Speed Bump - Dave Coverly - https://www.speedbump.com/

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Like plenty of local boys before him, Neil has come home to the stretch of Australian coast where he was born. Unlike most of them, he trails fame, fans and property damage in his wake. He is also a 1,000 kg (2,200 pound) elephant seal.

In June, the bellowing and blubbery 5-year-old mammal hauled himself onto land for his twice-yearly tour of beachside towns in southern Tasmania state after months of feeding at sea. That’s posing problems now that he weighs as much as a small car and has a social media following more than double Tasmania’s human population.

His rampage through local infrastructure has claimed bent traffic bollards, a sign warning the public about seals and a fence that did not survive Neil’s attempt to vault it. The rest of the time he lies placidly any place he likes, which is sometimes the middle of the road, bringing towns he visits to a standstill.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/goodnewseveryone/p/2171151/tens-of-thousands-march-in-the-first-budapest-pride-since-viktor-orban-was-voted-out

That's okay, I needed to do a full cleaning anyways

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/49123203

The Federal Communications Commission will vote to eliminate a rule that requires Internet service providers to list all of their so-called “passthrough” fees on an easily accessible broadband price label. The FCC vote could also make the price labels themselves a bit harder for consumers to find.

ISPs routinely advertise prices much lower than those actually charged to consumers on their monthly bills. One method of raising monthly bill prices above advertised rates is to tack on fees that, ISPs claim, are used to offset charges imposed by local governments.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/49145189

cross-posted from: https://lemmings.world/post/43676261

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/goodnewseveryone/p/2147904/cervical-cancer-deaths-fall-to-zero-in-young-women-given-vaccine

This is the first cohort of folks that age who were offered the HPV vaccine when they were 12 or 13.

Expect even more dramatic results as that group enters their 30s & 40s.

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/49158153

[Orange County] - Cops across the Golden State accessed the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s (OCSD) Flock Safety automated license plate reader (ALPR) system at least 145 times to track protesters within the span of a year and seven months, newly obtained data shows. Eleven California police agencies, one as far as Daly City, located almost 400 miles away, searched for protesters using OCSD’s Flock data, which contains license plate numbers, timestamps, locations, and photos of vehicles and their surroundings. The majority of the dates that police searched for people landed directly on or around dates when protests against ICE were held. The data was shared with Inadvertent by a local anti-ALPR organizer, who obtained it through a public records request with the help of Oakland Privacy. The data, officially called a network audit, is a log spanning approximately 19 months that shows other agencies’ individual queries of OCSD’s Flock. The records provide a snapshot of how police have been using Flock’s powerful mass surveillance system on the public — without the public’s consent.

On and around June 14 last year, officers from Anaheim Police Department (APD), San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, Riverside police and sheriff’s agencies, Daly City Police Department, Salinas Police Department, and the California Highway Patrol looked for people who were involved in protests using Flock’s powerful search features, such as license plate lookups or a freeform-AI-powered search. The features enable anyone with access to the Flock system to look for people who are in view of Flock’s pervasive camera systems. Flock’s AI-powered system allows cops to search for specific identifiers on vehicles or people.

The reasons for the searches, cited by officers, are contained in the log. They are unspecific and include “protest”, “ICE PROTEST”, “gene autry protest” and other vague terms. Cops are required by state law to list the reason for searching through the Flock system, but the data shows that even beyond tracking people engaged in First Amendment activity, police have been logging their reasons using vague one-word responses. The most specific search for protesters read “Hit and run protest,” logged by the Riverside Police Department.

...

Outside of the mid-June 2025 searches, officers continued to provide little details about their reasons for scouring the Flock system for protesters. One agency, Escondido Police Department, queried the Flock system at least 28 times on February 2 last year for “Protest ATI Vehicle” and “Immigration Protest.” These searches line up with several arrests that followed a protest against ICE terror in Escondido on that date.

“Protest is a common one. Protests, protesters,” said Ed Vogel, a member of DeFlock who researches ALPR usage across the country, when asked about police using ALPRs to search for protestors.

“It’s another example as to how surveillance like ALPR, not just ALPR, but surveillance is a symptom of a crisis of democracy,” Vogel added.

...

The revelation of OCSD’s Flock network having been used to surveil protestors comes after President Trump issued National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive that criminalizes dissent in the United States. Recently, anti-ICE protestors in Texas were handed lengthy prison sentences for their participation in a noise demonstration outside of an ICE detention center in Prairieland, Texas. One individual, who was not even at the protest, was sentenced to thirty years for moving a box of zines.

“Surveillance shows a crisis of democracy by, one, how these technologies are procured. Oftentimes it’s done behind closed doors, oftentimes it’s done without fully disclosing information to the public or to elected officials,” said Vogel, “There’s very little public engagement around whether we should enter into a contract, no real democratic process around the signing of the contract, or asking around, ‘Is this the community we want to build? Is this public safety?’”

Samsung announced stellar results last night, noting a 19x quarterly increase in operating profit, allowing the firm to pass Nvidia as the most profitable in the world. Kim Yong-Kwan, president and head of corporate management, strategy, and operations for Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions (DS) division, said that the semiconductor unit's 2026 operating profit will exceed everything it has earned across roughly 40 years in the chip business.

Brokerage consensus puts Samsung's full-year 2026 operating profit near 300 trillion won ($196 billion), and its second-quarter figure at about 84.6 trillion won ($55.1 billion). Samsung easily beat the consensus with $58.5 billion when it posted preliminary results on July 7, overtaking Nvidia's most recent quarterly operating profit of $53.54 billion and becoming the most profitable technology company in the world for the period, on the back of AI-driven memory demand.

Samsung's DS division booked 53.7 trillion won ($35.1 billion) of the company's 57.2 trillion won in total operating profit during the first quarter of 2026, roughly 94% of the total, which is why the division's projection sits so close to Samsung's full-year consensus.

"This year's profit will exceed the cumulative profit generated over the past 40 years since we entered the semiconductor business," Kim Yong-Kwan told staff, scoping the claim to the chip business rather than the wider conglomerate.

Samsung entered the semi space by acquiring Korea Semiconductor in 1974 and shipped its first 64Kb DRAM in the mid-1980s. SamMobile estimates the division's cumulative operating profit from 1985 to 2025 at under 300 trillion won. Samsung's smartphone, display, and appliance businesses have earned far more than that over the same period, so the record applies to memory and logic chips, not to Samsung overall.

Contract prices for DRAM and NAND have risen steeply through 2026 as AI server demand outran supply, pushing memory makers toward 40% to 50% operating margins on NAND in the first half of the year. Prices for 12 GB LPDDR5X modules have reached about $145, and Samsung is negotiating further commodity DRAM increases for the third quarter. The DS division's earnings move with those contract prices, and Samsung has told customers to expect tight supply through at least 2027.

1 TB is more than enough for most people. I am wondering how they will stay in business. Who would pay for that second Terabyte?

Edit: they recently changed their free tier to 30 GB. That is still pretty generous. I knew they wouldn't last giving away a free TB for everyone.

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/49158153

[Orange County] - Cops across the Golden State accessed the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s (OCSD) Flock Safety automated license plate reader (ALPR) system at least 145 times to track protesters within the span of a year and seven months, newly obtained data shows. Eleven California police agencies, one as far as Daly City, located almost 400 miles away, searched for protesters using OCSD’s Flock data, which contains license plate numbers, timestamps, locations, and photos of vehicles and their surroundings. The majority of the dates that police searched for people landed directly on or around dates when protests against ICE were held. The data was shared with Inadvertent by a local anti-ALPR organizer, who obtained it through a public records request with the help of Oakland Privacy. The data, officially called a network audit, is a log spanning approximately 19 months that shows other agencies’ individual queries of OCSD’s Flock. The records provide a snapshot of how police have been using Flock’s powerful mass surveillance system on the public — without the public’s consent.

On and around June 14 last year, officers from Anaheim Police Department (APD), San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, Riverside police and sheriff’s agencies, Daly City Police Department, Salinas Police Department, and the California Highway Patrol looked for people who were involved in protests using Flock’s powerful search features, such as license plate lookups or a freeform-AI-powered search. The features enable anyone with access to the Flock system to look for people who are in view of Flock’s pervasive camera systems. Flock’s AI-powered system allows cops to search for specific identifiers on vehicles or people.

The reasons for the searches, cited by officers, are contained in the log. They are unspecific and include “protest”, “ICE PROTEST”, “gene autry protest” and other vague terms. Cops are required by state law to list the reason for searching through the Flock system, but the data shows that even beyond tracking people engaged in First Amendment activity, police have been logging their reasons using vague one-word responses. The most specific search for protesters read “Hit and run protest,” logged by the Riverside Police Department.

...

Outside of the mid-June 2025 searches, officers continued to provide little details about their reasons for scouring the Flock system for protesters. One agency, Escondido Police Department, queried the Flock system at least 28 times on February 2 last year for “Protest ATI Vehicle” and “Immigration Protest.” These searches line up with several arrests that followed a protest against ICE terror in Escondido on that date.

“Protest is a common one. Protests, protesters,” said Ed Vogel, a member of DeFlock who researches ALPR usage across the country, when asked about police using ALPRs to search for protestors.

“It’s another example as to how surveillance like ALPR, not just ALPR, but surveillance is a symptom of a crisis of democracy,” Vogel added.

...

The revelation of OCSD’s Flock network having been used to surveil protestors comes after President Trump issued National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive that criminalizes dissent in the United States. Recently, anti-ICE protestors in Texas were handed lengthy prison sentences for their participation in a noise demonstration outside of an ICE detention center in Prairieland, Texas. One individual, who was not even at the protest, was sentenced to thirty years for moving a box of zines.

“Surveillance shows a crisis of democracy by, one, how these technologies are procured. Oftentimes it’s done behind closed doors, oftentimes it’s done without fully disclosing information to the public or to elected officials,” said Vogel, “There’s very little public engagement around whether we should enter into a contract, no real democratic process around the signing of the contract, or asking around, ‘Is this the community we want to build? Is this public safety?’”

Hold on to your butts, comrades. We're about to get a preview of 2050. I just checked the live data, and the area off the coast of South America that is the index water for ENSO is 9° F above average in places. This is going to be a wild year.

TikTok is growing its data harvesting empire, and avoiding the app won’t protect you – but some easy steps can keep you safe.

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/49158540

The Family has launched a GoFundMe to help with funeral and burial costs, legal expenses, etc.

On Tuesday morning, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot and killed by an ICE agent on his way to work in Houston’s East End. Salgado Araujo was a devoted father and husband, a hardworking construction worker, and a member of our community. His death has left a family grieving, and city and nation once again demanding answers.

I’m a member of Houston City Council, and like countless other residents here, I’m heartbroken and outraged. We owe Salgado Araujo and his family nothing less than truth, transparency and action.

That is why I am calling for an immediate and impartial investigation, with all available video and findings released as soon as possible. Any use of deadly force must face full scrutiny and accountability.

ICE’s account of Salgado Araujo’s death echoes a story ICE has told America before. After ICE agents killed Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three, and Alex Pretti, a nurse who cared for veterans, the Trump administration rushed to defend its agents and discredit those they killed. 

Now, before an independent review, ICE is asking Houstonians to accept a nearly identical story about Mr. Salgado Araujo.

We must not allow ICE’s violence to become normal in the streets of Houston.

What we are witnessing is the direct result of President Donald Trump’s reckless decision to flood cities with federal agents, prioritizing fear, intimidation, and political theater over public safety. Time and again, this administration has shown that it is willing to endanger lives, even when local leaders and communities make clear that these tactics make cities less safe, not more.

Parents worry that going to work could end with their family being shattered.Even before this shooting, nearly 4,000 Houston ISD students stopped going to school out of fear that someone they love could become the next headline. Domestic violence survivors and neighbors trying to help others wonder whether calling 911 could lead to ICE being called to detain or deport.

To every Houstonian carrying that fear, regardless of status, please know that you belong here. Thousands of Houstonians are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with you, and I am one of them.

...

Salgado Araujo’s death makes painfully clear why action is still needed at every level of government.

Congress should not give ICE billions of dollars to conduct deadly operations in our neighborhoods while the agency evades the oversight and accountability
we demand of local police. We, as a city, must stand up to ensure that HPD officers are not used as an extension of ICE, that local law enforcement databases do not become deportation tools, and that city resources are never used to aid ICE in terrorizing families.

I am grateful to the hundreds of Houstonians who have already organized and peacefully taken to the streets to demand justice for Mr. Salgado Araujo and accountability from ICE.

I will stand alongside Mr. Salgado Araujo’s family and the League of United Latin American Citizens this morning, and I will continue standing with our community in the long days ahead. Our grief and anger cannot fade when the headlines move on. We must continue to demand a transparent investigation, pressure elected officials to act, and vote for leaders committed to reining in ICE’s abuses.

As a Houston City Council member, I will keep doing everything within my authority to protect Houstonians. Every Houstonian should be able to go to work, take their kids to school, report a crime, and call for help without fear. That is the Houston our families deserve, and it is the Houston I will keep fighting for.

Alejandra Salinas is a Houston City Council member, third-generation Texan, and nationally recognized attorney. She is the first openly LGBTQ+ Latina ever elected to Houston City Council and the first Latina elected citywide in nearly 30 years.