Daniel Schuman is curating a list of useful how-tos and tools for Mastodon on this wiki pag

UK restricts installation of Chinese-linked surveillance cameras in government buildings over security fears

Looking for this World Cup’s ‘Group of Death’? It doesn’t exist anymore. Here’s why… The Athletic

A Newly-Discovered Artifact Could Rewrite The History Of The Mysterious Basque Language

"Investigators in northern Spain said this week they discovered what they believe to be the oldest written record" — inscribed on a bronze hand — "of a precursor to modern Basque, pushing back its earliest evidence to the first century B.C." - AP

The book arcade Around the end of the 19th century, Melbourne, Australia, hosted one of the biggest

San Francisco police consider letting robots use ‘deadly force’ The Verge

John Fetterman and Social Media: How His Campaign Built a Winning Strategy Teen Vogue. Nice explanation of the crudité episode. I’ve been saying that Fetterman’s social media director could write their own ticket; now we’ll see. Now watch a bunch of Democrats try to replicate Fetterman’s social media success without Fetterman’s “every county” strategy (which IMNSHO was the basis of it all). We’ll see about that too. Oddly, or not, no coverage in the majors like Politico, WaPo, the Times, the WSJ…. 

Who is Jack Smith, the special counsel named in the Trump investigations CNN. The 1/6 committee didn’t come up with enough for Garland just to indict?

 

EXCLUSIVE: A shocking voicemail, shared bank accounts, dodgy partners and whistleblowers: DailyMail.com breaks down the jaw-dropping evidence as GOP targets ‘chairman of the board’ Joe Biden – and could lead to possible impeachment Daily Mail

 Extreme lake effect snow around the Great LakesThe Watchers

Apple Device Analytics Contain Identifying iCloud User Data, Claim Security Researchers

From the, “There is really no privacy on every technology, application and device you use,” via BeauHD: “A new analysis has claimed that Apple’s device analytics contain information that can directly link information about how a device is used, its performance, features, and more, directly to a specific user, despite Apple’s claims otherwise. MacRumors reports: On Twitter, security researchers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakry have foundthat Apple’s device analytics data includes an ID called “dsId,” which stands for Directory Services Identifier. 

The analysis found that the dsId identifier is unique to every iCloud account and can be linked directly to a specific user, including their name, date of birth, email, and associated information stored on iCloud.  On Apple’s device analytics and privacy legal page, the company says no information collected from a device for analytics purposes is traceable back to a specific user. “iPhone Analytics may include details about hardware and operating system specifications, performance statistics, and data about how you use your devices and applications.

 None of the collected information identifies you personally,” the company claims. In one possible differentiator, Apple says that if a user agrees to send analytics information from multiple devices logged onto the same iCloud account, it may “correlate some usage data about Apple apps across those devices by syncing using end-to-end encryption.” Even in doing so, however, Apple says the user remains unidentifiable to Apple. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment.”

What was read in the GDR

  The Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung has a new exhibit, Leseland DDR, about reading in the German Democratic Republic -- and at Deutsche Welle Rayna Breuer discusses it, in: Disney was immoral: What was read in the GDR.

The thin blue records that opened up musical horizons for Soviet youth Pressing Plant

China: Protests erupt over COVID curbs after deadly fire Al Jazeera

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (COMMUNIST CHINA EDITION): Hundreds riot at Foxconn iPhone plant over terrible conditions. “The various videos reportedly show workers complaining about not getting meals while in COVID lockdown. They also say that China and Foxconn’s ‘closed-loop production’ health measures — where staff live and work on-site — do not work.”

 

Poland projection of the day

If the UK continues with the same level of growth it has seen for the last decade,” writes Sam Ashworth-Hayes, “Poland will be richer than Britain in about 12 years’ time”:

It sounds like an absurd idea that in 2040 we might see complaints in the Polish press about a flood of British plumbers undercutting wages, or Brytyjski Skleps lining the rougher areas of Warsaw, but it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility.

This talking point has also appeared in the Telegraph, the Express and the Financial Times. It often comes with a sense of vague alarm and bewilderment. Poland? The post-communist place? Don’t they live entirely off vodka and potatoes? Don’t they have horses clippety-cloppeting down the streets selling women’s underwear pinched off a truck in Germany? Poland?

A lot can change in nine years, in Britain and in Poland

Having lived in Poland for nine years, I can say that I am not at all surprised by these projections. To be clear, that is all they are — projections. A lot can change in nine years, in Britain and in Poland.

Still, I think a lot of British people would be surprised by how much better things can be in the land of Lech Wałęsa and John Paul II.

That is by Ben Sixsmith.  Poland remains a underrated nation.

Elon Musk’s ‘hardcore’ management style: a case study in what not to do

Via LLRX – Elon Musk’s ‘hardcore’ management style: a case study in what not to do: Professor Libby Sander explains why as a case study in how to implement organisational change, Elon Musk’s actions at Twitter will go down as the gold standard in what not to do. Among other things, the evidence shows successful organisational change requires: a clear, compelling vision that is communicated effectively; employee participation; and fairness in the way change is implemented. Trust in leaders is also crucial. Change management never quite goes to plan. It’s hard to figure out whether Musk even has a plan at all.

FAIL, BRITANNIA: More Than a Third of UK Restaurants Could Close by Early 2023.

1. Free Will by Timothy O’Connor and Christopher Franklin.
2. Algebra by Vaughan Pratt.
3. Phenomenology of Religion by Mark Wynn.
4. Terrorism by Igor Primoratz.
5. Federalism by Andreas Follesdal.
6. Scientific Discovery by Jutta Schickore.

IEP      ∅                

NDPR      ∅       

1000-Word Philosophy       

1. Karl Marx’s Theory of History by Angus Taylor.
2. Meaning in Life: What Makes Our Lives Meaningful? By Matthew Pianalto.

Project Vox     ∅ 

Recent Philosophy Book Reviews in Non-Academic Media   

1. Life is Hard by Kieran Setiya is reviewed by Meredith Goldstein at The Boston Globe and by Jane O’Grady at Literary Review.
2. Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of theSelf by Andrea Wulf is reviewed by Freya Johnston at Prospect.
3. What We Owe The Future by William MacAskill is reviewed by Alexander Zaitchik at The New Republic.

Compiled by Michael Glawson

BONUS: AI Art, Physics, & Simulation

2022 List of Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs)

“And one fine day the goddess of the wind kisses the foot of man, that mistreated, scorned foot, and from that kiss the soccer idol is born. He is born in a straw crib in a tin-roofed shack and he enters the world clinging to a ball.”

 — Eduardo Galeano

As I’ve long argued, the UK government facilitates fraud and increases the tax gap by failing to regulate companies in the UK.

THE LUCKY LAUNDRY Nathan Lynch In Conversation With Michael West

“The 2022 list of globally systemic banks (G-SIBs) is based on end-2021 data and an assessment methodology designed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), which was revised in 2018

TRIBUTE TO SANDY DAWSON SC It is with a very heavy heart that I inform the profession of the devastating loss of our dear colleague Sandy Dawson SC - Alexander

Group of 40 State Attorneys General settles with Google over claims that that it didn’t track locations – but did; company to pay $391.5 million

Massachusetts, with help from Google, alleged to have secretly installed spyware for Covid tracking on all cell phones in the state

Why Are We Allowing Dangerous Chinese Tech Companies To Operate On American Soil?

Analysis: The Bell inquiry shreds Scott Morrison's credibility and for Labor the timing couldn't be better

“To understand events around the world today, one must think in terms of the class struggle.”

Much of the current tension in America and in many other democracies is in fact a product of a class struggle. It’s not the kind of class struggle that Karl Marx wrote about, with workers and peasants facing off against rapacious capitalists, but it is a case of today’s ruling class facing disaffection from its working class.

In the old Soviet Union, the Marxists assured us that once true communism was established under a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” the state would wither away and everyone would be free. In fact, however, the dictatorship of the proletariat turned into a dictatorship of the party hacks, who had no interest whatsoever in seeing their positions or power wither.

Yugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas called these party hacks the “New Class,” noting that instead of workers and peasants against capitalists, it was now a case of workers and peasants being ruled by a managerial new class of technocrats who, while purporting to act for the benefit of the workers and peasants, somehow wound up with the lion’s share of the goodies. Workers and peasants stood in long lines for bread and shoddy household goods, while party leaders and government managers bought imported delicacies in special, secret stores. (In a famous Soviet joke, then-leader Leonid Brezhnev shows his mother his luxury apartment, his limousine, his fancy country house and his helicopter only to have her object: “But what if the communists come back?”) . . .

But the New Class isn’t limited to communist countries, really. Around the world in the postwar era, power was taken up by unelected professional and managerial elites. To understand what’s going on with President Donald Trump and his opposition, and in other countries as diverse as France, Hungary, Italy and Brazil, it’s important to realize that the post-World War II institutional arrangements of the Western democracies are being renegotiated, and that those democracies’ professional and managerial elites don’t like that very much, because they have done very well under those arrangements. And, like all elites who are doing very well, they don’t want that to change.

Their first response is always to call their critics bigots

 Russian software disguised as American finds its way into U.S. Army, CDC apps

Jan Wolitzky

 How North Korea became a mastermind of crypto cybercrime

Ars Technica

 U.S. NSA recommends 'memory safe' languages

Media Defense

 Re: Rust

dmitri maziuk

 Cyber Vulnerability in Networks Used by Spacecraft, Aircraft, Energy Generation Systems

U.Michigan

 Reducing Redundancy to Accelerate Complicated Computations

TJNAF

 Vulnerabilities of electric vehicle charging infrastructure

techxplore.com

 Cybercriminals Are Selling Access to Chinese Surveillance Cameras

Threatpost

 Code grey: Inside a 'catastrophic' IT failure at the Queensway Carleton Hospital

CBC

 Open-Source Software Has Never Been More Important

TechRadar

 Autonomous Vehicles Join the List of U.S. National Security Threats

WiReD

 Hotel barfs on two people with the same name

gcluley via Wendy M. Grossman

 DeepMind says its new AI coding engine is as good as an average human programmer

The Verge

 Time Has Run Out for the Leap Second

NYTimes

 Timer on GE ovens automagically reprogrammed to gobble rather than ding

Business Wire

 Akamai finds 13 million malicious newly observed domains a month

SC Media

 Inside the turmoil at Sobeys-owned stores after ransomware attack

CBC

 $10.7 Million Payment To Virginia In Google Privacy Settlement

VA Patch

 Short Videos on Ethics in AI and Software Development

Gene Spafford

 Electronic Health Record Legal Settlements

JAMA Health Forum

 Is This the End Game for Cryptocurrency?

Paul Krugman via PGN et al.

 Tuvalu Turns to Metaverse as Rising Seas Threaten Existence

Lucy Craymer

 Smart Home Hubs Leave Users Vulnerable to Hackers

Leigh Beeson

 Twitter update

Lauren Weinstein PGN-simmerized

 In Memoriam: Drew Dean

Peter G. Neumann

 In Memoriam: Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

Steve Bellovin

 Info on RISKS (comp.risks)

 

A formula to finally get DoD on the path to clean financial audits

 The Department of Homeland Security is the pinnacle of bureaucratic dysfunction The Verge, Joe Lieberman.

DEA’s most corrupt agent: Parties, sex amid ‘unwinnable war’ ABC

 

TSA screeners missed boxcutter used to threaten passengers on chaotic flight NY Post

A formula to finally get DoD on the path to clean financial audits Federal News Network

 

Trump says he has no interest in returning to Twitter after reinstatement The Hill

 

Schiff says ‘evidence is there’ to make a criminal referral against Trump The Hill. So why didn’t Garland do that?

 

1. One might think that much AI art isn’t just bad, but that it’s not art — but “AI art is art as much as readymades, minimalist art, or photography” argues G. M. “Boomer” Trujillo, Jr. (Texas – El Paso)
2. The philosopher who helped kill the king — on the “mess of paradoxes” in Lucy Hutchinson’s “war against the disorder of England’s craven nobility”
3. “Constructionism was never a matter of ‘just saying whatever’, and science can never be simply a matter of reading the dictates of the natural world off of our instruments” — Justin E. H. Smith with an appreciation of Bruno Latour and of what it means to “have a choice as to how read the world.”
4. “When asked to select Dennett’s answer to a philosophical question from a set of five possible answers, with the other four being [GPT-3] digi-Dan outputs, Dennett experts got only about half right” — Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) et al on what happens when large language models are trained on philosophical texts
5. “Unlike most scientific thinkers of the period… Cavendish insisted that humans are part of nature—not above it—and thus that we lack the perspectival leverage to see and understand its operations” — on Margaret Cavendish’s combination of fantastical imagination, thoroughgoing materialism, and desire for immortality

1. “As we bridge the gulf between now and then to sympathize with ourselves at other times, we sympathize, too, with the suffering of others” — Kieran Setiya (MIT) on his chronic pain and its philosophical lessons
2. A philosopher is invited to take part in a Netflix television show with a magician, the premise of which is that free will is an illusion — the magician thinks he has cornered the philosopher, but Christopher Kaczor (Loyola Marymount) is the one with a card up his sleeve

How Oil & Gas Funding Distorts Energy Research

 Asteroids! Solar Storms! Nukes! Climate Calamity! Killer Robots! - Washington Post: “A guide to contemporary doomsday scenarios — from the threats you know about to the ones you never think of…There are just so many things we don’t want to happen. There are so many potential doomsdays. 

This is not the cheeriest topic, to be sure, but it’s endlessly fascinating if you can stomach it. What are our biggest existential risks? Should we feel more threatened by low-probability but high-consequence risks, such as asteroid impacts and runaway artificial intelligence (robot overlords and whatnot), or should we focus on less exotic, here-and-now threats such as climate change, viral pandemics and weapons of mass destruction? And should we even worry about low-probability risks when hundreds of millions of people right now lack adequate food, water, and shelter and are living off less than $2 a day? 

We are not being paranoid when we recognize that human civilization has become increasingly complex and simultaneously armed with techniques for self-destruction. There are bad omens everywhere, and not just the melting glaciers and dying polar bears. We’re all still unnerved by the pandemic. Meanwhile, there’s this ancient threat called war. Vladimir Putin and his advisers keep rattling the nuclear saber. A nuclear holocaust is the classic apocalyptic scenario that never went away…”

Gizmodo: “Prominent energy centers at MIT, Stanford, and Columbia may be biased toward natural gas because of funding, a new study says Journalists like me often seek out academics for comment and insight on stories related to the energy transition, since these professors have often done in-depth research into various fuel sources and their impacts. 

The hope is that these sources are relatively unbiased; their loyalty is to the data. But a study published Thursday in Nature Climate Change found that prominent energy policy centers at top-tier universities that are funded by the fossil fuel industry may produce content more favorable to dirty energy than other, similar centers. This is concerning, because it’s not just journalists who seek the council of these academics—it’s policymakers, too. 

“Reports by fossil-funded [centers] are more favorable towards natural gas than towards renewable energy, while centers less dependent on fossil fuel industry funding show a pro-renewable energy preference,” Anna Papp, a PhD student in Sustainable Development at Columbia University and one of the authors of the paper, told Earther in an email. Academic centers focused on energy research have become an increasingly respected and important voice in energy policy conversations, as the U.S. and the world begin grinding the gears on the energy transition. Representatives from places like Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy and MIT’s Energy Initiative have testified in Congress and are often featured on television as experts; some of their reports have even been the subject of their own Congressional hearings. 

But several of the most prominent academic think tanks working on energy issues also have significant funding from the fossil fuel industry. Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy, for instance, lists its financial partnerships on its website, which include big fossil fuel names like BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum. (Full disclosure: While I was employed at a PR firm between 2014 and 2016, Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy was a client; I worked on some of their press needs and materials.) What’s more, much of the research and whitepapers produced by these centers does not undergo the peer review process that a scientific paper may receive…”

Canada: Why the country wants to bring in 1.5m immigrants by 2025 BBC

Judge orders Amazon to stop retaliating against union organizers MarketWatch