Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Science Alert ☛ Don't Give Up on Earth! Here Are Some Good Environmental News Stories of 2024

  Reasons for cautious optimism.

Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Tech In Plain Sight: Theodolites

  We take it for granted that you can look at your phone and tell exactly where you are. At least, as exact as the GPS satellites will allow. But throughout human history, there has been a tremendous desire to know where here is, exactly. Where does my farm end and yours start? Where is the border of my city or country? Suppose you have a flagpole directly in the center of town and a clock tower at the edge of town. You know where they are precisely on a map. You also know how tall they are. What you need is a theodolite, which is an instrument that measures angles very precisely.

• Hackaday ☛ Intentionally Overly-Complex Clock Is Off To A Good Start

  [Kelton] from Build Some Stuff decided to create a clock that not only had kinetic elements, but a healthy dose of Rube Goldberg inspiration. The result is a work in progress, but one that looks awfully promising.

• Hackaday ☛ Gears Are Old And Busted, Capstans Are Cool

  Zero backlash, high “gear” reduction, high torque transparency, silent operation, and low cost. What is this miracle speed reduction technology, you ask? Well, it’s shoelaces and a bunch of 3D printed plastic, at least in [Aaed Musa]’s latest installment in his series on developing his own robot dog.

• Bryce Wray ☛ “Slash” pages, existing and new

  I would go so far as to guess that a typical personal website has “slash” pages — /about, /contact, and so forth — but so far hasn’t referred to them as such. Because of a page of which I first learned this past weekend, that may occasion some changes. It certainly has with my site.

• Standards/Consortia

  • Mediocregopher ☛ Mediocre Feed: My New Feed Reader - mediocregopher's lil web corner

    I've long since replaced all of my social media usage with an old-fashioned RSS feed. It takes a non-trivial time to amass a large enough collection of websites that you are both interested in and update semi-regularly, but after a few years it's pretty rare that I feel that I'm lacking.

• Science

  • Science News ☛ The sun is entering solar maximum. Expect auroras, and more

    To find out what to expect over the next few years, and to understand how this period of high solar activity impacts us, Science News talked to Teresa Nieves-Chinchilla, acting director of NASA’s Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office in Greenbelt, Md., and Shawn Dahl, a space weather forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo. The conversations have been edited for clarity and brevity.

  • Science Alert ☛ Randomized Trial Finds Circumcised Men Are Less Likely to Get HIV

    It's still no silver bullet.

  • Science Alert ☛ New Model Could Finally Predict How Blood And Other Weird Fluids Flow

    This is actually quite useful.

  • Science Alert ☛ Study Finds Potential Downside to Vigorous Exercise We Didn't Know About

• Education

  • Stanford University ☛ ‘A time of potential turmoil’: Outgoing President Richard Saller reflects on a turbulent year

    The Daily sat down with interim University president Richard Saller to reflect on campus protests, free speech, lessons from the past year and more.

  • Stanford University ☛ From the Community | Freedom of speech is a labor issue

    Graduate workers express solidarity with pro-Palestine protesters in White Plaza: "They must be allowed to engage in this protest and peaceful demonstration without any threat of academic, professional, or financial harm," write Jason Beckman, Sophie Jean Walton and Chloé Brault.

  • James G ☛ Designing a reading interface for research

    I have been reading more research papers lately, but I am running into many points of friction. Staying up to date in a single field of interest, for example, is difficult. I am not striving to stay up to date with everything, nor is that necessarily attainable according to what I have read and heard from people who have tried. Rather, I want a system that lets me see papers that may be of interest that I can skim through when I have time.

  • Literary Hub ☛ Against Disruption: On the Bulletpointization of Books

    Yes! Business books are good for business but is the business mindset good for books? Too many entrepreneurs come into the book space and don’t realize that the majority of readers love to get lost in books and to ponder them and process them and to argue with our friends about them.

    With the rise of year-end reading goals on sites like Goodreads, even those of us who actually like to read can get caught up in the commodification of reading, where productivity must increase year over year. Optimization and efficiency leave very little room for meandering walks with great big books that require deep thought and engagement. And I don’t know about you but that’s what I love about literature the most.

  • Reason ☛ Harvard Will Stop Requiring DEI Statements for Many Faculty Positions

    Under the new rules, finalists for a position will be required to submit two statements, one about their "efforts to strengthen academic communities" and another about how they would foster a "learning environment in which students are encouraged to ask questions and share their ideas."

    The change comes in the wake of rising opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements in university faculty hiring. Critics frequently argue the statements, wherein a candidate usually lays out their personal and research commitments to increasing diversity, are essentially ideological litmus tests.

  • Harvard University ☛ Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Will No Longer Require Diversity Statements

    Criticism of DEI efforts at Harvard reached an apex when former Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned in January following backlash of her handling of campus antisemitism and allegations of plagiarism in her academic work.

• Hardware

  • GamingOnLinux ☛ Intel revealed more Lunar Lake processor details with their new Xe2 graphics

    Intel has provided more details on the upcoming Lunar Lake processors, which will come with an impressive sounding bump in graphical power. Set to release sometime in Q3 2024.

  • GamingOnLinux ☛ AMD reveal new Zen 5 Ryzen 9000 processors, plus Ryzen AI 300 Series for laptops

    Things are heating up again in the hardware space, with AMD now formally revealing the new Zen 5 Ryzen Processors.

  • Herman Õunapuu ☛ They make USB-C cables with displays now!

    That’s when I found out that there exist cables that have little screens on them that show the power consumption of the connected device. This is a great little addition to my power consumption monitoring addiction. It’s also a simple way to understand if your device is charging at the speed that you expect it to.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • CS Monitor ☛ Fauci talks to Congress on COVID: Three key takeaways

    Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke before a congressional panel on the public loss of trust in health officials. Both parties agreed on the need for better pandemic prevention and preparedness.

  • Pro Publica ☛ What to Know If You’re Hurt Working on a Wisconsin Dairy Farm

    This guide will be released in Spanish in several formats to make this information more widely accessible. If you want to receive printed booklets that you or your organization can share with dairy workers in Wisconsin, or if you want to be notified when we post related videos on TikTok and YouTube, sign up here.

    We are reporters at ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative news organization. Over the past two years, we have reported on the lives of dairy workers in Wisconsin and the dangers they face on the job.

  • Lou Plummer ☛ On Work | Living Out Loud

    I've been working in some way or another since having a paper route in the sixth grade. I tried to retire in 2020 and that turned into a disaster when I felt totally lost without something to do. In my life I've done landscaping, farm work, cooking in a restaurant, military service, carpentry, been a prison guard, a factory worker, a technical writer and worked in IT in healthcare, banking and education, both K-12 and higher ed. In all of those jobs I have maintained the attitude that work is something we do so that we can have the life we want outside of work. I have never let my job define who I am as a person. I've enjoyed much of my working life, and I have had some really good bosses along the way. I spent the most time working in public education, and I took advantage of opportunities to move up on that career path, but i never felt the need to keep doing more and more to keep earning more and more. I got to a point where I was comfortable on Maslow's hierarchy and I turned my attention to doing the other things in life that make me happy, riding my bicycle, hiking with my wife and visiting my grandchildren.

  • The Kent Stater ☛ Kent under Air Quality Alert

    There is an Air Quality Alert for much of northern Ohio.

    The Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency issued an advisory for ground level ozone for Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage and Summit counties.

  • The Hill ☛ US has highest maternal mortality rate among wealthy nations: Study

    The analysis found that the U.S.’s current rate, which was calculated using 2022 data, was still far higher than those in other similarly well-off countries.

    Nordic countries and Switzerland had the lowest maternal mortality rates out of the 17 countries included in the report, with Norway reporting zero maternal deaths in 2022.

  • The Commonweatlh Fund ☛ U.S. Maternal Mortality Crisis: An International Comparison | Commonwealth Fund

    This brief updates an earlier Commonwealth Fund study of differences in maternal mortality, maternal care workforce composition, and access to postpartum care and social protections between the U.S. and other high-income countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.2 In this edition, we have also included data on Chile, Japan, and Korea — all high-income countries with universal health care systems.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Hiltzik: House Republicans attack Fauci, but fail to land a punch

    He’s revered in the communities of immunologists and virologists; even after Trump sidelined him because he was speaking truths about COVID that Trump didn’t like, he was a prominent spokesman for a scientific approach to the pandemic.

  • uni Emory ☛ Atlanta water main breaks impact Emory hospital operations

    Emory University Hospital Midtown experienced changes in operations on June 1 due to two large water main breaks near Joseph E. Boone Boulevard NW that occurred on May 31, forcing the hospital to relocate some patients and divert ambulance traffic, according to a media statement by Emory Healthcare.

  • New York Times ☛ FDA Panel Rejects Use of MDMA for Treatment of PTSD

    An independent group of experts expressed concerns that the data from clinical trials did not outweigh risks for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Silicon Angle ☛ The evolution of IAM: Enhancing digital security with Hey Hi (AI) and biometrics

    The identity and access management (IAM) evolution from simple access controls to a sophisticated framework integrating multifactor authentication, biometrics and Hey Hi (AI) has significantly enhanced digital security and privacy.

  • 404 Media ☛ Laws About Deepfakes Can’t Leave Sex Workers Behind

    In the seven years since I first wrote about deepfakes, before there was even a word for the AI-powered face-swapping technology, people have finally started to realize that sexually explicit deepfakes meant to harass, blackmail, threaten, or simply disregard women’s consent have always been the primary use of the technology—not spreading disinformation or endangering democracy. This has always been the case, but now, when deepfakes capture national attention, it’s typically because a big-name celebrity has been the target (most recently, Taylor Swift). And even when it’s a lesser-known person whose face is transposed onto a nude or sexualized body, the narrative centers on that person as the sole victim.

  • Wired ☛ Google Cut Back AI Overviews in Search Even Before Its ‘Pizza Glue’ Fiasco

    As anyone who so much as glanced at the internet in the past few weeks probably noticed, Google’s sweeping AI upgrade to its search engine had a rocky start. Within days of the company launching AI-generated answers to search queries called AI Overviews, the feature was widely mocked for producing wrong and sometimes bonkers answers, like recommendations to eat rocks or make pizza with glue.

  • Michael Burkhardt ☛ Just Let Zoom Be Zoom

    This story in The Verge about Zoom CEO Eric Yuan’s dystopian vision for AI digital copies doing our jobs has been making the rounds.

    Yuan “wants to take on Microsoft and Google in the enterprise software market by making docs and email and other productivity tools like chat.” He wants “digital versions” to take over the menial work of sifting through spam and interacting with your coworkers via email. Or are they just bots too?

    WTF?

  • Johnny Decimal ☛ 22.00.0063 Why my software will be Apple-only

    I hate most Electron apps. They’re janky, they just don’t feel right. They use gigs of your RAM. They take ages to load. You end up with hundreds of dependencies and you’ve no idea what most of them do.

    I know this because I’ve built web stuff. It’s cool to hate on JavaScript but I love it! It’s the only language I know.

    But I won’t be using it to build a desktop-class app.

  • Right to Warn About Advanced Artificial Intelligence ☛ A Right to Warn about Advanced Artificial Intelligence

    So long as there is no effective government oversight of these corporations, current and former employees are among the few people who can hold them accountable to the public. Yet broad confidentiality agreements block us from voicing our concerns, except to the very companies that may be failing to address these issues. Ordinary whistleblower protections are insufficient because they focus on illegal activity, whereas many of the risks we are concerned about are not yet regulated. Some of us reasonably fear various forms of retaliation, given the history of such cases across the industry. We are not the first to encounter or speak about these issues.

  • The Hill ☛ AI whistleblowers warn of dangers, call for transparency

    “So long as there is no effective government oversight of these corporations, current and former employees are among the few people who can hold them accountable to the public,” the letter reads. “Yet broad confidentiality agreements block us from voicing our concerns, except to the very companies that may be failing to address these issues.”

  • The Register UK ☛ More layoffs at Microsoft: What's really going on here?

    Faced with greater expenses, Microsoft is cutting costs, which in this case means getting rid of employees.

    [...]

    Measured in executives, Microsoft is laying off about four Nadellas.

  • IT Pro ☛ ‘It’s time to question agile’s cult following’: Doubts cast on method’s future, with 65% of projects more likely to fail

    The shine is wearing off for agile development practices, with new research showing that projects adopting this method are far more likely to fail.

    The claims follow the publication of a survey of more than 600 UK and US-based software engineers for a new book, Impact Engineering. The study found that agile software projects are 268% more likely to go wrong than those employing other methods.

    65% of projects weren’t delivered within budget, the study noted, while quality standards were also found lacking.

    Meanwhile, the survey found the majority of UK and US business leaders are concerned about the timely delivery of projects. And the success rates for transformation initiatives are low, with 96% of agile transformation projects failing.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Troy Hunt ☛ Telegram Combolists and 361M Email Addresses

      Last week, a security researcher sent me 122GB of data scraped out of thousands of Telegram channels. It contained 1.7k files with 2B lines and 361M unique email addresses of which 151M had never been seen in HIBP before. Alongside those addresses were passwords and, in many cases, the website the data pertains to. I've loaded it into Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) today because there's a huge amount of previously unseen email addresses and based on all the checks I've done, it's legitimate data. That's the high-level overview, now here are the details: [...]

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • WhichUK ☛ Facebook and Instagram will use your posts to train Hey Hi (AI) models: how to opt out

      Meta announces changes in its privacy policy for users in Europe

• Defence/Aggression

  • Defence Web ☛ US forces conduct precision airstrike against ISIS-Somalia, 3 militants killed

    On 31 May, US Africa Command (Africom) carried out an airstrike targeting Islamic State in Somalia (ISIS-Somalia), in the area of Dhaardaar, about 81 km southeast of Bosaso, Somalia, resulting in three fatalities. Africom said Friday “An initial assessment of the strike is that three ISIS militants were killed, with no civilian casualties.”

  • JURIST ☛ Arab states and institutions condemn Israel bill designating UNRWA as terrorist organisation

    The Arab Parliament, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Oman on Sunday condemned an Israeli bill aimed at designating the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as a terrorist organization.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-24 [Older] Berlin police clear pro-Palestinian demo, open probes

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-24 [Older] Germany could face dilemma: Support The Hague or Netanyahu

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-05-24 [Older] Armenia returns 4 border villages to Azerbaijan

  • Bertrand Meyer ☛ Blog Archive Upside down

    What is going on?

    In the US, the leading presidential candidate is a vulgar crook, a serial business failure, acting like he is a vassal to Putin. His first term was an endless string of catastrophes, including the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his compatriots through gross mismanagement. And yet he mesmerizes the entire Republican party and half of the population, which despises his adversary, one of the most skilled presidents ever, surrounded by an A-team of aides, having brought back the country to financial stability, taken the Dow to unheard levels, defended Israel’s right to exist against the extremists in his own camp, and re-established respect for the US. But no, the electorate is ready to elect the sinister buffoon.

    Have the American people gone mad?

  • The Atlantic ☛ Europe braces for Trump’s return

    For people around the world, the outcome of the U.S. presidential race is an existential question. When my colleague McKay Coppins visited four allied countries in Europe and spoke with European diplomats, government workers, and politicians, he observed “a sense of alarm bordering on panic at the prospect of Donald Trump’s reelection.” I spoke with McKay about the heightened anxiety among allied countries who view Trump as a looming threat to the stability of the global order.

  • The Nation ☛ Why Trump’s Second Victory Would Be Worse

    What’s different this time, as this special issue details, is that there is now an organized effort to transform Trump’s resentments and impulses into policy. Trump’s MAGA acolytes have not only dethroned the Republican establishment in Congress and red-state legislatures; they have taken over the party’s think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, once the bastion of Reagan conservatism.

    Now these MAGA operatives are, in the words of Heritage president Kevin D. Roberts, intent on “institutionalizing Trumpism.” The foundation’s Project 2025 includes a 900-page book, Mandate for Leadership, that lays out a Trumpist agenda for every corner of the government; a still-secret 180-day Transition Playbook for the first six months in office; a right-wing version of LinkedIn to recruit and vet candidates for political appointment; and a Presidential Academy to train them.

    The essays in this issue describe core aspects of what is more assault than agenda, revealing how Project 2025 turns Trump’s insults and grievances into policy predicates. The result is a chilling guidebook to a second Trump term.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Near 80th anniversary of D-Day, British women recognized for their non-combat roles in the Allied forces

    As the 80th anniversary of D-Day approaches on June 6, hundreds of thousands of women who worked behind the scenes in crucial non-combat jobs for the Allied forces are finally getting the recognition they deserve.

  • Brattleboro Reformer, Vermont ☛ Centenarian veterans are sharing their memories of D-Day, 80 years later

    Few witnesses remain who remember the Allied assault. The Associated Press is speaking to veterans about their role in freeing Europe from the Nazis, and what messages they have for younger generations.

  • Brattleboro Reformer, Vermont ☛ The last WWII vets converge on Normandy for D-Day and fallen friends and to cement their legacy

    Veterans of World War II, many of them centenarians and likely returning to France for one last time, pilgrimaged Tuesday to what was the bloodiest of five Allied landing beaches on June 6, 1944. They remembered fallen friends. They relived horrors they experienced in combat. They blessed their good fortune for surviving. And they mourned those who paid the ultimate price.

    They also bore a message for generations behind them, who owe them so much: Don't forget what we did.

  • New York Times ☛ D-Day’s 80th Anniversary Might Be the Last for Many WWII Veterans

    It is 80 years since the Allied invasion of Normandy, and the average age of veterans hovers at 100. Once they are gone, how will their sacrifices be remembered?

  • New York Times ☛ Traveling to Europe, Biden Will Find Both Solidarity and Isolation

    The president left on Tuesday to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in France, where he will rally American allies in defense of Ukraine even as he defies them on the war in Gaza.

  • New York Times ☛ Wednesday Briefing: Modi’s Bruising Path to a Third Term

    Also, a Times analysis of the destruction in Ukraine.

  • JURIST ☛ Maldives government to impose entry ban on Israel passports

    The Maldivian government has decided to ban all Israeli passports, according to a statement released by the President’s official press office. President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu decided to change the laws within the country due to the increasing public outrage over the attacks by Israeli forces on Gaza.

  • Reason ☛ The 100th Anniversary of One of America's Worst Laws—the 1924 Immigration Act

    This is the law that made most immigration presumptively illegal, with terrible effects that continue even today.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • RFERL ☛ Another Former Wagner Fighter Jailed For Murder In Russia

      A former Russian inmate, who was convicted of murder but freed from serving the remainder of his term after joining the Wagner mercenary group to fight in Ukraine, has been convicted and sentenced for a new murder after returning home from the front line.

    • Latvia ☛ Latvia and UK call on companies to bid in drones for Ukraine coalition

      On June 3 the United Kingdom (UK) and Latvia opened the bidding for companies to supply First-Person View (FPV) drones to Ukraine, on behalf of the Drone Capability Coalition.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Ukrainian lawmakers are debating banning Telegram. Here’s what to know.

      Ukraine’s parliament is debating a bill that would ban Telegram unless the company implements certain changes to protect against national security threats.

    • France24 ☛ Macron, Zelensky to discuss Ukraine's needs in Paris on Friday

      French President Emmanuel Macron will host Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday in Paris for talks on the war-battered nation's needs, the Elysee palace announced.

    • France24 ☛ French military instructors in Ukraine would be 'legitimate target', Russia says

      French military instructors training soldiers in Ukraine would be a "legitimate target" for Russian strikes, Moscow's top diplomat said Tuesday, amid reports France could send trainers to the country.

    • France24 ☛ Russian FM Lavrov takes aim at 'West' during visit to Congo Brazzaville on Africa tour

      Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took aim Tuesday at the West and its supposed "objectives" in Ukraine and Libya during a visit to the Congo as part of his Africa tour.

    • RFERL ☛ Bulgarian Prosecutors Join Probe Into Alleged War Crimes In Ukraine

      The Sofia City Prosecutor's Office is taking part in an investigation into whether citizens were murdered in 2022 in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine.

    • RFERL ☛ Moldova Cracks Down On Interpol Evasion Scheme With Help From France, U.S., Britain

      A multinational operation in Moldova has uncovered an international criminal organization with links to people from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine suspected of undermining an Interpol system for identifying fugitives, Moldovan authorities and Interpol said on June 4.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Issues Warrant For Former Belarusian Olympian Fighting In Ukraine

      A Moscow court on June 4 issued an arrest warrant for well-known Belarusian athlete Paval Shurmey, who is currently part of a group of Belarusians fighting alongside Ukrainian troops against Russia.

    • RFERL ☛ Four Suspects In Attack On Ukrainian Volunteers Arrested In Prague

      Czech police at Prague airport have detained four Russian-speaking people suspected of attacking Ukrainian activists in the Czech capital on June 1.

    • RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Vows To Increase Use Of Drones As Ukraine Fights To Regain Initiative

      The Ukrainian military will continue using long-range drones to "degrade" Russian infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on June 4, praising Ukrainian forces for using both first-person view (FPV) drones and long-range drones in combat.

    • New York Times ☛ Ukraine Strikes Into Russia With Western Weapons, Official Says

      The official said Ukraine had destroyed missile launchers in the Russian region of Belgorod using an American-made rocket system.

    • Meduza ☛ Holding out for reinforcements Ukraine has shored up defenses near Kharkiv, but Russia is launching attacks along the entire front line — Meduza

    • France24 ☛ Poland-Belarus migrant tensions play into EU election campaign

      In Poland, officials say the number of attempted illegal border crossings from Belarus has shot up. The ruling Civic Platform – which is in a tight election race with the former governing party, Law and Justice – says Belarus and Russia are using migrants as a tool of hybrid war against Poland, something Minsk and Moscow deny. We look at how the issue is playing out in the election campaign, and at the election opinion polls in Poland.

    • JURIST ☛ Russia imposes new entry bans on British politicians and journalists

      Russia’s foreign ministry announced on Monday that it added a number of British politicians and journalists to Russia’s list of people banned from entering Russia. The names and number of people subject to the new entry ban are unknown.

    • RFERL ☛ Czechs Say They Will End Use Of Russian Oil Within A Year

      Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on June 4 that the country will stop using all Russian oil by the end of the first half of next year by increasing capacity at the Transalpine Pipeline (TAL).

    • RFERL ☛ Kremlin Critic Yashin Gets Second Solitary Confinement In Row

      Instead of being released on June 3 after serving a 15-day stint in solitary confinement, Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin received another 12 days in the punitive cell, his Telegram channel said on June 4.

    • Marcy Wheeler ☛ On Eve of Opening Arguments, WSJ Launders David Weiss’ Russian Disinformation Problem

      How, on the eve of opening arguments in the Hunter Biden case, do you launder the fact that David Weiss reneged on Hunter Biden's plea deal because he was chasing false claims from a guy with close ties to Russian intelligence?

    • ADF ☛ Bribery Charges Reveal Russia’s Expanding ‘African Legion’ in Libya

      ADF STAFF Russian authorities in late April arrested a high-ranking defense official on charges of large-scale bribery. An investigation that led to the arrest of Maj. Gen. Timur Ivanov unearthed a trail of corruption and the Kremlin’s continuous efforts to expand its influence in Libya, The Libyan Observer newspaper reported.

    • Meduza ☛ Duolingo reportedly deletes references to LGBTQ people in app’s Russian version — Meduza

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ On Eve of Opening Arguments, WSJ Launders David Weiss' Russian Disinformation Problem

    But somehow WSJ neglects to mention the issue — the several issues — that go to the core of Garland’s inadequate oversight of Special Counsels. First, how was this allowed to get this far? How were senior FBI people bugging Garland about this allegation when the most basic vetting of travel records debunked it? How was the FBI chasing an allegation from a guy who had recycled debunked Fox News propaganda? How was David Weiss permitted to demand Special Counsel status, and renege on the plea deal he made with Hunter Biden, based on a tip he had been given back in 2020?

    How is that not election interference?

• Environment

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Rate of global warming caused by humans is at an all-time high, say scientists

    "Our analysis is designed to track the long-term trends caused by human activities. Observed temperatures are a product of this long-term trend modulated by shorter-term natural variations. Last year, when observed temperature records were broken, these natural factors were temporarily adding around 10% to the long-term warming."

  • Energy/Transportation

    • European Commission ☛ Opening remarks by Commissioner Simson at the EU-Japan High-Level Hydrogen Business Forum

      Let me first thank the Japanese Minister, Ken Saito, for the warm welcome and for hosting this joint EU-Japan High-Level Business Hydrogen Forum in Tokyo.

    • [Repeat] James G ☛ The Train WiFi Test

      I have travelled thousands of miles by train over the last few years, on which WiFi access and capability has ranged from reasonable to inaccessible. I am regularly on trains where pages take several seconds to load, if they load at all. In these times, I am appreciative of websites that are fast to load. I am doubly appreciative of sites with offline fallbacks so that I can continue to use them even if I temporarily lose my internet connectivity.

    • US News And World Report ☛ Power-Hungry Data Centers Spur US Talks With Big Tech, Energy Chief Granholm Says

      She did not name any of the companies involved.

      Data centers could use up to 9% of total electricity generated in the U.S. by the end of the decade, more than doubling their current consumption, the Electric Power Research Institute said in a report last week.

    • [Old] Robert Rehak ☛ Why I'll never fly United Airlines again

      Because I am 6’6″ tall, they long ago squeezed me out of coach and forced me to buy first-class tickets. Now, their avarice is squeezing me out of the sky. If ever there were an argument for splitting up a behemoth to create more competition in an industry, United is it. Are you listening, Congress and FAA?

      This story starts innocently enough. Last week, I had reservations to/from Chicago on United Airlines. While checking in at the airport kiosk, I was presented with an array of automated up-sell pitches.

    • H2 View ☛ UN approves reoxygenation plans using offshore green hydrogen production by-product

      Lhyfe’s BOxHy project has been endorsed by the United Nations’ (UN) Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sustainable Development 2021-2030.

• Finance

  • Nike Layoffs: Sportswear Company Lays Off Its Employees From European Headquarters in Netherlands

    Nike has laid off its employees at its European headquarters in the Netherlands, as part of a cost-cutting plan and to improve operational efficiency. Check for further details here.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • New York Times ☛ Meet the Man Everyone Trusts on U.K. Election Nights: John Curtice

    Prof. John Curtice, a polling guru with a formidable intellect and an infectious smile, has contributed to Britain’s TV election coverage since 1979.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Trump Witnesses Have Received Financial Benefits From Trump Businesses, Campaign

    Nine witnesses in the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump have received significant financial benefits, including large raises from his campaign, severance packages, new jobs, and a grant of shares and cash from Trump’s media company.

    The benefits have flowed from Trump’s businesses and campaign committees, according to a ProPublica analysis of public disclosures, court records and securities filings. One campaign aide had his average monthly pay double, from $26,000 to $53,500. Another employee got a $2 million severance package barring him from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement. And one of the campaign’s top officials had her daughter hired onto the campaign staff, where she is now the fourth-highest-paid employee.

  • Wired ☛ OpenAI Employees Warn of a Culture of Risk and Retaliation

    The letter calls for not just OpenAI but all AI companies to commit to not punishing employees who speak out about their activities. It also calls for companies to establish “verifiable” ways for workers to provide anonymous feedback on their activities. “Ordinary whistleblower protections are insufficient because they focus on illegal activity, whereas many of the risks we are concerned about are not yet regulated,” the letter reads. “Some of us reasonably fear various forms of retaliation, given the history of such cases across the industry.”

  • Pratik ☛ India's shocking electoral outcome

    The closest the U.S. experienced that was overturning Roe v. Wade, except if overturning it was, in fact, popular among the general public. Save for the minorities that amount to around 20% of India’s population, the vast majority of Hindus seem to shrug their shoulders and say, yeah, not ideally, but it was the right thing to do.

  • Brilliant British Ltd ☛ If These 3 Counties Did Not Exist, Trump Would Have Beaten Biden… – Brilliant Maps

    This translated into an electoral college victory of 306 for Biden vs Trump’s 232.

  • Derek Kędziora ☛ Idyllic places

    Crucially, and what I think nearly every Anglo-American take misses, is that you can’t create these places through either left or right-wing politics. Boring, practical, and non-reactionary politics are a result of stable communities.

  • USMC ☛ Marines fast track qualified cyber, signals recruits to rank of gunny

    All military services have struggled to recruit and retain cyber specialists, who often can command significantly higher salaries in civilian jobs.

    In July 2023, the Marine Corps tripled its signing bonus for new cyber enlistees to $15,000 up from the $5,000 bonus from the previous year. It was the highest signing bonus for any job in the Marine Corps at the time.

  • New York Times ☛ Opinion | This D-Day, Europe Needs to Resolve to Get Its Act Together

    Europe today faces four great challenges that typically determine the fate of great powers. Take a brief look: [...]

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • New Yorker ☛ Speech Under the Shadow of Punishment

    For years, universities have been less inclined to protect speech and quicker to sanction it. After this spring’s protests, it will be difficult to turn back.

  • New York Times ☛ Arrest Threatens Nepal’s Standing as Bastion of Free Speech

    A media executive was arrested after his company published critical reports about a powerful government minister.

  • CS Monitor ☛ On the 35th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, commemorations live on overseas

    As China quashes large-scale commemorations of the 35th anniversary of Beijing’s June 4 Tiananmen Square crackdown within its borders, overseas commemorative events have grown increasingly crucial to foster hope and counteract aggressive censorship efforts.

  • New York Times ☛ As China’s Internet Disappears, ‘We Lose Parts of Our Collective Memory’

    The number of Chinese websites is shrinking and posts are being removed and censored, stoking fears about what happens when history is erased.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ X updates policies to allow some sexually explicit content and AI-generated porn

    Elon Musk’s X Corp. may have rattled a few people today when it updated its policies to formally allow various kinds of sexually explicit content on the platform, including AI-generated prurience.

  • Wired ☛ Russians Love YouTube. That’s a Problem for the Kremlin

    “Twenty years of total government control have turned television into an incessant marathon of disgraceful propaganda, lies, and censorship,” as Navalny told his viewers in a 2020 video. Behind him, a stack of TVs broadcast different clips of Russian TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov, a ubiquitous face on the Russia1 channel.

    In December of that year, Navalny began his regular video dispatches with a startling introduction: “Hi, it’s Navalny. I know who wanted to kill me. I know where they live. I know where they work. I know their real names.”

    Working with investigative journalism outfit Bellingcat, Navalny had posed as a Kremlin official in order to coax a confession out of one of his would-be assassins. The alleged agent recounted how the team of Russian operatives applied the nerve agent Novichok to Navalny’s underwear. Navalny recorded the whole thing and posted it directly to his YouTube channel.

  • VOA News ☛ Children honor parents’ legacies as victims of 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown

    The Chinese government refers to the events at Tiananmen Square in June 1989 as a "counterrevolutionary riot" and downplays its severity. In China, discussion of the event in media or textbooks of the event is largely forbidden. The authorities regularly harass those at home or overseas who seek to keep the memory of the events alive.

    Zhang Hongyuan told VOA he was raised in China by his father and forced to mature early, especially after Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. Zhang Hongyuan said authorities began to tighten control over the dissidents of the “1989 generation,” which included his father, Zhang Yi.

  • VOA News ☛ Diaspora community holds Tiananmen commemorations despite crackdowns in Hong Kong, China

    Ahead of the anniversary, Hong Kong authorities arrested eight people over social media posts commemorating June Fourth, which the police claim were aimed at using “an upcoming sensitive date” to incite hatred against the Hong Kong government and contained seditious intentions.

    Most prominent among those arrested is human rights lawyer Chow Hang-tung, who has been detained since 2021 for organizing an annual Tiananmen Vigil in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, which has been banned since Beijing imposed the controversial National Security Law on the former British colony in 2020.

  • NPR ☛ Heavy security in China and Hong Kong on 35th anniversary of Tiananmen crackdown

    China has long quashed any memory of the killings, when the Chinese government ordered in the army to end the months-long protests and uphold Communist rule. An estimated 180,000 troops and armed police rolled in with tanks and armored vehicles, and fired into crowds as they pushed toward Tiananmen Square.

    The death toll remains unknown to this day. Hundreds, if not thousands are believed to have been killed in an operation that started the night before and ended on the morning of June 4, 1989.

    [...]

    Across China, the event remains a sensitive and taboo subject that is heavily censored, and any mention or reference on social media is erased.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • RFA ☛ Unofficial monk who became internet sensation in Vietnam ends pilgrimage

    Thich Minh Tue won admirers for his ascetic way of life – but was not part of the state-sanctioned Buddhist sangha.

  • France24 ☛ Nigerian unions shut down power grid with indefinite minimum wage strike

    Nigeria's main labour unions on Monday shut down the national grid and disrupted flights across the country as they began an indefinite strike over the government's failure to agree a new minimum wage. This strike is the fourth embarked upon by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), two of the country's biggest union federations, since President Bola Tinubu took office last year.

  • Ars Technica ☛ Zoom CEO envisions AI deepfakes attending meetings in your place

    LLMs are large language models—text-predicting AI models that power AI assistants like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. They can output very convincing human-like text based on probabilities, but they are far from being able to replicate human reasoning. Still, Yuan suggests that instead of relying on a generic LLM to impersonate you, in the future, people will train custom LLMs to simulate each person.

  • Pete Brown ☛ Zoom’s AI thing is transparently bullshit.

    The richest part of this whole idea is that CEO guy says Zoom is doing this to give people more free time, more time with their families.

    My dude, you know what gives people more time with their families right now, without insane resource consumption and a fountain of exponential bullshit? LET THEM WORK FROM HOME.

  • JURIST ☛ Pakistan Christian attacked by mob over blasphemy accusations dies from injuries

    Additionally, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) released a fact-finding report discussing the May 25 mob violence incident. The HRCP found that it was “highly likely” that the May 25 attack was targeted against Nazir Masih’s family, beginning as a personal dispute that was “given a religious color” to “exact maximum leverage:”

    "Despite the death of Nazir Masih, the Punjab government has attempted to downplay the incident by reportedly discouraging press coverage and failing to condemn the incident unequivocally. We have seen this pattern of violence before. We should not have to see it again and again."

  • VOA News ☛ Taliban publicly flog 63 Afghan men, women for crimes such as 'immoral relations'

    International rights groups have consistently criticized worsening human rights conditions, particularly those of Afghan women, after the Taliban takeover, demanding that they reverse their restrictions on women and civil liberty.

    De facto Afghan authorities have barred girls from attending schools beyond the sixth grade and many women from public and private workplaces, deterring the world from granting diplomatic recognition to the men-only Taliban government.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Brandon ☛ I'm a Little Fed Up

    I had a bit of a rough week. My job has been taking advantage of me. It seems like daily, more gets added to my plate and less gets taken off. Friday was particularly tough, and when I got home, I laid down in bed with my MacBook and I clicked on a blog post that featured some movie titles. I thought those links would take me to IMDB, but instead I found myself routed to YouTube, where I got the "Disable your ad block message" on all four tabs. I saw red.

  • The Hill ☛ Why Netflix will stop working on some Apple TVs

    It’s not clear what may have led Netflix to halt its services on these older Apple TVs, which the company does not sell anymore. Users will likely need to upgrade their Apple TVs to continue watching Netflix on their second or third-generation devices.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Guest Post: Diversity Pilots Initiative Comment on Proposed Changes to PTAB Practice

    Guest post by Ashton Woods, a JD candidate and member of the Juelsgaard Intellectual Property and Innovation Clinic at Stanford Law School. This post is part of a series by the Diversity Pilots Initiative, which advances inclusive innovation through rigorous research. DPI will be hosting its second conference at Emory University Law School in Atlanta on Friday, September 20, 2024. Indicate your interest by signing up here.

    On February 21, the USPTO issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Expanding Opportunities to Appear Before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), and DPI filed one of seven comments on the proposal. DPI’s full comment can be found here.

  • Unified Patents ☛ $8,000 for Intellectual Ventures networking patents prior art

    Unified Patents added four PATROLL contests, each with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on the list below. The patents are owned by Intellectual Ventures LLC, an NPE and generally relate to virtual data warehousing. The patents have asserted Kubernetes implementations of JP Morgan Chase, Comerica, and Liberty Mutual.

  • Unified Patents ☛ Express Mobile website software patent monopoly affirmed invalid by Federal Circuit

    On May 29, 2024, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Office's final decision confirming that claim 1 of U.S. Patent 6,546,397 were unpatentable. Owned and asserted by Express Mobile, Inc., a well-known NPE, the ’397 patent monopoly generally relates to website building software. Express Mobile has asserted this patent monopoly over 100 times in district court against companies employing both proprietary website-building platforms and open-source platforms like WordPress and Magento.

  • Unified Patents ☛ $4,000 for Atlantic IP Services entity Croga Innovations software patents prior art

    Unified Patents added two PATROLL contests, each with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on the list below. The patents are owned by by Croga Innovations, Ltd., an entity of Atlantic IP Services Limited. The patents generally relate to software applications and are being asserted against Kubernets implementations.

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • JUVE ☛ “Heavy tanker UPC has launched, but it’s far from sailing in safe waters” [Ed: UPC is illegal and unconstitutional, but this publisher got bribed to promote and legitimise this crime]

      Supporters have often described the UPC project as a heavy oil tanker that is difficult to stop once underway. Many a patent monopoly expert referred to it thus – even when Brexit and the German constitutional challenge brought the project to the brink of failure.

• Trademarks

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-05-30 [Older] Elettra Lamborghini and the patronymic trade mark

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-05-31 [Older] EUTM application for TV NOW remanded by EU Board of Appeal on absolute grounds

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-05-30 [Older] [Book Review] Forever

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Spotify CEO Daniel Ek — Worth $4.7 Billion — Dragged on Social Media After Saying Content Costs “Zero” to Create

    Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is worth $4.7 billion by 2024 estimates. His recent comments on X/Twitter have sparked backlash from artists after saying content creation costs are “near zero.” With Spotify notoriously paying fewer royalties to songwriters and publishers amid its bundling scheme—Ek is now walking back those comments.

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-05-29 [Older] Outline of scientific paper insufficient to confer originality

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-05-27 [Older] Connecting the dots

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Liverpool Man Sentenced for Selling 'Pirate' Firesticks on Facebook

    Earlier today, a 41-year-old man from Liverpool received a two-year suspended prison sentence for selling IPTV subscriptions and 'fully loaded' Firesticks. The man, who used Facebook and WhatsApp to facilitate the sales, pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown Court.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Nintendo Hits 127 Switch Piracy Tutorial Repos After 'Cracking' URL Encryption

    A popular GitHub repo and over 120 forks containing Switch emulation tutorials have been targeted by Nintendo. While most forks are now disabled, the main repository has managed to survive after being given the opportunity to put things right. Whether Nintendo appreciated the irony is unclear, but it appears that use of encoding as a protection measure to obfuscate links, was no match for the video game company's circumvention skills.

  • Michael Geist ☛ CRTC Bill C-11 Ruling “Makes Web Giants Pay” But it is Canadian Consumers That Will Get the Bill

    The CRTC key objective appears to have been to ensure that the competing groups hoping for some of the streamer pot of gold all get something: 2% for the Canada Media Fund (divided by 0.9% maximum for English and at least 0.6% for French), 1.5% for news, 0.5% for the Indigenous Screen Office, 0.5% for Diversity and Inclusion Funds, and another 0.5% for independent productions. These numbers are significantly above the typical international standard that is closer to the 2% total range, which will make Canada less competitive globally in terms of regulatory costs. The CRTC says that streamers can apportion up to 1.5% of the 2% CMF contribution to their own Cancon (with a maximum of 60% in English), but the problem is that they currently don’t qualify as Cancon creators. There is a similar breakdown on the audio side, with money allocated to everything from new music production to radio station news. Given that audio streaming services already operate on thin margins with the majority of revenues going to licensing, the services may be unsustainable in Canada leading to a market exit (as happened briefly in Uruguay) or significant price increases. At a time when affordability is a major concern, Canadian consumers should prepare for a new Bill C-11 fee on their bill.