Links 31/08/2026: "Teslas Are Still Driving Into Oncoming Freight Trains" and "LLM Moats Quickly Evaporating"

A roundup of technology and open-source news highlights that Tesla's autonomous vehicles continue to crash into oncoming freight trains, and that competitive advantages of large language models are quickly disappearing. The article also covers NASA's launch of the $4 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, among other topics.

Links 31/08/2026: "Teslas Are Still Driving Into Oncoming Freight Trains" and "LLM Moats Quickly Evaporating" Contents Free, Libre, and Open Source Software m3110290901 Leftovers m3110290904 Science / Mathematics / Computer Science m3110290905 Career/Education m3110290906 Hardware m3110290907 Health/Nutrition/Agriculture m3110290908 Proprietary / Vendor Lock-in / Malware m3110290909 Security m3110290913 Defence/Aggression m3110290917 Environment m3110290918 Finance m3110290921 AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics m3110290922 Censorship/Free Speech m3110290924 Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press m3110290925 Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility m3110290926 Internet Policy/Net Neutrality m3110290927 Digital Restrictions DRM m3110290928 Monopolies/Monopsonies m3110290929 - Free, Libre, and Open Source Software - Programming/Development - Perl / Raku - - - Leftovers - ☛ Vintage Everyday The Story of Gordon “Pawnee Bill” Lillie and May Lillie, One of the Old West’s Most Unique Romances and Enduring Business Partnerships https://www.vintag.es/2026/08/pawnee-bill-may-lillie.html The couple acquired land near Pawnee, Oklahoma Blue Hawk Peak . They built a cabin, established a buffalo herd one of the larger private herds of the era; May actively managed the ranch and advocated for buffalo conservation and the animals’ cultural importance , and in 1910 completed an Arts and Crafts-style home. May ran the ranch while Gordon toured. They experimented with “beefalo” crosses and promoted Oklahoma and the mythic West. - ☛ Protesilaos Stavrou About idols https://protesilaos.com/books/2026-08-30-idols-symbols/ Now think again about money as a false idol. We realise that it too, qua idol, is as real as you and me. Dismissing it as “false” is a figure of speech, for we cannot affect its state, as aforementioned. Which brings us to the exhortation against the false idol; an exhortation which itself employs an idol, else a symbol. The exhortation rests on the notion of an absolute value and, thus, of a ranking among values. For there to be a ranking, there has to be something that is common to all values which we can discern. The relationship between the lower values and the absolute value must then be one of reflection, else representation, else one facet versus multifacetedness. All the selfies of me and all the words used to describe me are symbols of me, yet neither individually nor collectively do they exhaust me and nor do they amount to me as such. The same for values: the lower values are idols of the absolute value insofar as they consist in indirectness. - ☛ Charalampos Kardaris Front page https://ckardaris.com/blog/2026/08/30/front-page.html This has not discouraged me from writing. My goal is to share projects that I am developing and to express some of my thoughts when I feel like it. I am glad if someone finds the content interesting and I am even happier to engage anyone who sends a comment my way. In any case, I think that the mere act of sitting down and writing your thoughts is beneficial by itself and it is worth doing, even if the audience is not there. - ☛ Ava link dump - catching up on my online reading https://blog.avas.space/links-august/ While I am slowly getting back up on my feet after a tough time, I am catching up on emails will still take a bit , my RSS feed reader, and several newsletters that have accumulated in my inbox. - Science / Mathematics / Computer Science - ☛ The Conversation 2026-08-25 Older The real reasons you procrastinate – and how to stop, according to science https://theconversation.com/the-real-reasons-you-procrastinate-and-how-to-stop-according-to-science-289818 - ☛ CBC NASA launches $4B Roman astronomical observatory to explore depths of space https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nasa-launches-nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope-9.7326011 The telescope, which will park itself in orbit beyond the moon, is designed to investigate cosmic enigmas such as dark energy and dark matter, while also testing gravity at vast scales and searching for exoplanets, as planets beyond our solar system are called. - ☛ Omicron Limited Tides can be mapped much more locally using a new method based on satellite images https://phys.org/news/2026-08-tides-locally-method-based-satellite.html When high or low tide occurs, the water does not necessarily rise and fall uniformly along the entire coastline. In fact, the height of the tide in a bay can vary by up to one meter 3 feet from one location to another just a few kilometers away. This is shown in a new study published by researchers from DTU Space in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Oxford and the Technical University of Munich TUM , as well as the German space technology company OHB. Together, they have analyzed satellite images taken over a period of more than 40 years by the U.S. Landsat program. - - Career/Education - ☛ Futurism MIT Warns That AI Can Now Credibly Complete Pretty Much Any Undergrad Assignment, Considers Overhaul of Entire Educational Model https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/mit-warns-ai-undergrad-assignments Ed: Yes, plagiarism does work, but how to tackle plagiarism is not a new problem. It's not "AI", it's better veiled plagiarism. One of its most alarming conclusions: that AI is now able to credibly complete most undergraduate assignments. AI “can produce credible solutions and provide reasonable responses to almost any written assignment in our undergraduate curriculum,” the report stated, “including essays, math and science problems, proofs, and coding assignments.” - ☛ MIT Report: MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training https://aiandeducation.mit.edu/report/ This report is a call to action. Through five intense months of meetings, research, and outreach across the MIT community, the Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training sought to understand the role of generative AI in the life and educational mission of the Institute and recommend how to navigate its challenges and opportunities. In January 2026, Chancellor Melissa Nobles, Provost Anantha Chandrakasan, and Faculty Chair Roger Levy charged us1 specifically to: • Assess current AI use at MIT. • Identify innovations in teaching and student assessment. • Propose an AI use policy.However, what we learned as a group quickly convinced us that the Institute community, particularly the faculty, must tackle a set of deeper questions about the structure, meaning, and value of an MIT education in an era in which AI is one of several factors complicating the Institute’s mission. - ☛ Medievalists.net 25 Greek Proverbs from the Middle Ages and Beyond https://www.medievalists.net/2026/08/25-greek-proverbs-from-the-middle-ages-and-beyond/ The proverb recommends finding a middle ground in dealing with other people. Be too harsh and people will reject you; be too accommodating and they may take advantage of you. The contrast between being bitter enough to be thrown away and sweet enough to be eaten turns a piece of practical advice about moderation into a memorable image. - - Hardware - ☛ Hackaday Dissecting A Lethal Universal Travel Adapter https://hackaday.com/2026/08/30/dissecting-a-lethal-universal-travel-adapter/ The first exciting discovery is that when you plug any of its three sets of connectors into an outlet, the others become live at the same voltage. This would suggest that they’re just wired together, a fact soon confirmed with a quick resistance check between the respective prongs. Though to the adapter’s credit, the prongs are not live when fully retracted into the enclosure. Yet as demonstrated in the video, the retracting of prongs is not enforced, so mistakes here are possible. - ☛ Martin Alderson What GLM-5.3 Flash running on Chinese hardware actually means https://martinalderson.com/posts/glm-5-3-flash-chinese-hardware/ In essence, this is substantially behind even the H100 from Nvidia, which is now 4 years old. These are around 60% as fast as the H100, and has various other footguns no native FP8 support for example , which probably restrict efficiency further for many use cases. The next generation 950-series doesn't meaningfully increase compute as far as I can see, but does use domestically produced HiZQ/HiBL HBM memory. Interestingly the cards are configured in two variants - the 950PR and 950DT, with the former focusing on prefill and the latter on decode. In reality, the two products are very similar, but the prefill variant using slower HiBL memory vs the decode HiZQ memory. It does however support more quantisation types, like FP8. - ☛ BinaryDigit Baby’s First Traveler’s Notebook https://binarydigit.net/posts/babys-first-travelers-notebook I like the idea of having various tiny notebooks inside, so that I can swap them in and out as needed as I go about my day. I think I’ll start with a tiny sketch book, a tiny dotted book for notes and to-dos, and a “junk” book to add stickers, stamps and scribbles. I also bought a generic stamp kit with ink pad as well to see if stamping is a thing I’d enjoy or find useful. - - Health/Nutrition/Agriculture - ☛ The Conversation 2026-08-21 Older Can baby monitors protect children without https://theconversation.com/can-baby-monitors-protect-children-without-data-security-risks-290094 - ☛ Science Alert Your Body Has a 'Second Heart', And It's Crucial You Keep It Pumping https://www.sciencealert.com/your-body-has-a-second-heart-and-its-crucial-you-keep-it-pumping Every step, ankle flex, or rise onto your toes activates a remarkable pump below your knees. Your calf muscles squeeze the veins in your lower legs, helping propel blood upward toward your heart. This mechanism is so important to circulation that the calves are sometimes described as the body's "second heart". - ☛ Omicron Limited Using data to help wheat growers adapt to unpredictable weather https://phys.org/news/2026-08-wheat-growers-unpredictable-weather.html As historical weather data show a shifting climate, tools to determine ideal planting dates are vital for growers to ensure enough warm days for sufficient yield while minimizing the potential for late-spring freezes. "Research shows that plant development in the fall contributes to almost 90% of grain yield," Oakes said. "Leaving time for that growth is one of the most important things you can do for high wheat yields." Research led by Oakes and Virginia Cooperative Extension agents Robbie Longest and Turner Minx offers growers a clearer path forward. - ☛ Tracy Durnell My emergency food supply is extra normal food https://tracydurnell.com/2026/08/30/my-emergency-food-supply/ I used to stock emergency ration bars and cans of veggies that I never cook with mushrooms, beets, green beans, peas , and then I would throw it all away when it hit its Best By date. Now I just keep extra normal food on hand. Michael Harley calls this a “deep pantry.” This is easier for me to shop for because I’m simply buying extras of food I would buy anyway. Occasionally I am a bit too aggressive in stocking and don’t get around to eating something in time, but overall I think it’s less wasteful since I’m not buying special foods that get tossed every couple years. - ☛ Chris Aldrich Cook Books Published as Recipe Cards https://boffosocko.com/2026/08/29/cook-books-published-as-recipe-cards/ What I wouldn’t give to have some popular cookbooks like Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking, Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, Better Homes & Gardens’ New Cook Book, Brown’s Good Eats, America’s Test Kitchen books, or Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street published as recipe cards in 4 x 6 inch index card format. - ☛ Cemrehan Çavdar Making the Internet boring https://cemrehancavdar.com/2026/08/30/making-the-internet-boring/ Everybody asks me why my phone is in grayscale. I tell them the story and show them my setup. At some point I got tired of repeating myself, so I wrote it down. It starts with a failure. Once I overrode my own website blocker for 444 minutes. Not to check something important. Just to scroll. That day I accepted something I should have accepted much earlier: willpower cracks. Every time I relied on it, it eventually broke. So I stopped relying on self discipline and started building friction instead. - - Proprietary / Vendor Lock-in / Malware - ☛ Rich Trouton Checking APNS communication on macOS Tahoe https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2026/08/29/checking-apns-communication-on-macos-tahoe/ What I did figure out was that you could check to see if the Mac in question is communicating properly with APNS. That is possible and you can use the information logged to the unified system log to do so. For more details, please see below the jump. First, let’s talk about how macOS gets MDM commands from an MDM server. It receives them through a push-notification mechanism rather than by polling the MDM server directly. The sequence looks like this: ... - ☛ Spotify Inc The End of Google Search—and the Internet—as We Know It - The Ringer https://www.theringer.com/2026/08/04/tech/google-search-ai-internet For years now, Google has been tweaking its search formula to prop up AI and bury actual links. Now it’s rounding into its final form—and changing the Internet forever. - ☛ David Friedman The Mystery Of Why Uber Gave Me 77 Free Rides https://ironicsans.ghost.io/the-mystery-of-why-uber-gave-me-77-free-rides/ For about two and a half years, Uber kept sending me free ride credits. I’d open my email and find I’ve been credited $15 to spend on a ride, or $20 towards a ride. It was all completely legit, and was actually sent to me from Uber. I just didn’t know why. And then suddenly one day, they stopped sending me these ride credits. I counted my receipts and figured out that I got 77 rides for free, averaging one every couple weeks. - Old ☛ Don Marti how to break up Google https://blog.zgp.org/how-to-break-up-google/ Everybody is on about plans for how to break up Google, so here’s my version. I’m trying to keep two awkward considerations in mind. - So-Called 'Artificial Intelligence' 'AI' / LLM Slop / Plagiarism - ☛ El País AI swarms turn on their creators: ‘It’s the first incident that has made my stomach churn’ https://english.elpais.com/technology/2026-08-29/ai-swarms-turn-on-their-creators-its-the-first-incident-that-has-made-my-stomach-churn.html This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that headlines have been dominated by the prospect of AI models “waking up” and rebelling against their human programmers. As on previous occasions, however, these systems did not “wake up.” They are simply becoming extremely good at doing what they were trained to do. However, that training has now become so intensive and competitive that the speed and capabilities of the models have begun to outpace even their creators. OpenAI recently announced that it is, for now, slowing those training efforts and hopes other companies will follow suit. The move came after the publication of an open letter in which 1,300 employees of AI companies urged both their employers and governments to halt the race. - ☛ Bhaskar English Human Touch vs AI Art: Why Authenticity Matters | CHI Conference 2026 https://www.bhaskarenglish.in/tech-science/news/ai-boom-human-made-art-authenticity-study-138879091.html In tests involving 2,965 people across six different experiments, participants preferred art created by humans over art created by AI, even though both images looked identical. According to a 2015 study, people prefer handmade things because they believe the creator invested time, effort, and love in them. The tiny marks visible in real art indicate that the artist made numerous decisions while creating it. - ☛ Futurism Teslas Are Still Driving Into Oncoming Freight Trains https://futurism.com/advanced-transport/teslas-are-still-driving-into-oncoming-freight-trains Xing confirmed his car was running FSD 14.3.7, which is noteworthy. As Electrek explains, Tesla released FSD v14.3 earlier this year claiming that it improved handling “rare and unusual objects extending, hanging, or leaning into the vehicle path,” which should include a moving train. That was seven versions ago. - ☛ The Nation Confessions of an AI Editor https://www.thenation.com/article/society/confessions-of-an-ai-editor/ A recent study in the journal Technology, Mind, and Behavior found that those who relied heavily on large-language-model tools felt no sense of ownership over the output they created with them. This could explain why any compliment to my editing occasioned a headache, as if I had yanked out a fistful of hair. Although I was great at my work, I was no good at it. I couldn’t have done it without the thing. - ☛ Hackaday LLM Moats Quickly Evaporating https://hackaday.com/2026/08/30/llm-moats-quickly-evaporating/ Keep in mind that this is just the current state of affairs with open LLMs. Future versions of these models are likely to optimize the number of tokens produced per unit time, or otherwise increase quality of responses while requiring less computer resources. We don’t really think that the ease of running local models will be the sole reason that the AI bubble pops, though. The fact that not every computer user is running Linux is proof enough of that. - ☛ Jussi Pakkanen Stanisław Lem foretold the current LLM mania in 1964 https://nibblestew.blogspot.com/2026/08/stanisaw-lem-foretold-current-llm-mania.html This book is a collection of short stories by the Polish author Stanisław Lem originally published in 1964. Its English title is The Cyberiad. One story, about Trurl's electronic troubadour, turned out to be surprisingly topical. - ☛ Fernando Borretti On Inevitability https://borretti.me/article/on-inevitability First, let me try to pare down the notion of inevitability, and then address the factual content. The word “inevitable” is rhetorically misleading, because it quantifies over the entire future of humanity, and on such a long timeframe almost anything will happen. Human extinction is “inevitable”, if nothing else, because of thermodynamics. And so this lets you equivocate between the present and the distant future. You might argue: “a million years from now, humans are unlikely to be the dominant intelligence in the universe”—and this may be true—“and so we should build superintelligent AI today ”— no, that does not follow. That is the fallacy: arguing that because something will happen eventually, then we might as well cut to the chase, and do it today. But of course this is absurd. It’s like saying: I’m going to die someday, so why not today? We can’t control what the world looks like a million years from now. But AI is being built today, and we have some control over the present. - ☛ Linux Creepy crawlies https://people.kernel.org/monsieuricon/creepy-crawlies TL;DR: we spend more CPU cycles rendering commits for scrapers than we spend on all other kinds of legitimate access, including git clones. At any one time, across 5 geo-distributed nodes, there are 14 CPU cores doing nothing but rendering git commits as html. - - Social Control Media - ☛ EPIC Meta Reaches $18 Billion Settlement with States over Youth Social Media Harms https://epic.org/meta-reaches-18-billion-settlement-with-states-over-youth-social-media-harms/ The settlement, which still requires court approval, resolves the federal trial that had been underway in Oakland, California, and follows a nearly $1 billion judgment against Meta in a related New Mexico case earlier this month. The states’ claims relied heavily on Meta’s own internal research and communications, obtained through discovery, showing that the company understood the risks its design choices posed to minors. Notably, roughly 30% of the settlement amount is not guaranteed, and it will only be released if TikTok and YouTube adopt matching restrictions and make matching payments of their own. Under the settlement, Meta will: ... - ☛ New Yorker Mark Zuckerberg’s Social Reckoning https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/09/07/mark-zuckerbergs-social-reckoning The settlement was quickly compared to the tobacco lawsuits of the nineties, a moment of public clarity during which a ubiquitous product came to be seen as a scourge. But Meta, a trillion-dollar company increasingly invested in artificial intelligence, is so much vaster than RJR Nabisco, and the current settlement applies to only a single facet of its sprawling operations. There has always been an element of denial in the focus on Instagram’s relationship with minors, when so many of the rest of us, of legal age, also scroll obsessively at weird hours. An unforgiving upcoming film about Meta, “The Social Reckoning,” written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, ends with the January 6th riot at the Capitol, an event that had a lot to do with social media but not so much to do with kids. - ☛ New York Times Influencers Have a Lot to Say About Politics. Many Are Quietly Paid for It. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/29/us/politics/campaigns-paid-influencers.html He has used that platform to support dozens of progressive candidates in the midterm elections, ranging from low-profile, down-ballot contests to some of the nation’s marquee Democratic primaries. In camera-facing videos, Mr. Greene informs his followers of his preferences, calling some candidates “the most viable” and, in other cases, declaring that “this is the candidate for you.” - - Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets - ☛ Tom's Hardware Get up to $175 back for your pre-installed Windows 11 license — new portal provides legal forms, but warns buyers not to wipe storage first https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/site-provides-instructions-to-get-up-to-usd175-back-for-your-pre-installed-windows-11-license-new-portal-provides-legal-forms-but-warns-buyers-not-to-wipe-storage-first The majority of PCs are sold with Windows 11 licensed, paid-for, and pre-installed. This fact irks many folks, especially Linux aficionados who intend to wipe all traces of Microsoft’s OS while their shiny new machine is box fresh. The Refund4Freedom site was put together by the Italian Linux Society and the Free Software Foundation Europe to help address this unfairness. “Consumers should be able to buy laptops without any specific operating system, and should not have to pay the license price if they don't want to,” asserts the site, and they have information and forms to help you get your cash back. - - - Security - Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root https://0xcc.io/posts/omarchy-root-creds/ A security issue in Omarchy’s default Docker configuration meant that essentially every program running in the user’s desktop session could escalate to root without a password, sudo, or a privilege prompt. - CISA - ☛ CISA 2026-08-27 Older CISA Adds Three Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2026/08/27/cisa-adds-three-known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog - ☛ CISA 2026-08-27 Older Mitsubishi Electric Multiple FA Products Update D https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-25-128-03 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-27 Older Mitsubishi Electric CNC Series Update A https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-078-05 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-27 Older Xiiaozet LK100W https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-239-01 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-27 Older All-Line Equipment Company Fuel-Boss https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-239-02 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-27 Older Rockwell Automation OTTO Fleet Manager https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-239-03 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-27 Older Applied Systems Engineering ASE2000 V2 Communications Test Set https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-239-04 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-27 Older Ebyte NA111-M https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-239-05 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-26 Older CISA Adds Six Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2026/08/26/cisa-adds-six-known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog - ☛ CISA 2026-08-25 Older CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2026/08/25/cisa-adds-one-known-exploited-vulnerability-catalog - ☛ CISA 2026-08-25 Older Rently Smart Home https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-237-01 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-25 Older Zoneminder https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-237-02 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-25 Older Siemens SIMATIC IoT2050 Advanced https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-237-03 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-25 Older PayRange API https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-237-04 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-25 Older Bendix EC80 Brake ECU https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-237-05 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-25 Older Ebyte NE2-D11 https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-237-06 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-25 Older FURUNO FA-50 Class B AIS Transponder https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-237-07 - ☛ CISA 2026-08-24 Older CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2026/08/24/cisa-adds-one-known-exploited-vulnerability-catalog - ☛ CISA 2026-08-21 Older CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2026/08/21/cisa-adds-one-known-exploited-vulnerability-catalog - ☛ CISA 2026-08-20 Older CISA Adds Two Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2026/08/20/cisa-adds-two-known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog - ☛ CISA 2026-08-20 Older Johnson Controls Simplex Incident Manager https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-232-01 - - Privacy/Surveillance - ☛ Futurism Instead of Using Opioid Settlement Money to Help Poor Communities, Police Are Buying Flock Cameras to Play With https://futurism.com/health-medicine/opioid-settlement-money-poor-communities-police-flock-cameras Drug money, as it turns out, though it’s not exactly what you might think. A bombshell investigation by Mother Jones found that police departments across the US are using settlement money from the opioid crisis meant for struggling communities to instead fund Flock surveillance cameras. All together, Mother Jones identified 19 agencies across ten different states which spent nearly $1 million of opioids settlement funds on ALPRs from companies like Flock and Axon though the publication notes that’s almost certainly an undercount. - ☛ Papers Please SFO evades criticism of its role in immigration enforcement https://papersplease.org/wp/2026/08/30/sfo-evades-criticism-of-its-role-in-immigration-enforcement/ At the San Francisco Airport Commission meeting on August 15th, a dozen members of the public video, Mission Local, SF Public Press called on the Airport Commission to comply with San Francisco’s “Sanctuary City” ordinance, which prohibits use of S.F. City and County resources — including airport property and funds — for immigration enforcement. Another 35 people sent written comments to the Airport Commission on the same subject. - ☛ Tracy Durnell I asked my city about their street cameras https://tracydurnell.com/2026/08/29/i-asked-my-city-about-their-street-cameras/ As I’ve been reading about the misuse of Flock cameras / data in other places, I was curious about our school zone speed enforcement cameras. What data are collected, and what is the data retention policy? Who, internally, can access data / footage, and for what purposes? Are external agencies able to access those data? Also, has the city considered / does the city intend to install Flock cameras or other ALPRs in the future? - ☛ Marcy Wheeler The Surveillance Crimes in the Cities Church Case Keep Stacking Up https://emptywheel.net/2026/08/29/the-surveillance-crimes-in-the-cities-church-case-keep-stacking-up/ Even after the masked ICE goons wearing body armor left Minnesota, the dead enders from HSI appear to have kept breaking the law. In a latter sent on July 2 submitted as an exhibit to a joint objection to a continuance filed with Don Lemon almost three weeks later , Georgia Fort’s attorneys first disclosed that Harmeet Dhillon’s goons had sought her phone records from T-Mobile using a customs summons. At the time again, sent on July 2, disclosed weeks later , they described seeing the summons to T-Mobile, but not the subpoena returns. - ☛ NYOB Gone in one click: Assessing the socio-economic impact of browser-level consent in the EU https://noyb.eu/sites/default/files/2026-06/Gone%20in%20one%20click impacts%20of%20Browser%20Level%20Consent%20proposal%20on%20advertiser%20...5%202026.pdf PDF Browser-level consent cuts cookie consent rates by at least 60-65% and reduces ad effectivelness, consting European businesses a third of their ad revenue, or EUR 40-50 billion. - ☛ Tech Policy Press The Quiet Erosion of Collective Action Under Digital Surveillance https://www.techpolicy.press/the-quiet-erosion-of-collective-action-under-digital-surveillance/ But the true turning point for me was seeing how surveillance trickled down into everyday spaces of youth activism. Watching university campuses rapidly deploy advanced surveillance networks to aggressively curtail student organizing, especially as the pro-Palestine solidarity movement gained momentum, made it clear that this was a coordinated global pattern. It extended far beyond police departments putting up more AI-powered CCTV cameras with facial recognition under the guise of enhanced security or data maximalization measures. This realization led me to prepare an official report on how digital surveillance affects the rights to assemble and associate, which I am presenting today to the Human Rights Council. The research underpinning this report was guided by three objectives. - ☛ The Guardian UK Inside the growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/25/flock-surveillance-cameras These black cameras, which are hooked up to a rectangular solar panel and typically mounted on a pole, snap photos of passing vehicles and run the pictures against large databases. They have sparked nationwide backlash from pro-privacy critics, who point to public records suggesting that these devices can help law enforcement keep tabs on specific license plates and the people driving these cars. That they can sweep in so many people’s location from an innocent act in a public space – regardless of whether the target is a suspect in a crime, and without a warrant – has led to fears of mass surveillance. Flock, based in Georgia and valued at $8.4bn, says its cameras scan license plates billions of times each month in about 6,000 communities in nearly every state in the US. - - Confidentiality - Old ☛ Charalampos Kardaris The P in PGP isn’t for pain: encrypting emails in the browser https://ckardaris.com/blog/2026/02/07/encrypted-email.html Based on the above proof of concept, I can say that, even without operating a “proper” backend server, it is still possible to guarantee a reasonable level of security. And you can do so without requiring any complicated setup on the user side. - - - Defence/Aggression - ☛ Jacobin Magazine Centrist Dems Are at War With Their Own Voters on Israel https://jacobin.com/2026/08/moskowitz-democratic-establishment-israel-iran Putting Jared Moskowitz in charge of Middle East policy isn’t just a slap in the face to Democratic voters — it’s an empowerment of a leading Democratic supporter of Trump’s disastrous Iran war and free speech crackdown. - - Environment - ☛ Semafor Inc Nepal disaster highlights climate, geopolitical plight https://www.semafor.com/article/08/30/2026/nepal-disaster-highlights-climate-geopolitical-plight Accelerating snow and glacier melt likely caused a glacier to break off and slam into a valley more than 4,000 feet below, registering as a 5.2 magnitude quake on seismographs. “Nepal is paying an extraordinarily disproportionate price for a crisis it did not create,” one of its lawmakers told The New Yorker. - ☛ Fortune Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat https://fortune.com/2026/08/29/europe-summer-drought-desertification-threat-rivers-fish/ Persistent drought and scorching heat this summer have ravaged ecosystems and businesses across the region, from a lake in Slovenia and the side channel of the Danube in Serbia, to fish farms in Bosnia, the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary. The fish industry has been hit especially hard, with damage estimated in the millions of euros dollars . This is adding to the already high toll caused by problems with energy and water supplies, devastated crops, losses in river traffic and trade. - ☛ TruthOut 2026-08-22 Older Fired Federal Employees Are Bringing Climate Change Info Back to the People https://truthout.org/articles/fired-federal-employees-are-bringing-climate-change-info-back-to-the-people/ - ☛ TruthOut 2026-08-22 Older Climate-Driven Droughts May Be Accelerating the Spread of Infectious Diseases https://truthout.org/articles/climate-driven-droughts-may-be-accelerating-the-spread-of-infectious-diseases/ - ☛ The Local DK 2026-08-24 Older Copenhagen climate mayor calls for 30 km/h speed limit across city https://www.thelocal.dk/20260824/copenhagen-climate-mayor-calls-for-30-km-h-speed-limit-across-city - ☛ The Local SE 2026-08-24 Older IN PICTURES: Record-breaking climate march draws 50,000 to streets of Stockholm https://www.thelocal.se/20260824/in-pictures-record-breaking-climate-march-draws-50000-to-streets-of-stockholm - ☛ The Local SE 2026-08-23 Older Thousands expected at Sweden climate demo as election looms https://www.thelocal.se/20260823/thousands-expected-at-sweden-climate-demo-as-election-looms - ☛ Vox 2026-08-24 Older Cage-free eggs are worse for the climate. Does it matter? https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/500005/cage-free-eggs-cruelty-climate-reductionism - ☛ Scheerpost 2026-08-23 Older White Supremacy And Climate Change: A Sinister Symbiosis https://scheerpost.com/2026/08/23/white-supremacy-and-climate-change-a-sinister-symbiosis/ - ☛ CBC 2026-08-23 Older 'Super' El Niño didn't cause this year's fires and heat waves, but it's about to take us on a 'wild ride' https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/el-nino-2026-extreme-weather-9.7313170 - ☛ Scheerpost 2026-08-26 Older War and Climate Breakdown: We owe Children More https://scheerpost.com/2026/08/26/war-and-climate-breakdown-we-owe-children-more/ - ☛ Deutsche Welle 2026-08-26 Older No, this wasn't a "completely normal summer", despite far-right climate denial https://www.dw.com/en/no-this-wasn-t-a-completely-normal-summer-despite-far-right-climate-denial/a-78513682 - ☛ The Local SE 2026-08-25 Older 'We're heading for catastrophe': The summer climate change hit Europe https://www.thelocal.se/20260825/were-heading-for-catastrophe-the-summer-climate-change-hit-europe - ☛ CBC 2026-08-26 Older Peach trees in Ontario's Niagara region under threat due to recent historic flooding https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/niagara-peaches-floods-climate-9.7318259 - ☛ Deutsche Welle 2026-08-26 Older India: Assam tea industry faces climate-driven labor crisis https://www.dw.com/en/india-assam-tea-industry-faces-climate-driven-labor-crisis/a-78506414 - Energy/Transportation - ☛ CBC 2026-08-27 Older Alberta expects $2B surplus instead of $9.4B deficit, due to Iran war bump to oil prices https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-budget-oil-prices-2-billion-surplus-9.7322824 - ☛ CBC 2026-08-27 Older Enbridge signs deal with KKR and Apollo to fund Westcoast pipeline expansion https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/enbridge-deal-kkr-apollo-westcoast-pipeline-expansion-9.7322787 - ☛ Copenhagen Post 2026-08-25 Older Climate minister distances herself from Lolland gas pipeline – project in jeopardy https://cphpost.dk/2026-08-25/news/round-up/climate-minister-distances-herself-lolland-gas-pipeline-project-in-jeopardy/ - ☛ Atlantic Council Africa's next technological leapfrog could lie in electric vehicles and solar https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/africasource/africas-next-technological-leapfrog-could-lie-in-electric-vehicles-and-solar/ In the past two years, EV sales in Africa have surged. For example, electric car sales across the continent rose from four thousand units in 2023 to twenty-five thousand in 2025. The trend is particularly clear in East Africa. Ethiopia alone accounts for a third of the entire continent’s imports of EV parts from China. According to the Energy for Growth Hub which maintains an Africa EV Readiness and Impact Index , Kenya and Ethiopia, as well as countries such as South Africa and Rwanda, are among the readiest for EV adoption. Electric motorbikes are being adopted the fastest. Spiro, a manufacturer, estimates it already has 114,000 electric motorbikes on African roads, which it says is a 68 percent increase since last December. Electric motorbikes will likely continue to outpace electric cars in the years to come, as both they and their charging stations are less expensive upfront than cars. - ☛ Atlantic Council Electricity demand is rising. How can the US secure energy for its dual military and civilian needs? https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/energysource/electricity-demand-is-rising-how-can-the-us-secure-energy-for-its-dual-military-and-civilian-needs/ The United States is becoming increasingly electrified to support rising demand from artificial intelligence AI , supply chain reshoring, and reindustrialization. This rise in electrification has elevated the criticality of power generation, transmission, and distribution as essential enablers of societal resilience. But the commercial grid doesn’t merely serve civilian needs—it is shared with the US military’s domestic installations, meaning this criticality applies directly to the nation’s defense capabilities. - ☛ Futurism Cryptocurrency Bro Facing 280 Years in Prison Over Astonishing Range of Crimes https://futurism.com/future-society/crypto-bro-280-years-prison-crimes The US government continues to drag its feet on any meaningful cryptocurrency regulations, even as the industry remains overrun by fraud, theft, and money laundering schemes. The digital tokens are being used for human trafficking, extortion, and for-hire harassment. The extent of some of these crimes is astonishing. Look no further than Nevada, where the state’s US Attorney’s Office alleged this week that Las Vegas native cryptocurrency bro Brent Kovar had fraudulently obtained $24 million from his victims through an extensive Ponzi scheme. - ☛ Interesting Engineering Next-gen power chips top 3,400 volts in 5x voltage leap for future EVs https://interestingengineering.com/science/new-gan-transistor-can-handle-3-4-kv Now, researchers at EPFL have found a way to make GaN handle more than 3.4 kilovolts by turning one of the material’s natural properties into a built-in defense against electrical breakdown. - ☛ BBC Plug-in solar panels are coming to a shop near you - what to know https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g3y6398nwo Plug-in solar panels will be hitting the shelves of DIY shops and High Street retailers after the government changed the rules to allow them to be legally sold in the UK. They are significantly cheaper than roof panels, can be installed without an electrician and are suitable for properties with outdoor space, including some balconies. - ☛ Mark Litwintschik Hydropower Stations in China in 2026 https://tech.marksblogg.com/china-hydro.html In May, a dataset was released documenting 2,918 hydropower stations across Mainland China's eleven major river basins. These cover stations from the early 20th century through to planned projects that may begin in the 2050s. The data was sourced from several internationally maintained databases as well as Chinese government and archival records. In this post, I'll explore the dataset and see what trends I can find. - ☛ Aigars Mahinovs Half a year with iX3 https://aigarius.com/blog/2026/08/30/half-a-year-with-iX3/ And what if you want to drive at max speed a bit longer and you are still 20-30% short? Well, just stop at a 400kW charger or 300kW+ at ~10 SOC for 5 minutes and you will get your missing range. The recharge speed is trully mind-bending. During our long distance road trips we experienced road-trippers already had to concede defeat a handful of times and stop for a bathroom break or coffee before the cars battery was empty. This car has more endurance than we do. It broke the barrier. We no longer wait on the car - it waits on us. - - Wildlife/Nature - - Finance - ☛ International Business Times 2026-08-26 Older 500,000 US Retirees See Social Security Cheques Cut Each Year Because of This Little-Known Rule https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/understanding-retirement-earnings-test-impact-social-security-1816465 - ☛ CBC 2026-08-25 Older Canada's big banks are shrugging off Cheeto Mussolini's trade war https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tariffs-banks-trade-war-9.7319944 - ☛ The Local SE 2026-08-25 Older Big banks split on Swedish economy's recovery and interest rate path https://www.thelocal.se/20260825/big-banks-split-on-swedish-economys-recovery-and-interest-rate-path - - AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics - ☛ Futurism Panicking Tech Execs Try to Pivot Message on AI Data Centers https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/panicking-tech-executives-pivot-ai-data-center-narrative Tech executives, as a result, are having to make a calculated decision to change their tune, from AI doomsaying to something more palatable to the everyman. But just like their proselytizing over the coming AI apocalypse — messaging meant to win over investors and scare everybody else into ceding regulatory power — they don’t seem to realize that the entire world is watching as they execute their cynical pivot out loud. - ☛ Axios Tech industry debates how to counter the data center backlash https://www.axios.com/2026/08/27/data-center-backlash-pr-strategy Why it matters: Opposition to data centers crosses political, geographic and cultural lines as they become a stand-in for much larger anxieties over AI, jobs and economic inequality. - ☛ Wired Google Maps Now Shows ‘Lake America’ Instead of Lake Ontario https://www.wired.com/story/google-maps-now-shows-lake-america-instead-of-lake-ontario/ Google, Apple, Microsoft, and other maps providers adopted the Gulf of America naming as soon as the US Department of the Interior updated its records, which came a couple of weeks after Trump’s order. So it was no surprise that when those records—which are used to determine names on roadway signs and in government literature—reflected Lake America, digital maps from Google also quickly took on the new name. - ☛ The Independent UK Google Maps accused of bending knee to Trump by changing name of Lake Ontario to ‘Lake America’ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/lake-america-google-maps-ontario-trump-b3041814.html In a Saturday blog post, Google explained that U.S. users would see “Lake America” displayed over the Great Lake, which straddles the U.S.-Canada border. - ☛ Sean Goedecke You have to beat the models at something https://www.seangoedecke.com/you-have-to-beat-the-models-at-something/ This is a scary thought. But you’re not doing yourself any favors by pretending that LLMs can’t actually write code and it’s all just a scam, or that LLM-written code is inherently so bad as to cause companies using it to collapse next year. We are not going to wake up in 2027 to find that the AI craze is over and everyone is writing code by hand again. You ought to put some serious thought into what you can do better than the models in the medium and long term. - ☛ Paul Krugman Oligarchy and the Great Evasion https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/oligarchy-and-the-great-evasion Which brings me to the following question: could or would the Feds do something comparable today? Would a defunded Internal Revenue Service — defunded in large part because the modern Republican Party is effectively pro-tax-evasion — have the resources to go after him? And even if the Feds tried to bring charges, would a tax evader escape justice by simply buying a sufficiently large quantity of Trump family crypto? Today’s primer is the latest in a series on the rise of American oligarchy, which I define as the extreme concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of a small number of people — not the 1 percent, but the .01 percent or even the .0001 percent, the 300 billionaires who made 19 percent of all reported federal political donations in the 2024 election. - ☛ Mike Brock Deadnaming the Lake https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/deadnaming-the-lake None of it ran on its own. Someone wrote the post. Someone senior cleared it. A web team corrected the site on instruction, and then the institutional voice of United States foreign policy published an apology to a lake. Every name in that chain had a superior, and every superior watched the post go up and let it stand. That is the complicity: a chain of custody in which every link is a person and every person chose. A troll posting from a personal account is the internet’s oldest problem. A troll posting from the State Department’s account is a decision — made once, by the person who posted it, and remade every hour the post stays up, by everyone in the chain with the custody to end it. Hannah Arendt gave this mechanism its name: evil that needs no monster, only clerks who process the order in front of them and never ask what it does next. The lake is a small thing to test that frame on, and the frame does not need a bigger one — the worst things on record were built the same way, out of people who each did one small, defensible piece of something indefensible. Orwell knew what the name itself was worth: control the word for a thing, and the thing changes shape. A government that can rename a lake by fiat, and make its own diplomats apologize for the old name, is rehearsing a muscle it may use on something that matters more than a lake. - ☛ Hamilton Nolan You Can Ignore the Bad Pundits https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/you-can-ignore-the-bad-pundits You can just ignore the bad pundits. You don’t have to read them. You can just carry right on with your life. You don’t have to talk about the bad pundits. You don’t have to engage with them. You don’t have to craft painstaking responses to their vapid arguments. You don’t have to take them seriously. Their existence creates no obligation for you. Each new piece they produce generates no appointment on your calendar. The law does not accord them any reservation on your attention. They have no inherent power over you. Instead, they get their power from you. You give it to them, for free. You, who fancy yourself their enemy, provide the fuel for their careers. Instead of doing that, you are free not to do it. - ☛ Don Marti When was Google’s heel turn? https://blog.zgp.org/when-was-google-s-heel-turn/ Somehow, the Old Google, which was respectable, has turned into New Google, which, well, not so much. But when did it happen? Can we assign a date to Google’s heel turn? It’s not going to be any of the current “AI” or “Epstein Ballroom” political stuff, it happened before that. Going whole hog for weird right-wing politics is the kind of thing an organization does when they have already crossed over. I think we can narrow it down to some time before the Epstein Ballroom bribe and after Cory Doctorow’s “What if Google Were Evil?” That was saleable speculative fiction back in 2007, so the consensus date is going to be some time after that. - ☛ deadSimpleTech There's no such thing as Just a Tool https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/no-such-thing-as-just-a-tool A common refrain when critiquing specific technologies in this way is that engineers will say that a given technology is "just a tool". You hear it when talking about all kinds of things: shells, containerisation, reactive frameworks and most recently it comes up a lot in discussions of LLM technology. What this response seems to mean is the following: ... - ☛ Tech analysis and policy ideas for Europe eV An operational framework for AI literacy in the workplace: Informing action plans under the EU AI Act https://www.interface-eu.org/publications/download/ai-literacy-workplace-framework PDF No evidence yet shows that these trainings work, and three gaps might explain the reason. The first is motive. Corporate training aims at productivity and teaches people to use the tools well, whereas the law cares whether operators understand how systems fail and cause harm. A workforce fluent in prompting can still be illiterate in the sense a regulator means: trained to produce good output, but not to recognise when a model misleads or to know its duties under data-protection and risk rules. The second is quality. Training is unaccredited by design, since the Commission requires no certificate and does not treat completion of any course as evidence of compliance. The resulting market has no quality floor, but does have every incentive to sell courses that look compliant without testing whether anyone has learned anything. The third is measurement. The most recent systematic review found that the validated instruments were built for students and general populations, that few were tested beyond basic validity, and that none were tested across cultures Lintner, 2024 . In the end, no published evidence shows that any AI literacy programme, corporate or public, does what Article 4 calls for. - ☛ Tech analysis and policy ideas for Europe eV An operational framework for AI literacy in the workplace https://www.interface-eu.org/publications/ai-literacy-workplace-framework This brief proposes a three-tier framework based on the nature and consequences of an individual's interaction with AI. The framework helps organisations define proportionate literacy objectives, select appropriate measures, document their rationale and evaluate effectiveness. It supports implementation of Article 4 while advancing responsible AI adoption, workforce development and professional mobility. This framework is keyed to how much and how consequentially the workers interact with AI. Instead of looking at peoples’ job titles, seniority or technical background, the framework proposes the following three tiers: ... - ☛ Chris Adams Is this really a good reason to triple datacentre capacity in Europe? https://rtl.chrisadams.me.uk/2026/07/is-this-really-a-good-reason-to-triple-datacentre-capacity-in-europe/ First of all, some context – Europe, the AI Continent Action Plan, and tripling datacentre capacity in 5-7 years In Europe, there is an ongoing public discussion about how the continent can keep up in global race to stay competitive with the other two next largest economic blocs: the US, and China. Against this background, we’ve seen the European Commission propose the AI Continent Action Plan, part of a multi year strategy to help Europe regain its perceived competitiveness, and close the technological lead the others have over it. - Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda - ☛ RFERL How Kremlin Propaganda Is Spreading Through Serbia https://www.rferl.org/a/how-kremlin-propaganda-is-spreading-through-serbia/33841742.html Serbia has become an oasis for Russian propaganda. Pro-Russian narratives are spread not only through official Russian media but also through a complex web of aggregator websites, which often serve the interests of the Serbian authorities. - ☛ The Guardian UK Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank-israel-ai-propaganda A pro-Israel messaging website badged with the name of a thinktank that does not exist has published more than half a million words in nine days, built on a commercial platform that promises to optimize content so that AI chatbots will cite it. The site gives Israel’s position on subjects including the torture of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli war crimes and whether Israel has deliberately starved Palestinians in Gaza, all presented as neutral research. - ☛ India Times Social media influencers don entrepreneurial hat; launch VC-backed consumer brands https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/funding/social-media-influencers-don-entrepreneurial-hat-launch-vc-backed-consumer-brands/articleshow/133616136.cms Bengaluru: Social media creators across beauty, fashion, food and supplements are increasingly turning their influence and expertise into consumer brands, attracting venture capital funding for their startups in a move that echoes the rise of celebrity-backed businesses. - - - Censorship/Free Speech - ☛ Jacobin Magazine 2026-08-21 Older If Woke 1 Was Crazy, MAGA Woke Is Absolutely Insane https://jacobin.com/2026/08/woke-cancel-culture-maga-censorship - ☛ BIA Net 2026-08-27 Older Activist jailed in Turkey over anti-NATO summit in Barcelona https://bianet.org/haber/activist-jailed-in-turkey-over-anti-nato-summit-in-barcelona-322869 - ☛ Deutsche Welle 2026-08-25 Older Why Starlink won't open Vietnam's heavily censored internet https://www.dw.com/en/why-starlink-won-t-open-vietnam-s-heavily-censored-internet/a-78494983 - ☛ RTL Zambia's opposition leader charged with treason https://today.rtl.lu/news/world/zambias-opposition-leader-charged-with-treason-791290815 Rights groups have warned that recent opposition arrests risk further narrowing political space in Zambia. - - Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press - ☛ Stanford University Stanford Daily wins free speech lawsuit against Trump admin https://stanforddaily.com/2026/08/29/stanford-daily-wins-free-speech-suit/ On Friday, U.S. District Judge Noël Wise ruled that statutes which Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the federal government used to deport legal immigrants on the basis of their speech were unconstitutional. The court ruled in favor of The Daily on six of its eight claims. - ☛ Salon Trump’s answer to bad press? “FCC TO THE RESCUE ” https://www.salon.com/2026/08/30/trumps-answer-to-bad-press-fcc-to-the-rescue/ The FCC’s own guidelines, however, make clear that its authority over news coverage is extremely limited. The agency says it “does not intervene in a broadcaster’s selection and presentation of news or commentary” and can investigate news distortion only when there is evidence that a broadcaster deliberately distorted a factual news report. The FCC also notes that federal law prohibits the agency from censoring broadcast material. Trump has attacked journalists and news organizations since his first presidential campaign, frequently labeling critical coverage “fake news” and singling out individual reporters by name. But during his second term, those attacks have increasingly been accompanied by demands for government action against the outlets responsible. - - Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility - ☛ Jacobin Magazine AI Isn’t Coming for Our Jobs. It’s Coming for Our Wages. https://jacobin.com/2026/08/ai-job-loss-wages-capital As The Economist points out, the scenario today is different. The predicted mass destruction of jobs coincides, in fact, with historically high employment. Given the ongoing investment boom not only in data center infrastructure but also in upstream utilities such as water and electricity supply, the AI frenzy is now arguably creating more jobs than it is destroying. Another peculiarity is that the current narrative of the job-apocalypse story is driven by AI giants as a marketing strategy to sell their large language models LLMs to financial investors and, therefore, feed the ongoing financial euphoria. Nonetheless, the Left should not dismiss the potential systemic effects of AI in the labor process, notably its role in de-skilling and devaluing labor. AI needs to be historically understood and situated as a breakthrough born from concentration and centralization — and of capital’s struggle with labor. - ☛ Jacobin Magazine The American Plutocracy Wants Workers Trapped in Debt https://jacobin.com/2026/08/student-debt-trump-mcmahon-save-plan The US government wrote off almost all the money it lent businesses during the pandemic. Now it’s wrecking credit scores and threatening to garnish paychecks to collect student loans. Debt can be forgiven easily enough — just not for the working class. - ☛ Advance Local Media LLC Trump administration starts building border wall project in Arizona over tribe’s objections https://www.lonestarlive.com/native-american-news/2026/08/trump-administration-starts-building-border-wall-project-in-arizona-over-tribes-objections.html But as building efforts have ramped up, the administration has run into opposition from landowners, environmental groups, and Native American tribes who say construction is violating property rights and desecrating sacred Indigenous sites. - - Internet Policy/Net Neutrality - ☛ Christian Hofstede-Kuhn I Wanted an IPv4 Toast and Accidentally Built an IP Service https://blog.hofstede.it/i-wanted-an-ipv4-toast-and-accidentally-built-an-ip-service/ At 10:15 this morning I added a small feature to hofstede.it, my static personal website. Visitors whose providers still cannot deliver IPv6 would get this toast in the lower-right corner: ... - - Digital Restrictions DRM - ☛ Digital Music News Your Next Fan May Never Search for You https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2026/08/30/your-next-fan-may-never-search-for-you/ This is where it gets bigger. Music discovery is beginning to move outside music applications entirely. Someone can be having a conversation about a road trip, dinner party, workout, vacation, relationship, film, book, city, or completely unrelated subject and suddenly decide that music would improve the situation. The conversation might go something like this: “I’m driving through New Mexico tomorrow morning. Give me something cinematic and spacious, preferably instrumental, that doesn’t sound like spa music.” An AI can connect that request with music, and notice what disappeared from the process: the Spotify search box. - - Monopolies/Monopsonies - Patents - Software Patents - ☛ Alex Chan Why can’t you combine .tar.gz files with cat? https://alexwlchan.net/2026/cat-confusion/ I’m working on a project that generates multiple .tar.gz archives, and I need to combine them into one final file. I thought I could just cat the bytes together, but that doesn’t work. This seemingly simple task exposed my flawed understanding of tar and gzip. To my fix my code, I first had to fix my mental model – and that took me into tape drives, patent laws, and end-of-file markers. - - - Copyrights - ☛ Torrent Freak ACE Targets Dozens of Streaming Pirates Through Cloudflare and Discord Subpoenas https://torrentfreak.com/ace-targets-dozens-of-streaming-pirates-through-cloudflare-and-discord-subpoenas/ Through the Motion Picture Association, anti-piracy coalition ACE has requested two DMCA subpoenas at California federal courts. One covers 49 Cloudflare-fronted domains including Miruro.to and Aniworld.to, while the other targets two Discord servers. How effective the requests will be is hard to say, but both Discord servers have already been deleted. - - -