This is a pretty jaw-dropping exposé of the extent to which automakers are tracking their customers driving behaviour and sharing that telemetry data with insurance companies.

Anyone buying a new car needs to read this.

Automakers are Sharing Consumers' Driving Behaviour with Insurance Companies

(Tip of the hat to Dan Gillmor on Mastodon for the 'gifted' link ).

Cory Doctorow picks up the topic in an expansive and well referenced essay in which he links this latest piece to broader consideration of corporate behaviour, regulation, personal privacy and consumer rights.

Your car spies on you and rats you out to insurance companies

There's a lot to unpack here. Meredith Whittaker & Camille Francois discuss the recent AI hype, the nature of AI, who controls it, whose interests it serves, to what uses it's being put, what its impacts will be on politics and society, and more.

The AI series: AI and Surveillance Capitalism

A Led by Donkey's short dealing with the Conservative government's claims that mob rule is replacing democracy in the UK.

A short history of the Conservative Party backing the mob

AI generated graphics is the new HDR photography.

I had a sublime star gazing session in the garden last night under our Bortle 4.5-ish sky. Despite being very humid, the sky was nevertheless clear and conditions turned out to be good for observing DSOs.

I was able to get some good views of the galaxies in Markarian's Chain, the rest of the Messier galaxies in Virgo, plus Messier 99 in Coma Berenices. The globular clusters M3 and M13, and the open cluster M37 were breathtaking too. I also had my best view yet (from my home location) of the Whirlpool Galaxy NGC 5194 and its interacting neighbour NGC 5195. I came in after my session filled with wonder and feeling very satisfied.

So I've decided to resurrect my blog on a new domain. I allowed the old site to languish and hadn't posted an update since February 2018. Then, when changing my hosting arrangements a couple of years back, I took it down and never got around to restoring it on my new server.

Like my last blog, this site is free of trackers. It does not link to any third-party scripts or media, and I do not place cookies on my visitors' devices.