Links 25/11/2023: Latest Twist in Microsoft's Plagiarism, Twitter (X) Bleeding Some More
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- 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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NPR ☛ U.S. airlines lose 2 million suitcases a year. Where do they all go?
In fact, 99.5% of suitcases checked on airlines do NOT get lost. It's just that the 0.5% that does, adds up to a LOT of stuff. That's where Unclaimed Baggage CEO Bryan Owens comes in. His father started this business in 1970. Owen's father enjoyed listening to ham radios and one day heard a friend in Washington, D.C., say he worked with Trailways and didn't know what to do with all the unclaimed bags they had.
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James G ☛ My personal website is incomplete, imperfect
Indeed, play is the root of many of my website features: the magic wand that takes you to a random blog post, the Christmas lights I just added to my website footer (I add them every year), the coffee emoji that changes during holidays, my "Moments of Joy" series, and more.
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Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Robin Rendle
Can you introduce yourself?
I’m Robin, a writer and designer from San Francisco and I’ve been running robinrendle.com since 2014. That’s where I write about typography, web design, and embarrassing personal drama. Often this looks like a blog post in /notes but about once a year I write a big essay like Newsletters.
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Science
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Science Alert ☛ These Eerie Photos Are The Only Ones Ever Taken on Venus
And, although none of the eight Venera probes that landed on Venus lasted more than two hours – the longest was Venera 12, which lasted 110 minutes before succumbing to the heat and pressure – Venera was the first mission to send to Earth images and sounds from another planet.
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Futurism ☛ Scientists Say There May Be Life Under Mercury’s Salt Glaciers
Scientists at the Planetary Science Institute (PSI) in Arizona say they've found evidence of salt glaciers on the planet's surface, regions that are similar to extremely harsh and salt-rich environments on Earth where life still finds a way to exist.
"Specific salt compounds on Earth create habitable niches even in some of the harshest environments where they occur, such as the arid Atacama Desert in Chile," said Alexis Rodriguez, PSI scientist, and lead author of a new paper published in the Planetary Science Journal, in a statement. "This line of thinking leads us to ponder the possibility of subsurface areas on Mercury that might be more hospitable than its harsh surface."
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Education
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Mat Duggan ☛ AI is Already Killing Books
There is no feeling of betrayal like thinking you are about to read something that another person slaved over, only to discover you've been tricked. They had an idea, maybe even a good idea and instead of putting in the work and actually sitting there crafting something worth my precious hours on this Earth to read, they wasted my time with LLM dribble. Those too formal, politically neutral, long-winded paragraphs stare back at me as the ultimate indictment of how little of a shit the person who "wrote this" cared about my experience reading it. It's like getting served a microwave dinner at a sit down restaurant.
Maybe you don't believe me, or see the problem. Let me at least try to explain why this matters. Why the relationship between author and reader is important and requires mutual respect. Finally why this destruction is going to matter in the decades to come.
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Mark Dominus ☛ Advice to a novice programmer
Katara is taking a Data Structures course this year. The most recent assignment gave her a lot of trouble, partly because it was silly and made no sense, but also because she does not yet know an effective process for writing programs, and the course does not attempt to teach her. On the day the last assignment was due I helped her fix the remaining bugs and get it submitted. This is the memo I wrote to her to memorialize of the important process issues that I thought of while we were working on it.
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Hardware
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The Drone Girl ☛ Why good piloting skills are critical — even as drones get smarter
A key reason why good piloting skills matter has to do not just with the technology powering your own aircraft, but how it interfaces with other technology nearby — most notably drone GPS jammers.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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The Conversation ☛ Honeybees cluster together when it’s cold – but we’ve been completely wrong about why
But my study shows that clustering is a distress behaviour, rather than a benign reaction to falling temperatures. Deliberately inducing clustering by practice or poor hive design may be considered poor welfare or even cruelty, in light of these findings.
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CBC ☛ EU: Air pollution killed hundreds of thousands in 2021
The report found that 253,000 deaths could be attributed to fine particulate matter, small particles mostly created by gas-powered cars or coal-operated power plants. The particles are able to enter the respiratory tract and exacerbate the risk of lung disease. They also increase the threat of heart disease, strokes, and diabetes.
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Digital Music News ☛ APRA AMCOS Reiterates Call to the Australian Government for a Tax Offset to Revive Lost Live-Music Venues Post COVID19
APRA AMCOS has urged the Australian government for a live music venue tax offset to serve as “a catalyst in jump-starting live music nationally.”
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ As Hong Kong’s elderly face loneliness epidemic, carers hope dogs and disco will keep post-Covid isolation at bay
By Xinqi Su Eyes closed, hips swaying, retiree Polly Chan danced like no one was watching at a community centre in Hong Kong, where experts warn of a loneliness epidemic among the ballooning elderly population.
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The Straits Times ☛ Exotic pet trend in Thailand raises concerns over wildlife protection
Thais started taking to exotic pets while cooped up in their homes during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong band Bad Math on making melancholy music to dance to ahead of their Clockenflap debut
On a winter’s night in 2021, Hong Kong band Bad Math opened to a full house wearing face masks and burdened by unspoken trauma. It was almost two years into the pandemic. Social distancing measures had been eased to allow gigs, but an Omicron outbreak was looming.
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WhichUK ☛ How to sit correctly at your desk to boost wellbeing and productivity
Good posture can make or break your working day. Here’s how to avoid back pain, be more productive at the office and improve your wellbeing
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Reason ☛ Review: How To Live to 100
It's not as easy as Netflix's Secrets of the Blue Zones makes it seem.
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teleSUR ☛ Germany: Healthcare Workers Begin Two-Day Strike
"Those who care for sick people and save lives every day must be able to pay their rent and live well on their wages," Verdi member Sylvia Buehler said.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Truthdig ☛ Is the Much-Feared ‘Dystopian AI Future’ Already Here?
The speculative fears they expressed were centered on an existential crisis for humanity (New York Times, 5/30/23), based on the threat of AI technology evolving into a hazard akin to viral pandemics and nuclear weaponry. Yet at the same time, other coverage celebrated AI’s supposedly superior intelligence and touted it as a remarkable human accomplishment with amazing potential (CJR, 5/26/23).
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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New York Times ☛ X May Lose Up to $75 Million in Revenue as More Advertisers Pull Out
Internal documents viewed by The New York Times this week show that the company is in a more difficult position than previously known and that concerns about Mr. Musk and the platform have spread far beyond companies including IBM, Apple and Disney, which paused their advertising campaigns on X last week. The documents list more than 200 ad units of companies from the likes of Airbnb, Amazon, Coca-Cola and Microsoft, many of which have halted or are considering pausing their ads on the social network.
The documents come from X’s sales team and are meant to track the impact of all the advertising lapses this month, including those by companies that have already paused and others that may be at risk of doing so. They list how much ad revenue X employees fear the company could lose through the end of the year if advertisers do not return.
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India Times ☛ Social media companies have seven days to tweak terms of use around deepfakes: Rajeev Chandrasekhar
The government has advised social media and internet intermediaries to “align” the terms of service on their platforms within the next seven days to alert users about the consequences of creating, uploading and sharing prohibited information including deep fake content or child sexual abuse material (CSAM), a senior government official said on Friday.
Intermediaries have to “explicitly” warn users that they cannot “host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share” any content that belongs to someone else, is defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophilic or invasive of another user’s privacy.
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The Atlantic ☛ AI’s Spicy-Mayo Problem
And yet over the past several months, a counternarrative has started to emerge—one that became far more visible with the sudden ouster and reinstatement of the OpenAI founder Sam Altman over the past week, a saga that appears closely linked to questions of AI safety. A growing number of experts both inside and outside the leading AI companies argue that the push toward restrictions has gone too far. They believe that it is putting undue power in the hands of a small number of companies—and stripping artificial-intelligence models of what made them exciting in the first place. Within this crowd, spicy mayo has become something of a rallying cry. ChatGPT felt new because it was capable of something much like a discussion. You can start with a half-baked idea and develop it with the AI’s help, using it as an aid to your own creativity. However, with each iteration of ChatGPT, ever more questions generate a stock or evasive response. The tendency is even worse with some of ChatGPT’s competitors, such as Anthropic’s Claude and Meta’s Llama 2, the latter of which turned down the notorious “spicy mayo” prompt.
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International Business Times ☛ Google Meet Now Uses AI To Detect When You Raise Your Hand In Meetings
Notably, you can activate the recently announced hand raise feature by raising your actual hand. The feature can come in handy for drawing attention to yourself without even touching your computer mouse.
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Meduza ☛ ‘Cancellation in the digital space’: Putin rails against ‘xenophobic’ Western AI models at industry conference — Meduza
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Defence/Aggression
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ Climate Forecast: Catastrophe
We now have a forecast of catastrophe and a critical juncture for the human race. For a very long time, we have been the source of technology that undermines our planet, using it selfishly to benefit ourselves. With climate change looming and a warming planet a reality, how we interact with it has to change. Greenhouse gas emissions must fall.
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International Business Times ☛ Net Migration to UK Hit Record 745,000 in 2022, New Figures Show
However, ONS data for the 12 months up until June 2023 showed a lower net migration figure of 672,000.
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CBC ☛ Finland keeps just 1 border crossing open with Russia amid surge of asylum [sic] seekers
Russia must stop sending asylum [sic] seekers across its frontier into Finland in what amounts to a "hybrid attack," Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Friday, after the Nordic nation temporarily shut all border passenger crossings except for one.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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The Gray Zone ☛ US govt-linked Ukraine activists hold pro-Nazi Veterans Day rally outside White House
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France24 ☛ Influx of migrants from Russia to Finland: ‘This will put pressure on Europe’
Since the beginning of November, more than 400 asylum seekers have arrived at Finnish border crossings from Russia, compared to the usual ten or so a month. Helsinki accuses Moscow of orchestrating this influx of migrants and has closed almost all its border crossings. As a result, more and more migrants are heading for northern Russia, despite the cold, where a crossing point is expected to remain open for the next few days.
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teleSUR ☛ Russia's Murmansk Region on Alert After Finland Closes Border
Migrants are exposed to a critical situation due to Finnish obstructions to their entry into Europe.
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YLE ☛ Finland establishing registration centres to process eastern border arrivals
The decision means that people applying for asylum at the border with Russia will be obliged to stay in a supervised centre until their registration is processed.
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YLE ☛ Finland's border closures "seriously jeopardise" asylum seekers' rights, non-discrimination ombudsman says
Seven of the eight checkpoints on Finland's border with Russia are closed from Friday.
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Latvia ☛ President Rinkēvičs visits Ukraine
Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs arrived in Ukraine on an official visit on Friday. He visited the Chernihiv region, which Latvia is helping to reconstruct following the death and destruction wreaked by Russia.
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Latvia ☛ Public called upon to make or donate candles for Ukraine
As the winter season begins, everyone is called on to help prepare candles to send to Ukraine, volunteers told Latvian Television November 24.
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Latvia ☛ NGO calls for conversations with kids about inappropriate touching
Dardedze, a non-governmental organization which helps victims of youth sexual violence, is calling on parents and guardians to discuss the boundaries of appropriate physical contact with children, so they know what is not permissible behavior by adults.
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NYPost ☛ Russia launches largest drone attack on Ukraine since start of invasion: officials
In total, Russia launched around 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones against Ukraine, of which 71 were destroyed by air defense, Ukraine’s armed forces said.
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France24 ☛ Ukrainian capital sees largest Russian drone attack since invasion, authorities say
Ukraine said Saturday it had downed 71 Russian attack drones overnight in what Kyiv authorities said was the biggest attack on the capital since the start of the invasion.
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France24 ☛ The Dnipro River, a new key front line for Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia
Ukraine confirmed this week that it had managed to maintain its positions along the left bank of the Dnipro River, which had been completely under Russian control. These successes suggest that a major Ukrainian counteroffensive, aimed at reclaiming Crimea, could soon be under way.
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LRT ☛ Lithuanian PM visits Kyiv, pays tribute to Ukrainian war victims
Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė is visiting Kyiv on Friday.
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RFERL ☛ Several Wounded In Kyiv As Russia Unleashes 'Largest' Drone Attack On Ukraine
Russia attacked Ukraine with a record number of Iranian-made drones on November 25, wounding several people and causing damage, with Kyiv bearing the brunt of the attack, in what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called "an act of willful terror."
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RFERL ☛ Dutch Defense Minister Says She Hopes Aid To Ukraine Will Continue Despite Election Outcome
Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren on November 24 said she hoped the country's military support to Ukraine would continue even under a new government led by anti-EU populist Geert Wilders, who has said the Dutch should stop providing Kyiv with arms.
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Meduza ☛ Russian man sentenced to five years in prison for buying fake death certificate to avoid military service — Meduza
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RFERL ☛ Russian Gets False Death Certificate To Avoid Returning To War In Ukraine
A man from the Siberian region of Buryatia was sentenced to five years in prison after it turned out that he attempted to avoid returning to the war in Ukraine by acquiring a false death certificate.
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RFERL ☛ Lithuanian, Latvian Leaders Visit Kyiv As Russian Shelling, Drones Wreak Havoc Across Ukraine
The leaders of Baltic allies Lithuanian and Latvia visited Kyiv on November 24, expressing continued support for the battle against the Russian invasion, while Ukraine struggled with disruptions to its electricity supply caused by Russian strikes and bad weather.
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teleSUR ☛ Ukrainian PM Shmyhal and EU Official Discuss Border Blockade
Currently, Ukraine is rapidly developing alternative logistics routes for its exports and imports.
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New York Times ☛ Kyiv Hit by Drone Attack Wave
The aerial assault, with what Ukrainian officials called a record number of drones, began early Saturday and continued past sunrise.
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Meduza ☛ Ukraine names decorated ‘Hero of Russia’ as commander responsible for at least four civilian deaths in Bucha — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Dispatch from Kharkivshchyna Near the border with Russia, Ukrainian villages confront displacement, destruction, and death — Meduza
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LRT ☛ Lithuanian FM Landsbergis talks changing world order, security, Russia, and China
Lithuania must reconsider its security concept as soon as possible in response to dramatic developments in the international arena, says Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis. The global structure created after the Cold War is crumbling right in front of our eyes, but Lithuania still avoids talking about emerging existential threats, he argues in an interview with ELTA.
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LRT ☛ Interior minister asks president to strip Russian ballet dancer of Lithuanian citizenship
Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė on Friday formally asked President Gitanas Nausėda to strip Ilze Liepa, a Russian ballet dancer, of her Lithuanian citizenship granted by way of exception.
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LRT ☛ Poland’s Pekao bank is considering to open branch in Lithuania – sources
Pekao, one of Poland’s largest banks, is considering setting up a branch in Lithuania to work exclusively with corporate clients. Four sources confirmed this to BNS. According to them, the bank’s final decision is still pending.
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RFERL ☛ Moscow Vows To Respond As Moldova Joins EU Sanctions Against Russia
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow "will not leave unanswered" Chisinau's decision to align with a package of European Union sanctions against Russia.
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RFERL ☛ Ex-PM Kasyanov Added To Russia's 'Foreign Agent' List
The Russian Justice Ministry on November 24 added opposition politician and former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov -- who has reportedly left the country -- to the list of so-called "foreign agents."
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RFERL ☛ North Macedonia Will Allow Lavrov Flight But Russia Sanctions To Remain
The government of North Macedonia on November 24 said it will allow the plane carrying Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to land in Skopje for the OSCE ministerial summit on November 30 and December 1, but sanctions will remain in place against Russia for all other flights.
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RFERL ☛ Russia, China Discuss Construction Of Underwater Tunnel From Crimea
Business executives from China and Russia with close links to the governments of the two countries have discussed plans to build an underwater tunnel to connect the Russian mainland to Crimea, which was illegally seized and annexed by Russia in 2014.
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RFERL ☛ Pashinian: Future In Russian-Led CSTO Will Be Based On Armenia's 'Own State Interests'
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has said any decision about Yerevan's continued membership in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will be based on "its own state interests" after he declined to attend the current summit in Minsk.
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Meduza ☛ Police raid warehouse of Russia’s largest online retailer, issue military summonses to immigrant workers — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Armenian prime minister says Russia failed to supply prepaid arms deliveries, proposes debt reduction instead — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ From the TV screen to the ‘punishment pit’ Russian state news employee who resigned in protest sent to ‘torture basement’ for unwilling soldiers — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Russia adds former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov to ‘foreign agents’ registry — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Mayor of city in western Russia says memorial plaques in schools for graduates who died in war may be bad for students’ psyche — Meduza
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New York Times ☛ For Monetochka, a Moral Stand Started a Creative Climb
Monetochka was one of Russia’s most discussed pop stars. Now, like other antiwar acts in exile, she’s having to retool her career.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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Vintage Everyday ☛ Paul Cole, the ‘Mystery Man’ on the Cover of The Beatles’ Famous “Abbey Road” Album
The Beatles’ famous Abbey Road album cover features probably the greatest photobomb of all time – and it was a complete accident. But did you ever spot it? On the cover of the 1969 album, the Fab Four walk in a line across a zebra crossing in North West London. And in the background, a mystery man stands at the side of the road.
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Environment
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The Nation ☛ Spinning Out of Balance
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BIA Net ☛ 2023-11-24 [Older] Call from 17 climate organizations: Turkey's climate target should be revised
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2023-11-23 [Older] Bridging the Climate Insurance Gap: The Role of Public-Private Partnerships in Climate Adaptation
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NL Times ☛ 2023-11-23 [Older] Groups of Muslims, Moroccans and climate activists worried about PVV victory
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US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-23 [Older] Brazil Highlights Poverty, Climate Change as G20 Priorities
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US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-23 [Older] Brazil to Propose Mega Fund to Conserve Forests at COP28 Climate Summit
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US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-23 [Older] On the Cusp of Climate Talks, UN Chief Guterres Visits Crucial Antarctica
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2023-11-22 [Older] We Should All Be Working Part Time for Full-Time Pay
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Counter Punch ☛ 2023-11-22 [Older] Trade, Climate Change and the Press
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Vox ☛ 2023-11-22 [Older] How 2023 scorched our dinner plates
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Gizmodo ☛ 2023-11-21 [Older] Why ‘Climate Havens’ Could Be Closer to Home Than You’d Think
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2023-11-21 [Older] World Economic Forum to Accelerate Multistakeholder Climate Action at COP28
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-21 [Older] How will Israel-Hamas conflict impact COP28 climate summit?
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HRW ☛ 2023-11-21 [Older] UAE: Migrant Worker Abuses Linked to Broader Climate Harms
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International Business Times ☛ 2023-11-21 [Older] Google Promises To Use Tech To Address Climate Issues [Ed: Greenwashing PR fluff]
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The Age AU ☛ 2023-11-21 [Older] Bowen defends ‘incremental’ climate progress but flags tougher curbs
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US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-21 [Older] Climate Change Hits Women's Health Harder. Activists Want Leaders to Address It at COP28
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The Kent Stater ☛ 2023-11-20 [Older] OPINION: The fate of climate change is in our hands
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Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-11-20 [Older] Emissions Gap Report: World off track to meet climate goals
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US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-20 [Older] UK Says New Science Initiative to Work on Climate-Resilient Crops
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US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-20 [Older] UN Chief, Chile's Boric to Visit Antarctica Before COP28 Climate Summit
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US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-18 [Older] Climate Change Is Hurting Coral Worldwide. but These Reefs off the Texas Coast Are Thriving
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US News And World Report ☛ 2023-11-18 [Older] New Hardiness Zone Map Will Help US Gardeners Keep Pace With Climate Change
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Truthdig ☛ 2023-11-17 [Older] When Idiot Savants Do Climate Economics
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Omicron Limited ☛ What kind of seafood is morally ethical to eat?
A well-managed and abundant ocean could feed a billion people a healthful seafood meal every day, forever. Over-fishing, especially by big industrial fleets, is destroying that abundance—collapsing a wild food resource essential to the health and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people along coastlines around the world.
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Gizmodo ☛ Why Isn't Landfill Mining More Popular?
Landfill mining is the process of uncapping a landfill and sifting through its cells of garbage to reclaim any sort of e-waste, heavy metals, or other recoverable materials that can then be returned to manufacturers and recycled into new products. It sounds promising, but landfill mining has yet to take off widely. I asked some environmental scientists to explain why.
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Energy/Transportation
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New York Times ☛ Relax, Electric Vehicles Really Are the Best Choice for the Climate
But let’s do the math as I’ve done for my family’s two E.V.s. We got the first to replace our 10-year-old, gas-powered Subaru, and after only two years of driving, the E.V. has created fewer emissions over its lifetime than if we had kept the old car. It will take our second E.V. only four years to create fewer emissions over its lifetime than the 2005 hybrid Prius it replaced. That’s counting the production of the batteries and the emissions from charging the E.V.s, and the emissions payback time will only continue to drop as more emissions-free wind and solar power comes onto the grid and battery technology improves.
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ Europe’s petrochemical industry is heading for death row
It would be a mistake to interpret this as a triumph in the fight against plastics. Europe keeps consuming voracious amounts of foams, paints, resins and every other product petrochemical factories make. It’s just replacing indigenous production with imported stuff.
Europe’s consumption of naphtha, the cornerstone of the petrochemical industry, will drop in 2023 to a nearly 50-year low, down 40% from its peak.
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WhichUK ☛ Energy prices are rising by 5% in January: find out how much more you'll pay
However electricity standing charges (the daily amount you pay, regardless of how much power you use) are predicted to increase by around 8p per day from April 2024.
They have already doubled between 2021 and 2023, according to Ofgem. That's because energy suppliers have to pay more fixed costs (such as network costs) and recoup the cost of other energy suppliers going bust. They typically pass these costs onto customers in their standing charges.
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DeSmog ☛ Venture Fund Set to ‘Take Control’ of Telegraph Has Fossil Fuel Investments
The investment fund that has reportedly reached an agreement to buy the Telegraph Media Group has stakes in several oil and gas companies, DeSmog can report.
U.S.-based RedBird Capital has entered into a joint venture to take control of The Telegraph alongside International Media Investments (IMI) of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
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Barry Kauler ☛ Problem riding a recumbent trike uphill
Chatting with people about recumbent trikes, I have been asked this question a few times; "what is it like going up a hill?"
Difficult, because, unlike a bicycle, where you can stand up and put your weight on the pedals, with a recumbent bike/trike, you are lying down and relying entirely on leg muscles. Furthermore, they are leg muscles that you don't use much. It doesn't take very long when struggling up a hill, before "everything hurts".
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Wildlife/Nature
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US News And World Report ☛ 'Adopt an Axolotl' Campaign Launches in Mexico to Save Iconic Species From Pollution and Trout
In their main habitat the population density of Mexican axolotls (ah-ho-LOH'-tulz) has plummeted 99.5% in under two decades, according to scientists behind the fundraiser.
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Stanford University ☛ Nature, Art, Beauty, & Science as Enlivenment & Enchantment Convergence
There is an over-abundance of words written expressing human history and current presence on Earth, hence I prioritize co-creating a physical-visual-image repertoire and opus of our human-nature being, presence and relationships at this critical time in our existence on Earth. It’s time to transition from the Barbaric Heart-driven Anthropocene to the healthy, regenerative Symbiocene. I don’t prioritize careerism as an Artist, as this feels like a dead-end I’ve passed through. It’s truly time for a major paradigm shift from the career-driven “Art World” to an integral, multicultural, multi-species living creative practice world of mutual coexistence. Let’s face reality via true perception and acknowledge phenomenology.
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Finance
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BIA Net ☛ Court rules in favor of Sputnik journalist fired for union activity
Twenty-four Sputnik journalists in İstanbul were dismissed after they announced a strike demanding better wages.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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The Dissenter ☛ Unauthorized Disclosure: Ben Norton
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Insight Hungary ☛ Hungary's civil society warns new sovereignty bill is part of the Orban government’s attempt to silence all critical voices
Hungary's primary civil society organizations say far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán is attempting to stifle dissent by proposing legislation that would establish a "sovereignty protection office" tasked with investigating foreign influence.
For the past years, the Hungarian PM has repeated a narrative suggesting that external forces are working to undermine his government and support his adversaries. In a recent speech, Orbán referred to "dark forces" persistently besieging the defensive lines of sovereignty, including those of Hungary. Seven civil society organizations, including Transparency International Hungary and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, issued a warning statement, stating that the "sovereignty protection office" is part of a broader government agenda to suppress dissent."The bill is part of the government’s attempt to silence all critical voices."
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India Times ☛ Internet, tech can do harm if not regulated via prism of safety, trust: Rajeev Chandrasekhar
The Minister of State for IT and Electronics said that while artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the biggest inventions of recent times, the government is committed to ensuring the safety of users on digital platforms, given that India is one of the largest connected nations in the world with almost 850 million Indians already using the internet and 1.2 billion estimated to do so by 2025-26.
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NPR ☛ How OpenAI's origins explain the Sam Altman drama
A year after Musk left, OpenAI created a for-profit arm. Technically, it is what's known as a "capped profit" entity, which means investors' possible profits are capped at a certain amount. Any remaining money is re-invested in the company.
Yet the nonprofit's board and mission still governed the company, creating two competing tribes within OpenAI: adherents to the serve-humanity-and-not-shareholders credo and those who subscribed to the more traditional Silicon Valley modus operandi of using investor money to release consumer products into the world as rapidly as possible in hopes of cornering a market and becoming an industry pacesetter.
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Federal News Network ☛ Why some security clearance cases are taking longer in recent months
The latest update on the Trusted Workforce 2.0 initiative, posted to Performance.gov recently, shows the fastest 90% of initial top-secret clearance investigations took an average of 115 days in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023. That’s a marked increase from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, when the average was 84 days.
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Simon Willison ☛ I’m on the Newsroom Robots podcast, with thoughts on the OpenAI board
We ended up splitting our conversation in two.
This first episode covers the recent huge news around OpenAI’s board dispute, plus an exploration of the new features they released at DevDay and other topics such as applications for Large Language Models in data journalism, prompt injection and LLM security and the exciting potential of smaller models that journalists can run on their own hardware.
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Substack Inc ☛ Simon Willison: Breaking Down OpenAI's New Features & Security Risks of Large Language Models
This past week has been a whirlwind in the AI world, especially with the dramatic developments at OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, was initially fired from his position on Friday, Nov. 17, with the board citing that he was “not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.” However, after a turbulent few days marked by threats of mass resignations from OpenAI staff, Altman was reinstated as CEO. Here's a detailed timeline breakdown from Axios on what unfolded.
As I went into Wednesday's recording with renowned tech innovator Simon Willison, who is the co-creator of the Django web framework and a prominent advocate for open-source software development, our goal was to dissect the key takeaways from OpenAI's explosive saga and its implications for the AI industry. Since the recording, more details have emerged, shedding light on the past week's events. Reports have surfaced about OpenAI researchers warning the board of directors about an advanced system known as Q*. This model is capable of solving math problems and has superior reasoning skills, a big step up from older models that struggle with processing abstract concepts. This significant AI development prompted concerns that the new breakthrough could pave the way for AGI and contributed to the initial dismissal of Sam Altman as CEO of OpenAI.
I invited Simon to join me on the podcast to delve deeper into this month's news from OpenAI, including the boardroom drama and the unveiling of new features.
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International Business Times ☛ OpenAI Fired Sam Altman To Stop Him From Releasing Human-Threatening AI Model, Report
A new report has shed some light on the reason for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's sacking last week.
Altman joined Microsoft after being ousted from OpenAI. The OpenAI board recently reversed its decision and Altman has been reinstated as CEO. However, it is still unclear why he was removed from the CEO role.
In its official statement, OpenAI attributed Altman's dismissal to his lack of transparent communication with the company.
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New York Times ☛ Explaining OpenAI’s Board Shake-Up
On Friday, the board’s dysfunction spilled into public view when four of its members fired Sam Altman, OpenAI’s popular and powerful chief executive. The dismissal uncorked five turbulent days, as Mr. Altman rallied almost all of the company’s 770 employees to lobby for the board’s resignation and his reinstatement.
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India Times ☛ EU mulls wider scope for cybersecurity certification scheme
The EU move to set up such a system comes as Big Tech looks to the government cloud market to drive growth in the coming years while a potential boom in artificial intelligence after the viral success of OpenAI's ChatGPT could also boost demand for cloud services.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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France24 ☛ No, this video doesn’t show young French women beating up ‘migrant’ aggressors
The footage shows three young women attempting to walk through a group of men in what appears to be a long metro corridor. When the men block their path, the women leap into action. After just a few seconds of flying fists and well-aimed kicks, the girls wipe out the entire group of men, leaving them writhing on the ground.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong files bankruptcy petition against self-exiled former lawmaker Ted Hui
Since his departure, Hui has also been slapped with additional charges of secession and collusion with foreign forces under the Beijing-imposed national security law, as well as those relating to allegedly inciting Hongkongers to boycott the 2021 legislature election after the system was subject to a Beijing-decreed overhaul.
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RFERL ☛ Actors Leave Russian Theater In Protest At Anti-War Director's Dismissal
Bychkov, who has not commented on the decision, is one of 17 Russian cultural personalities who signed an open letter on February 26, 2022, urging an immediate stop to the invasion of Ukraine that had begun two days before.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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Deutsche Welle ☛ India: Why journalists' digital security is in danger
Police raids targeting reporters working for Indian news portal NewsClick resulted in the seizure of around 250 electronic devices — including phones, hard disks and laptops — and even the passports of over 90 journalists whose homes were searched during the October operation.
None of the journalists whose devices were seized by the New Delhi police were given their devices' hash values, the digital equivalent of a fingerprint that changes if a device's contents have been tampered with, as required.
Some reporters said that no paperwork documenting the seizures was provided.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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EFF ☛ Alaa Abd El-Fattah: Letter to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
Dear Members of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention,
We, the undersigned 34 freedom of expression and human rights organisations, are writing regarding the recent submission to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) filed on behalf of the award-winning writer and activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a British-Egyptian citizen.
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Craig Murray ☛ No Ceasefire in the Propaganda War
I have had BBC News on in the background for the last two hours. In that time there have been three lengthy interviews with different relatives of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. There has not been a single interview with a Palestinian relative of a Palestinian prisoner held by Israel.
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France24 ☛ Gender-based violence in French universities: ‘I decided something had to change’
The most prestigious universities and business schools in France such as Sciences Po and HEC train the country’s future executives and politicians. But due to the prevalence of gender-based violence that takes place on campus, for many students, they are also spaces that don’t feel safe.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Barrons ☛ Polarized World Threatens Open Internet: ICANN
After 25 years of keeping [The Internet] strong and stable, the nonprofit ICANN -- responsible for its technical infrastructure -- is warning that increasingly polarized geopolitics could start cracking the foundations of the online world.
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RIPE ☛ Who’s Waiting on the IPv4 Waiting List?
Four years after our IPv4 waiting list became active, and with more than a thousand LIRs in the queue for an allocation, how successful has the list been at providing at least a minimal amount of IPv4 space to newcomers?
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Monopolies
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Patents
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Unified Patents ☛ World 1st Wi-Fi Economic Report finds RAND royalty rate to be between $0.04 and $0.69
Unified Patents and The Brattle Group, a renowned group of economists and damages experts, announced its economic report on the reasonable and non-discriminatory (“RAND”) licensing value of patents essential to the Wi-Fi standard (“Standard Essential Patents” or “SEPs”).
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Trademarks
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Federal Circuit Vacates TTAB Decision as Arbitrary and Capricious
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday vacated and remanded a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) decision that had sustained an opposition to the mark GET ORDAINED, holding that the TTAB had failed to “furnish a reasoned explanation for departing from its established practice of deeming unargued claims waived.”
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Copyrights
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Torrent Freak ☛ Sky's Recent IPTV Blocking Injunction Isn't Unusual, It's Extraordinary
During the summer, UK broadcaster Sky obtained a High Court injunction to compel local ISPs to block pirate IPTV services offering its content illegally. Basic details pertaining to a novel aspect of the injunction were reported but little seemed wildly out of the ordinary. It transpires that the High Court initially had reservations concerning the order, but the biggest surprise is what Sky aimed to block: "relatively banal" content of limited value.
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Torrent Freak ☛ File-Sharing Giant Uloz.to Bans File-Sharing Citing EU's Digital Services Act
File-sharing and hosting giant Ulož has announced a radical change to its business model. The Czech site has been under fire for some time and was recently branded a 'notorious market' by the MPA. However, Ulož says that an imminent ban on file-sharing in favor of a private, cloud-based storage model, is due to the strict conditions imposed by the EU's Digital Services Act.
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Matt Rickard ☛ How AI Changes Workflows
GitHub recently said it was “re-founding” itself on Copilot instead of git. GitHub has always been about the workflow — there are plenty of other hosted git providers, but GitHub was the first to put together pull requests, issues, and collaboration into a single workflow. Re-founding on Copilot is a way to acknowledge that AI will drastically change the developer workflow.
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International Business Times ☛ Microsoft Says It Is Not Responsible If An AI Like Copilot Is Used To Infringe On Copyrighted Material
Microsoft believes it should not be held responsible if people use an artificial intelligence (AI) tool like Copilot to infringe on copyrighted material.
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Walled Culture ☛ Scammers who made $23.4 million from Content ID must pay back only $3.4 million to cheated artists
According to another TorrentFreak post, the fraudulent scheme netted more than $23.4 million. Aside from the astonishing success of such a simple scam, what is also noteworthy is that people were complaining to YouTube about it as far back in 2017, but nothing seems to have been done then.
It is only now that a court has finally ordered the scammers to pay back the money they received to the artists who have been losing out for years. Some 800 people came forward to claim restitution, and they will now be paid the princely sum of $3,365,352.85. As you may have noticed, this seems to leave the odd $20 million in the hands of the scammers. Maybe crime does pay when it’s carried out using today’s dysfunctional copyright system.
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New Yorker ☛ Bradley Cooper: Conducting Is the “Scariest Thing I’ve Ever Done”
Bradley Cooper tells David Remnick that he has spent his life preparing for his role in “Maestro” as the iconic conductor Leonard Bernstein—and it shows.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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A Motorola 6809 assembler—there are many like it, but this is mine
I think it's time I start talking about some of the software I write, and I might as well start with my latest project that I've been having way too much fun writing, a 6809 assembler written in C [1].
Yes, I could use an existing 6809 assembler, but most of the ones availble as source seem to be based off one written in 1993 by L. C. Benschop. And the code quality there is … of its time … which I think is the most charitable thing I can say about it.
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🔤SpellBinding — AKLOTUW Wordo: FAKER
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Reading Reccs
Hey, I'm currently Reading The Witcher by Sapkowski, Do you all have any similar book or graphic novel recommendations as I am really enjoying it.
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Pouring more of the empty into the void
Heart!
Lazy day after an extremely busy day setting up for and then hosting Thanksgiving.
Waaaaaaay too much alcohol last night.
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Pouring more of the empty into the void
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Technology and Free Software
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Programming
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Branching & Patching
Having read seven or eight posts about the “patch”-style, kernel.org style git workflow, I feel like this article by Drew explains it the straight-forwardliest: https://drewdevault.com/2020/04/06/My-weird-branchless-git-workflow.html My unorthodox, branchless git workflow. That is pretty much how I do it too. Unless I'm in an organization with a different flow, of course. When in Rome… Both for my own stuff, and for the typical drive-by bazaar-contributions I do, this work well.
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* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.