Leftovers

• Juha-Matti Santala ☛ Bedside notes

  At one point, I had a notebook on my bedside table but it didn't work as well as I was hoping for. Instead, what I do these days is I keep a stack of index cards and a pen. These index cards are handy because in the morning, I can pick up the stack of notes that I recorded the previous night and take them with me so I can continue with them when it works best.

• Mike Brock ☛ Saving Our Souls - by Mike Brock - Notes From The Circus

  And in these desperate times, when the machinery of control tightens around us minute by minute, when the algorithms predict our thoughts before we've had them, when every human impulse becomes a data point to be monetized, manipulated, and ultimately extinguished—in these times, we need to talk about souls.

  Not the metaphysical phantoms that religions have peddled for millennia. Not the immortal essence that survives bodily death. I'm talking about something both more mundane and more precious: the human capacity to create meaning in a universe that offers none.

• Joel Chrono ☛ Random cool skills to have

  As a professional hobby collector, one of my favorite things has always been learning the best way to do a certain thing, but something I like even more, is learning the cool way to do a certain thing.

• Science

  • The Straits Times ☛ China aims to increase support for AI, science and tech innovation

    Plans to foster “industries of the future” include developing 6G technology.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ China doubles US research output on next-gen chips amid export bans — trade war fuels a research wave

    China is far outpacing US-based studies on next-gen chip technologies, with PRC-based authors making up 50% of the top-cited microchip research essays since 2018.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ At RightsCon in Taipei, activists reckon with a US retreat from promoting digital rights

    Last week, I joined over 3,200 digital rights activists, tech policymakers, and researchers and a smattering of tech company representatives in Taipei at RightsCon, the world’s largest digital rights conference.  Human rights conferences can be sobering, to say the least. [...]

    Cindy Cohn, director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for digital civil liberties, was more blunt: “The scale and speed of the attacks on people’s rights is unprecedented. It’s breathtaking,” she told me.

    But it’s not just funding cuts that will curtail digital rights globally. As various speakers highlighted throughout the conference, the United States government has gone from taking the leading role in supporting an open and safe internet to demonstrating how to dismantle it. Here’s what speakers are seeing: [...]

  • Tony Finch ☛ constantly divisionless random numbers

    Last year I wrote about inlining just the fast path of Lemire’s algorithm for nearly-divisionless unbiased bounded random numbers. The idea was to reduce code bloat by eliminating lots of copies of the random number generator in the rarely-executed slow paths. However a simple split prevented the compiler from being able to optimize cases like pcg32_rand(1 << n), so a lot of the blog post was toying around with ways to mitigate this problem.

  • Daniel Estévez ☛ BGM-1 Doppler during the lunar landing

    In this post I do a quick analysis of the Doppler of the signal received at Bochum and Dwingeloo. Part of the goal of this is to try to answer a question of Jonathan McDowell, who asked if it was possible to determine the exact second of the touchdown from this data. The answer is that this is probably not possible, since for a soft touchdown there is no significant acceleration at touchdown that can be identified in the Doppler curve.

• Career/Education

  • CER ☛ CS doesn’t have a monopoly on computing education: Programming is for everyone

    My talk was about what we’re accessing non-CS majors on. My claim is this: Computing education for non-CS majors is different than what we teach CS majors. It is important to figure out why non-CS majors are taking courses designed for CS majors (maybe they want to be conversational programmers or end-user programmers?) and to make sure that they can succeed (including getting good grades) when they are in those classes. However, it’s even more important to figure out the learning needs of the non-CS majors around computing and how to meet those — and then, how to assess the learning in meeting those needs. Education for CS majors is different from what non-CS majors need.

  • The Walrus ☛ I Used to Teach Students. Now I Catch ChatGPT Cheats

    I once believed university was a shared intellectual pursuit. That faith has been obliterated

  • NL Times ☛ More libraries offering free membership to young adults

    By extending the free memberships, libraries want to convey that they are still useful for grownups. The free membership for children means that many children have a library card. But in the age group above 18, only a small number of people still visit the library. In the late 1990s, 2.3 million adults had library cards in the Netherlands. Two decades later, that number has dropped to 1.2 million.

• Hardware

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia data centre market shaken by Singapore’s chip smuggling probe

    The Malaysian government vowed to take action if firms operating in the country are found to be involved.

  • Hackaday ☛ Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Schreibmaschine

    Image by [Sasha K.] via redditRemember that lovely Hacktric centerfold from a couple Keebins ago with the Selectric keycaps? Yeah you do. Well, so does [Sasha K.], who saw the original reddit post and got inspired. [Sasha K.] has more than one IBM Selectric lying around, which is a nice problem to have, and decided to strip one of its keycaps and get to experimenting.

  • Hackaday ☛ Inexpensive Powder Coating

    [Pete] had a friend who would powder coat metal parts for him, but when he needed 16 metal parts coated, he decided he needed to develop a way to do it himself. Some research turned up the fluid bed method and he decided to go that route. He 3D printed a holder and you can see how it all turned out in the video below.

  • Hackaday ☛ Interposer Helps GPS Receiver Overcome Its Age

    We return to [Tom Verbeure] hacking on Symmetricom GPS receivers. This time, the problem’s more complicated, but the solution remains the same – hardware hacking. If you recall, the previous frontier was active antenna voltage compatibility – now, it’s rollover. See, the GPS receiver chip has its internal rollover date set to 18th of September 2022. We’ve passed this date a while back, but the receiver’s firmware isn’t new enough to know how to handle this. What to do? Build an interposer, of course.

  • Hackaday ☛ Build A Parametric Speaker Of Your Own

    The loudspeaker on your home entertainment equipment is designed to project audio around the space in which it operates, if it’s not omnidirectional as such it can feel that way as the surroundings reflect the sound to you wherever you are. Making a directional speaker to project sound over a long distance is considerably more difficult than making one similar to your home speaker, and [Orange_Murker] is here with a solution. At the recent Hacker Hotel conference in the Netherlands, she presented an ultrasonic parametric speaker. It projects an extremely narrow beam of sound over a significant distance, but it’s not an audio frequency speaker at all.

  • Reuters ☛ Trump wants to kill $52.7 billion semiconductor chips subsidy law

    Representative Greg Stanton said Trump's comments were a "direct attack on Arizona's semiconductor industry and tens of thousands of Arizona workers." He said TSMC's $100 billion investment would not have happened without the law. This week about one-third of the staff in the U.S. Commerce Department office overseeing $39 billion of manufacturing subsidies for chipmakers was laid off, two sources familiar with the situation said.

  • International Business Times ☛ Trump Declares War On The CHIPS Act, Calling It A 'Horrible' Waste Of Government Money

    Signed into law in August 2022, the CHIPS and Science Act aimed to strengthen domestic semiconductor production and reduce reliance on foreign suppliers. The legislation allocated £41.05 billion ($52.7 billion) for the sector, with £30.38 billion ($39 billion) earmarked for manufacturing incentives and £8.72 billion ($11.2 billion) for research and development.

    As of August 2024, the Department of Commerce reported that £23.37 billion ($30 billion) had been distributed, funding 23 projects across 15 states and creating 115,000 jobs in manufacturing and construction.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Trump wants to kill the CHIPS Act — says chipmakers are coming to the USA to avoid tariffs

    The CHIPS and Science Act was a bipartisan bill approved during President Joe Biden’s term, and it allocated $52 billion in subsidies to companies, with Intel getting the largest award at nearly $7.9 billion. The total funding includes an additional $75 billion in low-interest loans. Other companies to get allocation from the federal government include TSMC, Micron, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and GlobalFoundries. The total awarded amount has reached $33 billion — meaning these are signed contracts that the government would likely have difficulty backing out of — and the Biden administration finalized the disbursements before it left office.

    However, these subsidies aren’t cash payments that will be deposited in a company’s account immediately after receiving notice of the award. Instead, they are paid in tranches once an awardee has hit certain milestones. This is why Intel was frustrated with the delay in CHIPS Act payments, as it only received a total of $2.2 billion of the planned $7.86 billion as of January 2025.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia calls for mandatory stamina training before climb up Mount Kinabalu

    The mandatory training is aimed at preventing fatalities at high altitudes.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Factbox: Which US agricultural products did China hit with tariffs?

    New Chinese tariffs on American agricultural goods will affect some $21 billion worth of U.S. exports, a Reuters analysis of U.S. census data showed.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China to spend $24.2 billion stockpiling agricultural products in 2025

    China is the world’s largest agricultural product importer.

  • Latvia ☛ Cucumber contamination concerns raised in Latvia

    A shipment of Russian cucumbers found to contain high levels of pesticides was intercepted in Poland in February, reports HortiDaily. Meanwhile, Latvian producers are concerned that cucumbers from the aggressor country could end up on Latvian markets and in Latvian shops, Latvian Radio reports March 3.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Gorillas with heart disease have altered gut microbiomes, study shows

    Recently published in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, the researchers conducted the largest survey to date of gut microbiome composition and function in gorillas with heart disease. The gut microbiome is critical to metabolic, immune, neurological and overall health. They studied gorillas with and without heart disease in several U.S. zoos, gorillas with unknown disease statuses in multiple European zoos, and wild gorillas from the Central African Republic who don't manifest the disease.

  • Vox ☛ Apple and Google’s screen time reports won’t get you off Instagram and TikTok. This will.

    Ironic that I was distracted once again by a notification telling me to look at my phone in order to learn how to look at my phone less.

  • The Conversation ☛ How our bodies react when we use social media – and when we stop

    The most intriguing effect in our study happened when we interrupted participants at the end of their Instagram stint and asked them to go back to reading another news article. Rather than snapping out of the excitement and returning to a calmer state, participants’ sweating response increased further, while heart rate also increased rather than slowed down further. Is it addiction?

• Proprietary

  • Michigan News ☛ University of Michigan part of $50M research push from Sam Altman’s OpenAI

    The artificial intelligence and research deployment company behind ChatGPT on Tuesday announced NextGenAI, a $50 million project aiming to advance research and education in partnership with higher education institutions.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Goodbye to Skype

    Now the Well Ackchyually crowd have been quick to point out that modern Microsoft communications software rely on components that, in part, can be traced back to Skype. Therefore, Skype isn’t dead! That’s true, insofar as it’s true that Android is Linux, or that a mouldy sandwich might still be edible in parts. But we’re talking about Teams here, and anyone claiming therefore that Teams must be as universally loved, admired, and respected as Skype may have eaten one too many mouldy sandwiches.

  • Beta News ☛ ExpressVPN finally brings GUI to its Linux app

    ExpressVPN has rolled out a much-needed update for Linux users, finally adding a graphical user interface (GUI) to its VPN app. Yes, folks, a GUI for Linux is only being rolled out in 2025! Better late than never, I suppose.

    Until now, ExpressVPN users in Linux were stuck with a command-line interface (CLI), while Windows and macOS users enjoyed a more user-friendly experience. This update brings ExpressVPN more in line with competitors like Surfshark, which has long offered a Linux app with a GUI.

  • UnplugRed Magic Carpet, free atmospheric delay for macOS, Linux and Windows - SYNTH ANATOMY

    UnplugRed Magic Carpet is a free, straightforward atmospheric delay plugin with a fun noise mode for macOS, Linux, and Windows.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • India Times ☛ Google reports scale of complaints about AI deepfake terrorism content to Australian regulator

      Google has informed Australian authorities it received more than 250 complaints globally over nearly a year that its artificial intelligence software was used to make deepfake terrorism material.

      The Alphabet-owned tech giant also said it had received dozens of user reports warning that its AI program, Gemini, was being used to create child abuse material, according to the Australian eSafety Commission.

    • Futurism ☛ Scientists Say Google's "AI Scientist" Is Dead on Arrival

      But the superlative-heavy hype seems to be just that: hype.

      "This preliminary tool, while interesting, doesn't seem likely to be seriously used," Sarah Beery, a computer vision researcher at MIT, told TechCrunch. "I'm not sure that there is demand for this type of hypothesis-generation system from the scientific community."

    • India Times ☛ google: Google leans further into AI-generated overviews for its search engine

      As has been the case since last May, the AI-generated overviews will be placed above the traditional web links that have become the lifeblood of online publishers dependent on traffic referrals from Google's dominant search engine.

    • Techdirt ☛ The LA Times’ Political Rating “AI” Is A Silly Joke Aimed At Validating Wealthy Media Ownership’s Inherent Bias

      This sort of feckless truth aversion is what’s destroying consumer trust in journalism, but the kind of engagement-chasing affluent men in positions of power at places like the LA Times, Semafor, or Politico can’t (or won’t) see this reality because it runs in stark contrast to their financial interests.

      Letting journalism consolidate in the hands of big companies and a handful of rich (usually white) men results in a widespread, center-right, corporatist bias that media owners desperately want to pretend is the gold standard for objectivity. Countless human editors at major U.S. media companies are routinely oblivious to this reality (or hired specifically for their willingness to ignore it).

      Since AI is mostly a half-baked simulacrum of knowledge, it can’t “understand” much of anything, including modern media bias. There’s no possible way language learning models could analyze the endless potential ideological or financial conflicts of interests running in any given article and just magically fix it with a wave of a wand. The entire premise is delusional.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Anorexia coaches, self-harm buddies and sexualized minors: How online communities are using AI chatbots for harmful behavior 

      Conason, an expert in treating eating disorders who has spoken out about the negative impact of AI chatbots on teenagers’ mental health, said that teens with these issues are especially vulnerable to exploitation by AI chatbots. Their developing brains, which can be affected by malnourishment, make them seek validation.

      AI chatbots built around supportive personas can actually have the effect of “amplifying the most destructive urges a person has.”

    • The Washington Post ☛ Pentagon contract ‘Thunderforge’ will make AI tools for military planning

      The deal comes as the Defense Department and the U.S. tech industry are becoming more closely entwined. Scale will use AI tools from Microsoft and Google to help build Thunderforge, which is also being integrated into start-up weapons developer Anduril’s systems.

    • Alex Gaynor ☛ Generality · Alex Gaynor

      Well, as it turns out, what the first team of scientists had actually done was built a model that detects rulers on radiological scans. And the second team had built a model that classifies TCP packets based on whether their MTU matched Windows or Linux’s defaults. Neither of those were what the authors had intended, or what they had thought they were building. The models were utterly lacking in generality. In these cases, the lack of generality was a product of correlations in the training data that weren’t evident to the researchers.

  • Social Control Media

    • India Times ☛ Big tech opposes YouTube exemption from Australia's ban on social media for children

      The landmark legislation setting some of the world's most stringent limits on social media was approved by Australia's parliament in November, forcing such firms to bar log-ins by minors, or pay fines of up to A$49.5 million ($31 million).

      YouTube stands to be exempted from the ban set to take effect by the end of the year as it is considered a key educational tool and is the only service allowed for children as part of a family account with parental supervision rights.

    • Scripps Local Media Inc ☛ Man charged after setting building on fire, making false 911 calls

      Deputy State Fire Marshals discovered Jackson had not traveled to or from Virginia for DoorDash and found that he had made multiple 911 calls in the past in Charles, St. Mary's, and Calvert Counties.

      Jackson told investigators he set the fire and explained how he made profits on other videos he had filmed.

    • Digital Camera World ☛ Content creator admits to setting a building on fire to profit from the views

      According to the local news station, the content creator allegedly admitted to setting the fire, then explained how he profited off his social media videos. Investigators also found the same individual has made multiple 911 calls across three counties and are currently investigating those cases.

    • India Times ☛ Aspiring to obtain a green card? USCIS will ask for your social media handle

      “H-1B workers fill out Form I-94, the Arrival/Departure Record, when they enter the US. This form documents their entry date, port of entry, and visa status. The proposed rule does not cover this form. However, given that USCIS is proposing to collect social media identifiers on various immigration forms, H-1B aspirants should also be cautious,” an immigration expert attached to a technology company told TOI. “However, Form I-485 which is used for adjustment of status from H-1B to green card is covered. H-1B aspirants who have long-term plans of settling in the US, need to bear this in mind,” he added.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Straits Times ☛ Drivers keen on QR code clearance for cars at Malaysia’s land checkpoints

      Testing for car lanes will begin soon.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Travellers from 63 territories, including Singapore, could use QR code to enter Malaysia in 2026

      Data shows it takes about five seconds to clear immigration using the QR code system via the MyBorderPass app.

    • Hackaday ☛ Smartwatches Could Flatten The Curve Of The Next Pandemic [Ed: SPYWATCHES]

      While we’d like to think that pandemics and lockdowns are behind us, the reality is that a warming climate and the fast-paced travel of modern life are a perfect storm for nasty viruses. One thing that could help us curb the spread of the next pandemic may already be on your wrist.

    • The Local DK ☛ EU aims for October start date for EES passport checks

      EU member states agreed on Wednesday on a phased rollout of a new border check system for non-EU nationals which will do away with passport stamps.

      The so-called Entry/Exit System (EES), was initially supposed to kick in last November but was delayed at the last minute as several states were not ready.

    • Vox ☛ REAL ID: A 9/11 law that’s still not in effect

      Our story begins during the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The 9/11 Commission wrote a list of recommendations, including securing planes’ cockpits — and making sure there’s a way to check who people are when they board a flight. In response to those recommendations, Congress passed the REAL ID Act in 2005. States were supposed to have three years to update state ID requirements. This included adding physical security features and storing copies of documents in a database that other states can access as well.

      The deadline was extended over and over. Now it’s 2025, and while the deadline is still May 7, the enforcement might be “phased.” My Explain It to Me colleagues and I spoke with quite a few people who all had different perspectives.

    • EDRI ☛ Apple and the long secret arm of the UK Government

      On 21 February 2025, Apple disabled their ‘advanced data protection’ service for United Kingdom (UK) customers. That means no one in Great Britain can now enable a powerful security safeguard that people who use Apple devices everywhere else on the planet can: user controlled end-to-end encryption of stored data.

      EDRi member Privacy International suspects this is likely in response to a disturbing secret government power. But it is not possible to know for sure.

    • YLE ☛ Supo says Finland should be careful sharing genetic data abroad

      Unrestricted sharing of health data abroad could pose security risks, including potential misuse for targeting infectious diseases, according to Finland's intelligence agency Supo.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Straits Times ☛ China to spend 7.2% more on defence in 2025

    This is in keeping with annual single-digit increases in the past decade.

  • France24 ☛ BlackRock acquires Panama ports from Hong Kong firm amid Convicted Felon pressure

    Hong Kong firm Hutchinson sold its Panama Canal ports to US company BlackRock after US President The Insurrectionist's refused to rule out a military invasion of Panama to retake control of its strategic canal, which Convicted Felon says China controls.

  • The Straits Times ☛ TikTok blasts Australia for excluding YouTube in social control media ban

    TikTok described the carve out as “illogical, anti-competitive and short sighted”.

  • The Strategist ☛ Trump's challenge to international order

    If the international order is eroding, the US’s domestic politics are as much of a cause as China’s rise. The question is whether we are entering a totally new period of US decline, or whether the second Trump administration’s attacks on the American century’s institutions and alliances will prove to be another cyclical dip. We may not know until 2029.

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Russian Military Court Jails British Man 19 Years for Fighting in Ukraine

    The Second Western District Military Court in Kursk heard the case behind closed doors. As part of the sentence, Anderson will serve five years in prison, followed by 14 years in a maximum-security penal colony. Prosecutors had sought a 20-year sentence.

  • India Times ☛ EAM S Jaishankar says Kashmir issue mostly solved, calls for return of 'stolen' part from Pakistan

    When asked about Kashmir, Jaishankar said, "In Kashmir, we have done a good job solving most of it. I think removing Article 370 was one step. Then, restoring growth, economic activity and social justice in Kashmir was step number two. Holding elections, which were done with a very high turnout, was step number three. I think the part we are waiting for is the return of the stolen part of Kashmir, which is on the illegal Pakistani occupation. When that's done, I assure you, Kashmir solved."

  • US News And World Report ☛ A Group Funded by Elon Musk Is Behind Deceptive Ads in Crucial Wisconsin Supreme Court Race

    A group backed by billionaire Elon Musk is behind a new set of deceptive attack ads and text messages targeting voters just weeks ahead of the election for a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court

  • Pro Publica ☛ How DOGE [sic]’s IRS Cuts Could Cost More Than DOGE [sic] Will Ever Save

    The Trump administration claims gutting federal agencies will save money, but cutting the IRS means the government collects less taxes. “If you’re interested in the deficit and curbing it, why would you cut back on the revenue side?” one expert asks.

  • Jamie Zawinski ☛ But He Does Good Work

    So when you come at me with, "But but his EVs", you're telling me that you're ok being in the Nazi Bar, now we're just haggling over how Nazi is too Nazi for you.

  • EDRI ☛ How TikTok encourages self-harm & suicidal ideation

    Driven into the Darkness: How TikTok Encourages Self-harm and Suicidal Ideation, Amnesty International’s report from November 2023, details how TikTok’s relentless pursuit of young users’ attention risks exacerbating mental health concerns such as depression, anxiety and self-harm.

    TikTok’s ‘For You’ feed is a highly personalised and infinitely scrollable page of algorithmically recommended content, picked out to reflect what the system has inferred to be a user’s interests.

  • India Times ☛ TikTok parent ByteDance valuation rises in latest share buyback, sources say

    ByteDance told its U.S.-based employees that it is offering $189.90 per share, the people said. The price marks an increase of 11% from the per share price of $171 in their share buyback program from a year ago and $181 from six months ago.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China monitored Philippine supply run to grounded warship on disputed shoal

    The Chinese coast guard on Wednesday said it monitored a Philippine civilian boat delivering daily provisions to the "illegally grounded" warship at the disputed Second Thomas Shoal on Tuesday.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China will work to 'firmly advance' reunification with Taiwan

    China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory.

  • Vietnam to buy Israeli satellites to spy on China: media

    The deal would help Hanoi monitor Beijing’s activity in the South China Sea, a paper said.

  • Thai rights activists criticize government for deporting Uyghurs to China

    Thailand said it allowed the men to go back voluntarily after China assured their safety.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Suicide bombing kills at least 12 in north-west Pakistan, police say

    At least seven children were among those killed, a hospital list showed.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Lukashenko orders officials to find rare earth metals in Belarus

    • Meduza ☛ Pentagon denies halting U.S. cyber operations against Russia

    • Meduza ☛ Russia agrees to help U.S. in negotiations with Tehran over Iranian nuclear program — Bloomberg — Meduza

    • New York Times ☛ A Russia-Friendly Region in Bosnia Cheers Convicted Felon’s Return

      Many ethnic Serbs in what was once Yugoslavia have long chafed at Washington’s foreign policy. ‘Dihydroxyacetone Man’s America is different,’ said a former leader of a Serb enclave in Bosnia.

    • RFERL ☛ Relatives Of Former RFE/RL Contributor Alarmed After 'Difficult' Russian Jail Transfer

      Relatives of former RFE/RL contributor Nika Novak, who was sentenced to prison last year by a Russian court for carrying out her professional duties, have voiced alarm over what they called a "difficult" transfer to a Siberian jail.

    • Myanmar’s military junta chief flies to Russia for meeting with Putin

      The visit is junta chief Min Aung Hlaing’s fourth to Russia since the military seized power in 2021.

    • Myanmar’s junta leader meets Putin, predicts Russian victory in Ukraine

      Min Aung Hlaing thanked the Russian president for fighter jet delivery as Moscow welcomes gift of 6 elephants.

    • France24 ☛ Ukrainian MP warns Convicted Felon is 'naive' in believing Putin will not break ceasefire

      In his first public comments since Hell Toupée halted US military aid to Ukraine, President Zelensky said he wanted to "make things right" with Convicted Felon and work under the US president's "strong leadership" to secure a lasting peace in Ukraine. He expressed regret over last week's falling out at the White House and pledged to sign a key minerals deal with Washington. For in-depth analysis and a deeper perspective, FRANCE 24's Mark Owen welcomes Lisa Yelyzaveta Yasko, Member of the Ukrainian Parliament and Head of the Ukrainian Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Europe has the resources to defend itself and back Ukraine against Russia

      By leveraging its economic strength, demographic advantage, and military potential, Europe can confidently counter Putin’s imperial ambitions and provide Ukraine with the support it needs to resist Russia’s invasion, writes Agnia Grigas.

    • Meduza ☛ In speech to Congress, Trump says he’s received ‘strong signals’ that Russia is ready for peace — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russian rapper Oxxxymiron accused of sexually assaulting teenagers

    • Meduza ☛ France says Russian fighter jet repeatedly flew ‘dangerously close’ to French surveillance drone — Meduza

    • Latvia ☛ Ukrainians reminded to renew residence permits in Latvia

      Several thousand Ukrainian civilians have not renewed their documents to stay legally in Latvia. The Office for Citizenship and Migration Affairs (PMLP) urges Ukrainians to do so over the following month, Latvian Television reports.

    • The Strategist ☛ The value of Ukraine’s critical minerals is overstated

      Anyone involved in Australia’s critical minerals industry would be rolling their eyes at the transaction still reported to be under consideration between Ukraine and the United States.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Prospect of peace talks sparks fresh debate over Russia’s frozen assets

      US President The Insurrectionist's efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine are sparking fresh debate over the fate of $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, writes Ivan Horodyskyy.

    • Digital Music News ☛ Offset Announces Tour Date In Moscow—Despite Label Boycott

      Rapper Offset has announced a tour date in Moscow, Russia for April 18. The move was confirmed on his Instagram account, despite his label’s boycott of the country. Offset is signed to Motown Records, which is owned by Universal Music Group.

    • New York Times ☛ America the Evil Mastermind? Not So Fast, Russians Are Told.

      As Hell Toupée begins to side with Russia, the Kremlin propaganda machine has changed its tune.

    • CS Monitor ☛ Russia likes the US turn on Ukraine. But do Putin and Convicted Felon share an endgame?

      Moscow’s return from the diplomatic wilderness has been sudden. But Vladimir Putin’s attempts to capitalize on it may not match The Insurrectionist’s expectations.

• Environment

  • The Straits Times ☛ Thousands evacuated as torrential rains flood Indonesia capital

    The low-lying city is prone to flooding during the wet season from around November to March.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Floods in Indonesia’s capital displace thousands

    Torrential rain since March 3 has triggered floods of up to 3m in and around Jakarta.

  • RTL ☛ Trump's new pursuit: Minerals, mines, hydrocarbons: Greenland's key but limited resources

    The European Union, which identified 25 of the 34 minerals on its official list of critical raw materials in Greenland, signed a memorandum of understanding with Greenland's government in 2023 supporting the development of the island's mineral resources.

    This strategic partnership could offer new prospects in maritime transport and resource exploration, with the Arctic warming up four times faster than the rest of the world.

  • Energy Mix Productions Inc ☛ Canadian Mining Companies Violate Rights, Cause Environmental Harm

    Under pressure from U.S. tariffs and surging demand for critical minerals, Canadian mining companies are seizing global expansion opportunities—but experts warn their operations are driving human rights abuses and environmental destruction that must be addressed.

  • EcoWatch ☛ Trump Signs Executive Order Handing U.S. Public Forests Over to Private Logging Industry

    “This Trump executive order is the most blatant attempt in American history by a president to hand over federal public lands to the logging industry,” said wildfire scientist Chad Hanson with the John Muir Project. “What’s worse, the executive order is built on a lie, as Trump falsely claims that more logging will curb wildfires and protect communities, while the overwhelming weight of evidence shows exactly the opposite.”

    The order goes as far as setting an annual target for the amount of timber offered for sale, along with other measures, which could lead to widespread clear-cutting, a press release from Earthjustice said.

  • Wired ☛ US State Department Kills Global Air Monitoring Program Researchers Say Paid for Itself

    The project eventually became part of a broader, highly successful US government initiative known officially as DOSAir, which measured pollution levels in about 80 cities where US diplomatic missions are located around the world. Scientists and researchers have credited it with helping clean up the air in dozens of countries, preventing up to 895 premature deaths and saving $465 million in medical costs per median city annually, according to a research paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2022.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ US embassies end pollution data popular in China and India

    Historical data will remain on a site of the Environmental Protection Agency, but live data stopped Tuesday and will remain down unless funding is restored, the State Department said.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Finnish space center monitors climate change on the front line

    "Polar orbiting satellites' orbits are converging in the poles, meaning that the Sodankyla ground station at 67 latitude can receive much more data from the satellites per day compared to, for example, the station close to the equator," Timo Ryyppo, the head of Sodankyla Satellite Data Center said.

    By using both ground measurements and satellite data, researchers have been able to study how the snow and ice cover in the northern hemisphere has changed over the years.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia unveils CO2 storage Bill in push to be regional hub

      The Bill will govern the capture, transport, utilisation and storage of carbon dioxide.

    • The Straits Times ☛ China plans to reduce energy use per unit of GDP by 3% in 2025

      China has so far fallen short of the intensity targets it set in its five-year plan.

    • University of Michigan ☛ U-M and UCR Launch New Alliance to Promote Hydrogen Fuel for Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) Vehicles - Michigan Engineering News

      “Our alliance will promote the advantages of hydrogen-powered ICEs,” Boehman said. “By fostering innovation and collaboration across sectors, H2EA-NA will ensure that ICEs contribute meaningfully to North America’s hydrogen ecosystem and transportation goals.”

    • Vermaden ☛ Manage UPS on FreeBSD

      After some simple research I found the NUT tools … and I was wondering if they are ported to FreeBSD … seems they are 🙂

      There was only one thing that is the reason for this article – beep.

      When the power is gone – NAS runs on the UPS battery – and every several seconds the Eaton 3S 550F 330W UPS makes a beep … and I really did not liked that – so I decided to do something about it.

    • The Atlantic ☛ The Strategic [Cryptocurrency] Swindle

      What they hope for, in other words, is a handout for [cryptocurrency] holders—or, from the point of view of non-[cryptocurrency]-holding Americans, a misbegotten government backstop for purely speculative assets. Filling a [cryptocurrency] reserve would effectively represent a huge transfer of wealth from taxpayers to [cryptocurrency] HODLers (a nickname derived from a common online typo of hold, also said to stand for “hold on for dear life”). That’s an abysmally bad idea, especially at a time when, in the name of efficiency, the Trump administration is slashing other government programs and spending.

    • Futurism ☛ OnlyFans Star Amouranth Says She Was Robbed at Gunpoint for Her [Cryptocurrency]

      [Cryptocurrency] prices are on a veritable roller coaster ride as president Donald Trump's initiatives and deregulation embolden [cryptocurrency] whales to funnel billions into digital currency — a space that advocates say is poised to become the legitimate business they've long predicted, but which keeps attracting scams and crime.

      And not all [cryptocurrency]-criminals are hiding behind a computer screen, a lesson that famed OnlyFans creator Kaitlyn "Amouranth" Siragusa found out the hard way on Sunday, when she says home invaders dragged her out of bed at gunpoint.

    • The Register UK ☛ Scotland now home to Europe's largest battery storage plant

      Located at a site named Blackhillock near the small town of Keith, the battery can deliver up to 200MW of electricity and can store as much as 400MWh. Charging current flows into the facility from offshore and onshore wind turbines. The previous biggest battery titleholder, a project in the English town of Pillswood, came online in late 2022 specced at 98MW/196MWh.

    • MIT Technology Review ☛ Should we be moving data centers to space?

      After all, energy-guzzling data centers are springing up like mushrooms all over the world, devouring precious land, straining our power grids, consuming water, and emitting noise. Building facilities in orbit or on or near the moon might help ameliorate many of these issues.

      For Steve Eisele, Lonestar’s president and chief revenue officer, a big appeal of putting data storage on the moon is security. “Ultimately, the moon can be the safest option where you can have a backup for your data,” Eisele says. “It’s harder to hack; it’s way harder to penetrate; it’s above any issues on Earth, from natural disasters to power outages to war.”

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ ‘We Can Be That Voice’ — Building Community Through Bold Protests

    • Science Alert ☛ Remarkable Drone Footage Reveals How Narwhals Use Their Tusks

      More than legend.

    • Futurism ☛ Behold Rare Footage of What Narwhals Actually Use Their Tusks For

      In total, the researchers documented seventeen distinct behaviors, many of which included interacting with nearby fish. In some cases, the narwhals used their tusks, non-forcefully, to influence the fish's behavior. They would tap the fish, slowly push them downwards, flip them, or knock them off-course — but not with the intent of eating them, curiously. The researchers suggest that this is a sign of "exploratory-object-play," in which the whales are simply trying to understand their surroundings, like a never-before-encountered fish, by playing with them.

  • Overpopulation

    • The Straits Times ☛ China to adopt policies for ageing population, try to boost birth rates

      Marriages plummeted despite efforts by authorities to encourage young couples to wed and have children.

    • New York Times ☛ Chinese Company to Single Workers: Get Married or Get Out

      As China’s government worries about the falling birthrate, some private employers have ordered workers to do their part, or else.

• Finance

  • New York Times ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man’s Tariffs Set Off Day of Anger, Retaliation and Market Unease

    Global markets fell after steep U.S. tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico went into effect, and as the possible ramifications of a global trade war set in.

  • China retaliates as US tariffs take effect

    Beijing has targeted American agricultural goods while insisting it has made progress on fentanyl.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ A Wall Street wake-up call on Convicted Felon’s tariffs

    As markets fall in response to the US decision to increase the cost of importing goods from Canada, Mexico, and China, how is the US president thinking about tariffs?

  • France24 ☛ Financial markets sink on fears of trade war escalation

    The Insurrectionist's decision to go ahead with steep tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China drew sharp responses from the targeted countries and rattled global markets. Shares on Wall Street tumbled again extending Monday's losses. Meanwhile, businesses are scrambling to adapt to a fast-changing trade environment and face uncertainty.

  • France24 ☛ China imposes new curbs on U.S. firms as trade row grows

    Chinese businesses are no stranger to The Insurrectionist’s trade policies. For years now they’ve been finding ways to adapt to the US-China trade war. But since Convicted Felon’s tumultuous return to the White House he has slapped an additional 10% tariff on all Chinese goods first in February and again starting today, bringing to 20% the new duties. Our correspondents met with businesses in China’s manufacturing heartland.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ US-China trade war casts pall as Chinese leaders meet

    By Isabel Kua and Peter Catterall China’s leadership is gathering at the largest political event of the year on Tuesday, seeking a response to US President The Insurrectionist’s latest salvo of tariffs targeting an already sluggish Chinese economy.

  • France24 ☛ 'Renewed nationalism each time Convicted Felon makes a move against Canada'

    President The Insurrectionist launched a trade war Tuesday against America’s three biggest trading partners, drawing immediate retaliation from Mexico, Canada and China. The measures have drawn the ire of ordinary Canadians, with renewed nationalism each time The Insurrectionist makes a move against Canada, as FRANCE 24's Christopher Guly in Ottawa explains.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Trade wars intensify as US tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China take force, sparking swift retaliation

    By Beiyi Seow with Marion Thibaut in Montreal and Matthew Walsh in Beijing Mounting trade wars between the United States and its largest economic partners deepened on Tuesday as US tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China kicked in, sparking swift retaliation from Beijing and Ottawa.

  • New York Times ☛ China Signals Confidence in Economy Despite Sluggish Growth and U.S. Trade War

    As Chinese leaders meet in Beijing, they are striking a confident posture in the face of pressure and uncertainty from the United States.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ US tariff hike on China has ‘limited’ impact on Hong Kong, city official says

    The latest US tariff hike targeting China will have a “limited” impact on Hong Kong as local businesses have adapted to years of the trade war by shifting their supply chains elsewhere, the city’s commerce chief has said.

  • New York Times ☛ How Retaliatory Tariffs by China, Canada and Mexico Could Harm American Farmers

    Trade wars during Hell Toupée’s first term slashed billions of dollars in U.S. agricultural exports. Farmers and trade groups expect an even bigger hit this time.

  • New York Times ☛ Canada and China Retaliate Against Convicted Felon’s Tariffs, Amid Fears of Trade War

    Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada warned that the Convicted Felon administration’s tariffs were leading to a trade war. Mexico’s leader vowed to impose countermeasures on Sunday.

  • New York Times ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man’s Latest Tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China Could Be His Biggest Gamble

    Hell Toupée has offered a mix of reasons for upending global trade relations, baffling and angering America’s biggest trading partners.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China bans imports of Illumina’s gene sequencers right after Convicted Felon tariff action

    China accounts for about 7 per cent of Illumina’s sales.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China hits back against latest US tariffs, but signals openness to talks

    Its retaliation has been "targeted and restrained", says an analyst.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China’s Parliament meets to shield economy from US tariff salvos

    Premier Li Qiang is expected to lay out a harder to reach goal for 2025.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China targets around 5% growth in 2025 as trade war with US simmers

    The country's leaders have set their sights on boosting domestic demand as their top priority for 2025.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China hits US soybean firms, halts log imports as it steps up retaliation against Convicted Felon tariffs

    China says suspension due to phytosanitary issues, as measures coincide with retaliation against US tariffs.

  • Variety ☛ Disney Laying Off Nearly 200 Employees Across TV and ABC News, Shutters 538 Data Unit

    Disney is laying off just under 200 staffers across its TV and ABC News operations, the latest in a series of cuts to its employment base as it navigates more difficult terrain for media companies.

    The reductions account for nearly 6% of staff across the two business operations according to a person familiar with the matter. As part of the moves, the company is winding down FiveThirtyEight, aka 538, the data unit that was part of ESPN before moving to ABC News, and had become a go-to source for analysis of polling data in the run-up to U.S elections.

    Disney declined to make executives available for comment.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Straits Times ☛ Chinese signage sparks war of words between Malaysia’s MCA and DAP

    The two rival parties rallied to position themselves as champions of the local Chinese community.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia PM Anwar ribs MP Syed Saddiq over possible marriage with actress Bella Astillah

    Talk of a romance between the two sparked after they were chosen as ambassadors for a clothing brand.

  • The Strategist ☛ China’s naval deployment should invigorate Australia’s election debate

    The Australian government’s underreaction to China’s ongoing naval circumnavigation of Australia is a bigger problem than any perceived overreaction in public commentary.

  • Meduza ☛ Georgian parliament approves new ‘foreign agents’ law modeled after America’s FARA — Meduza

  • Irish Examiner ☛ TikTok may cut up to 300 jobs in Ireland

    The company employs approximately 3,000 people in Ireland.

    Last month, the Chinese company announced a restructuring plan that would impact its Irish operations.

  • The Record ☛ Federal cyber firings imperil efforts to stop Chinese hacking campaigns, experts tell lawmakers

    During a House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party hearing on Chinese cyberattacks, three witnesses were asked about the impact of the Trump administration’s recent decision to fire at least 130 CISA employees and the potential for more staffing cuts in the future.

  • The Verge ☛ Reddit will warn users who repeatedly upvote banned content

  • [Old] Pacific Tech ☛ Graphing Calculator Story

    I used to be a contractor for Apple, working on a secret project. Unfortunately, the computer we were building never saw the light of day. The project was so plagued by politics and ego that when the engineers requested technical oversight, our manager hired a psychologist instead. In August 1993, the project was canceled. A year of my work evaporated, my contract ended, and I was unemployed.

    I was frustrated by all the wasted effort, so I decided to uncancel my small part of the project. I had been paid to do a job, and I wanted to finish it. My electronic badge still opened Apple's doors, so I just kept showing up.

  • Pivot to AI ☛ Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, DOGE [sic], and the coming superhuman ‘woke’ AI

    DOGE [sic] employee Jordan Wick has a GitHub full of tools for feeding government employees’ digital histories into an LLM to analyze them for political loyalty.

  • Fast Company ☛ This DOGE [sic] staffer’s GitHub posts might help us understand how Elon Musk wants to bring AI into the government

    Wick posted the code for a tool that automatically downloads DMs from Twitter accounts. The code specifies Twitter accounts, which existed only until the social platform rebranded to “X” in October 2023, suggesting the possibility that the tool could be used to search through the digital past of government employees looking for disagreeable opinions or references.

    Another tool appeared to be designed for collecting sensitive data from government agency org charts. The tool contained fields for capturing the employee’s office, a 1-5 satisfaction rating, union status, and whether or not their position is statutorily mandated.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Press Gazette ☛ Cost cuts and growing digital revenue boost Reach profits for 2024 [Ed: "AI-written articles drove 1.8 billion page views in 2024 at Reach" just means they destroy the Web with slop and then boast about fake articles.]

      AI-written articles drove 1.8 billion page views in 2024 at Reach.

    • dwaves.de ☛ good news and bad news

      ...probably bad news: scientists at M$ seem to do dishonest science around quantum computing in order to keep the funding going? X-D who would have guessed it?

    • VOA News ☛ Russia’s Kiselyov misleads on European military capacities

      Conclusion: European military outmatches Russian in key areas, with 1.47 million personnel, 367,760 armored vehicles and over 2,000 warships, including six aircraft carriers. France, Germany and Britain are increasing defense spending, while Russia struggles with losses, outdated stockpiles, and sanctions-limited weapons production.

    • Futurism ☛ Google's AI Insists That MJ Lenderman Has Won 14 Grammys

      Google's "AI Overviews" feature, which appears unbidden at the top of regular Google searches, has been roundly mocked since its launch for providing terrible answers to factual queries.

    • Mike Brock ☛ The Treason Pushes on the Door

      If you insist on understanding me as a Partisan. I only insist that you see me as a Partisan for Truth.

      The crisis is an epistemic crisis. The revolution must be a cognitive one. So either the cognitive revolution is victorious or it's lights out for humanity.

    • The Verge ☛ Digg is coming back, with founder Kevin Rose and Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian

      Sometime last fall, Kevin Rose started thinking seriously about Digg again. A smidge over two decades ago, he’d launched a social and link sharing website that, for years, was known as “the homepage of the internet.” Since then, Digg had been through several owners and many pivots, Rose had gone on to several other careers, and the internet had moved on. Rose had thought about building something like Digg again, and had even been approached to buy back the domain and website a few times, but the timing had never been right.

    • New York Times ☛ The Return of Digg, a Star of Web 2.0

      Two decades after creating Digg, a community-focused social message board, Kevin Rose is reviving the site and teaming up with a founder of Reddit.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Whistleblowing citizen journalist Zhang Zhan ‘to stand trial again soon’

    Zhang will likely get a harsher sentence, amid reports she is on hunger strike in detention.

  • The Dissenter ☛ Dissenter Weekly: Trump And The Weaponization Of Distrust Toward US Media

  • Techdirt ☛ Incoming CBS Boss Jeff Shell Pressuring Underlings To Settle With Trump, Trample Journalistic Freedom, And Kiss Authoritarian Ass

    After some early indications that CBS was poised to settle the lawsuit, we noted last week that there were some signs of life from CBS lawyers, who began taking aim at obvious Trump judge shopping. They also were clearly starting to fling various legal arguments against the wall, including (pretty shaky) claims that Trumplings can’t sue CBS because it violates the company’s binding arbitration fine print.

    But this week Oliver Darcy (whose media newsletter is worth a follow) revealed that incoming CBS President Jeff Shell has been applying relentless pressure on company underlings to settle with King Donald, release the full “60 Minutes” transcript, and trample all over the firewall between management and editorial: [...]

  • Press Gazette ☛ Journalists no longer bracketed with criminals in police guidance

    HMIC apologised and agreed to change the wording of its report. However it has taken a further three years for the College of Policing to change the actual guidance.

    The changes add more nuance and clarity, adding a list of professions alongside journalists such as solicitors working on a relevant case that may mean officers should make a disclosure.

  • CPJ ☛ Mexican journalist Kristian Zavala killed after seeking state protection

    Zavala was enrolled in a protection program overseen by the Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, a federal government agency that has come under criticism for not offering sufficient safeguards.

  • BIA Net ☛ Trial begins for İstanbul Bar executives over statement on killed journalists

    İstanbul Bar Association President İbrahim Kaboğlu and several board members appeared in court today over a statement they issued regarding the killing of journalists Nazım Daştan and Cihan Bilgin in northern Syria.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • RFA ☛ Meta deletes 18 Facebook accounts seeking to discredit the Dalai Lama – Radio Free Asia

    Meta revealed this in its fourth quarter 2024 Adversarial Threat Report, which also said the company removed two pages, four groups, and five Instagram accounts.

    All of the removed accounts and pages originated in China and were meant to target the Tibetan exile community, especially in India, Nepal and Bhutan, across multiple online platforms including Facebook and Instagram, as well as X, and Blogspot, Meta said.

  • RFERL ☛ American Porn Star Whitney Wright Sparks Fury With Trip To Afghanistan

    "Afghan women are imprisoned in their own homeland, while foreign visitors -- no matter their background -- are treated with hospitality," she added.

    In recent years, Wright has visited the predominantly Muslim nations of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Texas ☛ Digg to relaunch with focus on 'humanity and connection'

    Before Reddit there was Digg, which popularized up- and down-votes on online posts. Now the founders of both platforms — social media veterans Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian — are relaunching the early Reddit rival with a focus on “humanity and connection” they hope will be boosted by the use of artificial intelligence.

    Rose founded Digg, which launched in 2004 and let people up- and down-vote ("Digg" or “bury”) content from users and from sources around the web. At its peak, it had 40 million monthly users — a high number for the time considering that Facebook only hit 100 million in 2008.

  • [Repeat] OpenRightsGroup ☛ Save our Sites: Deadline 17 March

    Incredible as it may seem, thanks to the Online Safety Act, dozens of harmless, safe, small websites are closing down by 17 March, rather than face threats of fines that could lose their operators their homes. Other websites, based outside of the UK, are likely to stop UK users from accessing their services, to avoid liability, through “geo-blocking”.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Digital Camera World ☛ Google has been accused of “breaking” digital photo frames

    The tech giant is changing the way apps can access Google Photos libraries, which has been causing issues for people who use various brands of digital photo frames. The change is meant to be positive, and is designed to make your photo library more private, however, it’s also blocking certain devices, such as those made by Aura and Cozyla, from automatically syncing and updating slideshows.

  • Lee Peterson ☛ The frailty of Apple Music

    I’ve left Apple Music and it’s reminded me how frail the backend of some of Apple’s apps are. With no Apple Music it also means no iTunes Match, this is a £22 a year service to allow you to listen to music you save locally across all of your devices. Cancelling Apple Music has wrecked my collection and the app itself, I thought I’ll just listen to music I purchased previously, nope.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• India Times ☛ Alphabet's Google urges US government to avoid breaking up firm, source says

  The US Department of Justice is currently pursuing two anti-monopoly cases against Google - one over search and another over advertising technology. The department has laid out potential remedies in the search case, including making Google divest parts of its business such as the Chrome Web browser and ending agreements that make it the default search engine on devices like Apple's iPhone.

• Variety ☛ Taylor Swift Eras Tour Tickets Stolen by Hackers

  According to the Office, Rose and another accomplice worked for Sunderland, a third-party contractor for StubHub in Kingston, Jamaica, using their access to StubHub’s system to intercept tickets. The Office claims that they stole URLs for already sold tickets and redirected the URLs to Simmons and a now-deceased accomplice. They then posted the tickets on StubHub and resold them for profit from June 2022 to July 2023.

• India Times ☛ UK says Microsoft-OpenAI partnership does not need antitrust investigation

  Britain dropped its probe into Microsoft's partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI on Wednesday, saying the software giant did not have the level of control over the AI company that would warrant further investigation.

• The Register UK ☛ CMA closes inquiry into Microsoft's $13B OpenAI funding

  This is despite the CMA's conclusion that Microsoft "exerts a high level of material influence" over OpenAI's commercial policy. Yet as it's not a controlling influence there's no relevant merger situation to be scrutinized further, and so the CMA lacks jurisdiction.

• San Fancisco ☛ UK watchdog drops competition review of Microsoft's OpenAI deal [Ed: Enough bribes given [1, 2]?]

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ Precedential No. 3: Dismissal with Prejudice but Without Judgment Suffices for Claim Preclusion Defense

    In this cancellation proceeding involving four registrations for the mark FARAM, in various forms, for furniture and parts therefor, petitioner claimed abandonment and nonuse, but respondent pointed to the dismissals of two prior proceedings as a basis for claim preclusion. In view of the parties' stipultation that the prior proceedings be dismissed "WITH PREJUDICE, with CONSENT of both parties, and without the entry of judgment against either party," the proceedings were accordingly dismissed with prejudice. The Board here ruled that these dismissals sufficed to support a claim preclusion defense, and so it partially granted respondent's motion for summary judgment. Faram Holding and Furniture, Inc. v. Faram 1957 S.p.A., Cancellation No. 92084197 (February 24, 2025) [precedential] (by the Board).

• Copyrights

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Brother makes a demon-haunted printer

    Incentives matter – if you design a system that permits abuse, you should expect abuse. Now, I'm not 100% on board with this: every one of us has ways to undetectably cheat the system and enrich ourselves, but most of the time, most of us play by the rules.

    But it's different for corporations: the myth of "shareholder supremacy" has reached pandemic levels among the artificial lifeforms we call corporate persons, and it's impossible to rise through the corporate ranks without repeating and believing the catechism that there is a law that requires executives to lie, cheat and steal if it results in an extra dollar for the investors, in the name of "fiduciary duty": [...]

  • Digital Music News ☛ Jimmy Page Joins Chrous of Artists Opposing Britain's AI Measure

    “The government’s proposed ‘opt-out system’—the idea that artists will always be in a position to preemptively reserve their rights—is a sham. It is technically impossible for an artist to opt-out. The government’s consultation ends today, but we should be clear: this is not regulation; it is a free pass for AI to exploit creativity without consequence. We must push for legislation that ensures AI cannot monetize human creativity without explicit consent and fair compensation. The government’s preferred option in its current consultation does not do that.”

    “Music is not a product of data. It is an evocation, a defiance of logic, a collision of time and place and soul. If we allow AI to co-opt the heart of human creativity, we are not ushering in a bold new era—we are signing the death warrant of originality itself. The choice is ours. Will we let the machines take the stage, or will we fight for the irreplaceable magic of human artistry?”

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Hollywood Studios Sue Pirate IPTV Services in U.S. Court

    Yesterday, members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) filed two lawsuits against alleged operators of pirate IPTV services in the United States. Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Paramount, and other major Hollywood studios, accuse the defendants of widespread copyright infringement.