The GUARD Act’s sponsors claim it will keep our children safe, but that’s not true. Instead, it will undermine both safety and autonomy by replacing parental guidance with government mandates and building mass surveillance infrastructure instead of privacy controls. Congress should reject the GUARD Act. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/surveillance-mandate-disguised-child-safety-why-guard-act-wont-keep-us-safe

Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler launched Mongabay with the idea “to make knowledge accessible and free, and to show that credible reporting could be a form of conservation in itself.”

For Butler, impact is Mongabay’s true metric of success, as it can make a difference in “how people think, decide, and act.”

Butler says the next 25 years of Mongabay will focus on strengthening impact & empowering the next generations of leaders in environmental journalism.

https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/the-secret-to-building-a-global-newsroom-lead-with-impact-says-mongabay-founder-rhett-ayers-butler/

“Studies have identified some of the main sources of #microplastics as:

- cosmetic cleansers
- synthetic textiles
- vehicle tyres
- plastic-coated fertilisers
- plastic film used as mulch in agriculture
- fishing rope and netting
- "crumb rubber infill" used in artificial turf
- plastics recycling.”

https://www.sciencealert.com/7000-microplastics-studies-show-we-have-one-really-big-problem

All smart TVs, from LG and Samsung to Sony and Roku, actively spy on you. They use Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) to capture audio and video not just from built-in apps but also from anything plugged in via HDMI. This means your viewing habits, including games and home movies, are regularly sent to manufacturers and data brokers. Opting out is complicated and sometimes disables smart features. Your TV is watching more than you think. #cheaptv #SmartTV #DataCollection

The Senate just confirmed Douglas Troutman—a longtime chemical industry lobbyist—to lead the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety.Critics warn this risks weaker safeguards, regulatory capture, and harm to communities near polluting industries.#EPA #Environment #PFAS #Climate #USPolitics

Microsoft wants 2025 to be the "year of the Windows 11 PC refresh." They want up to 400 million perfectly good computers running Windows 10 to become e-waste. Why? So Microsoft can have their cake ($140-$200 for a Windows 11 license) and eat it (your data) too

It's time to switch sides, and break away from this cycle of endless upgrades. Our new guide walks you through installing a Linux-based operating system—keeping your computer secure long after Microsoft walks away

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+Install+Linux+on+a+Windows+PC/196722

Microsoft is giving EU users a free extra year of Windows 10 security updates, but the rest of the world gets left out. This isn’t right—everyone deserves digital security and ownership. The FULU Foundation’s campaign to demand global access to free updates. Sign the petition info: https://fulu.org/take-action #RightToRepair #Windows10

@napocornejo I can understand the reason to renounce to be a citizen of a country that won't offer you much anymore. I believe what it makes a citizen is not a passport or a paper that said yout from there. Is more about your culture, family, and any living experience you had there in the past. Those things are never gonna be away. I wish some nations could understand why they lose their citizens, why we care, and what they are missing because they don't much to help their people to stay.cheers

Supermicro server motherboards can be infected with unremovable malware
Baseboard management controller vulnerabilities makes remote attacks possible.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/09/supermicro-server-motherboards-can-be-infected-with-unremovable-malware/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

Scientists develop sunscreen made from pollen that doesn’t harm corals
https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/09/scientists-develop-sunscreen-made-from-pollen-that-doesnt-harm-corals/

Tesla’s robotaxi test: Three crashes in only 7,000 miles
Tesla's crash rate is orders of magnitude worse than Waymo's.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/09/teslas-robotaxi-test-three-crashes-in-only-7000-miles/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

A VPN is not a tool for anonymity, and while it can protect your location from some companies, there are many other ways companies may track you. https://ssd.eff.org/module/choosing-vpn-thats-right-you

Book bans get headlines, but the bigger threat to books is hiding in plain sight: A handful of companies control how ebooks reach readers, and they can cut off access with a click. https://www.cjr.org/analysis/the-bigger-threat-to-books-than-bans-is-distribution.php

New from @maria in Columbia Journalism Review:
"The Bigger Threat to Books Than Bans" https://www.cjr.org/analysis/the-bigger-threat-to-books-than-bans-is-distribution.php

Ew so there’s lead in cinnamon AND salt? FML

“The light metal, aluminum, was found in 78% of the salt products. 35% of salt products had over 100,000 ppb of aluminum.

Arsenic was found in 100% of salt products. 74% of salt products had over 10 ppb of arsenic.
Cadmium was found in 70% of salt products. 4% of salt products had over 4.1 ppb of cadmium.
Mercury was NOT found in any salt products.
Lead was found in 96% of salt products. 
Microplastics were so minute they could not be conclusively detected and recognized via Fourier Transformed Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopic imaging for any sample.

https://mamavation.com/food/sea-salt-himalayan-salt-heavy-metals-lead.html

#lead #FoodSafety

Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol made $95.8M in 2024—6,666x the median barista’s $14,674. That’s the highest CEO-worker pay ratio in the S&P 500. As baristas organize for better wages, this massive gap puts #IncomeInequality in the spotlight. #Starbucks

All the Water on Planet Earth https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250907.html #APOD

World's Ocean Plastic Waste list. Most ocean plastic waste comes from just a handful of countries with poor waste management, no surprise there in that list. What’s shocking is how little awareness and action we still have globally on this. Rivers carry vast amounts of plastic into oceans every day, mostly from Asia and some African nations. When plastics reach the oceans, then we all get affected #OceanPlastic #PlasticPollution #WasteManagement

Ticketmaster just quietly changed its fine print so that the next time you buy a ticket to a concert or a game, you'll be forced to sign away your legal rights.

Pass it on.

https://www.levernews.com/ticketmaster-just-locked-you-in-a-new-legal-prison/

A Florida court detained a US Citizen of Latino ethnicity for being an "illegal immigrant." He showed the court proof of citizenship. The court agreed he's a Citizen—but held him in jail anyway. As a human rights lawyer, I criticized the ruling online as unjust.

For my online critique, a Florida Chief judge filed a formal bar complaint to try to strip me of my law license. I've had to spend nearly $10,000 in fees to fight back: https://www.qasimrashid.com/p/a-florida-chief-judge-sided-with

The “godfather of AI” says controlling superintelligent AI won’t work. It’ll outsmart us.
Instead, we should give it maternal instincts, a built‑in drive to care for and protect humanity, like a mother with her child.

Critics say we should focus on human‑centered AI instead, but Hinton warns the clock is ticking: AGI risks could emerge within 5–20 years.

Would compassion in AI save us or is it too risky to try? 💭

#AGI #AI