- Remote Stands, Bus Boarding, and Last-Minute Gates: A Tale of Two Airport Systems (Gad’s Newsletter)
- Palantir Is Extending Its Reach Even Further Into Government (Wired)
- PHP – The Toyota Corolla Of Programming (De Programmatica Ipsum)
- US Nuclear Weapons Return to UK After 2008 Withdrawal: Reports (The Defense Post)
- North Korean spies posing as remote workers have infiltrated hundreds of companies, says CrowdStrike (TechCrunch)
The scheme relies on North Koreans using false identities, resumes, and work histories to gain employment and earn money for the regime, as well as allowing access for the workers to steal data from the companies they work for and later extort them. The aim is to generate funds for North Korea’s sanctioned nuclear weapons program, which has so far made billions of dollars for the regime to date.
Category: Politics
Tuesday texts to read – 5
- Trump says he wants to deport ‘the worst of the worst.’ Government data tells another story (Associated Press)
- NASA’s X-59 Quiet Supersonic Aircraft Begins Taxi Tests (NASA)
- What Will Become of the C.I.A.? (The New Yorker)
- Shale Drillers Turn Against Each Other as Toxic Water Leaks Hit Biggest US Oil Field (Financial Post)
- ACWA Power plans to develop 15 GW of wind and solar capacity in Saudi Arabia (Enerdata)
- How one man with a hacksaw and an e-bike became a Texas flood ‘hero’ (electrek)
In addition to delivering needed supplies, Evan has often found himself moving something even more important: information. “I’ve flagged down medics. I’ve been the guy that goes between Austin EMT and STAR Flight because I’m quicker than cell phones sometimes, people don’t have signal a lot of the time.”
Evan quickly points out that he isn’t the only one helping. “I’ve got an e-bike, but other people are pulling carts. People are walking, people are carrying things. Everyone is doing what they can.” But there’s no doubt that his ability to carry more gear at higher speeds and make hundreds of round-trip journeys so far in and out of the stricken neighborhood has helped impact countless lives.
Tuesday texts to read – 4
- How I Solved the Century-Old Mystery of a Miraculous Shipwreck Survivor (The Walrus)
- Inside the Collapse of the F.D.A. (NYTimes)
- The old traffic math that keeps destroying neighborhoods (Fast Company)
A status quo success story is when a road expansion allows a driver to get home 18 seconds sooner but makes it impossible for a child to safely bike to the library.
- DHS Tells Police That Common Protest Activities Are ‘Violent Tactics’
“The DHS report repeatedly conflates basic protest, organizing, and journalism with terroristic violence, thereby justifying ever more authoritarian measures by law enforcement,” says Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People. “It should be sobering, if unsurprising, that the Trump regime’s response to mass criticism of its police state tactics is to escalate those tactics.”
- American Airlines introduces first-of-its-kind Provisions by Admirals Club lounge at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (American Airlines)
Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database funding ending
From The Register —
The 25-year-old CVE program plays a huge role in vulnerability management. It is responsible overseeing the assignment and organizing of unique CVE ID numbers, such as CVE-2014-0160 and CVE-2017-5754, for specific vulnerabilities, in this case OpenSSL’s Heartbleed and Intel’s Meltdown, so that when referring to particular flaws and patches, everyone is agreed on exactly what we’re all talking about.
It is used by companies big and small, developers, researchers, the public sector, and more as the primary system for identifying and squashing bugs. When multiple people find the same hole, CVEs are useful for ensuring everyone is working toward that one specific issue.
It basically works like this: When an individual researcher or an organization discovers a new bug in some product, a CVE program partner — there are currently a few hundred across 40 countries — is asked to assess the vulnerability report and assign a unique CVE identifier for the flaw if and as necessary.
The program is sponsored, and largely funded by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, aka CISA, under the umbrella of the US Department of Homeland Security. It appears MITRE has been paid roughly $30 million since 2023 to run CVE and associated programs.
This funding ended last week. Keeping developers informed about vulnerabilities in a central location is a national security issue as well as a business issue. If your product is exploited and costs you money as a business owner is one thing, but if the thing that was exploited was a tool that other companies use as well, then the exploit could be expanded and impact huge swaths of the U.S. economy, see Heartbleed.
Remember this date
I think March 3, 2025 will go down in the history books as the day a switch flipped in the United States. A turning point, an impetus, a peak before a cliff. I’m posting this mostly for myself so I can look back and remember the exact date of when it happened.
It feels like we are entering a part of American history that we might not be ready for or one that we truly understand until a historians examine it 50 or 60 years later.
Qantas giving upgrades to politicians
According to the book, Australia’s current Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has received at least 22 free Qantas upgrades from economy class, including some for his family and personal travel. The book claims that Albanese would liaise directly with Joyce for these upgrades. It’s claimed that the requests for these upgrades date back several years, including to when Albanese had the role of Transport Minister.
Ben goes on to discuss whether this even matters.
Am I the only one who feels like we’re splitting hairs here? How about we see an Australian politician actually fight for the people, and make it so that politicians don’t get access to a special lounge, and where it is an issue when politicians get free upgrades? This isn’t how it should be, in my opinion.
To what extent did these factors influence the relationship between politicians and Qantas? I mean, it’s hard to say, though if you ask me, the Australian government has tried to block foreign competitors of Qantas, all while letting the airline operate in a way that simply isn’t in the best interest of the traveling public.
I tend to think it does matter, especially as there was (and still is) quite a bit of controversy over Qantas getting its way as foreign carriers ask for more flights into Australia as part of their bilateral agreements. The Albanese government rejected those requests.
The Guardian’s write-up on the blocking of the flights is quite telling.
“The Government has the opportunity to make some immediate decisions that will put downward pressure on airfares, and improve reliability and competitiveness,” McKenzie said.
She said the decision to refuse Qatar’s request “makes little sense, particularly when we’ve seen the cost of international flights in some cases treble in the last couple of years”. McKenzie claimed allowing it would put “downward pressure on airfares”.
McKenzie said King had provided varying reasons for rejecting the request, including wanting “to help Qantas afford to buy new planes”.
“This government seems to be running a protection racket for a major domestic carrier by refusing to increase competition and freight capacity,” McKenzie said.
Prices into and out of Australia are at all time highs and Qantas is posting record profits. Other carriers are begging to fly more flights and potentially lower fares and those requests are being rejected by a government where the leader is receiving status and upgrades from what you could call the national airline. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and gets upgraded like a duck…
Critical Thinking Skills in the Age of Information Overload
A bit of skepticism is a healthy thing. We should question motives, goals, and drivers in our leaders and in their policies. However, it seems like the sheer amount of information is stifling our ability to take in, process, and move through the chaff. News websites are run by a few different major news organizations and republish the same story with slightly different wordings across their network. Then you have the small time blogs (like this one) that publish stories as fact with little to no journalistic integrity. Those stories then get reposted on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook and “go viral” as a headline without the readers taking the time to read past the headline. So how does someone take in this deluge and not get completely steamrolled by too much information and how do they decipher what is news or opinion or simply information meant to incite some sort of innate emotion?
The first step is to look at how you find and consume news. Completely ignoring anything that is posted on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram is a good start. Most of the “news” you will find there is a friend of a friend’s blog that is usually just a way for that person to vent (case in point, what you are reading right now is that). Sure, there are some actual news stories that get posted on Facebook but a lot of that stuff bubbles to the top because the news organization is trying to get as many eyes on it as possible and they will use headlines or graphics that are misleading to get a potential reader to click the link. Turning off the television is another great way to avoid hyperbole meant to grab your attention. Local news stations are good but remember that most are owned by a big news company. This isn’t to say that they are bad, you just need to know what lens they see the world through as you take in the information.
You can see where I am going. I like written news, whether it be print or online, I tend to get my news in written form from a number of different sources. To know which way the thing that I am reading leans, I use the media bias chart from ad fontes media.
Just from a quick glance I can tell that NBC and CBS skew a little to the left while The Hill and Wall Street Journal skew a little more to the right on the political spectrum. This doesn’t mean I discount or ignore what they say, it means I read each of them knowing that they tend to favor one side or the other.
My reading list for news is the following (in no particular order)
- The Hill
- The New York Times
- The Wall Street Journal
- NPR
- Bloomberg
- ZeroHedge
- South China Morning Post
There are a few others that I will glance at including Real Clear Politics and The Atlantic but I try to spend as much of my time as close to the middle of that media bias chart as I can. Knowing that the New York Times is going to lean a little left on a story I can quickly look up the equivalent story in the Wall Street Journal and see what the right leaning thoughts are. This is particularly important when reading opinion pieces because again, these aren’t news, they are someone’s thoughts on a subject, they are going to lean one direction.
Critical Thinking Ignores Personal Bias
Maybe “ignores” is too strong of a word. Critical thinking softens personal bias. If all someone views is news and video stories about how antifa is setting the world ablaze, they are going to tend to think antifa is setting the world on fire, regardless if it is true or not. As a society, we should want as many well read people as possible. I want debates of issues but I want those debates focused on the issues, not the cruft that some news personality brought up. If more people read more opinions that don’t echo their own beliefs, we’ll be better for it. If more people know what is happening in the world, we’ll be better for it.
Part of what I see right now is hyper focus on a few domestic issues and those issues are surrounded by hyperbole and vitriol that actually adds very little to the conversation. It’s intention is to agitate the base on either side of the aisle enough to get them to repost on Facebook or Instagram and get more people agitated. We have to see through that.
Just removing vitriol is a huge first step. Abandon Facebook, or simply limit your time on it. Abandon Instagram, or at least avoid the politics cesspool part of it. Abandon Twitter, or start putting vitriolic posters on your muted list. If the yelling and noise doesn’t get constantly repeated eventually it will fizzle out and people can have debates with actual value and content. Knowing that we are being overloaded with information and disinformation is a good start.
American Airlines Considers Ending Ticket Changes If Congress Limits Fees
American Airlines Group Inc. would consider barring passengers from changing nonrefundable tickets if Congress limits what carriers can charge for the adjustments, Chief Executive Officer Doug Parker said Tuesday.
This is coming from some legislation making its way through Congress:
Doing away with changes to nonrefundable fares would make airline flights more like baseball games or concerts, where customers aren’t typically reimbursed if they buy tickets and can’t use them. Carriers currently consider the ability to change a nonrefundable ticket as a service that carries a cost. Such fees, which run up to $200, anger many passengers.
The language limiting what carriers can charge for ticket changes is being supported by consumer groups as a bipartisan provision. It is in a version of an aviation-policy bill sponsored by Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota, who is chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Parker called the proposal “really bad for consumers” last week.
I can’t say I blame American Airlines. Change fees have been around since the days of regulated aviation in the U.S. and the only reason I can think of to change the rules now is to appease some percentage of the voting public.
Is a limitation on the cost of change fees good for the consumer? On the surface, it’s easy to say yes, but when you dig into how airlines oversell flights and offer last minute seats or adapt to weather situations, I think the answer becomes a more complex “no”. Maybe Congress should simply focus on the transparency of the fares and underlying fare rules. If it becomes clear what consumers can and cannot do on a fare, rather than having to dig through pages and pages of fare rules, it becomes easier to make decisions.
What Happens When the Queen Dies?
I was fascinated by this story from Sam Knight. When Queen Elizabeth passes away it will be the end of an era and arguably the end of the British empire. A new monarch will ascend and all of the details of the transition are incredibly intricate.
Unlike the US presidency, say, monarchies allow huge passages of time – a century, in some cases – to become entwined with an individual. The second Elizabethan age is likely to be remembered as a reign of uninterrupted national decline, and even, if she lives long enough and Scotland departs the union, as one of disintegration. Life and politics at the end of her rule will be unrecognisable from their grandeur and innocence at its beginning. “We don’t blame her for it,” Philip Ziegler, the historian and royal biographer, told me. “We have declined with her, so to speak.”
Lufthansa to Suspend Flights to Venezuela
In a move reminiscent to American cutting flights to Venezuela, Lufthansa has announced that as of June 18, they will suspend their Frankfurt to Caracas flight, citing issues with the country’s currency controls and economic woes.
The suspension does not have an end date and as the situation in Venezuela continues to deteriorate, I doubt this will be the last airline to announce such a suspension. With it becoming increasingly difficult to get revenues out of the country, the viability of operating a business in Venezuela is losing proposition.