tobychev @tobychev@qoto.org

this is a really interesting example of the toxic positivity that is pervasive, even in my own writing. everybody wants to have a CTA and a solution at the end of their talk. nobody wants to write a thing that just says "dang this is a big intractable problem" and kind of shrug at the end and look at the audience and say "what do *you* think we should do?" when that is often the state of the art and further claims are unjustified by the evidence

More than "Deep Fake": Draft for "Digital Violence" Law Presented

With three new criminal offenses, civil claims, and a significant expansion, Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig wants to take decisive action digitally.

https://www.heise.de/en/news/More-than-Deep-Fake-Draft-for-Digital-Violence-Law-Presented-11262899.html?wt_mc=sm.red.ho.mastodon.mastodon.md_beitraege.md_beitraege&utm_source=mastodon

#Datenschutz #Deepfake #DigitalServicesAct #IPAdressen #Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz #Netzpolitik #news

🇺🇦☺️ Car drivers showed a video of the Defense Forces ground drone letting their car through.

Robot carries provisions to the front. On the outskirts of Dobropillya.

HUGE error by the @ec.europa.eu. Big tech must tell the public everything about energy, water and other used resources in their data centers.

They use our common resources and we must know how they use it to take informed decisions.

It's time to #resistAI

#AI #KI #dkpol #StopBigTech
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/17/microsoft-us-tech-firms-lobbied-eu-secrecy-rules-datacentre-emissions?CMP=share_btn_url

To go along with news of 3 senior execs leaving OpenAI is this story about why some of its investors are unhappy with Altman’s leadership.

• He doesn’t have equity in OpenAI, so tries to get the company to invest or purchase services from startups he’s invested in to monetize his CEO role.

• He is ambivalent about an IPO and some investors also don’t think he’s the right fit to be CEO of a public company.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chatgpt-openai-ipo-altman-029ae6d5?st=k6fpss&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Love this.
A peer reviewed blank page was published in 1974, without revision.

The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer's block” by Dennis Upper.

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis.
https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1974.7-497a

Credit: Found this gem via ‘stephenknowstuff’ on another platform
#writersblock #academicchatter

"Fires used to die down or even die out at night as temperatures dropped and humidity increased, but that’s happening less often.

It’s not just the clock that is getting extended. The calendar is too. The number of days with fire-prone weather increased by 44%, which effectively added 26 days over the past half century."

https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-climate-change-hotter-drier-maui-los-angeles-42ecbce3440d8d387a5617cc2d1e65a8
#wildfires

Short of cash railway chooses most expensive way to decarbonise*
https://railcolornews.com/2026/04/17/romania-orders-12-hydrogen-trains-siemens-mireo-plus-h-to-enter-service/

* - assuming it’s even green hydrogen

It’s hard to convey the current state of things in Minneapolis right now, in part because we ourselves don’t really know. Abductions are •way• down. We’ve seen close to zero of the random, chaotic smash-and-grab kidnappings ICE was perpetrating in Dec and Jan. We still see their vehicles. There are still deportation flights — they •are• still taking people, albeit it in a less visible and maybe more targeted way.

And…

The Iran War has once again led to a bout of what ECB board member Isabel Schnabel memorably dubbed 'fossilflation'.

It's en vouge to talk about the solution as some massively complex undertaking. It really isn't. Get off fossil fuels faster.

My latest just out @nature

https://rdcu.be/fdxig

#climate #iran #us #trump #oil #energy #inflation #economics

Maine became the first state in the US on Tuesday to call for a temporary halt to the construction of large data centers, as the power-hungry facilities driven by AI demand are straining local electric grids.

A bill was passed by both legislative chambers and now heads to Democratic Governor Janet Mills. If she signs off on it, it will become the first statewide moratorium impacting the fast-growing artificial intelligence (AI) industry.

https://www.dw.com/en/us-maine-pushes-for-first-statewide-pause-on-ai-data-centers/a-76784015

A jury finds that Live Nation and Ticketmaster illegally maintained monopoly power in the ticketing market, in a case brought by state AGs after the DOJ settled (NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/livenation-illegally-monopolized-ticketing-market-jury-antitrust-trial-rcna273714
http://mediagazer.com/260415/p19#a260415p19

"The term “AI” resists definition because it is continually reappropriated by people to mean different things. This, in turn, means that discussions of AI that do not provide working definitions for the purposes at hand risk incoherence. [...]

Accordingly, this article does not provide a definition of the term “AI” but rather explores various ways in which the idea of AI has been used to organize how people understand our world, allocate resources, and relate to each other."

>>

Iran war sparks EU proposal to reduce tax on electricity and encourage green transition
https://www.euronews.com/2026/04/16/iran-war-sparks-eu-proposal-to-reduce-tax-on-electricity-and-encourage-green-transition?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Green News @green-news-euronews

Den klassiska "det blir så dålig stämning när alla bara pratar om all skada vi gör i samhället, vi är ju jätteeffektiva på att dränera skattemedel till riskkapitalister, kan ingen prata om det, eller om hur bra vi är på att göra reklam för oss själva?"

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:jpjmnu6x2h7gq7uvi4whpavk/post/3mjjx6pqma22n

Sneak peek on my upcoming ethnography of economic reform as seen by professional politicians.

I interviewed six politicians from various European countries on their view on economic reform. Do they see it as an opportunity? A threat? What else? Did they try it already, and what where the critical elements determining the success or failure of those experiences? What would need to be in place for them to attempt to re-align the economy in depth?

SHORT THREAD 1/n

#economics

När vita svenskar fastnade på sina charter-semestrar var det ettan på Ekot, Aktuellt och i tidningarna i flera dagar. När andra svenskar familjer dödas av bomberna är det knappt en fucking notis. Sällan har svenska medier varit mer rasistiska än så här.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:q64jfftbop5txht4t7jqskwa/post/3mj6c2x5dis2x

The new Fellowship crypto PAC has filed its first fundraising disclosure. It reports a $10 million contribution from Cantor Fitzgerald (previously headed by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, now controlled by his sons) and $1 million from Anchorage Digital.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpol #USpolitics

The problem with OpenAI saying the solution to AI taking all the jobs is to raise taxes on corporations and the rich to pay for benefits for the unemployed is that they literally spent millions of dollars getting Trump elected to do the exact opposite.

https://www.vox.com/politics/485461/openai-economic-policy-superpac-sam-altman