Leftovers

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ 90,000 Years Ago, Humans Walked on a Moroccan Beach. We Just Found Their Footprints.

  • Science Alert ☛ This Poor Puppy Lost Part of His Jaw to Cancer. Astonishingly, It Grew Back!

    The healing power of youth.

  • Hackaday ☛ They Want To Put A Telescope In A Crater On The Moon

    When we first developed telescopes, we started using them on the ground. Humanity was yet to master powered flight, you see, to say nothing of going beyond into space. As technology developed, we realized that putting a telescope up on a satellite might be useful, since it would get rid of all that horrible distortion from that pesky old atmosphere. We also developed radio telescopes, when we realized there were electromagnetic signals beyond visible light that were of great interest to us.

• Hardware

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ Why China is betting big on chiplets

    For the past couple of years, US sanctions have had the Chinese semiconductor industry locked in a stranglehold. While Chinese companies can still manufacture chips for today’s uses, they are not allowed to import certain chipmaking technologies, making it almost impossible for them to produce more advanced products.

  • Hackaday ☛ It Wasn’t DOOM That Killed The Amiga

    If you were the type of person who might have read Hackaday had we been around in the late 1980s or early 1990s, it’s a reasonable guess that you would have had a 16-bit home computer on your desk, and furthermore that it might have been a Commodore Amiga. These machines gave the best bang for the buck in those days with their impressive multimedia capabilities, and they gained a fervent following which persists to this day. [Carl Svensson] was one of them, and he’s penned a retrospective on the demise of the platform with the benefit of much hindsight.

  • Hackaday ☛ Evidence For Graphite As A Room Temperature Superconductor

    Little has to be said about why superconducting materials are so tantalizing, or what the benefits of an ambient pressure, room temperature material with superconducting properties would be. The main problem here is not so much the ‘room temperature’ part, as metallic hydrogen is already capable of this feat, if at pressures far too high for reasonable use. Now a recent research article in Advanced Quantum Technologies by Yakov Kopelevich and colleagues provides evidence that superconducting properties can be found in cleaved highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG). The fact that this feat was reported as having been measured at ambient pressure and room temperature makes this quite noteworthy.

  • Hackaday ☛ IoT Air Purifier Makes A Great Case Study In Reverse Engineering

    Here at Hackaday, about the only thing we like more than writing up tales of reverse engineering heroics is writing up tales of reverse engineering heroics that succeed in jailbreaking expensive widgets from their needless IoT dependency. It’s got a real “stick it to the man” vibe that’s hard to resist.

  • Hackaday ☛ Human-Interfacing Devices: Packing For The Descriptor Heist

    We started with figuring out HID descriptors a week ago, and I’ve shown you how to send raw HID packets using a MicroPython fork. We do still have the task in front of us – making a touchscreen device. For that, let’s give you the tools to capture an existing descriptor from a touchscreen, then show you how to tweak it and how it turns out in the end.

  • CNX Software ☛ Maxtang MTN-FP750 business mini PC review – Part 3: Ubuntu 22.04 [Ed: In exchange for gifts they keep promoting Windows products as if they are with GNU/Linux distributions]

  • IT Wire ☛ Chinese company set to make 5nm chips this year: report

    The US has been trying, for at least the last five years, to place hurdles in the way of China and limit the country to making only older generations of chips.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Pro Publica ☛ NY Wage Theft Law Would Bar Violators From Doing Business in the State

    New York lawmakers proposed three new bills last week that would make it difficult for wage theft violators to conduct business in the state.

    The legislation would bolster the power of state agencies to crack down on wage theft by stripping violators of their liquor licenses or business licenses, as well as issuing stop-work orders against them.

  • Barry Kauler ☛ Surgery on thumb

    Accident yesterday; I was drilling 3.5mm holes in some aluminium sheet, with a handheld electric drill, and holding the workpiece steady with my right hand. The drill-bit snapped, the drill veared sideways and down, and drilled right through my thumb. I know it was careless; should have used a g-clamp to hold the workpiece.

  • Science Alert ☛ A Daily Diet of Burgers And Pizzas Could Be Putting You at Risk of Alzheimer's

    Never too late to change.

  • Science Alert ☛ Caffeine in Your Blood Might Affect Body Fat And Diabetes Risk, Study Finds

  • Latvia ☛ Campaign to raise awareness of rare diseases in Latvia

    In February, awareness of rare diseases is raised in Latvia, this year through a campaign "Color your strength!" This campaign aims to inform the public about the rare diseases in Latvia and the world, Latvian Television reported on February 6.

  • Latvia ☛ Stradiņš hospital to break contract with builder

    Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital (PSKUS) will terminate its contract with LLC “Velve” to build the new A2 hospital building complex on February 13 due to the company's breach of contract obligations and delays in execution of construction works, the hospital council announced on Tuesday, February 6.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • New York Times ☛ Vision Pro Goggles are not Safe While Driving a Tesla, U.S. Says

    Videos, many of them stunts or jokes, of people wearing Apple’s new virtual reality headset while driving Teslas in Autopilot mode prompted officials to issue warnings.

  • New York Times ☛ Meta Calls for Industry Effort to Label A.I.-Generated Content

    The social network wants to promote standardized labels to help detect artificially created photo, video and audio material across its platforms.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Techdirt ☛ FCC Takes Aim At AI Deepfake Robocalls After Sloppy Fake Biden Hoax

      Last month you probably saw the story about how somebody used a (sloppy) deepfake of Joe Biden in a bid to try and trick voters into staying home during the Presidential Primary. It wasn’t particularly well done; nor was it clear it reached all that many people or had much of an actual impact.

    • YLE ☛ Digital fraudsters swiped €44m from victims in Finland last year

      Most victims were targeted in investment schemes, which are often long-term scams.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Defence Web ☛ South Africa’s proposed new spying law is open for comment – an expert points out its flaws

      In early 2021, the South African Constitutional Court found that the country’s State Security Agency, through its signals intelligence agency, the National Communication Centre, was conducting bulk interception of electronic signals unlawfully.

    • Reason ☛ San Francisco Police Spent 193 Hours Over 3 Months Watching Private Surveillance Footage

      The surveillance yielded 49 arrests, of which 42 were for possession or sale of narcotics.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Pro Publica ☛ Supreme Court Hears Case on Whether Trump Can Run for President Again

    On Feb. 8, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Donald J. Trump v. Norma Anderson et al, a case that could swing a presidential election in a way not seen since Bush v. Gore a quarter-century earlier.

    The crux of Trump v. Anderson boils down to this: Should a former commander in chief be disqualified from seeking the presidency again if he engaged in insurrection?

  • The Strategist ☛ Green barracks: decarbonising the defence estate

    Climate change’s threat to national security has been widely examined by security agencies, researchers and thought leaders across the world.

  • RFA ☛ Australian writer given suspended death sentence spied for Taiwan, court says

    Experts say the heavy sentence, while rare, serves as a warning to others.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Australia expresses ‘outrage’ after China hands suspended death sentence to dissident writer Yang Jun

    Australia said Tuesday it had expressed “outrage” to China over a suspended death sentence handed to Chinese-Australian dissident writer Yang Jun. Yang was sentenced to death on Monday with a two-year suspended execution, and had all of his property confiscated, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

  • ADF ☛ RSF Fighters Plunder Homes and Terrorize Residents in Khartoum

    For more than nine months, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of Sudan have controlled large parts of the capital, Khartoum. In that time, witnesses say the militia’s fighters have plundered the city and terrorized residents even as their leader pledges to work toward peace.

  • ADF ☛ SAF Accused of Targeting Civilians Based on Ethnicity

    As the civil war in Sudan raged into its ninth month, the Sudanese Armed Forces faced allegations of targeting civilians based on ethnicity.

  • ADF ☛ Cabo Delgado Experiences Fewer Terror Attacks, But Challenges Remain

    Counterinsurgency efforts in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province have gained momentum since international forces killed the leader of the Ahl al-Sunna wal-Jama’a (ASWJ) extremist group in August.

  • YLE ☛ Defence minister Häkkänen rows back on plans to ban reservists from resigning

    Hundreds of people have resigned from the Finnish Defence Forces' military reserve in the wake of the minister's comments last week.

  • France24 ☛ Turkish police shoot dead two 'terrorists' during attack on Istanbul courthouse

    Turkish police on Tuesday shot dead two assailants from a leftist organisation, branded "terrorists" by authorities, who attacked a security checkpoint outside Istanbul's main court, killing one person and injuring five, officials said.

  • France24 ☛ US Homeland Security chief survives House impeachment vote

    Joe Biden's immigration chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, narrowly escaped impeachment over the US border crisis Tuesday, in a party-line vote dismissed by Democrats as a political stunt ahead of a presidential election expected to feature immigration as a major issue.

  • ADF ☛ SANDF Troops Face Controversial, Dangerous DRC Deployment

    South African troops working with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have been deployed to the conflict-ridden eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since December, raising concerns among some South African military observers.

  • New Yorker ☛ The U.S. Confronts Middle Eastern Militias but Not Iran’s Long Game

    Strikes against weapons depots and operations centers in Iraq and Syria will not diminish Iran’s determination to expel the U.S. from the Middle East.

  • New York Times ☛ Houthi Attacks and U.S.-Led Strikes Dash Hopes for Quick Yemen Peace Deal

    A U.N.-backed process to end Yemen’s nine-year conflict appeared to be moving forward recently. But then the war in Gaza began and tensions spilled over.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Latvia ☛ Urinating Lithuanian fined for paying tribute to Putin

      A criminal process against a Lithuanian citizen, who urinated in the corridor of a shopping center in Riga at the weekend and glorified the war started by Russia, has seen him fined EUR 7,000 within two days as a result of an expedited procedure, the State Police said February 6.

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Focus on the apartment’s potential’ A Russian propaganda film explores the ‘unconventional housing market’ in war-ravaged Mariupol — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Documenting every step and sneeze’: Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s Moscow visit has Russia’s media in a frenzy — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russian oil refineries see drop in output, partially attributed to drone attacks — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Boris Nadezhdin’s campaign gets Russian election authorities to accept ‘up to several dozen’ signatures previously declared invalid due to typos — Meduza

    • RFERL ☛ Biden Urges Passage Of Ukraine Aid, Saying Opposing It Plays Into Putin's Hands

      U.S. President Joe Biden on February 6 urged Congress to pass a bipartisan immigration bill that also includes aid for Ukraine as lawmakers face political pressure from Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump to scuttle it.

    • RFERL ☛ Former Fox News Commentator Tucker Carlson Says He Will Interview Putin

      Former Fox News host and commentator Tucker Carlson announced on February 6 that he has been granted an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    • Meduza ☛ Russian inmate whose torture led to prison employees’ conviction found dead in cell after apparent suicide — Meduza

• Environment

  • CS Monitor ☛ Pineapple express? Mudslides? What’s happening in California.

    A pineapple express – a nickname for a long band of water vapor over the Pacific Ocean – pummeled Southern California with nearly half its annual rainfall in two days. The atmospheric river is causing deadly mudslides and overflowing rivers.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Hackaday ☛ Retrotechtacular: The Master Hands Of The Early Automotive Industry

      When motion pictures came along as a major medium in the 1920s or so, it didn’t take long for corporations to recognize their power and start producing promotional pieces. A lot of them are of the “march of progress” genre, featuring swarms of workers happy in their labors and creating the future with their bare hands. If we’re being honest, a lot of it is hard to watch, but “Master Hands,” which shows the creation of cars in the 1930s, is somehow more palatable, mostly because it’s mercifully free of the flowery narration that usually accompanies such flicks.

    • ADF ☛ Chinese Gold Miners Fuel Insecurity in Nigeria

      Illegal gold mining is a growing problem in Nigeria that is benefiting terrorist groups, causing violence and increasing pollution. Residents of mining areas blame Chinese nationals who set up and oversee mining and refining operations. Tension continues to rise around these pit mines.

    • New York Times ☛ Alaska Airlines 737 May Have Left Boeing Factory Missing Bolts, N.T.S.B. Says

      A photo indicates that bolts in a fuselage panel were removed at a Boeing factory and not replaced, the National Transportation Safety Board said.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • New Yorker ☛ Will Plants Ever Fertilize Themselves?

      Biologists aim to engineer crops that can eat nitrogen straight from the air.

    • Science Alert ☛ Rise in Storm Intensity Prompts Calls For a Whole New Category of Hurricane

      "The wolf is here."

• Finance

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Snap shares plunge over 30% on revenue miss and weak guidance

    Shares in Snap Inc. plunged by over 30% in late trading today after the company fell short on revenue and offered weak guidance for the quarter ahead.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Senate Probe Casts Doubt on Harlan Crow's Yacht Tax Deductions

    A key congressional committee is pressuring billionaire Harlan Crow for answers after investigators turned up additional evidence that he misrepresented his yacht as a business to score a tax break.

  • The Kent Stater ☛ Wall Street is worried about another regional banking crisis

    Wall Street is experiencing a case of déjà vu. It’s been nearly a year since the collapse of three US regional lenders left financial institutions and regulators scrambling to prevent the spread of a banking crisis. Today, investors are worried they’re back on familiar territory.

  • Federal News Network ☛ IRS expects to collect hundreds of billions more in overdue and unpaid taxes thanks to new funding

    The IRS says it expects to collect hundreds of billions of dollars more in overdue and unpaid taxes than previously anticipated using funding provided to the agency by the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act. That's according to new analysis released Tuesday by the Treasury Department and the IRS. The report says tax revenues are expected to increase by as much as $561 billion from 2024 to 2034, which is substantially more than previous estimates. The Congressional Budget Office in 2022 estimated that tax revenues would increase by $180.4 billion over the 2022 to 2031 period.

  • Latvia ☛ Gambling revenues up 9% last year in Latvia

    In 2023, the gambling industry revenues reached 288,633 million euros, up 9% from 2022, when gambling venues were still closed in the first two months of the year as a result of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, according to the Lotteries and Gambling Supervisory Inspecorate's data on February 6.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korean President Yoon set to speak on Dior bag uproar

    He has not yet spoken publicly about a video that reportedly showed his wife receiving a Christian Dior bag.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Despite record coal use, China on track to meet green energy targets

    China’s recent high levels of coal generation won’t affect its goal of peaking emissions by 2030. That’s because more energy production is coming from renewables and the nation is shifting coal’s role to a backup energy reserve.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Beijing calls for ‘positive, objective, friendly’ China policy from South Korea

    Both sides also exchanged views over the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

  • RFA ☛ Senate confirms Kurt Campbell as No. 2 US diplomat

    The White House’s ‘Asia czar’ is now the deputy to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

  • New York Times ☛ What King Charles’s Cancer Diagnosis Means for Princes William and Harry

    How life may change for the Prince of Wales and his younger brother, Harry, who flew from Los Angeles to visit their father.

  • New York Times ☛ King Charles’s Push for Transparency on Cancer Diagnosis Raised More Questions

    The king has let people know more about his health than other monarchs, but a decision to keep private the form of cancer he has is leading to speculation in lieu of facts.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Toby Keith Passes Away After Battle with Cancer — Age 62

    Country singer Toby Keith has passed away after a battle with cancer. The “Red Solo Cup” singer was 62. A statement posted on his official website reads, “Toby Keith passed peacefully last night on February 5 surrounded by his family. He fought his fight with grace and courage.

  • University of Michigan ☛ Social media and social stratification

    If you have a conversation with three new people every day for 73 years, you will meet 80,000 people throughout your lifetime — only 0.001% of the world’s population. With the creation of popular social control media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly known as Twitter) and more, measurements of human interaction get increasingly complicated.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Security Week ☛ Meta Says It Will Label AI-Generated Images on Facebook (Farcebook) and Instagram

      Facebook and Instagram users will start seeing labels on AI-generated images that appear on their social control media feeds, as the tech industry aims to sort between what’s real and not.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ White House ramping up efforts to combat deepfakes

      Cyber and national security advisor Anne Neuberger says the White House is exploring the use of watermarking to better identify and disclose computer-generated images.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ New Hampshire AG says Texas firm was behind AI-generated Joe Biden robocall [Ed: No, CG or voice synthesis is not "artificial intelligence" and by far predates this latest hype wave]

      New Hampshire’s attorney general today named the alleged sources of a mysterious deepfake Joe Biden robocall last month that told Democrats in the state not to vote in the primary election, prompting more discussions on the regulation of [CG].

    • Latvia ☛ Phone scammers reported to use [CG] voice in Latvia

      Forms of phone scam are evolving. Fraudsters with [CG] are now also able to provide calls where the text of the conversation is translated directly during the call, according to mobile operator Bite, whose employee recently faced this type of phone call.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • RFA ☛ China jails feminist labor activist Li Qiaochu for ‘subversion’

    Fellow activists say Li was jailed for supporting her partner, the jailed fellow dissident Xu Zhiyong.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Ex-student leader convicted of rioting in Hong Kong legislature interrupted by judge for giving ‘political opinions’

    A former student leader convicted of rioting inside the city’s legislature on the anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China during the 2019 protests was repeatedly interrupted by the judge for “expressing political opinions.”

  • Techdirt ☛ Fifth Circuit: Upon Further Review, Fuck The First Amendment

    I’m not a religious man, but Jesus Fucking Christ.

  • Meduza ☛ Navalny sent to punitive isolation cell for 26th time since imprisonment — Meduza

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • New York Times ☛ Federal Records Show Increasing Use of Solitary Confinement for Immigrants

    A new report based on records from the Trump and Biden years found the average length of solitary detainment was longer than the duration the U.N. says can constitute torture.

  • JURIST ☛ Netherlands police crack down on farmer protests disrupting freeways

    Dutch police stopped farmers’ protests across the Netherlands on Monday regarding low prices for produce and the EU’s Green Deal. The protests disrupted traffic by blocking freeway exit roads and setting fires. In a statement released on Monday, the police in Gelderland highlighted the health risks and environmental hazards posed by the protests.

  • JURIST ☛ US federal court sentences Illinois man to five years in prison for attempted arson of a reproductive healthcare clinic

    US District Judge Colin S. Bruce sentenced Philip Buyno to five years in prison in the Central District of Illinois on Monday after he attempted to commit arson against a future reproductive healthcare center. Bruce also ordered Buyno to pay $327,547 in restitution for the damages he caused.

  • Stanford University ☛ Storms knock down Blue and White Tent

    The Blue and White Tent was knocked down by storms on Sunday. Organizers did not respond to questions about plans to reassemble but during the three months it stood at the center of White Plaza, its organizers said they hoped to incentivize healthy discourse on the Israel-Gaza war.

  • Techdirt ☛ Senators Ask The DOJ To End Federal Funding For Predictive Policing Programs

    Predictive policing programs were supposed to make police work smarter and more efficient. It was supposed to trim down on hours wasted where a police presence wasn’t needed and increase enforcement in areas where crime was a problem.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Veteran Hong Kong activist Koo Sze-yiu to face verdict over planned protest against ‘unfair’ District Council race

    Hong Kong veteran activist Koo Sze-yiu will face a verdict under the sedition law next week over a planned protest against what he called an “unfair” District Council race.

  • New York Times ☛ Columbia Limited On-Campus Protests, So Students Took to the Streets

    As Columbia and Barnard weigh how to protect free speech and student safety, their protest rules have forced some students off campus, where they have clashed with the police.

  • RFERL ☛ Iranian Journalists Detained After Security Forces Raid Media Outlet Offices

    Iranian security forces raided a building housing the editorial office of the Fardaye Eghtesad media outlet, detaining an unknown number of its journalists for hours at their workplace in a sign that a crackdown by authorities on free speech continues.

  • EDRI ☛ Automated data exchange in Prüm II: The EU’s securitisation mindset keeps encroaching on our fundamental rights

    The agreement on automated data exchange for police cooperation, known as ‘Prüm II aligns with a broader EU trend of laws prioritising national security over human rights. The final text of this regulation has insufficient fundamental rights safeguards and could even encourage more member states to adopt facial recognition technology. The EU Parliament must reject the current Prüm II Regulation in the upcoming plenary vote.

  • YLE ☛ "No need to hoard" say retailers as logistics workers announce three-day political strike

    The walkout from 14-16 February at 19 logistics centres around the country could affect supermarket supply chains.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Techdirt ☛ Techdirt Podcast Episode 379: Is the Internet Killing Culture? (No. Don’t Be Stupid.)

    A couple weeks ago, we released the 2024 edition of our Sky Is Rising report about the state of the entertainment industries. Last week, Mike and I joined Corbin Barthold on Techfreedom’s Tech Policy Podcast for a discussion about the report and, more broadly, the state of culture in the internet era and the conversations that surround it. You can listen to the whole conversation here on this week’s episode of the Techdirt Podcast.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Digital Music News ☛ SoundCloud Taps Trolley to Provide Payouts for SoundCloud for Artists

    SoundCloud taps Trolley to provide payouts for their artist payments program. Music industry payout platform Trolley has announced its selection by SoundCloud to provide payouts for the streaming platform’s SoundCloud for Artists program.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • JUVE ☛ “Thomas Kühnen’s retirement brings opportunity for renewal in Düsseldorf”

    On the evening of 2 February, respected figures from the German patent monopoly scene arrived at the exclusive Düsseldorf Industrie-Club to pay tribute to Thomas Kühnen. The highly respected but controversial presiding judge of the 2nd Civil Senate at the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court has now officially retired.

  • Unified Patents ☛ $9,000 awarded for Emerging Automotive vehicle patents prior art

    Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners below totaling $9,000 in cash prizes. The patents are owned by Emerging Automotive LLC. The patents generally relate to user profiles for vehicles and e-Keys and have been asserted against Toyota and Kia.

    We would also like to thank the dozens of other high-quality submissions that were made on this patent. The ongoing contests are open to anyone, and include tens of thousands of dollars in rewards available for helping the industry to challenge NPE patents of questionable validity by finding and submitting prior art in the contests.

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ Opt-out challenges in the UPC [Ed: Illegal and unconstitutional. This is crimes of the EPO, left unhandled by the EU, basically spilling over to the EU, rendering it complicit.]

      Opt-outs are dealt with in Part IV of the UPC Agreement entitled “Transitional Provisions”. The prevailing view is that these provisions should be interpreted to mean that an opted-out patent monopoly is no longer subject to the jurisdiction of the UPC and the opt out shall remain in place for the lifetime of the patent.

    • Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ SPC reform progresses to plenary vote in European Parliament [Ed: They just blindly approve whatever lobbyists push their way]

      The SPC reform which is currently undergoing the legislative procedure in the European Union has taken a further decisive step forward, as the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI Committee) has approved an amended version of the draft text of the four new EU regulations on SPCs for medicinal and plant protection products...

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ Recommended Reading: Michael P. Goodyear, "Queer Trademarks."

    In his article, "Queer Trademarks," Michael P. Goodyear, Acting Assistant Professor at New York University School of Law and Fellow at the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law Policy, provides an enlightening analysis of the impact of Matal v. Tam and Iancu v. Brunetti on the registration of trademarks that refer to LGBTQ+ persons. With the door opened to registration of slurs as trademarks, what LGBTQ+-oriented marks have been registered? Are they affirming in nature or the opposite? [The article may be downloaded here, and it appears in 2024 U. Ill. L. Rev. 163 (Vol. 2024, No. 1)].

• Copyrights

  • Public Domain Review ☛ Never-again Land: J. M. Barrie's My Lady Nicotine (1896)

    A genre-defying work by the creator of Peter Pan about the pleasures of smoking.

  • CS Monitor ☛ TikTok and a major label are in a standoff. How does this song end?

    TikTok videos featuring major artists’ music are being muted after Universal Music Group terminated its licensing deal on the platform. It’s part of a larger conflict over fair compensation for creators’ work – as well as questions about the use of AI.

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Personal/Opinions

    • Birthday 2024

      Happy fifth birthday to me! By which I mean my fifth birthday spent as a man rather than as a woman.

      I normally don’t do this kind of post. Like, being an adult and posting your birthday haul on the internet feels... just, not the way I wanna do things. But something about this year was just Nice. My family only got me a few things, but they’re all special to me.

    • I'm busy

      I don't know what happened in January, but all of a sudden everyone wanted to do everything all at once. I have been busy.

      Busy feels weird. After a couple of years of living like a mollusc stuck to glass, it feels very strange to have and exert energy. But I've already been writing about that.

      I'm a lot better now at moving with the busy-ness. Sometimes it's as simple as going to the restroom and leaning against a hard wall and closing my eyes. Other times it's saying no to things, or limiting participation.

    • Weather Station Papers—API

      For my final semester of college, I took a special projects course which is essentially a research class, but instead of the professor telling me what to do, I go to the professor with a project that I would like to do. If they agree, they act as my mentor to help me plan out and follow through with the project.

      I decided that I would like to finish my weather station once and for all. At this point, I have already finished the hardware portion of the project (though there are some issues I have yet to work out). My proposal was to build a web server that would link between the weather station hardware and the end user.

      [...]

      Stations can be in locations where it is not possible to make requests from outside the local network. MQTT is a protocol that is designed for IoT systems. MQTT clients may publish/subscribe to endpoints. This allows for stations to send weather updates to all listening weather servers. Weather stations would also be able to make requests to specific stations if needed.

    • my brains incompatability with english

      As a few of you may have worked out by now i love to tell stories, sharing interesting concepts is one of my favorite things to do, and i have a lot of ideas for stories!

      but last night i found myself coming to the realisation that the reason i've struggled so hard with writing those stories, and similarly the reason i failed many of my classes in school, is that my brain works in the opposite way to english.

    • 🔤SpellBinding: AEULQTI Wordo: BLOCS

  • Politics and World Events

    • “We tried polyamory in the 60s, it didn't work”

      A while ago i read a comment expressing the sentiment expressed in the title. As someone who's been doing consensual nonmonogamy (cnm) in various forms - swinging, polyamory, ‘relationship anarchy’, etc. - for well over two decades, this made me bristle.

      Regardless of whether or not there were people in the 60s explicitly trying ‘polyamory’, _per se_ - the Online Etymological Dictionary says it was being used “by 1972”[a] - there were certainly a number of experiments in ‘consensual nonmonogamy’ / ‘free love’ during that time. They were also certainly not the first; numerous such experiments have taken place over the centuries, in various communities, for various reasons.

    • The Australian activist left desperately needs an infusion of class politics

      The Australian activist left will organise protests and rallies regarding climate change and things happening overseas. But what's it doing about the housing crisis, about the rate of homelessness, about migrants being scapegoated for it all?

  • Technology and Free Software

    • Steam Next Fest - Day 2

      It's day two out of seven in the Steam Next Fest. I know I said I would write one review per day but I also want to see if I can squeeze more. It won't be as long as yesterday's but I hope no one minds!

      [...]

      Other than the UI not being Deck-friendly, this game evokes the familiarity with Hades, but with an East Asian influence instead. The only language available in full audio is Simplified Chinese, as indicated on Steam so I'm inclined to assume it's based on Chinese legends and mythos. It's also nice to see other cultures' wealth of stories and characters being tapped for retelling. Of course, I could just be very biased because I am Chinese by birth.

    • gopherproxy.sh fixed (mostly)

      I thought I'd post an update on my last phlog entry from 13 Dec 2013... Better late than never I suppose... The aforementioned gopherproxy.sh script was fixed the next day after I discovered it had stopped working.

      It now uses lynx instead of squid, and seems to actually be working better than squid did! For instance, squid often choked badly on multi- byte UTF-8 characters; lynx does not suffer at all from this issue.

    • Hypermemetic intersectional normalcy

      I am once again subposting a Lobste.rs thread.

      The other day, I saw some people discussing an article on the subject of Elixir, where the author said that they felt like when they were present in the Elixir community, they felt like they were surrounded by "tech bros."

      Now, in my experience Lobste.rs responds to this sort of thing a lot better than Hacker News. I wouldn't even want to see the replies on Hacker News. Of course, in either case I would expect them to have complicated feelings about this because one way or the other they are largely the people getting labelled "tech bros." That sort of thing can be hard to interrogate, I concede.