Martin Ruskov @mapto@qoto.org

Regular reminder that just because funding was cut by the government, PBS is still here. You can donate $5 or more and get access to a ton of their stuff on streaming too, including lots of local shows. It's a good deal.

https://www.pbs.org/explore/passport/

Same with NPR. The funding cut sucks but I can still listen to my local Detroit NPR's music shows

On This Day in Working Class History mini podcast episode for 1 March: The Strike That Shook Nazi-Occupied Italy. Listen at https://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-strike-that-shook-nazi-occupied-italy--70369197

“For diplomacy to be successful, both sides need to agree on the issues subject to negotiation and also believe that peaceful resolution is more valuable than military engagement.”

–A former US nuclear negotiator on the failure of US-Iran negotiations

https://theconversation.com/failure-of-us-iran-talks-was-all-too-predictable-but-trump-could-still-have-stuck-with-diplomacy-over-strikes-277209

HRANA – On Thursday, February 26, Abdolnaser Mohaymeni, a journalist in Gorgan, was arrested. According to HRANA News Agency, citing Didban Iran, Mr. Mohaymeni was arrested at his home in Gorgan on the evening of Thursday, February 26, 2026. The report does not mention the arresting authority, the reasons for his arrest, or his place […]

HRANA – Following military attacks by the joint United States and Israel against Iran on February 28, 2026, preliminary data collected from field sources and published reports presents a picture of a large-scale, multi-wave operation: at least 59 incidents recorded across 18 provinces; a minimum estimated 333 civilian casualties; confirmed military casualties; damage to infrastructure […]

"(Beirut, February 28, 2026) – The United States and Israel on February 28, 2026 carried out airstrikes on Iran, which retaliated with strikes against Israel and Gulf states. All parties to the conflict are obligated to respect international humanitarian law, also known as the laws of war, and prioritize the protection of civilians. Human Rights Watch is currently investigating strikes by all parties that may have violated the laws of war.

Human Rights Watch has previously documented laws-of-war violations by the United States, Israel, and Iran and serious failures to protect civilians in conflict.

Since January 2025, under the administration of President Donald Trump, the US Defense Department has fired top military lawyers without cause and systematically rolled back legal oversight and mechanisms to mitigate harm to civilians, placing fewer constraints on military operations.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has lifted restrictions on antipersonnel landmines and agreed to purchase cluster munitions – weapons inherently harmful to civilians – from Israel. The 2026 US National Defense Strategy omits civilian harm mitigation as an explicit policy consideration."

https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/02/28/us/israel/iran-all-parties-should-respect-laws-of-war

#HumanRights #Iran #USA #Israel #InternationalLaw

The scandal is one of Europe’s most significant political crises involving the use of commercial hacking software. Spain, Hungary and Poland have faced similar controversies, with spyware such as Pegasus and Candiru found on the phones of politicians and activists. The European Parliament launched a formal inquiry into the use of such tools in 2022.

Greek political parties have clashed over the affair for years, as an expanding list of cases revealed the highly invasive surveillance tool on the phones of opposition politicians, government ministers, military officials, journalists and business executives. The Greek government has denied using the illegal spyware.

The scandal has cast a long shadow over Greek politics. In 2024, Greece’s Supreme Court cleared the state intelligence service and political officials of wrongdoing, a decision that angered spyware victims and opposition parties.

Androulakis said Thursday that “the fight will continue until all those involved in this murky affair are brought to justice.” He has appealed the Supreme Court’s decision to the European Court of Human Rights.

The best thing you can do in light of the Ellison takeover of Warner Brothers invest your time, energy, and money in supporting independent creators and independent distribution networks and independent venues. It is absolutely crucial to make independence a viable option.

If you replace a junior with #LLM and make the senior review output, the reviewer is now scanning for rare but catastrophic errors scattered across a much larger output surface due to LLM "productivity."

That's a cognitively brutal task.

Humans are terrible at sustained vigilance for rare events in high-volume streams. Aviation, nuclear, radiology all have extensive literature on exactly this failure mode.

I propose any productivity gains will be consumed by false negative review failures.

U.S. investors are pulling money out of their own stock market at the fastest pace in at least 16 years as Big Tech returns fade and better-performing overseas markets look more attractive. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2026/02/24/markets/buy-america-wall-street-exodus/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #markets #wallstreet #markets #investors #us #economicindicators

“Evidence from Brazil, South Korea, and Poland — all democracies that defeated a would-be authoritarian government — show that the legibility of threat to key segments of society was critical in mobilizing the pushback that decided democracy’s survival.”

Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to prominent universities are shining a spotlight on donor screening.

Individual donors fund only a small share of research (about 3%), but even small gifts can raise big ethical questions.

https://theconversation.com/individual-donors-provide-only-a-small-slice-of-university-research-funding-but-jeffrey-epsteins-ties-with-academics-show-why-screening-matters-276345

@TheConversationUS "High-profile propaganda products frequently fail to resonate. Music charts and streaming platforms in Russia are dominated not by patriotic anthems but by an eclectic mix of songs about personal relationships, such as Jakone’s moody ballad “Eyes As Wet As Asphalt,” songs in praise of “Hoodies” and even a catchy Bashkir folk song.

Book sales show strong demand for works such as George Orwell’s “1984” and Viktor Frankl’s Holocaust memoir “Man’s Search for Meaning,” suggesting that readers are searching for ways to understand authoritarianism, trauma and moral responsibility rather than celebrating militarism.

And instead of watching the state-backed film “Tolerance,” a dystopian tale of moral decay in the West, Russians are streaming the “Heated Rivalry” gay hockey romance."

Michelangelo hated painting the Sistine Chapel – and never aspired to be a painter to begin with

https://theconversation.com/michelangelo-hated-painting-the-sistine-chapel-and-never-aspired-to-be-a-painter-to-begin-with-275788

ggml.ai joins HuggingFace

ggml.ai is better known as the entity behind llama.cpp. It's nice to hear good news! Thank you @ggerganov and @huggingface

https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.cpp/discussions/19759

@llm

Hey, whether you work in tech or not, if you use Python, please do take a couple minutes to fill out the 2026 Python Developers Survey: https://surveys.jetbrains.com/s3/python-developers-survey-2026

Is teasing playful or harmful? Research shows the answer often comes down to details like:

• power differences
• the topic (identity & sensitive issues are off-limits)
• whether it stops when asked
• repetition

Via The Conversation Canada:
https://theconversation.com/is-teasing-playful-or-harmful-it-depends-on-a-number-of-factors-273676