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California's landmark anti-plastics law sparks anger as 17 states move to sue
2 hours ago
- California's new law requires plastic and packaging companies to reduce single-use plastics and ensure all packaging is recyclable or compostable by 2032, with a $5 billion fee for pollution remedies.
- The law faces legal challenges from industry groups and 17 states, arguing it burdens out-of-state manufacturers and delegates tax-like powers to a private entity, while environmental groups sue over loopholes and toxic recycling methods.
- Experts note low plastic recycling rates (5-6%) due to cheap new plastic and reduced markets, and debate who should bear waste management costs—currently on governments and taxpayers versus shifting to producers.
- The law, negotiated with industry input, aims to incentivize sustainable design and reduce waste costs, but lawsuits highlight delays and implementation concerns, though similar legal arguments have previously failed in courts.
- Extended producer responsibility laws are effective globally, fostering accountability, but opposition reflects broader public concern over microplastics and environmental impacts.
California legislature agrees to upload driver's licenses to national database
2 hours ago
- California legislature withdrew opposition due to pressure from Governor Gavin Newsom and the DHS, agreeing to fund and revise state law to upload driver's license and ID data to the national SPEXS database operated by AAMVA.
- The budget compromise includes "guardrails" criticized as ineffective and a sham, with concerns that legislators lack time to assess them before a scheduled hearing.
- Once data is transferred to AAMVA, DHS or other agencies could access it via court orders, potentially including gag orders preventing disclosure to California or individuals, limiting accountability.
- Data misuse risks include weaponization against vulnerable groups like immigrants and transgender individuals who are already targeted by federal and state agencies.
- The proposed bill claims to limit data sharing to federal requirements, but compliance with REAL-ID is optional; no federal law mandates data sharing with AAMVA, a private nonprofit.
- California has the choice to reject capitulation to DHS threats, with suggestions to instead prepare legal defenses against interference with travel rights by the Attorney General.
Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers
3 hours ago
- A Michigan bill (Senate Bill 948) aims to restrict employer contact with employees outside normal work hours.
- Introduced by Sen. Erika Geiss, the Workplace Employee Boundaries Act seeks to protect workers from constant availability pressures.
- Exceptions allow compensation for on-call availability, set availability hours, and contact during state/federal emergencies affecting business.
- Violations could lead to fines for companies and overtime pay for employees, enforced by the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.
- The bill addresses concerns about well-being erosion, family life impact, and disproportionate effects on working parents and caregivers.
Do Babies Dream of Baby Sheep?
3 days ago
- Childhood amnesia, or infantile amnesia, is the norm where adults cannot recall episodic memories from before age 3-4.
- The author has vivid memories from as early as 6-8 months old, including crawling on tiles, playing with refrigerator cables, and switching from a plastic to glass milk bottle.
- His wife lacks early childhood memories, reinforcing the concept of childhood amnesia, and he initially doubted his own memories as fabricated.
- Verification from parents confirmed some memories, such as not crawling on all fours and the refrigerator incident, suggesting they might be genuine.
- He recalls an early nightmare involving a helicopter from a war movie, leading to a sad dream of abandonment in a castle.
- Emotional events, like witnessing loved ones cry, may have helped consolidate these early memories, though their authenticity remains uncertain.
EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors
3 hours ago
- Civil rights activist Dr. Patrick Breyer warns of a 'double-attack' on secure messaging and private communications in the EU ahead of critical meetings on Friday and Monday.
- The first threat involves EP President Roberta Metsola undemocratically pushing to resurrect the expired 'Chat Control 1.0' mass scanning regime, ignoring the European Parliament's previous rejection.
- The second threat is from the permanent CSAR trilogue negotiations on Monday, where the European Parliament may rush a new scanning mandate, leading to potential concessions that enable mass surveillance and end anonymous communication.
- Potential outcomes from these negotiations include mass scanning of private messages, warrantless scanning orders, and mandatory age verification that could end anonymous communications in Europe.
- In response, civil society has relaunched fightchatcontrol.eu, a campaign platform allowing citizens to email EU lawmakers and demand adherence to fundamental rights, opposing these undemocratic backroom deals.
Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast
3 hours ago
- Flock Security's AI surveillance cameras, known as Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs), track more than license plates, including vehicles and individuals via descriptive searches like 'green sedan with bumper sticker'.
- Over 100,000 Flock cameras are installed nationwide, raising privacy concerns due to security vulnerabilities, misuse by law enforcement, and AI malfunctions that can falsely implicate innocent people.
- Flock cameras operate on Android, wirelessly transmitting footage to an AI-powered database for natural language searches, accessible by police departments, and shared with agencies like ICE through data-sharing programs.
- Security flaws exposed by researchers include exposed internet cameras without passwords, root access via physical buttons, and malicious USB ports, leading to live footage leaks of private moments.
- Documented misuse includes police stalking ex-partners and Flock employees using footage of children in sales demos, with few guardrails to prevent abuse and rarely requiring warrants for searches.
- Innocent individuals have faced false accusations, such as theft charges based on erroneous camera data, and vehicles misidentified due to ALPR errors (e.g., zero vs. 'O'), leading to safety concerns.
- Despite public backlash and protests, cities renew contracts due to direct marketing to law enforcement, claims of crime reduction (though evidence is lacking), and restrictive ironclad contracts that make removal difficult.
- Tools like DeFlock map allow public tracking of ALPR camera locations, highlighting the rapid spread and surveillance reach of Flock's technology across communities.
Brace Expansion Tree
8 hours ago
- Bash one-liner uses brace expansion to generate 30 English words.
- Brace expansion iterates through possibilities in curly braces, with commas as separators.
- Two brace expressions expand to the Cartesian product of their elements.
- Expression {w,t,} includes an empty string as a possibility.
- The full expression {w,t,}h{e...,ither,at} multiplies two brace sets to produce word combinations.
- Brace expansion performs a depth-first traversal of the tree structure.
Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?
4 hours ago
- Greek household net wealth increased by 23% to €117,936 post-Ukraine war, yet remains nearly 20% below 2009 pre-crisis levels.
- Total household wealth rebounded to around €1tn due to rising property prices, stock recovery, and lower borrowing costs, but is still below the pre-crisis €1.5tn.
- The 2009-2016 debt crisis caused a 35% drop in average household wealth, described as an unprecedented economic collapse comparable to the U.S. Great Depression.
- Greece's economy has grown faster than the eurozone average since 2018, with record foreign investment and exit from EU imbalance procedures, but recovery is uneven.
- GDP per capita is 25% below its 2009 peak and one-third lower than the EU average, with productivity at half the EU average.
- Wealth gains disproportionately benefit asset owners, creating a 'snowball effect' where the rich invest further while the poor struggle with living costs.
- Despite a falling Gini coefficient (34.2 to 31.6), 68% of Greek households struggle financially, 35% consider themselves poor, and over 80% see excessive income disparities.
- Inequality extends beyond income, affecting single-parent families, youth, and women, with high inequality even in wealthy regions like Athens.
- Labor market improvements are offset by structural issues like long-term unemployment and self-employment reliance, while access to education and healthcare reinforces social divides.
- Housing costs, driven by tourism and shortages, consume a large share of disposable income, exacerbating feelings that the economic recovery is not broadly shared.
The curious case of the disappearing Polish S
5 hours ago
- A bug in Medium prevented Polish users from typing the character Ś, which was traced back to a conflict involving Ctrl+Alt+S key combination.
- Polish language uses additional diacritics, leading to unique keyboard layouts developed historically, including a 'programmer's layout' using Alt key combinations.
- Historical factors like communism in Poland delayed localized hardware, forcing adaptations like using Alt keys for diacritics on American keyboards.
- The habit of manual saving via Ctrl+S in early computing led Medium to block this key combination to prevent browser save dialogs, inadvertently affecting Ś input.
- Windows mapped Right Alt (used for Polish diacritics) to Ctrl+Alt internally, causing Ctrl+Alt+S to be blocked, which prevented typing Ś.
- The fix involved modifying Medium's code to block Ctrl+S only when Alt is not pressed, allowing Ś to be typed via Ctrl+Alt+S.
- The bug highlights broader issues of English-centric assumptions in computing, affecting languages with non-Latin scripts and diacritics.
Trump threatens 100% tariff on European countries that impose digital tax
6 hours ago
- Trump threatens a 100% tariff on imports from any country that taxes digital services from U.S. companies.
- He specifically targets European nations discussing digital taxes, warning it would override existing trade deals.
- The EU may retaliate, risking a trade war that could raise prices and slow economic growth.
- EU defends digital taxes as non-discriminatory and applied to all large companies regardless of origin.
- Digital taxes remain a contentious issue despite a recent U.S.-EU tariff deal capping most tariffs at 15%.
- The U.S. has previously investigated digital taxes under trade law but it's unclear how Trump would implement his threat.
- The U.K., outside the EU, has levied a 2% digital services tax on large tech firms since 2020.
One Million Passports Leaked Online
6 hours ago
- A database containing nearly one million passports from around the world was leaked online.
- The breach occurred through an ancillary low-value authentication system, specifically ID verification for cannabis dispensaries.
- The compromised low-value system put high-value credentials (passports) at risk, highlighting a security vulnerability.
- A user expresses concern that their passport may be part of the breach, noting the incident is two months old and questioning if affected individuals have been notified.
FizzBuzz in Smalltalk
4 hours ago
- Smalltalk's true power lies in its evolvability, allowing developers to change the system.
- The FizzBuzz problem can be solved in Smalltalk by inlining code using intervals, messages, and blocks without traditional if-statements.
- Smalltalk's `isDivisibleBy:` method on `Number` is more readable than Java's modulo operator.
- Developers can extend existing classes like `Integer` by adding methods such as `fizzBuzz` directly.
- The `fizzBuzz` method simplifies the algorithm and allows reuse without rewriting it manually.
- Smalltalk supports using symbols like `#fizzBuzz` as concise replacements for blocks in certain contexts.
- The language exemplifies pure object-oriented programming, emphasizing the object-message paradigm for problem-solving.
FCC accused of hiding Chairman Carr's messages with DOGE and Musk
6 hours ago
- An advocacy group accused the FCC of failing to comply with a public records request and concealing Chairman Brendan Carr's use of Signal.
- The group claimed the FCC acted in bad faith by withholding documents, redefining search criteria without notice, and hiding Carr's Signal account.
- The plaintiffs sued the FCC in 2024 for violating the Freedom of Information Act, and a judge ordered document production in August 2025.
- The FoIA request sought to investigate DOGE's influence on the FCC regarding conflicts of interest involving Elon Musk's SpaceX and Starlink.
- Plaintiffs allege Musk used government authority for personal profit and seek documents on the relationship between the FCC and Musk's companies.
- The group asked the court to deny FCC summary judgment, order document production within a week, and allow discovery requests.
Grok Is More Important Than Clean Air, DOJ Says
8 hours ago
- The Department of Justice intervened in a Clean Air Act lawsuit to support xAI, arguing that its Grok chatbot is crucial for national security, despite allegations of unpermitted gas turbines causing pollution.
- xAI's Colossus 2 data center in Memphis uses gas turbines emitting over 5,000 tons of nitrogen oxides annually, affecting local air quality and noise levels, with residents reporting health and living issues.
- The Pentagon has paid xAI at least $200 million for Grok, citing its role in military operations, while critics call the DOJ's intervention unprecedented and a threat to environmental enforcement.
- Historical precedent shows 'national security' has been used to exempt military bases from pollution regulations, leading to environmental 'sacrifice zones,' and similar arguments are now applied to fossil fuel and data center projects.
- Opponents warn that if successful, this move could allow the administration to dismiss citizen lawsuits against polluters aligned with political interests, undermining environmental protections and community rights.
It's dead, Jim – the old Microsoft UEFI CA from 2011 expired yesterday
12 hours ago
- The old Microsoft UEFI CA from 2011 expired, ending its use for signing option ROMs and other software.
- Debian and other distributions successfully secured new shim binaries dual-signed with old and new CAs, thanks to the shim-review team and Microsoft's quick signing efforts.
- Debian plans to roll out dual-signed shim binaries in upcoming point releases and unstable/testing versions, with users urged to update systems to avoid boot failures.
Kids Act Would Require Age Checks to Get Online
5 hours ago
- Congress is set to vote on the KIDS Act, which combines revised KOSA with other internet bills to control web browsing and private messaging via an expedited process.
- The act pushes platforms to verify user ages through methods like ID checks or age-estimation systems, despite disclaimers, leading to legal risks and privacy concerns for all users.
- Age-verification requirements extend beyond KOSA to other parts like the SAFE BOTS Act and SCREEN Act, creating a less private internet and potential biases against marginalized groups.
- KOSA requires platforms to police lawful speech around topics like drugs, gambling, and fraud, pressuring them to remove or restrict such discussions to avoid liability.
- The act regulates private and encrypted messages, including ephemeral ones, threatening encryption and privacy features by demanding platforms 'address' harms in unreadable communications.
- Overall, the KIDS Act promotes age surveillance, restricts free expression, and compromises privacy, urging Congress to reject it to protect online rights.
DLL that was not present in memory despite not being formally unloaded
7 hours ago
- A stack overflow crash in a third-party program led to a bug report against shell32.dll.
- Analysis revealed a recursive exception handling loop due to combase.dll's memory being forcibly unloaded.
- Shell32 was a victim, not the culprit, as it called into combase after its memory was freed by an unknown component.
- Multiple crashes (46% of sampled) showed similar patterns with different DLLs, indicating a single underlying cause.
- The root cause remains unidentified, with theories pointing to memory corruption or uninitialized variables in the third-party program.
A plane crashed into tallest skyscraper in Beijing.Hours later,all news scrubbed
13 hours ago
- A small plane crashed into Beijing's 109-story CITIC Tower on Friday afternoon, killing the pilot and injuring 13 others.
- Chinese authorities quickly censored all mentions of the incident on social media and initially withheld public acknowledgment, creating an information vacuum.
- The crash raised security concerns as the plane evaded strict aviation controls over Beijing, a heavily fortified area with bans on recreational flying.
- The incident occurred in a prime diplomatic and business district near embassies and major offices, during rush hour.
- Official information remains limited, with no clear explanation of whether the crash was accidental or intentional, mirroring past patterns of delayed transparency in China.
Yes, Europe's heat waves are deadlier than American gun violence
11 hours ago
- A viral chart compares European heat deaths to American gun deaths, suggesting Europe's lack of air conditioning is deadlier than America's lack of gun control, and while mostly true in raw numbers, methodology differences exist.
- Europe faces severe heat emergencies, with record-breaking temperatures, multiple red heat alerts, and dozens of deaths from drowning and direct heat causes, exacerbated by climate change and a potential 'Super El Niño'.
- Europe is the fastest-warming continent, with infrastructure ill-suited for current climate, leading to thousands of heat-related deaths annually, while the U.S. sees tens of thousands of gun deaths each year.
- Data scientist Hannah Ritchie critiques the chart, noting heat death figures use excess death modeling (broad) versus U.S. gun deaths using death certificates (narrow), and geographic inconsistencies skew comparisons.
- When adjusted for population rates, U.S. gun deaths slightly exceed European heat death rates, highlighting a status quo bias where both societies accept high mortality in one area but not another.
- Only 20% of European homes have air conditioning due to historical lack of need, versus 90% in the U.S., contributing to preventable heat deaths, while the U.S. faces disproportionately high firearm violence among youth.
- Both wealthy societies choose to absorb preventable deaths rather than address underlying issues, with climate change and potential extreme weather intensifying the urgency for action.
China's CXMT Is Set to Challenge DRAM Incumbents
10 hours ago
- CXMT, China's leading DRAM manufacturer, is preparing for a significant IPO, positioning itself as a major competitor to global leaders Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron.
- Founded in 2016 by Zhu Yiming, CXMT leveraged technology from the defunct German company Qimonda, including patents and engineering talent, to establish its DRAM foundation.
- The company benefits from strong support from Chinese state-venture capital, particularly the Hefei municipal government, which provided patient funding, supply chain development, and a long-term investment horizon.
- CXMT has shown explosive revenue growth, with a 156% year-over-year increase in 2025 to $8.6 billion and a net income of $1 billion, though it remains behind the top three DRAM suppliers in revenue.
- The company's profitability is primarily driven by rising DRAM average selling prices (ASPs) rather than significant market share gains, with ASPs increasing substantially in recent quarters.
- CXMT's DRAM ASPs are only slightly below those of Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron (by 5-10%), challenging the notion that Chinese memory is structurally cheaper and could flood the market.
- While CXMT is expanding its wafer capacity and could become the third-largest supplier by capacity by 2026, it faces challenges in HBM technology, including lower yields and die-stacking issues.
- The IPO structure reveals that minority interests account for 74% of consolidated net income, and state-venture capital vehicles hold over 30% of shares, with Alibaba Cloud as a key customer and shareholder.

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Hasty Briefsbeta

California's landmark anti-plastics law sparks anger as 17 states move to sue

California legislature agrees to upload driver's licenses to national database

Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

Do Babies Dream of Baby Sheep?

EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors

Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

Brace Expansion Tree

Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

The curious case of the disappearing Polish S

Trump threatens 100% tariff on European countries that impose digital tax

One Million Passports Leaked Online

FizzBuzz in Smalltalk

FCC accused of hiding Chairman Carr's messages with DOGE and Musk

Grok Is More Important Than Clean Air, DOJ Says

It's dead, Jim – the old Microsoft UEFI CA from 2011 expired yesterday

Kids Act Would Require Age Checks to Get Online

DLL that was not present in memory despite not being formally unloaded

A plane crashed into tallest skyscraper in Beijing.Hours later,all news scrubbed

Yes, Europe's heat waves are deadlier than American gun violence

China's CXMT Is Set to Challenge DRAM Incumbents