Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Fun And Failure

  My sister is a beekeeper, or maybe a meta-beekeper. She ends up making more money by breeding and selling new queen bees to other beekeepers than she does by selling honey, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t also process the sweet stuff from time to time. She got a free steam-heated oscillating hot knife, used for cutting the waxy caps off of the tops of the cells before spinning the combs down to extract honey, and she thought it might be easier to use than her trusty hand-held electric hot knife.

• Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Steve Ledlow

  This is the 54th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Steve Ledlow and his blog, tangiblelife.net.

• Ruben Schade ☛ Eight pointless facts about me

  Back by popular demand! Wait, don’t interrogate that.

  NetBSD’s pkgsrc has more packages than my cupboard.

• Standards/Consortia

  • [Old] Orhun Parmaksız ☛ Zig Bits 0x4: Building an HTTP client/server from scratch

    Let's experiment with the std.http module of Zig >=0.11 and create an HTTP server/client from scratch (along with some benchmarks)!

  • [Old] Hazel Weakly ☛ Pick Your Distributed Poison

    One of the hardest things for people to understand with distributed systems is that eventual consistency is the same thing as eventual inconsistency. The very same pattern that lets you non atomically deal with things also ensures that eventually you’ll have a system that doesn’t match your understanding. Resources will go stale, things will go missing, stuff will exist without ever having been created, and data will be destroyed that never got manifested.

• Science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] Is there such a thing as an objectively beautiful building? Here’s the science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] What fur development can tell us about our ancient ancestors

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Discover Mosquitoes Are Using Infrared to Track Humans Down

    The deadly secret is out.

  • Science Alert ☛ Radical New Super-Tough Transistor Could Revolutionize Electronics

    No wear after 100 billion cycles.

  • NYPost ☛ This is the worst song to play during sex, according to science — and it’s a song about sex

    To set the mood in the bedroom, you'll need bangers on queue — but most people are likely choosing the wrong ones.

  • Hackaday ☛ How Hot Is That Soldering Iron?

    It is common these days to have a soldering iron where you can set the temperature using some sort of digital control. But how accurate is it? Probably pretty accurate, but [TheHWCave] picked up a vintage instrument on eBay that was made to read soldering iron temperature. You can see the video below, which includes an underwhelming teardown.

• Education

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] Netherlands: Nationwide ban on phones in schools underway

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Building A DIY MSX Mega Cartridge

    [Mike] from Leaded Solder has a soft spot for old computers, and a chance encounter with a friend sent them deep down the deep hole that is the world of 80s and 90s-era Japanese home computers.  Many people playing with these machines have all kinds of issues to deal with, such as rotting cartridges, failing components, and just dirt and mank in critical places. [Mike] decided that working on an MSX-standard custom programmable cartridge would be sensible, but then got stuck on how the MSX cartridge mapping works.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Micro-ATX chassis just 16 liters in size supports quad-slot GPUs and 280mm liquid coolers

    Case manufacturer Flash Scale has announced a new ultra-compact Micro-ATX chassis resembling the size and form factor of Mini-ITX cases, as reported by IT Home. Known as the G300 "Mini Cannon," the case measures just 16.8 liters in volume and has a handle at the top for easy portability.

  • Hackaday ☛ Should You Run Servo Horns Or Direct Couplings In Your RC Planes?

    Whenever you buy a servo, it usually comes with a little baggie full of various plastic horns. Most of us pick our favorite and use it in our projects. Some of us hack them up, glue them back together, and do all kinds of weird things with them. And others skip them entirely, going for direct drive instead. In a new video, [Dynamix Systems] explores when going direct drive is the right solution.

  • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

    • India Times ☛ New iPhone will use Arm's chip technology for AI: report

      Apple's latest iPhone with its A18 chip, which is set to be unveiled at an event on Monday, has been developed using SoftBank-owned Arm's newest V9 chip design, the Financial Times newspaper reported on Saturday.

      Apple is set to host its fall event on Sept. 9 at its headquarters in Cupertino, California, where it will likely unveil a series of new iPhones and updates to other devices and apps.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Hackaday ☛ Rendering Skin Transparent Using The Food Dye Tartrazine

    Although we generally assume that opacity is the normal look for animals like us humans, this factoid is only correct for as long as you maintain the dissimilar optical refraction indices of skin and the more aqueous underlying structures. What if you could change the refraction index of skin? If you could prevent the normal scattering at the interface, you could reveal the structures underneath, effectively rendering skin transparent. [Zihao Uo] and others demonstrate this in a paper published in Science.

  • Science Alert ☛ Human Defenses Against Viruses First Evolved Billions of Years Ago, Study Suggests

    A gift as old as multicellular life itself.

  • NYPost ☛ Lawsuits piling up for Boar’s Head following listeria outbreak that killed 9

    The lawsuits against Boar's Head include claims of personal injuries, wrongful death, and deceptive marketing practices.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] Infected blood scandal: A 'horrifying' global disaster

  • Truthdig ☛ The Corporate Bully Taking Your Kid’s Lunch Money - Truthdig

    The company and its competitors are raking in more than $100 million a year from fees on lunch money alone, according to a July report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal consumer watchdog. The fees are particularly burdensome on low-income families, who often can’t afford to load a large lump sum of money onto a student’s meal account and therefore pay more frequent flat transaction fees. Regulators found that vulnerable families may pay as much as 60 cents in fees for every $1 they spend on lunch.

    “They designed a system to nickel and dime hundreds of thousands of people once every other week,” said Adam Rust, the director of financial services at the consumer advocacy group Consumer Federation of America, calling the fees “a hidden cost of just living.”

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Growing need. Glaring gaps. Why mental health care can be a struggle for autistic youth

    Despite the growing diagnosis of autism, experts and advocates have bemoaned glaring gaps in services to meet the mental health needs of autistic youth.

  • New York Times ☛ Israel Strikes Schools Turned Shelters in Jabaliya, Gaza Medics Say

    Israel said it had launched a “precise strike” against Hamas militants operating from two school compounds in northern Gaza, as the family of a slain American lashes out at Israel.

  • New York Times ☛ The Pivotal Decision That Led to a Resurgence of Polio

    In 2016, the global health authorities removed a type of poliovirus from the oral vaccine. The virus caused a growing number of outbreaks and has now arrived in Gaza.

  • RFA ☛ EXPLAINED: The (worrying) popularity of caterpillar fungus

    The parasite is an important income source for rural Tibetans, but imposters are crowding the market.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Nvidia's Hey Hi (AI) GPUs are cheaper to rent in China than in the US — $6 per hour for eight Nvidia A100 GPUs

    The rent of 8-way Nvidia A100 servers is 40% cheaper in China than in the U.S., as Chinese companies are smuggling plenty of them.

  • Don Marti ☛ Don Marti: Hey Hi (AI) legal links

    Slop is Good Search engines you can’t trust because they are cesspools of slop is hard to imagine. But that end feels inevitable at this point. We will need a new web. (I tend to agree with this. Search engine company management tends to be so ideologically committed to busting the search quality raters union, and other labor organizing by indirect employees, or TVCs, that they will destroy the value of the search engine to do it.)

  • New York Times ☛ How Telegram Became a Playground for Criminals, Extremists and Terrorists

    For millions of people, Telegram is like any other social media or messaging app.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Telegram to drop ‘people nearby’ feature and improve moderation

    The changes announced by Durov included removing the app’s “people nearby” feature, which he said had “issues with bots and scammers”, and replacing it with “businesses nearby”, featuring legitimate businesses; and disabling media uploads on the app’s blogging tool, Telegraph, which Durov said was being “misused by anonymous actors”.

    The Verge, a tech news site, also reported that Telegram has removed references on its FAQ page to private chats being protected and that requests to moderate them would not be processed. A spokesperson told the site that the app’s source code had not changed but users could report a new chat to moderators.

  • France24 ☛ Telegram chief Durov denounces French charges as ‘surprising’ and ‘misguided’

    Durov, 39, was charged after four days under arrest in France on several counts of failing to curb extremist and illegal content on Telegram.

  • Make Tech Easier ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] New Microsoft Copilot PCs Can’t Play Popular Games

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • [Old] Harvey Reid ☛ The Great Subway Violin Experiment

      The results of Bell’s experiment appeared to be very conclusive, and no one considers them fuzzy. According to Weingarten: “Three minutes went by before something happened. Sixty-three people had already passed when, finally, there was a breakthrough of sorts. A middle-age man altered his gait for a split second, turning his head to notice that there seemed to be some guy playing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something. A half-minute later, Bell got his first donation. A woman threw in a buck and scooted off. It was not until six minutes into the performance that someone actually stood against a wall, and listened. Things never got much better. In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua Bell played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look. “

      $20 of that $32 was from the one person who recognized Bell, and who had just seen him play the night before at the Library of Congress, so the 26 givers among the 1096 commuters pitched in a whopping $12, including a lot of pennies. There was never a crowd, and the fears never materialized that there might be a need for extra security. So the moral or message of the story seems to be simply that commuters might have walked by the Mona Lisa also, and that you can’t expect “random people” to notice and appreciate great art on their own without some kind of guidance, commentary or marketing. Even the title of the article hints at the expression “pearls before swine” that is the credo of elitism itself. How many times have we been told that people need to be taught to appreciate great art? I’ve often compared playing music in anonymous situations to selling Picassos door-to-door. It’s hard for people to believe there is something amazing going on when there is no crowd, and nothing telling you to pay attention. There is a lot of context and provenance involved.

    • [Old] Stackframe Inc ☛ OAuth from First Principles

      I've wanted to write a blog post for everyone who learns things the same way that I do; by trying to break them.

      I'll start off with an awfully flawed implementation that authorizes a user with a 3rd-party app, and then continuously attack it until we arrive at something that's secure, kind of.

      N.B.: This is not for you if you're looking to implement OAuth 2.0 in production. You're probably better off reading the relevant RFCs, but even then I'd ask why you're trying to reinvent the wheel.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Local DK ☛ Denmark to allow police to use facial recognition

      An agreement between the government, the Socialist People's Party (Socialistisk Folkeparti, SF), the Denmark Democrats and the Conservative party is to allow the new use of technology in law enforcement.

      The agreement does not apply to real-time facial recognition.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] German businesses worried about far-right gains in the east

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] Czech Republic: 1 dead as police find 30 migrants in truck

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-01 [Older] Solingen memorial: German president urges migration control

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-08-31 [Older] Germany: Police shoot dead armed man in Berlin

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-01 [Older] Poland marks 85 years since WWII outbreak

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-01 [Older] Nigeria's Black Axe, an organized crime group on the rise

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-01 [Older] Harris calls Trump's Arlington visit 'a political stunt'

  • New Yorker ☛ Will Harris Get Trump to Self-Destruct at the Debate?

    “The stakes are genuinely huge,” Evan Osnos says. “As we’ve learned this year, debates can be actually decisive.”

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] Special security zone declared in Diyarbakır

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] Amapanyaza passing out parades at four SA Army units

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-09-01 [Older] Egypt and Somalia strengthening economic and security collaboration

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] Soldiers stopped drugs worth R10 million entering SA in August

  • ANF News ☛ 2024-09-04 [Older] A member of Internal Security Forces killed in Qamishlo

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-04 [Older] Is any part of Syria safe for deportations?

  • HRW ☛ 2024-09-04 [Older] Lebanon/Cyprus: Refugees Pulled Back, Expelled, Then Forced Back to Syria

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China sentences Taiwanese politician Yang Chih-yuan to 9 years jail for ‘separatism’

    A Chinese court has sentenced a Taiwanese politician who supports the island’s independence to nine years in jail for “separatism”, an official told state media on Friday. China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to seize it one day, by force if necessary.

  • JURIST ☛ US federal court vacates class certification in Black Lives Matter protesters’ lawsuit

    The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Thursday vacated the class certification of Black Lives Matter protesters in their 2020 complaint against the city of Los Angeles for alleged use of excessive force.

  • JURIST ☛ US appeals court partially reinstates Hawaii and California firearm carry restrictions

    The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Friday partially reinstated 2023 laws in Hawaii and California banning the carry of firearms in certain “sensitive places.” After the laws’ passage, the “sensitive place” designations were subsequently challenged as violating the US Constitution’s Second Amendment, which establishes the right to keep and bear arms.

  • New York Times ☛ Harris’s Combative Debate Style Will Get Its Biggest Test Against Trump

    Kamala Harris’s razor-sharp debate skills have powered her political ascent. Her success next week will turn on how well she adapts to an unpredictable rival.

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] Villager killed in armed attack targeting forest protection protest in northeastern Turkey

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-04 [Older] Egypt's el-Sissi meets Erdogan on first visit to Turkey

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] Israel/Gaza: Why is the war drawing Turkey and Egypt closer to one another?

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-08-30 [Older] Austrian national wanted by Interpol nabbed in central Turkey

  • Raw Story ☛ MSNBC's Chris Hayes plays devastating supercut of Trump's 'pretty obvious mental decline'

    An MSNBC host said former President Donald Trump's cognitive struggles are becoming more obvious by the day — and it's gotten to the point where he has trouble formulating a coherent policy statement anymore.

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ GOP lawsuits set stage for state challenges if Trump loses election

    The stakes would increase dramatically should Trump lose the election and then try to overturn the result. That’s what he attempted in 2020, but the court system rejected him across the board. Trump and his allies lost more than 60 lawsuits trying to reverse President Joe Biden’s win.

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Cases Against Trump: A Guide

    All of this means that Trump heads toward the election as a convicted felon and with three serious cases hanging over his head, but it also means that he will not go on trial again before the election. That spares him time in court and deprives voters of a chance to know whether he committed many grave crimes. If Trump wins, many anticipate that he will direct the Justice Department to dismiss the federal charges against him.

    Here’s a summary of the major legal cases against Trump, including key dates, assessments of the gravity of the charges, and expectations about how they could turn out. This guide will be updated regularly as the cases proceed.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] Turkey Wants to Join the BRICS Bloc of Developing Economies, Official Confirms

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] No Concrete Step on Turkey BRICS Membership, Erdogan's Party Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-04 [Older] Turkey Seeks to Join the BRICS Bloc of Emerging Economies, a Kremlin Official Says

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-09-04 [Older] Uprooting: Greece, Cyprus and American Nuclear Weapons in Turkey

    • LRT ☛ Fires in Belarus cause burning smell in Lithuania

      Due to forest and peatland fires in Belarus, there may be a smell of burning in some parts of Lithuania, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Saturday.

    • Meduza ☛ Russians are voting again for regional offices, and Meduza’s sources say the elections will test the Kremlin’s plan to replace the Communist Party — Meduza

    • RFERL ☛ Observers Report Difficulties Accessing Polling Stations In Russian Regional Elections

      Election monitors have reported being denied access to polling stations as Russia’s nationwide elections continue, while various infractions including carousel voting and vote-buying have been recorded.

    • France24 ☛ How Russia spread a fake rumour about Kamala Harris and a hit-and-run

      A fake news report posted online in early September by a fake news site claims that presidential candidate Kamala Harris was responsible for a hit-and-run back in 2011 that left a young girl in a wheelchair. Pro-Russian and pro-Trump social control media accounts have been widely circulating a video featuring the alleged victim of the hit-and-run and accusing Harris. However, there are indications that the interview is fake and possibly AI-created.

    • The Kent Stater ☛ How some of the biggest right-wing social control media stars became unwitting mouthpieces of Russian propaganda

      CNN — They’re not on any of the major television networks, but they have millions of viewers. Now, the Justice Department is alleging that some of the biggest stars in right-wing social control media were, unwittingly, part of a sinister Russian operation to influence the 2024 US election.

    • NYPost ☛ Canadian gov-funded documentary following Russian soldiers blasted as ‘pure propaganda’: ‘Very distorted picture’

      A documentary accused of portraying Russian soldiers as victims and legitimizing Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked outrage at film festivals in Venice and Toronto.

    • NYPost ☛ Ukraine fends off Russian attack on Kyiv, boasts using fiery ‘dragon drones’ as allies restock both combatants

      Ukraine shot down most of the long-range drones blasted at Kyiv overnight by Russia in a rare attack on the heavily defended capital city, and allegedly blasted a Russian ammunition warehouse in return, setting the facility ablaze.

    • New York Times ☛ C.I.A. and MI6 Chiefs Discuss Ukraine’s Incursion Into Russia and Gaza War

      Appearing together publicly for the first time in the history of their agencies, the heads of the U.S. and British intelligence services discussed Ukraine’s incursion into Russia and the war in Gaza.

    • New York Times ☛ Iran Sent Ballistic Missiles to Russia, U.S. and European Officials Say

      U.S. and European countries had warned of sanctions if Iran provided weapons that could be used against Ukraine. President Biden’s lame-duck status could hamper a response.

    • New York Times ☛ Ukrainian Street Artist Documents War Against Russia, One Stark Mural at a Time

      Using ruins as his canvas, Gamlet Zinkivskyi has captured life in wartime Ukraine in dozens of grim, gripping and harshly beautiful paintings. “Broken, but invincible,” read one captioned work.

    • New York Times ☛ Ukrainian Forces Block Russian Advance on a Key Eastern Town

      Russia’s drive toward Pokrovsk has stalled along one part of the frontline, but its troops continue to advance in other parts of eastern Ukraine, and its long-range aerial attacks continue.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine Says 5 Killed In Russian Shelling Of Donetsk Region

      Russian shelling of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on September 7 killed five people, regional authorities said.

    • RFERL ☛ Germany's Foreign Minister Blasts Scholz's SPD Over Wavering Support For Kyiv

      German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on September 7 accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) of watering down support for Ukraine just two weeks before a key state election.

    • RFERL ☛ U.S., U.K. Spy Chiefs Praise Ukraine's 'Audacious' Russia Incursion

      The heads of the British and American foreign intelligence agencies said on September 7 that Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia is a significant achievement that could change the narrative of war as they urged Kyiv's allies not to be held back by Russian threats of escalation.

    • France24 ☛ Italy's Meloni pledges unwavering support for Ukraine after Zelensky talks

      Italy's Giorgia Meloni said her country would not waver in its support for Kyiv after holding talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of a business forum on Saturday. Zelensky earlier rejected calls for a ceasefire voiced by Hungary's Kremlin-friendly Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who was also attending the summit in northern Italy. Read our live blog to see how the day's events unfolded.

    • France24 ☛ US and UK spy chiefs praise Ukraine for 'audacious' Russia incursion

      The heads of the CIA and Britain's spy service said in an op-ed on Saturday that "staying the course" in backing Ukraine's fight against Russia was more important than ever as they warned that the world order was "under threat in a way we haven't seen since the Cold War".

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • [Old] The Washington Post ☛ Gene Weingarten: Setting the record straight on the Joshua Bell experiment

    Anyway, after last week’s chat, several readers asked me to explain how wrong the Internet version was, which I will do below, by annotating it. But other readers wanted to know how I am aware that most people who know about this stunt read it from this thing and not the original, and that’s pretty easy. If you Google “Joshua Bell” and “metro,” you get 169,000 hits. But if you add to the search “six Bach pieces” — a phrase that exists only in the flawed summary and not in my story, since Josh did not play “six Bach pieces” at all — you get 161,000 hits.

• Environment

  • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-09-01 [Older] Critics Slam Amazon’s ‘Water Positive’ Pledge as Data Centers Strain Local Resources

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] Climate Breakdown: Losing Our Aspen Forests in the West

  • HRW ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] Air Pollution Threatens Health and Drives Climate Change

  • Vox ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] Electric school buses are the future we deserve

  • CBC ☛ 2024-09-04 [Older] The race to unearth Indigenous history near Parliament Hill against threats of climate change, shore erosion

  • CBC ☛ 2024-09-04 [Older] Climate journalism remains a top priority for CBC News

  • Truthdig ☛ 2024-09-04 [Older] Can the U.S. Census Keep Up With Climate Displacement?

  • CBC ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] As Jasper preps later return to class, experts urge more schools to plan for climate emergencies

  • CBC ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] Jasper wildfire latest disaster in climate claim deluge facing Canada's insurance sector

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] On Our Climate-Challenged Planet, Only Some Deaths Seem to Matter

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-09-01 [Older] Setting the Standard: How Indonesia’s Climate Efforts Can Inspire Developing Countries

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-09-01 [Older] How Climate Change Spread This Deadly Mosquito-Borne Illness to the US Northeast

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Super Typhoon Yagi kills 2, injures 92 after slamming into China’s Hainan island – state media

    Super Typhoon Yagi killed at least two people and injured 92 others after slamming into southern China’s Hainan island, state media reported Saturday. The storm lashed “Hainan with heavy rain and gusty winds, leaving at least two dead and 92 injured”, state-run news agency Xinhua said, citing local authorities.

  • New York Times ☛ Super Typhoon Yagi Makes Landfall in Vietnam After Pounding Southern China

    At least four people have died and thousands were evacuated after Yagi, one of the strongest storms to hit northern Vietnam, brought powerful winds and torrential rains.

  • France24 ☛ Super Typhoon Yagi hits Vietnam after leaving deadly trail in China, Philippines

    The death toll in Vietnam rose to at least four after Super Typhoon Yagi made landfall on Saturday with winds exceeding 149 kilometres (92 miles) an hour. More than a dozen others have so far been reported missing. Yagi earlier pummelled southern China and Philippines, killing at least 24, with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reporting that Yagi had prompted the evacuation of around 460,000 people there.

  • Energy/Transportation/Construction

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] What is hydrogen and how green is it?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] Germany: Volkswagen considering plant closures and job cuts

    • Lusaka ZM ☛ Zambia Expected to Have Sufficient Rainfall

      Mr. Mposha has further appealed to the public to embrace alternative sources of energy for cooking and lighting to reduce the heavy dependency on hydro power generation.

    • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-04 [Older] Grenfell victims were ‘overcome by toxic gases’ – this is the deadly construction loophole that helped cause their deaths

    • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] How cyberattacks on offshore wind farms could create huge problems

    • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] The Earth’s inner core is a total mystery – here’s how we’re starting to solve it

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] Yellen Warns That Ending US Clean Energy Tax Credits Would Raise Consumer Costs

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-04 [Older] Erdogan Says Turkey Wants Deeper Ties With Egypt on Natural Gas, Nuclear Energy

    • University of Michigan ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] University to partner in DOE-backed clean energy research hub

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] Nigeria and China Sign Economic, Nuclear Energy Pact

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • New York Times ☛ Meet the Team Climbing Trees in the Amazon to Better Understand Carbon Stores

      A small team in a remote corner of Colombia is surveying every tree in an effort to better understand how much planet-warming carbon the Amazon actually stores.

    • The Conversation ☛ 2024-09-04 [Older] In defence of slugs

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] Clash Between Isolated Indigenous Group and Loggers Leaves Two Dead in Peru's Amazon

    • The Scotsman ☛ Capercaillie on brink of extinction again as male numbers drop by almost 10 per cent

      The capercaillie is a ground-nesting bird that, with just over 500 left in the wild, is in danger of extinction in the UK. One contributor to its decline is the eating of eggs and chicks by predators including another protected species, the pine marten.

• Finance

  • New York Times ☛ U.S. Blowback to Nippon Steel-U.S. Steel Merger Vexes Japan

    A looming decision in Washington to block Nippon Steel’s merger with U.S. Steel on national security grounds is raising sharp questions in Tokyo.

  • The Age AU ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] ‘Astronomical’ rise in mortgage offset accounts since the pandemic: NAB

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Straits Times ☛ China tells US it presents 'opportunity' not 'threat'

    Trade is one of the many areas of friction between the world’s two leading powers.

  • RFA ☛ Chinese soccer fans bemoan 0-7 loss to Japan as ‘Day of Humiliation’

    Netizens call for manager’s resignation, or a withdrawal from World Cup qualifying to save face.

  • The Register UK ☛ Google insists it's easy to add Rust code to your firmware

    The US government lately has been hammering on this theme, with support from leading tech firms and non-profit initiatives to rewrite critical open source projects and components in Rust. Witness the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency recommendation last year that software vendors "make it a top-level company goal to reduce and eventually eliminate memory safety vulnerabilities from their product lines."

  • Security Week ☛ US Gov Removing Four-Year-Degree Requirements for Cyber Jobs

    The US government this week announced the removal of “unnecessary degree requirements” in favor of skills-based hiring as part of an aggressive push to fill half-a-million open cybersecurity jobs.

  • YLE ☛ Congestion eases at Helsinki Airport

    Many passengers at Helsinki Airport missed their flights earlier this week as carry-on liquid limits were reintroduced. Several dozen Finnair customers did not make their flights on time, according to the airline.

    As of 1 September, all EU airports started adhering to the 100ml liquid rule.

  • RFA ☛ Podcast: Master of Deceit, Episode 5 - A guilty verdict, but questions remain

  • University of Michigan ☛ The post-truth Era: How institutional trust evaporated overnight

    In a world where information is more accessible than ever, I, like many Americans, find myself increasingly skeptical of the news I consume. Once-trusted sources of factual reporting now feel tainted by bias, sensationalism and ulterior motives.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • New York Times ☛ How Russia Found Its Way Into America’s Conservative Media

      It was all, federal prosecutors now say, a covert Russian influence operation. On Wednesday, the Justice Department accused two Russians of helping orchestrate $10 million in payments to Tenet in a scheme to use those stars to spread Kremlin-friendly messages.

      The disclosures reflect the growing sophistication of the Kremlin’s longstanding efforts to shape American public opinion and advance Russia’s geopolitical goals, which include, according to American intelligence assessments, the election of former President Donald J. Trump in November.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Off Guardian ☛ AUDIO: Kit Knightly on Reality Check Radio – September Edition

    OffG editor Kit Knightly’s latest monthly chat with Paul Brennan on Reality Check Radio’s Breakfast Show. Kit and Paul talk about the looming US election, the rise of genetically edited foods around the world the on-going social control media censorship push and more.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Anyone in Hong Kong for badminton… nudge, nudge, wink, wink?

    Teaching young teenagers about sex is a tricky matter. It has to be attempted, because otherwise curiosity will lead potential pupils to the steamy parts of the internet, where you can claim access to “adult” stuff by simply clicking on a “yes” button.

  • Michael Geist ☛ New Academic Year Requires New Approach to Combat Campus Antisemitism

    The days leading up to a new academic year at a university are typically filled with a mix of excitement and anticipation for both faculty and students alike. My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that this year, it brought trepidation and even fear for many in the Jewish community. At my own university, faculty attended training sessions on coping with potential classroom intruders, including tips for de-escalation strategies and detailed security procedures.

  • Techdirt ☛ Judge Rejects Yet Another Attempt By Texas To Police Online Speech

    Remember, Texas was one of the earliest states to pass a law that sought to block social media from moderating content, claiming that allowing websites to have such editorial control harmed the free speech rights of citizens. Amusingly, this new law is about the same state of Texas ordering platforms to moderate other content, insisting that mandated takedowns are no violation of the First Amendment at all.

    So on the one hand, the Texas state legislature thinks it can tell websites what content they can’t take down. And on the other, it thinks it can tell them what content they have to take down. It was wrong both times.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Book bans, censorship, and ‘Peyton Place’: The modern relevance of Grace Metalious

    In 2023, the American Library Association (ALA) documented the highest number of books ever challenged, rising by 65 percent over the previous year. The Top 10 challenged books as listed by the ALA center largely around novels with LGBTQ+ themes, explicit sexuality, and profanity. Many of the books are written for middle and high school kids and contain material that students in marginalized communities find relatable.

  • [Repeat] France24 ☛ Why Russia is accusing its own scientists of treason

    The arrests also reflect the secret services' effort to maintain their relevance by stoking the regime's paranoia. "When you use the charge of treason, that means the state gives the FSB additional power and the right to not say anything," Mathers explained.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • CPJ ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] Attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: The high risks of reporting the Israel-Gaza war

  • Project Censored ☛ 2024-09-05 [Older] The Power of News Frames

  • Project Censored ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] Guilty of Journalism: The Future of Press Freedoms After the Release of Julian Assange

  • Axios ☛ U.S. news leaders sound alarm on press freedom

    Between the lines: For many years following the brutal 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, the Post and its former CEO Fred Ryan served as the face of the U.S. press freedom fight.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • HRW ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] Movie Based on Migrant Worker’s Life Faces Backlash in Saudi Arabia

  • ANF News ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] Family of Gulistan Tara killed by Turkey in Sulaymaniyah visits women journalists

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] Leftist party in Turkey faces closure for defending Kurds’ self determination right

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Iraqi women fear rise is child marriage if clerics get more legal sway

    Saadoun’s marriage was illegal, though a judge — who was related to the husband — signed off on it. Iraqi law sets 18 as the minimum age of marriage in most cases.

    But such child marriages of girls might be state-sanctioned soon. Iraq’s parliament is considering controversial legal changes that would give religious authorities more power over family law matters, a move that rights groups and opponents warn could open the door to the marriage of girls as young as 9.

  • RFERL ☛ 'Equal And Loud': Pride Marchers In Belgrade Press Demands For Rights

    Thousands of LGBT supporters turned out on September 7 for a Pride march in Belgrade, where organizers said their demands that the government pass laws to recognize same-sex unions and gender identity remain their top priorities.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Terahertz beamforming - building the ultrafast wireless internet of the future

    Terahertz frequencies are crucial for 6G, which telecommunications companies plan to roll out around 2030. The radio frequency spectrum used by current wireless networks is becoming increasingly congested. Terahertz waves offer a solution by using the relatively unoccupied portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and infrared. These higher frequencies can carry massive amounts of data, making them ideal for the data-intensive applications of the future.

  • University of Toronto ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] The status of putting a '.' at the end of domain names

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• IP Kat ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] The CJEU reform and its impact on IP [sic] matters

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-02 [Older] Oasis tickets: UK government to probe 'dynamic pricing'

• India Times ☛ UK watchdog accuses Google of anti-competitive behaviour in digital ads business

  Google was slammed on Friday by UK regulators who say it's taking advantage of its dominance in digital advertising to thwart competition in Britain, ratcheting up pressure that the tech giant is facing on both sides of the Atlantic over its "ad tech" business practices. Britain's Competition and Markets Authority said that the US company gives preference to its own services to the detriment of online publishers and advertisers in Britain's 1.8 billion pound (USD 2.4 billion) digital ad market.

  Google is a major player throughout the digital ad ecosystem, providing servers for publishers to manage ad space on their websites and apps, tools for advertisers and media agencies to buy display ads, and an exchange where both sides come together to buy and sell ads in real time at auctions.

• India Times ☛ Google search monopoly US case remedies to come by December

  The U.S. Department of Justice will outline by December what Alphabet's Google must do to restore competition after a judge found it monopolized the online search market. The remedy could include divesting business units or ending payments to ensure its search engine is the default on devices and browsers.

• India Times ☛ Google abusing power over website ads, UK regulator says

  The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it believed Google was using anti-competitive practices in open display ad tech through the preference of its own ad exchange, which could be harming thousands of British publishers and advertisers.

  "We've provisionally found that Google is using its market power to hinder competition when it comes to the ads people see on websites," said Juliette Enser, the CMA's interim executive director of enforcement.

• [Repeat] Press Gazette ☛ Google ad tech practices harming 'thousands of UK publishers'

  The digital advertising sector, otherwise known as the ‘ad stack’, is a complex process of buying and selling ads between advertisers and publishers.

  The CMA said Google plays an important intermediary role in this process, with two buying tools for advertisers, a publishing ad server for publishers, and an ad exchange tool.

  The watchdog provisionally found that, since 2015, Google has abused its dominant market position, built on high market shares, to prevent competitors from providing an alternative to its services.

• Patents

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-09-03 [Older] Keeping up with Belgian patent litigation: Year case law review 2023

  • 2024-08-31 [Older] Natera, Inc. v. NeoGenomics Laboratories, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2024)

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • The Korea Times ☛ Actor Park Gyu-young targeted by deepfake content, agency vows stern action

      Saram Entertainment issued a statement on its social media Tuesday saying, "There have been recent cases of illegally producing and distributing deepfake (AI-based synthetic videos) content targeting actress Park Gyu-young. Our company will respond to this matter with utmost seriousness."

      The agency said it will continuously monitor the situation and collect relevant evidence. "We will continue to take a firm stance against any illegal activities related to our actors. We deeply appreciate the proactive reports and concerns from our fans."

      The entertainment industry has been grappling with the rise of deepfake content.

• Copyrights

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-08-31 [Older] Oasis reunion tour tickets cause online frenzy

  • Locus Magazine ☛ Internet Archive Loses Appeal

    The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower-court ruling against the Internet Archive (IA).

    The suit was first brought in 2020 by HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, and Wiley, alleging “willful mass copyright infringement” by IA’s “National Emergency Library,” which offered unlimited borrows of over a million ebooks. Judge John Koeltl of New York Federal Court issued a summary judgment against IA on March 24, 2023.

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-09-01 [Older] "I'm feeling supersonic, give me gin and tonic": The story of Oasis (copyright edition)

  • Torrent Freak ☛ 'Make Pay-Per-View Access to Boxing Events Free to Fight Piracy'

    Sports piracy has been on the rise and pay-per-view events, in particular, are widely accessed through illegal channels. Turki Alalshikh, an advisor at the Royal Court in Saudi Arabia, made a suggestion this week to drastically reduce PPV pricing to cut piracy. American boxer Chris Algieri has an even more drastic idea: "Make it free," he says. UFC CEO Dana White, meanwhile, sees more mileage in prosecuting pirates.