“Defund the police” has come for at least one local law enforcement agency in one of the reddest states in the nation. This police department could have avoided this ignominious fate simply by not being generally awful. But the person leading the now-defunct department couldn’t seem to do his job without violating rights on the […]
As arguments rage about the possible or real threats of AI, there is one domain that AI has already turned on its head, and in the space of just the last few weeks: mathematics. The first hint of what was coming arrived in May, when OpenAI announced that one of its models had disproved a […]
Eleven months ago, I wrote about what I thought was a truly fascinating find: that some kids appeared to be using some random old NPR podcasts on Spotify as a personal chat room to get around various restrictions. It was mentioned, somewhat in passing, on the “How to do Everything” podcast last October, where someone […]
The Microsoft Access Complete Course combines four different courses in one. Jump in, and you’ll walk through everything from the absolute Access basics to more advanced concepts, like building dynamic user data forms and effective reports. By the end of the course, you’ll have the know-how required to create effective database tables, automate tasks, and […]
The Supreme Court just keeps giving Trump a free pass to engage in what Mike Masnick correctly called “human trafficking.” It’s stuff this nation has never done before because it’s never been run by someone quite like Trump before. To maximize the cruelty inflicted on immigrants, the Trump administration (steered directly by its chief ghoul, […]
When right wing billionaire Larry Ellison (and his nepobaby son David) hired blog-troll Bari Weiss to run CBS News, Weiss arrived with the promise of “balanced, fact-based news,” “independent, principled journalism,” and a unique “entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision” that would modernize the network and reach the “everyday Americans” they claimed were “traditionally ignored by […]
While the game-playing that RFK Jr.’s CDC has conducted is ongoing, they can only keep up the charade for so long. The nation is undergoing the worst outbreak of measles in over three decades, with Pennsylvania currently the hardest hit of all the states. As we’ve discussed, there have now been four measles-related deaths in […]
I’m sure whoever thought this might be a good idea — that would be the Dallas city council members who approved this contract — thought no one would ever find out about it. But nothing stays secret for long, not even furtive movements like this one, which added AI-addled cameras to garbage trucks with the […]
The EU Commission draft law to restrict young people’s access to the internet that it presented last week will come at a high cost: it will put online services behind age gates, expand the use of intrusive age verification, and undermine the privacy of all users. The EU Kids Act aims to protect children from risks associated […]
Last week, “Reckless” Ben Schneider did Wired’s “Autocomplete Interview” which is always fun. At one point, one of the questions is “Does Reckless Ben have a law degree?” and his answer is amusing (for anyone who isn’t one of Reckless Ben’s current lawyers): Does Reckless Ben have a law degree? My whole thing with when […]
We have all wanted to learn a language at some point but it’s hard to get started. Some language learning tools can be complicated and very time-consuming. But with uTalk, you’ll be speaking keywords and phrases in no time, and will start to see the results straight away. It helps you overcome the language barrier […]
Let’s start this off by clearing the air: Stephen Miller looks exactly like the sort of person who wants to elevate white people above everyone else. Sure, he doesn’t have the Hitler ‘stache or a blond pompadour, but he’s the same bit of unspectacular “whiteness” Hitler was. Miller is bald, mostly chinless, and looks like […]
In the piece Dave Willner and I published last week about why “the apocalypse won’t be sexy,” we discussed how the real threat wasn’t “rogue” out of control AI tools, but rather humans doing stupid shit, sometimes because they stop thinking in the presence of these AI machines. A deeply reported Bloomberg article by Ben […]
I’m starting to think we have unknowingly entered the age of great American civic nihilism. The impetus for that belief most recently has been RFK Jr. and the wider government’s complete acquiescence to his bald-faced lies and betrayals. If nobody can be bothered to lift a finger over that man, then they obviously don’t think […]
The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions around […]
Content moderation is impossible to do well at scale. Which also means it’s sometimes difficult to tell garden variety fuckups apart from the rich and powerful putting their finger on the scale. On Friday, the Hollywood Reporter revealed that all of the major social media platforms were rejecting attempts by distributor Bleecker Street to advertise […]
Last week California Democrats — including Governor Gavin Newsom, LA Mayor Karen Bass, and AG Rob Bonta buckled under pressure and got 12 states to drop their antitrust lawsuit against Paramount’s $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers. Worse: they did so without affixing any meaningful conditions or divestments, ensuring that the deal, as with all […]
The Complete Ethical Hacking Boot Camp has 11 courses cover python programming and ethical hacking from scratch. You’ll learn how to build custom penetration testing tools and how to establish secure virtual environments to practice tactics. Courses also cover Wireshark, Kali Linux, Metasploit, and more. It’s on sale for $45. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store […]
We’ve moved past cops doing stuff because a dog gave them permission to do it. Now, we’re at the post-truth era of policing, where cops will do stuff because a machine told them to do it. We already know ALPRs (automated license plate readers) generate false positives. And we know that these false positives can […]
Remember the Disinformation Governance Board? As we were quick to point out, this organization was named in the dumbest possible way by some incompetent people within the Biden administration, which only fed into the [ahem] disinformation around it. The program, a part of DHS, was an advisory group with no enforcement capabilities, and was tasked […]
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