Leftovers

• Bruce Schneier ☛ The Hacking of Culture and the Creation of Socio-Technical Debt

  Culture is increasingly mediated through algorithms. These algorithms have splintered the organization of culture, a result of states and tech companies vying for influence over mass audiences. One byproduct of this splintering is a shift from imperfect but broad cultural narratives to a proliferation of niche groups, who are defined by ideology or aesthetics instead of nationality or geography.

• Hackaday ☛ Taking A Look Underneath The Battleship New Jersey

  By the time you read this the Iowa-class battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62) should be making its way along the Delaware River, heading back to its permanent mooring on the Camden waterfront after undergoing a twelve week maintenance and repair period at the nearby Philadelphia Navy Yard.

• Science

  • Hackaday ☛ Mapping Litter In The Oceans From Space With Existing Satellites

    Recently ESA published the results of a proof-of-concept study into monitoring marine litter using existing satellites, with promising results for the Mediterranean study area. For the study, six years of historical data from the Sentinel-2 satellite multispectral imaging  cameras were used, involving 300,000 images with a resolution of 10 meters. The focus was on litter windrows as common collections of litter like plastic, wood and other types of marine debris that float on the surface, forming clearly visible lines that can be meters wide and many times as long.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ The return of pneumatic tubes

    Pneumatic tubes were touted as something that would revolutionize the world.

  • Science Alert ☛ Brain Scans Identify Six Distinct Types of Depression And Anxiety

    We desperately need personalized treatments.

  • Science Alert ☛ This Glassy Gel Is a Surprising New Class of Material That Heals Itself

    It's bizarre.

  • Science Alert ☛ The Oldest Known Burial Site in The World Wasn't Created by Our Species

  • Science Alert ☛ Rare Sky Explosion Coming Soon: A Once-in-a-Lifetime Event Visible to The Naked Eye

    "It's incredibly exciting to have this front-row seat."

• Education

  • LRT ☛ Lithuanian PM vows to present picks for education and social security ministers this week

    Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė met with President Gitanas Nausėda on Wednesday and said after the meeting she would present candidates for education and social security ministers later this week.

• Hardware

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Micron to expand production of HBM3E memory across the world to increase HBM market share: Report

    Nikkei says that Micron is set to produce more HBM3E memory in Taiwan, expand R&D operations in the U.S. and even start producing HBM3E memory in Malaysia.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Science Alert ☛ People Are Self-Diagnosing Mental Illness. Is It Helpful or Harmful?

    Blurring the lines.

  • Science Alert ☛ DNA From Beethoven's Hair Reveals a Surprise Some 200 Years Later

  • Science Alert ☛ Fasting Boosts Immune System's Attack on Cancer, Mouse Study Finds

    This is intriguing.

  • Science Alert ☛ Cheese Makes You Happy And Could Boost Healthy Aging, Study Suggests

    Good to know!

  • New York Times ☛ Debris From Destruction Adds to Dire Health Crisis in Gaza, U.N. Says

    After eight months of fighting between Israel and Hamas, Gaza is littered with more than 39 million tons of debris, according to an initial assessment.

  • New York Times ☛ South Africa Runs Out of Insulin Pens as Global Supply Shifts to Weight-Loss Drugs

    The shortage highlights a widening gulf in the standard of care for people with diabetes, most of whom live in low-income countries.

  • Federal News Network ☛ VA looking at ‘smart home’ tech to keep aging, disabled vets living independently

    A smartwatch saved the life of VA’s chief health technology officer. The department expects this device data can also save the lives of other disabled vets.

  • STEMCELL Technologies Layoffs: Number of jobs reportedly cut by biotech company

    The Vancouver-based Canadian biotech company develops and manufactures cell culture media and cell separation technologies for use in stem cell, immunology, and cancer research.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Your life matters

    This is a weird topic to discuss, and I feel unqualified. But I’m going to give it the old college try, as my American friends say. As much as I might write for others, the truth is most of my posts are a way for me to explore an issue or idea myself.

    This blog flew under the radar for most of its almost two-decade history, but something changed in the last few years. I get regular comments from wonderful people all over the place, to whom I’ve mostly failed to respond! Most thank me for giving them a solution to a problem, or say they like what I do here. I’ve had frowns literally turned upside down from such email.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • New York Times ☛ Ilya Sutskever, Proprietary Chaffbot Company Co-Founder Who Helped Oust Sam Altman, Starts His Own Company

    Ilya Sutskever’s new start-up, Safe Superintelligence, aims to build Hey Hi (AI) technologies that are smarter than a human but not dangerous.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever launches startup to develop ‘safe superintelligence’

    OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever today announced the launch of SSI, a new startup dedicated to building advanced artificial intelligence models. The development comes a few months after Sutskever left his role as OpenAI’s chief scientist. He earlier resigned from the Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot developer’s board.

  • McDonald’s Halts AI Drive-Thru Following Mistaken Orders, Including $222 McNuggets Charge

    The mistakes included adding nine sweet teas to one customer’s order, giving another customer an ice cream cone topped with bacon, and charging another $222 for McNuggets, New York Post reports.

• Defence/Aggression

  • JURIST ☛ South Korea fires warning shots to repel North Korea soldiers over Demilitarised Zone crossing

    South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said on Tuesday that soldiers fired warning shots to repel North Korean soldiers who violated the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) by about 20 meters.

  • RFA ☛ Philippines demands return of firearms taken by Chinese in South China Sea clash

    Military chief likens the Chinese to pirates

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ South China Sea: Philippines says Chinese coast guard boarded navy vessels in violent confrontation

    By Pam Castro The Philippine military said Wednesday the Chinese coast guard rammed and boarded Filipino navy boats in a violent confrontation in the South China Sea this week in which a Filipino sailor lost a thumb.

  • France24 ☛ Philippines accuses Chinese coast guard of boarding navy boats in South China Sea

    The Philippine military said Wednesday that the Chinese coast guard rammed and boarded Filipino navy boats and seized their guns in the South China Sea this week in a confrontation that resulted in a Filipino sailor losing a thumb.

  • RFA ☛ Ecuador ends visa-free entry for Chinese nationals fleeing country

    The move will make it harder for anyone hoping to seek political asylum in the United States.

  • RFA ☛ Defying China, US lawmakers meet with Dalai Lama

    The visit comes after Congress passes the Resolve Tibet Act.

  • The Strategist ☛ Dialogue with China’s Premier Li was a missed opportunity

    Dialogue has many meanings and purposes. But substantial dialogue in the true Socratic sense isn’t just having a conversation or swapping views.

  • The Strategist ☛ How Australia can exploit China’s stadium diplomacy

    China continues to pursue stadium diplomacy in the Pacific, building stadiums and training facilities to gain favour and influence in Pacific island countries.

  • The Strategist ☛ China is back as Australia’s dominant export market

    Australia’s exports to the nations that supported it during China’s three-year campaign of economic punishment are tumbling, as China reasserts its position as Australia’s dominant export market.

  • France24 ☛ Hezbollah chief warns Israel of ‘new weapons’ in case of full-blown war

    Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday said his group has new weapons and intelligence capabilities that would be deployed deep inside Israel in case of an all-out war. His televised address came as the cross-border conflict between the Lebanese-based movement and Israel has escalated despite US efforts to ease tensions.

  • JURIST ☛ Germany federal domestic intelligence agency labels pro-Palestine movement as ‘suspected extremist group’

    The German Federal Ministry of Interior published a report on Tuesday by the country’s federal domestic intelligence agency, designating the Palestinian civil society Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) a “suspected extremist case.”

  • JURIST ☛ Germany domestic intelligence agency reports politically motivated crimes reached record number in 2023

    A record number of politically motivated crimes occurred in Germany last year, according to a report published by the country’s domestic intelligence agency on Tuesday.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Christine Lee: Woman suing UK intelligence services denies claims she spied for China

    A woman accused of “political interference activities” in the UK on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party denied the claims on Tuesday as part of her legal claim against intelligence services.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Reason ☛ Public Has Right to Access Summary Judgment Filings Even When Summary Judgment Motion Was Never Decided

    From U.S. ex rel. Oberg & Camoin v. Nelnet, Inc., decided yesterday by the Fourth Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Julius Richardson, joined by Judge Barbara Milano Keenan and District Judge Elizabeth Dillon (W.D. Va.): In 2007, Jon Oberg filed a lawsuit under the False Claims Act against various student-loan companies, including Nelnet, Inc. [...]

• Environment

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Defence Web ☛ Timber logging drives JNIM’s expansion in Mali

      Timber logging is at the centre of Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin’s (JNIM) rapid expansion into southern Mali – the government’s last major stronghold.

• Finance

  • LRT ☛ EC recommendations for Lithuania: more funding for public services and tax reform

    Lithuania should increase public spending on healthcare and public services, also do more to reduce regional disparities and implement a tax reform, the European Commission says in its recommendation.

  • Latvia ☛ Latvia plans new funding model for universities

    A new funding model is planned to be introduced for all state universities in 2026, which will give universities more autonomy, the Ministry of Education and Science has announced. Universities will be given more freedom to allocate public funding internally, Latvian Radio reported on June 18.

  • RFA ☛ China's real estate rescue package has limited impact, analysts say

    The government needs to spend more to nationalize unfinished buildings

  • NYPost ☛ Nearly half of Americans struggling because of inflation spike: poll

    Nearly half of Americans report that the recent spike in inflation is making it harder to make ends meet, according to a new poll.

  • Reason ☛ New York Cuts Real Rents at Rent-Stabilized Apartments

    The city's Rent Guidelines Board approved a nominal 2.75 rent increase for one million rent-stabilized apartments. That's below the year's 3.3 percent inflation rate.

  • Reason ☛ Trump Advisor Admits Trade War Against China Failed

    In an interview, former National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien admitted that "the Chinese didn’t honor" the terms of the deal, years after it was clear.

  • Fintech company Bluevine laying off 12% of Israeli workforce

    Bluevine, founded in 2013, provides an all-in-one digital banking platform specifically designed for small businesses. The company is backed by leading private and institutional investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, 83North, Citi Ventures, ION Crossover Partners, SVB Capital, Nationwide Insurance, and M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Arm).

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Press Gazette ☛ ITN election diary: Inside Channel 4 News on the day a rain-soaked Rishi Sunak set the date

    "So much of television is logistical as well as editorial."

  • Press Gazette ☛ Mystery Barclay loans drive Telegraph to record £245m loss despite underlying profitability

    The company said a "historic review" had identified "potential irregularities" at TMG.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • ‘Halo’ Composer Marty O’Donnell Details That Microsoft Began Pushing Woke Changes In ‘Halo 2’ Out Of Fear Of Being Labeled Islamophobic [Ed: Political Islam pushing censorship inside Microsoft]

    Marty O’Donnell, the composer for numerous Halo games including Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3:ODST, and Halo: Reach recently detailed that Microsoft executives began meddling with the franchise and pushing woke changes with Halo 2 out of fear of being labeled Islamophobic.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China’s intelligence agency says trial of Hong Kong 47 a ‘major test’ of national security, rule of law

    China’s intelligence agency has called the landmark case involving 47 Hong Kong pro-democracy figures a “major test” of national security and rule of law.

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ New Blog Moderation Policy

    There has been a lot of toxicity in the comments section of this blog. Recently, we’re having to delete more and more comments. Not just spam and off-topic comments, but also sniping and personal attacks. It’s gotten so bad that I need to do something.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Reason ☛ Don't Freak Out Over Florida Teen Labor Laws

    Laws letting teens work longer hours won't have the disastrous effects critics claim they will.

  • JURIST ☛ Amnesty International calls on Namibia to ensure safety of LGBTQ persons ahead of landmark high court decision

    Amnesty International called on the Government of Namibia to ensure the safety of LGBTQ persons Wednesday ahead of a major decision by the country’s High Court.

  • France24 ☛ Rights and safety of LGBTQ people at risk if far right wins French parliamentary elections

    Since French President Emmanuel Macron lost the European elections to the far-right National Rally on June 9 and announced snap parliamentary elections, attacks on LGBTQ people have been deliberately political. Rights groups fear that if the far right comes to power in under two weeks, laws put in place to protect LGBTQ people could be dismantled and violent attacks legitimised.

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Snapchat Inc. to pay $15 million to settle discrimination and harassment lawsuit in California

    Snapchat Inc. will pay $15 million to settle a lawsuit brought by California’s civil rights agency that claimed the company discriminated against female employees, failed to prevent workplace sexual harassment and retaliated against women who complained.

  • Democracy Now ☛ Juneteenth Special: Historian Clint Smith on Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

    We feature a special broadcast marking the Juneteenth federal holiday that commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. We begin with our 2021 interview with historian Clint Smith, originally aired a day after President Biden signed legislation to make Juneteenth the first new federal holiday since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Smith is the author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. “When I think of Juneteenth, part of what I think about is the both/andedness of it,” Smith says, “that it is this moment in which we mourn the fact that freedom was kept from hundreds of thousands of enslaved people for years and for months after it had been attained by them, and then, at the same time, celebrating the end of one of the most egregious things that this country has ever done.” Smith says he recognizes the federal holiday marking Juneteenth as a symbol, “but it is clearly not enough.”

  • Democracy Now ☛ Rhiannon Giddens on Pulitzer-Winning Opera “Omar” About Enslaved Muslim Scholar Omar ibn Said

    As part of our Juneteenth special broadcast, we feature our interview with pioneering musical artist Rhiannon Giddens, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her opera Omar, about Omar ibn Said, a Muslim scholar in Africa who was sold into slavery in the 1800s.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Software Patents

    • "‘Bullshit in is bullshit out’: practitioners urge EPO quality drive"

      The Industry Patent Quality Charter hosted a conference in which it discussed the importance of granting high-quality patents

      Practitioners from in-house and academia, as well as a judge at the Unified Patent Court, outlined why high-quality patents are so important for legal certainty amid some concern that the EPO is prioritising grant rates and productivity over quality. Speakers from Siemens, Ericsson, Syngenta, and a judge at the Munich division of the UPC formed part of a conference held in Germany, and broadcast online, by the Industry Patent Quality Charter (IPQC).

      The IPQC is a group of patent owners that has warned that the EPO doesn’t spend enough time on the examination of patents and is too quick to grant as a matter of course. Beat Weibel, head of IP at Siemens and founder of the IPQC, noted that grant rates have continued to rise at the EPO in recent years.

      The overall grant rate increased from 61% to more than 70% between 2015 and 2021, he pointed out. For context, the revocation rate at the Boards of Appeal rose from 41% to 46% in the same period.

      Weibel pointed out that the EPO has also failed to retain some staff, including examiners, as filings have grown, adding: “Maintaining good quality needs time.”

• Trademarks

  • Reason ☛ FUCKSHITUP Can't Be Trademarked

    Not because it's "scandalous" or "immoral," since the Supreme Court struck down that trademark restriction on First Amendment grounds in Iancu v. Brunetti (2019); rather, because it is so "commonplace" that people would just view it as the common phrase instead of an indicator of who is manufacturing the products (here, clothing).

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ New Samsung SSDs are allegedly right around the corner — 990 Evo Plus and 9100 Pro trademarks have surfaced

    Samsung trademarks the 990 Evo Plus and 9100 Pro with the Korea Intellectual Property Rights Information Service (KIPRIS).

• Copyrights

  • Public Domain Review ☛ American Grammar: Diagraming Sentences in the 19th Century

    A pre-history of the sentence diagrams that were once commonplace in the American classroom.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Verzuz Heads to Twitter/X Under Exclusive Distribution Deal — Timbaland and Swizz Beatz Retain Full Ownership and Creative Control

    Twitter/X is now the exclusive home of Verzuz, full ownership and creative control of which remain with Timbaland and Swizz Beatz.

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Personal/Opinions

    • Subjective time

      When I was a teenager I was translating a book and sometimes it was a li’l boring so I’d put on a record (Version 2.0 by Garbage) and it’d feel like the exact same time, doing my goal of four pages, subjectively, but looking at my watch, doing it with music on had taken double the time.

      Similarly, using the on screen tablet keyboard doesn’t feel that much slower than using a plugged-in keyboard; if I don’t time myself it feels like it takes around the same amount of time.

  • Technology and Free Software

    • Programming

      • Raking the script leaves

        It's kind of fun to analyze the output of bash's "history" command - alternatively, its $HOME/.bash_history file to ascertain what commands I use most.

        It's a bit of a pain to weed out native linux commands from my scripts in that, but I'm thinking of using that analysis to move rarely or seemingly not at all used scripts in $HOME/bin elsewhere as a bit of clutter reduction. Turns out I'm really good at becoming obsessed with a script idea, implementing it, using it a couple days, and then utterly forgetting about it. I kind of want those to be elsewhere than where the useful scripts reside.