ReHacked vol. 304: 20 Albums Turning 50 in 2025, The global struggle over how to regulate AI and more

The global struggle over how to regulate AI - Rest of World #ai #law #longread

The drafted bill was one of the most comprehensive to date outside the West. It proposed a new oversight authority on AI, copyright protections for content used to train AI, and protections of individual rights, with anti-discriminatory checks in biometric systems and the right to contest AI decisions with significant human impact. It banned autonomous weapons and tools that could facilitate the creation and distribution of child sexual abuse material, and put stricter oversight on social media algorithms that can amplify disinformation. Global advocates for AI regulation saw Brazil as a potential model for other countries. But Pontes believed the bill could stifle investment and innovation — and saw it, he later told Rest of World, as “based on fear.”

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Tools for Humanity: Brazil bans Sam Altman's tech firm Tools for Humanity from paying for iris scans - The Economic Times #privacy

Brazil's data protection authority has ordered Tools for Humanity, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, to stop offering iris scan compensation in the country. The ban, effective from Saturday, aims to ensure individuals' free will remains uninfluenced, impacting the firm's global identity project involving cryptocurrency incentives.

Life Lessons from the First Half-Century of My Career – Communications of the ACM #career #longread

There is comprehensive elaboration inside, just click that link above.

1. Family first! Don’t sacrifice your family’s happiness on the altar of success.
2. Choose happiness.
3. It’s the people, not the projects, that you value in the long run.
4. The cost of praise is small. The value to others is inestimable.
5. Seek out honest feedback; it might be right.
6. “For better or for worse, benchmarks shape a field.”
7. “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”
8. Beware of those who believe they are the smartest people in the room.
9. “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”
10. “Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.”
11. “There are no losers on a winning team, and no winners on a losing team.”
12. Lead by example.
13. “Audentes Fortuna iuvat.” (Fortune favors the bold).
14. Culture matters.
15. It’s not how many projects you start; it’s how many you finish.
16. Look for the positive opportunities.

Men lose half their emotional support networks between 30 and 90, decades-long study finds #health #psychology

Petrova and colleagues found that emotional support networks declined significantly across the adult lifespan, with participants’ reported number of emotional support providers decreasing by approximately 50% between the ages of 30 and 90. At age 30, participants reported relying on an average of two support providers, which decreased to just one by age 90. This linear decline suggests that aging is accompanied by a reduction in the number of people individuals regularly turn to for emotional support. Interestingly, this decline was consistent across participants, indicating that the trajectory of network shrinkage was a shared experience within this cohort.

Why North England is poor. #economy #history #society #longread

Don't be shy to click on the link above - there are a lot more inside.

1. The Norman conquest.

Since at least 1066, England has been ruled from the South East for the benefit of those who rule it and the places where they live and work.
2. Ban on Northern universities.

In the 1600’s, and for two centuries after, England and then Britain’s overwhelmingly and disproportionately Southern Parliament in Westminster rejected North English requests to establish universities in the North. The outsized influence of members representing Oxford and Cambridge and graduates of their universities played a big role in this. The Parliamentarian victory in the English civil war was working on the problem but the Monarchy was restored before Northern universities were established.
3. The industrial revolution.

The lack of universities in North England meant that the industrial revolution was heavily powered by Scottish science and largely occurred at a distance, both geographically and culturally, from London and Westminster. It was this distance that allowed North England to prosper through industry, despite constant effort by British national institutions in South East England to constrain their success. And it was the competition of ideas across that distance that led to great Northern social ideas such as Manchester Liberalism, an end to the Corn Laws and more free trade, professional sports, and a fairer democracy eventually triumphing nationally.
4. Universities were allowed too late.

North English universities, although quickly successful once they existed, were permitted too late (1880 for Manchester). They could not quickly enough achieve a critical mass of high-skill and elite institutions in North England that would help the economy to retain a technological advantage or transition to higher productivity service activities when Britain’s industrial advantage started to decline.
5. Grouping, nationalisation, and privatisation destroyed the North's institutions.

North England’s strongest local institutions were born of the industrial revolution and included the railways and the municipal corporations. Alongside wealthy local industrialists, municipal corporations built and municipalised gas, electricity, and water networks, healthcare, education, and social housing systems and much more. These service and assets were taken out of local control and run overwhelmingly from Westminster as they were grouped, nationalised, and privatised by UK governments of both left and right from the 1920s onward.

Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive #history #photography #rabbithole

From the front line to the home front 1939-1945

Rafael Araujo's 20+ Mesmerizing Geometrical Masterpieces - Abakcus #art

Artist Rafael Araujo expresses his love of nature through geometry, intertwining mathematical precision with the organic beauty found within the natural world. By incorporating the golden spiral and helixes into his compositions, Rafael Araujo establishes a harmonious blend of science and art, using these concepts as the foundational basis for his stunning depictions of shells and kaleidoscopes of butterflies. The result is a breathtaking collection of drawings where the natural elements are intricately sketched and vividly colored.

At the same time, the geometric guiding lines remain present, serving as an essential underpinning of the artwork. In his own words, “Through the thorough use of geometry, I try to attain and worship the platonic perfection of Nature.” This perspective highlights not just his creations’ aesthetic qualities but also his profound reverence for the intricate designs and patterns inherent in the world around us.

The 7 Most Influential Papers in Computer Science History – Terrible Software #longread #computerscience #history

Explore Curated Bluesky Feeds by Category | BskyInfo #internet

My Best Friend's Birthday, Quentin Tarantino's 1987 Debut Film | Open Culture #art #history #cinema

Few­er than 40 min­utes sur­vive of My Best Friend’s Birth­day, the first film direct­ed by Quentin Taran­ti­no. But its brief screen time runs dense with ref­er­ences to Elvis Pres­ley, the Par­tridge Fam­i­ly, A Count­ess from Hong Kong, Rod Stew­art, Deputy Dawg, and That Darn Cat. In between the rapid-fire gab ses­sions, we also wit­ness a slap­stick kung-fu bat­tle and even hear a bit of repur­posed ear­ly-sev­en­ties pop music. Though a fire claimed the sec­ond half of what was pre­sum­ably the pic­ture’s only print, the first half, which you can watch free on YouTube, leaves no doubt as to the iden­ti­ty of its auteur. In some sense, it bears an even deep­er imprint of Taran­ti­no’s per­son­al­i­ty than his sub­se­quent films, since he stars in it as well. To behold the ear­ly-twen­tysome­thing Taran­ti­no por­tray­ing the good-heart­ed and aggres­sive­ly enthu­si­as­tic but jit­tery and dis­tractible rock­a­bil­ly DJ Clarence Poole is to behold the Quentin Taran­ti­no pub­lic per­sona in an embry­on­ic form, a dis­tilled form — or both.

Largest study of its kind proves 'bird brain' is a misnomer #nature

"This showed that the two correspond so closely that there is no need for the actual brain to estimate a bird's brain proportions," says the lead author, Flinders University Ph.D. Aubrey Keirnan.

"While 'bird brain' is often used as an insult, the brains of birds are so large that they are practically a braincase with a beak. We decided to test if this also means that the brain's imprint on the skull reflects the proportions of two crucial parts of the actual brain."

Joined by researchers at the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, the team scanned the skulls of 136 bird species for which they also had microscopic brain sections or literature data.

The Peppermills of Jens Quistgaard #design #art

Over the course of his prolific and varied design career, Jens Quistgaard created a series of peppermills for Dansk Designs. Taking the dispersal of salt and pepper as the jumping off point, JHQ's designs are a meditation on the possibilities of shape for a common household object. Intriguing and fantastical, the variety of forms expands the vocabulary of functional design, calling on an array of familiar references: chess pieces, tools, clocks, toys, as well as natural and botanical shapes. These peppermills, otherwise known as “table seasoners”, evoke tiny household sculptures, powerful individually, but most compelling when grouped and viewed in sets.

20 Albums Turning 50 in 2025 #music

• Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks // Released January 20, 1975
• Burning Spear’s Marcus Garvey // Released February 12, 1975
• Rush’s Fly By Night // Released February 15, 1975
• Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti // Released February 24, 1975
• David Bowie’s Young Americans // Released March 7, 1975
• The Dictators’ Go Girl Crazy! // Released March 1975
• Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic // April 8, 1975
• Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy // Released May 19, 1975
• Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger // Released May 1, 1975
• War’s Why Can’t We Be Friends // Released June 16, 1975
• Fleetwood Mac’s Fleetwood Mac // Released July 11, 1975
• Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music // July 1975
• Ohio Players’ Honey // Released August 16, 1975
• Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run // Released August 25, 1975
• Donna Summer’s Love to Love You Baby // Released August 27, 1975
• Kiss’s Alive! // Released September 10, 1975
• Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years // Released October 25, 1975
• Joni Mitchell’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns // Released November 1, 1975
• Patti Smith’s Horses // Released November 10, 1975
• Queen’s A Night at the Opera // Released November 21, 1975

It sure looks like Meta stole a lot of books to build its AI. ‹ Literary Hub #copyrights

“Meta, through a corporate representative who testified on November 20, 2024, has now admitted under oath to uploading (aka ‘seeding’) pirated files containing Plaintiffs’ works on ‘torrent’ sites,” the motion alleges. (Seeding is when torrented files are then shared with other peers after they have finished downloading.)

“This torrenting activity turned Meta itself into a distributor of the very same pirated copyrighted material that it was also downloading for use in its commercially available AI models.”

Your brain is lying to you about the “good old days” | Vox #psychology

Our brains help deceive us. Thanks to “selective memory,” humans have a tendency to forget negative events from the past and reinforce positive memories. It’s one reason why our feelings and memories about the past can be so inaccurate — we literally forget the bad things and give the good things a nice, pleasant glow. The further back the memory goes, the stronger that tendency can be.

We’re also wary of change. Psychologists call it “loss aversion” — we fear the sting of losing something will hurt much more than the benefit of gaining something. As a result, change can feel fundamentally scary, which also makes us feel more warmly about the era before change: the past.

Sweden is Building World's Largest City Made From Timber | TIME #architecture #cities #futurism

This is the beginning of what Swedish property developer Atrium Ljungberg describes as “the largest mass timber project in the world.” On the outskirts of Sweden’s capital, construction of ‘Stockholm Wood City’ began in October, several months ahead of schedule, and is set to provide 2,000 new homes by 2027.

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