The Death of the Mind

Ian Brackenbury Channell has served as the official Wizard of Christchurch, New Zealand since 1998, earning an average salary of about $11,000 USD paid for by the city council in exchange for his services. According to his contract, the wizard’s duties are “to provide acts of wizardry and other wizard-like-services — as part of promotional work for the city of Christchurch.” — Read the rest

External feed Read More at the Source: https://boingboing.net/2021/10/13/official-city-wizard-fired-from-new-zealand-city-after-over-20-years-of-public-service.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=official-city-wizard-fired-from-new-zealand-city-after-over-20-years-of-public-service

*Is America experiencing an unofficial general strike?*

External feed Read More at the Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2021-jul-oct.html#15_October_2021_%28Unofficial_general_strike%29

New submitter apcyberax writes: A judge has ruled that security cameras and a Ring doorbell installed in a house in Oxfordshire “unjustifiably invaded” the privacy of a neighbour, in a case that could have implications for home surveillance devices. Dr Mary Fairhurst claimed that the devices installed on the house of neighbour Jon Woodard broke data laws and contributed to harassment. The judge upheld both these claims. Mr Woodard now faces a substantial fine. He claimed he installed the devices in good faith as a deterrent against burglars. The origin of the row stems from an invitation from Mr Woodard to his neighbour Dr Fairhurst to have a tour of his home renovations, during which she…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/21/10/14/1557238/neighbor-wins-privacy-row-over-smart-doorbell-and-cameras

Consumer groups have grown all-too-politely annoyed at the Biden administration’s failure to pick a third Democratic Commissioner and permanent FCC boss nearly eight months into his term. After the rushed Trump appointment of unqualified Trump ally Nathan Simington to the agency (as part of that dumb and now deceased plan to have the FCC regulate social media), the agency now sits gridlocked at 2-2 commissioners under interim FCC head Jessica Rosenworcel.

While the FCC can still putter along tackling its usual work on spectrum and device management, the gridlock means it can’t do much of anything controversial, like reversing Trump-era attacks on basic telecom consumer protections, media consolidation rules, or the FCC’s authority to hold telecom giants…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211014/08532047746/gop-very-excited-to-be-handed-fcc-voting-majority-joe-biden.shtml

Instead of simply stopping its human rights abuses, the Israeli government has built an extensive and sophisticated public relations network across the West in order to protect itself from criticism.
Today, Lowkey speaks to one of the latest victims of that smear campaign, Professor David Miller. A prominent critic of the state of Israel’s policies, Miller was recently sacked from his position as Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol, after a pressure campaign involving Zionist student groups and even members of parliament, who accused him of “inciting hatred against Jewish students.”
Miller, a graduate of the University of Glasgow Media Group, was appointed to his position at Bristol University in 2018. He also held positions at the University of Strathclyde…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://popularresistance.org/academic-david-miller-speaks-out-following-firing-israel-lobby-smear-campaign/

Today, Lowkey speaks to one of the latest victims of that smear campaign, Professor David Miller. A prominent critic of the state of Israel’s policies, Miller was recently sacked from his position as Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol, after a pressure campaign involving Zionist student groups and even members of parliament, who accused him of “inciting hatred against Jewish students.”

The post Academic David Miller Speaks Out Following Firing & Israel Lobby Smear Campaign appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://popularresistance.org/academic-david-miller-speaks-out-following-firing-israel-lobby-smear-campaign/

Dead-End SF Street Plagued With Confused Waymo Cars Trying To Turn Around ‘Every 5 Minutes’The visitors don’t just come at night. They come all day, right to the end of 15th Avenue, where there’s nothing else to do but make some kind of multi-point turn and head out the way they came in. Not long after that car is gone, there will be another, which will make the same turn and leave, before another car shows up and does the exact same thing. And while there are some pauses, it never really stops.”There are some days where it can be up to 50,” King says of the Waymo count. “It’s literally every five minutes. And we’re…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/10/how-much-more-terrifying-could-the-murderbots-be-waymo/

The quickest way to a warrantless search is obtaining consent. But consent obtained by officers isn’t always consent, no matter how it’s portrayed in police reports and court testimony. Courts have sometimes pointed this out, stripping away ill-gotten search gains when consent turned out to be [extremely air quotation marks] “consent.”

Such is the case in this court decision, brought to our attention by FourthAmendment.com. Language barriers are a thing, and it falls on officers of the law to ensure that those they’re speaking with understand clearly what they’re saying, especially when it comes to actions directly involving their rights.

It all starts with a stop. A pretextual one at that, as you can see by the narrative…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211009/18253847725/court-says-google-translate-isnt-reliable-enough-to-determine-consent-search.shtml