Leftovers

• TecMint ☛ NotebookLM AI – Creates YouTube Videos into Study Guides

  Recently, Google introduced a new feature for NotebookLM that allows it to transform YouTube videos into study guides. This update has the potential to revolutionize the way students and learners interact with online video content.

• Science

  • The Conversation ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Dark energy: could the mysterious force seen as constant actually vary over cosmic time?

  • Science Alert ☛ This Asteroid May Help Reveal a Fifth Fundamental Force in The Universe

    But does the fifth force of nature really exist?

  • Science Alert ☛ Hurricanes: The 3 Key Reasons Why So Many People Don't Evacuate

    Even in the face of extreme danger.

  • Science Alert ☛ Solar Storm Lashing Earth May Impact Hurricane Recovery, Experts Warn

    Extreme conditions on multiple fronts.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-04 [Older] Don't worry (too much) about asteroids hitting Earth

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] Nobel Prize in medicine goes to Victor Ambros, Gary Ruvkun

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] Is the Nobel Prize still relevant today?

• Education

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] Former students sue Ontario company for $108K in tuition for unapproved web developer program

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] Nigeria records more than 350 cholera deaths in the first nine months of the year

  • Science Alert ☛ Your Child's Gut Health Benefits From an Early Bedtime, Study Suggests

    It's all connected.

  • Science Alert ☛ Study Reveals a Striking Health Disparity Between US And UK Adults

    What's going on?

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Fisher-Price recalls nearly 100,000 infant swings in Canada over suffocation risk

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] Why is road safety a big issue in Southeast Asia?

  • Science Alert ☛ Quitting Smoking Even at 75 Can Increase Life Expectancy, Study Finds

    It's never too late.

  • Science Alert ☛ Intermittent Fasting Could Help Millions of Americans With Metabolic Syndrome

    Over one-third of the US is affected.

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-09 [Older] Honda recalls 239,000 vehicles in Canada over defective part in steering system

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-06 [Older] Poor Circulation: How to Prevent It, How to Spot It

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Hundreds of viruses live on showerheads and toothbrushes

• Defence/Aggression

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-05 [Older] Pakistan: Police detain Khan ally during protest — party

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-05 [Older] Haiti: Gang opens fire killing at least 70 people

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-05 [Older] Pakistan: 6 soldiers killed in fight with Islamist militants

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-04 [Older] Iran-Israel: Will Turkey get involved?

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] ‘Femicides are political’: Protests erupt across Turkey after murders of two 19-year-old women

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] Sexually abused toddler in Turkey’s Tekirdağ dies after weeks in coma

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Synagogues vandalized in İzmir: ‘Turkey’s Jews living on edge since war began'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-06 [Older] Jews in Germany face antisemitism surge since Oct. 7 attacks

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-06 [Older] Chinese workers killed in Karachi blast

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-09 [Older] Why the Lebanon crisis is good business for Syrian military

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] The Syrian Civil War: A Decade of Conflict, Displacement, and Global Impact

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Montreal police chief seeks to reassure businesses after recent surge in extortion

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] China Likely to Launch Military Drills Around Taiwan After President's National Speech, Sources Say

  • The Age AU ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] Pro-Palestine activist’s visa under review after ‘October 7 is a good day’ speech

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Iranian prisoners protest against rising executions

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] The Sniper Man:Quinn Buckner’s Assault on Free Speech and Academic Freedom at Indiana University

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] Berlin: Prosecution seeks 12 years in Stasi murder trial

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] East Germany: A failed experiment in dictatorship

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] Bangladesh: What's next for Hasina and the Awami League?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-11 [Older] British YouTuber and Rapper Yung Filly Is Charged With Rape in Australia

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] China: Attacks on Japanese citizens stoke security concerns

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] Leaders condemn pro-Palestinian rally in Vancouver where 'death to Canada' cry went up

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] North Korea: Kim threatens use of nuclear weapons again

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] Omar bin Laden barred from entering France

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Germany: Police shoot suspect in western city of Krefeld

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] Australia: Man convicted for performing outlawed Nazi salute

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-09 [Older] Who is Germany's far-right AfD leader Alice Weidel?

  • Federal News Network ☛ Invisible sacrifices: The billion-dollar social cost of military spouse unemployment

    Given the sacrifices the military lifestyle demands, it’s no surprise the unemployment rate for military spouses has remained five times the national average.

  • LRT ☛ Lithuanian PM tries to damp down fears of migration from Central Asia

    After the head of Lithuania’s intelligence noted a 14-fold increase in Central Asian migrants since 2021, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė says the total number is still quite small and should not be used to scare the public.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Loans for scares In Georgia, a news network’s propagandistic turn and an alleged loansharking scheme lead back to the same London-based firm — Meduza

    • Insight Hungary ☛ Szijjarto goes to Russia for the eleventh time since Ukraine war

      "The Foreign Minister of Hungary today travelled to Russia for the 11th time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – in pursuit of profit not peace," US Ambassador David Pressman wrote on X. Peter Szijjarto attended the International Gas Forum in Saint Petersburg.

      On his social media, Szijjártó commented on his trip writing: "like it or not, the reality is that the secure and affordable supply of natural gas to our country is not possible without cooperation with Russia".

• Environment

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-04 [Older] Bosnia: Death toll mounts after flooding and landslides

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-05 [Older] US: Kamala Harris to visit hurricane-struck North Carolina

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Hurricane Milton: Cleanup underway in Florida, several dead

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Hurricane Milton: What's fueling stronger storms?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] AP PHOTOS: Powerful Hurricane Milton Destroys Homes, Shreds Stadium Roofs Apart

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Hurricane Milton Devastates Florida

  • Vox ☛ 2024-10-03 [Older] Get used to more absurdly hot Octobers

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-10-03 [Older] Climate Change–Induced Disasters Are Killing Workers

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-04 [Older] COP16 Host Colombia Pushes for Unified Climate and Biodiversity Pledges

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-10-04 [Older] Can You Afford Climate Change?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-04 [Older] How to protect the Amazon and who should pay

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Canada's budget watchdog re-ran the numbers on the carbon tax — here's what it found

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-10-06 [Older] Climate Travels: How Ecotourism Changes Mindsets and Motivates Action -Book Review

  • New Yorker ☛ 2024-10-06 [Older] Climate Catastrophe Comes to Asheville

  • DeSmog ☛ Climate Denier Tony Abbott Dumped as Government Trade Advisor

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] Volkswagen employees add to German carmaker's headaches

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] ASEAN summit: EU seeks to build bridges in Southeast Asia

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-06 [Older] Kazakhstan votes on first nuclear plant construction

    • CBC ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Air Canada pilots vote in favour of new contract, eliminating risk of strike

    • DeSmog ☛ Trump and Orbán Allies Gather at Anti-Green Event Hosted by Project 2025 Group

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] Can hydropower hold its own against weather extremes?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] Is the US really experiencing a boom in green energy jobs?

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-10-05 [Older] Correcting Electricity-Production Gap with High-Density Energy Sources

    • The Age AU ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] The WA town caught in middle of a national energy debate

    • CBC ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Alberta making it harder for foreign companies to invest in energy infrastructure, lawyers say

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ Darwin the Storyteller

    • CBC ☛ 2024-10-05 [Older] Drought shrinks river that feeds the Amazon to lowest level ever recorded

    • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-04 [Older] Animal rights activists in Turkey refuse to celebrate World Animal Day in face of law enabling stray dog killings

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-06 [Older] Slovakia: Man attacked by bear succumbs to injuries

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] World missed deforestation goal in 2023, report says

    • CBC ☛ 2024-10-04 [Older] The true scale of Canada's quietly devastating wildfire season, in 4 charts

    • CBC ☛ 2024-10-09 [Older] Grassland birds in crisis on the Canadian Prairies, conservationists warn

    • CBC ☛ 2024-10-09 [Older] Another beluga dies at Marineland as Ontario says little on 4-year probe into park

    • New York Times ☛ What Flying in a Wind Tunnel Reveals About Birds

      Some birds migrate thousands of miles every autumn. How exactly do they manage it? Scientists built a flight chamber to find out.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] Koala leads police on chase through Sydney train station

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Germany: Panda cubs at Berlin Zoo open eyes

  • Overpopulation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] German government plans to reform adoption law

• Finance

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] Nearly one-quarter of Canadians work in the gig economy: poll

  • CBC ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Income inequality in Canada rises to the highest level ever recorded: Statistics Canada

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] Can Germany's economy benefit from China's stimulus plan?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-04 [Older] Can France cut spending without stoking recession?

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Turkey's labor underutilization rate exceeds 27% in August

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-06 [Older] Germany reckons with another recession in 2024 — report

  • International Business Times ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] American Dream Accounts Act: New Bill Proposes $25K For Every US High School Graduate Via Social Security Investment

  • International Business Times ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Social Security COLA For 2025 Increases Payments For 72 Million Americans By 2.5%, Lowest In Years

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-09 [Older] IMF chief: 'Africa deserves to be represented more fairly'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] China 'confident' of hitting economic goals

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] Can India navigate a China-dominated BRICS?

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-05 [Older] France: Child trampled to death on overcrowded boat crossing Channel

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-05 [Older] How US election outcome could affect the Western Balkans

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-05 [Older] Le Pen trial shines light on ‘black box' of MEP expenditure

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-06 [Older] Violence against women: Have big cases encouraged better protections?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-06 [Older] Tunisia polls open with President Saied's rivals in jail

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-09 [Older] Hungary's Orban scorned by EU lawmakers after speech

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Canada Gov't Could Avoid Confidence Vote With Slim Mini Budget, Says Source

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-10-05 [Older] Chagos Islands: UK’s last African colony returned to Mauritius

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Sovereignty of Chagos Archipelago returned to Mauritius

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-08 [Older] Albania: Clashes as protesters call on government to resign

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Fact check: Are artificial hurricanes targeting Republicans?

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ 24-year-old man charged with assaulting Hong Kong police on Tiananmen crackdown anniversary denied bail

    A 24-year-old man said to have an intellectual disability has been denied bail after he was charged with three counts of assaulting Hong Kong police.

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] Turkey considers banning Discord amid child abuse, cyberbullying allegations

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-09 [Older] Turkey blocks Discord messaging platform

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-09 [Older] Turkey blocks Discord after revelations of 'incel' cyberbullying, child exploitation

  • CPJ ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] Algerian journalist Badreddine Guermat arrested over Facebook post

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] EU lawmakers urge Turkey to clear DW journalist Bulent Mumay

  • CPJ ☛ 2024-10-04 [Older] CPJ, partners’ mission to Georgia finds ‘climate of fear’ ahead of elections

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • FAIR ☛ George Lipsitz on the Impacts of Housing Discrimination

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] Turkey’s human rights agency ‘exists only in name'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-10-07 [Older] US: Supreme Court throws out Texas emergency abortion appeal

  • New Yorker ☛ 2024-10-10 [Older] The Texan Doctor and the Disappeared Saudi Princesses

  • NL Times ☛ 2024-10-04 [Older] Two far-right FvD campaign videos violate hate speech laws, says prosecutor

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-10-06 [Older] A Year Into the Israel-Hamas War, Students Say a Chill on Free Speech Has Reached College Classrooms

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Techdirt ☛ John Deere Once Again Under Fire Again For Efforts To Monopolize Repair

    A few years ago agricultural equipment giant John Deere found itself on the receiving end of an antitrust lawsuit for its efforts to monopolize tractor repair. The lawsuits noted that the company consistently purchased competing repair centers in order to consolidate the sector and force customers into using the company’s own repair facilities, driving up costs and logistical hurdles dramatically for farmers.

    The lawsuits also noted how the company routinely makes repair difficult and costly through the act of software locks, obnoxious DRM, and “parts pairing” — which involves only allowing the installation of company-certified replacement parts — or mandatory collections of company-blessed components.

  • [Old] IEEE ☛ The Athens Affair

    Software that not only alters operating system code but also hides its tracks is called a “rootkit.” The term is known to the public—if at all—because of one that the record label Sony BMG Music Entertainment included on some music CDs released in 2005. The Sony rootkit restricted copying of CDs; it burrowed into the Windows operating system on PCs and then hid its existence from the owner. (Sony stopped using rootkits because of a general public outcry.) Security experts have also discovered other rootkits for general-purpose operating systems, such as Linux, Windows, and Solaris, but to our knowledge this is the first time a rootkit has been observed on a special-purpose system, in this case an Ericsson telephone switch.

    With all of this sophisticated subterfuge, how then was the rogue software finally discovered? On 24 January 2005, the perpetrators updated their planted software. That upgrade interfered with the forwarding of text messages, which went undelivered. These undelivered text messages, in turn, triggered an automated failure report.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Lina Khan’s future is the future of the Democratic Party – and America

  In part, that's because US antitrust laws have broad "private rights of action" that allow individuals and companies to sue one another for monopolistic conduct, even if top government officials are turning a blind eye. It's true that from the Reagan era to the Biden era, these private suits were few and far between, and the cases that were brought often died in a federal courtroom. But the past four years has seen a resurgence of antitrust rage that runs from left to right, and from individuals to the C-suites of big companies, driving a wave of private cases that are prevailing in the courts, upending the pro-monopoly precedents that billionaires procured by offering free "continuing education" antitrust training to 40% of the Federal judiciary: [...]

• India Times ☛ Germany closes Meta case after data measures agreed

  Germany's antitrust watchdog said on Thursday that Meta had taken measures that give users greater control over how their data get used on its platforms, ending a long-running dispute. "Users now have much greater control over how their data are combined," cartel office president Andreas Mundt said in a statement.

• Axios ☛ DOJ weighs suggesting Google breakup as "remedy" to search monopoly

  Why it matters: A court-ordered Google breakup would be the most consequential antitrust action in the U.S. in decades and federal Judge Amit Mehta has been considering this since his August ruling, but Axios' Scott Rosenberg noted back then that figuring out how to split up the company could prove daunting.

  Context: The case stems from a lawsuit first filed against Google in 2020 that alleged the company had illegal dominance in online search, basing their case mostly on the contracts between Google and Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Firefox, worth billions.

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ RIAA's Flags Latest Piracy Threats, Sees a Future for AI

    The RIAA has submitted its most recent overview of notorious markets to the U.S. Trade Representative, listing familiar suspects including torrent sites, cyberlockers, and stream-ripping services. The RIAA views artificial intelligence as a potential threat, but also as a source for new revenue streams and innovation.