A social media hoax told lots of Moroccans that if they swam into Ceuta (a Spanish colony adjacent to Morocco) right away, they would be allowed to go to Spain and stay there.

Some 70,000 went into Ceuta, found out story was a hoax, and mostly went back to Morocco. But European right-wing extremists are using it to pretend that a real problem had happened and requires a real increase in repression of immigrants.

Flock Reportedly Tried to Turn Uber Drivers Into Mobile Snitches. And Nexar, a manufacturer of dashcams, is already doing that to unwitting drivers whose cars carry those cameras.

Drivers should be allowed to install dashcams that record, as security cameras, but security cameras must not be allowed to transmit these images anywhere without specific time-limited requests.

Don't do business with Uber!

Deportation thugs are arresting people at US airports, often choosing targets who already have grounds to be in the US.

The wrecker's henchmen are paying billions to get companies to cancel their contracts to build offshore wind power.

This is driving expensive nails into humanity's coffin.

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of Greater London: *This burning summer is the proof: the voices of climate denial aren't just delusional, they're deadly.*

They treat truth with total contempt.

The bully's henchmen are rushing the deportation of people who have been trafficked, and minors who fled abuse by their parents, depriving them full and proper judgment of their cases.

Sometimes they get deported before the hearing that will decide whether they are entitled to stay in the US. That is Kafkaesque.

The persecutors are mainly focusing on minors, but "minors" does not imply "children". A 17-year old is not a child and we must not call per one. Can't you be concerned for someone's rights without calling per a "kid"? I am.

But the reason I am concerned about that manipulative exaggeration is not just that it is soppy. It can be dangerous too, to those very people. Calling a teenager a "child" can lead to disrespect for per rights.

The bully's henchmen have terminated US sanctions against violent Israeli "settlers". Democrats in Congress have called for reinstating the sanctions.

Biden put them in place to rebuke the "settlers'" wanton violence against Palestinians. The bully seems to want to present the US as a supporter of violent cruelty.

Watch out, England! Two London airports are going to build addtional runways. That is expensive, and each airport will use its new runway to handle 100,000 or so additional flights per year.

Just think of how much hotter they will make Britain (and the rest of the world).

Now that Silicon Valley has mostly joined the side of fascism, only a few journalists are ready to criticize.

US citizens: call on Congress to stop big tech's Data Center Land Grab

Check this action.

It is unfortunate that the petition grants these data centers the usually unmerited accolade of "artificial intelligence". I myself never do that.

However, I signed the petition anyway.

DA officials did not say whether they agreed with Helvestine's argument that the footage showed only a handshake. But the DA's office subsequently motioned to dismiss the case ahead of its preliminary hearing, records show. That motion was granted on May 8 last year by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Michelle Tong. [...]

Deputy Public Defender Brian Cox, the head of the office's Integrity Unit, argued police officers regularly mischaracterize normal interactions as drug transactions, and that drones amplify those risks. [...]

"SFPD interprets otherwise innocent behavior as criminal because to a hammer, everything is a nail," said Cox. "Drones and other surveillance technologies simply give police more power -- and greater reach -- to do that." [...]

The police hub that deploys San Francisco's police drones is also backed by billionaires.

The Real Time Investigations Center, which helps the police department find suspects on the streets and aids arrests using drones and Flock Safety automatic license plate reading cameras, has bulked up through benefactors including Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, former Y Combinator partner Michael Seibel, and Michael Moritz's family foundation Crankstart.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

The two customers were, in fact, recording Hinkle, and the entire exchange was turned into content for social media. Another Target manager came across the video while scrolling online, without even looking for it. [...]

There's little recourse for those who have been unknowingly recorded. In one of the videos posted to social media that Hinkle is featured in, the Meta glasses wearer is seen chumming it up and dancing with a police officer who arrived at the Target store.

"You boys stay out of trouble," the cop says as he fist bumps the person recording. [...]

"Are your glasses blinking?" she asks.

He responds that he's recording her.

"Oh, could you not?" she says.

"That's what they're there for," he says, defiantly. "I'm here to watch you, and you're here to perform for me." The audience member refuses to stop filming even after being asked to. Rather than argue back and forth, Telesford cuts her set short and walks offstage. [...]

"We know that when people are being watched, they feel less free. They chill their behavior, they feel pressure to conform. They worry about even minor deviations from norms being used against them," he says. "It's just a sort of suffocating atmosphere to be a part of."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Anyway, go read that post instead for the juicy gossip. No need to re-hash it all here.

We can see from the release notes that 3.0 contained such exciting new features as background colors in table cells, the <FONT FACE> attribute, and <SCRIPT SRC>. Plus better uuencode support! For porn!

Oh yeah, and I think 3.0 was the first release with "Gold", the WYSIWYG HTML editor, but Gold only worked on Windows and Mac. This was the first violation of what had been, until then, two of our guiding principles, which I was unable to stop:

• Simultaneous feature parity on all platforms;
• Never allow C++ into the cross-platform code base.

You get one guess why there was no Unix version. If you listen carefully, you can hear Ghosts of JWZs Past howling down the cubicle farm hallways, "I fucking told you so, did I not fucking tell you??" But Lloyd thought the way you write cross-platform code was to write for Windows and then port it once you were finished. "It'll be fine," he said. (Narrator: It was not fine.)

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

A 404 Media investigation was able to reveal Amazon's book buying operation, which hasn't been previously reported, by placing a tracking device in a rare book we suspected would be acquired by an AI company for training data, and following it around the country to its final destination. [...]

We first learned that AI companies wanted to scan millions of books for training data because of a lawsuit from book authors against Anthropic, which revealed Anthropic's "Project Panama." The goal of the project was to acquire books from commercial bookselling marketplaces, cut the spines off the books, and scan them. It's possible to scan books without destroying them, but cutting the spine makes it cheaper and faster.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

"With a glove, there are no burn marks or scars." That makes it hard for victims to sue.

"In today's society, you know, everybody's filming everything, everybody has a cell phone," Glueck said. If an officer punches someone on camera, that can go viral in an instant; even a standard taser leaves puncture wounds. But "the glove is low optic, and it looks better on camera, and it looks better to those witnesses. With a glove, there are no burn marks or scars."

The gloves, manufactured by a company called Compliant Technologies, have been used by police, sheriffs, jail wardens, and even school resource officers for years. They've been described by groups like Amnesty International as "readily misused for torture." And this week, ICE published a plan to order $20 million worth of them. [...]

But local police across the country are still eagerly buying the gloves -- in large part so that they can harm people and avoid being sued for it. It's been successful "from the patrolmen to the jailers," Lumpkin County Sheriff Stacy Jarrard said in a Compliant Technologies promotional video. "It's been a great tool as far as mitigating liability," according to Nelson County Jailer Justin Hall. Bob Couey of the Floyd County Sheriff's Department sung the GLOVE's praises, too: "I highly recommend these gloves to anybody that's looking for a utility they can use that is conducive to not leading to lawsuits."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

These are unlikely to change any minds, but they will defintely shorten some incredibly tedious conversations at the bar.

Here's a PDF if you'd like some of your own.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Nine PBS VP and CCO Leah Freeman confirmed the station's lawsuit against Iron Mountain and its dedication to retrieving the archival materials and programming, which she says span over "70 years of our organization's history." [...]

The contract provided 30 days for Nine PBS to retrieve its data from OSS' storage "upon termination of services." But on March 6, OSS cut off the station's access without warning, according to the complaint. When Nine PBS attempted to contact OSS to sort out the problem, it discovered that OSS' website was defunct and the company had delinquency status with the Colorado Secretary of State. [...]

Iron Mountain has refused to return the materials to the station because its client, OSS, technically owned "the physical services housing the data" within Iron Mountain, according to the complaint.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Google oligarch Brin has now spent $100 million to avoid paying $13 billion in taxes.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has donated another $20 million to Build a Better California, an organization advocating against California's proposed billionaire tax, according to a new filing. That means that the world's fourth-richest man, whose net worth hovers around $267 billion, has now spent more than $100 million to avoid an estimated $13.3 billion tax payment.

California's Prop 40, known as the billionaire tax, would impose a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of around 200 billionaires that live in the state. The windfall from this proposed tax would mostly go toward funding California's healthcare programs. The state's Medicaid program alone could lose up to $30 billion in federal funding once Trump's budget cuts take effect next year.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.