Leftovers

• Science

  • New York Times ☛ We Found a Work Around to Convicted Felon Defunding Science

    When knowledge is threatened, don’t just mourn it. Build around it.

  • Stanford University ☛ What DEI threatens isn’t merit. It’s monopoly.

    Political science professor Hakeem Jefferson argues for DEI's importance to de-monopolizing universities.

  • Stanford University ☛ ‘Present the science in a helpful way’: Jeff Dukes tackles climate change in conservative states

    The minds behind the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment, including Stanford scientist Jeff Dukes, cast aside partisan divides to meaningfully connect with conservative voters and bring the conversation of climate change to the forefront of voter concerns.

  • Science Alert ☛ Unusual Gas on Alien World Sparks Hope of Life, And Healthy Skepticism

    Here's why scientists urge caution.

  • Science Alert ☛ Mysterious Antikythera Mechanism May Actually Be a Toy, Study Says

    Way ahead of its time... or was it?

  • Science Alert ☛ Death Rate From Cancer Has Steadily Fallen in The US, Report Shows

    Some great news here.

  • Science Alert ☛ This Secret Mathematical Rule Has Shaped Beaks For 200 Million Years

    A stunning pattern has emerged.

  • Science Alert ☛ Most Bees Nest in The Ground. Offering Rocks And Gravel Is a Simple Way to Help Them Thrive.

    This could be huge.

  • Science Alert ☛ Red Planet's Core May Explain Strange Mystery of Ancient Magnetic Field

    A new theory emerges.

  • Science Alert ☛ This Melting Planet Laid a Trail of Destruction Over 5 Million Miles Long

    "The extent of the tail is gargantuan."

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Say They Found a New Color Humans Have Never Seen Before

    Wait, what?

• Career/Education

  • Coalition for Networked Information ☛ CNI Spring 2025 Membership Meeting: A Conversation on Cybersecurity, Essential Cyberinfrastructure for Research and Education, and Resilience

    April 8, 2025. Closing plenary address given at Coalition for Networked Information Spring 2025 Membership Meeting. Milwaukee, WI.

  • Seth Michael Larson ☛ Quick Mastodon toot templates for event hashtags

    I'm a big fan of Mastodon and I plan to cover PyCon US 2025 on Mastodon almost exclusively (and it sounds like I'm not alone).

  • Rlang ☛ My Journey Learning R as a Humanities Undergrad

    Since I was a teenager, History has been one of my passions. I was very lucky in high school to have a great History teacher whom I could listen to for hours. My interest was, of course, driven by curiosity about all those dead humans in historical plots that exist no more except in books, images, movies, and — mostly — in our imagination.

    However, what really triggered my passion was realizing how different texts can describe the same event from such varied perspectives. We are able to see the same realities in different ways, which gives us the power to shape our lives — and our future — ­­­into something more meaningful, if we so choose.

  • Rlang ☛ Shinyscholar – a template for producing reproducible analytic apps in R workshop

    Description: Shiny is an increasingly popular method for researchers to develop apps but they are typically not reproducible and a lack of training in software development results in substandard coding practices that make apps hard to maintain. The shinyscholar package addresses these problems by providing a template for producing apps that enable complex reproducible analyses, without having to learn best practices from scratch. In the workshop you will learn how to create a new application and the steps in developing shinyscholar modules, including prototyping, creating functions, checking for valid inputs, generating outputs, enabling reproducibility and automated testing.

  • JURIST ☛ Harvard sues Convicted Felon administration following $2.2 billion research funding freeze

    Harvard University filed a lawsuit in US federal court on Monday seeking to block the Convicted Felon Administration’s freeze on more than $2.2 billion in federal research funding to the university, arguing that the government’s action violates its Constitutional rights and undermines the autonomy of higher education institutions.

  • ACLU ☛ Educators Speak Out on Harms of Unlawful Education Department Directive

    *indicates name changed to protect identity

    The U.S. Department of Education (ED) has historically worked to ensure that all students have equal access to quality public education. In February, the ED departed from its role of protecting students’ civil rights. In its February 14th “Dear Colleague Letter,” the ED threatened to revoke federal funding from any educational institution that engages in what it described as “illegal” diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work. However, the ED has not defined what it considers to be “illegal DEI” and, from preschool to higher ed, its vague prohibitions in the letter are making it harder for educators, administrators, and students to deliver on and receive an education that explores a wide range of perspectives – including students’ own lived experiences – and encourages critical thinking.

    The letter states that any undefined diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, practices are unlawful. It requires educators to act now to revise their lessons or suffer complaints, investigations, and the loss of vital federal funding. The letter failed to follow legal procedures for issuing such demands. If enforced, public schools and universities nationwide could be punished simply for teaching standard topics, like American history, or creating classrooms where each student feels safe to discuss the reality of our lives. Threats that the letter may be enforced have already caused teachers to self-censor.

• Hardware

  • The Straits Times ☛ From slow-cookers to towel warmers, China-made goods for US market now stuck in warehouses

    “We are in a harsh winter,” said an electronics producer that gets 80 per cent of its business from the US.

  • Hackaday ☛ Why Physical Media Deserved To Die

    Over the course of more than a decade, physical media has gradually vanished from public view. Once computers had an optical drive except for ultrabooks, but these days computer cases that even support an internal optical drive are rare. Rather than manuals and drivers included on a data CD you now get a QR code for an online download. In the home, DVD and Blu-ray (BD) players have given way to smart TVs with integrated content streaming apps for various services. Music and kin are enjoyed via smart speakers and smart phones that stream audio content from online services. Even books are now commonly read on screens rather than printed on paper.

  • Hackaday ☛ DIY Record Cutting Lathe Is Really Groovy

    Back in the day, one of the few reasons to prefer compact cassette tape to vinyl was the fact you could record it at home in very good fidelity. Sure, if you had the scratch, you could go out and get a small batch of records made from that tape, but the machinery to do it was expensive and not always easy to come by, depending where you lived. That goes double today, but we’re in the middle of a vinyl renaissance! [ronald] wanted to make records, but was unable to find a lathe, so decided to take matters into his own hands, and build his own vinyl record cutting lathe.

  • Hackaday ☛ British Wartime Periscope: A Peek Into The Past

    We all know periscopes serve for observation where there’s no direct line-of-sight, but did you know they can allow you to peer through history?  That’s what [msylvain59] documented when he picked up a British military night vision periscope, snagged from a German surplus shop for just 49 euros. Despite its Cold War vintage and questionable condition, the unit begged for a teardown.

  • Hackaday ☛ Virtual Nodes, Real Waves: A Colpitts Walkthrough

    If you’ve ever fumbled through circuit simulation and ended up with a flatline instead of a sine wave, this video from [saisri] might just be the fix. In this walkthrough she demonstrates simulating a Colpitts oscillator using NI Multisim 14.3 – a deceptively simple analog circuit known for generating stable sine waves. Her video not only shows how to place and wire components, but it demonstrates why precision matters, even in virtual space.

  • CNX Software ☛ 512GB ADATA Premier Extreme SD 8.0 Express memory card delivers up to 1600MB/s read speed

    ADATA Technology has launched the industry’s first SD 8.0 Express specification memory card with the Premier Extreme SD 8.0 Express memory card delivering up to 1,600 and 1,200 MB/s read and write speeds using a PCIe Gen3 x2 interface and the NVMe transfer protocol.

  • CNX Software ☛ Renesas RA0E2 low-cost, low-power Arm Cortex-M23 MCU operates in extended temperature range (-40°C to +125°C)

    Renesas RA0E2 is a low-power, low-cost Arm Cortex-M23 microcontroller (MCU) Group part of the RA0 family introduced in 2024 that can operate in an extended temperature range (-40°C to +125°C) and offers a wide variety of peripheral functions and safety features.

  • CNX Software ☛ Zimaboard 2 – An defective chip maker Intel N150 micro server and mini PC with dual SATA, dual 2.5GbE, PCIe slot, miniDP (Crowdfunding)

    ZimaBoard 2 is a compact defective chip maker Intel Processor N150 “Twin Lake” mini PC and micro server with two 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports, two SATA ports, two USB 3.1 ports, and a 4K-capable miniDP video output. It built upon the company’s ZimaBoard introduced in 2021 with an Apollo Lake processor, but offers a much faster defective chip maker Intel N150 CPU, LPDDR5x memory, 2.5GbE networking instead of gigabit Ethernet, and a PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 slot as opposed to a PCIe Gen 2.0 x4 slot.

  • Business Standard ☛ Intel to announce plans to cut over 20% of staff to streamline management

    Intel Corp. is poised to announce plans this week to cut more than 20 per cent of its staff, aiming to eliminate bureaucracy at the struggling chipmaker, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • New York Times ☛ Almost Half of Americans Breathe Unhealthy Air, Report Finds

    Weakening or rolling back longstanding environmental regulations would worsen the problem, the American Lung Association assessment says.

  • New York Times ☛ Measles Surge in Southwest Is Now the Largest Single Outbreak Since 2000

    Growing case numbers suggest that the national total will surpass that seen during the last large outbreak in 2019.

  • University of Michigan ☛ Sending a portal message to your doctor could cost you, UMich study finds

    Researchers at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation published a study April 4 suggesting most U.S. adults age 50 or older utilize patient portal messaging, with some patients incurring an additional charge, or copay, for using the service.

  • University of Michigan ☛ Alumni, stop ‘looking to Michigan’

    On Oct. 25, 2024, University President Santa Ono announced the University’s most ambitious fundraising campaign to date, Look to Michigan. The campaign set a goal of raising $7 billion with four main focus areas: Life-changing education, health and well-being, democracy, civic and global engagement, and sustainability and climate change.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Coast Guard digitizes 40% of paper medical records

    The service began the effort to digitize 45,000 paper health records in November 2022.

  • Did a US politician suggest selling all American beef to India instead of China?

    Verdict: False

  • China’s hog farmers fear costs will soar over tariff on US farm imports

    Beijing turns to Brazil to meet soybean demand as U.S. imports face 135% duty.

• Proprietary

  • India Times ☛ Microsoft’s chief HR writes to managers on cutting low performers: This isn’t about Microsoft’s success

  • New York Times ☛ After Convicted Felon Spares Apple, Other Businesses Want a Tariffs Break

    Retail executives huddled with the president amid fears that tariffs could result in higher prices.

• Security

  • SANS ☛ Honeypot Iptables Maintenance and DShield-SIEM Logging, (Wed, Apr 23rd)

    In the last week I ran into some issues that I hadn't anticipated: [...]

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Attackers stick with effective intrusion points, valid credentials and exploits

    Infostealers fueled the staying power of identity-based attacks, increasing 84% on a weekly average last year, according to I.C.B.M. X-Force.

  • Qt ☛ Sandbox Solutions and Other Tools for Cyber-Securing Industrial Automation Software

    Modern industrial environments are evolving, with connected IoT devices and integrated systems that drive operations, exposing traditionally isolated processes to new risks. To shield against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, regulations like the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) are being introduced, giving pause to manufacturers and software vendors since non-compliance carries significant financial and reputational consequences.

  • OpenSSF (Linux Foundation) ☛ OpenSSF Newsletter – April 2025

    Welcome to the April 2025 edition of the OpenSSF Newsletter! Here’s a roundup of the latest developments, key events, and upcoming opportunities in the Open Source Security community.

  • Security Week ☛ Two Healthcare Orgs Hit by Ransomware Confirm Data Breaches Impacting Over 100,000

    Bell Ambulance and Alabama Ophthalmology Associates have suffered data breaches affecting over 100,000 people after being targeted in ransomware attacks.

  • Security Week ☛ SSL.com Scrambles to Patch Certificate Issuance Vulnerability

    A vulnerability in SSL.com has resulted in nearly a dozen certificates for legitimate domains being wrongly issued.

  • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

    • Ars Technica ☛ Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for 3 days

      A silent update rolling out to virtually all Android devices will make your phone more secure, and all you have to do is not touch it for a few days. The new feature implements auto-restart of a locked device, which will make your personal data harder to extract. It's coming as part of a Google Play Services update, though, so there's nothing you can do to speed along the process.

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Security Week ☛ UN Researchers Warn That Asian Scam Operations Are Spreading Across the Rest of the World

      Transnational organized crime groups in East and Southeast

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Straits Times ☛ Killer of Japanese schoolboy in China’s Shenzhen executed

    The boy died a day after being stabbed on his way to the Japanese school in Shenzhen.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China says Iran's foreign minister will visit on Wednesday

    Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi will visit China on April 23 at the invitation of China, the Chinese foreign ministry announced on Tuesday.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China says expects ‘in-depth’ talks during Iranian foreign minister’s visit

    The visit comes ahead of a third round of nuclear talks between Iran and the US.

  • China monitors ceasefire as Myanmar rebel army hands northern city back to junta

    The deal is part of an agreement brokered by China to bring stability to the border, residents said.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China sends team to Myanmar to monitor ceasefire, foreign ministry says

    China has recently sent a team to Myanmar to monitor a ceasefire it brokered between the country's ruling military and a rebel group, China's foreign ministry said on Tuesday, signalling its deepening involvement in an expanding civil war. 

  • South Korea eyes Yellow Sea countermeasure to Chinese structure in disputed waters

    The two countries had a brief maritime standoff in February when South Korea tried to investigate the structure.

  • Thailand arrests Chinese executive linked to Bangkok building collapse

    China’s business practices are under deep scrutiny in Thailand.

  • New York Times ☛ Aliza Magen, Highest-Ranking Woman in the Mossad, Dies at 87

    Her career at Israel’s national intelligence agency included working undercover before serving as deputy under three directors.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Militant attack on tourists in Indian Kashmir kills 26, injures 17, security sources say

    The attack occurred in Pahalgam, a popular destination in the scenic, mountainous region.

  • JURIST ☛ Tunisia court sentences 40 opposition members in controversial ‘Conspiracy Case’

    A Tunisian court on Saturday issued sentences in the so-called “Conspiracy Case” against 40 opposition activists under the country’s counter terrorism laws and criminal code.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China to impose retaliatory sanctions on US lawmakers, gov’t officials, NGO heads over Hong Kong issues

    China will enact retaliatory sanctions against members of US Congress, government officials, and heads of NGOs who have “acted egregiously” on Hong Kong-related issues, Beijing has announced.

  • ADF ☛ Chinese Security Companies Expand Without Oversight

    China’s expansion of its network of private security companies in Africa is unfolding in a legal gray area, analysts say.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Australia's conservative opposition leader Dutton pledges defence boost if elected

    Australia's conservative opposition party leader Peter Dutton, trailing in polls related to the May 3 election, has pledged to boost defence spending to 3% of gross domestic product within a decade, as the Convicted Felon administration pushes allies to spend more on security.

  • JURIST ☛ UN warns spiraling gang violence in Haiti triggers record displacement and global alarm

    Haiti is facing a humanitarian catastrophe as gang violence intensifies, displacing over 60,000 people in just weeks and pushing the country toward collapse, the United Nations warned Monday.

  • France24 ☛ To Convicted Felon, "loyalty is more important than the security of the United States": former NATO ambassador

    FRANCE 24's Yinka Oyetade speaks to Ivo Daalder, President of the Chicago Council and a former US ambassador to NATO about the latest development in the chat leaks saga. He says that The Insurrectionist is likely to continue supporting Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth despite the revelations about his use of a personal phone to share classified information, as "to Convicted Felon, loyalty is more important than the security of the United States".

  • Defence Web ☛ Morocco seeking $825 million worth of Stinger missiles

    The Kingdom of Morocco has requested the sale of FIM-92K Stinger Block I missiles from the United States in a deal that could be worth $825 million. The US State Department said on 15 April it had approved the possible foreign military sale, with the Defence Security Cooperation Agency also notifying Congress.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Rebuilding Maritime Cybersecurity Resilience: Charting an America First Course to Secure the U.S. Homeland

    While the homeland security discussion has focused on the Southern Border, there is more than 95,000 miles of expansive U.S. coastline and over 360 ports that are the backbone to $5.4 trillion in economic activity and over 10 million jobs.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Earth Day: US to impose duties up to 3,521% on solar imports from Southeast Asia, citing China’s ‘unfair practices’

      The United States on Monday announced its intention to impose tariffs of up to 3,521 percent on solar panels from Southeast Asia, a move aimed at countering alleged Chinese subsidies and dumping in the sector.

    • Hackaday ☛ How Supercritical CO2 Working Fluid Can Increase Power Plant Efficiency

      Using steam to produce electricity or perform work via steam turbines has been a thing for a very long time. Today it is still exceedingly common to use steam in this manner, with said steam generated either by burning something (e.g. coal, wood), by using spicy rocks (nuclear fission) or from stored thermal energy (e.g. molten salt). That said, today we don’t use steam in the same way any more as in the 19th century, with e.g. supercritical and pressurized loops allowing for far higher efficiencies. As covered in a recent video by [Ryan Inis], a more recent alternative to using water is supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2), which could boost the thermal efficiency even further.

• Finance

  • The Straits Times ☛ Vietnam PM says US trade talks should not hurt other markets

    Hanoi has been caught between the US and China, two superpowers that it has extensive trade relations with.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China urges Japan to help fight US tariffs together, Kyodo reports

    TOKYO - Chinese Premier Li Qiang has sent a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba calling for a coordinated response to U.S. President The Insurrectionist's tariff measures, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China urges UK and EU to uphold multilateral trade in face of US tariffs

    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday urged Britain and the European Union to safeguard multilateral trading systems, as Beijing seeks to rally support from trading partners to counter U.S. tariff measures.

  • Dihydroxyacetone Man now says China tariffs will come down substantially, but won’t be zero

    White House said 18 countries have submitted proposals for tariff talks with the US, but China is not among them.

  • New York Times ☛ IMF Expects Convicted Felon’s Tariffs Will Slow Global Economic Growth [Ed: When they say "Slow Global Economic Growth" they don't mean growth at all; this is Wall Street lie machine,]

    The International Monetary Fund expects slower growth and higher inflation in the U.S. as a result of Hell Toupée’s trade policies.

  • BIA Net ☛ Turkish statistical authority ordered to disclose inflation basket data as union wins appeal

    TurkStat has withheld the item-level price data used in inflation calculations for three years, defying a previous court ruling now upheld on appeal.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • New York Times ☛ China says it is willing to keep improving ties with the Vatican.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China expresses condolences over death of Pope Francis

    China's foreign ministry on Tuesday expressed condolences over the death of Pope Francis, but said it had no information to share on who might attend the funeral.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China expresses condolences after death of Pope Francis

    China’s foreign ministry expressed condolences on Tuesday following the death of Pope Francis. The Vatican on Monday announced the death of the 88-year-old pontiff, who inspired devotion but riled traditionalists during 12 years leading the Catholic Church.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man tariffs torch chances of meeting with China’s Xi: Analysts

    Dihydroxyacetone Man unsheathed his dagger against China at a speed that exceeded imagination, says a political scientist.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • JURIST ☛ Rights group condemns Vietnam crackdown on dissent, targeting ordinary citizens and activists

    The Vietnamese government significantly escalated its suppression of dissent, increasingly punishing individuals, including ordinary citizens, for peacefully expressing concerns about state policies and public officials, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released today.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • New York Times ☛ Palin Loses Libel Retrial Against New York Times

    After two hours of deliberation, a jury rejected Sarah Palin’s claim that a 2017 editorial defamed her.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Germany’s BASF divests shares in Xinjiang joint ventures

    Chemical giant's action is welcomed by Uyghur activists who claimed use of slave labor in China.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Unions, lawmakers attempt to block Convicted Felon administration’s civil service overhaul

    A host of lawsuits and legislation seeks to prevent the Convicted Felon administration from removing job protections for some members of the career civil service.

  • Latvia ☛ Latvian government draws up 21-point bureaucracy reduction plan

    Fewer applications to fill in, reduced numbers of reports and certificates to acquire, more e-services and more understandable responses from institutions. Such are the improvements promised by the bureaucracy reduction plan adopted by the government on Tuesday, April 22.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ CAFC Affirms TTAB: CHICKEN SCRATCH for Beer is Confusable with CHICKEN SCRATCH for Restaurant Services

    In an opinion of a mere nine pages, the CAFC upheld the Board's decision [TTABlogged here] affirming a Section 2(d) refusal of the mark CHICKEN SCRATCH for "beer" in view of the identical mark registered for "restaurant services." The Board found that the cited mark is not weak and that the examining attorney's evidence established the relatedness of beer and restaurant services. The CAFC ruled that the Board's factual findings were supported by substantial evidence, and its conclusion that confusion is likely was not erroneous. In re R.S. Lipman Brewing Company, LLC, Appeal No. 2023-2131 (April 14, 2025) [not precedential].

• Copyrights

  • Public Domain Review ☛ Oskar Kokoschka, Hermine Moos, and the Alma Mahler Doll

    Photographs of the life-size doll that Kokoschka had made to resemble his ex-lover Alma Mahler.