Links 09/11/2023: Kubernetes Stuff and Nature Tricked Into Publishing Superconductor Paper/Hoax
Contents
- Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM)
- Monopolies
- Gemini* and Gopher
Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
SaaS/Back End/Databases
Silicon Angle ☛ VMware, Surveillance Giant Google team up to deliver PostgreSQL-compatible database for Hey Hi (AI) development
VMware Inc. and Surveillance Giant Google LLC announced today that they will partner to deliver Surveillance Giant Google Clown’s AlloyDB Omni database management system on VMware’s Clown, giving PostgreSQL users an alternative to the popular open-source platform that is purpose-built for artificial intelligence development.
Kubernetes Etc.
Tetrate Previews API Gateway Based on Envoy
Tetrate previewed an API gateway for Kubernetes clusters based on open source Envoy proxy software.
Uptycs Deepens CNAPP Support for Kubernetes
Uptycs' CNAPP now has the ability to detect and highlight Kubernetes security issues and misconfigurations using the Goat playground.
SUSE Extends Rancher Kubernetes Management Reach
SUSE updated the Rancher Prime platform with curated tools for managing Kubernetes clusters via a subscription service.
CAST Hey Hi (AI) Adds Tools to Optimize Kubernetes Clusters
CAST AI's Automated Workload Rightsizing tool ensures Kubernetes workloads are efficiently sized and managed to reduce costs.
Diagrid Adds Catalyst Suite of Hey Hi (AI) for Dapr Runtime Environments
Catalyst has made available a suite of Hey Hi (AI) for the open source distributed Dapr runtime for cloud-native applications.
Licensing / Legal
[Old] 9to5Mac ☛ It would take you half an hour to actually read Apple’s terms & conditions
The company says Apple’s agreement comprises 7,314 words. At an average reading speed of 240 words per minute, that would take 30 minutes to read.
Statista says that Apple is the fourth worst for this, in a ranking of tech company user agreements. Worst of all is Microsoft, with a 15,260 word agreement that is so long it would qualify as a novella if it were fiction. The company says it would take more than an hour to read.
Second-worst was Spotify, at 8,600 words needing 35 minutes, and TikTok at 7,459 words requiring 31 minutes.
Openness/Sharing/Collaboration
Open Access/Content
[Old] Nature ☛ Creating an executable paper is a journey through Open Science
Before I start to dive into the details, I want to explain what an executable paper is (or at least what I think it should be). In principle the idea is to enable the reader to reproduce each and every step taken to arrive at a publication’s conclusions, from the raw data to the polished plot. Therefore the paper should be linked to a repository containing the raw data and should support the necessary functionality to make the research process transparent and reproducible. Specifically, the executable paper has to display nicely formatted text, including references and links (just like a journal article), as well as figures, plots, and possibly also videos and interactive elements. Additionally, the analysis code used for creating plots from data should be displayed and interpreted by the executable paper, also allowing for user input to modify the analysis. Lastly, the executable paper should be composed of completely Open Source components and hosted under a free license to be easy to share and reuse.
Leftovers
Ruben Schade ☛ Replacing lights with a zebra crossing
I was in the Sydney suburb of Mascot again this morning, and noticed this intersection had changed. What used to be a set of traffic lights had been replaced with a through road and a zebra crossing.
NYPost ☛ Pricey pilates studio offers $100 credit only if you tattoo their logo on your body, ‘avoid cheeky areas’ — quickly mocked as ‘cult’
A pilates studio called Solidcore is turning heads on social control media after revealing they are encouraging members to brand themselves with a tattoo of their logo to celebrate their 10-year anniversary, according to several posts put out by content creators.
Chris Coyier ☛ Everything about SEO is obnoxious
For another, Google, who ostensibly wants you to not play SEO games and just publish content, gamifies SEO in Lighthouse with a 0-100 score. Although to be fair it’s largely just HTML analysis (so maybe just call it that?).
But the main reason for my ire is that it just plain wrecks the [Internet]. Being at the top of Google search results is worth so much money that people are highly incentivized to get there. And it turns out, if you play the SEO game well enough, it is a game that can be won. And the winner absolutely doesn’t have to be the best experience for the user.
Bridge Michigan ☛ Ranked-choice voting passed in three cities, but Michigan law prohibits it
Under the system, if a single candidate doesn’t win 50 percent of votes, the candidate with the least first place votes is automatically eliminated. Ballots are recounted, and the second place votes of people who voted for the eliminated candidate are redistributed among the remaining candidates. The process continues until one candidate achieves a majority of votes and is declared the winner.
In East Lansing, ranked choice voting won by 52.5 percent of votes, by 51 percent of the vote in Royal Oak and 71 percent in Kalamazoo.
According to Michigan's Home Rule City Act and state election laws, local governments are currently prohibited from using the RCV voting system.
Science
Hackaday ☛ Using Gravitational Lensing To Transmit Power And Detect Aliens
Most of us will have at some point have bought a long power cable to charge the bike on the deck, but [Slava G. Turyshev] has a slightly more ambitious idea. In this recent paper, he outlines how an advanced civilization could use a star or two to transmit power or send signals over an interstellar distance. And his idea is also simple enough that we could do it right now, with existing technology, or detect if someone else is doing it.
Hackaday ☛ 3D Printing Improves Passive Pixel Water Gauge
Here at Hackaday, we feature all kinds of projects, and we love them all the same. But some projects are a little easier to love than others, especially those that get the job done in as simple a way as possible, with nothing extra to get in the way. This completely electronics-free water gauge is a great example of doing exactly as much as needs to get done, and not a bit more.
Science Alert ☛ A Controversial Superconductor Paper Has Finally Been Retracted by Nature
Extraordinary claims...
New York Times ☛ Nature Retracts Room-Temperature Superconductor Discovery
It was the second paper led by Ranga P. Dias, a researcher at the University of Rochester, that the journal Nature has retracted.
Federal News Network ☛ A call for disruptive change in how the government assesses technology
A group called the National Network for Critical Technology Assessment is the latest to call for restoration of U.S. scientific and technology preeminence. The group, working under a National Science Foundation grant, said, "Something disruptive is needed in how we fund the pathway from translational discovery to commercialization." For more, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin is joined by Network member and Carnegie Mellon engineering and public policy professor Erica Fuchs.
Bjoern Brembs ☛ Heading for #SfN23 with two posters
It’s the time of the year again where 30,000 neuroscientists head to the US to talk neuroscience.
Education
The Straits Times ☛ Private schools rethink China future after flunking growth test
Dozens of international and private schools in China are closing or merging, said industry executives.
Adriaan Roselli ☛ Øredev 2023: WCAGmire
I was invited Malmö, Sweden to present two talks at Øredev. Well, they asked me to do one but then suggested that hey, since I’m already there and stuff, how about another.
Hardware
Hackaday ☛ Flipped Transformer Powers Budget-Friendly Vacuum Tube Amp
If you’ve ever wondered why something like a radio or a TV could command a hefty fraction of a family’s yearly income back in the day, a likely culprit is the collection of power transformers needed to run all those hungry, hungry tubes. Now fast-forward a half-century or more, and affordable, good-quality power transformers are still a problem, and often where modern retro projects go to die. Luckily, [Terry] at D-Lab Electronics has a few suggestions on budget-friendly transformers, and even shows off a nice three-tube audio amp using them.
Hackaday ☛ We Like Big Keyboards And We Cannot Lie
So, let’s say you’re good at DOTA. Like, world-class good. How good do you think you’d be on a keyboard that’s 16 feet long, with a space bar the size of a person? Well, you’d need the rest of your team, that’s for sure.
Daniël de Kok ☛ Review: ZSA Voyager Ergonomic Keyboard
It has been known for a long time that traditional computer keyboards are not great for our bodies. Since the alphabetical and numeric keys are close together, we tend to angle our wrists, leading to ulnar deviation. Also, traditional keyboards form a flat plane (or worse, they are tilted towards the typist), meaning that we have to rotate our hands and arms 90 degrees from its resting (handshake) position, leading to pronation.
Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
India Times ☛ Former Meta employee tells Senate company failed to protect teens' safety
The goal of his work at Meta was to influence the design of Facebook and Instagram in ways that would nudge users toward more positive behaviors and provide tools for young people to manage unpleasant experiences, Bejar said at the hearing.
Meta said in a statement that it is committed to protecting young people online, pointing to its backing of the same user surveys Bejar cited in his testimony and its creation of tools like anonymous notifications of potentially hurtful content.
Common Dreams ☛ New Legislation Paves Way For State-Based Single-Payer Health Care Systems
Today, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) introduced the State-Based Universal Health Care Act, which would create a waiver to allow states to develop their own plans to provide access to health care for all their residents. In response, Eagan Kemp, health care policy advocate with Public Citizen, released the following statement.
India Times ☛ EU to ask YouTube, TikTok for details on measures protecting minors
Google's YouTube and TikTok will be asked by EU industry chief Thierry Breton to provide information on how they comply with new EU online content rules regarding the protection of children, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
Pro Publica ☛ It’s Your Right to Know Why a Health Insurer Denied Your Claim
Just outside public view, the American health insurance industry’s algorithms, employees and executives process tens of millions of claims for people seeking medical care.
Sometimes, as ProPublica has reported, insurers base decisions on what’s good for the company’s bottom line rather than what’s good for the patient’s health. Sometimes, insurers make mistakes. In one case we learned about, a company denied a child’s treatment because it based its judgment on adult guidelines instead of pediatric ones. In another, an internal reviewer misread what type of surgery the patient sought and denied coverage based on that error.
Claim File Helper — ProPublica
You likely have the right to access records that explain why your insurer denied your claim or prior authorization request. Use ProPublica’s free tool to generate a letter requesting your claim file from your health insurance company.
Pro Publica ☛ Insurance Denied a Lawyer’s Cancer Therapy. So He Took Them to Court.
In August 2018, Robert Salim and eight of his friends and relatives flew to the steamy heat of New York City to watch the U.S. Open.
The group — most of them lawyers who were old tennis buddies from college — gathered every few years to attend the championship. They raced from court to court to catch as many matches as possible. They hung out at bars, splurged on high-priced meals and caught up on each others’ lives.
Ester McVey, British MP, on Lack of Debate About Safety and Efficacy
Reason ☛ State-Licensed Pot Suppliers Say Federal Prohibition Is Unconstitutional As Applied to Them
A federal lawsuit argues that it is time to reassess the Commerce Clause rationale for banning intrastate marijuana production and distribution.
YLE ☛ Food authority: Analysing recalled dog food could take weeks
The Finnish Food Authority says its investigation into the recalled dog food could be lengthy process.
YLE ☛ Tuesday's papers: Helsinki bullying, MPs' shares and vaccine rage
Bullying has become more common in Helsinki, according to a survey from Finland's health agency.
ADF ☛ U.N. Warns of ‘Tipping Point’ as Hunger, Violence Worsen
The vicious cycle of conflict and hunger continues in some of Africa’s war-torn regions. Nowhere was it worse in 2023 than in Burkina Faso, Mali, Somalia and South Sudan.
The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia’s price controls keep rice production low, exacerbating shortages
Industry players say they are unable to raise production unless they can earn more to cover sharply rising costs in production.
The Straits Times ☛ South Korea ramps up pest control after reports of bedbugs
South Korea is ramping up pest control measures and inspections to prevent a spread of bedbugs after reports of suspected infestations at some saunas and residential facilities, officials said on Wednesday.
The Straits Times ☛ South Korea rolls out 4-week plan to curb escalating bedbug infestations
The number of confirmed or suspected cases of bedbug appearances has risen to about 30 nationwide on Tuesday.
The Straits Times ☛ South Korea retracts ban on disposable cups at cafes, restaurants
The announcement came as the grace period for the policy was coming to an end.
Latvia ☛ Shorter alcohol sales hours considered in Latvia
The Saeima Public Health Sub-Committtee has agreed to advance a joint proposal on restrictions on alcohol sales, which provides for a prohibition on selling alcohol on working days and Saturdays from 20:00 in the evening until 10:00 of the next day, but on Sundays and public holidays from 15:00 to 10:00 on the next working day, Latvian Television reports.
Latvia ☛ E-health to record vaccination data in future
As of January 1, 2024, it will be mandatory for all medical treatment institutions to enter information regarding any vaccination performed in patients from that date onward, into the State e-Health system, the National Health Service (NVD) said on November 7.
Latvia ☛ Stradiņš Hospital moves oncology patients due to basement flood
Water has flowed into the basement of the oncology building at Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital on Tuesday, so electricity has been cut off for safety reasons and patients moved to other buildings, the hospital said.
New York Times ☛ Infants Are Born With Syphilis in Growing Numbers, a Sign of a Wider Epidemic
Congenital syphilis has become more than ten times as common over the past decade, the C.D.C. reported. “The situation is dire,” said one expert.
Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
New Yorker ☛ These Photos Are “Pure Fiction”
Talia Chetrit’s heady and eclectic body of work pokes holes in our expectations of what an image can reveal or hide.
Vice Media Group ☛ Adobe Is Selling AI-Generated Images of Violence in Gaza and Israel
User-submitted Hey Hi (AI) photos for sale by Adobe depict fake explosions and bombed-out streets in both Gaza and Israel.
India Times ☛ Man killed by robot that confused him for a box of vegetables
It appears that the robot malfunctioned and identified the man as a vegetable box. As per the report, the robot arm confused him for a box of vegetables as it was programmed to handle and grabbed him against the conveyor belt. The robotic arm then pushed the man's upper body down against the conveyor belt, crushing his face and chest, according to the report. The report claims that the man had been checking the robot’s sensor ahead of the test run at the pepper sorting plant. He was reportedly called to check problems with the robot’s sensor that were noticed two days earlier.
Vice Media Group ☛ Elon Musk’s ‘GrokAI’ Is Beating the Competition In Generating Cringe
GrokAI has been released to a limited number of users by the shitposting billionaire’s AI company, xAI. It’s essentially a ChatGPT clone that has access to data from X (formerly Twitter). But unlike its competitors, Musk touts GrokAI as having fewer content guardrails, allowing it to answer “spicy” questions with a “rebellious streak.”
Omicron Limited ☛ Should AI read your college essay? It's complicated
"Our paper shows that AI doesn't need to be a biased black box as it has been in a lot of other situations," said Benjamin Lira, a doctoral student in psychology at UPenn and first author of the study. "You can actually have AI that advances the aims of holistic admissions, which looks at applicants as a whole and not just their grades or test scores."
These tools should never replace experienced, feeling admissions officers and are not currently in use at any college, said study co-author Sidney D'Mello. But, under the right circumstances, AI could help admissions officers identify promising future students who may have previously gone unnoticed amid thousands of applications.
[Old] AAAS ☛ Using artificial intelligence to assess personal qualities in college admissions
Personal qualities like prosocial purpose and leadership predict important life outcomes, including college success. Unfortunately, the holistic assessment of personal qualities in college admissions is opaque and resource intensive. Can artificial intelligence (AI) advance the goals of holistic admissions? While cost-effective, AI has been criticized as a “black box” that may inadvertently penalize already disadvantaged subgroups when used in high-stakes settings. Here, we consider an AI approach to assessing personal qualities that aims to overcome these limitations. Research assistants and admissions officers first identified the presence/absence of seven personal qualities in n = 3131 applicant essays describing extracurricular and work experiences. Next, we fine-tuned pretrained language models with these ratings, which successfully reproduced human codes across demographic subgroups. Last, in a national sample (N = 309,594), computer-generated scores collectively demonstrated incremental validity for predicting 6-year college graduation. We discuss challenges and opportunities of AI for assessing personal qualities.
Deutsche Welle ☛ EU to crack down on targeted social media ads
Use of the marketing technique increased in the years after and ultimately gained notoriety among the wider public thanks to Cambridge Analytica, the British political consultancy that assisted Donald Trump in his successful 2016 US presidential campaign. It later emerged that the company had harvested data from tens of millions of Facebook profiles.
Microtargeted political ads would no longer be allowed in the EU under a deal agreed to on Monday by negotiators representing the Council of the European Union, which brings together governmental ministers from the member states, and the European Parliament.
Scoop News Group ☛ Meta unveils new rules for AI-generated content in political ads
Specifically, political advertisers will need to disclose when AI is used to alter footage of a real event, produce fake footage of real events, depict someone that does not exist or an event that never happened, or make it appear like someone said or did something that they did not. If an advertiser does not make these disclosures as required, the platform says it will reject their advertisements and potentially institute a penalty against them within its systems.
New York Times ☛ Meta to Require Political Advertisers to Disclose Use of A.I.
On Wednesday, Meta introduced a new policy to grapple with A.I.’s effects on political advertising. The Silicon Valley company said that starting next year, it would require political advertisers around the world to disclose when they had used third-party A.I. software in political or social issue ads to synthetically depict people and events.
Meta added that it would bar advertisers from using its own A.I.-assisted software to create political or social issue ads, as well as ads related to housing, employment, credit, health, pharmaceuticals or financial services. Those advertisers would be able to use third-party A.I. tools such as the image generators DALL-E and Midjourney, but with disclosures.
[Old] Scoop News Group ☛ Senators discuss new legislation focused on deceptive AI and elections
Klobuchar’s legislation, which is called the Protect Elections from Deceptive AI Act, is designed to ban the use of AI to develop deceptive impersonations of federal political candidates in political ads, according to a press release. The bill would function as an amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and would allow candidates to address deceptive AI-generated content in federal court. There are satire, parody, and news broadcast exceptions, the release noted.
[Old] US Senate ☛ Klobuchar, Hawley, Coons, Collins Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Ban the Use of Materially Deceptive AI-Generated Content in Elections
This bill would amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) to prohibit the distribution of materially deceptive AI-generated audio, images, or video relating to federal candidates in political ads or certain issue ads to influence a federal election or fundraise. The bill allows federal candidates targeted by this materially deceptive content to have content taken down and enables them to seek damages in federal court. This ban extends to a person, political committee, or other entity that distributes materially deceptive content intended to influence an election or raise money fraudulently. Consistent with the First Amendment, the bill has exceptions for parody, satire, and the use of AI-generated content in news broadcasts.
India Times ☛ Meta to require advertisers to disclose ads created via AI on political issues
Meta (formerly Facebook) on Wednesday announced that it will now require advertisers to disclose when they digitally create or alter a political or social issue ad in certain cases, including with artificial intelligence (AI).
Security
Integrity/Availability/Authenticity
Cybergeeks ☛ Attackers impersonate Romanian Gas Companies – OSINT Investigation
In this blog post, we’re going to look at a campaign that reveals recently created domains impersonating known Romanian gas companies.
Unix Sheikh ☛ Are Passkeys really the beginning of the end of passwords? I certainly hope not!
This problem would not exist had someone not had the amazingly brilliant idea of stuffing HTML into email. The ASCII ribbon campaign was an Internet phenomenon started in 1998 advocating that email be sent only in plain text, because of the dangers of using HTML in email. Go figure, the Unix graybeards were right!
Privacy/Surveillance
Reason ☛ Lawmakers Try To Insert Privacy Protections Into the Feds' Snooping Powers
The bipartisan Government Surveillance Reform Act would stop a lot of warrantless surveillance as a condition for renewal of Section 702 authorities.
Scoop News Group ☛ Reform bill would overhaul controversial surveillance law
A measure introduced on Tuesday puts civil libertarians on a collision course with the Biden administration.
Federal News Network ☛ Data brokers selling veterans’ sensitive health, financial data online, study shows
In today's Federal Newscast: The GSA is pouring $2 billion into sustainable construction projects. Data brokers are selling sensitive information like health and financial data of current and former military personnel. And Jane Rathbun is losing her "acting" title as the Navy Department's chief information officer.
The Nation ☛ Remembering Andrea Miller, a Reproductive Justice Movement Visionary With a Plan
When I learned that the reproductive health activist Andrea Miller had died suddenly in late October, my first thought was that we had lost Miller right when we most needed her. Miller led the National Institute for Reproductive Health for 12 years, where she specialized in bold state and local policies. She was a source I turned to often for hope, because even amid the national backslide on reproductive health care, there were states and localities that, with NIRH’s help, were issuing public funding for abortion, expanding access to contraception, and experimenting with ways to stop deception by anti-abortion pregnancy centers.
France24 ☛ Ohio voters approve constitutional amendment that protects access to abortion
Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment on Tuesday that ensures access to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care, the latest victory for abortion rights supporters since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.
TruthOut ☛ Abortion Rights Seen as Big Winner in Elections in Ohio, Virginia, and Elsewhere
JURIST ☛ US lawmakers introduce new bill to reform current intelligence and surveillance law
Several US Democratic and Republican Senators introduced the Government Surveillance Reform Act of 2023 on Tuesday in an effort to protect Americans’ privacy from government surveillance.
OpenRightsGroup ☛ King’s Speech: Investigatory Powers Act reforms threaten security
Open Rights Group has responded to the proposed amendments to the Investigatory Powers Act, announced in the King’s Speech today. The amendments could mean that global tech companies are forced to get permission from the UK government if they want to make changes to security features of their products and services.
OpenRightsGroup ☛ Response to Consultation on revised notices regimes in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016
ORG would like to express concern regarding the proposed changes, which seem to be squarely aimed at reducing the possibility of the introduction of encryption to protect user data from unwanted access.
Scoop News Group ☛ Reform bill would overhaul controversial surveillance law
The proposal is the first major piece of legislation introduced to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire at the end of the year, and includes a range of proposals designed to modernize U.S. surveillance law and improve privacy protections.
The Government Surveillance Reform Act would broadly restrict the ability of the U.S. intelligence community to use its foreign intelligence powers to collect the communications of U.S. citizens. It would also require a warrant for the government to purchase data from data brokers, who often sell highly personal data with few privacy protections. The bill contains a range of exceptions to its warrant requirements, allowing law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access data collected under Section 702 in emergency situations without having to first obtain a warrant.
Defence/Aggression
BIA Net ☛ Drug raids in 30 cities
Based on evidence obtained from technical and physical surveillance and findings, arrest warrants were issued for 476 suspects as part of the investigation.
Latvia ☛ WATCH: 'The U.S. cannot afford to protect the EU. Why does the EU need protection?'
The second in a new season of geopolitical discussions under the 'Rīga Security Forum' banner was published online November 7.
The Strategist ☛ Safe shipping: a forgotten aspect of maritime security in the Pacific
Maritime security is a broad concept that spans several domains. Traditionally it has focused on defence, state-based military threats, and the protection of national interests and sovereignty at sea.
ADF ☛ Instability Drives Proliferation of Small Arms, Light Weapons in Sahel Region
Political instability, disputes between farmers and herders, unemployment, ethnic divisions, and the rise of extremist organizations are among the factors driving the spread of small arms and light weapons in the Sahel and West Africa.
Defence Web ☛ Kidnappings in the Sahel – a favoured weapon of war
Over 180 kidnappings were recorded in the war-torn countries of Mali and Burkina Faso in the first half of 2023 – an average of one a day.
Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong’s ‘patriots-only’ legislature issues joint statement condemning US lawmakers’ call for sanctions
All 90 of Hong Kong’s lawmakers have issued a rare joint statement condemning US politicians’ calls for sanctions on the city’s officials, calling the move a “despicable” attempt to interfere in Hong Kong’s affairs.
New York Times ☛ Reoccupying Gaza ‘Not the Right Thing to Do,’ White House Tells Israel
The U.S. caution came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu floated the idea that Israel might oversee security for the Gaza Strip indefinitely.
New York Times ☛ Netanyahu Says Israel Will Control Gaza Security After War
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would be at risk of another major attack if it did not remain engaged in the Palestinian enclave.
New York Times ☛ Thailand Hopes Its Hostages in Gaza Will Be the Next to Be Released
Thai officials have seen photos of the hostages who were abducted on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.
RFA ☛ With firsthand accounts, film puts human face on Uyghur genocide
‘All Static & Noise’ also uses animation and drone footage to shed light on China’s cruelty toward the Muslim minority.
RFA ☛ Is China a ‘level playing field’ for trade?
Verdict: Misleading
The Straits Times ☛ China warns against maritime ‘camp’ confrontations but stops short of naming US
November 08, 2023 12:03 PM
Crisis communication mechanisms should also be improved, he said.
YLE ☛ "Stop the genocide": Pro-Palestine protestors interrupt Finnish parliament
The demonstrators called for a ceasefire in the Middle East conflict and an end to arms trading.
Reason ☛ Photo: Ready for RoboCop?
New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently showed off the autonomous security robot the city is piloting.
BIA Net ☛ Suspect for the murder of three Syrians: 'I received a note from JİTEM'
Zafer İncin, the lawyer of the case where three Syrian workers were burned to death in İzmir two years ago, said, "We see this attack as a manifestation of the impact of politicians' hate speech against refugees on people. We demand that it not go unpunished." A verdict is expected in today's trial.
BIA Net ☛ Kurdish politician Emine Ayna given prison sentence
A court sentenced Ayna to 2 years in prison for "making propaganda for a terrorist organization," based on her speeched between 2011 and 2016.
The Strategist ☛ The Chinese military’s skyrocketing influence in space
At the end of May, China conducted its first crew handover for its recently completed space station, Tiangong. That included China’s first civilian taikonaut (astronaut).
The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia Edition: Firms with alleged Israel ties face boycott | An SEZ with Johor, an idea long overdue
RFA ☛ Hamas official says North Korea could attack US over Gaza war
North Korea is Hamas ally, official says, but experts are highly skeptical it will attack the US.
RFA ☛ N Korea issues military threats after Seoul overturns leaflet ban
It’s the first time the country has made such threats since the South’s decision in September.
[Old] Yale University ☛ Hamas Covenant 1988
Peaceful Solutions, Initiatives and International Conferences:
Article Thirteen:
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. "Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know."
Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?
"But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, until thou follow their religion; say, The direction of Allah is the true direction. And verily if thou follow their desires, after the knowledge which hath been given thee, thou shalt find no patron or protector against Allah." (The Cow - verse 120).
There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith:
"The people of Syria are Allah's lash in His land. He wreaks His vengeance through them against whomsoever He wishes among His slaves It is unthinkable that those who are double-faced among them should prosper over the faithful. They will certainly die out of grief and desperation."
Vice Media Group ☛ Did Israel Finally Confirm It Has Nuclear Weapons by Threatening Gaza?
Israel first began developing nuclear weapons in the 1950s. It bought technology and information from France and used it to put up a research facility near the city of Dimona in 1958. The U.S. wasn’t happy when it learned about the facility and Israel took pains to conceal its true purpose from Washington. The inner workings of the Dimona plant are so secret that when a whistleblower came forward and talked to the British press in 1986, Mossad abducted him. The whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu, was convicted of treason in Israel and spent 18 years in prison.
News AU ☛ ‘That’s one way’: Israeli cabinet minister says nuking Gaza is an option
The existence of Israel’s nuclear program was only revealed to the general public in 1986 when UK newspaper The Sunday Times published a bombshell story featuring whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, a former Dimona technician.
Vanunu provided the paper with details and photos of the inner workings of the nuclear plant.
“Based on his revelations, some experts estimated that Israel had built between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons of varying yields and complexity,” writes the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
The Morocco-born nuclear technician lived in Australia briefly in 1986, where he converted to Christianity from Judaism. In September that year, he flew to London to tell his story to the media.
But he was soon lured out of the UK by a female Mossad agent posing as an American tourist in a honey trap operation. She convinced him to fly to Rome, where he was drugged and abducted.
[Old] Sydney Morning Herald ☛ Vanunu: traitor or prisoner of conscience?
But he has become an international cause celebre during his time in prison, embraced as a hero by the anti-nuclear movement and nominated repeatedly for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Vanunu, a Moroccan-born Christian convert, now wants a new life abroad, but has been indefinitely barred from leaving Israel.
He says he has no more secrets to spill, but vows to keep campaigning against Israel's nuclear arsenal and maybe the state itself.
RFA ☛ Planned fossil fuel production is double global climate targets, report says
The plan by fossil fuel-producing nations to expand coal, oil, and gas would twice overshoot the planet’s carbon budget and exceed by more than one-third the Paris Agreement goal, leading to a 2 degrees Celsius warming scenario, said the “2023 Production Gap Report” led by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and Stockholm Environment Institute.
The report, released on Wednesday, is “a startling indictment of runaway climate carelessness,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.
“Governments are literally doubling down on fossil fuel production; that spells double trouble for people and the planet,” it said.
Axios ☛ Major UN report blasts "doubling down" on oil, gas and coal ahead of COP28
Why it matters: The "production gap" identifies the distance between levels that would hit Paris Agreement goals and what is actually planned by major energy-producing countries.
The analysis breaks down energy policies and projections for the U.S., Australia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, China and the other nations that make up the world's top 20 energy producers.
New York Times ☛ Nations That Vowed to Halt Warming Are Expanding Fossil Fuels, Report Finds
“Fossil fuel emissions are already causing climate chaos which is devastating lives and livelihoods,” he said. Yet, “governments are literally doubling down on fossil fuel production.”
Nearly every country signed the Paris Agreement in 2015, the global climate pact that aims to limit the rise in average global temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and ideally no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with preindustrial levels.
The Scotsman ☛ Climate action cannot be left until tomorrow - Scotsman leader comment
Action on climate change is just not something which can be left to think about tomorrow. By that point, it may very well be too late.
The Hindu ☛ World will overshoot 2030 coal limit to tame warming by twice over
Notwithstanding the global consensus among countries that fossil fuel emissions must be eliminated, a new report says that the governments plan to produce twice as much fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, and 69% more than would be consistent with 2°C.
This comes despite 151 governments having pledged to achieve net-zero emissions – or no net emissions from 2050-2070. The latest forecasts suggest that despite promises by governments made as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement that global coal, oil, and gas demand will peak this decade, even without new policies, their forecasts would lead to an increase in global coal production until 2030, and in global oil and gas production until at least 2050, creating an ever-widening fossil fuel production gap over time.
Gizmodo ☛ Texans Vote in Favor of Billions for Fossil Fuels, Leaving Out Renewables as an Option
”The ballot language refers to funding ‘electric generating facilities’ but doesn’t say wind, solar, and batteries are excluded, which polls show are among the most popular sources of energy,” he said in an email to Earther Wednesday. “The Legislature has chosen to put their thumb on the scale for methane gas power plants (the only energy source likely to benefit from this fund), which is the wrong direction for our climate.”
Dave Cortez, the director of the Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter, said that the proposition was “pro-fossil fuel industry” but not “pro-Texan.”
India Times ☛ EU digital chief urges TikTok, X to increase clean-up efforts
Video-sharing app TikTok and social media platform X need to step up their efforts to counter illegal hate speech, European Commission vice president Vera Jourova said after meetings with their executives on Tuesday.
Jourova, the EU commissioner responsible for the digital economy, met TikTok chief executive Shou Chew and X's head of global affairs, Nick Pickles, as the European Union investigates Big Tech's efforts to remove harmful content.
India Times ☛ TikTok owner ByteDance offers to buy back shares from staff at $160 apiece
A ByteDance spokesperson confirmed the share buyback plan for employees outside the US, saying it aimed to provide liquidity options for staff through such programs. The company has offered buyback programs twice a year to eligible current and former staff since 2017.
RFA ☛ Four days of fighting in Myanmar’s Kawlin city displaces 50,000
The military responded to attacks by anti-junta forces with air and artillery strikes.
RFA ☛ Myanmar’s Wa army accepts 5,000 refugees back from China
Around 2,000 more are waiting without shelter to cross the border.
Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Beijing confirms Chinese casualties in Myanmar clashes
Beijing on Tuesday confirmed there had been Chinese casualties after ethnic armed groups fighting Myanmar’s junta seized outposts in the country’s north along the border with China. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin did not say whether the Chinese were killed or wounded, or where precisely the incident had taken place.
CS Monitor ☛ Pro-democracy rebels take local capital in fight against Myanmar junta
Rebel groups in Myanmar have seized control of their first local capital. The armed insurgency against the country’s military junta, which seized power from the government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, is gaining steam.
Environment
Greece ☛ Forest fires still raging in November
In the area of Karystos on Evia, for example, two villages (Prinia and Amygdalia) were evacuated on Saturday, as the fire was “uncontrollable” with winds reaching 9 Beaufort.
Science Alert ☛ Alarm Bells Sounded For Greenland's Ice Sheet, After The Collapse of 3 Ice Shelves
A pretty bleak outlook.
Energy/Transportation
ADF ☛ Kenya’s SGR Drives Up Debt, Falls Short on Profits
Kenya’s Chinese-built Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) was supposed to be an economic engine for East Africa, linking the middle of the continent to the port at Mombasa. Instead, the SGR has become a financial burden that consumes an ever-increasing chunk of the nation’s revenue.
France24 ☛ McKinsey & Company pushes fossil fuel interests as advisor to UN climate talks, whistleblowers say
The world's top management consultancy McKinsey & Company is using its position as a key advisor to the UN's COP28 climate talks to push the interests of its big oil and gas clients, undermining efforts to end the use of the fossil fuels driving global warming, according to multiple sources and leaked documents.
Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China unveils plan to control methane emissions, does not include reduction targets
China has unveiled a broad plan to control its methane emissions, though the world’s biggest emitter of the polluting gases is offering no specific target for reducing them. Beijing and Washington held climate talks this weekend in California, raising new hopes for headway at the COP28 summit in Dubai.
The Straits Times ☛ China unveils methane control plan with no reduction target
The plan includes promising to recycle up to 6 billion cubic m of the gas released by coal mines by 2025.
Gizmodo ☛ Microsoft Calls on Oracle for Backup in AI Fray
AI tasks are so energy-hungry that Microsoft has even investigated using nuclear microreactors to fuel its ambitions. That isn’t stopping the company from funneling AI into every user-end product. Microsoft already has a so-called AI Copilot installed on Windows 11, but the tech giant is planning to stick the chatbot assistant into Windows 10 as well.
Wildlife/Nature
The Kent Stater ☛ ‘Tiger King’ star pleads guilty to trafficking endangered species
Antle, 63, who is not the first figure from “Tiger King” to face criminal charges, admitted in court to directing the sale or purchase...
Science Alert ☛ Incredible Experiment Reveals How Rats Use Their Imagination
Small brains, big dreams.
Overpopulation
International Business Times ☛ Amsterdam To Implement Highest Tourist Tax In Europe, Way More Than Paris, Barcelona
One of the major reasons behind Amsterdam's decision to hike its taxes for tourists is the mass tourism the city has been dealing with over the years. In 2022, the Dutch capital received nearly 17 million tourists, a number estimated to go over 20 million in 2023.
Considering Amsterdam is home to just 900,000 people, the residents' dislike towards the growing number of visitors is understandable. The Dutch government has been constantly receiving complaints from residents and businesses about the noisy and wild behaviour of tourists.
Deutsche Welle ☛ Climate change worsened drought in Syria, Iraq and Iran
"Droughts like this will continue to intensify until we stop burning fossil fuels," study co-author Friederike Otto said in a statement. "If the world does not agree to phase out fossil fuels at COP28, everyone loses — more people will suffer from water shortages, more farmers will be displaced and many people will pay more for food at supermarkets."
Finance
YLE ☛ Workers strike over government labour plans
Unions are gradually stepping up their industrial action over the government's plans to reform labour market laws and cut social benefits.
New York Times ☛ Workers in Sweden Will Expand Strike Against Tesla
Swedish unions are joining in blockades and targeted strikes against the U.S. automaker over its refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement with its mechanics.
Silicon Angle ☛ Expensify’s stock craters after it delivers earnings and revenue that fall short of expectations
Shares of the business payments software provider Expensify Inc. were in freefall today, down more than 19% in the after-hours trading session.
YLE ☛ Wolt founder records Finland's biggest income in 2022
Finland's taxpayers' income and taxation data was published on Wednesday morning.
YLE ☛ No women in Finland's top 20 income list
Only 15 percent of Finland's top 1,000 earners are women, according to 2022 tax data.
Latvia ☛ Latvian central bank conference takes place Wednesday
Latvijas Banka, the Latvian central bank, is holding its annual conference November 8. This year it comes with the title: 'A Recipe for Economic Growth'.
Latvia ☛ Government reviews Rīga bid to become EU anti-money laundering capital
On November 7, the Latvian Cabinet of Ministers reviewed an informative report from the Ministry of Finance on the potential premises earmarked for the headquarters of the new European Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), and other factors in Latvia's attempt to host the agency.
WhichUK ☛ Mind the gap: High street banks still shortchanging savers
Despite coming under increasing pressure to improve their rates, many big banks
lag far behind their smaller competitors
CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Biden wants to ban ripoff "financial advisors" (08 Nov 2023)
The initial 401(k) rollout had all kinds of pot-sweeteners that made them seem like a good deal, like heavy employer matching that doubled or even tripled the value of every dollar you put into the market for your retirement. But over the years, as Reaganomics took hold and workers' power ebbed away, all these goodies were clawed back. In the end, the market-based pension makes you the sucker at the poker table, flushing your savings into a rigged casino that is firmly tilted in favor of finance barons and other eminently guillotineable plutocrats.
TruthOut ☛ APEC Summit Will Celebrate Corporate Power. Activists Plan to Shut It Down.
AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
CS Monitor ☛ What a Texas-sized battle over state history means
What is the purpose of studying the past? A lawsuit against a Texas historical organization was really, both sides say, about how the narrative arc of history will bend in the future.
YLE ☛ HS poll: SDP most popular party
Similar to Yle's latest voter survey, Helsingin Sanomat's poll also shows the opposition Social Democrats rising in popularity.
Silicon Angle ☛ Meta whistleblower testimony will push US closer to an online safety bill
A former engineering director at Facebook (Farcebook) Inc. told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee today how he was ignored when he aired his concerns to management about how the platforms he worked for could damage the well-being of children.
Techdirt ☛ PlayStation Ends Its ExTwitter Sharing Integration, Likely Due To API Payment Requirement
When it comes to the big 3 of the video game industry — Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony — the circle is now complete when it comes to integrations with ExTwitter. Late last year, Nintendo killed off parts of its own integration not just with then-Twitter, but with Facebook as well. But then ExTwitter abruptly announced earlier this year that free access to its API was going to be cut off, replaced instead by a tiered payment scheme depending on what level of integration the user would need. Almost immediately afterwards, Xbox cut off the ability to share content via ExTwitter.
New York Times ☛ Southern Baptists Furious Over Church’s Stand in a Sex Abuse Case
A brief filed in a Kentucky case has infuriated members of the denomination across the country, just as it grapples with an abuse scandal.
JURIST ☛ Portugal prime minister resigns amid corruption investigation
Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa resigned Tuesday due to an ongoing inquiry into alleged corruption. Upon announcing his decision, Costa said that the dignity of the tasks of a prime minister is not compatible with any suspicion regarding integrity, good behavior, or criminal activity.
WhichUK ☛ King's Speech: 6 law reforms that could impact your finances
Proposed law changes for leasehold, drip pricing and smoking crackdown have been
confirmed
France24 ☛ King's speech: UK government to focus on crime, economy – and rolling back climate measures
Britain's government set out its plans to tackle crime, boost growth and water down climate change measures on Tuesday, an unashamedly political agenda that could offer clues to how Conservatives plan to campaign ahead of elections next year.
RFA ☛ Australia and China: Besties again? It’s complicated
PM Albanese calls for ‘unimpeded trade’ in China amid rights controversies at home.
The Straits Times ☛ China urges Estonia to abide by 'one China principle'
China urges Estonia to abide by the "one China" principle, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday, in response to media reports that the Chinese ambassador is threatening to leave Estonia if Taiwan opens a representative office in the Baltic country.
New York Times ☛ Charles Delivers A ‘King’s Speech’ He Probably Disdained
In keeping with tradition, he outlined the priorities of the prime minister at the opening of Parliament — including, this year, more fossil fuel extraction.
JURIST ☛ UK dispatch: King’s Speech outlines Sunak government’s legislative agenda for new session of Parliament
On Tuesday His Majesty King Charles III took part in The State Opening of Parliament, a ceremonial event that marks the formal beginning of a new parliamentary session.
Atlantic Council ☛ What to expect from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum
On November 15th US will host the Annual APEC Forum. There, the US is expected to make major announcements around its regional trade agreement, bilateral investment commitments, and a meeting with China's Pooh-tin Jinping.
Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China ready to hold talks with US ‘at all levels,’ Vice President Han Zheng says ahead of expected Xi-Biden summit
Beijing is ready to hold talks with the United States at “all levels”, China’s vice president said Wednesday ahead of an expected summit in San Francisco between leaders Pooh-tin Jinping and Joe Biden next week.
Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong to arrange polling stations near border for mainland-based voters in ‘patriots-only’ District Council election
Hong Kong will arrange two polling stations near the city’s boundary with mainland China in the upcoming “patriots-only” District Council election, allowing registered electors across the border to vote.
Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China owed more than US$1 trillion in Belt and Road debt: report
China is owed more than a trillion dollars through its Belt and Road project, making it the biggest debt collector in the world, a report said this week, with an estimated 80 percent of the loans supporting countries in financial distress.
RFA ☛ Former Chinese state company executive gets 6 years for 'spying'
Public warning says authorities have broadened their definition of 'espionage.'
RFA ☛ U.S. reports sharp rise in people fleeing China amid 'run' movement
Migrants say they are fleeing political repression and a failing economy that has left them with no income.
RFA ☛ Survey: US beats China on economy and military, but not tech
A global poll of 24 countries ahead of the APEC summit in San Francisco also finds the US is viewed more favorably.
Vox ☛ The problem isn’t inflation. It’s prices.
Prices tend to be “downwardly rigid,” Konczal added, meaning they tend not to go down (the same goes for wages). On the consumer end, once companies increase a price for, say, shampoo or soda, they don’t often revise them back down. Corporations have been quite open that people are largely hanging with them on price increases over the past couple of years, which has allowed them to hike more. There isn’t much consumers can do about it. Many parts of the economy aren’t competitive in a way that would force companies to price down, and it’s not clear how much corporate greed is at the heart of the issue anyway.
DagHammarskjöld ☛ Advancing peace through national prevention strategies – the right diagnosis sets the right foundation for action
Armend Bekaj, Programme Manager in the Foundations’ Peacebuilding thematic area writes about the latest International Training Programme (ITP) alumni online seminar hosted by the The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and the Department of Peace and Conflict Research (DPCR) at Uppsala University.
The Nation ☛ Election Night’s Biggest Loser: Glenn Youngkin
Maybe Glenn Youngkin got a little too big for his fleece britches.
Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
Vice Media Group ☛ Adobe Is Selling AI-Generated Images of Violence in Gaza and Israel
The images for sale were submitted, and presumably generated, by users. Some of them say they are AI-generated in their title, while others do not. The images are marked as being generated by AI in the site’s interface. However, proliferating—and profiting from—fake imagery of Israel-Palestine is arguably a dubious practice even if it’s labeled at the point of sale.
The Register UK ☛ Adobe sells fake AI-generated Israel-Hamas war images – then the news ran them as real
Although these images are labeled as "generated by AI" in the image library, the disclosure is often not carried forward when it is downloaded and posted elsewhere online, including in news articles run by small-time outlets that reportedly did not mark the snaps as synthetic. Hopefully that's not a sign of things to come.
RFA ☛ Israel-Hamas war: How tech, social media spur misinformation
In the month since violence erupted, a second invisible battle has emerged online. Both sides are involved in spreading disinformation and fake news. Old images are being passed off as new. Video game footage is presented as reality. Credible news outlets like The New York Times have faced backlash over flawed reporting.
While disinformation campaigns are nothing new in war, their efficiency today is unparalleled. Advances in AI have made it cheaper and simpler to generate deceptive, but convincing fabrications. As a result, impartial audiences find themselves grappling with the challenge of distinguishing fact from fiction.
Censorship/Free Speech
Chronicle Of Higher Education ☛ The Israel-Hamas War Is Escalating. Colleges Are Caught In the Middle.
They're being told by advocates, alumni, donors, faculty, and students to denounce, support, and shut up about the roiling protests over the conflict.
ABC ☛ Librarians turn to civil rights agency to oppose book bans and their firings
The fight has involved a record number of book-banning efforts; some libraries cutting ties with the American Library Association, which opposes book bans; and even attempts to prosecute librarians for allowing children to access books some consider too graphic.
At least one terminated librarian has gained a measure of success.
The Atlantic ☛ Cancel Culture Cuts Both Ways
Much of the debate about “cancel culture” has focused on people targeted for offending left-wing sensibilities. But the same dynamics can evidently also operate against left-wing activists, particularly those critical of Israel’s response to Hamas’s terror attack. Far from being a culture-war canard, cancellation turns out to be a weapon that many people on both the left and the right are willing to wield to silence anyone who violates their orthodoxies.
RFERL ☛ Family Says French Traveler Sentenced By Iranian Court To 5 Years In Prison
Many Western governments have accused Iran's regime of taking dual and foreign nationals hostage for the sole purpose of using them in prisoner swaps or as bargaining chips in international negotiations. Tehran has denied the accusations.
RFERL ☛ Activists Say Nobel Winner Mohammadi Finally Allowed Hospital Visit After Launching Hunger Strike
Two activists close to Mohammadi said in separate social-media posts on November 8 that the Nobel laureate was now hospitalized and being examined by doctors after her state of health earlier in the week was said to be "unfavorable."
RFERL ☛ Prosecutors Seek Eight Years For Russian Artist Who Used Price Tags For Anti-War Protest
Prosecutors in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, have asked a court to sentence to eight years in prison an artist who was arrested last year for using price tags in a city store to distribute information about Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
EFF ☛ Platforms Must Stop Unjustified Takedowns of Posts By and About Palestinians
EFF ☛ Speaking Freely: David Kaye [Ed: Hilarious as York herself does not believe in free speech and actively attacks it. EFF has a liability in its hands.]
David Kaye is a clinical professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, the co-director of the university’s Fair Elections and Free Speech Center, and the independent board chair of the Global Network Initiative. He also served as the UN Special Rapporteur on Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression from 2014-2020. It is in that capacity that I had the good fortune of meeting and working with him; he is someone that I consider both a role model and a friend and I enjoy any chance we have to discuss the global landscape for expression.
York: What does free expression mean to you?
Oh gosh, that is such a big opening question. I guess I’ve thought of freedom of expression in a bunch of different ways. One is as a kind of essential tool for human development. It’s the way that we express who we are. It’s the way that we learn. It’s our access to information, but it’s also what we share with others. And that’s a part of being human. I mean, to me, expression is that one quality, you know, animals also communicate with one another, but they don’t communicate in a way that humans do. That is both communicating thoughts and ideas, but also developing one’s own person and personality. So one part of it is just about being human. And the other part, for me, that has made me so committed to freedom of expression is the part that’s related to democratic life. We can’t have good government, we can’t have the essential kinds of communication that leads to better ideas and so forth, if we’re not able to communicate. When we’re censored, we’re denying ourselves the ability to solve problems. So, to me, freedom of expression means both the personal, but also the community and the democratic.
Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
The Straits Times ☛ Indian journalist targeted with NSO spyware, anti-corruption group says
Government-backed hackers tried to plant spyware made by NSO Group on the iPhone of an Indian journalist working for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in August, the organization’s co-founder said on Monday.
Techdirt ☛ Freedom Of The Press Foundation Calls Out Alabama Cops For Arresting Journalists For Committing Journalism
The First Amendment provides broad protections for journalists, not only as to what they publish, but also how they collect information. For instance, publishing leaked government documents is protected, even if the acts that provided journalists with these documents may be subject to criminal proceedings.
Techdirt ☛ Police Chief Who Headed Raid Of Kansas Newspaper Resigns Rather Than ‘Defend His Actions’
A few months ago, the Marion, Kansas police department made the immediately regrettable decision to raid the office of the local paper, as well as the home of the paper’s owner.
Press Gazette ☛ Why Germany’s most profitable news publisher is staying free online
According to Scheffler, the number of clicks required to publish a new story has dropped by 44% as a result of the new system, while the time needed to produce an article has been reduced by 37%.
Neritam ☛ Judge who ruled against Assange built career as barrister defending UK government
Jonathan Swift, the High Court judge who has rejected Julian Assange’s appeal against extradition to the US, has a long history of working for the government departments that are now persecuting the WikiLeaks founder.
Swift, who ruled against Assange on 6 June, was formerly the government’s favourite barrister.
[Old] Mark Curtis ☛ Judge who ruled against Assange built career as barrister defending UK government
Jonathan Swift, the High Court judge who has just rejected Julian Assange’s attempt to halt his extradition to the US, is the government’s former top lawyer and previously defended the Defence and Home Secretaries.
• Swift was entrusted to act for the Defence and Home Secretaries in at least nine legal cases
• His “favourite clients were the security and intelligence agencies” while representing the government
ANF News ☛ Second hearing in trial of 18 journalists to be held tomorrow
PEN Norway’s Turkey Adviser said of the case: "These defendants were all political hostages and such a case is a shame upon the judiciary of Turkey. This is a clear case of an attempt to paralyse the Kurdish media in Turkey in the year leading up to an historic election and such silencing of important media voices is a violation of their rights to work as journalists and of their rights to liberty and security."
Press Gazette ☛ Reliance on social media sees profits fall and jobs cut at Pink News
Cohen was referring to the 392 job cuts Reach announced in the first three months of 2023, but this week the publishing giant announced plans for a further 450 redundancies as part of a major restructure, much of which was again driven by a decline in social media referral traffic.
Civil Rights/Policing
RFERL ☛ Jailed Azerbaijani Activist Haciyev Faces New Charge
BAKU -- Jailed Azerbaijani activist Baxtiyar Haciyev has been additionally charged with evading taxes, social security contributions, and health insurance fees, Haciyev's lawyer, Elcin Sadyqov, said on November 7.
The Straits Times ☛ Hospital director in China’s Hubei under investigation for selling birth certificates
Birth certificates probably used to register abducted children and prevent them from being found.
RFA ☛ Buddhist monk in Tibet confirmed as detained by Chinese authorities
“Though Chinese authorities frequently summoned and interrogated him in the past, this time he has been arrested and detained,” he said.
Dakpa’s arrest comes amid ongoing restrictions on freedoms of religion, expression, movement, and assembly by Chinese authorities in the Tibet Autonomous Region and Tibetan areas of nearby Chinese provinces.
The Register UK ☛ US actors are still on strike – and yup, it's about those looming AI clones
The union representing actors in the US film, TV, and radio industries has turned down the latest contract offer from studios in its battle to regulate the entertainment sector's use of AI.
SAG-AFTRA, short for the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, has been locked into negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) for months. Despite the prolonged back-and-forth discussions, the two sides have failed to reach much common ground so far.
Jacobin Magazine ☛ Real Freedom in America Can Only Be Won Through Class Struggle
This subterranean tradition, he writes, has argued that the US government should recognize certain basic economic rights, which are necessary to truly guarantee everyone’s freedom and enable all to meaningfully pursue happiness. Paul urges us to recover this tradition, and to that end outlines an ambitious proposal for a twenty-first-century “economic bill of rights,” encompassing the right to a job, housing, health care, a basic income, and a healthy environment, and an array of other worthy reforms. The Ends of Freedom offers a series of policy ideas for realizing these rights, as well as proposals for how the government might finance such an ambitious program.
Vice Media Group ☛ Unions Are Finally Teaching Elon Musk a Lesson in Europe, and the U.S. Could Be Next
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. He’s also notoriously anti-union on a global scale. But Tesla workers throughout Europe are taking a stand against the company for refusing to sign collective bargaining agreements with them, something workers in the U.S. haven’t yet been able to accomplish. But U.S. unions such as United Auto Workers, which just won a historic deal after striking against other car manufacturers, are sizing up Tesla, and European organizing success might be the push they need.
Pro Publica ☛ Illinois Kids in Custody Go Without Basic Services, Face “Excessive” Punishments
In late December, a teenage boy with a broken arm was left to suffer alone in his cell at a youth lockup in rural southern Illinois. Staff were aware he’d been seriously injured; he told them he was in pain and asked to see a doctor. Two hours passed before staff took him to the hospital, during which they cooked and served dinner and took a group of kids for recreation, he claimed.
Almost everything had gone wrong that day, at a place where things went wrong a lot. Four months earlier, a state audit had called the Franklin County Juvenile Detention Center in rural Benton a “facility in crisis” because it was routinely keeping kids locked up for upwards of 24 hours at a time, a “significant violation” of state standards. It had failed to offer them much in the way of mental health or educational services, the audit said. An overwhelmed and undertrained staff routinely called on the sheriff’s department to help keep the youth in line, even for seemingly minor behavioral disruptions, according to additional law enforcement records obtained by Capitol News Illinois.
Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
Techdirt ☛ Verizon, AT&T Customers Sue To Reverse T-Mobile Merger, Saying It Raised Everybody’s Prices
We just got done noting how pretty much all of the criticism of the Sprint T-Mobile merger by economists and consumer advocates wound up being true. The deal has resulted in more than 10,000+ eliminated jobs, steady price hikes, annoying new fees, a weaker T-Mobile brand, and a lower quality product overall. It also clearly distracted T-Mobile from competent network security.
IT Wire ☛ Optus hit by national mobile, broadband outage since 4am
Singtel Optus has been affected by a national outage since 4am on Wednesday, with its 10.2 million customers unable to make mobile calls or use NBN services.
IT Wire ☛ Optus says some services restored after national outage
Telco Singtel Optus which was hit by an outage of its mobile and broadband services at 4am on Wednesday says some some services across fixed wireless and mobile have been restored.
Techdirt ☛ Tim Wu Asks Why Congress Keeps Failing To Protect Kids Online. The Answer Is That He’s Asking The Wrong Question
While I often disagree with Tim Wu, I like and respect him, and always find it interesting to know what he has to say. Wu was also one of the earliest folks to give me feedback on my Protocols not Platforms paper, when he attended a roundtable at Columbia University discussing early drafts of the papers in that series.
The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia telco CelcomDigi restoring services after disruptions in parts of Pahang, Terengganu
Services for 210,000 users were after a minor fire incident on Tuesday morning.
Digital Restrictions (DRM)
The Register UK ☛ Microsoft, Meta detail plans to fight election disinformation in 2024
As The Reg noted previously, Microsoft's Content Credentials watermarking tech, which it created with Adobe and other organizations in the C2PA, relies heavily on whether apps displaying marked content can process the metadata that labels it as such. Chrome doesn't recognize it, so the "cr" symbol that marks an image won't show up in the world's most popular web browser at all.
Monopolies
Patents
JUVE ☛ No damages for Lilly France in Pemetrexed dispute with Viatris
The basis of the dispute is EP 1 313 508. Eli Lilly’s patent monopoly protects the use of the disodium salt of pemetrexed in combination with vitamin B12. The drug, formulated as a so-called Swiss-type claim, forms the basis of Alimta, used in chemotherapy. The patent monopoly expired in mid-2021, pending litigation therefore concentrates primarily on damages.
Copyrights
Public Domain Review ☛ 54 New Prints — And Now Free Shipping!
A a big batch of new prints is added to our online shop — and also free shipping, and discounts on multiple orders.
Torrent Freak ☛ FBI & Austria's C4 Hit Z-Library With a Massive New Wave of Domain Seizures
During the last few hours, FBI seizure banners appeared on at least two domains linked to under-fire shadow library, Z-Library. Domain records were modified to use nameservers controlled by United States law enforcement agencies. Just minutes ago, signs of a second wave affecting at least dozens of domains may suggest an unpleasant anniversary surprise for Z-Library.
Gemini* and Gopher
Personal/Opinions
lifetime musings
It hits me sometimes that I will never get to know some people at their best. Maybe they won't show it to me specifically, just to others, or they're simply not at their best right now. Maybe they used to be before we met, and won't be again for as long as I know them. or they will be their best version in a decade, but not now. Despite all of that, it will color my image of them, and our relationship forever anyway.
How do I overtake you on the racetrack? 🏎🏁
This is the old-school way to do it. If we're about to turn left, we're normally on the right hand side of the track, but if I stay to the left and brake later than you, I get to the corner either ahead of you (job done) or along side you (in which case I'm now in your way). I have to judge it just right because I could hit you, or not make the corner at all and go off, or lock my wheels and damage my tyres. But if I get it right then I'm out of the corner ahead of you. Purists love this, and when you see it done well, it's a thing of beauty.
To stop me doing this, you might make a defensive move to the left, or try to keep going around the outside of me hoping that my less-than-ideal line through the corner will give me no speed on the following straight.
More On Education
"Deschooling Society" (Ivan Illich, 1971) is another take on the woes of modern education (other takes are linked, below). The central claim is that "universal education through schooling is not feasible"; instead "opportunities for learning, sharing, and caring" should be cultivated.
Single Wing
Inside of your Jeep, since the first day I bought it, there hangs from the rearview mirror a small, silver, single wing on a short string. I could tell right away that it was important to you, but I didn't know why.
As I slowly made you car mine, I would always look at it and try think of a reason why it was there and what it meant to you. I had all kinds of theories, from a secret girlfriend to an important gift from a friend.
Technology and Free Software
Migrated to OpenBSD
I've migrated my gopher hole to gophernicus, running on OpenBSD. It's been over a decade since I ran OpenBSD on anything outside of a VM (I used to recommend it for HA firewalls/routers when I was consulting full-time), and I see it has only gotten better over time. It's nice when not only is there a man page for everything, but the man pages are also useful and complete. The configuration file examples for common services are also a nice touch.
Blackbird: RAM update
Some time ago I decided to update RAM on my main machine - the Raptor Engineering Blackbird. This OpenPOWER workstation has "just" 4-core CPU (16 threads) which is still OK for most of tasks. But these 32 GB of RAM are not enough for some tasks. I occasionally need to generate some larger data sets and typical size is about 39 GB. This is OK but it means swapping to the disk. Not only swapping is not ideal for a SSD but it also greatly slows things down.
Re: Local repo copies
The big feature I loved about Fossil that didn't original exist in Git was the ability to have a single local repo with multiple active workspaces. Trying to maintain multiple clones is kind of a PITA so I'd rarely keep multiples unless I had too many irons in the fire to commit a Work In Progress or stash stuff (idk why I hate `git stash`).
Restoring root and home Btrfs subvolumes to a new Fedora install
Suppose you have a Fedora installation on a Btrfs filesystem, with two subvolumes called "root" and "home". If something happened to your system and it could not boot properly or is seriously broken, you might want to reinstall Fedora, but you may not want to have to reinstall all the packages and re-setup the configurations you had. In most cases, restoring the "home" subvolume is seamless, but the root subvolume relies on the presence and contents of certain files in order to be recognized by grub and be bootable as the newly installed Fedora system. It's possible to reinstall Fedora, restore the "root" and "home" subvolumes from snapshots, and boot back into the system s if nothing had happened since the time the snapshots were taken. I will describe this process below. You will have to do these tasks from a Fedora live environment.
Programming
More words hungering for a decoding
David Foster Wallace came to mind a couple days ago, eventually leading to inner blushing for not being able to remember a thing about "Infinite Jest".
And in this sentence do I jump shift from a word master to having recently been reminded of the near utter uselessness of words.