Links 05/01/2025: Math on Checkerboard and Nazi-linked Accounts at Credit Suisse
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Career/Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM) Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Hackaday ☛ Math On A Checkerboard
The word “algorithm” can sometimes seem like a word designed to scare people away from math classes, much like the words “calculus”, “Fourier transform”, or “engineering exam”. But in reality it’s just a method for solving a specific problem, and we use them all the time whether or not we realize it. Taking a deep dive into some of the ways we solve problems, especially math problems, often leads to some surprising consequences as well like this set of algorithms for performing various calculations using nothing but a checkerboard.
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Hackaday ☛ A New Life For A Conference Badge, Weighing Bees
We love electronic conference badges here at Hackaday, but it’s undeniable that many of them end up gathering dust after the event. Most of them are usable as development boards though, so it’s nice to see them appear in projects from time to time. [Benjamin Blundell] has a good one, he’s using an EMF Camp 2014 badge to power a set of load cells in a bee scale.
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Tracy Durnell ☛ Disrupting my reading habits to read more of what *I* want (Part 3)
Curator Hans Ulrich Oberst notes that for most of history, scarcity was the challenge; now, overproduction is. Today, the pace that new content is flung at us means that, without substantial willpower or intentionality, we’re so busy consuming we don’t have time to think. Trying to keep up means we rarely take the time to step back and think about what we’re keeping up with. Dependent on pageviews for advertising revenue, publications pull every trick in the book to steal our attention. My own curiosities are swamped by the neverending pile of information dumped on my mental threshold each day.
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Kevin Liu ☛ 2024 year in review | Kevin Liu
Experiences I enjoyed the most, rated out of 10
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Michael Burkhardt ☛ Someone Told Me Once - Michael Burkhardt's Whirled Wide Web
Words of wisdom? Profound truths? Simple advice? Whatever we call them, they stay with us. And here are a few that have stuck with me over the years.
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Science
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New York Times ☛ Could Monkeys Really Type All of Shakespeare?
Not in this universe, a new study concludes.
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The Straits Times ☛ More than a tourist attraction: Tokyo Skytree jolts research as a lightning rod
It is a science laboratory for lightning and other research and a disaster mitigation hub.
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Science Alert ☛ You'll Probably Gain a Pound in 2025. Avoid 'Weight Creep' With 7 Practical Steps.
Not this year!
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Science Alert ☛ Study Reveals Key Alzheimer's Pathway – And Blocking It Reverses Symptoms in Mice
A critical link discovered.
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Science Alert ☛ Scientists Discover Mystery Volcano That Cooled The Globe in 1831
No one expected this.
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Science Alert ☛ Scientists Identify New Blood Group After 50 Year Mystery
A medical breakthrough that could save lives.
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NYPost ☛ Passenger demonstrates the true power of airplane toilet suction in viral video
They really are a flush above.
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New York Times ☛ Do You Believe in Life After Death? These Scientists Study It.
Is reincarnation real? Is communication from the “beyond” possible? A small set of academics are trying to find out, case by case.
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Bartosz Milewski ☛ Legalizing Comonad Composition
The yearly Advent of Code is always a source of interesting coding challenges. You can often solve them the easy way, or spend days trying to solve them “the right way.” I personally prefer the latter. This year I decided to do some yak shaving with a puzzle that involved looking for patterns in a grid. The pattern was the string XMAS, and it could start at any location and go in any direction whatsoever.
My immediate impulse was to elevate the grid to a comonad. The idea is that a comonad describes a data structure in which every location is a center of some neighborhood, and it lets you apply an algorithm to all neighborhoods in one fell swoop. Common examples of comonads are infinite streams and infinite grids.
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Career/Education
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Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Pauline P. Narvas
This is the 71st edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Pauline P. Narvas and her blog, pawlean.com
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Hardware
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CNX Software ☛ WisMesh TAP is a battery-powered Meshtastic client with a touchcreen display housed in an IP65-rated enclosure
RAKwireless’ WisMesh TAP is a battery-powered Meshtastic client with an integrated TFT touchscreen display and an IP65-rated enclosure making it suitable for outdoor use. The device supports 800 and 900 MHz Meshtastic networks and includes a GNSS module and motion sensor to provide location information through the network, besides offering off-grid messaging without a smartphone thanks to an on-screen keyboard.
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Hackaday ☛ Organizing Components, The Easy Way
There’s an old joke: What do you get someone who has everything? A place to put it. For hackers like [Christian], everything is a hoard of priceless electronic components. His solution is using small zipper bags, either regular plastic or anti-static. These attach using hook and loop fastener to plastic binder sheets which then live in a binder. Combined with some custom printed labels and a few other tricks, it makes for a nice system, as you can see in the video below.
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Hackaday ☛ Landing Soon: This Beautiful Weather Display
All wiring is beautiful, except when it isn’t. But is there anything more lovely to behold than circuit sculpture? Once again, [Mohit Bhoite] has made this process look easy like Sunday morning. This time, he’s created a weather display in the form of a lander.
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Hackaday ☛ Custom Firmware Adds Capabilities To Handie Talkie
Although ham radio can be an engaging, rewarding hobby, it does have a certain reputation for being popular among those who would fit in well at gated Florida communities where the preferred mode of transportation is the golf cart. For radio manufacturers this can be a boon, as this group tends to have a lot of money and not demand many new features in their technology. But for those of us who skew a bit younger, there are a few radios with custom firmware available that can add a lot of extra capabilities.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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New York Times ☛ U.S. Surgeon General Calls for Cancer Warnings on Alcohol
Dr. Vivek Murthy’s report cites studies linking alcoholic beverages to at least seven malignancies, including breast cancer. But to add warning labels, Congress would have to act.
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France24 ☛ Alcohol should have cancer warning label, top US health official says
Alcoholic drinks should have labels warning consumers that they cause cancer, the United States' top government doctor said on Friday. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said the connection between cancer and alcohol has been known for decades, "yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk".
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New York Times ☛ Which Countries Warn That Alcohol May Cause Cancer?
A quarter of nations worldwide have health risk labels on alcohol. But only South Korea has a warning about liver cancer.
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The Straits Times ☛ South Korea sees largest influenza outbreak since 2016
Cases among teenagers are rising particularly sharply.
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TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Sick season is in full force. What the latest CDC figures show
The holidays came with a side of flu for many Americans, with 40 states reporting high or very high levels of illness last week, according to the latest government health data.
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JURIST ☛ UN experts denounce attacks on Gaza hospitals as ‘blatant disregard’ for health rights
The UN Special Rapporteurs Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng and Francesca Albanese on Thursday denounced the “blatant disregard” for the right to health in Gaza after the recent raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital and the arrest and detention of its director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.
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LRT ☛ Self-employed in Lithuania to pay higher health insurance fees
As of January 1, the fixed monthly health insurance contributions for the self-employed in Lithuania are going up from 64.5 to 72.45 euros per month.
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CS Monitor ☛ In Kenya, community health volunteers fight for pay and status
Community health workers are hailed as a cost-effective way to plug gaps in health care systems. Now they are fighting for their own rights.
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Latvia ☛ Flu epidemic gains momentum in Latvia
As the influenza epidemic continues, more and more patients are hospitalized. The majority of people admitted to the hospital are elderly, immunocompromised, or pregnant, Latvian Television reported on January 2.
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Latvia ☛ Pharmacy work chaotic after new law adoption, says industry
This year, a new medicine pricing mark-up model came into force, and although some pharmacies opened on January 1, there are still many unknowns and unfinished business. This reform has not taken into account the objections of the pharmaceutical industry and has now created chaos in the work of pharmacists, industry representatives told Latvian Radio on January 3.
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The Straits Times ☛ Four who died after countdown concert in KL had consumed Ecstasy: Malaysia police
Malaysian authorities believe that there were individuals who sold drugs at the concert.
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The Straits Times ☛ Chinese cat owners feed Covid-19 pills to pets to beat deadly virus
Cat lovers took to social control media to discuss how the drugs saved their pets.
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Pro Publica ☛ Formaldehyde Poses an “Unreasonable” Public Health Risk, EPA Finds
A long-awaited report from the Environmental Protection Agency has found that formaldehyde presents an unreasonable risk to human health. But the report, released Thursday, downplayed the threat the chemical poses to people living near industrial plants that release large quantities of the carcinogen into the air.
The health risk assessment was published weeks after a ProPublica investigation found that formaldehyde, one of the most widely used chemicals in commerce, causes more cases of cancer than any other chemical in the air and triggers asthma, miscarriages and fertility problems.
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Barry Hess ☛ DDoS’ing Yourself with To-dos and Reminders
When I open my to-do app these days, I literally sigh heavily and feel my eyes get tired in the corners.
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Wired ☛ Wildfire Smoke Is Even More Dangerous Than Anyone Knew
The more researchers learn about wildfire smoke, the more worrisome the picture gets. Smoke contains microscopic particles known as PM 2.5 because the PM (particulate matter) measures 2.5 microns or less—small enough to easily wiggle its way into our lungs and then into our bloodstreams. Researchers have already connected the particulate matter in wildfire smoke to a higher risk of strokes, heart disease, respiratory disease, lung cancer, and other serious conditions.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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The Hindu ☛ X’s Grok AI revives concern about deepfakes ahead of Delhi Assembly election
In the run-up to the Delhi Assembly election, the exchange has reignited the debate over the use of AI in political campaigning, and the role it plays in elections. This use of deepfakes has been growing since Grok — the AI chatbot and image generation service offered by X, formerly Twitter — became available to the general public. Unlike the policy followed by other AI chatbots, X’s owner Elon Musk has decided against prohibiting imagery based on real life political figures, leading to a mushrooming of such content on Grok.
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Rolling Stone ☛ Trump’s Second Term: Punish the Vulnerable, Enrich the Wealthy
Donald Trump led a virulently anti-immigrant campaign for president, fixated on the idea of “migrant crime” and the notion that foreigners are “taking your jobs.” The president-elect and his incoming administration remain committed to deporting undocumented immigrants and asylum-seekers — but Trump has already made clear he won’t stop big employers from replacing Americans with temporary immigrant workers.
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The Register UK ☛ Encryption backdoor debate 'done and dusted'
"We know that bad guys can walk through the same doors that are supposedly built for the good guys," Virtru CEO and co-founder John Ackerly told The Register. "It's one thing to tap hardline wires or voice communication. It's yet another to open up the spigot to all digital communication."
This, of course, is exactly what the the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act — better known as CALEA — did 30 years ago. The 1994 law required telecom providers to design their systems to comply with wiretapping requests from law enforcement. In 2006, the FCC expanded this backdoor mandate to cover broadband internet companies.
CALEA also required telcos to lock down their own networks to prevent foreign spies from intercepting Americans' communications. But the FCC never really enforced this piece of the legislation.
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The Record ☛ US sanctions prominent Chinese cyber company for role in Flax Typhoon attacks
Beijing-based Integrity Technology Group provided the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) Ministry of State Security and several Chinese state-backed hacking groups with infrastructure that allows them to attack multiple victims based in the U.S., according to U.S. officials.
The Treasury Department said Integrity Technology provided Flax Typhoon actors with infrastructure between the summer of 2022 and fall of 2023 — with the state-backed groups sharing and receiving information from the company.
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TLA Systems ☛ I Live My Life a Quarter Century at a Time
So, we are coming up on a little anniversary for me this weekend. On the 5th of January 2000, Steve Jobs unveiled the new Aqua user interface of Mac OS X to the world at Macworld Expo.
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Stephen Hackett ☛ The Story Behind the Initial Iteration of the Mac OS X Dock
On January 5, 2000, Steve Jobs unveiled the Aqua user interface for the very first time. Stylistically, it was a bold departure from what had come before, and was no doubt created with the iMac G3 in mind.
The changes were more than skin deep, and no where was the influence of NeXT’s software more evident than the Dock, a place for users to stash documents, an easy way to launch applications, and generally anchor the user interface to the bottom or side of the screen.
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Pivot to AI ☛ Nvidia primes the pump, puts $1b of pocket change into AI startups
Why dump money into AI startups? Because Nvidia wants to keep the party pumping. The AI bubble will deflate at some point, taking Nvidia’s stock price back into saner realms.
Nvidia is a sensible company. It knows this is a bubble and it’ll pop. It just doesn’t want it happening yet.
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Adriaan Roselli ☛ FTC Catches up to #accessiBe
The FTC press release includes this subhead: "Company also failed to disclose material connections to online reviewers"
Essentially the FTC found that accessiBe had been misrepresenting itself to end users, customers, and the community. This finding may not be a surprise for many disabled people who have encountered accessiBe in the wild, as evidenced by tools and guides which have popped up to block the accessiBe overlay.
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Alvaro Montoro ☛ Human Writing in the Age of AI
A recurring thought when preparing articles online: Is it worth continuing to write in a digital publishing world flooded with machine-generated content?
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Don Marti ☛ Links for 4 Jan 2024: news from the low-trust society
Read the whole thing. A lot of "tech" big shots want to play the rest of us like a real-time strategy game. (Ever notice that the list of skills in the "we don’t hire US job applicants because the culture doesn’t value the following skills" tweets is the same as the list of skills in the "our AI has achieved human-level performance in the following skills" tweets?) I predicted that "low-trust society" will trend in 2025, and I agree with Aram that a big part of that is company decision-makers deliberately making decisions that make it harder to trust others. I’m working on a list of known good companies. (Work in progress, please share yours if you have one.)
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Habib Cham ☛ Daisy the AI Granny: Fighting Scammers, One Dodgy Call at a Time
While Meta is busy creating fake AI persona accounts to boost engagement on their platforms – for what we all know, the sole benefit is for generating ad revenue – companies like Virgin Media-O2 are using this technology for a far more noble purpose: safeguarding their customers from fraudulent phone calls.
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Wired ☛ A Book App Used AI to ‘Roast’ Its Users. It Went Anti-Woke Instead
Ever since the debut of Spotify Wrapped, annual recap features have become ubiquitous across the internet, providing users a rundown of how many books and news articles they read, songs they listened to, and workouts they completed. Some companies are now using AI to wholly produce or augment how these metrics are presented. Spotify, for example, now offers an AI-generated podcast where robots analyze your listening history and make guesses about your life based on your tastes. Fable hopped on the trend by using OpenAI’s API to generate summaries of the past 12 months of the reading habits for its users, but it didn’t expect that the AI model would spit out commentary that took on the mien of an anti-woke pundit.
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Pete Brown ☛ Art has value because humans created it.
I think that art and creativity cannot be separated from the humans creating the art. That art have its own value separate from the artist once it is out in the world, but that value is inextricably dependent upon the artist and the creative act. I do not believe that it can be artificially reproduced.
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BoingBoing ☛ AI-generated UFO video shows how fast visual truth is slipping away
While the 38-second clip contains obvious flaws — the spacecraft changes size and shape between shots, for one thing — it has already managed to fool viewers. "My mid-40s uncle showed this to me in a state of panic and awe, he really had no idea it was AI-generated," reported one Reddit commenter. Another noted: "The shakiness and zooming really feels like someone is taking a video on their phone."
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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ACLU ☛ Disappearing Messages Don’t Work — And They’re Great
Fifteen years ago it was unfathomable – and a bad idea – to imagine that your digital messages could automatically self-destruct.. Once your message is on someone else’s machine, you simply cannot guarantee that it will be destroyed when you want it to be. Fooling people into thinking they have more security and privacy than they really do can put them in harm’s way.
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Spiegel ☛ We Know Where You Parked: Massive Data Breach at VW Raises Questions about Vehicle Privacy - DER SPIEGEL
Already facing significant headwinds, VW has now been hit by a data protection nightmare. Location data from 800,000 electric vehicles and contact info from owners was accessible unprotected on the [Internet]. And the company didn't even know about it.
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VOA News ☛ Tesla data helped police after truck explosion; experts have privacy concerns
"It reveals the kind of sweeping surveillance going on," said David Choffnes, executive director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute at Northeastern University in Boston. "When something bad happens, it's helpful, but it's a double-edged sword. Companies that collect this data can abuse it."
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International Business Times ☛ Pornhub Tells Users in Banned US States to 'Stand up for Your Freedom'; Gives Tips on How to 'Fight Back'
As of December 2024, Pornhub is inaccessible in states including Texas, Florida, Utah, and Virginia, where laws now require users to provide government-issued identification to verify their age before accessing adult content. The company has argued that this approach, while intended to protect minors, poses significant risks to personal privacy and security.
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JURIST ☛ India IT ministry releases draft rules under controversial data legislation
India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Saturday released draft rules in furtherance of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, sparking significant debate regarding the rules’ implications on data privacy rights.
The Draft Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025, which has been made available for public consultation until February 18, 2025, outlines critical provisions for how data fiduciaries should handle personal data.
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The Age AU ☛ Apple Siri: Apple settles eavesdropping class action for $153 million
Apple has agreed to pay $US95 million ($153 million) to settle a lawsuit that accused the company of turning virtual assistant Siri into a snoop that eavesdropped on users of iPhones and other devices.
The proposed settlement filed in a US federal court this week still needs to be approved by a judge, but here are a few things to know about the case and the privacy issues it raised.
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The Korea Times ☛ Apple to pay $95 million to settle lawsuit accusing Siri of eavesdropping
The alleged recordings occurred even when people didn't seek to activate the virtual assistant with the trigger words, “Hey, Siri." Some of the recorded conversations were then shared with advertisers in an attempt to sell their products to consumers more likely to be interested in the goods and services, the lawsuit asserted.
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VOA News ☛ Apple to pay $95M to settle lawsuit accusing Siri of eavesdropping
The alleged recordings occurred even when people didn't seek to activate the virtual assistant with the trigger words, "Hey, Siri." Some of the recorded conversations were then shared with advertisers in an attempt to sell their products to consumers more likely to be interested in the goods and services, the lawsuit asserted.
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CBC ☛ Apple to pay $95M to settle lawsuit accusing Siri of eavesdropping
The proposed settlement filed Tuesday in an Oakland, Calif., federal court would resolve a five-year-old lawsuit revolving around allegations that Apple surreptitiously activated Siri to record conversations through iPhones and other devices equipped with the virtual assistant for more than a decade.
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Defence/Aggression
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New York Times ☛ More Than 300 People Flee Building Fire in South Korea
An eight-story commercial complex caught fire south of the nation’s capital, fire officials said.
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The Straits Times ☛ Dozens rescued after fire engulfs South Korea building, emergency department says
Footage showed a building that appeared to be at least eight storeys tall engulfed in black smoke.
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New York Times ☛ South Korea Fails to Detain Impeached President in Standoff at His Home
Blocked by bodyguards, officials retreated after several hours without serving a court warrant to hold President Yoon Suk Yeol for questioning on insurrection charges.
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The Straits Times ☛ South Korea's Yoon: Embittered survivor facing unprecedented arrest
SEOUL - South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol faces the greatest threat to his brief but chequered political career as he struggles to thwart an unprecedented arrest attempt in a criminal probe alleging he led an insurrection.
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The Straits Times ☛ South Korean presidential guards prevent arrest of impeached Yoon after tense stand-off
He is under criminal investigation for insurrection over his Dec 3 martial law bid.
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The Straits Times ☛ South Korea's acting president vows continued cooperation with US, Japan
South Korea's acting President Choi Sang-mok vowed to continue trilateral cooperation with Japan and the United States, saying on Friday his country's diplomacy remains steadfast despite an unprecedented political crisis at home.
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The Straits Times ☛ Blinken heads to South Korea, Japan and France
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to South Korea, Japan and France from Jan. 4-9, the State Department said on Friday, amid a political crisis in Seoul.
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The Straits Times ☛ Supporters of South Korea's Yoon adopt 'Stop the Steal', hope Trump will help
Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol are adopting "Stop the Steal" slogans popularised by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump supporters and said they hoped the incoming president would help their embattled leader.
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The Straits Times ☛ Malaysian palace says clemency bids must go to pardons board
Malaysia’s royal palace is echoing a government statement on the matter issued last weekend.
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The Straits Times ☛ Engine maker GE joins South Korean probe of fatal plane crash
Seoul extended by a week special inspections of all 101 Boeing 737-800 jets.
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The Straits Times ☛ South Korea begins lifting Jeju Air wreckage after fatal crash
Investigators have started lifting the tail section of the plane using a crane.
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The Straits Times ☛ China urges safety assessments after deadly year in commercial aviation
In 2024, 318 people died in commercial flight incidents around the world.
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The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia doubles patrols to find Myanmar migrant boats after nearly 200 detained
The coastguard is in contact with Thai authorities to identify the movement of migrant boats.
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The Straits Times ☛ PAS pushes Islamic agenda with eye on next Malaysia election
Moves risk alienating moderate Malays and non-Muslims.
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South China Sea: 5 things to watch in 2025
The waterway is expected to stay turbulent through the new year; we explore possible flashpoints.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China hits US defence firms with sanctions over Taiwan arms sales
China sanctioned 10 US defence firms on Thursday over arms sales to Taiwan, its second round of measures against American companies over the issue in less than a week.
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Rohingyas' return to Myanmar uncertain, despite rebel control of Bangladesh border
If the AA allows their repatriation, it’s unclear whether the Rohingya will be safe from junta airstrikes.
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France24 ☛ Israeli strikes kill at least 42 in Gaza as stalled ceasefire talks set to resume
As stalled ceasefire talks were set to resume in Qatar on Friday, Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people in the Gaza Strip amid conflicting reports over whether Israel had ordered evacuations of two hospitals in the Palestinian territory.
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Defence Web ☛ Correctional Services Minister only JCPS cluster member to answer all Parliamentary questions
Defence and Military Veterans Minister Angie Motshekga while not 100% diligent when it comes to answering Parliamentary questions fares better than some of her colleagues in South Africa’s seventh administration Government of National Unity (GNU).
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Defence Web ☛ Not enough infantry sees other SA Army musterings used for border protection
South Africa’s ongoing border protection tasking – now in its 16th year – executed in the main by infantry units, shows how short of boots on the ground the landward component of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) is for specific missions.
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France24 ☛ Suicide rate in Israeli army hits 13-year high amid ongoing war
The Israeli army has reported a sharp increase in the number of suicides since the start of the war in Gaza, adding that thousands of soldiers have stopped serving in combat roles due to mental distress. The trend has led the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to adopt new preventive measures 15 months into a conflict that has mobilised hundreds of thousands of reservists.
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New York Times ☛ TikTok and Government Clash in Last Round of Supreme Court Briefs
The briefs, filed a week before oral arguments, offered sharply differing accounts of China’s influence over the site and the role of the First Amendment.
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The Straits Times ☛ He’s been called ‘online beggar’, but Fentanylware (TikTok) creator goes live to support family after losing job
Older influencers have found sizeable audiences in the Philippines, the so-called social control media capital of the world.
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New York Times ☛ How the Islamic State Radicalizes People Today
From online videos to social media platforms — and even a weekly Islamic State newsletter — the group that wants to force all Muslims to adhere strictly to the faith’s earliest teachings has a very modern media strategy.
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US News And World Report ☛ New Orleans Attack Came as Officials Warned of an Escalating Threat of International Terrorism
The swirl of concerns led Wray to tell The Associated Press in August that he was “hard-pressed to think of a time in my career where so many different kinds of threats are all elevated at once.”
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Maine Morning Star ☛ Trump to be sentenced in hush money case but avoid jail time
Trump made history in May as the first former president to become a convicted felon after a jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to hide a hush-money scheme involving his personal lawyer Michael Cohen and adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
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Michigan Advance ☛ Trump to be sentenced in hush money case but avoid jail time
Trump’s New York sentencing date was delayed multiple times, including shortly after Trump’s win on Nov. 5 prompted Merchan to pause and examine moving forward with sentencing a president-elect.
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Nebraska Examiner ☛ Trump to be sentenced in hush money case but avoid jail time
“This Court must sentence Defendant within a reasonable time following verdict; and Defendant must be permitted to avail himself of every available appeal, a path he has made clear he intends to pursue but which only becomes fully available upon sentencing,” Merchan continued.
Merchan has given Trump the option to appear in person or virtually for the sentencing.
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New York Times ☛ How Hybrid Tactics Targeted NATO Allies in 2024: Drones, Exploding Parcels, Sabotage
Russia and other hostile states have become increasingly brazen in adopting “gray zone” attacks against Europe and the United States, leaving defense officials with a dilemma: How to respond?
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JURIST ☛ Finland court denies release of oil tanker suspected in Baltic Sea cable damage
Cable owners, including the firms Fingrid, Elisa and Elering, have also sought the vessel’s seizure to secure compensation claims, with Fingrid estimating damages in the tens of millions of euros. Despite objections from the vessel owner’s lawyer, Herman Ljungberg, who accused authorities of hijacking the ship, the court ruled to keep proceedings confidential for investigative reasons.
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ANF News ☛ Journalists tell of the attacks against Shehba and the resistance of the peple of Afrin
Rûken Afrin spoke about Turkey's occupation attacks on Afrin in 2018, and then on the most recent assaults, and said: "In 2018, during the Turkish state’s occupation attacks on Afrin, the people suffered a horrific massacre. After 58 days of resistance, civilians were forced to migrate to Shehba. However, this migration did not stop Turkey's attacks. Numerous assaults on innocent civilians actually turned into real massacres.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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Reuters ☛ UBS investigates undisclosed Nazi-linked accounts at Credit Suisse
"UBS is committed to contributing to a fulsome accounting of Nazi-linked legacy accounts," the bank said in a statement. "Since acquiring Credit Suisse ... we have made it a priority to ensure that the review is thorough and comprehensive."
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Environment
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The Register UK ☛ Kicking datacenters' drinking habit is nearly impossible
But it's not just power we have to worry about. These facilities are capable of sucking down prodigious quantities of water.
In the US, datacenters can consume anywhere between 300,000 and four million gallons of water a day to keep the compute housed within them cool, Austin Shelnutt of Texas-based Strategic Thermal Labs explained in a presentation at SC24 in Atlanta this fall.
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Energy/Transportation
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H2 View ☛ US Treasury relaxes 45V hydrogen tax credit rules and opens nuclear pathway
The US Treasury has unveiled significant relaxations to the rules for hydrogen producers looking to grab tax credits baked into the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
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The Straits Times ☛ India says it conveyed concerns to China over hydropower dam in Tibet
Chinese officials say the hydropower projects will not have a major impact on the environment.
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Guangzhou Metro rethinks ‘underworld’ subway exit after coffin gaffe
‘Is this the gate to the Underworld?’ social control media users complain.
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Russell Graves ☛ Ural Notes Part 2: Electrical and Lighting
Of course, as much as I enjoy my Ural, it’s not been without work. Some of that has been regular maintenance, some has been troubleshooting, and some has been a set of upgrades I’ve made over the past year to just improve the bike. There’s a lot of things that Ural has improved over the years that my 2005 didn’t come with - but I’m slowly putting them on! First and foremost for night riding is improving lighting.
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IT Wire ☛ iTWire - Federal vs. State Regulations: Their Role in Delivery Truck Crashes
When delivery trucks hit the road, they carry more than just packages—they also carry significant responsibility. With the rise of e-commerce, delivery vehicles are increasingly a common sight on highways and local streets. While these trucks keep commerce flowing, their presence also raises safety concerns, particularly when accidents occur. The role of federal and state regulations in these crashes is critical, as they establish rules that aim to ensure safety for all road users.
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Wildlife/Nature
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Mexico News Daily ☛ Mismanagement to blame for massive fish die-offs, Guerrero fishermen say
To keep the the reservoir healthy, dam operator Mexhidro must periodically release water that could otherwise be used to generate electricity.
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Ruben Schade ☛ Fauna’s farewell stream #faunline
It still seems like yesterday we were watching her debut, then we were saying goodbye. I’ve loved everyone in Hololive, but Fauna was up there with Ina, Watson, Reine, and Liz. I still can’t believe I won’t be able to catch a comfy stream again before work.
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Finance
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The Straits Times ☛ China gives government workers first big pay bump in a decade to boost economy
The last time it publicly announced a nationwide increase in pay for civil servants was in 2015.
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Latvia ☛ Latvian banks told when they can expect the inspectors
The Latvian Central Bank, Latvijas Banka (LB) has published details of its inspection schedule for 2025, giving financial institutions the dates when they can expect to have their books looked at by the financial regulator.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China says ‘determined’ to continue opening economy to world in 2025 as consumption remains weak
China is “determined” to continue opening up its economy to the world in 2025, a top economic planning official said Friday, as Beijing steels itself for potential trade turmoil when US President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
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Ruben Schade ☛ What to consider before consuming
Once again, I’ve written a title that somehow manages to conjure something completely different to what I intended. Or is the imagery of an alien eating a human a thinly-veiled critique of our economic system? I’ll let you decide.
Where was I going with this?
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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RTL ☛ 'Imperative': Microsoft expects to spend $80 bn on AI this fiscal year [Ed: Making up numbers to distract from Microsoft's debt and massive losses in this area of vapourware]
Microsoft president Brad Smith on Friday said the company is on track to pump about $80 billion into artificial intelligence (AI) this fiscal year.
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The Independent UK ☛ Apple CEO Tim Cook plans to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration: report
Cook’s contribution, first reported by Axios, marks the latest deluge of cash from billionaires into Trump’s inauguration January 20.
Just weeks before the reported donation, Cook dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
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Manton Reece ☛ The long goodbye for Tim Cook
Tim Cook gives $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee. I think this event will be a turning point in how we view the Apple CEO.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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JURIST ☛ Myanmar enacts cybersecurity law restricting digital communication
Myanmar’s military government officially enacted a cybersecurity law on Wednesday that regulates digital communication and penalizes various cyber crimes, according to a local newspaper that has published the first two sections of the law.
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Jason Becker ☛ Banning Books that are "developmentally inapporpriate"
Books aren’t banned because of any (unproven) negative impact they’ve ever had on children. Books are banned because of scared adults.
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Ann Telnaes ☛ Why I'm quitting the Washington Post
I’ve worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist. I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations—and some differences—about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now.
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NDTV ☛ Cartoonist Quits Washington Post Over Rejected Sketch Mocking Owner, Trump
An award-winning political cartoonist for The Washington Post has announced her resignation after a cartoon depicting the newspaper's billionaire owner grovelling before Donald Trump was rejected. Ann Telnaes posted on Substack late Friday that this was the first time she "had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at."
The cartoon -- which she included in her post -- depicts Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, as well as Facebook and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and other media and tech moguls, kneeling and holding up bags of money before a massive Trump.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ US cartoonist quits Washington Post over Trump, Bezos sketch
A draft of the cartoon Telnaes says was censored, figures including Facebook/Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos are depicted groveling at the feet of a rotund figure representing Trump and holding up sacks of money as if offering tribute.
"The cartoon … criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump," wrote Telnaes, bemoaning "men with lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations making their way to [Trump's Florida residence] Mar-a-Lago."
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Deccan Chronicle ☛ Washington Post cartoonist quits after paper rejects sketch of Bezos bowing to Trump
Telnaes said that she's never before had a cartoon rejected because of its inherent messaging and that such a move is dangerous for a free press.
“As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable," Telnaes wrote. "For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I'm just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’”
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NPR ☛ A Pulitzer winner quits 'Washington Post' after a cartoon on Bezos is killed
The inspiration for Telnaes' latest proposed cartoon was the trek by top tech chief executives including Bezos to Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, as well as the seven-figure contributions several promised to make toward his inauguration. She submitted a sketch before Christmas. It was never published.
"I'm very used to being edited," Telnaes tells NPR. "I've never ever, since I've worked for the Post in 2008, been not allowed to comment on certain topics by having cartoons being killed."
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BoingBoing ☛ Editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigns from The Washington Post when her cartoon criticizing Bezos is killed
The rough of the unpublished cartoon shows billionaires and Mickey Mouse, symbolizing Disney, bowing and offering bags of money to Trump, standing atop a pedestal.
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VOA News ☛ Myanmar's new cybercrime law will suppress information, say analysts
But an expert with the digital rights group Myanmar Internet Project, who asked to be identified only as U Han, said the law is more focused on suppressing rights than protecting the public.
"All the provisions of the law are designed to suppress rather than protect the public," Han told VOA Burmese. "We believe that junta will use this bill as a weapon prepared for this purpose."
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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Press Gazette ☛ BBC local radio station showed ‘systemic failure’ on night of disorder
BBC complaints unit assured "lessons have been learned" about breaking news coverage during shared programming.
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El País ☛ Trump doubles down on attacking a weakened press
The drama at the Post can be interpretated as symptom of a certain normalization of the Trump anomaly as it pertains to journalism, but also public opinion. It’s not only that the media can no longer claim to being surprised by the president-elect’s return, it is also the calamitous state in which the industry finds itself after innumerable rounds of layoffs, fatigue after covering a shocking election, loss of public confidence — which is at a historic low, according to Gallup — and frustration that its influence is no longer what it once was. The Republican triumph is also a victory for the journalism of the extreme right and the podcasts of the misogynist “manosphere,” which Trump prioritized over invitations from major newspapers during his campaign.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Kev Quirk ☛ On Virtue Signalling
Some thoughts from me about virtue signalling and why I think it's a pointless exercise.
There's been a bit of confusion about this post, maybe it wasn't clear because it was written in haste, but this post is about people who choose not to use a product for whatever reason, trying to impose that decision on others.
I think it's right that folk boycott services if they feel strongly about the social or political opinions of the people involved, but I also think that attempting to impose those opinions on others is bad.
[...]
Ultimately, if you feel strongly about not using a product, that's up to you. But trying to impose your views on others is not cool. Instead, why not try politely letting them know about your concerns in case they weren't aware, and then leave them to make up their own mind.
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Zimbabwe ☛ The DRC sues Apple over blood minerals, says it can prove it
As bad as that situation is, we are practically a Utopia when compared to the Democratic Republic of Congo. There, the vast mineral wealth the country has have been more of a curse than anything else.
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ Confronting Capitalism: Why Elites Love Identity Politics
In the latest episode of the Jacobin Radio podcast Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber discusses the Democrats’ long-standing attachment to identity politics and why this form of politics can't meaningfully fight oppression.
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Wired ☛ Californians Say X Blocked Them From Viewing Amber Alert About Missing 14-Year-Old
Earlier this week, the California Highway Patrol sent an Amber Alert push notification to phones in the Los Angeles area about a 14-year-old girl that authorities believed had been abducted. But instead of conveying vital information that could help locate the victim within the notification itself, the law enforcement agency linked to a post from its official X account, a practice it adopted six years ago. But this time, many people reported they could not view the alert because they hit a screen that prevents users from seeing any content on X until they sign in to their account.
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The Local DK ☛ Study finds Danish median incomes down as wage inequality rises
That means incomes for this demographic increased at a rate above inflation. ‘Real’ incomes, meaning incomes adjusted for inflation, declined for people in the middle of the income scale, meanwhile.
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New York Times ☛ In Kosovo, Christian Converts Hope to Revive a Pre-Islamic Past
A small number of ethnic Albanian Christian activists, all converts from Islam, are urging their ethnic kin to look to the church as an expression of their identity. They call it the “return movement,” a push to revive a pre-Islamic past they see as an anchor of Kosovo’s place in Europe and a barrier to religious extremism spilling over from the Middle East.
Until the Ottoman Empire conquered what is today Kosovo and other areas of the Balkans in the 14th century, bringing with it Islam, ethnic Albanians were primarily Catholics. Under Ottoman rule, which lasted until 1912, most of Kosovo’s people switched faiths.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Unicorn Media ☛ Five Ways Surveillance Giant Google Could Improve Search In 2025 That Have Nothing To Do With AI
Here are some resolutions that Surveillance Giant Google might consider making for 2025. The problem addressed in the fifth point particularly irks us when we're doing research here at FOSS Force.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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Torrent Freak ☛ HiAnime Outranks DisneyPlus in the U.S. With a Record 364m Monthly Visits
As SimilarWeb’s data shows, HiAnime.to received 331.6 million visits in November 2024. For any site today that’s a very big number yet the data shows the site received fewer visits than the previous month. In October 2024, HiAnime received 364 million visits, 32 million more than November and a remarkable 62 million increase on September’s traffic.
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[Old] Pivot to AI ☛ The world is not enough — US and France escalate Nvidia antitrust investigations
But is a ton of money enough? No, Nvidia wants all the money.
The DOJ and the FTC in the US have been looking into competition in the AI sphere since January. In June, the FTC started looking at Microsoft and its partner OpenAI and the DOJ started on Nvidia.
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Patents
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Federal Circuit Internal Debate over Reversal versus Vacatur
Yesterday, the Federal Circuit issued a divided opinion in Honeywell International Inc. v. 3G Licensing, S.A., No. 2023-1354 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 2, 2025), highlighting key disagreements about the proper role of appellate courts in reviewing Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions. The case appears to also foreshadow an internal fight over the exclusion of expert testimony that is currently pending en banc in EcoFactor v. Google.
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Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 awarded for Lab Technology communication patent monopoly prior art
Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Dinesh Swami and Mani Manikandan, who shared a cash reward of $2,000 for their prior art submissions on U.S. Patent 8,503,973, asserted by Lab Technology, LLC, an NPE. The ‘973 patent monopoly relates to methods and systems for accurately determining the location of a caller during an emergency call.
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Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 awarded for Querytron Heggem search patent monopoly prior art
Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Nisha Devi and Calvin Zhong, who shared a cash reward of $2,000 for their prior art submissions on U.S. Patent 8,849,707, asserted by Querytron Heggem LLC, an NPE and entity of Eric Zautner. The ‘707 patent monopoly relates generally to search engines and, more specifically, to methods for business-oriented search.
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Kangaroo Courts
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JUVE ☛ Novartis fights Accord’s UPC lawsuit with Bristows [Ed: UPC is illegal and Bristows fought for this illegality to come about; JUVE is now normalising this illegality for money, as the corruption spilled over to the media, too]
Lawsuits concerning medicinal products are still a rarity at the Unified Patent Court. Alexion is in dispute with Amgen and Samsung Bioepis over Soliris, a drug for treating rare blood diseases. Amgen and Sanofi extended their epic battles over the cholesterol-lowering drugs Repatha and Praluent respectively.
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Software Patents
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Unified Patents ☛ Ascend Innovations entity, Byteweavr, validation patent monopoly challenged
On December 31, 2024, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 6,862,488, owned and asserted by Byteweavr, LLC, an NPE and Ascend Innovations entity. The ‘488 patent monopoly relates to automated validation and workflow management.
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Trademarks
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Right of Publicity
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Spiegel ☛ Artificial Intelligence and Deepfakes: The Growing Problem of Fake Porn Images
Their daughter, say Hübig and her husband, was convinced that the film was real and that it showed her mother at a younger age. But it wasn’t. Produced by artificial intelligence, it was a so-called deepfake in which a software program was used to superimpose the mother’s face onto a different body.
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Copyrights
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Rolling Stone ☛ [Intruder] Who Stole Unreleased Coldplay, Shawn Mendes Songs Sentenced
Dalziel was charged with, and later pleaded guilty to, 11 copyright offenses for selling items without a license from the owner, one count of transferring criminal property, and three counts of acquiring, using, or possessing criminal property. On top of the prison sentence, shel’ll also have to complete 180 hours of unpaid work.
When police finally caught up with Dalziel in 2023, they said her hard drives contained about 290,000 tracks. Other artists affected included Melanie Martinez, Upsahl, and Bebe Rexha.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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