Leftovers

• Ruben Schade ☛ Follow up on my “optics matter” post

  Last Wednesday I wrote about how optics matter, especially within open source communities. I mentioned how a certain WordPress owner had conceded any technical or legal points he thought he was making with his conduct, which was troubling and sad to see.

  I’ve had some interesting and thoughtful feedback, beyond the regular trolls who unintentionally prove my point. One in particular was from someone who wished to remain anonymous, so I’ve also lightly paraphrased their words:

  I work at a large IT firm, and am diagnosed $REDACTED. My problem has been that I’m told my “words have impact” and that “optics matter”, but I struggle to meet the social expectations you describe. Sometimes my words land, other times they don’t. It makes navigating these situations extremely difficult.

• Ruben Schade ☛ RFC: issue with feed readers not showing titles

  Drew Jose emailed me recently with a strange bug. Their feed reader doesn’t show the title of posts correctly, instead just printing “Rubenerd” each time. This is, understandably, a bit frustrating for them.

• Hardware

  • The Next Platform ☛ Intel And AMD Make X Less Of A Variable For X86 Processors

    One of the oldest ideas in humanity – and one that may have predated language as we know it – is that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  • CNX Software ☛ Trenz Electronic AXE5-EAGLE-ES devkit features defective chip maker Intel Agilex 5 E-Series SoC FPGA

    The Trenz Electronic AXE5-EAGLE-ES devkit (development kit) is powered by an defective chip maker Intel Agilex 5 E-series SoC FPGA, codenamed Sundance Mesa. It is designed for FPGA applications in sectors such as wireless communication, video broadcast, and defense. The kit provides 656k logic elements and a quad-core processing system featuring dual-core Arm Cortex-A76 and Cortex-A55 clusters. It supports high-speed transceivers up to 17 Gbps, PCIe 4.0 connectivity, and integrated memory interfaces like DDR4 and LPDDR4/5. Built on Intel’s 7 technology, the Agilex 5 architecture is optimized for midrange FPGA applications, offering a compact design with efficient performance-per-watt.

  • CNX Software ☛ Qualcomm introduces IQ9, IQ8, and IQ6 industrial IoT SoC families with up to 100 TOPS of Hey Hi (AI) performance

    Qualcomm Technologies has introduced the new industrial-grade IQ chipset family with the IQ9, IQ8, and IQ6 series offering on-device Hey Hi (AI) performance of up to 100 TOPS, industrial temperature range, and built-in safety features such as SIL-3 (safety and integrity level).

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ HK Policy Address 2024: New HK$5k monthly subsidy for elderly to live in Guangdong care homes

    The Hong Kong government will offer a monthly subsidy of HK$5,000 to up to 1,000 elderly social security recipients if they want to move to care homes in China’s Guangdong Province, the city’s leader said.

  • Craig Murray ☛ The Notional Health Service

    Today is my 66th birthday, so I am hoping that you will forgive an article that is at core the anecdotal ramblings of an old man. It was inspired by horror at Wes Streeting (I could end the sentence there but I shall continue it) ‘s plan to give weight loss jabs to the unemployed.

  • Science Alert ☛ We Just Got More Evidence That Long COVID Is a Brain Injury

    "A site of vulnerability to long-term effects."

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ HK Policy Address 2024: Gov’t to launch online emotional support platform for young people after spate of suicides

    The Hong Kong government has pledged to roll out a new online emotional support platform for young people after the city saw a record number of suspected student suicides last year.

  • Medevel ☛ TikTok's Legal Woes: Accusations of Addiction and Mental Health Impact Spark Multi-State Lawsuits

    Accused of harming the mental health of children .. 14 US states are suing TikTok

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • YB Media LLC ☛ Stunning Riot Games layoffs include more employees in 2024

    Recently, there have been massive layoffs from major game studios, but the Riot Games layoffs seem to have undergone another round. This was done supposedly so that the League Of Legends team would grow ‘even larger than it is today’. The League of Legends‘ Developer, Riot Games, through an X post, announced another round of layoffs while simultaneously promising the larger growth of the league team to gamers.

• Defence/Aggression

  • New York Times ☛ U.N. Security Council Urges Israel to Increase Flow of Aid Into Gaza

    Some of the sharpest criticism about a lack of sufficient assistance in the enclave came from Israel’s allies, including the United States.

  • JURIST ☛ Experts find significant gaps in probe of El Salvador official’s death following ‘enforced disappearance’

    An investigation into the death of a former El Salvadoran security official revealed significant flaws, Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced Tuesday. Alejandro Muyshondt had been serving as a national security advisor to El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in August 2023 when he was arrested on charges of having disclosed state secrets to a political adversary. 

  • Federal News Network ☛ Defense contractor RTX agrees to pay more than $950 million to resolve bribery, fraud claims

    RTX Corporation, the defense contractor formerly known as Raytheon, has agreed to pay more than $950 million to resolve allegations that it defrauded the government and paid bribes to secure business with Qatar. The company entered into deferred prosecution agreements in separate cases in federal court in Brooklyn and Boston, agreed to hire independent monitors to oversee compliance with anti-corruption and anti-fraud laws and must show good conduct for three years. The money the company owes includes penalties in the criminal cases, as well as civil fines, restitution and the return of profits it derived from inflated Defense Department billing and business derived from alleged bribes paid to a high-ranking Qatari military official from 2012 to 2016.

  • Defence Web ☛ Conditions worsen for Cabo Delgado IDPs amid waves of terror attacks

    More than 542,000 internally displaced people (IDP) in northern Mozambique’s conflict-torn Cabo Delgado province face dire humanitarian conditions amid an insurgency that has raged since 2017. As the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) reported, many IDPs there have limited access to food, shelter, water, sanitation, health and education.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Latvia ☛ Latvian PM Siliņa says NATO 'is in safe hands'

      NATO will continue to play a crucial role in Latvia's security said Latvian Prime Minister Evika Siliņa when meeting with the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Brussels on October 16.

• Finance

  • LRT ☛ Former Lithuanian minister’s husband detained in fintech investigation

    Law enforcement detained Ieva Trinkūnaitė, a shareholder of the fintech company Foxpay, her partner Vilhelmas Germanas and Mindaugas Navickas, the husband of former social security minister Monika Navickienė, 15min.lt reported on Wednesday citing its sources.

  • New York Times ☛ Mexico’s Ex-Security Chief Sentenced to 38 Years for Cartel Bribery

    The stiff penalty was the potentially final step in the stunning downfall of the former official, Genaro García Luna, who has gone from the heights of power to imprisonment.

  • CS Monitor ☛ How the pandemic slowed the march toward equal pay

    Between 2022 and 2023, the gender wage gap between men and women working full-time widened for the first time in 20 years. For Black women and Asian women, the gap widened, for Hispanic women, it narrowed, and for white women, it stayed the same.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Pro Publica ☛ Georgia Election Officials Must Certify Election Results, Judge Rules

    A Georgia judge ruled this week that county election board members cannot block the certification of votes based on suspicions of fraud or error.

    The ruling, if it stands, puts to rest the question of whether local election officials would be allowed to throw out individual precincts from county vote totals if they suspect fraud or error. A new rule adopted by the State Election Board appeared to allow such exclusions.

  • Mexico News Daily ☛ Former security minister Genaro García Luna gets 38 years in US prison

    Genaro García Luna, convicted of colluding with cartels as Mexico's security head, is the highest-ranking Mexican official to have ever faced justice in the U.S.

  • Defence Web ☛ Africa’s citizens, not soldiers, must protect and demand democracy

    Recent protests show that citizens can demand accountability from their leaders instead of waiting for coups to fix broken governments. Despite decades of democracy, many African countries have yet to realise the anticipated dividends. Accountability, a key feature in representative democracy, is largely missing from the continent’s politics.

  • New York Times ☛ When Patriarchy Trumps Race

    Despite his flaws, the former president’s ideas and style appeal to some Black men.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Alaska Will Help Anchorage Prosecute Crimes After Mass Dismissals

    Alaska officials have announced plans to help Anchorage city prosecutors take criminal cases to trial days after the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica reported the municipality has dropped hundreds of cases due to low staffing.

    Normally, the city prosecutes misdemeanor crimes that occur within city limits while the state prosecutes felonies. Over the next six months, the two governments plan to work together to stem the wave of dismissals. Deputy Attorney General John Skidmore said Tuesday that his department would provide seven to 10 state attorneys to aid the city government.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Public Knowledge ☛ So Far, the Biggest Threat to Election Integrity in 2024 Isn’t Deepfakes – It’s Bad Content Moderation

      In order to produce a more truthful and healthy information ecosystem, we need consistent and clear content moderation.

    • New Yorker ☛ How Hurricane Helene Has Fuelled Far-Right Conspiracies

      The devastation of Hurricane Helene is throwing North Carolina’s already hypercompetitive election into disarray.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ Podcast 76: Making news pay the Boston Globe way

    Podcast interview with Boston Globe chief commercial officer Kayvan Salamanpour.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • JURIST ☛ ECHR rules Norway authorities failed to prevent suicide of prisoner

    The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg held on Tuesday that there had been violations of the European Convention of Human Rights by Oslo Prison, IHT Sanderdud and the District Court, as authorities had failed to protect a prisoner with psychiatric disorders.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ Empowering remote agricultural communities in Lao PDR through IoT technology

    Guest Post: Developing affordable IoT technology to provide reliable, relevant agricultural data and forecasting information for remote farmers.

  • APNIC ☛ Highlights of AINTEC 2024

    Measuring GenAI usage patterns, dynamic fixed-point values in eBPF, improving TCP/IP performance and more from AINTEC 2024.

  • APNIC ☛ [Podcast] The back of the class: Looking at 240/4 reachability

    Geoff Huston discusses measuring the routability of 240.0.0.0/4 class-E addresses.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Digital Music News ☛ The MLC v. Spotify Legal Battle Keeps Getting Uglier — Bitter Dispute Unfolds Over ‘Extremely Broad’ and ‘Invasive’ Discovery Demands

    Just when you thought the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) v. Spotify lawsuit couldn’t get any uglier, the two are now embroiled in a bitter discovery dispute. Both the MLC and the streaming platform illustrated the scope of this dispute today, in letters to the presiding judge about their respective qualms.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 for Lattice Technologies communications patent monopoly prior art

    Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on claim 1 of U.S. Patent 8,098,153, owned by Lattice Technologies LLC, an NPE.

  • Incompetent Patent Office (EPO) Trying to Blame Examiners (Whom It Orders to Illegally Grant European Patents)

    full communication, accompanied by flowcharts

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • JUVE ☛ No PI for Ericsson in Lisbon

      The local division Lisbon took just over a month to hand down its first UPC ruling. Ericsson had filed a motion for preliminary injunction against AsusTek and two co-defendants, Arvato and Digital River, on 14 June.

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ TTABlog Test: Three Recent Section 2(d) Oppositions - How Do You Think They Came Out?

    The outcome of a Section 2(d) opposition is more difficult to predict than a Section 2(d) appeal. Lack of actual confusion may come into play, for example, and the parties may enter into stipulations or make admissions that significantly affect the result. By my estimate, Section 2(d) oppositions have been sustained about 80% of the time so far this year, which may indicate how the deck is stacked against the applicant in th likelihood-of-confusion analysis. Here are three recent Board decisions. How do you think they came out?

    Flowers Bakeries Brands, LLC v. OWN Your Hunger Inc., Opposition No. 91278157 (October 3, 2024) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Melayne K. Johnson). [Opposition to registration of WONDERSPREAD for "nut butters" in view of the registered mark WONDER for bread and bakery goods.]

• Copyrights

  • Public Domain Review ☛ Vanity of Vanities: Fool’s Cap Map of the World (ca. 1585)

    A mysterious early modern engraving imagining the world imposed on a jester’s face.

  • Digital Music News ☛ California’s Music Festival Bubble Is Going Pop — Maybe You’ll Get a Refund, Maybe You Won’t

    California’s music festival scene is deflating like a punctured raft in river rapids. So what happened, and why are music festivals sinking? There was plenty of reason to feel optimistic about the music festival scene in the “post-early-pandemic” return.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Triller Hits NASDAQ After Merger with AGBA Group Completes — Fentanylware (TikTok) Competition on the Horizon?

    AGBA Group Holding Limited has completed its merger with Triller Corp. The new company will operate as Triller Group Inc—under the ILLR stock ticker. The merger comes after Triller settled a breach of contract dispute with Sony Music for $4.6 million. Triller was accused of failing to pay licensing fees for several stars including Britney […]