Leftovers

• The New Leaf Journal ☛ Newsletter Leaf Journal CCLXI

  Original Prefatory Note: I send out a newsletter every Saturday. You can learn more on our Newsletter Sign-Up page. Our newsletter is hosted with Buttondown. I was planning to send issue 256 today as scheduled, but I am having technical issues with Buttondown. Not content to wait for support, I decided to publish the newsletter on The New Leaf Journal first. If you regularly read The New Leaf Journal but not the newsletter, consider this your chance to see what our newsletter is like (note you can also subscribe to the newsletter via RSS). The newsletter is presented below exactly as I wrote it for mailing with a few stylistic changes for better presentation on our site.

• Howard Oakley ☛ The earthly delights of Hieronymus Bosch 1

  Most triptychs were intended for use in places of worship, particularly as altarpieces. This one appears to have been commissioned primarily as a conversation piece for the well-educated nobility, specifically Count Henry III of Nassau-Breda (1483-1538), in what is now Belgium. It’s also one of Bosch’s best documented paintings, first being recorded only a year after his death, and described by a succession of viewers ever since.

• Dan Sinker ☛ All Rad, No Bad

  Look, we live under the crushing boot of capitalism and all that, I get it. But also, it's the time of year where we try and find things for our friends and family that might bring them a little joy, a worthy cause if ever there was one, always, but especially this year.

  So I've assembled a little gift guide of stuff I like a lot, largely from independent artists and makers, with an emphasis (but not exclusively) on things that are handmade and small-run. No stinkers in the bunch, these are all rad, no bad.

• Coyote ☛ You Can Make A Website

  If you have any doubts, then you're the target audience of this guide. Many people hesitate or even write off the possibility of making a website due to common misconceptions, poorly-written instructions, or simply feeling unsure where to start. So to help you over those hurdles, this guide is designed to address some of those misconceptions, walk you through resolving certain mental blocks, and present you with some tutorials to help get you on your way.

• Andre Franca ☛ Black Friday — Andre Franca

  This contradiction underscores why we must learn to separate need from desire, value from price, and freedom from convenience. A discount is only worthwhile when it aligns with genuine needs, not when it exploits our impulsive instincts.

• Science

  • The Register UK ☛ Baikonur's only crew-capable pad busted after Soyuz flight

    The pad used by Russia to send Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) sustained damage during yesterday's crew launch, according to Roscosmos.

  • Interesting Engineering ☛ French scientists discover law that predicts how most objects shatter

    Fragmentation, the way objects break into pieces, has long intrigued scientists. Researchers have observed that broken objects tend to produce fragments in a wide range of sizes, and the distribution of those sizes often follows a consistent pattern, regardless of the material.

• Career/Education

  • Alabama Reflector ☛ Suit to block Education Department closure expanded amid agency transfers plans

    The alliance of unions and school districts also added a major disability rights advocacy group to its ranks in the amended complaint that detailed how the department’s Nov. 18 announcement of six interagency agreements could harm students.

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ Karen

    This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Karen, whose blog can be found at chronosaur.us.

  • Kerrick Long ☛ Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship - Kerrick Long (blog)

    First, why am I admitting these things now? I realized I am not the only working software developer missing crucial skills. My learning path through my career looked a lot like a slime mold seeking morsels of food: strengthening what has utility, but letting the rest wither. But lately, I’ve been building a better base of knowledge. Writing or speaking about what I learn–which helps me learn better–requires me to admit I didn’t know. Plus, I’d like to show others in my situation that it’s never too late to learn what you don’t know. I can fill in those fundamentals, and so can you.

• Hardware

  • Dan Langille ☛ The latest SATADOM drives contained data when I got them

    Today I wanted to test some stuff with the newly obtained SATADOM SSDs. I was surprised to find they still had data on them.

    Well, one of them at least.

    Let’s have a snoop.

  • XDA ☛ The unpowered SSDs in your drawer are slowly losing your data

    The problem is that most consumer SSDs use only TLC or QLC NAND, so users who leave their SSDs unpowered for over a year are risking the integrity of their data. The reliability of QLC NAND has improved over the years, so you should probably consider 2–3 years of unpowered usage as the guardrails. Without power, the voltage stored in the NAND cells can be lost, either resulting in missing data or completely useless drives.

  • BoingBoing ☛ Unpowered solid state drives could kill your data

    Non-volatile storage, my ass.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-20 [Older] Europe struggles to cope with illegal waste dumps

  • Futurism ☛ Amazon Data Center Linked to Cluster of Rare Cancers

    This meant that the data center itself began taking on the toxic sludge as it drew on groundwater to cool its electronics. When it did, evaporation only further concentrated the wastewater, which occasionally contained nitrate levels eight times higher than Oregon’s safe limit. The super concentrated data center water then made its way back into the waste system, where it ostensibly piled up all over again.

  • Science Alert ☛ A Single 30-Minute Exercise Session Has an Immediate Antidepressant Effect

    In mice – and likely humans – that boost comes from the release of a hormone called adiponectin, which travels into the brain and sparks activity in a region associated with emotional regulation. The result is a lift in mood that could hang around for hours, although the duration has yet to be measured in humans.

• Proprietary

  • India Times ☛ Indian airlines complete software upgrade for 80% of 338 affected A320 family planes

    Indian airlines IndiGo, Air India, and Air India Express are upgrading software on 338 A320 family aircraft due to a potential flight control issue caused by intense solar radiation. While 80% of affected planes have received the upgrade, leading to some delays and four cancellations by Air India Express, all modifications are expected to be completed by November 30.

  • Mike Rockwell ☛ Used Macs Are a Great Value

    He bought a 2015 iMac for his son and set it up with Ubuntu Mate 24.04.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Upheaval

    And then one day you violate the terms of service. Perhaps you said something the algorithm didn’t like. Perhaps you organized something that threatened the wrong interests. Perhaps you simply became inconvenient.

    And you’re gone. Deleted. Erased from the platforms where participation happens, where community exists, where economic life is increasingly conducted. No hearing. No appeal. No due process. Just the quiet, efficient execution of a contract you never actually negotiated, enforced by a party that holds all the power.

    The DMV might be slow. But they can’t simply delete you for being inconvenient.

  • Reuters ☛ Airbus issues major A320 recall, threatening global flight disruption

    For about two-thirds of the affected jets, the recall will result in a brief grounding as airlines revert to a previous software version, industry sources said. Still, that comes at a time when airline repair shops are already overrun by maintenance work, as hundreds of Airbus jets have been grounded due to long waiting times for separate engine repairs or inspections. The industry also has labour shortages.

  • Lorin Hochstein ☛ Fun with incident data and statistical process control

    I thought it would be fun to take a look at some actual publicly available incident data to see what a control chart with incident data actually looked like. Cloudflare’s been on my mind these days because of their recent outage so I thought “hey, why don’t I take a look at Cloudflare’s data?” They use Atlassian Statuspage to host their status, which includes a history of their incidents. The nice thing about Statuspage is that if you pass the Accept: application/json header to the /history URL, you’ll get back JSON instead of HTML, which is convenient for analysis.

  • Lorin Hochstein ☛ Incidents: the exceptional as routine

    In yesterday’s post, I was looking at the Cloudflare’s public incident data to see if the time-to-resolve was under statistical control. Today I want to look at just the raw counts.

    Here’s a graph that shows a count of incidents reported per day, color-coded by impact.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • The Atlantic ☛ Colleges Are Preparing to Self-Lobotomize

      Before embarking on a wholesale transformation, the field of higher education needs to ask itself two questions: What abilities do students need to thrive in a world of automation? And does the incorporation of AI into education actually provide those abilities?

    • Muxup ☛ Minipost: LLM inference vs training costs for DeepSeek

      Tl;dr: Based on published data from DeepSeek, we can estimate it takes something like ~70 days of inference traffic (served by DeepSeek themselves, ignoring any other providers) to match the GPU hours used for the final training run for V3 and R1.

  • Social Control Media

    • International Business Times ☛ Fortnite Servers Are Down: Here's What We Know When Will They Be Back Up

      Epic Games took Fortnite servers offline to push the Chapter 7 update, a significant overhaul that introduces a new map, system changes and large gameplay adjustments.

    • The Telegraph UK ☛ IT consultant arrested after posing with gun on LinkedIn

      Mr Richelieu-Booth said two officers then returned to his home shortly after 10pm on Aug 24 and arrested him.

      A bail document seen by The Telegraph refers to an allegation of possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and a further allegation of stalking related to a photograph of a house that appeared on his social media.

      He said he was held overnight in a cell before being interviewed.

      Mr Richelieu-Booth said he was initially released on bail until late October.

      He alleges that police officers then visited his property on three further occasions before he was re-arrested in October for allegedly breaching his bail conditions. However, that charge was later dropped.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • 2025-11-19 [Older] Report released on PowerSchool cyber attack

• Security

  • The Record ☛ 2025-11-21 [Older] Two suspected Scattered Spider hackers plead not guilty over Transport for London cyberattack

  • Covington & Burling LLP ☛ 2025-11-23 [Older] SEC Voluntarily Dismisses SolarWinds Litigation

  • 2025-11-23 [Older] Ph: Department of the Interior and Local Government to probe alleged data breach by hackers

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • The Register UK ☛ 2025-11-21 [Older] Fired techie admits sabotaging ex-employer, causing $862K in damage

    • Security Boulevard ☛ 2025-11-19 [Older] Sue The Hackers – Google Sues Over Phishing as a Service

    • USDOJ ☛ 2025-11-21 [Older] Des Moines Man Charged with Computer Fraud

    • Bleeping Computer ☛ 2025-11-21 [Older] CrowdStrike catches insider feeding information to ScatteredLapsus$Hunters

    • Gray Local Media ☛ 2025-11-22 [Older] Cyberattack disables Onsolve Code Red emergency alert system across St. Louis region (1)

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • TechCrunch ☛ 2025-11-18 [Older] Surveillance tech provider Protei was hacked, its data stolen, and its website defaced

    • The Register UK ☛ UK digital ID plan gets a price tag at last – £1.8B

      On Wednesday, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published its Economic and Fiscal Outlook for the UK government. In the document, it noted that the summer's Spending Review had seen departmental spending "revised up by an average of around £6 billion per year across the period [2026/27-2029/30 including capital investment], before accounting for policy, to reflect risks and pressures, most notably on the NHS, asylum, and the cost of digital ID cards, for which no specific funding has been identified."

    • The Record ☛ California law regulating web browsers could have national data privacy impact, experts say

      Crucially, the law applies to Californians even when they are traveling out of state or using a virtual private network, a fact which a California data privacy regulator and the legislator behind the law say likely means browsing companies will make the tool available nationally.

      Twelve states, including California, now require businesses to stop sharing data from consumers who opt out. But because most web browsers have not offered mechanisms for residents to easily exercise their rights, most do not do so. That means that once browsing companies set up a universal opt out tool, tens of millions of consumers — including those outside of California — could begin refusing to share their web browsing data.

      The California law goes into effect on January 1, 2027.

    • Wired ☛ The WIRED Guide to Digital Opsec for Teens

      Teenagers have always been formidable hackers. In fact, in recent years, some of the most high-profile and brazen digital attacks around the world have been carried out by teens. But even if you're not a hacker, you’re probably still a prolific user of digital tools and social platforms. And whether you've never given much thought to your digital privacy and security or you've started to rein in your data, you can use this guide to implement basic precautions and keep operations security in mind. In other words, this guide contains advice and ideas to help you conceptualize how people can find out information about you from your digital activities—and start to minimize what’s out there in ways you didn’t intend.

    • Ava ☛ my data should not be your cookie jar

      I notice this in all kinds of industries and parts of life now - it’s why everything now requires an app and a sign-up. Your local café, your hairdresser, your e-scooter. Hell, I even saw nailbiter nail polish now comes with an app. New washing machines and refrigerators are reporting back to their companies.

      Why is every place, every product company now accepted to be a data aggregation company as well? Why is my data the cookie jar that companies frequently get their hand stuck in while acting entitled? Hello, I already paid you, why are you not ashamed of your obvious greed?

  • Confidentiality

    • Bleeping Computer ☛ 2025-11-19 [Older] French agency Pajemploi reports data breach affecting 1.2M people

    • The Register UK ☛ 2025-11-19 [Older] Eurofiber admits crooks swiped data from French unit after cyberattack

    • 2025-11-20 [Older] Threat actors have reportedly launched yet another campaign involving an application connected to Salesforce

    • The Register UK ☛ 2025-11-20 [Older] Researchers claim ‘largest leak ever’ after uncovering WhatsApp enumeration flaw

    • South Africa ☛ 2025-11-20 [Older] Large medical lab in South Africa suffers multiple data breaches

    • 2025-11-18 [Older] From bad to worse: Doctor Alliance hacked again by same threat actor (1)

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Gray Zone ☛ Trump pardons convicted narco-trafficking pol amid plot to rig Honduran election

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Germans Who Stood Up to Hitler

    In 24 days during the fall of 1946, a German novelist known as Hans Fallada produced a rare, and now especially timely, literary touchstone: a humane depiction of muted resistance. Every Man Dies Alone was based on a Gestapo file detailing the case of a Berlin couple who had run an illicit two-year postcard-writing campaign aimed at rebutting Hitler’s propaganda. The novel was published in 1947—part of a postwar effort to start de-Nazifying German literature.

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ The Optical Illusion of Prosperity

    "We have created a system where the only way to survive is to be destitute enough to qualify for aid, or rich enough to ignore the cost. Everyone in the middle is being cannibalized."

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Tedium ☛ The Hidden Psychology Behind Doorbuster Deals

    It’s one thing to determine when an object is created, but a marketing phrase? Good luck with that.

    Doorbuster, is an excellent example of this, and depending on where you land, you might find multiple deeply different variations of a well-tread story. Which one is the right one? Rather than just telling you right off the bat, I’m going to present you multiple versions of the same story, and then explain what they say about the way that historic stories fracture over time: [...]

• Environment

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Revealed: Europe’s water reserves drying up due to climate breakdown

    The findings reveal a stark imbalance: the north and north-west of Europe – particularly Scandinavia, parts of the UK and Portugal – have been getting wetter, while large swathes of the south and south-east, including parts of the UK, Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Romania and Ukraine, have been drying out.

  • BIA Net ☛ A data-driven fight for nature against mega mines: We are racing against time

    Fueled by laws, regulations, and incentives that disregard nature, mining is expanding through mega projects covering tens of thousands of hectares, leading to ecocide. Polen Ecology’s mapping and EIA monitoring project based on MAPEG data offers a warning for the near future: “The outlook for 2026–2027 will be even more disastrous.”

  • Energy/Transportation

    • BSDly ☛ A Bus Ride and the (At Least) 3x UX FAILs

      Norway is digital to a fault. That is why attempting to buy the ticket for a bus ride can reveal a cascade of user experience (UX) failures.

      Most days, I either take a half hour stroll to get to my main customer's offices, or work from home. But occasionally, I need to visit my employer's offices. On those days, I take the bus for an easy 20-ish minutes ride.

  • Overpopulation

    • BoingBoing ☛ Jakarta now world's largest city

      Asian cities fill all but one spot in the top 10, with New Delhi and Shanghai each having 30m residents, followed by Guangzhou (28m), Cairo (26m), Manila (25), Kolkata (23m) and Seoul (22m).

    • ABC ☛ Jakarta overtakes Tokyo as world's largest city, according to UN

      Asia is home to nine of the world's 10 most populous cities in 2025, according to the United Nations.

      A new report identifies Jakarta, with 42 million residents, as having the largest population globally.

• Finance

  • Yahoo News ☛ Bridgewater's Greg Jensen echoes Michael Burry on Nvidia's AI chips — and says they could help make themselves obsolete

    Michael Burry of "The Big Short" fame has said some of the world's largest AI companies are exaggerating how long their Nvidia chips will last to pad their short-term profits. Now, one hedge fund boss has warned that those chips could make themselves obsolete.

    Greg Jensen, the co-chief investor of Ray Dalio's Bridgewater Associates, told the "In Good Company" podcast this week that the "depreciation schedule is probably going to be quite fast, and you hope it has to be in a sense."

    Jensen explained there's a "resource grab" in AI as companies compete for scarce land, energy, microchips, and scientists, and tech bosses are hoping AI itself can help.

  • China’s Baidu starts layoffs after reporting third-quarter loss

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Michigan Advance ☛ ‘This piggy won’t be quiet’: They spent two nights on a bus to protest the president

    They would need all the rest they could get. This protest trip would involve two overnight bus trips in 36 hours and just 12 hours on the ground.

  • Pete Warden ☛ I Know We’re in an AI Bubble Because Nobody Wants Me 😭

    I’m picking on OpenAI here, but across the industry you can see everyone from Oracle to Microsoft boasting of the amounts of money they’re spending on hardware, and for the same reasons. They get a lot more positive coverage, and a much larger share price boost, from this than they would announcing they’re hiring a thousand engineers to get more value from their existing hardware.

  • Mike Brock ☛ Sam and the Magical Money Tree

    But here’s what’s bothering Sam: The money tree question only seems to come up for certain things.

    When we cut taxes on corporations or the wealthy, nobody asks where the money will come from. When we spend $800 billion on defense, the money materializes—poof. When we bailed out Wall Street in 2008, we found trillions overnight. When Trump cut taxes in 2017, adding $1.9 trillion to the deficit, the conversation was about growth and competitiveness, not magical money trees or fiscal responsibility.

    But suggest the wealthy pay a bit more in taxes so we can fix infrastructure or ensure kids can see a dentist? Suddenly we’re living in fantasy land.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Independent UK ☛ Pentagon rolls out the welcome wagon for new MAGA-friendly press corps

      Events will run Monday through Wednesday, and include a meet-and-greet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to the outlet, along with a briefing from department press secretary Kingsley Wilson.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-11-20 [Older] China tightens grip on independent films at home and abroad

  • JURIST ☛ Turkey abused justice system in arrest and acquittal of 87 protestors, rights group alleges

    Amnesty International reported Friday that an acquittal of 87 individuals, including protestors, journalists, and lawyers, reflects an endemic misuse of the criminal justice system by the Turkish government and authorities.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • ANF News ☛ Journalist Sarya: The women who defeated ISIS refuse to bow to HTS

    Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its affiliated groups have pushed women out of public life and carried out practices that have led to the killing of hundreds of women, yet Syrian women refuse to settle for “the lesser evil.” Journalist Beritan Sarya said that structures such as the Syrian Women’s Assembly have been organizing from Idlib to Damascus, from Latakia to Aleppo, despite the repression. She added that the Rojava Revolution is also a “Women’s Revolution” and continues to inspire hope around the world.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Men earn nearly $10,000 more than women in bonuses and overtime pay, fueling the gender pay gap

    That's according to the latest gender pay gap data released on Thursday by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. It covers more than 8,000 private companies for 2024–25, employing more than 5.4 million workers across Australia.

  • TruthOut ☛ ICE Is Targeting Workers. Here’s How Employers and Unions Are Fighting Back.

    As militarized crackdowns have become more common in many parts of the country, employers and unions alike have taken new steps to protect their workers. In industries ranging from farmwork to garment production to food service, they have begun organizing defenses to make it harder for ICE to identify, detain and deport unauthorized immigrant employees who help keep their workplaces in business.

    While the strategies vary, they share common goals: to find ways to inform immigrant workers about threats and, when possible, to shield them from detainment and deportation.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Digital Music News ☛ Australia Officially Adopts Controversial 'Content Obligation' Bill

    As we reported, the current obligation applies to any on-demand video service with north of one million domestic subscribers. In short, the relevant DSPs will be compelled to drop 10% “of their total [annual programming] expenditure for Australia” or 7.5% of their overall yearly Australian revenue on creating “new local drama, children’s, documentary, arts and educational programs.”

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • CBC ☛ Is Spotify losing the streaming wars as it faces boycotts, lawsuits and assorted controversies?

    But this year, the internet is uncharacteristically quiet during the period when Spotify Wrapped typically appears. The lack of anticipation comes during a challenging time for the streaming platform, as it faces backlash on such issues as artist compensation, AI-generated music and ICE recruitment ads.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• The Hindu ☛ Google ditches EU antitrust complaint about Microsoft cloud amid EU probe

  Alphabet’s Google on Friday dropped its EU antitrust complaint about rival Microsoft’s cloud computing practices, a week after EU regulators launched an investigation to see if Microsoft should be subject to rules aimed at curbing its power in this sector. Last year, Google took its grievance to the European Commission, alleging that Microsoft’s anti-competitive practices locked customers into Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure.

  Amazon leads the cloud computing market with a 30% share, followed by Microsoft at 20% and Google at 13%.

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Artists Can Still Join Suno and Udio Copyright Suits -- Here's How

    Universal Music and Warner Music are settling with AI giants, but the artist-led complaints against Suno and Udio are moving full steam ahead. Meanwhile, eligible musicians can join the ongoing cases by filling out a simple form.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Yout and RIAA Clash in Court Over YouTube's Alleged Copyright Barriers

    Is downloading a YouTube video a violation of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision? That is the key question in the legal battle between stream-ripper Yout and the RIAA. Yout argues that because YouTube videos are freely accessible to anyone with a web browser, there are no restrictions. The RIAA counters that Yout is confusing the right to watch a stream with the right to download a copy of the music file.

  • Nick Heer ☛ OpenAI’s House Counsel to Be Deposed Over Deleted Pirated Material

    Wang’s decision (PDF), to the extent I can read it as a layperson, examines OpenAI’s shifting story about why it erased the books 1 and books2 data sets — apparently, the only time possible training materials were deleted.

  • Hollywood Reporter ☛ OpenAI Loses Discovery Battle, Cedes Ground to Authors in AI Lawsuits

    OpenAI has lost a key discovery battle over internal communications related to the startup deleting two huge datasets of pirated books, a development that further tilts the scales in favor of authors suing the company.

    To rewind, authors and publishers have gained access to Slack messages between OpenAI’s employees discussing the erasure of the datasets, named “books 1 and books 2.” But the court held off on whether plaintiffs should get other communications that the company argued were protected by attorney-client privilege.