Lemm.ee va a cerrar.

c/Mexico va a migrar a otra instancia?

China has outlined a string of reforms to accelerate the development of hi-tech emerging industries in the city of Shenzhen, as the tech hub in southern China grapples with a barrage of US trade restrictions.

The plan focuses on boosting Shenzhen’s ability to create scalable business models in industries such as artificial intelligence and aviation that can be replicated across China, by helping the city cultivate a larger talent pool, expand local companies’ access to financing, and speed up the deployment of cutting-edge technologies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Smith_(politician)

  Former Arizona state Rep. Austin Smith, a leader of advocacy group Turning Point Action, was indicted on charges that he forged voter signatures on the nomination petitions he submitted for his re-election campaign last year.  

How a student fought to do their degree without submitting to proprietary (Microsoft, Google, Oracle etc) software and services that lecturers & admins demanded, and only use free software instead (like Jami, Jitsi Meet, PostgreSQL etc).

Hong Kong (AFP) – Hong Kong police have warned downloading a mobile game in which players can attempt to overthrow a stand-in for China's Communist Party could constitute a national security crime, as it vanished from Apple's local App Store Wednesday.

Beijing is extremely sensitive to even subtle hints of dissent, and in 2020 imposed a national security law in Hong Kong that has effectively quashed any political opposition.

In "Reversed Front: Bonfire", developed by a Taiwan-based company, users can "pledge allegiance" to entities including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and "Uyghur" to "overthrow the communist regime".

Although the game takes place in a historically different universe, the description reads: "This game is a work of NON-FICTION. Any similarity to actual agencies, policies or ethnic groups of the PRC (People's Republic of China) in this game is INTENTIONAL."

On Tuesday police in Hong Kong said "Reversed Front" was "advocating armed revolution" and promoting Taiwan and Hong Kong independence "under the guise of a game".

Downloading the game could see players charged with possessing seditious material, while making in-app purchases could be viewed as providing funding to the developer "for the commission of secession or subversion", police warned.

Recommending the game could constitute the offence of "incitement to secession".

Although players can choose to "lead the Communists to defeat all enemies", the game description makes clear they are meant to be the villains.

The Communists are described as "heavy-handed, reckless and inept" and accused of "widespread corruption, embezzlement, exploitation, slaughter and defilement".

Many of the other playing roles correspond to flashpoint issues for Beijing -- including self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its territory, and Xinjiang, where it has denied accusations of human rights abuses against the minority Muslim Uyghurs.

Hong Kong's vibrant civil society and political opposition have all but vanished since the imposition of the national security law, which was brought in after huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.

OpenAI last week said it had detected and banned a number of "likely China-origin" accounts targeting "Reversed Front" with negative comments.

"The network generated dozens of critical comments in Chinese about the game, followed by a long-form article claiming it had received widespread backlash," said OpenAI.

On Wednesday Apple appeared to have removed the game from the Hong Kong version of the App Store, after it had been available the day before, an AFP reporter saw.

It was not available on Hong Kong's Google Play on Tuesday, local media reported.

But the game's developer said it had seen a surge in searches since Tuesday's police announcement, jokingly implying it was thankful to authorities for the visibility boost.

Police in northwestern China are cracking down on writers of online erotic fiction across the country, including many college students, according to RFA sources and media reports, amid concern that officers are punishing people outside their jurisdiction.

Police in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, have been summoning writers who don’t even live there. A report from Caixin media group said some have been referred to police for prosecution, and anecdotal evidence indicates writers are facing substantial fines.

A source who spoke to Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity for safety reasons said the crackdown could involve 200-300 writers.

Their cases have also sparked a legal debate over the definition of “obscene materials” and renewed public discussion on the boundaries of creative freedom. Known as “Danmei,” the genre features romantic relationships between male characters. It originated in Japan and has become popular in China.

Amid tightened restrictions in China, many writers have turned to Haitang Culture, a Taiwanese-based adult fiction website established in 2015 to publish their work. The website on the democratic island doesn’t force censorship and allows explicit written content. Most readers are females.

Authorities in China have reacted. Last year, two China-based distributors affiliated with Haitang Culture were arrested for “assisting in information network criminal activities,” according to Shuiping Jiyuan, a news portal on the WeChat social media platform.

The recent police crackdown in Lanzhou followed similar moves in the eastern province of Anhui in June 2024, where authorities began arresting writers of online erotic fiction under the charge of “producing and distributing obscene materials for profit,” resulting in heavy fines and even prison sentences.

Police are seeking out writers even when they leave outside their jurisdiction - a practice that critics call “offshore fishing,” implying the motive of police is financial or political, rather than strictly legal.

“I don’t understand what they’re trying to do—are they pushing political correctness, or are they just desperate for money?” said Liu Yang, a veteran media professional in Lanzhou, told Radio Free Asia. “The police are short on funds, and now even arrests have become a way to make money.”

The only laws the Trump Administration respects are the laws it gets to inflict on others. The rule of law, however, doesn’t mean the laws don’t apply to those who make the rules. And yet, here we are, seeing another flagrant refusal to comply with oversight laws just because the DHS and ICE feel they can keep getting away with this.

Last month, ICE’s refusal to allow congressional reps to engage in an unannounced inspection of a New Jersey detention facility resulted in the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka — something that occurred even though Baraka followed ICE officers’ orders and returned to the public sidewalk outside of the facility’s gates. That then led to federal prosecutors receiving a tongue-lashing from a federal judge for the arrest and refusal to dismiss the obviously bogus charges the feds used to justify their retaliatory arrest of the mayor.

It’s happening again, albeit without the arrests. But it’s still just as unlawful. Congressional reps on both coasts were denied access to ICE detention facilities — something ICE cannot legally do.

Three Democratic members of Congress from California and two from New York said over the weekend that they were barred from entering federal detention centers in their respective states to check on people who were detained in immigration raids or in protests against the raids.

All five members — Representatives Maxine Waters, Jimmy Gomez and Norma Torres of California and Representatives Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez of New York — said that they should have been allowed to enter the buildings as members of Congress.

The congressional reps are entirely in the right, even if DHS head Kristi Noem and professional liar/DHS PR rep Tricia McLaughlin say otherwise. Inconveniently for both Noem and McLaughlin, ICE’s current acting direction, Todd Lyons, has publicly confirmed congressional members have the right to engage in unannounced inspections of federal facilities.

“We do acknowledge that any member of Congress has the right to show up for an inspection at one of our facilities in their oversight capability,” Lyons said. He also said that while those visits are “unannounced,” members need to show identification and go through screening and can’t bring contraband.

By law, members of Congress are allowed to visit ICE facilities and don’t have to give any notice, although congressional staff members need to give 24 hours’ notice.

That’s what’s being said by ICE, but that’s definitely not how ICE is actually doing things. And ICE’s parent agency, the DHS, is only too happy to oblige ICE’s incorrect claims and unlawful actions by adding more bullshit of its own.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said that the lawmakers had shown up unannounced. ICE officials had told them, she said, that they “would be happy to give them a tour with a little more notice, when it would not disrupt ongoing law enforcement activities and sensitive law enforcement items could be put away.”

Wrong answer, Trish. The law says congressional reps can enter at any time without any prior notice. There’s no provision in the oversight law that gives federal agencies a bit of extra time to tidy up the place and hide anything incriminating. Oversight isn’t really oversight if those being inspected are given advance notice and enough time to sweep stuff under the rugs.

But ICE continues to pretend otherwise and Tricia McLaughlin is always on hand to misrepresent the law and/or claim these completely legal impromptu inspections are nothing more than political stunts. Even if they are “political stunts” (and they are, to a certain extent), the law doesn’t say federal agencies can bar Congress members from entry just because they might they have problems with any perceived motive.

The law is law, but somehow that just never seems to be the case when it comes to this administration. Trump and his cabinet are still picking and choosing which laws they’ll follow and relying on the resulting deluge of lawsuits to continue violating laws while overworked courts try (often in vain) to rein in this administration. Hopefully the tide will turn in the near future, and the system of checks and balances will slowly begin to drain the swamp Trump has created.

From Techdirt via this RSS feed

The only laws the Trump Administration respects are the laws it gets to inflict on others. The rule of law, however, doesn’t mean the laws don’t apply to those who make the rules. And yet, here we are, seeing another flagrant refusal to comply with oversight laws just because the DHS and ICE feel they can keep getting away with this.

Last month, ICE’s refusal to allow congressional reps to engage in an unannounced inspection of a New Jersey detention facility resulted in the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka — something that occurred even though Baraka followed ICE officers’ orders and returned to the public sidewalk outside of the facility’s gates. That then led to federal prosecutors receiving a tongue-lashing from a federal judge for the arrest and refusal to dismiss the obviously bogus charges the feds used to justify their retaliatory arrest of the mayor.

It’s happening again, albeit without the arrests. But it’s still just as unlawful. Congressional reps on both coasts were denied access to ICE detention facilities — something ICE cannot legally do.

Three Democratic members of Congress from California and two from New York said over the weekend that they were barred from entering federal detention centers in their respective states to check on people who were detained in immigration raids or in protests against the raids.

All five members — Representatives Maxine Waters, Jimmy Gomez and Norma Torres of California and Representatives Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez of New York — said that they should have been allowed to enter the buildings as members of Congress.

The congressional reps are entirely in the right, even if DHS head Kristi Noem and professional liar/DHS PR rep Tricia McLaughlin say otherwise. Inconveniently for both Noem and McLaughlin, ICE’s current acting direction, Todd Lyons, has publicly confirmed congressional members have the right to engage in unannounced inspections of federal facilities.

“We do acknowledge that any member of Congress has the right to show up for an inspection at one of our facilities in their oversight capability,” Lyons said. He also said that while those visits are “unannounced,” members need to show identification and go through screening and can’t bring contraband.

By law, members of Congress are allowed to visit ICE facilities and don’t have to give any notice, although congressional staff members need to give 24 hours’ notice.

That’s what’s being said by ICE, but that’s definitely not how ICE is actually doing things. And ICE’s parent agency, the DHS, is only too happy to oblige ICE’s incorrect claims and unlawful actions by adding more bullshit of its own.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said that the lawmakers had shown up unannounced. ICE officials had told them, she said, that they “would be happy to give them a tour with a little more notice, when it would not disrupt ongoing law enforcement activities and sensitive law enforcement items could be put away.”

Wrong answer, Trish. The law says congressional reps can enter at any time without any prior notice. There’s no provision in the oversight law that gives federal agencies a bit of extra time to tidy up the place and hide anything incriminating. Oversight isn’t really oversight if those being inspected are given advance notice and enough time to sweep stuff under the rugs.

But ICE continues to pretend otherwise and Tricia McLaughlin is always on hand to misrepresent the law and/or claim these completely legal impromptu inspections are nothing more than political stunts. Even if they are “political stunts” (and they are, to a certain extent), the law doesn’t say federal agencies can bar Congress members from entry just because they might they have problems with any perceived motive.

The law is law, but somehow that just never seems to be the case when it comes to this administration. Trump and his cabinet are still picking and choosing which laws they’ll follow and relying on the resulting deluge of lawsuits to continue violating laws while overworked courts try (often in vain) to rein in this administration. Hopefully the tide will turn in the near future, and the system of checks and balances will slowly begin to drain the swamp Trump has created.

From Techdirt via this RSS feed

GEOCITIES!

(Well, the Internet Archive's... archive of Geocities animated GIFs

The Shatner dance

If only I could get make a Piefed/Lemmy post that could embed and autoplay one of these MIDIs or WAVs

• https://web.archive.org/web/20090829180041/http://geocities.com/Area51/Orion/3775/wav.html
• https://web.archive.org/web/20091027110325/http://geocities.com/lhksoft/StarTrek/index.html
  

Click on the GIFs in the search results to view the original Geocities page.

Trek Kirk

• https://gifcities.org/search?q=trek+kirk&offset=0&page_size=200

Trek Spock

• https://gifcities.org/search?q=trek+spock&offset=0&page_size=200

DS9

• https://gifcities.org/search?q=ds9&offset=0&page_size=200

Voyager

• https://gifcities.org/search?q=voyager&offset=0&page_size=200
• https://gifcities.org/search?q=trek+voyager&offset=0&page_size=200

Voyager Janeway

• https://gifcities.org/search?q=trek+janeway&offset=0&page_size=200

Via https://piefed.social/post/896235

We are excited to announce a new version of GifCities, Internet Archive’s GeoCities Animated GIF Search Engine!

https://gifcities.org/

The new version of GifCities includes a number of new improvements. We are especially excited at the drastic improvement in “GifSearchies” by implementing semantic search for GifCities, instead of the hacky old “file name” text search of the original version.

This news makes me want to dance!

Why not post your favourite Geocities GIFs below?

One thing that I was thinking about as I walked around downtown, the somewhat gloomy summer fog helping to hold the fumes and the apocalyptic mood from last nights’ violence in the air, multiple helicopters and an airborne drone circling, was the way that protestors had turned the self-driving cars against the state they were designed to appease.