Leftovers

• New York Times ☛ Manhattanhenge 2024 Live Video: When and Where to Watch

  The annual event brings New Yorkers together to celebrate longer days, warmer weather and epic summer sunsets.

• Barry Sampson ☛ Creative Environments

  This is my post for May's Indie Web Carnival on the theme of Creative Environments. The invitation is for people to share their thoughts, experiences and ideas about creative environments.

• Arjen Wiersma ☛ Resigning as Hack The Box Ambassador

  So, today I have some news. I will be resigning as Ambassador for Hack The Box after our in-person meetup in June (2024). This means that I will be stepping down from organizing the monthly virtual and quarterly in-person Hack The Box meetups. Let me explain how I got to this decision.

• [Old] Johnny Decimal ☛ A system to organise your life

  These IDs help you stay organised. They impose constraints that make it harder to get lost. And you create your own index to link everything in your digital life together.

• Thomas Rigby ☛ Nostalgia

  What I mean is, I don't listen to the same bands I did when I was a kid, rewatching shows, and reveling in childhood favourite cuisine.

  Of course, the music I listened to when I was fourteen heavily influenced the type of music I listen to now but I listen to a lot of new bands and material instead of replaying the same albums.

• Terence Eden ☛ The question which could bring down the government

  This is a retropost. Written contemporaneously in May 2020 during the height of the pandemic, but published long after the events.

• [Repeat] Ruben Schade ☛ My 8, 32, and 64-bit desk!

  Our hope is our apartment we hope to buy will have two bedrooms, or potentially three if we can swing it. In the meantime, our coffee table doubles as a dining table, and Clara and I have everything on these two other “desks”. It’s a squeeze, but it’ll do for now.

• Lou Plummer ☛ How I Internet

  I do not have the time to internet the way I want to. In a perfect world, I would stay caught up on my RSS feeds instead of being somewhere around 7,000 articles behind. I would have all three of my email accounts at Inbox Zero instead of just the two of them that I just about kill myself over. My 45 open tabs would all be read and I would be at the top of my timeline on my two Mastodon accounts, Threads, BlueSky, Pxlmo, Refrakt, Facebook, LinkedIn and Warpcast.

• Science

  • Bertrand Meyer ☛ Blog Archive Mathematics is not a game of hit and miss

    Throughout these exercises I see, introduced from the start, an idea that not all people having learned quadratic equations remember: the rule that any second-degree polynomial a x2 + b x + c can be written a (x – x0) (x – x1) where x0 and x1 are the roots (including when they are the same). It is often useful to turn such a polynomial into this form (particularly simple when a = 1).

  • Andrew Helwer ☛ TLA⁺ Unicode support -

    TLA⁺ was developed by Leslie Lamport, originator of \(\LaTeX\), so it’s unsurprising that TLA⁺ syntax looks pretty \(\LaTeX\)-y. It’s a very mathy language, with much use of symbols like (among others) \A,\E, /\, \/, and \in denoting \(\forall\), \(\exists\), \(\land\), \(\lor\), and \(\in\) respectively. The language tools include a tla2tex command to format TLA⁺ specs into \(\LaTeX\) for integration in research papers. However, research papers are not where I spend the most time looking at TLA⁺. Here’s the tale of how I brought those beautiful symbols into the code editor, and how I learned to work with others in FOSS along the way!

  • Sightline Media Group ☛ The military lab that identifies fallen troops decades after WWII

    The agency identified 59 servicemembers in 2013, when the Offutt lab first opened. That number has steadily risen — 159 service members last year, up from 134 in 2022 — and the labs have a goal of 200 identifications annually.

• Education

  • Brandon ☛ Why I Left Healthcare

    They used to call me about coming back and I even went back to chat with them once. I asked if they had figured out a way to have the doctors behave a bit better, and my former supervisor looked me in the eyes and said, "The doctors are the doctors, and they are untouchable." So, I thanked her and told her we had nothing further to discuss. The one person in department who is still working from when I was texts me often. He jokes that they still can't find anyone to replace me because people get in the role and quit within weeks. It's flattering, but it's also very sad. It really shouldn't be that way.

• Hardware

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Stymied by a 1990s thermostat

    We’re in the process of moving, so we won’t have to put up with this silly thing for much longer. Maybe. We hope!

  • David Rosenthal ☛ Library of Congress: Designing Storage Architectures 2024

    I participated virtually in the 2024 Library of Congress Designing Storage Architectures for Digital Collections meeting. As usual, there were a set of very interesting talks. The slides from the presentations are now online so, below the fold, I discuss the talks I found particulary interesting.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • FitScript™: Yet more “functional” cancer quackery

    It’s been a long time since I’ve had a real alternative cancer cure testimonial to dissect that didn’t involve, for instance, ivermectin or fenbendazole, the new laetriles of the post-COVID era. So it was with interest that a week or so ago I was tagged on X, the hellsite formerly known as Twitter, which led me to discover FitScript™:

  • Pro Publica ☛ Maine’s Care Facilities Lack Oversight When Residents Wander Away

    Late one morning in May 2021, a resident of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, spotted an “elderly, disoriented” man standing in a driveway, according to a police report. The resident called police and then followed the man on foot as he wandered to a nearby intersection.

  • Darren Hester ☛ A Note To Myself

    Bro, I can't help but notice your inner monologue has been extremely negative. Why are you being so hard on yourself? I've never heard you speak that harshly to your friends and family.

  • New York Times ☛ Damages From PFAS Lawsuits Could Surpass Asbestos, Industry Lawyers Warn

    Mr. Gross was referring to PFAS, the “forever chemicals” that have emerged as one of the major pollution issues of our time. Used for decades in countless everyday objects — cosmetics, takeout containers, frying pans — PFAS have been linked to serious health risks including cancer. Last month the federal government said several types of PFAS must be removed from the drinking water of hundreds of millions of Americans.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Scoop News Group ☛ How AI will change democracy

    It gets interesting when changes in degree can become changes in kind. High-speed trading is fundamentally different than regular human trading. AIs have invented fundamentally new strategies in the game of Go. Millions of AI-controlled social media accounts could fundamentally change the nature of propaganda. Advertisement

    It’s these sorts of changes and how AI will affect democracy that I want to talk about.

  • Doc Searls ☛ The People’s AI – Doc Searls Weblog

    The People’s AI can only come from people. Since it will be made of code, it will come from open-source developers working for all of us, and not just for their employers—even if those employers are companies listed above.*

    That’s how we got Linux, Apache, MySQL, Python, and countless other open-source code bases on which the digital world is now built from the ground up. Our common ground is open-source code, standards, and protocols.

  • New York Times ☛ OpenAI Says It Has Begun Training a New Flagship A.I. Model

    The San Francisco start-up, which is one of the world’s leading A.I. companies, said in a blog post that it expects the new model to bring “the next level of capabilities” as it strives to build “artificial general intelligence,” or A.G.I., a machine that can do anything the human brain can do. The new model would be an engine for A.I. products including chatbots, digital assistants akin to Apple’s Siri, search engines and image generators.

  • New York Times ☛ If A.I. Can Do Your Job, Maybe It Can Also Replace Your C.E.O.

    The chief executive is increasingly imperiled by A.I., just like the writer of news releases and the customer service representative. Dark factories, which are entirely automated, may soon have a counterpart at the top of the corporation: dark suites.

    This is not just a prediction. A few successful companies have begun to publicly experiment with the notion of an A.I. leader, even if at the moment it might largely be a branding exercise.

  • NYPost ☛ Google moving to remove bizarre AI search results, like telling users to eat rocks

    Google is scrambling to remove a wave of incorrect or even dangerous answers from its controversial AI-powered search results — including one answer that advised users to eat rocks for nutrition.

    The embattled Big Tech giant has faced a major backlash for spreading misinformation since the tool, dubbed AI Overviews, was rolled out in the US this month.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Forbes ☛ Credit Card Processing Fees (2024 Guide) – Forbes Advisor

      For merchants, it can be almost impossible to run a business without taking credit cards. However, the fees from these transactions can eat into profits, making it hard for some merchants with a small spread to stay afloat. The average credit card processing fee ranges between 1.5% and 3.5%. Just where do all these fees come from, and what can a merchant do to minimize them?

    • CNN ☛ Average credit card processing fees in 2024

      Every time a customer swipes their card to pay, the seller pays these fees to complete the transaction. According to the Merchants Payments Coalition, these fees total about $160 billion in the US and represent sellers’ “highest operating cost after labor.”

    • [Old] The Motley Fool ☛ Average Credit Card Processing Fees and Costs in 2023

      FEES ON THE RISE: Credit card companies earned $126.4 billion from processing fees in 2022, with plans to increase fees further. PROCESSING FEE VARIANCE: Credit card processing fees for merchants range from 1.3% to 3.5%, depending on the card and transaction type.

    • The Register UK ☛ You don't need a Copilot+ PC to run Microsoft Recall preview

      The controversy surrounding the feature, which has been described in some quarters as a "privacy nightmare," has threatened to overshadow the hardware launched at the same time. According to Microsoft's system requirements, the feature requires 16 GB RAM and a Copilot+ PC, replete with NPU hardware.

    • International Business Times ☛ UK Woman Mistaken As Shoplifter By Facewatch, Now She's Banned From All Stores With Facial Recognition Tech

      A big biometric security company in the UK, Facewatch, is in hot water after their facial recognition system caused a major snafu - the system wrongly identified a 19-year-old girl as a shoplifter.

      This embarrassing incident led to public shaming and resulted in the girl being banned from all stores using Facewatch's technology. She's fighting back by suing Facewatch and the store that banned her based on faulty identification.

    • Nico Cartron ☛ Privacy screen filters are still not a thing

      As I was travelling back from Paris, I worked a bit from the train station lounge, where a lot of fellow business travelers also work from, while waiting for their train.

      I was shocked by how few actually use a privacy screen filter!

    • The Star MY ☛ Speedster jailed after S’pore police tapped GPS, route data from in-car system | The Star

      The police’s Cybercrime Command received a request from the Traffic Police in late 2022, to extract the data from her vehicle’s infotainment system to investigate a possible speeding offence.

      Officers used the tool to extract datasets including call logs, messages and GPS data.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Defence Web ☛ Public warned against sharing videos inciting violence as protests bring Mthatha to a standstill - defenceWeb

    Eastern Cape Transport and Community Safety MEC Xolile Nqatha has warned the public that the State will deal decisively with any fear mongers responsible for voice notes and videos calling for a shutdown on social media.

    This comes as voice notes and videos were shared on social media seeking to intimidate, incite violence and threaten people’s democratic right to participate in the upcoming elections.

  • US News And World Report ☛ US Court to Hear Challenges to Potential TikTok Ban in September

    A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday set a fast-track schedule to consider the legal challenges to a new law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok's U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a ban.

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the case set for oral arguments in September after TikTok, ByteDance and a group of TikTok content creators joined with the Justice Department earlier this month in asking the court for a quick schedule.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Help make Meduza better: Complete this short survey to share your thoughts about our work — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russia’s Finance Ministry proposes return to progressive taxes on personal income — Meduza

• Environment

  • Tedium ☛ Plastic’s Bright-Color Problem: The Cause Of Microplastics?

    The researchers left six colors of plastic bottle caps—red, green, blue, white, black, and silver—in the sun on a Leicester roof for three years. The researchers then found that the more colorful variants dramatically decayed in the sun, while the ones without any coloring looked largely normal. Another element of the research involved grabbing old plastic at South African beaches and analyzing it based on manufacturing dates that go back as far as 45 years. There, too, the darker plastics held up more successfully than the brighter ones.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ A new challenge targets Arrowhead bottled water pipeline

    In a petition to the state, several environmental groups and local activists called for an investigation by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, arguing that the company BlueTriton Brands is harming wildlife habitat and species by extracting water that would otherwise flow in Strawberry Creek.

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Reason You’ll Never Be Rid of Clothes Moths

    None of this has been enough to eliminate the moths. These particular moths—webbing clothes moths—are simply too well adapted to modern human life; as a species, “they don’t really live outside anymore,” Isabel Novick, a biologist at Boston University, told me. Clothes moths have evolved into a perfect nuisance, so capable of subsisting on the contents of our homes that permanently purging them may be impossible.

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ In warming Great Lakes region, water, heat can be an unhealthy combination

    “You’re going to have more waterborne problems,” said Annette Gilmer, a senior public health physician at Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. “There’s already over 7 million Americans that get sick every year from water, whether it’s recreational or consumption. So you just can assume that that number is going to go up.”

  • New York Times ☛ How to Fix Carbon Offsets

    Carbon offsets have been heavily criticized as greenwashing, but they have a hidden benefit: getting crucial climate funds to developing nations.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Register UK ☛ Majority of IT pros aren't bothered about sustainability

      The survey found that US enterprises cared the least about the environmental impact of their IT infrastructure with less than a third rating it as a priority. Meanwhile sustainability ranked slightly higher in EMEA and APAC. This is possibly due to generally higher operating and power costs in these regions, which focus the mind on doing more with less.

      In fact, it shouldn't come as a surprise that, of those organizations investing in sustainable IT practices and infrastructure, most were doing so out of economic convenience rather than out of concern for Mother Nature.

• Finance

  • Andy Bell ☛ I Need Your Help to Make 11ty Fully Independent and Sustainable in 2024

    Zach writes how he is trying to work 100% full time on 11ty. To do that, the project needs financial support, so let’s make that happen.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Scoop News Group ☛ FBI’s $8 billion information technology services contract is its largest ever

    A total of 95 entities — 31 large businesses and 64 small businesses — received awards under the sequel to the Information Technology Supplies and Support Services contract, also known as ITSSS, the agency said in an update on SAM.gov. The new agreement will serve as the primary vehicle for the agency’s IT services for the next eight years.

  • RTL ☛ Who will watch the watchmen?: OpenAI forms AI safety committee after key departures

    Comprised of board members and executives, the committee will spend the next 90 days comprehensively evaluating and bolstering OpenAI's processes and safeguards around advanced AI development.

    OpenAI stated it will also consult outside experts during this review period, including former US cybersecurity officials Rob Joyce, who previously led efforts at the National Security Agency, and John Carlin, a former senior Justice Department official.

  • The Register UK ☛ China creates $47B chiptech investment fund

    Chinese media report that the third iteration of the fund will manage venture capital – a new activity for the entity – and will take a more hands-on role providing management assistance to investee companies.

  • International Business Times ☛ Billionaire Bill Gates' Trust Sells Microsoft, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway in Q1, Ups Walmart Stake by 200%

    Philanthropist billionaire and former CEO of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Bill Gates, has a significant stake in Microsoft through his holdings and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust.

    While the Trust has gradually reduced its share in the tech giant over decades, the latest 13F filing for Q1 2024, released on May 15, shows a marked drop in its Microsoft stake by 1.71 million shares to 36,499,597, worth $15.35 billion. However, it remains the largest holding of the Trust's $45.85 billion portfolio. This move comes despite Microsoft undergoing transformation growth with AI.

  • The Record ☛ NSA official is expected pick for Marines information job, as Corps handles backlog of leadership moves

    Maj. Gen. Melvin “Jerry” Carter will be responsible for developing and overseeing all of the service’s policies and strategies about how to use information to carry out its doctrine.

    Carter is currently the NSA Cybersecurity Directorate’s deputy director for combat support. In that role he is responsible for safeguarding sensitive information on U.S. national security systems and wiping out threats from foreign hackers.

  • The Verge ☛ OpenAI has a new safety team — it’s run by Sam Altman

    OpenAI is forming a new safety team, and it’s led by CEO Sam Altman, along with board members Adam D’Angelo and Nicole Seligman. The committee will make recommendations on “critical safety and security decisions for OpenAI projects and operations” — a concern several key AI researchers shared when leaving the company this month.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • DeSmog ☛ Q&A: ‘The Climate Crisis Is Directly Related to Inequality’

    • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Telegram has become a hotbed of disinformation and fake news

      All those rumours were later rebutted by Slovak authorities. But not before they’d gone viral on Telegram.

      The messaging app has become a key weapon for pro-Kremlin accounts to spread disinformation aimed at undermining support for Ukraine. More recently, Russian intelligence officers have used it to recruit petty criminals to carry out acts of sabotage across European capitals.

    • 404 Media ☛ Google Researchers Say AI Now Leading Disinformation Vector (and Are Severely Undercounting the Problem)

      As an endless stream of entirely wrong and sometimes dangerous AI-generated answers from Google are going viral on social media, new research from Google researchers and several fact checking organizations have found that most image-based disinformation is now AI-generated, but the way researchers collected their data suggests that the problem is even worse than they claim.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Meduza ☛ Civil society groups ask YouTube and Google to ‘stop helping Russian censorship’ — Meduza

  • EFF ☛ EFF Submission to the Oversight Board on Posts That Include “From the River to the Sea”

    “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a historical political phrase or slogan referring geographically to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an area that includes Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Today, the meaning of the slogan for many continues to be one of freedom, liberation, and solidarity against the fragmentation of Palestinians over the land which the Israeli state currently exercises its sovereignty—from Gaza, to the West Bank, and within the Israeli state.

  • RFERL ☛ Lawyer For Family Of Executed Iranian Protester Sentenced To 6 Years In Prison

    The Islamic Revolutionary Court of Karaj has sentenced Amir Hossein Koohkan, a defense lawyer for the family of Mohammad Mehdi Karami, who was executed during protests over the death of Mahsa Amini that rocked Iran in 2022, to six years in prison.

  • RFERL ☛ Iranian Authorities Ratchet Up Crackdown On Critics After Raisi's Death

    The Association for the Defense of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran highlighted an example of the crackdown with a report saying that factory owner Ali Reyhani Kajvar was detained and charged with "propaganda against the system and insulting Ebrahim Raisi" for his online posts regarding Raisi's death.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Censors block luxury influencers from Chinese social control media amid campaign against ‘ostentatious’ wealth

    Chinese social control media censors have blocked multiple influencers known for showing off their lavish lifestyles after an official campaign to curb displays of ostentatious wealth online was announced.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • The Dissenter ☛ Seeking Justice From The ICC For Journalists Killed In Israel's War On Gaza

  • RFERL ☛ Missing Ukrainian Journalist Turns Up In Russian Custody

    Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, who went missing in the Russia-occupied part of Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhya region last August, has turned up in Russian custody. [...]

  • CPJ ☛ Brazil’s top court acts to protect journalists from judicial harassment

    “By recognizing judicial harassment of journalists and establishing procedures to hinder multiple lawsuits aimed at censoring the media, Brazil’s Supreme Court is taking an important step towards guaranteeing press freedom in the country,” said CPJ Latin America Program Coordinator Cristina Zahar. “CPJ hopes that this reform will ensure that journalists are able to carry out their work without fear of retaliatory legal action.”

  • Michael Geist ☛ The Behind-the-Scenes Bill C-18 Battle: How Newspapers, Big Broadcasters and the CBC Are Trying to Seize Control Over How Google Money is Allocated to Canadian Media

    Rather than negotiating multiple deals with eligible news outlets in order to meet the requirements for a Bill C-18 exemption, Google has elected to negotiate with a single collective that will represent the interests of all eligible news outlets. In other words, Google will select one collective, and, no matter which collective is selected, all eligible news outlets whether big or small will have the same representation. Google issued an open call earlier this year for interested parties to submit a proposed collective structure. The company noted that the single collective must provide basic reporting and accounting of funds distributed to news businesses to both Google and the membership of the collective, develop and publish a plan and principles for managing publisher eligibility and funds distribution, and assume responsibility for settling any and all disputes arising from members. While the law establishes many of the ground rules, there is considerable room for interpretation that effectively gives the collective enormous power. This includes addressing issues associated with who is eligible to be compensated, how much money they are entitled to, whether news outlets will be audited or regularly reviewed, and the mandate to address any disputes that may arise. Google has said it will judge the applications to become the collective based on four criteria: representation, governance, transparency, and the fees charged by the collective.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Wired ☛ Cops Are Just Trolling Cybercriminals Now

    In recent months, Western law enforcement officials have turned to psychological measures as an added way to slow down Russian hackers and cut to the heart of the sweeping cybercrime ecosystem. These nascent psyops include efforts to erode the limited trust the criminals have in each other, driving subtle wedges between fragile hacker egos, and sending offenders personalized messages showing they’re being watched.

  • JURIST ☛ Pakistan police report 500 for mob violence against Christian man

    According to the first information report, locals congregated outside the Christian man’s house with weapons, such as stones, and attempted to forcibly enter his home from adjoining roofs. The locals then set his house on fire by setting a shoe factory close by and electricity supplies ablaze. While the police extricated the Christian man from his house, he was severely injured. Two other Christian families were also attacked by the mob.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Cyble Inc ☛ Ticketmaster Data Breach Surfaces Amid 2024 Musical Concerts

  The lawsuit follows public outcry, including ticketing issues during Taylor Swift’s tour. High prices, fueled by post-pandemic demand, have intensified scrutiny. Live Nation denies monopolistic behavior, but the lawsuit contends their dominance drives up prices. The Ticketmaster data breach poses another threat to the organization since databases of this caliber are usually the hot-selling items on the dark web.

• Patents

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • JUVE ☛ Ulrike Voß takes over second panel at the UPC Munich local division [Ed: UPC is totally illegal and unconstitutional, but this publisher bagged a bunch of bribes to spread fake news and to legitimise the illegality]

      Ulrike Voß will be responsible for the second panel of the local division in Munich as presiding judge. She is joined there by Daniel Voß. The two are not related, but both are from Düsseldorf and have recently been selected to strengthen the local division Munich.

    • JUVE ☛ Top 10 most-read UPC articles in the court’s first year [Ed: JUVE is paid to shill an illegal kangroo court, then it boasts about traffic]

      With the Unified Patent Court just days away from its first anniversary, JUVE Patent has rounded up the top ten most-read articles concerning the pan-European court published on the site since 1 June 2023. Clearly, the patent monopoly community’s interest in the new “super court”, as one patent monopoly litigator recently called it, has been high.

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Cox Appeals Billion Dollar Piracy Verdict Over ‘Concealed Evidence’

    Cox Communications has filed its opening brief in a new appeal of the $1 billion piracy case. A jury previously held the Internet provider liable for the music piracy activities of its subscribers. After the trial, Cox learned that the music companies 'concealed' key information about 'destroyed' piracy evidence; this allegedly damaged the foundation of the landmark lawsuit.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Serie A Legal Action Claims Cloudflare Helps Pirates Evade Piracy Shield

    Billed as the most advanced anti-piracy system ever, Italy's Piracy Shield had no chance of living up to the hype. It transpires that just eight weeks after its launch early February, top tier football league Serie A filed a complaint at an Italian court accusing Cloudflare of providing "services to pirates" that undermine Piracy Shield. In parallel, the system is already exceeding blocking limits agreed with ISPs. Now the law needs to be changed, so domains and IPs can be unblocked to free up capacity.