August 2021 – The Death of the Mind

Techdirt. – Fake ‘U.S. Copyright Office’ Imposter Gets Google To Delist URLs On Section 1201 Grounds

Aug 262021

We’ve done more than our share of posts in the past about the problems within the DMCA takedown system as currently practiced. The reason for so many posts is in part due to the sheer number of problems with how this all works. For starters, when notices go out to search engines like Google to delist “problem” URLs, those notices are often times generated by automated systems that unsurprisingly result in a vast majority of notices targeting URLs that are non-infringing. As in, over 99% of those notices. And even once we get past the malpractice of using automation buckshot notices that result in an incredible amount of collateral damage, we then have to add the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210825/09451247432/fake-us-copyright-office-imposter-gets-google-to-delist-urls-section-1201-grounds.shtml

2021-08-26 Comments Off

Ballot Access News – New York Libertarian and Green Parties File Brief in Second Circuit, Seeking Reinstatement as Qualified Parties

Aug 262021

On August 18, the New York Libertarian and Green Parties filed this brief in the Second Circuit in Libertarian Party of New York v New York State Board of Elections, 21-1464. This is the case against the 2020 bill that increased the statewide petition from 15,000 to 45,000 signatures, and altered the definition of a party from one that had polled 50,000 votes for Governor, to one that had polled 2% for the office at the top of the ballot in the preceding election.

The parties are seeking injunctive relief to have their qualified party status restored. The U.S. District Court had denied injunctive relief.

External feed Read More at the Source: http://ballot-access.org/2021/08/25/new-york-libertarian-and-green-parties-file-brief-in-second-circuit-seeking-reinstatement-as-qualified-parties/

2021-08-26 Comments Off

The Register – Cops responding to ShotSpotter’s AI alerts rarely find evidence of gun crime, says Chicago watchdog

Aug 262021

It may hurt community policing, too

Police responding to ShotSpotter’s AI-generated alerts of gunfire find evidence of actual gun-related crime only about one time in ten, a Chicago public watchdog has found.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/08/25/shotspotter_chicago_report/

2021-08-26 Comments Off

Motherboard – A Signal from Space Is on a 16-Day Cycle. Scientists Just Ruled Out an Explanation

Aug 262021

Scientists have captured unprecedented observations of bizarre signals in space, revealing new insights about why some of these unexplained pulses, known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), appear to flash in clear periodic patterns. First detected in 2007, FRBs are extremely bright radio pulses that erupt for a fraction of a second, but can still be observed across billions of light years, suggesting that they are powered by highly energetic sources. Some FRBs are one-offs that seem to only flash a single signal, while others are “repeaters” that produce multiple pulses. It gets weirder: two of those repeaters show periodicity in their pulses, meaning that they have distinct active and dormant phases. Some scientists have proposed that…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/dyv9vk/a-signal-from-space-is-on-a-16-day-cycle-scientists-just-ruled-out-an-explanation

2021-08-26 Comments Off

International Socialism Project – Doctors Without Borders to Pfizer: Share vaccine recipe with the world

Aug 262021

According to Doctors Without Borders—known globally as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)—”at least seven manufacturers in African countries currently meet the prerequisites to produce mRNA vaccines, if all necessary technology and training were openly shared.”

External feed Read More at the Source: https://internationalsocialism.net/doctors-without-borders-to-pfizer-share-vaccine-recipe-with-the-world/

2021-08-26 Comments Off

New on MIT Technology Review – Our brains exist in a state of “controlled hallucination”

Aug 262021

When you and I look at the same object we assume that we’ll both see the same color. Whatever our identities or ideologies, we believe our realities meet at the most basic level of perception. But in 2015, a viral internet phenomenon tore this assumption asunder. The incident was known simply as “The Dress.” For the uninitiated: a photograph of a dress appeared on the internet, and people disagreed about its color. Some saw it as white and gold; others saw it as blue and black. For a time, it was all anyone online could talk about. Eventually, vision scientists figured out what was happening. It wasn’t our computer screens or our eyes. It was the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/25/1032121/brains-controlled-hallucination/

2021-08-26 Comments Off

Techdirt. – US Army Now Using Clearview’s Unproven Tech To Investigate Crimes

Aug 242021

We can add another government agency to the list of entities that have been suckered in by Clearview’s highly questionable sales pitches about its unproven tech: the US Army. [Paywall ahead, but alternatives abound.]

The US Army has a contract with Clearview AI, according to documents that reveal the controversial facial-recognition startup making bold claims to the military about capabilities such as “criminal network discovery” and “force protection and area security.”

The contract, obtained with other documents by Insider via public-records request, shows the US military awarding a discounted contract for Clearview to work with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, which investigates serious crimes that could involve active service members or civilian workers for the Army.

Fantastic. Now, let’s…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210823/17000247418/us-army-now-using-clearviews-unproven-tech-to-investigate-crimes.shtml

2021-08-24 Comments Off

Planet PostgreSQL – Paul Ramsey: Fast, Flexible Summaries with Aggregate Filters and Windows

Aug 242021

PostgreSQL can provide high performance summaries over multi-million record tables, and supports some great SQL sugar to make it concise and readable, in particular aggregate filtering, a feature unique to PostgreSQL and SQLite.

A huge amount of reporting is about generating percentages: for a particular condition, what is a value relative to a baseline.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/59m

2021-08-24 Comments Off

Techdirt. – Congressional Lawmaker Give Up Attempt To Dump Qualified Immunity In Police Reform Efforts

Aug 242021

The judicial construct known as qualified immunity will continue to make it harder for people to obtain redress for rights violations… at least for the time being. While there has been a more sustained movement to reform law enforcement across the nation, thanks to cops doing the sort of stuff they’ve been doing for decades, qualified immunity seems particularly bulletproof.

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. It provided government employees a way to avoid being entangled in frivolous litigation based on unsustainable allegations of rights violations. But since that point, it has morphed into an easy button for civil suits, a route cops can use to escape accountability for actual rights violations so…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210822/12210747407/congressional-lawmaker-give-up-attempt-to-dump-qualified-immunity-police-reform-efforts.shtml

2021-08-24 Comments Off

American Civil Liberties Union – Four Problems with the ShotSpotter Gunshot Detection System

Aug 242021

A critical report on the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system issued today by the City of Chicago’s Inspector General (IG) is the latest indication of deep problems with the gunshot detection company and its technology, including its methodology, effectiveness, impact on communities of color, and relationship with law enforcement. The report questioned the “operational value” of the technology and found that it increases the incidence of stop and frisk tactics by police officers in some neighborhoods.
The IG’s report follows a similarly critical report and legal filing by the Northwestern School of Law’s MacArthur Justice Center and devastating investigative reporting by Vice News and the Associated Press. Last week, the AP profiled Michael Williams, a man who spent…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/four-problems-with-the-shotspotter-gunshot-detection-system

2021-08-24 Comments Off

Jacobin – Amazon Is Beefing Up Its Already Dystopian Worker Surveillance Machine

Aug 242021

Amazon is installing high-tech cameras inside supplier-owned delivery vehicles. Workers say the cameras are a shocking invasion of privacy as well as a safety hazard.
An Amazon Prime delivery van in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. Tony Webster / Wikimedia Commons Earlier this year, Amazon revealed plans to install high-tech surveillance cameras in its fleet of delivery vans that are now ubiquitous in neighborhoods across the United States. The cameras watch drivers as well as the road and provide real-time audio feedback. While many of these drivers work in Amazon Prime–branded vehicles, they are not Amazon employees, but rather are employed by third-party contractors called delivery-service partners (DSPs) — an arrangement that,…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobinmag.com/2021/08/amazon-worker-surveillance/

2021-08-24 Comments Off

Motherboard – Prop 22 Was Declared Unconstitutional, and It’s Just the Beginning

Aug 242021

On Friday, California Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch ruled that Proposition 22—the ballot measure written by Uber, Lyft, Doordash, and Instacart to deny drivers and couriers the benefits and protections of employee classification—was unenforceable and unconstitutional despite the deep-pocketed campaign’s victory in November. Writing in favor of the petitioners—the Service Employees International Union and three drivers—Roesch concluded that Prop 22 appears to only “protect the economic interests” of gig companies and undermined the constitutional authority of the state’s legislature to write and enforce labor laws. Specifically, Roesch pointed at a part of Proposition 22 that required a seven-eights legislative majority to alter Proposition 22, but even then only with the approval of the gig company drafters….

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4av8jb/prop-22-was-declared-unconstitutional-and-its-just-the-beginning

2021-08-24 Comments Off

The Intercept – Banks Are Opting Out of the Government’s PPP Loan Forgiveness Process

Aug 232021

At least three major banks have decided to opt out of a new process for getting Paycheck Protection Program loans forgiven directly by the Small Business Administration, The Intercept has learned, leaving their small business customers with no other recourse if the banks refuse to forgive loans or drag out the process.
Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and PNC have all decided to opt out, according to emails shared with The Intercept.

They are major players in the program, which Congress created to offer businesses loans to spend on payroll and other qualified expenses to help weather the shutdowns. As of the end of May, JPMorgan Chase was the top PPP lender, followed by Bank of America in…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://theintercept.com/2021/08/22/covid-ppp-loan-forgiveness/

2021-08-23 Comments Off

Hackaday – 3D Printing Liquid Crystal

Aug 222021

If you think at all about liquid crystals, you probably think of display technology. However, researchers have worked out a way to use an ink-jet-like process to 3D print iridescent colors using a liquid crystal elastomer. The process can mimic iridescent coloring found in nature and may have applications in things as diverse as antitheft tags, art objects, or materials with very special optical properties.
For example, one item created by the team is an arrow that only appears totally green when viewed from a certain angle. The optical properties depend on the thickness of the material which, being crystalline, self-organizes. Controlling the speed of deposition changes the thickness of the material which allows the printer to…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2021/08/22/3d-printing-liquid-crystal/

2021-08-22 Comments Off

TorrentFreak – TorrentFreak News Article Targeted by Dubious ‘DRM Circumvention Complaint

Aug 222021

At TorrentFreak, we have written hundreds of articles about dubious takedown notices. Today, we find ourselves at the center of another one.
Earlier this week the ‘American Society of Composers’ sent a series of “DRM Circumvention” complaints to Google, acting on behalf of the Video Industry Association of America.
These notices are similar to standard DMCA takedown requests but focus on content that violates the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. And there’s another important distinction. Unlike normal takedown notices, there is no option to appeal a wrongful accusation.
Irreversable DRM Circumvention Takedowns
Whether the site operators agree with the takedowns or not, they are generally irreversible. The DMCA doesn’t prescribe a takedown and counter-notification scheme for these notices and Google previously confirmed…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://torrentfreak.com/torrentfreak-news-article-targeted-by-dubious-drm-circumvention-complaint-210822/

2021-08-22 Comments Off

The Intercept – Banks Are Opting Out of PPP Loan Forgiveness

Aug 222021

At least three major banks have decided to opt out of a new process for getting Paycheck Protection Program loans forgiven directly by the Small Business Administration, The Intercept has learned, leaving their small business customers with no other recourse if the banks refuse to forgive loans or drag out the process.
Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and PNC have all decided to opt out, according to emails shared with The Intercept.

They are major players in the program, which Congress created to offer businesses loans to spend on payroll and other qualified expenses to help weather the shutdowns. As of the end of May, JPMorgan Chase was the top PPP lender, followed by Bank of America in…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://theintercept.com/2021/08/22/covid-ppp-loan-forgiveness/

2021-08-22 Comments Off

Ars Technica – Intrepid brewer risks scalding to recreate recipe for long-lost medieval mead

Aug 222021

Enlarge / A medieval form of mead called “bochet” calls for caramelizing raw honey in a cauldron over an open flame. (credit: Screenshot/Gemma Tarlach/Gastro Obscura)
Ah, mead, that sweet, honeyed alcoholic beverage that has been a staple at Renaissance Fairs for decades (along with giant turkey legs). It’s also increasingly popular among home craft brewers since it’s relatively easy to make. Those in search of a unique challenge, however, are turning to a special kind of medieval mead called bochet. The only known detailed recipe for bochet dates back to the late 14th century and was lost for centuries, until it was rediscovered around 2009.
Fermentation in general has been around for millennia, and mead (“fermented honey…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1788923

2021-08-22 Comments Off