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Center for Data Innovation: “Researchers from Columbia University, the University of California Irvine, and Virginia Tech have created a series of maps using satellite-based observations to show land subsidence—the gradual sinking of land—across the 28 most populous U.S. cities.This sinking is caused by both natural and human-driven factors, including groundwater extraction, heavy infrastructure, and sea-level …
New York Magazine no paywall: “By now, there’s a good chance you’ve encountered Google’s AI Overviews, possibly thousands of times. Appearing as blurbs at the top of search results, they attempt to settle your queries before you scroll — to offer answers, or relevant information, gleaned from websites that you no longer need to click on. …
The Atlantic: “In the years before the Constitution was written, two of the most famous figures of the American Revolution were caught up in controversy over fears of undue foreign influence caused by their receipt of opulent gifts from European kings. One was a gold snuff box encrusted with 408 diamonds that King Louis XVI …
Mozilla Foundation: “Firefox’s address bar just got an upgrade, and it’s all about putting you in control. It’s faster, easier to use and built to support how you search and browse — while staying true to what makes Firefox, Firefox: real user choice, strong privacy and transparency. Built to help you search faster and get …
“Chief Justice John Roberts has personally shielded the Department of Government Efficiency from having to hand over reams of internal data. Acting as an individual, Roberts temporarily blocked two orders from a lower court that instructed DOGE to turn over thousands of pages of documents and have its administrator, Amy Gleason, sit for a deposition. …
Cory Doctorow: “Who Broke the Internet, Part IV (permalink) “Kick ‘Em In the Dongle” is the fourth and final episode of “Understood: Who Broke the Internet?”, a podcast series I hosted and co-wrote for the CBC. It’s quite a finale! https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1353-the-naked-emperor/episode/16148346-kick-em-in-the-dongle – The thesis of the series is the same as the thesis of enshittification: that …
Wired [no paywall] – “OGE tested and used Meta’s Llama 2 model to review and classify responses from federal workers to the infamous “Fork in the Road” email. Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) used artificial intelligence from Meta’s Llama model to comb through and analyze emails from federal workers. Materials viewed by …
CNN Reliable Sources: “”The Trump White House is the most transparent in history,” it says, while removing a database of official transcripts documenting President Trump‘s announcements and appearances. The “remarks” section of the White House website now features YouTube videos rather than the transcripts that have been published by past administrations for decades. It’s yet …
The Tracking Gov Info Project is a crowdsourcing effort to track removed and modified government information and resources. Although the news media have widely reported the current U.S. administration’s removal and modification of federal websites and information, it can be challenging to understand and analyze the scope of the problem without a central list tracking …
The Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA’s) assessment of the global security environment – “The United States is confronting an increasingly complex national security threat environment. In addition to traditional military modernization, developments in artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, quantum sciences, microelectronics, space, cyber, and unmanned systems are rapidly transforming the nature of conflict and the global threat landscape. …
Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades [New York Times, no paywall] – The reporters analyzed 35 years of grants funded by the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation, which funds much of the fundamental scientific research at American universities, is awarding new grants at the slowest pace in at …
SciLit: “How a little-noticed tax and a bureaucratic cap could reshape U.S. innovation. The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1 today, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a sweeping reconciliation bill intended to implement key components of the Trump administration’s fiscal agenda. Among its most controversial implications are those for science. You can read …