Leftovers

• Tedium ☛ Circles And Slashes

  One of the best-known icons of modern society is a classic example of a symbol—it’s easy to spot, but hard to explain. Who came up with it?

  Recently, I heard someone talking about the red circle and slash, and it made me realize something—how little we actually talk about the red circle and slash, one of the most obvious symbols around. It’s used for all sorts of use cases. If you search the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s trademark archive, you will find all sorts of cheesy or weird logos that reference this simple tool of negation and prohibition. It is literally the easiest way to add visual language to something else that already exists, and turn it into a logo or bumper sticker. And the reason is, simply put, that it’s well understood. Does it have a name? A purpose? Did someone specifically invent it? How did it become so common, and why is it so clear what it means, despite the fact that seemingly nobody talks about it? Today’s Tedium considers the unusually common red circle and slash.

• New Yorker ☛ A Begrudgingly Affectionate Portrait of the American Mall

  “We’re all being manipulated in the mall,” the photographer Stephen DiRado says. But his photos elicit a certain nostalgia, almost in spite of themselves.

• Hackaday ☛ Hacking And Working On The Go

  I’m off visiting my parents for a while, and have managed to bring nearly everything along with me that I need to get work done, and it all fit in a small backpack! This includes a portable audio interface to run my podcast mic, two (count them) two Linux computers, and all manner of simple hacking tools. Microcontrollers with USB/serial adapters built in are a godsend.

• Computers Are Bad ☛ 2024-03-09 the purple streetscape

  Across the United States, streets are taking on a strange hue at night. Purple.

  Purple streetlights have been reported in Tampa, Vancouver, Wichita, Boston. They're certainly in evidence here in Albuquerque, where Coal through downtown has turned almost entirely to mood lighting. Explanations vary. When I first saw the phenomenon, I thought of fixtures that combined RGB elements and thought perhaps one of the color channels had failed.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Surprise Discovery Shows Forbidden Particles Can Attract Each Other

    Relationship status: It's complicated

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-02-29 [Older] A personal tale of intellectual humility – and the rewards of being open-minded

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Simple Optical Meter Sets New Standards For Documentation

    PiggyMeter is a wonderful example of a device that you never knew you needed – simple, elegant, easy to build, and accompanied by amazing documentation. It’s a snap-on interface for electric meters, dubbed so because its 3D printable shell looks like a pig nose, and it works with IEC62056-21 compliant meters. If you want to learn about your home’s power consumption in real time and your meter happens to fit the bill, look into building a PiggyMeter, it’s the kind of DIY project that a hacker was destined to design at some point.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Samsung rep says High-NA EUV is good for logic fabrication but might have cost issues for memory — Intel, ASML, and others share more bullish views

    Samsung shares its views on High-NA EIV costs, while other companies present more bullish views.

  • Zach Oglesby

    I was talking to a coworker the other day and mentioned the digital camera I had that used 3.5 inch floppy disks. He thought I was joking. I was not.

  • Hackaday ☛ Upgrading PC Cooling With Software

    As computing power increases with each new iteration of processors, actual power consumption tends to increase as well. All that waste heat has to go somewhere, and while plenty of us are content to add fans and heat sinks for a passable air-cooled system there are others who prefer a liquid cooling solution of some sort. [Cal] uses a liquid cooler on his system, but when he upgraded his AMD chip to one with double the number of cores he noticed the cooling fans on the radiator were ramping quickly and often. To solve this problem he turned to Python instead of building a new cooling system.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Science Alert ☛ Brain-Imaging Experiment Reveals The Secret Behind Creative Flow

    "Try letting go."

  • Federal News Network ☛ VA, DoD launch new EHR at joint site — a major milestone for each agency’s rollout

    The Lovell Federal Health Care Center is DoD’s final go-live site for the new Oracle-Cerner EHR, which it calls MHS Genesis.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Stop demonising us, say Korean trainee doctors as stand-off enters fourth week

    Doctors are protesting against the government’s decision to increase medical school intake and the medical system.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Good progress on Chinese wine, lobster trade barriers, says Australian Trade Minister

    He added that he was hopeful China would lift the tariffs of up to 218% on Australian wine.

  • Truthdig ☛ 2024-03-02 [Older] Lower Air Quality Is the Latest ‘Penalty’ of Climate Change

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Hackaday ☛ The Insurance Buys The Wheelchair, But Not The App To Run It

    The writer Cory Doctrow coined the term enshittification to describe the way that services decline in quality as their users become the product. He was talking about online services when he came up with the word, but the same is very much true when it comes to hardware. Items which once just worked now need apps and online services, with marginal benefit to the user if any. It’s one thing when it’s your soundbar or your washing machine, but thanks to Lemmy user [@win95] from the Netherlands we’ve seen a far more egregious example. People with disabilities are being provided with new powered wheelchairs through their medical insurance, but are then discovering that unaffordable in-app purchases are needed to use their features.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Reason ☛ No Pseudonymity in Mental-Health-Related Lawsuit

      From Koe v. Univ. Hospitals Health Systems, Inc., decided yesterday by the Sixth Circuit (Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, Judge Alan Norris, and Judge Eugene Siler): Koe was a medical resident at Case Western Reserve University/University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center from June 2019 until he was discharged in April 2021, ostensibly because he lost his privileges [...]

    • Kev Quirk ☛ Email Privacy

      I completely agree, Niq. A username is sensitive, and - in my opinion at least - it should be treated as another factor for authentication. So my username and my password are unique for most services.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Straits Times ☛ Rare exchange between China and Taiwan DPP official at virtual forum a ‘small step forward’

    The exchange is said to be the first between a DPP official and Chinese scholars, under President Tsai's administration.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ China to give chipmakers $27 billion to counter U.S. sanctions — Big Fund III will have further funding rounds

    China raises tens of billions to fund crucial semiconductor projects amid U.S. sanctions against the sector.

  • RFA ☛ INTERVIEW: 'I’ll never forget it as long as I live. It was very dangerous.’

    Fleeing persecution, Hui Muslim recounts the risky trek his family made through Central America to the US-Mexico border.

  • YLE ☛ Development Minister: Finnish UNRWA funding to remain frozen

    Finland's Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio says that Finland is still waiting for an explanation on UNRWA's alleged involvement in the 7 October attacks.

  • YLE ☛ Finnish defence minister: Sweden joining Nato boosts Finland's defence

    Finland's Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen visited the Nordic Response military exercise along with his Swedish and Norwegian counterparts.

  • JURIST ☛ Judge dismisses Texas lawsuit challenging Biden’s parole policy for migrants from four countries

    A federal judge upheld on Friday the Biden administration’s program to grant temporary legal immigration status to up to 30,000 asylum-seekers from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. This initiative, also known as humanitarian parole, provides an avenue for people from these nations to avoid illegal entry into the US.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • New York Times ☛ Navalny’s Heirs Seek a Political Future in Russia

      Aleksei Navalny’s team has found a new leader in the opposition leader’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya. But Navalny’s death has so far brought little change to their insular tactics.

• Environment

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-03-01 [Older] Labor and Climate Must Unite. That’s Easier Said Than Done.

  • The Scientist ☛ 2024-03-01 [Older] Do Animals in Warm Climates Hibernate?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-02 [Older] Eight Arrested as Climate Activists Break Into Chemicals Plant in France

  • The Age AU ☛ 2024-03-05 [Older] West Gate Bridge reopens after hours-long climate protest, activists arrested

  • Truthdig ☛ 2024-02-29 [Older] Our Climate Future Hangs in the Balance This Election

  • Vox ☛ 2024-02-29 [Older] Texas fires happen in the winter. Just never at this scale before.

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-03-04 [Older] Largest Wildfire in Texas History Foretells Future of Worsening Climate Disaster

  • New Yorker ☛ 2024-03-04 [Older] John Kerry Thinks We’re at a Critical Moment on Climate Change

  • Vox ☛ 2024-03-04 [Older] Why is Biden blocking the cheapest, most popular EVs in the world?

  • Vox ☛ 2024-03-03 [Older] Are we in the middle of an extinction panic?

  • Green Party UK ☛ 2024-03-03 [Older] Five steps to a fairer, greener country

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-03-04 [Older] Global warming may be behind an increase in the frequency and intensity of cold spells

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • YLE ☛ Korkeasaari bears wake from shortened hibernation

      While the bears of Helsinki's zoo got some good sleep last winter, their hibernation only amounted to six weeks this season.

    • New York Times ☛ Rains Are Scarce in the Amazon. Instead, Megafires Are Raging.

      Hundreds of square miles of the rainforest have burned as countries in the region battle a record number of fires fueled by extreme weather.

    • Science Alert ☛ Octopuses Might Have The Oldest Sex Chromosomes in The Animal Kingdom

      It had to start somewhere.

    • Vox ☛ 2024-03-05 [Older] Good news! Scientists are throwing a sex party ... for giant marine snails.

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-01 [Older] New Species of Amazon Anaconda, World's Largest Snake, Discovered

• Finance

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-03-01 [Older] Panda diplomacy: what China’s decision to send bears to the US reveals about its economy

  • Green Party UK ☛ 2024-03-06 [Older] People can see through pre-election Budget tax bribes

  • New York Times ☛ China’s Growth Slows but Pooh-tin Jinping Keeps to His Vision

    China’s leader, Pooh-tin Jinping, believes his vision for technological dominance will keep powering the country’s ascent while the West recedes.

  • France24 ☛ ‘Two Sessions’ congress: The economic goals in Chinese leaders’ coded language

    China’s “Two Sessions” congress that began this week is the country’s most important political event of the year. To understand what’s at stake, it helps to have some fluency in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) parlance. Terms such as “new productive forces” and “new three” appear vague, but they speak volumes about the party’s agenda during the 10-day congress.

  • CBC ☛ 2024-03-06 [Older] Bank of Canada holds key interest rate at 5% again, saying it's still too soon for rate cuts

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • JURIST ☛ Hong Kong government sends new national security bill to Legislative Council for debate

    The Hong Kong government released the new national security bill on Friday and sent it to the Legislative Council (LegCo) for deliberation. The bill consists of nine parts, including criminalizing several national security offenses not covered in the 2020 National Security Law but listed in Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law.

  • JURIST ☛ UN Security Council calls for immediate cessation of hostilities in Sudan during Ramadan

    The UN Security Council (UNSC) adopted a resolution on Friday, calling on all parties involved in the conflict in Sudan to immediately cease hostilities during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and negotiate for a sustainable resolution.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ US soldier arrested for selling national defense secrets to China

    A US Army intelligence analyst was arrested on Thursday for allegedly providing national defense information to China. Sergeant Korbein Schultz, who held a top-secret security clearance, was taken into custody at Fort Campbell, a military base on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, the Justice Department said in a statement.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • JURIST ☛ UK High Court dismisses former US President Trump Steele Dossier lawsuit and orders payment of legal fees

    Former US President Donald Trump must pay £300,000 in legal fees to Christopher Steele following the UK High Court’s dismissal of his claim against Steele’s company for reputational damage and breach of right to data protection.

  • New York Times ☛ New Online Speech Law Could Chill Political Humor in Sri Lanka

    A sweeping new law on online speech threatens the political humor that has helped the island nation get through tough stretches.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • JURIST ☛ DRC prosecutor requests 20 year jail sentence for journalist

    A prosecutor in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) requested on Friday a 20-year sentence in prison for Stanis Bujakera, a journalist on trial for an article implicating military intelligence in the death of an opposition politician, Chérubin Okende. Bujakera was arrested last year on September 8 and is facing charges including spreading false information.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-02-29 [Older] How to protect the Supreme Court against the far right

  • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-03-01 [Older] Unionized YouTube Workers Lose Their Jobs During Live City Council Stream

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Gizmodo ☛ 2024-03-06 [Older] Apple Crushes Epic’s App Store Dreams Over the CEO’s Petty Tweets

• IP Kat ☛ 2024-03-05 [Older] Guest Book Review: Owning Performance [sic] | Performing Ownership: Literary Property and the Eighteenth-Century British Stage

• IP Kat ☛ 2024-03-01 [Older] UKIPO’s second report on social medial influencers and counterfeiting

• Patents

  • 2024-03-04 [Older] USPTO Publishes Updated Guidance for Making Proper Obviousness Determinations

• Trademarks

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-03-04 [Older] The global reach of trade mark law?

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-02-29 [Older] European Parliament approves Regulation on Geographical Indications for wines, spirit drinks and agricultural products

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-02-29 [Older] M&S "gin-joys" registered design victory against Aldi in E&W Court of Appeal judgment regarding flavoured liqueur lookalikes

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-03-04 [Older] [Guest post] Jacquemus x Nike Swoosh Bag: ‘Just Copy It’ or re-appropriation of Nike’s own trade mark?

• Copyrights

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-03-05 [Older] When in Rome, do as the Romans do? Rome court ‘misinterprets’ CJEU YouTube judgment and reduces criteria for primary liability of platform operators to checklist

  • 2024-03-05 [Older] OpenAI's Motion to Dismiss NY Times Lawsuit over ChatGPT: Do They Want to Win or Influence Public Opinion?

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-02-29 [Older] Guest Post: Sony fails in strike out claim against Hendrix bandmates

  • The Age AU ☛ 2024-03-01 [Older] Albanese government’s fury over Meta’s plan to pull out of Facebook news deal

  • Engadget ☛ 2024-03-01 [Older] Meta is killing the Facebook News tab in the US and Australia