AnActOfCreation

• Gal Gadot suggested that political pressure on celebrities to speak out against Israel contributed to Disney’s Snow White underperforming at the box office, though she acknowledged other factors played a role.

• The film, starring Gadot and Rachel Zegler, earned $87 million domestically compared to higher-performing Disney remakes; Zegler faced criticism for her pro-Palestine stance during promotion.

• Gadot emphasized she enjoyed working with Zegler, said her “conscience is clean” regarding support for Israel, and expressed hope for peace and safety for all people.

Rather than simply hiring their workers as employees or providing fair wages and benefits, DoorDash is asking independent contractors to lobby Congress on their behalf to "help companies explore" ways of maybe, someday, offering access to things like healthcare or paid time off. Instead of taking responsibility, they’re pushing for legislative loopholes that let them keep the flexibility of gig labor while offloading the cost of basic protections.

(Apologies if this is not the right community to post this.)

Does anyone have any tips for finding DVD/Blu-ray special features? I primarily use Prowlarr as my indexer aggregator, but when I search for something like <movie name> special features, I usually come up empty. I'm not sure if there's a specific indexer that's more likely to include them or if I'm just out of luck.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

Social media platforms like Meta and X (formerly Twitter) tolerate a wide range of content but restrict public tracking of celebrities' private jet routes, citing privacy concerns.

Meta suspended accounts run by Jack Sweeney, who used public data to track jets of prominent figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, highlighting privacy risks for powerful individuals.

The article points out the irony of Meta's selective privacy enforcement, given its ongoing issues with protecting users from harmful content like disinformation and predatory behavior.

Linus Torvalds expressed frustration over the use of passive voice in merge commit messages, preferring active and imperative language instead.

He provided an example of how commit messages should be rewritten for clarity and consistency across the project.

Torvalds noted that while it's not a major issue, it does add extra work when he has to rewrite messages to match his preference.

Two Boston Public School administrators, Natasha Halfkenny and Coreen Miranda, used donated "Hamilton" tickets intended for students to take their sons, who were not Boston Public School students.

Both administrators paid $4,000 civil penalties for violating the state's conflict of interest law by denying three students the opportunity to attend the show.

Coreen Miranda and her sons had already attended and enjoyed the same "Hamilton" performance a month prior to taking the tickets again for the March 1, 2023 show.

Marques Brownlee, known as MKBHD, faced backlash over his new wallpaper app, Panels, due to its high subscription cost ($49.99/year) and concerns over excessive data permissions.

Brownlee acknowledged user feedback, promising to adjust ad frequency for free users and address privacy concerns, clarifying that the app's data disclosures were broader than intended.

The app, which offers curated wallpapers and shares profits with artists, aims to improve over time, despite criticisms of its design and monetization approach.

Plex introduced an Auto-Sync Subtitles feature that aligns subtitles with audio using an algorithm that detects voices, supporting external SRT files and those from OpenSubtitles.com.

The feature requires a Plex Pass subscription, voice activity detection, and media analysis enabled on the server, but won't work on some systems like FreeBSD, Nvidia Shield, and certain NAS servers.

Plex is expanding its app offerings, including a new dedicated photos app in open beta, and currently offers a 20% discount on Lifetime Plex Pass subscriptions.

The DeCENC attack, developed by security researcher David Buchanan, can bypass the Common Encryption Scheme (CENC) used by streaming platforms like Amazon and Netflix, allowing decrypted but compressed video to be captured and saved, posing a theoretical risk to DRM protection.

Although DeCENC offers a novel method to exfiltrate protected video data, Buchanan notes it's largely impractical compared to simpler piracy techniques, such as HDMI capture or exploiting existing vulnerabilities like the Microsoft PlayReady client compromise.

Buchanan criticizes the CENC specification's lack of authentication, highlighting the challenge of conducting security research due to paywalled and complex technical documents, and calls for greater accessibility of these standards for researchers.

A former Twitter employee, Gary Rooney, won about $600,000 for unfair dismissal after Twitter assumed he resigned by not responding to Elon Musk's "hardcore" work email.

The case highlighted the importance of clear communication between employers and employees, especially regarding significant changes in employment terms.

Rooney’s private Slack messages, where he discussed leaving, were used as evidence by Twitter, underscoring that internal communication on platforms like Slack is not always private and can be used in legal disputes.

• Former President Trump defended his actions regarding the 2020 election, claiming he had the right to interfere and criticizing the charges against him as politically motivated.
• Trump argued that the legal actions against him set a bad precedent and accused prosecutors of bias, specifically mentioning federal charges and a Georgia case involving alleged election interference.
• The Harris-Walz campaign condemned Trump's remarks, stating that he is pushing false narratives and emphasizing Vice President Harris's commitment to upholding the rule of law.