruptcy fire-sale as Line Goes Up: [...]

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Barents Observer ☛ 'Russia uses hybrid threats on Svalbard'

    Norway gained full and absolute sovereignty over Svalbard in 1925 when the Svalbard Treaty was ratified. In 2025, Norway celebrated the 100-year-anniversary of the agreement.

    According to professor Bones, Moscow has conducted numerous hybrid operations and provocations on Svalbard. He argues that the arctic archipelago is part of a broader Russian information campaign that is aimed at testing Western cohesion and the sanctions regime.

    Among the approaches actively applied by Moscow is so-called 'bilateralization.'

    "It's not unusual that great powers that have smaller neighbouring countries in their vicinity, that they want to try and dominate or influence them. One aspect and one way of doing that is to try and tie up the smaller country in bilateral discussions on certain issues, not allowing them room for maneuver, but try and lock them in in a political process. I think that is what the Soviet Union and Russia also have been trying to do with regards to Norway and Norway-Svalbard politics, but has not really been successful in much of that."

    Read the full transcript below

  • The Barents Observer ☛ After three decades of bridge-building comes a plan for detonation

    Norway bet on a democratic development in Russia and invested heavily in building bridges - both literally and in a political and human sense, with neighbouring Russian regions. It failed. The government in Oslo is now preparing a plan for blowing up bridges in case of a Russian attack.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Bondi Beach attack seems driven by 'Islamic State ideology'

    Two IS flags were found in the shooter's car at Bondi Beach, according to ABC.

  • The Age AU ☛ Bondi shooter Naveed Akram’s Islamic State, Al Madina Dawah centre links revealed

    Multiple sources briefed on the investigation into the massacre confirmed Naveed first came to the attention of authorities around the time a cell of IS acolytes was discovered in Sydney’s west.

  • The Nation ☛ Indiana’s Gerrymander Victory Won’t Save Us

    No one should feel reassured at the likelihood that John Roberts can award the GOP a near-unbreakable grip on the House simply by doing two of his favorite things: rendering the Voting Rights Act unworkable and declaring that the way to end racial discrimination is to stop discrimination against white people.

    Nevertheless, let’s be allowed a brief Mr. Smith moment. Authoritarianism thrives amid cowardice and fear. It relies on the bended knee from those who know better, whether members of Congress, the boards of Ivy League universities, partners at Paul, Weiss and Kirkland & Ellis, or the trembling overlords of CBS and ABC.

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ He went from mowing FDR’s lawn to the Battle of the Bulge

    I was overseas a year and a half. When the war was over, Gen. George S. Patton wanted a headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany; I was in his headquarters in late 1945 when he got killed. I came back home, exactly to the day, two years from the time I was inducted. I hadn’t realized it, but they were holding a rural letter carrier job for me at the Staatsburg post office. I got home, I think, on a Friday. And Monday morning I went to work at the post office.

  • TruthOut ☛ Republicans Call for Muslim Americans to Be Deported After Australia Shooting

    “The mass migration of Islamic extremists destroyed Europe. Now, are [sic] witnessing it destroy Australia. We CANNOT allow it to destroy America,” Tuberville added in a second post shortly after.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Bondi Beach shooting latest: Gunman ‘pledged allegiance to Islamic State’

    One of the Bondi Beach gunmen was investigated over suspected ties to an Islamic State terror cell six years ago.

    Naveed Akram, 24, came to the attention of Australia’s spy agency in 2019 over concerns that he had been radicalised [sic] by an IS leader. However, after a six-month investigation by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), he was not deemed an “imminent threat” to the public.

  • Vox ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] The global shadow economy behind Cheeto Mussolini’s latest move on Venezuela

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Ukraine: Zelenskyy to meet US, European officials in Berlin

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] US Envoys Arrive in Berlin for Another Round of Ukraine Peace Talks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Ditches NATO Ambition Ahead of Peace Talks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] US and Ukraine to Discuss Ceasefire in Berlin Before European Summit

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] EU to move Ukraine membership forward despite Hungary veto

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Ukraine: Berlin to host Zelenskyy, allies for talks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Ukraine, US, Europeans Still Working on Common Stance for Peace Push, French Official Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Ukraine Would Join EU by 2027 Under Draft Peace Proposal, FT Reports

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] Ukraine: elections under martial law — but only if it's safe

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] Ukraine updates: US pushing Kyiv to withdraw from Donetsk

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] EU Pushes Ukraine Membership Bid Forward Despite Hungary's Objections

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] Ukraine Hands Revised 20-Point Peace Plan Proposal to US, ABC News Reports

    • CBC ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskyy 'ready for elections' after Cheeto Mussolini suggests Kyiv is 'using war' to avoid them

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Ukraine 'ready' for elections if allies guarantee security

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Ukrainian children being sent to North Korea sparks outrage

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Leaders of Coalition of the Willing on Ukraine to Meet on Thursday

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Poland Could Give Ukraine MiG Jets in Swap for Drone Tech

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Ukraine Can Hold Elections Within Months if Security Is Ensured, Zelenskyy Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] UK's Starmer Says Europe Is 'Strong' and United Behind Ukraine

    • CBC ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Zelenskyy, buoyed by European allies, ready to present revised peace plan to U.S.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] China stays quiet amid new Ukraine peace talks

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy meets Pope Leo to discuss peace plan

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Factbox-Troop Pay, Ukraine and Social Issues - Congress Takes up the 2026 NDAA

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Pope Calls for 'Just and Lasting Peace' After Meeting Ukraine's Zelenskiy

    • CNN ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Russian authorities detain suspect over St. Petersburg cafe blast

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Russia labels DW as an 'undesirable organization'

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] What Russia's 'undesirable' designation means for DW

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Iran's Foreign Minister to Visit Russia and Belarus, Foreign Ministry Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Kremlin Says NATO's Rutte Is Irresponsible to Talk of War With Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Russian Ban on Roblox Gaming Platform Sparks Rare Protest

    • CBC ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] 2 killed in Russia, millions in Ukraine without power as energy infrastructure targeted

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] Ukraine: Russian strikes cut power to thousands

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] One Dead in Russia's Saratov Region After Drone Alert

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] Ukrainian Drone Attack Kills 2 in Russia as Millions in Ukraine Lose Power

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] Two Killed in Ukrainian Drone Strike on Russia's Saratov, Regional Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] Ukraine Says Russian Drone Attack Hit Civilian Turkish Vessel

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] Ukraine's Odesa Suffers Major Blackouts After Russian Attack

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] UK's Starmer and EU's Von Der Leyen Discuss Ukraine Peace Plan, Frozen Russian Assets

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Germany summons Russian ambassador over 'hybrid' attacks

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] US plan to end Russia's war in Ukraine: Where it stands now

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Why Russian attacks on Ukraine endanger Moldova's energy security

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Berlin Summons Russian Ambassador Over Increase in Hybrid Attacks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] EU Open to Accommodate Belgian Concerns on Guarantees in Russian Asset Plan

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Euroclear Can Offset Its Assets Seized by Russia With Russia's Assets -EU

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Russian Police and National Guard Will Stay in Ukraine's Donbas Postwar, a Kremlin Official Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] North Korean Leader Kim Hails Troops Returning From Russia Mission, State Media Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Ukraine Hits Russian Oil Infrastructure in Caspian for Second Time

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Russia Attacks Two Ukrainian Ports, Damaging Three Turkish-Owned Vessels

    • HRW ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] Russia’s Systematic Torture of Ukrainian POWs

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] IOC Advises Sports Bodies to Let Russian Youth Teams, Athletes Compete Again With Flag and Anthem

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] Analysis-Contrasting Views of Russia Show Deepening Republican Split Over Foreign Policy

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] Commanders Tell Putin That Russia Has Captured Siversk in Eastern Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] EU Aims to Agree by Friday to Long-Term Freeze of Russian Central Bank Assets

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] Factbox-How Might Russia React to Any EU Decision to Use Its Frozen Assets for Ukraine?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] NATO's Rutte Warns Allies They Are Russia's Next Target

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] Poland Detains Russian Archaeologist Accused by Ukraine of Stealing Artefacts

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] Russia's Putin Reassures Venezuela's Maduro of Moscow's Support in Call, Kremlin Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] Turning Screws on Russia Should Not Impact Legitimate Maritime Sector, Say Cyprus and Malta

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] Ukraine Hits Russian Oil Rig in Caspian Sea for First Time, Official Says

    • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] A Danish shipyard on Funen has serviced nine ships used by Russia

    • USDOJ ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Justice Department Announces Actions to Combat Two Russian State-Sponsored Hacking Groups

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Russian threats spark calls for tighter German security

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Justice Department Unveils New Charges in Alleged Russia-Backed Cyberattacks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Bulgarian Court Rejects Lebanon's Extradition Request for Russian Over Beirut Blast

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Russia Hits Gas Transport System in Ukraine's Odesa Region, Kyiv Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Russia Says It Awaits an Answer From the US on New START as Nuclear Treaty Ticks Down

    • CISA ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Opportunistic Pro-Russia Hacktivists Attack US and Global Critical Infrastructure

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Germany news: Three on trial over Russia-backed spying plot

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] South Korea scrambles jets amid Chinese and Russian drill

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] China Says It Conducted Air Patrol With Russia in East China Sea, Western Pacific

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Crew Killed in Crash of Russian An-22 Military Plane

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] EU's Costa: We Are Very Close to Solution on Frozen Russian Assets

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] EU's Kallas Says Criticism of Liberties in Europe Should Be Aimed Elsewhere, 'Russia Perhaps'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Top Indian Arms Makers Held Rare Meetings in Russia on Potential Joint Ventures, Sources Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Haven Cafe Shuts as Russian Attacks Turn Ukraine's Kherson Into Ghost Town

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Russian Military Transport Plane Crashes Northeast of Moscow With Seven on Board, State TV Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Russia's Top General Says Army Is Advancing in Ukraine and Targeting Myrnohrad

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] South Korea Scrambles Fighter Jets as Chinese, Russian Warplanes Enter Air Defence Zone

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Zelenskyy Reaffirms His Refusal to Cede Land to Russia as He Rallies European Support

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Nation ☛ What the Noam Chomsky–Jeffrey Epstein E-mails Tell Us

    The directionality of the correspondence is nearly entirely Epstein to Chomsky, with, as far as I can tell from the searchable databases, all of Chomsky’s e-mails being replies to e-mails first sent by Epstein. The last known e-mail that Chomsky sent to Epstein in reply to an e-mail Epstein sent him was on December 26, 2016. The topic was the recently elected Donald Trump.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • TruthOut ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Ecuador Ordered to Pay Amazon-Polluting Chevron $220 Million

    • Truthdig ☛ 2025-12-11 [Older] Ecuador Ordered to Pay Chevron $220 Million for Polluting the Amazon

    • Kentucky Lantern ☛ Ford to convert KY battery plant for energy storage business, reportedly laying off 1,500 workers

      Ford Motor Co. will lay off about 1,500 workers in Kentucky as it converts a ballyhooed plant in Hardin County from making batteries for electric vehicles to making batteries for a new energy storage business.

    • Futurism ☛ Fox News Instructs Viewers to Buy Plastic Christmas Trees So the Real Ones Can Be Sacrificed to Feed the Insatiable Hunger of AI Data Centers

      Maryland is one of many battlegrounds across the country that have sprung up over the rapid construction of AI data centers. The sprawling complexes can bring soaring energy bills, and headache-inducing noise pollution. Some have also been accused of hoovering up their area’s water, leaving behind a desiccated water table. The actual construction of these colossal projects puts a massive strain on communities, too: a once-quiet Louisiana town where a Meta data center is now being built has seen a 600 percent surge in automobile crashes as massive construction trucks keep barreling down its tiny roads and getting into horrific wrecks, including near a school playground.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Indigenous Guard Across the Amazon Unite Forces to Protect Their Territories

    • The Revelator ☛ Piping Plovers Inspire Volunteer Conservationists Despite New Threats From the Trump Administration

  • Overpopulation

    • Kansas Reflector ☛ Kansas Supreme Court examines roiling water dispute between crop irrigators and Hays, Russell

      The Kansas Supreme Court endured a crossfire of claims and counterclaims Monday about whether an association of Edwards County irrigators can try to thwart plans by Hays and Russell to make use of water rights acquired decades ago to pipe water drawn from a rural aquifer to the cities.

    • Court House News ☛ Mexico begins water deliveries to US, avoiding 5% Trump tariff

      On Dec. 4, the Mexican Senate approved changes reinforcing human rights to water, banning the transfer of water concessions between private entities, limiting changes in water use, creating a new national water registry and beefing up fines for water mismanagement.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Barents Observer ☛ Banned and blocked. Russia says good-bye to messaging apps

    Prior to this, Facebook, Instagram, Signal, Viber, Google Meet and several more services were also blocked.

    Restrictions have also been introduced on the use of Telegram.

  • New York Times ☛ Pelosi Long Resisted Stock-Trading Ban for Congress, Fueling Suspicion

    It was 10 days before Christmas in 2021, and Representative Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the House, was asked at her weekly news conference about an issue to which she had not given much thought.

    “Should members of Congress and their spouses be banned from trading individual stocks while serving in Congress?” asked Bryan Metzger, a reporter for Business Insider.

  • The Register UK ☛ The ‘Palantir-ization’ of IT services is upon us

    Former Palantir CIO Jim Siders has departed the company to join Shield Technology Partners as CEO, in a bid he says is meant to bring AI to bear in the sprawling managed services landscape.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ A brief history of Scam Altman’s hype

    Each time you’ve heard a borderline outlandish idea of what AI will be capable of, it often turns out that Scam Altman was, if not the first to articulate it, at least the most persuasive and influential voice behind it.

    For more than a decade he has been known in Silicon Valley as a world-class fundraiser and persuader. OpenAI’s early releases around 2020 set the stage for a mania around large language models, and the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 granted Altman a world stage on which to present his new thesis: that these models mirror human intelligence and could swing the doors open to a healthier and wealthier techno-utopia.

  • Wired ☛ OpenAI’s Chief Communications Officer Is Leaving the Company

    OpenAI’s chief communications officer, Hannah Wong, announced internally on Monday that she is leaving the company in January, WIRED has learned. In a statement to WIRED, OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood confirmed the departure.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Only Fans star Bonnie Blue breaks silence over Bali arrest, 10-year ban from country: ‘I'm rich and…’

    In another video, which she posted on Instagram right before her sentencing, Blue said of the woman, “The girl that organised this whole trip for me, she was like: ‘Oh, I’ll sort security, hotels, lawyer, flights, everything.’[She] charged me £75,000 ($150,000) – she has taken a big chunk of the money and then has reported me to the police, so thanks.”

  • India Times ☛ Roomba maker iRobot files for bankruptcy, to go private after buyout

    Roomba maker iRobot has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US and will be taken private by its main manufacturer, Picea. Pressured by weak demand, tariffs and cheaper Chinese rivals, its valuation has collapsed. The company says operations, products and customer support will continue without disruption.

  • New York Times ☛ How Tech’s Biggest Companies Are Offloading the Risks of the A.I. Boom

    Those deals had one thing in common: They allowed companies that make massive quarterly profits to reduce their financial exposure to the frenetic, global buildup of data centers.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] TikTok Videos On Gout Misleading, Inaccurate, Experts Say

    • The Moscow Times ☛ EU Sanctions Target Russia’s ‘Shadow Fleet’ Backers and Disinformation Networ

      In a separate tranche of sanctions, the EU targeted individuals accused of being involved in disinformation and cyber operations. Among them is John Mark Dougan, a former U.S. Marine and Florida deputy sheriff who fled to Russia in 2016 and later obtained Russian citizenship.

      European intelligence documents cited last year by The Washington Post said Dougan had worked with Russia’s GRU military intelligence service to spread information aimed at undermining former Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid last year.

      Eleven other Russian nationals were sanctioned for their alleged roles in Kremlin-aligned media platforms, think tanks or a GRU-linked cyber unit accused of attacks on European targets.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Fact check: Fake news spreads after Bondi Beach shooting

      After the Bondi Beach shooting in Sydney, false claims and AI-generated content are spreading online. DW debunks viral misinformation about the attack.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • CPJ ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Ethiopian TikTok journalist Eyob Shimelis detained after corruption reporting

  • RTL ☛ "Attacked by plain clothed agents": Iran Nobel winner unwell after 'violent' arrest: supporters

    Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi was taken to hospital twice after being violently arrested last week, her supporters said Monday, following a telephone call with the campaigner that raised concerns about her physical condition.

    Mohammadi, who won the 2023 Nobel prize, was detained Friday after addressing a memorial ceremony in the eastern city of Mashhad for lawyer Khosrow Alikordi, who was found dead earlier this month.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Why China's property crash must be kept top secret

    As home sales continue to plummet, Beijing has curbed independent reporting of real estate figures. The gag order masks a deepening property slump that continues to erode household wealth and strain China's banks.

  • EFF ☛ EFF, Open Rights Group, Big Brother Watch, and Index on Censorship Call on UK Government to Repeal Online Safety Act

    The legislation is a threat to user privacy, restricts free expression by arbitrating speech online, exposes users to algorithmic discrimination through face checks, and effectively blocks millions of people without a personal device or form of ID from accessing the internet. The briefing highlights how, in the months since the OSA came into effect, we have seen the legislation: [...]

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Labour’s watered-down ‘Islamophobia’ definition will still undermine free speech

    That’s a reference to the definition of “Islamophobia” the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims came up with in 2018 and which was enthusiastically adopted by the Labour Party. Admittedly, that was worse than the new one. It said anyone using the phrases “Muslim grooming gangs” and “Asian grooming gangs” was an “Islamophobe”. According to Baroness Casey’s 2025 report on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse, it was “fear of appearing racist” that made some people reluctant to speak out about the grooming gangs.

    But just because the new definition isn’t as bad as the old one doesn’t mean it won’t have a chilling effect on free speech. It includes “prejudicial stereotyping” as a form of anti-Muslim hatred, and that could inhibit a social worker or school teacher in a Muslim area from drawing attention to child sexual exploitation, not to mention female genital mutilation or forced marriages.

  • [Old] Steve Jackson Games ☛ Mike Godwin's Anti-Censorship Speech at CMU

    My name is Mike Godwin, and I'm a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. My organization, EFF, stands for the proposition that freedom of speech must be protected, not only in the traditional media of speech, print, and broadcasting, but also in the vital new medium of computer communications.

    We are not here merely because we are angry, but also because we are grieving over the imminent death of academic freedom at CMU. This fight is not over yet--they still want to review the alt.sex newsgroups and kill the ones they find most embarrassing.

  • [Old] EFF ☛ 10th Anniversary of USSS Raid on Steve Jackson Games & Illuminati BBS

    On March 1, 1990, the United States Secret Service (USSS) nearly destroyed Steve Jackson Games (SJG), an award-winning publisher of roleplaying games in Austin, Texas.

    Today marks ten years to the day since that fateful search and seizure operation, which led to one of the most important precedent-setting lawsuits in online history, the Electronic Frontier Foundation-backed case of Steve Jackson Games, et al. v. US Secret Service.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Donald Trump sues BBC for up to $10bn over edit of January 6 speech

    In a complaint filed on Monday evening, Trump sought $5bn in damages each on two counts: alleging that the BBC defamed him, and that violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

  • The Barents Observer ☛ Barents Observer journalist Olesia Krivtsova to be tried under 'foreign agent' article

    According to documents published on the website of the Korochansky District Court, Krivtsova is to be tried for ‘acting as a foreign agent without being included in the register of foreign agents.’ In other words, the charges are retrospective; the journalist's offence is that she did not report herself as a foreign agent.

  • France24 ☛ Trump sues BBC over edited US Capitol speech, seeks $5 billion in damages - France 24

    The documentary drew scrutiny after the leak of a BBC memo by an external standards adviser that raised concerns about how it was edited, part of a wider investigation of political bias at the publicly funded broadcaster.

  • NDTV ☛ Trump Says He Will File Lawsuit Against BBC Today

    A firestorm erupted over the edited clip in early November, leading the BBC director-general and the organization's top news executive to resign.

  • Variety ☛ Trump Sues BBC Over Edited Jan. 6 Documentary, Seeking $10B in Damages

    The lawsuit was filed Monday by Trump’s lawyers in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami, alleging defamation and violation of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Trump’s lawsuit demands no less than $5 billion in damages for each of the two counts, amounting to more than $10 billion total.

  • CPJ ☛ Belarusian journalist Maryna Zolatava released after serving over 4 years in prison

    “We are relieved that journalist Maryna Zolatava is finally free, but she shouldn’t have spent a second in jail,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Senior Researcher Anna Brakha. “At least 24 journalists remain imprisoned in Belarus for doing nothing but their job. Authorities must immediately release them all.”

  • Paul Krugman ☛ MAGA, the Broligarchs and the Media

    First, there’s an antitrust issue. In an earlier era, when the U.S. government took monopoly power seriously, both proposed acquisitions would probably have been blocked by regulators.

    Second, there’s a financial issue. On its own, there is no way that Paramount, which is deeply in debt and whose credit rating is “a notch below ‘junk’” could afford to buy Warner. It’s able to make a semi-credible bid only because of assurances of support from Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men thanks to his stake in the software giant Oracle. But when analysts look closely at the details, they find that Ellison’s promises of support are more than a bit squirrely: [...]

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Arkansas Advocate ☛ Justice Dept. action leaves Feds without key tool to prove bias in schools

    The provision stems from Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in education, housing, health care and transportation. Historically, federal agencies used the law to warn districts that they could lose federal funds if they didn’t comply with orders to desegregate schools. Under the Department of Justice rule, officials could use data to determine whether discrimination exists.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ America Can’t Build Homes Anymore

    Cities stopped building not by accident but by design. Our housing system is constructed on scarcity, speculation, and private veto power.

  • 404 Media ☛ Woman Who Helped Coerce Victims into GirlsDoPorn Sex Trafficking Ring Sentenced to Prison

    US Attorney Alexandra Foster read impact statements from victims, according to the report. “Valorie Moser was the one who picked me up and drove me to the hotel where I was trafficked,” an anonymous victim wrote, as read by Foster. “Her role was to make me feel more comfortable because women trust other women. She reassured me on the way to the hotel that everything would be OK... She wasn’t just a bookkeeper, she was a willing participant. She deserves to be sentenced to jail.”

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Break up bad companies; replace bad union bosses

    Unions are not perfect. Indeed, it is possible to belong to a union that is bad for workers: either because it is weak, or corrupt, or captured (or some combination of the three).

    Take the "two-tier contract." As unions lost ground – thanks to changes in labor law enforcement under a succession of both Republican and Democratic administrations – labor bosses hit on a suicidal strategy for contract negotiations. Rather than bargaining for a single contract that covered all the union's dues-paying members, these bosses negotiated contracts that guaranteed benefits for existing members, but did not extend these benefits to new members: [...]

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • The Local DK ☛ Denmark drops plan to restrict use of VPNs

    The text of a recent government bill said it would ban the use of VPNs in Denmark “to access media content which would otherwise not be available in Denmark, or to circumvent blocks on illegal websites.”

  • The Register UK ☛ Cloudflare report shows mobile, bot traffic growing

    In its 2025 Year in Review, Cloudflare notes that [Internet] traffic worldwide grew by almost a fifth, with the increases coming in fits and starts. In fact, traffic was somewhat flat through mid-April and even experienced a mysterious dip before bouncing back sharply to 5 percent growth during May.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Publishers Weekly ☛ Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks

    The decision made this winter by ReaderLink to stop distributing mass market paperback books at the end of 2025 was the latest blow to a format that has seen its popularity decline for years. According to Circana BookScan, mass market unit sales plunged from 131 million in 2004 to 21 million in 2024, a drop of about 84%, and sales this year through October were about 15 million units. But for many years, the mass market paperback was “the most popular reading format,” notes Stuart Applebaum, former Penguin Random House EVP of corporate communications. Applebaum was also once a publicist at Bantam Books, one of the publishers credited with turning mass market paperbacks into what he calls “a well-respected format.”

  • Pete Brown ☛ So long, mass market paperbacks…

    So I guess I have mixed feelings about the news that they are going away. Then again, I tend to have mixed feelings about most things.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Software Patents

    • Torrent Freak ☛ Hollywood Warns: ‘Extortionary’ Codec Patent Fees Could Hike Streaming Subscription Prices

      For decades, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has been Hollywood's main protector of intellectual property rights, especially when it relates to piracy. In a recent federal lawsuit, however, the roles are reversed. Siding with Disney, the MPA calls out alleged IP abuse and "extortionary" patent demands linked to the H.264 and H.265 codecs, which they fear might inflate subscription fees of streaming services.

• Copyrights

  • Press Gazette ☛ Major publishers back universal AI licensing technology

    The technology has been endorsed by some 1,500 media organisations around the world including People Inc, Yahoo! and Associated Press.

    Based on the widely adopted RSS (Really Simple Syndication) standard, RSL 1.0 augments the simple yes/no blocking rules of robots.txt with what it calls “a universal language for content rights and licensing terms, offering a scalable economic foundation for the AI-first [Internet]”.

  • Creative Commons ☛ CC Signals: What We've Been Working On

    As we look back on 2025, it’s clear that the internet as we know it is changing. Technology-enabled access to knowledge should be flourishing. Instead, information is being removed from the web or locked away in walled gardens. We are experiencing a crisis in the commons, driven in part by current AI development practices. New systems are emerging in response—from content monetization schemes and licensing agreements designed to protect large rightsholders, to the ongoing morass of lawsuits about how AI services are using content as data. We are in the midst of a major reconfiguration of how we share and reuse content on the web.

  • The Register UK ☛ Denmark takes a Viking swing at VPN-enabled piracy

    Proposed amendments to the country's laws on copyright and broadcasting would see VPNs limited for common uses under changes to combat access to illegal streaming services.