GNU/Linux

• Server

  • October 2023 Web Server Survey [Ed: Further decreases for Microsoft this month]

    In the October 2023 survey we received responses from 1,093,294,946 sites across 267,962,271 domains and 12,371,536 web-facing computers. This reflects an increase of 8.3 million sites, 13.2 million domains, and 96,682 web-facing computers.

    The largest gains this month came from Apache, which gained 19.6 million sites (+8.51%), OpenResty, which gained 5.7 million domains (+14.9%), and nginx, which gained 49,104 web-facing computers (+1.01%).

Leftovers

• The Kent Stater ☛ OPINION: Halloween is the best holiday

  It’s the time of year for leaves to turn into piles of red, orange and yellow. It’s the time for carving faces into pumpkins and sipping on hot apple cider.

• Science

  • Lee Yingtong Li ☛ A high-performance Rust implementation of the Turnbull non-parametric maximum likelihood estimator for interval-censored survival data

    Warning! I am not a statistician. This article is not reviewed. Please confer with a responsible adult!

    A common need in biostatistics is to estimate survival curves, but particular difficulty arises when observations are interval censored, i.e. the time of event is not observed exactly, but is known only to fall within a particular interval. In this setting, Turnbull estimator [1] extends the usual Kaplan–Meier estimator to interval-censored data.

  • Rlang ☛ Approaches to Calculating Number Needed to Treat (NNT) with Meta-Analysis

    Here, we have demonstrated three different methods for calculating NNT with meta-analysis data. I learned a lot from this experience, and I hope you find it enjoyable and informative as well.

  • Chris ☛ FlowRatio: Work Sampling Made Easy

    If you’re doing time tracking, chances are you’re doing it wrong. In fact, if you’re counting anything, chances are you’re doing it wrong. The key insight is, as readers of that article know, that we don’t need an exact number; something in the right ballpark will do – where the size of the ballpark depends on the problem at hand.

• Hardware

  • The Register UK ☛ Sorry Pat, but it's looking like Arm PCs are inevitable

    Qualcomm claims the chip can deliver twice the multithreaded performance of Intel's 10-core i7-1355U or use a third the power for the same level of performance. And compared to Apple's M2, the chipmaker says the X Elite is about 50 percent faster.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Long Covid Sucks. No, Really, it Does, and if You haven't got it by Now, You Probably Will. - Fading Memories

    Long Covid. If you are at all conversant with C20 twenties and thirties detective novels, you’ll know all about the invalids, the incapabables, the chronically ill. That was the flu. Though it never is the protagonist who is suffereing, it’s always someone else.

    [...]

    I noticed my cognition was going down: I was (and am) getting dumber. Concentration powers going down. Getting pukey, and after that, shitty, regularly. Heart rates getting up into realms no blood pressure measurement machine could manage to measure. Having to lie down for days.

  • The Conversation ☛ 2023-10-23 [Older] How antidepressants, ketamine and psychedelic drugs may make brains more flexible – new research

  • The Conversation ☛ 2023-10-25 [Older] Bed bugs are a global problem, yet we still know so little about how they spread

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Doomscrolling: What bad news does to us

    Our ancient brains are still trying to help us beat uncertainty by systematically gathering information. We want to be prepared for the threats that await us. And the more bad news we consume, the better prepared we feel.

    But it's a fallacy. That kind of thinking may have worked with mammoths but it is useless in the age of apps and news feeds.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • New York Times ☛ Did A.I. Write Product Reviews? Gannett Says No.

    Writers and editors at Reviewed, a product recommendation website, say that the company used artificial intelligence to create reviews last week.

  • Futurism ☛ Twitter CEO Says Everything’s Totally Fine Actually, Thanks for Asking

    Sure! But as Business Insider reports, there's one very big problem with Yaccarino's optimism: the fact that many of the so-called accomplishments that Yaccarino touts, including regarding advertiser support and user numbers, simply aren't checking out.

  • Business Insider ☛ Linda Yaccarino follows up her car-crash interview by pretending everything's just fine at X

    The post talked up some of the company's achievements over the year and praised "the work our team has been doing to accelerate the future of X."

    Some of these achievements, however, fail to match up with wider reports.

  • Futurism ☛ Elon Musk Desperately Wants Control Over Your Personal Finances

    Twitter-formerly-X owner Elon Musk is, apparently, finally getting the "everything app" of his dreams — or is at least ordering his employees to build out his vision for one.

    In the first all-hands meeting since renaming the company on Thursday, per audio acquired by The Verge, Musk told employees that he sees the app becoming a payment platform by the end of 2024.

  • The Verge ☛ Inside X’s first all-hands meeting

    Since Musk walked into the building literally carrying a kitchen sink exactly one year ago, companywide communication from him has been nearly nonexistent at X, save for his random, terse emails asking for things to be fixed in the middle of the night. The all-hands Thursday was the first time that both Musk and Yaccarino had addressed employees together. They didn’t answer any of their questions.

  • The Verge ☛ Elon Musk gives X employees one year to replace your bank

    “When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life,” Musk said, according to audio of the meeting obtained by The Verge. “If it involves money. It’ll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So, it’s not just like send $20 to my friend. I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account.”

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Manuel Moreale ☛ Why I'll never do podcasts

      [...] You can't train an AI model to sound like me because there's no me out there to be used for the training. And I want things to stay that way for as long as possible.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Computers Are Bad ☛ cooler screens

      Audible even over the squeal of an HVAC blower with a suffering belt, the whine of small, high velocity fans pervades the grocery side of this Walgreens. Were they always this loud? I'm not sure; some of the fans sound distinctly unhealthy. Still, it's a familiar kind of noise to anyone who regularly works around kilowatt quantities of commercial IT equipment. Usually, though, it's a racket set aside for equipment rooms and IDF closets---not the refrigerator aisle.

      The cooler screens came quickly and quietly. Walgreens didn't seem interested in promoting them. There was no in-store signage, no press announcements that I heard of. But they were apparently committed. I think I first encountered them in Santa Fe, and I laughed at this comical, ridiculous-on-its-face "innovation" in retailing, falsely confident that it would not cross the desert to Albuquerque's lower income levels. "What a ridiculous idea," I said, walking up to a blank cooler. The screens turn on in response to proximity, showing you an image of what is (supposedly) inside of the cooler, but not quickly enough that you don't get annoyed with not being able to just see inside.

      I would later find that these were the good days, the first phase of the Cooler Screen's invasion, when they were both limited in number and merely mediocre. Things would become much worse. Today, the Cooler Screens have expanded their territory and tightened their grip. The coolers of Walgreens have gone dark, the opaque, black doors some sort of Kubrickian monolith channeling our basic primate understanding of Arizona Iced Tea. Like the monolith, they are faceless representatives of a power beyond our own, here to shape our actions, but not to explain themselves.

    • Peteris Krumins ☛ 2023-10-26 [Older] How to test an onion link?

    • Peteris Krumins ☛ 2023-10-25 [Older] How to test a dark net link?

    • Peteris Krumins ☛ 2023-10-23 [Older] How to Open Websites in a Cloud Browser

    • Peteris Krumins ☛ 2023-10-21 [Older] How to test a dark web link?

    • Gizmodo ☛ 2023-10-27 [Older] One of Apple's Privacy Features, Designed to Protect Your MAC Address, Has 'Never Worked'

    • Gizmodo ☛ 2023-10-24 [Older] Apple Disables Maps Features in Israel and Gaza

    • Engadget ☛ 2023-10-24 [Older] Apple and Google disable live traffic maps in Israel and Gaza

    • Vice Media Group ☛ This Internet Phone Booth Makes It Easy to Make Encrypted Video Calls

      Birdcalls is available as a separate service, but the phone booth proves the concept to new users who might be unfamiliar with end-to-end encryption, which ensures that communications are only sent directly between two parties and can’t be decoded by eavesdroppers.

    • Devever ☛ Mitigating the Hetzner/Linode XMPP.ru MitM interception incident, part 2: XMPP-specific mitigations

      I've had a few comments in response to my previous article, Mitigating the Hetzner/Linode XMPP.ru MitM interception incident which have provided XMPP-specific suggestions for how this could have been mitigated.

      While the specific service which was compromised here was an XMPP service, nothing in my prior article was really XMPP-specific, and the article was my considered response to an attack on the TLS ecosystem, without consideration of XMPP in particular.

• Defence/Aggression

  • New York Times ☛ ‘You Think of Dying at Any Time’

    Gaza residents say Israeli airstrikes come mostly without warning and hit indiscriminately, leading to the feeling that death is imminent and inevitable.

  • New York Times ☛ U.S. Airstrikes Contain Twin Messages to Iran, American Officials Say

    The airstrikes were the latest gamble by the United States to modify Iran’s behavior, few of which have worked in the past.

  • New York Times ☛ Iran’s Proxies Fire Back After U.S. Airstrikes

    The tit-for-tat raises questions about whether groups backed by Iran can be deterred after a flurry of attacks targeting American troops.

  • NYPost ☛ Groups behind Israel-bashing protests backing Hamas attacks got $15M-plus from Soros

    Far-left billionaire kingmaker George Soros has funneled more than $15 million in grants since 2016 to groups behind this month's pro-Palestine protests, where demonstrators openly cheered Hamas militants' craven terrorist attacks on Israel.

  • JURIST ☛ UN General Assembly calls for immediate humanitarian truce in Israel-Hamas conflict

    The United Nations General Assembly called the tenth Emergency Special Session on Friday to discuss the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce.”

  • RFERL ☛ Iranian Security Forces Keep Family From Grave Of Son Killed In Protests

    Iranian security forces have prevented the public from visiting the grave of Ali Roozbehani, a protester killed last year, and detained two family members for several hours on October 26 before releasing them.

  • New York Times ☛ Israeli Forces Raid Gaza as Pressure Builds for Cease-Fire

    Cellular and internet service abruptly vanished for much of the territory, stoking fears that a full-scale invasion was imminent — or already underway.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2023-10-23 [Older] Fact check: How to spot fake news during Israel-Hamas war

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-10-22 [Older] Iran's Quandary: How to Stay Out of Israel's War on Hamas

  • New York Times ☛ Many in Gaza Lose Phone and Internet Service as Israel Intensifies Attacks

    Two major Palestinian mobile networks, Jawwal and Paltel, said that their phone lines and internet services were down.

  • New York Times ☛ Antisemitism Surges in China Online and in State Media

    China’s state-run media has blamed the United States for deepening the crisis, while perpetuating tropes of Jewish control of American politics.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia education ministry probes video showing children and teachers bearing mock firearms

    October 29, 2023 12:50 AM
    
    

    The ministry said the event in the video took place outside the Palestine Solidarity Week.

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Mass killing suspect had mental health issues, purchased guns legally, authorities say

    . Police teams had searched the facility twice before eventually finding the suspected shooter's body.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Earth thundering toward planet unfit for humans, report finds

    The research, led by Oregon State University scientists, casts dire warnings, saying big changes are needed now.

    The State of the Climate report, by climate scientists from around the world summarized reams of evidence indicating that global efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions are falling way short. The group, led by a professor and former researcher from Oregon State University, said only profound measures to protect people and the environment will give humanity “our best shot at surviving these challenges in the long run.”

  • Omicron Limited ☛ UN report warns of catastrophic climate tipping points: California is nearing several

    The third annual Interconnected Disaster Risks report from the U.N. University's Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn, Germany, found that drastic changes will occur if urgent actions are not taken around six moments when sociological systems are no longer able to buffer risks.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Life on Earth under 'existential threat': climate scientists

    "The truth is that we are shocked by the ferocity of the extreme weather events in 2023. We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered," said an international coalition of authors in a new report published in the journal BioScience.

    Their stark assessment: "Life on planet Earth is under siege".

    They said humanity had made "minimal progress" in curbing its planet-heating emissions, with major greenhouse gases at record levels, and subsidies for fossil fuels soaring last year.

  • Oxford University Press ☛ The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory

    In the present report, we display a diverse set of vital signs of the planet and the potential drivers of climate change and climate-related responses first presented by Ripple and Wolf and colleagues (2020), who declared a climate emergency, now with more than 15,000 scientist signatories. The trends reveal new all-time climate-related records and deeply concerning patterns of climate-related disasters. At the same time, we report minimal progress by humanity in combating climate change. Given these distressing developments, our goal is to communicate climate facts and policy recommendations to scientists, policymakers, and the public. It is the moral duty of us scientists and our institutions to clearly alert humanity of any potential existential threat and to show leadership in taking action. This report is part of our series of concise and easily accessible yearly updates on the state of the climate crisis.

  • Greece ☛ Russia's erotic webcam streaming sites hit by Ukraine war

    Webcam streaming sites are booming in Russia. Despite attempts by authorities to clamp down, the gray market for erotic online services has been growing for years.

    The COVID-19 pandemic drove up demand for adult cam models, sometimes known as cam girls or boys, but since Russia's invasion of Ukraine business hasn't been so simple for the Russian models who do it. DW spoke with several of them, changing their name to protect their identity.

  • NDTV ☛ Erdogan's "Crescent-Crusader" Remark Prompts Israel's Diplomatic Recall

    "Given the grave statements coming from Turkey, I have ordered the return of diplomatic representatives there..." Israel's Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said in a post on X, formerly Twitter

  • New York Times ☛ In Michigan, Muslim and Arab American Voters Reconsider Support for Biden

    That anger at the Biden administration’s response to the conflict in the Mideast is widely shared by Arab Americans in Michigan, especially in Wayne County, which includes the cities of Hamtramck and Dearborn, where Muslims have a large population and have been elected to top leadership roles.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Maine mass shootings: Community mourns while in lockdown

    The largest mass shooting incident in Maine leaves a community shell-shocked and, because of a lockdown and search, unable to gather and mourn together.

  • Meduza ☛ Hamas promises to release eight Russian hostages — Meduza

  • Craig Murray ☛ Cold Blooded Killers and their Cheerleaders

    The Guardian’s main headline today is the Israeli propaganda framing of last night’s huge massacre.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • NYPost ☛ Russian military suffered 4,000 casualties in fight for Avdiivka, Ukraine

      Ukraine Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said at least 4,000 Russian troops had been killed in Moscow's attempt to seize control of Avdiivka.

    • France24 ☛ Russia accuses Ukraine of damaging nuclear waste storage facility with drone strike

      A Ukrainian drone crashed into a nuclear waste storage facility at the Kursk power plant in western Russia on Thursday, damaging its walls, Russia's foreign ministry said on Saturday, calling on other governments to condemn "an act of nuclear terrorism".

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Suffers Heavy Losses Near Avdiyivka, U.K. Says, As Kyiv-Backed Peace Talks Begin In Malta

      Heavy fighting continued around the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiyivka on October 28, even as representatives from dozens of nations met in Malta to discuss Ukraine-driven peace proposals and while Kyiv and Moscow exchanged accusations of attacks near nuclear-related sites in each country.

    • New York Times ☛ Russia’s Former Pick to Be Ukraine’s Puppet Leader Is Shot in Crimea

      Oleg Tsaryov, a pro-Russian businessman and former lawmaker, was said to have been wounded in the attack. Moscow had planned to set him up as head of government in Kyiv if its invasion had succeeded.

    • New York Times ☛ Desperate for Air Defense, Ukraine Pushes U.S. for ‘Franken’ Weapons

      To meet the demand, the U.S. is producing so-called FrankenSAM systems that marry advanced Western weaponry with Soviet-era items still in Ukrainian stockpiles.

    • Meduza ☛ Ukraine’s Security Service behind assassination attempt on pro-Russian Ukrainian politician Oleg Tsaryov — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ More than 20 dead in Kazakhstan mine explosion — Meduza

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Rupert Murdoch Was the Symptom of a Rotten Public Culture That Will Outlast His Departure

    Murdoch’s politics are, of course, broadly reactionary. But it has long been a key insight of Murdochology that the mogul is a political realist with an eye on making and keeping powerful friends. His moves into the relatively regulated world of broadcast and satellite distribution demanded no major fallings-out with the most powerful governments, East and West.

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ A media literacy handbook for Israel-Gaza

    The latest handbook is an Israel-Gaza edition. It doesn't aim to parse fine distinctions over the definition of "occupation" or identify the source of shell fragments. Rather, it offers seven bullet points' worth of advice on weighing all the other news you hear about the war: [...]

• Environment

  • Omicron Limited ☛ 1.6 million acres of Great Plains grasslands were destroyed in 2021 alone, World Wildlife Fund says

    Bolt said that grasslands have large and ornate root systems that resemble something like "an upside-down forest" and trap carbon underground. When these plants are plowed, the soil is turned over and that carbon is released into the atmosphere. Crops that are grown in their place, such as corn or soybeans, typically have shallow roots and do not have the capacity to store carbon.

  • NL Times ☛ 2023-10-25 [Older] Dutch riverbanks heavily littered with plastic; Organizations want stricter approach

  • Green Party UK ☛ 2023-10-23 [Older] Green Party statement in response to Storm Babet

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Futurism ☛ Car Companies Are Suddenly Super Worried About the Future of EVs

      Domestically, one of the biggest automakers to sound the alarm was General Motors. At an earnings call this week, the company said that it's ditching its target to build 100,000 EVs in the second half of this year, and 400,000 by the first half of 2024. It has not stated new targets, and says that it does not know when it will hit its previous ones.

    • Business Insider ☛ Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working

      "After studying this for a year, we decided that this would be difficult as a business, so at the moment we are ending development of an affordable EV," Mibe said in an interview with Bloomberg this week.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • NL Times ☛ Light pollution awareness at annual "Night of the Night"

      The environmental association Natuur en Milieufederaties draws attention to light pollution during the night from Saturday to Sunday. During the annual “Night of the Night" event, activities are organized throughout the Netherlands in the dark, and companies and municipalities turn off the lighting of buildings and advertisements.

• Finance

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Your Money: New generations redefine the meaning of work

    Even before the pandemic took hold in the U.S. in March 2020, the world of work had been changing dramatically. Structural shifts such as work-from-home (WFH), hybrid work, and the rise of gig work were already profoundly affecting relationships between employers and employees.

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-10-22 [Older] Apple Supplier Foxconn Subjected to Tax Inspections by Chinese Authorities [Ed: Foxconn does a lot more than Apple, so this headline is nonsensical]

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-10-24 [Older] Spanish Potential Coalition Government to Reinforce Banking Tax

  • International Business Times ☛ 2023-10-27 [Older] Elon Musk Wants X To Replace Banks By 2024 [Ed: More "Musk says" BS pieces!]

  • The Verge ☛ 2023-10-27 [Older] Elon Musk Predicts X Will Replace Banks Next Year

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-10-27 [Older] Indian Banks Offer Incentives to Lift Digital Currency Transactions - Sources [Ed: payments to facilitate mass spying, discrimination etc. (they basically penalise those who pay anonymously)]

  • Gizmodo ☛ 2023-10-25 [Older] Pour One Out for the Banks That Invested in Musk’s Twitter

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • JURIST ☛ UK Member of Parliament arrested in connection with allegations of sexual misconduct

    British Conservative MP Crispin Blunt announced Thursday that he had been arrested in connection with allegations of sexual misconduct. The MP for Reigate in Surrey, Southern England has been a Member of Parliament since 1997.

  • Green Party UK ☛ 2023-10-24 [Older] Green Party condemns ‘shameful’ government legacy of destitution

  • The Drone Girl ☛ What Michael Whitaker’s confirmation as FAA Administrator means for the drone industry

    The U.S. Senate on Tuesday unanimously confirmed Michael Whitaker to serve as administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), where he’s set to serve a five year term.

    Up until now, Whitaker had been the chief operating officer of Supernal, which is a Hyundai Motor Group company designing an electric advanced air mobility vehicle. Given that role, he’s set to bring a particularly compelling perspective to the FAA’s handling of drones and other uncrewed vehicles.

    Here are four ways that Michael Whitaker’s confirmation as FAA Administrator can impact (or already has impacted) the drone industry: [...]

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • India Times ☛ Elon Musk’s X may launch a news distribution service

      While X is planning to become a news-friendly platform and incentivising journalists to post original content, its direct competitor, Instagram Threads, is moving away from the news. The platform’s head, Adam Mosseri last month said that the company did not intend to “amplify” news on its platform.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Gizmodo ☛ 2023-10-20 [Older] Apple Reportedly Cancels Jon Stewart’s Show Over His AI and China Talking Points

  • Engadget ☛ 2023-10-20 [Older] Jon Stewart's Apple TV+ show reportedly ends following clash over AI and China

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2023-10-22 [Older] Michigan State Suspends Employee Involved With Allowing Hitler's Image to Be Shown on Videoboards

  • The Conversation ☛ 2023-10-27 [Older] How to redesign social media algorithms to bridge divides

  • RFERL ☛ Iranian Security Forces Keep Family From Grave Of Son Killed In Protests

    The security apparatus also obstructed memorial services for other protesters killed on October 26 in various Iranian cities including Arak, Sanandaj, Mahabad, Rasht, Tehran, and several others, activists reported.

  • Spiegel ☛ A New Wave of Anti-Semitism Sweeps Across Germany

    Hamas' terror and Israel's counterattacks have unleashed levels of anti-Semitism not seen in years in Germany. Jews are living in fear and now wonder if they should leave the country. The political response so far appears to be doing little to change the situation.

  • Futurism ☛ OpenAI Says It’s Fine If ChatGPT Occasionally Accuses Innocent People of Crimes

    Most concerningly, these outputs can sometimes contain falsehoods about real people, a phenomenon that has already resulted in multiple defamation lawsuits: one against OpenAI, whose chatbot falsely accused a radio host named Mark Walters of embezzlement, and one against Microsoft, whose OpenAI-powered Bing Chat feature incorrectly told users that a regular non-terrorist guy was a convicted terrorist. (OpenAI was also previously threatened with yet another similar lawsuit, but that case was dropped.)

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Iran: Teen dies after alleged brush with morality police

    An Iranian teenage girl injured almost a month ago during a mysterious incident on Tehran's Metro, while not wearing a headscarf has died, the official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.

    Sixteen-year-old Armita Geravand, an ethnic Kurd, allegedly had an encounter with morality police officers over violating the country's hijab law.

  • El País ☛ Iranian teen injured on Tehran Metro while not wearing a headscarf has died, state media says

    The death of Armita Geravand comes after her being in a coma for weeks in Tehran and after the one-year anniversary of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, which sparked nationwide protests at the time.

    Geravand’s October 1 injury and now her death threaten to reignite that popular anger, particularly as women in Tehran and elsewhere still defy Iran’s mandatory headscarf, or hijab, law as a sign of their discontent with Iran’s theocracy.

  • Axios ☛ Food insecurity spiked last year, new report shows

    Zoom in: The share of households that couldn't reliably afford food rose to 12.8% from 10.2%, according to the report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's economic research service.

  • RFERL ☛ Iranian Artists Slam Government For Banning Actresses Who Protested Hijab Law

    Several high-profile Iranian artists have objected to a move by the Culture Ministry to ban some Iranian actresses who have publicly opposed the mandatory hijab law.

  • RFERL ☛ Burial Set In Tense Tehran For Iranian Teen Who Died After Alleged Hijab Confrontation

    The family of Iranian teenager Armita Garavand plans to hold her funeral in Tehran on October 29 as the already tense country braces for potentially explosive protests following the death of the girl, who fell into a coma after an alleged confrontation with police over violating the country's hijab law.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Engadget ☛ 2023-10-25 [Older] Apple will honor California's 'right to repair' rules nationwide

  • Gizmodo ☛ 2023-10-24 [Older] Surprise! Apple Says It Supports National Right to Repair Now

• Monopolies

  • The Verge ☛ Google paid a whopping $26.3 billion in 2021 to be the default search engine everywhere

    The US v. Google antitrust trial is about many things, but more than anything, it’s about the power of defaults. Even if it’s easy to switch browsers or platforms or search engines, the one that appears when you turn it on matters a lot. Google obviously agrees and has paid a staggering amount to make sure it is the default: testimony in the trial revealed that Google spent a total of $26.3 billion in 2021 to be the default search engine in multiple browsers, phones, and platforms.

  • Patents

    • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Prosecution Strategies for the AIA Era

      The Federal Circuit’s new claim construction decision in Monterey Research, v. STMicroelectronics highlights the ongoing difficulty of patentees to obtain narrow claim construction at the PTAB during IPR. Typically, patentees are seeking narrow claim construction in order to better differentiate the patent claims from the asserted prior art.  And, although a patentee could expressly amend the claims, such an action could create problems in litigation such as eliminating back damages and potentially creating an estoppel problem. Broad claim interpretation at the PTAB was rampant in the early days as the administrative court applied the PTO standard “broadest reasonable interpretation.”

    • Gizmodo ☛ 2023-10-27 [Older] Apple Could Face an Import Ban on Its Watches Due to a Patent Violation

    • The Register UK ☛ Biden's facing the clock to veto Apple Watch import ban after ITC patent ruling

      Should the ITC order go into effect, Apple would no longer be able to bring devices with light-based pulse oximetry functionality into the US or produce new devices using the technology, presumably without licensing the pertinent tech from Masimo first.

    • Engadget ☛ 2023-10-27 [Older] ITC rules against Apple in patent dispute, setting up potential ban

    • International Business Times ☛ 2023-10-26 [Older] Microsoft Working On A Multi-Device Virtual Web Browser, Patent Suggests [Ed: Patents can be just vapourware though]

    • IP Kat ☛ 2023-10-27 [Older] EPO maintains ST.26 sequence listing requirement for divisionals but compromises on excess page fees

  • Trademarks

    • IP Kat ☛ 2023-10-27 [Older] Tangfastic news! EUIPO rules on distinctiveness of gummy bears (R 872/2023-4)

    • IP Kat ☛ 2023-10-21 [Older] 5-year imprisonment for trade mark infringement disproportionate and contrary to EU law, says CJEU

    • IP Kat ☛ 2023-10-23 [Older] The Birkenstock pattern mark saga continues

  • Copyrights

    • IP Kat ☛ 2023-10-25 [Older] CJEU has received first reference on DSM Directive

    • Torrent Freak ☛ ACE/MPA Target VivaTV, StreamTape & VidSrc: A Peek Under the Hood

      Recent DMCA subpoena applications filed by the Motion Picture Association at a court in the U.S. target IPTV, web streaming, and hosting platforms receiving between 80 and 100 million visits per month. They include Android app VivaTV and well-known video hosting services StreamTape and VidSrc. While the headline traffic figures are impressive, other details warrant a closer look.

Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • 🔤SpellBinding — EHNOPSY Wordo: RISKS

• Technology and Free Software

  • As if mail.app is almost the perfect email client

    I love email but hate email clients. Mail.app is not perfect, but it has the features to let it come pretty close for me.

  • Comments on Debian - Looking Back

    16 years ago I wrote about why I like Debian [0]. I recently re-read it with an eye towards seeing if what I wrote held up today.

    The main points I mentioned were the packaging system and the non-commercial community, and how Debian puts the users first.

    [...]

    My only current reservation about Debian is with the adoption of systemd, but for desktops I don't think this matters much.

  • Inflation has seriously affected the Nigerian scams

    I think this is a record—*one hundred trillion dollars* in compensation. Yes, inflation is currently on the rise, but I don't think the United States has one hundred trillion dollars. Is the author perhaps confusing us with Zimbabwe [1]? I'm happy to report that the math in the email works out, so some effort was given here. But aside from the decent grammar, the math working and the monetary amount, nothing else about this is really noteworthy.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Adventures in Utext

      To generate the gopher and Gemini versions of my blog, I parse the HTML (HyperText Markup Language) [2] and generate either plain text (for gopher) or Gemtext for Gemini

  • Programming

    • Csound, too big to fail?

      Someone on gemini recently mentioned a programming language with the stated goal that it would not expand or change much in the future. I think it might have been the Hare language, which will develop towards a version 1.0 and then it will be done. A bold vision, indeed.