Distributions and Operating Systems

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • Help Net Security ☛ Minimal Ubuntu Pro expands Canonical’s cloud security offerings

    Canonical has released Minimal Ubuntu Pro images for use on public cloud platforms, aiming to give teams a smaller base image with a narrower software footprint. The solution is designed for organizations that want tighter control over what runs inside production cloud workloads. The image starts with a limited set of packages required to boot, connect, and support common cloud use cases.

Leftovers

• Tracy Durnell ☛ Embracing influence

  Venkatram writes here about attention as social construct in a way that meshes with how I’ve been thinking about taste and preference lately — that in our culture’s valorized conception of the individual, we would like to imagine our taste is wholly our own and our preferences reflect something innate about us, when culture can only have meaning when shared and our taste is influenced by those we admire and feel kinship with. Michel Faber’s Listen likewise proposes our musical taste is socially derived and that there is no “quintessential form” of music, regardless of how much high culture canonizes Western classical music as the epitome of the medium.

• Amit Gawande ☛ Email and Calendars

  I don't know how to do email and calendar. The latter troubles me more.

• Mike Brock ☛ On the Passing of Scott Adams

  I would like to take the time to mark the passing of Scott Adams. Today he died. It is worth acknowledging this point. His Dilbert comic is a piece of American culture. But one does not earn a free hagiography bonus in death. One must consider their legacy before their dying breath.

• Gannett ☛ 'Dilbert' creator Scott Adams dead at 68 after cancer

  "I had an amazing life," Adams wrote in his New Year's Day letter. "I gave it everything I had. If I got any benefits from my work, I'm asking that you pay it forward as best as you can. That's the legacy I want: be useful. And please know, I loved you all to the very end."

• Science

  • YLE ☛ Swedish Armed Forces buying Finnish satellites for ultra-precise imaging of ground surfaces

    According to the company, the system's imaging and observation ability, especially through cold, foggy, snowy conditions, is a crucial feature for Nordic customers.

• Career/Education

  • Dan MacKinlay ☛ Hierarchical reinforcement learning — The Dan MacKinlay stable of variably-well-consider’d enterprises

    Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) addresses one of the most persistent challenges in artificial intelligence: the “curse of horizon.” In standard Reinforcement Learning (RL), agents struggle to solve tasks requiring thousands of sequential decisions because the reward signal—the feedback indicating success—is often sparse and delayed. HRL mitigates this by decomposing complex, long-horizon problems into a hierarchy of manageable sub-problems, effectively shortening the decision horizon.

  • YLE ☛ Helsinki sending kids free comics to spark love of reading

    Literacy and enthusiasm for reading among children and adolescents in Finland have declined. Many homes no longer have printed material on hand, such as books or magazines.

• Hardware

  • Chris ☛ You Need A Kitchen Slide Rule

    We could use an electronic calculator to figure out the rescaled amounts, but a slide rule makes it so much easier. The picture above was taken while following a recipe that called for 2 tsp of baking powder, and I wanted to make as large a batch as I could given the remaining 3.3 tsp of baking powder I had – a proportion of 2:3.3. You can see the slide rule is set to a proportion of 2:3.3 because – if you open the image in a new tab to make it larger – the number 2 on the C scale (on the bottom of the sliding middle part) is above 3.3 on the D scale just below.

  • Nikola Kotur ☛ My Homelab Setup in 2026

    One thing that is obvious is that the setup has evolved. I started building it while we were living in an apartment and I didn't have a lot of space so I started with 10” mini rack. Now, there are two :).

    I will not go into too much detail, since, of course, for each element shown here there's a lot of background, or it is performing multiple tasks. So, let us start with the equipment that is outside.

• Proprietary

  • Dark Reading ☛ Microsoft's Patch Tuesday Starts 2026 With a Bang — & a Zero-Day

    Among them is a zero-day vulnerability in Desktop Window Manager (DWM) designated as CVE-2026-20805 (CVSS score: 5.5), which attackers are already exploiting to leak memory address information that could weaken system protections and enable follow-on attacks.

  • Neowin ☛ Ubisoft's latest layoffs wave is hitting The Division and Star Wars Outlaws developer

    Ubisoft is kicking off 2026 with another wave of layoffs. The owner of numerous game development teams around the world announced today that it is aiming to cut 55 more jobs as its cost-cutting plans continue. This time, the move is affecting two of its Swedish studios, including the well-known team behind series like The Division, Massive Entertainment.

    Other than The Division, Massive Entertainment is the developer behind recent games like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Star Wars Outlaws, and the cult classic real-time strategy entry World in Conflict. The studio announced that it was working on The Division 3 back in 2023, using its proprietary Snowdrop engine.

    "These proposed changes are forward-looking and structural, they are not related to individual performance, recent deliveries, or the quality of the work produced by the teams," said Ubisoft in a statement to IGN. "The proposed restructuring will begin with a focus on individual agreements and impacted employees are being informed directly and supported with care and respect inline with local regulations."

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Simon Späti ☛ A Diary of a Data Engineer | ssp.sh

      You ingest data. You model it. You transform it. You serve it. Someone asks for a change. Everything breaks. You rebuild. This is the loop. It was the loop in 2005 with SSIS and star schemas. It’s the loop in 2025 with dbt and Iceberg, or 2026 with prompting AI agents.

      The tools change. The loop doesn’t.

    • Matt Birchler ☛ Elon Musk monetizes CSAM on X and Grok

      This is absolute garbage. He's created a tool that generates CSAM and non-consensual sexual images of people and distributes them as public images anyone can see with ease. He has built it into his product, he has laughed about how funny it is, and the slightest adjustment he has made to this is to make people pay to use this. This is not any sort of remediation of this feature, this is Musk seeing something people are doing that is genuinely sick, and has decided the best way to handle it is to monetize it.

    • Don Marti ☛ data-driven

      Notice anything? There’s an option for “My company needs an AI solution” but no option for “This service has too much AI”. So back at slop HQ in Redmond, Washington, they’re going to be making “data-driven” decisions based on how many customers left because they wanted more “AI” but they get no data pointing the other way.

    • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Sorry, eh

      There is no way to operate one of Nvidia's big AI-optimized GPUs without losing money. The owners of these GPUs who have lost the least money are the ones who rushed into buying GPUs without ensuring they'd have electricity to power them, and have been forced to leave their GPUs to age in warehouses. The minute they plug in those GPUs, they'll start losing money, and the more they use them, the more money they'll lose.

      I'm sorry. As a technology writer, I'm supposed to be telling you that this bet will some day pay off, because one day we will have shoveled so many words into the word-guessing program that it wakes up and learns how to actually do the jobs it is failing spectacularly at today. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding horses to run faster and faster, one of them will give birth to a locomotive. Humans possess intelligence, and machines do not. The difference between a human and a word-guessing program isn't how many words the human knows.

    • Scientific American ☛ Stevie Wonder’s Rule for AI at CES 2026—‘Make Life Better for the Living’

      Wonder is working on his first album in more than 20 years, so I asked what he made of AI in the creative process. He did not equivocate. “I will not let my music be programmed,” he told me. “I’m not going to use it to do me and do the music I’ve done.” He wasn’t rejecting technology. He was protecting what he considers human territory. “We can go on and on talking about technology,” he said. But he was concerned with a different question. “Let’s see how you make things better for people in their lives—not to emulate life but to make life better for the living.”

    • Bix Frankonis ☛ Wondering About A.I.

      What bothered me in the audio rendition is elided in the print version, as emphasized above. In the latter, Sullivan says Wonder “wasn’t rejecting technology”; but in the former Sullivan says Wonder “wasn’t rejecting the technology”—and that difference of just one word is all the difference in the world.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ No, Dell is still pushing AI in PCs

      Dell’s new consumer XPS totally-not-AI PC line — for the people apparently not responsive to AI hype — is branded “Copilot+ PC” and has Copilot buttons on the keyboard.

    • The Register UK ☛ PC shipments set to hit the buffers as AI guzzles memory

      Overall PC market performance in 2025 was healthy, according to research biz Omdia, but it notes that memory and storage supply was already tightening, with associated upward price pressure emerging around the middle of last year.

    • Dark Reading ☛ Multipurpose GoBruteforcer Botnet Targets 50K+ Linux Servers

      Researchers detailed a souped-up version of the GoBruteforcer botnet that preys on servers with weak credentials and AI-generated configurations.

    • 404 Media ☛ 'Shame Thrives in Seclusion:' How AI Porn Chatbots Isolate Us All

      Now, from the user’s perspective, there are no humans at any point in this interaction. The consumer is in their room, requesting a machine, and the machine spits out a product. You are entirely alone at every step of this process.

      As a porn historian, I think alarm bells should be going off here. Sexual dysfunction thrives in shame, and shame thrives in seclusion. Often, people who talk to me about their issues with sex and pornography worry that what they want isn’t “normal.” One thing that pornography teaches is that there is no normal—chances are, if you like something, someone else does, too. Finding pornography of something you’re into is proof that you are not alone in your desires, that someone else liked it enough to make it, and others liked it enough to buy it. You aren’t a freak—or maybe you are, but at least you’re in good company.

    • PC World ☛ Micron says it's 'helping' consumers — by not selling RAM to consumers

      Micron—one of the “big three” companies that manufacture the vast majority of memory on the planet—is shutting down its Crucial brand. This is the arm of the company that sells RAM and storage products directly to consumers. Instead, Micron is shifting its focus to the “AI” boom… the same situation that’s making memory explode in price all over the world. Consumers are, to use a technical term, pissed.

      In a recent interview, a Micron vice president tried to downplay the situation, explaining that Micron is still technically supplying RAM and other memory products to consumers… by selling it to PC manufacturers.

  • Social Control Media

    • International Business Times ☛ 2026-01-11 [Older] TikTok Users With Anti-Administration Posts Deported After Passports Were Suddenly Marked Stolen

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] TikTok Removes Videos by Polish Far-Right Politician After Hate Speech Complaint

    • Scheerpost ☛ 2026-01-06 [Older] From Musk to TikTok: How AI Fakes Fueled a Disinformation Frenzy Around Maduro

    • International Business Times ☛ 2026-01-06 [Older] Athira Auni Dies: 700,000 Fans Mourn as TikTok Account Is Deactivated

    • The Verge ☛ Inside the White House shitposting machine

      More importantly: memes may be a fast way to convey a political message to a specific audience who gets the inside joke, but the humor is rarely understood by anyone outside of that group — especially people who might have been sympathetic to the concept of stopping illegal immigration, but are horrified by how the Trump administration is going about it. The memes themselves are simply a reflection of that mindset. “The administration’s use of memes really flattens the political debate,” said Smith. “It takes the humanity, the seriousness, and the nuance that’s needed out of it and replaces it just with cruelty.”

      Before we get to my conversation with Smith, here’s The Verge’s latest on the political tech dystopia: [...]

    • US Senate ☛ Open Letter from Sen Wyden, Sen Lujan, and Sen Markey to Cook and Pichai of Apple and Google [PDF]

      In recent days, X users have used the app’s Grok AI tool to generate nonconsensual sexual imagery of real, private citizens at scale. This trend has included Grok modifying images to depict women being sexually abused, humiliated, hurt, and even killed. In some cases, Grok has reportedly created sexualized images of children—the most heinous type of content imaginable. What is more, X has reportedly encouraged this behavior, including through the company’s CEO Elon Musk acknowledging this trend with laugh-cry emoji reactions. Researchers have also found a Grok app archive reportedly containing nearly 100 images of potential child sexual abuse materials generated since August, in addition to many other nonconsensual nude depictions of real people being tortured and worse. There can be no mistake about X’s knowledge, and, at best, negligent response to these trends.

    • New Statesman ☛ “Our posts are either ignored or hated”: The government’s X dilemma

      One senior communications official despaired to the Pygge about the fate of government posts on X: “Whenever we post something, it either sinks without trace because the algorithm doesn’t benefit us, or it gets loads of attention because people hate it so much they’re all sending really awful replies to it.”

    • The Guardian UK ☛ To anybody still using X: sexual abuse content is the final straw, it’s time to leave

      My own sad epiphany about Twitter, now known as X, came in the immediate aftermath of the US election in 2024. I’d spent a lot of that year lying to myself, ignoring the increasing volume of abuse I’d been receiving and the fact that no one ever read my linked pieces any more, but that week I realised I had to stop. I had to leave X for good.

    • The Independent UK ☛ Government urged to stop using X over Grok AI undressing trend

      Media watchdog Ofcom has launched an investigation into X over reports that its AI chatbot, Grok, was used to create and share sexualised images of women and children, including deepfakes of MPs. The government is bringing into force part of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, making the creation or request of non-consensual intimate images a criminal offence.

    • New York Times ☛ Why China Is Suddenly Obsessed With American Poverty

      “Kill line” has been used repeatedly on social media and commentary sites, as well as news outlets linked to the state. It has gained traction in China to depict the horror of American poverty — a fatal threshold beyond which recovery to a better life becomes impossible. The phrase is used as a metaphor to encompass homelessness, debt, addiction and economic insecurity. In its official use, the “kill line” hovers over the heads of Americans but is something Chinese people don’t have to fear.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ California woman who phoned men instead of saving her drowning 2-year-old has been found guilty of murder

      At the time of the drowning, Brassart was on her phone for about 45 minutes talking to men she had met on dating apps, according to the release. Brassart had been told by Daniellé’s father that she couldn’t drink while he was away at work because she needed to watch their child.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • The Register UK ☛ Appeal fails for hacker who opened port to coke smugglers

      A Dutch appeals court has kept a seven-year prison sentence in place for a man who hacked port IT systems with malware-stuffed USB sticks to help cocaine smugglers move containers, brushing off claims that police shouldn't have been reading his encrypted chats.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Henrique Dias ☛ On Portugal's Coming Presidential Elections

      According to the court and with the Elections Commission, everything has been done within the agreed time periods, and they can’t change it. Only the government, they say. I say it’s ridiculous to be getting a ballot to vote where invalid candidates are listed. How is this even possible?

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Troy Hunt ☛ Troy Hunt: Who Decides Who Doesn’t Deserve Privacy?

      Remember the Ashley Madison data breach? That was now more than a decade ago, yet it arguably remains the single most noteworthy data breach of all time. There are many reasons for this accolade, but chief among them is that by virtue of the site being expressly designed to facilitate extramarital affairs, there was massive social stigma attached to it. As a result, we saw some pretty crazy stuff: [...]

    • Michael Tsai ☛ UK Child Protections and Messaging Backdoor

    • Ars Technica ☛ UK to “encourage” Apple and Google to put nudity-blocking systems on phones - Ars Technica

      The forthcoming push for nudity-blocking systems was reported by the Financial Times today. The report said the UK won’t institute a legal requirement “for now.” But asking companies to block nude images could be the first step toward making it mandatory if the government doesn’t get what it wants.

    • MacRumors ☛ UK Wants All iPhones to Block Explicit Images Unless You Prove Age

      The proposal is said to target mobile devices initially, but it could extend to desktops. The government reportedly explored making the controls mandatory for devices sold in the UK, but it has apparently decided against that approach for now.

  • Confidentiality

    • Interesting Engineering ☛ Pentagon to integrate Elon Musk's Grok AI into military networks

      The move marks a major expansion of military AI use. It also arrives amid growing international scrutiny of Grok’s content controls and governance.

      The Pentagon plans to deploy the system across both classified and unclassified environments.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Robert Reich ☛ You could be next

    What’s at stake isn’t just American democracy. It’s also your safety and security and that of your friends and loved ones. This is personal — to every one of us.

    A dictatorship knows no bounds.

  • Futurism ☛ Former Astronaut Smacks Pete Hegseth With Huge Lawsuit

    The original video that kicked off the stand-off was designed to remind soldiers that they didn’t have to follow unconstitutional orders.

    “This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens,” the Democratic lawmakers said in the video. “Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution.”

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ Arizona US Sen. Mark Kelly sues Hegseth over penalties for 'illegal orders' video

    The 46-page lawsuit marks the next step in the months-long saga, with Kelly asking a federal judge to declare the effort to demote him “unlawful and unconstitutional.”

  • Arkansas Advocate ☛ Tech industry group seeks to block reworked Arkansas social media law

    A tech industry trade group asked a federal judge Monday to temporarily block a reworked version of an Arkansas law struck down by a judge that would have restricted minors’ social media access.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Jihadis took over their towns. Many distrust Mali’s rulers just as much.

    The stories told by these new arrivals illustrate how Mali is buckling under the strains of a collapsing economy, military abuses, and a grinding insurgency. Once limited to the country’s northern and central regions, the powerful Al Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) is now creeping southward.

  • The Record ☛ Sweden detains ex-military IT consultant suspected of spying for Russia

    Citing an Armed Forces spokesperson, Swedish media reported that the suspect lives in central Sweden and previously worked with the military from 2018 until 2022 as a consultant through an IT services company. The man is also registered as the head of a cybersecurity firm focused on “offensive cyber operations,” which reportedly has no recorded turnover.

  • FAIR ☛ ACTION ALERT: Why Didn’t NYT, WaPo Report What They Knew About Venezuelan Invasion?

    When the Trump administration invaded Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, the New York Times and Washington Post framed it as a surprise.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-12 [Older] Norway Gives $400 Million to Ukraine for Energy Sector, Administration

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-11 [Older] Britain to Develop New Ballistic Missile for Ukraine's Defense

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-10 [Older] US balks as UK, France pledge troops to postwar Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-10 [Older] Venezuela, Greenland, Ukraine: Germany's Merz in crisis mode

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] Czechia ruling coalition divided on support for Ukraine

    • University of Michigan ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] Historian Danielle Leavitt discusses debut book ‘By the Second Spring: Seven Lives and One Year of the War in Ukraine’

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] ANALYSIS-Putin Sends Warning to Ukraine and West With Weapon Not Used Since 2024

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] UK Allocates $270 Million to Prepare for Possible Ukraine Deployment

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] Former NATO envoy says Cheeto Mussolini still committed to Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy in Cyprus as EU presidency begins

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] Ukraine Pushes EU Membership Bid as Cyprus Takes Bloc's Presidency

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] Zelenskiy Seeks New Cheeto Mussolini Meeting as Peace Negotiators Tackle Land Issue

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] UK's Starmer Says Deployment of Troops to Ukraine Would Be Voted by Parliament

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-06 [Older] Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy seeks 'concrete results' in Paris

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-06 [Older] Ukraine's Allies Meet in Paris but Progress Is Uncertain With US Focus on Venezuela and Greenland

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-06 [Older] Ukraine Security Guarantees to Include Binding Commitments, Draft Summit Statement Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-12 [Older] New US Ambassador to India Pushes for Deeper Trade Ties Despite Tension Over Russian Oil

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-12 [Older] Russian Overnight Attack Sparks Fire in Kyiv, Ukraine Military Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-12 [Older] Finnish Police Release Russia-Linked Ship Held in Cable Sabotage Case

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-11 [Older] A Thousand Kyiv Apartment Blocks Still Without Heating After Russian Strike

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-11 [Older] Britain Is in Talks With NATO to Counter Russia and China in the Arctic

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-11 [Older] Nordics Reject Cheeto Mussolini's Claim of Chinese and Russian Ships Around Greenland, FT Reports

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-11 [Older] Onus Now on Russia to Show It Wants Peace in Ukraine, Says EU's Von Der Leyen

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-11 [Older] Ukrainian Drone Attack in Russia Kills 1 Following Moscow's Intense Bombardment

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-11 [Older] UK Says NATO Talks on Deterring Russia in the Arctic 'Business as Usual'

    • The Record ☛ 2026-01-10 [Older] Basketball player arrested for alleged ransomware ties freed in Russia-France prisoner swap

    • CBC ☛ 2026-01-10 [Older] Ukraine scrambles to repair ruined Kyiv power grid after latest Russian attack

    • International Business Times ☛ 2026-01-10 [Older] 'Eternity Will Arrive Soon': Alexander Dugin Issues Apocalyptic Warning as Russia Escalates Nuclear Signalling

    • The Local SE ☛ 2026-01-10 [Older] Swede suspected of spying for Russia, prosecutor says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-10 [Older] China, Russia, Iran Start 'BRICS Plus' Naval Exercises in South African Waters

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-10 [Older] Governor of Russia's Belgorod Region Says 600,000 Without Power, Heat, or Water After Ukrainian Strike

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-10 [Older] Winter Pierces Kyiv Homes After Russia Knocks Out Heat

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-10 [Older] Ukraine Drone Strike Causes Fire at Oil Depot in Russia's Volgograd Region

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-10 [Older] Woman Dies, Buildings Damaged in Ukrainian Drone Attack on Russia's Voronezh, Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-10 [Older] Ukrainian Drones Set Fire to Russian Oil Depot After Moscow Launches New Hypersonic Missile

    • CBC ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] More than 1,000 Kyiv apartment blocks still without heat after Russian strike

    • CBC ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] Russia fires Oreshnik hypersonic missile, with attacks on Ukraine killing at least 4

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] Russia fires Oreshnik hypersonic missile at Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] China, Russia and Iran Join South Africa for Naval Drills as Tensions Run High

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] Factbox-What Is the Oreshnik Missile That Russia Has Fired at Ukraine?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] Kyiv Residents Grapple With Cold After Russian Strike Rips Open Apartments

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] Meloni Urges Europe to Talk to Russia, Sees No Swift Return to G8

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] Moscow Says US Freed Two Russian Crew Members From Seized Oil Tanker at Its Request

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] Russia Fires Hypersonic Missile at Target in Ukraine Near NATO Border

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] Russian Drone Strikes Hit Two Foreign Vessels in Odesa Region, Kyiv Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] Russia Just Used Its New Hypersonic Missile Again in Ukraine. Here's What to Know About the Oreshnik

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-09 [Older] Swedish Espionage Suspect Appears to Have Been Working for Russia, Prosecutor Says

    • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2026-01-08 [Older] Russians hacked Danish pool camera and shared the video online

    • TruthOut ☛ 2026-01-08 [Older] Will the US and Russia Abandon Nuke Restraints When New START Treaty Expires?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-08 [Older] Ukraine: 1 million without water, heat after Russian strike

    • The Age AU ☛ 2026-01-08 [Older] US forces seize Russian oil tanker, risking military clash

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-08 [Older] The Latest: Russia Says Washington Is Generating 'Acute International Crisis Situations'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-08 [Older] France Releases Russian Man Wanted in US for Cyberhacking, Lawyer Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-08 [Older] Russia Frees French Political Scholar in a Prisoner Swap for a Basketball Player

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-08 [Older] Russia Frees French Researcher Vinatier in Prisoner Exchange

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-08 [Older] Russian-Bound Tanker Hit by Drone in Black Sea, Maritime Sources Say

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-08 [Older] Russia Says Foreign Troops in Ukraine Would Be Targets After UK and France Pledge Post-Ceasefire Deployment

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-08 [Older] Russian Strikes Plunge Ukraine's Industrial Southeast Into Blackouts

    • TruthOut ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] US Seizes Russian Oil Tanker in Atlantic Ocean, in Latest Escalation

    • CBC ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] U.S. seizes 2 sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela in North Atlantic, Caribbean

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] Why Russia has kept quiet over Maduro's ouster in Venezuela

    • International Business Times ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] Russia Deploys Warships to Protect Oil Tanker from US Pursuit, Escalating Fears of Major Conflict

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] US Seizes Venezuela-Linked, Russian-Flagged Oil Tanker After Weeks-Long Pursuit

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] Fire Put Out at Oil Depot in Russia's Belgorod After Ukrainian Drone Attack, State TV Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] Re-Elected President of Central African Republic Invites Russia's Putin to Visit, TASS Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] Russia Attacks Two Ukrainian Ports, Kyiv Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] Russia Says US Seizure of Oil Tanker Is Illegal, Lawmaker Calls It Piracy

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] UK Supported US Mission to Seize Russian-Flagged Oil Tanker, MoD Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] US Military Action in Venezuela Is Seen as Both a Blessing and a Curse for Russia's Putin

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-07 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini's Oil Push Widens With Seizure of Russian-Flagged Tanker Linked to Venezuela

    • CBC ☛ 2026-01-06 [Older] As the U.S. targets sanctioned Venezuelan oil, more of Russia's growing shadow fleet could be swept up, too

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-06 [Older] Russia Slams 'Neocolonial Threats' Against Venezuela, Backs New Interim Leader

• Environment

  • Jérôme Marin ☛ Starlink moves closer to its goal

    Specifically, SpaceX has been authorized to deploy an additional 7,500 satellites, on top of the 7,500 second-generation spacecraft already approved. Including the 12,000 first-generation satellites, the company is now cleared to place up to 27,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit. However, despite its requests, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the US telecoms regulator, has not yet given the green light for the remaining 15,000 satellites needed to reach the original target.

  • Interesting Engineering ☛ Should Bitcoin mining heat your home? Here’s what it could mean

    Since Bitcoin’s valuation has increased over the years, mining for these Bitcoins is an economically attractive opportunity. As the blockchain has grown, mining has become increasingly difficult, prompting miners to use advanced computational infrastructure to earn their rewards.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Register UK ☛ AI datacenter boom reshapes US clean energy bets

      The preference among hyperscale datacenter operators for baseload power, typically supplied by gas turbine generation, will likely hold back the growth of wind and solar power purchase agreements (PPAs), it says, but forecasts 2026 will be the year traditional wind and/or solar companies step out of their core competencies and "de-silo" into adjacent and complementary markets.

  • Overpopulation

    • Tennessee Lookout ☛ Columbia Council approves water rate hike of up to 150% over next 5 years for new infrastructure

      Staff from Columbia Power and Water Systems and the state’s water division said the project, which has been under consideration for at least 10 years and has cleared state environment and wildlife oversight, is necessary to ensure continued water delivery as the region’s needs grow. Water systems are required by the state to plan for expansion when they meet 80% of their capacity, and the Columbia utility is at 93% capacity now, Grippo said.

• Finance

  • Simon Willison ☛ Anthropic invests $1.5 million in the Python Software Foundation and open source security

    Note that while security is a focus these funds will also support other aspects of the PSF's work: [...]

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • FAIR ☛ ‘You Cannot Change a Reality That You Cannot Name’: CounterSpin interview with Kimberlé Crenshaw on anti-Blackness

    Janine Jackson interviewed scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, co-founder of the African-American Policy Forum, about anti-Blackness for the December 26, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Starlink, Musk face rising political resistance in South Africa

    He said that through his actions, Musk has declared himself an “an enemy of South Africa’s constitutional order” and of social justice and redress.

  • Tor ☛ Arti 1.9.0 released: Proxy improvements, relay development, and more. | The Tor Project

    Arti is our ongoing project to create a next-generation Tor implementation in Rust. We're happy to announce the latest release, Arti 1.9.0.

  • Seth Godin ☛ “Leave yourself an out” | Seth's Blog

    But the first rule of management and human interaction is to leave other people an out.

  • Yury Molodtsov ☛ Founders’ Guide to Comms

    If you’re a founder, neglecting public communications is a drag on your business. It’s not something you should focus on primarily (that’s what rage baiters do), but you should use this channel just like any other, because it will help you find customers, win candidates, secure partnerships and raise funding.

  • Security Week ☛ CrowdStrike to Acquire Browser Security Firm Seraphic for $420 Million

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Sean Plankey re-nominated to lead CISA

    It’s not clear whether or how Plankey’s resubmitted nomination will overcome the hurdles that left many observers convinced his chance of becoming CISA director had likely ended, but it does definitively signal that the Trump administration still wants Plankey to have the job.

  News of the move to acquire Seraphic comes less than a week after CrowdStrike announced an agreement to acquire identity security startup SGNL for $740 million.

Censorship/Free Speech

• CPJ ☛ Iran’s [Internet] blackout tightens information chokehold amid spreading protests

  In the days leading up to the cutoff, journalists and media workers inside Iran reported increasing pressure from authorities not to cover events, including warnings, intimidation, and summonses, according to press freedom organisations and human rights monitors. Independent journalists faced restrictions on [Internet] access and disrupted mobile data, slow or throttled connections—measures that already constrained reporters’ ability to contact sources, verify developments, and publish for domestic and international audiences.

• Jussi Pakkanen ☛ How to get banned from Facebook in one simple step

  I wrote a reply which is replicated below. It is not accurate as it is a translation and I no longer have access to the original post.

  "Some of these might come via recommendations by AI assistants. Maybe in the future AI bots from people who themselves are dead carry on posting birthday congratulations on profiles of other dead people. A sort of a social media for the deceased, if you will."

  Roughly one minute later my account was suspended. Let that be a lesson to you all. Do not mention the Dead Internet Theory, for doing so threatens Facebook's ad revenue and is thus taboo. (A more probable explanation is that using the word "death" is prohibited by itself regardless of context, leading to idiotic phrasing in the style of "Person X was born on [date] and d!ed [other date]" that you see all over IG, FB and YT nowadays.)

• Reclaim The Net ☛ UK Expands Online Safety Act to Mandate Preemptive Scanning of Digital Communications

  The government’s new Online Safety Act 2023 (Priority Offenses) (Amendment) Regulations 2025, which came into force on January 8, 2026, designates “cyberflashing” and “encouraging or assisting serious self-harm” as priority offenses, categories that trigger the strictest compliance duties under the OSA.

  This marks a decisive move toward preemptive censorship. Services that allow user interaction, including messaging apps, forums, and search engines, must now monitor communications at scale to ensure that prohibited content is automatically filtered or suppressed before users can even encounter it.

• Becky Spratford ☛ RA for All: 60 Small Things You (and Your Patrons) Can Do To Defend the Right to Read via Kelly Jensen

  It's the second full week of 2026 and my question to you is the same one I have had for the last 5 years-- What have you been doing to fight for the freedom read in the face of increasing censorship across the entire country?

• Rolling Stone ☛ Professor Replaces Banned Plato Texts With Article on Censorship

  In a statement shared by a university spokesperson with Rolling Stone, A&M claimed that Plato would remain on other syllabi despite their requirement that Peterson remove the philosopher from his course readings. “Texas A&M University will teach numerous dialogues by Plato in a variety of courses this semester and will continue to do so in the future,” the administration said. “In alignment with recent system policy, university administrators are reviewing all core curriculum courses to ensure they do not teach race or gender ideology.” The school said that Peterson’s materials were rejected insofar as they related to “modules on gender and race ideology,” in violation of rules approved by the Board of Regents, and that it was up to Peterson to comply or have the course reassigned.

• US News And World Report ☛ Death Toll From Nationwide Protests in Iran Spikes to at Least 2,000, Activists Say

  The death toll from nationwide protests in Iran spiked Tuesday to at least 2,003 people killed, activists said, and Iranians made phone calls abroad for the first time in days after authorities severed communications during a crackdown.

• JURIST ☛ Iran [Internet] blackout enters fifth day

  Rebecca White, a researcher at Amnesty International’s Security Lab, stated that Iran is intentionally masking grave human rights violations and international crimes. She said that the government has previously weaponized [Internet] shutdowns. During the November 2019 protests, security forces killed hundreds of protestors and bystanders under a near-total blackout. This pattern was repeated in the 2022 “Woman Life Freedom” uprising.

• The Record ☛ Internet monitoring experts say Iran blackout likely to continue

  Cloudflare, Netblocks and Kentik all shared charts and data showing that the [Internet] blackout has stayed in place since then.

  Netblocks director Alp Toker told Recorded Future News that the [Internet] shutdown is the most rapid deployment of Iran's kill-switch that they have tracked during protests to date.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• The Dissenter ☛ Coalition Demands That Congress Withdraw Journalist Subpoena

• CPJ ☛ Journalists assaulted, [Internet] shutdown ahead of Uganda elections

  Uganda has a history of high levels of violence against journalists, particularly during election periods, with dozens of people killed following protests over the 2021 election, which Wine alleged was marred by fraud.

• CPJ ☛ CPJ calls on U.S. House Committee to drop Seth Harp subpoena

  Harp published to X a photograph and biography of an officer he reported was the commander of the U.S. Army’s Delta Force unit, which was reported to have played a key role in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

  Following the January 4 post, Harp’s X account was locked, and he was required to delete certain posts in order to log back in, he said in a statement on X.

• TruthOut ☛ Rights Groups Slam GOP Subpoena of Journalist Who Reported on Special Forces

  Last week, the House Oversight Committee voted to issue a subpoena for Harp after he made a post on X with a picture and biography of a Delta Force commander who he said was in the chain of command for the U.S.’s illegal abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Delta Force is an elite unit of the U.S.’s special operations forces, and alleged abuses by and within the unit are a central focus of Harp’s 2025 book, The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces.

• Ben Werdmuller ☛ The Zurich protocol

  The people in the van did not disappear. Their names, identities, and job titles were all recorded and broadcast to other newsrooms. There would be pressure for their release. Some of them were dual nationals or foreign citizens, and their respective governments would add to the pressure. It wasn’t going to be an easy road, but the truth would endure. Their sources remained safe. Their work could continue. And it would not be in vain.

• Ben Werdmuller ☛ Bari Weiss Is The Symptom

  I’m not a journalist, but I signed up to support them. After my hard left turn from tech, I run technology for newsrooms, which includes the technologies that publish their work and keep them safe. And here I have to clarify: I didn’t sign up to do this for all of them. I signed up to do it for the people who want to make the world safer, fairer, more equal. There’s a reason why my two newsrooms have been The 19th and ProPublica. The only journalism I care about aims to hold a bright light to power and established power structures, and truly hold them to account.

• BIA Net ☛ The future of journalism is in danger under government pressure!

  Between October and December 2025, journalism in Turkey came under intense pressure through arbitrary detentions, heavy prison sentences, RTÜK sanctions, access bans, and trustee appointments. Widespread impunity and economic insecurity further deepened the crisis.

• The Tyee ☛ The Narwhal Is Suing the RCMP. Stakes Are High for Journalism | The Tyee

  Photojournalist Amber Bracken and Canadian non-profit news organization The Narwhal have sued the RCMP and Canada’s attorney general, alleging the RCMP breached Bracken’s rights as a journalist when officers arrested her in November 2021 while she was covering police efforts to evict protesters from a camp on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern B.C.

Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

• The Nation ☛ Renee Good’s Killing Has Unleashed MAGA’s Misogyny

  The attacks on Good are remarkable for their ugliness and derangement. A few major ones should be highlighted.

• Jacobin Magazine ☛ ICE Is on a Violent, Illegal, Immoral Rampage

  But shooting an unarmed US citizen who posed no threat in cold blood — before calling her a “f—ing b—” and blocking medical aid from reaching her as she died — is on a level beyond even this.

• Robert Reich ☛ The view from Minneapolis

  This is what is happening in Minnesota right now. The horror, grief and fear we are all experiencing every day, watching our neighbors get hauled away by reckless, cruel, masked paramilitaries; trying to protect one another; and knowing that what they did to Renee Nicole Good could happen to any of us, is generating this: unexpected, heartfelt new connections of not just solidarity but real love. At a massive, simply-incomprehensible scale. Good people coming together in all our fear and vulnerability and care and kindness and bravery, discovering the transformative power of our love for one another.

• International Business Times ☛ Joe Rogan Compares Trump's ICE to Nazi Germany's Secret Police, the Gestapo

  Speaking to his audience of millions, Rogan drew a direct and controversial line between modern enforcement tactics and one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century. He compared the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to Nazi Germany's secret state police, called the Gestapo.

• 404 Media ☛ Police Unmask Millions of Surveillance Targets Because of Flock Redaction Error

  Completely unredacted Flock audit logs have been released to the public by numerous police departments and in some cases include details on millions Flock license plate searches made by thousands of police departments from around the country. The data has been turned into a searchable tool on a website called HaveIBeenFlocked.com, which says it has data on more than 2.3 million license plates and tens of millions of Flock searches.

• The Tyee ☛ Musk’s Grok Is Abusing Women and Children. Our Government Needs to Act | The Tyee

  Anonymous users flooded her replies, feeling the draw of the troll’s siren song: a woman who dared to have self-confidence. In this case, though, they came armed with a punishing plan. They demanded Grok, Elon Musk’s proprietary AI chatbot, take off Claire’s clothes.

  The Tyee has agreed to identify Claire by only her first name to avoid further harassment.

• Tom's Hardware ☛ Grok targeted in UK law over sexually-explicit AI image generation — UK will begin prosecuting illegal prompting this week

  The British government has just announced it will criminalize creating non-consensual AI-generated images from this week, calling them "weapons of abuse." Sharing deepfakes is already illegal in the UK, but the law to enforce prosecution against those creating/requesting them will go into effect just now. This decision comes on the heels of Grok dishing out sexually explicit imagery of minors on X.

  "The Data (Use and Access) Act passed last year made it a criminal offence to create or request the creation of non-consensual intimate images, and today I can announce to the House that this offence will be brought into force this week." — Liz Kendall, Technology Secretary.

• The Register UK ☛ Ofcom officially investigating X over Grok nudification

  Announcing the investigation, Ofcom said on Monday: "There have been deeply concerning reports of the Grok AI chatbot account on X being used to create and share undressed images of people – which may amount to intimate image abuse or pornography – and sexualised images of children that may amount to child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

• Wired ☛ Minnesota Sues to Stop ICE ‘Invasion’

  The 80-page complaint, filed in US district court in Minnesota, targets the US Department of Homeland Security and senior federal officials, including DHS secretary Kristi Noem. It asks a judge to immediately block what the federal government calls “Operation Metro Surge,” a large-scale immigration operation that plaintiffs say has sent thousands of armed, masked federal agents into Minnesota communities far from the border, overwhelming local infrastructure and law enforcement.

• BoingBoing ☛ "This is why we killed that lesbian b****" ICE agents in Minnesota beat a veteran US marine

  While being followed from a safe distance, Trump's terror troops abruptly stopped, attempted to ram this veteran's car, broke her window, and physically abused her. Chillingly, the agents told her, "Have you not learned? This is why we killed that lesbian b****."

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Tom's Hardware ☛ Iran government takes down Starlink amidst civil unrest with 'military-grade jamming signals', report claims — President Trump vows to speak to Elon Musk to restore [Internet] in crisis-hit country

  During previous notable times of public unrest, Iran has cut public communications like [Internet] services, mobile services, and even phone services. The commonly accepted reason for such blocks is to prevent easy communication and organizing by protesters. The same actions serve to limit the flow of images and videos to the outside world. Thus, the [Internet] blockade helps the Iranian government shape the narrative, or at least gives it a better chance of doing so.

• Inside Towers ☛ Mobile Network Sharing, Italian-style

  Italian mobile network operators, Swisscom, which owns merged operator Fastweb+Vodafone, and Telecom Italia, announced a preliminary agreement to cooperate on the development of their respective mobile networks through a radio access network (RAN) sharing model. The agreement – subject to a final contract, expected by the second quarter of 2026 – aims to accelerate the expansion of 5G to about 60 percent of Italy’s less populated areas, mainly small towns and rural areas.

• Hindustan Times ☛ Iran Is Hunting Down Starlink Users to Stop Protest Videos From Going Global | World News

  With the government shutting down the [Internet] and throttling phone services, Iranians are leaning heavily on Elon Musk’s Starlink service to share videos of growing protests and the regime’s escalating crackdown with the world.

  But Iran has intensified efforts to jam the service, which is banned in the country, and users are being hunted.