Leftovers

• Ruben Schade ☛ PSA: I’m no audiophile!

  Clara and I love Hi-Fi gear. We have a quartz locked, linear tracking, direct drive turntable. We have a 1980s amplifier we love for its warmer, “more comfy” sound. We have a cassette deck with Dolby C, and badly want to try Dolby S one day. We have a five CD disc changer that spins open a massive drawer. We have a LaserDisc player. I have dedicated Sony, Panasonic, and Tangara portable music players for cassettes, MiniDiscs, and SD cards. I dream of reel-to-reel tape machines, and owning a DCC player one day. I’ve even recently begun uplifting our library to FLAC, and wondering if we should get a better DAC for playing digital files on our setup.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ NASA's First Moon Crew in More Than 50 Years Is Making History Already

    “A force for good.”

  • New York Times ☛ For NASA’s Artemis II Crew, Journey to the Moon ‘Starting to Feel Real’

    The four astronauts — three Americans and one Canadian — spoke from a prelaunch quarantine ahead of their scheduled Wednesday mission.

  • Science Alert ☛ Mysterious Ancient Culture Forged a Weapon From a Fallen Star

    A treasure beyond treasures.

  • Science Alert ☛ NASA Astronaut Suddenly Couldn't Speak in Space, And Doctors Don't Know Why

    “My crewmates definitely saw that I was in distress.”

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Futurism ☛ Redditors Are Posting Their Blood Pressure “High Scores” and We’re Concerned They May Explode Into a Fountain of Red Mist

    "Goddamn dude, I thought my blood pressure was high when I got my thumb bitten off a couple weeks ago."

    >

  • Futurism ☛ Scientist Thawing Out Fragments of His Friend’s Cryogenically Preserved Brain

    What else are friends for?

  • Futurism ☛ Scientists Intrigued by Microbe That That Makes Mice Swole

    Trust your gut.

  • The Strategist ☛ Design for disruption: stress-testing Australia’s food and energy security

    If disruption to food and energy systems has become persistent rather than episodic, Australia needs better ways to test how those systems perform under sustained and overlapping shocks.

  • Futurism ☛ Top ICE Official Falling Apart Medically Due to Stress of Getting Yelled At

    "He would be visibly upset and struggling to make the decisions that were needed to be made by the director."

  • Futurism ☛ Neuralink Patient Using Brain Chip to Carry Out Important Life Task: Playing World of Warcraft

    Game on.

  • Science Alert ☛ March Madness: Brain Activity Reveals Why Basketball Players Hit or Miss Shots

    The difference is how you think.

  • Science Alert ☛ Cheap Daily Supplement Appears to Boost Brain Functions in Older People

    The effect can be seen within weeks.

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Figured Out How to Turn Plastic Waste Into a Parkinson's Drug

    From pollutants to pharmaceuticals.

  • Latvia ☛ Call to do more to prevent youth suicides

    Between 2018 and 2024, Latvia lost 112 children and young people under the age of 25 who committed suicide. Every death leaves a heavy mark on a wide circle of people.  A year has passed since Kristers Nenišķis from Jēkabpils took his own life.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea moves to curb social control media algorithms for children

    A survey showed that smartphone overuse has been on the rise for teens in South Korea.

• Proprietary

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ AI Now Causing CEOs to Resign in Fear

      "I could start this next big set of transformations with AI, but I couldn't finish."

  • Social Control Media

    • New York Times ☛ Don’t Cheer Too Hard for the Facebook (Farcebook) Verdicts

      Courts aren’t always the right answer to our digital problems.

    • France24 ☛ The law is coming for social control media, with the science still uncertain

      The law is finally catching up with social control media. This week, a California jury found Meta and Surveillance Giant Google liable for addicting a child to their platforms. On Tuesday, the French Senate will vote to ban under-15s from social control media, with other countries making similar plans. Is humanity saved? Or are things more complicated than that?

• Security

  • SANS ☛ DShield (Cowrie) Honeypot Stats and When Sessions Disconnect, (Mon, Mar 30th)

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • The Straits Times ☛ Over 300 Vietnamese arrested after Cambodia scam bust: Police

      The arrests of 343 people on internet fraud charges were made on March 27.

• Defence/Aggression

  • France24 ☛ 🔴 Netanyahu orders military to 'further expand' Lebanon security buffer zone

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea’s Kim oversees test of high-thrust engine: Report

    Defence experts believe North Korea plans to use its solid-fuel rocket engines to launch ICBMs.

  • The Straits Times ☛ High hopes at China’s gateway to North Korea as trains resume

    North Korea resumed daily passenger train services with China in March.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ High hopes at China’s gateway to North Korea as trains resume

    Now retired, Wang Meili wants to see the world — including North Korea, the reclusive nation that lies across the river from her lifelong home in northeastern China. North Korea has long kept tight control over foreign visitors, and effectively sealed its borders at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic six years ago.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China conducts patrol around disputed South China Sea shoal

    BEIJING, March 29 - China conducted naval, air and coast guard patrols around the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea on Sunday, its military and Coast Guard said.

  • New York Times ☛ Iran War Draws Attention to U.S. Troop Presence in Saudi Arabia

    A close U.S. ally and regional rival of Iran, the kingdom has faced hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks since the war began.

  • CS Monitor ☛ For security at home and across Europe, France offers nuclear deterrence

    French President Emmanuel Macron has laid out a new policy on nuclear deterrence that extends beyond the borders of France.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China summons US envoy to Hong Kong over alert on security law changes

    China urged the US to immediately cease all interference in Hong Kong and Beijing’s internal affairs.

  • France24 ☛ Mediation talks in Islamabad: Middle East powers meet to discuss how to end the fighting

    The United States is plotting a ground attack on Iran even as it claims to be engaging in diplomatic efforts, Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Sunday, as more American marines arrive in the region. The Israeli army earlier announced the death in combat of a fifth soldier in south Lebanon. Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Lunds Univeristy in Stockholm, Rouzbeh Parsi, shares further insights on US-Iran negotiations.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • The Strategist ☛ A coordinated trans-Eurasian threat: the deepening Sino-Russian strategic partnership

      The Sino-Russian no-limits partnership is the driver of an anti-Western axis that seeks to weaken and reshape the global order that has underpinned Australia’s post-1945 prosperity and sovereignty.

    • New York Times ☛ U.S. to Allow Russian Oil Tanker to Reach Cuba, Breaking Blockade

      The tanker full of crude oil could reach its expected destination by Tuesday, providing a lifeline to the island amid intense U.S. pressure.

    • RFERL ☛ Sanctioned Russian Oil Tanker Enters Sanctioned Cuba's Waters, Possibly With US Permission

      A Russia-flagged ⁠tanker ⁠carrying Russian ‌crude oil has entered Cuba's exclusive economic ⁠zone, ship tracking data show, avoiding a potentially tense showdown with the US Coast Guard and providing a lifeline to the struggling Caribbean island nation.

    • RFERL ☛ Key Russian Oil Terminal Hit Again By Drones; Zelenskyy Threatens More Strikes On Russia Facilities

      A major Russian oil export terminal was hit again by drones, local officials said, the latest in a series of Ukrainian attacks that have severely restricted Russia’s ability to take advantage of soaring global energy prices.

    • France24 ☛ The week in pictures: Massive daytime attack on Ukraine, 'No Kings' and France's adieu to Jospin

      France held its national tribute to former prime minister Lionel Jospin, Russia launched one of its largest daytime attacks on Ukraine, and protesters across the US and some world capitals held a third round of "No Kings" mass protests against President The Insurrectionist: here's a look back at the week's most striking images.

    • France24 ☛ Zelensky visits Jordan on Middle East tour to bolster security ties

      Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was in Jordan on Sunday as part of a regional tour focused on security cooperation, after Kyiv deployed anti-drone experts and struck defence agreements with several Gulf states amid rising tensions linked to Iran.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Tokyo consortium tests placing data centers under railway overpasses — passing trains introduce severe thermal and vibration challenges

      The modular unit packages servers, cooling, and power supply equipment into a container-sized enclosure that can be deployed without constructing a full building.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Futurism ☛ Sharks Showing Unusually High Levels of Cocaine

      Busted!

• Finance

  • New York Times ☛ Bernie Sanders, in the Bronx, Presses Kathy Hochul to Tax the Rich

    Senator Bernie Sanders, speaking at a rally at Lehman College, lent his support to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s effort to raise taxes on millionaires. The mayor was not present.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • France24 ☛ Lebanon mourns three journalists killed in Israeli strikes

    Hundreds of mourners gathered at a cemetery south of Beirut on Sunday to attend the funeral of journalists Ali Shoeib, Fatima Ftouni, and Mohammed Ftouni, who were killed in an Israeli strike a day earlier. Israel has acknowledged carrying out the attack, claiming that Shoeib was affiliated with a militant group, but the incident has sparked widespread outrage within Lebanon, where officials have condemned it as a clear breach of international law. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the deaths bring the number of media workers killed in Lebanon since the start of the Israel–Gaza war to eleven, as Eliza Herbert reports.

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • Futurism ☛ Protesters Stage Unsettling Demonstration in Front of Palantir’s Office

    "Palantir: ICE and war enabler and profiteer."

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong resident rescued after forced labour in Myanmar

    A trafficking victim from Hong Kong has been rescued from Myanmar after being detained in the country for illegal work, authorities have said.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Unified Patents ☛ Koyo Licensing sensitive display patent monopoly prior art found

    The team at Unified IP Services used Pearl to successfully identify and chart prior art against U.S. Patent 9,116,598, owned by Koyo Licensing LLC, an NPE and entity of Quest Patent Research Corporation. The ‘598 patent monopoly relates to technology allowing the detection of taps, hovers, and gestures on or above a display, integrating mechanics of sensing technologies.

  • Unified Patents ☛ Another Atlas Global Wi-Fi patent monopoly challenged

    On March 27, 2026, Unified filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 10,020,919, owned and asserted by Atlas Global Technologies, LLC, an NPE and Acacia Research entity. The ‘919 patent monopoly generally relates to sounding operations for identifying channel conditions in a wireless network based on Wi-Fi transmissions exchanged between an access point and wireless stations in the network.

  • Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 for Oso IP entity, Aloft Media, hyperlink patent monopoly prior art

    Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least claim 23 of U.S. Patent 10,372,793, owned by Aloft Media, LLC, an NPE and entity of Oso IP, LLC. The '793 patent monopoly relates to computer-implemented techniques for improving the usefulness of hyperlinks in web pages. The patent monopoly has been in several complaints seeking declaratory judgments of non-infringement, invalidity, and unenforceability filed by Nouryon USA and Krueger International.

  • Software Patents

    • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Two Voices on § 101: Agency Guidance Meets Judicial Skepticism

      New cert petition challenges Federal Circuit's § 101 reversal of PTAB eligibility finding that the USPTO Director personally defended on appeal.