Links 22/12/2023: Stephen Thaler Defeated Again (Patent Case), Kangaroo Court (UPC) Reviewed by Rogue Party
Contents
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Leftovers
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Ruben Schade ☛ Shiori Novella discusses vlogging gear
Hololive English’s Shiori is my favourite of the latest EN generation. She recently did a fun five minute video discussing the various portable cameras and kit she’s used in the past, and how she records her “hand cams” as a vtuber. Lots of great tips and info, and a great introduction if you’ve ever been curious about vtubers!
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Ruben Schade ☛ Shopping, featuring Georgina
Few activities come with such baggage—thank you—as shopping. We all have to do it, whether it be for cooking, clothes, or coffee (cough). We might shop around for essentials like rent, utilities, and business expenses. We feel proud when we’re able to save on a shop, because we’re clearly being smart and fiscally responsible.
Shopping is, in every sense, serious business. It’s the primary driver of economic growth (for better or worse). It can be a bonding exercise, such as shopping for a LEGO set to build together, a wedding dress, or for movie tickets. It can be motivating, like saving up to spend on a holiday or hobby. The outcome of shopping can also a source of great joy, like a Christmas present, a celebration of a life milestone, or a surprise for a job well done.
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Federal News Network ☛ The National Endowment for the Arts takes the pulse of U.S. appetite for the arts
Theaters, opera halls and concert venues were all hit hard by the pandemic. People didn't want to gather in close quarters. To get a gauge on how and where people might be participating in the arts again, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) focused on that topic in its most recent five-year survey. For more on the methodology and how the results guide NEA activities, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked with the agency's director of research and analysis, Sunil Iyengar.
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Hackaday ☛ Retrotechtacular: 1960s Doc Calls Computers The Universal Machine
It’s weird to think that an abacus would have still been used sixty years ago, or so posits the documentary series The Computer and the Mind of Man. This six part series originally aired on San Francisco local television station KQED in 1962, a time where few people outside of academia had even stood next to such a device.
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Hackaday ☛ Multi-View Wire Art Meets Generative AI
DreamWire is a system for generating multi-view wire art using machine learning techniques to help generate the patterns required.
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Hackaday ☛ Homebrew Gel Fuel Keeps The Steam Coming, Legally
All it takes is one knucklehead to go and do something stupid to screw things up for everyone. We’re not exactly sure who the knucklehead is behind the recent ban on hexamine fuel tablets, but given that it’s now proscribed in the UK under the “Control of Poisons and Explosives Precursors Regulations 2023,” we expect that that story is a doozy.
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Science
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Science Alert ☛ China's Mysterious Robotic Spacecraft Tailed by 6 Unidentified Objects
What are they for?
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Hardware
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Chinese province sets up $1.5 billion chip fund to boost local semiconductor industry
Guangdong province in China sets up $1.5 billion fund to finance local semiconductor industry.
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Hackaday ☛ A Transistor, But For Heat Instead Of Electrons
Researchers at UCLA recently developed what they are calling a thermal transistor: a solid-state device able to control the flow of heat with an electric field. This opens the door to controlling the transfer of heat in some of the same ways we are used to controlling electronics.
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Hackaday ☛ Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With All The LEGO
It seems like mechanical keyboard enthusiasts are more spoiled for choice with each passing day. But as broad as the open source pool has become, there’s still no perfect keyboard for everyone. So, as people innovate toward their own personal endgame peripherals and make them open source, the pool just grows and grows.
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Hackaday ☛ Slab Casting – A New Way To Combine 3D Printing And Ceramics
Slip casting can be messy both in processing and in making the original plaster mold. What if there was a better way, thanks to 3D printing?
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CNX Software ☛ Samsung announces ISOCELL Vizion 63D and Vizion 931 sensors for robotics and extended reality applications
Samsung Electronics, the world’s second-largest technology company by revenue, has introduced two new camera sensors in its ISOCELL Vizion lineup, the Vizion 63D and the Vizion 931. The Vizion 63D is the world’s first indirect time-of-flight (iToF) sensor with an integrated depth-sensing image signal processor (ISP) according to the company, and is tailored for capturing high-resolution 3D images. The Vizion 931 is a global shutter sensor that has been optimized to capture rapid motion without visible distortion. The 63D is an indirect time-of-flight sensor that measures the phase shift between emitted and reflected light and uses this measurement to construct a 3D map of its surroundings.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Antivaxxer Steve Kirsch threatens to release private health information
Last week, I wrote about how tech bro turned rabid antivaxxer Steve Kirsch had incompetently “analyzed” a dataset from New Zealand containing protected health information (PHI) in order to spin the dataset as showing that COVID-19 vaccines were dangerous and killing people in droves. Then he extrapolated from his risibly unstatistical estimate that the vaccines were killing roughly one in a thousand people who received them in order to come up with an estimate that the vaccines had killed over 13 million people worldwide. He had (almost certainly) illegally obtained the dataset from a “whistleblower” named Barry Young, who turned out to be a database administrator for Te Whatu Ora, the New Zealand Ministry of Health Agency in charge of administering the nation’s universal health insurance plan and had abused his position to steal part of the 12 million record database containing approximately 4 million records. (Mr. Young also had the arrogance to go initially under the pseudonym Winston Smith, after the protagonist of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.) He called his announcement MOAR, or the “mother of all revelations.” I called it a failed kaboom, along the lines of the old Looney Tunes cartoons featuring Marvin the Martian and his attempts to blow up the earth, which were always thwarted by Bugs Bunny.
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Science Alert ☛ Scientists Think They've Found a New Cause of Type 2 Diabetes
Opening the door for better treatments.
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Science Alert ☛ Baby Survives Incredibly Rare Pregnancy Outside of Mother's Uterus
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Science Alert ☛ Major Study Finds HIV Drugs Could Lower Risk of Multiple Sclerosis by Up to 72%
This could lead to new treatments.
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Science Alert ☛ Ancient Scythians Did Make Leather Out of Human Skin After All
Seems Herodotus wasn't making it up.
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The Strategist ☛ Why are so many young Chinese depressed?
China’s high youth unemployment rate and increasingly disillusioned young people—many of whom are ‘giving up’ on work—have attracted much attention from global media outlets and Chinese policymakers.
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YLE ☛ Meat substitute sales down as shoppers seek other options
Despite a decline in interest, the number of meat replacement products continues to grow.
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BIA Net ☛ Two people commit suicide on İstanbul commuter rail line in two days
The Marmaray rail line has witnessed four suicide attempts since October 2022.
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Science Alert ☛ Teenager's Vocal Cords Paralyzed After COVID in World First
An alarming side effect?
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Latvia ☛ Latvia sees stabilization in Covid incidence
Latvia is seeing a slight stabilization of Covid-19 cases, the Disease Prevention and Control Center (SPKC) said December 20.
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The Straits Times ☛ Does Covid-19 prefer the gut now? Surging virus detections in wastewater prompt scientific debate
There is no data suggesting more people are experiencing severe digestive illnesses from Covid-19.
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YLE ☛ THL: Only 20% of addiction treatment clients work or study
Nine percent of clients at the surveyed clinics were homeless, while 73 percent of them lived alone.
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NYPost ☛ Sleeping longer over the weekend could help prevent heart attacks, says study
The reduced risk was most significant among those who got less than six hours of sleep on weekdays and slept for at least two extra hours on weekends.
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Kev Quirk ☛ Fat Boy at 40 - Update 03
So I've been at this whole FatBoy thing since August. As a quick recap, I don't want to be fat when I hit 40, in August 2024, so I'm trying to fix it.
When last I updated you, I was at 106.4kg (234lbs), felling good and making progress. So here's where I'm at as of this last Monday, 18th December: [...]
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Vice Media Group ☛ Amazon Is Trying to Stop a Lawsuit From Drivers Who Peed In Bottles From Going to Court
“That coffee maker that you wanted overnight costs you a couple of bucks to get it shipped," said one plaintiff. "It costs somebody their dignity."
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Silicon Angle ☛ Researchers find child sexual abuse images in LAION-5B Hey Hi (AI) training dataset
Researchers have found child sexual abuse material in LAION-5B, an open-source artificial intelligence training dataset used to build image generation models. The discovery was made by the Stanford Internet Observatory, or SIO, which detailed its findings in a Tuesday report.
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Bloomberg ☛ Tech Workers Had the Best Jobs. Then Came the Brutal Cuts.
Tech jobs over the last decade gained a reputation for being lucrative, comfortable and stable. This year changed that. But first…
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Security
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Integrity/Availability/Authenticity
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong gov’t to launch text message registration system to combat scams by identifying telecom service providers
A text message registration system allowing the public to identify telecommunications service providers and avoid scams will be implemented next Thursday, the government has announced.
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Techdirt ☛ Hackers Gained Access To The Sensitive Data Of 36 Million Comcast Customers
Hackers have managed to obtain the personal data of 36 million Comcast customers.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Group-IB warns of surge in fake delivery sites in the lead-up to Christmas
A new report from cybersecurity services company Group-IB Global Pvt. Ltd. is warning of a sharp increase in fake delivery sites in the weeks leading up to Christmas. In the first 10 days of December, Group-IB’s Computer Emergency Response Team identified 587 fake postal resources, 34% higher than the last ten days of November.
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Privacy/Surveillance
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EFF ☛ FTC’s Rite Aid Ruling Rightly Renews Scrutiny of Face Recognition
EFF advocates for laws that require companies to get clear, opt-in consent from any person before scanning their faces. Rite Aid's program, as described in the complaint, would violate such laws. The FTC’s action against Rite Aid illustrates many of the problems we have raised about face recognition—including how data collected for face recognition systems is often insufficiently protected, and how systems are often deployed in ways that disproportionately hurt BIPOC communities.
The FTC’s complaint outlines a face recognition system that often relied on "low-quality" images to identify so-called “persons of interest,” and that the chain instructed staff to ask such customers to leave its stores.
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Techdirt ☛ Utah’s Top Court Says Government Can’t Portray Refusals To Unlock Phones As Incriminatory
There’s been plenty of courtroom discussion about Fifth Amendment rights surrounding compelled decryption in recent years. Encryption is on by default on most devices these days. Law enforcement seems to believe all it needs is a warrant to compel decryption. Courts aren’t so sure.
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The Straits Times ☛ Belgian PM sees China as 'hostile' country after espionage allegations
December 21, 2023 12:14 AM
Belgian Prime Minister Alexandre de Croo on Wednesday described China as a "sometimes very hostile" country, following allegations that Beijing had recruited a member of the Belgian far-right party Vlaams Belang as an intelligence asset.
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France24 ☛ Macron ally to lead France's DGSE foreign intelligence service
France's domestic intelligence chief was appointed Wednesday to head the country's DGSE foreign espionage service made famous by the fictional hit series "The Bureau".
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Defence/Aggression
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The Straits Times ☛ China urges Philippines to make ‘rational choice’ over maritime tensions
Beijing said the two countries were “facing serious difficulties”, blaming Manila for changing its policies.
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The Straits Times ☛ Rift deepens between the Philippines, China over South China Sea
Relations between Manila and Beijing have soured under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, with Manila pivoting back towards the United States which supports the Southeast Asian nation in its maritime disputes with China.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China warns Philippines to ‘act with caution’ after maritime clashes in South China Sea
China has warned the Philippines that it “must act with caution”, Beijing’s foreign ministry said, following a string of incidents in the disputed South China Sea as Manila increasingly stands up to Chinese assertiveness in the region.
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France24 ☛ China warns Philippines must 'act with caution' after clashes in South China Sea
China has warned the Philippines that it "must act with caution", Beijing's foreign ministry said, following a string of incidents in the disputed South China Sea as Manila increasingly stands up to Chinese assertiveness in the region.
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JURIST ☛ India Parliament faces historic number of suspensions amid security concerns
The Indian Parliament witnessed a historic number of suspensions Tuesday as 141 opposition lawmakers were suspended for disrupting proceedings. The disruption, initiated by two individuals entering the Lok Sabha from the visitor’s gallery, raised concerns about parliamentary security. The suspensions began last Thursday when 14 Opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) were suspended.
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Defence Web ☛ Op Prosperity Guardian will be third naval task force in African waters
A third naval task force will in the not too distant future be patrolling the seas off Africa – the world’s second largest continent. Operation Prosperity Guardian is, according to United States (US) Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, a response to “recent escalation in reckless Houthi attacks originating in Yemen” on Red Sea shipping.
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JURIST ☛ US appeals court temporarily blocks immigration officials from cutting Texas border fencing
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit temporarily enjoined the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from cutting Texas’ wire fencing at the US-Mexico border on Tuesday. The case is an appeal from the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, which rejected Texas’ motion for a preliminary injunction.
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[Repeat]RFA ☛ N Korea’s military provocations boost S Korea’s nuclear arsenal push
The current US support and measures leave a significant security gap for S Korea, expert says.
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The Straits Times ☛ China warns Philippines to resolve South China Sea tensions via dialogue
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned the Philippines to address through dialogue what China sees as "serious difficulties" in their relations over the South China Sea, where incidents between vessels from the two sides have escalated.
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The Straits Times ☛ China is world’s second-largest economy but its passport is ranked 63rd. Are things looking up?
It has become easier for Chinese citizens to visit South-east Asia due to visa waivers by some countries.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Global China Newsletter: Staying on track? Girding for a challenging year in US-China relations
The December 2023 edition of the Global China newsletter.
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YLE ☛ Parliament breaks for Christmas after debate on Nato troops
MPs expressed broad approval of the Nato Status of Forces Agreement.
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JURIST ☛ UK Supreme Court rules Guantanamo Bay detainee can bring claim against British authorities
The UK Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a Guantanamo Bay prisoner held by the US can bring a claim in the English and Welsh courts against UK authorities.
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New York Times ☛ A Wave of Violence Terrorizes Mexico as Criminals Kill With Impunity
The latest killings have left dozens of Mexicans dead and few held accountable despite insecurity being the public’s top priority going into next year’s presidential election.
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The Straits Times ☛ North Korea’s Kim warns of ‘nuclear attack’ when enemy provokes it with nukes: KCNA
Mr Kim’s sister condemned the UN Security Council for holding a meeting over the ICBM launch.
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The Straits Times ☛ Explainer-How could North Korea use its nuclear weapons?
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said a missile test this week shows his country would not hesitate to launch a nuclear attack if an enemy provokes it with strategic weapons, as observers say he is moving to make such forces operational.
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The Straits Times ☛ US, S.Korea, Japan condemn N.Korea's ballistic missile launches; urge dialogue
The top diplomats of the United States, South Korea and Japan on Wednesday condemned North Korea's recent ballistic missile launches and urged Pyongyang to engage in "substantive dialogue without preconditions," they said in a joint statement.
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The Straits Times ☛ South Korea, Japan resume high-level economic talks amid improved ties
South Korea and Japan will hold high-level economic talks on Thursday for the first time in eight years, Seoul's foreign ministry said, in a further sign of improving ties as the countries are drawn closer by shared geopolitical concerns.
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The Straits Times ☛ Japan protests against South Korean Supreme Court ruling on forced labour compensation
Disputes over forced labour and wartime sex abuse have soured bilateral relations for decades.
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RFA ☛ N Korean leader, powerful sister issue nuclear threat to US, S Korea
It is rare for Kim Jong Un and Kim Yo Jong to simultaneously make such threats.
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The Straits Times ☛ China wields ‘peace goddess’ religion as weapon in Taiwan election
The CPC is ramping up exchanges with folk religious groups in rural Taiwan.
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The Straits Times ☛ Taiwan accuses China of economic coercion after tariff cut removals
Taiwan said China’s investigation process has been unfair, opaque and not in line with international norms.
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RFA ☛ Taiwan amends law to fight Chinese illegal sand dredging
The amended law allows authorities to confiscate illegal sand dredgers operating in Taiwan’s waters.
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In 2020, Taiwan expelled nearly 4,000 Chinese sand-dredgers and sand-transporting vessels -- a 560% leap from 2019, Reuters reported.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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Meduza ☛ St. Petersburg bookstore forced to remove word ‘Peace’ from storefront window — Meduza
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teleSUR ☛ Putin Slams NATO-Boosting Presence in Eastern Europe
Russian will maintain the highest level of combat readiness amid the changing nature of military threats.
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RFERL ☛ Kazakh Ex-President Holds 'Private Talks' With Putin In Moscow
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on December 20 confirmed media reports about former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev holding talks with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week, telling journalists that the talks were "absolutely private."
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France24 ☛ Russian opposition leader Navalny goes missing as Putin seeks re-election
Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny did not appear at a scheduled court hearing on Monday and has not been seen or heard from in 15 days. Amid speculation that he has been secretly moved to another prison or is seriously unwell, the UN has raised concerns of an “enforced disappearance” that would coincide with the launch of President Vladimir Putin’s campaign for re-election in March 2024.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Expanding NATO’s competitive mindset: Deterring and defending across physical and virtual domains
In October 2023, the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program, in partnership with NATO ACT, convened current and former practitioners for a private workshop on expanding NATO’s approach to multi-domain operations (MDO), identifying key challenges and opportunities to operationalizing MDO across the Alliance. This memo summarizes the workshop’s key takeaways and conclusions.
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Meduza ☛ Financial Times: U.S. suggests transferring frozen Russian assets to Ukraine as ‘advance’ on compensation for war damages — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Putin to bring back USSR tradition of Athletes Parades on Red Square — Meduza
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Latvia ☛ Rīga to host conference on Ukrainian children stolen by Russia
In early 2024, Rīga will play host to an important international conference to consider action in the wake of Russia's kidnapping of Ukrainian children.
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The Strategist ☛ Is Europe broken?
Last week, in a major political victory for embattled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the European Council decided to open accession talks with his country.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Ukrainian telecoms hack highlights cyber dangers of Russia’s invasion
An unprecedented December 12 cyber attack on Ukraine's largest telecoms operator Kyivstar left tens of millions of Ukrainians without mobile services and underlined the cyber warfare potential of Russia's ongoing invasion, writes Mercedes Sapuppo.
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France24 ☛ 'Vampire’ drone: Ukraine’s heavy-hitting night bomber
It started life spraying fertilizer as an agricultural drone, but after a revamp by Ukrainian military engineers it has become one of the most powerful drones in the country’s arsenal. Dubbed the "Vampire" because it is flown only under cover of darkness, its operators say it is capable of carrying heavy explosives that can be used to target tanks and other armoured vehicles.
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RFERL ☛ Ukraine Downs Russian Drone Attack Targeting 12 Regions
Ukrainian air defenses shot down most of the 35 Iranian-made drones launched by Russia at 12 regions, including Kyiv, early on December 21, Ukraine's General Staff reported.
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RFERL ☛ Moldova Receives Airspace Radar System Purchased From France
Moldova has received an airspace-monitoring system bought from a French company as part of a larger effort to modernize the country's armed forces amid the war in Ukraine.
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RFERL ☛ Pro-Peace Russian Presidential Hopeful Submits Documents To Register As Candidate
A Russian politician calling for peace in Ukraine presented documents on December 20 to Russia's Central Election Commission to register as a candidate for the 2024 presidential election.
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CS Monitor ☛ War on a budget: Ukraine becomes hotbed for drone tech
The need to protect the homeland and prevail over invader Russia has turned Ukraine into a hotbed for new drone technology.
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New York Times ☛ Blocked by Polish Truckers, Ukraine Turns to the Black Sea to Boost Trade
The blockade at the border with Poland has crippled Ukraine’s land trade. But a new Black Sea route is providing an economic lifeline.
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New York Times ☛ G7 Tightens Enforcement of Oil Price Cap Amid Widespread Russian Evasion
The Treasury Department announced new sanctions on oil shippers and traders that have been helping Russia circumvent price restrictions.
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RFERL ☛ Prosecutor Seeks More Than Three Years In Prison For Russian Opposition Activist
A prosecutor asked a court in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod on December 20 to sentence opposition activist Ilya Myaskovsky to 3 1/2 years in prison on a charge of discrediting the Russian armed forces involved in Moscow's ongoing war in Ukraine.
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RFERL ☛ Russia Fines Surveillance Giant Google For Not Deleting 'False Information' About Moscow's Invasion Of Ukraine
A Moscow court on December 20 fined Alphabet's Surveillance Giant Google more than 4.6 billion rubles ($5.8 million) for the "systemic failure" to delete from YouTube what the court said was false information about Moscow's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
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RFERL ☛ Russian Soldier Who Fled To Armenia Found In Police Custody In Russia
A Russian human rights group said on December 19 that Russian soldier Dmitry Setrakov, who fled to Armenia to avoid being sent to the war in Ukraine after he was mobilized, is currently in police custody in Russia.
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Latvia ☛ Schrödinger's Russians: nobody knows if they are in Latvia or not
In September, official statistics showed a significant reduction in the number of people resident in Latvia. Most of the figure is accounted for by the apparent departure of Russian citizens whose permanent residence permit expired in September, which meant they were removed from the population register. But it is impossible to state with any certainty whether they have actually left, Rus.LSM.lv writes in a special report December 21.
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JURIST ☛ Former Russia military intelligence officer to testify before ICC on war crimes
Former Russian military intelligence officer Igor Salikov arrived in the Netherlands this week to testify as a witness at the International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding Russian war crimes.
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RFERL ☛ U.S. Issues New Sanctions On Russia-Related Oil Sales
The United States on December 20 issued new Russia-related sanctions against entities in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates that the Treasury Department said have transported Russian crude oil sold above a price cap set last year by Group of Seven (G7) countries.
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RFERL ☛ Polish Court Convicts 14 Foreigners Of Spying For Russia
A court in Poland convicted and sentenced 14 foreigners on December 19 on charges of spying for Russia.
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New York Times ☛ How China Is Profiting From Trade With Russia
The country’s trade with Russia this year has exceeded $200 billion, and makers of cars and trucks are the big winners.
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Meduza ☛ Russian enlistment officers hand out military summonses to new citizens at naturalization ceremony — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Russia’s Defense Ministry rejects proposal to limit mobilized soldiers’ service period to one year — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Russian commanders reportedly detaining soldiers in basement and demanding bribes for their release — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Hotel in Russia’s Rostov region closed after refusing to provide accommodations for soldiers returning to war after leave — Meduza
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European Commission ☛ Speech by Commissioner Iliana Ivanova at the launch event of the Horizon Europe Office in Kyiv
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Latvia ☛ Belarus extends visa-free entry for Baltics, Poland
The regime of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus announced December 20 that visa-free travel has been extended for 2024, allowing Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish citizens to enter Belarus without a visa.
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RFERL ☛ Moscow Court Hands Two-Year Prison Term To Activist Extradited From Kyrgyzstan
The press service of the Moscow criminal courts said on December 19 that the Meshchansky district court sentenced human rights activist Alyona Krylova, who was earlier extradited from Kyrgyzstan, to two years in prison on a charge of organizing an extremist group.
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Environment
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Off Guardian ☛ Climate Change: The Unsettled Science – Part 1
At the recent 28th Conference of Parties (COP28), convened by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the British aristocrat, political lobbyist and climate activist, King Charles III, said: I have spent a large proportion of my life trying to warn of the existential threats facing us over global warming, climate change and biodiversity [...]
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[Repeat] New York Times ☛ China Earthquake: In Bitter Cold, a Struggle to Help Survivors
The death toll from the quake, which hit a poor, remote area during a cold snap, rose to 135. Some people who’d fled their homes had just a few layers of clothes.
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The Straits Times ☛ A dozen still missing after China’s earthquake, 137 dead
Netizens questioned the speed at which rescue operations ended.
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France24 ☛ Rescuers dig in freezing cold as China earthquake death toll tops 130
Rescuers dug through rubble for a second freezing day on Wednesday after overnight temperatures plunged well below zero, with the death toll in China's deadliest earthquake in years rising to 131.
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The Straits Times ☛ China’s cold snap reaches Shanghai with chilliest year end in 40 years
The city’s lowest temperatures on Dec 21 will be minus 4 to minus 6 deg C in Shanghai’s suburbs.
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Energy/Transportation
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The Straits Times ☛ Chinese ‘garbage collectors’ in a race to recycle electric car batteries
They have emerged alongside a fast-growing industry seeking to profit from China's first wave of EV decommissioning.
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The Straits Times ☛ Chinese banks lead $160 billion global financing for coal projects in 2022
Some per cent of measured coal financing took place in the world’s second-biggest economy in 2022.
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H2 View ☛ Germany earmarks €350m for EU-style renewable hydrogen auction
Germany has earmarked €350m from its national budget to support renewable hydrogen production under the European Hydrogen Bank’s new Auction-as-a-Service (AaaS) scheme.
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Atlantic Council ☛ The future of clean energy in the Americas
LAC countries are facing major challenges in their ability to develop renewable energy projects, expand low-emission energy systems, and fill existing technical and financing gaps that hinder regional energy security. A key takeaway to come out of the Summit Implementation Roundtable was that the US-Caribbean Partnership to Address the Climate Crisis 2030 (PACC 2030) has the potential to advance clean energy goals in the Caribbean and become a blueprint to address similar challenges in Latin America.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Up for grabs? The Western Balkans’ aging energy systems place it between East and West
The Western Balkans' hydropower can help Europe's pursuit of energy security. Failure to act on this potential brings significant costs.
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Mexico News Daily ☛ Businesses fear ‘large losses’ caused by Texas border rail closures
Top Mexican farm lobby CNA has warned that the closure of two rail bridges between Mexico and the United States could cause “large losses” and threaten food security, while the Mexican Employers Federation (Coparmex) has called on authorities on both sides of the border [...]
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H2 View ☛ Daimler’s hydrogen-powered trucks to be trialled by Amazon, Air Products and more
Daimler’s liquid hydrogen-powered fuel cell trucks are set to be used by Amazon, Air Products, INEOS and more as the German OEM enters its first customer fleet trials.
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Wildlife/Nature
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The Revelator ☛ Can Artificial Reefs Restore Corals and Protect Coastal Communities?
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DeSmog ☛ Meet Animal Pharma’s ‘Boots on the Ground’ in Brussels
In September 2019, a group appeared on the Brussels political scene pledging to “bring back a balanced debate” about the benefits of meat and dairy.
Known as European Livestock Voice, it describes the European Union’s livestock farming model, “based on diversified, local and family farm structures,” as the “backbone” of the continent’s rural areas, writing on its website under the url “meatthefacts”. Alongside its answers to Frequently Asked Questions on topics such as “animal welfare” and “farming and rural life,” the group promises to tackle “misinformation” by offering facts “from the boots on the ground.”
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DeSmog ☛ ‘Narratives of Delay’: How the Animal Pharma Industry Resists Moves to Curb the Overuse of Antibiotics on Farms
Two years after landmark European Union legislation designed to curb the overuse of antibiotics on farms came into force, new analysis from DeSmog reveals eight key narratives the veterinary medicine and farming lobbies deploy to defend the billion-dollar market for the drugs.
Aiming to combat the emergence of deadly treatment-resistant bacteria in humans, known in medical jargon as “antimicrobial resistance,” or AMR, the new rules are the world’s most rigorous legislation governing farm antibiotics. The regulations banned the “routine” use of antibiotics on farms for whole herds of healthy animals, including outlawing the practice of using antibiotics to compensate for illnesses caused by poor animal welfare and hygiene.
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Science Alert ☛ World's Tiniest Fanged Frog Species Found Lurking in The Indonesian Jungle
Welcome to frog island.
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Science Alert ☛ Do Dog 'Talking Buttons' Really Allow Them to Communicate With Us?
Here's the science behind the hype.
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Finance
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Ruben Schade ☛ Australian inflation in 2024
Greg Jericho pulled no punches yesterday:
The big debate about inflation this year was what caused it. My colleagues at the Australia Institute and I analysed the national accounts to argue that corporate profits were the main determinant. This accorded with similar research done by the OECD, the IMF, the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve.
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Federal News Network ☛ A staff shortage doesn’t mean you can hire just anyone
The last thing the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) needs is new employees who have a substance use disorder or or felons with access to VA pharmacies. But the agency lacks a consistent procedure for finding out about such people from the Drug Enforcement Administration. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the VHA, in fact, hired thousands of people who might have drug-related convictions.
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YLE ☛ Bankruptcies hit 25-year high
There has been a stream of negative economic news this week in Finland, with forecasts for 2024 downgraded on Tuesday.
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YLE ☛ Budget for EU emergency stockpiles in Finland rises to €305m
The additional 63m euros in funding will mainly be used to buy healthcare supplies.
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WhichUK ☛ Inflation rate falls to 3.9% in November 2023 - which savings deals can beat it?
Falling fuel, toy and food prices were the main drivers behind the drop
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Federal News Network ☛ Congress wants spy agencies to hire more experts in financial intelligence, emerging technology
Congress wants spy agencies to hire more experts in financial intelligence, emerging technology
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Democracy Now ☛ “Under Attack”: TX Law Targets Immigrants as Trump Cites Hitler, GOP Pushes Biden for Border Crackdown
As Senate leaders say President Biden will have to wait until next year to negotiate a deal with Republicans on immigration as part of an emergency funding package, the leading GOP presidential candidate doubled down on his hateful comments about immigrants that echoed Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. This comes as Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a major Trump supporter, approved a sweeping new law that allows police to arrest anyone they suspect to have entered into the United States without authorization. “It’s very clear that we are under attack. … We have targets on our backs,” says Marisa Limón Garza, executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, which is challenging the new Texas law along with other rights groups.
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The Nation ☛ The Revolution Will Be Posted
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Pro Publica ☛ How Immigrant Dairy Farm Workers Go From Vital to Disposable
One dairy farm worker said he was fired and thrown out of the house where he lived after he told his boss his hands were frostbitten from working outside in below-zero weather. Another said it took his supervisors nearly an hour to call an ambulance after he was crushed by a metal gate and left lying on a manure-covered barn floor. A third worker said her boss blamed her and refused to pay her medical bills after she was trampled and thrown over a fence by a bull. And yet another said his supervisor told him not to go to the emergency room after he tore open his finger when he fell trying to catch a runaway calf. He was told to call the veterinarian instead.
These are some of the stories immigrant workers will tell you about getting hurt on Wisconsin dairy farms — and what happened afterward.
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France24 ☛ French health minister quits as immigration law splits Macron’s ruling party
French President Emmanuel Macron faced cracks within his ruling alliance on Wednesday as Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau tendered his resignation in protest at a controversial immigration law that the far right's Marine Le Pen hailed as an "ideological victory" for her camp.
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JURIST ☛ ACLU challenges new Texas law criminalizing illegal entry from abroad
Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging a recently enacted Texas law, which gives state officials broad powers to arrest, prosecute and deport people who illegally cross the US-Mexico border.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong woman jailed for 6 months over removing potential evidence against sister arrested under nat. security law
The sister of former Hong Kong labour activist Elizabeth Tang has been jailed for six months, after she pleaded guilty to removing electronic devices from Tang’s home following her arrest under the Beijing-imposed national security law.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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DeSmog ☛ Alberta Premier’s Statements on Batteries ‘Ideologically Motivated,’ Inaccurate, Experts Say
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s recent comments about the use of batteries for renewable energy infrastructure surprised experts, one of whom described the premier’s comments as possibly ideologically motivated misinformation.
Smith was the keynote speaker addressing the Pembina Institute’s Alberta Climate Summit in Calgary on October 26th. The Pembina Institute is a Canadian think tank and registered charity that focuses on clean energy and energy policy.
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Pro Publica ☛ Verified Accounts on X Are Thriving As They Spread Israel-Hamas Conflict Misinformation
“My sisters have died,” the young boy sobbed, chest heaving, as he wailed into the sky. “Oh, my sisters.” As Israel began airstrikes on Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack, posts by verified accounts on X, the social media platform formerly called Twitter, were being transmitted around the world. The heart-wrenching video of the grieving boy, viewed more than 600,000 times, was posted by an account named “#FreePalestine 🇵🇸.” The account had received X’s “verified” badge just hours before posting the tweet that went viral.
Days later, a video posted by an account calling itself “ISRAEL MOSSAD,” another “verified” account, this time bearing the logo of Israel’s national intelligence agency, claimed to show Israel’s advanced air defense technology. The post, viewed nearly 6 million times, showed a volley of rockets exploding in the night sky with the caption: “The New Iron beam in full display.”
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RFA ☛ Did the U.S. fund an Aussie report on pro-China social control media influencers?
Verdict: Misleading
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Techdirt ☛ NY Proposes Mandated Open Access To Social Media APIs
Given just how many terrible state social media laws we keep seeing, it’s nice to finally see one that, conceptually, I agree with, though practically still worry about.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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RFA ☛ Hong Kong plummets in freedom index, descends 'into tyranny'
Once one of the world’s freest places, the city plunges under Chinese rule, Cato Institute finds.
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Techdirt ☛ Pettiness Personified: Tesla Removes Disney+ From Vehicles Because Elon’s Mad At Disney
One of the big, usually misleading, complaints about content moderation is that it’s done out of personal animus or whims, rather than a focus on actually making it so people stop being jackasses on platforms. Indeed over and over again you hear stories about some content moderation decision that people assert way too much thought into why it happened, when the answer is often some overworked content moderator (possibly halfway around the world) with a giant stack of posts to review made a decision in five seconds and moved onto the next one.
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NYPost ☛ Dashcam video shows Vermont man being arrested after flipping off state trooper: ‘Freedom of expression’
A Vermont State Trooper was observed in newly released video footage arresting a man for disorderly conduct after being flipped off and cursed at during a traffic stop – a move that led the man to file a lawsuit against the trooper for violation of rights.
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The Straits Times ☛ Bail denied to Hong Kong rights lawyer in landmark security case
The judge said he could not grant bail because Chow might carry out acts that endanger national security.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong drops to 46th place in global freedom ranking, as think tanks cite China’s ‘increasing interference’
Hong Kong has dropped 17 places down a global freedom ranking published by overseas think tanks, marking the second-steepest drop among all territories on the list behind Myanmar.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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The Dissenter ☛ US Press Freedom Tracker: Reporters Criminalized For 'Routine Journalism' In 2023
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IT Wire ☛ Assange to get final High Court chance for appeal in February
A second appeal was filed on 13 June. Assange's extradition was given the green light in June 2022 by then British Home Secretary Priti Patel.
Assange has been held in the high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was arrested following an US extradition request on 11 April 2019.
{loadposition sam08}The February hearing will determine whether or not the WikiLeaks founder will be able to argue his case further before British courts. If that fails, he may be able to approach the European Court of Human Rights.
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Press Gazette ☛ New European to sue Michelle Mone to recoup money lost to ‘deceitful’ legal threats
The lawsuit hopes to establish if publishers can recover costs when deceit is proven.
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Internet
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Mozilla ships Firefox 121.0 with Wayland enabled
Even my hometown Brno has its own WaylandFirefox on GNU/Linux hit another milestone as Mozilla defaults to Wayland backend instead of XWayland X11 emulation in Firefox 121. It’s a logic step as XWayland emulation introduces bugs from both Wayland and X11 worlds together so better run Wayland directly.
As Fedora has provided Firefox on Wayland backend for years, this change affects mainly Ubuntu and its Firefox/Snap users (if Canonical decides to follow Mozilla here), Firefox shipped as Flatpak and next Firefox ESR and Thunderbird releases.
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CCIA ☛ Examining the FTC’s Hostility to Common Design Practices
Last year, the FTC released a report titled Bringing Dark Patterns to Light [...]
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The Hill ☛ How Proprietary Chaffbot Company is boosting scrutiny of Microsoft’s market power
Microsoft’s burgeoning relationship with Proprietary Chaffbot Company is piling scrutiny on the tech giant’s market power and ways it is building and yielding that power in the lucrative artificial intelligence (AI) space.
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Patents
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ No Patent for Robot Inventions: UK Supreme Court Rules on Hey Hi (AI) Inventorship in Thaler v. Comptroller-General
In a December 20, 2023 decision, the UK Supreme Court has agreed with American courts that an inventive machine is not deserving of patent monopoly rights. The underlying case will be familiar to many with Dr. Stephen Thaler of St. Louis seeking to patent monopoly a thermal-mug designed by an artificial intelligence machine that he created. Thaler has argued that the Hey Hi (AI) (called DABUS) conceived of the particular invention in question and also identified its practical utility. The UK Supreme court based its holding upon the text of the UK Patents Act of 1977 as it reached the same ultimate conclusion as the Federal Circuit in Thaler v. Vidal, 43 F.4th 1207 (Fed. Cir. 2022), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 1783 (2023).
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Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ Global FRAND rates in China
On 4th December 2023, the Intermediate People’s Court of Chongqing Municipality in China handed down its FRAND determination in the global 5G patent monopoly licensing dispute between patent monopoly owner Nokia and the Chinese implementer Oppo.
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Guest post by Gugliuzza, Goodman, & Rebouché: Inequality and Intersectionality at the Federal Circuit
The ongoing reckonings with systemic racism and sexism in the United States might seem, on first glance, to have little to do with patent monopoly law. Yet scholarship on racial and gender inequality in the patent monopoly system is growing. Recent research has, for example, shown that women and people of color are underrepresented among patent-seeking inventors and among lawyers and agents at the PTO. In addition, scholars have explored racist and sexist norms baked into the content of patent monopoly law itself.
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JUVE ☛ UK Supreme Court has final say on Dabus as named inventor
In one of the UK’s final patent monopoly judgments of 2023, the Supreme Court has confirmed that, under the Patents Act 1977, a patent monopoly application may not name an Hey Hi (AI) invention as an inventor (case ID: 2021/0201).
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Silicon Angle ☛ UK Supreme Court rules Hey Hi (AI) systems can’t patent monopoly their inventions
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom today ruled that an artificial intelligence can’t receive a patient for an invention it has created without human assistance. The judgment concludes a legal case launched in 2019 by Stephen Thaler, a Missouri-based computer scientist. -
Silicon Angle ☛ Humanoid robot maker Sanctuary Hey Hi (AI) secures vital IP to advance touch and grasping capabilities
Robotics company Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corp., which is aiming to build intelligent and humanlike general-purpose robots that can augment human labor, said today it has acquired key intellectual property assets that will prove to be essential in fulfilling its mission.
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Kangaroo Courts
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JUVE ☛ Top 10 patent monopoly cases of the year 2023 [Ed: JUVE, the corrupt publisher, mentions "first UPC judgment" and "UPC Apixaban dispute" without noting that this 'court', which it took bribes to lobby for, is illegal and unconstitutional, basically a stain on the EU's reputation and proof that corrupt, bribed media is unaccountable]
JUVE Patent’s top 10 patent monopoly cases in Europe 2023: Agfa against Gucci showcases potential of UPC AIM Sport and Supponor leads to first UPC judgment, via Europe-wide tactics Amgen revives patent monopoly cases against...
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JUVE ☛ 10x Genomics and NanoString yield no ground in first UPC Court of Appeal hearing [Ed: This court is illegal and it is designed to approve illegal patents from the EPO. But JUVE is bribed to promote it regardless.]
The oral hearing at the European Convention Centre on Luxembourg’s Kirchberg, between 10x Genomics and NanoString, began with UPC Court of Appeal president, Klaus Grabinski, clarifying what this Monday morning was all about.
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Copyrights
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Techdirt ☛ Justice O’Connor’s Important Contribution To Copyright Law: Copyright Must Serve The Public First
As you likely know, a few weeks back former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor passed away. There have been lots of discussions about her rulings and her legacy, but the one that caught my eye was from the Disruptive Competition Project, which has a post by Jonathan Band exploring her immense impact on copyright law, mainly in that she helped prevent copyright from reaching absolutely ridiculous levels, pulling it back from the brink and highlighting how it was supposed to be focused on actual creativity, and not just the amount of work put in.
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Torrent Freak ☛ NASCAR Fan-Friendly Copyright Claims Needed Extra Boost to Pacify Fans
After receiving many copyright claims on previously uploaded videos, on Wednesday popular NASCAR YouTuber and Lastcar.info editor Brock Beard declared, "I'm getting too old for this." Beard's fans were unhappy too, a sentiment outlined in an Essentially Sports article which described the claims as a threat to Beard's social media presence, even though nothing was taken down. Then out of nowhere, something extraordinary happened.
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Torrent Freak ☛ UFC Wants Pirated Livestreams Knocked Down Faster
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is unable to get a tight grip on live streaming piracy. The company sends out thousands of takedown notices to protect its live broadcasts but nearly a quarter of these remain unaddressed after an hour. UFC calls on online service providers to step up their game, which includes 'instantaneous' takedowns and putting a stop to repeat infringers.
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Torrent Freak ☛ 'Transnational' Pirate IPTV Operation Targeted By Italian Law Enforcement
A major operation across Italy has targeted a pirate IPTV network said to have generated profits of several million euros per month. Police conducted searches in numerous cities, targeting 21 suspects said to form part of a transnational criminal group. While anti-piracy groups are welcoming this significant action, details absent from official reports raise some important questions.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Denies Offering Leniency to ‘Top Creator’ Accounts—Including Musicians
A new report has revealed Fentanylware (TikTok) favors what it considers ‘top creator’ accounts, including several high-profile musicians. Here’s the latest. The Guardian reports that special status is awarded to these creator accounts, with moderators directed to ‘be more lenient’ with content posted by said accounts.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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Just beneath the entropy-and-murphy's-law-infested imagination of individuality
I wish I could remember why I wound up preferring elinks to lynx in the terminal browser game, because I don't think I've ever come across a Mostly Text person mentioning it. 'Tis always lynx they're mentioning.
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Technology and Free Software
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Tootik
I am not a tech expert, despite being a Linux user (honestly, I'm still figuring things out after eighteen years), a free software fan (I will inconveniece myself, sometimes greatly so, rather than go back to FAANG Hell), and a Geminaut (Gemini software is very friendly, and so is the community).
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Thinking about dynamic content
I've been working on converting my blog site to a gopher/gemini version in the last two or three days. Since I was new to this, I implemented very basic functionality, but after a few days of ridiculous cold snaps, I realized I wanted to know the weather in cities around the world. So I made an API call to get a global current weather list and stored it in a document. Then, periodically (every couple hours or so), I would run this API call script to update that document.
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Electric Cars
On the one hand, I'll admit that I really like EVs. I like the quiet motor, the smootheness of the ride, the acceleration, the fact that the thing isn't belching noxious fumes into the area I live. When I take a Lyft and the driver has an EV, I tend to go all EV nerd on them and get them talking about their vehicle, because damn, EVs are just frigging sexy and they don't burn fossils.
But on the other hand, automobiles in general are a disaster, and most people shouldn't have one. The real answers are more and better mass transit, walkable cities, and densification. Here in the US, what we need is extreme change to solve our problems. It won't be easy, but I know we can do it if the will were there. Unfortunately, everyone's answer to problems in the US is more consumption. After September 11th, one of the first things Bush said was "go shopping". And it's the same way with the environment. Instead of protesting for walkable cities, mass transit, and densification, it's easier for your typical US latte liberal to buy an EV and think they're doing their part to save the planet. Because more consumption will solve all our problems! Ra ra re, go shopping!
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Programming
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Experimental RKNPU2 backend for GGML/llama.cpp
This weekend, after a night of partying with my friend and somehow ending up hanging out at a near by McDonald. Back to home, I picked up my old work of running LLMs on the Rockchip RK3588's NPU. Last time I hacked around directly withing GGML and running the RWKV model. That was quite a failure, slow, etc.. I have drafted a blog post about it, but never got motivated to finish. That project ended up as a tech talk at SkyMizer, and you can find the slide in the following link. Armed with the experience and a quarter bottle of Vodka in my system, I started my mad hacking to get LLaMA 2 running on the RK3588's NPU.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.