Leftovers

• The Straits Times ☛ This Shandong city produces 80 per cent of China’s peony paintings

  China’s unofficial national flower is getting Heze noticed.

• Science

  • NOAA ☛ Ocean Month

    Did you know that June is National Ocean Month? As America’s leader in coastal and ocean science, technology, and management, we’re celebrating the ocean and its countless resources that inspire us, nourish us, and benefit our local economies.

  • France24 ☛ Europe's troubled waters: Does EU Ocean Pact meet the challenge?

    Europe is trying to put itself at the forefront of the global ocean agenda, releasing its Ocean Pact ahead of a United Nations Oceans Conference in the French coastal city of Nice. More than 90 percent of EU marine waters are overexploited by industrial fishing, seabed mining and growing offshore infrastructure, according to Seas At Risk, an association of environmental organisations from across Europe. And yet, healthy oceans are the precondition for breathing healthy air, ensuring sustainable food supplies and securing energy independence – as more of our electricity is set to come from the sea.

  • Federal News Network ☛ EPA Administrator Zeldin vowed to protect human health and the environment. His proposed budget tells a different story

    Zeldin’s proposed budget would weaken the EPA and drastically reduce support for state and community programs.

  • New York Times ☛ What to Know About the Effects of Ketamine

    MElon has said that he used ketamine as a treatment in the past, but he denied reports that he was taking it frequently and recreationally.

  • Science Alert ☛ Astronomers Just Discovered The Biggest Explosions Since The Big Bang

    "These ENTs are different beasts."

  • Science Alert ☛ Infamous 'Gateway to Hell' Fire Could Finally Stop Raging After 50 Years

    It emits a LOT of methane.

  • Gunnar Wolf ☛ Gunnar Wolf: Computational modelling of robot personhood and relationality

    If humans and robots were to be able to roam around the same spaces, mutually recognizing each other for what they are, how would interaction be? How can we model such interactions in a way that we can reason about and understand the implications of a given behavior? This book aims at answering this question.

• Career/Immigration

  • The Straits Times ☛ As US tightens visa rules, Chinese students may turn to Malaysia

    China’s content creators noted Malaysia has become the seventh most popular study abroad destination for Chinese students.

  • France24 ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man's student visa pause hits Indian and Chinese students hardest

    Recent student visa pauses by the US have left thousands of Indian and Chinese students in the lurch. On this week's show we bring you a report on how students in New Delhi are being forced to look for alternatives. Plus, we speak to the first Chinese woman commencement speaker in Harvard's history, as US President The Insurrectionist's feud with America's oldest university intensifies. Luanna Jiang tells us she's surprised her viral speech got politicised.

  • ACLU ☛ From Day One, Convicted Felon's Immigration Agenda Has Grown More Extreme

    Four months into President The Insurrectionist’s second term, he has aggressively pursued efforts to strip entire communities of their rights and circumvent the rule of law

    While many voters expected Convicted Felon to ramp up deportations, they did not foresee the hurricane of horrors he has unleashed. The president has attempted to assert war-time authorities to disappear people to foreign prisons without due process based on their tattoos and clothing. He has arbitrarily punished students who are non-citizens, jailing some and forcing others to flee the country. He put U.S. citizen children on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation flights, including those receiving cancer treatment. Convicted Felon’s ICE chief has said he wants to create a deportation system like “Amazon Prime for human beings” in a brutal and dehumanizing drive to deport as many people as quickly as possible, no matter the cost. Convicted Felon is now poised to turn the military, plus thousands of federal, state and local law enforcement agents, on entire communities in a hunt for our immigrant neighbors that will put all of our civil liberties in danger.

  • New York Times ☛ Agents Use Military-Style Force Against Protesters at L.A. Immigration Raid

    Armed agents in tactical gear threw flash-bang grenades to disperse a crowd in Los Angeles’s Fashion District. Later, agents fired less-than-lethal ammunition at protesters outside a detention center.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Freeze-drying For Improved Metal Printing

    For all the remarkable improvements we’ve seen in desktop 3D printers, metal printers have tended to stay out of reach for hackers, mostly because they usually rely on precise and expensive laser systems. This makes it all the more refreshing to see [Dan Gelbart]’s demonstration of Rapidia’s cast-to-sinter method, which goes from SLA prints to ceramic or metal models.

  • Hackaday ☛ 3D Pen Used To Build Cleaning Robot That Picks Up Socks

    Your average 3D printer is just a nozzle shooting out hot  plastic while being moved around by a precise robotic mechanism. There’s nothing stopping you replacing the robot and moving around the plastic-squirting nozzle yourself. That’s precisely what [3D Sanago] did to produce this cute little robot.

  • Hackaday ☛ The Bellmac-32 CPU — What?

    If you have never heard of the Bellmac-32, you aren’t alone. But it is a good bet that most, if not all, of the CPUs in your devices today use technology pioneered by this early 32-bit CPU. The chip was honored with the IEEE Milestone award, and [Willie Jones] explains why in a recent post in Spectrum.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ 'Rising Hey Hi (AI) coalition' seeks to jettison Nvidia — Industry report claims firms are accelerating development in order to reduce dependence on the giant

    Industry reports claim that Hey Hi (AI) shipments are projected to rise at a compound annual growth rate of 50%. This growth is largely attributed to top cloud hyperscalers such as Google, AWS, and Meta seeking to move away from reliance on Nvidia hardware.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ New Nintendo Switch 2 units show potential signs of tampering — UK customers report receiving unsealed products from multiple retailers

    Many Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order customers are complaining that their consoles arrived already open.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Hackers discover Nintendo Switch 2 exploit one day after launch — minor hack allows running custom code on top of OS

    Bluesky user David Buchanan discovered a userland Return-Oriented Programming vulnerability on the Switch 2.

  • Hackaday ☛ Solder Stencil Done Three Ways

    This project, sent in by [Henk], goes through a few different ways to make a solder stencil using a vinyl cutter, a CO2 laser, and a fiber laser.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • France24 ☛ EU's von der Leyen 'has to be held accountable' for vaccine texts: Senior MEP Aubry

    We speak with the Co-Chair of The Left Group in the European Parliament, French MEP Manon Aubry. A noted advocate for transparency in the EU institutions, she was also a negotiator of the "Duty of Care Directive", which now faces calls for its abolition. Aubry says the directive is absolutely crucial for holding multinational corporations to account when it comes to labour and environmental abuses. She sees the EU Commission's "simplification" agenda as Convicted Felon-style deregulation.

  • New Yorker ☛ What Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Doesn’t Understand About Autism

    An autism researcher on Kennedy’s initiative to identify a cause, the focus on environmental factors, and the dangers of misinformation.

  • Science Alert ☛ Common Diabetes Drug Linked to 'Exceptional Longevity' in Women

    Hidden anti-aging powers?

  • Science Alert ☛ The Cause of Alzheimer's Might Be Coming From Within Your Mouth

    It's not just a disease.

  • Science Alert ☛ The 'Japanese Walking' Fitness Trend Has Science-Backed Benefits

    Here's how to do it.

  • Science Alert ☛ Rosemary Can Sharpen Your Mind, And Could Help Fight Alzheimer's

    Impressive health benefits hiding in your spice rack.

  • Science Alert ☛ The Greatest Parasite Is Right in Front of You – And It's Dangerous

    Every human is a host.

  • Science Alert ☛ Your Brain Wrinkles Are Way More Important Than We Ever Realized

    They're not just random folds.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ ProPublica Explains How DOGE’s Hey Hi (AI) Cut Support for Veterans Care

    ProPublica reviewed that shoddy Hey Hi (AI) that led DOGE to cancel critical Veterans care.

  • Pro Publica ☛ DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI to Help Kill Veterans Affairs Contracts

    As the Trump administration prepared to cancel contracts at the Department of Veteran Affairs this year, officials turned to a software engineer with no health care or government experience to guide them.

    The engineer, working for the Department of Government Efficiency, quickly built an artificial intelligence tool to identify which services from private companies were not essential. He labeled those contracts “MUNCHABLE.”

  • Pro Publica ☛ Inside the AI Tool Used by DOGE to Review Veterans Affairs Contracts

    When an AI script written by a Department of Government Efficiency employee came across a contract for internet service, it flagged it as cancelable. Not because it was waste, fraud or abuse — the Department of Veterans Affairs needs internet connectivity after all — but because the model was given unclear and conflicting instructions.

    Sahil Lavingia, who wrote the code, told it to cancel, or in his words “munch,” anything that wasn’t “directly supporting patient care.” Unfortunately, neither Lavingia nor the model had the knowledge required to make such determinations.

• Proprietary

  • Dedoimedo ☛ Windows 11, periodic check, 24H2 update, and lots of fail

    Here's something nice. And by that, I mean, not. This is my periodic review of backdoored Windows 11 following June 2024 patching, including a long and messy update process with failed updates and version 24H2 installation and setup, privacy baseline, new unwanted uninstallable apps, removal of said apps from a GNU/Linux session, Hey Hi (AI) components, optional components, numerous issues in the Administrator account like messed up visuals, missing save dialog windows and right-click functionality, unsuccessful system repair attempt, blocked drivers, some other observations, and more. Take a look, if you like.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • New York Times ☛ UK Court Warns Lawyers Can Be Prosecuted Over Hey Hi (AI) LLM Slop Tools That ‘Hallucinate’ Fake Material

      A senior judge said on Friday that lawyers could be prosecuted for presenting material that had been “hallucinated” by artificial intelligence [LLM Slop] tools.

    • Zimbabwe ☛ LLM Slop Laws Won’t Save Zimbabwean Journalism, Let’s Think This Through

      [LLM Slop] is coming for journalism, or so we have heard, repeatedly.

    • Jim Nielsen ☛ Some Miscellaneous Thoughts on Visual Design Prodded By The Sameness of Hey Hi (AI) Company Logos

      Radek Sienkiewicz in a funny-because-its-true piece titled “Why do Hey Hi (AI) company logos look like buttholes?“:

      We made a circular shape [logo] with some angles because it looked nice, then wrote flowery language to justify why our…design is actually profound.

      As someone who has grown up through the tumult of the design profession in technology, that really resonates. I’ve worked on lots of projects where I got tired of continually justifying design decisions with language dressed in corporate rationality.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Silicon Angle ☛ OpenAI to retain deleted Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot conversations following court order

      OpenAI will retain users’ deleted Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot conversations to comply with a recently issued court order. Brad Lightcap, the artificial intelligence developer’s chief operating officer, disclosed the move in a late Thursday blog post. When users delete Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot prompts and the chatbot’s responses, Proprietary Chaffbot Company usually retains the data for 30 days before permanently erasing it.

    • Michael Geist ☛ More Than Just Phone Book Data: Why the Government is Dangerously Misleading on its Warrantless Demands for Internet Subscriber Information

      Government and law enforcement justifications for warrantless access to Internet subscriber information has long been defended on the grounds that the information being demanded carries little privacy interest. The go-to claim was always that it was “phone book information”, a reference to the largely discontinued practice of printing an annual public directory that included name, address, and phone number.

    • Gunnar Wolf ☛ Gunnar Wolf: Beyond data poisoning in federated learning

    • American Oversight ☛ Supreme Court Grants DOGE Access to Americans’ Social Security Data, Undermining Privacy Protections

      On the same day it hindered DOGE transparency, the high court allowed the exposure of sensitive Social Security data to the shadowy entity of DOGE.

    • University of Michigan ☛ UMich student protesters report surveillance by undercover investigators

      In an article published Friday by The Guardian, five University of Michigan students who had previously participated in pro-Palestinian protests reported being surveilled on- and off-campus by people alleged to be undercover investigators working for City Shield Security Services, a Detroit-based security company.

    • Gunnar Wolf ☛ Gunnar Wolf: The subjective value of privacy • Assessing individuals' calculus of costs and benefits in the context of state surveillance

  • Confidentiality

    • Federal News Network ☛ Pentagon watchdog investigates if staffers were asked to delete Hegseth’s Signal messages

      The Pentagon watchdog is looking into whether any of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s staffers were asked to delete Signal messages that may have shared sensitive military information with a reporter. The investigation is asking some past and current staffers who were with Hegseth on the day of the airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen who posted the information and who had access to his phone. That's according to two people familiar with the investigation and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. The Pentagon had no comment Friday, citing the pending investigation. Hegseth has said none of the information was classified.

• Defence/Aggression

  • New York Times ☛ How North Korea Salvaged a Capsized Warship

    Satellite images show the unconventional strategy engineers used to get the 5,000-ton vessel afloat.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Body of missing British backpacker found in lift shaft in Malaysia

    He was last seen on May 27 at a bar in an upmarket suburb in Kuala Lumpur.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Boy, 3, among three dead as boat capsizes off Malaysia’s Port Klang

    The child’s parents are still missing.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Taiwan accuses China of conducting ‘provocative’ patrol near island

    Taipei’s Defence Ministry said it detected 21 Chinese military aircraft, including fighters and drones.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Lawrence of Arabia bombed the Hejaz Railway. Syria wants it to run again.

    More than a century after Arab revolutionaries blew up the Ottomans’ prized Hejaz Railway, located in the geographic heart of the Middle East, Syria’s new government is pushing full steam ahead on its revival.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Jailed Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong charged with conspiring to collude with foreign forces

    Jailed Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong has been charged with conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the Beijing-imposed national security law.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Safeguarding national security should become Hong Kong’s ‘culture,’ leader John Lee says

    Safeguarding national security should become a “culture” in Hong Kong, Chief Executive John Lee has said, vowing to strengthen public education and train officers to counter “state-level” threats.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China demonstrates coast guard capability to Pacific nations, draws towards high seas patrols

    The biggest fishing fleets in the Pacific attracting the most infringement notices are Chinese and Taiwanese.

  • American Oversight ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man’s ‘Free’ Jet from Qatar and Corruption’s Slippery Slope

    The Qatari jet deal isn’t finalized, but the White House’s enthusiasm for the gift encapsulates the blatant disregard for ethics norms and laws that have characterized both of Convicted Felon’s presidencies — and shows that Convicted Felon is getting bolder in his abuse of power.

  • Stanford University ☛ Stanford’s Democratic duty to combat the MAGA rage

    Strawser argues that as a uniquely Democratic community, Stanford must lead the way on abandoning institutional deference, embracing every day needs and combatting MAGA.

  • JURIST ☛ US blocks UN Security Council Gaza ceasefire resolution

    The United States on Wednesday vetoed a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that called for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza, citing concerns that the measure failed to link a truce to the release of hostages held by Hamas.

  • Imprisoned Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong faces new ‘foreign collusion’ charge

    Rights groups condemn the charge that could prolong imprisonment of one of the best-known democracy figures.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man’s ‘Golden Dome’ defense plan: Would it work? Is it worth it?

    New U.S. defenses against potential missile strikes are seen by some experts as “absolutely necessary.” They also come with big costs and geopolitical risks.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Three rescue workers among dead after Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russia’s Central Bank cuts record-high key rate to 20 percent — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ U.S. citizen Joseph Tater leaves Russia after forced psychiatric treatment — Meduza

    • New York Times ☛ U.K. Faces ‘Extraordinary’ Threat From Russian and Iranian Plots, Official Warns

      Jonathan Hall, a British government adviser, said in an interview that hostile states were paying local criminals to carry out acts of violence, espionage and intimidation.

    • RFERL ☛ US Citizen Joseph Tater Leaves Russia After Being Held In Psychiatric Clinic

      US citizen Joseph Tater leaves Russia following his detention in Moscow last August and later compulsory psychiatric treatment.

    • LRT ☛ Kaunas mayor’s company confirms selling assets in Russia for over €100m

      Vičiūnai Group, a Lithuanian food production and distribution company co-owned by Kaunas Mayor Visvaldas Matijošaitis, sold its business operations in Russia and other eastern markets for just over 100 million euros in April 2024, a board member confirmed Friday.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Keeping China at bay and critical minerals stocked: The case for US-Africa defense collaboration

      As Russia, China, and other authoritarian powers expand their global reach, US security is at stake. To stay competitive, the United States must turn to Africa—for both critical minerals and partnership in countering rising adversarial influence on the continent.

    • Meduza ☛ Ukrainian drones target Russian regions, spark fire at Engels industrial site, explosion reported near Bryansk airport — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Kyiv’s ‘Spiderweb’ drone strike prompts White House debate over whether to ‘abandon Ukraine’ — The Atlantic — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Not yet payback’: Pro-invasion bloggers criticize Russia’s Defense Ministry for failing to retaliate for Ukraine’s drone strikes on strategic airfields — Meduza

    • New York Times ☛ Russia Pummels Kyiv in Apparent Retaliation for Ukrainian Drone Assault

      The attack on Friday, which killed at least four people nationwide, came two days after Russia vowed retaliation for an audacious drone assault on its strategic bomber bases.

    • RFERL ☛ Russia Pounds Kyiv With Missiles, Drones; At Least 4 Killed, Including Firefighters

      Four people were killed and at least 20 were wounded in Kyiv overnight in a missile and drone attack, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said early on June 6.

    • RFERL ☛ London Court Sets Trial Date For Ukrainians, Romanian Accused In Starmer Arson Attacks

      A London court set an April trial date for two Ukrainian men charged with orchestrating a series of arson attacks that targeted property linked to Prime Minister Kier Starmer.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Dispatch from Kyiv: Ukraine is putting new pressure on Russia. Will Convicted Felon follow?

      To bring a stable peace to Europe, the Convicted Felon administration must apply strong pressure on Russia in the form of sanctions and military aid to Ukraine.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Ukraine’s drone strikes offer four big lessons for US nuclear strategists

      Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb should spur the US government to address strategic vulnerabilities that nuclear strategists have focused on for years.

    • The Strategist ☛ Ukraine’s drone attack offers fearful lesson for a Chinese invasion force

      Ukraine’s massive drone strike against Russian air bases on 1 June should reverberate across all theaters of conflict. But there is one Western Pacific scenario where it could be very relevant indeed: a Chinese invasion ...

    • Security Week ☛ Destructive ‘PathWiper’ Targeting Ukraine’s Critical Infrastructure

      A Russia-linked threat actor has used the destructive malware dubbed PathWiper against a critical infrastructure organization in Ukraine.

    • Latvia ☛ Baltic Foreign Affairs Committees call for Ukraine’s NATO membership

      The Foreign Affairs Committees of the parliaments of the Baltic States today issued a joint statement in which they called on ensuring continued and determined support for Ukraine’s victory, reconstruction, and full integration into the Euro-Atlantic community.

    • Meduza ☛ Wagner Group says it’s withdrawing from Mali, claiming its ‘main mission’ there is complete — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Georgia’s democratic reckoning As protests continue and the ruling party crushes dissent, could ex-president Salome Zourabichvili offer a political alternative? — Meduza

• Environment

  • France24 ☛ Art that speaks for the sea: Mandy Barker's mission to end fast fashion waste

    In this special edition for World Oceans Day, we spotlight the urgent, haunting work of Mandy Barker, the award-winning British photographic artist using sea-salvaged fashion waste to expose the truth about plastic pollution. Her cyanotype series "Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections" reimagines the work of 19th-century botanist Anna Atkins, replacing seaweed with clothing scraps collected from 121 beaches around the UK. The result is both poetic and jarring, earning praise from none other than Sir David Attenborough, who supports Barker's work for its power to inspire real change.

  • New Yorker ☛ “Mountainhead” and the Age of the Pathetic Billionaire

    Extreme wealth has long been an obsession within American culture—but Jesse Armstrong’s new film reflects a sea change in the way we view the über-rich.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Straits Times ☛ China’s rare earth weapon changes contours of trade war battlefield

      China has signalled for more than 15 years that it was looking to weaponise areas of the global supply chain, a strategy modelled on longstanding American export controls Beijing views as aimed at stalling its rise.

    • The Straits Times ☛ China issues rare earth licenses to suppliers of top 3 US automakers, sources say

      Suppliers of General Motors, Ford and Jeep-maker Stellantis got clearance for some export licenses.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Science Alert ☛ Dehorning Rhinos Cuts Poaching by 78% – Saving Thousands of Animals' Lives

      A game-changer in the fight against fight illegal slaughter.

• Finance

  • New York Times ☛ Xi to Convicted Felon: Rein in the Hawks Trying to Derail the Tariff Truce

    China sought to depict a call between Pooh-tin Jinping and Hell Toupée as an appeal from one strongman leader to another to run a tight ship and stay on course.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China says it is working with France on trade differences, no sign yet of a cognac deal

    Chinese anti-dumping measures applied duties of up to 39 per cent on imports of European brandy.

  • New York Times ☛ Buyer With Ties to Chinese Communist Party Got V.I.P. Treatment at Convicted Felon Crypto [sic] Dinner

    The warm welcome for a technology executive whose purchases of the president’s digital coin won him a White House tour illustrates inconsistencies in the administration’s views toward visitors from China.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea’s Lee, Convicted Felon agree to work towards ‘satisfactory’ tariff deal

    The two leaders will encourage working-level negotiations to yield tangible results, the South Korean presidential office says.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ The search for safe assets

    The deterioration of the US fiscal outlook has put international investors, especially foreign central banks, in a quandary. There is no good alternative to US Treasuries as safe reserve assets.

  • The Straits Times ☛ US targets Iran's shadow banking with new sanctions

    The U.S. issued Iran-related sanctions targeting more than 30 individuals and entities it said are part of a "shadow banking" network that has laundered billions of dollars through the global financial system, the Treasury Department said on Friday.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • New York Times ☛ South Koreans Have a New President, and Mixed Emotions

    After six months of turmoil, citizens hope for better times. But political polarization and international tensions over trade mean many worries remain.

  • New York Times ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man Is Helping Human Rights Abusers. I’m Suing to Stop Him.

    A Convicted Felon executive order is undermining the International Criminal Court’s work to pursue justice for crimes against humanity.

  • BIA Net ☛ Özgür Özel says they won’t allow CHP to be taken over

    "No one can come to lead CHP without an election. Former chairs wouldn’t accept this, and neither would MR. Kemal [Kılıçdaroğlu]," CHP leader Özgür Özel said about the ongoing party congress lawsuit.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Nepal ex-PM faces graft charge over land deal with Indian yoga guru's firm

    Authorities in Nepal have charged former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal with corruption and demanded a million-dollar fine over the purchase of land by a firm owned by Indian yoga guru Baba Ramdev, a court official said on Friday.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • ACLU ☛ 13 “Woke” Books Banned in DOD Schools

    Books are disappearing from shelves again – this time at the more than 100 schools serving the children of active-duty and civilian military personnel.

    This rampant censorship is the result of the Department of Defense’s new policies banning books, classroom discussions, events, and extracurriculars that relate to race and gender in military-run schools on bases around the world. At the American Civil Liberties Union, we know that all students deserve access to a diverse education and the DOD’s efforts to strip them of this right violates the First Amendment. So we took the DOD to court.

  • ACLU ☛ The Forrest Dump Administration is Banning Books on Military Bases. We Sued.

    On military bases across the globe, books are disappearing from shelves. Posters of historical figures, like Frida Kahlo, are being removed from walls. Black History Month celebrations are being cancelled.

    This rampant censorship is the result of the Department of Defense’s new policies banning books, classroom discussions, events, and extracurriculars that relate to race and gender in military-run schools on bases around the world.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ UK political mag Tribune taken over by Islam Channel owner

    "The editorial independence and the tradition of Tribune are assured."

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • University of Michigan ☛ The dystopian feminism of ‘I Who Have Never Known Men’

    A long time ahead, in a world perhaps not that far away, lies the realm of dystopian literature — a genre notorious for ending up on the “banned books” list. Dystopian societies have long served as playgrounds for authors to experiment with the faults of man.

  • European Commission ☛ Speech by Commissioner Lahbib for the 35th Anniversary of the European Women's Lobby

    I am delighted to be with you on this 35th anniversary of the European Women's Lobby.

  • Mexico News Daily ☛ Sheinbaum cancels Guerrero trip after protesters sack headquarters of rival teachers union

    The president called the vandalism a "provocation" after a three-week strike by the dissident CNTE teachers union escalated into violence in Mexico CIty and Guerrero.

  • Gunnar Wolf ☛ Gunnar Wolf: Humanities and big data in Ibero-America • Theory, methodology and practical applications

  • Pro Publica ☛ Texas Lawmakers Pull Funding for Child ID Kits Again

    Texas state legislators dropped efforts to spend millions of dollars to buy what experts call ineffective child identification kits weeks after ProPublica and The Texas Tribune reported that lawmakers were again trying to fund the program.

    This is the second consecutive budget cycle in which the Legislature considered purchasing the products, which promise to help find missing children, only to reverse course after the news organizations documented the lack of evidence that the kits work.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Public Knowledge ☛ Public Knowledge Urges Commerce Department To Reconsider BEAD Changes Risking America’s Connectivity [Ed: A mouthpiece for Microsoft, too]

    The changes threaten access to affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband for millions of American consumers.

  • Hackaday ☛ A Network Status Panel The Way It Should Be

    Sometimes a project forms itself around a component rather than an idea, and thus it was that [Maximilien] found himself building a data rate monitor for the connection between two data centers. Some MD0657C2-R LED dot matrix displays for not a lot needed a project.

  • Public Knowledge ☛ Three Takeaways from NDIA’s Net Inclusion Conference

    This year's gathering for the annual conference on digital equity carried a few important recurring themes.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Australian Navy ship blocks Kiwi Internet

    Rememeber when that relative of yours bought a cordless phone, then complained that their Wi-Fi had stopped working? Or was that just me?

    Radio New Zealand:

    According to local internet service providers (ISPs), HMAS Canberra’s navigation radar began interfering with 5GHz wireless access points - devices that bridge wired and wireless networks - in regions on both New Zealand’s North and South Islands at around 2am.

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea Internet hit by a major outage, analyst says

    North Korea's main news websites and its Foreign Ministry Internet site were inaccessible.

  • Internet Society ☛ Community Snapshot—May

    Our global chapters and special interest groups work to keep the Internet a force for good. Each month, we provide a brief overview of just some of the things they have achieved. 

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • University of Michigan ☛ Bright-pink Barbie CDs, American standards and physical media

    There is a neon green CD storage box back in my childhood home in Indonesia. Some discs in the pile are more worn than others; their edges have faded white, and the screen-printed labels on top are practically illegible.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Maintaining a Speedy and Robust IPR Process Should Be a Major Focus of John Squires’ Patent Quality Efforts

    Guest Post by Shawn Miller, Professor of Practice, University of San Diego School of Law; CodeX Fellow, Stanford Law School; Creator, Stanford NPE Litigation Database

    Just a week ago, I began dusting off the half-written paper drafts of two empirical research projects that have mostly sat on my shelf the past year while teaching an overload to aid my colleagues on sabbatical. Brushing up on current events at the USPTO, it is clear that neither patent monopoly policy stakeholders nor the second Convicted Felon administration waited around for this law professor’s summer break.

  • JUVE ☛ Aylo and Bardehle Pagenberg prevail against Dish in pan-European dispute

    Dish accuses Aylo of infringing two patents relating to adaptive rate video streaming. EP 2 479 680 protects a “method for presenting rate-adaptive streams” and EP 3 822 805 protects an “apparatus, system, and method for adaptive-rate shifting or streaming content”.

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • JUVE ☛ Aleš Zalar: “We can offer dispute resolution tailored to the needs of the parties” [Ed: UPC is illegal and this site is a paid cheerleader for this illegal kangaroo court; this discredits the media as watchdog as opposed to PR lapdog]

      JUVE Patent: You recently launched the public consultation process on the mediation rules, the consultation for arbitration is soon to follow. How much progress has been made in setting up the PMAC? Aleš Zalar: The whole regulatory framework for the PMAC needs to be adopted by the UPC’s Administrative Committee.

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ TTABlog Test: How Did These Three Recent Section 2(d) Appeals Turn Out?

    Here are three recent Section 2(d) appeals. No hint this time. How do you think they came out? [Answer in first comment].

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Fired US Copyright Office Chief Faces an Uphill Battle — Courts Proceedings Are Now Dragging Into July

    One scheduling sub-dispute later, the legal battle for Copyright Office control is seemingly set to proceed into at least July. That’s according to a new preliminary injunction scheduling order from the presiding judge, who signed off on most of the deadlines proposed by the involved parties.