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Beyond Plastics – None Ended Up at a Recycling Facility: “A three-month national investigation by Beyond Plastics found that not a single tracked Starbucks cold-beverage cup ended up at a recycling facility — even when the cups were placed in clearly marked recycling bins inside Starbucks stores. As detailed in the new report, titled “Tracking …
Government Executive: “The White House recently unveiled a new app to give the public “unfiltered” access to “key priorities,” “historic moments” and “policy breakthroughs.” Now, it’s directing agencies to help install it on the government phones of federal employees. The Trump administration launched the app, which promises to “[keep] you connected to President Donald J. …
U.S. Drought Monitor: The U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) is a map released every Thursday, showing where drought is and how bad it is across the U.S. and its territories. The map uses six classifications: normal conditions, abnormally dry (D0), showing areas that may be going into or are coming out of drought, and four levels …
NOTICE News: “Pope Leo XIV issued his first encyclical Monday — an 83-page document titled Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity) — and it reads less like a church document and more like a progressive policy agenda for the digital age. The pope called on governments to regulate AI, warned that companies invoking ethics “in the abstract” …
Wendy Liu – The Guardian – As intelligence itself becomes privatised by big tech, allowing your intellectual faculties to wither in service of inane bots seems a dangerous move. Long before the age of multi-billion-dollar AI companies promising to disrupt the field of software development, I was learning to code the hard way. It was …
Glass Empires: “This article is the historical companion to yesterday’s investigation of the WEXMAC TITUS warehouse buildout. Read this before they build the next camp. “If they did not know, they did not know because they did not want to know.” — Primo Levi, Afterword to If This Is a Man / The Truce, 1987. …
The Guardian – Politicians must be held accountable if their lies damage democracy, according to a former US federal prosecutor and FBI general counsel who was pursued by Donald Trump. Andrew Weissmann argues for new law to hold political liars like US president accountable for harming democracy. The US must be “as creative as possible” …
Brockovich Data Center Report – Key Concerns with AI Data Centers Energy Consumption – High energy usage contributes to significant environmental impact and escalating costs for surrounding communities. Water Usage – Cooling systems often require substantial water resources, straining local water supplies and ecosystems. E-Waste – Frequent hardware upgrades and replacements generate significant volumes of electronic …
MakeUseOf: “Most of us just want to relax at the end of a long day. Sure, there are plenty of people who like to go out and have an even crazier night after a full day of working. But more often than not, I’d bet that people are looking forward to catching up on some …
20-time GRAMMY winner Bruce Springsteen returns to The Late Show to perform “Streets of Minneapolis,” a song he wrote in the midst of terrifying government-led violence against the people of Minnesota.
Follow up to Google Search as you know it is over [please please stop using Google – I will beg no more…] – See also Tara Calishain – “As you might imagine I’m not thrilled with Google’s decision to go full-in on AI. Even if Google’s AI consistently worked well enough to ensure minimal misinformation …
The New York Times – Gift Article – Illegal, synthetically narrated copies of “The Hunger Games,” hit self-help books and everything in between are increasingly common on the platform: “…Illegally copied audiobooks have also turned up on other platforms, where pirates sometimes disguise them as podcasts by breaking them into chapters. But publishers say YouTube …