“The agency details interim insights from staff perspective examining how companies track consumer behaviors to inform surveillance pricing. The Federal Trade Commission’s initial findings from its surveillance pricing market study revealed that details like a person’s precise location or browser history can be frequently used to target individual consumers with different prices for the same… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
Protecting Your Home From Wildfire
California Chaparral Institute: Please download our comprehensive booklet on wildfire safety that explains how you can take control of saving your home. From The House Outward – Protecting your Home From Wildfire THE 3 FACTORS 1. Flying embers ignite most homes, because most homes are flammable. 2. It’s not the wildland vegetation, it’s the location.… Continue Reading
Perplexity acquires Read.cv, a social media platform for professionals
TechCrunch: “Read.cv, a social media platform for professionals that competed with LinkedIn, has been acquired by AI-powered search engine Perplexity. As part of the deal, Read.cv will begin to wind down operations Friday. Users will be able to export their data, including their profiles, posts, and messages, until May 16. “We’ve long admired Perplexity and… Continue Reading
Top financial watchdog warns climate change set to trigger market panics
Financial Times – “Basel-based FSB says damage caused by floods, droughts and fires threatens broader pullback in lending, “The world’s financial stability watchdog has warned that disasters caused by climate change are increasingly likely to trigger broader panic in financial markets. The world breached 1.5C of warming above preindustrial levels for the first time last… Continue Reading
ProPublica Releases New Private School Demographics Lookup
“Now you can look up detailed demographic information about thousands of private schools across the country and compare them to nearby public schools. Private schools in the United States are, on the whole, whiter than public schools, with fewer Black, Hispanic or Latino students. This may not be a surprising statistic because private schools can… Continue Reading
Wikenigma – an Encyclopedia of Unknowns
Wikenigma is a unique wiki-based resource specifically dedicated to documenting fundamental gaps in human knowledge. Listing scientific and academic questions to which no-one, anywhere, has yet been able to provide a definitive answer. [ 1139 so far ] That’s to say, a compendium of so-called ‘Known Unknowns’. All articles are open for registered users to… Continue Reading
Can you read cursive? It’s a superpower the National Archives is looking for
USA Today: “If you can read cursive, the National Archives would like a word. Or a few million. More than 200 years worth of U.S. documents need transcribing (or at least classifying) and the vast majority from the Revolutionary War era are handwritten in cursive – requiring people who know the flowing, looped form of… Continue Reading
The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants
Google DeepMind – “First, because LLMs display immense modeling power, there is a risk that the model weights encode private information present in the training corpus. In particular, it is possible for LLMs to ‘memorise’ personally identifiable information (PII) such as names, addresses and telephone numbers, and subsequently leak such information through generated text outputs… Continue Reading
What Homeowners Insurance Actually Covers
Lifehacker: “While Los Angeles County continues to battle devastating wildfires, you may be wondering about the safety of your own home. More specifically, how are you covered when the unthinkable happens? Unfortunately, insurance doesn’t function like a gas or electric company; even in the face of disaster, insurers aren’t obligated to service your home. And… Continue Reading
Map: How big are the LA fires? Use this tool to overlay them atop where you live
CalMatters is joining with our public media partners at PBS SoCal, LAist and KCRW to bring you reliable, essential, free information to support people affected by the wildfires and keep all Californians up to date. Sign up for the Daily Wildfire Updates newsletter. “The fires sweeping across Los Angeles County for the past week have… Continue Reading
FBI Warned Agents It Believes Phone Logs Hacked Last Year
Bloomberg [unpaywalled] – “FBI leaders have warned that they believe hackers who broke into AT&T Inc.’s system last year stole months of their agents’ call and text logs, setting off a race within the bureau to protect the identities of confidential informants, a document reviewed by Bloomberg News shows. FBI officials told agents across the… Continue Reading
Toyota exposed as major funder of climate change deniers
Raw Story: “Nearly three decades after its introduction, the hybrid Toyota Prius is still associated with environmental action and the scientific consensus that fossil fuel emissions, including those from vehicles, must be reduced to avoid the worst effects of planetary heating. But a Tuesday report from watchdog group Public Citizen reveals how Toyota has spent… Continue Reading
