The Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock, in partnership with the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, compiled the year’s worst and most baffling responses to public records requests and other attempts to thwart public access to information. https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2024/mar/10/the-foilies-2024/

>>The remote-access computer transponder called the "joymaker" is your most valuable single possession in your new life. If you can imagine a combination of telephone, credit card, alarm clock, pocket bar, reference library, and full-time secretary, you will have sketched some of the functions provided by your joymaker. -- The Age of The Pussyfoot, by Frederik Pohl. Published by Ballantine in 1966

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp

They used to patrol the streets of Italy to moderate excessive spending and enforce strict ‘sumptuary’ laws, issuing on the spot fines for over extravagance. Male offenders outnumbered female by 2:1.
https://www.medievalists.net/2014/10/fashion-police-16th-century-italy/

A new Webb image reveals a cosmos full of galaxies
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/03/daily-telescope-a-new-webb-image-reveals-a-cosmos-full-of-galaxies/

404 pages, where joy and errors meet. A growing gallery of 404 page designs from around the internet.
https://www.404s.design/

A new short film about Ada Lovelace, written, directed by and stars Julie Bruns, has been released and is available to rent or buy from Reel Women’s Network. https://watch.reelwomensnetwork.com/products/ada-film

Apple's AirPods Pro will reportedly gain a new 'hearing aid mode' with iOS 18. The device already offers a Conversation Boost feature, but Apple has not advertised it as a hearing aid device as that requires FDA regulatory approval. https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/11/airpods-pro-to-gain-hearing-aid-mode-ios-18/

"So great was the outpouring of venom, so horrible Wilde’s fate, that it has obscured for well over a century the fact that the early 1890s actually saw the birth of Britain’s first gay rights movement." https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/10/beyond-oscar-wilde-the-unsung-literary-heroes-of-the-early-gay-rights-movement

"The rats are eating our marijuana," NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said Monday at a City Council Criminal Justice Committee meeting. "They're all high."
https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/the-rats-are--all-high-nopd-chief-says-of-vermin-infested-hq-evidence-warehouse-new-orleans/article_88bbef7c-dfc0-11ee-a110-dfcbe69db780.html

This.

G/O Media, formerly Gizmodo Media Group, has sold sports blogging site Deadspin to European firm Lineup Publishing, a new digital media rollup company. https://www.axios.com/2024/03/11/deadspin-sold-by-go-media-editorial-staff-to-be-laid-off

I always end up watching the Oscars because I cannot help myself, but I agree with this article: This year, it was fun. https://www.vox.com/culture/2024/3/11/24096929/2024-oscars-winners-losers-jimmy-kimmel-poor-things-ryan-gosling-cillian-red-pins

In the FBI’s latest annual Internet Crime Report, it was estimated that American consumers and businesses lost a record $12.5bn to internet crimes last year, a 22% jump from 2022, with losses related to investment scams in particular rising, up 38% in 2023. https://www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2023_IC3Report.pdf

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows because it always coincides with their own desires.”--Susan B Anthony

The free, 120-hour program, based at Detroit’s Michigan Central tech hub, prepares participants for a certification exam that is slated to roll out nationwide next month—and for jobs installing charging stations and performing diagnostics, maintenance, and repair work. https://www.emergingtechbrew.com/stories/2024/03/08/ev-charging-sector-skilled-workforce-development

By 1900, a third of all cars on the road in the US were electric; we’re looking at the history of a cruelly missed opportunity, and it started astonishingly early. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/24/amazing-infuriating-history-electric-car-in-pictures

It doesn't appear in textbooks and isn't included in the much-anticipated movie Napoleon – but the French politician had bold plans to start a new life in the US.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20231122-the-new-orleans-landmark-that-almost-became-napoleons-retirement-home

The coin, which dates to the first year of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132 C.E.), was discovered in the Mazuq Ha-he’teqim Nature Reserve. https://www.jns.org/hebrew-coin-from-bar-kokhba-revolt-found-in-judean-desert/

Margaret Atwood responds to the revelation that pirated copies of her books are being used to train AI.

"The clockwork bird can sing, but only the song with which it has been programmed. It can't improvise. It can't riff. It can't surprise. And it is in surprise that much of the delight of art resides: Otherwise, boredom sets in quickly. Only the living bird can sing a song that is ever renewed, and therefore always delightful." https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2023/08/ai-chatbot-training-books-margaret-atwood/675151/

SNL did not disappoint us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCfLpuLdF8Q