Here's a link to The Atlantic tool to check if your books were part of the "pirate" dataset Meta is said to have used for AI training.

- Follow link below
- Click "online tool" link
- Type in an author or book name in the text field

I've got 15 titles in that dataset. A lot of mixed emotions here.

copyright.com.au/2025/03/libge…
#AI

"These damn bicycles are taking over the streets!"

NEW MCGILL STUDY: Hard facts from #Montreal to set things straight.

Cars now get 79.6% of the infrastructure area (roads) in the city.

Pedestrians (sidewalks): 18.3%

Micromobility (lanes for bikes, scooters etc.): 1.57%

🧵

Listen to those on the ground, not their Western bosses.

'For the past eight years I have worked as a stringer for Reuters news agency. My photos covering stories in the prairie provinces have been published by the New York Times, Al Jazeera, and other media outlets across North America, Asia, Europe, and elsewhere. At this point it’s become impossible for me to maintain a relationship with Reuters given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza. I owe my colleagues in Palestine at least this much, and so much more.

When Israel murdered Anas Al-Sharif, together with the entire Al-Jazeera crew in Gaza City on August 10, Reuters chose to publish Israel’s entirely baseless claim that Al-Sharif was a Hamas operative – one of countless lies that media outlets like Reuters have dutifully repeated and dignified. Reuters’ willingness to perpetuate Israel’s propaganda has not spared their own reporters from Israel’s genocide. Five more journalists, including Reuters cameraman Hossam Al-Masri, were among 20 people killed this morning in another attack on Nasser hospital. It was what’s known as a “double tap” strike, in which Israel bombs a civilian target like a school or hospital; waits for medics, rescue teams, and journalists to arrive; and then strikes again.

Western media is directly culpable for creating the conditions in which this can happen. As Jeremy Scahill from Drop Site News put it, “every major outlet – from the New York Times to the Washington Post, from AP to Reuters – has served as a conveyor belt for Israeli propaganda, sanitizing war crimes and dehumanizing victims, abandoning their colleagues and their alleged commitment to true and ethical reporting.”

By repeating Israel’s genocidal fabrications without determining if they have any credibility – willfully abandoning the most basic responsibility of journalism – Western media outlets have made possible the killing of more journalists in two years on one tiny strip of land than in WWI, WWII, and the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine combined, to say nothing of starving an entire population, shredding its children, and burning people alive.

The fact that Anas Al-Sharif’s work won a Pulitzer Prize for Reuters did not compel them to come to his defence when Israeli occupation forces placed him on a “hit list” of journalists accused of being Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants. It did not compel them to come to his defence when he appealed to international media for protection after an Israeli military spokesperson posted a video making clear their intention to assassinate him following a report he did on the growing famine. It did not compel them to report on his death honestly when he was hunted and killed weeks later.

I have valued the work that I brought to Reuters over the past eight years, but at this point I can’t conceive of wearing this press pass with anything but deep shame and grief. I don’t know what it means to begin to honour the courage and sacrifice of journalists in Gaza – the bravest and best to ever live – but going forward I will direct whatever contributions I have to offer with that front of mind.'

- Valerie Zink, former Reuters correspondent

facebook.com/513202464/posts/1…

#gaza #freepalestine #media #press #genocide #gaza_genocide #GazaStarving #SaveGaza #westbank

Hey, anyone with a cell phone (so, 99.9% of my followers - I SEE YOU, Randy, Jamie and Flora!), do you have any tips for how to deal with a smidge of water in your charging port?

It’s been very rainy here in Toronto the last week, and the kiddo got probably *a drop* in their charging port, so initially couldn’t charge the phone. We had a wireless charging pad thing a few years back but got rid of it or carefully lost it somewhere in the house, so that didn’t help.

I know rice isn’t the go-to solution any more as it was for a long while, but what does one do when one needs a charge but the phone won’t let them?

The crime Americans are most likely to be victims of is wage theft.

And that you hear almost nothing about wage theft in the news is a constant reminder that "crime" is 99% a racist dog whistle designed by the corporate elite to help them get away with crime.

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DOGE uploaded live copy of Social Security database to ‘vulnerable’ cloud server, says #whistleblower

"Borges warned in the complaint that if this information were compromised, “it is possible that the sensitive [personally identifiable information] on every American including health diagnoses, income levels and banking information, family relationships, and personal biographic data could be exposed publicly, and shared widely.”"
techcrunch.com/2025/08/26/doge…

DOGE uploaded live copy of Social Security database to 'vulnerable' cloud server, says whistleblower | TechCrunch

The Social Security Administration's chief data officer has publicly blown the whistle, alleging DOGE put hundreds of millions of Social Security records at risk of compromise.

^{Zack Whittaker (TechCrunch)}

Voter Tells GOP Lawmaker To ‘Get Your Head Out Of Trump’s Ass’ | HuffPost Latest News huffpost.com/entry/mark-alford…

#uspol #mo #missouri

‘I Am Pissed!’: Voter Tells GOP Lawmaker To ‘Get Your Head Out Of Trump’s Ass’

Rep. Mark Alford met his constituents recently ― and not all of them were happy.

^{Ed Mazza (HuffPost)}

Found a new friend while doing a few odd bits of yard work yesterday, First a moth (?), and now this guy, isn't he a cutie?

#lizard

Masked immigration raids are an assault on freedom. They are not about protection. They are about fear, secrecy, and unchecked power. And every mask is a shield against accountability.

We must not allow cruelty to hide in plain sight.

Please, add your voice to this petition today. Together we can tell Congress and state legislators: No more secrets. No more abuse. No more terror. thepetitionsite.com/342/682/73…

petition: Stop Masked Immigration Raids. This Is Not How a Democracy Operates.

These agents are using masks to shield themselves from accountability for their willingness to participate in dangerous overreach. (49008 signatures on petition)

^{www.thepetitionsite.com}

The Pigs Who Stare At Crosswalks.

Florida Deploys Police To Stare At Crosswalks, Stop Them From Being Painted Rainbow Colors: Earlier this week, officers painted the rainbow stripes into stark black and white. Citizens repainted them. Road crews...
jwz.org/b/ykuE

"#DeSantis’ administration made the deeply offensive decision last week to paint over the memorial crosswalk outside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando ...erasure of the memorial is not merely a disregard for a physical space, but a profound desecration...and a grievous affront to the memory of the 49 lives lost and the countless others impacted by the horrific mass shooting targeting the #LGBTQ community."

Fla. state Sen. Shevrin Jones, Florida District 34 msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinio…
#USPolitics

Florida removing the Pulse shooting memorial was not a neutral act

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration painted over the memorial crosswalk near Orlando's Pulse nightclub where a gunman targeting LGBTQ people killed 49 people.

^{Fla. state Sen. Shevrin Jones (MSNBC)}