Corin Faife
@corin.bsky.social
Data journalist covering North America for @afp.com. Formerly Verge, Markup, Cornell Tech, some other places. Always looking for the future in the present. ⚡➡️ corinfaife.co ⚡
"The watermark is Google’s. The app that reads the watermark is Google’s. The search that reads it is Google’s. Every road out of the problem runs back through the company that built it."
Faine Greenwood@faineg.bsky.social · 5d agoI used to do some work on the ethical use of satellite and drone imagery for aid and disaster response, and it is genuinely hard to express in words what a dangerous, stupid thing Google is doing by making it easy to use GenAI to create faked satellite imagery:
Honestly I'm speechless. It's not like they were off by just a little bit. It's totally wrong. www.reuters.com/world/africa...
US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference
A U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a State Department presentation at a global conference taking place in Brazil this week, causing a stir among attendees who took screen...
reuters.com
ICE just posted a new RFP for transporting detainees to/from a range of facilities in Baltimore, Boston, New York, New Jersey and Washington. Daily round trips to airports, jails, hospitals and more with detainees restrained and under armed guard. sam.gov/workspace/co...
SCOOP: The drone giant DJI was able to successfully get FCC certification for a drone made in China using a shell company and by lying to the government, claiming their drone was made in a Texas recycling facility. I found out in June. The FCC sent an Order to Show Cause thanks to my research.
The Verge@theverge.com · 2w agoWhack-a-drone
Amazing how quickly tokenmaxxing has died out when enterprise users have to actually bear the cost
Vittoria Elliott@telliotter.bsky.social · 2w agoSCOOP: A little over a month ago, the Pentagon was bragging that half its workforce was using AI. Now the army is saying they’re burning through tokens and need to limit use. For @wired.com www.wired.com/story/the-ar...
"Old, printed books ... are guaranteed to be free of the very AI slop AI companies are producing."
404 Media@404media.co · 2w agoISBNdb, a company that sources printed books for AI companies to turn into training data, tells clients “the optics problem is real.”
I nearly fell out of the Overton window reading this
The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2w agoIn @nytopinion.nytimes.com “The appropriate yardstick of a new policy is not whether it solves every problem but whether it represents progress, and the pied-à-terre tax does,” writes the editorial board on the recent debate over a tax on high-priced second homes in New York City.
Yet another instance of the techniques of Israeli occupation being used by US police forces.
Joseph Cox@josephcox.bsky.social · 2w agoNew from 404 Media: police clearly want armed drones. New Orleans cops published a policy document outlining how weaponized drones would work, before quickly walking it back. We got a copy of the original. www.404media.co/new-orleans-...
New from 404 Media: police clearly want armed drones. New Orleans cops published a policy document outlining how weaponized drones would work, before quickly walking it back. We got a copy of the original. www.404media.co/new-orleans-...
New Orleans Cops Published Policy Document Allowing Weaponized Drones
Cops and drone companies seem increasingly eager to put weapons on their drones.
404media.co
New York sculptor spent $100,000 to make a Charlie Kirk statue no one wants to buy
New York sculptor spent $100,000 to make a Charlie Kirk statue no one wants to buy
Sergio Furnari said he thought the lifesize sculpture – which no one commissioned – would raise ‘millions’ of dollars A New York sculptor has been left furious after spending $100,000 of his own money to build a lifesize statue of Charlie Kirk, only to find that no one wants to buy it. Sergio Furnari, originally from Italy, had hoped the statue of the deceased far-right activist, which he intends to display in Times Square, would raise “millions” of dollars. Instead, he said he has been inundated by messages from people saying they intend to urinate on the sculpture. Continue reading...
theguardian.com
In games this dull they should be allowed to bring a second ball into play simultaneously. Maybe even a third.
First day back at work after parental leave! Did anything much happen in the last three months??
Here’s my interview with Shishir Mehotra, the CEO behind Grammarly’s “expert review” feature which attributed writing advice to people - including me lol - without permission. Or, as you will hear us talk about a lot, compensation. www.theverge.com/podcast/8987...
![Sure. How much do you think you should pay me to use my name?
It's really important to think about attribution and think about impersonation, and so on. As an expert, you have a trade you make on the internet. The idea is that when you put content out there, myself included, you hope people use it. You want to refer to other people's content.
You want people to link to you. You really, really hope they attribute you when they do. When somebody uses your content, should they attribute you? Of course. And to attribute you, you have to use your name.
There's a different line which is, should people be able to impersonate you? And I think that is a very different standard. And we saw the lawsuit. Respectfully, we believe the claims are without merit. The idea that the feature is impersonation is quite a big stretch. Every mention was very clearly, "This is inspired not only by this person, but also inspired by a specific work from this specific person, with a clear attributed link to get back to them." It's far from that test lof impersonation].](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:x56l2n7i7babgdzqul4bd433/bafkreiap5dna6sgosil3plep24dbqaybgtbnj7himxpdgfp37wgcgx3cpu)
TotalEnergies has agreed to what's essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in fossil fuel projects instead, the Department of Interior announced. n.pr/3PjBEUt
Trump administration to pay French company $1B to drop U.S. offshore wind leases
TotalEnergies has agreed to what's essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in fossil fuel projects instead, the Department of Interior announced.
n.pr
I set up a tracker to follow average national gas prices at the pump since the first strikes on Iran were launched. Here's where we're at:
This map is brilliant. What it maps is enraging Why cities are resisting ICE's detention expansion www.npr.org/2026/03/23/g...
Mapping ICE's expanding footprint, and the communities fighting back
Resistance in both Democratic and Republican cities points to broader unease with the direction of immigration enforcement.
npr.org
"Great work taking out that IRGC command center. That wasn't just a bold strike—it was inspired. Now is there anything else I can help you with?"
Will Oremus@willoremus.com · 5mo agoInteresting! Anthropic's Claude, the AI tool that the Pentagon famously banned last week, continues to play a crucial role in the U.S. military campaign in Iran, three people familiar with the situation told the @washingtonpost.com: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
A ship and buildings can be seen on fire in Bandar Abbas Military Harbour, Iran, in satellite images from today released by Planet Labs
I used this system just recently for a story on small arms purchases by DHS. Taking it offline unquestionably makes the US government more secretive and less accountable.
404 Media@404media.co · 5mo agoNEW: On Wednesday, the government stopped supporting FPDS.gov, an indispensable resource for finding what ICE, the FBI, and every other agency is buying. Its replacement site completely sucks.
It's a Boeing 737 with a queen bed, showers, kitchen and a bar.
Kevin Collier @kevincollier.bsky.social · 6mo agoMy colleague Julia Ainsley, who is not on this site but is a killer on the DHS beat, obtained exclusive photos of Kristi Noem's luxury jet that she needs for "deportations."
Shipping more and more code with agents means I'll finally have to learn how to write tests won't I?
According to the Washington Post's guild, recent layoffs eliminated positions for: - 37% of white guild members - 43% of Asian guild members - 45% Black members - 50% Hispanic/Latino members.
Nieman Lab@niemanlab.org · 6mo agoThe @postguild.bsky.social's data is the latest example in the years-long unraveling of the news industry’s promises to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion after George Floyd’s killing and the ensuing “racial reckoning” of 2020. www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/wash...
Pro tip, always write code that makes lots of unnecessary print statements so it looks cool and hackerish to anyone looking over your shoulder
Last week the DHS Office of the Inspector General released its current plan for oversight reviews. Many areas of inquest where the American public would really benefit from transparency.
Instagram has suspended Track AIPAC, the highly popular watchdog project that documents AIPAC’s political spending, citing a violation of Instagram intellectual property rules, specifically trademark rules. The account tracks FEC donations, and points out top-funded lawmakers.
In 1943, musician Woody Guthrie placed a message on his guitar: "This machine kills fascists." I am part of a group that's shipped half a million free 3D-printed whistles to defend against ICE — 200,000 of them in the first week of February alone. This is the story of the "Whistle Crew."
This whistle fights fascists
I print whistles now. You can too.
theverge.com
think this might be one of the first good instances of AI visual art I've seen. the making of is great too cannoneyed.com/projects/iso...
cannoneyed.com
Dave Lee@davelee.me · 6mo agoThis isometric map of New York City (incl Brooklyn and Queens!) is wonderful (and from what I can tell, startlingly accurate) cannoneyed.com/isometric-nyc/
