When you must accept surveillance as a condition of receiving a service (including housing): “It’s not convenience; it’s coercion.”

Holy shit. Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

“Delaying the shot from birth to 2 months, one of the potential votes for the committee, would lead to at least 1,400 infections, 300 cases of liver cancer, and 480 deaths every year – all preventable by vaccination…It would also result in more than $222m in additional healthcare costs every year.”

I love the little ways that Man on the Inside (season 2) is poking fun at AI. Lots of little Easter eggs. Here’s one.

I find this article so interesting, and thought provoking, and full of [apparent] tensions. I would love to hear @remakingmanhood.bsky.social’s thoughts on it.

“In simpler terms, your employer will now be able to read your RCS chats in Google Messages despite end-to-end encryption.” Google is pitching this as meeting regulatory requirements, nominally around retention. But that doesn’t really smell right. Could it be prep for chat control?

I just signed up for the 6-month deal with Apple TV+. What do I need to watch?

I wish people would look past the surface story on this and ask “but why?” The answer is that it’s part of the playbook for “increasing the married birth rate.” If education for female-leaning professions is effectively defunded, women will get down to the business of having babies sooner.

Toad went back into the house. He got into bed and pulled the covers over his head again.

Australia just recorded zero cervical cancer cases in women under 25 for the first time since records began in 1982. The amazing result of HPV vaccination.

The comments 😬

More silliness in the world, please! This was perfect.

Sounds like Walmart execs are ok with Flex Time and remote work. Otherwise, they’re being “strict and inflexible” with YOUR time. Right?? “You might be [at your kid’s] soccer game, but you happen to look at a few emails…”

“Humana, UnitedHealthcare, Anthem, and Centene…SummaCare, are among the firms that are halting or cutting commissions on Medicare plans. Some are even cutting…online enrollment portals….Many of those decisions occurred after Oct. 15, when Medicare’s annual enrollment period started. It ends Dec. 7.”

If AI scribes are used in practice settings, no transcript nor recording should be stored or accessible to anyone after the appointment. The privacy risks are way too big for this to be a point of compromise. Companies like mdhub.ai and Therapy Notes need to be very tightly regulated and audited.

“It’s your fault for buying this thing that we’re selling” is certainly a take.

“Viola’s family fled in a horse and buggy. As they were leaving…she saw ash falling on the streets…an airplane dropping what looked like firebombs. She passed piles of corpses. She saw a white man blow off a Black man’s head with a shotgun…Nobody was held legally responsible for the destruction…”

Hearing SDPD say if people don't want their plates shared widely they can shop elsewhere is sbad faith when it is only a kpbs investigation that reveals the mall, Lowe's, and Home Depot sharing data.

💼Birthright Citizenship Trump asked the Court to uphold his order to end birthright citizenship for certain American-born children. The admin argues that the 14th amendment only applies to children of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. www.democracydocket.com/cases/washin...

Nick Kristof has long had a pulse on reducing world suffering. His holiday gift guide puts your money toward highest impact charities, and every $1 you give turns into $4 for the charity. KristofImpact.org

@bsky.app Hey BSKY, I’d love a “disable retweets” type function. There are some lovely people I want to follow, but I find myself unfollowing them because they can’t stop smashing the Repost button and it’s gumming up my feeds. Could you please add this to your consideration list? Thank you!

I went to college here and even as a student, the corruption was evident. The affair scandal broke the year after I graduated. The Salon article linked below is written by one of my friends who was expelled for digging.

The best analysis of the Ukraine deal and broader situation. Worth 10 minutes of your time!

Scurryfunge [SKUR-ee-funj] (v.) - To rush around cleaning the house when company is on their way over. (n.) - The act of rushing to clean one’s home in preparation for impending company.

In addition to ripple effects across local health systems, changes to Medi-Cal will ripple through local economies. Labor Center research found every $1 in Medicaid spending generates nearly $1.85 in state economic output. laborcenter.berkeley.edu/california-c...

I mean, look, I'm not a reporter, so who am I to talk? But on a day where the president both just called a woman reporter "Piggy" and is celebrating someone who had people bone saw apart one of my colleagues, I might just be a little ready to defend my colleagues and profession. But that's just me

Remember when we had free Easy File and didn’t have to give our personal information to for-profit companies known to hallucinate?

A reminder that seven years ago almost to the day, the CIA determined that Mohammed Bin Salman ordered the killing of @washingtonpost.com journalist Jamal Khashoggi. I hired and worked with Jamal for a year. www.washingtonpost.com/world/nation...

I thought about this type of distinction all day after the “piggy” remark. Did a single person stand up for the reporter, or if that’s too hard, for freedom of the press?

The last time I had this “huh?” vibe was when Enron, an energy company, went all in on “we’re gonna provide internet access as a core part of our biz.” Except that was a way of cooking the failing books, and this feels more like an excuse to transfer money.

The #metoo twist you never expected

My patio brings me so much joy. Extra credit if you can spot the cat.

Santa Clara County makes its emergency announcements on Facebook. I will not use Facebook. Santa Clara County allows you to sign up for text-based emergency alerts - if you allow the vendor to sell your data. (Everbridge, btw).

“Under the new [SNAP] law, parents & older Americans will be required to meet stricter work requirements, & states eventually will have to share in the cost…which could force further program cuts…[some] legal immigrants will also lose access to the program under the law.” apple.news/AUMIaXMBnQpi...

Pope Leo absolutely cooking

It’s unnatural that the sky is nighttime dark before 5 pm

Thr Pope’s four favorite movies: The Sound of Music It’s a Wonderful Life Life is Beautiful Ordinary People

If you need a nap and a nap alibi, schedule a meeting with me. It will be in your calendar as a regular meeting, and you just go have a little recharge in your car or your bed. If anyone asks, we talked about security roadmaps and professional development.

This is a great article for getting a glimpse at what thoughtful privacy advocacy and civic responsibility are about, and also the forces that continuously undermine it. Sorry to hear that Oakland lost 2 great commissioners.

Earlier in the year I drove 9600 miles to do Milky Way photography. Between that, work, my health, and the terrors, I'm exhausted. I promised myself no more trips over 100 miles from home for the year, unless critical for the union. I broke that promise Saturday. Worth it. Final version. 🪶

just opening up the new Epstein docs at random:

Outraged by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell family or friends. The one person he told was ProPublica reporter @josh-kaplan.bsky.social. (Published January)

Private rights of action for me but not for thee #privacy

Having a sudden flashback to Delta’s CEO dictating CDC policy during the pandemic.

thou misshapen Dick

Called. Got one senator’s voicemail and one instruction to call back during normal business hours. Hey Alex Padilla, important stuff goes down during non-business hours and you need to be able to hear from your constituents, particularly when you’re voting on major things over a weekend.

1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️

Actually, the real problem in my humble opinion is that masks should be required in medical settings *year round* in *all* counties. I mean... why should you be allowed to spread your germs to other people who are sick?

To help protect your privacy against Stingray interception of your cellphone communication Turn off 2G 2G is an obsolete, non-encrypted mode that Stingrays exploits This is easy to do on Android (search for "2G" in Settings) It's inconvenient on iOS tho: the only way is to activate Lockdown Mode

Mamdani is going to implement Sriracha law. Everyone will have to slather hot sauce on their scrambled eggs