Aquarter of a century ago, I wrote a book called “Rebel Code”. It was the first – and is still the only – detailed history of the origins and rise of free software and open source, based on interviews with the gifted and generous hackers who took part. Back then, it was clear that open source represented a […]
When most people think about immigration enforcement, they picture border crossings and airport checkpoints. But the new front line may be your social media feed. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has published a request for information for private-sector contractors to launch a round-the-clock social media monitoring program. The request states that private contractors will be paid to comb through “Facebook, […]
The new year is approaching fast, and you know what that means: new material is entering the public domain in the US, and we’ll be celebrating it with the eighth installment of our public domain game jam. What’s more, this is an extra special year because the ever-growing public domain is hitting a new decade: […]
Lindsey Halligan — a former personal lawyer for Trump who specialized in insurance law — was suddenly propelled to the top of the DOJ heap after better, more qualified lawyers refused to engage in Trump’s revenge prosecutions. The exit of prosecutors unwilling to engage in politically motivated, completely mismanaged prosecutions of Trump enemies like former […]
We’ve spent years calling out what a hypocrite Elon Musk is on free speech. But sometimes the universe Elon hands you a gift: three tweets in the span of a little over a week that demonstrate the entire con more clearly than any deep dive ever could. Let’s start with this one: That’s Elon announcing […]
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The president, who drapes himself in the flag so inappropriately you’d think it would be filing HR complaints on a daily basis, is now preventing some the best potential US citizens from becoming US citizens. Ever since Trump’s unexpected second appearance in the Oval Office began, it was immediately clear the bigoted efforts he fired […]
Last week Netflix announced a $82.7 billion acquisition of Warner Brothers, after elbowing out rival acquisition bids (for now) by Comcast/NBC and Paramount/CBS. But as we noted then, the deal still needs regulatory approval from Trump, who has already stated several times that he’d prefer it if his billionaire bestie new owner of CBS, Larry […]
In mid-November, we talked about yet more chaos occurring under RFK Jr., this time at the FDA. At issue was George Tidmarsh, who joined the FDA in July as the agency’s chief drug regulator. Tidmarsh had been accused of using his position to exact a vendetta campaign against a former business partner, Kevin Tang, and […]
This story was originally published by the Texas Tribune and the Texas Newsroom and co-published with ProPublica. Republished under the Texas Tribune’s republish feature. Months after fighting to keep secret the emails exchanged between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s companies, state officials released nearly 1,400 pages to The Texas Newsroom. The records, however, reveal little about the […]
Last week Netflix announced a $82.7 billion acquisition of Warner Brothers, elbowing out rival acquisition bids (for now) by Comcast/NBC and Paramount/CBS. But the deal still needs regulatory approval from Trump, who has already stated several times that he’d prefer it if his bestie new owner of CBS, right wing billionaire Larry Ellison, comes away […]
You want to see actual government censorship in action? And have it done by people claiming they’re doing it to stop censorship? Check out last week’s revelation (originally reported by Reuters) that the US State Department will now start denying H-1B visas for anyone who has anything to do with trust & safety, fact checking, […]
Now that congressional members on both sides of the aisle have decided it might be worth taking a look at the Defense Department’s “murder people in boats” program, we’re finally learning more than the Trump administration has been willing to share about these extrajudicial killings. The administration’s lawyers have cobbled together justifications for these actions […]
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Elon Musk is now calling for the dissolution of the European Union because it fined him $140 million for violating a law he once said was “exactly aligned” with his vision for (what was then called) Twitter. And he’s doing it by lying about what the fine is actually for. The EU hit X with […]
All out of original ideas and facing market growth saturation, we’ve noted repeatedly how streaming companies are increasingly looking like the stodgy old traditional cable TV giants they once disrupted. That means a lot of pointless mergers, endless price hikes, a steady erosion of quality, and the slow paring back of useful features (like going […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is rkhalloran with a comment about keeping kids safe online: The correct answer is ACTUALLY PARENT YOUR KIDS. This is the digital version of finding “nudie mags” under your kid’s bed then trying to sue Playboy/Penthouse/… for the kid getting ahold of them (yes I […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2020, Donald Trump got angry about a trend on Twitter and went full force calling for a repeal of Section 230, renewing the effort to slip this into the must-pass military spending bill. Trump promised he was willing to defund the entire military if Congress didn’t agree, but Congress […]
The fucking maniacs did it. We talked yesterday about how newborn vaccinations for hepatitis B were on the agenda for this latest meeting at ACIP, the CDC’s immunization advisory panel. You likely know all this already, but RFK Jr. fired all ACIP panel members earlier this year, replacing them with hand-picked anti-vaxxer quack-jobs who are […]
So Netflix has announced that it’s buying Warner Brothers Discovery (including HBO) for a whopping $82.7 billion. As we’ve well covered, it’s the latest in a long series of pointless Warner mergers stretching back to the 2001 AOL acquisition, which all resulted in oodles of chaos, price hikes, layoffs, and generally a steady erosion in […]
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