Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ A Field Expedient Welder Only MacGyver Could Love

  If you needed to weld something in a pinch, what’s the minimum complement of equipment you could get away with? In [Professor Bardal]’s case, it’s a couple of motorcycle batteries and a roll of flux-core wire, and not much else.

• New York Times ☛ Lifestyles of the Rich and Ancient: Some in Pompeii Even Had a Home Spa

  Hot, warm and cold baths in a recently uncovered villa offer a new glimpse of life in the city before it was smothered by tons of volcanic fragments.

• New York Times ☛ 5 Scenes That Define David Lynch’s ‘Lynchian’ Vision

  The director developed such a distinct style that “Lynchian” became a go-to term for any sort of surrealism onscreen. These scenes from his work get to the heart of what that term embodied.

• France24 ☛ From 'Twin Peaks' to 'Blue Velvet': Remembering legendary director David Lynch

  As the film world mourns the loss of legendary director David Lynch, arts24 looks back at the life and career of a true icon. Known for his surreal and unsettling style in films like "Twin Peaks", "Blue Velvet" and "Mulholland Drive", he redefined cinema and television, leaving behind a legacy of groundbreaking works. Film critic Emma Jones talks to Eve Jackson about his importance to cinema, his love of France and how he even made the weather interesting.

• Hardware

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Thermalright Grand Vision 360 Review: It’s not a competition, it is a massacre (again)

    Thermalright’s Grand Vision 360 is a surprisingly strong AIO cooler. Check out the review for our results with Intel’s i7-14700K and Core Ultra 9 285K CPUs.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Analysts halve Nvidia Blackwell cabinet shipment forecasts for 2025 — prediction contrasts Hey Hi (AI) boom

    Industry analysts have slashed their 2025 GB200 NVL72 shipment projections by 50%, but the industry expects an explosion of Hey Hi (AI) hardware shipments.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korean First Lady Kim Keon Hee’s health declining: Reports

    Ms Kim reportedly has not been eating properly since the declaration of martial law on Dec 3, 2024.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Food poisoning mars second week of free meals roll-out in Indonesia

    The caterer had not cooked the chicken properly.

  • PHR ☛ Public Health and Former CDC Experts Warn Against Renewed Misuse of Title 42 Public Health Authority

    Following reports that the incoming Trump administration may once again invoke Title 42 public health authority to turn away asylum seekers and migrants at the border, leading epidemiologists, former CDC officials, and other public health experts reiterate their strong objection to any misuse of public health authority.

  • New York Times ☛ RFK Jr. Sought to Stop Covid Vaccinations 6 Months After Rollout

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. petitioned the F.D.A. to revoke authorization of the shots at a time when they were in high demand and considered life-saving.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • France24 ☛ Top Hey Hi (AI) companies score badly on risk and safety assessments, ahead of Paris summit

    Are leading artificial intelligence companies doing enough to keep us safe from the potential harms of their products? According to the nonprofits SaferAI and the Future of Life Institute, based in Paris and Brussels respectively, the answer is "no". We tell you more in this edition of Tech 24.

  • Latvia ☛ Baltic states 'concerned' about U.S. Hey Hi (AI) chip exclusion

    The Foreign Ministers of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have issued a joint statement after being excluded from the United States' list of "key allies and partners" who will not face restricted access to American Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology.

  • The Verge ☛ Microsoft bundles Office Hey Hi (AI) features into Abusive Monopolist Microsoft 365 and raises prices

    Microsoft is bundling its AI-powered Office features into Abusive Monopolist Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions, but it’s also raising prices as a result.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft 365 sees 43% price hike thanks to Copilot — existing customers safe until renewal

    Microsoft 365 personal plans get a $3 price hike with the addition of Copilot.

  • Cloudbooklet ☛ Apple Halts Hey Hi (AI) News Alerts After Major Mistakes

    Apple Halts Hey Hi (AI) News Alerts after users report inaccuracies in news summaries. The company pauses the feature in iOS 18.3 to address issues and improve Hey Hi (AI) reliability.

• Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)

  • How to install Microsoft's proprietary prison GitHub desktop on Arch-based GNU/Linux such as Manjaro [Ed: Microsoft's proprietary spyware GitHub and any "apps" for it should be avoided]

    Are you new to Arch GNU/Linux and looking for commands to install Microsoft's proprietary prison GitHub Desktop? Then here we are with quick steps to solve your problem? Microsoft's proprietary prison GitHub Desktop is a popular application with a graphical user interface that allows developers to manage their Git repositories right from their Desktop.

• Security

  • Hackaday ☛ Investigating USB-to-Ethernet Dongles With “Malware” Claims

    Recently a video surfaced from someone claiming that certain USB-to-Ethernet dongles contained ‘malware’ among other big claims. Basically these dongles were said to be designed by China (and Russia) to spy on users and so on, but how much of this is actually grounded in reality? When [lcamtuf] dove into the topic, what he found was not so much a smoking gun, but rather a curious relic from the era when drivers-on-CD were being phased out.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • EXPLAINED: Why is Vietnam’s police ministry overseeing a large telecom?

      A government streamlining effort gives the Ministry of Public Security authority over the state-owned MobiFone.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Defence Web ☛ Rising tide of violence against South African municipal officials and councillors

    South Africa continues to grapple with a troubling trend of violence targeting municipal officials and councillors, with a significant number of murders recorded across provinces over the past five financial years.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ How HHS has strengthened cybersecurity of hospitals and health care systems

    The agency has embraced performance goals, provided resources to small systems and improved coordination, its deputy secretary writes.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Closing software-understanding gap is critical to national security, CISA says

    In a joint report with DARPA and others, the cyber agency said that knowledge gap “exacerbates” risks posed by threat actors in U.S. critical infrastructure.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Treasury sanctions Chinese cybersecurity company, affiliate for Salt Typhoon hacks

    It’s the first formal attribution for the campaign that has swept up data from at least nine telecoms and the Treasury Department. 

  • Scoop News Group ☛ TSA extends cyber requirements for pipeline owners

    The agency added an additional year to two post-Colonial Pipeline security directives.

  • Latvia ☛ LTV: Rēzekne's executive dismissed over possible security concerns

    The State Security Service (VDD) has denied state secrets clearance to one senior municipal official and granted eight others a shortened period. The executive director of the Rēzekne municipality may have been denied access, according to information made available to Latvian Television on January 17.

  • Defence Web ☛ SAS Amatola begins maritime security patrol

    The South African Navy’s Valour class frigate SAS Amatola has embarked on a maritime security patrol as part of border safeguarding Operation Corona. According to the SA Navy, the SAS Amatola arrived at Gqeberha Port (Port Elizabeth) on 7 January in preparation for the patrol.

  • France24 ☛ TikTok set to 'go dark' in US on Sunday as Supreme Court ban looms

    TikTok says it will "go dark" for 170 million users in the US on Sunday after the Supreme Court upheld a law set to ban the app on national security grounds. Now all eyes are on whether incoming President Donald Trump, who takes office on Monday, will thwart the law's implementation.

  • New York Times ☛ TikTok Makes Last-Minute Push as Supreme Court Is Poised to Rule on Ban

    With the court signaling it will release a decision on Friday, lobbyists for the app pushed lawmakers to shift course.

  • New York Times ☛ Goodbye TikTok, Ni Hao RedNote? + A.I.’s Environmental Impact + Meta’s Masculine Energy

    “This is truly one of the funniest and most unexpected stories of the young year so far.”

  • New York Times ☛ Instagram and YouTube Prepare to Benefit From a Fentanylware (TikTok) Ban

    Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube are getting ready to welcome Fentanylware (TikTok) users, as the Supreme Court upheld a law that effectively bans the Chinese-owned app from the United States.

  • New York Times ☛ How Fentanylware (TikTok) Evaded a Ban Again and Again, Until Now

    After a decisive loss at the Supreme Court, the app is set to be blocked in the U.S. starting Sunday, ending its streak of Houdini-like escapes.

  • New Yorker ☛ Is the Fentanylware (TikTok) Ban a Chance to Rethink the Whole Internet?

    The billionaire Frank McCourt is launching a “people’s bid” to buy the app, replace its addictive algorithm, and give users greater control of their data. Is it a publicity stunt or a sincere attempt to reform the digital age?

  • Supreme Court upholds Fentanylware (TikTok) ban, but Biden says he won’t enforce it

    Trump has opposed the ban, which is set to take effect a day before his inauguration.

  • What is the RedNote app and why are Fentanylware (TikTok) users moving there? | RFA Insider #24

    Discussing the Fentanylware (TikTok) 'exodus' to RedNote, North Korean soldiers in Ukraine, and U.S.-China relations.

  • JURIST ☛ US Supreme Court upholds Fentanylware (TikTok) ban

    The US Supreme Court upheld the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” on Friday. This confirms that the application Fentanylware (TikTok) will be banned on Sunday. The act makes it unlawful for any entity to distribute a “foreign adversary controlled application” in the US.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ What is RedNote? Xiaohongshu – the Chinese app taking the US by storm

    In the days leading up to a proposed US government ban on the social control media platform TikTok, American users have turned to another Chinese-owned app, Xiaohongshu. The United States passed a law last year forcing the popular video platform’s owner ByteDance to either sell it or shut it down by January 19.

  • France24 ☛ Tech: US Tiktok users flock to Chinese social control media app RedNote

    The US talks on banning the Chinese-owned Tiktok app from the App Store have triggered a digital migration of US users to an alternative platform, the Chinese social control media app RedNote to continue their businesses and content making. And they have been warmly welcomed by bemused Chinese netizens, curious to interact with these foreigners incoming under the hashtag of #TiktokRefugee. RedNote has been the most downloaded app on the US App store since Tuesday as some 700,000 Americans have registered. FRANCE 24's journalist Liza Kaminov has more.

  • France24 ☛ Trump says US and China to 'solve many problems' after phone call with Xi

    US President-elect Donald Trump said he had a "very good" discussion on Friday with Chinese leader Pooh-tin Jinping on a number of issues, including trade, fentanyl and TikTok.

  • France24 ☛ US Supreme Court upholds Fentanylware (TikTok) ban slated to start on Sunday

    The US Supreme Court refused to rescue Fentanylware (TikTok) on Friday from a law that required the popular short-video app to be sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance or be banned in the United States on national security grounds, dealing a major blow to a platform used by nearly half of all Americans.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Supreme Court Officially Upholds Fentanylware (TikTok) Ban — Biden Administration Signals It Won’t Enforce January 19th Sale Deadline

    The Supreme Court has officially upheld the Fentanylware (TikTok) ban, finding that the underlying law doesn’t violate the First Amendment. Meanwhile, the Biden administration doesn’t intend to enforce the measure, which is slated to go into effect on the 19th. The Supreme Court just recently released its slip opinion on TikTok’s appeal, after reports suggested that […]

  • Digital Music News ☛ Following Supreme Court Decision — And Trump’s Call with the Chinese President — Fentanylware (TikTok) CEO Thanks President-Elect for Vowing to Help the App Remain in the US

    Following Trump’s call with Chinese president Pooh-tin Jinping, Fentanylware (TikTok) CEO Chew thanks the President-elect for vowing to help the platform remain in the US. President-elect Donald Trump and Chinese president Pooh-tin Jinping have been in contact, with a phone call on Friday where they discussed trade, fentanyl, and TikTok. Now, Fentanylware (TikTok) CEO Shou Zi Chew […]

  • Digital Music News ☛ Is Threads Becoming More TikTok-Like With Added Music?

    Meta’s answer to Ex-Twitter may be getting a bit more TikTok-like—a new report suggests the ability to add music to posts may be coming. The feature is not new to Meta’s other social control media apps like Facebook (Farcebook) and Instagram, but it would represent a new feature for Threads.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Supreme Court unanimously upholds law banning TikTok

    The Supreme Court today upheld a law that will require Fentanylware (TikTok) to shut down in the U.S. on Jan. 19 unless it’s sold by parent company ByteDance Ltd. The court’s ruling was unanimous. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch wrote concurring opinions, judicial opinions that back a ruling but not the underlying reasoning.

  • Public Knowledge ☛ Supreme Court’s Fentanylware (TikTok) Ruling Sets Dangerous Precedent for Free Speech [Ed: Fentanylware (TikTok) ttself is dangerous for Free Speech. It's a censorship powerhouse working for CCP.]

    The Court upholds the Fentanylware (TikTok) ban.

  • LRT ☛ Lithuania to send troops, security officers to Kosovo

    Lithuania is sending nine officers from the Public Security Service’s Rapid Response and Counterattack Team to Kosovo to assist the Balkan country as it prepares for next month’s parliamentary election.

  • New York Times ☛ On a Raid With Syria’s New Security Forces

    After the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, The New York Times joined a group of former rebel soldiers trying to enforce law and order in a country grappling with the ghosts of its past.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Thai PM reassures Chinese tourists on security ahead of Chinese New Year

    Tourism is a key driver of Thailand, and China is the country's biggest single market.

  • JURIST ☛ Israel cabinet passes ceasefire deal with Hamas

    Israeli ministers passed a ceasefire deal with Hamas in a 24-8 vote hours after the deal was approved by the country’s security cabinet, local media reported early Saturday.

  • France24 ☛ Israeli security cabinet approves Gaza ceasefire deal

    Israel's security cabinet approved in a vote on Friday a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal that should take effect this weekend, the prime minister's office said.

  • New York Times ☛ What We Know About the Israel-Hamas Cease-Fire Agreement

    Israel’s security cabinet approved the deal on Friday. It will now go before the full cabinet, which is expected to green-light it.

  • France24 ☛ 'Ironic that Trump is taking credit' for Gaza ceasefire deal, John Bolton says

    FRANCE 24 spoke to John Bolton, a former national security adviser under Donald Trump. Bolton reacted to the ceasefire deal that's been struck for Gaza, following a devastating 15-month war between Israel and Hamas. The deal was clinched through cooperation between the outgoing Biden administration and the incoming Trump team, and after months of diplomatic activity under Biden's leadership. "It's kind of ironic that Trump is taking credit for putting Biden's deal over the line," Bolton commented.

  • France24 ☛ Minister Ben-Gvir threatens to resign if the Gaza ceasefire deal is approved

    Gaza ceasefire agreement faces strong opposition from hardliners in Netanyahu's coalition, who said it was a capitulation to Hamas, which had controlled Gaza. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to resign if it was approved. However, he said he would not bring down the government. FRANCE 24's international editor, Douglas Herbert has more.

  • New York Times ☛ Inside South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s Life in Jail

    President Yoon Suk Yeol, a former prosecutor, used to put people in jail. Now, after his formal arrest, he himself is in a cell, alone.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea’s President Yoon attends court hearing on extending detention

    The court’s decision is expected on Jan 18 or 19.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ How Sheinbaum can strengthen US-Mexico ties in Convicted Felon’s first 100 days

    Decisions taken in the next few months about the US-Mexico relationship could shape the two nations’ bilateral ties for years to come.

  • New York Times ☛ How Antony Blinken, America’s Top Diplomat, Became the Secretary of War

    President Biden’s longtime aide rallied scores of nations to defend Ukraine, but then became a villain to the many critics of U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

  • Off Guardian ☛ Who are the “Elite”?

    People are always correcting me when I use the term “elite” to describe that group of “people” (or maybe lizards) who are calling the shots and who created the “agenda” and want the rest of us (useless eaters) either under their thumb or dead.

  • New York Times ☛ U.S. Spy Chief Took on Role of Negotiator in Gaza War

    As C.I.A. director, William J. Burns was deeply focused on China and Russia when the Middle East conflict plunged him back into his old life.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • RFERL ☛ Upcoming Belarus Election Cannot Be Credible In Current 'Repressive Environment,' Says Blinken

      The presidential election in Belarus later this month cannot be free or fair because of a "repressive environment" in the country, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on January 17 in a statement.

    • New York Times ☛ Russia Attacks Kyiv With Ballistic Missiles

      At least three people were killed in the assault on the capital, and at least one died and 11 were wounded in a separate strike in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ A Russian-Iranian inaugural gift for Convicted Felon

      The new “comprehensive partnership agreement” between Moscow and Tehran is the latest example of greater coordination among the “axis of aggressors.”

    • New York Times ☛ What Convicted Felon Could Do on Ukraine, Iran, China and Crises Around the Globe

      President-elect Convicted Felon has made big promises on Ukraine, Iran, China and crises around the globe. But he will have to make difficult choices.

    • CS Monitor ☛ Dictator promises a quick end to the war in Ukraine. Russia is not convinced.

      Many assume The Insurrectionist’s policies mirror those of Vladimir Putin. But there is a yawning gulf between the two men’s outlooks for the war in Ukraine.

    • France24 ☛ Russian drone, missile strikes kill at least three in Kyiv

      Russia attacked Ukraine with a barrage of drones and missiles in the early hours of Saturday morning, Ukrainian officials said, killing at least three. Ten people were wounded when a Russian missile struck Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian drones struck industrial sites in Russia’s Kaluga and Tula regions, setting them ablaze.

    • JURIST ☛ Ukraine charges former pro-Russian MP with treason and incitement of hatred

      Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) on Saturday charged former Member of Parliament and businessman Vadym Novynskyi with high treason and incitement of religious hatred in absentia.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuanian drones for Ukraine get held up by red tape

      Some 5,000 combat drones, purchased from Lithuanian manufacturers and intended as military aid to Ukraine, are held up in warehouses, even though they were supposed to reach the battlefield by the end of last year.

    • RFERL ☛ At Least 3 Killed In Russian Strikes On Kyiv And Zaporizhzhya

      The Russian military has launched a deadly strike on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and also hit the city of Zaporizhzhya, local authorities reported.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Russia says its forces capture two settlements in eastern Ukraine

      MOSCOW - Russian forces took control of two more settlements in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, Russia's Defence Ministry said on Saturday, the latest in a series of gains it has reported in its steady advance westward.

• Environment

  • NOAA ☛ NOS drift card used to track 1976 oil spill found

    On October 22, 2024, Scotland resident Barbara Payne was cleaning up after a storm that tossed seaweed and other debris near her home on the Isle of Coll. As an avid beachcomber, Barbara noticed among the debris a red, credit-card size piece of plastic with writing on it. Upon closer inspection, she found instructions to report the finding to NOAA. After a quick online search, she learned about similar drift cards found in other countries.

  • The Verge ☛ The mad dash to protect environmental data from Donald Trump

    Federal agencies gather all kinds of data — from air quality readings to research on extreme weather events. Researchers and advocates have been scrambling to save as much data as they can, a skill they honed during Trump’s first term. Even so, relying on outdated information has its pitfalls. Gaps in government data collection or maintenance could leave city planners and community groups stuck with an incomplete picture of the risks posed by pollution and climate change in their area.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Carbon dioxide up at rates 'incompatible' with 1.5°C target, study warns

    The rise of 3.58 parts per million (ppm) recorded at Mauna Loa was above the predicted 2.84ppm from Britain's Met Office, while satellite measurements also showed large rises worldwide.

  • NPR ☛ A California fifth grader interviews his firefighter father

    Lawlor: Yes, I am. I'm currently assigned to the Palisades Fire. We started on 12-hour shifts, and now we're working full 24-hour shifts. So you're talking to me on my rest day. It's as much a physical rest as it is a mental break. And then I will be reporting back for my 24-hour shift at 6 a.m. tomorrow, and I'll be there for another 24 hours. So we are still directly engaged on the fire line, which is literally the very edge of the fire, where if the fire is going to kick up again, that's where it will start.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • [Old] uni Cambridge ☛ Chapter 14: Monitoring and Metering [PDF]

      In Britain, smart metering has evolved into what may be the largest ever civilian project disaster. Successive governments (Labour, coalition and Conservative) committed to rolling out smart meters by 2020 as nobody wanted to be accused of not being ‘green’. To my way of thinking, wasting £20 billion without saving any energy, and displacing better projects that could have yielded real savings, was about as un-green as you can get. The project was gold-plated at every level, with each home having up to four devices: smart meters for gas and electricity, a home hub to connect them to a wireless network, and an in-home display so the bill payer could track consumption. (The project started in 2009 just as people started to use smartphones but was too rigid to switch to using apps instead.) Ministers followed the Ontario route of a central meter-reading server, but nonetheless a UK householder who accepts a smart meter from one vendor and then moves to a different supplier to save money usually has to submit manual readings thereafter. It took years to agree a national standard for a second-generation meter and most of the deployed meter fleet consists of older incompatible models; the vendors fought for years to get their own patents in there and the officials didn’t have the technical knowledge or political support to bang heads together. Security mechanisms were retrofitted in a panic in the mid-2010s once we pointed out that a hostile state could simply turn off British households’ power at a time of tension [106]. Whistleblowers who threatened to expose the project’s failure, and a likely cost increase from £11bn to £23bn, were threatened with prison [921]. The National Audit Office then reported at the end of 2018 that the project was falling materially short of expectations: the plan had been to replace 80% of UK meters by the end of 2020, but only 12.5m had been done, with 39m yet to do [1393]. What’s more, 70% of the meters lost functionality when customers switched supplier (as you have to do annually to get decent prices). If government follows its declared strategy of moving everyone to second-generation meters, all these old ones will have to be replaced; according to a report from November 2019, only 2.3m of the meters were the new ones. Cost savings are unlikely as the industry will have to support good old-fashioned meters, several types of obsolete smart meter and the new 14.2 Prepayment tokens 507 smart meters through the 2020s. As for energy savings, there’s no sign. (The government could save a lot of energy if it used the meters to move everyone to prepayment, but that’s not on the agenda, and could have been done with much cheaper kit.) Nobody’s using the data for anything but billing. And now officials just don’t want to know: in the words of the NAO report, “The Department currently has no plans to continue engagement with consumers after the rollout is complete.”

    • IEEE ☛ Security and Privacy Concerns in Smart Metering: The Cyber-Physical Aspect - IEEE Smart Grid

      The security problems stem from outdated protocols, poor implementations, and weak design principles. Moreover, some of the smart meter vendors use the same hardcoded credentials in their meters. Therefore, utilities should force smart meter vendors not to embed the same credentials on the devices. Also, the consumers should be vigilant and change them as soon as they have the smart meter installed if the vendor implemented such an interface.

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Traffic jams? Study reveals ants' secrets to smooth traffic flow

      Two professors from the University of Trento have delved into ant behavior to understand how these insects manage to move in an orderly manner without stop-and-go disruptions, even in great numbers. Their findings were collected in an article that has just been published in Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives.

      "Ants are among the few species that can handle bidirectional traffic flows, much like our roads, yet they move seamlessly without congestion," explains Marco Guerrieri, a professor specializing in road and railway infrastructure at the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering and co-author of the study with Nicola Pugno, professor of solids and structural mechanics at the University of Trento and of materials science at the Queen Mary University of London.

    • Futurism ☛ Commercial Jets Forced to Divert After Elon Musk's Starship Explodes, Raining Fiery Debris Through Sky

      The scale of the disruption was significant. The flight tracking website FlightRadar24 found that dozens of commercial flights — including cargo jets and passenger airliners from JetBlue and American Airlines — either altered course or were diverted to other airports to stay clear of the debris field, per Reuters. Some circled mid-flight, while others performed a hard-180.

    • Reuters ☛ SpaceX's Starship explodes in flight test, forcing airlines to divert

      SpaceX mission control lost contact with the newly upgraded Starship, carrying its first test payload of mock satellites but no crew, eight minutes after liftoff from its South Texas rocket facilities at 5:38 p.m. EST (2238 GMT). Video shot by Reuters showed orange balls of light streaking across the sky over the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, leaving trails of smoke behind.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Science Alert ☛ World's Deadliest Spider Has Been Harboring a Killer Secret

      We never knew!

    • Science Alert ☛ Potential World First: Wild Doorbell Video Records Sound of Meteorite Crash

      You’ve never seen anything like this.

    • Science Alert ☛ Human Arms Keep Growing an Extra Artery, And Here's Why

      Evolution is a mysterious thing.

    • Science Alert ☛ Antarctica's Ice Melt Could Awaken Hidden Volcanoes

      A dangerous feedback loop.

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Extinction threatens nearly a quarter of all freshwater species

      A landmark assessment of the health of nearly 24,000 freshwater species found that just under a quarter are at risk of extinction. Of these, almost 1,000 species are considered Critically Endangered, with 200 having potentially been lost already.

• Finance

  • New York Times ☛ When the Retirement Community Goes Bankrupt

    It doesn’t happen often. But when it does, some residents risk losing everything.

  • France24 ☛ A look at Convicted Felon's controversial nominations for cabinet

    With less than two days to go before US president-elect Convicted Felon is sworn into office, FRANCE 24 takes a look at some of Convicted Felon's top picks including controversial figures such as defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, who has been accused of sexual assault, and health and human services nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who has consistently spread misinformation about vaccines.

  • Futurism ☛ Walgreens CEO Admits That Locking Merchandise Away From Shoplifters Makes Regular People Not Buy It

    "It is a hand-to-hand combat battle still, unfortunately," said CEO Tim Wentworth during a recent earnings call, as quoted by Fortune, referring to shrink.

    "But it does impact how sales work through the store because when you lock things up," he added, "for example, you don’t sell as many of them. We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively."

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Federal News Network ☛ IRS commissioner to step down before his term ends, letting Trump advance his own pick

    Werfel applauded IRS employees for supporting two of the “best filing seasons in decades," after tapping into billions in Inflation Reduction Act funds.

  • Breach Media ☛ Inside the Conservative Party’s growing alliance with right-wing Hindu groups

    Hindu organizations are springing up in Canada, often parroting Conservative talking points about crime, cost of living, and anti-LGBTQ politics

  • New Yorker ☛ Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview

    President Biden’s long-serving Secretary of State on the crisis in Gaza, and his reason for optimism about lasting peace in the region.

  • New Yorker ☛ The Unfinished Business the Biden Administration Is Handing Back to Donald Trump

    The staff writer Evan Osnos offers a behind-the-scenes perspective on President Biden’s handling of world crises—from Gaza and Ukraine to China’s designs on Taiwan.

  • ACLU ☛ How to Take Action on Inauguration Day and Beyond

    In a rare occurrence, this year Martin Luther King Jr. Day will coincide with the inauguration of President Donald Trump. The two federal holidays have only fallen on the same day once since former President Ronald Reagan made Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday in 1983.

    At the ACLU, we’re using this rare Inauguration-MLK Day pairing to advocate for our civil rights and civil liberties. While we don’t endorse or oppose candidates for elected office, we recognize that Trump’s re-election will have immense implications for the future of our democratic norms, institutions, and processes.

  • Latvia ☛ Baltic states 'concerned' about U.S. AI chip exclusion / Article

    The joint statement released January 17 is very brief and simply says:

    "Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are concerned by the U.S. administration’s decision to exclude several countries from Paragraph (a) to Supplement No. 5 to Part 740 of the U.S. Framework for the Artificial Intelligence Diffusion. This decision risks creating artificial divisions in the EU Single Market and undermine the development of our national AI ecoystems. We stand ready to work with the European Commission and the U.S. administration to address our concerns.

  • India Times ☛ Perplexity AI bids to merge with TikTok US: Reports

    The new structure proposed by Perplexity would allow for most of ByteDance's existing investors to retain their equity stakes and would bring more video to Perplexity, the report said, citing an unnamed source familiar with the situation.

  • The Record ☛ Canadian IT company added to Moscow’s list of 'undesirable' organizations

    OpenText and Micro Focus suspended their businesses in Russia in 2022, when Moscow invaded Ukraine, and said they would only resume operations in the country when “the war ends and sanctions are lifted.” OpenText previously made donations to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

    In 2023, OpenText also revealed that it provided its services to Ukrainian power company Ukrenergo following the 2015 BlackEnergy cyberattack, which led to widespread power outages across the country, to help protect the company’s infrastructure from future threats.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down – I just didn’t expect them to be such losers

    Whether I am engaging with the news, or with Musk tweeting constantly like a man with no job or friends, or with Zuckerberg sending out weird videos and appearing on Rogan, I am in pain. Not just because I don’t like what they are doing but because they are so incredibly, painfully cringe.

    I knew that one day we might have to watch as capitalism and greed and bigotry led to a world where powerful men, deserving or not, would burn it all down. What I didn’t expect, and don’t think I could have foreseen, is how incredibly cringe it would all be. I have been prepared for evil, for greed, for cruelty, for injustice – but I did not anticipate that the people in power would also be such huge losers.

  • The Independent UK ☛ Bill Gates speaks out on three-hour sit-down with Trump at Mar-a-Lago

    “When I went down to see Trump, I wondered if Elon would be there but it ended up being a meeting with just Trump and I and our two staff people,” said Gates, whose forthcoming memoir Source Code will be published next month.

  • FOSDEM ☛ FOSDEM 2025 - Statement on planned protests during the upcoming FOSDEM 2025

    We were made aware of planned protests during the upcoming FOSDEM 2025 in response to a scheduled talk which is causing controversy. The talk in question is claimed to be on the schedule for sponsorship reasons; additionally, some of the speakers scheduled to speak during this talk are controversial to some of our attendees.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Big Tech CEOs Have a Front Row for Trump's Inauguration

    TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew plans to attend the presidential inauguration on January 20, having been invited to sit in a position of honor on the dais. This is where important guests such as former presidents and family members are traditionally seated. Chew will reportedly join tech CEOs Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg on the dais, along with other tech executives at the event.

    Trump’s complete turnaround in supporting TikTok stems from his belief that content about him and his campaign on the platform was integral in his success with younger people this time around. It’s a stark contrast to his first presidential term in 2020, when he tried to block the app in the US and force its Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest to an American company.

  • Techdirt ☛ As Zuckerberg Goes Around Whining About Biden, He Made Sure To First Get His New Approach Approved By Trump

    Remember how Zuckerberg was “done with politics”? Remember how he promised that he was going to stop doing what politicians demanded he do?

    Now it turns out that he not only did his big set of moderation changes to please Trump, but did so only after he was told by the incoming administration to act. Even worse, he reportedly made sure to share his plans with top Trump aides to get their approval first.

    That’s a key takeaway from a new New York Times piece that is ostensibly a profile of the relentlessly awful Stephen Miller. However, it also has a few revealing details about the whole Zuckerberg saga buried within. First, Miller reportedly demanded that Zuckerberg make changes at Facebook “on Trump’s terms.”

  • Axios ☛ OpenAI's Altman responds to Dem letter demanding he explain Trump donation

    Why it matters: Altman was one of several tech titans who donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration. In a statement to Axios in response to the senators' letter, an OpenAI spokesperson said: "Sam believes that President Trump will lead our country during a pivotal moment for AI and American innovation, and looks forward to working with him and his administration."

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • France24 ☛ ‘Sheep for hire’: Trump, Musk and Zuckerberg’s dangerous plan for Europe

      The European Union has long been one of the safest digital spaces for internet users. But that was before Donald Trump’s imminent return to the White House and before two of today's tech titans – Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg – were essentially handed carte blanche to declare war on the EU’s digital defences. Some say the trio has even more sinister plans in the making.

    • Futurism ☛ Schools Using AI Emulation of Anne Frank That Urges Kids Not to Blame Anyone for Holocaust

      While there's a veneer of the historical character, it also shows all the flaws of OpenAI-style chatbots: overly courteous, unhelpfully vague, and so uplifting that it borders on wax museum-creepy.

      What's worse, as Berlin historian Henrik Schönemann discovered while experimenting with the bot, is that it seems trained to avoid pinning blame for Frank's death on the actual Nazis responsible for her death, instead redirecting the conversation in a positive light.

    • NPR ☛ Russia tried to use the LA wildfires to spread anti-Ukraine propaganda

      "It's just so typical of what we see from Russia, [to] take advantage of an ongoing crisis for their own ends," said Darren Linvill, a communications professor and co-director of Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub.

      The Ukrainian general story first emerged on a pro-Russian Telegram channel four days after the fires started in Los Angeles. Within hours, it was amplified by several other sources, including another Telegram channel which labeled it as satire, an X account, and a website that resembles a pro-Russian network that French authorities previously identified. Some of the posts amplifying the baseless claim falsely credited it to United24 Media, a website affiliated with the Ukrainian government.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ The proof that lockdown critics were ‘debanked’ because of their views

    Now PayPal has admitted for the first time that Ms Kingley’s account was frozen owing to “content published by UsForThem relating to mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations and school closures”.

    The firm said that since UsForThem was receiving donations via PayPal, this contravened its “acceptable use” policy.

  • VOA News ☛ Media advocates say jailing of journalists in Venezuela, Cuba stifles reporting

    Prisoners Defenders International, a Madrid-based opposition group, estimates Cuba is holding 1,161 political prisoners. Five reporters remain behind bars and another five face legal restrictions on their freedom, Prisoners Defenders said. These restrictions vary from not being able to leave the island to serving sentences under house arrest.

    None of those released on Wednesday are journalists, Prisoners Defenders International told VOA.

  • India Times ☛ How TikTok grew from a fun app for teens into a potential national security threat

    September 2019 The Washington Post reports that while images of Hong Kong democracy protests and police crackdowns are common on most social media sites, they are strangely absent on TikTok. The same story notes that TikTok posts with the #trump2020 tag received more than 70 million views.

    The company insists that TikTok content moderation, conducted in the US, is not responsible and says the app is a place for entertainment, not politics.

    The Guardian reports on internal documents that reportedly detail how TikTok instructs its moderators to delete or limit the reach of videos touching on topics sensitive to China such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and subsequent massacre, Tibetan independence or the sanctioned religious group Falun Gong.

  • VOA News ☛ Russia adds VOA, Current Time, BBC journalists to register of 'foreign agents'

    Russia's Justice Ministry on Friday added more journalists to its list of so-called foreign agents, including reporters for Voice of America, Current Time and the BBC.

    Six journalists were named to the registry, including Ksenia Turkova, who works for VOA's Russian language service in Washington, and Iryna Romaliiska, who works for Current Time, a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty program in partnership with VOA.

  • VOA News ☛ Russia sentences Navalny lawyers to years behind bars

    The sentences come as Russia -- in the midst of a massive crackdown during its Ukraine offensive -- seeks to punish Navalny's associates since his unexplained death in an Arctic prison colony last February.

  • Freedom From Religion Foundation ☛ ‘Freethought Matters’ guest is librarian heroically championing right to read

    The “Freethought Matters” guest is Amanda Jones, author of the bestselling new book, “That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.” The memoir describes how she became a target simply for speaking out against book banning and is taking a defamation lawsuit against her detractors. Jones has been an educator for more than 20 years at the same middle school she attended as a child in Livingston Parish, La. She served as president of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians and has won many awards for her work. She’s a co-founder of the Livingston Parish Library Alliance and founding member of Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Jimmy Lai paid ex-US officials US$3.25 million to advise Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen, prosecutors tell national security trial

    Prosecutors have accused jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai of paying two former US officials US$3.25 million (HK$25.3 million) to brief ex-Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen about Washington’s attitude towards the self-ruled island.

  • VOA News ☛ Far from home, exiled journalists say Russia is always on their minds

    Watchdogs estimate about 1,500 journalists fled Russia after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and escalated its repression of dissent and independent media. Some journalists went to Berlin, Riga and Tbilisi. Others, like Levchenko, found refuge in Prague.

    And while they enjoy a degree of safety to continue reporting, the journalists must also contend with the emotional turmoil that comes with being forced to leave your family and friends, your home and culture, for an unfamiliar place.

  • VOA News ☛ Journalists in Azerbaijan face trials, jailings, travel bans

    Azerbaijan is among the worst jailers of journalists in the world, with more than a dozen behind bars, according to a report released this week by the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ.

    Azerbaijan is currently detaining at least 18 journalists for their work, according to CPJ.

  • VOA News ☛ Niger journalist held after channel suspended, association says

    Seyni Amadou, editor in chief of Canal 4 TV, has been arrested, said CAP-Medias-Niger, which represents media workers in the country.

    On Friday, Niger's communications ministry announced the channel had been taken off the air for a month.

  • The Dissenter ☛ Biden's Legacy: The World Is More Unsafe For Journalists

    Through the political case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Biden became the first president to secure an Espionage Act conviction against a journalist.

    Biden, along with Democrats, had plenty of time to pass a federal shield law to protect U.S. journalists from government interference. Yet when asked if he supported greater protection for the news media, the White House would not endorse the legislation.

  • El País ☛ Journalists on the verge of extinction in Nicaragua

    In 10 of the 15 regions that make up Nicaragua, journalists, TV anchors, radio hosts and even local reporters — who detail the goings on in their communities on Facebook pages — have disappeared.

    Across the country, the journalistic profession has been extinguished, due to persecution by the regime of President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo. This is according to a report published on Monday, January 13, by the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy (FLED), which has issued warnings following the events of 2024. The report is an x-ray of freedom of expression and the press in the Central American country, whose people are subjected to “a totalitarian model,” in which dissenting voices have been criminalized.

  • RFERL ☛ Belarusian State TV Shows Fourth Part Of Propaganda Film Targeting RFE/RL Journalists, Activists

    The number of arrests of independent media representatives in Belarus has reached 42, and the country is placed 167 among 180 by the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.

    The persecution of RFE/RL journalists and other media employees and rights activists has been loudly condemned.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Guardian accused of using AI to help produce stories during strikes

    Journalists accused Guardian bosses of attempting to derail the four-day industrial action, which was held in protest against the controversial sale of its sister title The Observer to Tortoise, a loss-making start-up.

    One insider said: “Using AI tools to improve the productivity of managers covering [the] work of journalists who were out on strike was a deeply cynical attempt by management to undermine the strike. It’s also in contravention of The Guardian’s self-professed values.”

  • Press Gazette ☛ Why Sam McBride is 'one of the most privileged journalists in the UK'

    McBride said there are “loads of good journalists” in the UK but that “you’re much more likely to be able to do that sort of journalism if you’re at somewhere where that’s prioritised, rather than somewhere where you’re almost rebelling against your editor to take a week to work on something or do an in-depth investigation”.

  • The Hindu ☛ Journalist files complaint against peddlers for death threats, probe on

    A 37-year-old journalist has filed a complaint with the Sanjaynagar police after allegedly getting death threats from drug peddlers.

  • ANF News ☛ Journalist Reyhan Hacıoğlu in custody: The free press will not be silenced

    Six journalists were taken into custody during house raids in Van and Istanbul on Friday morning in line with an investigation launched by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office. Journalist Reyhan Hacıoğlu was detained in Van, Necla Demir, Rahime Karvar, Welat Ekin and Ahmet Güneş in Istanbul, and journalist Vedat Örüç in Mersin's Tarsus district.

    The journalists were banned from meeting their lawyers for 24 hours. Reyhan Hacıoğlu met with her lawyer Jiyan Özkaplan at Van Security Directorate on Saturday.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • New York Times ☛ Spain Overhauls Domestic Violence System After Criticism

    Spain uses an algorithm to score how likely a domestic violence victim is to be abused again. A Times investigation last year identified flaws in the system.

  • New York Times ☛ Prince Harry’s Suit Against Rupert Murdoch’s U.K. Tabloids Set to Start

    Barring a late settlement, Harry’s lawsuit against News Group Newspapers will begin Monday, with potential consequences for the royal family, the media baron and even The Washington Post.

  • France24 ☛ 'Progressive trend: In the past 30 years we've seen 60 countries liberalise their abortion laws'

    As France celebrates half a century of legal abortion, FRANCE 24's Oliver Farry welcomes Kei Yoshida, Senior Legal Advisor at the Center for Reproductive Rights, offering an in-depth look at women's health, reproductive rights, and the progressive trend spanning the globe.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Diplo Revenge Porn Lawsuit Voluntarily Dismissed After Court Rules Accuser Must Reveal Identity

    The Jane Doe plaintiff who made revenge porn accusations against Diplo has officially dropped her lawsuit. This dismissal just recently came to light in a notice from the unnamed accuser’s counsel, who indicated that the suit was being pulled “in its entirety.”

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Explainer: What is the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute and why was it raided by national security police?

    The Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) made headlines after its office was raided on Monday and its CEO and president, Robert Chung, and two other staff members were taken to a police station to assist in a national security investigation.

  • France24 ☛ Trump 2.0 and women's rights: What is at stake this time around?

    With Donald Trump re-entering the White House, what will it mean for American women this time around? Annette Young talks to Carter Sherman, the reproductive health reporter for the Guardian US. Also the gender divide in South Korea is becoming all the more evident during this latest political crisis over the arrest of President Yoon Suk Yeol; with young men protesting against his impeachment while their female peers called for him to be detained. Plus the rise of e-sports or video gaming in China and how once again, women are finding themselves shut out of one of the world fastest-growing sectors.

  • [Old] ACLU ☛ Cooley v. Foreman AKA Afroman | American Civil Liberties Union

    After a musician used footage of officers searching his home in music videos criticizing that search and the officers more broadly, they sued him for damages and asked the court to order him to stop speaking about them. The ACLU of Ohio and the ACLU filed an amicus brief in support of the musician’s motion to dismiss the suit, arguing that the lawsuit sought to silence criticism in violation of the First Amendment.

  • [Old] Faruki PLL ☛ Afroman Can't Have His Cake and Eat It Too

    The infamous Joseph Edgar Foreman, also known as "Afroman" recently failed in his effort to have the court dismiss a lawsuit that several members of the Adams County, Ohio Sheriff’s Department filed against him. The suit resulted in part from Afroman's song and video called "Lemon Pound Cake."

    The case arose when Adams County Sheriff Deputies obtained and executed a search warrant on Afroman's Adams County home. Afroman wasn't home at the time, but his wife captured the police on her cell phone camera and home security cameras captured other images. Afroman incorporated many of the images in his Lemon Poundcake video. It appears the song was inspired when one of the cops appeared to look longingly at the pound cake as he was executing the warrant.

  • Wired ☛ Hackers Likely Stole FBI Call Logs From AT&T That Could Compromise Informants

    The breached data didn't include the content of calls and texts, but Bloomberg reports that it would have shown communication logs for agents' mobile numbers and other phone numbers they used during the six months period. It is unclear how widely the stolen data has spread, if at all. WIRED reported in July that after the hackers attempted to extort AT&T, the company paid $370,000 in an attempt to have the data trove deleted. In December, US investigators charged and arrested a suspect who reportedly was behind the entity that threatened to leak the stolen data.

  • The Moscow Times ☛ ‘Horrific’: Russia’s Indigenous Activists Decry Sweeping ‘Terrorist’ Designation

    This month, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) released a list of 172 ethnic, Indigenous rights and decolonial groups and media outlets designated as “terrorist” organizations.

    Though news of the sweeping designation first broke in November, authorities delayed publishing the full list of targeted organizations, keeping most members of the vast Indigenous rights community on their toes.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • [Old] The Atlantic ☛ As We May Think

    “Consider a future device … in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.”

  • Press Gazette ☛ Alamy sends journalist £460 bill for posting link to their own story

    A news agency journalist has been landed with a £460 bill from stock pictures agency Alamy after posting a link to one of his own stories on microblogging platform Tumblr.

    Barry Keevins, of Sussex News and Pictures, said he has no intention of paying the fee which he said appears to fly in the face of normal [Internet] usage.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ New UEFI vulnerability bypasses Secure Boot — bootkits stay undetected even after OS re-install

    A new UEFI vulnerability has been discovered that is spread through multiple system recovery tools. Bleeping Computer reports that the vulnerability enables attackers to bypass Secure Boot and deploy bootkits that can be invisible to the operating system. Microsoft has officially flagged the vulnerability with the codename CVE-2024-7344 Howyar Taiwan Secure Boot Bypass.

  • [Old] uni Cambridge ☛ Chapter 24: Copyright and DRM [PDF]

    The technical protection of digital content against unauthorised copying is a wicked problem both technically and politically. It’s difficult technically because general-purpose computers can copy bitstrings at no cost, and it’s difficult politically because rights-management technology has done a lot of collateral damage. That the music industry itself was one of the casualties may have been just, but doesn’t solve the continuing problems. These are tied up with much broader and deeper problems of competition, consumer protection and sustainability.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Tom's Hardware ☛ The FTC is concerned about Big Tech-AI startup partnerships — Microsoft-Open AI raises alarms

  According to a recent FTC report, Big Tech's growing investments in AI startups, such as Microsoft's $13 billion funding of OpenAI and Amazon's and Google's partnerships with Anthropic, are raising alarms about potential monopolization and competitive risks in the AI and cloud computing sectors. One of the major FTC concerns is the so-called 'circular spending' practice, under which startups spend their received money on services their investors offer, notes Bloomberg.

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Stays of District Court Litigation Pending Appeal of IPR Decisions

    The America Invents Act (AIA) created a delicate dance between district court litigation and inter partes review (IPR) proceedings.  Patent owners often race to reach trial before the PTAB rules on validity, while accused infringers typically seek stays pending IPR. The one-year statutory deadline for IPR final written decisions provides some comfort to district courts considering stays - the delay, while substantial, is at least bounded. But what was initially conceived as a streamlined alternative to litigation has evolved into a potentially years-long process, with final written decisions now being followed by requests for USPTO Director Review and subsequent Federal Circuit appeals. This timeline extension puts courts in a difficult position when considering stays, particularly late in district court proceedings.

  • Unified Patents ☛ Avant Location mobile station patent monopoly prior art found

    Unified is pleased to announce prior art has been found on U.S. Patent 8,738,040, owned and asserted by Avant Location Technologies LLC, an NPE and entity of Anjay Venture Partners LLC. The ‘040 patent monopoly generally relates to methods for monitoring the presence of a mobile station. The patent monopoly has been asserted against Apple, Fibar Group, Nice Group, and Samsung.

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

    Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Ekta Aswal and Mani Manikandan, who shared a cash reward of $2,000 for their prior art submissions on U.S. Patent 10,776,756, owned by EMM Innovations LLC, an NPE and entity of Empire IP LLC.

  • JUVE ☛ Astellas and Hoyng ROKH defend overactive bladder patent monopoly in The Hague

    The use patent monopoly EP 1 559 427 and the associated SPC (300599) form the basis of Astellas’ drug Betmiga with the active ingredient mirabegron. It is one of the pharmaceutical company’s top-selling drugs.

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ TTABlog Test: How Did These Three Recent Section 2(d) Appeals Turn Out?

    A TTAB judge once said to me that one can predict the outcome of a Section 2(d) appeal about 95% of the time just by looking at the marks and the goods/services. Of course, if you just said "affirmed" you'd be right about 89.5% of the time. Anyway, here are three Board decisions issued early this year. No hints this time. How do you think they came out? [Answer in first comment].

    In re Rockridge Enterprises LLC, Serial No. 97578343 (January 3, 2025) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Robert H. Coggins). [Section 2(d) refusal of the mark ROCKRIDGE ORCHARDS for "Non-alcoholic cider, namely apple ciders, raspberry apple cider, strawberry apple cider and asian pear cider; non-alcoholic sweet ciders, namely spiced apple cider" [ORCHARDS disclaimed] in view of the registered mark ROCKRIDGE CELLARS for "wine" [CELLARS disclaimed].]

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ MAME Devs Spent 628 Years Cracking Protection on 712 Retro Games

    Those capable of quickly bypassing video game copy protection are revered by impatient pirate players. On average, games protected by anti-tamper tech Denuvo enjoy 68 days crack-free before succumbing to piracy. Yet new research focused on MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) and video game preservation, reveals that a sample of 712 protected games, released as far back as 1979, took an average of 10.6 months each to crack. Total cracking time: 628 years.

  • David L Farquhar ☛ When the VCR became popular and legal

    When did VCRs get popular? It’s hard to give an exact date. I was alive in the 1980s, and it was a gradual thing. But I will argue that 1984 is as good of a starting point as any, because 1984 was the year VCRs became legal. Yes, part of the problem with VCR adoption was the question of whether they violated copyright law. But the Supreme Court settled that on January 17, 1984.

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Personal/Opinions

    • An extravert experience

      TL;DR: If you ever wanted to assassinate me, just be a fun and nice person to meet and then invite me somewhere. I will come.

      Being socially extraverted, I find myself arranging quite a busy schedule. Going places, talking to people, generally hanging out with people if I get the chance to do so.

      My points of contrast are my friends and family. Many of them are more introverted, thus their contrast against me is stronger. I can have a week with 4 scheduled activities (lessons, workouts, etc) on consecutive days, and while it is definitely does physically exhaust me, I don't regret having gone, and done them all . My friends contrast me, as their limited social energy makes them have maybe one, or likely no regularly scheduled activities like that. Likewise, they spend their time at home recharging where I can scurry on from place to place, day to day. And I try to invite my friends to do things with me where applicable. I often plan activities with people in turns, while some are socially recharging, others are ready to go to do something again. Or rather, the fact that people do take their time to recharge leads me to plan activities around that.

    • New Tea - Heaven Surveyor

      I recently went on a tea splurge. Well, it is cold and miserable so why not explore some new tea. As ever, I ended up with Mei Leaf so I can avoid the wait times from China. The tasting notes are always entertainingly mad as well!

      One of the teas is a raw pu'erh called Heaven Surveyor[1]. I am rather inexperienced with pu'erhs but slowly changing that. The tea leaves seem fairly small and almost like they have been shredded. This is likely to be due to my having bought a sampler rather than the cake. My sense of smell is fairly pants so there is little point describing it.

      The tea is from Man Song, an old tea growing region which is near Yiwu. The trees are old and the flavours delightful.

    • Am I brave enough to abandon a hobby?

      I've written a couple of times now about wrestling with my involvement in music as a hobby. I've been doing a bit more thinking on this, as part of an ongoing project to get more in touch with myself and what it is I actually want. So, what keeps me involved with music?

      I wondered a bit if there's a sunk-cost fallacy at work with it. I've been involved with guitar and songwriting for about 15 years now. I've invested a lot of money in gear over the years. I've made a lot of friends through it. I've made it a part of my identity - if you go to the front page of my capsule, it says, first and foremost, that I am a musician. I wonder if I resist the idea of admitting that I don't really enjoy writing songs anymore because it would be to admit that I'm not the person I've been trying to be?

      I had a similar issue with work - I went and got an engineering degree and was never very jazzed about the process. I'm now finally taking steps to be able to teach like I wanted to. But I struggled to admit that I didn't like my original degree because it was a high-value degree(tm) and thus made me a high-value person, a thing that is definitely a real thing to be. There's a certain cool-factor to being a songwriter, and I am proud of some of the music I've created. But I also have to admit that part of the reason I did it was to appear cool, to be a cool person.