Monthly archives: February, 2026

Don’t Build Your House on Rented Land: Why Writers Should Avoid Platform Dependency and How They Can Do So

Via LLRX – Don’t Build Your House on Rented Land: Why Writers Should Avoid Platform Dependency and How They Can Do So – Over the past several years, platforms such as Substack have become increasingly attractive to writers seeking to establish themselves as an independent voice. The appeal is obvious. They are easy to use and …

Subjects: Censorship, Knowledge Management

The Government Just Made it Harder to See What Spy Tech it Buys

404 Media: “It might look like something from the early days of the internet, with its aggressively grey color scheme and rectangles nested inside rectangles, but FPDS.gov is one of the most important resources for keeping tabs on what powerful spying tools U.S. government agencies are buying. It includes everything from phone hacking technology, to …

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Government, E-Records, Economy, Financial System, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research, Privacy

“If You’re Very Clever, No One Knows You’ve Used It”

“If You’re Very Clever, No One Knows You’ve Used It”: The Social Dynamics of Developing Generative AI Literacy in the Workplace Generative AI (GenAI) tools are rapidly transforming knowledge work, making AI literacy a critical priority for organizations. However, research on AI literacy lacks empirical insight into how knowledge workers’ beliefs around GenAI literacy are …

Subjects: AI, Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Acceleration hotspots of North American birds’ decline are associated with agriculture

The New York Times: “Birds in the United States are not only declining, but they are declining faster, especially in areas with intensive agriculture, according to new research. Overall drops in bird population, measured from 1987 to 2021, were sharpest in warm and warming areas, suggesting that climate change may play a role. The study, …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law

ICE Moves Dozens of Vehicles From Exposed Baltimore Garage Ahead of Protes

Project Salt Box: “Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles staged at a Baltimore parking garage quietly relocated to at least two other downtown locations Wednesday, hours before a protest organized to draw attention to the staging site was set to begin. Beginning around 3:00 P.M. and continuing at least until 8:30 P.M., eyewitnesses reported to Project …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Freedom of Information, Legal Research, Transportation

Trump, seeking executive power over elections, urged to declare emergency

Washington Post Gift Article – “Activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a draft executive order that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting. Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Congress, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research

Judge: IRS broke law ‘approximately 42,695 times’ in giving DHS data

Washington Post: “A federal judge has found that the Internal Revenue Service violated federal law “approximately 42,695 times” when it shared confidential taxpayer addresses. The judge wrote that the vast majority of the nearly 47,300 taxpayer addresses the IRS shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August were disclosed without the IRS confirming that ICE …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Records, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research, Privacy

A visual archive of Jan. 6, 2021 through the lenses of those who were there.

“In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, American political leaders almost universally condemned the riot as an act of domestic terrorism that threatened democracy. Now, President Trump calls Jan. 6 a “day of love” and the rioters “great patriots.” And since he issued mass pardons to the rioters, …

Subjects: Congress, Courts, Education, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Understanding the LLM Bubble

American Affairs, Spring 2026. Vol. X, Issue 1. Understanding the LLM Bubble [ungated PDF] Hubert Horan. The current debate on the existence of an “AI bubble” centers on a single question: is the current high level of investment into AI data centers a massive misallocation of capital or the key to future economic growth? The …

Subjects: AI, Economy, Financial System

The archivist preserving decaying floppy disks

PopSci – It’s a race against time (and magnetic decay) to preserve decades of cultural history stored on obsolete hardware: “Few nostalgic artifacts capture the spirit of the early personal computing era as clearly as the humble floppy disk. Introduced in the early 1970s, these chunky rectangles became the default way to store and transfer …

Subjects: E-Records, Education, Knowledge Management, Libraries

Metadata Exposes Authors of ICE’s ‘Mega’ Detention Center Plans

Wired [no paywall] – “Comments and other data left on a PDF detailing Homeland Security’s proposal to build “mega” detention and processing centers reveal the personnel involved in its creation. A PDF that Department of Homeland Security officials provided to New Hampshire governor Kelly Ayotte’s office about a new effort to build “mega” detention and …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Records, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research