Link – Page 72 – The Death of the Mind

No Matter The Candidate Who Wins, Americans Lose With Winner-Take-All What’s New – Fairvote

Dec 102020

Caption: Based on FairVote research, this is a state-by-state breakdown of all campaign events by the major-party presidential and vice presidential nominees from the end of both party conventions through Election Day. With a campaign season fought tooth and nail into the final day, Election Day has finally passed. More than 158 million Americans cast a ballot in the 2020 election, a record-breaking number that represents the highest turnout percentage of voting-age Americans in our…

External feed Read More at the Source: http://www.fairvote.org/no_matter_the_candidate_who_wins_americans_lose_with_winner_take_all

2020-12-10 Comments Off

Discogs Thank You! A commercial community site with bulk data access Internet Archive Blogs

Dec 062020

https://thequietus.com/articles/24529-discogs-more-than-200-million-dollars Discogs has cracked the nut, struck the right balance, and is therefore an absolute Internet treasure– Thank you. If you don’t know them, Discogs is a central resource for the LP/78/CD music communities, and as Wikipedia said “As of 28 August 2019 Discogs contained over 11.6 million releases, by over 6 million artists, across over 1.3 million labels, contributed from over 456,000 contributor user accounts—with these figures constantly growing…” When I met the founder,…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://blog.archive.org/2020/12/06/discogs-thank-you-a-commercial-community-site-with-bulk-data-access/

2020-12-06 Comments Off

Pluralistic: 06 Dec 2020 Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Dec 062020

Today’s links Ad-tech as a bubble overdue for a bursting: Upton Sinclair was an optimist. The largest strike in human history: The Shock Doctrine’s breaking-point. Soviet computing graveyard: Recovering a Saratov-2 from presumed extinction. This day in history: 2015, 2019 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading Ad-tech as a bubble overdue for a bursting (permalink) In my book “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism” I point out that the claims for Big…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/06/surveillance-tulip-bulbs/

2020-12-06 Comments Off

Spotify’s Anti-Plagiarism Tool To Protect Copyright is Too Black Mirror TorrentFreak

Dec 062020

When I started writing music in in my teens, I didn’t even think about how to begin. I just did what every other starting writer does – I copied, emulated, plagiarized and otherwise ripped-off everything I’d enjoyed from the music I’d listened to thus far. Badly. Deprived of divine inspiration, it wouldn’t have been possible any other way. Show me a composer who hasn’t committed at least one of the above at some point and…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-anti-plagiarism-tool-to-protect-copyright-is-too-black-mirror-201206/

2020-12-06 Comments Off

Losing Jobless Benefits Is Not Only Stressful PopularResistance.Org

Dec 062020

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown millions of Americans out of work — and over the past nine months, up to 20 million have filed for unemployment. Supplemental federal unemployment benefits of $600 per week — a lifeline for many — expired in July and more are set to go away at the end of the year if Congress doesn’t act. But beyond the economic consequences, not having that financial safety net can lead to serious health…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://popularresistance.org/losing-jobless-benefits-is-not-only-stressful/

2020-12-06 Comments Off

Congress Is Deadlocked On COVID-19 Relief PopularResistance.Org

Dec 052020

The annual approval of the gargantuan U.S. military budget is one of the most reliable rituals in Congress. It is so ordinary and overwhelmingly bipartisan, it’s barely considered newsworthy, and few outlets follow the details of exactly how much the government is allocating to a nuclear weapons buildup, or deployments to the Asia Pacific, or the steady creep of U.S. military bases across the continent of Africa. Even under President Trump, when the Democratic leadership…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://popularresistance.org/congress-is-deadlocked-on-covid-19-relief/

2020-12-05 Comments Off

Section 230 is Good, Actually Deeplinks

Dec 042020

Even though it’s only 26 words long, Section 230 doesn’t say what many think it does. So we’ve decided to take up a few kilobytes of the Internet to explain what, exactly, people are getting wrong about the primary law that defends the Internet. Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230) is one of the most important laws protecting free speech online. While its wording is fairly clear—it states that “No provider or user of an…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/section-230-good-actually

2020-12-04 Comments Off

NSF Releases Video of Arecibo’s Final Moments Hackaday

Dec 042020

Today the National Science Foundation released a pair of videos that document the collapse of the Arecibo Observatory with incredible detail. A wide shot, apparently taken from the Visitors Center, shows the 900 ton instrument platform breaking free and swinging on the remaining support cables until it smashes into the edge of the dish. The second clip, recorded by an airborne drone, is focused directly on the cables as they failed. Both can be seen…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2020/12/03/nsf-releases-video-of-arecibos-final-moments/

2020-12-04 Comments Off

Internet Archive Responds to Proposal for Major Copyright Reform Internet Archive Blogs

Dec 042020

This week, the Internet Archive submitted a letter in response to a set of questions posed by Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) regarding potential reforms to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the law that provides a safe harbor against copyright liability for Internet services who abide by notice and takedown obligations. The Senator’s questions indicate that he is interested in potentially broad changes to not only the DMCA, but to copyright law more generally. His…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://blog.archive.org/2020/12/03/internet-archive-responds-to-proposal-for-major-copyright-reform/

2020-12-04 Comments Off

Google illegally spied on and retaliated against workers, feds say Ars Technica

Dec 042020

Enlarge / Sunset, by the Google empire. (credit: 400tmax | Getty Images) Google’s actions amid workplace organizing efforts, including the high-profile firings of several employees, were illegal violations of the National Labor Relations Act, federal regulators said this week. The National Labor Relations Board filed a formal complaint (PDF) against Google Wednesday, alleging that the company has been “interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees” to interfere with their protected concerted activity—workplace organization rights that are…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1727307

2020-12-04 Comments Off

The Senate Is Leaving Americans to Fend for Themselves This Winter Jacobin

Dec 042020

Even if the new bipartisan relief proposal does pass, it will be inadequate, forcing millions of Americans to rely on the generosity of family and strangers this winter. Millions of Americans are suffering, and our political leaders don’t care. Meals are prepared for people in need at the Thessalonica Christian Church in the Bronx, New York. (Photo by Spencer Platt / Getty Images) On Tuesday, after months of political paralysis, a bipartisan group of Senators…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/12/us-senate-coronavirus-relief-proposal-mutual-aid-winter/

2020-12-04 Comments Off

Mesa 20.3 Released With Big Improvements For Open-Source Graphics Drivers Phoronix

Dec 042020

Mesa 20.3 has been released as the Q4’2020 open-source graphics driver update, primarily around providing OpenGL and Vulkan support on the likes of Intel and AMD Radeon graphics along with the reverse-engineered Nouveau support, many smaller drivers especially in the embedded space, and the growing list of CPU-based implementations and other translation efforts…

External feed Read More at the Source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Mesa-20.3-Released

2020-12-04 Comments Off

Law Enforcement Purchasing Commercially-Available Geolocation Data is Unconstitutional Deeplinks

Dec 042020

Many of the smartphone apps people use every day are collecting data on their users and, in order to make money, many of these apps sell that information. One of the customers for this data is the U.S. government, which regularly purchases commercially available geolocation data. This includes the Department of Defense, CBP, ICE, the IRS, and the Secret Service. But it violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution for the government…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/law-enforcement-purchasing-commercially-available-geolocation-data

2020-12-04 Comments Off

Cultured meat has been approved for consumers for the first time New on MIT Technology Review

Dec 022020

The first lab-grown, or cultured, meat product has been given the green light to be sold for human consumption. In the landmark approval, regulators in Singapore granted Just, a San Francisco–based startup, the right to sell cultured chicken—in the form of chicken nuggets—to the public. Just had been working with the regulators for the past two years and was formally granted approval on November 26. Singapore’s regulatory body assembled a panel of seven experts in…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/01/1012789/cultured-cultivated-meat-just-singapore-approved-food-climate/

2020-12-02 Comments Off

DeepMind’s latest protein-solving AI AlphaFold pretty much cracks biology’s 50-year conundrum The Register

Dec 012020

Lab hopes improved tool will be used to craft new medicines faster DeepMind says its AlphaFold machine-learning software can now rapidly predict the structure of proteins with high accuracy, and could one day help us develop drugs faster.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2020/12/01/deepminds_protein_folding/

2020-12-01 Comments Off

Biden Insists Lack Of Cooperation From Trump Administration Won’t Interfere With 4 Years Of Total Political Inaction The Onion

Nov 182020

WILMINGTON, DE—Assuring supporters that the transition process would continue apace regardless of the White House’s decision making, President-Elect Joe Biden insisted Wednesday that a lack of cooperation from the Trump administration would not interfere with the upcoming four years of total political inaction.…Read more…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.theonion.com/biden-insists-lack-of-cooperation-from-trump-administra-1845701220

2020-11-18 Comments Off

Biden State Media Appointee Advocated ‘Rethinking’ First Amendment PopularResistance.Org

Nov 182020

Richard Stengel, the top state media appointee for US President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, has enthusiastically defended the use of propaganda against Americans. “My old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the chief propagandist,” Stengel said in 2018. “I’m not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population. And I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.” Richard “Rick” Stengel was the longest…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://popularresistance.org/biden-state-media-appointee-advocated-rethinking-first-amendment/

2020-11-18 Comments Off

Streetlight Spy Cameras Have Led to a Massive Privacy Backlash in San Diego Motherboard

Nov 182020

In 2017, the city of San Diego began installing around 3,000 sensors and hidden cameras into streetlights. The so-called “smart streetlights” were originally approved as an initiative to monitor and mitigate traffic, but quietly became a crime-solving tool for local police and faced public outcry from privacy-concerned residents. Now, what began with local opposition to the controversial technology is driving an effort that could give the city one of the strongest sets of local privacy…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3vn83/streetlight-spy-cameras-have-led-to-a-massive-privacy-backlash-in-san-diego

2020-11-18 Comments Off

Biden recruits unions to keep workplaces open as pandemic surges World Socialist Web Site (en)

Nov 182020

Biden held an online discussion Monday with top executives from GM, Microsoft and other corporations, along with the leaders of the AFL-CIO, the United Auto Workers and other unions.

External feed Read More at the Source: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/18/unio-n18.html

2020-11-18 Comments Off

GitHub Reinstates youtube-dl After RIAA’s Abuse of the DMCA Deeplinks

Nov 182020

GitHub recently reinstated the repository for youtube-dl, a popular free software tool for downloading videos from YouTube and other user-uploaded video platforms. GitHub had taken down the repository last month after the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) abused the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s notice-and-takedown procedure to pressure GitHub to remove it. By shoehorning DMCA 1201 into the notice-and-takedown process, RIAA potentially sets a very dangerous precedent. The removal of youtube-dl’s source code caused an…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/github-reinstates-youtube-dl-after-riaas-abuse-dmca

2020-11-18 Comments Off

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