cross-posted from: sh.itjust.works/post/44902005

The right-wing State Policy Network (SPN) and its affiliates have an overall combined revenue of $270 million, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) of the latest publicly available IRS filings. This marks a 77% increase since CMD last reported on SPN’s core finances in 2022.

CMD analyzed the IRS filings of all 64 affiliates of SPN from 2023, with a few available from 2024. The network’s overall combined expenses for this period were $230 million, with net assets coming in at $255 million. These numbers do not include core financials from the Great Plains Public Policy Institute or the Roughrider Policy Center since they bring in less than $50,000 per year and therefore do not have to disclose them, according to IRS regulations.

SPN groups play an integral role in promoting passage of legislation in state houses across the country — by providing academic legitimacy when their members testify at hearings, producing “studies” or model legislation, and attracting media attention. That legislation is sometimes drafted as model bills by corporate lobbyists and lawmakers at SPN’s sister organization, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

SPN is holding its annual meeting this week in New Orleans, where school privatization, AI, deregulating nicotine, noncitizen voting, bitcoin, DOGE, and more are on the agenda.

Btw, here is their featured keynote speaker for this years annual meeting.

Revenue for the State Policy Network and Its Affiliates Increased 77% in Three Years - EXPOSEDbyCMD

The right-wing State Policy Network and its affiliates have an overall combined revenue of $270 million, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy of the latest publicly available IRS filings.

^{Kate Eaton (EXPOSEDbyCMD)}

Meta plans to launch a super PAC to support California candidates favoring a light-touch approach to AI regulation, Politico reports. The news comes as other Silicon Valley behemoths, like Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, pledge $100 million for a new pro-AI super PAC.

Meta to spend tens of millions on pro-AI super PAC | TechCrunch

Meta's new PAC signals an intent to influence statewide elections, including the next governor’s race in 2026.

^{Rebecca Bellan (TechCrunch)}

A class-action lawsuit against AI company Anthropic over copyright infringement is nearing settlement, with both parties reaching an agreement in principle[^1]. The lawsuit, filed by authors Andrea Bartz, Kirk Wallace Johnson, and Charles Graeber, alleged Anthropic illegally downloaded millions of books to train its AI models[^3].

U.S. District Judge William Alsup certified what could be the largest copyright class action ever, potentially including up to 7 million claimants[^1]. The lawsuit claimed Anthropic pirated books from online sources including Books3, Library Genesis, and Pirate Library Mirror[^3].

"This historic settlement will benefit all class members," said Justin A. Nelson, attorney for the authors[^1]. The parties must file a motion for preliminary approval by September 5, 2025[^1].

While settlement terms remain undisclosed, the case had serious implications - industry advocates warned that if every eligible author filed a claim, it could "financially ruin" the AI industry[^1]. Anthropic had previously argued the lawsuit threatened its survival as a company[^1].

[^1]: Ars Technica - Authors celebrate "historic" settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action
[^3]: LA Times - AI company Anthropic settles with authors who alleged piracy

AI company Anthropic settles with authors who alleged piracy

Anthropic trained its AI assistant Claude using copyrighted texts, according to a lawsuit from several affected authors.

^{Cerys Davies (Los Angeles Times)}

An initiative aimed at boosting Democrats online offers influencers up to $8,000 a month to push the party line. All they have to do is keep it secret—and agree to restrictions on their content.

https://www.wired.com/story/dark-money-group-secret-funding-democrat-influencers/

Rich Widmann, head of Web3 at Google, outlined on Tuesday how his firm's upcoming layer-1 blockchain for finance differs from Stripe's Temp and Circle's Arc.

Google’s Upcoming L1 Blockchain for Finance: How It Compares to L1s From Stripe and Circle

^{Siamak Masnavi (CoinDesk)}

cross-posted from: programming.dev/post/36407755

Research.

“This research focuses on a central issue in the discourse surrounding AI and language: are these language changes happening because we’re using a tool and repeating what it suggested or is language changing because AI is influencing the human language system?” said assistant professor of computational linguistics and principal investigator Tom Juzek. “By analyzing lexical trends before and after ChatGPT was released in 2022, we found a convergence between human word choices and LLM-associated patterns with AI buzzwords.”

While rapid increases in the use of certain words — like Omicron — do occur, these increases are typically due to real-world events. Recent large-scale upticks in the use of words like “delve” and “intricate” in certain fields, especially education and academic writing, are attributed to the widespread introduction of LLMs with a chat function, like ChatGPT, that overuses those buzzwords.

“The changes we are seeing in spoken language are pretty remarkable, especially when compared to historical trends,” Juzek said. “What stands out is the breadth of change: so many words are showing notable increases over a relatively short period. Given that these are all words typically overused by AI, it seems plausible to conjecture a link.”

Words including “surpass,” “boast,” “meticulous,” “strategically,” and “garner” have also seen considerable increases in usage since the release of ChatGPT. While these words are often used in a formal or academic tone, which makes them less common in unscripted, spoken language, researchers found that nearly three-quarters of these target words showed increased usage with some more than doubling in frequency.

Pro

2025-08-27 13:29:27

ChatGPT influences how we speak

Research.

“This research focuses on a central issue in the discourse surrounding AI and language: are these language changes happening because we’re using a tool and repeating what it suggested or is language changing because AI is influencing the human language system?” said assistant professor of computational linguistics and principal investigator Tom Juzek. “By analyzing lexical trends before and after ChatGPT was released in 2022, we found a convergence between human word choices and LLM-associated patterns with AI buzzwords.”

While rapid increases in the use of certain words — like Omicron — do occur, these increases are typically due to real-world events. Recent large-scale upticks in the use of words like “delve” and “intricate” in certain fields, especially education and academic writing, are attributed to the widespread introduction of LLMs with a chat function, like ChatGPT, that overuses those buzzwords.

“The changes we are seeing in spoken language are pretty remarkable, especially when compared to historical trends,” Juzek said. “What stands out is the breadth of change: so many words are showing notable increases over a relatively short period. Given that these are all words typically overused by AI, it seems plausible to conjecture a link.”

Words including “surpass,” “boast,” “meticulous,” “strategically,” and “garner” have also seen considerable increases in usage since the release of ChatGPT. While these words are often used in a formal or academic tone, which makes them less common in unscripted, spoken language, researchers found that nearly three-quarters of these target words showed increased usage with some more than doubling in frequency.

Model Misalignment and Language Change: Traces of AI-Associated Language in Unscripted Spoken English

In recent years, written language, particularly in science and education, has undergone remarkable shifts in word usage.

^arXiv.org

cross-posted from: programming.dev/post/36407755

Research.

“This research focuses on a central issue in the discourse surrounding AI and language: are these language changes happening because we’re using a tool and repeating what it suggested or is language changing because AI is influencing the human language system?” said assistant professor of computational linguistics and principal investigator Tom Juzek. “By analyzing lexical trends before and after ChatGPT was released in 2022, we found a convergence between human word choices and LLM-associated patterns with AI buzzwords.”

While rapid increases in the use of certain words — like Omicron — do occur, these increases are typically due to real-world events. Recent large-scale upticks in the use of words like “delve” and “intricate” in certain fields, especially education and academic writing, are attributed to the widespread introduction of LLMs with a chat function, like ChatGPT, that overuses those buzzwords.

“The changes we are seeing in spoken language are pretty remarkable, especially when compared to historical trends,” Juzek said. “What stands out is the breadth of change: so many words are showing notable increases over a relatively short period. Given that these are all words typically overused by AI, it seems plausible to conjecture a link.”

Words including “surpass,” “boast,” “meticulous,” “strategically,” and “garner” have also seen considerable increases in usage since the release of ChatGPT. While these words are often used in a formal or academic tone, which makes them less common in unscripted, spoken language, researchers found that nearly three-quarters of these target words showed increased usage with some more than doubling in frequency.

Pro

2025-08-27 13:29:27

ChatGPT influences how we speak

Research.

“This research focuses on a central issue in the discourse surrounding AI and language: are these language changes happening because we’re using a tool and repeating what it suggested or is language changing because AI is influencing the human language system?” said assistant professor of computational linguistics and principal investigator Tom Juzek. “By analyzing lexical trends before and after ChatGPT was released in 2022, we found a convergence between human word choices and LLM-associated patterns with AI buzzwords.”

While rapid increases in the use of certain words — like Omicron — do occur, these increases are typically due to real-world events. Recent large-scale upticks in the use of words like “delve” and “intricate” in certain fields, especially education and academic writing, are attributed to the widespread introduction of LLMs with a chat function, like ChatGPT, that overuses those buzzwords.

“The changes we are seeing in spoken language are pretty remarkable, especially when compared to historical trends,” Juzek said. “What stands out is the breadth of change: so many words are showing notable increases over a relatively short period. Given that these are all words typically overused by AI, it seems plausible to conjecture a link.”

Words including “surpass,” “boast,” “meticulous,” “strategically,” and “garner” have also seen considerable increases in usage since the release of ChatGPT. While these words are often used in a formal or academic tone, which makes them less common in unscripted, spoken language, researchers found that nearly three-quarters of these target words showed increased usage with some more than doubling in frequency.

Model Misalignment and Language Change: Traces of AI-Associated Language in Unscripted Spoken English

In recent years, written language, particularly in science and education, has undergone remarkable shifts in word usage.

^arXiv.org

It was a sharp rebuke to the prosecutors who are dealing with the fallout from President Trump’s move to send National Guard troops and federal agents into Washington.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/us/politics/trump-sandwich-assault-indictment-justice-department.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hU8.wZ7V.K69NAYTIXXPN

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/27/us/flesh-eating-bacteria-climate-change

cross-posted from: ibbit.at/post/37907

Some readers may recall the Lynx-R1 headset — it was conceived as an Android virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) headset with built-in hand tracking, designed to be open where others were closed, allowing developers and users access to inner workings in defiance of walled gardens. It looked very promising, with features rivaling (or surpassing) those of its contemporaries.

Founder [Stan Larroque] recently announced that Lynx’s 6DoF SLAM (simultaneous location and mapping) solution has been released as open source. ORB-SLAM3 (GitHub repository) takes in camera images and outputs a 6DoF pose, and does so effectively in real-time. The repository contains some added details as well as a demo application that can run on the Lynx-R1 headset.

The unusual optics are memorable. (Hands-on Lynx-R1 by Antony Vitillo)

As a headset the Lynx-R1 had a number of intriguing elements. The unusual optics, the flip-up design, and built-in hand tracking were impressive for its time, as was the high-quality mixed reality pass-through. That last feature refers to the headset using its external cameras as inputs to let the user see the real world, but with the ability to have virtual elements displayed and apparently anchored to real-world locations. Doing this depends heavily on the headset being able to track its position in the real world with both high accuracy and low latency, and this is what ORB-SLAM3 provides.

A successful crowdfunding campaign for the Lynx-R1 in 2021 showed that a significant number of people were on board with what Lynx was offering, but developing brand new consumer hardware is a challenging road for many reasons unrelated to developing the actual thing. There was a hands-on at a trade show in 2021 and units were originally intended to ship out in 2022, but sadly that didn’t happen. Units still occasionally trickle out to backers and pre-orders according to the unofficial Discord, but it’s safe to say things didn’t really go as planned for the R1.

It remains a genuinely noteworthy piece of hardware, especially considering it was not a product of one of the tech giants. If we manage to get our hands on one of them, we’ll certainly give you a good look at it.

---

From Blog – Hackaday via this RSS feed

Border patrol agents arrested Catalina Santiago, granted temporary protection as a Dreamer, on 3 August

Catalina “Xochitl” Santiago had already made it past the security line at the El Paso airport when two border patrol agents called her in for questioning and whisked her away to an immigration detention center.

Nearly a month after her arrest, she and her family still aren’t clear why she is detained. Santiago is a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program – which has allowed her to legally live and work in the US.

“They have no legal basis for why they detained her or why they’re holding her or why they’re trying to deport her,” said her spouse, Desiree Miller. And immigration officials have yet to provide her or her family any clear answers, she added.

Immigration advocates alarmed over detention of Daca recipient: ‘No legal basis’

^{Maanvi Singh (The Guardian)}

Ma cos’è ‘sta storia assurda e ricorrente che gli youtuber dal niente (anche se oddio, forse non proprio dal niente a questo punto) prendono e diventano schizoidi, facendo sparire (a volte cancellando, forse altre mettendo il privato, boh) i loro video? E, precisamente, non tutti i video, e nemmeno i video più vecchi, ma in […]

octospacc.altervista.org/2025/…

minioctt

2025-08-27 12:54:03

youtuber impazziti cancellan la roba e l’octopiangiaggio inizia di nuovo!

Ma cos’è ‘sta storia assurda e ricorrente che gli youtuber dal niente (anche se oddio, forse non proprio dal niente a questo punto) prendono e diventano schizoidi, facendo sparire (a volte cancellando, forse altre mettendo il privato, boh) i loro video? E, precisamente, non tutti i video, e nemmeno i video più vecchi, ma in special modo quelli relativamente più nuovi. Si, solo negli youtuber (o forse, negli influencer audiovisivi tutti, ma io consumo solo youtube, perché solo lì c’è roba elaborata) vedo questo comportamento… non nei blogger, non negli sviluppatori open source (quelli fanno di molto peggio); non capisco. 🥴

Ma succede davvero da un giorno all’altro, eh… cos’è, alla sera vanno bene, come sono andati bene per mesi, e alla mattina dopo invece non più? E questa non è solo un’ipotesi, bensì ho la certezza che sia così: con il fatto che uso un aggregatore di feed RSS per tenere le mie iscrizioni di YouTube, se lo youtuber cancella o nasconde i video più recenti, quelli più vecchi (che altrimenti sarebbero oltre il limite di elementi) ecco che risalgono in cima, e io li vedo come se fossero nuovi (anche se in effetti non so perché in FreshRSS appaiano con una data e ora recente, anziché con quella di pubblicazione originale… meglio per me, così mi accorgo delle magagne semplicemente scrollando normalmente). 👹

Sarò io che ho tra le iscrizioni troppi youtuber schizofrenici, o è fisiologico che su circa un migliaio ce ne debba essere almeno qualcuno particolare? La cosa strana è che in genere questo avviene comunque di rado… e invece, temo purtroppo che anche in questo ora ci sia qualcosa sotto, perché ho appena visto questa cosa succedere con ben 2 youtuber a distanza di proprio pochi giorni: 3 giorni fa ho notato che il fu YouTube Fa Cagare ha attuato la rimozione coatta di tutti i video degli ultimi 5-6 anni, e stamattina invece noto che Hiding In My Room pure ha fatto la sua solita pulizia varia (si, in effetti di lui non mi stupisco, ma rimane la goccia che oggi ha fatto traboccare il fritto misto). 😾
Non parliamo nemmeno di come il secondo tizio (…che in foto è a sinistra, e non a destra come dovrebbe essere logico, perché sono purtroppo una frana), tra i tanti video cancellati, abbia lasciato al proprio posto una quantità sospetta di recensioni tutte rigorosamente negative di vari prodotti — e sono abbastanza sicura che di Switch 2 ne avesse parlato bene o almeno neutralmente, ma invece c’è solo un video “VERY disappointing…“, figuriamoci…
Però bah, questa cosa non la gradisco, ‘un mi garba, serve una soluzione definitiva!!! Ovviamente non posso scaricarmi tutti i video di cui normalmente salverei un semplice link (…ci ho provato in passato, e scaricando in 720p VP9/AV1 ho riempito un disco da 320 GB in appena qualche mese)… Però, come dire… si da il caso che io mesi fa avessi trovato per caso un metodo efficace per salvare video di YouTube sull’Internet Archive, a differenza del “salva pagina ora” che non ha mai funzionato, quindi… La soluzione è smettere di usare dei normali segnalibri (nel mio caso, Shiori, non i merdosi del browser) per salvare i video, e invece usare un blog su WordPress.org semplicemente embeddando i video; la magia automatica del web farà il resto, dietro le quinte!!! 😈

#lost #media #youtuber #youtubers

Arnaud Bertrand

This is extraordinary. For the many of you who wonder how the EU could agree to such a humiliating "deal" with Trump, wonder no more.

We have an unusually straightforward answer directly from the horse's mouth: Sabine Weyand, who's the Directorate-General for Trade at the EU commission.

As she puts its:
- "If you didn't hear me say the word 'negotiation' – that's because there wasn't one." => the U.S. dictated the terms
- "From the Commission's perspective, this was a strategic compromise, not an ideal economic solution" => they're aware this completely f*cks the EU economically
- "The European side was under massive pressure to find a quick solution to stabilize transatlantic relations – especially with regard to security guarantees" => the EU agreed to the "deal" under a protection racket
- "We have a land war on the European continent. And we are completely dependent on the United States. The member states were not prepared to take the risk of further escalation – that would have been the consequence of European countermeasures." => Europe acted out of fear, choosing economic submission because of its total dependence on the U.S. (which ironically will only worsen the dependence)

There you have it, she said the quiet part out loud: the EU is in such a terrible strategic situation and EU leaders have so little courage that they're unable and unwilling to say 'no' to even the most humiliating demands.

xcancel.com/RnaudBertrand/stat…

„Das waren keine Verhandlungen“ (Tiefgang) | SZ Dossier

„Wenn Sie mich das Wort ‚Verhandlung‘ nicht haben sagen hören – das liegt daran, dass es keine war.“ Mit diesem Satz beschreibt Sabine Weyand den geopolitischen …

^{SZ Dossier}

I have been brainstorming an Open Source Political Party. Its probably the only way the entire earth isnt going to be ruined by corporations and dumb people.

Some ideas,

A digital voting framework, no rich canidates allowed.

Transparent online interviews, instead of debates, have a topic of the week.

A summery of peoples positions before the election.

--Some first policies--

Get rid of most laws and taxes, have a simple flat tax on everyone that is the same.

Replace our currency with a metal based currency with no fixed value by law.

Trans rights and Expanding the Constitution to limit the types of laws other politicians can pass if they are antihuman, antiliberty.

Reimaging some systems like healthcare and education for the 21st century and beyond.

Informing juries of their right to nullify the legal process

Forcing transparency in the state, passing privacy laws and protections.

Scientific funding for some ideas, like helping trans people to get better treatment and also have children. Taking half of tax revenues and giving it back to people in UBI. Creating a defensive military instead of an imperial one. Giving children more rights. Expanding schools into bording schools where students have a right to pick their school and live there if they want to escape abusive parents.

Bottom up governments, top down civil rights enforcment and dispute settling and managing of resources.

Getting rid of property tax for most people, only taxing property when someone or an entity owns multiple properties. No spamming to het around the tax.

Creating an opensource free internet infastructure and a free digital low bandwidth per user national digital radio network.

Right to repair and hack your devices. Full ownership of most devices. People cannot sell you partial ownership and puppet you through restrictive contracts, but still have protrctions for intellectual property. All devices must have open bootloaders or unlockable bootloaders. People cannot monopolize things like the radio chips and stuff to keep out competition and control the telecomunications infastructure by forcing people to only use apple and android devices which are full of spyware and adware and dont have root access to the hardware.

What do you guys think? Any ideas? Anyone want to maybe meet once a week on discord to start planing out the platform?

GitHub · Build and ship software on a single, collaborative platform

Join the world's most widely adopted, AI-powered developer platform where millions of developers, businesses, and the largest open source community build software that advances humanity.

^GitHub

Sto iniziando a giocare con un vecchio laptop sciacallato dal lavoro su cui ho installato ubuntu server, con Nextcloud e Docker.

Con Docker Compose ho installato Nginx e adesso vorrei provare a fare la cosa del DDNS su un dominio che ho registrato presso un provider italiano.

Ho guardato a un po' di provider e mi sembrano essere tutti americani o comunque su infrastruttura americana (DuckDNS su AWS, etc)

C'è qualcuno che mi consigliate nostrano o comunque EU e che abbia in generale una buona reputazione?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/us/politics/gates-foundation-democrats-arabella-advisors.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hE8.o3LA.YPjT6mVtgaX7

A class-action lawsuit against AI company Anthropic over copyright infringement is nearing settlement, with both parties reaching an agreement in principle¹. The lawsuit, filed by authors Andrea Bartz, Kirk Wallace Johnson, and Charles Graeber, alleged Anthropic illegally downloaded millions of books to train its AI models².

U.S. District Judge William Alsup certified what could be the largest copyright class action ever, potentially including up to 7 million claimants¹. The lawsuit claimed Anthropic pirated books from online sources including Books3, Library Genesis, and Pirate Library Mirror².

"This historic settlement will benefit all class members," said Justin A. Nelson, attorney for the authors¹. The parties must file a motion for preliminary approval by September 5, 2025¹.

While settlement terms remain undisclosed, the case had serious implications - industry advocates warned that if every eligible author filed a claim, it could "financially ruin" the AI industry¹. Anthropic had previously argued the lawsuit threatened its survival as a company¹.

1. Ars Technica - Authors celebrate "historic" settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
2. LA Times - AI company Anthropic settles with authors who alleged piracy ↩︎ ↩︎

AI company Anthropic settles with authors who alleged piracy

Anthropic trained its AI assistant Claude using copyrighted texts, according to a lawsuit from several affected authors.

^{Cerys Davies (Los Angeles Times)}