Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Automated Pixel Art With Marbles

  Marble machines are a fun and challenging reason to do engineering for the sake of engineering. [Engineezy] adds some color to the theme, building a machine to create 16×16 marble images automatically. (Video embedded below.)

• Hackaday ☛ 3D Printed Hydrofoil Goes From Model Scale To Human Scale With Flight Controller

  Hydrofoils have been around for several decades, but watching a craft slice through the water with almost no wake never get old. In the videos after the break, [rctestflight] showcases his ambitious project: transforming a standup paddleboard into a rideable hydrofoil with active stabilization.

• Science

  • New York Times ☛ 9 of the Most Celebrated Awards in Science Outside of Nobel Prizes

    The Nobel Foundation offers prizes in only three disciplines, but other awards have been created to honor scientists in different fields.

  • Science Alert ☛ Record Discovery: Three Large Stars Locked in a Space Smaller Than Mercury's Orbit

    A relationship doomed to end in heartbreak.

  • Science Alert ☛ Nearby Dwarf Planet Could Have a Crust That's 90% Water

    A giant, dirty snowball.

  • Science Alert ☛ Forget Superconductors: Electrons Living on The Edge Could Unlock Perfect Power

    This has never been seen before.

  • Science Alert ☛ Tiny Black Holes Could Lurk Inside Asteroids, Moons, or Even Planets Like Ours

    Here's what to look for.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ 2View: The Self-Erasing VHS Tape With Paperclip Hack

    Over the decades the video and music industries have tried a wide range of ways to get consumers to buy ‘cheaper’ versions of albums and music, but then limit the playback in some way. Perhaps one of the most fascinating ones is the 2View, as recently featured by [Matt] over at Techmoan on Youtube. This is a VHS tape which works in standard VHS players and offers you all the goodness that VHS offers, like up to 512 lines of PAL video and hard-coded ads and subtitles, but also is restricted to just playing twice. After this second playback and rewinding, the tape self-erases and is blank, leaving you with just an empty VHS tape you can use for your own recordings.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Chinese company claims breakthrough in developing domestic silicon photonics chip

    JFS Laboratory develops silicon photonics for China's next-generation of Hey Hi (AI) and HPC datacenters.

  • Hackaday ☛ Tearing Down A Digital Scope From ’78

    If you’re a fan of vintage electronics and DIY tinkering, you’ll find this teardown by [Thomas Scherrer] fascinating. In a recent video, he delves into a rare piece of equipment: the Data Lab Transient Recorder DL 901. This device looks like a classic one-channel oscilloscope, complete with all the knobs and settings you’d expect.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Jensen Huang is now worth more than defective chip maker Intel — personal net worth currently valued at $109B vs. Intel's $96B market cap

    Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's net worth hits over $109 billion, making him the 11th richest person in the world.

  • Hackaday ☛ Tinkering With Klipper: Making The ManiPilator Robotic Arm

    [Leo Goldstien]’s entry into the world of robotics has been full of stops and starts. Like many beginners, he found traditional robotics instructions overwhelming and hard to follow, bogged down with dense math that often obscured the bigger picture. So he decided to approach things differently and create something with his own hands. The result? A 3D-printed robotic arm he affectionately calls “ManiPilator.”

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Hackaday ☛ Reversing Type 1 Diabetes With A Patient’s Own Stem Cells

    Type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune condition whereby the patient’s own immune system attacks the pancreatic islets, destroying them in the process. Since these islets are responsible for producing insulin in response to blood sugar (glucose) levels, the patient is thus required to externally inject insulin for the remainder of their life. That was the expected scenario, but it appears that this form of diabetes may soon be treatable, with one woman now being free of the condition for a year already, as reported in Nature, referencing an article by [Shusen Wang] et al. that describes the treatment and the one-year result.

  • Science Alert ☛ A Few Brazil Nuts Each Day Could Be Just The Thing Your Stressed Gut Needs

    Just don't overdo it.

  • Science Alert ☛ Many Species Yawn Together, But Not For The Reasons We Expect

    Is it really contagious?

  • Science Alert ☛ Experts Advise When You Should Replace Your Old Running Shoes

    Three signs it's time.

  • Science Alert ☛ Owning a Dog Can Affect Your Health in a Variety of Ways

    For better and for worse.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Apple Silicon iMacs appear to suffer from screen deterioration after two years — flood of user complaints hit Fashion Company Apple Community forums

    M1 iMac users started seeing lines on their screens that require an expensive screen replacement to fix.

  • Pete Zaitcev: Adventures in proprietary software, Solidworks edition

    Because FreeCAD was such a disaster for me, I started looking at crazy solutions, like exporting STEP from OpenSCAD. I even stooped to looking at proprietary alternatives. First on the runway was SolidWorks. If it's good for Mark Serbu, surely it's good for me, right?

    The first thing I found, you cannot tap your card and download. You have to contact a partner representative — never a good sign. The representative quoted me for untold thousands. I'm not going to post the amount, I'm sure they vary it every time, like small shop owners who vary prices according to the race of the shopper.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China’s Pooh-tin vows to ‘deepen cooperation’ with North Korea’s Kim

    Chinese President Pooh-tin Jinping on Sunday told his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Un that Beijing hoped to “deepen friendly… cooperation” with Pyongyang, as the two leaders exchanged messages to mark a major diplomatic anniversary. China and North Korea are traditional socialist allies, and Beijing has long provided crucial support for Pyongyang’s diplomatically isolated government.

  • New York Times ☛ Israel Was Ready for a War With Hezbollah. Ending It Will Be Harder.

    Lessons learned from a 2006 invasion of Lebanon have guided Israel in its current one. Security experts say a political deal is needed to restore calm.

  • France24 ☛ ‘Ceasefire now!’: Protesters across the world demand end to war in Gaza, Lebanon

    From Jakarta to Los Angeles, protesters in cities in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas kicked off a weekend of demonstrations calling for ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon. Security has been tightened in many cities amid planned protests and commemorations ahead of Monday's anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

  • New York Times ☛ Monday Briefing: Reflecting on a Year of War

    Plus, Paris Fashion Week’s closing fantasia.

  • New York Times ☛ Israel-Gaza War: Photos that Defined a Year of Conflict

    Seven New York Times photojournalists describe moments that have defined a year of war.

  • New York Times ☛ Israel Steps Up Attacks in Gaza and Lebanon Ahead of Oct. 7 Anniversary

    Israel appeared to label much of northern Gaza as an evacuation zone and in Lebanon, Israeli airstrikes targeted Hezbollah strongholds, as the region also braced for Israel to hit back at Iran.

  • New York Times ☛ On Eve of Oct. 7 Anniversary, Israel Strikes Gaza and Lebanon

    The fighting comes as the region awaits a potential Israeli counterstrike against Iran, which fired missiles at Israel last week and which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas.

  • RFERL ☛ Israel Intensifies Attacks Near Beirut As October 7 Anniversary Looms

    Israel stepped up its massive air strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs in its drive to wipe out Hezbollah's capabilities and leadership, even as the world awaits with trepidation the October 7 anniversary of the bloody attack on Israel by Hamas.

  • JURIST ☛ Humanitarian crisis in Lebanon as civilians flee Israel airstrikes

    The head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, arrived in Lebanon on Saturday in an effort to express solidarity and bring awareness to alleged breaches of humanitarian law that include Israel’s targeting of medical facilities and displacement of civilians.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China says it evacuated 215 nationals from Lebanon amid Israel bombardments

    China said Saturday that it has evacuated 215 of its nationals from Lebanon, where Israel has been carrying out intense bombardments since last month, resulting in over 1,100 deaths.

  • France24 ☛ Netanyahu tells Macron expects France backing, 'not restrictions' on Israel

    Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Emmanuel Macron that Israel expects support from France and not restrictions after the French president called for a halt to arms supplies to Israel for use in Gaza. This comes after an Israeli strike on a mosque sheltering displaced people in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza early Sunday killed at least 21 people, according to the Gaza civil defence agency.

  • France24 ☛ 🔴 Live: Israel strikes Gaza and southern Beirut as attacks intensify

    A new round of airstrikes hit Beirut suburbs late Sunday as Israel intensified its bombardment of northern Gaza and southern Lebanon in a widening war with Iran-allied militant groups across the region. Palestinian officials said a strike on a mosque killed at least 19 people.

  • RFERL ☛ Pakistan Bans Pashtun Civil Rights Movement As Threat To Security

    Pakistani authorities have banned a popular civil rights movement that campaigns for the country's ethnic Pashtun minority.

  • New York Times ☛ On Social Media, Gazans Share Advice for Those Under Fire in Lebanon

    A woman known as Chef Hala, who has had to evacuate three times since Israel invaded Gaza, is among those offering practical tips and messages of solidarity.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Colorado judge receives threats after sentencing election denier official to prison

    A Colorado county courthouse has stepped up security after threats were made against staff and a judge who sentenced former county clerk Tina Peters to prison in a data breach scheme tied to denial of 2020 election results.

• Environment

  • New York Times ☛ Climate Change and the New Story We Need to Tell About It

    We need to act as a single unified force to find ways to strike a lasting balance with our natural world.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Didier Stevens ☛ Quickpost: The Electric Energy Consumption Of LLMs

      I’ve read claims that Hey Hi (AI) queries require a lot of energy. Today I heard another claim on the Nerdland Podcast (a popular science podcast here in Belgium): “letting Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot write an email of 100 words requires 70 Wh” (if you’re interested, that’s said at 00:28:05 in this episode).

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Science Alert ☛ Dolphins May Actually Smile at One Another For The Same Reasons We Do

      Hi friend!

• Finance

  • New York Times ☛ How E-Commerce Is Making China’s Deflation Worse

    The push by Pinduoduo to lower prices has helped it become one of China’s fastest-growing e-commerce apps, and epitomizes a broader force plaguing the economy.

  • BIA Net ☛ Turkey's high inflation erodes alimony payments, leaving women in financial hardship

    Nearly half of the court-ordered alimony payments are not made, and the  the payments that are made remain insufficient for women to cover basic needs, according to the Women’s Solidarity Foundation.

  • RFA ☛ China's workers complain of being 'beasts of burden'

    Long hours, bullying, poor wages and scant power to stand up for themselves turn workers into 'oxen and horses.'

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong denied entry to about 23,000 people in first 9 months of the year, immigration chief says

    Hong Kong denied entry to about 23,000 people in the first nine months of the year, the immigration chief has said, with 85 per cent of them considered to have “suspicious aims” for entering the city.

  • New York Times ☛ Trump’s Rambling Speeches Reinforce Question of Age

    With the passage of time, the 78-year-old former president’s speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past, according to a review of his public appearances over the years.

  • New York Times ☛ The 3 Brothers at the Center of the Bribery Inquiry Rocking City Hall

    David Banks and Philip Banks III eclipsed their younger brother by rising to help run New York City. Then federal prosecutors seized the phones of all three men.

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Harris talks abortion and more on ‘Call Her Daddy’ podcast as Democratic ticket steps up interviews

    Harris has been criticized for not doing more media interviews.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • JURIST ☛ Brazil supreme court rules fine must reach correct account to lift X ban

    The Supreme Federal Court (STF) of Brazil announced on Friday that social control media platform X (formerly Twitter) must wait for the fine paid to the wrong government bank account to be transferred to the correct account before the court can lift an order that blocks the platform from Brazil.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Tedium ☛ Domains For The Masses

    The tale of the founder of GoDaddy, a Vietnam vet who figured out the formula for getting regular people to buy domain names.

    For obvious reasons, we’ve been discussing the work of web hosts lately. We kind of can’t get away from it. They’re essential to the way many people present themselves on the internet, and the best ones give us the platform … and get out of the way. But there was a time when hosting a website wasn’t trivial, and felt like a black box to the average person. Tools like, yes, WordPress helped us figure out that it wasn’t so scary, but we also needed web hosts that didn’t treat regular people like tech neophytes. Eventually, that web host appeared—and you’ve probably seen its Super Bowl ads. Today’s Tedium talks to Bob Parsons, the founder of GoDaddy, a company that probably did more than any other to reshape web hosting for the average person. Here’s how he did it.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Treading Carefully: Federal Circuit Expands “Absolute Litigation Privilege” and Affirms Trade Dress Invalidity in Toyo Tire v. Atturo Tire

    In a recent decision, the Federal Circuit addressed several key issues in intellectual property litigation, including the scope of "absolute litigation privilege" under Illinois law, trade dress functionality, and the consequences of discovery sanctions. Toyo Tire Corp. v. Atturo Tire Corporation, No. 2022-1817, 2022-1892 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 4, 2024).