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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici

Not Using Your Mac’s Dictation Feature? You’re Missing Out

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How to Geek: ”

  • Enable dictation on your Mac by pressing F5 and then start talking to convert speech to text.
  • Dictation is faster than typing, avoids spelling mistakes and typos, and is great for getting your thoughts down quickly in notes, emails, and other informal settings.
  • The feature might not work well for crafting tight prose, though you can combine dictation with Apple Intelligence Writing Tools to improve your writing.
  • Your Mac’s dictation feature is easy to miss but worth exploring, offering a big improvement to typing speed by letting you use your voice instead of your fingers. Here’s why (and how) you should be using it.

Explaining the Brookings Regulatory Tracker

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“The Brookings Center on Regulations and Markets Regulatory Tracker (“Reg Tracker”) is a tool that tracks and provides insights into important regulatory actions by the federal government. Originally launched in October 2017, the Reg Tracker monitors a curated selection of executive agency rules, guidance, and policy introductions or revocations, as well as executive actions like… Continue Reading

The Protesters’ Guide to Smartphone Security

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Privacy Guides: “For most protesters, activists, and journalists, your smartphone is an essential tool you depend on for organizing with your peers, accessing and distributing information, and helping others. It also represents a great risk, as a tool that is easily appropriated by authorities for targeted and mass surveillance. The perennial question when it comes… Continue Reading

Developer Creates Infinite Maze That Traps AI Training Bots

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404 Media – “A pseudonymous coder has created and released an open source “tar pit” to indefinitely trap AI training web crawlers in an infinitely, randomly-generating series of pages to waste their time and computing power. The program, called Nepenthes after the genus of carnivorous pitcher plants which trap and consume their prey, can be… Continue Reading

PowerSchool hacker claims they stole data of 62 million students

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Bleeping Computer: “The hacker who breached education tech giant PowerSchool claimed in an extortion demand that they stole the personal data of 62.4 million students and 9.5 million teachers. PowerSchool is a cloud-based software solutions provider for K-12 schools and districts that provides tools for enrollment, communication, attendance, staff management, learning systems, analytics, and finance.… Continue Reading

DOGE gets an extreme makeover

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Musk Watch:  The Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was established on Monday by Trump, with Musk receiving a White House email address and office space in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The executive order states that DOGE will replace the US Digital Service, an official part of the Executive Office of the President. By… Continue Reading

Federal Court Rules Backdoor Searches of 702 Data Unconstitutional

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EFF: “Better late than never: last night a federal district court held that backdoor searches of databases full of Americans’ private communications collected under Section 702 ordinarily require a warrant. The landmark ruling comes in a criminal case, United States v. Hasbajrami, after more than a decade of litigation, and over four years since the… Continue Reading

World Monuments Fund Puts Moon on List of At-Risk Sites

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The New York Times gift article: “The organization said that more than 90 important sites on the moon could risk destruction if space tourism is left unregulated. For years, the World Monuments Fund has sought to draw attention and resources to endangered cultural heritage sites including Machu Picchu in Peru, temples in Cambodia and the… Continue Reading

AI Mistakes Are Very Different from Human Mistakes

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Schneier on Security: “Humans make mistakes all the time. All of us do, every day, in tasks both new and routine. Some of our mistakes are minor and some are catastrophic. Mistakes can break trust with our friends, lose the confidence of our bosses, and sometimes be the difference between life and death. Over the… Continue Reading

Case Western Reserve University School of Law to require legal AI education certification

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Above the Law – “Case Western Reserve University School of Law becomes first law school in the U.S. to require legal AI education certification for all first-year law students – Case Western Reserve University School of Law will become the first in the nation to require all first-year law students to earn a certification in… Continue Reading

Donald Trump’s No. 2 Pick for the EPA Represented Companies Accused of Pollution Harm

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ProPublica: “The man tapped by President Donald Trump to be second-in-command of the federal agency that protects the public from environmental dangers is a lawyer who has represented companies accused of harming people and the environment through pollution. David Fotouhi, a partner in the global law firm Gibson Dunn, played a key part in rolling… Continue Reading

Guidance on Presidential Memorandum Return to In-Person Work

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OPM Memorandum, January 22, 2025 “…The President’s PM directs agency heads to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis” “as soon as practicable.” It allows agency heads to “make exemptions they deem necessary” and directs that… Continue Reading