Leftovers

• Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-06-27 [Older] Apps Aren’t a Magic Solution to Underdevelopment in Africa

• Matthew J Ernisse ☛ Thoughts on 4 Years of Thoughts

  Looking back at my microblog Thoughts as I completed some refactoring work this week has been interesting. I started the project at the beginning of this ongoing pandemic as a way to learn something new and get some hands on experience with some of the new "serverless" technologies that were emerging at the time. Over the four years since I've added a number of features, including threading, link previews, Open Graph previews, and tags. I added a posting interface to share links and to share photos. I also added a weekly digest.

• Robert Birming ☛ Why so serious?

  I recently did work in the Swedish archipelago. So beautiful! On days like that, it's hard to believe you're at work.

• Marty Day ☛ blast-o-rama.

  You’d walk in to this cavernous room and wait for the movie to start. Sure, there maybe was a packed audience, but all was quiet. The only noise was the air conditioning kicking in. The lights were low, and the air was cold.

• Martin Hähne ☛ #100DaysToOffload Reflexions After Two Weeks Of Having Accepted My Ineffectiveness

  I had reasons to maybe reflect more inwardly for a moment, which is why I didn’t write for a couple of weeks or so. Things at work didn’t go so well, which was mostly because of me being told I was slow (and having been shown incontrovertible evidence proving this) and having to learn and having to un-learn and to accept a new truth about myself: That I am being slow and me being good (as good as I am which is good but not evenly good and certainly not fast) at my work was and is mostly a result of being slow and willing to make up for it by working longer. Which is not a mode of working that is economical and that pays the bills.

• Terence Eden ☛ An end to daily blogging

  So, this is the 3,094th post that I've published on this site - and it is likely to be the last one for a little while. I'll still be writing when the mood strikes. And I'll still be wittering away on Mastodon.

• Hackaday ☛ Useless Robot Gets Cute, Has Personality

  Useless robots (or useless machines) are devices that, when switched on, exist only to turn themselves back off. They are fun and fairly simple builds that are easy to personify, and really invite customization by their creators. Even so, [tobychui]’s Kawaii Useless Robot goes above and beyond in that regard. Not only will his creation dutifully turn itself off, but if the user persists in engaging it, Kawaii Useless Robot grows progressively (and adorably) upset which ultimately culminates in scooting about and trying to run away.

• Hackaday ☛ Cavity Filters, The Black Art You Have A Chance Of Pursuing

  A tuned circuit formed by a capacitor and an inductor is a familiar enough circuit, and it’s understood that it will resonate at a particular frequency. As that frequency increases, so the size of the capacitor and inductor decrease, and there comes a point at which they can become the characteristic capacitance and inductance of a transmission line. These tuned circuits can be placed in an enclosure, at which they can be designed for an extremely high Q factor, a measure of quality, and thus a very narrow resonant point. They are frequently used as filters for that reason, and [Fesz] is here with a video explaining some of their operation and configurations.

• Science

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-27 [Older] Asteroids and comets: What's the difference?

• Education

  • The Nation ☛ Donald Trump’s Secret Weapon to Dismantle American Education

    Trump plans to shutter the Department of Education, restore prayer in schools, create an American Academy that awards low-cost degrees to students paid for by levying financial penalties against institutions that do not yield to his ideological standards, revitalize school choice, limit discussion of LGBTQ+ content in classrooms, and much more. These proposals are almost identical to Project 2025: a 920-page playbook chock-full of right-wing policy priorities for the next Trump administration. The Heritage Foundation, the organization that authored Project 2025, declined to make any of its scholars available for comment.

  • Lou Plummer ☛ People, Ugh, What Can You Do | Living Out Loud

    Lately I've been frustrated a bit as we've been making some changes to SOPs that haven't been communicated that well internally or to our customers. And same old story for me, we hired a guy who is younger than my own children and he challenges my patience in a variety of ways until last week I reached the "I'm not getting paid enough to put up with this BS" stage. In talking it through with Wonder Woman, I was inclined to take ownership of the issue and just try and come to terms with the guy's ways, but she encouraged me to address some of the egregious stuff with the boss to try and dampen the organizational impact of his shortcomings. So, I wrote a detailed letter and laid it all out there.

• Hardware

  • New York Times ☛ Japan Finally Phases Out Floppy Disks

    But not in Japan. While renowned for its consumer electronics giants, robots and some of the world’s fastest broadband networks, the country has also been wedded to floppy disks and other old technologies like fax machines and cash.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Strategist ☛ Australia needs a food-security strategy

    A nation that can’t feed itself can’t defend itself. Yet policymakers fail to grasp that food security doesn’t just happen.

  • New York Times ☛ Justice Department Opens Criminal Investigation in Chinese Doping Case

    The move escalates a fight with China and world antidoping officials, and will cast a shadow over the Paris Olympics.

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-06-22 [Older] European-Funded Initiative Aims at Creating African Vaccine Market [Ed: More about patents, not self-sufficiency]

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Should we be concerned about a summer COVID surge? All about new FLiRT variants

    The good news is that COVID hospitalizations are still well below levels from last winter. The severity of infections also seems to be lower than it was earlier in the pandemic, according to Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at University of East Anglia in the UK. However, Hunter stressed that these patterns of COVID surges are now part of normal life given that "SARS-CoV-2 will likely be with us for generations. Rising and falling numbers will be part of our future for our lifetimes at least," he said.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Six Colors ☛ I’ll have my AI email your AI

    There’s a joke in one of my favorite movies, “Real Genius,” which feels directly applicable to a lot of AI discussions we’re having today. (It’s an ’80s movie, so it’s not a scene—it’s a montage, set to “I’m Falling” by The Comsat Angels.)

    In it, our protagonist Mitch attends a normal math lecture, but over the course of the montage most of the class is replaced by tape recorders of various sizes.1 In the final shot, Mitch enters the lecture hall to discover that a large reel-to-reel tape player has replaced the professor himself. It’s just one tape recording being played into all the other tape recorders.

  • The Korea Times ☛ High schooler in Busan creates, sells obscene deepfake videos of female classmates - The Korea Times

    A used AI’s deep learning technology to superimpose the faces of female students from his school and nearby schools onto pornographic videos. This is known as deepfake content creation.

    He sold these deepfake videos to an unspecified number of people through social media networks. He even disguised the videos to make it appear as though the female students in the videos were selling the videos themselves.

  • Futurism ☛ Google Researchers Publish Paper About How AI Is Ruining the Internet

    "Manipulation of human likeness and falsification of evidence underlie the most prevalent tactics in real-world cases of misuse," the researchers conclude. "Most of these were deployed with a discernible intent to influence public opinion, enable scam or fraudulent activities, or to generate profit."

    Compounding the problem is that generative AI systems are increasingly advanced and readily available — "requiring minimal technical expertise," according to the researchers, and this situation is twisting people's "collective understanding of socio-political reality or scientific consensus."

    Missing from the paper, as far as we can tell? Any reference to Google's own embarrassing blunders using the tech — which, as one of the biggest companies on Earth, have sometimes been enormous in scale.

  • Trail of Bits ☛ Auditing the Ask Astro LLM Q&A app

    Specifically, we found four issues in Ask Astro, a retrieval augmented generation (RAG) open-source chatbot application modeled after Venture Capital firm A16Z’s reference architecture for RAG applications. RAG is one of the most effective techniques for enhancing a large language model (LLM) with information not contained in its training data set using a context knowledge base.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ How the Rise of the Camera Launched a Fight to Protect Gilded Age Americans' Privacy

      Duffy’s lies were numerous. Peck (misleadingly identified as “Mrs. A. Schuman”) was not a nurse, and she had not spent years constantly slinging back malt beverages. In fact, she fully abstained from alcohol. Peck never consented to the ad.

      The camera’s first great age—which began in 1888 when George Eastman debuted the Kodak—is full of stories like this one. Beyond the wonders of a quickly developing art form and technology lay widespread lack of control over one’s own image, perverse incentives to make a quick buck, and generalized fear at the prospect of humiliation and the invasion of privacy.

    • The Local ES ☛ EXPLAINED: Spain's new monthly pass to access porn websites

      Essentially it will be able to verify the user's age and issue a credential, which will be valid for 30 days. This will prevent anyone under the age of 18 from accessing a porn site.

      Users must request authorisation through the Beta Digital Wallet application, which will be downloadable onto a mobile phone.

      The person must then identify themselves using an electronic DNI, digital certificate or Cl@ve.

    • [Repeat] JURIST ☛ Photos of Australian children used illicitly to train AI tools, HRW reports

      According to the report, these pictures are obtained from the web without the children’s or their families’ knowledge or consent and compiled in a data set that companies use to train their AI tools. HRW, an international NGO, has previously reported on similar findings and expressed concerns about such AI tools being used to manipulate children’s likenesses to produce harmful deepfakes.

    • HRW ☛ Australia: Children’s Personal Photos Misused to Power AI Tools

      Analysis by Human Rights Watch found that LAION-5B, a data set used to train popular AI tools and built by scraping most of the [Internet], contains links to identifiable photos of Australian children. Some children’s names are listed in the accompanying caption or the URL where the image is stored. In many cases, their identities are easily traceable, including information on when and where the child was at the time their photo was taken.

    • The Guardian UK ☛ FarmVille at 15: how a cutesy Facebook game shaped the modern [Internet]

      “The dirty little secret of Zynga is, of the five corporate values, none is more important than metrics,” Zynga co-founder Andrew Trader said in a speech at the University of Pennsylvania. Former Zynga vice president of growth, analytics and platform technologies Ken Rudin went one further when he was quoted in 2010: “[Zynga is] an analytics company masquerading as a games company.”

    • India Times ☛ Spanish prosecutors investigate Meta over data use for AI

      Spanish prosecutors said Thursday that they were investigating Facebook owner Meta over suspicions it breached data-protection laws by using users' data to train its AI programme.

      Meta had already said last month it was suspending the use of such data for training its generative artificial intelligence service in the European Union, following complaints in 11 countries.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-06-23 [Older] Trump’s Second Term: A Boon for China’s Dominance in Africa?

  • New Yorker ☛ 2024-06-21 [Older] South Africa Mirrors the American West in “Dark Noon”

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-06-25 [Older] Expanding Extremist Groups in Africa Fuel Worries That They Could Attack the US or Western Allies

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-06-25 [Older] With Niger Exit, US Intelligence Dims on Growing West Africa Insurgencies

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-06-24 [Older] The ICC’s Dilemma: Balancing Justice and Perceived Bias in Africa

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-06-27 [Older] Maputo Protocol: Reflection as a Legal Framework for International Cooperation in the African Union

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-06-27 [Older] Somalia and Somaliland: A Complex Relationship in the Horn of Africa

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-06-27 [Older] Don’t blame the defence minister for SA deaths in DR Congo – expert

  • Defence Web ☛ 2024-06-27 [Older] Does the civilian armoured vehicle industry in South Africa have any regulation?

  • RFERL ☛ European Officials Say Orban 'Exploiting EU Presidency' By Visiting Putin For Ukraine Talks

    "If you truly seek peace, you don't shake hands with a bloody dictator, you put all your efforts to support Ukraine," Nauseda wrote on X.

    The White House joined in on the criticism, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying the visit "will not advance the cause of peace and is counterproductive to promoting Ukraine's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence.”

  • Axios ☛ Trump disavows Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, despite MAGA ties

    Reality check: A plethora of former Trump administration officials have worked on and endorsed Project 2025.

  • The Nation ☛ Why Aren’t We Talking About Trump’s Fascism?

    Donald Trump’s authoritarianism, which culminated in his refusal in 2021 to accede to the peaceful transfer of power and his incitement of a mob that attacked Congress, is well known. It has not receded in time but has only gotten worse. On Monday, The New York Times carried a story with this shocking headline: “Trump Amplifies Calls to Jail Top Elected Officials, Invokes Military Tribunals.”

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Trump denies knowing about Project 2025, allies' plan to overhaul government

    Donald Trump says he knows “nothing about Project 2025,” a massive plan to overhaul the federal government drafted by longtime allies and former officials in his administration, days after the head of the think tank responsible for the program suggested there would be a second American Revolution.

  • Deseret Media ☛ Trump disavows Project 2025 plan after key official calls for new American Revolution

    "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be," Roberts said.

    Those comments were widely circulated online and blasted by the Biden campaign, which issued a statement saying Trump and his allies were "dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America."

  • Wyrl ☛ (the software crisis)

    The solution to the software crisis will not be a reversion to more constrained platforms, but a constraint on the number of layers of abstraction we are allowed to apply, as well as the requirement of information preservation between these layers. We must narrow the (semantic gap) so that everyone may scale it.

    Programming models, user interfaces, and foundational hardware can, and must, be shallow and composable. We must, as a profession, give agency to the users of the tools we produce. Relying on towering, monolithic structures sprayed with endless coats of paint cannot last. We cannot move or reconfigure them without tearing them down.

    There have been movements to bring awareness to the software crisis, such as (Handmade), (Permacomputing), and various retro-computing circles. We're starting to realize just how deep in this crisis we are. Counterculture movements are health signals, and a fever is brewing.

  • India Times ☛ AI begins ushering in an age of killer robots

    The latest iterations of technology enabling drones and other machines to operate autonomously owe their advancements to deep learning, an AI method utilising extensive data for pattern recognition and decision making. Although these systems aren't costly military-grade equivalents from the US, China, and Russia, their affordability, priced at just thousands of pounds or less, and widespread accessibility mark a significant development.

  • Mother Jones ☛ Why Facebook Won’t Stop Pushing Propaganda – Mother Jones

    There’s a direct connection between Jones’ ordeal, last November’s election, the January 6 insurrection, and the attacks on American democracy that have played out every day since then. That connection is Facebook, specifically, it’s the toxic feedback loop by which the platform amplifies falsehoods and misinformation. That loop won’t end with the belated bans on Donald Trump and others, because the fundamental problem is not that there are people who post violent, racist, antidemocratic, and conspiratorial material. It’s that Facebook and other social platforms actively push that content into the feeds of tens of millions of people, making lies viral while truth languishes.

    The technical term for this is algorithmic amplification, and it means just that: What you see on Facebook has been amplified, and pushed into your feed, by the company’s proprietary algorithm. When you (or Mother Jones, or Trump) create a post, it’s visible to no one except those who deliberately seek out your page. But within instants, the algorithm analyzes your post, factoring in who you and your connections are, what you’ve looked at or shared before, and myriad other data points. Then it decides whether to show that post in someone else’s News Feed, the primary page you see when you log on. Think of it as a speed-reading robot that curates everything you see.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Pakistan to ban all social media platforms for 6 days during Muharram

    After successfully blocking X, formerly Twitter, for over four months, the Pakistan government is now set to ban all social media platforms -- YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok -- for six days from July 13 to 18, citing the need to control "hate material" during the Islamic month of Ramadan.

  • Matt Birchler ☛ The blight on our nation should drop out

    Donald Trump lies, he’s a convicted felon, and he’s full of hatred towards anyone not completely loyal to him. He encourages our worst instincts and wants to divide us. And I can’t believe we need to remind anyone of this, but he literally tried to overturn a fair democratic election. He was a blight on our country for 4 years, and we can’t let him get 4 more.

  • India Times ☛ Pakistan to ban all social media platforms for 6 days to control 'hate material' during Ramadan

    Pakistan government plans to ban all social media platforms, including YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, for six days during Ramadan to control 'hate material'. The decision was made by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz's cabinet committee on law and order in Punjab. Army Chief and Deputy Prime Minister support the move.

  • Defence Web ☛ POPCRU hoping for better resourced police and efforts to tackle policing killing from new minister

    The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) has called on the newly appointed police minister Senzo Mchunu to improve working conditions for police – including reducing the number of police killings – and increase the number of serving police officers in line with United Nations standards.

  • France24 ☛ Israel's Netanyahu should leave 'immediately', former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon says

    FRANCE 24 spoke to Ami Ayalon, who was the head of Israel's internal security agency, the Shin Bet, from 1996 to 2000. "As long as he (Binyamin Netanyahu) is prime minister, we shall not have peace [and] security," Ayalon said. The former spy chief said he believes "most of the people who voted for him (Netanyahu) want him to leave his position" and that "he should do it immediately". Ayalon, who is also a former commander-in-chief of the Israeli navy, called for an end to the war in Gaza, saying that there was no military solution possible. He added that everything should be done in order to avoid a second front in Lebanon. He warned: "Unless we shall use diplomacy and political process, we shall not achieve victory [in Gaza]".

  • JURIST ☛ Ethiopia must be held accountable for war crimes against medical workers and patients: Human Rights Watch

    Ethiopian security forces have committed war crimes through their attacks on healthcare providers in Ethiopia’s Amahara Conflict, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Wednesday.

  • RFA ☛ Philippine military chief demands China pay US$1 million in damages for clash

    China Coast Guard damaged Philippine boats and seized firearms in a June 17 encounter near Second Thomas Shoal.

  • RFA ☛ Did a Chinese documentary prove China’s sovereignty over the South China Sea?

    It presents China’s claim to the region but is criticized for potentially misrepresenting key dispute aspects.

  • RFA ☛ Chinese warships rotate at Cambodia’s Ream naval base

    Ships are likely on rotational deployment at Ream to avoid contravening Cambodia’s constitution, analysts say.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China rejects key Western calls for human-rights reforms at UN meeting

    China has accepted nearly 70 per cent of more than 400 reform recommendations it received as part of a UN review.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Man who stabbed South Korea opposition leader jailed for 15 years, reports Yonhap

    A judge said the crime which took place ahead of a general election was an attempt to destroy representative democracy.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-25 [Older] Lithuanian conscription: fortifying NATO's flank?

    • Latvia ☛ Latvia currently in NATO's top four on defense spending

      The United States, Poland, Estonia and Latvia currently lead the way in NATO when it comes to defense spending as a proportion of GDP, according to recent research conducted by the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS), a think-tank in Tallinn, Estonia.

    • Insight Hungary ☛ Orban to visit Putin in Moscow

      Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday. The trip was first reported by investigative reporter Szabolcs Panyi on X and was later confirmed by FT, RFE, and The Guardian.

      This visit marks the first time the two leaders will meet in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. Orbán, who has maintained a tight relationship with Moscow compared to other EU leaders, previously visited Russia in 2022 without meeting Putin.

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Long live the test ban’: In the twilight of the Soviet Union, ordinary people across Kazakhstan united against nuclear testing. Now a new generation of activists is picking up the mantle. — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ’Not always timely’: Russian military doctors say injured soldiers who could be saved are dying on the battlefield in Ukraine — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ 120,000 dead and counting: A new estimate from Meduza and Mediazona shows the rate of Russian military deaths in Ukraine is only growing — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘The language of ultimatums’: The Kremlin’s latest media guidelines for propagandists cover Putin’s ‘peace plan’ and the ‘multipolar world’ — Meduza

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • American Oversight ☛ 2024-06-26 [Older] Inside the Virginia Education Department’s Review of African American History Course

• Environment

  • New York Times ☛ Hurricane Beryl Roars Through the Caribbean: Photos and Video

    A look at the destruction caused by Hurricane Beryl as it lashes its way across the region.

  • TruthOut ☛ Analysis: Climate Crisis Made Heat Wave Hitting Western US 5 Times More Likely

    According to ABC News, around 170 million Americans will be affected by excessive heat throughout the country, including in parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, Washington and Oregon. Portions of the South and the Mid-Atlantic states are also set to see “dangerous” levels of heat.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • H2 View ☛ Australian green hydrogen tax incentives head to Parliament for debate

      The Australian Government’s AUD $22.7bn ($15.2bn) legislative answer to the US’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), containing AUD $6.7bn ($4.5bn) of green hydrogen tax incentives, has been introduced to the nation’s Parliament.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-23 [Older] Rio-bound Boeing 777 returns to Amsterdam over tech issue

    • The Straits Times ☛ China's BYD opens EV factory in Thailand, first in South-east Asia

      Thailand is a regional auto assembly and export hub.

    • The Straits Times ☛ More tour bus drivers in Malaysia found without licences, positive for drugs

      Bus operators must have a qualified driver, or the bus will not be allowed to be driven.

    • Molly White ☛ Issue 61 – Soft war by the enemy

      I’m putting the finishing touches on that cryptocurrency industry election spending project that’s been keeping me so busy lately! Keep an eye out next week for that announcement.

    • Michigan News ☛ Kalamazoo County buys solar field to power its buildings - mlive.com

      Kalamazoo County is the new owner of a solar field.

    • Omicron Limited ☛ A prototype superconducting coil opens the way for more energy-efficient electromagnets

      A team has recently successfully tested a demonstrator magnet coil that will significantly reduce the power consumption of certain experiments. The coil is made of magnesium diboride (MgB2) superconducting cables, which are used in the high-intensity electrical transfer line that will power the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), the successor to the LHC. It is mounted in a low-carbon steel magnetic yoke that holds and concentrates the field lines, in a so-called superferric configuration.

    • The Conversation ☛ Fusion power could transform how we get our energy — and worsen problems it’s intended to solve

      The accelerating pace of fusion energy increases the risk of overlooking these potential hazards along the way. However, I would say this is not a case where we need to apply moral brakes, but rather shift gear. Approaching these potential ethical tensions requires systematic thought throughout the development process, from thinking about the implications of design decisions and materials choices, through to equitable deployment strategies and knowledge sharing.

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ EU hits Chinese electric cars hit with tariffs up to 38%

      “Our investigation… concluded that the battery electric vehicles produced in China benefit from unfair subsidisation, which is causing a threat of economic injury to the EU’s own electric car makers,” the EU’s trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis said.

      In response, the commission imposed provisional duties on major Chinese manufacturers including 17.4 percent for market major BYD, 19.9 percent for Geely and 37.6 percent for SAIC.

      Other producers in China that cooperated with Brussels will face a tariff of 20.8 percent, while those that did not would be subject to the maximum 37.6 percent duty.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ EU slaps tariffs of up to 38% on Chinese electric vehicles

      As of Friday, the new provisional tariffs will be added to the existing 10% import duties. A final decision on the tariffs is set for November as Brussels and Beijing aim to resolve the conflict through negotiations.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-06-26 [Older] Scientists Inject Radioactive Material Into Live Rhino Horns Making Them Poisonous to Humans

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-24 [Older] Why some African countries support trophy hunting

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-26 [Older] South Africa: Will radioactive chips stop wildlife poaching?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-25 [Older] Is the EU prepared for rising wildfire threats?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-23 [Older] Switzerland: Floods cause deadly landslide

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-23 [Older] Switzerland: Rescuers search for 3 missing after flooding

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-23 [Older] Wolf attack in French zoo leaves woman seriously injured

  • Overpopulation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-25 [Older] Germany finds population less than previously thought

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Evidence shows ancient Saudi Arabia had complex and thriving communities, not struggling people in a barren land

      Now, an Australian-led team has released new research in the journal Levant on monumental buildings we call "standing stone circles." The findings are helping to rewrite what we know about the people who lived on this land between 6,500 and 8,000 years ago.

      Our evidence reveals what they ate, what tools they used and even the jewelry they wore. It leads us to think these people weren't struggling so much after all, but rather had found complex and strategic ways to thrive on the land for millennia.

• Finance

  • Hackaday ☛ Shapeways Files For Bankruptcy

    One of the earliest hobbyist-friendly on-demand 3D printing and fabrication shops, Shapeways, is filing for bankruptcy. As these financial arrangements always go, this may or may not mean the end of the service, but it’s a sure sign that their business wasn’t running as well as you’d hope.

  • RFA ☛ China's jobless struggle amid economic slump

    The accounts of hardship are in stark contrast to the rosy rhetoric around the Communist Party's 3rd plenum.

  • European Commission ☛ Commission imposes provisional countervailing duties on imports of battery electric vehicles from China while discussions with China continue

    European Commission Press release Brussels, 04 Jul 2024 Today, nine months after the initiation of an ex officio anti-subsidy investigation, the European Commission has imposed provisional countervailing duties on imports of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) from China.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-25 [Older] WEF in China: Global economy in a slump

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Advancing AI safety requires international collaboration. Here’s what should happen next.

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) is advancing. So, too, is international collaboration to ensure that advances are made in a safe and responsible way. In May, ten countries and the European Union (EU) met in South Korea and signed the “Seoul Statement of Intent toward International Cooperation on AI Safety Science,” which establishes an international network of AI safety institutes. This agreement builds on measures that several of its signatories have taken on AI safety since the Bletchley Park summit in November 2023. Since November, for example, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, and Singapore have established AI safety institutes, and the EU has set up an AI office with a unit dedicated to safety.

  • CBC ☛ Waterloo software firm OpenText cuts 1,200 jobs as part of business optimization plan

    The move will be combined with plans to create 800 new roles in sales, professional services and engineering and comes as the company is ushering in a new chapter.

  • RFA ☛ North Korea recalls overseas students for ‘political indoctrination’

    The sessions are seen as part of a broader effort to tighten control over the younger generation.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Iranians vote in run-off presidential election amid widespread apathy

    DUBAI - Iranians will vote in a run-off presidential election on Friday amid voter apathy and heightened regional tensions.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-23 [Older] New Buddhist temple opens in Berlin

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-23 [Older] New Caledonia independence activist to be detained in France

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-23 [Older] Germany's Scholz urges Argentina's Milei to focus on harmony

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-23 [Older] Habeck says EU tariffs on Chinese cars not a 'punishment'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-23 [Older] Habeck: To survive, Europe must unite on foreign and trade policy

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • VOA News ☛ Russian military targets African countries with ‘US bioweapons’ fake

      Russia falsely describes four Ukrainian regions it illegally occupies as “liberated.”

      Russian embassies worldwide amplified Kirillov's allegations sharing the conspiracy theory on social media platforms, including X.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Press Gazette ☛ Bankers allowed to sue Dow Jones under GDPR over ‘missing $1bn’ article

    Publisher argued data protection complaint was brought to avoid rules applying to defamation claims.

  • JURIST ☛ Australia human rights centre reports ability to protest 'eroded' by increasing anti-protest legislation

    According to the report, New South Wales (NSW) has enacted the highest number of anti-protest laws over the period, the most recent instance being the Roads and Crimes Legislation Amendment Act 2022, which inserted section 214A into the Crimes Act 1900 criminalising damage or disruption to a major facility. Previous legislation covered disruption on major bridges or tunnels. In contrast, the amended legislation has a significantly broader operation – having the practical effect of criminalising all protests without authorisation on major roads, train stations, ports and public and private infrastructure. The offence also carries a potential $22,000 (AUD) fine or a maximum two-year prison sentence.

  • RFA ☛ Prominent Chinese dissident Xu Zhiyong cut off from other inmates

    Prominent Chinese dissident Xu Zhiyong is being held separately from fellow prisoners under a number rather than his name, and subjected to round-the-clock monitoring by his cell-mates, according to U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao.

  • RFERL ☛ Iran Sentences Labor Activist To Death Amid Rights Groups' Outcry

    The Defense Campaign called the court verdict against her "medieval and criminal."

    “Many believe that this ridiculous and baseless verdict was issued solely to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among Gilan [Province] activists,” the group said.

  • Hengaw Organization for Human Rights Hengaw Organization for Human Rights ☛ Rasht: Labor activist, Sharifeh Mohammadi, sentenced to death for “rebellion”

    According to a previous report by Hengaw, Sharifeh Mohammadi, a Gilak woman from Rasht, endured mental and physical torture at the hands of Iranian Intelligence interrogators in Sanandaj, who sought to extract a forced confession from her.

  • India Times ☛ EU asks Amazon for more info on Digital Services Act compliance

    The DST requires Big Tech players to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content on their platforms.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ Channel 4 News ‘integrity underscored’ by Ofcom decision not to investigate Reform UK actor claim

    Farage is also in disputes with the BillBC and the Mail on Sunday.

  • VOA News ☛ Former reporter gets $235,000, part of lawsuit over police raid on newspaper

    A former reporter for a weekly Kansas newspaper has agreed to accept $235,000 to settle part of her federal lawsuit over a police raid on the paper that made a small community the focus of a national debate over press freedoms.

    The settlement removed the former police chief in Marion from the lawsuit filed by former Marion County Record reporter Deb Gruver, but it doesn't apply to two other officials she sued over the raid: the Marion County sheriff and the county's prosecutor. Gruver's lawsuit is among five federal lawsuits filed over the raid against the city, the county and eight current or former elected officials or law enforcement officers.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-25 [Older] Nepal convicts 'Buddha Boy' of child sexual abuse

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-25 [Older] Protests in Kenya: Gen Z takes to the streets

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-06-25 [Older] Germany: Annual discrimination report logs 22% rise in cases

  • Democracy Now ☛ “Better Living Through Birding”: Christian Cooper on Birding While Black & the Central Park Incident

    We continue our July 5 special broadcast by revisiting our recent conversation with Christian Cooper, author of Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World and host of the Emmy Award-winning show Extraordinary Birder. We spoke with Cooper after New York City’s chapter of the Audubon Society officially changed its name to the New York City Bird Alliance as part of an effort to distance itself from its former namesake John James Audubon, the so-called founding father of American birding. The 19th century naturalist enslaved at least nine people and espoused racist views. Christian Cooper is a Black birder and a longtime board member of the newly minted New York City Bird Alliance. In 2020, he made headlines after a white woman in Central Park called 911 and falsely claimed Cooper was threatening her life. Cooper also shares stories of his life and career, including his longtime LGBTQ activism and how his father’s work as a science educator inspired his lifetime passion for birdwatching.

  • El País ☛ $186,000 a year: What Americans feel they need to earn to live comfortably

    This is the conclusion reached by Bankrate’s personal finance specialists after they conducted their annual Financial Freedom Survey to understand what households feel they need, not to live in opulence, but just to feel comfortable and financially secure. This is an average amount—Latinos leave it at $173,000—that is far from the $79,000 a year that the average full-time worker earns annually, according to Census Bureau figures. To feel actually rich, the figure rises to $520,000.

  • The Scotsman ☛ Shocking levels of social media abuse of women will only end if we all take action

    Perhaps you’re thinking, “don’t go on social media then”. This is neither acceptable nor realistic. For public figures, social media presence is often essential. The issue is not the online presence of victims – it’s the abuse that’s problematic. Suggesting that victims should extricate themselves entirely is a subtle form of victim-blaming.

  • VOA News ☛ Rights groups: Iran sentences woman labor activist to death

    Sharifeh Mohammadi, initially arrested in December in Rasht, Iran, was convicted of the capital crime of rebellion and sentenced to death, said the Norway-based Hengaw and U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

    She is accused of being a member of the Kurdish separatist Komala party, which is banned in Iran. Hengaw said she endured "physical and mental torture" by intelligence agents while in custody.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • The Register UK ☛ Kindle e-readers couldn't download content for around a day

    User complaints emerged on July 3, and reports suggest Amazon responded with a suggestion that it could be 48 hours before downloads resumed.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• PC Mag ☛ To Extort Ticketmaster, Hackers Allegedly Leak Taylor Swift Concert Tickets

  But in a statement, Ticketmaster said no customers are at risk of losing their tickets. “Ticketmaster’s SafeTix technology protects tickets by automatically refreshing a new and unique barcode every few seconds so it cannot be stolen or copied. This is just one of many fraud protections we implement to keep tickets safe and secure,” the company tells PCMag.

• Wired ☛ Epic Games Lashes Out at Apple Over App Store Rejection

  This decision follows Epic’s attempt to submit an iOS version of the Epic Games Store last week, a move that would make it possible for iPhone and iPad users to download games onto their device without visiting Apple’s App Store.

• NPR ☛ Amazon is 30. Here's how a book store gobbled up all of e-commerce

  Alina Selyukh: Bezos was an investment banker on Wall Street, and he really wanted to get in on the dot-com boom. Picture a guy with wispy hair, wearing khakis, driving a Honda. He was a very frugal guy, but he was very intense and focused. His other idea for the company name was actually relentless.com – if you type in relentless.com, that still sends you to Amazon.com.

  Bezos wanted to build the everything store, and he did it.

  Mambo: It's worth reminding people — Amazon got its start selling only books.

  Selyukh: Yes. He started with books because they were relatively cheap, they don't spoil … pretty sturdy to ship. And there are just millions of them, so you could sell very many titles.

• Patents

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • JUVE ☛ Abbott, August Debouzy and Taylor Wessing win in first Paris infringement ruling [Ed: UPC is an illegal and unconstitutional court, a kangaroo court whose very existence still needed to be deferred upwards]

      A day earlier than expected, the Paris local division has issued its first judgment on the merits in the dispute between Dexcom and Abbott over glucose-monitoring devices.

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • India Times ☛ AI is bringing back Hollywood voices from the past, but with consent

      This comes as the advent of generative AI makes it easier to regenerate images, text and sound without needing the consent of those involved in the original product. The creative industry, especially in the US, has vocally questioned the ethical use of this viral technology.

    • India Times ☛ YouTube makes it easier to take down AI deepfakes

      One can now submit a request to YouTube to take down deepfakes through the privacy request process. However, the company will verify whether the content is a parody or satire. Not only that, the video uploading platform will check whether the person requesting to take down the content is a real human or a bot. In the past, one could only report these impersonations as being misleading.

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Music Piracy Site Shuts Down After Cloudflare Subpoena Push

    The major label’s Japan division and one of the video game company’s music units urged a California federal court to sign off on the subpoena requests late last month, after DMCA takedown notices forwarded to Cloudflare earlier in June seemingly failed to bring about the desired result.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Judge Says Nashville School Shooter's Writings Can't Be Released as Victims' Families Have Copyright

    Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea Myles found that The Covenant School children and parents hold the copyright to any writings or other works created by shooter Audrey Hale, a former student who was killed by police. As part of the effort to keep the records closed, Hale’s parents transferred ownership of Hale’s property to the victims' families, who then argued in court that they should be allowed to determine who has access to them.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Sony's Ancient Lawsuit vs. Cheat Device Heads in Right Direction - Sony's Defeat

    After more than a decade of litigation in Germany, last year key questions in Sony's lawsuit against cheat device maker Datel were referred to Europe's highest court. If the Court of Justice's judgment ultimately favors Sony, the implications are likely to reach far beyond a device designed to interact with a game console discontinued a decade ago. For the greater good, it's a case that Sony must lose and for once in a copyright lawsuit, things are headed in the right direction.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Popular Pirate Site Animeflix Shuts Down 'Voluntarily'

    Popular anime pirate site Animeflix has shut down without prior warning. The site's operators don't mention a reason for the site's closure, but note that the decision comes after 'careful deliberation'. The site faced considerable legal pressure in recent months, which may have been a motivating factor.