Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Simulating Cellular Biology In The Browser [Ed: But sadly, Microsoft GitHub and TypeScript, i.e. hostile towards the open Web and helpful to DRM pushets]

  [Technistuff] read a paper about simulating a “minimal” cell — apparently a cell with only 493 genes.

• University of Michigan ☛ Digital Culture’s 2023 year in review

  2023 was full of surprises for the digital world. There were video game adaptations galore (both nostalgic and disappointing), new memes and trends that should cause us all to question our internet addictions and — most importantly — The Josh Hutcherson Renaissance. New games were played, Fentanylware (TikTok) trends were analyzed and controversy was abundant.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Do These Experiments Really Show Rats Replaying Memories Inside Their Minds?

    An episode in the life of a rat.

  • Science Alert ☛ There's a Solar Eclipse Crossing The US in 2024 That Will Blow Your Mind

    It could be the most observed in history.

• Hardware

  • CNX Software ☛ Jetway launches the JF35-ADN1– A 3.5” defective chip maker Intel N97 SBC designed for industrial robotics applications

    Jetway, an AAEON-affiliated manufacturer, has released a new single-board computer, the JF35-ADN1, targeted at industrial robotics applications. The JF35-ADN1 is a subcompact, 3.5” board that is powered by the defective chip maker Intel N97 (formerly Alder Lake) processor.

  • Hackaday ☛ Reverse-Engineering The Web-@nywhere Watch For 2001-Era Smartwatch Action

    Although smartwatches seem to be just a recent fad, people have been strapping wristwatches to their wrists with all kinds of functionality. Whether a miniscule calculator, a remote control, an organizer or as in the case of the Web-@nywhere Watch a web browser. In the last case only sort of, naturally, as it was released in 2001 and this little early 2000s marvel cost only $85 (or $150 in 2024 USD), so what could it really be capable of? This is the million dollar question that [Cameron Kaiser] sought to find out as he found a new-in-box unit for sale.

  • Hackaday ☛ Computer Logic Spins With No Electricity

    We’ve often said you can make a logic gate out of darn near anything. [The Action Lab] agrees and just released a video showing how he made some logic gates from chains and gears. Along the way, he makes the case that the moving chain is an analog for electric current. The demonstration uses a commercial toy known as Spintronics, but if you are mechanically handy, you could probably devise your own setup using 3D printing or gears.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Amazon sold a fake RTX 4090 FrankenGPU cobbled together using a 4080 GPU and board — scam card was found in a returns pallet deal

    An RTX 4090 was sent to a repairer, but it turned out that beneath the exterior this was a 'fried' RTX 4080 PCB.

  • What Happened to the US Machine Tool Industry?

    Being able to manufacture machine tools is often considered an important capability for an industrialized country. Not only does this provide ready access to the latest manufacturing technology, but it ensures production of munitions and other military equipment won’t be bottlenecked by a lack of machine tools. This isn’t a hypothetical concern: American production of artillery shells for Ukraine has been held back by a lack of machine tools. The military has thus historically paid close attention to the machine tool industry and the availability of machinists.

    For most of the 20th century, the US was unrivaled in its machine tool technology, and as late as the early 1980s it was the largest machine tool producer in the world.. But almost overnight, the industry collapsed: annual machine tool shipments declined by more than 50% in 2 years, hundreds of machine tool companies went out of business, and the US slipped from the largest producer in the world to the 4th or 5th (depending on the year), roughly where it remains today.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • New York Times ☛ California and Oregon Ease Covid Isolation Rules, Breaking With C.D.C.

    Two of the most cautious states have bypassed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by letting students and workers who have the virus but are asymptomatic avoid isolation.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • The TikTokers Ousting Employers By Secretly Recording Layoffs

    In what’s shaping up to be the most 2024 trend ever, workers are flocking to TikTok to post their live experiences of getting laid off, laying bare the reality of cookie-cutter layoffs that have recently been sweeping through the tech industry.

    One video, posted by TikTok user Brittany Pietsch has already garnered 1.8 million views, prompting an influx of DM's and comments from workers who have suffered similar experiences and even provoking a sympathetic response from her former CEO.

    Whether you agree with the clandestine filming or not, as remote working trends further the divide between employer and employee, these viral, short-form videos are sending managers a clear message: treat your workers with respect or risk having your dirty laundry aired online.

  • [EXCLUSIVE] Big Tech layoffs loom in Korea as furious workers revolt

    Big Tech U.S. companies, including Google and Amazon, are trying to trim the workforce of their Korean units in line with massive global layoffs, but the actual scale remains relatively meager compared to other regions.

    The large-scale job cut plan, initially announced last year, has faced major challenges in Asian countries including Korea and Japan due to the legal system imposing strict guidelines on layoffs alongside localized labor unions fighting back.

  • NPR ☛ TikTok cuts jobs as tech layoffs continue to mount : NPR

    The wildly popular video-sharing app is the latest technology firm to reduce staff in response to what executives say are ongoing business challenges.

  • The Register UK ☛ Study finds humans cheaper than AI for jobs that need sight • The Register

  • The Register UK ☛ Developer of Dean Phillips bot suspended by OpenAI • The Register

  • League of Legends maker Riot Games to slash 530 jobs

    League of Legends maker Riot Games said Monday it will cut around 530 jobs worldwide, describing the layoffs as "a necessity." The layoffs at Riot -- owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent -- follow a turbulent year for the gaming industry, with job cuts at major firms including Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. Riot has developed global hits including League of Legends and Valorant, but said it had launched too many projects in recent years. Read more: https://www.legit.ng/business-economy/technology/1574846-league-legends-maker-riot-games-slash-530-jobs/

  • Microsoft's Popular FPS Slowly Retires. Priority Shiffts to New Projects

    Halo Infinite will no longer get consecutive seasons. Instead, the game's development will take place in smaller Operations. This is due to the fact that 343 Industries studio is increasingly focusing on new projects.

    [...]

    Let us recall - last year there were numerous layoffs at 343 Industries. There were even rumors that the team had been taken off the Halo series, but this turned out to be not true. In June 2023, the then head of Xbox Game Studios, Matt Booty, stated that although the studio would continue to develop the brand, it was possible that there may be reinforcements incoming, e.g. from the developers from the acquired Activision Blizzard holding.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Straits Times ☛ India’s move to fence Indo-Myanmar border draws opposition

    January 22, 2024 5:00 AM
    
    

    The move is motivated by events in Manipur as well as the inflow of thousands of Myanmar refugees crossing into India.

  • NYPost ☛ Hunter Biden needs to drop his ridiculous ‘hacked’ laptop lawsuit

    Now that the DOJ has stated officially that Hunter Biden’s laptop is real, it’s time for the president’s son to drop his ridiculous lawsuits pretending he was “hacked.”

  • New York Times ☛ U.S. and European Officials Push for Gaza Aid to Pass Through Israeli Port

    The ultimate goal, officials said, is to establish a workable alternative to delivering aid via Egypt in a way that satisfies Israel’s demand for security checks.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Shine a light on the plight of migrants in Hong Kong at upcoming UN human rights review

    In recent years, the impact of the Beijing-imposed national security law on freedom of expression, the rule of law and democracy itself has dominated coverage of Hong Kong. This is understandable. The city has been transformed by this controversial legislation as its autonomy from the mainland is eroded.

  • Off Guardian ☛ Why the US National Security State Assassinated MLK

    “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous,” warned Rev. King, “than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” How true those words. For the government that honors Dr. King with a national holiday killed him. This is the suppressed truth behind the highly promoted day of service.

• Environment

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Science Alert ☛ Bizarre Fossils Are Neither Plant Nor Animal, But a 'Weird Fusion' of Life

      A YouTube video helped solve a billion-year-old mystery.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • YLE ☛ Fake election posters pop up at Helsinki tram stops

      A criminal law professor says that the fake posters may be illegal under Finnish defamation laws.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • California ☛ Lawmakers must ensure that preserving California journalism doesn’t enable clickbait

    Nearly two decades of newsroom closures and layoffs has left California’s local news landscape devastated.

    Just last week, we saw the latest of this troubling trend when the Los Angeles Times announced impending mass layoffs sparking an unprecedented newsroom walkout. This is a moment of crisis for the journalism industry, and the impact on California residents is even greater.

    The connection between a robust local news system and civic health is undeniable, and the rate of the collapse is overwhelming the good work of many journalists, civically-minded philanthropists and innovative entrepreneurs who are trying to fill the ever-growing gaps.

  • NYPost ☛ Sports Illustrated’s entire staff told they are getting laid off

    The Arena Group — which had been roiled by reports that the fabled magazine published AI-generated content — admitted to failing to make a $3.75 million quarterly licensing payment to Authentic Brands Group due this week.

  • NBC ☛ Mass layoffs hit Sports Illustrated staff

    The storied publication drew headlines last fall after reports surfaced that it appeared to have published AI-generated stories, photos and authors.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Some Hong Kong lawyers linked to 2019 protest humanitarian fund could see suspensions after police complaints

    Some Hong Kong lawyers linked to a now-defunct humanitarian fund that helped arrested 2019 protesters have seen complaints made to the national security police substantiated. They may now face suspension.

  • France24 ☛ Ecuador: Police arrest 68 people who tried to take over a hospital

    Police in violence-plagued Ecuador arrested 68 people Sunday who had attempted to take over a hospital in the country's southwest in the midst of a "war" between drug gangs and the security forces

  • JURIST ☛ UN expert says UK indefinite prison sentence reforms insufficient

    UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Alice Jill Edwards told The Guardian on Friday the UK Ministry of Justice’s reforms that would release many people subject to indefinite Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) are “welcome but they do not go far enough.”

  • ShotSpotter policy may violate Fourth Amendment, group says

    A Community Police Commission committee voted to move forward with potential revisions to Cleveland’s ShotSpotter general police order.

  • Yahoo News ☛ FTC: TurboTax maker deceived customers with ‘free’ services

    The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ruled Monday that the maker of TurboTax is deceiving customers when it claims a version of its online tax filing software is free, when most customers would have to pay for it.

    The FTC’s opinion states that Intuit’s TurboTax Free Edition, marketed as a stripped-down version of its paid software meant for customers with simple returns, isn’t as free as the company claims.

    “Respondent’s claims of free filing are false for roughly two-thirds of U.S. taxpayers, who do not meet Intuit’s simple tax return qualifications and are therefore ineligible to file for free with TurboTax,” according to the opinion.

    Customers who run small businesses, work as independent contractors or make over a certain income threshold can not use the company’s free service, a distinction that is not clearly established in advertising, the FTC said.

  • The Register UK ☛ EFF adds surveillance hub so Americans can check spying • The Register

    For a country that prides itself on being free, America does seem to have an awful lot of spying going on, as the new Street Surveillance Hub from the Electronic Frontier Foundation shows.

    The Hub contains detailed breakdowns of the type of surveillance systems used, from bodycams to biometrics, predictive policing software to gunshot detection microphones and drone-equipped law enforcement. It also has a full news feed so that concerned citizens can keep up with the latest US surveillance news; they can also contribute to the Atlas of Surveillance on the site.

    The Atlas, started in 2019, allows anyone to check what law enforcement is being used in their local area – be it license plate readers, drones, or gunshot detection microphones. It can also let you know if local law enforcement is collaborating with third parties like home security vendor Ring to get extra information.

  • IT Pro ☛ Cloudflare employee’s viral dismissal video offers a stark glimpse into the human cost of layoffs | ITPro

    Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince described the footage as “painful" to watch, and HR experts believe things could've been handled differently

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Hackaday ☛ Garden Light Turned Mesh Network Node

    We love a good deal, especially when it comes to scavenging parts for projects. Cheap outdoor solar lights are more than just garden accessories; they’re a handy source of waterproof enclosures, solar panels and batteries. This is demonstrated by [Tavis], who turned one such light into a Meshtastic LoRa communication node.

  • JURIST ☛ Pakistan experiences internet disruption during virtual PTI rally

    Social media platforms in Pakistan experienced a “national-scale disruption” on Saturday, according to reports by internet monitor Netblocks, during a virtual rally by the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), led by embattled former prime minister Imran Khan.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • 4Square Media Pty Ltd ☛ Spotify Struggles To Make A Profit, Why?

    Spotify is the leading music streaming platform, with around 600 million users, twice the market share of the next largest competitor, and is adding millions of new subscribers per month, while losing few.

    However, it seems not even the leading audio-streaming company can consistently make money.

    While consumers love the convenience of streaming, it remains to be seen if companies can translate this to profit.

    Spotify pays music labels and rights holders 70 cents for every dollar earned. It lost money in its $1 billion push into podcasting, which has become less lucrative than expected, and has struggled with its attempts to stage concerts and sell tickets.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Copyrights

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Boomi CEO: ‘We are in absolute predator mode’ [Ed: But revenue and income are not the same; Companies that speak only of "revenue" typically to distract from their income/profit, not just because it is less impressive; sometimes it is outright bad. You can even buy from yourself to fake "revenue" (by proxy); that does nothing for profitability, it is like buybacks that merely embezzle or getting some fake "share buyer" to help create fictional "value" by extrapolation.]

    A little more than a year after joining Boomi Inc., Steve Lucas isn’t declaring victory, but he believes the artificial intelligence-infused future of the data integration and automation provider is looking pretty bright.

  • Hackaday ☛ Creators Can Fight Back Against AI With Nightshade

    If an artist were to make use of a piece of intellectual property owned by a large tech company, they risk facing legal action. Yet many creators are unhappy that those same tech companies are using their IP on a grand scale in the form of training material for generative AI. Can they fight back?

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Education

    • Lean Concepts In EdTech

      Just pondering the idea of lean project management concepts in relation to the field of K-12 educational technology (ed-tech) operations in helping to increase operational value, improve work flow, and reduce waste.

  • Personal/Opinions

    • Robert

      There was this guy I knew in elementary school. We'll call him Robert. There's a non-zero chance he'll stumble across this one day, however remote; he'll know who he is, I'm sure.

      When I was in elementary school, Robert's family had emigrated from Greece. We were in the same grade, and he landed in my class. For some reason I can't even really remember, we'd stuck to one another, and for quite a while he was one of my closest friends.

      [...]

      It's pretty silly in hindsight. This sort of thing is perennially a staple of cringe culture for software developers who got into the craft at a young age. But I think the reason why this memory sticks out to me the way it does is that it was in that moment that I first felt like Computers were an extension of my will--machines I could program to do anything I wanted. Before that, all the computer was to me was a glorified video game console, or an apparatus to watch trending videos on the Internet. Now, all of a sudden, they could do anything.

    • 22nd January 2024 - Rivers of London Book Series

      Recently I have been reading a lot of the Rivers of London series of books by Ben Aaronovitch. I thought it was enjoyable enough as a series to write something and hopefully encourage someone to give it a go. There will be spoilers but hopefully nothing which becomes a detriment.

      The books focus on present day London and a member of the police called Peter Grant. He is a fairly newly qualified police constable who has an unexpected encounter with a ghost. We learn about how magic, ghosts and other unexpected life forms exist as Peter learns about this world. The books focus on resolving cases involving the supernatural and are an interesting hybrid of detective and action genres. Discussing any more will ruin your exploration of this world alongside PC Grant.

    • Brooks saddles on bikes: some opinions

      I've been biking most of my life. I use the bike practically for commuting, for enjoyment (joyriding!) and for exercise. I currently own two bikes. My 17-year old Bianchi San Jose is a cyclocross/hybrid singlespeed/fixed bike that I bought new in 2007 and have ridden perhaps 20-30k miles on. I also have a Rivendell Clem Smith Jr. L, which is as close to a do-everything bike I can imagine. I can haul groceries, go on urban group rides, go bikepacking, and hit singletrack trails. In fact, I do all these things fairly regularly on this bike. I purchased the bike 2 years ago, as a gently or barely used frame, and built up for me from a person I found on the Rivendell Owners Bunch email list serve.

    • Sleet 'n meat

      More snow, now slowly morphing into the freezing rain zone. Not a lot. Just annoyingly enough.

      My wife is training me for selfless sainthood, rarely missing an opportunity to swat ego rearing its purely illusory head, often leading to reflection on the silliness of needing to be that (i.e. "me") in the first place.

    • Thinking

      All that's been on my mind today is how unfair it is that we're not all equal in this world... It's just crazy that our entire path in life is all down to a big game of chance. What if instead of being here, writing this post, I was wondering where my next meal was coming from. There's what, 7 billion people in the world right now? How many of them even have access to what I'm saying here?

      We take far too much for granted as a country, I know that. Everybody surrounding me on a daily basis is only complaining about the weather and other assorted minor inconveniences, and all I can think (at least in this state) is how immensely privileged they are to even try to pretend that they have a difficult life in the slightest.

  • Technology and Free Software

    • How to remove old packages on Linux

      This is a short Linux tutorial of incantations you can use to remove dependency packages for programs that you've uninstalled. As far as I know, this is not done automatically on any distros I've used. I tend to run this periodically, most especially after removing software from the command line. Most obviously, you'd do this to reduce your disk usage.

    • Programming

      • Introspection of Guile Scheme Modules (publ. 2024-01-22)

        One of the most fun things about working with lisps is the (often) great support for introspection. That means looking inside objects, in real time, to find out what they are, what they are made of, and how they work.

        In Common Lisp this is really fun, because the built-in inspector provides lots of information, and we also have Emacs SLIME, which makes inspection navigation as easy as a stroll in the garden. Included in that is the source code location and, if you dive deep enough down the tree, the underlying assembly code.

        CL is my lisp of choice now, but lately I've been trying to become more intimate with Guix REPL, which is just a Guile REPL and a bunch of scheme modules. So I've been trying to figure out Guile introspection. The Guile REPL has a built-in introspection tool, but it usually doesn't show you much more than the type name of the object. But inspection procedures are available.