Leftovers

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ 36 Billion Suns: Record Black Hole Discovery Could Be as Big as They Get

    Pushing the limits.

  • Science Alert ☛ The Dead Sea's 'Salt Giants' Reveal Deep Secrets About Earth's Past

    Even dying seas have a story.

  • Science Alert ☛ Study on Mice Suggests Nose-Picking Has a Surprising Link With Alzheimer's

    Do you really need to pick it?

  • Science Alert ☛ People Who Live to 100 Have a Unique Relationship With Disease

    It's not just a matter of surviving illness.

  • Science Alert ☛ Atlanta Home Struck by Meteorite Older Than Earth, Study Finds

    You don't see that every day!

  • Science Alert ☛ Exercise Can Help Fight Breast Cancer, Experiments Show

    Good news.

  • Science Alert ☛ What Lives Between Your Toes? A Microbiologist Explains.

    Welcome to the jungle.

• Hardware

  • New York Times ☛ U.S. Government to Take Cut of Nvidia and AMD Hey Hi (AI) Chip Sales to China

    In a highly unusual arrangement with Hell Toupée, the companies are expected to kick 15 percent of what they make in China to the U.S. government.

  • NYPost ☛ Nvidia, AMD to pay 15% of China chip sale revenues to US: report

    Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15% of their revenues from chip sales in China, under an arrangement to obtain export licenses for the semiconductors, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

  • Hackaday ☛ Building A 7-Segment Shadow Clock

    There are plenty of conventional timepieces out there in the world; we’ve also featured a great many that are aesthetically beautiful while being unreadably esoteric. This neat “shadow clock” from [Smart Solutions for Home] is not conventional, but it’s still a clock you could use every day.

  • Hackaday ☛ 2025 One Hertz Challenge: Using Industrial Relays To Make A Flasher

    These days, if you want to flash some LEDs, you’d probably grab a microcontroller. Maybe you’d go a little more old-school, and grab a 555. However, [Jacob] is even more hardcore than that, as evidenced by this chunky electromechanical flasher build.

  • Hackaday ☛ Coping With Disappearing Capacitance In A Buck Converter

    Designing a circuit is a lot easier on paper, where components have well-defined values, or lacking that, at least well-defined tolerances. Unfortunately, even keeping percentage tolerances in mind isn’t always enough to make sure that circuits work correctly in the real world, as [Tahmid] demonstrates by diagnosing a buck converter with an oddly strong voltage ripple in the output. Some voltage ripple is an inherent feature of the buck converter design, but it’s inversely proportional to output capacitance, so most designs include a few smoothing capacitors on the output side. However, at 10 V and a 50% duty cycle, [Tahmit]’s converter had a ripple of 0.75 V, significantly above the predicted variation of 0.45 V. The discrepancy was even greater at 20 V.The culprit was the effect of higher voltages on the ceramic smoothing capacitors: as the voltage increases, the dielectric barrier in the capacitors becomes less permittive, reducing their capacitance. Fortunately, unlike in the case of electrolytic capacitors, the degradation of ceramic capacitors performance with increasing voltage is usually described in specification sheets, and doesn’t have to be manually measured. After finding the reduced capacitance of his capacitors at 10 V, [Tahmid] calculated a new voltage ripple that was only 14.5% off from the true value.Anyone who’s had much experience with electronics will have already learned that passive components – particularly capacitors – aren’t as simple as the diagrams make them seem. On the bright side, they are constantly improving.

• Proprietary

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ AWS user’s data returned ‘because one human being inside proprietary trap AWS decided to give a damn’

    A software engineer, who previously accused proprietary trap AWS of 'digital execution,' has shared the good news that his data has now been restored.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Newly discovered WinRAR exploit linked to Russian hacking group, can plant backdoor malware — zero day hack requires manual update to fix

      WinRAR flaw CVE-2025-8088 was serious but has been fixed in version 7.13.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea warns of reprisal against South Korea-US drills amid signs of tensions easing

    Pyongyang said its military has an "absolute mission" to defend national security against the drills.

  • France24 ☛ UN Security Council calls Israel to reverse decision to occupy Gaza

    A UN official on Sunday warned the Security Council that Israel's plans to control Gaza City risked "another calamity" with far-reaching consequences as Benjamin Netanyahu insisted his goal was not to occupy the territory. Analysis by Pamela Falk, FRANCE 24 correspondent in New York.

  • New York Times ☛ What We Know About the C.D.C. Shooting in Atlanta

    A gunman who believed the Covid-19 vaccine had made him ill fired at the agency’s Atlanta offices, killing a police officer and rattling the public health community.

  • Federal News Network ☛ CDC shooter blamed COVID vaccine for depression; union demands statement against misinformation

    A Georgia man who had blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal has been identified as the shooter who opened fire late Friday on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters, killing a police officer. The 30-year-old suspect, who died during the incident, had also tried to get into the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta but was stopped by guards before driving to a pharmacy across the street and opening fire, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Saturday. The American Federation of Government Employees, Local 2883, is calling for heightened security and a strong statement condemning vaccine misinformation from federal officials.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Russia to require all civilian drones to transmit movement data — Meduza

    • Marcy Wheeler ☛ John Durham’s Show Trials: A Preview of Coming Attractions

      One of the ways John Durham tried to salvage his case against Hillary Clinton after obtaining evidence he was chasing Russian spy fabrications was by championing the cause of Russians claiming to be aggrieved.

    • LRT ☛ Spanish, other languages gain ground as Russian falls out of favour in Lithuanian schools

      Fewer and fewer pupils in Lithuanian schools are choosing Russian as a second foreign language – last year, less than half opted for it. Meanwhile, Spanish, French, and German are becoming increasingly popular. According to the president of the School Leaders Association, the demand for teachers of these languages is expected to rise significantly in the near future, and specialists need to be trained accordingly.

    • Meduza ☛ Zelensky and Aliyev condemn Russian strikes on Azerbaijani energy facilities in Ukraine — Meduza

    • The Straits Times ☛ The tycoons who profit from India’s thirst for Russian oil

      Russia offered discounts to whoever would take its stranded crude in the first year of the war in Ukraine.

    • France24 ☛ Ukraine: robot wars are fast becoming a reality

      Despite the diplomatic activity, Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline say they see no sign of any let-up in the Russian offensive. The frontline has moved only a little, but the battlefield has been transformed by the rapid development of new technologies, boosted all the more by the use of artificial intelligence. In this report, FRANCE 24 correspondent Gulliver Cragg explores how robot wars are fast becoming a reality.

    • Meduza ☛ U.S. incorrectly believed Putin was willing to return occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — The Washington Post — Meduza

    • New York Times ☛ In a Convicted Felon-Putin Summit, Ukraine Fears Losing Say Over Its Future

      Since Hell Toupée retook office, many Ukrainians have worried a peace accord would be struck without them.

    • New York Times ☛ Dmitri Kozak Was a Key Putin Aide. He Lost Power When He Balked at the Ukraine War.

      Dmitri N. Kozak, who has said privately that the invasion was a mistake, has lost power to another senior Putin ally, Sergei V. Kiriyenko, who has embraced the military action.

    • New York Times ☛ Takeaways From The Times’s Reporting on Putin’s Powerful Aide

      Showing an uncanny ability to adapt to circumstances, Sergei V. Kiriyenko has turned himself into a key engineer of President Vladimir V. Putin’s autocratic machine.

    • New York Times ☛ Ukraine and Europe Project United Front Ahead of Convicted Felon-Putin Summit

      Washington’s push to negotiate an end to the war has raised concerns the Convicted Felon administration will make concessions to Moscow that Kyiv finds unacceptable.

    • New York Times ☛ With Ukraine in the Balance, Convicted Felon and Putin Head Into Summit With Mismatched Goals

      For President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, it is an opportunity not just to end the Ukraine war on his terms, but to split apart the Western security alliance.

    • New York Times ☛ The Russian Technocrat Who Helps Enable Putin and Manage the Ukraine War

      For three years, Sergei V. Kiriyenko has handled the political aspects of the war in Ukraine, rising among a cadre of skilled managers who oversee the sprawling Russian state.

    • New York Times ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man and Putin May Get a Cold Reception From Some Alaskans

      Warm relations between Alaskans and Russians began to shift with the rise of Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine. In Alaska, feelings on the two leaders’ meeting seemed mixed.

    • New York Times ☛ Vance Says U.S. Is Working for a Meeting With Convicted Felon, Putin and Zelensky

      The vice president said the White House was trying to determine “when these three leaders could sit down and discuss an end to this conflict.”

    • RFERL ☛ Any Deal To End Ukraine War Must Include Kyiv And EU, Kallas Says

      European leaders reiterated support for Ukraine after Kyiv pushed back against US suggestions it would need to cede some territory to Russia, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying Ukraine’s future "cannot be decided without the Ukrainians.”

    • RFERL ☛ US VP Vance Says Both Ukraine, Russia Will Be 'Unhappy' With Any Peace Deal

      Washington appeared to be preparing Ukraine and Russia to make major compromises to end the long, bloody war ahead of a face-to-face meeting of the US and Russian presidents, with Vice President JD Vance warning that any peace deal will likely leave both sides "unhappy."

    • France24 ☛ EU leaders urge more pressure on Russia ahead of Ukraine talks

      European allies renewed pressure on Russia overnight Saturday as they rallied behind Ukraine in insisting that any deal to end the war include Kyiv ahead of next week’s bilateral peace talks in Alaska between US President The Insurrectionist and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Story by Camille Knight.

    • France24 ☛ Zelensky says he will not allow Ukraine to be excluded from Putin-Dihydroxyacetone Man negociations

      Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky says any peace talks must include Kyiv. His comments come ahead of US President The Insurrectionist's high-stakes talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin next Friday in Alaska. Meanwhile European allies are worried about their lack of influence over the outcome of any agreement that the two leaders could reach. Story by Jennie Shin.

    • NYPost ☛ A Convicted Felon-Putin peace deal would mean nothing without Ukraine at the table

      Make sure Ukraine has a seat at the table, Mr. President; it’s the only way to get to a fair and lasting peace.

• Finance

  • The Straits Times ☛ Tourist spots in South Korea face complaints over rude service, price gouging during peak season

    Popular spots are facing criticism over rudeness, unsanitary conditions and inflated lodging prices.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • New York Times ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man Attacked California’s Redistricting System. Republicans Want to Save It.

    The independent body that redraws the state’s political maps isn’t perfect, many Republicans say. But they prefer that to the gerrymander that Gov. Gavin Newsom seeks to offset one proposed in Texas.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • New York Times ☛ In India, Immigration Raids Detain Thousands and Create a Climate of Fear

    Officials have picked up people across the country, most of them Muslim, citing a national security risk. Rights groups say the raids are targeting detainees’ religion and language.

Monopolies/Monopsonies