Here’s a look at what’s in store in the city for upcoming festivals  

Beer is the most consumed alcoholic beverage in the world but how well do you know it?

Meet the artists turning croissants, sadyas, burgers, and more into wearable miniatures

Millet Magic Meal, a recently launched restaurant in Chennai, presents millets in myriad interesting ways, be it pizzas, fried rice or sizzling brownies along side traditional meal combos and South Indian tiffin items such as idli and dosa

Chandon, the award-winning sparkling wine brand, debuts its still red wine, Aurva, a culmination of six decades of pioneering winemaking across the globe

The bean-to-bar chocolate brand from Udaipur focuses on using indigenous Indian fruits and berries

Grunge interiors, quirky graffiti and flavour-driven dishes are the highlights of Gresham Fernandes’s new popup, Bandra Born, in Mumbai

Two Canada-based Malayali friends brew Taika, an artisanal arrack using fruits, spices, dates and jaggery Their ‘naadan charayam’ label bears the image of an elephant and a Kerala bus

Celebrate the flavours of heritage rice this Deepavali with an inventive range of traditional sweets and savoury snacks that encourage farmers and customers to explore native grains 

The hampers will have handmade, homemade products made by the women entrepreneurs in Thiruvananthapuram

Located on the 10th floor in Egmore, and spread across 4,500 square feet, Irida Skky Lounge focusses on technique-driven dishes and cocktails

The Pizza ATM at Chandigarh’s Sukhna Lake is popular for it’s ready-in-three-minutes pizza. Rohit Shekhar Sharma tells us how he built it, and why he wants to keep it running

There is a wide range of affordable Iftar take away boxes including vegan, and special Arabian and Hyderabadi dishes are made available on the menu in some restaurants in Chennai throughout the month of fasting

The popular restaurant has re-launched in Arumbakkam serving highlights from the old menu, including masala dosas, chole bhatura and carrot halwa. And yes, you can still order from the car

Brewers have taken exception to the draft notification on it and demanded its withdrawal

Circars Bistro, Visakhapatnam’s newest American and continental dining space, offers a smorgasbord of offerings for the palate

1. STD epidemic slows as new syphilis and gonorrhea cases fall in US  The Associated Press
2. Sexually Transmitted Infections Surveillance, 2023  CDC
3. At Long Last, the Surge in S.T.I.s May Be Leveling Off  The New York Times
4. ‘Been a long time since I felt that way’: Sexually transmitted infection numbers provide new hope  POLITICO
5. There are millions of sexually transmitted infections in the US every year, but new data shows the epidemic may be slowing  CNN

1. Fantasy football rankings Week 11: Sleepers, projections, starts, Russell Wilson, Calvin Ridley and more - The Athletic  The New York Times
2. Start 'Em, Sit 'Em Quarterbacks For Fantasy Football Week 11  Sports Illustrated
3. Week 11 Waiver Wire: Top Pickups, Drops Likely Available After Reviewing Box Scores  Bleacher Report
4. Fantasy Football Week 11 Defense (DST) Rankings and Streamers  NBC Sports
5. Fantasy plays: Players to start and sit for NFL Week 11  The Associated Press

1. Apple to Launch AI-Powered Home 'Command Center' as Soon as March 2025  MacRumors
2. Apple’s Next Device Is an AI Wall Tablet for Home Control, Siri and Video Calls  Bloomberg
3. Apple is going after Google and Amazon with a new smart home competitor  Quartzy
4. Apple’s rumored six-inch ‘AI wall tablet’ could control your smart home by March 2025  The Verge
5. I effectively previewed Apple’s wall-mounted smart display in 2019, and I think it’ll be a winner  9to5Mac

1. IDF: ‘New Hezbollah targets’ reached in expanded south Lebanon ground operation  The Times of Israel
2. A new deterrence for Lebanon is needed to avoid a long war with Israel  Al Jazeera English
3. Lebanon awaits truce proposals after US envoy expresses hope  Reuters
4. Israel-Gaza-Lebanon live updates: 'No cease-fire' in Lebanon, defense minister says  ABC News
5. While Israel Seeks Deal in Lebanon, IDF and Hezbollah Escalate Their Attacks  Haaretz

1. Biden and Trump to Meet at the White House: Live Updates  The New York Times
2. Biden, Trump Set For White House Meeting After Harris Election Loss  NDTV
3. Biden-Trump White House meeting revives presidential tradition skipped 4 years ago  Fox News
4. Trump and Biden to meet at White House as Senate GOP holds leadership election  CNN

Holding hands with a girl is a great way to show that you like her and you’re having a good time. Making the move to grab her hand for the first time can be a little nerve wracking, especially if you aren’t quite sure she wants to hold your hand. We’ve compiled a list of signs you can look out for to tell whether or not the girl you’re with wants to hold hands so you know exactly what to do the next time you two hang out.

Data gathered from several consulting firms by HT Digital indicated that Bengaluru has maintained its position as the top option for non-resident Indians wishing to invest in India’s residential real estate market, particularly those seeking affordable and mid-segment homes.  The … Continue reading →

Mumbai’s wealthy citizens, who seek forward-thinking and upward-looking homes, prefer a novel idea of ultra-luxury living. In Mumbai, duplex and triplex apartments redefined the definition of living in luxury. Duplex and triplex apartments are becoming increasingly popular in Mumbai’s ultra-luxury … Continue reading →

Approximately 32 kilometers from the Goa International Airport in Dabolim, the opulent project will have 62 villas atop Reis Mago, a hill in Goa.  In the second half of the 2024-2025 fiscal year, 62 ultra-luxury villas in Goa, priced between … Continue reading →

According to officials, the Noida Authority projects that in the fiscal year 2024-2025, it will sell group housing plots for a maximum of Rs 1,080 crore and commercial land parcels for Rs 1,010 crore.  According to people who know the … Continue reading →

Godrej Properties Ltd has announced the acquisition of a roughly 46-acre land parcel in Indore. According to the company’s July 31 regulatory filing, the development on this land will mostly consist of plotted residential units and offer an estimated saleable … Continue reading →

The Delhi-Alwar Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) is currently under construction and will link Delhi with the outlying satellite towns of Manesar, Rewari, and Alwwar. It will also link Delhi Metro’s four lines. Ten kilometers of the route are currently … Continue reading →

The E-Government Act of 2002 calls for the U.S. Federal Government to enhance interoperability by adopting a common search standard. The Categorization of Government Information Workgroup has just finished the second version of their Statement of Requirements for Search Interoperability...

Summary: Until we value freedom and independence in the digital world, we will yield up control of our digital lives to others who will act in their own interests, not ours.

In response to a post on X about China's social credit system, Paul Conlon said:

Digital ID is ultimately about access control where those who impose the system are the ones determining what you are required to be and do.

Provision of resources and liberties become conditional upon the whims of the affluent. Doesn't sound safe or convenient to me.

From X
Referenced 2024-08-28T08:10:31-0400

How Paul said this struck me because I've been thinking a lot about access control lately. I believe that we build identity systems to manage relationships, but, as Paul points out, in many cases the ultimately utility of identity systems is access control.

This isn't, by itself, a bad thing. I'm glad that Google controls access to my GMail account so that only I can use it. But it doesn't stop there. If I use my Google account to log into other things, then Google ultimately controls my access to everything I've used it for. This is federation's original sin¹.

Paul's comment points out the primary problem with how we build identity systems today: when access control is centralized, it inherently shifts power towards those who manage the system. This dynamic can lead to a situation where individuals must conform to the expectations or demands of those in control, just to maintain their access to essential services or resources. While we often accept this trade-off for convenience—like using Google to manage multiple logins—the broader implications are troubling.

The more we rely on federated identity systems, with their tendency to centralization, the more we risk ceding control over our digital lives, reducing our autonomy, and increasing our dependence on entities whose goals may not align with our own. This is why the principles of self-sovereign identity (SSI) are so compelling. SSI proposes a model where individuals maintain control over their own identity, reducing the risks associated with centralized access control and enhancing personal freedom in the digital realm.

Critics of SSI will claim that giving people control over their identity means we have to accept their self assertions. Nothing could be further from the truth. When someone wants me to prove I'm over 18, I use a driver's license. The state is asserting my age, not me. But I'm in control of who I show that to and where. Sovereignty is about borders and imposes a system of relationships.

Now, China could use decentralized identity technology to build their social credit system. One credential, controlled by the state, that is used to access everything. Technology alone can't solve this problem. As a society, we have to want a digital world, modeled on the physical one, where individuals are the locus of control and use information and assertions from a variety of credentials to build and interact in authentic peer-to-peer relationships. Until we value freedom and independence in the digital world, we will yield up control of our digital lives to others who will act in their own interests, not ours.

Notes

1. For similar reasons, I think federated social media systems are a bad idea too, but that's another blog post.

Photo Credit: Papers Please from DALL-E (public domain). Prompt: Draw a rectangular picture of police checking identity papers of people on the street

Tags: identity access+control ssi

Kyra Wilson, Aylin Caliskan, Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, Nov 13, 2024

The topic of AI-based recruitment and hiring has been discussed here before and research continues apace. This item (13 page PDF), despite the characterization in GeekWire, is a fairly narrow study. It looks at three text-embedding models based on Mistral-7B-v0.1, and tests for gender and racial bias on applications containing name and position only, and name and position and some content (the paper discusses removing the name but does do it). The interesting bit is that intersectional bias (ie., combining gender and race) is not merely a combination of the separate biases; while separate biases exaggerated the discrimination, "intersectional results, on the other hand, do correspond more strongly to real-world discrimination in resume screening." Via Lisa Marie Blaschke, who in turn credits Audrey Watters.

Anna Mills, Bluesky Social, Nov 13, 2024

The most interesting migration in social media these days is from twitter to Bluesky. Here are two approaches to making it easier: the first is a 'starter pack' on people in AI and education. It makes use of the Bluesky Lists feature or the Bluesky Starter Pack. In the same genre, here's a Tech Media Starter Pack. The second, via Miguel Guhlin, is based on a hashtag with members listed on a Google Docs spreadsheet. It's cleverly done. You have to apply to be listed on the spreadsheet, and to be accepted you have to use the #Edusky hashtag in your account on Bluesky. Viral. Here's the Edusky feed.

Paula MacDowell, Kristin Moskalyk, Katrina Korchinski, Dirk Morrison, Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, Nov 13, 2024

This paper reports on a process where thirty-five teachers enrolled in an elective three-credit multimedia design course "engaged in experiential activities focussed on developing artificial intelligence (AI) literacy, alongside a collaborative assignment to co-author an open-access textbook, Teaching and Creating With Generative Artificial Intelligence." In the process, "the Student Artificial Intelligence Literacy (SAIL) framework was developed (illustrated)." The paper concludes with the usual recommendations ('do no harm', 'develop communication skills', etc.). Each participant wrote a chapter, though a common template was used. I very much like the idea of producing a useful open resource as part of class activities. Oddly, the article doesn't provide a link to the textbook, but I found it here. It's a nice selection of 'how-to' articles that readers, I think, will find useful. One chapter (chapter 20 1/2?) is missing.

Roberto J. Rodriguez, et al., Office of Educational Technology, Nov 13, 2024

This is a longish (79 page PDF) resource from the U.S. government's Office of Educational Technology. "The Department heard educators say that AI is here to stay, AI will keep changing, and safely integrating AI in educational settings will require informed leadership at multiple levels across the education system." The toolkit is divided into three sections: migitating risks, strategy for AI integration, and guiding its use. The risks considered include privacy and data security, student civil rights, accessibility, and digital equity. The second section is weaker, focusing on the 'instructional core' (credited to Elmore, but basically Moore (1989)), with a corresponding focus on instruction. The third section begins with a discussion of AI literacy (limited to "includes the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to engage with AI safely") and promotion of "responsible use". 

Mathew Lowry, Medium, Nov 13, 2024

This post deserves a look if only for its cracking good diagram illustrating the difference between the ActivityPub protocol (used by Mastodon and others) and the ATmosphere protocol (used by Bluesky). View it here. Essentially the difference is that the AT protocol disaggregates posting and applications, which (in theory) means that a viral post won't cause your 'instance' to crash (presumably because the post is being cached by the applications?). However "Bluesky's openness means there will not be separate villages, nor private groups for collaboration." 

Digital Education Council, Nov 13, 2024

Members of the Digital Education Council (mostly from business and management schools) have signed this short declaration (5 page PDF) following their inaugural meeting this week. Most interesting is their desire to "commit to developing strategies to maintain curricula relevance, at speed with the rapidly-evolving pace of industry."

A federal interagency committee on government information has drafted "Requirements for Enabling the Identification, Categorization, and Consistent Retrieval of Government Information." This document has insights of value for those in government engaged in making information more accessible through portals and search engines.

FCW.com reports today that Webcontent.gov wil be unveiled on September 29. This site will help federal agencies put up more uniform content and adhere to laws and best practices for information accessibility.

Some efforts have been made by the federal government and states to create RSS feeds for emergency notifications and alerts. Much information is available on traditional websites, but surprisingly little is being syndicated. Independents outline how government and business can work together building RSS feeds to make our lifestyles and communities safer.

Selling government agencies on RSS would be easier if we could demonstrate to them an easy way to convert their existing news formats to automatically generated and delivered email newsletters. In this first, of a two-part series, we show you how easy it is to use Moveable Type and Bloglet to provide rudimentary email delivery.

DecisionCast is producing RSS WinterFest. The events, January 21 and 22, will feature a host of well known speakers who will discuss the future of RSS and Internet Content Syndication.

No in-house dev team? No problem. With our newest On Demand Development Service Add-On, our expert team of WordPress developers will be on hand to help you with anything you need, from simple CSS issues to building custom functionality. Need help with expanding the capabilities of the Forminator plugin so it caters to your specific […]