PopularResistance.Org – Max Blumenthal: Why Did The Feds Question Me?

Feb 282025
 

As I approached the customs line at Dulles International Airport early on the morning of Feb. 24, a man called out to me, “Mr. Blumenthal?” He identified himself as an officer with Customs and Border Protection, and led me into a cavernous secondary screening room, where he treated me to a strange and disconcerting questioning session.
I had just returned from a leisurely trip to Nicaragua with my family during which I participated in no political activities. But the agent’s line of questioning suggested federal authorities had little interest in my visit to Nicaragua, a country that happens to be controlled by a socialist-oriented government on Washington’s hit list.
The post Max Blumenthal: Why Did The Feds Question…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://popularresistance.org/max-blumenthal-why-did-the-feds-question-me/

 2025-02-28  No Responses »

Deeplinks – Anti-Surveillance Mapmaker Refuses Flock Safety’s Cease and Desist Demand

Feb 262025
 

Flock Safety loves to crow about the thousands of local law enforcement agencies around the United States that have adopted its avian-themed automated license plate readers (ALPRs). But when a privacy activist launched a website to map out the exact locations of these pole-mounted devices, the company tried to clip his wings.  
The company sent DeFlock.me and its creator Will Freeman a cease-and-desist letter, claiming that the project dilutes its trademark. Suffice it to say, and to lean into ornithological wordplay, the letter is birdcage liner.  
Representing Freeman, EFF sent Flock Safety a letter rejecting the demand, pointing out that the grassroots project is well within its First Amendment rights.  
Flock Safety’s car-tracking cameras have been spreading across the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/anti-surveillance-mapmaker-refuses-flock-safetys-cease-and-desist-demand

 2025-02-26  No Responses »

Olfactory Rescue Service – Michael Cousineau / The Fragrant Path: A Guide to the Japanese Art of Incense (Review)

Feb 262025
 

There is truly a scarcity of books on incense in the English language, even more so if you narrow it down to incenses originating from a specific country. The majority of incense books in English are aimed at the Wiccan market, perhaps the most pivotal book on that account was Scott Cunningham’s The Complete Book of Incense, Oils and Brews. This was a book I bought fairly early in my incense explorations, and after a few goes with recipes, it led to an impression that I wouldn’t be any good at handcrafting incense. I also had Wylundt’s Book of Incense which covered similar territory, although with very different recipes, and then there’s Carl F. Neal’s more…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://olfactoryrescueservice.wordpress.com/2025/02/26/michael-cousineau-the-fragrant-path-a-guide-to-the-japanese-art-of-incense-review/

 2025-02-26  No Responses »

Phoronix – Framework Announces Ryzen AI Max Powered Desktop, Framework Laptop 12

Feb 252025
 

Earlier today Framework Computer held a virtual and in-person event to announce their 2nd gen offerings in the form of a mini-ITX desktop powered by the new Ryzen AI Max SoCs, a 2-in-1 convertible laptop with the Framework Laptop 12, and Ryzen AI 300 series SoC/motherboard options for the Framework Laptop 13…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Framework-2nd-Gen-Announcements

 2025-02-25  No Responses »

New on MIT Technology Review – An environmentally friendly alternative to plastic microbeads

Feb 252025
 

The tiny beads added to some cleansers and cosmetics are one source of the long-­lasting microplastics that threaten the environment. But MIT researchers have found a way to address the problem at its source: replacing them with polymers that break down into harmless sugars and amino acids. Particles of this polymer could also be used to encapsulate nutrients such as vitamin A to fortify foods, which could help some of the 2 billion people around the world who suffer from nutrient deficiencies. To develop the material, graduate student Linzixuan (Rhoda) Zhang and her colleagues turned to poly-beta-amino esters, a class of polymers previously developed in the lab of Institute Professor Robert Langer, ScD ’74, which have…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1111053/an-environmentally-friendly-alternative-to-plastic-microbeads/

 2025-02-25  No Responses »

World Socialist Web Site (en) – Sanders takes his fraudulent “Fight Oligarchy” show on the road

Feb 252025
 

Amid mounting opposition from workers and young people to the fascistic policies of the Trump administration, including mass roundups of immigrants and the illegal Elon Musk-led assault on federal workers and social programs, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has launched a speaking tour aimed at diverting rising anger and militancy behind attempts to lobby moderate Republicans to oppose Trump’s budget reconciliation bill, while averting a government shutdown on March 14.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/02/26/xyqq-f26.html

 2025-02-25  No Responses »

Jacobin – Poland’s Milk Bars Live On After Communism

Feb 252025
 

In Poland, postwar Communist rule has few defenders. But state-subsidized eateries known as milk bars, designed under state socialism to free people from “kitchen slavery,” continue to thrive today.
A milk bar in Krakow, Poland, photographed on May 24, 2022. (Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images) In the center of the Polish capital, Warsaw, is a street called Nowy Swiat — New World Street. Built in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in a neoclassical style and reconstructed very meticulously to something like its original appearance after Warsaw’s near-total destruction by Nazi Germany in 1944, it is the very heart of bourgeois Poland, the place where those who won out…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobin.com/2025/02/milk-bars-poland-state-socialism/

 2025-02-25  No Responses »

Planet Mozilla – Mozilla’s approach to Manifest V3: What’s different and why it matters for extension users

Feb 252025
 

Extensions are like apps for your browser, letting you customize and enhance your online experience. Nearly half of all Firefox users have installed at least one extension, from privacy tools to productivity boosters. To build these extensions, developers rely on a platform called WebExtensions, which provides APIs — the tools that allow extensions to interact with web pages and browser features. Right now, all major browsers — including Firefox, Chrome and Safari — are implementing the latest version of this platform, Manifest V3. But different browsers are taking different approaches, and those differences affect which extensions you can use. Firefox’s approach to Manifest V3 is shaped by our mission Principle 5 of the Mozilla Manifesto…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-manifest-v3-adblockers/

 2025-02-25  No Responses »

The Onion – Democratic Leaders Stand Real Still In Hopes No One Notices Them

Feb 242025
 

WASHINGTON—With the elected officials trying their hardest not to move a muscle, reports confirmed Monday that top Democratic leaders in Congress were standing real still in hopes that the American people wouldn’t notice them. “Don’t make any sudden movements, or they’ll spot us,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said out of the corner of his mouth, tightly squeezing his eyes shut as he reminded Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to hold their breath anytime a member of the voting public walked by. “Did it work? I think we’re in the clear for now, but that was a close one. They could have talked to us, for crying out loud, or worse—demanded that we…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://theonion.com/democratic-leaders-stand-real-still-in-hopes-no-one-notices-them/

 2025-02-24  No Responses »

jwz – DNA Lounge: Wherein we have once again angered Poseidon, or possibly SFDPW.

Feb 242025
 

Last weekend we had that great thing happen again where suddenly there was sewage all over the floor of the main bar and the bathrooms. We snaked it and sand came out, which is a very bad sign! The last time this happened it meant that our lateral (the connection to the sewer main) had turned to dust, which cost use $25,000. But that was less than three years ago, so what the hell? We had like 700 people in the room and we had to close the main bathrooms and direct everyone to the Pizza bathrooms (which are thankfully on a separate system) and to upstairs to the balcony bar. It was Not Good. …

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2025/02/23.html

 2025-02-24  No Responses »

Ballot Access News – Arizona Bill to Limit Number of Independent Candidates to Only One Per Office

Feb 162025
 

Arizona State Senator Eva Diaz (D-Tolleson) has introduced HB 2844. It says that if two or more independent candidates file for the same office, they must face each other in a non-partisan primary, and whichever of them wins is the only independent candidate who can run in November.

The concept behind the bill seems to be a belief that all independent voters are associated together with each other, but this is false. Independent voters, collectively, have nothing in common with each other in the sense that members of a party have some beliefs in common.

The bill would not apply to presidential independent candidates.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2025/02/16/arizona-bill-to-force-limit-number-of-independent-candidates-to-only-one-per-election/

 2025-02-16  No Responses »

Hackaday – Why AI Usage May Degrade Human Cognition and Blunt Critical Thinking Skills

Feb 162025
 

Any statement regarding the potential benefits and/or hazards of AI tends to be automatically very divisive and controversial as the world tries to figure out what the technology means to them, and how to make the most money off it in the process. Either meaning Artificial Inference or Artificial Intelligence depending on who you ask, AI has seen itself used mostly as a way to ‘assist’ people. Whether in the form of a chat client to answer casual questions, or to generate articles, images and code, its proponents claim that it’ll make workers more efficient and remove tedium.
In a recent paper published by researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) the findings from a survey…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/why-ai-usage-may-degrade-human-cognition-and-blunt-critical-thinking-skills/

 2025-02-16  No Responses »

Techdirt. – Steve Wynn Asks Supreme Court To Gut Key First Amendment Standard

Feb 122025
 

Billionaires are already deleting parts of our government, as well as various safety mechanisms on the internet that sought to minimize hate and abuse. Do we also want them to be able to rewrite our understanding of the First Amendment?
Steve Wynn’s latest Supreme Court petition represents a dangerous escalation in the ongoing assault on press freedom and the First Amendment. While self-proclaimed free speech warriors claim to champion unfettered expression, their actions reveal a different agenda: securing immunity from criticism while maintaining the power to silence their critics through legal intimidation.
The weapon of choice? Dismantling New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court decision that has protected robust public debate for sixty years.
This attack on Sullivan…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/12/steve-wynn-asks-supreme-court-to-gut-key-first-amendment-standard/

 2025-02-12  No Responses »

Techdirt. – Federal Court Allows Lawsuit Over Network Of 172 Flock ALPR Cameras To Move Forward

Feb 122025
 

Late last fall, a number of Norfolk, Virginia residents — with the assistance of the Institute for Justice (IJ) — sued the city for blanketing Norfolk with nearly 200 automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) provided by Flock Safety.
Flock Safety made its first inroads with the private market, selling plate readers to gated communities and HOAs so busybodies could keep track of everyone driving in and out of their cul-de-sacs. Having captured that market, Flock moved on, targeting US law enforcement agencies with the promise of cheap ALPRs that could be tied into existing ALPR cameras deployed by private citizens.
It’s pretty much the Ring playbook — aggressive market growth that gives cops cheap buy-in so long…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/12/federal-court-allows-lawsuit-over-network-of-172-flock-alpr-cameras-to-move-forward/

 2025-02-12  No Responses »

LWN.net – Codeberg responds to hate attacks

Feb 122025
 

The Codeberg development forge has
recently been subject to sustained attacks resulting in, among other
things, abusive email being sent to the site’s users. The organization has
now put up a
description and a defiant response:

Extreme right forces actively target members of our communities and discriminate based on ethnicity and gender, political background, sexual orientation, disabilities, nationality and faith. However diversity is an important asset in free/libre software communities and it is what makes our software great and development productive.

By targeting some of our most active translators, nicest designers, best developers and all other motivated contributors, they are hurting the free/libre software ecosystem as a whole.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://lwn.net/Articles/1009227/

 2025-02-12  No Responses »

Labor Notes – Amazon Stokes Racial Divides in Lead-Up to North Carolina Union Vote

Feb 102025
 

Four thousand workers at a North Carolina Amazon warehouse are voting February 10-15 on whether to unionize with Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment.
RDU1, in the town of Garner, outside Raleigh, would be the second unionized Amazon warehouse in the United States.
It’s an ambitious campaign. The workers are organizing across racial and ethnic divides, through constant turnover, in deeply hostile terrain. At 2.4 percent, North Carolina’s union density is the lowest in the country.
They’ll also need to overcome widespread fear of something Amazon is notorious for: retaliation. In January, Amazon abruptly outsourced its entire Quebec operation rather than be forced to accept a contract at one warehouse.
In North Carolina, it has fired several visible…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://labornotes.org/2025/02/amazon-stokes-racial-divides-lead-north-carolina-union-vote

 2025-02-10  No Responses »

Techdirt. – Federal Court Shuts Down Louisiana’s Unconstitutional ‘Police Buffer Zone’ Law

Feb 082025
 

Last June, Louisiana became the third state to decide the US Constitution was subservient to cops’ wishes that they not be filmed while performing their public duties.
Arizona had already tried this twice, starting at 25 feet before trimming the “halo” to an 8-foot diameter. It didn’t matter. A federal court permanently blocked the law due to its obvious unconstitutional nature. Florida has tried the same thing — a 25-foot “no go” zone around “first responders” — utilizing the dubious theory that too many people filming cops are somehow “interfering” with their ability to do their jobs. At this point, the law remains in place, but it’s only a matter of time before it’s kicked to…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/07/federal-court-shuts-down-louisianas-unconstitutional-police-buffer-zone-law/

 2025-02-08  No Responses »
 Older Entries