Israel has not disclosed information about Iran's successful strikes on five military targets, including a large airbase, The Daily Telegraph reported, citing an analysis of satellite data conducted by researchers at Oregon State University.

According to the newspaper, six Iranian missiles hit five targets in northern, southern, and central Israel, including an intelligence gathering center and a logistics base. The Daily Telegraph noted that Iran had struck more than 40 Israeli infrastructure targets as a result of the 12-day conflict.

Israel mum on Iran's successful strikes on five military targets — newspaper

The Israel Defense Forces did not comment on reports of hits on military bases

^TASS

The podcast king, once a prominent supporter of Donald Trump, denounced the president’s aggressive deportation tactics on his wildly popular podcast.

Joe Rogan Feels Trump Betrayed Him on Immigration

^{Luc Olinga (Gizmodo)}

https://www.reuters.com/technology/study-finds-smartphone-bans-dutch-schools-improved-focus-2025-07-04/

http://reuters.com/world/china/trump-says-us-pretty-much-has-deal-tiktok-2025-07-05/

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-says-us-pretty-much-has-deal-tiktok-2025-07-05/

L’altro giorno Altervista ha, a quanto pare (è uscito quel terribile avviso a tutto schermo nel pannello di WordPress), aggiornato i suoi termini di servizio… Io quindi giustamente ho preso il regolamento aggiornato, ho preso quello vecchio, ho ficcato entrambi dentro il coso per controllare le differenze, e ho riso malamente per quanto fa schifo, […]

octospacc.altervista.org/2025/…

minioctt

2025-07-05 13:12:14

altervistiaci termini aggiornati con lo spacc

L’altro giorno Altervista ha, a quanto pare (è uscito quel terribile avviso a tutto schermo nel pannello di WordPress), aggiornato i suoi termini di servizio… Io quindi giustamente ho preso il regolamento aggiornato, ho preso quello vecchio, ho ficcato entrambi dentro il coso per controllare le differenze, e ho riso malamente per quanto fa schifo, che in passato non ci avevo troppo fatto caso. 🍃

Il problema non è nei contenuti eh, non hanno nulla di strano o scomodo, e i cambiamenti che ci sono stati non fregano minimamente, sono i soliti dettagli burocratici o informativi (a parte il fatto che hanno cambiato il tempo entro il quale un sito viene considerato inattivo e quindi archiviato, da 24 a 12 mesi, damn)… Ma, in termini di forma, è allucinante quanti sono gli spacc presenti in questo testo già francamente più lungo e complicato del dovuto. Alcune schifezze sono uscite fuori con questo aggiornamento, ma alcune c’erano già da prima… chissà da quanto prima. 🥀

Il diff l’ho caricato su diffchecker.com/UmjOZ5th/, però intanto ecco qui il brutto, il brutto ed il brutto:

• Già da prima, ci sono alcune virgole (,) che, in qualche modo, sono immediatamente precedute da caratteri di spazio, anziché dalla parola che c’è subito prima… e, ovviamente, questo è tecnicamente un errore in italiano. Ci sono anche dei due punti (:) messi in questo modo, ma per come stanno mi sembrano messi volutamente per fare una sorta di formattazione, quindi che passi (anche se non troppo, specialmente perché in HTML si può fare solo di meglio). 🥴
• Non capisco quale dovrebbe essere la forma da loro prediletta, ma la cosa che mi da abbastanza fastidio è che c’è un infinito miscuglio tra apostrofi ASCII (') e quelli strani ricurvi (’). Questo già da prima, a quanto pare, ma ora sono aumentati davvero a dismisura, come si vede dal diff… e non capisco come sia possibile, magari hanno fatto un brutto miscuglio di editing tra in Word e fuori, ma comunque sia fa schifo; per favore, qualcuno sistemi. 😵‍💫
• Alcune lettere È maiuscole accentate all’inizio di frasi sono magicamente diventate minuscole (è)… e non so come descrivere ciò se non con “cringe”. Quantomeno, non hanno usato la classica forma merdosa E', tipica degli utenti Windows e ancora più cringe, quindi almeno non c’è tantissimo da piangere… però caspiterina. 🤯

#AlterVista #errori #ToS

Altervista giovedì 3 Luglio 2025, 08:59 Aggiornamento delle Condizioni Generali - Diffchecker

Altervista giovedì 3 Luglio 2025, 08:59 Aggiornamento delle Condizioni Generali - Crea sito Caratteristiche Guadagna Hosting Login Login Condizioni Generali V

^{www.diffchecker.com}

There’s a good reason for this, and it’s not (just) that their beliefs were insincere. The whole point of thinking about structures like capitalism, patriarchy, or white supremacy is recognizing structural power beyond the intentions or beliefs of any individual actor. The problem with capitalism isn’t that particular business owners are greedy, it’s that the system of private ownership requires exploitation and poverty. The problem with patriarchy isn’t that all men happen to be evil and all non-men happen to be saints. The problem is the system that secures wealth, power, and safety for one gender at the expense of others.

We should think about state power in the same systematic way. It’s true—some politicians are especially terrible, just like some bosses are particularly noxious and some men are exceptionally patriarchal. But there are structural reasons for all men to take advantage of the privileges of patriarchy, whether we’re personally bigoted or not. Similarly, there are structural forces pressuring leftists in elected office to abandon their positions, entirely independent of their degree of personal ideological commitment

Beyond Electoral Socialism: Why Winning Elections Alone Can’t Ensure Structural Change

Andrew Lee looks critically at the history of socialist politicians being elected to office. Originally posted to In Struggle.  There’s a lot of understandable jubilation at Zohran Mamdani’s upset...

^{It's Going Down}

Così come passa la voglia di mangiare roba pensate, d'estate anche il desiderio di trattare retro-videogame complessi lascia il posto alla ben più pigra predisposizione di scrivere di giochi più leggeri e arcade, magari proprio provenienti dalle compiante vacanze di quando ero giovane, quelli che incontravo nelle ormai dimenticate sale giochi estive. Proprio da una bella vacanza al mare dei primi anni '80 arriva il ricordo del sorprendente incontro col seguito di uno dei miei videogiochi preferiti dell'epoca, ovvero Donkey Kong Jr. Visto che l'arrivo di un gioco nuovo di zecca con Donkey Kong è alle porte, mi pare un momento perfetto per ricordarlo, no?

Su IGN Retro ci siamo spesso soffermati su quella che può essere considerata la seconda serie videoludica più importante mai realizzata da Nintendo, una saga che ha contribuito in modo decisivo a plasmare l’identità della compagnia: Donkey Kong. In passato abbiamo analizzato il capitolo originale del 1981, la splendida reinterpretazione per Game Boy e persino il gioco che ispirò la nascita stessa del gorilla più famoso dei videogiochi, ovvero Popeye (non preoccupatevi, spiego tutto negli articoli dedicati). Il successo di Donkey Kong fu esattamente ciò di cui Nintendo aveva bisogno per imporsi come una potenza globale nelle sale giochi, e la risposta dell’azienda non si fece attendere: l’intero team venne subito incaricato di lavorare a un seguito, segnando così la nascita del primo vero sequel della storia Nintendo.

it.ign.com/ign-retro/219342/op…

IGN Retro: Donkey Kong Jr.

E se Mario fosse il "cattivo" di un videogame? È successo nel 1982 grazie al seguito di Donkey Kong.

^{Stefano "Stef" Castelli (IGN Italia)}

It was a Monday afternoon in June 2023 when Rita Meier, 45, joined us for a video call. Meier told us about the last time she said goodbye to her husband, Stefan, five years earlier. He had been leaving their home near Lake Constance, Germany, heading for a trade fair in Milan.

Meier recalled how he hesitated between taking his Tesla Model S or her BMW. He had never driven the Tesla that far before. He checked the route for charging stations along the way and ultimately decided to try it. Rita had a bad feeling. She stayed home with their three children, the youngest less than a year old.

At 3.18pm on 10 May 2018, Stefan Meier lost control of his Model S on the A2 highway near the Monte Ceneri tunnel. Travelling at about 100kmh (62mph), he ploughed through several warning markers and traffic signs before crashing into a slanted guardrail. “The collision with the guardrail launches the vehicle into the air, where it flips several times before landing,” investigators would write later.

The car came to rest more than 70 metres away, on the opposite side of the road, leaving a trail of wreckage. According to witnesses, the Model S burst into flames while still airborne. Several passersby tried to open the doors and rescue the driver, but they couldn’t unlock the car. When they heard explosions and saw flames through the windows, they retreated. Even the firefighters, who arrived 20 minutes later, could do nothing but watch the Tesla burn.

At that moment, Rita Meier was unaware of the crash. She tried calling her husband, but he didn’t pick up. When he still hadn’t returned her call hours later – highly unusual for this devoted father – she attempted to track his car using Tesla’s app. It no longer worked. By the time police officers rang her doorbell late that night, Meier was already bracing for the worst.

Customers described their cars suddenly accelerating or braking hard. Some escaped with a scare; others ended up in ditches

To this day, Meier still doesn’t know why her husband died. She has kept everything the police gave her after their inconclusive investigation. The charred wreck of the Model S sits in a garage Meier rents specifically for that purpose. The scorched phone – which she had forensically analysed at her own expense, to no avail – sits in a drawer at home. Maybe someday all this will be needed again, she says. She hasn’t given up hope of uncovering the truth.

Rita Meier was one of many people who reached out to us after we began reporting on the Tesla Files – a cache of 23,000 leaked documents and 100 gigabytes of confidential data shared by an anonymous whistleblower. The first report we published looked at problems with Tesla’s autopilot system, which allows the cars to temporarily drive on their own, taking over steering, braking and acceleration. Though touted by the company as “Full Self-Driving” (FSD), it is designed to assist, not replace, the driver, who should keep their eyes on the road and be ready to intervene at any time.

Autonomous driving is the core promise around which Elon Musk has built his company. Tesla has never delivered a truly self-driving vehicle, yet the richest person in the world keeps repeating the claim that his cars will soon drive entirely without human help. Is Tesla’s autopilot really as advanced as he says?

The Tesla Files suggest otherwise. They contain more than 2,400 customer complaints about unintended acceleration and more than 1,500 braking issues – 139 involving emergency braking without cause, and 383 phantom braking events triggered by false collision warnings. More than 1,000 crashes are documented. A separate spreadsheet on driver-assistance incidents where customers raised safety concerns lists more than 3,000 entries. The oldest date from 2015, the most recent from March 2022. In that time, Tesla delivered roughly 2.6m vehicles with autopilot software. Most incidents occurred in the US, but there have also been complaints from Europe and Asia. Customers described their cars suddenly accelerating or braking hard. Some escaped with a scare; others ended up in ditches, crashing into walls or colliding with oncoming vehicles. “After dropping my son off in his school parking lot, as I go to make a right-hand exit it lurches forward suddenly,” one complaint read. Another said, “My autopilot failed/malfunctioned this morning (car didn’t brake) and I almost rear-ended somebody at 65mph.” A third reported, “Today, while my wife was driving with our baby in the car, it suddenly accelerated out of nowhere.”

Braking for no reason caused just as much distress. “Our car just stopped on the highway. That was terrifying,” a Tesla driver wrote. Another complained, “Frequent phantom braking on two-lane highways. Makes the autopilot almost unusable.” Some report their car “jumped lanes unexpectedly”, causing them to hit a concrete barrier, or veered into oncoming traffic.

Musk has given the world many reasons to criticise him since he teamed up with Donald Trump. Many people do – mostly by boycotting his products. But while it is one thing to disagree with the political views of a business leader, it is another to be mortally afraid of his products. In the Tesla Files, we found thousands of examples of why such fear may be justified.
Illustration of bashed up and burned cars in a car park
‘My husband died in an unexplained accident. And no one cared.’ Illustration: Carl Godfrey/The Guardian

We set out to match some of these incidents of autopilot errors with customers’ names. Like hundreds of other Tesla customers, Rita Meier entered the vehicle identification number of her husband’s Model S into the response form we published on the website of the German business newspaper Handelsblatt, for which we carried out our investigation. She quickly discovered that the Tesla Files contained data related to the car. In her first email to us, she wrote, “You can probably imagine what it felt like to read that.”

There isn’t much information – just an Excel spreadsheet titled “Incident Review”. A Tesla employee noted that the mileage counter on Stefan Meier’s car stood at 4,765 miles at the time of the crash. The entry was catalogued just one day after the fatal accident. In the comment field was written, “Vehicle involved in an accident.” The cause of the crash remains unknown to this day. In Tesla’s internal system, a company employee had marked the case as “resolved”, but for five years, Rita Meier had been searching for answers. After Stefan’s death, she took over the family business – a timber company with 200 employees based in Tettnang, Baden-Württemberg. As journalists, we are used to tough interviews, but this one was different. We had to strike a careful balance – between empathy and the persistent questioning good reporting demands. “Why are you convinced the Tesla was responsible for your husband’s death?” we asked her. “Isn’t it possible he was distracted – maybe looking at his phone?”

No one knows for sure. But Meier was well aware that Musk has previously claimed Tesla “releases critical crash data affecting public safety immediately and always will”; that he has bragged many times about how its superior handling of data sets the company apart from its competitors. In the case of her husband, why was she expected to believe there was no data?

Meier’s account was structured and precise. Only once did the toll become visible – when she described how her husband’s body burned in full view of the firefighters. Her eyes filled with tears and her voice cracked. She apologised, turning away. After she collected herself, she told us she has nothing left to gain – but also nothing to lose. That was why she had reached out to us. We promised to look into the case.

Rita Meier wasn’t the only widow to approach us. Disappointed customers, current and former employees, analysts and lawyers were sharing links to our reporting. Many of them contacted us. More than once, someone wrote that it was about time someone stood up to Tesla – and to Elon Musk.

Meier, too, shared our articles and the callout form with others in her network – including people who, like her, lost loved ones in Tesla crashes. One of them was Anke Schuster. Like Meier, she had lost her husband in a Tesla crash that defies explanation and had spent years chasing answers. And, like Meier, she had found her husband’s Model X listed in the Tesla Files. Once again, the incident was marked as resolved – with no indication of what that actually meant.

“My husband died in an unexplained and inexplicable accident,” Schuster wrote in her first email. Her dealings with police, prosecutors and insurance companies, she said, had been “hell”. No one seemed to understand how a Tesla works. “I lost my husband. His four daughters lost their father. And no one ever cared.”

Her husband, Oliver, was a tech enthusiast, fascinated by Musk. A hotelier by trade, he owned no fewer than four Teslas. He loved the cars. She hated them – especially the autopilot. The way the software seemed to make decisions on its own never sat right with her. Now, she felt as if her instincts had been confirmed in the worst way.

We uncovered an ominous black box in which every byte of customer data was collected – and sealed off from public scrutiny

The crashes that killed Meier’s and Schuster’s husbands were almost three years apart but the parallels were chilling. We examined accident reports, eyewitness accounts, crash-site photos and correspondence with Tesla. In both cases, investigators had requested vehicle data from Tesla, and the company hadn’t provided it. In Meier’s case, Tesla staff claimed no data was available. In Schuster’s, they said there was no relevant data.

Over the next two years, we spoke with crash victims, grieving families and experts around the world. What we uncovered was an ominous black box – a system designed not only to collect and control every byte of customer data, but to safeguard Musk’s vision of autonomous driving. Critical information was sealed off from public scrutiny.

Elon Musk is a perfectionist with a tendency towards micromanagement. At Tesla, his whims seem to override every argument – even in matters of life and death. During our reporting, we came across the issue of door handles. On Teslas, they retract into the doors while the cars are being driven. The system depends on battery power. If an airbag deploys, the doors are supposed to unlock automatically and the handles extend – at least, that’s what the Model S manual says.

The idea for the sleek, futuristic design stems from Musk himself. He insisted on retractable handles, despite repeated warnings from engineers. Since 2018, they have been linked to at least four fatal accidents in Europe and the US, in which five people died.

In February 2024, we reported on a particularly tragic case: a fatal crash on a country road near Dobbrikow, in Brandenburg, Germany. Two 18-year-olds were killed when the Tesla they were in slammed into a tree and caught fire. First responders couldn’t open the doors because the handles were retracted. The teenagers burned to death in the back seat.

A court-appointed expert from Dekra, one of Germany’s leading testing authorities, later concluded that, given the retracted handles, the incident “qualifies as a malfunction”. According to the report, “the failure of the rear door handles to extend automatically must be considered a decisive factor” in the deaths. Had the system worked as intended, “it is assumed that rescuers might have been able to extract the two backseat passengers before the fire developed further”. Without what the report calls a “failure of this safety function”, the teens might have survived.
'I feel like I'm in the movies': malfunctioning robotaxi traps passenger in car – video

Our investigation made waves. The Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt, Germany’s federal motor transport authority, got involved and announced plans to coordinate with other regulatory bodies to revise international safety standards. Germany’s largest automobile club, ADAC, issued a public recommendation that Tesla drivers should carry emergency window hammers. In a statement, ADAC warned that retractable door handles could seriously hinder rescue efforts. Even trained emergency responders, it said, may struggle to reach trapped passengers. Tesla shows no intention of changing the design.

That’s Musk. He prefers the sleek look of Teslas without handles, so he accepts the risk to his customers. His thinking, it seems, goes something like this: at some point, the engineers will figure out a technical fix. The same logic applies to his grander vision of autonomous driving: because Musk wants to be first, he lets customers test his unfinished Autopilot system on public roads. It’s a principle borrowed from the software world, where releasing apps in beta has long been standard practice. The more users, the more feedback and, over time – often years – something stable emerges. Revenue and market share arrive much earlier. The motto: if you wait, you lose.

Musk has taken that mindset to the road. The world is his lab. Everyone else is part of the experiment.

By the end of 2023, we knew a lot about how Musk’s cars worked – but the way they handle data still felt like a black box. How is that data stored? At what moment does the onboard computer send it to Tesla’s servers? We talked to independent experts at the Technical University Berlin. Three PhD candidates – Christian Werling, Niclas Kühnapfel and Hans Niklas Jacob – made headlines for hacking Tesla’s autopilot hardware. A brief voltage drop on a circuit board turned out to be just enough to trick the system into opening up.

The security researchers uncovered what they called “Elon Mode” – a hidden setting in which the car drives fully autonomously, without requiring the driver to keep his hands on the wheel. They also managed to recover deleted data, including video footage recorded by a Tesla driver. And they traced exactly what data Tesla sends to its servers – and what it doesn’t.

The hackers explained that Tesla stores data in three places. First, on a memory card inside the onboard computer – essentially a running log of the vehicle’s digital brain. Second, on the event data recorder – a black box that captures a few seconds before and after a crash. And third, on Tesla’s servers, assuming the vehicle uploads them.

The researchers told us they had found an internal database embedded in the system – one built around so-called trigger events. If, for example, the airbag deploys or the car hits an obstacle, the system is designed to save a defined set of data to the black box – and transmit it to Tesla’s servers. Unless the vehicles were in a complete network dead zone, in both the Meier and Schuster cases, the cars should have recorded and transmitted that data.
Illustration of bashed up and burned cars in a car park
‘Is the car driving erratically by itself normal? Yeah, that happens every now and then.’ Illustration: Carl Godfrey/The Guardian

Who in the company actually works with that data? We examined testimony from Tesla employees in court cases related to fatal crashes. They described how their departments operate. We cross-referenced their statements with entries in the Tesla Files. A pattern took shape: one team screens all crashes at a high level, forwarding them to specialists – some focused on autopilot, others on vehicle dynamics or road grip. There’s also a group that steps in whenever authorities request crash data.

We compiled a list of employees relevant to our reporting. Some we tried to reach by email or phone. For others, we showed up at their homes. If they weren’t there, we left handwritten notes. No one wanted to talk.

We searched for other crashes. One involved Hans von Ohain, a 33-year-old Tesla employee from Evergreen, Colorado. On 16 May 2022, he crashed into a tree on his way home from a golf outing and the car burst into flames. Von Ohain died at the scene. His passenger survived and told police that von Ohain, who had been drinking, had activated Full Self-Driving. Tesla, however, said it couldn’t confirm whether the system was engaged – because no vehicle data was transmitted for the incident.

Then, in February 2024, Musk himself stepped in. The Tesla CEO claimed von Ohain had never downloaded the latest version of the software – so it couldn’t have caused the crash. Friends of von Ohain, however, told US media he had shown them the system. His passenger that day, who barely escaped with his life, told reporters that hours earlier the car had already driven erratically by itself. “The first time it happened, I was like, ‘Is that normal?’” he recalled asking von Ohain. “And he was like, ‘Yeah, that happens every now and then.’”

His account was bolstered by von Ohain’s widow, who explained to the media how overjoyed her husband had been at working for Tesla. Reportedly, von Ohain received the Full Self-Driving system as a perk. His widow explained how he would use the system almost every time he got behind the wheel: “It was jerky, but we were like, that comes with the territory of new technology. We knew the technology had to learn, and we were willing to be part of that.”

The Colorado State Patrol investigated but closed the case without blaming Tesla. It reported that no usable data was recovered.

For a company that markets its cars as computers on wheels, Tesla’s claim that it had no data available in all these cases is surprising. Musk has long described Tesla vehicles as part of a collective neural network – machines that continuously learn from one another. Think of the Borg aliens from the Star Trek franchise. Musk envisions his cars, like the Borg, as a collective – operating as a hive mind, each vehicle linked to a unified consciousness.

When a journalist asked him in October 2015 what made Tesla’s driver-assistance system different, he replied, “The whole Tesla fleet operates as a network. When one car learns something, they all learn it. That is beyond what other car companies are doing.” Every Tesla driver, he explained, becomes a kind of “expert trainer for how the autopilot should work”.

According to Musk, the eight cameras in every Tesla transmit more than 160bn video frames a day to the company’s servers. In its owner’s manual, Tesla states that its cars may collect even more: “analytics, road segment, diagnostic and vehicle usage data”, all sent to headquarters to improve product quality and features such as autopilot. The company claims it learns “from the experience of billions of miles that Tesla vehicles have driven”.
‘Lidar is lame’: why Elon Musk’s vision for a self-driving Tesla taxi faltered
Read more

It is a powerful promise: a fleet of millions of cars, constantly feeding raw information into a gargantuan processing centre. Billions – trillions – of data points, all in service of one goal: making cars drive better and keeping drivers safe. At the start of this year, Musk got a chance to show the world what he meant.

On 1 January 2025, at 8.39am, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. The man behind the incident – US special forces veteran Matthew Livelsberger – had rented the vehicle, packed it with fireworks, gas canisters and grenades, and parked it in front of the building. Just before the explosion, he shot himself in the head with a .50 calibre Desert Eagle pistol. “This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wakeup call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence,” Livelsberger wrote in a letter later found by authorities. “What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives.”

The soldier miscalculated. Seven bystanders suffered minor injuries. The Cybertruck was destroyed, but not even the windows of the hotel shattered. Instead, with his final act, Livelsberger revealed something else entirely: just how far the arm of Tesla’s data machinery can reach. “The whole Tesla senior team is investigating this matter right now,” Musk wrote on X just hours after the blast. “Will post more information as soon as we learn anything. We’ve never seen anything like this.”

Later that day, Musk posted again. Tesla had already analysed all relevant data – and was ready to offer conclusions. “We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself,” he wrote. “All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.”

Suddenly, Musk wasn’t just a CEO; he was an investigator. He instructed Tesla technicians to remotely unlock the scorched vehicle. He handed over internal footage captured up to the moment of detonation.The Tesla CEO had turned a suicide attack into a showcase of his superior technology.

Yet there were critics even in the moment of glory. “It reveals the kind of sweeping surveillance going on,” warned David Choffnes, executive director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute at Northeastern University in Boston, when contacted by a reporter. “When something bad happens, it’s helpful, but it’s a double-edged sword. Companies that collect this data can abuse it.”
Illustration of bashed up and burned cars in a car park
‘In many crashes, investigators weren’t even aware that requesting data from Tesla was an option.’ Illustration: Carl Godfrey/The Guardian

There are other examples of what Tesla’s data collection makes possible. We found the case of David and Sheila Brown, who died in August 2020 when their Model 3 ran a red light at 114mph in Saratoga, California. Investigators managed to reconstruct every detail, thanks to Tesla’s vehicle data. It shows exactly when the Browns opened a door, unfastened a seatbelt, and how hard the driver pressed the accelerator – down to the millisecond, right up to the moment of impact. Over time, we found more cases, more detailed accident reports. The data definitely is there – until it isn’t.

In many crashes when Teslas inexplicably veered off the road or hit stationary objects, investigators didn’t actually request data from the company. When we asked authorities why, there was often silence. Our impression was that many prosecutors and police officers weren’t even aware that asking was an option. In other cases, they acted only when pushed by victims’ families.

In the Meier case, Tesla told authorities, in a letter dated 25 June 2018, that the last complete set of vehicle data was transmitted nearly two weeks before the crash. The only data from the day of the accident was a “limited snapshot of vehicle parameters” – taken “approximately 50 minutes before the incident”. However, this snapshot “doesn’t show anything in relation to the incident”. As for the black box, Tesla warned that the storage modules were likely destroyed, given the condition of the burned-out vehicle. Data transmission after a crash is possible, the company said – but in this case, it didn’t happen. In the end, investigators couldn’t even determine whether driver-assist systems were active at the time of the crash.

The Schuster case played out similarly. Prosecutors in Stralsund, Germany, were baffled. The road where the crash happened is straight, the asphalt was dry and the weather at the time of the accident was clear. Anke Schuster kept urging the authorities to examine Tesla’s telemetry data.

Every road user trusts the cars around them not to be a threat. Does that trust still stand when a car is driving itself?

The hackers from TU Berlin pointed us to a study by the Netherlands Forensic Institute, an independent division of the ministry of justice and security. In October 2021, the NFI published findings showing it had successfully accessed the onboard memories of all major Tesla models. The researchers compared their results with accident cases in which police had requested data from Tesla. Their conclusion was that while Tesla formally complied with those requests, it omitted large volumes of data that might have proved useful.

Tesla’s credibility took a further hit in a report released by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in April 2024. The agency concluded that Tesla failed to adequately monitor whether drivers remain alert and ready to intervene while using its driver-assist systems. It reviewed 956 crashes, field data and customer communications, and pointed to “gaps in Tesla’s telematic data” that made it impossible to determine how often autopilot was active during crashes. If a vehicle’s antenna was damaged or it crashed in an area without network coverage, even serious accidents sometimes went unreported. Tesla’s internal statistics include only those crashes in which an airbag or other pyrotechnic system deployed – something that occurs in just 18% of police-reported cases. This means that the actual accident rate is significantly higher than Tesla discloses to customers and investors.

There’s more. Two years prior, the NHTSA had flagged something strange – something suspicious. In a separate report, it documented 16 cases in which Tesla vehicles crashed into stationary emergency vehicles. In each, autopilot disengaged “less than one second before impact” – far too little time for the driver to react. Critics warn that this behaviour could allow Tesla to argue in court that autopilot was not active at the moment of impact, potentially dodging responsibility.

The YouTuber Mark Rober, a former engineer at Nasa, replicated this behaviour in an experiment on 15 March 2025. He simulated a range of hazardous situations, in which the Model Y performed significantly worse than a competing vehicle. The Tesla repeatedly ran over a crash-test dummy without braking. The video went viral, amassing more than 14m views within a few days.
Mark Rober’s Tesa test drive

The real surprise came after the experiment. Fred Lambert, who writes for the blog Electrek, pointed out the same autopilot disengagement that the NHTSA had documented. “Autopilot appears to automatically disengage a fraction of a second before the impact as the crash becomes inevitable,” Lambert noted.

And so the doubts about Tesla’s integrity pile up. In the Tesla Files, we found emails and reports from a UK-based engineer who led Tesla’s Safety Incident Investigation programme, overseeing the company’s most sensitive crash cases. His internal memos reveal that Tesla deliberately limited documentation of particular issues to avoid the risk of this information being requested under subpoena. Although he pushed for clearer protocols and better internal processes, US leadership resisted – explicitly driven by fears of legal exposure.

We contacted Tesla multiple times with questions about the company’s data practices. We asked about the Meier and Schuster cases – and what it means when fatal crashes are marked “resolved” in Tesla’s internal system. We asked the company to respond to criticism from the US traffic authority and to the findings of Dutch forensic investigators. We also asked why Tesla doesn’t simply publish crash data, as Musk once promised to do, and whether the company considers it appropriate to withhold information from potential US court orders. Tesla has not responded to any of our questions.

Elon Musk boasts about the vast amount of data his cars generate – data that, he claims, will not only improve Tesla’s entire fleet but also revolutionise road traffic. But, as we have witnessed again and again in the most critical of cases, Tesla refuses to share it.

Tesla’s handling of crash data affects even those who never wanted anything to do with the company. Every road user trusts the car in front, behind or beside them not to be a threat. Does that trust still stand when the car is driving itself?

Internally, we called our investigation into Tesla’s crash data Black Box. At first, because it dealt with the physical data units built into the vehicles – so-called black boxes. But the devices Tesla installs hardly deserve the name. Unlike the flight recorders used in aviation, they’re not fireproof – and in many of the cases we examined, they proved useless.

Over time, we came to see that the name held a second meaning. A black box, in common parlance, is something closed to the outside. Something opaque. Unknowable. And while we’ve gained some insight into Tesla as a company, its handling of crash data remains just that: a black box. Only Tesla knows how Elon Musk’s vehicles truly work. Yet today, more than 5m of them share our roads.

Some names have been changed.

This is an edited extract from The Tesla Files by Sönke Iwersen and Michael Verfürden, published on 24 July by Penguin Michael Joseph at £22. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

‘The vehicle suddenly accelerated with our baby in it’: the terrifying truth about why Tesla’s cars keep crashing

Elon Musk is obsessive about the design of his supercars, right down to the disappearing door handles.

^{Guardian staff reporter (The Guardian)}

“I wanted to center Palestine,” a Harvard commencement speaker told The Intercept. Read and watch her speech.

Link to speech: youtu.be/a8Mw2mELF4g

We’re Publishing the Speech That Harvard Suppressed for Mentioning Genocide

^{Akela Lacy (The Intercept)}

Family of Dr Marwan al-Sultan says the Israeli airstrike ‘precisely’ hit the apartment block the cardiologist and his relatives occupied

Archived version: archive.is/20250704161432/theg…

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

‘No other explanation’: children of Gaza doctor killed in airstrike believe he was deliberately targeted

^{Annie Kelly (The Guardian)}

The New York Times questions Zohran Mamdani's racial background based on a tip from a proponent of "race science."

NYT Runs Hit Piece on Mamdani Based on Tip From Proponent of 'Race Science'

Reports from multiple outlets show the Times is vastly underselling its source's extreme views on race.

^{brad-reed (Common Dreams)}

Colorado Democrats condemn Trump administration's fast-tracking of oil expansion project along Colorado River, risking environmental damage.

Trump Admin Quietly Approves Massive Crude Oil Expansion Project

"This thinly analyzed decision threatens the lifeblood of the American Southwest," said one environmental attorney.

^{brad-reed (Common Dreams)}

After more than a decade of timely updates, Google Search's takedown transparency report has stalled since mid-April. The absence of new data makes it harder for journalists and researchers to analyze these DMCA takedown efforts, which have increased significantly over the past year and a half. Notably, Google continues to send these notices to the Lumen database, providing some ongoing visibility.

Google's DMCA Transparency Report 'Freezes' After Recent Volume Surge * TorrentFreak

After more than a decade of timely updates, Google Search's takedown transparency report has been stalled since mid-April.

^{Ernesto Van der Sar (TF Publishing)}

Quarto album per questi "Orsi grigi", giovane band americana attiva dal 2004.
Dopo "Veckatimest", uscito nel 2009, album che ha avuto notevole successo di critica e di pubblico, i Grizzly si sono presi una pausa, un periodo non proprio di riposo visto che, nel frattempo, hanno avuto esperienze personali, "momenti" utili per capire cosa fare del proprio futuro o meglio cosa fare dei Grizzly Bear... Leggi e ascolta...

ᗩᐯᗩIᒪᗩᗷᒪᗴ

2025-07-05 08:10:08

Grizzly Bear - Shields (2012)

Quarto album per questi “Orsi grigi”, giovane band americana attiva dal 2004. Dopo “Veckatimest”, uscito nel 2009, album che ha avuto notevole successo di critica e di pubblico, i Grizzly si sono presi una pausa, un periodo non proprio di riposo visto che, nel frattempo, hanno avuto esperienze personali, “momenti” utili per capire cosa fare del proprio futuro o meglio cosa fare dei Grizzly Bear. Il risultato è questo Shields, una costola del precedente “Veckatimest”, meno incisivo, ma più equilibrato. Dieci sono i brani presenti; scritti, suonati e cantati da tutti e quattro i musicisti del gruppo. Le sonorità si aggirano in territori indie-folk (come i precedenti) con qualche strizzatina d'occhio alla psichedelia e soprattutto al pop, senza però guastare... artesuono.blogspot.com/2014/10…

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Ascolta: album.link/i/557858458

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Home – Identità DigitaleSono su: Mastodon.uno - Pixelfed - Feddit

Grizzly Bear - Shields (2012)

di Silvano Bottaro Quarto album per questi "Orsi grigi", giovane band americana attiva dal 2004. Dopo "Veckatimest...

^{Silvano Bottaro (Blogger)}

https://apnews.com/article/cellphone-smartphone-invention-wireless-communication-3127c722666030ae6571494d27ae3b00

https://apnews.com/article/cellphone-smartphone-invention-wireless-communication-3127c722666030ae6571494d27ae3b00

https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20250704173/sleeping-beauty-bitcoin-wallets-wake-up-after-14-years-to-the-tune-of-2-billion

https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20250704173/sleeping-beauty-bitcoin-wallets-wake-up-after-14-years-to-the-tune-of-2-billion

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

archives.gov/founding-docs/dec…

Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

Note: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original.

^{National Archives}

In a memo to employees earlier this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared a vision for a near-future in which "personal [AI] superintelligence for everyone" forms "the beginning of a new era for humanity." The newly formed Meta Superintelligence Labs—freshly staffed with multiple high-level acquisitions from OpenAI and other AI companies—will spearhead the development of "our next generation of models to get to the frontier in the next year or so," Zuckerberg wrote.

Reading that memo, I couldn't help but think of another "vision for the future" Zuckerberg shared not that long ago. At his 2021 Facebook Connect keynote, Zuckerberg laid out his plan for the metaverse, a virtual place where “you're gonna be able to do almost anything you can imagine" and which would form the basis of "the next version of the Internet."

Zuckerberg believed in that vision so much at the time that he abandoned the well-known Facebook corporate brand in favor of the new name "Meta." "I'm going to keep pushing and giving everything I've got to make this happen now," Zuckerberg said at the time. Less than four years later, Zuckerberg seems to now be “giving everything [he's] got" for a vision of AI “superintelligence," reportedly offering pay packages of up to $300 million over four years to attract top talent from other AI companies (Meta has since denied those reports, saying, “The size and structure of these compensation packages have been misrepresented all over the place").

Once again, Zuckerberg is promising that this new technology will revolutionize our lives and replace the ways we currently socialize and work on the Internet. But the utter failure (so far) of those over-the-top promises for the metaverse has us more than a little skeptical of how impactful Zuckerberg’s vision of “personal superintelligence for everyone" will truly be.

Looks like Zuck is angling for the golden shoehorn award (a real thing at one of the papers I worked for). It would be nice if all these failures actually put a dent in Meta's income, but who's really going to notice tens of billions being lost when you essentially own a money-printing scheme?

Meta’s “AI superintelligence” effort sounds just like its failed “metaverse”

Zuckerberg and company talked up another supposed tech revolution four short years ago.

^{Kyle Orland (Ars Technica)}

The traffic receded as Chicago withdrew into the distance behind me on Interstate 90. Barns and trees dotted the horizon. The speakers in my rental car, playing Spotify from my smartphone, put out the opening riff of a laid-back psychedelic-rock song. When the lyrics came, delivered in a folksy vibrato, they matched my mood: “Smoke in the sky / No peace found,” the band’s vocalist sang.

Except perhaps he didn’t really sing, because he doesn’t exist. By all appearances, neither does the band, called the Velvet Sundown. Its music, lyrics, and album art may be AI inventions. Same goes for the photos of the band. Social-media accounts associated with the band have been coy on the subject: “They said we’re not real. Maybe you aren’t either,” one Velvet Sundown post declares. (That account did not respond to a request for comment via direct message.) Whatever its provenance, the Velvet Sundown seems to be successful: It released two albums last month alone, with a third on its way. And with more than 850,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, its reach exceeds that of the late-’80s MTV staple Martika or the hard-bop jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. As for the music: You know, it’s not bad.

It’s not good either. It’s more like nothing—not good or bad, aesthetically or morally. Having listened to both of the Velvet Sundown’s albums as I drove from Chicago to Madison, Wisconsin, earlier this week, I discovered that what may now be the most successful AI group on Spotify is merely, profoundly, and disturbingly innocuous. In that sense, it signifies the fate of music that is streamed online and then imbibed while one drives, cooks, cleans, works, exercises, or does any other prosaic act. Long before generative AI began its takeover of the internet, streaming music had turned anodyne—a vehicle for vibes, not for active listening. A single road trip with the Velvet Sundown was enough to prove this point: A major subset of the music that we listen to today might as well have been made by a machine.

I don't understand streaming music as a concept. My collection of individual tracks stands at about 1,700 (clocking in at 190 hours -- that is 22 hours more than a week), and there are several full albums atop that.

In my 40s, new music discovery has been a low priority, but if I'm really in the mood, I'll find a weekly radio mix from known quality DJs and hop over to Beatport if something moves me.

The use case for streaming is ... you don't want to choose what you listen to, pay monthly for stuff you'll never own and pay for a higher data plan? That sounds like radio with really expensive extra steps (I ceased listening to the radio after being thrust into the rave scene in the late '90s, and through interactions with others came to the conclusion that I was missing out on nothing.).

I'm sure "AI" can produce perfectly milquetoast music, but are you ever going to want to listen again? I have tracks I've listened to hundreds of times because they mean something to me emotionally (and often have a temporal element wherein I remember where I was living and what I was doing the first time I heard it) -- and most of my tracks do not have lyrics.

Layering nonsensical lyrics atop forgettable melodies sounds more like torture than a service providing any value.

My Road Trip With the Velvet Sundown

Nobody cares if music is real anymore.

^{Ian Bogost (The Atlantic)}

What distinguishes Zohran Mamdani’s socialism is not its aims. It’s his willingness to take seriously the problem of how to get there.

What Can Zohran Accomplish? - Dissent Magazine

What distinguishes Zohran Mamdani's socialism is not its aims. It’s his willingness to take seriously the problem of how to get there.

^{Dissent Magazine}

The move blindsided the State Department, Ukraine, European allies and members of Congress, who demanded an explanation from the Pentagon.

The Defense Department held up a shipment of U.S. weapons for Ukraine this week over what officials said were concerns about its low stockpiles. But an analysis by senior military officers found that the aid package would not jeopardize the American military’s own ammunition supplies, according to three U.S. officials.

The move to halt the weapons shipment blindsided the State Department, members of Congress, officials in Kyiv and European allies, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter.

Critics of the decision included Republicans and Democrats who support aiding Ukraine’s fight against Russia. A leading House Democrat, Adam Smith of Washington, said it was disingenuous of the Pentagon to use military readiness to justify halting aid when the real reason appears to be simply to pursue an agenda of cutting off American aid to Ukraine.

Hegseth halted weapons for Ukraine despite military analysis that the aid wouldn’t jeopardize U.S. readiness

Suspending the shipment of military aid to Ukraine was a unilateral step by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to four sources.

^{Gordon Lubold (NBC News)}

A group of Florida Democratic state lawmakers was blocked from entering the Alligator Alcatraz immigrant detention facility in the Everglades Thursday, despite citing legal authority for an official legislative site visit.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried issued a statement following the incident, saying, "Lawmakers on the ground were just blocked from entering a state-funded detention site because of so-called 'safety concerns.' This is a taxpayer-funded facility, run by the State of Florida. Our elected officials have every legal right to walk through those gates."

Fried added, "What are Ron DeSantis and his administration trying to hide? If it's unsafe for lawmakers to visit, how is it safe for anyone inside?"

Democratic lawmakers denied entry to Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention site

Ahead of the attempted site visit, the Democratic lawmakers said, "As lawmakers, we have both the legal right and moral responsibility to inspect this site."

^{CBS Miami Team (CBS Miami)}