LAST UPDATE July 22, 2025
Culling the internet
UH OH
Has your email address been compromised during any of the recent security breaches?
INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING
I asked ChatGPT, why have the algorithms of the past three years favored corporate advertisers and social media?
A: Independent websites now exist in a digital ecosystem built to contain, not share. They are victims of a platform-driven internet that favors retention, surveillance-based advertising, and monopolized content delivery...."
SHOOTING THINGS DOWN
The THAAD Missile Defense System – National Security Journal
The U.S. military's THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and Patriot systems are often confused, but they serve distinct, complementary roles in missile defense. The more famous Patriot Missile system is for lower-altitude air and missile defense, and THAAD is a high-altitude ballistic missile defense.
COPYRIGHT
It's all free! – Courthouse News
Infringement case against Skynet AI turned out to be a "clear loser" (the judge's words) because of lack of adequate evidence that could have moved the case before a jury.
A federal judge granted partial summary judgment to Meta on Wednesday, despite claims from 13 award-winning and acclaimed authors who argued that the tech giant violated U.S. copyright law by using their works to train its flagship AI model Llama without their permission."
...As evidence of copyright infringement, the authors argued that the AI’s responses are sometimes verbatim excerpts from their books, which they claim amounts to Meta unlawfully benefiting from their works by failing to license them through their authors."
...However, the judge said his ruling wasn’t necessarily a huge win for Meta, nor a colossal setback for artists in their struggle against AI-generated content, because it only affects the rights of these thirteen authors — not the countless others whose works Meta used to train its models."
Superhero Logo wear at a Virginia mall, June 25, 2025
DNA
Recent study of ancient DNA "upended the world of archaeology and challenged long-held historical assumptions" – Brown EDU
"There seems to be a narrative today that our countries and economies are more interconnected than they used to be," van Dommelen said. "But we have evidence that the ancient Mediterranean was a big, interconnected web of people and ideas. It wasn’t just Greeks and Romans — it was a lot more diverse and a lot more complicated."
DEFINING THE CENTURY
"Functional illiteracy"
Story at Hilarius Book Binder
Most of our students are functionally illiterate. This is not a joke. By “functionally illiterate” I mean “unable to read and comprehend adult novels by people like Barbara Kingsolver, Colson Whitehead, and Richard Powers.” I picked those three authors because they are all recent Pulitzer Prize winners, an objective standard of “serious adult novel.” Furthermore, I’ve read them all and can testify that they are brilliant, captivating writers; we’re not talking about Finnegans Wake here. But at the same time they aren’t YA, romantasy, or Harry Potter either. I’m not saying our students just prefer genre books or graphic novels or whatever. No, our average graduate literally could not read a serious adult novel cover-to-cover and understand what they read...."
Finding stories of a deep and strong illiteracy, not just in language but in basic math skills, is easily found online and in social media. Stories that students are, well, not students, but beings housed temporarily during the day then sent away at the end, are recounted by people claiming to be classroom teachers. How much of what is claimed is true, or only the experiences of certain areas, or exaggerations, is a question worth asking. But anecdotal stories are evidence of something important about the state of education.
Time to go to Disney World? Goofy 4 Mickey