"Uber helped wage a $200 million war in California to keep drivers as contractors," notes the Washington Post — successfully funding a ballot proposition that overrides a high-stakes 2019 law which insisted drivers be considered employees. "But now that the ballot measure has passed, the company says its work isn't done..." The ride-hailing giant's CEO said Thursday that Uber is looking to expand the model to other states, joining an executive from rival Lyft who said something similar earlier this week... "Going forward, you'll see us more loudly advocating for...laws like Prop 22," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said, adding later: "We were the first to come forward with this [independent contractor]-plus model, the idea that drivers deserve flexibility plus benefits. We want to have a dialogue with governments [in] other states..." Uber and Lyft's stocks have rallied this week, logging percentage gains in the double digits as investors reacted to the news that they would not have to make drivers employees. The proposition promises independent contractors 120% of the minimum wage plus contributions to healthcare equivalent to what other employers currently provide (or half that amount for employees averaging less than 25 hours a week but more than 15). But the Post points out that "Unlike full employment, however, benefits are calculated based on a driver's active time, negating the potential hours per week they spend waiting for a fare while logged onto the apps..." Uber's chief financial officer told the Post that the new benefits "will result in probably a 5% increase to cover the incremental [costs]," including benefits, adding "We do believe that it'll be manageable." The Post adds that labor advocates "fiercely opposed Proposition 22, saying it was a transparent attempt to snatch newly enshrined employment rights from workers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While the RIAA has objected to a tool for downloading online videos, EFF senior activist Elliot Harmon responds with this question. "Who died and put them in charge of YouTube?" He asks the question in a new video "explainer" on the controversy, and argues in a new piece at EFF.org that the youtube-dl tool "doesn't infringe on any RIAA copyrights." RIAA's argument relies on a different section of the DMCA, Section 1201. DMCA 1201 says that it's illegal to bypass a digital lock in order to access or modify a copyrighted work. Copyright holders have argued that it's a violation of DMCA 1201 to bypass DRM even if you're doing it for completely lawful purposes; for example, if you're downloading a video on YouTube for the purpose of using it in a way that's protected by fair use. (And thanks to the way that copyright law has been globalized via trade agreements, similar laws exist in many other jurisdictions too.) RIAA argues that since youtube-dl could be used to download music owned by RIAA-member labels, no one should be able to use the tool, even for completely lawful purposes. This is an egregious abuse of the notice-and-takedown system, which is intended to resolve disputes over allegedly infringing material online. Again, youtube-dl doesn't use RIAA-member labels' music in any way. The makers of youtube-dl simply shared information with the public about how to perform a certain task — one with many completely lawful applications. Harmon wants to hear from people using youtube-dl for lawful purposes. And he also links to an earlier EFF piece arguing that DMCA 1201 "is incredibly broad, apparently allowing rightsholders to legally harass any 'trafficker' in code that lets users re-take control of their devices from DRM locks..." And EFF's concern over DMCA 1201 has been ongoing: DMCA 1201 has been loaded with terrible implications for innovation and free expression since the day it was passed. For many years, EFF documented these issues in our "Unintended Consequences" series; we continue to organize and lobby for temporary exemptions to its provisions for the purposes of cellphone unlocking, restoring vintage videogames and similar fair uses, as well as file and defend lawsuits in the United States to try and mitigate its damage. We look forward to the day when it is no longer part of U.S. law. But due to the WIPO Copyright Treaty, the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions infest much of the world's jurisdictions too, including the European Union via the Information Society Directive 2001/29/EC.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Joe Biden, the projected winner of the U.S. presidency, will move to restore dozens of environmental safeguards President Donald Trump abolished," reports the Washington Post, "and launch the boldest climate change plan of any president in history." destinyland shares their report: While some of Biden's most sweeping programs will encounter stiff resistance from Senate Republicans and conservative attorneys general, the United States is poised to make a 180-degree turn on climate change and conservation policy. Biden's team already has plans on how it will restrict oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters; ratchet up federal mileage standards for cars and SUVs; block pipelines that transport fossil fuels across the country; provide federal incentives to develop renewable power; and mobilize other nations to make deeper cuts in their own carbon emissions... Biden has vowed to eliminate carbon emissions from the electric sector by 2035 and spend $2 trillion on investments ranging from weatherizing homes to developing a nationwide network of charging stations for electric vehicles. That massive investment plan stands a chance only if his party wins two Senate runoff races in Georgia in January; otherwise, he would have to rely on a combination of executive actions and more-modest congressional deals to advance his agenda. Still, a number of factors make it easier to enact more-ambitious climate policies than even four years ago. Roughly 10% of the globe has warmed by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), a temperature rise the world has pledged to avoid. The price of solar and wind power has dropped, the coal industry has shrunk, and Americans increasingly connect the disasters they're experiencing in real time — including more-intense wildfires, hurricanes and droughts — with global warming. Biden has made the argument that curbing carbon will produce high-paying jobs while protecting the planet... Some of the new administration's rules could be challenged in federal court, which have a number of Trump appointees on the bench. But even some conservative activists said that Biden could enact enduring policies, whether by partnering with Congress or through regulation... The new administration may be able to broker compromises with key industries that have experienced regulatory whiplash in the past decade, including the auto industry and power sector, while offering tax breaks for renewable energy that remain popular with both parties. And Biden can rebuild diplomatic alliances that will spur foreign countries to pursue more-ambitious carbon reductions... Biden's advisers have said that they plan to elevate climate change as a priority in departments that have not always treated it as one, including the Transportation, State and Treasury departments. It will influence key appointments, affecting everything from overseas banking and military bases to domestic roads and farms.... Biden's pledge to achieve a carbon-free U.S. power sector within 15 years would mean the closing or revamping of nearly every coal- and gas-fired power plant around the country, and the construction of an unprecedented number of new wind turbines and solar farms. On top of that, engineers still need to devise a better way of storing energy when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. "If I were advising Biden on energy, my first three priorities would be storage, storage and storage," said Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who worked in the alternative energy businesses before running for office.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NBC reports that social media crackdowns on disinformation have been less consistent if the content isn't in English. One example? "Facebook and YouTube have taken steps to remove QAnon content in English from their platforms, but experts warn there is still a vast amount in Spanish." The misleading, false and conspiratorial claims that are circulating in Spanish about the outcome of the election are readily viewable on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, despite policies from all three companies prohibiting or restricting the spread of conspiracy theories and election-related misinformation. According to researchers interviewed by NBC News, the policies have been implemented with more consistency for content posted in English... "Facebook and YouTube have taken steps to remove QAnon content in English from their platforms, but there is still a vast amount available in Spanish and it's easily accessible," said Flavia Colangelo, a researcher at GQR, a Democratic research firm that advises campaigns on Spanish-language disinformation... Alex Joseph, a spokesperson for YouTube, said the company has policies against misinformation about how to vote but does not prohibit content that forwards false views about the outcome of the election. "Expressing views on the outcome of a current election or process of counting votes is allowed under our policy," Joseph said. "Our policies are global, and we apply them consistently across all languages and regions."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The night before America's election, Fast Company reported: On the internet, we're subject to hidden A/B tests all the time, but this one was also part of a political weapon: a multimillion-dollar tool kit built by a team of Facebook vets, data nerds, and computational social scientists determined to defeat Donald Trump. The goal is to use microtargeted ads, follow-up surveys, and an unparalleled data set to win over key electorates in a few critical states: the low-education voters who unexpectedly came out in droves or stayed home last time, the voters who could decide another monumental election. By this spring, the project, code named Barometer, appeared to be paying off. During a two-month period, the data scientists found that showing certain Facebook ads to certain possible Trump voters lowered their approval of the president by 3.6%... "We've been able to really understand how to communicate with folks who have lower levels of political knowledge, who tend to be ignored by the political process," says James Barnes, a data and ads expert at the all-digital progressive nonprofit Acronym, who helped build Barometer. This is familiar territory: Barnes spent years on Facebook's ads team, and in 2016 was the "embed" who helped the Trump campaign take Facebook by storm. Last year, he left Facebook and resolved to use his battle-tested tactics to take down his former client. "We have found ways to find the right news to put in front of them, and we found ways to understand what works and doesn't," Barnes says. "And if you combine all those things together, you get a really effective approach, and that's what we're doing...." By the election it promises to have spent $75 million on Facebook, Google, Instagram, Snapchat, Hulu, Roku, Viacom, Pandora, and anywhere else valuable voters might be found... Barnes had been a Republican all his life, but he did not like Trump; he says he ended up voting for Clinton. The election, and his role in it, left him unsettled, and he left Facebook's political ads team to work with the company's commercial clients... In the wake of Trump's election and its aftermath, Barnes helped Facebook develop some of its election integrity initiatives (one of Facebook's moves was to stop embedding employees like him inside campaigns) and even sat down for lengthy interviews with the Securities and Exchange Commission and with then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Last year, after some soul-searching, some of it in Peru, Barnes registered as a Democrat, left Facebook, and began working on a way to fight Trump... Acronym and a political action committee, Pacronym, were founded in 2017 by Democratic strategist Tara McGowan, in an effort to counter Trump's online spending advantage and what The New Yorker called his Facebook juggernaut... For Barnes, Acronym's aggressive approach to Facebook, and Barometer's very existence, isn't just personal, but relates to his former employer: Facebook hasn't only failed to effectively police misinformation and disinformation, but helped accelerate it... But while Barnes is using some of the weapons that helped Trump, he's at pains to emphasize that, unlike the other side, Acronym's artillery is simply "the facts." The PAC's donors include Laurene Powell Jobs, Steven Spielberg, venture capitalists Reid Hoffman and Michael Moritz, and (according to the Wall Street Journal) Facebook's former product officer, Chris Cox (who is also an informal adviser.) But in addition, the group "can access an unprecedented pool of state voter files and personal information: everything from your purchasing patterns to your social media posts to your church, layered with AI-built scores that predict your traits..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

No time for losers. We are the champions of the world.

11:45AM: MSNBC, CNN, Fox and AP have all called it for Biden.

"BIDEN WINS" declares the all-caps headline at CNN.com. And the headline at NBC News reads "JOE BIDEN DEFEATS DONALD TRUMP TO WIN THE WHITE HOUSE, NBC NEWS PROJECTS."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Post-election New Yorker cover from 2016.

Can we move to Georgia in time to vote in the January runoffs?

"Boeing's much-maligned 737 Max jet could be cleared to fly again in just a few weeks," reports SFGate, adding that one U.S. airline plans to carry passengers "as early as December." Although the Federal Aviation Administration has not disclosed a public timeline for the Max's return to service, approval to lift the grounding could come as early as mid-November, according to Reuters. Boeing executives said they expect to gain FAA recertification before the end of the year. The company will also need to get approval from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and Transport Canada, which are conducting their own respective reviews... American Airlines said it plans to operate one daily Boeing 737 Max roundtrip from Dec. 29 through Jan. 4 between its Miami hub and New York's LaGuardia Airport. If it takes off, American will be the first US carrier to bring back the Max... Other U.S. airlines operating the Max are taking a wait-and-see approach before assigning the fleet type to flights.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

So many things to observe in this marathon of an election night.

First, it's nice that it isn't a nailbiter. We know what the outcome will be. Unlike my friend Tom Watson, who is beyond impatient for the networks to call the election, I'm glad that it's stretching out. I wish the 2008 election had been similarly extended so we could have had a chance to absorb the change slowly. Instead boom, he was elected, giving his acceptance speech, still gives me goosebumps, and we all went out to party in the streets. Now we're getting to savor the fullness of the moment. And the eventfulness of 2020 is cooperating.

For example, Covid is raging. Growing exponentially. We;'re doing nothing to resist it. The example Trump set during the campaign, all those awful rallies, more awful because they were such good entertainment, is probably responsible for a good portion if not all of the growth. I heard on the news that there's a high correlation between regions hardest-hit by the virus and those that voted for Trump. They see it as a conundrum, but it's obvious what the connection is. People who live in Trump Country don't see the virus as a threat. That's gotta be one of the biggest indicators. People who don't feel threatened by it are probably mroe likely to get it, no?

Okay so here's something people don't like to say out loud. But obviously the Trump election was the flipside of the Obama election. The yin to the yang. People who don't like uppity presidents (ie black people) probably don't care for presidents who don't know their place is in the home (ie women). The thought Trump was the perfect way to say Fuck You Try Again Assholes. Let Trump drive them crazy. Smart. It sure did that. So when enough people got tired of Trump they offer up a white grandpa, just the thing, but they snuck in just behind him a woman who happens to be black! We hardly noticed. At one point the other day, when it seemed clear that Biden was going to top it off, we realized oh shit it's going to be Vice-President Harris. She's really going to be VP. Look the glass ceiling broke. We hardly noticed. But you know what, some of the people in Trump Country noticed. They might've told the pollsters they were going to vote for Uncle Joe, thinking all the time that a black women wasn't their idea of someone who should be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Esp such an old heart.

It's good that there's some time to contemplate this before it's officical.

Another thing that's good is it gave Fox some time to decide how to handle this. At first they were going to refuse to call Biden the president-elect. That would have been a catasrophe. In the meantime, they figured it out, and Laura Ingraham,. last night, looked into the camera and told Trump to go gracefully. They gave him an out. You have to figure if he doesn't take it, they're going to go ahead and call Biden president-elect. We had time to negotiate this. This is kind of a miracle but hardly anyone noticed.

Nate SIlver is openly trying to figure out what happened with the polls. He seems glad that this is being drawn out too. Consider maybe the electorate was a moving target and the polls, with all their adjustments and heuristics couldn't pick that up. Things were seesawing with Trump in October. First he's in the hospital, looking frail, sick with Covid, possibly dying. That can't have been good for his polling numbers. Then he recovers, is full of energy, probably pumped up on steroids, holding his normal now murderous rallies, and the Dems were holding drive-in embarrassments. He juiced the base in late October, and it worked. It got people to think the old Trump is back, the virus didn't get him, look at the fun, and they switched their vote. They could, because Trump told them not to mail in their ballots. I think, net-net, people are being too hard on the polls. But that isn't how politics should be done anyway. Stop thinking of us in the aggregate. We're people. We want meaning in our lives. Talk to us as if we mattered. I think that's the message of Trump-style politics. It's a complete scam, but people liked the pitch. The confidence. The feeling of a personal connection.

For a project I'm doing, I wanted to see how Fargo did calendar structures. This is what I found out. It's here primarily so I can find it again later through search engines.

• First, here's an OPML file from Fargo, that I used briefly in the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014 to edit my blog.
• I was interested in the attributes that Fargo used. I wanted to see what type attributes it used for calendars. I was surprised to see that it didn't use any. It did use a name attribute. And now I can see what it used that for, it was for the name of the file. It allowed you to change the text of the headline without affecting the name of the file the HTML rendering was saved in. This had come up as a question in some of the work we're doing with Old School.
• For clues about Fargo, I found the Fargo blog indispensible. Here's the OPML source for the Fargo blog.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: France's Neoen SA will partner with Tesla Inc. to install one of the world's biggest lithium-ion batteries in Australia after reaching a grid connection deal with the power market operator. The 300-megawatt Victorian Big Battery will be located in the southeastern city of Geelong and use Tesla's Megapack technology. It will be double the size of Neoen's Hornsdale site in South Australia, which was the largest facility when it began operation in 2017. Installing the new system in Australia's second-most populous state will help to modernize and stabilize the local grid, which is targeting 50% of its power to come from renewable sources by 2030, Neoen said Thursday in a media release. The Paris-based company is targeting the battery to be operational by the end of 2021. [...] Victoria's grid still relies heavily on aging coal-fired plants, which have become increasingly unreliable during periods of extreme heat. The state has experienced power outages in recent summers as the system struggled to cope with a surge in demand as businesses and households cranked up air conditioners. Neoen's new project in Victoria will be supported by a 250 megawatt grid services contract with the Australian Energy Market Operator, and will also partner with network provider AusNet Services, the company said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Panasonic has collaborated with JR East on a vacuum cleaner-style device to solve a new problem that has sprung up on recent years: a rise in people dropping wireless earbuds onto train tracks. "The device is being tested at Ikebukuro station, a major hub in northern Tokyo, and early results suggest it works much faster than the traditional grabber," reports The Verge. From the report: JR East, the part of Japan's formerly private railway group that covers the Tokyo and Tohoku regions of the country, says that there were 950 incidents of dropped earbuds across 78 Tokyo train stations in the July-September quarter, Jiji Press reports. The figure apparently accounts for a quarter of all dropped items. According to JR East, station staff normally use a grabber-style "magic hand" tool to pick up larger items that fall onto tracks, like hats or smartphones. But the gravel between the rails makes smaller objects -- like, say, a left AirPod Pro -- more difficult to retrieve, meaning staff sometimes have to wait until after the last train.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.