Leftovers

• Dmitry Dolzhenko ☛ Home needs no theme

  When I first started blogging, I questioned what content belongs here. Should it be a diary of daily events? A collection of polished essays? A tech blog? A personal journal?

  Well, it can be all of these things and more. It’s my own digital space after all and I’m free to do whatever I feel like doing.

• Lykolux ☛ Efficient TODO lists

  I had a todo list on paper. However, I start doing tasks when I leave the house. Tasks are also added at any time of the day - so I need to carry this list with me, so that I can complete it on time and refer to it regularly.

  Something practical, that suits me, and therefore simple. A markdown file is perfect. Let’s dig into the file.

• TMZ ☛ Man's Penis Gets Stuck to Icy Sidewalk During Boozy Fight, Photos

  During the confrontation, the dude toppled to the ground and his penis attached to the ice. First responders managed to detach his unit without injuring him before he was arrested. He was not charged, according to police.

• Terence Eden ☛ What’s the point of a pub?

  Here's the thing. The customer is always right. If people aren't going to your establishment because they don't like it - you can't force them.

• Robert Birming ☛ Stealth Blogging

  During my 20+ years as a blogger, I've launched and shut down more projects than I can remember. I start something and I'm super excited for a while. Then I get bored, quit, and start something new. A gadget blog, a wedding proposal video blog, a movie blog, blogs in Swedish, blogs in English...

• Science

  • Rlang ☛ Dyson’s Algorithm: The General Case

    The most famous version of this problem is to resolve 12 coins in 3 weighings; this is an instance of the special case where …, which is the maximum number of coins that can be resolved in … weighings. The version of the algorithm we showed in the previous post solved exactly this case. In this post, we will adjust that algorithm to the more general case where … .

  • Digital Camera World ☛ Get your cameras ready! The northern lights could reach several US states tonight

    According to the NOAA forecast, NASA predicts the geomagnetic storm to hit a peak 5.33 KP index between 3:00 and 6:00 UT on January 25, which translates to 10 PM to midnight EST on Friday, January 24. Those numbers drop to a KP4 at 4 AM EST, a number still higher than average. That means northern US states like Washington, Montana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Idaho, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine and even South Dakota could potentially see some lights tonight.

  • Science Alert ☛ World's Oldest Arrow Poison Found in Ancient Bone From 7,000 Years Ago

    At the conclusion of the 1983 excavation the bone, together with other artefacts recovered from the cave, was placed in the University of the Witwatersrand's Archaeology Department storerooms. It lay there until 2022. That's when new archaeological investigations began at the site where the femur had been discovered: Kruger Cave, in the western Magaliesberg mountains, about 1.5 hours' drive from Johannesburg. This renewed interest prompted scientists to take a fresh look at Kruger Cave's treasures.

• Career/Education

  • The New Stack ☛ Poorly Designed Rewards Crush Improvement Efforts

    No matter how clearly we explain what we want, our system of rewards can undermine our efforts to improve.

    Incentive structures are common in the workplace, whether intentional or not. But when we introduce measures to boost productivity, they nearly always have the opposite effect.

    Not long ago, the industry tried to gamify the workplace to make it more engaging. But have you noticed that we’ve ended up making games more like work instead? Let’s explore productivity through the lens of gamification.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Trump Is Playing Chicken With Higher Ed

    It’s hard to overstate the role of HHS, and the NIH in particular, in funding universities. In 2023, the department contributed $33 billion in research grants to American institutions of higher education, representing more than half of all federal spending on academic R&D. Indeed, HHS alone accounts for nearly one-third of all funding for university research—most of which is distributed by the NIH.

    This situation makes the NIH a golden goose for universities, and also a canary in a coal mine. Researchers know just how much research capital comes from the agency—and they worry about the calamity that might ensue if those funds were to be tied up more than momentarily. NIH money funds everything from basic science research (figuring out what a particular gene does, for example) to the work that makes that knowledge useful (inventing a new gene-editing treatment, say). And its resources are put to use well beyond the field of medicine, with grants for work in biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, social sciences, and social work, among other fields. Take that all away, all at once, and a mess of different kinds of researchers are left uncertain as to whether and how long their labs, personnel, and experiments can be sustained.

  • CS Monitor ☛ As Ukraine faces Russian war on culture, books are the balm

    Many of the country’s publishing houses – from textbook-publishing giants to boutique operations specializing in culture – are keeping busy. And this despite the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made publishing houses a key target of his war on Ukrainian culture.

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Ava

    This is the 74th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Ava and her blog, blog.avas.space. I found her site thanks to her bear blog question challenge and I'm glad I did.

• Hardware

  • Digital Camera World ☛ Kodak shares surprising statistics on the rise of film as factory reopens after shutdown | Digital Camera World

    Kodak has reopened its film manufacturing factory after a planned shutdown to improve its manufacturing equipment. Typically the word “shutdown” in a sentence on film cameras isn’t a good thing, but in this case, Kodak actually shut down in order to add more equipment and update the film sensitizing machine to meet rising demand for film. The reason? Kodak says that film demand has doubled in the last five years.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia customs officials receive $61,000 monthly in bribes from vape smugglers: Anti-graft chief

    The amount of the bribes depended on the types of lorries being let through.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Drug syndicate in Malaysia caught faking official documents, including Singapore driving licences

    The gang used a printer to turn white access cards into ICs and fake Singapore driving licences.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ Clock may be expiring on attempt to permanently shift Kansas to standard time

    Under Senate Bill 1, if approved by the House and Senate and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, the state would cling to standard time year-round starting 2 a.m. Nov. 2. The 12-month observation of standard time would mean Kansans no longer flipped to daylight saving time in the spring.

  • Latvia ☛ Latvian hospitals really need your blood

    Due to the shortage of blood supplies, health care, including elective surgeries, is limited, Egita Pole, head of the State Blood Donor Centre (VADC), confirmed in an interview on the Latvian Television program "Morning Panorama" January 24.

  • The Straits Times ☛ In China, rare dissent over a programme to save on drug costs

    Some top doctors and hospital leaders have called on the government to change how it buys drugs for its public hospitals.

  • New York Times ☛ In China, Rare Dissent Over a Program to Save on Drug Costs

    Top doctors raised concerns about domestically made drugs, saying Beijing’s effort to lower costs is sacrificing quality.

• Proprietary

  • Clayton Errington ☛ Adding GPG to Codeberg From Windows

    Then you are to take the PGP SIGNATURE and enter that in the input box and confirm the key with the returned signature. This does not seem to work in Windows and you repeatably get an error The provided GPG key, signature and token do not match or token is out-of-date.

    This is frustrating cause it just won’t work on Windows command line. If you use the same command on a Linux OS you can finally verify the GPG keys.

  • Meduza ☛ Russian mobile operators and internet services hit by major outage

    T2’s press service told Kommersant that the company had not observed any issues with mobile service availability. MTS declined to comment.

  • The Register UK ☛ Mega UK datacenter greenlit, but no word on who's moving in

    Approval was last night granted for a mega datacenter in Hertfordshire, close to London's M25 orbital motorway, clearing the way for construction to begin. The identity of the eventual occupier, said to be a hyperscale operator, has yet to be disclosed.

    The planning application for the site, filed last year by a company called DC01 UK Ltd, was approved by the local authority, Hertsmere Borough Council. If all goes according to plan, facilities at the location are expected to become operational by 2030.

  • Numeric Citizen ☛ Voting With My Money

    Three reasons why I might not upgrade my iPhone 15 Pro Max this year, as expected.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • New York Times ☛ Meta to Increase Spending to $65 Billion This Year in Hey Hi (AI) Push [Ed: Fictional numbers (lies) parroted by NY Times to shoulder the "Hey Hi (AI) Push" (Ponzi scheme)]

      Much of the capital investment, a big jump from 2024, will fund expansion of Meta’s data centers, which provide the computing power needed by Hey Hi (AI) products and algorithms.

    • The Register UK ☛ AI startup founder, wife indicted over $60M fraud claims

      Federal prosecutors in California announced this week a 25-count indictment of Alexander Beckman and his wife Valerie Lau Beckman, with charges ranging from wire and securities fraud to identity theft and obstruction of justice. It is claimed the pair screwed GameOn, now known as ON Platform, out of millions of dollars between 2018 and July 2024, when ON finally parted ways with Beckman after months of concerns over the financial state of the business.

    • The Register UK ☛ ChatGPT has a Thursday lie down

      The generative Artificial Intelligence chatbot fell over on Thursday. Its developer, OpenAI, reported "elevated error rates" on its status page, although, to be frank, that could equally be applied to the output of users that lean a little too heavily on the service.

    • John Gruber ☛ Daring Fireball: Siri Is Super Dumb and Getting Dumber

      Writing about the current state of Apple Intelligence yesterday, I mentioned how utterly stupid and laughably wrong Siri is when asked the simple question, “Who won Super Bowl 13?”, and mentioned that that particular example came from a friend. That friend was Paul Kafasis, and he took it and pursued it thoroughly, asking Siri “Who won Super Bowl __?” for every number from 1 through 60.

  • Social Control Media

    • The New Stack ☛ What Makes TikTok's Algorithms So Effective?

      The company now has about 170 million users in the U.S. But that audience can vanish quickly. You want the part that keeps users logging in. The valuable part is the algorithm that runs the recommendation service.

      TikTok’s massive user base is a testament to its addictive nature. The key to keeping users engaged? It’s powerful algorithms. These algorithms drive the recommendation system, constantly feeding users a stream of content tailored to their interests.

    • Research Gate ☛ (PDF) An Empirical Investigation of Personalization Factors on TikTok

      TikTok currently is the fastest growing social media platform with over 1 billion active monthly users of which the majority is from generation Z. Arguably, its most important success driver is its recommendation system. Despite the importance of TikTok's algorithm to the platform's success and content distribution, little work has been done on the empirical analysis of the algorithm. Our work lays the foundation to fill this research gap. Using a sock-puppet audit methodology with a custom algorithm developed by us, we tested and analysed the effect of the language and location used to access TikTok, follow- and like-feature, as well as how the recommended content changes as a user watches certain posts longer than others. We provide evidence that all the tested factors influence the content recommended to TikTok users. Further, we identified that the follow-feature has the strongest influence, followed by the like-feature and video view rate. We also discuss the implications of our findings in the context of the formation of filter bubbles on TikTok and the proliferation of problematic content.

    • Digital Camera World ☛ "Instagram is dead for photographers" and TikTok's future is uncertain – so people are flocking back to an old faithful platform

      With TikTok’s future uncertain in the US, and Instagram’s divisive ownership and controversial rectangular updates, photographers and creatives are looking for an alternative platform to display their work.

      It would now seem that the photographic community is ready to return to a past flame: Flickr.

    • US News And World Report ☛ People Are Hawking TikTok-Loaded Phones for Thousands on EBay, Facebook

      As a result, some entrepreneurial spirits are selling phones and tablets that have TikTok — and other apps from its parent company ByteDance, such as Lemon8 and video editor CapCut. On eBay, listings could be found for as much as $50,000 (or as little as $340) on Friday. While it's not clear how many such phones have sold, the ones selling for hundreds have received the most bids.

    • India Times ☛ $3,000 for a used iPhone? In US, if it has TikTok, maybe - The Times of India

      The uncertainty about whether the app will return to app stores has caused some people who never removed the app to view their phones like golden tickets, coveted by anyone who misses thumbing through TikTok's algorithm or had followings they can't reach after they hastily removed the app.

    • Literary Hub ☛ Rebecca Solnit: How to Comment on Social Media ‹ Literary Hub

• Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)

  • Aman Mittal ☛ Detecting typos with typos-cli

    Spell checking for typos in code, documentation, and blog sites can impair searchability, cause confusion, and introduce bugs. I have been using typos-cli for a while now to check for typos in my blog periodically and for work in the documentation site.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • The Straits Times ☛ Thailand and China to set up coordination centre to combat scam call networks

      Public pressure has been building in Thailand for the authorities to take action against the scam compounds

• Defence/Aggression

  • Myanmar’s Arakan Army confirms torture, execution of POWs in leaked viral video

    The group’s spokesperson says the incident was retaliation for the deaths of AA family members.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea court rejects request to extend Yoon’s detention

    Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s detention is due to end around Jan 28.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Hairstyling for arrested South Korean President Yoon not a special favour: Justice Ministry

    Authorities said there was precedent in allowing grooming request.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea prosecutors renew request for longer detention for President Yoon

    Seoul court rejected previous demand.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Man in China sentenced to death for fatal stabbing of Japanese boy, Kyodo says

    The 10-year-old boy was stabbed on his way to school one morning in September 2024.

  • France24 ☛ A President Unleashed, A Sharpie signing spree, Can Gaza's truce hold?

    This week we examine three major global stories shaping the headlines. In the U.S., the Convicted Felon administration’s return to power has brought bold, controversial promises of American expansionism and mass pardons for January 6 rioters, signaling a dramatic shift in policy and rhetoric. In the Middle East, Gaza experiences a fragile ceasefire after 470 days of war, marked by hostage exchanges and ongoing struggles for humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, NATO faces internal discord, with its chief warning of a crisis over underfunding, as European leaders call for urgent measures to secure the alliance and support Ukraine.

  • Defence Web ☛ Houthis release Galaxy Leader crew after over a year in captivity

    Yemen’s Houthis have released the 25 crew of the Bahamas flagged car carrier Galaxy Leader, 14 months after it was seized off Yemen’s Red Sea coast. The crew are from Bulgaria, Ukraine, the Philippines, Mexico, and Romania.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • France24 ☛ An EU presidency full of pitfalls: Poland takes the helm amid global turmoil

      Mainstream EU leaders have breathed a sigh of relief. After a Hungarian presidency marked by what they saw as damaging freelance diplomacy, the torch has now passed to Poland, which holds the reins for six months at a particularly turbulent time. There are huge questions in the EU about how to handle The Insurrectionist, about western support for Ukraine, about international trade, Europe’s competitiveness, and much else besides.

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Refinery In Flames After Largest Ukrainian Air Attack This Year

      An oil refinery in the Russian city of Ryazan was engulfed in flames after Kyiv launched a massive drone attack -- Ukraine's largest since the start of the year -- that targeted more than a dozen regions across the country, including Moscow.

    • New York Times ☛ Dictator Officials Pause Programs to Let In Immigrants, Including Ukrainians

      The pause on several initiatives that allowed immigrants to enter the country temporarily will block the entrance of people fleeing some of the most unstable and desperate places in the world.

    • New York Times ☛ Did Ukraine Kill Its Own by Downing a Russian Plane? A Year Later, It Hasn’t Said.

      Russia says Ukraine shot down a military transport carrying 65 captured Ukrainians. Ukraine has not confirmed its role, identified the bodies it received, or said how it happened.

    • New York Times ☛ Ukraine Sends Volley of Drones at Russia, Hitting Oil Refinery

      Videos showed fireballs over a facility in Ryazan, 110 miles southeast of Moscow. Kyiv is seeking to disrupt Russian military logistics and put pressure on the country’s economy by striking its oil industry.

    • The Strategist ☛ The sources of Russian conduct

      This essay examines the sources of Russian power and conduct from an historical, cultural and geopolitical perspective. It aims to help assessment of Russia’s future behaviour.

    • LRT ☛ Baltic energy systems ready for decoupling from Russia – ministers

      With two weeks left until the Baltic countries are due to disconnect from the Russian electricity system and connect to Western European grids, the three countries are fully prepared for the landmark event, their ministers have assured.

    • North Korea ‘accelerating’ preparations for more troops to Kursk: Seoul

      Moscow, Pyongyang again didn’t admit or deny the North’s troop dispatch.

    • Vietnam, South Korea finalizing $300m howitzer deal: Korean media

      Vietnam wants to diversify weapons supply to reduce reliance on traditional partner Russia.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Russian tourist charged with murder in Thailand after throwing son off boat claims memory loss

      His son was found with severe injuries, suspected to have been caused by the boat’s propeller.

    • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea suspected of preparing to send more troops to Russia, Seoul says

      Pyongyang has deployed about 11,000 soldiers to support Moscow's forces.

    • New York Times ☛ Dictator Says He Will Reach Out to North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un

      North Korea’s leader has grown more assertive since their last efforts at diplomacy ended in failure — and now has Russia at his side.

    • Meduza ☛ ‘He looked at our marriage certificate and said I could wipe myself with it’: How dozens of queer Russian refugees seeking freedom and safety in the U.S. instead found themselves behind bars — Meduza

    • JURIST ☛ Belarus must end its repression ahead of presidential election: Amnesty International

      Amnesty International urged Friday Belarusian authorities to end their cycle of repression in light of the upcoming presidential election on January 26, 2025.

    • Meduza ☛ In 2025, almost no Russians will qualify for age-based retirement. Here’s why. — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Kremlin says Russia is interested in resuming nuclear disarmament talks with the U.S. — Meduza

    • Latvia ☛ WATCH: Rinkēvičs in Davos

      Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs participated in the World Economic orum (WE) in Davos, Switzerland, this year, participating in two separate panels on January 23 – one about Ukraine and one about nuclear weapons.

    • Meduza ☛ Putin says full-scale war against Ukraine might not have happened if Trump’s ‘2020 victory hadn’t been stolen’ — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘They escape Putin’s prisons — only to end up in America’s’ Hundreds of Russian asylum seekers are stuck in U.S. detention centers. Exiled dissident Ilya Yashin is fighting for their release. — Meduza

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Ruben Schade ☛ Shipping anxiety

      Damn it, another ambiguous title. Do I mean that shipping is causing anxiety? Or that my spicy visual novel has a character nicknamed Anxiety whom people want to ship with the protagonist? Or am I bundling my anxiety in a metaphorical sense into packages and shipping it elsewhere. Oh boy, if only it were that easy!

      As I’ve disturbingly started to say with more frequency here of late: where was I going with this?

      Logistics is one of those industries that goes well until it doesn’t. Whether we receive our packages on time, or have it wedged in the Suez canal, there isn’t a middle ground, or canal. It’s in one of two states, with a bunch of sub-states:

      [...]

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • New York Times ☛ China Cracks Down on Online Panda Advocacy

      Panda fan culture once flourished in China. But Beijing is tightening control of discussion of a national symbol.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Ex-Paradise mayor offers advice to L.A. on recovery from devastating wildfires

      As talk about significant fire safety updates remain taboo in L.A., Bolin views the tough conversations around how to rebuild differently nonnegotiable. Advertisement

      “It’s not an option,” he said. “This has to happen. If this doesn’t happen, we’re not coming back.”

• Finance

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysian anti-graft protest set to pressure Anwar to speed up reforms

    Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s image as an anti-graft crusader has taken a beating since he came to power.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia to reduce highway tolls by half to celebrate CNY

    Discounts would be valid for 48 hours from 12.01am on Jan 27 to 11.59pm on Jan 28.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Bowing to public pressure, Malaysia PM Anwar now says anti-graft rally can go ahead in KL

    The rally is seeking key reforms, including an anti-corruption commission free from political meddling.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Straits Times ☛ Gambling tycoon abused in Thai jail after saying he spied for China, lawyers say

    BANGKOK - A jailed gambling tycoon fighting extradition to China received "inhumane treatment" in a Thai prison after saying he was a Chinese spy, his lawyers have told Interpol, saying they fear for his life.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Philippines comic book takes battle for South China Sea to children

    The Chinese Embassy in Manila called the initiative "political manipulation".

  • ACLU ☛ Convicted Felon’s Executive Orders Rolling Back DEI and Accessibility Efforts, Explained

    The Convicted Felon administration’s three executive orders targeting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives take a “shock and awe” approach that upends longstanding, bipartisan federal policy meant to open doors that had been unfairly closed. In his first few days, President The Insurrectionist is undertaking a deliberate effort to obfuscate and weaponize civil rights laws that address discrimination and ensure everyone has a fair chance to compete, whether it’s for a job, a promotion, or an education.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • The Straits Times ☛ Sex education Bill ignites firestorm in Christian-majority Philippines

    Provisions allowing adolescents access to reproductive health services without parental consent are seen as undermining parental authority.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Is Billy Ray Cyrus Okay? Concerns Grow After Troubling Inauguration Performance

    Following his performance at the inauguration Liberty Ball, Billy Ray Cyrus’ family speaks out over growing concerns for the singer’s health. Billy Ray Cyrus has been bombarded with criticism following his performance at the Liberty Ball, part of The Insurrectionist’s inaugural festivities on January 20.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ The US withdrawal from the WHO will hurt us all

    This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. On January 20, his first day in office, US president The Insurrectionist signed an executive order to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Mickey, Minnie in hanbok deliver CNY greetings at Disneyland, set off online comment war in S. Korea

    Some criticised Disneyland for cultural appropriation.

  • Cambodian worker in South Korea says passport revoked after online comments

    The worker said the cancellation was an attempt to intimidate him and other activists who live outside the country.

  • ‘Smart balloons’ drop leaflets, loudspeakers into North Korea

    Controversial balloon launches from civic groups in the South have sparked retaliation from the North.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Federal Judge Partially Dismisses Limp Bizkit’s $200 Million+ Universal Music Lawsuit — Amended Complaint Due by February 3rd

    Limp Bizkit’s far-reaching lawsuit against Universal Music isn’t going particularly well, as the presiding judge has dismissed several components of the over $200 million complaint. The court recently made this partial dismissal official, after Limp Bizkit, frontman Fred Durst, and his Flawless Records submitted the initial action in October 2024.