Last year, several major music companies sued Charter Communications, one of the largest Internet providers in the US with 22 million subscribers. Helped by the RIAA, Capitol Records, Warner Bros, Sony Music, and others accused Charter of deliberately turning a blind eye to its pirating subscribers. Under US law, providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances” and Charter failed to do so, according to the music labels. Specifically, the ISP is…
Appreciate the game that inspired the genre and its name: Rogue. Roguelike games have grown in popularity over the 40 years the genre has existed, even though they implement ideas that might seem anathema to popular gaming: extreme randomness, ASCII graphics, permadeath, enormous complexity, and more. Yet these days, you can just about sneeze and hit something that has at least been influenced by roguelikes. And so, in the spirit of game genre histories past—we’ve…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1631053
Growing trees does little lasting good against global heating if the wood is used in ways that will quickly decay and release the carbon again.
External feed Read More at the Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2020-jan-apr.html#19_March_2020_%28Growing_trees%29
Israel is up for it. America, Iran, Thailand may be, too. China is there already, natch Pervasive surveillance through digital technologies is the business model of Facebook and Google. And now governments are considering the web giants’ tools to track COVID-19 carriers for the public good.…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.co.uk/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/18/digital_surveillance_for_covid_19/
The Democratic Party elite insists nothing can be done to mobilize working-class nonvoters. By challenging their cynicism, Bernie Sanders is rendering a profound service to American democracy. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders participates in a coronavirus public health roundtable with healthcare professionals on March 09, 2020 in Detroit, Michigan. Scott Olson / Getty Let it be said at once: the treatment received by Bernie Sanders in the leading media in the United States and…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/thomas-piketty-bernie-sanders-voting-democracy/
A few days ago I started a sourdough starter because baking chills me out and provides stuff to eat. I took a look at the old French Press carafe I am using as a container a few hours after the 3rd time I fed said starter. The starter looked like it was READY TO GO but I figured I should probably feed it a few more times just to be sure. I did not, however,…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/19/baking-through-the-pandemic-s-2.html
Government CIO promises they don’t record location, just change of location Hong Kong has made it mandatory for all new arrivals to wear an “electronic wristband” that links to a smartphone to provide location-tracking services, so that authorities can be sure they’re observing COVID-19 quarantine requirements. And the city-state insists its privacy commissioner has signed off on the idea because it “does not pose privacy concerns.”…
We can have beautiful cities without turning our cities into surveillance cities. Cities across the U.S. are forcing operators of shared bikes and scooters to use dangerous and privacy invasive APIs developed by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. These APIs—collectively called the “mobility data specification,” or MDS—require that operators share granular location data on every trip taken. The location data that cities are demanding is incredibly sensitive and relates to the movements of real…
Smartphones haven’t really needed a full computer keyboard, until now. We are turning the Linux desktop ecosystem into a convergent one. In order to access desktop applications, our keyboard has to feel good on the small screen, as well as expose common desktop keystrokes. Terminal use While you can comfortably use the GUI in PureOS, the terminal is fully empowered. Giving you all your favorite GNU commands, anything missing is likely an install command away.…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-keyboard-improvements/
Alaskan voters will get the chance to adopt statewide ranked choice voting (RCV) after the state’s Division of Elections certified a three-pronged ballot measure submitted by Alaskans for Better Elections, a bipartisan advocacy group. The ballot measure, officially certified on March 9, was filed with 41,068 signatures (36,006 deemed valid)—far more than the 28,501 valid signatures required by state law. The measure would replace partisan primaries with open top-four primaries for statewide and congressional offices and establish…
External feed Read More at the Source: http://www.fairvote.org/rcv_ballot_measure_approved_for_alaska_s_november_ballot
On Tuesday, despite urgent pleas from public health experts for postponement of the balloting, voters reported being forced into unsanitary environments and jumping through arduous hoops to vote. The culprit was the party that believes in science and voting rights. Poll worker Jeremy Block, center, directs 88-year-old Mort Winsberg to a voting booth in Leon County, Florida, precinct 5105, during the Florida primary on March 17, 2020 in Tallahassee. Mark Wallheiser / Getty Joe Biden’s…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/elections-primaries-coronavirus-illinois-florida-arizona/
NEW HAVEN, CT—Speaking out against proposals to provide federal assistance to Americans hardest hit by the pandemic-fueled economic downturn, local conservative Mark Garrett expressed worry Wednesday that relief checks would discourage citizens from learning to provide for themselves by killing him and taking his…Read more…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://politics.theonion.com/conservative-worries-relief-checks-would-discourage-ame-1842396398
Owners and workers at bars and restaurants say help with unemployment benefits isn’t enough.
In order to push forward with in-person elections on Tuesday, local election officials across Illinois relocated hundreds of polling locations due to concerns about exposing particularly vulnerable populations to the novel coronavirus. Guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ahead of the election were particularly stark. “If you are an older person, stay home and away from other people,” the latest guidelines read. “If you are a person with a serious underlying health condition…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://theintercept.com/2020/03/18/illinois-polling-locations-low-income-seniors/
On March 15, 2020, Section 215—a provision of FISA with a rich history of government overreach and abuse—expired. That provision, along with two other provisions of FISA, lapsed after lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on a broader set of FISA reforms. Late last week, before the law expired, the House of Representatives passed the USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act, which would have extended Section 215 for three more years, along with some modest reforms. After…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/title-blog-post
A woman mourns during a funeral held at Beheshte Masoumeh Cemetery for the victims of the new coronavirus in Qom, Iran, on March 17, 2020. Photo: Fatemah Bahrami/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images The U.S. government is run by sociopaths. How else to explain the Trump administration’s callous disregard for the lives of ordinary Iranians in the midst of this global coronavirus crisis? How else to make sense of U.S. officials doubling down in their support…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://theintercept.com/2020/03/17/coronavirus-iran-sanctions/
On Monday afternoon, the Bay Area became the first region in the U.S. to institute a shelter in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19, barring visits to restaurants or bars or the hair salon, having friends over, and taking unnecessary public transit trips. The restriction made another recent San Francisco measure all-the-more urgent: keeping people housed while they deal with the cascading economic toll of such an emergency.As other cities consider escalating their own…
To slow the spread of the new coronavirus, virtually all aspects of public life are being scaled back, including the democratic process itself. In an extraordinary move, Ohio on Monday delayed its primary election, previously scheduled for today. Yesterday afternoon, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine directed the filing of a lawsuit to postpone the primary to prevent voters and poll workers from being exposed to the coronavirus. Initially, a judge ruled that it was too late…
Our unemployment system is awful for the unemployed. With a recession coming, we might want to rethink that.
External feed Read More at the Source: https://indyweek.com/news/northcarolina/quickbait-north-carolina-is-cheap-af/
WASHINGTON—In order to alleviate the heavy damage the crucial financial sector is facing in the midst of the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak, the United States Congress announced Tuesday that they would be allocating $2 trillion in order to bail out the struggling bailout industry. “The bailout industry is on the brink of…Read more…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://politics.theonion.com/congress-allocates-2-trillion-to-bail-out-struggling-b-1842376525