Leftovers

• Michael Bburkhardt ☛ My Font Journey

  I launched this weblog at the beginning of 2023 by porting over content from my previous hosting provider. But it wasn’t until April that I really started to customize the layout and typography. I started out with serif headings and sans-serif body text using Fira Sans. I like this typeface1 because it is reminiscent of ITC Officina Sans, a longtime favorite.

• Anne Sturdivant ☛ Weblog Top Posts

  This weblog is fifteen months old, but I've only been using analytics (via Tinylytics) since July 6, 2023. In that time I've seen just over 22,000 hits and published more than 100 posts. Last November I participated in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) on both weblog and my microblog. Since that time I have seen some interesting metrics related to post (and page) popularity and referral source. Additionally, some of the posts I have seen rise to the top just happen to be the posts that have made their way into various other "publications," either a podcast episode mention, various link lists, newsletters, and other bloggers' posts with a following.

• Alex Ewerlöf ☛ SLO

  Service Level Objective (SLO) sets the reliability expectation for the service based on how the service consumer perceives reliability (SLI).

• Brandon ☛ Writing Inspiration

  Doogie was my inspiration, and often he still comes to mind when I sit down to just write. I think about the camera panning across the words as they were read out loud and how much better Doogie seemed to feel after writing out the lesson he learned that week.

• Science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] China set to blast off to the far side of the Moon – here’s what it could discover

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-05-02 [Older] First Private Spy Satellite: Space 2.0 in India and Regional Security Situation

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] Are young people smarter than older adults? My research shows cognitive differences between generations are diminishing

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-05-03 [Older] Starliner: Boeing prepares to launch its first crewed spacecraft as it chases after SpaceX

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-05-03 [Older] The ancient Egyptian goddess of the sky and how I used modern astronomy to explore her link with the Milky Way

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-05-02 [Older] Unravelling life’s origin: five key breakthroughs from the past five years

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Radio astronomers bypass disturbing Earth's atmosphere with new calibration technique

    An international team of researchers led by astronomers from Leiden University (Netherlands) has produced the first sharp radio maps of the universe at low frequencies. Thanks to a new calibration technique, they bypassed the disturbances of the Earth's ionosphere. They have used the new method to study plasmas from ancient black hole bursts. Potentially, the technique might be useful for finding exoplanets that orbit small stars.

• Education

  • Nat Bennett ☛ Do you worship work?

    This isn’t really how corporations work. It might have a mission, for a little while, as long as it’s got a particular CEO and a particular board, but the mission doesn’t last. Companies get bought. They get sold. They’re not institutions in the same sense that a military, or a nation, or a university, or a church are institutions. A few corporations might outlive me. The vast majority won’t.

    There’s a limit, to how much meaning a person can get from a job.

  • Elliot C Smith ☛ My path to working in Product

    In a deeply condensed version of how I personally got here, I started my adult life studying electrical engineering. Living in Australia the main option for engineers at that time was in the mining industry. I spent several summers working at mining companies, becoming disenfranchised with the idea of working in that industry forever. I would work to rapidly complete, and often automate, as much of my work as possible giving me a little bit of extra time to work on other projects.

  • Henrique Dias ☛ Leaving The InterPlanetary Journey

    After almost 7 years working on projects surrounding IPFS, the InterPlanetary File System, I am now saying goodbye. It’s been an incredible journey at Protocol Labs, and more recently at the Interplanetary Shipyard. However, I feel like it’s finally time for a change for me.

  • James G ☛ Life and website gardening

    Earlier this year, I significantly reduced the footprint of my side projects, deprecating many projects that I no longer maintained. I let go of the corresponding domain names, too, a much-welcome saving. I feel good about not having the baggage of keeping up a project that I started to learn something new.

    As Thoureau said:

    “Simplify, Simplify”

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Z80s From The ’80s Had Futuristic Design

    Ever heard of a Dutch company called Holborn (literally, born in Holland)? We hadn’t either, but [Bryan Lunduke] showed us these computers from the early 1980s, and we wondered if they might have appeared in some science fiction movies. They definitely look like something from a 1970s movie space station.

  • Spencer Harston ☛ Building a New PC in 2024

    I've been PC user for most of my life. My first experience with computers was in the late 1990s, using MS-DOS and Windows 3.1. It wasn't until I was in college that I was able to build my own PC for the first time. It was a very fun and educational experience for me. Eight years have passed since then, and now it's time to build another PC in 2024. I completed this new build in February this year and have used it for a few months. Here's my experience of picking the parts, building the PC, and thoughts about the process in general.

  • Chris Coyier ☛ Looking at People

    There is still an issue with it though. You’re only going to look like you’re actually looking at people if you’re looking right at the teleprompter. The fact that dude above has two giant screens in front of him with an exciting video game on it means he’s going to be looking at that primarily. If the goal is not being distracted and actually looking like you’re looking at someone directly during a call, I don’t think this is going to cut it.

  • Adafruit ☛ Inside the Intel 8088 processor’s bus interface state machine @kenshirriff

    Ken Shirriff takes a deep dive into the 8088 leading to documenting the processor bus interface state machine which synchronizes all that happens within the chip.

  • Ken Shirriff ☛ Talking to memory: Inside the Intel 8088 processor's bus interface state machine

    In 1979, Intel introduced the 8088 microprocessor, a variant of the 16-bit 8086 processor. IBM's decision to use the 8088 processor in the IBM PC (1981) was a critical point in computer history, leading to the success of the x86 architecture. The designers of the IBM PC selected the 8088 for multiple reasons, but a key factor was that the 8088 processor's 8-bit bus was similar to the bus of the 8085 processor.1 The designers were familiar with the 8085 since they had selected it for the IBM System/23 Datamaster, a now-forgotten desktop computer, making the more-powerful 8088 processor an easy choice for the IBM PC.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-30 [Older] Loneliness is not 'just a first world problem'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-30 [Older] US plans to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug

  • Futurism ☛ Scientists About to Test Medicine to Grow New Teeth

    The team is hoping to treat not only those who haven't been able to grow teeth from birth, but eventually also those who are simply missing teeth due to cavities as well.

    A Phase 1 of the trial in September, which is designed to ensure that the treatment is safe, will involve 30 healthy male adult participants who are missing at least one back tooth. Phase 2 is tentatively scheduled for next year and will involve patients aged two to seven with congenital anodontia who are missing at least four teeth from birth.

  • The Mainchi Newspapers ☛ World's 1st 'tooth regrowth medicine' to be tested in Japan from Sept. 2024 - The Mainichi

    Lead researcher Katsu Takahashi, head of the dentistry and oral surgery department at Kitano Hospital, commented, "We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence. While there has been no treatment to date providing a permanent cure, we feel that people's expectations for tooth growth are high."

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Healthify announces another round of lay-off, 27% workforce impacted

    In another reported round of lay-off, homegrown health-tech startup Healthify , formerly known as Healthifyme, has laid off around about 150 employees. The latest job cut is a restructuring exercise.

    Earlier in December 2023, the health tech startup decreased its headcount by 150 from various teams, including SME (subject matter expert), quality analytics, product, and marketing.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Poland finds spy devices in government meeting room

    A Polish security services official on Tuesday said that devices had been located and taken apart in a government meeting room that was about to be used by ministers.

    It was unclear how long the devices had been there, the official said declining to speculate on who had planted them.

  • New York Times ☛ Wayve, an A.I. Start-Up for Autonomous Driving, Raises $1 Billion

    Wayve, a London maker of artificial intelligence systems for autonomous vehicles, said on Tuesday that it had raised $1 billion, an eye-popping sum for a European start-up and an illustration of investor optimism about A.I.’s ability to reshape industries.

  • Tim's Blog ☛ Neural Networks (MNIST inference) on the “3-cent” Microcontroller

    Bouyed by the surprisingly good performance of neural networks with quantization aware training on the CH32V003, I wondered how far this can be pushed. How much can we compress a neural network while still achieving good test accuracy on the MNIST dataset? When it comes to absolutely low-end microcontrollers, there is hardly a more compelling target than the Padauk 8-bit microcontrollers. These are microcontrollers optimized for the simplest and lowest cost applications there are. The smallest device of the portfolio, the PMS150C, sports 1024 13-bit word one-time-programmable memory and 64 bytes of ram, more than an order of magnitude smaller than the CH32V003. In addition, it has a proprieteray accumulator based 8-bit architecture, as opposed to a much more powerful RISC-V instruction set.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Cyble Inc ☛ Finland Warns Of New Android Malware Campaign

      Traficom said this campaign exclusively targets Android devices, with no separate infection chain identified for Apple iPhone users.

      The agency has identified multiple cases of SMS messages written in Finnish language, instructing recipients to call a specified number. These messages often impersonate banks or payment service providers like MobilePay and utilize spoofing technology to appear as if they originate from domestic telecom operators or local networks.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Register UK ☛ Homeland Security boss: US War on Drugs will be AI powered

      Whenever government officials talk about using AI for day-to-day operations, the usual concerns spring to mind, such as the potential for agents to misuse surveillance technologies as well as the biases inherent in machine learning.

    • Connor Tumbleson ☛ The Body Battery

      It was interesting to me watching all these stats combine to get a status report of my health. The watch knew when I slept little or went to bed late and adapted the workouts. The watch knew when a workout kept me in the red zone too long and tweaked the next day.

    • India Times ☛ Palantir raises 2024 forecast on robust AI demand

      Palantir said it conducted 660 boot camps in the first quarter and closed 87 deals worth $1 million or more across the business, with its customer count increasing by 42%. It did not specify how many customers were converted through the boot camp.

    • [Old] UNIXdigest ☛ Choose your browser carefully

      Privacy on the Internet is important because privacy risks range from the gathering of statistics on users to more malicious acts such as the spreading of spyware and the exploitation of various forms of bugs (software faults). Many companies, such as Google, track which websites people visit and then use the information, for instance by sending advertising based on one's web browsing history. Sometimes prices on products are changed on the same website, depending on tracking information, and two people may view the exact same product on the exact same website yet be presented with very different prices.

  • Confidentiality

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ New Attack on VPNs

      This attack has been feasible for over two decades: [...]

    • Ars Technica ☛ Novel attack against virtually all VPN apps neuters their entire purpose

      TunnelVision, as the researchers have named their attack, largely negates the entire purpose and selling point of VPNs, which is to encapsulate incoming and outgoing Internet traffic in an encrypted tunnel and to cloak the user’s IP address. The researchers believe it affects all VPN applications when they’re connected to a hostile network and that there are no ways to prevent such attacks except when the user's VPN runs on Linux or Android. They also said their attack technique may have been possible since 2002 and may already have been discovered and used in the wild since then.

    • The Register UK ☛ Watch out for rogue DHCP servers decloaking your VPN

      Dubbed TunnelVision by the eggheads at Leviathan Security Group who uncovered and documented it, the technique (CVE-2024-3661) can result in a VPN user believing their connection is properly secured, and being routed through an encrypted tunnel as usual, while an attacker on their network has instead redirected their connections so that it can be potentially inspected.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-02 [Older] EU funnels aid to Lebanon amid Syria migrant surge to Cyprus

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-05-02 [Older] US Airstrike Targeting Al-Qaida Leader in Syria Killed a Farmer, American Military Says

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-05-02 [Older] US Mistakenly Killed Civilian in 2023 Syria Strike, Pentagon Says

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] Kenyan floods leave tourists stranded at iconic Maasai Mara

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] Over 20 dead after highway collapses in southern China

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] South Korea considers participation in AUKUS pact: defense minister

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] Ireland: Police dismantle migrant camp in Dublin

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] UK sends voluntary asylum-seeker to Rwanda: reports

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] India: Will divisive rhetoric help or hurt Narendra Modi?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] Houthis utilize Red Sea attacks to boost power across Yemen and beyond

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-05-04 [Older] Former Security Guard Convicted of Killing Unarmed Man During an Argument at a Memphis Gas Station

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-05-04 [Older] Netherlands Remembers World War Two Dead Amid Tight Security Due to Gaza War

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-05-02 [Older] America’s National Security Future is Looking Dismal

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] Germany: Hamburg 'caliphate' rally prompts calls for punishment

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] Georgia: Thousands protest as 'foreign agent' bill advances

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-02 [Older] Was Serbia's firearm amnesty a success?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-05-04 [Older] Kansas Has a New Border Security Mission and Tougher Penalties for Killing Police Dogs

• Environment

  • Vox ☛ 2024-05-02 [Older] How rioting farmers unraveled Europe’s ambitious climate plan

  • Truthdig ☛ 2024-05-02 [Older] Congress Shines a Light on Big Oil’s Long Campaign of Climate Denial

  • CBC ☛ 2024-05-02 [Older] Canada's greenhouse gas emissions climbed in 2022, after pandemic slowdown

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-05-02 [Older] Trump-Appointed Judges Grant DOJ Request to Toss Landmark Youth Climate Case

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-05-04 [Older] Natural Gas Is a Climate Scam — and Consumers Are Paying for It

  • CBC ☛ 2024-05-05 [Older] Green groups outraged after Ottawa changes the rules on environmental assessments

  • The Age AU ☛ 2024-05-05 [Older] Underneath a tiny island, 50 kilometres of tunnels will house high-level nuclear waste

  • Energy/Transportation

    • DeSmog ☛ Ofcom Refuses to Investigate GB News Over Climate Conspiracy Theories

• Finance

  • Companies that laid off the most employees across the United States so far in 2024

    In a wave of layoffs that has been occurring since 2023, major tech companies including Apple, Dell, and IBM are downsizing their global workforce. Thousands of jobs were slashed in the sector but it is just one of the industries where people have been laid off over the past three months. In January alone, companies and government agencies across the United States laid off and discharged more than 1.57 million employees.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-29 [Older] Spain: Canary Islands' mass protests target overtourism

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-04-29 [Older] What is Germany's 'Reichsbürger' movement?

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] Saudi Woman Jailed for 11 Years Over Rights Posts, Amnesty Says

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] Turkey: Hundreds detained at May Day rallies in Istanbul

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-05-03 [Older] Turkey climbs to 158th in RSF Press Freedom Index

  • ANF News ☛ 2024-05-05 [Older] RSF: With authoritarianism gaining ground in Turkey, media pluralism is being called into question

  • CPJ ☛ 2024-05-02 [Older] CPJ, others decry criminal charges against Texas photojournalist Carlos Sanchez

  • CPJ ☛ 2024-05-01 [Older] FOX 7 Austin photojournalist faces misdemeanor charges after felony charges dropped

  • EFF ☛ Speaking Freely: Nompilo Simanje

    Nompilo Simanje is a lawyer by profession and is the Africa Advocacy and Partnerships Lead at the International Press Institute. She leads the IPI Africa Program which monitors and collects data on press freedom threats and violations across the continent, including threats to journalists’ safety and gendered attacks against journalists both online and offline to inform evidence-based advocacy. Nompilo is an expert on the intersection of technology, the law, and human rights. She has years of experience in advocacy and capacity building aimed at promoting media freedom, freedom of expression, access to information, and the right to privacy. She also currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise. Simanje is an alumnus of the Open Internet for Democracy Leaders Program and the US State Department IVLP Program on Promoting Cybersecurity.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • ANF News ☛ 2024-05-04 [Older] YRA calls on UN and international organisations not to remain silent on repression of journalists

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • EFF ☛ Podcast Episode: Building a Tactile Internet

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • 2024-04-30 [Older] Palworld: Friend or Foe?

  • 2024-05-03 [Older] Have Australia’s ‘Raising the Bar’ Law Reforms Suppressed Patent Oppositions?

• Trademarks

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-05-04 [Older] ‘Pablo Escobar’ contrary to public policy and accepted principles of morality

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-05-04 [Older] EUIPO BoA IP Case Law Conference Report #7 – “Quality through Coherence and Consistency: Reflections and Visions” [Ed: This 'court' is stacked by crooks and criminals [1, 2]]

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-05-04 [Older] EU General Court finds that EUTM reputation is acquired progressively and lost slowly (T‑157/23 - Patou)

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Z-Library Confusion as 'Official' Social Media Announces Crackdown in China

    Last month Z-Library reported that users in China were experiencing difficulties accessing the site, with new domains being blocked very quickly. The site's official WeChat and Bilibili social media accounts seemed unaffected until a surprise announcement was made on the former. It detailed a "recent crackdown by Chinese judicial authorities" on the site, its finances, and social media volunteers. Then just like that, both accounts disappeared.