Techrights

Links 08/01/2024: People Sharing Pessimism, Political News

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jan 08, 2024

GNOME bluefish

Contents

=> https://techrights.org/#m0809543411 HTTPS: Defence/Aggression

=> https://techrights.org/#m0809543417 HTTPS: Finance

Leftovers

ACN ☛ There’s never been a better time to start a blog

To paraphrase a statement I heard recently, the best time to start a blog was yesterday. The second best time is now. I think this has never been truer than today. With so many people, in my circles at least, seemingly feeling disillusioned with ‘big social’ like Twitter, Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Threads I’m starting to see a lot more people crave the more personal touch of smaller and more focused social channels like Mastodon or Discord and, it seems, personal blogs.

I think the mass market are still very much enthralled with the larger networks where they can get closer to brands and celebrities that are generally out of bounds to them. The people I personally care about, however, people that I interact with day to day, are starting to form friendly, social circles with blogging and thought sharing at the forefront.

Chris ☛ Quarterly Cup 2023 Q4 Retrospective

During the past three months I have competed in the latest Metaculus Quarterly Cup forecasting tournament, trying to out-predict other Metaculus users on short-fuse questions.

After the 2023 Q3 tournament, I summarised my thoughts, and I’m doing it again because I think it helped me learn from my mistakes.

Chuck Grimmett ☛ Pingbacks and Personal Connections

Here is a non-complete list of blog posts I’ve written over the years that complete strangers have emailed or messaged me about.

I didn’t write these with SEO in mind. There has never been ads on this blog. I wasn’t paid to write any of these posts. I just wanted to share what I’m doing/thinking/working on in hopes that it might help someone later. They mostly help me later, but I’m delighted they’ve helped other people, too.

EAPL.mx ☛ 2024 is starting... A few ideas before the year ends

Year is doing +1 in a few hours and after seeing a few messages about it (thanks for sharing) I wanted to share publicly a few ideas (it was supposed to be a private reflection that I'm too lazy to finish 🏁).

Paul Robert Lloyd ☛ These are my jams

This is My Jam was a short-lived social network where users could share a song they were listening to on a given week. I tended to use it to share whatever embarrassing tune was stuck in my head, typically one heard in a television advertisement. But sometimes it was a useful means of expressing myself, subtweeting my feelings without being explicit about them.

The service was shutdown in 2015, but great care was taken to ensure that all the data was archived. The site can be browsed on the Wayback Machine, while a dump of anonymised user data was saved to the Internet Archive.

I then had a second thought; I could recreate This is My Jam on my own website. And that’s what I’ve done.

Rob Knight ☛ Netcraft, Facebook, and Digital Ocean

So Netcraft, on behalf of Facebook, had decided that my blog post was phishing and Digital Ocean have taken that at face value. Note the wording from here: "...so you can investigate and remove the content, as it is extremely harmful." and "...if we do not hear from you and the content is still active at that time we may take additional action to prevent access to the phishing material". So I'm hosting dangerous phishing content and also my droplet will be suspended if I don't remove the post? Why has this email been sent before anyone at DO even reviewed it.

Had I not done anything because I was busy, or whatever I might have been doing, my droplet would have been suspended on a baseless claim? These emails, quite frankly, are shitty.

Martin Gunnarsson ☛ Right here, right now

Derek compares the Now page to an About page (albeit a less static one), an auxiliary page with an easy URL that tells visitors something about the author. I used to have an About page, but as part of the rewrite of this blog, I turned it into a section on the homepage instead. This eliminated the need for any menu or other navigation elements, and to avoid adding any back solely for a Now page, I decided to include that too as a section on the homepage.

Zach Flower ☛ Sunday Reboot — January 7, 2024

For one, I passed my ham radio exam this morning!

Justin Vollmer ☛ 10 Years of JustinVollmer.com

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of this website. It’s really, really hard to believe that I’ve been posting to and updating the site for a full decade already, and even crazier when I look back at how things have changed over the years, both in terms of the website, and in terms of me as a human as well.

Nicolas Fränkel ☛ 2023 in retrospective

In 2023, I published fifty blog posts on this blog: one each week on Sunday, but on Christmas and the New Year - for obvious reasons. Here are the top most viewed pages: [...]

Science

The Conversation ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] How scientists are helping plants get the most out of photosynthesis

Gizmodo ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] 1.75-Billion-Year-Old Fossils Are Oldest Record of Oxygenic Photosynthesis

Gizmodo ☛ 2023-12-28 [Older] Physicists Hunt Dark Photons as Large Hadron Collider Gets More Powerful

The Conversation ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] How we discovered that Uranus and Neptune are actually nearly identical in colour

The Conversation ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Privatised Moon landings: the two US missions set to open a new era of commercial lunar exploration

The Conversation ☛ 2023-12-29 [Older] Six space missions to look forward to in 2024

Education

Michał Woźniak ☛ Things I'd like more people to understand in 2024

I find it startling how easily, how eagerly we retreat into tribalism when discussing important, complex, emotionally charged subjects. How quickly we decide there surely is malice involved, how quickly we can be manipulated into thinking something is a zero-sum game and we better, in our own interest, deny somebody’s access to some perceived “limited resource.”

And once we do, we gleefully dismiss “the other side” — suddenly there’s an “other side”, as if every problem only ever had two possible solutions! — as unethical, outright malicious or at least woefully misinformed. Then we don’t have to consider arguments that go against our strongly-held convictions anymore, we don’t have to deal with the fact that the world is more complex than “us vs. them.” After all we are “us”, and if “they” are not with us, they’re clearly against us.

The complexity, however, does not go away, regardless of how hard we try to ignore or hide it.

Hardware

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Faster computers: First graphene semiconductor paves the way

Matt Stein ☛ What I learned down the mouse rabbit hole.

In other words, it’s not about finding the right gear and racing around with it, but a discipined smoothness that’s always ready for the next moment.

It turns out my greatest improvements came from reliable buttons and reminding myself to be calm and have fun.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

Nicolas Magand ☛ Changing bad web browsing habits

Avoiding the content from these websites is the obvious thing for me to do, but not the easiest. The impulse to look for things that annoy me is so strong that I keep finding myself typing the first letters of some of the URLs in the address bar of my browser. I let it autocomplete the rest and press enter without even thinking about it.

To help me stop this bad and persistent habit, I am using the redirect feature of the great Safari extension StopTheMadness Pro (such an apt name in this case). Since I can’t seem to avoid visiting some of these websites and fight my “addiction,” I am calling on the power of software.

Michal Zelazny ☛ Me. And the internet.

Sometimes I feel bored. I’d like to scroll any timeline, just to spend time on something mindless. I can’t do that. There’s nothing I can scroll. I have left every social platform where I could potentially scroll anything. But this post isn’t about leaving social media, many words have been written and many stories have been told, and there’s no need for another one. Well, I can’t see any reason.

This post is about how I use technology. And where is a place of technology in my life.

One can already find some posts on this blog about my tools and productivity systems, and what I use for specific tasks, including those related to the internet. I don’t want to repeat it, there’s no point in writing again the same words.

Scheerpost ☛ ‘Chilling’: Supreme Court Says Idaho Can Jail Doctors for Providing Abortions

“SCOTUS just allowed Idaho to throw health care providers in jail for providing emergency abortion care while they consider this case,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) wrote in response to the Supreme Court’s order. “This is a chilling reminder that the anti-abortion movement doesn’t care if women live or die—as long as they’re forced to give birth.”

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Pakistan: Teen kills sister while recording TikTok video

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] A Group Representing TikTok, Meta and X Sues Ohio Over New Law Limiting Kids' Use of Social Media

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Lead-Tainted Applesauce Pouches Also Contained Another Possible Toxic Substance, FDA Says

BIA Net ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] New regulations ‘threaten Turkey’s local winemakers’

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Habeck: Angry farmers trap German minister on ferry

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Britain: Doctors’ strike underlines strain on national health system

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Britain's NHS strike: Doctors want more pay

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] England: Junior doctors stage longest-ever strike over pay

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] German teacher fined for comparing COVID shots to Holocaust

CBC ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] These B.C. neuroscientists hope to help people with mental health challenges — using patients' own brainwaves

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] How close are we to the dream of an artificial heart?

Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] AI expert warns of ‘digital colonization’ in Africa -Interview

Scorpil ☛ LLMs are an Index Into the Library of Babel

LLMs stand as a testament to one of the century’s most significant technological advancements, revolutionizing our interaction with the known. However, in their current form, they lack the capacity for genuine invention, the creative spark that remains uniquely human. Thus, while they represent a significant leap forward, they are not harbingers of a technological singularity. Not yet, anyway.

Gizmodo ☛ All the Ways AI Could Suck in 2024

As 2024 begins, there has been plenty of speculation about what lies ahead for artificial intelligence. AI was the hottest industry in the world last year and it will likely continue to be so throughout 2024—and maybe the rest of your godforsaken life. That said, many of the concerns about this startling new technology have not been resolved or mitigated. While AI promises bold new capabilities for companies and web users, there are tons of potential harms that it could inflict upon us over the next twelve months. On that topic, here are some of the ways that AI could totally suck this year: [...]

Cyble Inc ☛ The Strange World of Deepfakes: An In-Depth Conversation With Balaji Kapsikar

The proliferation of AI-generated tools, including images and deepfake videos, has provided scammers with a powerful arsenal to exploit unsuspecting individuals, leading to concerns about misinformation, identity theft, and privacy breaches.

Cyble Inc ☛ Deepfakes Gone Wild: 10 Trends That Will Reshape 2024

In this article, we will delve deeper to uncover the answers and explore the 10 deepfake trends in 2024 that will shape the landscape.

Security

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

SANS ☛ Are you sure of your password?

If many people can detect simple phishing emails these days, some attacks are very well crafted and also have built-in techniques not only to ensure that potential victims will fall into the trap but there is another aspect. From an attacker’s point of view, how to improve the quality of collected data?

Pete Brown ☛ Thinking about getting rid of old notes

Nearly everything I deleted were entries from a previous job. I haven’t been there since mid-2020 and not only are none of those notes relevant anymore, it is hard to imagine how I would ever need to go back to reference any of them. So why keep them?

Privacy/Surveillance

Scheerpost ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] How to Protect US Reproductive Rights in 2024

Engadget ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Opting into 'link history' on Facebook and Instagram means agreeing to (more) ad targeting

[Old] Matt Cool ☛ We are Legally Required to Store Your Home Address

I specifically asked them not to store my address, gave them a fake address, and now I’m on their marketing list somehow. They likely snagged my address from my driver’s license but they got it and used it against my will. I grew up here on the Monterey Peninsula so I’m aware of them already. I have seen their mailers many times before. My dad worked as a parts salesperson at the nearby Ford dealer for many years and likely knows people who work there. Hell, I probably went to high school with the owner’s kids. Monterey County is a small place.

Jason Fry ☛ Alexa's Voyeurism Went Too Far

They've been emitting the occasional advert notification for things I might like to buy on Amazon for while, which has been mildly annoying. But recently thye've turned taken a creepy turn.

I switched my printer on the other day (a rare occurrence) and a few minutes later all the Echos in the house piped up telling me to “say yes” and it would add ink for my printer to my Amazon basket. Why is it spying on my printer?

Then a few days afterwards it told me that the battery was running low in a sensor in my house. What else is it spying on?

Confidentiality

Nicolas Cropp ☛ Why store your 2FA in your password manager?

I was recently watching an episode of the WAN Show where Linus and Luke covered storing your 2FA token in your password manager, and generating your 2FA codes from there. Linus, for one, seemed to strongly dislike this practice. Let's get some facts straight.

Ben Jojo ☛ The browsers biggest TLS mistake

When you connect to a TLS server you will generally get a certificate chain back ( added emphasis on the chain part of that). The server sends a set of x509 certificates that on one end is a certificate that concerns the domain that you are connecting to, and (most of the time) the other end is the intermediate that matches against a root CA that is installed inside your computer.

University of Toronto ☛ TLS certificate expiry times are fundamentally a hack

Famously, TLS certificates expire, which even today can take websites offline because they didn't renew their TLS certificate in time. This doesn't just affect websites; people not infrequently create certificates that are supposed to be long lived, except sometimes they make them last (only) ten years, which isn't long enough. When people argue about this, let's be clear; TLS certificate expiry times, like most forms of key expiry, are fundamentally a hack that exists to deal with the imperfections of the world.

Defence/Aggression

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] US Senator Sinema Says Senate Negotiators 'Closing In' on Border Security Deal

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] Ecuador's President Seeks to Hold Referendum on Security Measures

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] UN Security Council Members Call for Houthis to Stop Attacks on Shipping

ANF News ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] 289 mercenaries captured by the Internal Security Forces of North and East Syria in 2023

Defence Web ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Ransom kidnappings challenge North Cameroon

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Police ramp up security at Cologne Cathedral for New Year's

ANF News ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Akça: There is a connection between economic crisis in Turkey and the unresolved Kurdish question

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Turkey arrests 189 Islamic State suspects

Defence Web ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] South Africa to lead new military force in the DRC: an expert on what it’s up against

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Horn of Africa: A conflict evolving around Berbera Port

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] New York City sues bus firms over migrant transfers

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Biden ahead of Jan. 6 anniversary: 'We nearly lost America'

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-06 [Older] US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in hospital — Pentagon

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-06 [Older] Austria: Machete-wielding German shot dead by police

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] South Korea knife attack signals pre-election turmoil

Rodrigo Ghedin ☛ Substack's Nazi newsletters

Today, this argument is not sustainable. The moment Substack starts promoting newsletters and launches a Twitter clone with a feed based on a recommendation algorithm, the service changes. It’s no longer infrastructure, it’s a platform. And with that, it attracts to itself the need to moderate content.

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-06 [Older] Transcript: Biden's First Campaign Speech of the 2024 Election Year

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Key Quotes From US President Biden's Jan. 6 Democracy Speech

Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Zelenskiy Speaks of War, Putin Makes Passing Reference in Contrasting New Year Speeches

CPJ ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] At least 3 journalists injured in missile strikes in Ukraine

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-29 [Older] Who will (finally) be the next NATO chief?

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] US firm Bancroft eyes Wagner Group's influence in CAR

RFERL ☛ 11 Killed In Russian Missile Strike On City In Donetsk Region; Kyiv Says It Hit Russian Positions In Crimea

Eleven people were killed on January 6 when Russian forces shelled the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, the governor of the Ukrainian-controlled part of the region said.

Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Ukrainian rocket strikes on Belgorod: Zelensky may have made a fatal mistake

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Ukrainian air defense fights on — for now

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Top White House Budget Official Warns of 'Dire' Situation on Ukraine Aid

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Ukraine Says No 'Plan B' to Unblocking U.S. Funding

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] Ukraine updates: Kyiv and Moscow exchange POWs

2024-01-03 [Older] Norway to send two F-16s to Denmark for Ukrainian pilot training

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Ukraine updates: Putin vows to 'never back down'

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Putin, in New Year Address, Makes Only Passing Reference to Ukraine

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Zelenskiy Says Ukraine Stronger as It Moves Toward Year Two of War

Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Ukrainian fears

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russia ready to evacuate Belgorod residents

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Russian Air Defences Down Drones, Missiles in Black Sea Area, Ministry Says

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russia used North Korean missiles, US says

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Russia Has Used North Korean Ballistic Missiles in Ukraine and Is Seeking Iranian Missiles, US Says

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Putin Speeds up a Citizenship Path for Foreigners Who Enlist in the Russian Military

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Russia and Ukraine Exchange Long-Range Attacks as Their Front-Line Forces Remain Bogged Down

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Russian Air Defences Down 10 Targets Over Belgorod, Two Injured

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] UK Condemns What It Calls Russia's Use of North Korean Missiles Against Ukraine

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Ukraine Says It Hit Two Russian Military Targets in Occupied Crimea

Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] Argentina Chuckles at BRICS as Russia Takes Over its Chairmanship

Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Chinese Dragon to Pursue the Russian Bear’s Path

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] From Trump to Russia in Ukraine, the EU faces tests in 2024

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Says Russia Suffering Heavy Losses

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] White House: North Korea Provided Russia With Ballistic Missiles, Launchers

Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] Ukraine: 2024 starts with ‘loss, pain, and anguish’ amid intense Russian strikes

CBC ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] Russia and Ukraine exchange hundreds of prisoners of war

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russia hits Kyiv with heavy missile attack

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Russia Pounds Ukraine With Missiles and Drones, Five Dead

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Russian Ballistic Missiles Strike Ukraine's Largest Cities, Killing at Least 4 and Injuring Over 100

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Poland Says Threat Level From Russian Strikes Reduced, Planes Return to Base

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Russia Downs Nine Ukrainian Missiles Over Belgorod Region, Two Wounded

CBC ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Russia and Ukraine report deaths in separate New Year's Day attacks

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Many killed in Russian, Ukrainian strikes on New Year's Day

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Russia looks ahead to 2024: More Putin, more war in Ukraine

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Russia to 'intensify' attacks on Ukraine, Putin warns

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Ukraine, Russia Accuse Each Other of Early New Year's Day Attacks

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Russia Launches Record Number of Drones in Ukraine, and Putin Says Moscow Will Intensify Its Attacks

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Russian Drones Hit Sites Linked to Ukrainian Nationalists

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Russia Rounds up Thousands of Migrants at New Year's Eve Festivities - Reports

Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] President Vladimir Putin: Russia’s Distinguished Powerful Leader

Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Security Council holds emergency meeting on attacks in Belgorod, Russia

CBC ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Russia launches new wave of drone and missile strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Russia Has Sentenced More Than 200 Captured Ukrainian Fighters So Far - Lavrov

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Putin Lauds Russian Unity in His New Year’s Address as Ukraine War Overshadows Celebration

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Russia Launches Fresh Drone Strikes in Ukraine After Promising Retaliation for Belgorod Attack

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Kharkiv Strikes Were Retaliation for Ukraine's Belgorod Attack, Russia Says

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Ukraine updates: Russia decries 'terrorist' Belgorod strike

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Poland Finds No Russian Rocket Parts After Airspace Breach

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Shelling Kills 14 in Russia's City of Belgorod Following Moscow's Aerial Attacks Across Ukraine

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Twin Russian Missile Strikes on Kharkiv Injure 21, Officials Say

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Russia Wants Evidence Before Giving Explanations About an Object That Entered Poland's Airspace

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Russia Says 14 Dead After 'Indiscriminate' Ukrainian Strikes on Belgorod

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Ukraine Death Toll After Massive Russian Air Attack Rises to 39

Meduza ☛ Russian teenager arrested for setting Su-34 bomber plane on fire, reportedly on orders from Ukraine — Meduza

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] US judge begins to release Epstein documents [Ed: While hiding names like Bill Gates]

Craig Murray ☛ The Meaning of Epstein

The fascinating thing about what social media calls the Epstein “client list” is that not one of the people on it appears to be a client. I have seen nobody say “I knew Epstein because he managed my funds”. Nor does there seem to be any allegation that people paid him for his services.

Environment

Omicron Limited ☛ Will we be able to ski in a +2°C world?

Published in Nature Climate Change, our study of 2,234 winter sports resorts in Europe sought to measure the impact of global warming on snowmaking in resorts, and the possible room for maneuver available to adapt.

This question is not just a concern for amateur or professional skiers. Skiing is also an economic issue, with a total turnover estimated at 30 billion euros in Europe. In France alone, 120,000 jobs depending directly and indirectly on the ski economy.

Green Party UK ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer reacts to the resignation of Tory environment champion Chris Skidmore:

Green Party UK ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Green Party co-leader sets out party's plan to achieve a fairer, greener country

Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] Gustavo Petro Wants to Lead the Global Green Transition

Scheerpost ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] In 2023, Organized Labor Became Core to the Climate Movement

NL Times ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Shell Netherlands boss says environment activism lawsuits damage business climate

Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] On the Climate Crisis, We Are All Suffering, But Women from the South Are Suffering More

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Bangladesh: Mongla town offers new life for climate migrants

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] UN Economic Forecast Cites Conflicts, Sluggish Trade, High Interest and Climate Disasters

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] A Judge in Oregon Refuses to Dismiss a 2015 Climate Lawsuit Filed by Youth

Counter Punch ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Biden’s Next Big Imperialist Climate Fail

International Business Times ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Rishi Sunak Under Fire for Failing to Appoint New Climate Committee Chief

Counter Punch ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] The Ultimate Twosome, Nukes and Climate Change in 2024

Truthdig ☛ 2023-12-28 [Older] Climate Change Linked to Spate of Rare Disease Outbreaks in 2023

Truthdig ☛ 2023-12-29 [Older] 2023 Was a Big Year for Climate Litigation

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Climate Activists Block Amsterdam Highway in Protest Against ING

CBC ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] How a winter bird count became an important tool in tracking climate impacts

TruthOut ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Record-Breaking Heat, Wildfires and Storms Globally Linked to Climate Change

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Germany 2023 emissions lowest in 70 years: study

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Germany: Flooding persists in north and east, Scholz visits

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Germany floods: Farmers fight to save harvests

Energy/Transportation

Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Erdoğan Is No Friend of Palestine

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] US Treasury, Energy Officials to Testify at Senate EV Incentive Hearing

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] LG Electronics Partnering With West Virginia to Advance Renewable Energy, Telehealth Businesses

Gizmodo ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] South Korea’s Artificial Sun Is Cooking 100-Million-Degree Plasma

Bridge Michigan ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Michigan stories to watch in 2024, from politics and schools to EVs and energy

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will not face a second trial

CBC ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] It might look like a shed, but they've built a greenhouse ideal for N.L. winters

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] Japan earthquake: How can buildings be more resilient?

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] Japan launches probe into Tokyo runway plane crash

Pratik ☛ Solar Power Generation for 2023

Since installing solar panels on our roof at home in 2018, they have provided the bulk of our power/energy consumption. We don’t have battery storage, so we feed any extra power generated back to the grid in exchange for credits. Since Texas doesn’t let you produce more than you use, we have never generated more power than we use. We measure these distributions in terms of the percentage of energy produced and energy used. The higher the percentage, the better it is.

Jacobin Magazine ☛ Public Ownership of Rail Is on the Agenda. Here’s What It Could Look Like.

Railroad Workers United (RWU), a caucus of rank-and-file workers spanning all thirteen national rail unions, recently released a video offering one answer to the rotten state of US rail. “Putting America Back on Track: The Case for Public Rail Ownership” opens in East Palestine, with a resident of the area showing the viewer photos he took the night of the Norfolk Southern derailment. The video goes on to make the case for public ownership of rail, which has been a focus for RWU over the past year.

YLE ☛ Cars blocking rails cause headaches for HSL trams

Traffic was stopped between the above stops for about an hour on Sunday because a car was parked on the tracks in Espoo's Vermo area.

Wildlife/Nature

The Conversation ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] The curious link between animal hibernation and ageing – and what humans could learn from it

The Conversation ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Spiders really may be more scared of you than you are of them

CBC ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Yes, Alberta does have native rats — and one man can't get rid of them

CBC ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Bison are returning to the Prairies. They need room to roam to work their magic

Finance

Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Myanmar’s Banking Odyssey: A Decade of Triumphs, Trials, and Transformations

The Columbian ☛ For many job seekers, WA job market still far from a pre-pandemic norm

When Amazon, Microsoft and other tech firms started cutting thousands of jobs in late 2022, “it rocked a lot of people’s worlds,” says Heather Thompson, a technical program manager who found a new job 11 months after her contract with Microsoft ended last year.

CBC ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] The Queen's face is retiring from our coins. The B.C. artist behind the portrait isn't going anywhere

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] 2024 economic outlook: China, Trump and the next black swan

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] 2024 German economic outlook: Heading for a sputter

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] War, inflation, flooding: Germans' negative outlook on 2024

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Germany sees inflation ease to 5.9% for 2023

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] L'Oreal heiress Bettencourt Meyers: First $100-billion woman

Andre Franca ☛ Advertising

I despise advertising. If you’re a marketing professional, don’t be offended. I despise you because, unfortunately, you are doing well the job you set out to do.

Advertising serves various purposes, often associated with a company trying to sell you a product or a desire. Nowadays, it’s common to see advertising for our image, in terms of how we sell who we are and how we present ourselves (yes, exactly that foolish coach talk that everyone knows and still falls for). It also exists in politics or in dictatorships, where politicians try to sell an idea of the world, of a country, or whatever it may be.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

Scheerpost ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Glenn Greenwald: Can’t-Miss of 2023 — COVID, #TwitterFiles, Govt Spying & More

Gizmodo ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Twitter Was 2023's Best Movie Theater

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Mexican Zapatista Rebel Group Celebrates Anniversary of Anti-Globalization Uprising

International Business Times ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] YouTube King MrBeast Shuns Elon Musk's Invitation To Upload Videos On X

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] Amateur Missouri Investigator, YouTube Creator Helps Break Decade-Old Missing Person Cold Case

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Decoding China: Taiwan election must preserve status quo

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-06 [Older] Taiwan condemns 'safety threat' of Chinese balloons

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] China-Taiwan 'reunification' is inevitable, says Xi

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Taiwan: Presidential candidates debate in shadow of China

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Serbian students block roads to protest Vucic party victory

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Political tensions high in Serbia amid vote fraud protests

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] What's in store for EU-Southeast Asia ties in 2024?

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Emboldened Iran silences critics as world looks elsewhere

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Donald Trump launches appeal to overturn Colorado ruling

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] US Supreme Court to hear Trump appeal of Colorado ballot ban

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Albania: Former PM put under house arrest in corruption case

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Albania: Fight against high-level corruption gains traction

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-04 [Older] Bangladesh claims fair election despite opposition boycott

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] Bangladesh Nobel laureate's woes turn focus on rule of law

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] Congo: Will Tshisekedi's reelection ease concerns?

India Times ☛ Microsoft executive Dee Templeton joins OpenAI board: report

The observer position means Microsoft's representative can attend OpenAI's board meetings and access confidential information, but Microsoft does not have voting rights on matters including electing or choosing directors.

Silicon Angle ☛ AI drug discovery startup Isomorphic Labs partners with Eli Lilly and Novartis

London-based Isomorphic Labs Ltd., a drug discovery-focused artificial intelligence startup that was spun out of Google LLC’s DeepMind unit just over two years ago, today announced key partnerships with two of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies – Eli Lilly & Co. and Novartis AG.

[Old] Daniel Goldsmith ☛ Free Doesn't Mean Free

On fedi, and elsewhere, I see the same question posed again and again, almost always by Free/Libre Software Advocates:-

"Why don’t lefty activists use free software? The two go hand in hand!"

This then, is an attempt to answer that question, from someone who has been tangentially active in free/libre software, and has been an activist for most of my life. As with most discussions, this answer falls into two parts - the philosophical and the practical

Jacobin Magazine ☛ Airbnb Was Supposed to Save Capitalism. Instead, It Just Devolved Into Garbage.

But crowd-based capitalism, as it turns out, is just more capitalism. We also know now that the success of the “sharing economy” was propped up by the free flow of cheap venture capital. The plan was simply to use artificially low prices and generous incentives to establish a large customer base, and then elbow out the competition while never having to make a profit. This era, roughly 2012 to 2020, was dubbed “the golden era of the Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy” by the New York Times because ordering takeout, a ride to the airport, or a weekend in someone else’s dope loft in Seattle was cheap — until shareholders and Wall Street investors finally asked someone to pay the bill.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

VOA News ☛ Russian Channels Fabricate Data to Claim Ukrainians Don’t Listen to Ukrainian Musicians

A Google search using the screenshot found the likely source of the “notes_veterans” post — another Russian propaganda Telegram channel, “sheyhtamir1974.” It claimed, also citing NME, that Ukrainians are not listening to performers on YouTube singing in Ukrainian: [...]

Censorship/Free Speech

US News And World Report ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Laws Banning Semi-Automatic Weapons and Library Censorship to Take Effect in Illinois

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Burkino Faso's youth utilize free-speech sanctuaries

ANF News ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Over a thousand lawyers write to Amnesty International demanding freedom for Öcalan

ANF News ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] DFG report for 2023: 280 journalists stood trial, 57 journalists remain in prison in Turkey

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

CPJ ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: The high risks of reporting the Israel-Gaza war

CPJ ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] South African journalist Thomo Nkgadima charged with intimidation after photographing mayor’s home

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-01-03 [Older] Jimmy Lai case puts Hong Kong's legal system on trial

US News And World Report ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Hong Kong Tycoon Lai Pleads Not Guilty in National Security Trial

Civil Rights/Policing

Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] The US Labor Movement Had a Banner Year in 2023

Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] How Europe Made Indebted African States Into Its Border Police

CBC ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Lululemon founder faces backlash for blasting company's diversity, inclusion efforts

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Police in Berlin ban pro-Palestinian New Year rally

Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-12-30 [Older] Italy: Venice bans large tourist groups and loudspeakers

CBC ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] Seniors housing in Toronto has a language problem. Experts say it's getting more urgent

CBC ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] They came to Canada for their dreams. Instead they found a mental health nightmare

International Business Times ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] Air Canada Slapped With £58k Fine For Forcing Disabled Passenger To Drag Himself Off Plane

The Hindu ☛ Use social media influencers to disseminate info, PM tells police chiefs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the top police officers of the country to explore whether social media influencers can be engaged to disseminate information in public interest, according to a senior government official.

While addressing the three-day annual Director General of Police (DGP) conference in Jaipur, Mr. Modi said that there was a need to use social media effectively. He also called for the training of police officials in handling cyber-related crimes and the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

[Old] Dan Q ☛ Working From Home

But it also made another prediction: that with this rise in telecommunications technologies and modern microcomputers (remember when we still routinely called them that?), we’d see a greap leap in the scope for teleworking: office workers no longer going to a place of work, but remotely “dialling in” to a server farm in a distant telecentre. Later, it predicted, with advances in robotics, specialist workers like surgeons would be able to operate remotely too: eventually, through mechanisation of factories, even manual labourers would begun to be replaced by work-at-home operators sat behind dumb terminals.

To play on a cliché: where’s my damn flying car?

By now, I thought that about a quarter of us would be working from home full-time or most of the time, with many more – especially in my field, where technology comes naturally – working from home occasionally. Instead, what have we got? Somewhere in the region of one in fifty, and that includes the idiots who’ve fallen for the “Make £££ working from home” scams that do the rounds every once in a while and haven’t yet realised that they’re not going to make any £, let alone £££.

Francesco ☛ Working async in a 9-to-5 office job

Async work is focused on goals rather than activity, and contribution rather than presence.

While this should always be the case, too many companies still force people to go the office, pretending to be busy, without realising what actually is important: results.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

APNIC ☛ Three of the best: Security

Network security is still the main challenge for APNIC Members, as per the 2023 APNIC Survey, with DDoS attacks, phishing, spam, ransomware and malware the network security issues organizations are facing.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

Connor Tumbleson ☛ We are all guests

A few days ago I saw someone online begging for anyone to help as their Google account of 10+ years was suspended for an unknown reason. Imagine yourself in that situation where your primary email account disappears and you are left trying to figure out how to recover an account that may have 100s of accounts associated with said email.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

Patents

Counter Punch ☛ 2024-01-05 [Older] Government-Granted Patent Monopolies are Not the Free Market

2023-12-28 [Older] FDA Approves Another Interchangeable Biosimilar [Ed: More patented junk, designed mostly to grant a monopoly, not solve the issue]

2024-01-03 [Older] PureCircle USA Inc. v. SweeGen, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2024) [Ed: Should plants too get patented? Do humans invent plants?]

To recap, PureCircle sued SweeGen for infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 9,243,273 (claims 1-14) and 10,485,257 (claims 1-7) over methods for making particular glucosylated forms of the natural sweetener steviol obtained from the Stevia rebaudiana plant. The plant produces a variety of rebaudioside variants having various levels of glycosylation; the most predominant of these in the plant is termed "RebA" but this is not the most commercially valuable form. That form, termed variably "RebX" and "RebM" contains six glucose residues on the steviol core, illustrated in the opinion by this diagram:

Kangaroo Courts

IP Kat ☛ 2024-01-02 [Older] Will we have a referral on using the description for claim interpretation or is the Board of Appeal jumping the gun? (T 439/22) [Ed: These appeals are quite meaningless because the Tribunals are patently controlled by EPO dictators who openly and flagrantly violate laws, constitutions, the EPC etc.]

Trademarks

IP Kat ☛ 2024-01-01 [Older] The trade mark adventures of Lara Croft

IP Kat ☛ 2023-12-31 [Older] A royal headache for EU trade mark courts - the Italian SUSSEX ROYAL trade mark application is revived by the EU Board of Appeal

Right of Publicity

India Times ☛ Voice actors air their fears about voice-stealing AI

But AI voice cloning is now deeply hurting this profession and the artists. A GenAI model trained over 10-15 sentences in a person’s voice can create a 5-hour long audiobook within minutes or even dub an entire OTT web series in 10 different languages. Voice over artists are getting random calls to "steal their voices".

The Association of Voice Artists (AVA) in India is now campaigning against the malpractices which are using the audition recordings, telephone conversations or even publicly available audio of voice-over artists to create their AI-generated voice clones.

Copyrights

Soylent News ☛ How copyright warps art and society

Drama is the prime ingredient of stories. A fertile source of drama is loss. One of many things that can be lost is precious knowledge. Copyright thinking misleads artists into making too much of the difficulties in preserving knowledge. So many plots are flawed by supposing that precious knowledge is more fragile and more easily lost than it could be, if only we'd stop making it harder to preserve than need be. Copyright is particularly egregious in putting knowledge at risk of loss because it imposes a scarcity that is wholly artificial, and why? That artists might not suffer the imaginary loss of someone else getting some use or pleasure out of something they created, without having paid for a copy. We risk real loss, to prevent imaginary loss. By that logic, it might as well be criminal for public libraries to even exist. Instead, the strange thing is that private, for-profit bookstores exist. It's not that bookstores should be criminal, not at all, it's that there shouldn't be any scope for their business.

Once you know to look for this melodrama over lost knowledge, it is easy to spot all over the place in our art. It's present even in Science Fiction, the one genre more than any other whose authors ought to grasp that in the future, preserving and disseminating knowledge will be easier than ever.

Luke Harris ☛ To the Clones

It’s not the first time this has happened. The earliest occurrence was in 2011, when a fellow member of an online community copied my home page byte-for-byte to use as their own. It has happened several times since. Many of the offenders frequent the same online communities I do, including the most recent example.

Torrent Freak ☛ How Seized Firesticks in a Plastic Bag Opened Up a Pirate Rabbit Hole

When piracy-related news is delivered via press release, the information provided is rarely enough to fully understand the bigger picture. Whether for legal or commercial reasons, details can be frustratingly scarce or in some cases, simply a bit one-sided. That means looking for more interesting information elsewhere or even stumbling upon it, completely by chance.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal/Opinions

I’m the weird neighbor

I’ve only met a few of my neighbors. You could describe where I live as rural. Most of my neighbors have snow plow attachments for their pickup trucks. Most of my encounters with neighbors were in years past when they dropped by that first winter to see if I needed a hand with the driveway. I don’t know how long my driveway is, somewhere over 200 feet. I shovel it by hand. Luckily, no one has asked me why, because then they would think I’m even weirder.

#Lore24 - Day 7 - Telepathic Firewalls

Not everyone wants to bare their innermost thoughts to anyone capable of scanning them with telepathy[1]. To avoid that, most telepaths are capable of establishing firewalls or shields[2] to protect their mind from intrusion.

the state of the (mud) world

If no combat is taking place, then the attack command, with an argument, will add a combat turn handler to the room and add the entity that is doing the attacking and the target that is being attacked.

If combat is ongoing and it’s from a new source that is not in combat, they are added to the existing combat, as well as their target (if their target is not yet in combat.)

Basically, the attack command will make sure that whomever is using it and what or whomever it is being used on are both added to the fight, and if there is no fight, it will create one to which they may be added.

Cat adapter for Doggiebags

Last year I wound up with a surplus of dog bags and was looking for biodegradable bags for cat waste. Dog bags were too small to fit the scoop when held open with one hand. It sort of worked with two people - one to stretch the bag open, the other to scoop, but that was too inconvenient and filthy.

Politics and Poetry

The seeming inner insurrection by way of fake you's

CBDCs are coming, and I am not ready!

There are more rumblings of impending doom, Central Bank Digital Currencies. All assets will be tokenized and placed into a ledger, maintained by your favorite Central Bank.

BIS had stated all assets, once tokenized, will carry with them conditional transaction limitations which banks will be able to programmatically impose. So long privacy and financial freedom.

Technology and Free Software

Cyclic Universal Clock

I'm thinking about a new representation of time. With the current time system, we refer to UTC time. I find this annoying, because it uses the same notions (hours and minutes) as the local time system. I find this ambiguous.

Internet/Gemini

Hyperscalers and the Smolweb are Incompatible

Because running something small on something huge is a contradiction. Especially, because the smolweb is supposed to be an antidote to Big Tech and the concentration of power. And bigger tech than hyperscalers like Aamazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, or CloudFlare does not exist, if you ignore Meta for a moment.

So people running their Gemini capsule, Gopher hole, RSS feed catcher, or single-user Fediverse instance on one of those hyperscaler products, or hide it behind CloudFlare to mitigate traffic spikes or to keep their WordPress blog online, are not helping to establish a more diverse Internet. CloudFlare even wants to build a supercloud.

Development/Programming

Wishlist for a Hypothetical Crystal 2.x

I love Crystal. I'm still enthusiastic about Crystal. But, I've had some random musings over the past year and a half of doing intense stuff with it (namely midi123 and Benben). Things that make me go "damn, I wish Crystal had this" or "I really wish Crystal didn't do this". That's what this is about.

Benchmarking The New Crystal Compiler Options (-O0 to -O3)

I noticed that v1.11.0 of Crystal is going to ship with some new compiler options that are meant to control how much optimization is done. This should help compile times a bit, so I decided to check out the git trunk, compile Crystal, and see how it handles Benben. And, at the same time, I decided to check the performance of the Common Lisp version of Benben to see how it's coming around, and to see if it's still a good idea to continue working on that port.

Apollo Design Considerations

Why? The large amount of resources flowing into NASA, the clear goal, and the communal action.

* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.