Leftovers

• James G ☛ Advent of Technical Writing: Style

  This is the ninth post in the Advent of Technical Writing series, wherein I will share something I have learned from my experience as a technical writer. My experience is primarily in software technical writing, but what you read may apply to different fields, too. View all posts in the series.

• Hackaday ☛ Metronome Flashes And Vibrates To The Beat

  Annoying though they can be, if you play any kind of instrument, you will definitely benefit from using a metronome. While many of them thock or otherwise tock, the VRRVRR metronome from [Turi] works a little differently.

• Hackaday ☛ MOSFETs — The Big Lie

  How many terminals does a MOSFET have? Trick question since most have three leads, even though there are really four connections to the underlying device. It isn’t a conspiracy, though and [Aaron Lanterman] talks about how MOSFETs really work and why thinking of them as three-terminal devices can lead you astray in a recent video that you can watch below.

• Hackaday ☛ Cold War Spying And The Questionable Use Of Smuggled Blueprints In Developing Supersonic Airliners

  Although spying is a time-honored tradition, the sheer scope of it reached a fever pitch during the Cold War, when everyone was spying on everyone, and conceivably for both sides at the same time. In an era where both McCarthyism and the character of James Bond enjoyed strong popularity, it should come as no surprise that a project of geopolitical importance like the development of the world’s first supersonic airliner would come amidst espionage, as well as accusations thereof. This is the topic of a documentary that recently aired on Channel 4 in the UK called Concorde: The Race for Supersonic, yet what is the evidence that the Soviet Tu-144 truly was just a Concorde clone, a derogatory nicknamed ‘Concordski’?

• Hackaday ☛ A Ham Radio Answering Machine

  For those who grew up with a cell phone in their hand, it might be difficult to imagine a time where the phone wasn’t fully integrated with voicemail. It sounds like a fantastical past, yet at one point a separate machine needed to be attached to the phone to record messages if no one was home to answer. Not only that, but a third device, a cassette tape, was generally needed as a storage device to hold the messages. In many ways we live in a much simpler world now, but in the amateur radio world one group is looking to bring this esoteric technology to the airwaves and [saveitforparts] is demonstrating one as part of a beta test.

• Hardware

  • dwaves.de ☛ [Old] Why this user avoids LANCOM routers like the plague

    LANCOM is not so well known German company that is the partner when it comes to “business” DSL routers for Telekom and T-Systems customers and as such they are conducting the worst closed source rippoff of their customers possible.

  • Hackaday ☛ Switching Converter For EEPROM Programmer Taxes Solderless Breadboard

    We all know that solderless breadboards have their limitations. All that stray capacitance can play hell with circuits, especially high-speed stuff, but they’re so darn useful that avoiding them in favor of some other prototyping method can be really hard. So we often just forge ahead, plugging in our parts and hoping for the best

  • Hackaday ☛ Marconi Circuit Magnification Meter Gives Up Secrets

    [Thomas] picked up a Marconi TF1245 with dents and dings. We have to admit that we had not heard of a “circuit magnification meter,” but apparently, this was a thing in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Turns out, we have heard of this kind of meter before, but it was called a Q meter. The device works using a very low-impedance resonant circuit and a very high-impedance voltmeter. It measures the ratio of the voltage across the known circuit and the unknown circuit. This particular meter needs an external signal source with very special characteristics. You can see the well-built device in the video below.

  • CNX Software ☛ LONGER Laser B1 30W review – A 33-36W laser engraver tested with LightBurn

    Today we will review the LONGER Laser B1 30W laser engraver with the LightBurn program. The machine is equipped with a laser module comprised of six 6W laser diodes for a total power of 33 – 36 W when accounting for some variation in the power delivered by each diode. The Laser B1 can cut through 20 mm thick wood and 10 mm thick black acrylic in just one cut, and with multiple passes, it can also handle up to 25mm thick wood 50mm thick black acrylic, and even 0.1mm thick stainless steel. The kit comes with an air pump to improve the cutting ability and prevent/limit burns around the engraving or cutting area, and has a working area of 450 x 440 mm.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Science Alert ☛ Magic Mushrooms: Why Psychedelic 'Designer Shrooms' Could Be The Future

    Where does the magic really come from?

  • Science Alert ☛ After an Ear Piercing, Your Skin Microbiome Changes in a Fundamental Way

    Like an earthquake.

  • New York Times ☛ New Sickle Cell Therapies Will Be Out of Reach Where They Are Needed Most

    There is no clear path for African patients to get access to the treatments, which have multimillion-dollar price tags and are highly complex to manufacture and deliver.

  • New York Times ☛ Britons Love the N.H.S. Some Will Also Pay to Avoid It.

    With millions-long lines for routine surgery, it has become more common for patients to pay for procedures. That carries risks for the future of the treasured public system.

  • Science Alert ☛ Research in Mice Suggests a Surprising Link Between Nose-Picking And Alzheimer's

    Do you really need to pick it?

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • New Yorker ☛ The Year Hey Hi (AI) Ate the Internet

    Call 2023 the year many of us learned to communicate, create, cheat, and collaborate with robots.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Meduza ☛ Whatever you’ve got How LDPR leader Leonid Slutsky’s Russian Peace Foundation passed foreign citizens’ personal information to Russian intelligence — Meduza

    • Techdirt ☛ Meta Finally Launches Default End-To-End Encryption In Messenger [Ed: Techdirt helps Facebook like about "E2EE"]

      For many, many years we’ve been calling on companies to enable end-to-end encryption by default on any messaging/communications tools. It’s important to recognize that doing so correctly is difficult, but not impossible (similarly, it’s important to recognize that doing so poorly is dangerous, as it will lead people to believe their communications are secure when they are most certainly not).

    • Techdirt ☛ Another State Lawmaker Wants To Criminalize Porn Through Age Verification

      Here we go again, everyone. Another far-right state lawmaker has introduced a bill requiring age verification in order to access porn sites from within state limits. This time it is Tennessee state Rep. Patsy Hazlewood who introduced yet another extreme age verification proposal that essentially makes it a crime to own a legally operating porn website protected by the First Amendment – regardless of whether the material protects certain regional regulations.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Latvia ☛ Latvia signs naval missile deal with the United States

    Latvia entered into a $105 million agreement with the United States on Friday, December 8 to purchase the  “Naval Strike Missile” system (NSM) manufactured by U.S. company Raytheon and Norwegian company Kongsberg, the Ministry of Defense (AM) reported.

  • France24 ☛ 🔴 Live: Iran warns of a regional 'explosion' after US vetoes UN ceasefire resolution on Gaza

    Iran warned on Saturday of the threat of an "uncontrollable explosion" of the situation in the Middle East, after the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in the two-month war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

  • France24 ☛ US vetoes UN Security Council resolution demanding humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza

    The United States on Friday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have called for an immediate ceasefire in the intense fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The United States' deputy representative at the UN, Robert Wood, said the resolution was "divorced from reality" and "would have not moved the needle forward on the ground."

  • The Straits Times ☛ No appeal by Japan after ruling for wartime sex slaves, says South Korea

    A court ruling ordered Japan to compensate 16 women over forced wartime sexual slavery.

  • The Straits Times ☛ US, South Korea and Japan to step up actions on North Korean cyberthreats

    December 09, 2023 8:45 AM
    
    

    The threats include satellite launches and cryptocurrency abuses.

  • New York Times ☛ U.S. Vetoes Gaza Cease-Fire Resolution at U.N. Security Council

    The veto came amid a warning that “civil order is breaking down” in Gaza, and a day after the Biden administration warned that Israel’s military had not done enough to reduce harm to civilians.

  • New York Times ☛ Teenagers Convicted in France in Connection With Teacher Samuel Paty’s Killing

    The teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded in 2020 by an Islamist extremist after showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to his students to illustrate free speech.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Washington, allies to ‘stand up’ for stability in Taiwan Strait: US

    US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Dec 9 that Washington and its Asia allies would “stand up” for stability across the Taiwan Strait, and reiterated their commitment to freedom of navigation in the disputed South China Sea.

  • teleSUR ☛ Somalia: ATMIS to Ramp up Offensives Against Al-Shabab

    The removal of the arms embargo by the UN Security Council marked a significant moment in the evolution of Somalia's security.

  • JURIST ☛ Belgium to introduce travel ban on Israeli West Bank settlers

    Belgium Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced on Thursday that Israeli settlers from the West Bank would be banned from entering Belgium. This follows the US’s announcement of travel restrictions “targeting individuals and their family members involved in or meaningfully contributing to actions that undermine peace, security, and stability in the West Bank.”

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong activist Koo Sze-yiu arrested for sedition over plan to protest against ‘unfair’ District Council race – reports

    Veteran Hong Kong social activist Koo Sze-yiu has been arrested under the sedition law, local media have reported citing sources.

  • France24 ☛ Rockets fired at the US embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone

    At least three rockets targeted the US embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone at dawn on Friday, landing on the outskirts of the district housing government and diplomatic buildings, an Iraqi security official said.

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea boasts of satellite capability, says it will launch more soon

    It intends to launch more spy satellites in the future to collect information on the military activities of its enemies.

  • The Straits Times ☛ White House ‘eager’ to resume military talks with China

    Talks may not happen as China has not replaced former defence minister who was dismissed in October.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China’s investments to Vietnam boom as Pooh-tin visits Hanoi, US spending down

    Chinese President Pooh-tin will travel to Vietnam next week with the aim of further deepening ties.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China’s Pooh-tin Jinping to visit Vietnam to bring relations ‘to a higher position’

    Chinese President Pooh-tin Jinping will visit neighbouring Vietnam next week to push for deeper ties between the socialist neighbours, Beijing’s foreign ministry said on Thursday. Xi’s state visit will take place next Tuesday and Wednesday, foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a statement. The Chinese president was invited by Vietnam’s top leaders Nguyen Phu Trong and […]

  • The Straits Times ☛ China LandSpace’s methane-powered rocket sends satellites into orbit

    The success could boost investors’ confidence in methane as a potential rocket fuel.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ A pivotal contest for strategic islands in the Pacific is upon us—and it’s not about Taiwan or the South China Sea

    Time is running out for Congress to take concerted bipartisan action on agreements with Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands.

  • YLE ☛ Complaints to parliamentary ombudsman over police use of force at Helsinki demo

    Police detained 54 people who were attempting to take part in an anti-Nazi demonstration that had not received prior authorisation.

  • YLE ☛ PM Orpo: Finland to decide on ending or extending eastern border closure next week

    The border checkpoints were closed at the end of last month for a period of two weeks, which comes to an end next Wednesday night.

  • Techdirt ☛ Court Shuts Down Union’s Assertion That NYPD Officers Should Be Allowed To Choke People To Death

    The killing of Eric Garner — an unarmed black man — by white NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo was yet another in long and unending series of flashpoints that generated nationwide protests against police violence.

  • Techdirt ☛ NY Appeals Court Says Law Enforcement Can’t Withhold Misconduct Records Containing Only ‘Unproven” Allegations

    New York law enforcement agencies have always considered transparency to be something to be foisted on other government entities. The NYPD spends a lot of its time screwing over public records requests, in one notable case rejecting a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request for a copy of its FOIL response guidelines.

  • BIA Net ☛ Was Syrian activist Katie abducted by intelligence agents?

    Nurullah Çelen, the lawyer of Syrian refugee and human rights activist Ahmed Katie, who has been missing for 12 days, stated that his client was abducted by individuals presenting themselves as intelligence agents. Çelen mentioned that they have filed complaints with the police and the prosecutor's office but have still received no information.

  • New York Times ☛ White House Disavows U.S. Islamic Group After Leader’s Oct. 7 Remarks

    The director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a speech that he was “was happy to see” Palestinians break out of Gaza on the day Hamas attacked Israel.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ ‘We have to prove Putin wrong’: Human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk on pursuing justice for Ukraine in wartime — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russia’s economy grew rapidly in 2023, thanks mainly to militarization. And that poses enormous risks for the future. — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ International Olympic Committee allows Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in 2024 Paris Olympics under neutral flag — Meduza

    • Latvia ☛ Financial Intelligence Unit will have decisive role in EU sanctions enforcement

      The Financial Intelligence Unit (FID) will be the competent authority in Latvia for the enforcement of European Union (EU) sanctions according to amendments to the Law on International and National Sanctions of the Republic of Latvia adopted by the Saeima on Thursday, December 7, in the final reading.

• Environment

  • Science Alert ☛ The Climate Change We've Already Created Will Last 50,000 Years, Scientists Warn

    "Beyond the life of human society as we know it."

  • RFA ☛ China stagnates as Indonesia, Malaysia slip in climate ranking

    The Philippines fares among the best in the global report card at COP28.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Heatwave and Unicode in Sydney

    It’s already 38 degrees (≅ 100 ℉) where Clara and I are in Sydney, and the forecast expects it to go much higher by midday. I’ve broken out the collared shirt and chinos, because while looking overdressed, they’re the only clothes I can wear without my angmoh skin burning off.

    You don’t need me to tell you, but stay hydrated and cool. I have a friend who’s a paramedic, and you don’t want to not take that seriously. That was a double negative way of saying take it seriously. No, really, have you had a glass of water recently?

    I suppose one good thing has come out of this: I learned about some new Unicode symbols! We have ℃ and ℉ for temperature, and ≅ for approximate values. In the words of Technology Connections: neat.

  • Nature

    • Pro Publica ☛ Survivor of Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Wildfire Dies Awaiting FEMA Payout

      Donato Sena and his wife, Maria Luisa, spent a recent afternoon loading furniture into the new mobile home placed on their land in Rociada, one of the areas hit hardest by New Mexico’s massive wildfire last spring.

      The task was tiring for the couple, both in their 70s, and came after months of struggle to rebuild a semblance of their former lives stolen by the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire. They’d fought with contractors, bureaucrats, lawyers and sometimes each other as stress mounted and time stretched on.

    • Pro Publica ☛ Interior Department Revamps Rules to Speed Repatriations Under NAGPRA

      The Biden administration has revised the rules that institutions and government agencies must follow to comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act — a law long hampered by limited funding and the unwillingness of many museums to relinquish Indigenous remains and burial items.

    • YLE ☛ Large 'smokybrown' cockroach found in Finland for very first time

      The specimen measured more than three centimetres in length.

  • Overpopulation

    • YLE ☛ Birth rate highest among women with foreign backgrounds

      Finland's overall fertility rate last year was 1.32.

• Finance

  • YLE ☛ Planned rail strike could cause commuter chaos next week

    The industrial action is planned for Thursday 14 December, and could see train and tram services disrupted across the country.

  • New York Times ☛ SmileDirectClub Shuts Down, Months After Filing for Bankruptcy

    The telehealth company, which sold teeth alignment devices to two million customers, was unprofitable and had been criticized by medical groups.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China’s consumer price decline worsens, fuelling deflation fears

    The consumer price index fell 0.5 per cent in November from a year earlier, said the National Statistics Bureau.

  • RFA ☛ China opposes attempts to 'smear,' 'sabotage' Belt and Road Initiative

    Italy announced plans to leave the project, saying it hadn’t produced the expected results.

  • LRT ☛ EU adopts legislation to resist economic coercion following China–Lithuania dispute

    A new EU regulation will come into force later this month, protecting member states from economic coercion by third countries.

  • WhichUK ☛ Millions of EE and Three customers ripped off on contract inflation

    We believe legacy customers on bundled contracts are being unfairly charged extra for their device through inflation-based price rises

  • RFA ☛ Lao PM introduces new measures to tackle inflation

    But workers are not optimistic about the reforms.

  • Latvia ☛ Latvia's annual inflation just 1% in November

    The latest data published by the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) December 8 show that in November 2023, compared to November 2022, the average level of consumer prices increased by just 1.0 % as inflationary pressures continued to  subside.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Kent Stater ☛ Russia’s Vladimir Putin says he will run for president again in 2024 election

    The Russian presidential election is scheduled to be held in March 2024.

  • RFERL ☛ Putin Says 'I Will Run' When Asked About Russia's Presidential Election In March

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he will run again for office in Russia's March presidential election in which he is expected to easily win a new six-year term and extend the longest rule of a Kremlin leader since Josef Stalin.

  • Common Dreams ☛ We Are Who We Hate, Father Time Is Undefeated, and Other Lessons From the GOP

    Hoo boy. Hopefully you missed the GOP "trash fire," "play date," "darkest saddest game of MadLibs ever" and "rancid buffet of bigotry" that was the final debate among four also-rans who again confirm the party isn't sending their best, or there aren't any. In an ugly, hollow, extremely loud and incredibly dumb display, Haley, Christie, DeFascist and "the most obnoxious blowhard in America" yelled at each other in a sordid effort to out-hate anyone who isn't a straight white Christian male. The result: They/we all lost.

  • France24 ☛ Russia’s Putin announces presidential candidacy in 2024 elections

    Vladimir Putin on Friday moved to prolong his repressive and unyielding grip on Russia for at least another six years, announcing his candidacy in the presidential election next March that he is all but certain to win.

  • Meduza ☛ Putin announces candidacy for fifth term as president — Meduza

  • Meduza ☛ ‘I will run’: The moment Vladimir Putin announced he would seek a fifth term as president. Video. — Meduza

  • Meduza ☛ ‘It’s impossible to imagine Russia with another leader’: Politicians, pro-Kremlin media, and the opposition on Putin’s bid for a fifth term as president — Meduza

  • Meduza ☛ Russian presidential election set for March 15-17, 2024 — Meduza

  • Meduza ☛ Alexey Navalny’s lawyers not allowed to visit him in prison for third day in a row — Meduza

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong vs. Agnes Chow: What place does negotiated remorse have in the rule of law?

    Our leaders are awfully upset about Agnes Chow. Chow, if you have been abroad for a few days, was a young and charismatic protest leader when such things were still allowed.

  • JURIST ☛ Kenya judge dismisses contempt of court charges against Meta

    A judge in Nairobi, Kenya ruled on Thursday that Meta Platforms, Inc., the parent company of social control media sites like Facebook, is not in contempt of court for failure to pay dozens of content moderators that a contractor had laid off, according to Kenyan news source People Daily.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Consulates in Hong Kong may need approval from China foreign ministry to extend property leases

    Consulates and international organisations in Hong Kong will have to win approval from China’s foreign ministry to extend leases for their properties in the city, the government has said in a proposal to revamp lease extension mechanism ahead of an expected mass expiries.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Straits Times ☛ Trending in Shaolin: China’s gongfu monks draw fans online but also raise eyebrows

    While warrior monks with an online following have broadened the reach of Shaolin, some question if it is fitting for them to embrace the Internet.

  • Stanford University ☛ From the Community | Antisemitism is alive and well at Stanford

    “For the first time in my life, rather than the unabashed pride I have always felt as a member of the Stanford family, I feel ashamed,” writes Michael Weis.

  • New York Times ☛ Campus Antisemitism, Free Speech and Double Standards

    Colleges have discovered the virtues of free speech only now, when the speech in question hurts Jews.

  • Reason ☛ Prof. Glenn Harlan Reynolds (Tennessee) on Speech at Universities

    From his Instapundit Substack post: So the shocking pro-genocide/pro-Palestinian marches at top Ivy League schools have put their administrations into a pretty pickle.  They want to escape responsibility for student speech, but their efforts to plead "free speech" ring hollow, when they've been eagerly policing student—and faculty—speech for years….

  • Techdirt ☛ Supporting Free Speech Means Supporting Victims Of SLAPP Suits, Even If You Disagree With The Speakers

    When Elon filed his recent ridiculous SLAPP suit against Media Matters, it was noteworthy (but not surprising) to me to see people who not only claimed to be “free speech supporters,” but who made that a key part of their persona, cheering on the lawsuit, even though its only purpose was to use the power of the state to stifle and suppress free speech.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Meduza ☛ Russia puts Masha Gessen on wanted list — Meduza

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Meduza ☛ Russia’s Kaliningrad region authorizes protest against introduction of fines for ‘coercing’ women to have abortions — Meduza

  • Pro Publica ☛ “Uprooted” Documentary Explores Black Land Loss Amid a University’s Growth

    In the 1960s, when Newport News, Virginia, remained a largely segregated city, longtime Black residents wanted to expand their neighborhood, offering former farmland as plots to other middle-class families looking to build homes. 

  • RFERL ☛ U.S. Imposes Sanctions On Dozens Of People Over Rights Abuses In Nine Countries

    The United States has imposed sanctions on dozens of people in several countries, including in Afghanistan, China, and Iran, cracking down on human rights abuses ahead of Human Rights Day on December 10.

  • RFA ☛ US sanctions Chinese officials over Uyghur abuse

    Three additional companies are also blocked from exporting goods to the US due to the possible use of forced labor.

  • ACLU ☛ ACLU Wins: 8 Victories We Celebrated in 2023

    This year, the ACLU continued our defense against challenges to our civil rights and liberties — but we also enjoyed some heartening victories. This advocacy is hard-fought and lasts months, if not years. But we persist in courts, legislatures, and communities, and this persistence pays off.

  • RFA ☛ Last handshake in Beijing

  • RFA ☛ North Korean factory workers in China to lose pay for product flaws

    The new policy seems to be a way for the government to extract more funds from the workers, sources say.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Leo Babauta’s minimalist site guidelines

    Leo Babauta has a great post talking about minimalist websites. He defines such a site as:

    A website with the main purpose of having people read content would best serve its readers with almost nothing else but what’s needed for the reading experience.

    Strip a site of all its distraction, cruft, gimmicks, promotions, advertising, social sharing and more … and all you have is the pure reading experience.

    A minimalist website. Perfect for the readers, which is perfect for the writer. Not so perfect for advertisers and marketers, perhaps, but we’re not creating sites for them. We’re creating sites for us.

    I love the pitch. Most of the suggestions on his page are great, from eschewing (geshundheit) ads, cookies, tracking, popus, social control media sharing buttons, and so on. Yes, yes, and yes!

  • Meduza ☛ German web hosting provider cancels watchdog website Agentura.ru’s hosting contract, says journalist Andrei Soldatov — Meduza

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Techdirt ☛ Judge Allows Major ‘Right To Repair’ Lawsuit Against John Deere To Move Forward

    Last year agricultural equipment giant John Deere found itself on the receiving end of an antitrust lawsuit for its efforts to monopolize tractor repair. The lawsuits noted that the company consistently purchased competing repair centers in order to consolidate the sector and force customers into using the company’s own repair facilities, driving up costs and logistical hurdles dramatically for farmers.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Spotify CEO Daniel Ek Didn’t Draw a Salary in 2022 — But He Did Receive a Cool $181,085 ‘For Home Security Services’

    Spotify CEO Daniel Ek didn’t collect a salary from the streaming platform during 2022 – but he did pull in a cool $181,085 “for home security services.” The Stockholm-based platform disclosed Ek’s fortress-level security bill and other noteworthy details in its Form 20-F, which covers 2022 and was filed earlier in 2023.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ New in CMS Unified Patent Court: downloading multiple documents, correction representatives [Ed: Unified Patent Court is completely illegal and unconstitutional in most countries. This is another distraction from the simple fact that Unified Patent Court must be abolished as soon as possible and those who pushed for a "Unified Patent Court" held accountable.]

      The Unified Patent Court has announced that a new functionality is available on the CMS to download multiple documents at once from a given case.

  • Software Patents

    • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Sonos v. Google: Late Claiming Estoppel

      Sonos has filed its notice appealing Judge Alsup’s recent decision in Sonos v. Google that rendered two Sonos patents unenforceable due to prosecution laches. After being awarded $32 million by a jury, Sonos saw its verdict flipped by Judge Alsup in a harsh ruling accusing the company of “wringing fresh claims to read on a competitor’s products from an ancient application.” To mount its appeal, Sonos has enlisted Supreme Court heavyweight Josh Rosenkranz, head of Orrick’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice alongside the trial team led by George Lee.  Dan Bagatell, Perkins Coie’s head of Federal Circuit Patent Appeals Practice has filed an appearance in the case for Google.

    • Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ Emotionally Yours: On Artificial Neural Networks as Programs for Computers under UK Patent Law [Ed: Software patents are suicide. UK must identify and abolish them all, regardless of the buzzwords chosen.]

      The facts of the case On 21 November 2023, Sir Anthony Mann of the London High Court handed down a judgment in the case of Emotional Perception Hey Hi (AI) Ltd v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2023] EWHC 2948 (Ch).

    • Unified Patents ☛ Acacia entity, Monarch, networking patent monopoly reexam granted

      On December 5, 2023, three months after Unified filed an ex parte reexamination, the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) granted Unified’s request, finding a substantial new question of patentability on the challenged claims of U.S. Patent 8,451,845, owned and asserted by Monarch Networking Solutions, LLC, an Acacia Research Corp. entity.  The ‘845 patent monopoly relates to converting data packets between the IPv4 and IPv6 domains.

    • Unified Patents ☛ Mel NavIP automobile speech recognition patent monopoly challenged

      On December 7, 2023, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 8,060,368, owned and asserted by Mel NavIP, LLC. The '368 patent monopoly is generally directed to navigation and speech recognition for a vehicle. The patent monopoly had been asserted against Toyota and is currently asserted against GM and Hyundai.

      View district court litigations by Mel NavIP.

    • Unified Patents ☛ Heeeerrrreees Patty! World's First Patent Chatbot

      Unified is pleased to announce the latest addition to its patent monopoly analytics tools, ‘Ask Patty’ - Unified’s first Hey Hi (AI) ChatBot. Patty is our new interactive chatbot assistant designed to enhance the user experience on our Portal. It will automatically pop up on every patent monopoly information page.

      With Patty, users can interact directly and ask questions. Conversation history is stored anonymously so that the system can analyze data for future use and assist in building products that cater to our users' specific needs.

      Powered by OpenAI, users can have natural language conversations, regenerate individual responses, or reset the entire discussion.

    • Unified Patents ☛ IP Investments entity, Distributed Media, media streaming patent monopoly challenged

      On December 5, 2023, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 7,739,714, owned and asserted by Distributed Media Solutions, an NPE and entity of IP Investments Group. The ‘714 patent monopoly relates to methods and systems for encoding digital multimedia data for transmission over a network.

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ TTABlog Test: Are Candy and Nuts Related for Section 2(d) Purposes?

    The USPTO refused to register the mark CREME DE LA CREME for raw and processed nuts, including candied nuts, "supplied to grocery chains and wholesale grocers," finding confusion likely with the mark CRÈME DE LA CRÈME registered (on the Supplemental Register) for "candy.” Applicant Hines Nut argued that the cited mark is laudatory, commonly used, and therefore weak and entitled to a narrow scope of protection. How do you think this appeal came out? In re Hines Nut Company, Ltd., Serial No. 90672644 (December 5, 2023) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge David K. Heasley).

  • Right of Publicity

    • Digital Music News ☛ ASCAP Doubles Down on Support for Direct Licensing, Right of Publicity Expansion in New Copyright Office Hey Hi (AI) Comments

      The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) has submitted new comments on artificial intelligence to the Copyright Office, addressing the arguments of Hey Hi (AI) and tech companies including Anthropic.

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Major Labels Urge Court to Uphold $47 Million Judgement Against ISP Grande Communications

    Major record labels are urging a federal Texas court to uphold its $47 million piracy liability judgement against internet provider Grande Communications.

  • YLE ☛ Editor-in-chief resigns from journalism union magazine following plagiarism row

    Finland's copyright monopoly council found that Journalisti magazine editor Maria Pettersson had quoted passages from scientific articles in her book in "breach of good practice".

  • Techdirt ☛ The Copia Institute Tells The Copyright Office Again That Copyright Law Has No Business Obstructing AI Training

    A little over a month ago we told the Copyright Office in a comment that there was no role for copyright law to play when it comes to training AI systems. In fact, on the whole there’s little for copyright law to do to address the externalities of AI at all. No matter how one might feel about some of AI’s more dubious applications, copyright law is no remedy. Instead, as we reminded in this follow-up reply comment, trying to use copyright to obstruct development of the technology instead creates its own harms, especially when applied to the training aspect.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Oates tried to sell his half of the business. Hall can’t go for that.

    Hall & Oates is in court. Daryl Hall is suing to stop John Oates from selling his stake of a shared business partnership. The ’80s pop-rock duo has accused each other of inflammatory statements and even betrayal.

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Personal/Opinions

    • Ohtani to the Dodgers

      Well isn't this off-season just the most perfect distillation of being a Blue Jays fan. While they were getting strung along by Ohtani, Soto is traded in the division to the Yankees. The two premium options are off the market; in any other year, Soto would be the crowl jewel, and this year he's barely a story, given, well, you know.

    • Cycling in snow, 2023 edition

      There was no cold autumn this year. Temperatures were unusually moderate - ~5 degrees of Celsius and definitely over zero. Then in the last week of the November it have started to snow.

      We got unusually big amount of snow. Much more that in many previous years. For example, last year we had some snow in November but it was gone in a few days. Now it persists for almost two weeks and some more snow is expected.

  • Politics and World Events

    • Properties of a good economics system

      I was in an argument online with someone and I was close to tears but then the other person graciously shifted both of our gears from the “quips and slags and put-downs” mode it felt like we were both in by asking an interesting and genuine question.

    • I Hate The Government

      I was required to take a civics class this semester.

      The professor is a nice guy, but he would harp on and on about those cynics who had no faith in the government. I never felt targeted or anything since I never made much of a stink in class, but his undying faith in the system would make me roll my eyes. One time a person in class alluded to the media having an agenda on certain topics and he corrected him saying "well don't say they have an agenda, that makes it sound like there's some sort of collusion between them and government". Yes. That is exactly right. The fact he as a professor doesn't have more knowledge about the well documented history (and soon to be history) of the intelligence community and other parts of our government working with the media to push stories that are beneficial to their narrative made me lose any remaining faith in the facade of self-criticality within academia.

  • Technology and Free Software

    • Ĉio pliboniĝas matene

      As I've been here, I've had a lot of time to think. A little while ago I did a self-test for depression on my phone. I'm not gonna self-diagnose, but it got me thinking. The days I feel worst about myself and about what I'm doing are the days where I have nobody to talk to and nothing to do. I miss my friends and family, and the glacial downlink I have access to is aggravating. (Dear game developers: please don't release 130GB patches kthx). All of this will be forgotten tomorrow.

    • Arduino robot adventures (1)

      I have started - for practical reasons of course - to play with an Arduino-based 3D-printed robot. I decided to use the SMARS [1], It is not "free hardware" but it's freely available for personal use and it is rather simple to print and assemble.

      I have had a few Arduino [2] parts at home (the Arduino Uno an some add-ons) and the rest was quite inexpensive and easy to obtain.

      The reason why I have wanted to get this thing was a need to inspect some hard to access places in our cottage and to rescue things from those places. A robot with camera would be useful here.

    • SGI, BASIC, OPL and so

      I'm running my SGI O2 once more. This is what I am doing rather randomly since I have got the POWER9 machine for a desktop and the ARM-based MNT-reform for as a laptop.

    • Internet/Gemini

      • 🛰 Full Mailing List with Numbers Restored!

        I really wanted to be able use the same numbering convention in my gemtext archive, so that I could re-write the hyperlinks to point to the correct message in my archive. As I mentioned in a previous post, six digit number was *mostly* increasing, however there were some odd jumps. Message #125 would appear chronologically *before* message #124, and some numbers wouldn't be used at all.

      • Journal Update 26: Taking a Step Back

        As some of you have noticed, I journal a lot. I've gone the past three and a half odd years averaging two-hundred nine words per day, one new entry every four to five days, and with the largest time gap between entries being less than a month long. There are still so many topics I want to write about and I don't feel anywhere close to burnt out.