Leftovers

• Off Guardian ☛ The CIA Does “Soulful Work”

  Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a spate of books and articles extolling the word “soul” became the rage in the United States.  Soul became the chic word.  It popped up everywhere.  Everything seemed to acquire soul – cars, toasters, underwear, cats’ pajamas, assorted crap, kitsch, etc.

• Hackaday ☛ Playing Chess Against Your Printer, With PostScript

  Can you play chess against your printer? The answer will soon be yes, and it’s thanks to [Nicolas Seriot]’s PSChess. It’s a chess engine implemented in PostScript, of all things. It’s entirely working except for one last hurdle, but more on that in a moment.

• IP Kat ☛ 2024-03-26 [Older] CJEU rules on CMOs and freedom to provide services under EU law

• Education

  • JURIST ☛ Canada school boards sue social control media companies for interrupting students’ education

    Four of the largest school boards in Ontario sued the social control media companies behind Instagram, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Fentanylware (TikTok) for disrupting their students’ daily education, according to a news release by the districts on Thursday. The school boards believe these social control media platforms “have rewired the way children think, behave, and learn [...]

• Hardware

  • CubicleNate ☛ Nintendo DS Lite Upper LCD Replacement

    This is not a “how-to” but rather a commentary on this task. My oldest son complained of a damaged upper screen on his Nintendo DS Lite so I thought, “meh, how hard can it be?”

  • Hackaday ☛ A Practical Guide To Understanding How Radios Work

    How may radios do you own? Forget the AM/FM, GMRS/FRS radios you listen to or communicate with. We’re talking about the multiple radios and antennae in your phone, your TV, your car, your garage door opener, every computing device you own- you get the idea. It’s doubtful that you can accurately count them even in your own home. But what principles of the electromagnetic spectrum allow radio to work, and how do antenna design, modulation, and mixing affect it? [Michał Zalewski] aka [lcamtuf] aims to inform you with his excellent article Radios, how do they work?

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Chinese chipmaker launches 14nm Hey Hi (AI) processor that's 90% cheaper than GPUs — $140 chip's older node sidesteps US sanctions

    Intellifusion has made it possible to sidestep sanctions placed on high-end GPUs in China by producing an Hey Hi (AI) with excellent Hey Hi (AI) performance in their stead.

  • Hackaday ☛ A Single Transistor Solid State Tesla Coil

    Tesla coils are one of those builds that capture the interest of almost anybody passing by. For the naïve constructor, they look simple enough, but they can be finicky beasts—beasts that can bite if not treated with respect. [Mirko Pavleski] has some experience with them and shares it with us over on Hackaday.io. One of the first big improvements of this build style is the shift from the originally used spark gap commutator to that of a direct AC drive via a MOSFET oscillator. This improves the primary drive power for its size and eliminates that noisy spark gap. That’s one less source of broadband RF noise and the audible racket these produce.

  • CNX Software ☛ INCTEL N100 fanless mini PC and micro firewall appliance comes with four 2.5GbE ports using defective chip maker Intel i226V controllers

    INCTEL N100, also sold under the Partaker brand, is a fanless mini PC and “micro firewall appliance” powered by an defective chip maker Intel Processor N100 CPU and equipped with four 2.5GbE ports all using defective chip maker Intel i226V.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Off Guardian ☛ Did the Covid Psyop Fail?

    As you all know, I have not been one to believe that the tides are turning. But lots of people think they are. They cite many victories, in court, in the streets, with family and friends.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Sudan faces 'catastrophic hunger' as conflict blocks aid

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Africa's burden with neurological diseases

  • Project Censored ☛ 2024-03-26 [Older] More than 6,000 US Workers Killed at Work in 2022, Study Finds

  • Project Censored ☛ 2024-03-25 [Older] Companies Spent Decades Hiding Health Risks Tied to Gas Stoves

  • Project Censored ☛ 2024-03-26 [Older] Women’s Health Highlighted at “Restore Roe” Election Event

  • New York Times ☛ Why Are Older Americans Drinking So Much?

    The pandemic played a role in increased consumption, but alcohol use among people 65 and older was climbing even before 2020.

  • James G ☛ How I decide what coffee to drink [Diagram]

    I have been interested in learning how to use Mermaid over the last week, a text-based diagramming tool. Mermaid lets you write a text description of a diagram. As a programmer, this is appealing: I can define graphs in a strict language and change them as I do any other piece of text.

    I thought what better way to learn more about using Mermaid than to make a chart that shows how I decide what coffee to drink! My coffee drinking patterns are fairly dependable. At home, on the average day, I will drink mainly espresso-based coffees, made using my espresso machine. When I am out, there is more variability: what I drink will depend on the time of day, whether I am in a rush, and whether or not I am in a speciality coffee shop.

    While the chart does not encode all edge cases -- and, of course, my mood may change occasionally and I decide to have another coffee than the chart indicates -- this was a fun exercise.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Germany approves partial legalization of cannabis from April

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] As cocoa outprices copper, farmers reel from bitter deals

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] Brussels: Farmer protests turn violent, as EU ministers meet

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • International Business Times ☛ 2024-03-26 [Older] Microsoft Expands Copilot, But Free Ads on Every Device Leave Users Frustrated

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong’s ‘smart city’ ambitions depend on trust as well as technology

      By Kris Hartley In February 2024, Hong Kong police announced plans to instal 615 new surveillance cameras in areas of the city with “high crime figures and high pedestrian flows.”

    • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-03-26 [Older] Project Ghostbusters: Facebook Accused of Using Your Phone to Wiretap Snapchat

    • OpenRightsGroup ☛ 2024-03-25 [Older] Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill will threaten people’s access to security updates and privacy friendly apps

• Defence/Aggression

  • YLE ☛ Government aims to limit repeated asylum applications

    Rejected asylum seekers may re-apply an indefinite number of times, citing changed conditions in their home country, for instance.

  • JURIST ☛ Three UN military observers and interpreter injured by border shell explosion in Lebanon

    The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) shared Saturday that three UN military observers and a Lebanese interpreter were injured during a foot patrol along the Blue Line when an explosion happened nearby.

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-24 [Older] US Military Command in Japan to Be Revamped, FT Reports

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-03-23 [Older] Red Sea on Edge: Houthis Attacks Disrupt Trade and Threaten Maritime Security

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-25 [Older] Moscow attack: Italy joins France in raising security level

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-23 [Older] Understanding how Germany and Europe ended the Cold War

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] At Least Seven Killed in Israeli Strike on Southern Lebanon, Two Security Sources to Reuters

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] At Least Eight Killed in Israeli Strikes on South Lebanon, Security Sources Say

  • ANF News ☛ 2024-03-28 [Older] Attack kills two security officers of Raqqa Military Council

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-28 [Older] Security in Congo's Mineral-Rich East Is Deteriorating With Rebel Group Expanding Territory, UN Says

  • Project Censored ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] Silver Screen War Machine: Decoding the Military-Entertainment Complex

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Syria: Political deadlock and violence fuels humanitarian crisis

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-23 [Older] US-Backed Syrian Force That Defeated IS 5 Years Ago Warns Group Still Poses International Threat

  • CBC ☛ 2024-03-26 [Older] Supreme Court asked to reconsider hearing case of Canadian men detained in Syria

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Decoding China: Beijing's cautious approach to Australia

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-23 [Older] With Guterres in Egypt, Israel FM says UN is 'anti-Israeli'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Are Nigeria's vigilante groups just as bad as bandits they're chasing?

• Environment

  • NL Times ☛ 2024-03-26 [Older] Dutch banks second worst culprits in Europe for loaning money to climate disruptors

  • The Age AU ☛ 2024-03-28 [Older] Vanguard misled investors about its ethical fund, Federal Court finds

  • Project Censored ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Corporate Climate Coverage a Washout after Storm Ciarán Impacts Tuscany

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-03-21 [Older] Jonathan Soto Is a Bronx Socialist Running for State Assembly

  • NL Times ☛ 2024-03-23 [Older] 31 climate activists arrested at Eindhoven Airport protest

  • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-03-25 [Older] Climate Agreements Suck

  • NL Times ☛ 2024-03-24 [Older] Climate lawsuits are not a solution and harm the Dutch economy, Shell CEO says

  • CBC ☛ 2024-03-23 [Older] With climate change affecting the Arctic Winter Games, how can the event itself be greener?

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Climate change may affect grape cultivation in Turkey

  • TruthOut ☛ 2024-03-25 [Older] Biden’s Infrastructure Law Has Put a “Climate Time Bomb” in Black Neighborhoods

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] The Global Laws That Help Corporations Block Climate Action

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-21 [Older] Deutsche Bahn posts €2.4 billion loss for 2023

    • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-03-25 [Older] New Security Footage Shows Texas Man Successfully Sneaking Onto Plane

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] Germany: Several dead in Flixbus crash on autobahn

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] Baltimore bridge collapse: Divers recover two bodies from river

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Europe's Pro-Nuclear Leaders Seek Atomic Energy Revival

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Lawmakers Who Passed a Bill to Lure Nuclear Energy to Kentucky Say Coal Is Still King

    • CBC ☛ 2024-03-23 [Older] Calgary startup aims to launch sustainable aviation fuel facilities on the Prairies

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-03-25 [Older] The Critical Missing Piece from the U.S. Energy Transition

    • Green Party UK ☛ 2024-03-25 [Older] Reaction to Labour’s Great British Energy announcement

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-23 [Older] Energy minister: 'Moldova can’t be blackmailed any more'

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] US Judge Temporarily Blocks $649 Million Clean-Energy Transmission Line

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Investigation: Hong Kong’s role in illegal deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil

      This article was published in partnership with Repórter Brasil. At first glance, there is little to link a handful of featureless Hong Kong office spaces to the world’s largest tropical rainforest.

    • CBC ☛ 2024-03-24 [Older] Hundreds of photos show animal behaviour during COVID-19 lockdowns

    • Project Censored ☛ 2024-03-26 [Older] Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women: An Overlooked Epidemic of Violence

    • Project Censored ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Indigenous Activists in Panama Shutdown Notorious Copper Mine

    • Project Censored ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] UN’s Forest Protection Goals at Risk, Say Independent Assessors

    • CBC ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] Canadian cities could get an influx of wild climate refugees — and also lose a few familiar animal faces

  • Overpopulation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Desalination — can it help us survive a water scarce future?

• Finance

  • YLE ☛ Polls show declining support for political strikes, continued opposition to government reforms

    Two new surveys show a mixed picture of public opinion regarding the impasse between the right-wing government and the labour movement.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] Jerome Powell’s Fingerprints Are on the Next Banking Crisis

  • CBC ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Some Ontario landlords are calling for 'automatic' evictions for tenants who don't pay rent

  • CBC ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Ontario risks $357M in housing funds without revised plan: feds

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] German economic institutes cut 2024 growth forecast to 0.1%

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • New York Times ☛ Police Raid Peruvian President’s Home, Looking for Rolex Watches

    Dina Boluarte, who has been seen wearing luxury watches and a $50,000 bracelet, is under investigation for breaking the country’s unlawful enrichment and asset disclosure laws.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Truth Social: Trump's social media company to go public [Ed: To raise political money under the guise of "investment?"]

  • NBC ☛ 2024-03-25 [Older] Fewer people using Elon Musk’s X as it struggles to keep users (Data Suggests Twitter/X Is Bleeding Users)

  • CBC ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] Facebook brought back what some say is its most annoying feature: poking

  • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-03-27 [Older] Facebook Allegedly Killed Its Own Streaming Service to Help Sell Netflix Ads

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] Guinea-Bissau opposition fears 'dictatorship'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] India: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal held on remand

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-23 [Older] US Congress pass $1.2 trillion spending bill avoiding government shutdown

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • France24 ☛ Deepfakes, censorship and media pressure ahead of Turkey's local elections

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not on the ballot, but he looms large over Sunday’s local elections in Turkey. If Erdogan's ruling party wins, many expect him to change the constitution to allow him to rule beyond his current term limit. Meanwhile, the fractured opposition is trying to retain Istanbul and the capital Ankara. Reporters without Borders says about 90 percent of Turkey's media is in the hands of the government or its supporters, promoting the ruling party and its allies' campaigns while denying the opposition the same opportunity.

  • JURIST ☛ UN experts raise concerns about Guadeloupe water crisis and censorship

    UN independent experts expressed concern about the ongoing water shortage in Guadeloupe, a French Caribbean island. They raised concerns over tap water pollution, steep prices and attempts to silence critics, calling the situation a threat to human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation.

  • Reason ☛ Why Eugene Is Probably Right About MOHELA's Inability To Sue For Libel

    As Eugene mentioned yesterday, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Association (MOHELA), has threatened to bring a lawsuit for libel. but New York Times v. Sullivan, among other cases, say the constitution forbids libel suits brought by the government.

  • CPJ ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] CPJ among 145 groups condemning ‘chilling effect’ of Hong Kong security law

  • CBC ☛ 2024-03-23 [Older] Hong Kong's new security law comes into force amid fears it will further erode civil liberties

  • BIA Net ☛ 2024-03-26 [Older] Report documents over 200 cases of censorship against artistic freedom in 2023

  • Scheerpost ☛ 2024-03-24 [Older] I Was Banned From Elon’s ‘Free Speech’ X App For Offending Power

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-25 [Older] Judge Dismisses Lawsuit by Musk's X Against Nonprofit Researchers Tracking Hate Speech on Platform

  • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-03-25 [Older] Court Says Elon Musk’s Lawsuit Against Anti-Hate Group Is an Attack on Free Speech

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-26 [Older] Sparks Paying Ex-Police Officer $525,000 to Settle a Free Speech Lawsuit Over Social Media Posts

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ US news outlet Radio Free Asia exits Hong Kong over safety, security law fears; gov’t condemns ‘scaremongering’

    The US news outlet Radio Free Asia (RFA) said Friday it had closed its Hong Kong office over staff safety concerns after the city enacted a controversial new national security law.

  • JURIST ☛ Radio Free Asia to close Hong Kong bureau citing safety concerns

    Radio Free Asia’s (RFA) president, Bay Fang, announced Friday that the news organization has already closed its Hong Kong bureau and will “no longer have full-time personnel in Hong Kong” due to safety concerns after the enactment of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • JURIST ☛ Binance executives detained in Nigeria allege wrongful detention

    Igran Gambaryan, the Head of Financial Crime Compliance at Binance, along with Nadeem Anjarwalla, Binance’s Regional Manager for Africa, initiated legal proceedings on Thursday against Nigeria’s Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

  • Reason ☛ Lawsuit Over Outing of Gay Saudis by Lufthansa in Saudi Arabia Can't Proceed in California

    From Doe v. Deutsche Lufthansa AG, decided Friday by Judge Susan Illston (N.D. Cal.): John Doe and Robert Roe are a gay couple who have been in a "committed, but discreet," relationship for 33 years, and who were married in California in 2013.

  • New York Times ☛ The Persistent Threat to Abortion Rights

    A lawsuit that restricts a widely used abortion drug is unlikely to be the last challenge to Americans’ reproductive freedom.

  • New York Times ☛ Woman Who Was Charged With Murder After Abortion Sues Texas Prosecutor

    Lizelle Gonzalez was arrested after using an abortion pill in 2022, and her charge was since dropped. Now she is seeking $1 million in damages.

  • RFERL ☛ Iranian Judiciary Rejects Allegations Over Death Of Young Woman

    Iranian justice authorities have rejected a report that a 20-year-old woman had been questioned by the intelligence services a day before she died at home.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• IP Kat ☛ 2024-03-26 [Older] E&W Court of Appeal upholds TM/passing-off judgment in Lidl v Tesco

• Patents

  • 2024-03-26 [Older] Medtronic, Inc. v. Teleflex Life Sciences Ltd. (Fed. Cir. 2024)

    Last week the Federal Circuit handed down a pair of non-precedential decisions affirming the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings. This post concerns the decision in Medtronic, Inc. v. Teleflex Life Sciences Ltd.

• Trademarks

  • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-03-26 [Older] Police to Stop Sticking Lego Heads Onto Suspect’s Faces After Lego Reportedly Said Please Stop

• Copyrights

  • David Revoy ☛ The end of Pepper&Carrot and my next project.

    Hey, I feel like I'm at a big crossroads and this is an important blog post, but you probably already guessed that from the title.

    It took me a long time to think about it. It still takes up all my brain bandwidth at the moment. But now that I have a clearer picture, I think it's time to share it with you.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-03-22 [Older] What's behind South Korea's K-pop crisis?

  • 2024-03-21 [Older] The New York Times Response to Microsoft's Motion to Dismiss: An LLM Is Not a VCR