The world's use of clean energy "is rapidly growing", [1]reports the Washington Post , "but not fast enough to keep temperatures in check..."

> Many experts say it will be the economics of clean energy that defines the future of the planet — and how developing countries choose to meet their growing electricity demands. "What happens in emerging and developing economies in the next decade in some sense is the whole ballgame," said Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. Global greenhouse gas emissions could peak as soon as next year, according to the International Energy Agency, but are not on course to drop sharply enough to contain warming. The world would have to cut its emissions roughly in half by 2035 to meet the 1.5 C target, scientists warn, in part because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for centuries.

>

> Instead, the U.N. projects that nations' current policies will lead to 3.1 C of warming by 2100, or as little as 2.6 C if the strongest pledges are kept. This would represent substantial progress from when the Paris agreement was adopted, when scientists expected a 4 C (7.2 F) rise in temperatures by century's end... Still, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts " [2]dangerous and widespread disruption " on the current path. The Greenland ice sheet might tip into irreversible collapse, according to the IPCC, threatening cities from New York to Shanghai, while extreme heat and humidity could make large swaths of the world effectively uninhabitable. Scientists also expect a growing toll of disease, crop failures and weather disasters. It would likely take thousands of years for Greenland's ice to completely vanish, but other impacts — like the death of coral reefs worldwide and [3]month-long heat waves — could come in a matter of decades. If countries wish to avoid these consequences, they will have to spend vast sums on adaptation. From now through 2030, poor nations will need up to $387 billion per year to adapt to mounting climate disasters, according to a [4]recent U.N. report ...

>

> [Much of the progress on curbing emissions] has come from the United States' switch from coal to natural gas and renewables, and the European Union's rapid embrace of wind and solar power... But [5]the demand for power is also rising , complicating these efforts. According to [6]a recent report from the International Energy Agency, countries are expected to add electricity demand equivalent to the entire nation of Japan every year — thanks to the growth of EVs, the rapid build-out of AI data centers, and a surge in a need for air conditioning in developing countries. That growth in demand means that even as clean energy is added to the grid, fossil fuel use hasn't decreased. And unless countries close coal and gas plants and shut down oil drilling, emissions won't start to come down.

>

> "Two things can both be true: Clean energy is breaking almost every record you can imagine," Bordoff said. "And oil use is going up, and gas use is going up, and coal use is going up."



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/a-strange-new-climate-era-is-beginning-to-take-hold/ar-AA1uQxqz

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/02/28/ipcc-united-nations-climate-change-adaptation/?itid=lk_inline_manual_22

[3] https://www.wri.org/news/cities-will-suffer-health-and-infrastructure-crisis-under-3deg-c-vs-15deg-c-warming-low-income

[4] https://www.unep.org/resources/adaptation-gap-report-2024

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/11/19/ai-cop29-climate-data-centers/?itid=lk_inline_manual_29

[6] https://www.iea.org/news/geopolitical-tensions-are-laying-bare-fragilities-in-the-global-energy-system-reinforcing-need-for-faster-expansion-of-clean-energy

To help replace power plants, Japan's northernmost island, Hokkaido, "is turning to a new generation of batteries designed to stockpile massive amounts of energy," [1]reports the Washington Post .

"The Hokkaido Electric Power Network (HEPCO Network) is deploying flow batteries, an emerging kind of battery that stores energy in hulking tanks of metallic liquid."

> [F]low batteries are making their debut in big real-world projects. Sumitomo Electric, the company that built the Hokkaido plant, has also built flow batteries in [2]Taiwan, Belgium, Australia, Morocco and California . Hokkaido's flow battery farm was the biggest in the world when it opened in April 2022 — a record that lasted just a month before China built one that is [3]eight times bigger and can deliver as much energy as [4]an average U.S. natural gas plant . "It looks like flow batteries are finally about to take off with interest from China," said Michael Taylor, an energy analyst at the International Renewable Energy Agency, an international group that studies and promotes green energy. "When China starts to get comfortable with a technology and sees it working, then they will very quickly scale their manufacturing base if they think they can drive down the costs, which they usually can...."

>

> Lithium-ion batteries are perfect for smartphones because they're lightweight and fit in small spaces, even if they don't last long and have to be replaced frequently. Utilities have a different set of priorities: They need to store millions of times more energy, and they have much more room to work with. "If you think about utility-scale stationary applications, maybe you don't need lithium-ion batteries. You can use another one that is cheaper and can provide the services that you want like, for example, vanadium flow batteries," said Francisco Boshell, a researcher at the International Renewable Energy Agency...

>

> Flow batteries are designed to tap giant tanks that can store a lot of energy for a long time. To boost their storage capacity, all you have to do is build a bigger tank and add more vanadium. That's a big advantage: By contrast, there's no easy way to adjust the storage capacity of a lithium-ion battery — if you want more storage, you have to build a whole new battery... One major barrier to building more of these battery farms is finding enough vanadium. Three-quarters of the world's supply comes as a by-product from 10 steel mills in China and Russia, according to Kara Rodby [a battery analyst at the investment firm Volta Energy Technologies] who got her PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studying the [5]design and market for flow batteries . Australia, South Africa and the United States also produce vanadium, but in much smaller quantities. [6]Mines that have been proposed could [7]boost supply . And [8]some flow battery start-ups are trying to sidestep the vanadium problem entirely by using different materials that are easier to buy.

>

> The other hurdle is their up-front cost. Vanadium flow batteries are at least twice as expensive to build as lithium-ion batteries, Rodby said, and banks are hesitant to lend money to fund an unfamiliar technology. But experts say flow batteries can be cheaper in the long run because they're easier to maintain and last longer. A lithium-ion battery might have to be replaced after 10 years, but Rodby says flow batteries can last much longer. "There really is no finite lifetime for a flow battery in the way there is for lithium-ion," Rodby said.

Here's an interesting statistic from the article. "Over the next six years, utilities will have to build [9]35 times as many batteries as there are today to soak up all extra renewable energy that will come online, according to the International Energy Agency."



[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/batteries-could-harness-wind-sun-172548718.html

[2] https://sumitomoelectric.com/products/redox/cases?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template

[3] https://www.energy-storage.news/first-phase-of-800mwh-world-biggest-flow-battery-commissioned-in-china/?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template

[4] https://thundersaidenergy.com/downloads/power-plants-average-capacities/?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template

[5] https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/145016/Rodby-krodby-phd-chemE-2022-thesis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y&itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template

[6] https://www.miningweekly.com/article/first-us-primary-vanadium-mine-approved-2023-10-30?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template

[7] https://www.australianvanadium.com.au/our-assets/the-australian-vanadium-project/?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template

[8] https://elestor.com/technology?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template

[9] https://www.iea.org/energy-system/electricity/grid-scale-storage?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template

The Washington Post reports on tens of thousands of Americans " [1]forced to pay for medication" to prevent the HIV infections , "despite federal requirements guaranteeing free access to treatment...according to multiple studies and interviews with medical professionals, activists and patients."

> Insurance companies are skirting rules compelling them to pay for pre-exposure prophylaxis treatment, known as PrEP, researchers and HIV advocacy organizations say — leaving patients to shell out hundreds of dollars each year for medication co-pays, doctor visits and screenings required to stay on drugs that reduce the risk of contracting HIV through sex by 99 percent.

>

> Under the Affordable Care Act, commercial insurers must cover certain preventive health services. This is supposed to include at least one form of oral PrEP and related health services, such as regular testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, for people at increased risk of contracting HIV, according to [2]2021 guidance from the Biden administration. Responding to complaints that patients were still being charged, the Biden administration in October released new guidance instructing private insurers to cover all forms of PrEP without prior authorization, including new long-acting injections.

>

> Nearly a third of a national sample of 325 health coverage plans on government insurance marketplaces did not include PrEP on their lists of covered preventive services, according to the [3]AIDS Institute , a New York-based nonprofit. Between 20 and 30 percent of PrEP users with commercial insurance still had to pay for it despite the coverage mandate, with an average cost of $227 for 2022, according to the [4]Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Government regulators have been slow to crack down on insurer violations, activists say, creating a barrier to getting more at-risk Americans on the medication. The CDC estimates that only a third of the more than 1 million people who could benefit from PrEP have received a prescription, according to its [5]most recent data .

The issue appears to be lax enforcement against insurers who break rules, a policy advocate told the newspaper. America's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which enforces regulations for preventive care, "said it takes enforcement seriously and recently found two insurance plans in violation of coverage requirements following consumer complaints."

And the Post spoke to an official at America's Labor Department, who said they were investigating a complaint against a large insurance company, but "said the agency does not have enough staff to conduct proactive investigations and lacks the authority to sue and penalize insurers that break the rules."



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/hiv-prevention-pills-should-be-free-but-insurers-are-still-charging/ar-AA1uYCTC

[2] https://www.cms.gov/cciio/resources/fact-sheets-and-faqs/downloads/faqs-part-47.pdf

[3] https://aidsinstitute.net/documents/2024-PrEP-Research-Report-Final.pdf

[4] https://www.croiconference.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/posters/2024/1117.pdf

[5] https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/about/atlasplus.html

At the start of November Threads [1]had 275 million members . But in 30 days it's apparently increased another 12%, [2]reports The Verge :

> Threads has accrued over 35 million signups so far in November and is "going on three months with more than a million signups a day," Meta spokesperson Alec Booker told The Verge in an email today. 20 million of those signups have come since November 14th, [3]as Axios notes ...

>

> At the same time, Bluesky has seen a surge of interest. The platform grew to 15 million users earlier this month and continued to add about a million signups per day for several days. It now sits at over 22 million users.

Dave Earley, audience editor at Guardian Australia , says that traffic to TheGuardian.com from BlueSky " [4]is already 2x that of Threads ."

> [T]hat's on a straight threads.net vs bsky.app referral comparison. BUT! 75-80% of tracked referral from owned Bluesky account posts is NOT being attributed to bsky.app, so I'm certain organic traffic would be undercounting by that much as well. By which I mean, I'm pretty sure traffic from bsky.app to theguardian.com is *significantly* higher than the very obvious 2x that of Threads.

That post was in response to one by a platform VP for the Boston Globe newspaper, who'd reported that traffic from Bluesky to bostonglobe.com " [5]is already 3x that of Threads , and we are seeing 4.5x the conversions to paying digital subscribers."

And Axios notes that Bluesky's growth "has [6]spurred inbound interest for a new investment round , just weeks after raising $15 million in Series A funding, per Axios' Dan Primack."

In response, Threads "rolled out a series of changes over the past week in what was seen as an attempt to keep an edge over Bluesky," [7]reports The Hill :

> The changes included a [8]new custom feed feature , which gives users the ability to build their feeds around the topics and people they are most interested in. Bluesky lets users make their own lists and feeds and set their own content moderation preferences. The platform also rolled out a few "long-overdue improvements" to its search and trending now features and its algorithm.



[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/16/1911231/threads-grew-by-a-bluesky-this-month-now-has-over-275-million-users

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/26/24306591/threads-35-million-signups-november-growth

[3] https://www.axios.com/2024/11/26/exclusive-threads-adds-35m-new-signups-this-month

[4] https://bsky.app/profile/earleyedition.bsky.social/post/3lbvwgzurbc2y

[5] https://bsky.app/profile/mkarolian.bsky.social/post/3lbunm54agc2k

[6] https://www.axios.com/2024/11/26/exclusive-threads-adds-35m-new-signups-this-month?stream=top

[7] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5010118-instagrams-threads-gets-35-million-new-users-this-month/

[8] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5000740-meta-instagram-threads-custom-feed/

[1]The New York Post writes that "After the COVID-19 pandemic upended mom-and-pops around the city and resulted in thousands shuttering for good, it is important — now more than ever — to shop local."

America's Small Business Administration [2]issued their own statement urging shoppers to "champion small businesses nationwide and #ShopSmall on Saturday, linking to [3]a site mapping small businesses in your area . (And there's also [4]a directory listing online small businesses .)

> Small Business Saturday was founded by American Express in 2010 and officially cosponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration since 2011. It is an important part of small businesses' busiest shopping season.

>

> - In 2023, the reported projected spending in the U.S. from those who shopped at small businesses on Small Business Saturday was around [5]$17 billion

>

> - Since 2010, the total reported U.S. spending at small businesses during the annual Small Business Saturday is an estimated $201 billion

"Let's keep the Shop Small tradition going," urges the American Express web site — encouraging shoppers to also use the #ShopSmall hashtag on social media.



[1] https://nypost.com/2024/11/29/lifestyle/small-business-saturday-celebrates-nyc-mom-and-pop-shops-as-holiday-season-kicks-off-the-backbone-of-the-city/

[2] https://www.sba.gov/about-sba/organization/sba-initiatives/small-business-saturday

[3] https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/shop-small/

[4] https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/maps/online?cat=Shop-Small&version=shopsmall

[5] https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/newsroom/articles/shop-small/us-consumers-report-an-estimated--17-billion-spending-at-small-b.html

From [1]a new web project called IMG_0001 :

> Between 2009 and 2012, iPhones had a built-in "Send to YouTube" button in the Photos app. Many of these uploads kept their default IMG_XXXX filenames, creating a time capsule of raw, unedited moments from random lives. Inspired by [2]Ben Wallace , I made a bot that crawled YouTube and found 5 million of these videos! Watch them below, ordered randomly.

[3]The Washington Post reports that it's the same 22-year-old software engineer who created [4]Bop Spotter — that phone on a telephone pole [5]using the Shazam app to identify songs people play in public .

And his new site includes only videos "posted before 2015, with fewer than 150 views each and durations shorter than 150 seconds."

> In about 12 hours total, Walz said, he coded a website that takes millions of these unedited, raw videos from more than nine years ago and serves them to viewers at random. The resulting project, titled IMG_0001 and hosted on his personal website, plays out like a glimpse into different worlds: Hit play and your first video may show teenagers practicing a dance in a high school hallway. That wraps up, and it rolls into footage of a dog frolicking in a snowy backyard...

>

> Viewers were gripped by the videos' unfiltered nature, a contrast to the heavily produced and camera-aware content found on TikTok and YouTube today. Writer Ryan Broderick [6]wrote in his newsletter Garbage Day that the project is "beautiful, haunting, funny, and sort of magical. Like staring into a security camera of the past." Mashable's Tim Marcin [7]called it "the kind of authenticity that's all too rare online these days."

>

> The website has more than 280,000 views and millions of video plays, Walz said — meaning plenty of viewers are sticking around to watch many of the videos.

The article includes an intesting observation from Christian Sandvig, a digital media professor at the University of Michigan. "The people who made the video might not even remember that they shared them!"



[1] https://walzr.com/IMG_0001

[2] https://ben-mini.github.io/2024/img-0416

[3] https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/youtube-full-old-unseen-home-165322378.html

[4] https://walzr.com/bop-spotter

[5] https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/10/02/0310226/hidden-bopspotter-microphone-is-constantly-surveilling-san-francisco-for-good

[6] https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-internet-s-most-vocal-freaks

[7] https://mashable.com/article/candid-youtube-video-random-generator

Transport for London (TfL) has [1]dropped its investigation into how it could introduce driverless trains on the London Underground. From a report:

> One of the many conditions imposed on TfL during the pandemic to keep services running when most of us were stuck at home was that it would investigate how it could introduce driverless trains on the Underground. TfL was required to produce a business case for converting the Waterloo & City line and Piccadilly line to a DLR-style operation, and in September 2021, it advertised for consultancy work on the project.

>

> It's now been confirmed that the study reached the same conclusion that every other study into the issue has already reported -- it'll cost an awful lot of money for very little benefit. Despite the claims that it would prevent strikes on the tube, the reality is that it wouldn't, as driverless trains would still have staff on board, just as the DLR does, and the DLR still has strikes.



[1] https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/tfl-abandons-plans-for-driverless-tube-trains-77435/

Performance improvement plans, a controversial corporate tool for managing underperforming employees, are becoming [1]increasingly prevalent in U.S. workplaces . HR Acuity data shows workers subject to performance actions rose from 33.4 per 1,000 in 2020 to 43.6 per 1,000 in 2023.

While companies maintain PIPs offer a path to improvement, WSJ -- citing HR executives and former employees -- describes them as primarily providing legal protection against wrongful termination lawsuits and an alternative to formal layoffs. Only 10-25% of employees survive the 30-90 day improvement plans, with most either being terminated or leaving voluntarily.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/the-most-hated-way-of-firing-someone-is-more-popular-than-ever-it-s-the-age-of-the-pip/ar-AA1uXdgc

An anonymous reader shares a report:

> Google Cloud dangled hundreds of million of euros worth of financial incentives to [1]ally itself with an association of European cloud providers that had lodged a complaint against Microsoft, according to confidential documents seen by The Register.

>

> Amit Zavery, the former Vice President of Google Cloud Platform, presented to a selection of members of the Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) trade body, then to the board and finally to the entire organization, according to sources that asked to remain anonymous.

>

> In the presentation, seen by us, Zavery offered to provide a Members Innovation Fund of $4.2 million, which Google described as $105,000 per member to be used as "immediate funding for projects and license fees of CISPE members to support innovation in open cloud ecosystems." CISPE actually has 36 members now, including Oxya, Leaseweb, UpCloud and AWS -- the latter being the only non-European participant. The number has grown from 27 in July. Google also offered to contribute an additional $10.6 million to the trade association, described in the presentation as "participating and membership resources."



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/28/google_offered_millions_to_cispe/

British members of parliament have voted to [1]legalize assisted dying , approving a contentious proposal that would make the United Kingdom one of a small handful of nations to allow terminally ill people to end their lives. From a report:

> Lawmakers in the House of Commons voted by 330 to 275 to support the bill, after an hours-long debate in the chamber and a years-long campaign by high-profile figures that drew on emotional first-hand testimony.

>

> Britain is now set to join a small club of nations to have legalized the process, and one of the largest by population to allow it. The bill must still clear the House of Lords and parliamentary committees, but Friday's vote marked the most important hurdle.

>

> It allows people with a terminal condition and less than six months to live to take a substance to end their lives, as long as they are capable of making the decision themselves. Two doctors, and then a High Court judge, would need to sign off on the choice. Canada, New Zealand, Spain and most of Australia allow assisted dying in some form, as do several US states including Oregon, Washington and California.



[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/uk/uk-assisted-dying-vote-gbr-intl/index.html

Riot Games has announced sweeping changes to its [1]terms of service , expanding penalties for player [2]misconduct beyond in-game behavior to include content creation and social media activities.

The new rules, Engadget reports, enable "Riot-wide bans" for violations across platforms where players discuss or stream Riot games. The company will not actively monitor social media but will respond to reported violations, particularly during game livestreams.



[1] https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/creator-related-updates-riot-privacy-notice-terms-of-service

[2] https://www.engadget.com/gaming/riot-games-is-cracking-down-on-players-off-platform-conduct-173303058.html

[1]SpzToid writes:

> A Chinese commercial vessel that has been surrounded by European warships in international waters for a week is [2]central to an investigation of suspected sabotage that threatens to test the limits of maritime law -- and heighten tensions between Beijing and European capitals.

>

> Investigators suspect that the crew of the Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier -- 225 meters long, 32 meters wide and loaded with Russian fertilizer -- deliberately severed two critical data cables last week as its anchor was dragged along the Baltic seabed for over 100 miles.

>

> Their probe now centers on whether the captain of the Chinese-owned ship, which departed the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga on Nov. 15, was induced by Russian intelligence to carry out the sabotage. It would be the latest in a series of attacks on Europe's critical infrastructure that law-enforcement and intelligence officials say have been orchestrated by Russia.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~SpzToid

[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/chinese-ship-suspected-of-deliberately-dragging-anchor-for-100-miles-to-cut-baltic-cables/ar-AA1uRlcC

A broad coalition of Canada's major news organizations, including the Toronto Star, Metroland Media, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press and CBC, is [1]suing tech giant OpenAI , saying the company is illegally using news articles to train its ChatGPT software. From a report:

> It's the first time all of a country's major news publishers have come together in litigation against OpenAI. The suit, filed in Ontario's Superior Court of Justice Friday morning, seeks punitive damages, disgorgement of any profits made by OpenAI from using the news organizations' articles, and an injunction barring OpenAI from using any of the news articles in the future.

>

> "Journalism is in the public interest. OpenAI using other companies' journalism for their own commercial gain is not. It's illegal," said a joint statement from the media organizations, which are represented by law firm Lenczner Slaght.



[1] https://www.toronto.com/news/business/canada-s-major-news-organizations-band-together-to-sue-chatgpt-creator-openai/article_68f6a297-b454-5106-b2de-226cbc2fb1b6.html

[1]king*jojo writes:

> KDE and GNOME have decided that because they're not big and complicated enough already, they might work better if they [2]have their own custom distributions underneath . What's the worst that could happen?

>

> A talk from this year's KDE conference, Akademy 2024, looks like it's going to become real. The talk, by KDE developer Harald Sitter, was entitled An Operating System of Our Own, and the idea sounds simple enough: Sitter proposed an official KDE Linux distribution. Now the proposal is gathering steam and a plan is coming together for an official KDE Linux -- codenamed "Project Banana."



[1] https://slashdot.org/~king*jojo

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/29/kde_and_gnome_distros/

Climate change has [1]intensified hurricane wind speeds by an average of 19 mph in 84% of North Atlantic hurricanes between 2019-2024, according to [2]new research that links warming ocean temperatures to storm intensity for individual hurricanes.

This year, Hurricanes Helene and Milton slammed into Florida, breaking meteorological records and causing catastrophic damage. The study by Climate Central found that higher sea surface temperatures elevated most hurricanes by an entire category on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with three storms, including Hurricane Rafael, seeing wind speeds increase by 34 mph due to warming.

Researchers calculated storm intensity using models of pre-warming ocean temperatures. "It's really the evolution of our science on sea surface temperature attribution that has allowed this work to take place," said lead author Daniel Gilford, noting that hurricane damage increases exponentially with wind speed. For example, a storm with double the wind speed can cause 256 times as much damage. The methodology enables scientists to determine climate change impacts on hurricanes in near-real time.



[1] https://nautil.us/the-new-climate-math-on-hurricanes-1164220/

[2] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2752-5295/ad8d02

Meta plans to build a $10 billion private, " [1]mother of all " undersea fiber-optic cable network [2]spanning over 40,000 kilometers around the world , according to TechCrunch. The project, dubbed "W" for its shape, would run from the U.S. east coast to the west coast via India, South Africa and Australia, avoiding regions prone to cable sabotage including the Red Sea and South China Sea.

The social media giant, which co-owns 16 existing cable networks, aims to gain full control over traffic prioritization for its services. The project mirrors Google's strategy of private cable ownership. The construction could take 5-10 years to complete.



[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/metas-2-billion-mother-all-submarine-cables-ai-forever-sunil-tagare-a3byc/

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/29/meta-plans-to-build-a-10b-subsea-cable-spanning-the-world-sources-say/

Major academic publishers including Elsevier and Springer Nature are [1]grappling with a sophisticated new journal hijacking scam that precisely mimics their websites to deceive researchers.

The fraudulent operation, reported by Retraction Watch, has cloned at least 13 legitimate journals through fake domains, according to Crossref data. The scam, the publication reports, features high-quality website clones that replicate even cookie consent popups. The operation assigns its own DOI prefix to published papers and offers paper-writing and peer review services typical of paper mills.



[1] https://retractionwatch.com/2024/11/25/exclusive-new-hijacking-scam-targets-elsevier-springer-nature-and-other-major-publishers/

Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun [1]consumed Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian" artwork -- a banana taped to a wall -- during an event in Hong Kong on Friday, declaring "the real value is the concept itself." Sun, founder of cryptocurrency platform Tron, purchased the piece for $6.2 million at Sotheby's last week, significantly above its $1-1.5 million estimate.

The acquisition included only a certificate of authenticity and assembly instructions, not the physical banana or tape. The Chinese-born entrepreneur, who faces SEC charges over fraud and securities violations, made the payment in cryptocurrency.



[1] https://www.ft.com/content/76289406-300d-4e6c-8401-aa30d4a8f4c7

Major technology companies [1]criticized Australia's new law banning social media access for users under 16, which [2]passed parliament on Thursday with bipartisan support . The legislation threatens fines up to $32 million for platforms failing to block minors. TikTok warned the ban could drive young users to riskier online spaces, while Meta called it a "predetermined process," questioning the rushed parliamentary review that gave stakeholders only 24 hours for submissions. Reuters adds:

> Snapchat parent Snap said it leaves many questions unanswered. [...] Sunita Bose, managing director of Digital Industry Group, which has most social media companies as members, said no one can confidently explain how the law will work in practice. "The community and platforms are in the dark about what exactly is required of them," she said.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/big-tech-says-australia-rushed-social-media-ban-for-youths-under-16/ar-AA1uXN2w

[2] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/28/1316247/australia-to-ban-under-16s-from-social-media-after-passing-landmark-law

LWN:

> The long-awaited release of the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) 3.0 [1]is on the way , marking the first major update since version 2.10 was [2]released in April 2018 . It now features a GTK 3 user interface and GIMP 3.0 introduces significant changes to the core platform and plugins. This release also brings performance and usability improvements, as well as more compatibility with Wayland and complex input sources.

>

> GIMP 3.0 is the first release to use GTK 3, a more modern foundation than the GTK 2 base of prior releases. GTK 4 has been available for a few years now, and is on the project's radar, but the plan was always to finish the GTK 3 work first. Moving to GTK 3 brings initial Wayland compatibility and HiDPI scaling. In addition, this allows for GIMP users to take advantage of multi-touch input, bringing pinch-to-zoom gestures to the program, and offering a better experience when working with complex peripherals, such as advanced drawing tablets. These features were not previously possible due to the limitations of GTK 2.

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> A secondary result of the transition to GTK 3 is a refreshed user interface (UI), now with support for CSS themes included. In this release, four themes are available by default, including light, dark, and gray themes, along with a high-contrast theme for users with visual impairments. Additionally, this release has transitioned to using GTK's header bar component, typically used to combine an application's toolbar and title bar into one unit. To maintain familiarity with previous releases, however, GIMP 3.0 still supports the traditional menu interface.



[1] https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/998793/6c8d00bd1b2a7948/

[2] https://developers.slashdot.org/story/19/01/02/1655210/gimp-developers-outline-plan-for-2019