Assorted content to end your week. – Benji Jones writes that the long-predicted mass death of coral reefs due to climate change is coming to pass even as the climate breakdown continues to escalate. Adam Bailey highlights the obscene amounts of money still being thrown at fossil fuels – and
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Gary Fuller reports on the European Environment Agency’s estimate that EU countries alone are responsible for 238,000 deaths a year arising from their failure to meet World Health Organization air pollution guidelines. – Adam Lowenstein discusses the Center for Climate Integrity’s report tracing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – David Michaels, Emily Spieler and Gregory Wagner examine how negligent pandemic policies (even when COVID-19 wasn’t being treated as a matter of general denialism) resulted in tens of thousands of worker deaths in the US alone. Olivia Man et al. find that prenatal exposure
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: AI Has Nothing To Do With Intelligence
AI Has Nothing To Do With Intelligence AI has nothing to do with intelligence but people believe the marketing hype, mostly because we have a distorted idea of what intelligence is, largely do to the media. Take the quiz show “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader” that says in
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Meta’s Temper Tantrum Is Partisan Politicking
So, if you use Facebook and reside in Canada, by now you’ve noticed that anything resembling news articles are being blocked. At first, you might look at it and say “oh, that’s just Meta having a temper tantrum over Bill C-18”. You wouldn’t be wrong. It is a corporate
Continue readingThings Are Good: Alphabet Union Wants Alphabet to Behave
The workers behind the unionization efforts at Google are expanding to take on the whole Alphabet, the parent company of Google. They’ve formed Alpha Global to be a common voice for issues facing Google workers around the world and for people who are being negatively impacted by the actions of
Continue readingThings Are Good: Google Workers Create Union
Unions are a reaction to poor working conditions, and it’s clear that some Silicon Valley companies have created the need for unions. Google, which has been actively suppressing workers who stand up against injustices are now seeing their workers unionize. This is a symbolic victory for the labour movement in
Continue readingThings Are Good: Tired of Google’s Control Over Your Life? Try These Instead
I’ve been using Duck Duck Go instead of Google search for years and don’t regret it. There are less ads and the search results include more diverse sources – plus I don’t get trapped in Google’s filter bubble. Over at No More Google they have compiled a list of services
Continue readingThings Are Good: Truly Smart Cities are Actually “Dumb”
Earlier this year Sidewalk Labs (Google) opted out of building a “smart” neighbourhood in Toronto due to local pressure (protests work!). What the “smart” neighbourhood wanted to do was monitor and control the activities of occupants and visitors, which would have likely violated many laws. The business plan was even
Continue readingThings Are Good: Governments Reacting to the Failures of the Gig Economy
According to economists the economy is the labour market is fine as unemployment is relatively low. The truth is different from the on-paper measurements. High employment numbers don’t mean much if the jobs don’t pay well and the working conditions are miserable. The modern “gig economy” is to blame for
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Google And Android Phone Data Mining – A Guest Post
Commentator BM left a very useful analysis in response to my recent post on ways to protect online data. Here it is: Extreme lack of privacy suspicion back in 2010 or so made me never sign up with Facetrash or Twatter. Thank goodness. Got a new Android phone recently since
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: This Might Be the Eye-Opener You So Badly Need.
Many of us approach online privacy with a “who would be interested in boring old me” attitude. That’s the internet equivalent of whistling past the graveyard. Check out data consultant Dylan Curran’s expose on what Facebook and, especially, Google knows about you. I’ll just do a short summary of what’s
Continue readingThe Political Road Map: How Facebook Can Eliminate Fake News
Since the election of Donald Trump as President, the term Fake News has become more common in both social media and regular media streams. For many of us, it has become tiring, as anyone and everyone begins utilizing Fake News to disrupt any meaningful argument that opposes their point of
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking
Google is the latest tech company to drop the longstanding wall between anonymous online ad tracking and user’s names. The post Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There’s nothing ‘independent’ or ‘blue-ribbon’ about the Wildrose Party’s ‘Equalization Fairness Panel’
PHOTOS: How the Frontier Centre views Canada’s Equalization Program. Oh! Wait! That’s a 19th Century temperance poster. Same difference, basically. Below: The Wildrose Party’s four Frontier-Centre-associated “equalization fairness” panelists:…
Continue readingThings Are Good: Watch Streets Evolve From Car-Focused to People-Focused
Streets were for people, then cars took over and ruined cities. For the last hundred years cities transformed themselves from walkable places to sprawling buildings which were designed for heavy car use. Now, cities have seen how that’s a mistake. A design firm, Urb-i, has used Google street view to
Continue readingOpenMedia.ca: CBC: Google ordered to remove ‘right to be forgotten’ stories after ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling
The new EU ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling conflicts with our right to knowledge and free expression. Why should people like web companies, politicians, or governments force search engines and other aggregators to remove links to articles about their activities without a judicial process? Learn more below and check out
Continue readingAlberta Diary: There’s no better time than right now for non-union employees of the City of St. Albert to look for union protection
St. Albert’s 2013 civic election campaign was pretty dirty, as the illustration above, grabbed from an anonymous blog during the campaign, illustrates. Since those kind of tactics seemed to work, the next one, in October 2017, is likely to be dirtier still. Below: St. Albert Mayor Nolan Crouse, Spruce Grove-St.
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: Nyms win Google+ Nymwar
3 years ago, I deleted my Google+ account in protest of its real name only policy. At the time, I stated that if Google+ were to reverse its real name only policy, I would re-consider the deletion of my Google+ account, as well as my Google profile… Today, Google+ has
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