Leftovers

• Soeren ☛ Reminder: New Year, New URL

  I mentioned it in the last post: To give this blog a more personal touch, I switched the URL to https://soeren.one.

• Sean Goedecke ☛ 2025 was an excellent year for this blog

  In 2025, I published 141 posts, 33 of which made it to the front page of Hacker News or similar aggregators. I definitely wrote more in the first half of the year (an average of around 15 posts per month, down to around 8 in the second half), but overall I’m happy with my consistency. Here are some posts I’m really proud of: [...]

• Pete Brown ☛ Writing on the Internet and elsewhere

  Then go start your own, and stop turning all your thoughts over to extractive industries. Get a notebook and a pencil, and write what you’re thinking there. Start a blog. Write it there.

• Matt Webb ☛ My top posts in 2025

  According to Fathom, my most trafficked posts of 2025 were (in descending order): [...]

• Lou Plummer ☛ Sub Sandwich Surveillance and the End of Magic

  As a certified Old, I remember the magic, and I miss it. I know how cool technology can be. I know there are still real possibilities. But kids today think the enshittified Internet is the only Internet there ever was. It isn’t—and it didn’t have to turn out this way.

• Kev Quirk ☛ How Do You Read My Content?

  It’s well publicised that I don’t run any kind of analytics on this site. For me, engagement is far more important. But I’m trying to better understand how you fine people consume the waffle I spit out into the world.

• Jonas Hietala ☛ Jonas Hietala: 2025 in review

  I took a big step forward in de-Googling and to increase my personal security by moving to GrapheneOS. I’m super happy about it.

• Jeremy Cherfas ☛ Monthly report: December 2025

  Still happy with the idea of moving stuff away from Dreamhost and Amazon to Hetzner, but having great difficulty getting my head around how different things can work on the same server. In Dreamhost, you don't really see any of that. Maybe I should do webhosting rather than a server at Hetzner. Very hard to learn about these things. Very grateful to friends who help, though I do not want to be a pest.

• Henry Desroches ☛ Things I did in 2025 that have nothing to do with the [Internet]

• Don Marti ☛ Eurostack links for 3 Jan 2026

• Coyote ☛ osteophage | Which Part of the Indie Web Ethos is the Bigger Priority?

  Although normally spoken about as a cohesive whole, different aspects of the indie web ethos can wind up in tension with each other, which raises the question of which one ultimately takes priority. On the one hand, we have the general interest in onboarding, i.e. helping more people onto the indie web; on the other hand, the issue of onboarding can place some strain on other commonly touted ideals. At the end of the day, which form of independence matters most? And what does the answer entail for our understanding of who the indie web is “for”?

  Note: this post uses the term “indie web” for convenience, but if you prefer some other similar term, you’re still invited to the conversation.

• Clayton Errington ☛ The start of week notes - W01

  Well look at that, week 1 of 2026 is coming to a close. I’m going to try and get some week notes done this year. I want to start writing down more of the accomplishments, difficulties, and random thoughts I found throughout the week. That way when I need to go back and remember what I did throughout the year I have a way to do that.

• Andre Franca ☛ Psychology of Get-Rich Scams

  Get-rich scams annoy me more than they should. Not because they exist, but because I keep seeing the same movie on repeat, and some people I like falling for it. Different faces, same promises, same emotional buttons being pressed like clockwork. Every time someone swears they’ve cracked the system, my first thought isn’t curiosity because I already know where this goes. It's exhausting.

• Science

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] 7 mysterious languages that have yet to be deciphered

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Flowering plant origins: Dosage-sensitive genes suggest no whole-genome duplications in ancestral angiosperm

    Angiosperms, also known as flowering plants, represent the most diverse group of seed plants, and their origin and evolution have long been a central question in plant evolutionary biology. Whole-genome duplication (WGD), or polyploidization, is widely recognized as a key driver of the origin and trait evolution of both seed plants and angiosperms.

  • Science Alert ☛ A Hidden Source of Power May Have Been Discovered Surrounding Our Cells

    The researchers reasoned that cells aren't in strict equilibrium, with activity inside the cell churning away to keep us alive. Whether it would be enough to turn a lipid membrane into an engine required a few detailed formulations.

• Career/Education

  • Chronicle Of Higher Education ☛ Under a Convicted Felon Deal, International Students Are Singled Out for 'Open Debate' Training

    Higher ed advocates say the new mandate, at Northwestern University, could be helpful but seems patronizing.

  • Phil Eaton ☛ Distinguishing yourself early in your career as a developer

    Hello [Redacted]! You asked about a friend's son who is a recent graduate looking for work as a software developer and having a hard time.

    I like to think of three key aspects of getting a job: 1) knowing where to apply, 2) getting an interview at all, and 3) passing the interview.

  • Westenberg ☛ The Case for Blogging in the Ruins

    Diderot's project was fundamentally about building infrastructure for thinking. He wanted to create a shared repository of human knowledge that anyone could access, organized in a way that invited exploration and cross-referencing. He believed that structuring information properly could change how people thought.

    He was right.

    270 years later, we have more information than any civilization in history. But aside from Wikipedia, we've organized the sum total of our collective knowledge into formats optimized for making people angry at strangers in pursuit of private profitability.

    Something has gone terribly wrong.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] Germany news: Town body seeks €500m to curb loneliness

  • El País ☛ Gary Stevenson: ‘The left has a problem when it comes to how it perceives young men’

    “One of the best parts of a society like Japan’s is that people spend a lot of time thinking about others. And if they are concerned about you, you can spend less time being concerned about yourself. Egotism does not lead to happiness. You should be less worried about whether you sing well or poorly. I’m not Buddha, I’m just as big an asshole as everyone else. But simply put, I’ve decided to dedicate my life to a mission,” he explains. That mission is raising awareness about the necessity of raising taxes on the rich. Stevenson wants to put an end to inequality, because he is convinced that, if that is fixed, the rest will follow.

  • Søren ☛ 2026 Goals — Søren's Blog

    Below, is a summary of things I want to achieve in 2026.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Tea over coffee first thing has worked oddly well

    I doubt there’s much scientific or medical basis for this, and everyone’s physiology is different. But I think I might be a tea-at-breakfast and coffee-at-lunch guy. Who’d have thunk it?

  • Mark Phillips ☛ Reviewing my 2025 mindfulness practice

    I started meditating many years ago, initially discounting it as ‘woo-woo’. That I am here now, writing about my ninth year of practice, probably tells you how I’ve found it in reality.

    Although I have stuck to the practice since 2017, I have been through phases where I’ve not shown up for weeks. Last year though, I was determined to stick to more regular sessions. This turned out to be three to four times each week.

• Proprietary

  • Phil Gyford ☛ NetNewsWire, Kagi, maybe Orion?

    A few notes on some apps and services I’m switching for the New Year.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ New Parents Mocked for Letting Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot Name Their Baby

      "It's all so gross."

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Grok under fire for sexualizing women and children's images

      The widespread circulation of erotic images on X has sparked concern across several countries.

      Lawmakers in France have reported X ⁠to prosecutors and regulators over the disturbing images, saying in a statement on Friday the "sexual and sexist" content was "manifestly illegal."

    • SBS ☛ Worried about AI taking your job? Experts say that's only half the story

      Experts say the impact of AI on jobs is complex, with both potential disruptions and opportunities.

      New research from the Australian HR Institute (AHRI) paints a nuanced picture. According to the research, entry-level roles in the Australian workforce have increased in the short term due to AI.

    • Digital Music News ☛ Napster Music Streaming Service Abruptly Shuts Down, Pivots to AI

      “Napster is no longer a music streaming service. We’ve become an AI platform for creating and experiencing music in new ways. That means the streaming catalog and playlists from the old app won’t work here,” the splash screen reads. “We know this can be frustrating, especially if you spent years building your playlists. To make things easier, you can export all your Napster playlists in just a few clicks.”

      The pivot into AI isn’t unexpected—the brand was purchased by AI company Infinite Reality last year—but for users of the music streaming service, to call it jarring is an understatement. Users on Reddit lamented Napster’s foray last year into AI music creation while it was still a music streaming service, although some users said the new tools were fun to play around with. Many users expressed having walked away from the service altogether.

    • Wired ☛ The US Invaded Venezuela and Captured Nicolás Maduro. ChatGPT Disagrees

      Some AI chatbots have a surprisingly good handle on breaking news. Others decidedly don’t.

    • Benjamin Mako Hill ☛ Effects of Algorithmic Flagging on Fairness: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Wikipedia

      In our paper published at CSCW, Nate TeBlunthuis, together with myself and Aaron Halfaker, analyzed the RCFilters system: an add-on to Wikipedia that highlights and filters edits that a machine learning algorithm called ORES identifies as likely to be damaging to Wikipedia. This system has been deployed on large Wikipedia language editions and is similar to other algorithmic flagging systems that are becoming increasingly widespread. Our work measures the causal effect of being flagged in the RCFilters user interface.

    • [Old] Orson R L Peters ☛ Why Bad AI Is Here to Stay

      It seems that in 2025 a lot of people fall into one of two camps when it comes to AI: skeptic or fanatic. The skeptic thinks AI sucks, that it’s overhyped, it only ever parrots nonsense and it will all blow over soon. The fanatic thinks general human-level intelligence is just around the corner, and that AI will solve almost all our problems. I hope my title is sufficiently ambiguous to attract both camps. The fanatic will be outraged, being ready to jump into the fray to point out why AI isn’t or won’t stay bad. The skeptic will feel validated, and will be eager to read more reasons as to why AI sucks.

      I’m neither a skeptic nor a fanatic. I see AI more neutrally, as a tool, and from that viewpoint I make the following two observations: [...]

  • Social Control Media

    • [Old] Søren ☛ Giving Up Social Media

      Short answer is: Last week, I created a draft for an upcoming blog type that I am about to delete my LinkedIn profile and with that the last social media account that I still have.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Security Week ☛ Two US Cybersecurity Pros Plead Guilty Over Ransomware Attacks

      Ryan Goldberg and Kevin Martin have admitted being affiliates of the BlackCat/Alphv ransomware group.

    • Federal News Network ☛ The Pentagon’s short more than 20,000 cyber pros. Veterans could help fill the gap.

      "The leadership training we get as active-duty military, attention to detail, operational excellence…makes you good in the private sector," Ryan Dunford said.

• Security

  • Security Week ☛ RondoDox Botnet Exploiting React2Shell Vulnerability

    In December, the botnet’s operators focused on weaponizing the flaw to compromise vulnerable Next.js servers.

  • Security Week ☛ Covenant Health Data Breach Impacts 478,000 Individuals

    The Qilin ransomware group hacked the healthcare organization and stole data from its systems in May 2025. 

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] Ghana says Nigerian nationals arrested for online fraud

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Flock Exposes Its AI-Enabled Surveillance Cameras

      404 Media has the story:

      Unlike many of Flock’s cameras, which are designed to capture license plates as people drive by, Flock’s Condor cameras are pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras designed to record and track people, not vehicles. Condor cameras can be set to automatically zoom in on people’s faces as they walk through a parking lot, down a public street, or play on a playground, or they can be controlled manually, according to marketing material on Flock’s website.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Treasury removes Intellexa spyware-linked trio from sanctions list

      The three Iranians had only just been added to the list in 2024, but a U.S. official said they had separated themselves from the company.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft silently kills Windows and Office phone activation and forces online activation with a Microsoft account — Windows users are now herded into an online-only portal for activation

      Now, it'd be reasonable to assume that something as archaic as calling to activate your license had probably been sunset long ago. However, you'll be surprised to learn that Microsoft still lists it as a viable method in its support docs. This is particularly important for people on older operating systems like Windows 7, who expect an offline alternative to Microsoft’s now-online-only activation systems.

    • The Washington Post ☛ How to delete your data in one easy step

      California just gave its 40 million residents a permanent delete button for a largely covert part of the personal data economy.

    • [Old] Jake Howard ☛ Why I returned my Proton subscription

      For the last few years, I've been a pretty happy Fastmail user - I've used them personally and professionally on and off for a decade. As security and privacy go, they do the best they can. Emails are encrypted at rest on their servers, but it's not end-to-end - that's a trade-off they make for features (hopefully). However, I care about my security and privacy. Fastmail are open that their staff can read emails due to the nature of their job, and that they have to comply with Australian law enforcement (and in some cases, US). Proton on the other hand, can't. The second emails are received on their servers, they're encrypted with a key only I hold, and only decrypted on my devices - there's no way for them, or anyone else, to access my emails.

      Given most of my other service choices are done in the interest of security and privacy, I'd like to do the same for my email. At the end of November was Black Friday - a week (yes, a week long Friday) of discounts. Proton had a Black Friday sale offering between 50% - 70% off their "Proton Ultimate" subscription. So, after spending a week doing research, I committed and clicked buy.

      However, before I even moved my email or domains over, I contacted support and requested a refund. Not because there was anything wrong with Proton Mail, but because on reflection it wasn't for me. That might sound confusing and surprising for some, so I want to explain why.

  • Confidentiality

    • University of Toronto ☛ The complexities of getting programs to report the TLS certificates they use

      One of the practical reasons that TLS certificates have dangerous expiry times is that in most environments, it's up to you to remember to add monitoring for each TLS certificate that you use, either as part of general purpose monitoring of the service or specific monitoring for certificate expiry. It would be nice if programs that used TLS certificates inherently monitored their expiry, but that's a fairly big change (for example, you have to decide how to send alerts about that information). A nominally easier change would be for programs routinely to be able to report what TLS certificates they're using, either as part of normal metrics and log messages or through some additional command line switch.

    • Chris Fenner ☛ Decorative Cryptography

      All encryption is end-to-end, if you’re not picky about the ends.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Carole Cadwalladr ☛ The Threat from America

    A mass propaganda event is about to engulf the US and what, if anything survives it, will be a lesson for our times.

    But it’s what the rest of the world does now that’s key.

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ We Are the Bad Guys

    That’s all. Not drug trafficking. Many nations, including America, are full of drug trafficking. Donald Trump has pardoned multiple large drug traffickers. It’s not about drug trafficking.

    Is it about how Maduro is not a uhhhhhh…. legitimately elected leader? Did the guy who in 2020 tried to foment a violent overthrow of the United States Congress in order to reinstall himself as president after he lost an election just attack a small nation because he cares about pure democracy so much? No. That did not happen.

  • The Next Move ☛ Venezuela Deserves Democracy, Not a Protection Racket

    But there’s an important caveat here: pushing out the dictator is merely a tactic. You don’t chop off an infected limb and just leave the patient to languish. They will bleed out and die.

    At this stage, it appears that there is either no strategy—or that the Trump administration’s strategy is not about ensuring freedom for Venezuela.

  • New Yorker ☛ The Brazen Illegality of Trump’s Venezuela Operation

    A scholar of international law on the implications of the U.S. arrest of President Nicolás Maduro.

  • The Nation ☛ Members of Congress Decry Trump’s Act of War on Venezuela as “Illegal”

    Senators and House members accuse Trump and his aides of disregarding the Constitution and lying to Congress.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ France targets Australia-style social media ban for children next year

    Draft bill to be submitted for legal checks as France aims to follow Australia’s world-first ban on platforms including Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube

  • New York Times ☛ Coast Guard Suspends Search for Survivors of Latest Boat Strikes

    The service said that conditions in the area where the search was taking place included nine-foot seas and winds approaching 50 miles per hour.

  • France24 ☛ 'A lot of questions asked' about Crans-Montana bar's security after deadly fire

    Swiss investigators are probing what caused a fire in a bar at an Alpine ski resort that left around 40 people dead and another 115 injured during a New Year's celebration. The severity of the burns has made it very difficult to identify bodies, and Swiss authorities say it could take weeks before all victims have been identified. FRANCE 24's Olivia Bizot spoke to several witnesses of the fire in Crans-Montana.

  • US funding cuts may affect Nigeria’s fight against terrorism – here’s how

    The United States decision to cut international aid funding will affect Nigeria in various ways.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] Greenland PM 'sad' over Cheeto Mussolini push for US control of island

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] Australia's NSW poised for gun law reform after Bondi attack

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] Call of Duty co-creator Vince Zampella dies in LA car crash

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] Venezuela passes bill criminalizing oil tanker seizures

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] US: Pennsylvania nursing home rocked by twin explosions

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] US Supreme Court blocks National Guard deployment in Chicago

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] Japan's growing engagement with Taiwan angers China

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] Kosovo: Will elections break the political gridlock?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] Thailand, Cambodia resume border peace talks once more

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] The Christmas truce of 1914: When the guns fell silent

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] India's space agency launches its heaviest satellite yet

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] From coup to ballot box: Guinea votes

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] Germany's far-right AfD may seize regional power in 2026

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] North Korea shows progress in construction nuclear submarine

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] Israel says operative of Iran's Quds Force killed in Lebanon

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] Jews in Morocco: A small community, often overlooked

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Russia calls U.S. military action in Venezuela ‘armed aggression,’ as Kyiv rejects Maduro’s legitimacy — Meduza

    • Atlantic Council ☛ The evolution of Latvia’s defense and security policy in resilience building

      Latvia has embraced a broader concept of national resilience encompassing not only military strength but also the resilience of its society, the continuity of government and essential services during crises, the protection of critical infrastructure, and the cultivation of psychological defense among its populace.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Computational Complexity ☛ Computational Complexity: The Betty White Award for 2025

    The point of the award is that news outlets and blogs should WAIT until Jan before having any articles that look back on the prior year. (I tell Lance we should have our end-of-the-year post in January just in case someone solves P vs NP the last week of December. [Lance: I'm not worried])

• Environment

  • Ted Gioia ☛ Why Secondhand Is Now Better Than New

    Something unusual is happening in the world of gifting. I saw it during the recent holiday season—and you may have too.

    The Wall Street Journal noticed it a few weeks ago. People are now buying secondhand gifts. The sheer numbers are staggering—in a recent survey, 82% of consumers said they’re more likely to purchase pre-owned items for holiday presents.

  • BIA Net ☛ 2025-12-29 [Older] Storks in eastern Turkey increasingly skip migration due to warming climate

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-29 [Older] Climate coverage shrinks amid Cheeto Mussolini's clean energy misinformation

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-29 [Older] South Korea’s Climate Pledge to Cut Coal, Lower Emissions Clash With US Push for LNG Purchases

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-26 [Older] Vermont’s Climate Superfund Law Pushes Forward as Federal Lawsuits Seek to Block It

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] Michigan lost billions in climate-related investments in Cheeto Mussolini’s first year

  • TruthOut ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] Climate Protesters Face Greater Risk of Crackdown Amid Rising Authoritarianism

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] Federal Judge Upholds Hawaii's New Climate Change Tax on Cruise Passengers

  • Scheerpost ☛ 2025-12-22 [Older] ‘The Poor Are in a Very Bad State’: Climate Change Accelerates California’s Cost-of-Living Crisis

  • Energy/Transportation

    • 2025-12-24 [Older] Hubble threatened by Starlink? By 2040, satellites will spoil nearly all photos from space telescopes

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] Tanzania: Five dead in helicopter crash on Mt. Kilimanjaro

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] How Germany's Deutsche Bahn aims to fix chronic delays

    • Vox ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] 7 reasons to feel actually hopeful about the clean energy transition

    • Terence Eden ☛ Where is Bitcoin?

      None advertised accepting crypto.

      Due to the language barrier and the risk of looking like a bellend, I didn't actually ask anyone if I could pay with crypto. But every bill we were handed told me which (fiat) currencies I could pay in. The tip-jars let me tap my card or drop my (metal) coins. There were signs warning that I couldn't use American Express.

      But, again, no mention of crypto.

    • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] Christmas leftovers provide extra green energy

    • The Conversation ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] Two-way electric vehicle charging at scale could stop renewable energy being wasted – here’s how it works

    • Mexico News Daily ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] Mexico sends 80,000 barrels of oil to Cuba as island battles energy crisis

    • TruthOut ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini’s Embrace of Natural Gas Exports Is Driving Up Energy Bills for Consumers

    • Vox ☛ 2025-12-22 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini’s war on windmills, briefly explained

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] Shelter Pets Rescued by the Revitalized Seuk’s Army in Photos

• Finance

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] US 'Powerball' lottery winner scoops $1.8 billion jackpot

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] Swiss Prosecutors Drop Probe Into Banking Blog

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] Germany news: Every 3rd food bank beneficiary is a child

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] Germany's Steinmeier: 'A light is shining in the darkness'

  • Ruben Schade ☛ That’s too expensive… for me

    Still, price is ultimately a judgement call only you can make, because it takes into account your personal circumstances, tastes, preferences, constraints, and interests. Would you be willing to pay for that device at that price, or would you leave it on the shelf? Which then follows that just because you wouldn’t buy it at that price, doesn’t mean nobody would. Nor does it mean that the people who did buy it have somehow been duped, or are not rational, or so on.

  • [Old] Martin Kleppmann ☛ Accounting for Computer Scientists

    Every educated person really ought to have a basic understanding of accounting. Just like maths, science, programming, music, literature, history, etc., it’s one of those things which helps you make sense of the world. Although dealing with money is not much fun, it’s an unavoidable part of life, so you might as well take a few minutes to understand it.

    Sadly, in my opinion, most accountants do a terrible job of explaining their work in an accessible way; it’s a field full of jargon, acronyms and weird historical legacies. Even “Bookkeeping for Dummies” makes my head spin. Surely this stuff can’t be that difficult?

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ 2025 in review: an interesting year

    We all know this hasn’t just been interesting. It’s been a year of normalized chaos, of permanent emergency masquerading as background noise. Calling it interesting is a way of smoothing the edges. It lets us keep functioning inside systems that have been descending into nightmare territory faster than we might have imagined.

    It’s also a cop-out because it’s non-confrontational. It’s open to interpretation. If you don’t share the same nightmares, if your limbic system isn’t in the same state of permanent activation that mine is, it gives us both an out. We don't have to talk about it. But that gap, where it emerges, is important: the people who haven’t laid awake at 3am with their heart racing have lived a different year. When I say “interesting” and we share a knowing nod, we’re agreeing to skim over the discomfort and ignore the detail.

    The detail is important. What's happening is important.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] Bangladesh: Political unrest casts shadow over elections

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] Testing times for India-Bangladesh ties amid deepening rifts

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] Bangladesh election frontrunner returns home after 17 years

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] Brazil's Bolsonaro backs son in presidential race

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-25 [Older] Somalia: Mogadishu vote marks return of universal suffrage

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2025-12-29 [Older] Sanctioning Fever: The United States, European Union and Free Speech

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] UK Government Says It Backs Free Speech After US Visa Bans

  • Scheerpost ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] Prem Thakker on Media Power, Epstein, and Free Speech — With Imran Khan Update

  • EFF ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] How to Sustain Privacy & Free Speech

  • CBC ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] EU, France, Germany slam U.S. visa bans as 'censorship' dispute deepens

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] EU Warns of Possible Action After the US Bars 5 Europeans Accused of Censorship

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-24 [Older] Europe Slams Visa Bans After US Takes Fresh Swing at Allies Over 'Censorship'

  • The Verge ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] The ‘60 Minutes’ Report on CECOT That Bari Weiss Censored Is Now Internet Contraband

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] US Bars Five Europeans It Says Pressured Tech Firms to Censor American Viewpoints Online

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-23 [Older] US Targets Former EU Commissioner, Activists With Visa Bans Over Alleged Censorship

  • JURIST ☛ Pakistan court sentences journalists, YouTubers and former military official over 2023 riots

    Journalist and YouTube anchor Sabir Shakir tweeted that the case was baseless, false, and outdated and that he would continue to raise his voice for the constitution, law, democracy, independent judiciary, free media, parliament, and fundamental rights. Journalist and YouTuber Adil Raja, responding to the conviction, wrote that, “speaking the truth is now called Digital Terrorism in Pakistan.”

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • ANF News ☛ Farewell to Hüseyin Aykol, a leading figure of the free press

    In Ankara, colleagues, friends, relatives, and political companions bid farewell to journalist Hüseyin Aykol. The co-founder of several Kurdish newspapers and a symbolic figure of the free press in Turkey died on New Year's Eve at the age of 73 as a result of multiple brain hemorrhages. Aykol was considered a tireless champion of press freedom, human rights, and social justice.

  • [Repeat] LRT ☛ ‘Amendments would amount to censorship’. Journalists to boycott working group on LRT

    The Association of Professional Journalists and an initiative group of journalists at LRT announced on Friday that they will not take part in a parliamentary working group set up to discuss changes to the Lithuanian public broadcaster.

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • The Independent UK ☛ What to know about the protests now shaking Iran as tensions remain high over its nuclear program

    Demonstrations have reached over 170 locations in 25 of Iran’s 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported early Sunday. The death toll had reached at least 15 killed, it added, with more than 580 arrests. The group, which relies on an activist network inside of Iran for its reporting, has been accurate in past unrest.

    Understanding the scale of the protests has been difficult. Iranian state media has provided little information about the demonstrations. Online videos offer only brief, shaky glimpses of people in the streets or the sound of gunfire. Journalists in general in Iran also face limits on reporting such as requiring permission to travel around the country, as well as the threat of harassment or arrest by authorities.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Paweł Orzech ☛ This is an espensive computer

    So overall, I’m very happy. I highly recommend it. I really like it. It’s a shame it’s not a ThinkPad, a shame it doesn’t run Linux, but because of the emulator requirements… I’m happy this is the computer I ended up with.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Software Patents

    • EFF ☛ 2025-12-26 [Older] Fighting to Keep Bad Patents in Check: 2025 in Review

• Trademarks

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-12-27 [Older] EUIPO Grand Board refuses registration of ‘GEORGE ORWELL’ as a trade mark for inter alia books

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-12-29 [Older] When does a designer’s name become deceptive? CJEU weighs in in PMJC

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-12-28 [Older] [Book Review] Trade Secrets and Intellectual Property

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Hollywood, Netflix, and Apple Are Behind Latest Pirate 'Brand' Blockades in Belgium

    New information obtained through a transparency request reveals that major movie industry players, including Disney, Apple, and Netflix, are behind the latest site-blocking effort in Belgium. While the involvement of these companies is hardly surprising, details in the previously unpublished court order show a targeted site-blocking strategy without the involvement of DNS resolvers.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Indian ‘Piracy Kingpin’ Acquitted After 10-Years Due to Lack of Evidence

    More than ten years ago, Indian police arrested the alleged mastermind behind the popular TellyTorrents site. The supposed piracy kingpin, who spent 311 days in custody before being released on bail, saw his life fall apart soon after. Now, ten years later, the 40-year-old is cleared of all charges and formally acquitted by the court. However, at what cost?

  • The Verge ☛ Public domain 2026: Betty Boop, Pluto, and Nancy Drew set free

    If you’re looking for songs, books, or movies with content you want to use, you are probably examining which of your favorites are headed for the public domain. This year, copyrighted works created in 1930 (except for sound recordings, where the date is 1925) are now free to reuse and repurpose in the US.

    As mentioned in our coverage last year, Duke Law School’s Center for the Study of Public Domain has once again rounded up all the most iconic works that have been freed from the bounds of copyright.