This is wild. A whole population's calls captured, studied, mined. "Unit 8200 sources said the information stored in Azure amounted to a rich repository of intelligence about its population that some in the unit claimed had been used to blackmail people, place them in detention, or even justify their killing after the fact." As a friend just suggested, perhaps one day people will speak of Microsoft & genocide, just as history 'never forgets' what IBM did.
the Guardian
‘A million calls an hour’: Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians
Revealed: The Israeli military undertook an ambitious project to store a giant trove of Palestinians’ phone calls on Microsoft’s servers in Europe
 (Via @Ira)
Missionaries have been secretly and illegally placing small devices on the lands of isolated indigenous peoples in the Amazon in an attempt to convert them to their faith The 'In Touch' devices - made by a Baptist group in Atlanta, Georgia USA - play out passages of the Bible. Weatherproof and fitted with solar panel, they run indefinitely. The devices have been found scattered throughout the Javari region, near Brazil's border with Peru.
the Guardian
Missionaries using secret audio devices to evangelise Brazil’s isolated peoples
Solar-powered units reciting biblical passages have appeared in the Javari valley, despite strict laws protecting Indigenous groups
 #colonisation image
In about a week I'll be talking about #Meshtastic (a popular decentralised off-grid mesh-networking protocol) in the context of communications fallback during and after disasters. If you are in the quake-prone Pōneke/Wellington or Hutt Valley region, this is especially for you!
Critical Signals
Introduction to Meshtastic
Critical Signals explores practical and visionary responses to an era of collapses.
 #aotearoa #infrastructure
A smart angle from Guterres: "The greatest threat to energy security today is fossil fuels. They leave economies and people at the mercy of price shocks, supply disruptions and geopolitical turmoil,” he said. “There are no price spikes for sunlight. No embargoes on wind.”
the Guardian
World on brink of climate breakthrough as fossil fuels ‘run out of road’, UN chief says
António Guterres says ‘sun is rising on a clean energy age’ as 90% of renewable power projects cheaper than fossil fuels
 #climate #energy
Update from the planet-eating machine cult
the Guardian
Zuckerberg says Meta will build data center the size of Manhattan in latest AI push
CEO says company plans to spend hundreds of billions on developing artificial intelligence products
Pleased to share Critical Signals, a 3 month series of events in downtown Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. The series centers practical & visionary responses to an era of collapses, with a focus on kai (food) sovereignty, data and communications sovereignty, collective resilience, & adaptation strategies under a rapidly changing climate and biosphere.
Critical Signals
Critical Signals
Critical Signals explores practical and visionary responses to an era of collapses.
 (Programme still growing as we confirm new collabs) #climate #resilience #food #infrastructure #sovereignty
I want to talk terminal colours, in advance of some self-paced learning I'm launching. In IRL workshops and lectures with a projector, I've always found black on white seems to sit best for folk given long-haul tolerance and legibility. But how about hours of UNIX commands, shell scripts and config editing in recorded video, and on your screen? Which terminal colour combo would be easiest on your eyes in long episodes of video? (Not in the list? Drop your pref combo in the replies)
In step with 'Project 2025', which seeks to undermine and erase climate science, Trump is trying to shut down the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. It is trying to do this through the aggressive defunding of NOAA. Data collected by this observatory since 1958 has been central to nearly every report ever published on our changing climate. Our home planet may soon lose a canonical reference that it is warming. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/01/climate/trump-cuts-mauna-loa-keeling #climate #misinformation