Notices by Dan Gillmor (dangillmor@mastodon.social), page 3

MIT's Technology Review takes a comprehensive dive into the energy/climate consequences of AI, and the news is terrible for everyone but the corporate bosses and billionaires in charge of it all. Grim, grim stuff here:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/

If Ed Zitron -- the best journalist/analyst I've encountered in the AI bubble world -- is right about this, Larry Ellison's Oracle is toast. If so, he'll still be ultra-rich but a LOT of other people will lose an unbelievable amount of money.

https://www.wheresyoured.at/how-openai-kills-oracle/?ref=ed-zitrons-wheres-your-ed-at-newsletter

Surveillance and data-manipulation giant Palantir was a CIA-funded creation and has become one of the planet's most powerfully evil companies. It is vital that the general public understand the danger -- and then work to root it out of our lives.

https://www.thenerdreich.com/how-to-purge-palantir/?ref=the-nerd-reich-newsletter

Open-source software is in existential danger -- and the ramifications of that are grim for everyone but the opportunists who'll make a few bucks from its demise.

https://www.404media.co/this-ai-tool-rips-off-open-source-software-without-violating-copyright/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter

Yet again the Associated Press normalizes the most corrupt presidency, by far, in American history. This story about Trump's kabuki-theater shakedown of the government he controls barely mentions that until the very end.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-treasury-irs-lawsuit-tax-whistleblower-c710244db618b066f3070a65e75820a5

All corruption in Trump world, all the time.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@LauraRBelin/116400356606528496

I had to go to the House website to find out the party affiliation of this ethically challenged representative. (Republican)

Should have been in the story...

That supposed $1 billion Disney investment in "Open"AI was a mirage all along, as so many things related to the AI industry have come to be.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-set-discontinue-sora-video-platform-app-wsj-reports-2026-03-24/

The gambling industry has successfully persuaded journalists, pet economists, captured regulators, and wholly owned politicians to use its preferred labels, e.g. "gaming" and now "prediction markets" -- and as always, people who should know better go along with it.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/02/prediction-markets-iran-strikes-khamenei.html

"Prediction markets aren't good at producing information, but they're *amazing* at producing corruption."

Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic) on the Trump-connected "markets" that take gambling to new depths of depravity.

https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/24/degenerated-gambling/

Google's profound contempt for journalists is on display as it rewrites publications' headlines in search results, sometimes altering the meaning and intent of the original. https://www.theverge.com/tech/896490/google-replace-news-headlines-in-search-canary-coal-mine-experiment

The company calls it an "experiment" -- as if that makes it OK.

As the U.S. sinks into dictatorship -- malevolent rule by corrupt politicians and oligarchs -- the institution I know the best has almost completely failed to recognize, much less counter, the threat. Big Journalism will be remembered for its cowardice and capitulation. https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2026/mar/17/trump-is-aiming-for-dictatorship-thats-the-verdict-of-the-worlds-most-credible-democracy-watchdog

Google has become everything it once pretended to disdain -- an arrogant, sleazy, control-freak monopolist.

Its latest anti-user, anti-competition move will shut down the alternative app marketplaces that Google used to show off as "we're not like Apple" evidence. https://thenewstack.io/f-droid-says-googles-android-developer-verification-plan-is-an-existential-threat-to-alternative-app-stores/

The United States is at war with Cuba, but our weapons are aimed at further impoverishing -- and starving -- the population. Destroying the electrical grid will have that effect. It's all blatantly illegal, not to mention immoral. Big Journalism has kind of, sort of noticed, but doesn't really care.

Big Journalism carries water for Trump as usual, obligingly calling the Republicans' voter-suppression legislation by the name they cooked up to make it sound just fine. The bill would destroy what's left of our democracy. The only thing it would "SAVE" is white male supremacy.

Do better, media.

With a headline that in a sane world would be in the Onion, but is absurdly realistic in this one, Garrett Graff discusses the Sociopath-in-Chief's insane war of choice: https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/trump-surprised-to-find-he-s-at-war-in-iran?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=trump-surprised-to-find-he-s-at-war-in-iran

You should subscribe to Graff's newsletter...

Looks from here like the Trump regime is hoping Iran will provide a Reichstag fire-type event (look it up) in the U.S. -- see those scary warnings of attacks on California.

Why? A pretext to escalate domestic fascism, such as even more direct interference with this year's elections.

I have a Windows laptop that I use rarely, and while the device manager sees my Android phone when it's connected by USB, the file manager does not. This connection failure just started a couple of days ago. I've tried absolutely everything and nothing solves this.

Meanwhile it's immediately recognized on my Linux machine and transfers data at a good speed.

Same cable in each case.

@HistoPol Thanks, I'll give it a look.

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@evacide/116207648749663738

Grammarly would have to improve its ethics to be slimy.

So Grammarly foisted advice from AI-generated impersonations of real people on its users, without bothering to ask the people it's impersonating whether they had any issue with this rancid fakery.

https://www.platformer.news/grammarly-expert-review-reviewed/?ref=platformer-newsletter