Leftovers

• The Atlantic ☛ Why Are Elo Ratings Everywhere Now?

  Fundamentally, what an Elo rating does is predict the outcome of chess matches by assigning every player a number that fluctuates based purely on performance. If you beat a slightly higher-ranked player, your rating goes up a little, but if you beat a much higher-ranked player, your rating goes up a lot (and theirs, conversely, goes down a lot). The higher the rating, the more matches you should win.

  That is what Elo was designed for, at least. FaceMash and Zuckerberg aside, people have deployed Elo ratings for many sports—soccer, football, basketball—and for domains as varied as dating, finance, and primatology. If something can be turned into a competition, it has probably been Elo-ed. Somehow, a simple chess algorithm has become an all-purpose tool for rating everything. In other words, when it comes to the preferred way to rate things, Elo ratings have the highest Elo rating.

• Konstantin Tutsch ☛ Who needs headers anyway?

  Header, footer and everything that is unnecessarily distracting has been replaced or removed. This makes is less easy to navigate between pages, but I think it is worth it.

• Matt Webb ☛ The sound and the fury of asinine automated tannoy announcements (Interconnected)

  Today I’m allowing myself to be a pedantic nit-picker. Really embracing that side of me.

  And I’m wondering how to push back against mundane nits, even though I’m aware that it makes me sound like I’m over-sensitive and focusing on the wrong things.

  Because the tiny things really do matter, and I’m reminded of that because I’ve spied at least one mechanism where a small change has a larger cultural impact.

  The example is in social media…

• Hackaday ☛ Bad Experiences With A Cheap Wind Turbine

  If you’ve got a property with some outdoor space and plenty of wind, you might consider throwing up a windmill to generate some electricity. Indeed, [The Broject List] did just that. Only, his experience was a negative one, having purchased a cheap windmill online. He’s warning off others from suffering the same way by explaining what was so bad about the product he bought.

• Standards/Consortia

  • Digital Music News ☛ How to Reach Young Americans with Radio—with Joel Denver

    Denver shut down All Access in August 2023—pointing to major changes in the music industry. Denver’s publication kept tabs on radio’s trajectory for nearly three decades, giving him a unique position to offer insight into the direction which radio is headed. We’ll hear from Denver and other panelists during our upcoming DMN Pro event, ‘What Is Radio in 2024?’

  • [Repeat] SANS ☛ The CVE's They are A-Changing!

    The downloadable format of CVE's from Miter will be changing in June 2024, so if you are using CVE downloads to populate your scanner, SIEM or to feed a SOC process, now would be a good time to look at that. If you are a vendor and use these downloads to populate your own feeds or product database, if you're not using the new format already you might be behind the eight ball!

• Science

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Five things our research uncovered when we recreated 16th century beer (and barrels)

    As part of a major study of food and drink in early modern Ireland, funded by the European Research Council, we recreated and analyzed a beer last brewed at Dublin Castle in 1574. Combining craft, microbiology, brewing science, archaeology, as well as history, this was the most comprehensive interdisciplinary study of historical beer ever undertaken. Here are five things that we discovered.

  • Robin Sloan ☛ You could extinguish a star

    The total eclipse (I have learned) is not “an image in the sky” but “a process in the world”. That’s a cool and precious thing, here and now in the 21st century. In its shocking recal­i­bra­tion of scale, in its mega­band­width satu­ra­tion of the senses, “see eclipse” might be the ultimate expres­sion of “touch grass”.

    After totality, my nephew, age 10, said it best: “I feel bad for the gamers.”

  • Björn Wärmedal ☛ Mars Has Leap Years

    A year on Mars isn't 669 or 670 sols. It's 669.6! So how often does Mars have a leap year?

    Each year is 0.6 sol longer than it should be. Or 0.4 less. I don't know. And I don't know why it "should" be an even number of sols either. But such is the cosmic law and the punishment for disobedience is leap years.

  • Science Alert ☛ You Can Actually Order Your Very Own Invisibility Shield Right Now

    Now you see me... now you don't.

  • Science Alert ☛ Doctor Reveals What Happens When You Stop Taking Ozempic

    Read this before you start.

  • Science Alert ☛ For The First Time, Scientists Showed Structural, Brain-Wide Changes During Menstruation

  • Science Alert ☛ 'Ghost Roads' That Aren't Supposed to Exist Are Killing The World's Forests

    This is a huge problem.

• Education

  • Nat Bennett ☛ Don't lie in interviews

    It's not that I think this is easy or fair. And I don't mean "adopt a rigid and expansive definition of 'lie' that stops you from engaging in normal human social interactions."

    But lying deliberately, as a strategy, will fuck you up, and it will fuck you up in ways that you don't even see. You will live in a world where everyone lies, all the time – because people who value integrity won't work with you. You will lose track of your self.

  • Vadim Kravcenko ☛ 10x Engineers vs -10x Burdens

    I’m part of the group that thinks 10x engineers are great, and no, it’s not a myth. But I have a more nuanced perspective — I don't think 10x engineer has anything to do with coding and more than that, I think anyone can be a 10x engineer. It’s not a personal quality; it’s a cumulative effect of all the small decisions you make as a software developer — the tools you choose, the way you debug, the way you act with your team mates.

  • Nat Bennett ☛ Why you need a "WTF Notebook"

    Every time I join a new team, I go to the next fresh page, and on top of that page I write: "WTF - [Team Name]." Then I make a note every time I run into something that makes me go "wtf," and a task every time I come up with something I want to change.

    For two weeks, that's all I do. I just write it down. I don't tell the team everything that I think they're doing wrong. I don't show up at retro with all the stuff I think they need to change. I just watch, and listen, and I write down everything that seems deeply weird.

• Hardware

  • Andrew Hutchings ☛ Yet Another BillBC Micro: Retro Restoration

    In the town I live, there is a small auction house which every week puts up their list of items for the next auction on their website. I check this every week just in case there are any computers in there that I would be interested in.

  • Hackaday ☛ Trolling IBM’s Quantum Processor Advantage With A Commodore 64

    There’s been a lot of fuss about the ‘quantum advantage’ that would arise from the use of quantum processors and quantum systems in general. Yet in this high-noise, high-uncertainty era of quantum computing it seems fair to say that the advantage part is a bit of a stretch. Most recently an anonymous paper (PDF, starts at page 199) takes IBM’s claims with its 127-bit Eagle quantum processor to its ludicrous conclusion by running the same Trotterized Ising model on the ~1 MHz MOS 6510 processor in a Commodore 64. (Worth noting: this paper was submitted to Sigbovik, the conference of the Association for Computational Heresy.)

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Carry-on server flexes up to 256 cores — 480TB NVMe and 4TB RAM join Ampere Altra CPU in new fly-away-kits

    Next Computing has launched two new flyaway kits that can hold 1U or 2U rack-mount server chassis. These kits are ideal for businesses that need high-performance computing in a portable package.

  • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

    • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ The most iconic Nokia phones ever made

      This period coincided with a fundamental shift in the telecommunications landscape, driven by rapid technological changes that percolated into the social fabric.

      As the leading brand at the time, many of Nokia’s idiosyncrasies evolved into iconic symbols that now define an era when leather pouches with plastic facades and belt hooks were a status symbol (they were!? – Ed).

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Off Guardian ☛ Bird Flu, Censorship & 100 Day Vaccines: 7 Predictions for “The Next Pandemic”

    Of course by “pandemic”, we really mean “psy-op”…because nothing about the next pandemic will be any more real than the last pandemic.

  • New Yorker ☛ Jonathan Haidt Wants You to Take Away Your Kid’s Phone

    When Haidt published “The Coddling of the American Mind,” with Greg Lukianoff, in 2018, he joined the culture wars, arguing that American colleges had come to value emotional safety over rigor; a self-described liberal and “David Brooks sort of meliorist,” he pushed back at the concepts of trigger warnings and microaggressions. But now his concern is not just with what he views as the overprotection of the young in the real world; it is also with a lack of protection for the young in the virtual world. Tech companies and social-media platforms, Haidt insists, by “designing a firehose of addictive content” and causing kids to forgo the social for the solitary, have “rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale.”

  • Greg Morris ☛ One Focus At A Time

    I decided a break away from social media was best for me, and along with it came numerous blog posts because it was my only outlet. Since posting more to micro.blog I have developed three plugins and so writing stopped almost all together (unless readme files count). This week I went to London and took plenty of photos, so I have no doubt that writing will take a back seat again for a while.

  • NPR ☛ What are 'orphan crops'? And why is there a new campaign to get them adopted?

    To explain the project's goal, Fowler cites one plant in particular. It's a hardy, drought-tolerant legume called the grass pea, a native of Africa.

  • Science Alert ☛ Too Much Junk Food Could Cause Lasting Damage to The Brain

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Identify a Link Between Sleep And Type 2 Diabetes Risk

    It's not just your diet.

  • New York Times ☛ ‘Aging in Place, or Stuck in Place?’

    Homeownership is not the boon to older Americans that it once was.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Wired ☛ AI-Controlled Fighter Jets Are Dogfighting With Human Pilots Now

    A loose-knit community of con artists known as Yahoo Boys has begun using real-time face-swap technology to woo victims with romance scams. Using a variety of tools and techniques, the scammers use AI-powered apps to make themselves look like entirely different people on video calls. Just remember: If someone you’ve never met IRL is asking you for money, just say no.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Adding ZIP file support to Windows 30 years ago almost got the creator of Task Manager fired

    While ZIP file support has long been a commonplace feature of Windows and other operating systems, this wasn't always the case. Once upon a time, a Microsoft engineer had to create a kernel extension called "VisualZIP" to enable standard ZIP features. This same kernel extension nearly got Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer fired due to workplace politics he was unaware of, but ultimately ended up being the basis for today's ZIP support in Windows.

  • Security Week ☛ First Major Attempts to Regulate AI Face Headwinds From All Sides

    Artificial intelligence is helping decide which Americans get the job interview, the apartment, even medical care, but the first major proposals to reign in bias in AI decision making are facing headwinds from every direction.

    Lawmakers working on these bills, in states including Colorado, Connecticut and Texas, came together Thursday to argue the case for their proposals as civil rights-oriented groups and the industry play tug-of-war with core components of the legislation.

  • Brandon ☛ Taking the Final Step to De-Google

    Unfortunately, Google pretty much requires you to have the YouTube app to verify your account, which is something I ran into earlier today. I got so pissed off I had to download YouTube just to select a stupid number that I knew it was time to put YouTube and Google out to the pasture.

  • Zimbabwe ☛ AI for everyone: Zuckerberg puts powerful Meta AI right inside WhatsApp

    For those of us in Zimbabwe, and likely much of Africa, this marks the first time a generative AI tool is accessible to everyday people.

  • Hollywood Reporter ☛ A24's New AI-Generated 'Civil War' Posters Generate Controversy

    “You know DAMN well how the film community feels about the use of AI Generated content,” wrote one reader. “And the backlash [to AI generated stills featured in the horror film] Late Night With The Devil was more than enough to make that transparently clear to everyone: WE DO NOT WANT THIS. How stupid of your marketing team to even think this was acceptable. We are trying our hardest to fight against the push of opening Pandora’s Box with this shit and here you are willfully ignoring everyone’s concerns in that matter.”

  • France24 ☛ 'A global problem': US teen fights deepfake porn targeting schoolgirls - Focus

    Deepfake pornography of famous women like Taylor Swift has sparked outrage and calls for the regulation of artificial intelligence. Yet this powerful technology is not only being used to bully women in the public eye – minors are also being victimised. Schoolgirls are finding themselves targeted by AI-generated deepfake porn made by their own classmates using new, easy-to-access "nudifying" apps. And no federal laws exist to stop it.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Record ☛ Warrantless spying powers extended to 2026 with Biden’s signature

      The legislation imposes modest changes to the Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a sweeping warrantless National Security Agency program that intercepts the digital traffic of foreign targets but also incidentally hoovers up the personal information on an unknown number of Americans.

    • The Hill ☛ The Section 702 economic risks that few are talking about

      However, there’s an underappreciated political risk far closer to home that could significantly impact the U.S. and United Kingdom business communities and which geopolitical analysts should add to their risk portfolio – the potential lapse of U.S. Section 702 authority. The Senate moved to extend the authority on Thursday after a rocky path in the House of Representatives, but challenging politics around Section 702 could constitute an ongoing threat to American and British investors and corporations alike, even if the Senate passes the extension in short order.

    • John Gruber ☛ Daring Fireball: Face the Critic: Ian Betteridge Edition

      I’ve seen a bit of pushback along this line recently, more or less asking: How come I was against Meta’s tracking but now seem for it? I don’t see any contradiction or change in my position though. The only thing I’d change in the 2020 piece Betteridge quotes is this sentence, which Betteridge emphasizes: “No action Apple can take against the tracking industry is too strong.” I should have inserted an adjective before “tracking” — it’s non-consensual tracking I object to, especially tracking that’s downright surreptitious. Not tracking in and of itself.

    • Mobile Dev Memo ☛ The EDPB invalidates Meta's use of Pay or Okay. What next?

      The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) yesterday adopted an opinion on the valid use of the “Pay or Okay” model by, what it calls, “large online platforms.” The EDPB determines in its opinion that large online platforms, “in most cases,” will not comply with the GDPR in implementing a Pay or Okay model. It should be noted that the opinion isn’t a legal judgment or enforcement action and merely invites further consideration.

    • The Record ☛ Renewal of surveillance law clears Congress minutes after deadline

      Section 702 permits the government, without a warrant, to collect from American companies like AT&T and Google, the emails, phone calls, text messages and other electronic communications of foreigners abroad who have been targeted for intelligence surveillance — even when they communicate with Americans.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Jonathan Fulton testifies to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission

    Jonathan Fulton, nonresident senior fellow for Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, testifies before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on “China and the Middle East.” >

  • The Kent Stater ☛ LETTER TO THE EDITOR: We must deal with the issue of people owning more sophisticated weapons

    The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution states: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

  • France24 ☛ Three decades on, Croatia's Vukovar bears invisible scars of war

    The Croatian city of Vukovar, on the banks of the Danube, has a painful past. Located on the border with Serbia, it was the scene of the first major battle in the 1990s Balkan wars. Four years before the genocide in Srebrenica and eight years before the war in Kosovo, Vukovar was the first city in the former Yugoslavia to suffer ethnic cleansing, in 1991. More than 30 years later, reconciliation between local Serbs and Croats is hindered by impunity for war crimes and the inability to agree on a common version of events.

  • VOA News ☛ EU politicians embrace TikTok despite data security concerns

    Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store on Monday expressed his uneasiness about social media platforms, including TikTok, being "used by various threat actors for several purposes, such as recruitment for espionage, influencing through disinformation and fake news, or mapping regime critics. This is disturbing."

    Konstantin von Notz, vice-chairman of the Green Parliamentary Group in the German legislature, told VOA, "While questions of security and the protection of personal data generally arise when using social networks, the issue is even more relevant for users of TikTok due to the company's proximity to the Chinese state."

  • The Hill ☛ 5 reasons why we should ban TikTok as soon as possible 

    Fourth, there are numerous documented examples of TikTok being used by the Chinese government as a tool for propaganda and political disinformation — so much that FBI director Christopher Wray cautioned that the Chinese government can exploit TikTok to “influence American users or control their devices.” While American social media companies are known to boost noxious content, they don’t have a government agenda baked into their content decisions for overseas users — a significant difference.

  • Maine Morning Star ☛ Aid to Ukraine, Israel overwhelmingly approved by U.S. House in bipartisan vote

    The three bills — as well as a measure to ban the popular app TikTok unless Chinese owner ByteDance sells it — now go to the Senate as one package, where leaders hope to vote on the legislation as soon as Tuesday.

  • The Verge ☛ TikTok ‘ban’ passes in the House again

    The bill passed 360-58 as part of a larger bill related to sanctions on foreign adversaries like Russia. It’s part of a package of foreign aid bills that seek to provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel and humanitarian aid to Gaza. Due to the urgency of the funds, packaging the TikTok bill with these measures means that the Senate will need to consider the proposal more swiftly that it would as a standalone bill. The earlier TikTok bill, which passed the House 352-65 just last month, has so far lingered in the Senate, with lawmakers there giving mixed messages about its future.

  • Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Ban Inches Closer to Reality — House Passes Modified Bill

    The vote saw the measure clear the chamber with overwhelming support (360-58), the second lopsided vote on the TikTok problem. The bill, which includes a measure that could effectively ban TikTok in the United States, now moves to the Senate, where a vote could come within a matter of days.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Foreign Aid Package for Ukraine, Israel, Plus TikTok Ban Passes House

    Part of the aid package included a ban on TikTok in the United States unless the social media app is divested from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. By tying the TikTok ban to a foreign aid bill, the House can force movement by the Senate to vote on the issue, which has stalled since the House first passed a ban last March.

  • The Hill ☛ The House advanced its aid package. What does that mean for the future of TikTok?

    TikTok has faced backlash on Capitol Hill over its ties to China. Supporters of the measure have argued banning TikTok would prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from having access to American user data that could be utilized for spying.

    TikTok has pushed back by saying it was not asked to provide the data to the CPP.

    TikTok was also scrutinized over its algorithm recommending sensitive videos and critics have accused it of being a national security threat, especially ahead of the upcoming presidential election.

  • Futurism ☛ Head of NASA Says China Is Hiding Military Experiments in Space

    NASA's administrator is once again making outrageous claims about China's space capabilities — and in the process, fueling the off-world rivalry between the two.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Nasa chief warns China is masking military presence in space with civilian programs

    “We believe that a lot of their so-called civilian space program is a military program. And I think, in effect, we are in a race,” Nelson added.

    He said he hoped Beijing would “come to its senses and understand that civilian space is for peaceful uses”, but added: “We have not seen that demonstrated by China.”

  • Harvard University ☛ Posting your opinion on social media won’t save democracy, but this might

    The professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, who delivered the first of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Paine Hall last week, said revitalizing American democracy will require an additional ingredient. She argued that today’s citizens are not given enough opportunity for collective activities that cultivate feelings of belonging and agency.

    “Part of what we’ve lost in 21st-century America is a particular form of collective action that teaches people the commitments and capabilities of power-sharing that are necessary in pluralistic democracy,” said Han, who directs Johns Hopkins’ SNF Agora Institute and P3 Research Lab.

  • India Times ☛ X: X vows to 'robustly challenge' Australia order to remove stabbing posts

    Police charged a boy, 16, with a terrorism offence on Thursday for the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at a church in the New South Wales capital on Monday. Footage from the scene showed the boy restrained by the congregation and shouting accusations that Emmanuel had insulted Islam.

  • NPR ☛ House approves sell-or-be-banned TikTok measure, attaching it to foreign aid bill

    TikTok's algorithm, the secret sauce of the app, is owned by ByteDance. And during the Trump administration's campaign against TikTok, China added content-recommendation algorithms to its export-control list, meaning selling the technology would require the blessing of the Chinese government.

  • RFA ☛ China bans Uyghurs from using social media apps

    Violators face arrest, a fine of 15,000 yuan, or US$2,100, and a 40-point deduction under China’s social credit system, which affects people’s access to credit and business opportunities, according to the video.

    In addition to TikTok, people are forbidden from downloading and using X, formerly Twitter, and YouTube, and buying and selling on the cryptocurrency platform Bitcoin, it said.

  • El País ☛ Estonian Prime Minister: ‘It’s a question of when they will start the next war’

    “It’s a question of when they will start the next war. The question for us is, what do we do with this time? Are we preparing to help to deter Russia, so that it doesn’t happen because we are strong enough, so they don’t think about [taking] another step, or are we trying to close our eyes and pretend that this is not happening?” Kallas, 46, warns in an interview with EL PAÍS. We speak to her in Brussels before the summit of heads of state and the EU government, where voices like hers are increasingly warning that it is possible for the war to reach EU territory, which is seeking funds and mechanisms to rearm. “The solution is to be strong enough and stand up to a bully, so that this [war] will not spread,” says Kallas. She is calling for creative solutions to seek such funding.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Finland urges EU to help end migrant influx from Russia

    The two neighbors share a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border and Helsinki has accused the Kremlin of weaponizing migration in response to Finland's accession to NATO, triggered by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Putin’s plan to depopulate Ukraine

    The destruction of Kharkiv would certainly be a major war crime, but it would be far from unprecedented. On the contrary, the methodical depopulation of Ukraine’s second city would be very much in keeping with the destructive tactics employed by Russia ever since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine first began more than two years ago.

  • RFERL ☛ EU's Von Der Leyen Visits Finland-Russia Border To Assess Security Situation

    The head of the European Union's executive branch said Finland's decision to close its border with Russia over a surge in migrants is a security matter for the whole 27-member bloc. [...]

  • The Hindu ☛ Jihadi activities increasing in State due to appeasement policies of the Congress: Jagadish Shettar

    “Jihadi mentality is growing in the State due to the appeasement policies of the Congress government,” Jagadish Shettar, BJP candidate from Belagavi constituency said in Belagavi Friday.

    “Jihadi activities are growing in Karnataka. The State government is responsible for this. There is a collapse of law and order,” Mr. Shettar alleged.

    He said that a sense of lawlessness was gripping the citizens with the rise in incidents like the murder of Neha Hiremath by Fayaz Munavalli in a college in Hubballi on Thursday. The State government should not think its work ends with arrests. The accused should get the prescribed punishment. What is more, the CM, Home Minister and Police Department should ensure that such incidents do not recur, he said.

  • Janes ☛ Navy League 2024: Australia's Hypersonix Launch Systems prepares to demonstrate DART scramjet-powered aircraft for DIU

    The programme calls for an airborne test vehicle “that can maintain speeds above Mach 5 with a manoeuvrable/non-ballistic flight profile and at least a three-minute flight duration with near-constant flight conditions”, according to a DIU statement in April 2023.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Taiwan to discuss new funding with US as Chinese warplanes get close to island

    The island expressed gratitude for the US' "rock-solid" support of Taiwan.

  • JURIST ☛ Biden administration deports Haitians amid surging gang violence

    The Biden administration reportedly sent over 70 Haitians back to their homeland on Thursday amid the nation’s ongoing struggle with gang violence. The move was met with condemnation from human rights organizations, like the Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), which condemned the move as “intentional violence.”

  • The Straits Times ☛ High-level North Korea agriculture delegation visits Russia - KCNA

    SEOUL - A North Korean delegation led by a high-ranking agricultural official is visiting Russia, the North's official KCNA news agency said on Sunday, in the latest exchange by Moscow and Pyongyang, which is grappling with chronic food shortages.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Russian navy chief to participate in Chinese naval conference

    MOSCOW - Russia's newly-appointed navy chief will take part in a major military conference in ally China, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Saturday, amid growing Western criticism of ties between the two countries.

  • France24 ☛ Bill to potentially ban Fentanylware (TikTok) in US advances in Congress

    The US House of Representatives approved a bill Saturday that would force the wildly popular social control media app Fentanylware (TikTok) to divest from its Chinese parent company ByteDance or be shut out of the American market.

  • JURIST ☛ US House passes bill forcing ByteDance to divest from Fentanylware (TikTok) under threat of ban

    The US House of Representatives voted 360–58 Saturday to pass a sanctions bill that includes a provision forcing Chinese company ByteDance to divest from popular social control media app TikTok, which would be banned in the US if ByteDance does not comply.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Bill to ban Fentanylware (TikTok) in US moves ahead in Congress

    China denies criticism that Fentanylware (TikTok) is subservient to Beijing and a conduit to spread propaganda.

  • France24 ☛ Taiwan to discuss new arms funding with US as Chinese warplanes again near island

    Taiwan’s military said on Sunday it will discuss with the United States how to use funding for Taipei included in a $95 billion legislative package mostly providing assistance to Ukraine and Israel, as Chinese warplanes again got close to the island.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • France24 ☛ US House approves long-awaited $61 billion Ukraine aid package

      Lawmakers in the US House of Representatives on Saturday quickly passed legislation to provide to Ukraine and Israel, bolster Taiwan while also threatening a ban on Fentanylware (TikTok) if it fails to divest from Beijing.

    • Reason ☛ House Passes REPO Act Giving President Authority to Confiscate Russian Government Assets in the US and Transfer them to Ukraine

      It's a good idea that will hopefully be imitiated by our allies.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Renewed US assistance opens a path to success, if Ukraine’s friends move fast

      The delay in US aid was deadly for Ukraine and damaging to US credibility. Now that aid is likely on its way, what's needed next to help Ukraine fend off an expected Russian land offensive?

    • Atlantic Council ☛ The House passed Ukraine aid at last. Here’s what it means.

      After months of costly delays, new shipments of US military aid look set to head to Ukraine soon. Our experts weigh in on next steps from Washington, Kyiv, and the EU.

    • France24 ☛ Ukraine and Russia trade strikes as both sides accuse the other of killing civilians

      Ukraine launched a wave of drones at Russia in the early hours of Saturday, setting a fuel depot ablaze, officials said, as both sides accused each other of deadly attacks on civilians.

    • RFA ☛ Blinken to visit China amid claims about Russia support

      The US secretary of state on Friday accused China of ‘fueling’ Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine Says It Will Resume Small Power Exports

      Ukraine plans to resume minor amounts of electricity exports on April 21, but it expects substantial power imports during peak consumption periods, the Energy Ministry said.

    • RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Bans Ukrainian Troops From Gambling Online

      Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued an immediate decree on April 20 banning members of the military from online gambling sites.

    • RFERL ☛ Kyiv, Europeans Welcome U.S. House Approval Of Long-Delayed $61 Billion Aid Package For Ukraine

      Ukraine and its European allies have welcomed the U.S. House of Representatives's passage of a long-delayed aid bill critical to Ukraine's defense against the Russian invasion, although the $61 billion package must still be approved by the Senate before President Joe Biden can sign it into effect.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Likely Lost 100 Combat Planes In Ukraine War, Says U.K.

      A Russian strategic bomber aircraft was likely brought down by the Ukrainian Air Force, according to an estimate by the British Defense Ministry, "the first instance of a strategic bomber being shot down by Ukrainian air-defense systems."

    • RFERL ☛ Ukrainian, Russian Forces Intensify Drone, Missile War

      Ukrainian and Russian forces attacked the opposing side's energy infrastructure and armament-production sites overnight into April 20, officials said, as the warring forces intensified drone and missile strikes ahead of a vote in the U.S. Congress on desperately needed military aid to Ukraine.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Blinken to press China over its support for Russia’s defence base

      The US has accused Beijing of aiding Russia's war effort in Ukraine.

    • YLE ☛ Finnish president thanks US lawmakers for approving $60bn Ukraine aid package

      The US Senate passed a similar measure a couple of months ago and is expected to approve the current bill in the coming week.

    • YLE ☛ Finnish Foreign Minister Valtonen hopeful Ukraine will get defence aid in time

      The US Congress is expected to soon vote on a new military package for Ukraine valued at more than 56 billion euros.

    • CS Monitor ☛ The House passes aid packages for Ukraine and Israel, ending months of wrangling

      Congressional leaders pushed aside opposition from hard-right conservatives to complete the $95 billion package of foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies in a rare Saturday session. The Senate would still need to approve the measures in the coming days.

    • New York Times ☛ Ukraine Aid Divides Republicans, After Trump Tones Down His Resistance

      His most vocal allies in the House, however, were loudly against providing assistance as Ukraine fights Russia’s invasion.

    • New York Times ☛ House Approves $95 Billion Aid Bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan

      After months of delay at the hands of a bloc of ultraconservative Republicans, the package drew overwhelming bipartisan support, reflecting broad consensus.

    • New York Times ☛ Russian Bombardment Crushes Ukraine’s Industrial Base

      The assaults have all but destroyed the factories and plants that were the economic lifeblood of the towns and cities in Ukraine’s east.

    • New York Times ☛ Vote to Resume U.S. Military Aid Is Met With Relief in Ukraine

      Much-needed items like artillery shells could start arriving relatively quickly, but experts say it could take weeks before U.S. assistance has a direct impact on the war.

    • New York Times ☛ What Would $60 Billion in Ukraine War Aid Buy?

      What would $60 billion buy? Lots of air-defense missiles and artillery ammunition, according to the Pentagon.

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ US state secretary Antony Blinken to visit China with message on Russia support

      US Secretary of State Antony Blinken next week will pay his second visit in less than a year to China, hoping to use easing tension to press Beijing to curb wartime support for Russia.

• Environment

  • Science Alert ☛ 'Ghost Roads' That Aren't Supposed to Exist Are Killing The World's Forests

    A massive effort to 'hand-map' undocumented roads has revealed the staggering extent of illegal or informal thoroughfares cut through forests of Indonesia, Malaysia, and New Guinea.

    Using satellite imagery, researchers from Australia and Indonesia measured 1.37 million kilometers (851,000 miles) of thoroughfare – between three and seven times longer than the roads officially recorded in international databases for the same land area.

    Within the surrounds of these missing 'ghost roads', they found, deforestation skyrocketed.

  • Hakai Magazine ☛ The Deepwater Horizon’s Very Unhappy Anniversary

    It was McClain’s third trip to the disaster’s ground zero, and despite the 14 years that have elapsed, he found that wildlife surrounding the exploded wellhead was still suffering. The absence of life is noticeable, says McClain, and what is there doesn’t seem healthy.

    Unlike other wrecks, which tend to become habitats for marine species over time, the sunken Deepwater Horizon has remained comparatively sterile. Organisms that typically inhabit the Gulf’s seafloor—such as sea cucumbers, giant isopods, corals, and sea anemones—are simply missing, says McClain. Perhaps more concerning are the crabs. Naturally red, the crabs McClain and his team pulled up in their traps were tinted an oily black; many were also missing legs, while others had lesions.

    When disaster first struck, scientists and locals couldn’t help but notice the mass die-offs of dolphins, pelicans, oysters, and other marine species. But as the years have rolled on, many of the remediation efforts meant to clean up the spill—which coated the Gulf in four million barrels of oil—have been focused on land.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Register UK ☛ Tesla Cybertruck bricked after car wash, claims user

      He also received a call from Tesla to check on him. The advisor said that "it is a known issue in the Cybertruck that when you do a screen reset, instead of resetting in the standard two minutes, it takes five hours."

    • GO Media ☛ Tesla Cybertruck No Match For Car Wash

      Interestingly the user doesn’t mention whether Tesla was able to offer any insight as to why the truck decided to stop working, if it was caused by the car wash or something else entirely. The Cybertruck’s owners manual does caution against ever washing the truck in direct sunlight, and there is a section expressly mentioning that the truck has to be switched into “Car Wash Mode” before washing to avoid damage to parts of the vehicle.

  • Overpopulation

    • The Guardian UK ☛ ‘Water is more valuable than oil’: the corporation cashing in on America’s drought

      Nearly a decade ago, Greenstone Resource Partners LLC, a private company backed by global investors, bought almost 500 acres of agricultural land here in Cibola. In a first-of-its-kind deal, the company recently sold the water rights tied to the land to the town of Queen Creek, a suburb of Phoenix, for a $14m gross profit. More than 2,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River that was once used to irrigate farmland is now flowing, through a canal system, to the taps of homes more than 200 miles away.

      A Guardian investigation into the unprecedented water transfer, and how it took shape, reveals that Greenstone strategically purchased land and influence to advance the deal. The company was able to do so by exploiting the arcane water policies governing the Colorado River.

• Finance

  • Nike Is Laying Off 740 Employees at Oregon Headquarters

    Nike will be laying off 740 employees at its headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. The news was revealed through a mandatory filing with Oregon’s Office of Workforce Investments.

    The forthcoming job cuts mark the second wave of layoffs Nike has undergone this year. In February, CEO John Donahoe announced that Nike would be laying off 2% of its global workforce, around 1,600 employees.

    The additional 740 impacted won’t include any employees working at its retail stores or on its manufacturing sites, though Nike is still determining what departments will receive cuts. It’s planning to carry out all of the layoffs by late June.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea protests Japan PM’s offering to Yasukuni Shrine

    South Korea urged Japanese leaders to show repentance for the country's wartime past.

  • India Times ☛ OpenAI begins India hiring in bid to shape regulation early

    The Microsoft Corp. backed-company recruited Pragya Misra to lead public policy affairs and partnerships in India, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named as the appointment isn’t yet public. Misra, 39, previously worked at Truecaller AB and Meta Platforms Inc. and is set to start at OpenAI toward the end of the month.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Apple pulls WhatsApp from China App Store

    Apple has removed Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China after being ordered to do so by the Chinese government, which cited national security concerns.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • New Statesman ☛ Salman Rushdie’s warning bell

    Knife is writing as therapy, a healing process for Rushdie’s mind. He uses his art, a tool he wields with customary power and precision, to blunt the impact of the blade that almost ended his life. It takes him to a place of cold indifference to the individual who plunged it into him: “I don’t forgive you. I don’t not forgive you. You are simply irrelevant to me.”

  • NYPost ☛ How Salman Rushdie survived his assassin

    His physical recovery took just a few months, but he still grappled with why. “Whatever the attack was about, it wasn’t about ‘The Satanic Verses,’” Rushdie writes. Matar agreed, admitting in an interview with the Post that he’d only read “a couple pages” of the novel. His reasons had more to do with Rushdie being “disingenuous,” which Rushdie writes is an “unconvincing motive if one were to use it in crime fiction.”

    Lacking other answers, Rushdie imagines an interview between him and Matar, whom he refuses to name in the book, calling him only “The A” (short for “The Ass.”) The A doesn’t have much of a defense, other than a lonely life of incel brainwashing. As for the “disingenuous” jab, Rushdie borrows a line from the movie The Princess Bride to answer him: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

  • YLE ☛ Supreme Court to hear appeal over Räsänen's incitement acquittal

    The case hinged on whether it is permitted to quote the bible and declare agreement with the teachings. Räsänen had earlier stated that she expected the case to go to the Supreme Court, as it would set an important precedent.

  • RFA ☛ Censors block blogger after caller asks 'Is Xi Jinping a dictator?'

    The caller repeats their question: "I'm trying to say, do you think Xi is a dictator?"

    Hu then cuts the caller off and launches into a furious rant denouncing their behavior. "Oh my God," he yells. "People like that are so scary!"

    "This person was in serious breach of live-streaming regulations," Hu shouts to camera, wagging his finger at the caller, adding: "I cut him off immediately."

  • RFA ☛ Censors block blogger after caller asks 'Is Pooh-tin Jinping a dictator?'

    Hu Chunfeng's social control media accounts are blocked for 'violating' rules despite the anchor's angry reaction to camera.

  • New York Times ☛ Columbia, Free Speech and the Coddling of the American Right

    If Columbia can’t protect free speech, what hope is there for America’s institutions?

  • NCAC ☛ No to the Heckler’s Veto: Fear of Protest Should Not be a Reason to Silence Speakers

    When political passions run high, disagreement is often expressed as vocal protest. Cultural institutions in a democratic society need to be prepared to manage such protests without silencing the voices they target. Instead, vague “safety concerns” are used to justify the suppression of speech within US cultural and educational institutions with alarming frequency.

  • YLE ☛ Supreme Court to hear appeal over Räsänen's incitement acquittal

    MP Päivi Räsänen says she is continuing a fight she characterises as a freedom of speech campaign in the face of a historic prosecution.

  • New Yorker ☛ When a Pro-Free-Speech Dean Shuts Down a Student Protest

    An online argument erupted after a video of a law professor grabbing a microphone from a student went viral. But the debate has obscured some fairly basic truths.

  • NYPost ☛ USC cancels graduation keynote by filmmaker Jon M. Chu amid controversy over decision to drop student’s speech

    Now, university officials say they are “redesigning” the entire commencement program.

  • IT Wire ☛ China orders Fashion Company Apple to remove WhatsApp, Threads from app store

    The newspaper cited an unidentified source as saying the government has discovered content on Threads and WhatsApp that were critical of Chinese President Pooh-tin Jinping and in violation of the country's cyber-security laws.

    The US and China have been involved in a tit-for-tat trade war ever since Donald Trump initiated it back in 2018.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • USDOJ ☛ Eastern District of New York | White Supremacist Leader Sentenced to 44 Months in Prison for Conspiring to Make Death Threats Against Brooklyn Journalist | United States Department of Justice

    According to court filings, Welker’s threat included a photograph of the Journalist with a gun aimed at his head and the words “Race Traitor” over the Journalist’s eyes. The threat stated, “JOURNALIST F[***] OFF! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.” The threat listed the Journalist and his employer by name. Welker posted the threat to a public online forum. Two under-aged FKD members tweeted the death threat directly at the Journalist’s social media handle so that he would see it. Welker intended to frighten the Journalist into dropping his reporting on Welker’s hate group.

  • Doc Searls ☛ This Thing is Bigger Than Journalism – Doc Searls Weblog

    So, while journalism matters enormously, it’s just one casualty of digitalization. And, let’s face it, a beneficiary as well. Either way, we need to understand the whole picture, which is about a lot more than what journalism sees happening in the mirror.

    Here’s one outfit working on that bigger picture. I‘m involved with it.

  • RFERL ☛ Russian Journalist's Home Searched Over Case Against Colleague In Exile

    Police in St. Petersburg on April 18 searched the home of journalist Ksenia Klochkova as part of an investigation of her former colleague, Andrei Zakharov. [...]

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Adriaan Roselli ☛ Long Alt

    TL;DR: Keep your image alternative text brief, devoid of special characters, empty of URLs, and ideally in one language.

  • RFA ☛ Dalai Lama’s sister receives award for educating Tibetans in exile

    Pema, revered by Tibetans as “Amala,” or “Respected Mother,” has built one of the most successful Tibetan educational institutions abroad — the Tibetan Children's Villages, or TCV. The nonprofit organization cares for and educates orphaned, destitute and refugee children from Tibet. Its main facility is in Dharamsala in northern India.

  • Reason ☛ Federal Appeals Court: Cops Can Physically Make You Unlock Your Phone

    But Tallman went a step further in the Fifth Amendment analysis: "We hold that the compelled use of Payne's thumb to unlock his phone (which he had already identified for the officers) required no cognitive exertion, placing it firmly in the same category as a blood draw or fingerprint taken at booking," he wrote. "The act itself merely provided CHP with access to a source of potential information."

    From a practical standpoint, this is chilling. First of all, the Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that police needed a warrant before drawing a suspect's blood.

    And one can argue that fingerprinting a suspect as they're arrested is part and parcel with establishing their identity. Nearly half of U.S. states require people to identify themselves to police if asked.

    But forcibly gaining access to someone's phone provides more than just their identity—it's a window into their entire lives. Even cursory access to someone's phone can turn up travel history, banking information, and call and text logs—a treasure trove of potentially incriminating information, all of which would otherwise require a warrant.

  • VOA News ☛ Khamenei steps up pressure to enforce 'Islamic standards' across Iran

    Over last weekend, as Iran began its air assault against Israel, at home it announced new enforcement of the mandatory wearing of the hijab. The initiative is called the Nour (Light) Plan.

    The crackdown followed a statement by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who said that ignoring the hijab was a red line that should not be crossed.

    By Thursday, Voice of America was receiving reports, also circulating on social media, of an ongoing and pervasive deployment of special forces, law enforcement personnel and plainclothes agents of the Islamic Republic on the streets of numerous cities in Iran.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ HP Enterprise sues China's Inspur for patent monopoly infringement, claims it's continuing US operations despite sanctions

    HPE sues Inspur over server patents infringement, claims it still conducts business in the U.S. under new names.

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Codifying Discretionary Denial of IPR Petitions

    The USPTO recently released yet another Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) — this one focusing on codification of IPR/PGR rules associated with non-merits based “discretionary denials” of institution as well as termination due to settlement.  This is a controversial area because of that word ‘discretion.’  Unrestricted discretion by government officials is concerning because of the potential for arbitrary or biased decisions, lacking transparency and accountability.  In that frame, these rules are beneficial because they structure and limit discretion – hopefully making the outcomes more predictable and justifiable. 

  • JUVE ☛ Intellectual Ventures ends biggest patent monopoly battle in Germany without a win

    In 2015, the US-based non-practicing entity Intellectual Ventures sued the three major German network operators, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica/O2 and Vodafone for the first time at the Mannheim, Munich and Düsseldorf regional courts. Further lawsuits followed, with 16 patents said to have been sued against each of the three providers.

  • JUVE ☛ UK courts revoke Bayer rivaroxaban patent monopoly in new win for generics

    The UK High Court has dealt Bayer a blow in its wide-ranging battle against generic drug companies in Europe, after finding the pharmaceutical company’s patent monopoly for active ingredient rivaroxaban invalid for lack of inventive step.

• Copyrights

  • 404 Media ☛ 'LOL No:' Maker of 'FUCK THE LAPD' Shirt Laughs at Cops' Copyright Threat

    Lawyers for the Los Angeles Police Department’s private foundation threatened a clothing company selling a “Fuck the LAPD” shirt, claiming that the union owns the copyright to the letters “LAPD” and asking that the shirt be taken off of the company’s store immediately. Lawyers for the clothing company, called Cola, responded with a letter that read, in its entirety, “LOL, no.”

  • Futurism ☛ A24 Admits Those Ads for "Civil War" Were AI-Generated

    But the use of AI does show a certain hypocrisy: come and pay to see our movie, A24 seems to be saying, but we're going to use AI-generated art, built on work taken without permission from artists and photographers who haven't been compensated.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ 'Smart IPTV' App Blocked By ISPs, Despite it Carrying Zero Illegal Streams

    Media player app Smart IPTV is available on Google Play from where over 500,000 users have downloaded it. As its name suggests, it can be directly installed on smart TVs, thanks to listings on the official LG and Samsung app stores. In Spain, ISPs have just started blocking access to Smart IPTV's official site on copyright grounds. For an app that contains no streams, period, a cynical move like this gains perfect cover under an administrative blocking scheme.

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Personal/Opinions

    • 🔤SpellBinding: YEFHRVA Wordo: SHAKE

    • New Journey

      As you can see, this is my first post on the capsule. Some of main pages are already setup.

      Currently I want to have more mindfulness of the real world and avoid addiction to technology. I am starting this internet expedition to share my thoughts on my readings, computing, science, philosophy, ... and find some people with whom I might share some interests that I can't share with my real life friends.

    • Living in the Nooks & Crannies of Everyday Life

      Something as simple as just leaving your phone at home. Feeling like you're taking blinders off and seeing the world completely unfiltered for the first time in a long time.

  • Politics and World Events

    • Philosophy - Politics - Mrs. Malaprop’s World

      The following was originally largely posted to fediverse. As such, it was overly concise. I’ve been experimenting in long form social media. So far, I’ve yet again not found it particularly fruitful in writerly worth - beyond forcing the writer to some severity of decision which perhaps aids clarity.

    • April 21, 2024 - Third Sunday After Easter (W)

      Shout with joy to God, all the earth, alleluia: sing ye a psalm to His name, alleluia: give glory to His praise, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.