Engadget: “Best Buy announced today that it’s extending its gadget recycling program to include a new mail-in option. The retailer will now sell you a box for your used electronics that you can ship back for recycling, saving a trip to the store. Best Buy says it’s recycled 2.7 billion pounds of electronics and appliances… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: April 2023
Reforming federal procurement and acquisitions policies
Brookings: “The federal government purchases around $665 billion in goods and services each year from outside contractors, which is 10% of its $6.5 trillion budget. This includes items such as building and construction, office furniture and supplies, industrial products, professional services, information technology, defense equipment, security systems, transportation, logistical support, travel, meals, and lodging, among… Continue Reading
FDA Plans to Allow a Second Updated Covid Booster for Vulnerable Americans
NPR: The Food and Drug Administration has decided to allow some people to get a second booster with one of the COVID-19 vaccines that have been updated to target the omicron variant, NPR has learned. The second shots will be limited to those age 65 and older who got their first shot of the bivalent… Continue Reading
How We Think About Copyright and AI Art
EFF: “Artists are understandably concerned about the possibility that automatic image generators like Stable Diffusion will undercut the market for their work. We live in a society that does not support people who are automated out of a job, and being a visual artist is an already precarious career. In this context, it’s natural to… Continue Reading
Americans feel favorably about many federal agencies, especially the Park Service, Postal Service and NASA
Pew: “As President Joe Biden and the new Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives face off over the debt ceiling and government spending, more Americans say they have favorable than unfavorable opinions of many agencies and departments of the federal government. Americans view 14 of 16 federal agencies more favorably than unfavorably, according… Continue Reading
Generative AI may play a big role in recruiting
Tech Republic: “Tech recruiters have to keep in mind talent shortages, layoffs, budget cuts and economic uncertainty, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion mandates. Suffice it to say, it’s not an easy time to be a recruiter. But LinkedIn’s The Future of Recruiting 2023 report finds that generative AI tools such as ChatGPT may… Continue Reading
People of the State of New York against Donald J. Trump – Indictment and Statement of Facts
“THE GRAND JURY OF THE COUNTY OF NEW YORK, by this indictment, accuses the defendant of the crime of FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE, in violation of Penal Law §175.10, committed as follows: The defendant, in the County of New York and elsewhere, on or about February 14, 2017, with intent to defraud… Continue Reading
Clearview AI scraped 30 billion images from Facebook and gave them to cops
Insider: it puts everyone into a ‘perpetual police line-up’ – ” Clearview AI scraped 30 billion photos from Facebook to build its facial recognition database. US police have used the database nearly a million times, the company’s CEO told the BBC. One digital rights advocate told Insider the company is “a total affront to peoples’… Continue Reading
Audiobooks Without Audible: The Hard Lessons I’ve Learned Routing Around Amazon
Publishers Weekly: “With a Kickstarter campaign now underway for the audio edition of his new book, ‘Red Team Blues,’ Cory Doctorow shares the mistakes of his past campaigns—and why it’s all worth it. My next novel is Red Team Blues. It’s a major title for my publisher, Tor (which is part of Macmillan), and the… Continue Reading
ChatGPT can’t access the internet, even though it really looks like it can
Simon Willison’s Weblog: “A really common misconception about ChatGPT is that it can access URLs. I’ve seen many different examples of people pasting in a URL and asking for a summary, or asking it to make use of the content on that page in some way. One recent example: “List the processors on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-11-22h2-supported-intel-processors“. Try… Continue Reading
The Disappeared: Indigenous Peoples and the international crime of enforced disappearance
Via LLRX – The Disappeared: Indigenous Peoples and the international crime of enforced disappearance – Catherine Morris and Rebekah Smith of Peacemakers Trust Canada conducted extensive research on disproportionate violence against Indigenous persons in Canada that includes uncounted disappearances of Indigenous children, women, and men. Canada’s decades of failure to prevent and halt disappearances forms… Continue Reading
A gobal approach for natural history museum collections
Popular Science – Is there a way to keep track of all the items held in natural history museums? By Charlotte Hu: “Natural history museums offer amazing portals into worlds miles away from our own, and into eras from the distant past. Comprised of fossils, minerals, preserved specimens, and much more, some collections are of… Continue Reading
