"But experts fear the darker side of the easily accessible tools could worsen something that primarily harms women: nonconsensual deepfake pornography." Having been tinkering with ai art generators and looking at what others are doing, too late. This horse has already left the barn. Hell, there's practically a whole ground swell industry now, which can be difficult to avoid. After nearly 15 years on twitter, in the past 2 months I have reported >50x the number of accounts for violation of ToS (of which I have not heard anything about those reports) that the entire previous 14.5 years. I have blocked an uncountable number of accounts which were doing nothing else.
"Hollywood writers have voted to authorize a strike if their talks with The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers don't end in a new three-year contract. The current contract expires just before midnight on May 1. The Writers Guild of America has been at the table with the studios, negotiating over how much they're compensated for working on films, TV shows and streaming series."
"SpaceX's Starship rocket cleared its launch platform but failed to separate from its booster, exploding four minutes after liftoff during an inaugural test flight on Thursday." Not only did it go boom, but because the launch was rushed they destroyed the launch platform.
"Under a cloudless sky, about 20,000 eclipse chasers watched a rare solar eclipse plunge part of Australia's northwest coast into brief midday darkness Thursday with an accompanying temperature drop."
"The Ohio River forms in Pittsburgh's backyard, where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers converge to create a waterway… The river is much healthier than it was 50 years ago… But the river… is still under threat, according to a report released this week from the conservation advocacy organization American Rivers."
"Around 2015, North Atlantic right whales began disappearing from the waters where they spend summers feeding." And the melting glaciers on Greenland may be a cause. And all the episodes/stories in this series on "Beyond the Poles: The far-reaching dangers of melting ice."
"Spring is here and temperatures are heating up. That means cases of tick-borne illnesses, particularly Lyme disease, are on the rise in the U.S. And the problem is only being exacerbated by prolonged warmer weather across a wider swath of the country, driven by climate change." Ta-da!
"A new report released by UNICEF finds that 67 million children across the world missed out on either some or all routine vaccinations between 2019 and 2021, and 48 million children didn't receive a single dose during this time period."
"Finally, she was getting a treatment that was helping at Rogers Behavioral Health in Oconomowoc, Wis., a small town 35 minutes west of Milwaukee… But a little over two months into her stay, just as Rose was starting to feel better, the family's health insurance – Medical Mutual of Ohio – declined to cover any further treatment."
"After spending almost a year-and-a-half in near-total isolation some 230 feet underground, Beatriz Flamini emerged from a cave in southern Spain and asked: Who's buying the beer?… The climber and mountaineer had entered the cave in Granada on Nov. 21, 2021, determined to spend 500 days alone — monitored from afar by a group of scientists — to explore the effects of isolation on the human body and mind."
"Musk told Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a segment aired Monday night that he plans to create an alternative to the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT that he is calling 'TruthGPT,' which will be a 'maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe.'… The idea, Musk said, is that an AI that wants to understand humanity is less likely to destroy it." I just can't stop laughing at this asshole. And I guess "Truth…(whatever)" is the conservative marketing tag like "i(whatever)" was Apple's schtick.
Why we can't have nice things… "Her grades suffered as a result. In her junior year, she turned to her pre-med adviser for help. 'She was like, well, you know, you're just not going to get into med school with that GPA, so I think you should consider something else. And she didn't really present me with many resources or options other than just giving up,' Spigner says." Been there, have the t-shirt. But being male and white, it was still easier for me.
"The case before the court involves a mail carrier in rural Pennsylvania. The man was told that as part of his job he’d need to start delivering Amazon packages on Sundays. He declined, saying his Sundays are for church and family. U.S. Postal Service officials initially tried to get substitutes for the man’s shifts, but they couldn’t always accommodate him. When he didn’t show, that meant more work for others. Ultimately, the man quit and sued for religious discrimination."
"Oftentimes, the solution isn't as simple as just trying to spend less or learning how to budget. "I've talked to a lot of people who are struggling with debt right now…" So if you find yourself in debt, you're not alone. Watch the video above or on YouTube for tips on how to approach paying off your debt and how to navigate emotional conversations about money."
"Global ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s said Tuesday it supports a plan to unionize by the workers at a retail shop in the same city where the brand, known as much for its social activism as its products, was founded."
"The CEO of an office furniture giant landed at the center of a social media storm this week after she told her staff to focus on being better employees instead of asking whether they'd lose their bonuses." Of course, her bonus had already been paid. If you work for any medium to large company, this is a familiar story this year. Our "big news" is that instead of getting our "performance based raises" in July, we're getting them in June (we were supposed to get them in January, after they were moved from last year's August date, if you're counting that's a year and a half).
"President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Tuesday that contains more than 50 directives to increase access to child care and improve the work life of caregivers." One of the first steps to solving the economic crisis.
"The controversy has residents of this town of 10,000 grappling with big questions about creativity and liberty as it tries to preserve its rural character. Like other White Mountain communities that draw skiers, nature lovers and shoppers, Conway is under development pressure, making the sign dispute fraught with worries that any concession to commerce could change what they hold dear." Small town caught up in discussion of what is art and poorly written ordinances. Here's my take, no, this is not art, this is a commercial sign (this does not denigrate what the students did, it's a great piece). The "art" mirrors the corporate identity of the shop (coloration, the "rays" of the sun, etc) and so becomes an extension of the shop's front sign. However most zoning ordinances have ways to allow exceptions, there should be one made here, some minor "penalty" should be made for not getting permission in advance. Also, the town very much has the right to limit "art" in the public space (it has no right to limit it in private or for installations that are not "permanent").
"Facebook users can now apply for their share of a $725 million privacy lawsuit settlement if they had accounts from May 2007 to December 2022… Facebook's parent company, Meta, is doling out the payments to settle a lawsuit alleging it allowed Cambridge Analytica, a former British political consulting firm used by the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign, to access about 87 million users' personal information."
"Southwest Airlines planes were briefly grounded nationwide Tuesday for what the airline called an intermittent technology issue, leading to more than 2,200 delayed flights just four months after the carrier suffered a much bigger meltdown over the Christmas travel rush."
"Zients said Republicans were being irresponsible by 'tying two things together that should never be tied together' — the debt limit and budget discussions… 'I think the off-ramp is very clear. It's the same off-ramp that was taken with no drama three times in the previous administration when President Trump was in the White House,' Zients said." Here we go again, because conservatives haven't learned the lesson from the last 3 times they did this.
"A French publisher has been arrested on terror charges in London after being questioned by UK police about participating in anti-government protests in France… Ernest Moret, 28, a foreign rights manager for Éditions la Fabrique, was approached by two plainclothes officers at St Pancras station on Monday evening after arriving by train from Paris to attend the London book fair."
"Senators passed changes to Iowa’s child labor laws early Tuesday to allow 14- to 17-year-olds to work longer hours and in restricted fields with parental permission… The bill also allows minors to work until 9 p.m. during the school year and until 11 p.m. during the summer — both two hours later than current law — and lets teens work up to six hours a day, up from the four hours currently allowed." The future conservatives want.
"Russia’s military acknowledged that a bomb accidentally dropped by one of its warplanes caused a powerful blast in a Russian city not far from Ukraine’s border, injuring two and scaring local residents." Oopsie.
"The Supreme Court on Friday preserved women’s access to a drug used in the most common method of abortion, rejecting lower-court restrictions while a lawsuit continues."
"Reports that (Tennessee) House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, bought a home in Nashville have sparked accusations that one of Tennessee's most powerful leaders no longer lives in the district he represents and has inappropriately received thousands of dollars in state-funded expense payments."
"A state lawmaker in Tennessee resigned suddenly for an ethics violation that became public Thursday, two weeks after he joined fellow Republicans in expelling two Black Democratic legislators for protesting in support of gun control on the state House floor."
"Oklahoma's governor is seeking the resignation of four county officials after a newspaper's audio recording apparently captured some of them complaining about two of the paper's journalists and knowing hit men and where two holes are dug."
"An Oklahoma sheriff’s office says a newspaper’s audio recording in which the sheriff and other county officials are reportedly heard discussing killing two journalists and hanging Black people was illegal and predicted felony charges will be filed." Wrong tactic to take, but then bullies don't know how to back down.
"An Oklahoma county commissioner resigned on Wednesday after being caught on a recording allegedly making violent and racist remarks and jokes with members of the McCurtain County Sheriff's Office… McCurtain County Commissioner Mark Jennings submitted a curt resignation letter written on lined notebook paper at about 8:30 a.m. local time."
"An 84-year-old white man in Kansas City, Missouri, was charged Monday with first-degree assault for shooting a Black teen who mistakenly went to the man’s home to pick up his younger brothers." That only took way too fucking long to charge him.
But this guy was arrested right away… "A 20-year-old woman was shot and killed by a homeowner in upstate New York on Saturday after the car she was in accidentally went to the wrong address, local authorities said on Monday." Guess what the difference was (other than the local)?
"A man who drove his car into counterprotesters at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Virginia was convicted Friday of first-degree murder, a verdict that local civil rights activists hope will help heal a community still scarred by the violence and the racial tensions it inflamed nationwide."
"An arbitration panel has ordered MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell to pay $5 million to a software engineer for breach of contract in a dispute over data that Lindell claims proves that China interfered in the U.S. 2020 elections and tipped the outcome to Joe Biden."
"Fox News agreed Tuesday to pay Dominion Voting Systems nearly $800 million to avert a trial in the voting machine company’s lawsuit that would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election."
"At 9 a.m. in a federal building downtown, just a few blocks from the courthouse where Donald Trump was arraigned, the field-tripping House Judiciary Committee began a hearing focusing on the man who supposedly has become one of the greatest menaces facing America: Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney… As Jim Jordan, the jacketless committee chairman, declared in an apocalyptic opening statement: 'For the district attorney, justice isn't blind, it's about looking for opportunities to advance … a radical political agenda. Rather than enforcing the law, the D.A. is using his office to do the bidding of left-wing campaign funders.'"
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