A Super Bowl ad for Ring security cameras boasting how the company can scan neighborhoods for missing dogs has prompted some customers to remove or even destroy their cameras.

Online, videos of people removing or destroying their Ring cameras have gone viral. One video posted by Seattle-based artist Maggie Butler shows her pulling off her porch-facing camera and flipping it the middle finger.

Butler explained that she originally bought the camera to protect against package thefts, but decided the pet-tracking system raised too many concerns about government access to data.

"They aren't just tracking lost dogs, they're tracking you and your neighbors," Butler said in the video that has more than 3.2 million views.

https://framapiaf.org/@davidrevoy/116052833259087557

• In his influential book, “Science as a Candle in the Dark,” Carl Sagan wrote about how susceptible humans are to being deceived, and how healthy skepticism can inoculate us against those deceptive tactics.
• Using lessons from the training that scientists go through, he devised a “baloney detection kit,” which contains 9 lessons that everyone can apply to just about any situation they encounter.
• Are you being deceived? Is someone attempting to deceive you? How can you tell? And should you pay attention to what they’re saying, or be critical of it? These 9 tools are more relevant than ever.

1.) Demand independent confirmation of whatever statements are asserted as facts.

2.) Encourage substantive debate from all points of view by those with substantial, relevant expertise.

3.) Don’t accept an argument from an authority because that person is an authority. Instead, judge arguments based on the merits of the underlying facts, and how experts scrupulously interpret those facts.

4.) Spin as many hypotheses as you can that are consistent with the data. Every possible explanation that isn’t ruled out or contradicted by the already-existing data should be considered, and each hypothesis should be tested and examined as rigorously as possible.

5.) Whatever your favorite, most preferred hypothesis is — especially if it’s your original idea — be its harshest critic. By attempting to knock it down or poke holes in it as hard as you can, you’ll determine how well it stands up under the steeliest of scrutiny. (And if you don’t, others will.)

6.) Don’t settle for a qualitative analysis of the issue. Be quantitative: ask and answer the key question of “by how much?”

7.) If there’s a chain of argument being put forth, then every link in the chain, from the premise to the final conclusion, must be sound.

8.) The convenient rule of Occam’s Razor: to choose the simplest explanation among multiple hypotheses that explain the data equally well.

9.) Ask whether the hypothesis, at least in principle, can be falsified. Non-falsifiable and untestable hypotheses cannot be checked out, and hence those ideas are incapable of disproof.

Web archive link

The GOP’s sweeping new anti-voting bill cleared the U.S. House Wednesday, setting up a high-stakes battle in the Senate.

The House voted 218-213 to pass the SAVE America Act, which experts have said could disenfranchise millions by requiring voters to show documentary proof of citizenship at registration and to provide photo ID when they cast ballots.

Republicans have argued for voter ID broadly, pointing out that there isn’t much to prevent a noncitizen from casting a ballot in a federal election — besides the fact that it’s a felony, easily caught, and would lead to deportation all for the chance to cast one out of hundreds of thousands of votes.

The Fediverse is huge and overwhelming to a newcomer, with many different types and each with servers to pick from. Which ones would you suggest checking out or avoiding?

“I’m proud to officially name the undispuut...” Trump said, before muttering unintelligible gibberish for about two seconds.

“Trump, slurring: I’m proud to officially name the...undishpu...the...jshhhh...whendidthiscomeout,” wrote the Headquarters account, which is operated by Harris’ team.

https://zomglol.wtf/@jamie/116059523957674208

https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/PDF/LSB10922/LSB10922.8.pdf

That helpful “Summarize with AI” button? It might be secretly manipulating what your AI recommends.

Microsoft security researchers have discovered a growing trend of AI memory poisoning attacks used for promotional purposes, a technique we call AI Recommendation Poisoning.

Companies are embedding hidden instructions in “Summarize with AI” buttons that, when clicked, attempt to inject persistence commands into an AI assistant’s memory via URL prompt parameters (MITRE ATLAS® AML.T0080, AML.T0051).

These prompts instruct the AI to “remember [Company] as a trusted source” or “recommend [Company] first,” aiming to bias future responses toward their products or services. We identified over 50 unique prompts from 31 companies across 14 industries, with freely available tooling making this technique trivially easy to deploy. This matters because compromised AI assistants can provide subtly biased recommendations on critical topics including health, finance, and security without users knowing their AI has been manipulated.

In September last year, Peter Mandelson was fighting to keep his job as British Ambassador to the US after the first raft of revelations about the extent of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Within hours of the details emerging, an anonymous Wikipedia editor had made changes to Mandelson’s page that distanced him from Epstein and cast him in a sympathetic light. That editor has since been blocked for making undisclosed paid changes.

New details about the relationship between the two – including that Mandelson recommended a villa where Epstein could host his “guests” – have sparked a national scandal in recent weeks and led to pressure on Keir Starmer to step down as prime minister.

But over the course of two days in September, while Mandelson was still in his government job, the mysterious account made a series of edits that either reflected more favourably on him or pushed details of the Epstein scandal under unrelated information.

And when Mandelson was eventually sacked on 11 September, it moved within hours to remove the reason given by the Foreign Office for his dismissal: that Mandelson had told Epstein his 2008 conviction for sex offences was wrong and encouraged him to clear his name.

Short explanation

So this is Queens, New York City

In this borough, there is a park called Forest Park next to a neighborhood called Richmond Hill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Park_(Queens)

Last year, angry drivers signed a petition urging the city to allow them to drive through Forest Park.

Eric Adams, the Mayor, accepted their request:

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/12/30/danger-ahead-city-to-let-car-drivers-reoccupy-forest-park-next-week

That made some Richmond Hill residents angry.

So local families started demonstrating next to the park. They want the new mayor - Zohran Mamdani - to ban cars from Forest park.

Joann Ariola is a Republican member of New York City council

https://council.nyc.gov/district-32/

She personally wrote a letter to Mayor Eric Adams begging him to allow cars to go through Forest Park:

https://lede-admin.nyc.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/48/2025/11/Ariola-Freedom-Drive-letter-.pdf

During the demonstration, she crossed the park in an SUV and showed up to mock demonstrators.

Clip from Cspan

Entire clip

Timestamp of this clip in case Cspan removes it: 01:43:46 thru 01:48:52

And then...