verity_kindle

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41913405

(I know there are spelling errors, I'm not fixing it.)

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/52860639

El País interview with Svetlana Alexievich, Belarussian author and 2015 Nobel Prize holder for literature. Ukraine from a pacifist's perspective.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/52116343

Your pirates, my librarians. cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/60161919

An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.

Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.

A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86m music files from Spotify and 256m rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100m tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.

The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, said it had “identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping”.

“An investigation into unauthorised access identified that a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management] to access some of the platform’s audio files,” said Spotify.

Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a “‘preservation archive’ for music”.

The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via “torrents”, a means of sharing large digital files online.

“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.

“With your help, humanity’s musical heritage will be forever protected from destruction by natural disasters, wars, budget cuts and other catastrophes,” said the group.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/41958899

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/41958890

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/38367381

This is an op-ed by Amalendu Misra, Professor of International Politics, Lancaster University.

The Brics group of nations has just concluded its 17th annual summit in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. But, despite member states adopting a long list of commitments covering global governance, finance, health, AI and climate change, the summit was a lacklustre affair.

The two most prominent leaders from the group’s founding members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – were conspicuously absent. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, only attended virtually due to an outstanding arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court over his role in the war in Ukraine.

China’s Xi Jinping avoided the summit altogether for unknown reasons, sending his prime minister, Li Qiang, instead. This was Xi’s first no-show at a Brics summit, with the snub prompting suggestions that Beijing’s enthusiasm for the group as part of an emerging new world order is in decline.

[...]

The Brics group is a behemoth. Its full 11 members account for 40% of the world’s population and economy. But the bloc is desperately short of providing any cohesive alternative global leadership.

While Brazil used its position as host to highlight Brics as a truly multilateral forum capable of providing leadership in a new world order, such ambitions are thwarted by the many contradictions plaguing this bloc.

Among these are tensions between founding members China and India, which have been running high for decades.

There are other contradictions, too. In their joint Rio declaration, the group’s members decried the recent Israeli and US attacks on Iran. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, also used his position as summit host to criticise the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

But this moral high ground appears hollow when you consider that the Russian Federation, a key member of Brics, is on a mission to destroy Ukraine. And rather than condemning Russia, Brics leaders used the Rio summit to criticise recent Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s railway infrastructure.

[...]

Brics declared intention to address the issue of climate change is also problematic. The Rio declaration conveyed the group’s support for multilateralism and unity to achieve the goals of the Paris agreement. But, despite China making significant advances in its green energy sector, Brics contains some of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases as well as several of the largest oil and gas producers.

[...]

The case has been forwarded for criminal charges. A child could be prosecuted as an adult. Defend this, tankies.

Reaching out across the seas to all biscuit lovers. Let's not let a little thing like the definition of "biscuit" or the implications of "tea party" separate us, we have so much more to share, yo. We could be like NATO, except with fat and sugar! I'll kick it off with my favorite cheap Aldi sweet without chocolate in it: The Speculoos. Excellent with Camembert brie! EDIT: fixed the fargin photo

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/25331875

This is part of an exhibit on indigenous futurism at the Autry Museum of the American West, called Future Imaginaries. The pictures don’t do it justice, it’s very beautiful to see the stitches in person.

Here’s the information from the accompanying plaque:

Trek (Pleiades)

Marie Watt (Seneca Nation)

2014

Reclaimed wool blankets, satin binding, thread, and embroidery floss

The quilted pattern in Marie Watt's Trek (Pleiades) echoes the nine diamond-like formations found in some Native basketry designs. The number nine also corresponds to the nine brightest stars of the constellation Pleiades, which derives its name from the Seven Sisters of Greek mythology, who were transformed into stars by Zeus to avoid the hunter Orion's unwanted advances.

The Starship Enterprise, delicately embroidered over the diamond pattern, references both lengthy voyages found in Indigenous ancestral stories alongside modern space travel, each intersecting time and space, the historical and contemporary, the real and mythical.

Repooost from Lord of The Memes. S'almost like invadin' wakes them up and then there's fire, flood and the Hague

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24415687

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24394191

Can everyone please pull back on the Despair of the Day, bottle it up tightly inside and just…shitpost, shitmeme or shitcomment while you’re here. That’s the tottering crayon tower on which NCD was built. This is not the place for discussing politics seriously or going through the seven stages of anything. Thank you.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/26917080

When uploading photos using the desktop website, make sure to select Full Resolution in the Upload Preferences.

You must have exactly six 5x7 photo cards in your cart for the code to apply.

So, yeah, Norwegian fishing boat confronts Russians during firing drills in the Arctic Ocean. Russians say "leave", Norwegians say "No U". Warning shot fired. Up until today, Norway was still allowing port visits from Russian-flagged vessels. Will that go away, along with Russian crews' chances for hot meals and revelry?

How many of you were this? Just shout "Stonky" instead of "Spartacus" and step forward, you know the drill.