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If you’ve been paying attention to surveillance and civil liberties issues over the past fifteen years, you’ve likely learned to recognize a particular pattern. Senator Ron Wyden will occasionally send a public letter that essentially says “hey, I can’t tell you what’s happening because it’s classified, but something really bad is going on and you should all be paying attention.”
A decade ago...
We’ve been talking about how the Trump GOP is launching an all out attack on Netflix’s proposed merger with Warner Brothers. Not because they care about antitrust or corporate power, but because they really want Trump-allied billionaire Larry Ellison to buy Warner Brothers, CNN, and HBO. It’s part of their unsubtle plan to acquire what’s left of U.S. media and turn it it to MAGA state television...
It’s darkly funny, in a way, to recall a racist trope that gets trotted out about immigration all the time: immigrants bring disease into the country. That in itself isn’t funny, obviously. The funny part is that it seems like we’re proving the opposite to be true under the Trump administration. As the measles outbreak in America continues to rage, immigration detention camps are starting to feel...
The Baton Rouge Police Department announced recently that it will begin using a drone designed by military equipment manufacturer Lockheed Martin and Edge Autonomy, making it one of the first local police departments to use an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a history of primary use in foreign war zones. Baton Rouge is now one of the first local police departments in the United States to...
It is no secret that large language models (LLMs) are being used routinely to modify and even write scientific papers. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: LLMs can help produce clearer texts with stronger logic, not least when researchers are writing in a language that is not their mother tongue. More generally, a recent analysis in Nature magazine, reported by Science magazine, found that...
Jeff Bezos this week continued to dismantle what’s left of the Washington Post via another massive round of layoffs that left remaining staff stunned. Among the latest cuts is the elimination of the paper’s popular sports desk, scaling back of international and local news, the firing of an untold swath of journalists, and the ending of the paper’s book sections, among other major changes.
This...
Over the past week, two federal judges have issued rulings on immigration cases that aren’t just legally significant—they’re genuinely extraordinary documents. One includes a photo of a five-year-old in a Spiderman backpack, biblical citations, and closes with Ben Franklin’s warning about keeping the republic. The other spends 83 pages methodically dismantling a cabinet secretary’s decision,...
The SunFounder GalaxyRVR Mars Rover Kit is your gateway to hands-on learning on robotics, coding, and Mars-like adventures! Its durable aluminum frame and rocker-bogie suspension easily handle tough terrains, while smart sensors ensure smooth navigation. It’s compatible with the Arduino UNO R3, runs on solar power, and includes real-time FPV with app-based control for day or night adventures....
The two murders by immigration officers during Trump’s vengeful “surge” in Minneapolis, Minnesota have grabbed most of the headlines recently. And deservedly so. The violent rhetoric used by nearly every administration official — combined with a lack of training and the explicit understanding no one will be punished by Trump for whatever’s done in Trump’s name — has delivered a day-to-day purge...
So we’ve been noting how the Trump administration has been helping Larry Ellison wage war on Netflix’s proposed merger with Warner Brothers. Not because they care about antitrust (that’s always been a lie), but because they want Larry Ellison to be able to dominate media and create a safe space for unpopular right wing ideology.
After Warner Brothers balked at Larry’s competing bid and a hostile...