The White Stripes

The FCC is proposing (PDF) a public "robocall mitigation scorecard" that would grade phone companies on how well they block illegal spam calls while avoiding false positives on the legitimate ones. "The Scorecard will empower consumers and encourage providers to continue to combat illegal robocalls by providing the public with an assessment of the effectiveness of voice service providers' efforts to protect consumers from illegal robocalls," the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau said in a public notice. Ars Technica reports: The scorecards could include call-blocking statistics along with data on customer complaints and enforcement actions. The FCC said scorecards could grade providers on a number scale, with letter grades, or by classifying providers as low risk, medium risk, or high risk. The proposed tool would rate wireless, wireline, and VoIP providers on efforts to block robocalls and their "actual results in protecting [consumers] from illegal robocalls," the FCC said. "In practice, that means moving beyond a simple administrative checklist (i.e., did the provider file the right paperwork, did they offer the right tools) and toward a composite set of metrics that reflects both operational practices and measurable outcomes, including how often legitimate calls are blocked."

Whether the tool is useful for consumers will depend on how it's designed, how easy each provider's scorecard is to find, and what data sources it relies on. The proposed scorecard would apply to domestic voice service providers with retail customers, but not telcos that operate solely as wholesale or intermediate providers. "Combatting the scourge of illegal robocalls remains the FCC's top consumer protection priority... As proposed in today's public notice, the FCC aims to develop a scorecard that will give consumers more information about the measures providers are taking to fight illegal robocalls, and it will also incentivize providers to improve their efforts," FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a press release.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

1Password is facing customer and internal employee backlash after pledging $300,000 to support a Linux distro created by David Heinemeier Hansson, who has regularly published racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. "The popular password manager is now a 'distinguished corporate patron' of Omacom, the nonprofit foundation that oversees a popular Linux distribution known as Omarchy," reports The Verge. From the report: One viral blog post declared that 1Password "Supports the Ethnic Cleansing of Europe" because of the donation. Others on social media asked for suggestions for alternative password managers so they would not support the funding of a project from Heinemeier Hansson, better known as DHH. The donation has also resulted in internal pushback from employees of 1Password who are disappointed by the affiliation, The Verge has learned. 1Password CEO David Faugno and cofounder Roustem Karimov have since posted internal messages addressing what Faugno describes as "concerns, both internally and externally" that have been raised "due to the polarizing nature" of DHH.

DHH is a Danish entrepreneur best known for creating Ruby on Rails, Basecamp, and the Hey email client. Omarchy is DHH's "opinionated" version of Linux, meaning it's Linux the way he likes to use it. It's based on Arch Linux, with certain apps that install by default. It's also, apparently, one of 1Password's big customer environments. [...] In an internal Slack message obtained by The Verge, 1Password's Karimov downplayed the overtly racist comments from DHH, telling staff the following: "As I said, people have different personal opinions. You believe in your heart that DHH is evil, that you have the moral high ground, and that nothing will change your mind. However, not everyone believes that. It is not fair to claim a monopoly and ostracize team members who might disagree with you. There are people who are afraid to speak up simply because they will be personally attacked."

1Password CEO Faugno took a different approach, trying to reassure staff that "1Password does not endorse hateful, dehumanizing, or exclusionary views, including those shared publicly by DHH." Nonetheless, it seems the company has sacrificed a moral position for a "mission-driven" position. In the same message to staff, Faugno says "the scale and growth of [Omarchy's] use among our customers is significant -- Omarchy has grown to be the second most used Linux distribution among 1Password users." Faugno then tries to create distance, telling staff that its contribution is "to the Omacom Foundation, not an individual." Still, he says "we recognize that Omarchy is associated with DHH, its founder. Our donation is not in any way an endorsement of his personal views or conduct."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We really, really need to talk about venture capital. Because it’s not “venture capital” anymore.

There’s a huge disconnect between what most people think of VC, where an investor has a big fund and cuts checks to help a founder build a company, and the current reality, where a handful of billionaire extremists use the cover of “VC” to advance an outrageous agenda where they’re accountable to no one.

I’m gonna explain this from a standpoint that almost never gets articulated: I’ve personally raised tens of millions of dollars in venture capital funding as CEO of startups, and been directly involved as a board member or advisor in raising hundreds of millions more. I’ve sat in board rooms, across the table from the people I’m talking about here, or been at the industry events that they frequent. So this isn’t sour grapes because these VCs wouldn’t cut me a check, or some chip on my shoulder about these investors due to a business deal. This is what I know about these bad actors because I’m part of the community of creators and inventors who build the things that they used to invest in — back when they still cared about innovation.

Many of the trends in society and politics that people are most angry about, from data centers being forced down everyone’s throats, to all of our favorite apps and services being enshittified, to politicians being paid to ignore the will of the people, are all being supercharged by these cancer capitalists. They have warped the structure of venture capital into a form of oligarchy that answers to no market, no regulators, and no voters. So it’s worth understanding exactly how they did it.

How Venture Capital became Cancer Capital

I’ll be breaking these points down in further detail, but just to begin framing the concept, I’ll lay out the core idea here in some bullet points (so that you’re not tempted to run this whole thing through an LLM):

• Venture capital was only supposed to be a tiny segment of the overall capital market, but it has expanded to become the primary form of funding that new companies consider — it was never the only way, and it didn’t used to be the default one
• VC was meant to be a small percentage of overall investment because it represents the high-risk, high-reward part of a portfolio; to be healthy, most of a portfolio — or most of an economy — needs to focus on assets that are more stable and predictable. But a cancer grows from a cell that a body needs in small, healthy amounts, and that turns deadly when it grows without limit until it harms, or even kills, its host.
• As regulations have gotten looser in recent years, a handful of venture capital firms have become “do everything” funds that combine private equity with their existing VC businesses, and expand to manage massive stockpiles of tens of billions of dollars
• The 1% of VC firms that get this big stop being exposed to the risk in their own investments at all — when you collect 2% a year to manage $50 billion, that’s a billion dollars landing in your pocket annually whether any company you funded lives or dies. Those firms also stop legally even being venture capital firms, making them unaccountable to markets, founders, or the law — and that’s how they become “Cancer Capital”
• Meanwhile, the 99% of “normal” VCs don’t have the power or funding of the Cancer Capital firms, but are forced to play on the field that those firms define, even if they don’t like the way they do business
• Since the Cancer Capital firms have become so powerful, the overall balance of power between founders and VCs has flipped; instead of founders having a company that VCs would try to fund, now VCs publish extremist political manifestos, and “founders” are just the people who are selected to carry out parts of those plans
• The rest of the world doesn’t know: New founders and workers entering the tech industry are unaware that Cancer Capital has taken over, so many are still trying to play by the old rules, and can’t figure out why their ideas are being pushed into serving the goals of the Cancer Capital firms
• Politicians and media still look at VC as if it works like it did 10 or 20 years ago, and cheer them on like they’re funding job creation or enabling new companies to grow, when their primary goal is concentrating power and wealth into the hands of the Cancer Capital tycoons. They keep getting fooled by this, over and over.
• These days, venture firms are increasingly getting their funds from pension funds and retail retirement accounts, meaning the public (you!) are increasingly holding the bag for the parts of their portfolios that actually have some risk, even if you never intentionally made that choice
• The shift away from IPOs in the tech industry has also encouraged these Cancer Capital firms to find ways to cash out long before companies ever go public, meaning they can make a massive return off of companies that never make a penny of profit, even if regular investors get screwed by the stock of a company once it actually gets listed on the public stock market.
• Part of why this has gotten so corrupt is the way the Cancer Capital firms have transformed themselves into their post-VC forms. Because they’re not legally VC firms anymore, they’re free to buy shares directly from founders, or hold unlimited amounts of publicly-traded stock — exactly what they couldn’t do as regular VCs. They can even sell their investment in a company as an asset to another one of their own funds, and then book the increase in value as a profit, all without the company ever having made a penny. Another racket: a company that’s raised a bunch of cash in a funding round can buy out its early investors if they’re one of these post-VCs, so they can get paid off even if their portfolio company has never made a penny in profits or revenues.

All of this self-dealing, and the way that they’re isolated from any accountability, has made these firms become more and more shameless in their behavior. Former Andreessen Horowitz partner John O’Farrell publicly called out the firm (a rarity — the company is notoriously vindictive towards those who it decides are disloyal) for what he called its “political infiltration” of AI policy. Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and their firm have put $115.3 million into this midterm cycle — nearly double their $63 million in 2024, and more than any other billionaire donor in the country, even including Elon Musk. Molly White, whose Tech Influence Watch tracks this money against FEC filings, shows that a16z alone accounts for more than 20% of all political contributions from the entire cohort of crypto and AI companies it follows. And they’re funneling these funds to candidates in both parties. This is a huge escalation from the tentative baby steps that folks like Zuckerberg were making in the Obama era, working on benign issues like trying to help immigrants.

And of course, it gets a lot worse than just their lobbying. As I have frequently noted, Andreessen Horowitz hired a man as a partner at their firm despite his having no background or qualifications in tech, finance, or startups whatsoever. His only discernible qualification was that he had choked my unarmed neighbor Jordan Neely to death on a subway car.

This is how brazen, how toxic and destructive, we’ve allowed the industry formerly known as venture capital to become. We must understand that it is no longer a financial machine that is used to fund startups, but a political and social machine focused on dismantling democracy and civil society. And it’s time to act accordingly.

Up next: we’ll dive into the specifics of many of the points laid out above, to understand more about how we got here.

NSW police called to Redfern on Wednesday night found a 17-year-old with a partially severed hand

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A teenage boy will face court today after a “near-complete amputation” of a boy’s hand during an alleged assault in Sydney on Wednesday night.

New South Wales police were called to Redfern about 6pm last night and found a 17-year-old with a partially severed hand.

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RAMALLAH (ANP) - Twee Palestijnse tieners zijn woensdag om het leven gekomen bij een aanval van militante Israëlische kolonisten en legereenheden op hun dorp op de door Israël bezette Westelijke Jordaanoever, een Palestijns gebied. Dat meldden lokale functionarissen en het Palestijnse ministerie van Volksgezondheid.

Volgens het ministerie waren de twee jongeren 16 en 19 jaar oud. Ze werden gedood in het dorp al-Mughayyir, nabij Ramallah.

Het Israëlische leger verklaarde dat zijn troepen in het dorp waren om beveiliging te bieden aan politieagenten en een Israëlische burger die vee wilde "terughalen". De soldaten openden het vuur toen mensen met stenen naar hen gooiden, aldus het leger.

De regering van de Israëlische premier Benjamin Netanyahu heeft de uitbreiding van Joodse nederzettingen op de Westelijke Jordaanoever, gebied dat Israël in de oorlog van 1967 veroverde, sterk bevorderd. De nederzettingen zijn in strijd met het internationaal recht.

NEW YORK (ANP) - Tennisser Jesper de Jong (26) heeft op de US Open voor het eerst de tweede ronde bereikt. De Nederlandse nummer 100 van de wereld rekende in de eerste ronde af met de Italiaan Francesco Passaro (25), de mondiale nummer 207. Hij had daar vijf sets voor nodig: 2-6 6-2 4-6 6-3 6-2.

De partij werd dinsdag vanwege de regen gestaakt bij een stand van 2-6 6-2 4-6 1-1 in het nadeel van De Jong. De Nederlander draaide een dag later alsnog de wedstrijd om.

De Jong strandde vorig jaar in de openingsronde van het grandslamtoernooi in New York. Bij de Australian Open was de eerste ronde dit jaar ook het eindstation voor de Haarlemmer. Op Roland Garros redde hij het tot de vierde ronde, waarin hij werd uitgeschakeld door de uiteindelijke winnaar Alexander Zverev. Op Wimbledon verloor hij in de tweede ronde.

In de volgende ronde speelt De Jong het op tegen de Belg Zizou Bergs, die in vier sets de Spanjaard Carlos Taberner versloeg.

AMSTERDAM (ANP) - De uitgaven aan televisiereclames in Nederland zijn in de eerste helft van dit jaar gegroeid. Het is voor het eerst sinds 2022 dat het eerste halfjaar weer groei laat zien, aldus cijfers van tv-marketingorganisatie Screenforce.

De tv-reclamemarkt kwam in de eerste jaarhelft uit op 400 miljoen euro, een stijging van 2,5 procent ten opzichte van dezelfde periode vorig jaar. De groei komt met name van commercials op lineaire tv-zenders en video on demand-platforms. Volgens de onderzoekers zijn mede door de Olympische Winterspelen in Milaan en het WK voetbal afgelopen zomer de bestedingen daar met 3,7 procent gestegen tot 365 miljoen euro.

Met de tv-reclamemarkt van 400 miljoen euro ligt het niveau in het eerste halfjaar weliswaar boven dezelfde periode vorig jaar (390 miljoen euro), maar wel onder dat van voorgaande jaren. In 2021 waren de netto-bestedingen goed voor een vergelijkbaar bedrag (404 miljoen euro).

De detailhandel blijft de grootste adverteerdersbranche met een derde van de totale bestedingen. De branches transport, telecom en ICT, huis en tuin en medisch lieten de grootste stijging zien.

Screenforce meldt verder dat de kijktijd naar live en uitgestelde tv in het eerste halfjaar met 2,3 procent daalde tot 117 minuten per dag. De daling bleef volgens Screenforce beperkt door de sportevenementen.

ENSCHEDE (ANP) - Het is "extreem pijnlijk" dat het vermeende brein achter de moord in 2017 op een journalist in Malta woensdag is vrijgesproken. Dat zegt oud-politicus Pieter Omtzigt. Als speciaal onderzoeker voor de Raad van Europa hield hij zich bezig met de afhandeling van de moord op Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Omtzigt meldt op X: "Blijkbaar is niemand schuldig aan de opdracht voor de moord op de dappere journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Na bijna tien jaar is er geen ware gerechtigheid voor de spraakmakendste moord in Malta, die de Europese Unie heeft geschokt."

Malta is het kleinste land in de Europese Unie, waarvan het sinds 2004 lid is. Caruana Galizia bracht corruptie op het hoogste politieke niveau van het land aan het licht. In 2017 ontplofte een bom onder haar auto, waardoor ze op slag stierf. Een vermeende tussenpersoon had gezegd dat zakenman Yorgen Fenech de opdrachtgever was en voor de moord had betaald. Caruana Galizia zou op het punt hebben gestaan belastende informatie over hem te publiceren. Fenech ontkende en een jury sprak hem woensdag vrij.

Eerder werden vijf personen veroordeeld voor het plaatsen of leveren van de bom. Twee van hen kregen levenslang. Twee broers werden allebei veroordeeld tot 40 jaar cel en een andere man tot 15 jaar.

Ik loop vanaf station Hilversum Media Park altijd maar een klein stukje naar mijn werk, op onze nieuwsredactie. Toch kom ik vandaag volledig doorweekt aan.

Een kruiswoordpuzzel, maar dan heel klein (en snel).

Wie of wat staat er midden in het nieuws? Een actuele puzzel, die makkelijker is als je het nieuws een beetje volgt.

Als je wel zin hebt om te sudokuen, maar het liever bij een gridje van 5x5 houdt.

Je krijgt een paar cijfers cadeau, maar het grid van 9x9 moet foutloos ingevuld worden.