Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Steel Reinforcement Toughens Cracked Vintage Knobs

  Nothing can ruin a restoration project faster than broken knobs. Sure, that old “boat anchor” ham rig will work just fine with some modern knobs, but few and far between are the vintage electronics buffs that will settle for such aesthetic affrontery. But with new old stock knobs commanding dear prices, what’s the budget-conscious restorationist to do? Why, fix the cracked knobs yourself, of course.

• Hackaday ☛ Against Elitism

  A while back we got an anonymous complaint that Hackaday was “elitist”, and that got me thinking. We do write up the hacks that we find the coolest, and that could lead to a preponderance of gonzo projects, or a feeling that something “isn’t good enough for Hackaday”. But I really want to push back against that notion, because I believe it’s just plain wrong.

• Derek Kędziora ☛ The small web at scale

  The biggest issue is that the sole proprietor of blot would often disappear for weeks and then months. As a European, I’m all for long, disconnected holidays. But these require transparency, planning, and contingency plans. During this time support issues would pile up. Git stopped syncing for a day, then randomly restarted.

• Jane Ruffino ☛ “To hell with more, I want better”

  I wrote a newspaper column—for a physical paper!—for almost 4 years, beginning in 2013. There are maybe a dozen or so of those columns that are worth revisiting, now from what feels like a historical perspective. I’m going to republish them relatively unedited, except for a clunky sentence or two, since I often had to edit a lot for length.

  I’m preserving my old thinking, unedited, as cringe as it might be (especially for me), and I’ll just tell you how that thinking has changed over the past decade or so, and I’ll add some relevant links (you can’t link in a print-first newspaper).

• Games

  • India Times ☛ The era of digital competition

    Conquering the video gaming and esports space, however, requires more than exceptional gamers. It demands robust infrastructure, a cultural shift and a commitment to nurturing talent. The government’s recognition of the sector has certainly set us in the right direction. Beyond the glory, esports has significant potential to contribute to employment growth and the economy.

  • Science Alert ☛ Ancient Discovery Could Be a Board Game From 4,000 Years Ago

    Hounds and Jackals – named for an example of the game where the pieces had hound and jackal heads – is what is known as a race game, where two players move pieces around a track in an attempt to be the first to reach the end, like Snakes and Ladders, or Ludo. It has 58 holes in a specific pattern, and the pieces – five hounds and five jackals – are placed in new holes as the players move around the board. Presumably the player who gets all their pieces to the end first wins.

    To date, around 70 gameboards for Hounds and Jackals have been discovered, many in Egypt. These include the oldest dated example, which was found in a tomb at El-Assasif dated some time between 2064 and 1952 BCE. From this, the assumption was that the game had originated in Egypt and spread from there.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Mysterious Signal Hints at The Smallest Black Hole Ever Detected

    It gets more interesting. Based on the behavior of the red giant, astronomers led by Song Wang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have determined that the mass of the invisible object is just 3.6 times the mass of the Sun. There's only one thing it could be: a black hole, one with a petite size that's smack bang in the middle of a mysterious void in the data known as the lower mass gap.

  • Science Alert ☛ Groundbreaking Maps of Magnetic Field in Sun's Atmosphere Revealed

    A new era of solar physics.

• Education

  • Jim Mitchell ☛ Social Media Hasn’t Killed the Personal Blog Just Yet – Jim Mitchell

    It didn’t happen overnight. Personal blogs didn’t just disappear in one big poof. It was more like a slow fade. As Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter took off, people – me included – found it easier to share bite-sized pieces of life. Why write a long, reflective post to publish on your personal site when you could sum it up in a quick status update that some “friend” you don’t really even know could give you a mindless like?

    Therein lies the rub. Social media is all about convenience – fast, visual, and designed for quick consumption – like fast food for the mind. Scroll, like, move on. Blogs, on the other hand, ask for your time and thought. They’re like the home-cooked meals we don’t have time for anymore.

  • James G ☛ An Introduction to the Personal Web with Cosy and Cali

    Cali: “I thought that the [Internet] was all about social media and school stuff, until I had a class in school about making websites. My teacher gave us HTML printed on paper and we had to assemble it. It sort of felt like Lego. Then when we went to the computers to type up our code in a tool called Notepad++, we could see our web page. It was sorta magical.”

  • Vox ☛ New York’s governor wants to “liberate” kids — by taking their phones

    Below is an excerpt of Sean’s conversation with Hochul, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.

  • Giles Turnbull ☛ Some [Internet] inspirations

    Today I was featured as an interviewee at Manuel Moreale’s People and Blogs newsletter. Towards the end, I was given the chance to list a few websites I admire; here’s the same list, with a few extra additions on top. These are the [Internet] I like the most.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ I’m worrying, yet again, that the novel is dying. This time, streaming TV may be the killer.

    The tug of war between books and television for our attention is a decades-old story. We constantly announce the newest competition for the novel: radio, movies, broadcast television, cable television and, recently, streaming television.

    Over and over, we declare that novels have been replaced or — as media theorist Marshall McLuhan called it — obsolesced.

    Is this the cultural moment when novels will be unseated permanently by streaming programming as the dominant high-brow storytelling?

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • France24 ☛ Sri Lanka's exodus of caregivers sends healthcare system into freefall

    In 2022, Sri Lanka faced an unprecedented economic crisis that brought the country to a standstill. The once-strong healthcare system was on the brink of collapse, with patients facing a lack of medicines, equipment and power shortages. Providing consistent care became nearly impossible, and wages failed to keep pace with inflation, prompting many medical professionals to seek opportunities abroad. Over the past two years, over 2000 doctors have migrated overseas. This exodus has left a noticeable impact on rural hospitals, driving more people to seek treatment in the national capital. Meanwhile, the lack of availability of drugs remains a persistent issue. Khansa Juned, Léa Delfolie and Rukshana Rizwie report.

  • New York Times ☛ How Dangerous Is PFAS in Food?

    There’s a growing understanding of the health threats of PFAS chemicals in what we eat and drink.

  • New York Times ☛ Canadian Doctors Group Apologizes for Health Harms to Indigenous People

    Indigenous patients faced abuse, experimental treatments and other harms in Canada’s health system, which still has disparities.

  • New York Times ☛ Newsom Signs Bill That Adds Protections for Children on Social Media

    The California legislation comes amid growing concerns about the impact of cellphones and social control media on adolescents’ mental health.

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ No progress seen in HealthPartners/UnitedHealthcare impasse over Medicare Advantage claim denials

    HealthPartners has informed 30,000 UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage subscribers that it will not accept their insurance as of Jan. 1.

  • The Kent Stater ☛ CAPS provides mental health resources on campus

    Counseling and Psychological Services are the primary mental health providers on campus.  Students interested in CAPS must first call the CAPS office and schedule a consult meeting with one of their clinicians.

  • Latvia ☛ Parents detained after taking children with diphtheria out of hospital

    On Saturday, September 21, the police detained the parents of two children with diphtheria, whom they had taken out of hospital against doctors' recommendations.

  • Robert Birming ☛ Finding your own path

    You know what's right for you. You also know what's not right for you. Trust your gut and follow your own path. Live your life.

  • Greg Morris ☛ There’s Both Too Much And Not Enough Attention

    I’ve had to work really hard to get my attention span back after years of letting it be stolen from me and I can’t be the only one. However, this gave me a new appreciation of where both my writing and my designs need to go.

  • Wired ☛ America’s Dairy Farms Have Vanished

    Milton Orr looked across the rolling hills in northeast Tennessee. “I remember when we had over 1,000 dairy farms in this county. Now we have less than 40,” Orr, an agriculture adviser for Greene County, Tennessee, told me with a tinge of sadness.

    That was six years ago. Today, only 14 dairy farms remain in Greene County, and there are only 125 dairy farms in all of Tennessee. Across the country, the dairy industry is seeing the same trend: In 1970, more than 648,000 US dairy farms milked cattle. By 2022, only 24,470 dairy farms were in operation.

  • The Independent UK ☛ How phones became the biggest problem with going to the gym

    And I’m not alone, with a study from Velotric finding that 23 per cent of people avoid public workouts for fear of being filmed and posted on social media. Almost one in 10 respondents had been photographed or videotaped without their consent while working out, and 46 per cent felt violated by the incident. As a result, 49 per cent of participants said gyms should ban cameras and smartphones to alleviate these concerns.

  • Futurism ☛ Experts Warn of Link Between Drinking Alcohol and Getting Cancer

    This brings us back to alcohol, a widespread cancer risk, and one that doesn't bear nearly the same stigma for risk as smoking. In 2019, the most recent year for which this data is available, the proportion of cancers attributed to alcohol was 5.4 percent, or roughly one in every eighteen cases. (Smoking, on the other hand, accounts for about 20 percent of all cancers in the US, according to the American Cancer Society.)

    And yet, the report authors warn, public awareness about the link between alcohol and cancer is still low.

  • Lou Plummer ☛ Overthinkers Anonymous

    I suppose I will always have a busy mind. I like having something to think about and to chew over. Even though I am not often loquacious, I use my blogs to get out the things that are in my head. It works for me.

  • Science Alert ☛ Expert Explains Why You Should Clean Your Tongue Twice a Day

    Don't skip this step!

  • Science Alert ☛ These Tiny Robots Can Patch Up Deadly Bleeds in Animal Brains

    Don’t let their size fool you.

  • Hackaday ☛ The Surprising Effects Of Fast Food Kiosks

    For as long as there have been machines, there have been fears of machines taking your job. One of the latest incarnations of this phenomenon is the fast-food ordering kiosk. No longer will you have some teenager asking you if you want fries with that. These days, you are more likely going to find the question on a touch screen. So, are those poor kids out of an entry-level job? Apparently not, according to a recent CNN story.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Futurism ☛ Leading AI Scientists Warn AI Could Escape Control at Any Moment

    Because AI knows no international borders, thinking of this technology and its risk globally is, as the IDAIS signatories argue, of the utmost importance. While there have been "promising initial steps by the international community" towards AI safety cooperation at intergovernmental summits, they wrote, these efforts need to continue in the interest of developing "a global contingency plan" when and if these risks become more severe.

  • Digi Day ☛ Perplexity's pitch deck offers advertisers a new vision for AI search

    According to a copy of the pitch deck obtained by Digiday, the plan is to integrate ads within users’ queries and answers — potentially as soon as the fourth quarter of 2024. One page in the deck says buying ads with Perplexity can help brands “reach, educate and spark curiosity of potential customers at high-leverage moments.” The company is also pitching an educated, affluent and engaged user base. Although the pitch deck didn’t talk about pricing, a source within Perplexity confirmed the goal is to target CPMs “north of $50.”

  • Matt Webb ☛ Filtered for home robots, fast and slow (Interconnected)

    This robot arm can do your tidying up.

    TidyBot, a research “mobile manipulator” from Princeton, successfully puts away 85.0% of objects in real-world test scenarios.

    It uses large language models to quickly learn preferences (e.g. shirts on the shelf vs in a drawer).

  • Frank Meeuwsen ☛ The AI Next Door - could community-driven LLM’s reshape the future of AI

    The technology of AI advances at a break-neck speed, both local and online. I hope this performance gap in speed and precision will narrow. When you have your own controlled environment with enough CPU/GPU, for a reasonable fee, this moat might become obsolete.

  • Futurism ☛ Woman Run Down by Delivery Robot on College Campus

    To add insult to injury, the company tried to make it up to the victim by offering her promo codes for its food delivery service — which sounds sort of like getting bit by a stranger's dog and being given the chance to pet it as consolation.

  • Windows TCO

    • NDTV ☛ Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Stuxnet: How CIA, Mossad Used A Computer Virus To Dismantle Iran's Nuclear Program

      Stuxnet was not an ordinary piece of malware. Its design reflected a level of sophistication unprecedented in the realm of cyber weapons. The malware targeted Siemens Step7 software, used to control industrial equipment, specifically focusing on the centrifuges at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility. These centrifuges, essential for enriching uranium, operated at high speeds and required precise control to function correctly.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • India Times ☛ Bits & Bytes: Meta beats lawsuit over Apple privacy

      Meta Platforms won the dismissal of a lawsuit claiming it defrauded shareholders by concealing how changes to Apple’s privacy settings would make Facebook and Instagram less desirable for advertisers.

    • The Record ☛ UK regulator stops LinkedIn from training AI models with British users’ content

      LinkedIn recently began harnessing its users’ content and data to train artificial intelligence models, opting all platform participants into the program without formal notice — except for users in the United Kingdom and Europe.

      On Friday, an official with the U.K’s data privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), released a statement indicating the regulator had engaged with LinkedIn to stop the feature from being rolled out in Britain.

    • Pete Brown ☛ The only way to stop platforms from exploiting personal data is to make it too expensive for them.

      And the way to do that is to make the collection and storage of personal data onerous and expensive for any company that wants to do it. Right now, it is super-cheap for them, so of course they are going to keep doing it.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ LinkedIn Halts AI Model Training In The UK

      LinkedIn has temporarily stopped using UK-based data to train generative AI models. The decision follows concerns raised by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about user privacy. Stephen Almond, the ICO’s Executive Director for Regulatory Risk, said the suspension comes as LinkedIn re-evaluates its practices regarding AI training.

    • The Record ☛ Ukraine bans Telegram on state and military devices

      Ukraine has banned the Telegram messaging app on official devices used by state and security officials, military personnel and employees of critical infrastructure facilities. The decision came amid concerns that the Russia-founded app poses a threat to Ukraine’s national security.

      According to Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence, officials assessed that Russian special services could have access to the personal data of Telegram users, as well as their correspondence and deleted messages.

    • The Verge ☛ Meta has a major opportunity to win the AI hardware race

      This is a device that can easily slot into people’s lives now. There’s no future software update to wait for. It’s not a solution looking for a problem to solve. And this, more than anything else, is exactly why the Ray-Bans have a shot at successfully figuring out AI.

    • Standards/Consortia

      • Zimbabwe ☛ Bluetooth 6.0's Game-Changing Feature: Find Your Devices with Centimetre Accuracy

        Two devices that support the feature will be able to better identify the distance between them, across a wide area and down to a centimeter.

• Defence/Aggression

  • RFA ☛ New Zealand pilot freed after 19 months in Papua rebel captivity

    Phillip Mehrtens safe and well, undergoing health check

  • New York Times ☛ U.S. Soldier Pleads Guilty to Desertion After Fleeing Into North Korea

    Pvt. Travis King on Friday pleaded guilty before a military judge to desertion, among other charges, after he made an unauthorized crossing into North Korea in 2023.

  • France24 ☛ US soldier who entered North Korea walks free after guilty plea

    US soldier Travis King, who crossed into North Korea in July 2023, pleaded guilty to desertion and other charges as part of a plea deal and was sentenced to a year of confinement on Friday. With time served and credit for good behavior, King has been released, marking the end of a case that began when he fled to North Korea during a sightseeing tour of the Demilitarized Zone while stationed in South Korea.

  • France24 ☛ Israel says 'dozens' of warplanes striking 'extensively' in southern Lebanon

    Israel's military said on Saturday it had in the past hour been "striking extensively" in southern Lebanon after detecting plans by Hezbollah to strike Israeli communities. Earlier in the day, its air force struck thousands of rocket launchers in southern Lebanon that posed an "immediate" threat amid growing fears of all-out war with Lebanese group Hezbollah. Cross-border exchanges again intensified with Hezbollah firing some 90 rockets towards Israel.

  • RFERL ☛ Iran Says Response To Killing Of Militia Commander A Matter For Hezbollah

    Iran has strongly condemned the targeted killing of a military commander of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia in an Israeli air strike in Beirut.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Israeli strike on Beirut apartment kills a Hezbollah leader wanted by the US

    Israel's military says a senior Hezbollah leader was among those killed in an airstrike on a Beirut apartment block Friday, the deadliest strike on Lebanon's capital since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

  • New York Times ☛ A Week of Chaos Pushes Lebanon’s Doctors to the Limit

    Exploding wireless devices maimed thousands. An Israeli airstrike on Friday flattened two buildings. Many doctors, exhausted, wonder how the country will cope if violence continues.

  • New York Times ☛ Israeli Strike on Former School Kills 22, Gazan Health Officials Say

    Gaza’s ministry of health said most of those killed in the strike on the Zeitoun School in Gaza City were women and children.

  • New York Times ☛ Who Was Ahmed Wahbi, One of the Hezbollah Commanders Killed by an Israeli Airstrike?

    The senior Hezbollah leader trained the group’s elite fighting unit and led its support for Hamas after the Oct. 7 attacks, the Lebanese militia said.

  • New York Times ☛ For Families of Those Missing After Israeli Strike in Beirut, an Agonizing Wait

    With the death toll rising and rescuers still searching for people beneath the rubble, families were keeping a desperate watch over the site of an Israeli strike in Lebanon.

  • RFERL ☛ Hungarian Intelligence Interviews CEO Linked To Exploding Hezbollah Pagers

    Hungarian intelligence services have conducted several interviews with the CEO of BAC Consulting, a Budapest-based company linked to the deadly explosions of pagers used by Hezbollah members this week, the Hungarian government said on September 21.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Joe Biden says China behaving ‘aggressively’ and ‘testing us,’ in hot mic remarks to Quad allies

    US President Joe Biden was caught on a hot mic Saturday telling the leaders of Australia, India and Japan that an aggressive China is “testing us,” in remarks that risked undercutting a summit declaration that carefully avoided mentioning Beijing by name.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ No pain, no gain: Chinese pro wrestlers fight for recognition

    When Wang Tao ran away from home aged 17 to become a professional wrestler he knew it would be a hard slog to succeed in China’s passionate but underdeveloped scene.

• Environment

  • Science Alert ☛ A Vast, Untapped Source of Lithium Exists in The US

    But what's the impact of extracting it?

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • France24 ☛ France gets a more right-wing government after weeks of uncertainty

    The French presidential palace unveiled a long-awaited new government Saturday dominated by conservatives and centrists. It came more than two months after elections that produced a hung parliament and deepened political divisions as France grapples with growing financial and diplomatic challenges.

  • JURIST ☛ US appeals court reinstates Arizona voting registration and mail-in voting laws

    The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday vacated a preliminary injunction that had blocked key provisions of Arizona’s contentious Senate Bill 1260, resulting in the reinstatement of Arizona’s 2022 voter registration and mail-in voting laws which were intended to increase election security.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ The first 6 months of Hong Kong’s new security law: 3 jailed over a seditious T-shirt, bus graffiti, social control media posts

    Hong Kong on Thursday saw the first people imprisoned under a new security law, which will have been in effect for six months on Monday.

  • JURIST ☛ Hong Kong court sentences first activist to 14 months under new security ordinance

    Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts sentenced Hong Kong activist Chu Kai-pong to 14 months in prison on Thursday for sedition, according to local media. Chu was convicted on Monday upon pleading guilty to one count of sedition under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.

  • RFA ☛ China targets high-ranking officials who read banned books

    The crackdown on restricted content could upend a system that once gave senior officials a more global education.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • NYPost ☛ Tekashi 6ix9ine faces lawsuit from ex-gf alleging revenge porn, abuse and theft

    The rapper has denied the allegations.

  • France24 ☛ Quebec Catholic monks face class actions over decades of alleged sexual abuse

    An order of Catholic monks in Quebec is facing a class action lawsuit filed by more than 80 victims, accusing the Brothers of Christian Instruction of widespread sexual assaults spanning decades. The alleged abuses, dating back as far as 1940, occurred in more than 20 schools run by the congregation, with most incidents reported between the 1950s and 1970s.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • Jeff Geerling ☛ They stole my voice with AI

      I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty familiar. I mean I would like you to subscribe to my channel. But that's the Jeff Geerling channel, not Elecrow, where the clip above is from. I never said the words that are in that video.

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Personal/Opinions

    • 🔤SpellBinding — CFLYRUO Wordo: TOONS

    • Yaku Nara Mug Cup Mo: criminally underrated

      I'd originally started watching Mug Cup after seeing an itasha wrap of the show in a random youtube video. Intruiged, I went to watch this unheard of anime and I'm sure glad I did. Mug cup is in the niche subgenre of anime which consists of a cast of 4 cute girls doing some ultra specific hobby. Previously I reviewed hoshizuku telepath on this gemlog which to some extent also fits into this subgenre, in that case being "cute girls do model rockets". Mug cup is "cute girls do pottery". Mug Cup is more towards the laid back, iyashi-kei side of things, and the show maintains a strong tone throughout. I noted a focus on the seasons and their passing, the familiarity of certain locations and environments, and a sense of nostalgia throughout the show.