Leftovers

• Reason ☛ Review: A South Korean Film Explores Nativism and Authoritarianism After a Disaster

  Concrete Utopia is a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked power under any circumstances.

• Tedium ☛ Best Foot Under

  My thoughts on using an elliptical machine under my desk for a couple of weeks. Can you exercise and type at the same time?

  I’ve read all the reports about how all this sitting we do in front of our computers is going to mess up our health, and … well, I get it. It’s not a particularly healthy thing to do, to just sit around all day.

  Which is why it’s often suggested that we get up from our computers and move around a bit. My strategy for this is to work a lot of walking into my coffee shop runs, as well as to do regular physical activities like mow the lawn.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Landmark Archaeological Study Conducted on International Space Station in Scientific First

    It won't be around much longer.

  • Science Alert ☛ Quantum Entanglement in Neurons May Actually Explain Consciousness

    Are you quantum?

  • Science Alert ☛ Fish-Killing Toxin Sets New Record in Just How Big a Protein Can Get

    They named it after a monster.

  • Hackaday ☛ The Waveguide Explanation You Wish You’d Had At School

    Anyone who has done an electronic engineering qualification will at some point have had to get to grips with transmission lines, and then if they are really lucky, waveguides. Perhaps there should be one of those immutable Laws stating that for each step in learning about these essential parts, the level of the maths you are expected to learn goes up in an exponential curve, for it’s certainly true that most of us breathe a hefty sigh of relief when that particular course ends. It’s not impossible to understand waveguides though, and [Old Hack EE] is here to slice through the formulae with some straightforward explanations.

  • Hackaday ☛ Laser Fault Injection On The Cheap

    One can only imagine the wonders held within the crypto labs of organizations like the CIA or NSA. Therein must be machines of such sophistication that no electronic device could resist their attempts to defeat whatever security is baked into their silicon. Machines such as these no doubt bear price tags that only a no-questions-asked budget could support, making their techniques firmly out of reach of even the most ambitious home gamer.

  • Steinar H Gunderson ☛ Steinar H. Gunderson: Performance confidence intervals

    I care about performance, and I care about benchmarking. So it really annoys me when people throw out stuff like “this is 0.3% faster so it's a win”, without saying anything about the uncertainty in their benchmark estimates.

• Hardware

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Intel postpones key chip event amid cost-cutting effort

    Intel Corp. has postponed a product event where executives usually introduce new chips on account of a cost-cutting initiative it launched earlier this month. The company announced the decision late Thursday.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Intel issues statement on microcode update that addresses CPU instability and crashing errors — claims patch has negligible performance impacts, future processors not impacted

    Intel says that its microcode 0x129 patch must be installed via a BIOS update. While this update will limit voltage requests to a maximum of 1.55 volts, defective chip maker Intel says it does not significantly impact performance, except for a few select tests.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ New 3D printer ink makes recyclable electric circuits without heat or light

    Researchers from the US and Korea have developed a new 3D printable ink that solidifies in salt water and is easily recyclable using just fresh water

  • Hackaday ☛ Custom Pneumatic Cylinders Lock This Monitor Arm In Place

    Few consumer-grade PCs are what you’d categorize as built to last. Most office-grade machines are as likely as not to give up the ghost after ingesting a few too many dust bunnies, and the average laptop can barely handle a few drops of latte and some muffin crumbs before croaking. Sticking a machine like that in the shop, especially a metal shop, is pretty much a death sentence.

  • Hackaday ☛ 500cc Of 4-Wheel Off-Road Fun

    Who among us hasn’t at some point thought of building a little vehicle, and better still, a little off-road vehicle for a few high-octane rough-terrain adventures. [Made in Poland] has, and there he is in a new video with a little off-road buggy.

  • Hackaday ☛ The First Fitbit: Engineering And Industrial Design Lessons

    It could happen to anyone of us: suddenly you got this inkling of an idea for a product that you think might just be pretty useful or even cool. Some of us then go on to develop a prototype and manage to get enough seed funding to begin the long and arduous journey to turn a sloppy prototype into a sleek, mass-produced product. This is basically the story of how the Fitbit came to be, with a pretty in-depth article by [Tekla S. Perry] in IEEE Spectrum covering the development process and the countless lessons learned along the way.

  • Hackaday ☛ The Luminiferous Theremin

    [Extreme Kits] asks the question: “What the hell is a luminiferous theremin?” We have to admit, we know what a thermin is, but that’s as far as we got. You’ve surely seen and heard a theremin, the musical instrument developed by Leon Theremin that makes swoopy music often associated with science fiction movies. The luminiferous variation is a similar instrument that uses modern time of flight sensors to pick up your hand positions.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Science Alert ☛ 8 Minutes on Fentanylware (TikTok) Is Enough to Harm Body Image in Young Women

    The harsh reality of social control media.

  • Off Guardian ☛ WATCH: Read A Book – #SolutionsWatch

    If you’re like the majority of the population in this post-literate age of Fentanylware (TikTok) videos and never-ending social control media feeds, you don’t read books anymore. But you should. Join James for this simple and to-the-point edition of #SolutionsWatch on the value of physical books.

  • Science Alert ☛ How Much Sex a Person Has Could Be Linked to Their Mortality Risk

  • Science Alert ☛ 'Mother of All Cannabinoids' Tested in First Human Clinical Trial

    Scientists are keen to keep investigating.

  • New York Times ☛ Making House Calls to Mongolia’s Herders

    Health workers travel great distances, sometimes on horseback, to provide basic services to the country’s semi-nomadic populations.

  • New York Times ☛ Childhood Vaccines Aren’t Just Saving Lives. They’re Saving Money.

    Over the past three decades, routine immunizations have prevented 1.1 million deaths and saved the United States $540 billion, the C.D.C. estimated.

  • New York Times ☛ FDA Declines to Approve MDMA Therapy, and Seeks Further Study

    The agency said there was insufficient data to allow the use of a treatment for PTSD that involves the drug known as Ecstasy, according to the company seeking approval.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Nurturing the vast web of nature

    It's taken centuries for humans to begin to understand the true complexities of the nature around us. Now that modern ecologists are treating forests as dynamic ecosystems, healthy restoration can flourish.

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ FDA rejects psychedelic MDMA as treatment for PTSD, calling for additional study

    By MATTHEW PERRONE WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health regulators on Friday declined to approve the psychedelic drug MDMA as a therapy for PTSD, a major setback for groups seeking a breakthrough decision in favor of using mind-altering substances to treat serious mental health conditions. Drugmaker Lykos Therapeutics said the FDA notified the company that its […]

  • RFA ☛ EXPLAINED: What’s the deal with dengue in Southeast Asia?

    The mosquito-borne illness has been a public health issue for decades and will remain a threat in years to come.

  • Reason ☛ Texas School Bans All-Black Clothing, Claims It's Associated With 'Mental Health Issues'

    In a letter sent to parents, school officials say the clothing is more "associated with depression and mental health issues and/or criminality than with happy and healthy kids ready to learn."

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Revealed a Healthier Way to Cook Broccoli – But There's a Catch

  • Pro Publica ☛ Why Opening Grocery Stores Alone Doesn’t Solve Food Deserts

    More than 100 people congregated in the parking lot of Rise Community Market on its opening day a little over a year ago. As they listened to celebratory speeches, the audience erupted into joyful exclamations: “Mercy!” “Wonderful!” “Wow!” “All right!” Colorful homemade signs raised by local leaders beckoned the crowd to join in: “We!” “Are!” “No!” “Longer!” “A!” “Food!” “Desert!”

    For most American cities, the opening of a new grocery store barely warrants a mention. But in Cairo, the government seat of Illinois’ poorest county and the fastest-shrinking one in America, business openings are rare. And for residents who for years had to travel long distances to buy food, it was a magical moment.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong warns of ‘further increase’ in local Covid-19 activity; high-risk groups urged to get vaccinated

    Covid-19 activity in Hong Kong is expected to see a “further increase,” local health authorities have warned. High-risk individuals – including pregnant women and healthcare workers – are urged to get vaccinated or receive a booster shot.

  • New York Times ☛ About 400 Million People Worldwide Have Had Long Covid, Researchers Say

    The condition has put significant strain on patients and society — at a global economic cost of about $1 trillion a year, a new report estimates.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Alleged Sexual Assault by a Doctor Is Not “Health Care,” Utah Supreme Court Says

    Sexual assault is not health care, and it isn’t covered by Utah’s medical malpractice law, the state’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday. The decision revives a lawsuit filed by 94 women who allege their OB-GYN sexually abused them during exams or while he delivered their babies.

    In 2022, the group of women sued Dr. David Broadbent and two hospitals where he had worked, wanting to seek civil damages. But a judge dismissed their case because he decided they had filed it incorrectly as a civil sexual assault claim rather than a medical malpractice case. The women had all been seeking health care, Judge Robert Lunnen wrote, and Broadbent was providing that when the alleged assaults happened.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Developers Halt Plans to Build Grain Facility on Old Louisiana Plantation

    A development company abruptly halted plans for a sprawling grain export facility in Louisiana this week after a three-year campaign led by members of a Black community who said it would have ripped through rural neighborhoods, old plantation tracts and important historic sites. At the start of a meeting on Tuesday, Greenfield LLC announced that it was “ceasing all plans” to construct the $400 million, milelong development in the middle of the town of Wallace in St. John the Baptist Parish.

    After a company spokesperson made the announcement in a small Wallace church, community members seated in the pews burst into jubilant cheers.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • New York Times ☛ Google’s Monopoly Money + Is the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble Popping? + The Hot-Mess Express

    “Maybe this actually is a chance to press the reset button on the internet.”

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Cisco could reportedly let go 4,000+ workers in new round of job cuts [Ed: Cisco-funded "publisher"]

    Cisco Systems Inc. is gearing up for a new round of layoffs that could hit more than 4,000 workers, Reuters reported today. The report comes six months after the networking giant let go a similar number of employees in a restructuring initiative.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ People-Search Site Removal Services Largely Ineffective

      Consumer Reports has a new study of people-search site removal services, concluding that they don’t really work:

      As a whole, people-search removal services are largely ineffective. Private information about each participant on the people-search sites decreased after using the people-search removal services. And, not surprisingly, the removal services did save time compared with manually opting out. But, without exception, information about each participant still appeared on some of the 13 people-search sites at the one-week, one-month, and four-month intervals. We initially found 332 instances of information about the 28 participants who would later be signed up for removal services (that does not include the four

• Defence/Aggression

  • RFA ☛ No sign of North Korean missile launchers arriving on southern border: Seoul

    The South’s military said they found no evidence to confirm whether North Korea’s launchers might be mock-ups.

  • New York Times ☛ B-Girl Raygun, an Australian Professor, Turned Breaking on Its Head

    Rachael Gunn, known as B-girl Raygun, displayed some … unique moves as she competed in a field with breakers half her age. The judges and the internet were underwhelmed.

  • New York Times ☛ Israel-Hamas War: White House Issues Rare Criticism of Israeli Minister Who Opposes Cease-Fire

    John F. Kirby, a national security spokesman, rebuked Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, in unusually harsh terms and accused him of being willing to sacrifice Israeli hostages.

  • RFERL ☛ Former Bodyguard Of Ex-President Detained In Kyrgyzstan

    Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security said on August 9 that Erkin Mambetaliev, a former bodyguard of ex-President Almazbek Atambaev was detained a day earlier on suspicion of being an active member of a criminal group.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Paris Olympics: Hong Kong security chief slams critics of fencing champion Vivian Kong

    Hong Kong’s security minister has slammed critics of Olympic fencing champion Vivian Kong, whose political stance came under public scrutiny after her alleged pro-establishment ties were widely reported.

  • France24 ☛ Third person arrested over plot to target Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna

    A third suspect has been taken into custody in connection with plans to attack Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna that were subsequently canceled over security concerns, Austria's interior minister said Friday. Officials said the 18-year-old suspect had pledged “allegiance” to the Islamic State group.

  • RFA ☛ Philippine, Vietnamese coast guards sail together to bolster nautical cooperation

    One global security analyst says engaging Beijing could be more effective in settling South China Sea disputes.

  • JURIST ☛ Speakers urge UN Security Council to include gender perspective in peacekeeping missions [Ed: Putting women at risk of being shot is not equality]

    Civil society representatives spoke to the UN Security Council on Wednesday, arguing that gender perspectives must be integrated into all components of peace missions.

  • The Strategist ☛ Job-sharing and flexibility: ideas for ADF recruitment

    The Australian Defence Force needs new approaches to recruitment and retention.

  • Reason ☛ Biden's DHS Halting Migrant Program Raises Border Security Concerns

    Suspending the parole program for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela could increase illegal entries and undermine border security.

  • JURIST ☛ UK Crown Prosecution Service announces 159 charged for public disorder

    The UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced on Friday in an X (formerly Twitter) post that it charged 159 people following public disorder in the country. This comes after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned that individuals involved in the public disorder may be rapidly processed through law courts.

• Environment

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea’s Kim Jong Un revisits flooded area, offers to bring people to capital: KCNA

    Thousands of homes were flooded due to heavy rainfall.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • New York Times ☛ China Battery Tech Reflects Research Boom and Big Spending

      Stressing science education, China is outpacing other countries in research fields like battery chemistry, crucial to its lead in electric vehicles.

    • Barry Kauler ☛ Solar panel frame for trike take-2

      About 10 months ago I constructed a frame for solar panels to go on top of the custom recumbent trike project:

      https://bkhome.org/news/202310/320e-solar-recumbent-trike-solar-panel-redesign.html

      ...yeah, I've been working on this trike project that long! Very experimental, so lots of dead-ends. Including the solar panel frame; that design was not very rigid. This time, I have used aluminium square tube, 25.4x25.4mm (1x1 inches), 1.2mm wall thickness. This has been braced with 30x30mm angle, 3mm thick and 50mm 3mm thick flat strap. Got all of this from Bunnings.

      Change of plan for the solar panel. The above post states that the allowed width in Western Australia is 660mm; however, in mid-2022 that got increased to 800mm. However, I am limiting to 740mm so as to fit through my front door and motel doors when touring. A local company here in Western Australia, Amptron, had a 24V 200W panel on sale -- I forget the exact price, about AU$230 I think, well below normal retail, so I bought one. That was about 5-6 months ago. Here it is: [...]

• Finance

  • New York Times ☛ Think You’ve Planned for Retirement? Beware the Tax Torpedo.

    The complicated way Social Security is taxed can catch middle-income earners by surprise.

  • New York Times ☛ Former Ex-Twitter Board Member Sues Elon Musk’s X For $20 Million in Pay

    After purchasing Twitter, Mr. Musk failed to cash out Omid Kordestani’s stock, according to allegations in a new lawsuit.

  • LRT ☛ Germany's Commerzbank has ‘serious’ intentions in Lithuania – minister

    The intentions of Commerzbank, one of the largest German banks, in Lithuania are “absolutely serious”, Economy and Innovation Minister Aušrinė Armonaitė has said.

  • Latvia ☛ Luminor reports EUR 60.5m profit in Q2 of 2024

    Luminor bank said in a release on August 8 that its profits for the second quarter of 2024 amounted to EUR 60.5 million, slightly lower than the same period last year.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Advertising coalition disbands after lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X

    The coalition of advertisers described by X Corp. owner Elon Musk as a “cabal” has shut down after X hit it with a lawsuit earlier this week.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong’s new national security gallery tells different story about unrest than Western media, foreign visitors say

    Foreign visitors to Hong Kong’s new national security exhibition have said it tells a different story about the events of 2019 compared to Western media by describing the pro-democracy protests and unrest as a “colour revolution.”

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Telegraph UK ☛ The Government’s sinister disinformation unit is threatening free speech again

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • RFERL ☛ Rights Watchdog Concerned About Pressure Faced By Stand-Up Comedians In Kazakhstan

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) has expressed concerns about the pressure faced by stand-up comedians over their performances in Kazakhstan.

  • JURIST ☛ Spain police fail to arrest former Catalonia leader under arrest warrant

    Police in Barcelona, Spain failed to arrest Catalonia’s former leader Carles Puigdemont on Thursday after Puigdemont appeared before a crowd at a separatist rally to deliver a speech. Puigdemont marched toward the Catalonian Parliament while surrounded by his supporters and vanished after the speech.

  • Reason ☛ California School Punishes First-Grader for a Drawing, Sparking Federal Lawsuit

    The First Amendment case about a first-grader’s free speech rights is headed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • New York Times ☛ Philippines Appeals Court Restores Rappler’s Business License

    The case, brought after Rappler was singled out by former President Rodrigo Duterte, was one of many facing the outlet and its co-founder, the Nobel laureate Maria Ressa.

  • Press Gazette ☛ BBC asks Huw Edwards to return salary paid after his arrest [Ed: BillBC: Savile, Bill Gates, now Huw Edwards. Of course Jeffrey Epstein does not decide who gets Nobel prizes. The only reason Gates was attracted to him was the sole stuff he really did offer. And that's also why Melinda divorced him.]

    The amount is estimated at around £200,000.

  • Press Gazette ☛ BBC journalist received ‘defamatory and highly personal attacks’ over ‘out of context’ riot clip

    The BillBC defended Phillip Norton, saying he "clearly attributed" the phrase "pro-British".

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Reason ☛ Comedian Hannibal Buress's False Arrest Lawsuit Can Go Forward

    "Roast[ing]" police officers may not generally be wise, but it is still generally constitutionally protected.

  • New York Times ☛ Surveillance Video Frees Brooklyn Man After 16 Years in Prison

    At his murder trial, Arvel Marshall pressed prosecutors to turn over surveillance footage of the crime scene. He knew it would show the truth.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Zimbabwe ☛ China launches satellites to take on Starlink, creates debris that poses Starlink a threat in the process

    As you know, Starlink may have beaten everyone to the punch but there are competitors in the low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite game.

  • APNIC ☛ Bytes from IETF 120 — a few routing topics

    BGP over QUIC, a BCP for publication servers, and AS Path protection at IETF 120.

  • Internet Society ☛ What is Indigenous Connectivity? And Why Should We All Care?

    We are committed to helping Indigenous communities around the world bridge the digital divide and connect to the Internet.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 for Empire IP entity EMM Innovations multimedia patent monopoly prior art

    Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on claim 1 of U.S. Patent 10,776,756, owned by EMM Innovations LLC, an NPE and entity of Empire IP LLC.. The ‘756 patent monopoly relates to assigning emotional selections to messages or multimedia objects on a network page. It has been asserted against Lark Technologies.

    The contest will expire on October 10, 2024. Please visit PATROLL for more information and to submit an entry for this contest.

  • Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 for Raymond Anthony Joao entity, Amadora Systems security patent monopoly prior art

    Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on claims 41 and 48 of U.S. Patent 11,922,429, owned by Amadora Systems LLC, an NPE and entity of Raymond Anthony Joao. The ‘429 patent monopoly relates relates to a transaction security apparatus that transmits a notification message to a communication device associated with an account holder of the account. The central processing computer provides for a retrieval, by the user or the operator via the display, of the information regarding the transaction and the photograph or the video clip of the individual involved in the transaction.

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ TTAB Finds LOTERIA Generic for Gaming Machines

    In a 40-page decision, the Board upheld a genericness refusal of LOTERIA [English translation, "Lottery"] for "Gaming machines, namely, slot machines and electronic gaming machines for playing games of chance." Alternatively, the Board affirmed a mere desctiptiveness refusal, finding that applicant could not demonstrate the exclusivity of use needed to support her Section 2(f) claim. In re Martha Maria Sanchez Quiroz, Serial No. 90630537 (August 5, 2024) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Thomas V. Shaw).

• Copyrights

  • Press Gazette ☛ News Corp has begun legal moves against ‘AI aggressors’, CEO reveals

    News media revenues at News Corp were down 4% in the year to June 2024.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Can the Legal System Keep Up With [CG music]? Music Publishers’ Anthropic Copyright Lawsuit Tentatively Set for 2026 Trial

    Is the Hey Hi (AI) space evolving too quickly for the legal system to keep up? It certainly seems so, as music publishers’ high-stakes copyright monopoly infringement litigation against Anthropic might not receive a trial until 2026.

  • Digital Music News ☛ UMG, WMG, Sony Music Weigh In On Music Publishers’ Hey Hi (AI) Copyright Battle vs. Anthropic

    An amicus brief filed in support of a court injunction against Hey Hi (AI) company Anthropic seeks to have the startup stop using lyrics without permission. Major label trade group RIAA argues that Anthropic’s defense is the same position Napster took in the late 90s.