Leftovers

• Gustaf Erikson ☛ 2024-09-08 [Older] A re-read of Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels

• Robert Birming ☛ Blogging Without Breaking a Sweat

  When I inspect houses as part of my work, I always advise homeowners to check their attics a couple of times a year. I also suggest making it as easy as possible to do so, for example by installing a built-in ladder. If it feels too cumbersome to check your attic, it's easy to put it off.

  For the same reason, I want as little resistance as possible when it comes to blogging. I keep my blog post ideas easily accessible, no matter where I am. When it's time to write, I do it in the default text editor if I'm at my computer, or in my phone's standard notes app.

• Mere Civilian ☛ This is the tech I'm taking to New Zealand

  I have a hobby of checking out the tech others use, which is evident from my YouTube recommendations. I am going on a one-week vacation to New Zealand and I thought it would be cool to document what I am taking with me.

• Outlook Publishing India Pvy Ltd ☛ Jaden Newman Sparks Controversy on X; Know her Rise to Fame and Net Worth

  Jaden grabbed the eyeballs of experts, and looking at her skills, the experts predicted she would become the greatest of all time (GOAT) basketball player, according to an American news site, National Today. In 2015, Newman won a three-point shooting contest against Stephen Curry, an eight-time NBA all-star.

• Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Naz Hamid

  This is the 55th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Naz Hamid and his blog, nazhamid.com

• James Stanley ☛ James Stanley - The free space equation

  This chart shows the ratio of marginal increase in free space to the proportional increase in total size: [...]

  The function is y = 1 / (1 - x), where x is your current used proportion (on a scale of 0 to 1), and y is the ratio of free space increase to total size increase.

• Education

  • Nebraska Examiner ☛ Online learning’s future must balance innovation and values

    At our institution, where 96% of students learn fully online, AI is a tool that is allowing us to support faculty, especially in new and exciting ways. We’re currently exploring using AI to complete time-consuming tasks like grading lengthy assignments or recording information into multiple systems in seconds and minutes. The time saved can then be devoted to the part of the educational process we value most: the teacher-student relationship.

• Hardware

  • Louwrentius ☛ My 71 TiB ZFS NAS after 10 years and zero drive failures

    My NAS is turned off by default. I only turn it on (remotely) when I need to use it. I use a script to turn the IoT power bar on and once the BMC (Baseboard Management Controller) is done booting, I use IPMI to turn on the NAS itself. But I could have used Wake-on-Lan too as an alternative.

    Once I'm done using the server, I run a small script that turns the server off, wait a few seconds and then turn the wall socket off.

    It wasn't enough for me to just turn off the server, but leave the motherboard, and thus the BMC powered, because that's just a constant 7 watts (about two Raspberry Pis at idle) being wasted (24/7).

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Atlantic ☛ Why Didn’t Facing a Common Enemy Bring Us Together?

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s development of a COVID test ran into serious problems, and public-health recommendations got off to a rocky start. There wasn’t much data to go on, and this was a genuine crisis—public-health agencies were doing the best they could with inadequate information. Initial recommendations included some confusing information about masks not being necessary. But then, once it became clear that the virus could be readily transmitted by people who had no symptoms, the CDC reversed course and recommended that masks should be worn. The recommendation was correct, but the reasoning was not always made clear.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • MacRumors ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] Good Riddance to Apple’s FineWoven Cases [Ed: Apple discontinuing things amid mass layoffs]

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] The Apple Ruling Is a Setback for Multinational Tax Dodgers

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] EU's Top Court Dismisses Apple's Final Appeal Against Order to Pay Ireland 13B Euros in Back Taxes

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Google and Apple Have to Pay Billions in Fines and Back Taxes After EU Rejects Their Final Appeals

  • The Scotsman ☛ New AI traffic lights being trialled in Glasgow change to green for these vehicles

    Traffic lights that detect the blue flashing lights of emergency vehicles and change to green to let them through junctions are being tested in Glasgow, The Scotsman has learned.

    It is believed to be the first use of the artificial intelligence (AI) technology that automatically changes the lights for police, fire and ambulance crews.

  • VOA News ☛ With expansion in India, Apple bolsters global manufacturing

    Apple first began making iPhones in India in 2017, beginning with the iPhone SE. The move signaled Apple's intent to diversify its supply chains away from China, a move that other tech conglomerates, such as Microsoft and Amazon, made as well, shifting manufacturing away from China to countries such as India and Vietnam.

  • Futurism ☛ Journalist Alarmed When Newspaper Replaces Humans With Glitchy AI Bot

    As far as efforts to revitalize local news go, in other words, this is definitely in contention for most depressing. And as Scrimgeour points out, the comments section on Instagram seems to agree.

    "This is so grim," wrote one viewer.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Alabama Reflector ☛ How immigrants navigate their digital footprints in a charged political climate

      He was also being cautious about what he put in his social media and other online postings. Like many, he realized such information could put him at risk in an uncertain political environment around immigration.

      “Given my current situation, I try not to brand myself as undocumented, or highlight it as the main component of my identity digitally,” Miguel said.

    • The Register UK ☛ UK Facebook, Insta public feeds now fair game for Meta AI

      Meta is going to resume scraping the personal public feeds of British Facebook and Instagram users for training AI after reaching an agreement with the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

      This summer, Meta agreed to stop using historical data from British and EU users of its platforms to train machine-learning systems after privacy concerns were raised by activist group noyb. Now the social network has been cleared by regulators to resume harvesting UK adults' comments and posts, after agreeing to make it easier for people to opt out and giving them more time to decide whether their data will be used to train a giant neural network.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Jason Becker ☛ When it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

    When we compare the GOP to Nazis, when we call them fascists, it’s not simply due to their beliefs, as horrific as many of those are. We make this comparison because they are adopting the means and methods of totalitarian and fascist regimes.

    When it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck…

  • The Korea Times ☛ North Korea discloses existence of uranium enrichment facility to increase influence ahead of US election: experts

    It was the first time for the North to disclose the existence of its uranium enrichment facility, and analysts believe this was Pyongyang's attempt at pressuring the U.S. into nuclear negotiations, aiming to strengthen its bargaining position in any potential talks with less than two months left until the U.S. presidential election.

  • New Indian Express ☛ 50 booked in HP for protests over ‘illegal’ mosque

    VHP leaders, former councillors and panchayat chiefs were among 50 people booked for violence during a protest held last week demanding demolition of an illegal portion of a mosque in the Sanjauli area of Shimla, police said on Sunday.

  • The Hill ☛ TikTok ban effort to be tested before federal appeals court 

    The social media platform and a group of content creators have sued over a new law that could ban the app, placing free [sic] speech concerns front and center but also raising a handful of other issues.

    On Monday morning, a three-judge federal appeals court panel in the nation’s capital will hear their challenges and decide whether to block the law from going into effect as scheduled on Jan. 19.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Is Donald Trump really serious about being a dictator?

    One of the pleasures of last week’s presidential debate was watching Vice President Kamala Harris deftly filet former President Trump over his affinity for dictators such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

    “It is absolutely well known that these dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because they’re so clear they can manipulate you with flattery and favors,” Harris said. Given a second term, she said, Trump would readily hand Ukraine over to Putin “for the sake of favor and what you think is a friendship with … a dictator who would eat you for lunch.”

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ J. D. Vance Is Trying to Push Citizens United Further

    J. D. Vance and other Republicans are spearheading a lawsuit that aims to get the Supreme Court to move beyond its Citizens United decision and tear up some of the last remaining rules designed to limit the influence of money in politics.

• Environment

  • CBC ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Singh won't say if NDP climate plan will include consumer carbon tax

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Global North Countries Are Repressing Climate Protesters as Crisis Worsens

  • The Age AU ☛ 2024-09-13 [Older] Internal documents show BoM escalated questions on climate and floods

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] A Left That Doesn’t Take the Lead in the Fight Against the Climate Crisis Has No Reason to Exist

  • Scheerpost ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] US Militarism Is a Leading Cause of the Climate Catastrophe

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] US Militarism Is a Leading Cause of the Climate Catastrophe

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] 'Coolcation': Is climate change transforming travel?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] What to Know About Fracking, False Claims and Other Climate Issues Mentioned During the Debate

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] CLIMATE GLIMPSE: Wildfires Plague U.S. West and Brazil, Yagi Rampages in Vietnam

  • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Unseasonal ‘tropical night’ temperature anomaly measured in Denmark

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Can European cities lead the way for climate action?

  • Truthdig ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Jordan Peterson’s Climate Culture War

  • HRW ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] South Korea’s Climate Law Ruling a Win for Human Rights

  • NL Times ☛ 2024-09-08 [Older] XR Activists hold week-long climate march ahead of A12 blockade, no police intervention

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Climate protesters close off Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-07 [Older] Tens of Thousands in South Korea Protest Lack of Climate Progress

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] Why Children’s Rights Are Critical for Climate Policy and Environmental Activism

  • Energy Mix Productions Inc ☛ Glacier Melt, Greenland Tsunami Trigger 9 Days of Global Seismic Activity

    Some of that water made it out of the narrow, winding fjord and into the Greenland Sea. A 60-metre wave eventually reached Ella Island, 70 kilometres offshore, wiping out an abandoned research station, reports Surfer Today.

    Most of the wave was trapped inside the narrow fjord, however, and proceeded to slosh back and forth, ultimately settling into a seven-metre-high oscillating wave pattern which then delivered the mysterious “nine-day-long, global 10.88-millihertz (92-second) monochromatic very-long-period seismic signal” to seismometers around the world, writes the 68-member research team in the abstract to their study.

  • Surfer Today ☛ The 650-foot Greenland tsunami and seismic waves that shook the Earth for nine days

    The rest of the wave, about seven meters high, became trapped within the narrow, winding, and uninhabited 6.2-mile (10-kilometer) long fjord.

    The wave began oscillating back and forth every 90 seconds, coinciding with the vibration recordings that traveled through the Earth's crust, producing a seismic signal of 10.88 millihertz (mHz).

    This rhythmic sloshing, known as a seiche, continued its destructive path, obliterating parts of the cultural and archaeological heritage of the fjord system until it eventually diminished to just a few inches.

  • Idiomdrottning ☛ Comparing costs of paper and digital

    A digital gadget like a smartphone or Kindle, if you manage to use the same one for five years without replacing it, that has approximately the same climate cost as getting thirteen paper notebooks (or other books) per year.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • NL Times ☛ Grid operators test storing electricity in batteries at homes to relieve energy network

      The trial will run until November. After that, Liander and Zonneplan will see if they can introduce this method in other parts of the Netherlands.

    • Greece ☛ Southern Europe’s electricity prices up to five times higher

      Electricity prices in Southern Europe are up to five times higher than those in Scandinavian countries and nearly double compared to Central and Western Europe, according to an analysis by Eurelectric.

    • Jan Lukas Else ☛ Another weekend with a bike focus

      On Friday evening, I took part in the 11th Kassel Bike Night, organized by the ADFC, of which I have been a member for a few months. Accompanied by the police, we cycled about 22 kilometers around Kassel, with a special focus on the new bike streets. It was definitely a cool experience and an important event to raise awareness for better cycling infrastructure. Our green mayor also said a few nice words at the beginning.

    • India Times ☛ AI is 'accelerating the climate crisis,' expert warns

      Generative artificial intelligence uses 30 times more energy than a traditional search engine, warns researcher Sasha Luccioni, on a mission to raise awareness about the environmental impact of the hot new technology.

    • The Korea Times ☛ GM in talks to buy EV batteries built with Chinese tech in US, source says

      In GM's case, the proposed plant would be funded and operated by Japanese consumer electronic firm TDK Corp, Bloomberg News reported, and is expected to be located in the south of the United States and to create more than 1,000 jobs.

      Talks are still ongoing and many details are still unclear, the source told Reuters, with no final deal expected immediately. A deal could help GM produce lower-cost batteries and by assembling them in the United States, avoid new U.S. tariffs.

    • Outlook Publishing India Pvy Ltd ☛ Alpex Solar to Double PV Module Capacity to 2.4 GW by FY26

      The new project will be funded through internal accruals and loans. Once the new line is set up, the company expects a capacity of 2.4 GW by FY2026, enabling it to meet the growing demand in India and other key global markets.

    • The Age AU ☛ 2024-09-13 [Older] Miners, energy stocks boost ASX; $A stronger

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] Germany rejects Trump's energy claim, mocks him over pets

    • CBC ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] TC Energy says sale of minority stake in pipeline to Indigenous groups is delayed

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-09-09 [Older] China's Xi Seeks 'Friendly' Cooperation With Norway on Green Energy

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-06 [Older] China eyes bolstering green energy ties with Africa

• Finance

  • TechStory Media ☛ A Complete List of Tech Layoffs in 2024: From Big Tech Giants to Startups

    The technology sector, which has long been a driving force behind global innovation and economic growth, has experienced a significant shift in 2024. As companies face economic headwinds, increased costs, and shifting market conditions, layoffs have become more frequent, even among well-established players.

  • Neowin ☛ Microsoft Weekly: More layoffs, another no-build week, Windows updates, and more

    This week's Microsoft Weekly kicks off with a new COO (Chief Operations Officer) at Microsoft. That position, vacant (or absent) since 2016 and Kevin Turner's departure, is now occupied by Carolina Dybeck Happe, a former Chief Financial Officer of GE. When commenting on Carolina's assignment, Satya Nadella said that she's "recognized for her ability to drive transformational change at scale while delivering improved customer experiences and faster time to value."

  • CBC ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Record-breaking number of Ontarians used food banks last fiscal year

  • The Local SE ☛ 2024-09-10 [Older] Sweden jails former banking boss over 'swindling'

  • Vox ☛ 2024-09-12 [Older] Shrinking the economy won’t save the planet

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Register UK ☛ Plunging printer sales see Ricoh plan 2,000 redundancies

    Japanese imaging device manufacturer Ricoh last week announced plans to cut 2,000.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Kent Stater ☛ Experts warn misinformation may increase the need for media literacy this election season

      For years, campaigns have used Hey Hi (AI) to make robocalls and generate speech captions. But now, some are using it to create a new reality. “In some sense, that’s been a part of American elections since the beginning,” political science professor Michael Ensley said.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Hengaw Organization for Human Rights Hengaw Organization for Human Rights ☛ Ahmad Hassanzadeh, Father of Slain Protester, Arrested Again by Iranian Security Forces in Bukan

    Ahmad Hassanzadeh, a member of the justice-seeking families and the father of Mohammad Hassanzadeh, who was killed during the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement, has been arrested once again by Iranian security forces. His whereabouts remain unknown.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Outlook Publishing India Pvy Ltd ☛ Faceless, Voiceless Shadows: The Life Of Women Under The Taliban In Afghanistan  

    The Law has caused widespread fear and condemnation from international bodies such as the United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. Calling The Law “intolerable,” Spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Ravina Shamdasani said it silences women’s voices and deprives them of their autonomy, “effectively attempting to render them into faceless, voiceless shadows.”

    According to The Law, women in Afghanistan cannot go out in public unless their bodies are covered head-to-toe. The Law also prohibits women from speaking outside their homes, or being heard laughing or singing. Women cannot look any man who isn’t part of their family in the eyes. Further, women cannot leave their houses unless accompanied by a male relative. The Law makes it impossible for women to work in most industries.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Data Swamp ☛ I moved my emails to Proton Mail

    # Introduction
    I recently took a very hard decision: I moved my emails to Proton Mail. 
    

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Lieff Cabraser Hiemann and Bernstein ☛ Academic Journal Publishers Antitrust Litigation

  On September 12, 2024, Lieff Cabraser and co-counsel at Justice Catalyst Law filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against six commercial publishers of academic journals, including Elsevier B.V., John Wiley & Sons, Wolters Kluwer NV, and the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), on behalf of a putative class of scientists and scholars who allege that these six world’s-largest for-profit publishers of peer-reviewed scholarly journals conspired to unlawfully appropriate billions of dollars that would otherwise have funded scientific research.

• Lieff Cabraser Hiemann and Bernstein ☛ Dr. Lucina Uddin, Plaintiff, vs. ELSEVIER, B.V., WOLTERS KLUWER N.V., JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC., SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC., TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP, LTD., SPRINGER NATURE AG & CO KGaA., INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCIENTIFIC, TECHNICAL, AND MEDICAL PUBLISHERS, and JOHN DOES 1 THROUGH 50, Defendants.

• Outside The Beltway ☛ AIgorithmic Price-Fixing

  This is obviously more problematic. It’s one thing for landlords to do market research to determine the going rate on comparable properties. After all, realtors do that all the time when pricing home sales. (Indeed, it’s now relatively easy for prospective buyers and sellers to get this information themselves.) But if there’s actually coordination between landlords to ensure that others aren’t undercutting the market, it’s clearly price-fixing. Where that line is drawn is not clear.

• Patents

  • 2024-09-12 [Older] Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation v. Apple Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2024)

  • 2024-09-08 [Older] Special Committee's Suspension Recommendation Adopted by Federal Circuit [Ed: Crank judge in the pockets of the litigation industry?]

• Trademarks

  • The Verge ☛ Flappy Bird’s original creator says he has nothing to do with the new game

    Last week, The Flappy Bird Foundation announced a game called Flappy Bird. But while the group has been framing it as the triumphant return of a classic mobile game, Flappy Bird’s original developer, Dong Nguyen isn’t calling it a comeback — in fact, he says he’s not involved at all.

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Hackers Invited to Pirate IPTV Blocking Hackathon to Silence Illegal Devices

    In recent years Brazil's telecoms agency has claimed significant success in its mission to prevent pirate set-top boxes from accessing premium content. Whether Anatel is feeling a little vulnerable, or would simply like some new blocking ideas, is up for debate. However, in roughly ten days' time, hackers will descend on São Paulo for a two-day hackathon. Cash prizes await those who manage to disable pirate IPTV devices to the extent they can no longer communicate with their owners.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-09-11 [Older] The use and misuse of music in US presidential campaigns