The EU far right wants to give Elon Musk a free speech award: What a surprise that it’s only the far right that want to award Musk the same status as Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai et al.

Sakharov Prize: A prize given by the European Parliament to “individuals or groups who have dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights and freedom of thought”.

Elon Musk backs down in his fight with Brazilian judges to restore X: Musk presumably decided that his wealth was more important than his supposed ‘principles’.

A battle with the gods: Exercising creativity is difficult, but forgoing the attempt may be even worse.

Highlights from Matt Mullenweg’s Spiciest Word Camp Presentation at WordCamp US 2024: More info and context on, and reactions to, the Mullenweg / WP Engine feud.

As the open social web grows, a new nonprofit looks to expand the ‘fediverse’: I’m happy to see time and money going into improving and promoting open de-siloing technologies such as ActivityPub federation.

Social Web Foundation: It’s a slightly controversial organisation - mainly I think for implying via its name that it’s something with wider scope than it has - but anything that might help knock down the walled silos of monopoly big tech is a positive.

Maine woman sues Anthem insurance for failing to cover weight loss drugs: I hope she wins - if the drug is deemed medically necessary then that should be sufficient.

Obesity prevalence among US adults falls slightly to 40%, remains higher than 10 years ago: CDC: Hints of a levelling off of the long term trend of increasing rates of obesity, but prevalence of severe obesity is still going up.

Two New Studies Point to Diabetes from COVID: Getting Covid may be a risk factor for developing diabetes, whilst having diabetes is a risk factor for getting severe Covid symptoms.

14,000 Chemicals in Food Packaging, 3,601 Enter Our Bodies: Thousands of chemicals used in food prep and distribution are measurably present within our bodies, some likely hazardous.

Criminal Investigative Analysis: Part 1 of 4 of a Law Enforcement Bulletin article I found when looking up whether the Behavioural Analysis Unit from “Criminal Minds” was real - it is, but what they do is usually rather different.

Keir Starmer now less popular than Rishi Sunak, poll suggests: 45 point drop in approval since the election.

The case for public funding of UK political parties: One possible alternative to the current system of most funding coming from donors.

Almost half of UK political donations come from private wealthy ‘super-donors’: Maybe letting very wealthy people effectively buy elections isn’t exactly ideal for democracy.

Elon Musk Is a National Security Risk: It’d be hard to argue this wasn’t true even if Mr Musk wasn’t so…problematic.

Brat summer: is the long era of clean living finally over?: What it means to be a cultural brat in 2024.

The brutal truth behind Italy’s migrant reduction: beatings and rape by EU-funded forces in Tunisia: The unspeakable cruelty we’re seemingly okay with raining down on people who want or need to migrate knows no bounds.

The rise of Britishcore: 100 experiences that define and unite modern Britons: I always enjoy a new ‘core, and at least this one’s easy for us Brits to adhere to.

Walkie-talkie blasts: attacks on Hezbollah kill 20: The earlier exploding pager attack has been followed up with a similar attack via walkie-talkies.

Do you really need a new phone every 2 years? How to get more out of your devices: If you must upgrade there are several options beyond throwing your old phone away.

Repairing – not recycling – is the first step to tackling smartphone e-waste: Reusing and repairing your old phone is much better for the environment than recycling it.

‘BlueAnon’ conspiracy theories flood social media after Trump rally shooting: The first Trump assassination attempt sparked a wave of conspiracy theories from both sides of the political spectrum.

Using LLMs to Simplify your Writing: Using LLMs as a personal writing editor seems like one of their more benign uses if you’re happy to fact-check the results - and this idea is one my colleagues probably wish I’d take up.

Ban warnings fly as users dare to probe the “thoughts” of OpenAI’s latest model: OpenAI’s typical levels of actual openness surfacing again as they threaten to ban anyone asking their new model why it says the things it does.