Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Tricked Out Miter Fence Has All The Features

  “World’s best” is a mighty ambitious claim, regardless of what you’ve built. But from the look of [Marius Hornberger]’s tricked-out miter fence, it seems like a pretty reasonable claim.

• Digital Music News ☛ The 67th Grammy Awards: Unforgettable Performances, Speeches, and Dedications to LA Wildfires

  The 67th Grammy Awards, an evening that would crest on several high notes, featured heartfelt tributes to the individuals who fought the devastating California wildfires. On the biggest annual night in music, the stars descended at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

• The Straits Times ☛ Mainland Chinese escaping stress set up home in Malaysia via MM2H scheme

  They are drawn to Malaysia's affordable housing and more relaxed lifestyle.

• New Yorker ☛ The Rise of the Passive Spectator

  The famed twentieth-century photojournalist Weegee was just as fascinated with tragedy—fires, car crashes, murders—as he was with our desire to gawk.

• Ruben Schade ☛ A submission for CRANK: Restaurant QR codes

  I received the bat signal from Deborah Pickett regarding submissions for a revived CRANK. Let’s do this!

  Food delivery was a lifeline during Covid lockdowns. It allowed restaurant staff to cater to people at a distance, and spared those of us with hectic jobs the thought of reheating another frozen meal. Those delivery drivers also went above and beyond, leading me to quip at the time they should have received Australian of the Year.

  Assuming people liked this arrangement, techbros decided to bring that feeling of isolation and dread into the modern retail experience. Replacing the ubiquitous and time tested menu with another rent-seeking mobile app, restaurants were convinced that it was in their best interests to require their patrons scan a QR code to browse, customise, and order their comestibles without talking to staff or feeling good about themselves.

• Science

  • Hackaday ☛ Multitasker Or Many Monotaskers?

    In Al Williams’s marvelous rant he points out a number of the problems with speaking to computers. Obvious problems with voice control include things like multiple people talking over each other, discerning commands from background conversations, and so on. Somehow, unlike on the bridge in Star Trek, where the computer seems to understand everyone just fine, Al sometimes can’t even get the darn thing to play his going-to-sleep playlist, which should be well within the device’s capabilities.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • C4ISRNET ☛ Space Force bumps Astrion from Resilient GPS program

      R-GPS is expected to cost $1 billion over the next five years. At around $50 to $80 million each, the satellites are projected to cost a fraction of the $250 million the service is spending for just one Lockheed Martin-built GPS IIIF satellite.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ A Web-Based Graphics Editor For Tiny Screens

    These days, adding a little LCD or OLED to your project is so cheap and easy that you can do it on a whim. Even if your original idea didn’t call for a display, if you’ve got I2C and a couple bucks burning a hole in your pocket, why not add one? Surely you’ll figure out what to show on it as the project develops.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Ionic Wind explores ionized air for cooling servers, claims a 60% cost reduction

    Ionic Wind Technologies is experimenting with solid-state ionized air cooling that can simplify the cooling of data centers.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Straits Times ☛ Australia government pledges A$8.5 billion to healthcare as election looms

    Australia's Labor government on Saturday promised an extra A$8.5 billion ($5.4 billion) for the country's universal healthcare system if re-elected at a national election due by May, amid sagging popularity for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Australian PM Albanese vows extra $7.2b for healthcare

    The Opposition responded by saying it would match the A$8.5 billion Medicare investment if elected.

  • NYPost ☛ Skip these common activities, doctors warn — unless you like spending time in the ER: ‘Worst of the worst’

    Danger is everywhere — even in your shoe closet.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Bags becoming ‘babies’: South Korea’s strange honorific twist

    Korean language experts and learners alike are confused by the personification of objects.

  • The Straits Times ☛ As global bean prices surge, coffee planters in Johor are on a caffeine rush

    Malaysia is home to some 2,000 coffee producers, located mostly in Kedah, Johor and Sabah.

  • Science Alert ☛ This New Drug Mimics The Health Effects of Living at High Altitude

    Elevation in a pill.

  • Science Alert ☛ Yogurt Shows Great Potential Against Colon Cancer, Study Reveals

    Here's what we know.

  • Science Alert ☛ Cannibalism in Europe's Past Was More Common Than You May Realize

    A bitter pill to swallow.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ An ‘escape’ from the world: As Hong Kong bans ‘space oil’ drug, social workers urge care for teen mental health

    Chloe knew she was in the wrong place at the wrong time when four police officers approached her last November in Lai Chi Kok. She was dizzy from smoking an e-cigarette containing “space oil,” which she had just ordered via WhatsApp and picked up from her dealer.

• Defence/Aggression

  • New York Times ☛ The Unabashedly Provocative Youth Driving Germany’s Far Right

    A new band of influencers unafraid of confrontation has helped elevate the Alternative for Germany party to second in pre-election polls.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China’s naval drill draws cautious response from Australia, New Zealand

    China conducted unannounced live-fire naval exercises in the Tasman Sea on Feb 21.

  • France24 ☛ "Israel won’t withdraw from Gaza without security against Hamas" - says David Miller

    Saturday's exchange marks the final swap of living hostages under the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement. Joining us from Washington, Aaron David Miller, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, explains the three possible options for the continuation of the phases amid the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas

  • France24 ☛ UN Security Council demands Rwanda withdraw troops from eastern DR Congo

    The UN Security Council on Friday unanimously adopted a resolution calling Rwanda to end its support for the M23 rebel group and withdraw troops from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

  • France24 ☛ At Nasrallah’s funeral, Hezbollah and Iran set to put on a ‘show of strength’

    Lebanon’s Hezbollah will on Sunday hold a funeral for its former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in the southern suburbs of Beirut. The public ceremony for Nasrallah, who was killed by an Israeli strike in September, is set to be “highly political” says expert Albert Kostanian, who hosts one of Lebanon’s leading politics broadcasts.

  • France24 ☛ Shiri Bibas confirmed dead as her body returned to Israel following Hamas mix-up

    After Israel accused Hamas of returning the wrong body—mistakenly identified as an Israeli hostage, Shiri Bibas, instead of an unknown woman—Hamas has now released what it claims is the correct remains. The body arrived in Israel early Saturday and will be identified through forensic examination. Hamas explained that the mix-up was likely caused by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza that led to Bibas' death in November 2023.

    The incident has raised concerns about the future of the ceasefire, with Israel expressing outrage. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to "ensure that Hamas pays the full price," though the Bibas family has rejected any notion of "revenge," instead blaming the Israeli government for their losses. Vedika Bahl has more.

• Finance

  • France24 ☛ Paris Agriculture Show 2025: Farmers want their income to reflect their efforts

    The "Salon de l'Agriculture" showcase is a major annual event in France, attracting around 600,000 visitors over nine days. For the first time in more than 60 years, the fair will welcome a foreign country as the guest of honor: Morocco. Agriculture is a significant part of the French economy, and for years, farmers have complained about bureaucratic hurdles and cheaper international competition, which doesn't have to meet the same environmental and health standards. Liza Kaminov spoke with some farmers at the fair.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Is Pooh-tin Jinping’s sudden embrace of business for real? China is left guessing.

    The Chinese leader signalled that he stood behind the private sector at the Feb 17 meeting.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • INTERVIEW: A former China correspondent examines identity and control under Xi

    NPR's Emily Feng reflects on a decade in China in her new book, ‘Where Only Red Flowers Bloom.’

  • France24 ☛ Green expected to come in fourth in German’s legislative elections

    Ahead of the snap federal elections in Germany this Sunday, the Green Party held a rally in Hamburg. Two-week polling averages show that 13% of voters intend to vote for the historically ecologist party.

    In recent years, the Greens have taken a more centrist line on economic policies and an interventionist line in foreign affairs. The dominance of immigration and inflation in public debate, and setbacks for the greens' party leadership have contributed to the party's diminishing popularity since it reached record highs of support leading up to the last federal election in 2021.

  • France24 ☛ Germany braces for pivotal elections as far-right makes further gains

    German politicians made a last push for votes on Saturday ahead of pivotal elections, with the far right making rapid gains amid economic woes and security concerns.

  • New York Times ☛ Pope Francis Put Church Above His Health, Vatican Observers Say

    Many who know him said that Francis, driven by a sense of mission and a discipline born of his early training, essentially worked himself into the hospital.

  • Pro Publica ☛ They Worked to Prevent Death. The Trump Administration Fired Them.

    Every day, they tackled complex issues with life-or-death stakes:

    A failure to get donor organs to critically ill patients.

  • New Yorker ☛ What Stops Democracy from Backsliding?

    “The earlier the intervention, the earlier the mobilization, the earlier the forthright exercise of countervailing power, the better the prospect of saving democracy,” the Stanford University political scientist Larry Diamond says.

  • Pro Publica ☛ What Are DOGE’s Plans for the Social Security Administration?

    President Donald Trump was asked at a press conference this month if there were any federal agencies or programs that Elon Musk’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency wouldn’t be allowed to mess with.

    “Social Security will not be touched,” Trump answered, echoing a promise he has been making for years. Despite his eagerness to explode treaties, shutter entire government agencies and abandon decades-old ways of doing things, the president understands that Social Security benefits for seniors are sacrosanct.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • JURIST ☛ Kyrgyzstan urged to ensure safety of imprisoned human rights defender

    Eight human rights organizations called on Kyrgyzstan authorities on Friday to take necessary measures for the safety of Makhabat Tazhibek Kyzy, an imprisoned human rights defender who has received death threats from a fellow prisoner. Tazhibek Kyzy is the director of the YouTube-based media outlet Tazhibek Kyzy, founded by her husband in 2020.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-02-14 [Older] Nazi past discovery leads St. Pauli to suspend fan song

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• IP Kat ☛ 2025-02-16 [Older] Dutch court holds that TDM opt-out must be done by "machine-readable" means

• Trademarks

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-02-17 [Older] Is Ferrari’s Testarossa trade mark up for grabs? The interplay between bad faith and a trade mark with a reputation

  • IP Kat ☛ 2025-02-20 [Older] Abbott v Sinocare: 3D mark for glucose sensor invalid