Global Justice in the 21st Century – Demonic Optimism: Biden’s State of the Union Address

Feb 182023
 

I was especially struck by some words following the habitual long litany of presidential achievements, which was for much different reasons also selected by Democratic Party fund raising machine that is never idle. Here is their version of the passage, conveyed the next morning as a private message from the President himself to me: “I’ve never been more optimistic about the future of America, Richard. I mean it. We’re a nation with a strong soul, a strong backbone, and a strong people. We just have to remember this and remember who we are. There is nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together.” I listened to these words, presumably inserted for their inspirational impact…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://richardfalk.org/2023/02/18/demonic-optimism-bidens-state-of-the-union-address/

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World Socialist Web Site (en) – Alabama man froze to death after police shackled and left his naked body inside a “frigid environment” for hours

Feb 182023
 

The family of Anthony “Tony” Mitchell, a 33-year-old white man who was tortured for two weeks inside the Walker County jail before succumbing to his injuries, is suing over a dozen jail staff in connection with the death.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/18/ffka-f18.html

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TorrentFreak – Filmmakers Request Identities of Reddit Users to Aid Piracy Lawsuit

Feb 182023
 

Under U.S. copyright law, Internet providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances.”
Many ISPs have been reluctant to take such drastic measures, which triggered a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits in recent years.
Internet provider RCN is among the targeted providers. In 2021, the company was sued by several film companies, including the makers of The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, London Has Fallen, and Hellboy.
The movie companies alleged that RCN wasn’t doing enough to stop subscribers from pirating on its network. Instead of terminating the accounts of persistent pirates, the Internet provider looked away, they argued.
The stakes in these liability lawsuits are high. Internet providers face damages claims reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, while…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://torrentfreak.com/filmmakers-request-identities-of-reddit-users-to-aid-piracy-lawsuit-230218/

 2023-02-18  Comments Off on TorrentFreak – Filmmakers Request Identities of Reddit Users to Aid Piracy Lawsuit

Ballot Access News – Bill for Mandatory Voting Advances in Washington Legislature

Feb 102023
 

On February 7, the Washington State Senate Committee on State Government and Elections passed SB 5209 by 4-3. It makes voting mandatory. Here is the text. It is sponsored by 14 Democratic State Senators: Sam Hunt, Andy Bilig, Lisa Wellman, Bob Hasegawa, Lisa Lovelett, Rebecca Saldana, Mark Liias, Steve Conway, Manka Dhingra, Karen Keiser, Patty Kuderer, Joe Nguyen, Javiere Valdez, and Claire Wilson.
It is ironic that a bill for mandatory voting is making headway in the state with one of the least choices on general election ballots. Washington uses a top-two system, so that there are never more than two candidate on the general election ballot for congress or any partisan state office. No minor party…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2023/02/09/bill-for-mandatory-voting-advances-in-washington-legislature/

 2023-02-10  Comments Off on Ballot Access News – Bill for Mandatory Voting Advances in Washington Legislature

World Socialist Web Site (en) – Body camera footage from police killing of environmental activist shows Atlanta police speculating trooper was shot by fellow cop

Feb 102023
 

Three weeks after Manuel Esteban Paez Terán was shot and killed by Georgia police while protesting the construction of Cop City, two hours of body camera footage released on Wednesday night confirm police fired dozens of shots.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/10/hfmf-f10.html

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The Register – Americans have the right to livestream police traffic stops … probably

Feb 082023
 

Handy thing, that First Amendment. Now, about the Second …

The US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a North Carolina police department policy prohibiting the livestreaming of traffic stops is unconstitutional unless the department can support its claim that broadcasting endangers officers.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/02/09/us_livestream_police/

 2023-02-08  Comments Off on The Register – Americans have the right to livestream police traffic stops … probably

Hackaday – Reliving a Bitmapped Past With a Veritable Hoard of Bitmap Fonts

Feb 052023
 

The fonts seen with old computer systems such as those from Apple and Commodore, as well as Microsoft Windows 3.1 and older, form an integral part of our interaction with these systems. These days such bitmap fonts are a rarity, with scalable vector-based fonts having taken their place on modern-day systems. This unfortunately also means that these fonts are at major risk of being lost to the sands of time. This is where [Rob Hagemans] seeks to maintain an archive of such bitmap fonts, ranging from Acorn to MSX to Windows.
Many of these fonts are extracted from character ROMs, with a preview of some of these fonts available via the Monobit viewer. The fonts themselves are…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2023/02/04/reliving-a-bitmapped-past-with-a-veritable-hoard-of-bitmap-fonts/

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Richard Stallman’s Political Notes – ‘As terrifying as it is absurd’: Greens lash facial recognition plan for all NSW pubs and clubs

Feb 052023
 

Australian pubs are starting to use facial recognition in areas with
gambling machines, to keep people out who have requested not to be
allowed to gamble.

The basic idea sounds harmless in principle. It would seem that if
you have not added yourself to the list of people to exclude, this
system won’t affect you. But is that really true?

I wonder who else will have access to the face scans of people who
visit the club? Will those scans go into a system connected to the
internet?

Will state agencies be able to add faces to the list of people to
exclude? Will state agencies be able to collect the face scans of
everyone that enters?

External feed Read More at the Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2022-nov-feb.html#3_February_2023_(aus_pubs_facial_recognition_gambling)

 2023-02-05  Comments Off on Richard Stallman’s Political Notes – ‘As terrifying as it is absurd’: Greens lash facial recognition plan for all NSW pubs and clubs

ASCII by Jason Scott – Archiving in the Time of Streaming

Feb 042023
 

Few things are harder to start than a narrative of the thing you “do” and what all the ramifications of it are. For people who don’t make it the center of their lives, your thing is already hopelessly complicated and gaining enough of a foothold to feign interest is olympic-level effort. For people who do make it the center, your description fills them with a never-abating dread that you’re going to get the explanation “wrong”, or that you’re going to give the Outsiders a bad impression. So let’s begin at the beginning, again. My parents’ divorce, taking place in the realm of the beginning of the 1980s, was not in any way friendly and in fact…

External feed Read More at the Source: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/5443

 2023-02-04  Comments Off on ASCII by Jason Scott – Archiving in the Time of Streaming

jwz – Autonomous murderbots still going great

Feb 022023
 

Self-driving cars are causing mayhem on SF streets In letters to the California Public Utilities Commission seeking to curtail their expansion, the city’s Municipal Transportation Agency and County Transportation Authority documented at least 92 incidents between late May and December where self-driving taxis created mayhem on city streets — disrupting traffic, Muni transit and emergency responders. Jan 22: Firefighters were battling a two-alarm apartment blaze on the corner of Hayes and Divisadero streets when a driverless Cruise car entered the active firefighting scene and nearly ran over fire hoses on the street. Firefighters at the scene stood in front of the car to try to get it to stop, but the autonomous vehicle came to…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/02/autonomous-murderbots-still-going-great/

 2023-02-02  Comments Off on jwz – Autonomous murderbots still going great

Techdirt. – ShotSpotter Employees Not Only Have The Power To Alter Gunshot Reports, But Do It Nearly 10% Of The Time

Feb 022023
 

What’s being presented by ShotSpotter as good news for people who feel they’ve been wrongly accused, doesn’t actually appear to be all that comforting.
ShotSpotter’s mic tech and AI combine forces to report possible gunshots to law enforcement customers. It’s very hit or miss, he said with all possible puns intended. ShotSpotter says it’s nearly 100% accurate and can play an important part in reducing gun crime.
Actual customers say something else:

A 2013 investigation of the effectiveness of ShotSpotter in Newark, New Jersey revealed that from 2010 to 2013, the system’s sensors alerted police 3,632 times, but only led to 17 actual arrests. According to the investigation, 75% of the gunshot alerts were false alarms.

97% accuracy? Not what…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/02/01/shotspotter-employees-not-only-have-the-power-to-alter-gunshot-reports-but-do-it-nearly-10-of-the-time/

 2023-02-02  Comments Off on Techdirt. – ShotSpotter Employees Not Only Have The Power To Alter Gunshot Reports, But Do It Nearly 10% Of The Time