Links 22/11/2023: Binance Crisis and OpenAI Still in Limbo
Contents
- Leftovers
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Monopolies
- Gemini* and Gopher
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Leftovers
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[Old] The Guardian UK ☛ Kevin Smith: how we made Clerks
I wrote that Dante can’t open the shutters at the start of the film so we could shoot the whole thing at night. We filmed for 21 nights straight. I closed the store at 10.30pm, we would start shooting by 11 and continue until 6am. Everyone assumed I was making a porno. At 6, the store would open, and I’d go back to work until 11am. When the next shift came in, I would go up to New York to drop off the footage, or home to sleep, because I had to go back to work at 3pm. But I was never tired – I could’ve done it for another 21 days.
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[Old] YB Media LLC ☛ 20 facts you might not know about 'Clerks'
There are independent films, and there are truly independent films. Whether you are a fan of his work, Kevin Smith really bootstrapped his way into the film industry. It all began with his film Clerks. For some, it’s the beginning of an incredible career and wonderful film universe. For others, it’s a marginal low-budget comedy. However you feel about its quality, it’s a significant movie. We assure you we have 20 facts about Clerks.
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[Old] Vice Media Group ☛ The Improbable True Story of How 'Clerks' Was Made
After watching Richard Linklater's Slacker, Smith made the fateful decision to apply for the Vancouver Film School, where he befriended longtime producer and collaborator Scott Mosier. Four months in, Smith quit school a second time, reasoning that making his own film was a better use of money. He faced challenges along the way, including a nor'easter that delayed shooting, a budget of only $27,575 (including a check he’d gotten from FEMA for storm-related property damage), and a poorly attended premiere. But the obstacles didn't faze him. In 1994, Clerks was purchased by Miramax at Sundance and won two awards at Cannes, grossing $3.2 million at the box office and turning Smith into an overnight outsider hero.
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Education
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The Hindu ☛ A reluctant librarian who became India’s father of library science
Sayers’ teaching made him interested in library science, particularly the various systems of classification of books and other reading material. It was perhaps his background in mathematics and the gift of the eyes of an outsider that made him quickly recognise certain limitations of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), the most widely used system developed by American librarian Melvil Dewey.
Writing about the genesis of the new system he developed, Ranganathan, in an essay, explained how seeing Meccano sets in a shop in London gave him a clue to developing an alternative system, fundamentally different from DDC. With the help of Sayers, he soon developed the ideas of Colon Classification (CC).
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Engprax Ltd ☛ 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing
Retaliation: 53% of software engineers have suspected wrongdoing at work with ~145,000 software engineers in the UK having experienced retaliation the last time they reported it to their employers. For those who didn’t report unethical behaviour, fear of retaliation from management was reported as the top reason (59%).
Gagging Clauses: Investigation finds settlement agreement between Worldpay and current BT CEO, Philip Jansen, contains a gagging clause banned by the Financial Conduct Authority. The investigation also sheds new light on settlement agreement clauses used by the Post Office in the wake of the Horizon IT scandal.
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Hardware
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RFA ☛ North Korea cracks down on unregistered laptops and tablets
Move is aimed at blocking access to foreign media that’s considered a corrupting influence.
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Pocket Lint ☛ Water and dust IP ratings: What does IP68 actually mean?
There are a large number of combinations when it comes to IP ratings, and it can get confusing, but IP68 is one of the most common you'll find on technology devices.
When it comes to solids, devices have been tested against dust and found to be dust tight. Anything with a "6" as the first numeral is as impervious to dust as can be tested and certified on this particular scale. For the second numeral, the 8 denotes that it's protected against submersion in water up to a defined depth and time duration.
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Ruben Schade ☛ Figuring out input selection on a Dell 4K panel
This post is another thought experiment, though one grounded in something a bit more concrete than the last few times. I’m going to present an interface to you, and I want you to take a guess at what it does, and how it works.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Kansas Reflector ☛ Cautious Kansans understand severity of COVID-19 and care about their neighbors
We also discuss peer-reviewed scholarly research published in journals like “Science,” “Nature,” “Cell,” and “JAMA.” From the work of scientists, we’ve learned to respect this virus. It is not seasonal but is high year-round, with further spikes in the summer, after the return to in-person schooling, and throughout the winter holidays. It doesn’t affect only the elderly and infirm (and, even if it did, that would be a reason for the rest of us to take it seriously, not a reason to ignore it). Earlier this fall, hospitalizations from COVID-19 increased three-fold among adults but nearly five fold among children. The rate of children dying of acute COVID-19 has increased over time, and all children who are infected face a 78% increase in the chance of new health problems after the acute infection period ends.
Thankfully, researchers have done “the difficult work of digging through statistics and case studies,” and the findings are clear: acute COVID-19 infections were the fourth-leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2022, killing or contributing to the deaths of 7.5% of those who died. And because COVID-19 increases risk of heart disease and may increase the risk of cancer, it is a contributor to the top two killers of Americans. The third-leading cause of death? Unintentional injuries, like drug overdoses and accidents. We don’t yet have firm data on how the neurological damage caused by COVID-19 infection — sometimes dismissively called “brain fog” — contributes to unintentional injuries, but illicit drug use and alcohol use disorders, contributors to unintentional deaths, both increase in risk after infection.
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New York Times ☛ Omicron, Now 2 Years Old, Is Not Done With Us Yet
In the two years since its emergence, Omicron has proved to be not only staggeringly infectious, but an evolutionary marvel, challenging many assumptions virologists had before the pandemic. It has given rise to an impressive number of descendants, which have become far more adept at evading immunity and finding new victims.
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NPR ☛ A new study says the global toll of lead exposure is even worse than we thought
On the World Health Organization's list of 10 chemicals of major public health concern, lead is a familiar villain. The toxic metal contaminates air, soil, water and food, and builds up inside bodies over time. Its most widely publicized health impact is neurological damage in children, often measured in the loss of intelligence quotient (IQ) points. But lead's pernicious effects don't stop in childhood nor at the brain.
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The Lancet ☛ Global health burden and cost of lead exposure in children and adults: a health impact and economic modelling analysis
Lead exposure is a worldwide health risk despite substantial declines in blood lead levels following the leaded gasoline phase-out. For the first time, to our knowledge, we aimed to estimate the global burden and cost of intelligence quotient (IQ) loss and cardiovascular disease mortality from lead exposure.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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India Times ☛ Deepfake issue: Govt to meet executives from social media firms on November 23
On Saturday, Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that his ministry would meet social media and [Internet] intermediaries to brainstorm ways in which the spread of deepfake photos and videos could be contained.
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Futurism ☛ Twitter Is in Extremely Deep Trouble
As TechCrunch reports, an October analysis from the market research firm Insider Intelligence found that X-formerly-Twitter was already barrelling towards a more than 50 percent decline in ad sales compared to the previous year. Those numbers were notably drawn up before Musk decided to agree with another user spewing antisemitic conspiracy theories, leading to the most recent advertiser exodus.
In other words, the situation may be even worse for Twitter now, with analysts predicting the company's decline in ad sales could be even more significant.
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Digital Music News ☛ Did John Lennon Really Sing On The Beatles’ ‘Now And Then’? Ringo Starr Addresses ‘Terrible Rumors’
In an in-depth new interview with AARP, Ringo Starr addressed the rumors surrounding the song’s creation. The use of AI to isolate Lennon’s vocals in the original demo recording has led people to suspect AI reconstructed Lennon’s voice altogether — but Ringo insists that’s not the case.
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FAIR ☛ The Dystopian AI Future Some Fear Is the Present-Day Reality Others Live
Overall, these news outlets often miss the broader context and scope of the threats of AI, and as such, are also limited in presenting the types of solutions we ought to be exploring. As we collectively struggle to make sense of the AI hype and panic, I offer a pause: a moment to contextualize the current mainstream narratives of fear and fascination, and grapple with our long-term relationship with technology and our humanity.
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ACLU ☛ Why Meaningful Algorithm Auditing is Key to Protecting Civil Rights in the Digital Age [Ed: The title speaks of algorithms, but then the body goes on about buzzwords instead]
Employers today rely on various kinds of artificial intelligence (AI) or other automated tools in their hiring processes, including to advertise job opportunities, screen applications, assess candidates, and conduct interviews. Many of these tools carry well-documented risks of discrimination that can exacerbate existing inequities in the workplace. Employers should avoid tools altogether that carry a high risk of discrimination based on disabilities, race, sex and other protected characteristics, such as personality assessments and AI-analyzed interviews. But where an employer is considering using or is already using an Hey Hi (AI) tool, robust auditing for discrimination and other harms is one critical step to address the dangers that these tools pose and ensure that it is not violating civil rights laws.
But as usual, the devil is in the details.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Storms hit Cruise as co-founder Dan Kan quits following resignation of CEO
Daniel Kan, co-founder and chief product officer of Cruise LLC, the self-driving car subsidiary of General Motors Co., today bid farewell to the company just a day after the departure of Chief Executive Kyle Vogt.
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New York Times ☛ OpenAI Staff Threatens Exodus, Jeopardizing Company’s Future
The future of OpenAI is in jeopardy after more than 700 of its 770 employees signed a letter on Monday saying they may leave the company for Microsoft if the ousted chief executive, Sam Altman, is not reinstalled at the high-profile artificial intelligence start-up.
One of the board members who pushed out Mr. Altman on Friday reversed course on Monday and signed the letter, which was on an internal message board, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The board member, Ilya Sutskever, also posted on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions.”
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The Washington Post ☛ Decades before OpenAI ousted Sam Altman, Apple left Steve Jobs behind [Ed: Lessons about Wall Street from "Open" AI: one week they say you are worth about 100 billion dollars, days later they say you're likely going to go bust/bankrupt]
A power struggle with another executive. A furious board seen as “hostile” by a director on his way out. A stripping of a founder’s power as his prized innovation struggled to sell.
Steve Jobs’s departure from Apple in 1985 sent ripples through the technology world. It left many observers wondering whether and how Apple could move forward without its founder and famous innovator.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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GDPRhub ☛ Digitaliseringsstyrelsen - Decision against Meta of 30 October 2023
In its letter, the Danish Business Authority also pointed out that Meta did not provide sufficient information on cookies and similar technologies used on its website. Meta responded stating that this corresponded to the Guidelines of the Authority of 2013 which only required general information on the purposes of cookies to be provided. Meta adapted its cookie policy as of September 2023 adding a list of cookies and "The most common purposes of these cookies”.
The case was then transferred to the Danish Agency for Digitalization which is competent for dealing with cases relating to the application of the Cookiebekendtgørelsens (The cookie Law), the national implementation of the ePrivacy Directive.
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Defence/Aggression
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El País ☛ ‘You wanted it, bitch!’: An AI chatbot gets nasty with a teenager
According to SimilarWeb, Character.AI currently boasts over 100 million monthly users, with higher dwell times than ChatGPT. This growth can be attributed in part to the six billion TikTok videos created about the app that showcase funny, unexpected and relatable responses from the AI, and even provide tips on how to engage with the app. One popular TikTok meme is “gogogogo,” which refers to having sex with an AI robot.
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New York Times ☛ Electronic Warfare Confounds Civilian Pilots, Far From Any Battlefield
Planes are losing satellite signals, flights have been diverted and pilots have received false location reports or inaccurate warnings that they were flying close to terrain, according to European Union safety regulators and an internal airline memo viewed by The New York Times. The Federal Aviation Administration has also warned pilots about GPS jamming in the Middle East.
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NPR ☛ Ukrainian hacktivists fight back against Russia as cyber conflict deepens
Not long after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February, Sergii Laba, an IT expert, was on Telegram.
The messaging platform, despite its Russian origins, had gradually become a popular online watering hole capable of displacing Twitter, now called X, in Ukraine. Young Ukrainians flooded there to find the latest news, and Russian disinformation often quickly followed.
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The Register UK ☛ Top Ukrainian cyber officials fired after allegedly pocketing kickbacks from govt IT deals
Melnychuk’s post does not explain why the men lost their jobs. The National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), meanwhile, said had it uncovered an embezzlement scam within the SSSCIP, and said the two cyber chiefs are among six suspects under investigation.
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India Times ☛ Beyond Xinjiang: 'China closing, destroying hundreds of mosques in northern regions'
The Chinese government's efforts to shut down mosques have extended beyond Xinjiang, an area long criticized for the persecution of Muslim minorities. This expansion has reached the Ningxia region and Gansu province, areas with significant Hui Muslim populations. As per a Human Rights Watch report , which utilizes public documents, satellite imagery, and eyewitness accounts, indicates that these closures are part of an official strategy termed "consolidation."
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India Times ☛ China is expanding its crackdown on mosques to regions outside Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch says By Simina Mistreanu
Authorities have closed mosques in the northern Ningxia region as well as Gansu province, which are home to large populations of Hui Muslims, as part of a process known officially as “consolidation,” according to the report, which draws on public documents, satellite images and witness testimonies.
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ANF News ☛ Violence against women in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan increasing day by day
The Kadın Cinayetleri (Femicides) initiative records and publishes the number of femicides. According to this, 2,534 women were murdered by men in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan between 2010 and 2020. However, femicides are often disguised as suicides and go unpunished. If this figure is added, there were 4,197 cases between 2010 and 2020. According to the platform's database information, 280 women were murdered by men in 2021; 217 women were found dead under suspicious circumstances. In 2022, 334 women were murdered by men; 245 women were found dead under suspicious circumstances. Although the annual report for 2023 is not yet available, 253 women were murdered by men and 194 women were found dead under suspicious circumstances in the first ten months of the year.
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Security Week ☛ 250 Organizations Take Part in Electrical Grid Security Exercise
Over 250 organizations take part in GridEx VII, the largest North American exercise focusing on the security of the electrical grid.
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Security Week ☛ US Announces $70 Million Cybersecurity Boost for Rural, Municipal Utilities
The US Department of Energy is offering $70 million in funding to improve the cybersecurity of rural and municipal utilities.
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The Strategist ☛ What the US should do better in its engagement with the Pacific
At the US Institute of Peace’s Interorganizational Global Forum on security cooperation in the Pacific islands in September, the US emphasised a ‘whole-of-government effort’ in engaging with the region that involves cabinet-secretary-level meetings...
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Defence Web ☛ Call to close UN Sudan mission is third in Africa this year
Sudan is the third African country to call for closure of a United Nations (UN) mission following the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Mali.
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Defence Web ☛ SA’s second quarter murder rate drops slightly but remains stubbornly high
South Africa’s murder rate dropped by .8% between July and September this year, with 6 945 people murdered, the latest crime statistics have revealed.
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Defence Web ☛ SA’s second quarter rape statistics unchanged at over 10 000 rapes
Between July and September 2023, 10 516 rapes were reported to the South African Police Service, almost the same as the 10 590 cases recorded in the same period last year.
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RFERL ☛ Baku Detains Another Karabakh-Armenian Accused Of 1992 Massacre
Azerbaijan's State Security Service (DTX) said on November 20 that it detained another ethnic Armenian from Nagorno-Karabakh, Rashid Beglarian, accusing him of atrocities against Azerbaijani civilians during the war over the then-breakaway region in 1992.
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France24 ☛ Chainsaw in hand, ‘anarcho-capitalist’ Javier Milei upends Argentina’s politics
His legions of fans call him “the crazy” and “the wig” due to his ferocity and unruly mop of hair, while he refers to himself as “the lion.” He thinks sex education is a Marxist plot to destroy the family, views his cloned mastiffs as his “children with four paws” and has raised the possibility people should be allowed to sell their own vital organs. He is Javier Milei, Argentina’s next president.
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France24 ☛ Hard-right libertarian Milei wins Argentina's presidential election
Argentina elected right-wing libertarian Javier Milei as its new president on Sunday, rolling the dice on an outsider with radical views to fix an economy battered by triple-digit inflation, a looming recession and rising poverty.
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RFA ☛ N Korea set to proceed with satellite launch soon: S Korea military
Pyongyang has a history of staging provocations when the South’s leader goes abroad.
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The Straits Times ☛ US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson arrives in South Korea port
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The U.S. aircraft carrier Carl Vinson arrived at a port in the South Korean city of Busan on Tuesday, in a show of extended deterrence against North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, South Korea's navy said.
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The Straits Times ☛ North Korea notifies Japan of satellite launch plan between Nov 22 and Dec 1
It would mark a 3rd attempt by the nuclear-armed state to put a spy satellite into orbit in 2023.
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The Straits Times ☛ North Korea flags plan to launch satellite rocket between Nov 22 and Dec 1, Japan says
The launch would be the first since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a rare trip abroad in September.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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YLE ☛ Finnish president calls for EU-wide consensus to tackle border problems
Sauli Niinistö made the comments during a two-day official state visit to Poland, a nation which has experienced challenges on its own border similar to the ones Finland currently faces.
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YLE ☛ PM Orpo: Finland will take further action on eastern border if needed
Finnish authorities shut down four border crossings in Southeastern Finland over the weekend.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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Truthdig ☛ Sixty Years After JFK’s Assassination, Oliver Stone Reflects
In 1991, he blew the roof off the official version of the Kennedy killing with his three-hour and nine-minute tour de force, “JFK,” which earned Stone the scorn of the powers-that-be and their media minions. In 2022, the keeper of Camelot’s flame returned to the cinematic scene of the crime with two documentaries, “JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass” and the four-part “JFK: Destiny Betrayed.” The meticulously detailed docs, totaling nearly six hours, take viewers down multiple Kennedy liquidation rabbit holes, elaborating upon and rendering in nonfiction format the theories Stone dramatized 30 years earlier in “JFK.” Only this time, he had more to work with: Both documentaries included new information that had become available through a declassification process that Stone did much to accelerate.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ JFK assassination: 60 years on, are we nearer the truth?
The footage has also allowed some to entertain the idea that suspected assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, a then 24-year-old former marine, did not act alone. The Warren Commission, the body that investigated the circumstances surrounding Kennedy's death, adjudicated that Oswald fired three shots from the nearby Texas School Book Depository and that the second and third shots hit Kennedy’s neck and head.
Now, 60 years since the day that shook the world, many continue to question the origins of those history-defining gun shots.
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Simon Willison ☛ Deciphering clues in a news article to understand how it was reported
Written journalism is full of conventions that hint at the underlying reporting process, many of which are not entirely obvious. Learning how to read and interpret these can help you get a lot more out of the news.
I’m going to use a recent article about the ongoing OpenAI calamity to illustrate some of these conventions.
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Environment
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NPR ☛ A fan died of heat at a Taylor Swift concert. It's a rising risk with climate change
Rio's temperatures last week topped 100 F. But the heat index–a measure that takes into account both air temperature and humidity–made it feel like it was nearly 140 degrees Fahrenheit. People can only handle heat like that for a few hours before they start to get sick–or even die.
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Overpopulation ☛ Ecological Footprint and Sustainable Population
According to the GFN definition, the ecological footprint measures the surface area of land required to produce the resources a population consumes and to absorb the waste it generates. This surface area is expressed in global hectares, i.e., hectares corresponding to a worldwide average. For simplicity’s sake, we will speak in hectares [ha]. An important detail is that a country’s ecological footprint only considers what is “consumed” there. It includes the footprint of imported products and subtracts the footprint of those that are exported.
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Science Alert ☛ Global Temperature Exceeds 2 °C Threshold For First Time on Record
It's happened.
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Energy/Transportation
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YLE ☛ Finland's OL3 nuclear reactor offline until Tuesday
Electricity production was shut down after a fault was detected on Sunday evening, according to operator TVO.
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[Old] New Yorker ☛ Was the Automotive Era a Terrible Mistake?
Every technology has costs, but lately we’ve had reason to question even cars’ putative benefits. Free men and women on the open road have turned out to be such disastrous drivers that carmakers are developing computers to replace them. When the people of the future look back at our century of auto life, will they regard it as a useful stage of forward motion or as a wrong turn? Is it possible that, a hundred years from now, the age of gassing up and driving will be seen as just a cul-de-sac in transportation history, a trip we never should have taken?
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ CEO of world’s largest crypto exchange forced to step down
Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao will admit violating US laws as part of a $4-billion settlement resolving a years-long probe into illicit finance breaches at the world’s largest crypto exchange, said two sources familiar with the matter.
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Wildlife/Nature
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Science Alert ☛ This Bat's Member Is So Exceptionally Large It's Used as an Extra Arm
The first mammal known to reproduce without penetration.
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Overpopulation
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Science Alert ☛ Experts Outline 14 Ways Humanity Could Drive Itself to Extinction
But we can avoid them.
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Science Alert ☛ The World Is Running Out of Male Sea Turtles
Temperature isn't the only culprit.
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Finance
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YLE ☛ Volunteers providing half of Lapland's emergency services
Emergency services in sparsely populated areas are largely manned by volunteers, and in Finnish Lapland many young people are keen to get involved.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Experts react: Can ‘lion king’ Milei tame Argentina’s roaring inflation?
The former television personality known for his libertarian economic views and unruly mane will become Argentina’s next president. His first task will be dealing with runaway inflation.
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Vox Media ☛ Video game company layoffs are creating an industry crisis
DevelopersDevelopers at Palia studio Singularity Six were still celebrating a successful early access launch when a surprising announcement was made: The company was laying off around 10% of its workers. Though the game is a cozy life simulator, layoffs were something that was “not so cozy,” as a Singularity Six leader had called parts of game development in a previous meeting, according to two workers.
Singularity Six is just one of the dozens of game companies that laid off workers in 2023, and its workers are among the thousands of people who lost their jobs this year. Only days after ringing in the new year, layoff announcements started rolling in: Wizards of the Coast canceled multiple projects and laid off a dozen people; game engine maker Unity Technologies cut 300 people; Microsoft laid off a staggering 10,000 people, which impacted both Starfield’s Bethesda Game Studios and Halo Infinite’s 343 Industries. The bad news just kept coming as the year progressed, as studios both big and small axed jobs — Digital Extremes, Epic Games, Telltale Games, BioWare, Bungie, CD Projekt Red, Ascendant Studios, Electronic Arts, Embracer Group and Volition, Amazon’s games division, and too many more.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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India Times ☛ Chinese [Internet] company Baidu posts modest revenue growth in September quarter
The company unveiled the newest version of its AI chatbot Ernie in October, claiming it rivalled the capabilities of OpenAI's ChatGPT. Baidu said in an earnings report on Tuesday it made a profit of $996 million in the three months through September, a year-on-year increase of 23%.
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Futurism ☛ OpenAI Secretly Tried to Merge With Anthropic
In the scramble to find a new CEO after the ousting of former chief executive Sam Altman, OpenAI's non-profit board approached Dario Amodei, the CEO of its competitor Anthropic, with an offer to merge the two buzzy AI firms — and make Amodei CEO in the process, The Information reports.
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Michael Geist ☛ Bill C-18 Bailout: Government Announces Plans to Pay For 35% of Journalist Costs for News Outlets as It More Than Doubles Tax Credit Per Employee
The government has taken the first step to creating a bailout for its disastrous Bill C-18 by agreeing to News Media Canada demands to increase the support under the Labour Journalism Tax Credit. While the current system covers 25% of the journalist costs up to $55,000 per employee (or $13,750), the government’s fall economic statement increases both the percentage covered and cap per employee. Under the new system, which is retroactive to the start of this year, Qualified Canadian Journalism Organizations (which covers print and digital but not broadcasters) can now claim 35% of the costs of journalist expenditures up to $85,000 per employee. The increases the support to up to $29,750 per employee or an increase of 116%. This new support will run for four years at a cost of $129 million ($60 million this year alone).
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El País ☛ Rupert Murdoch is stepping down (sort of)
At the annual meeting of Fox Corp (the U.S. television company), Rupert Murdoch’s illustrious 70-year career was summarized in a concise five-minute video by his son and successor. Murdoch graciously acknowledged the ovation from those in attendance, but refrained from speaking throughout the 30-minute event. However, he did address the November 15 meeting of News Corp, the sprawling conglomerate that encompasses the pay television business in Australia, newspapers, publishing houses and a real estate brokerage.
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Futurism ☛ Is OpenAI Melting Down Because It Secretly Created Something Really Scary?
Making matters even hazier is that we still haven't fully agreed on a single definition of AGI, a term that roughly equates to a point at which an AI can conduct intellectual tasks on a level with us humans.
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Futurism ☛ OpenAI’s New CEO Said Something Terrifying a Few Months Ago
Yudkowsky's become one of the most famous — or infamous, depending who you ask — AI alarm-ringers in the world over the past decade, and in the year since ChatGPT was unleashed upon the world, he's even called for bombing AI data centers to avoid the doom and death that artificial general intelligence (AGI), or human-level AI, will wreak upon our planet and species.
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India Times ☛ The long shadow of Steve Jobs looms over the turmoil at OpenAI
Until Friday, Altman was the CEO of OpenAI, the dominant artificial intelligence company. He promised AI would usher in humanity's first golden age even though it came from the same kind of inventors who thought there was a market for [Internet]-connected toasters.
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Quartz ☛ San Francisco is losing sleep over the OpenAI meltdown
In the meantime, we can judge how well some of the key players in the OpenAI story are sleeping from their activity on X, formerly known as Twitter. For example, Altman made a series of posts on Nov. 18, at 11:47 pm, 12:05 am, and 12:32 am, professing admiration for his former colleagues. (All time stamps have been converted to Eastern standard time.)
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JURIST ☛ US appeals court rules against tool used to enforce Voting Rights Act
The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Monday ruled against a tool often used to enforce voter protections, finding that private groups and individuals are not permitted to bring lawsuits under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which prohibits race-based voter suppression.
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France24 ☛ Rosalynn Carter, former US first lady and mental health activist, dies at 96
Former US first lady Rosalynn Carter, who President Jimmy Carter called "an extension of myself" owing to his wife's prominent role in his administration even as she tirelessly promoted the cause of mental health, died on Sunday at age 96, the Carter Center said.
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CS Monitor ☛ Rosalynn Carter led the way as influential, activist first lady
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died Nov. 19, was not only influential in Jimmy Carter’s Cabinet, but she also pioneered help for mental health and the elderly. Quiet in demeanor yet strong in her views, Washington reporters called her “the Steel Magnolia.”
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The Straits Times ☛ Britain to launch trade talks with South Korea during Yoon’s state visit
Britain and South Korea will launch negotiations on a new free trade agreement (FTA) and sign a new diplomatic accord during a state visit by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol this week, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's office said on Monday.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Taiwan’s presidential frontrunner picks US envoy as running mate
Taiwan’s presidential frontrunner Vice President Lai Ching-te said Monday he had picked the island’s former envoy to the United States as his running mate for January’s election. The lead-up to the January 13 vote comes as Taiwan faces increased diplomatic and military pressures from China, which regards the island as its territory.
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RFA ☛ Taiwan's US envoy Hsiao Bi-khim joins 2024 presidential race
Democratic Progressive Party candidate Lai Ching-te confirms 'cat warrior' diplomat as running mate.
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The Straits Times ☛ ST Picks: Why Japanese brands are toughing it out despite the odds in China
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The Straits Times ☛ Japanese brands toughing it out in China despite headwinds
Japanese foreign direct investment into China has been shrinking, as has the number of Japanese citizens living there.
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RFA ☛ Philippines seeking bilateral deals to avoid South China Sea conflict: Marcos
Slow progress on a long-sought regional code of conduct with China has forced Manila to approach Vietnam and Malaysia for separate deals.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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RFA ☛ Nanjing dissident journalist Sun Lin dies after police raid on home
In a profile on its website, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders describes Sun as "independent journalist who has reported on human rights violations and the corruption of Chinese officials."
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Citizen Lab ☛ Chinese censorship following the death of Li Keqiang
On October 27, 2023, Li Keqiang, the former Premier of China, passed away due to a heart attack. His death invited commentators to compare Li’s legacy to that of Xi Jinping, while in China public memorials for Li were alternately permitted and restricted. This report documents our discovery of Li Keqiang-related censorship rules on multiple Chinese platforms introduced in light of Li’s death. We found censorship rules relating to speculation over Li’s cause of death, aspirations wishing Xi had alternatively died, memorials of Li’s death, recognition of Li’s already diminished status in the party, and commentary on how Li’s death cements Xi’s political status.
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RFERL ☛ Moscow Court Rejects Nobel Winner Muratov's Appeal Against 'Foreign Agent' Label
A Moscow court on November 21 rejected journalist and Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov's appeal against the Justice Ministry's September decision to add him to the so-called foreign agents registry. [...]
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Reason ☛ Tiger King + Libel: Video Log and Web Site Post Aren't Covered by Florida's Defamation Retraction Statute
From McQueen v. Baskin, decided by the Florida Court of Appeal (Judge Matthew Lucas, joined by Judges Darryl Casanueva and Susan Rothstein-Youakim): A sanctuary for lions and tigers, the unexplained disappearance of one of its owners, and competing allegations of embezzlement, double-dealing, and betrayal have spawned a defamation lawsuit….
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RFA ☛ Did the German Embassy in China ban a Buddhist religious symbol?
Verdict: False
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The Business Journals ☛ Daily Digest: SEC cracks down on Kraken; X sues Media Matters
After threatening a "thermonuclear lawsuit" over the weekend, Elon Musk’s San Francisco-based X Corp. followed through on Monday with its filing of a legal complaint against Media Matters for America in Texas court over an investigative report the progressive media organization published saying white supremacist content ran on X alongside advertisements from major corporations. The suit seeks unspecified damages, as well as an order from the court for Media Matters to remove the article. Media Matters President Angelo Carusone said the organization would defend itself.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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CS Monitor ☛ India grants bail to Kashmir Walla editor Fahad Shah
Fahad Shah, who's written for The Christian Science Monitor and other international outlets, was granted bail after nearly two years in prison.
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CBC ☛ As journalism programs across Canada face low enrolment, schools hit pause to modernize
Brazilian international student Fernando Bossoes came to Canada to study journalism. Now in his second year at Humber College's Bachelor of Journalism program, he chose the Toronto polytechnic partly because the journalism programs offered back home were too "old school" for his liking.
But just a few months after Bossoes began his studies, Humber announced that it would be pausing new admissions to the program in 2023. And while his cohort started with seven students, that number has dwindled to four — including an exchange student who will be leaving next year, he said — after several people dropped out.
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Deadline ☛ Elon Musk Finally Files Threatened Suit Over White Supremacist Ads Placement On X/Twitter
“Defendant Media Matters for America is a self-proclaimed media watchdog that decided it would not let the truth get in the way of a story it wanted to publish about X Corp,” proclaimed the jury trial-seeking complaint filed in federal court in Texas. Musk and X’s three-claim disparagement suit primarily wants a preliminary and permanent injunction against Media Matters’ report on the alleged placing of corporate ads next to “Pro-Nazi Content.” (Read Elon Musk’s lawsuit over the pro-Nazi ad placement allegations here)
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The Hindu ☛ TSPJA condemns attack on The Hindu photojournalist, demands invoking SC/ST Act
Condemning the attack on Nagara Gopal, The Hindu’s special news photographer, while on duty on Tuesday, the Telangana State Photojournalists Association (TSPJA) demanded that the police invoke provisions of The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against the accused.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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RFERL ☛ Three Iranian Teachers Begin Serving Prison Sentences For Union Activities
The Iranian Teachers' Union's Coordination Council said in a report that the arrests were made without prior notification. Abdolrazagh Amiri and Zahra Esfandiari, two other educators, were subjected to "two years of house arrest with electronic tagging," as ordered by the Fars Province Judiciary, the union added.
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ACLU ☛ Why Meaningful Algorithm Auditing is Key to Protecting Civil Rights in the Digital Age
In many cases, audits can and should be conducted by interdisciplinary teams of subject matter experts, including social scientists, lawyers and policy researchers, that consult with people who will be impacted by these tools and the users of the system itself. Researchers and practitioners have created many different resources describing how these kinds of audits can be operationalized.
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Patrick Breyer ☛ Less waste, more consumer protection: MEPs adopt ‘Right to repair’ position
Today, the European Parliament adopted its position on the ‘right to repair’ law. The new rules will make it easier for consumers to get their defective products repaired, reducing the need to discard them. MEPs agreed that manufacturers shall be obliged to provide spare parts to independent repairers, and a digital platform shall be set up in each Member State to connect customers and repairers. The legislation also introduces rules to encourage more repairs during the warranty period instead of replacing goods. The text now moves into trilogue negotiations with the Council of the EU and the European Commission.
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VOA News ☛ Activists Say Women, Girls Face Major Impact of Climate Change
As the annual U.N.-led climate summit known as COP is set to convene later this month in Dubai, activists are urging policymakers to respond to climate change’s disproportionate impact on women and girls, especially where poverty makes them more vulnerable.
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Reason ☛ Goodbye to Detroit's Asset Forfeiture Racket
The 6th Circuit ruled that Wayne County must provide car owners a post-seizure court hearing within two weeks.
The ruling is the latest development in a series of lawsuits arguing that Wayne County uses civil asset forfeiture to seize cars and then forces owners to pay a $900 settlement fee, plus towing and storage fees, to get them back—or wait months, even years, for a court hearing.
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Common Dreams ☛ Baltimore City Council Joins More Than 100 Localities in Support of Medicare for All
The Baltimore City Council passed a resolution yesterday in support of a nationwide Medicare for All program, sending a strong message to Representative “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-Md.) that Baltimore residents in his district care about ending for-profit healthcare in favor of a universal system without copays or out-of-pocket costs. Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.), who represents the rest of the city, has already backed federal Medicare for All legislation.
The resolution was co-introduced by councilmembers Kristerfer Burnett and Odette Ramos.
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Quartz ☛ The massive UAW strike against Detroit's Big Three was a wake-up call for foreign automakers
On Nov. 11, the UAW posted on X that “thousands of non-union autoworkers have reached out to join our union” in the past 90 days, and invited non-union autoworkers “at Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Tesla, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes, Subaru, Volkswagen, Mazda, Rivian, or any other automaker” to organize. The post called on workers to “Stand Up and fight for themselves,” adding that “a better life is out there. It’s up to you to take action.”
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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RIPE ☛ Palestine Internet Connectivity as Seen in BGP
RIS is our platform for collecting BGP data. With the help of BGP peers who provide BGP data through peering sessions with our RIS Route Collectors (RRCs) across the world, RIS helps us to understand changes in global Internet routing over time.
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Monopolies
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Vice Media Group ☛ Feds Subpoena Ticketmaster Over Egregious Concert Prices After It 'Stonewalled' Lawmakers
A Senate subcommittee announced on Monday that it has issued a subpoena to ticket-selling giant Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation Entertainment after the company refused to fully cooperate with a months-long investigation into its pricing mechanisms.
The investigation was previously unannounced, but follows a series of incidents over the last year—including disastrous ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour—when tickets sold on the website reached prices so egregious that average customers could afford them.
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Patents
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ GUI Guidelines: The Old Rules are New Again
Last week, the USPTO released a document entitled “Supplemental Guidance for Examination of Design Patent Applications Related to Computer-Generated Electronic Images, Including Computer-Generated Icons and Graphical User Interfaces.” In it, the USPTO reaffirmed its prior interpretation of the phrase “design for an article of manufacture” and did not—as many had hoped—expand its interpretation of that phrase.
The statutory subject matter provision for design patents, 35 U.S.C. § 171, states: “Whoever invents any new, original and ornamental design for an article of manufacture may obtain a patent monopoly therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title” (emphasis added).
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Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ The recent Chinese ‘Anti-Monopoly Guidelines’ on Standard Essential Patents
A judicial and academic debate on standard essential patents (SEPs) in China has recently arisen.
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Copyrights
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ Big Tech Is Lobbying Hard to Keep Copyright Law Favorable to AI
Big Tech leaders are spending millions of dollars — and pushing dubious national security concerns — to try to prevent federal regulators from forcing them to pay for the copyrighted works their companies are using to train their artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
At issue is a new effort by the US Copyright Office to consider how to apply US copyright law to the nascent AI industry. The matter has triggered impassioned pushback from powerful tech interests who say they must have access to people’s hard work for free, or the future of their industry will be jeopardized.
The fight comes as artists, actors, news organizations, and others have sued AI companies using their work to train the emergent technology on how to create images in the style of certain artists, replicate voices of singers, write new literature based on copyrighted works, and many other instances in which original work is being harvested off the [Internet] free of charge.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Cloudflare Blocks Abusive Content on its Ethereum Gateway
Cloudflare is a content-neutral Internet infrastructure service. The company aims not to interfere with the traffic of its clients and users but, in some cases, it has to take action. This means responding to DMCA subpoenas and takedown requests for hosted content, for example. In addition, Cloudflare now reports it has blocked access to 'abusive' content on its Ethereum gateway.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Pirate IPTV: Brit Arrested in Benidorm After Social Media Ads Raised Suspicion
A 62-year-old man from the UK has been arrested in Spain on suspicion of receiving over 5,500 payments for pirate IPTV subscriptions totaling £185,000. Police launched an investigation after a broadcaster filed a complaint against social media accounts offering illicit packages containing exclusive sports content.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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Winter's Whispers
It's not that it's been colder than it has been the other years, just that the cold started a bit earlier than the past couple years. Though, it has been a welcome addition. I much prefer the cold over the heat, though I'd never want to trade one for the other. The Autumn leaves have been especially beautiful this year, I've never seen such vibrant shades of red, orange, and yellow fill the sky like it has this year. It's truly awe inspiring.
Life has been crazy these past couple months, so much has changed, yet at the same time very little has. I'm still working at the store, I'm still going to the same classes, I'm still primarily riding my bike to get around, but each part has been slightly tweaked.
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Up in the Woods
Here we are at almost-Thanksgiving. Miss you even though we hardly ever spent this holiday together.
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Tuesday just basically raced by
We've been enjoying another pass through the original "The Wild Wild West" series.
Fantastic neither-could-sleep so middle-of-the-night sex, last night.
Awoke a bit later than usual, possibly for anticipating a slower day?
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What do we do about car culture?
I think a lot about car culture and how much it seems to just wreck our cities, wreck our environment, wreck our lives.
I'm extra salty about it tonight because I almost got hit by a car, again, on my way to work. It was the classic dangerous situation. My guard was slightly down because I had a walk light and no cars who would be taking right turns were planning to take right turns but suddenly a car who was turning left *went for it* in a slight gap in traffic and, well, I managed to just barely jump back. And I mean barely. Maybe by an inch if I'm being generous.
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Technology and Free Software
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Ok, I got over it
Ok, so I did some thinking, and I came to this conclusion: it's better to stay the course and get over yourself than to hem and haw and think too hard. I had a good day today (though I didn't have any of those classes I was complaining about!). I finally got my student ID card. The salespeople at the Vodafone store I picked up my card from (1) tried to sell me a phone plan, but my phone is locked to one carrier. This is the one time I'm happy that my phone is locked.
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stream 9
no don't. no. the thing happening where I think hm. maybe society is only going to get worse from here. hm. not good. public schools are failing. environment crumbling. could be bad. but there are good things.
been thinking that the market is oversaturated with things that suck. but some things rock. they are out there. more than ever perhaps. maybe harder to find than ever. maybe because now everything feels like it should be so easy to find. but even Google search engine is bad now. silly time to be here.
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IBAN adventures
I have been hired to develop free software to refund traveling costs for Boy and Girl Scouts. Wire transfer being quite widespread, the participants are asked for an IBAN (International Bank Account Number) where the money will be transferred.
This post will first take a glance at the mathematics inside such numbers, then look at the existing options that were at my disposal, before finally re-inventing the wheel and contacting the Liechtenstein Bankers Association...
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* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.