Leftovers

• Science

  • Wired ☛ ‘Gem’ of a Proof Breaks 80-Year-Old Record, Offers New Insights Into Prime Numbers

    In a breakthrough result posted online in May, Maynard and Larry Guth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology established a new cap on the number of exceptions of a particular type, finally beating a record that had been set more than 80 years earlier. “It’s a sensational result,” said Henryk Iwaniec of Rutgers University. “It’s very, very, very hard. But it’s a gem.”

    The new proof automatically leads to better approximations of how many primes exist in short intervals on the number line, and stands to offer many other insights into how primes behave.

• Education

  • Jim Mitchell ☛ My Internet Journey

    My journey has been a series of right place, right time moments. I wouldn’t change any of them to be where I am today. I sometimes think back to that time I was so afraid to touch a keyboard at the water company. I can’t imagine a life without technology now. It’s allowed me some of my most creatively explosive growth and connections with people that mean a lot to me.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ 1 in 4 countries have banned use of smartphones in schools due to negative impacts: UN report

    Large-scale international assessment data suggests a negative link between excessive use of technology and student performance, yet less than one in four countries have banned smartphone use in schools, according to the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report. 1 in 4 countries banned use of smartphones in schools due to negative impacts 1 in 4 countries banned use of smartphones in schools due to negative impacts

    The report on "Technology in education" published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has flagged that assessment data has found that mere proximity to a mobile device distracts students and has a negative impact on learning.

  • Pratik ☛ A New Level of Petty

    My boss unlocked a new level of petty. As exempt UT employees, we don’t get overtime. The only exception is when we have to travel for work especially events or conferences over the weekend or after-hours. We enter the extra hours in our timesheet and are awarded compensatory hours.

• Hardware

  • India Times ☛ With smugglers and front companies, China is skirting US AI bans

    It's an open secret that vendors here are offering one of the world's most sought-after technologies: the microchips that create artificial intelligence, which the United States is battling to keep out of Chinese hands.

  • [Repeat] Security Week ☛ The European Union’s World-First Artificial Intelligence Rules Are Officially Taking Effect

    Years in the making, the AI Act is a comprehensive rulebook for governing AI in Europe, but it could also act as a guidepost for other governments still scrambling to draw up guardrails for the rapidly advancing technology.

    The AI Act covers any product or service offered in the EU that uses artificial intelligence, whether it’s a platform from a Silicon Valley tech giant or a local startup. The restrictions are based on four levels of risk, and the vast majority of AI systems are expected to fall under the low-risk category, such as content recommendation systems or spam filters.

  • AnandTech ☛ Intel Extends 13th & 14th Gen Core Retail CPU Warranties By 2 Years In Response to Chip Instability Issues

    This latest announcement comes as Intel is still in the process of preparing their major Raptor Lake microcode update, which is designed to mitigate the issue (or rather, further damage) by fixing the elevated voltage bug in their existing microcode that has led to the issue in the first place. That microcode update remains scheduled for mid-August, roughly a couple of weeks from now.

    But until then – and depending on how quickly the update is distributed, even afterwards – there is still the matter of what to do with Raptor Lake desktop chips that are already too far gone and are consequently unstable. Intel’s retail boxed Raptor Lake chips ship with a 3 year warranty, which given the October 2022 launch date, would have the oldest of these chips covered until October of 2025 – a bit over a year from now. And while the in-development fix should mean that this is plenty of time to catch and replace any damaged chips, Intel has opted to take things one step further by extending the chips’ warranty to five years.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Worst Feature Apple Ever Made

    The problem is that Screen Time—the Apple tool, and the broader fixation—doesn’t seem to help. The main issue is that it flattens phone usage into a single number. “We treat screen time as this unitary experience,” Nicholas Allen, a psychologist at the University of Oregon and the director of its Center for Digital Mental Health, told me. “And of course, it’s an incredibly diverse experience. It can be everything from finding out useful information, to being bullied, to catching up on the news, to watching pornography, to connecting with a friend.”

    When it comes to the health consequences of phones, so much depends on context. How someone uses an app matters, as well which app. One person might use Instagram to message with friends, whereas another could just scroll their feed aimlessly, feeling worse about themselves. “If I just say, ‘How much time do you spend on social media?,’ I don’t get the nuance,” David Bickham, the research director at the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, told me. Scrolling through your camera roll is fun if you’re looking at vacation photos; it’s maybe not so great if you’re obsessing over pictures of your ex.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Emotional Turmoil in the Gaming Industry: Layoffs, Closures, and Earnings Reports

    This week has been emotionally taxing for the gaming community, with significant developments in the industry. Bungie, a major gaming company, announced layoffs of 220 employees. CEO Pete Parsons acknowledged that the company had been overly ambitious and stretched themselves too thin. Anonymous sources also revealed that Bungie had made promises to Sony that they couldn’t fulfill, leading to further complications.

    In another blow, GameStop unexpectedly shut down Game Informer, a legendary gaming news publication. The entire staff was laid off, leaving fans devastated. Game Informer, which has been around for as long as I’ve been interested in video games, was a go-to source for news and information. Its sudden closure came as a shock, and the site has now been replaced with a farewell landing page, making it inaccessible.

  • Michal Pitr ☛ Build Your Own Inference Engine: From Scratch to "7"

    I like to keep things practical. Let’s train a simple neural network, save the model, and write an inference engine that can execute inputs against the model. Sounds like a fun time to me!

  • The Washington Post ☛ How do people use ChatGPT? We analyzed real AI chatbot conversations

    So The Washington Post looked at nearly 200,000 English-language conversations from the research data set WildChat, which includes messages from two AI chatbots built on the same underlying technology as ChatGPT. These conversations make up one of the largest public databases of human-bot interaction in the real world.

    Researchers say these conversations are largely representative of how people use chatbots, such as ChatGPT.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Mere Civilian ☛ Why I am stuck using Dropbox?

      Suddenly, it occurred to me that perhaps I should evaluate why I am not keen to continue using Dropbox. Sometimes, we overthink things and writing helps paint a clear picture of the situation.

  • Confidentiality

    • Dhole Moments ☛ Against XMPP+OMEMO - Dhole Moments

      XMPP is a messaging protocol (among other things) that needs no introduction to any technical audience. Its various implementations have proliferated through technical communities for decades.

      Many large tech companies today used to run XMPP servers. However, the basic protocol transmitted plaintext. If you were lucky, it was plaintext over SSL/TLS, but servers could still see all of your message contents.

      OMEMO (XEP-0384) is an attempt to staple end-to-end encryption onto the XMPP ecosystem.

      It’s largely inspired by, and based on, an earlier version of the Signal protocol, so you might be tempted to believing that it’s good.

      In my opinion, it’s not.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Atlantic ☛ Why We’re Banning Phones at Our School

    In the early 1960s, when my parents were in high school, they received free sampler packs of cigarettes on their cafeteria trays. To the cigarette companies, it made sense: Where better to find new customers than at schools, whose students, being children, hadn’t yet established brand loyalties? This is hard to fathom in 2024.

    I believe that future generations will look back with the same incredulity at our acceptance of phones in schools. The research is clear: The dramatic rise in adolescent anxiety, depression, and suicide correlates closely with the widespread adoption of smartphones over the past 15 years. Although causation is debated, as a school head for 14 years, I know what I have seen: Unfettered phone usage at school hurts our kids. It makes them less connected, less attentive, less resilient, and less happy. As the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has written for this magazine, smartphone-based life “alters or interferes with a great number of developmental processes.” It is time to remove phones from schools.

  • New York Times ☛ How Two Russian Spies Went Deep Undercover With Their Children

    It did — but in ways that far surpassed even her darkest suspicions.

    The online gallery was a front for Russian intelligence, part of an elaborate network of deep-cover sleeper spies trained to impersonate Argentines, Brazilians and other foreign nationals by Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, the SVR, around Europe.

  • Deseret Media ☛ US sues TikTok over 'massive-scale' privacy violations of kids under 13

    The Chinese-owned short-video platform boasts around 170 million U.S. users, and is currently fighting a new law that would force ByteDance to divest TikTok's U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a ban.

    The lawsuit is the latest U.S. action against TikTok and its Chinese parent over fears the company improperly collects vast amounts of data on Americans for the Chinese government, while influencing content in a way that could harm Americans.

  • The Wilson Center ☛ Saudi Arabia Faces the Missing 28 Pages | Wilson Center

    In December 2002, a joint Senate-House intelligence committee published its findings on the horrendous 9/11 terrorist attacks, which included evidence of possible links between the government of Saudi Arabia and some of the 15 Saudis involved in the bombings of the Pentagon and Twin Towers that cost nearly 3,000 American lives. For national security reasons, the 28 pages detailing that information were never published. But they may be shortly and revive yet another intense examination of alleged Saudi support for anti-American terrorism.

    The famous missing pages, if now declassified, will likely put the former Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and his wife, Haifa, back in the limelight. Some of the allegations after the attacks focused on the royal couple’s financial aid to the Saudi spouse of a student who appeared to have had contacts with two of the hijackers living in California, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, prior to 9/11. Bandar was a flamboyant, free-wheeling diplomat with endless wit and charm, who served as ambassador to the United States for 22 years. He was in Washington at the time of the hijackings and had to deal with the barrage of accusation in the media and Congress regarding official Saudi complicity in the 9/11 plot.

  • Reason ☛ Poll: Most Americans Say the First Amendment Grants Too Many Rights

    Americans were further divided along partisan lines. Over 60 percent of Democrats thought the First Amendment could go too far, compared to 52 percent of Republicans.

    "Evidently, one out of every two Americans wishes they had fewer civil liberties," Sean Stevens, FIRE's chief research adviser, said on Thursday. "Many of them reject the right to assemble, to have a free press, and to petition the government. This is a dictator's fantasy."

  • New York Times ☛ Takeaways From Our Investigation Into Banned A.I. Chips in China

    The Times found an active trade in Nvidia chips in China despite U.S. national security restrictions, as well as unreported incidents of how the technology had been used to further defense research.

  • BoingBoing ☛ Trump wants Fox News debate after chickening out at ABC News

    Most media report this context, but I was not surprised to see The New York Times report it as "Trump Agrees to a Fox News Debate With Harris on Sept. 4," using his wording as its headline. This suggests that he was talked into it and that Harris is on the hook to do it, neither of which is true. Harris doing well in the polls means you're going to start seeing this kind of steering, editorializing and perspective management; whatever the journalistic intent, the incentive is to bring the horse race back to parity. Another example at the Times today is "Should Harris Talk Much About Her Racial Identity? Many Voters Say No." — a near-perfect example of reporters being sent to out to find vox pops that express an editor's opinion.

  • New York Times ☛ Israeli Strike on Gaza Shelter Kills at Least 30

    An Israeli airstrike in Gaza City killed at least 30 people, according to a Palestinian emergency agency and local media outlets. Israel said it targeted Hamas “command and control centers.”

  • New York Times ☛ Middle East Crisis: For Israelis, Jittery Wait for Retaliatory Strikes Stretches Into a New Week

    Airlines have suspended service to Israel ahead of expected attacks by Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah. That has left tens of thousands of Israelis unable to return home, an Israeli official said.

  • New York Times ☛ Hezbollah and Israel Exchange Limited Fire Over the Border

    The attack from Lebanon did not appear to be the major retaliation that Hezbollah has threatened in the wake of the Israeli assassination of a senior commander.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Sanctioned China firms creating front companies to acquire Hey Hi (AI) chips, says report — new firms pop up faster than the U.S. ban hammer can strike

    America's ban on high-tech exports to China doesn't isn't always very effective in stopping the flow of the latest chips into the country.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • New York Times ☛ Behind the Biggest Prisoner Swap Since the Cold War

      The recent prisoner exchange between Russia and the U.S. — the biggest and most complex since the Cold War — was a diplomatic chess game that required patience and creativity. Mark Mazzetti, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, explains.

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Anti-War Musician Kushnir Dies In Custody

      Russian classical pianist and anti-war activist Pavel Kushnir has died in pretrial custody in the city of Birobidzhan, the capital of Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Oblast.

    • RFERL ☛ Scores Evacuated In Russian Far East Due To Flooding

      A state of emergency has been declared in the Russian Far East region of Buryatia due to severe flooding.

    • JURIST ☛ Freed Russia opposition leader vows to continue fight for peace in home country

      Russian opposition activist Ilya Yashin vowed to continue his fight for peace and justice in Russia on Friday after being freed and exiled in a historic prison swap between Russia, the US and other countries.

    • JURIST ☛ OMCT urges Russia to not continue listing of indigenous rights organizations as extremist

      The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OMCT) released a press statement Friday urging Russia to refrain from designating Indigenous Peoples’ and national minorities’ rights organizations and other groups as “extremist organizations.”

    • New York Times ☛ War Shatters Dating Scene for Women in Ukraine

      While the pursuit of love might seem secondary to dealing with the horrors and privations of the war, many Ukrainians say they need romantic relationships to help them cope.

    • New York Times ☛ Ukraine Has Received F-16 Fighter Jets, Zelensky Says

      President Volodymyr Zelensky did not say whether the jets had already flown combat missions. A shortage of trained pilots and a limited number of jets will constrain their immediate impact.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine Unveils Newly Arrived F-16s As Russian Shelling Intensifies In East

      Russia has claimed that its armed forces seized the eastern Ukrainian village of Novoselivka Persha, as Ukrainian authorities on August 4 ordered the evacuation of civilians from areas of heavy Russian shelling in the Donetsk region.

    • France24 ☛ Ukraine displays first F-16 jets donated by Western allies

      President Zelensky on Sunday unveiled the first American-made F-16 jets that Ukraine has received from NATO allies. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway have pledged to deliver more than 60 F-16s to bolster Ukraine’s air defences after the US gave the green light last year.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ When People in Flint Got Sick, the Government Covered It Up

    The following excerpt is from chapter one of We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Cover-Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans by reporter Jordan Chariton. We the Poisoned investigates the government’s efforts to cover up one of the most extreme human-caused environmental disasters in living memory: the contamination of the water supply in working-class Flint, Michigan.

    This year marks a decade of the deadly scandal and the government’s continuing corruption — and the people of Flint still don’t have clean water. Chariton interviewed hundreds of Flint residents for We the Poisoned, which took eight years to report. The book exposes the austerity and mismanagement that led to the disaster and reveals the government’s desperate attempts to cover its tracks.

    We the Poisoned will be published in August 2024, and features a foreword by Erin Brockovich. Jordan Chariton is an independent reporter and leads the progressive media network Status Coup News.

• Environment

  • The Guardian UK ☛ ‘The Adriatic is becoming tropical’: Italian fishers struggle to adapt to warm sea

    “The water feels very hot, almost like a bath,” said Daniele as the couple finished their walk. “A lot has changed in 50 years. I remember the sea was a lot wavier, now it’s mostly flat.” Alfreda added: “The quantity of the fish has changed too, and the species, some don’t even exist any more.”

  • NYPost ☛ Giant Hogweed can cause third-degree burns -- and it's all over New York

    The Giant Hogweed is one of the most dangerous invasive plants in the US — and it’s all over New York state.

    The hogweed is packed with sap that causes phytophotodermatitis — meaning it stops the skin’s ability to protect itself from the sun’s harmful rays. In extreme cases, exposure can result in third-degree burns and even blindness. And the effects can last months, or even years.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Register UK ☛ 53 years since first battery-powered car drove on the Moon

      In NASA's history of the project, the original cost of the LRV was a princely $19 million, with the first LRV due for delivery by April 1, 1971. As it turned out, the cost ballooned to $38 million, and four LRVs were produced, although the last was used for spares after the Moon landing missions were cut back.

      Other models were built, including an engineering model, a trainer, and a pair of 1/6 gravity models for testing the deployment mechanism. The 210 kg LRV was stored folded on one side of the LM descent stage with the chassis facing outwards. The rover would be lowered to the lunar surface via a set of reels and tapes before deployment, much of which was automatic. Switch on the power, and the vehicle was ready to go.

    • [Old] TechRadar ☛ I watched Nvidia's Computex 2024 keynote and it made my blood run cold

      There was something that Huang said during the keynote that shocked me into a mild panic. Nvidia's Blackwell cluster, which will come with eight GPUs, pulls down 15kW of power. That's 15,000 watts of power. Divided by eight, that's 1,875 watts per GPU.

      The current-gen Hopper data center chips draw up to 1,000W, so Nvidia Blackwell is nearly doubling the power consumption of these chips. Data center energy usage is already out of control, but Blackwell is going to pour jet fuel on what is already an uncontained wildfire.

• Finance

  • Pro Publica ☛ A Tax Break for Washington Data Centers Promised Jobs. Is It Paying Off?

    In 2010, as the country still reeled from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, tech companies, real estate developers and rural lobbyists went to the state Capitol in Olympia, Washington, to press for a tax break for data centers.

    Turning it down, supporters argued, would mean rejecting high-paying, long-term and environmentally friendly jobs in distressed parts of rural Washington. Owners of data centers — gargantuan facilities filled with computer servers that power the internet — were scouting Washington and other states for new homes.

  • India Times ☛ Tech layoffs cross 100,00 in July 2024: Intel, Microsoft, Dyson, UKG and these companies cut thousands jobs - Times of India

    The tech industry witnessed significant layoffs in July 2024, with over 8,000 professionals losing their jobs across 34 companies. Major layoffs include Intel's 15,000 job cuts and UKG's 2,200. Other notable companies like Microsoft, Intuit, and Dyson also downsized. Startups and smaller firms such as ReshaMandi, Koo, and WayCool faced severe cuts and closures.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Techdirt ☛ New York State Community-Owned Broadband Networks Get $60 Million In Funding

    We’ve mentioned a few times that there are more than $42 billion in broadband subsides about to drop in the laps of state leaders thanks to the 2021 infrastructure bill. Since the bill gives individual states leeway on how this money is spent, a lot of states (like Pennsylvania) are simply throwing the money in the laps of giant telecom monopolies with long histories of subsidy fraud and abuse.

    Some states, like California and New York, are, thankfully, doing things a little differently. Hopefully.

  • Cyble Inc ☛ Hong Kong Cybersecurity Bill Focus On Critical Infrastructure

    Hong Kong’s Secretary for Security, Chris Tang Ping-keung, has sought to clarify concerns surrounding the newly proposed Hong Kong cybersecurity bill, particularly its impact on US businesses operating in the region. Tang’s reassurances come in response to queries raised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong regarding the bill’s scope and implications for privacy.

    The bill in question, known as the Protection of Critical Infrastructure (Computer System) Bill, aims to bolster cybersecurity measures for essential infrastructures across eight key sectors. These sectors include energy, information technology, banking, communications, maritime, healthcare services, and land and air transport.

  • SCMP ☛ Operational data not focus of Hong Kong cybersecurity bill, Chris Tang tells US companies

    “By using a broad and vague term such as ‘information technology’, it may inadvertently capture a large array of technology companies and lose the focus on regulating organisations who control critical infrastructures and computer systems and should be the ones responsible for implementing the cybersecurity requirements under the proposed legislation,” it said.

    The business group also urged the government to make it clear that the proposed legislation should only apply to critical infrastructures and vital computer systems located in Hong Kong.

  • India Times ☛ Kamala Harris: Why Silicon Valley should get behind Kamala Harris

    Vice President Harris was San Francisco's district attorney when the Web 2.0 tech boom was creating thousands of high-paying new jobs in the city, expanding its tax base, enabling major telecommunications upgrades, increasing private sector investment in the city and attracting human capital across many professions. She was California's attorney general during the smartphone boom of the 2010s, when tax revenues from tech company I.P.O.s and stock market gains turned California's budget deficits into surpluses and reinforced the state's standing as the world's innovation leader. Ms. Harris's familiarity with the needs of the tech industry and her ability to innovate and protect the public interest mark her as a 21st-century leader.

  • [Repeat] Security Week ☛ CISA Names Lisa Einstein as First Chief AI Officer

    Einstein has led CISA’s AI efforts since 2023 as CISA’s Senior Advisor for AI. Since 2022, Einstein also served as the Executive Director of the CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ President Akufo-Addo Calls For Collective Action Against Misinformation And Disinformation

      “Misinformation refers to false or inaccurate information spread unintentionally, while disinformation involves the deliberate dissemination of false information to deceive,” explained President Akufo-Addo. “These false narratives can distort public perception, undermine trust in our institutions, and even incite violence.”

      The digital age, with its rapid information dissemination capabilities, has amplified the challenge. Social media platforms, though beneficial in many ways, have become breeding grounds for the spread of false information. President Akufo-Addo emphasized that false information could skew public perception of candidates and political parties, leading to uninformed decision-making at the polls. Moreover, disinformation campaigns often exploit societal divisions, amplifying existing tensions and posing risks to social cohesion.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ Opinion | We must act to protect free speech in Michigan

    Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or “SLAPP” lawsuits, threaten free speech. Wealthy and powerful entities file these anti-democratic lawsuits to silence, intimidate or punish an individual who speaks out on an issue of public interest. They are not looking to win their cases in the traditional sense. Instead, SLAPP suits are meant to silence the speaker. As a result, they deprive the public of information and prevent discussion on important community issues.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • RFERL ☛ Georgia Plans To Extradite Detained Azerbaijani Journalist

    The Georgian authorities are planning to extradite Afgan Sadiqov, an Azerbaijani journalist who was detained in Tbilisi on August 3.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Judge who authorized Kansas newspaper raid escapes discipline with secret conflicting explanation

    The magistrate who authorized last year’s police raid on the Marion County Record escaped discipline from a state panel by making claims that contradict statements in federal lawsuits about how the search warrants arrived in front of her and whether the police chief swore they were true before she signed them.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Adriaan Roselli ☛ AT Is More Than Screen Readers

    Well, hello there. It’s nice to see you. If you’re here because I sent you the link, it’s nothing personal. You’re a lovely person and have good fashion sense. Your choice of terminology, however, can create challenges for the kinds of precision sometimes necessary in my industry. I appreciate your patience as you read this.

  • NOLA ☛ Louisiana media outlets sue to block police buffer law

    Six news organizations have filed a federal lawsuit over a new Louisiana law that makes it a crime to be within 25 feet of an on-duty police officer if ordered to stay away.

    Act 259, which takes effect Aug. 1, "has grave implications for the ability of reporters and news organizations ... to exercise their First Amendment rights," the complaint reads.

  • India Times ☛ Tibet: Tibetans condemn ban on language content by Chinese social media as cultural suppression

    The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) in Dharamshala has strongly criticised Douyin, a Chinese social media platform, for banning all Tibetan language content. Tibetans both in Tibet and worldwide have voiced their concerns regarding this decision. Speaking to ANI, TCHRD director, Tenzin Dawa, said that the decision by Douyin to ban content in the Tibetan language has made it impossible for Tibetan users of the platform to create content and earn a living from it.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Ciprian Dorin Craciun ☛ [remark] Linux UEFI booting simplified

    So far, I've tried to stay as away as possible from UEFI booting (especially with Linux), because I found the whole mechanism too complicated and convoluted. (And, many years ago, when I had my hands on my first hardware that happened to support UEFI booting, the fact that this particular UEFI implementation wasn't working quite properly didn't help much in building my confidence in the technology.)

    However, a long time has passed since then, the technology has (hopefully?) matured somewhat in the interim, and thus I've said it's time to give it a second look. (And, such is karma, this time around another piece of hardware I happen to own requires me to use UEFI booting, as opposed to enabling the "legacy mode", -- which in UEFI parlance is called "CSM" (Compatibility Support Module) -- otherwise I don't get integrated graphics support... For those who are wondering, Intel is the culprit here; or perhaps it's Gigabyte? Who knows...)

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• The Register UK ☛ DoJ makes move as AI antitrust storm gathers round Nvidia

  The GPU supremo announced the acquisition of Run:ai back in April, in a deal said to be valued at roughly $700 million. This is peanuts to Nvidia, of course, which briefly became the world's most valuable company in June with a market capitalization of $3.335 trillion.

  But reports suggest that the DoJ is also investigating allegations that Nvidia has been abusing its market dominance in the GPU accelerators that are used for AI model training. It is not clear if this would constitute a second, possibly separate probe.

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Taking Pirated Copies Offline Can Benefit Book Sales, Research Finds

    In an effort to reduce online book piracy, publishers send millions of takedown notices every week. These enforcement efforts impact the availability of pirated content, but do they increase legitimate sales as well? According to academic field research, takedowns can increase sales of printed books with the right approach.