Leftovers

• The Straits Times ☛ Are you living like ‘a hothouse flower’? Viral checklist sparks buzz in South Korea

  New take on "silver spoon theory" sparks debate over social privilege and uncomfortable truths.

• Ruben Schade ☛ Doing one of those “archetype” tests

  I hold archetype tests in the same esteem as I do those Myers-Briggs personality quizzes, and horoscopes more broadly. But it was still a bit of fun.

• Science

  • New York Times ☛ N.S.F. Cuts Raise Fears of a Reduced U.S. Presence in Polar Regions

    The National Science Foundation has fired workers at the office that manages polar research, raising fears about a reduced U.S. presence in two strategic regions.

  • UM-Flint launching Master of Science in Applied Finance degree

    UM-Flint's School of Management is expanding its graduate offerings with the introduction of a Master of Science in Applied Finance program for fall 2025, with two specialized concentrations: corporate finance and investment.

  • Latvia ☛ Dismissed Education Minister plans to return to parliament

    Former Minister of Education and Science Anda Čakša (New Unity) will return to the Saeima, the politician said in an interview on the Latvian Television program "Morning Panorama" February 25. She is interested in the position of head of the Budget and Finance (Taxation) Committee.

  • NYPost ☛ Mars once possibly featured ‘vacation-style’ beaches, bodies of water perfect for sun-loving Martians: study

    Mars may have once been a paradise with Earth-like oceans and balmy beaches that would have been ideal for harboring living organisms, according to a new study.

  • Science Alert ☛ We May Have Been Wrong About Why Mars Is Red

    Blush.

  • Science Alert ☛ Norway's Melting Glaciers Are Spilling Out Troves of Lost Artifacts

    Anybody lost a mitten?

  • Science Alert ☛ What Is Alexithymia? Your Guide to The Hidden Experience of Millions

    It’s not easy to tell if someone has it.

  • Science Alert ☛ Odds of 'City Killer' Asteroid Hitting Earth Plummet to 0.001 Percent

    Well, that was a ride.

  • Science Alert ☛ Your Dog's Blinking Could Be an Attempt to Tell You Something Important

    Two for grrr, one for woof?

  • Science Alert ☛ NASA's New Mission Will Create The Most Colorful 3D Map of The Entire Sky

    Shedding light on the biggest questions.

• Hardware

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man wants tighter Hey Hi (AI) chip export restrictions but may face staffing shortage and other issues

    Dihydroxyacetone Man's administration believes restrictions on Hey Hi (AI) processors exports are not strict enough for close allies, also plans to persuade Japan and the Netherlands to curb services of ASML and TEL machines in China.

  • Hackaday ☛ Infill Injection Experiment Makes Stronger Parts

    [JanTec Engineering] was fascinated by the idea of using a 3D printer’s hot end to inject voids and channels in the infill with molten plastic, leading to stronger prints without the need to insert hardware or anything else. Inspiration came from two similar ideas: z-pinning which creates hollow vertical channels that act as reinforcements when filled with molten plastic by the hot end, and VoxelFill (patented by AIM3D) which does the same, but with cavities that are not uniform for better strength in different directions. Craving details? You can read the paper on z-pinning, and watch VoxelFill in (simulated) action or browse the VoxelFill patent.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Hackaday ☛ A Ten Band SDR Transceiver For Homebrewers

      Making a multi-band amateur radio transceiver has always been a somewhat challenging project, and making one that also supported different modes would for many years have been of almost impossible complexity best reserved for expensive commercial projects. [Bob W7PUA] has tackled both in the form of a portable 10-band multi-mode unit, and we can honestly say he’s done a very good job indeed.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • France24 ☛ Which direction for the Church? Pope's hospitalisation puts prelates on stand-by

    Amid armed conflicts, a climate emergency and the disruptions of the digital age, now comes another layer of uncertainty to worry about:

    Since Monday, nightly Rosary prayers in Saint Peter’s Square as pilgrims pray for an 88-year old Pope in hospital for the fourth time. We’ll ask about Francis’ health and what change at the top would mean inside the world’s largest religious institution, one that doubles as a state recognized by 177 nations.

  • Latvia ☛ Healthcare authority reorganization planned in Latvia

    On February 25, the government gave conceptual approval to the establishment of a National Health Insurance Fund. The creation of the fund would lead to the abolition of the National Health Service (NVD).

  • The Straits Times ☛ China aims to eliminate severe air pollution in 2025

    Air pollution is responsible for about two million deaths in China annually, said the WHO.

  • ACLU ☛ Medicaid is a Lifeline for People with Disabilities. Congress Must Act to Save It.

    Congress is setting the stage to decimate Medicaid.

    The House of Representatives put forward a budget resolution that will lead to more than $880 billion in cuts from Medicaid. If approved, these cuts will eviscerate a critical source of health care and stability for 10s of millions of people. Most devastatingly, radical cuts to Medicaid will be catastrophic for people with disabilities for whom Medicaid is a lifeline.

  • New York Times ☛ Facing Early-Onset Alzheimer’s, She Fought to Expand Assisted Suicide in Quebec

    Sandra Demontigny, 45, pushed Quebec to become one of the few places in the world to allow people to choose a medically assisted death sometimes years in advance.

  • University of Michigan ☛ Get me out of ‘The Room Next Door’

    Pedro Almodóvar’s (“Women On The Edge of a Nervous Breakdown”) latest film wants you to believe that it has got its finger on the pulse. Assisted suicide, climate anxiety, estranged parents: “The Room Next Door” is concerned with the issues du jour — but as a whole, its statements on these subjects are negligible.

• Proprietary

  • The Straits Times ☛ Indonesia and Fashion Company Apple said to agree on terms to lift iPhone 16 ban

    Apple will also commit to training locals in research and development on the company’s products.

  • Harish Pillay ☛ Preserving contents

    I was reminded that I have not been backing up contents that I’ve created that sit in walled gardens like LinkedIn. Once upon a time, I did also post into that site called Facebook, but since about 2015 or so, I stopped entirely.

  • Bleeping Computer ☛ Microsoft tests ad-supported Office apps for backdoored Windows users [Ed: Just an attack on open standards]

    Microsoft has released ad-supported versions of its Office desktop apps, which have limited features but allow backdoored Windows users to edit their documents.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Troy Hunt ☛ Processing 23 Billion Rows of ALIEN TXTBASE Stealer Logs

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ 3 arrested for scalping Kai Tak opening ceremony tickets

      Three people, including a teenager, have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud after allegedly selling tickets to the Kai Tak Sports Park opening ceremony at inflated prices.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Latvia ☛ Cashless payments exceeded 1 trillion euros in Latvia last year [Ed: That seems like bad news; cash is better]

      In 2024, 876.0 million customer non-cash payments totalling 1.1 trillion euro were executed by Latvian payment service providers. This averages 2.4 million payments worth 2.7 billion euro a day, according to a release from the Latvian central bank, Latvijas Banka.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Site36 ☛ Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest arms company, is converting civilian sites for military technology

  • CS Monitor ☛ China eyes opportunities as US scales back humanitarian aid

    The freeze on U.S. foreign aid has hurt Chinese rights defenders, but encouraged China to fill the void left by USAID’s evisceration, preparing to replace Washington in the soft power landscape.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Judge blocks Convicted Felon’s order halting the U.S. refugee admissions system

    The lawsuit, brought by a group of religious organizations and refugees, came in response to President The Insurrectionist’s order suspending the refugee program. The president’s authority “is not limitless,” a federal judge said in his ruling.

  • INTERVIEW: Why an Argentine court filed a warrant for Aung San Suu Kyi’s arrest

    Former UN rights rapporteur says court must remain impartial in lawsuit that accuses Myanmar of Rohingya genocide.

  • New York Times ☛ What We Know About Guantánamo Bay’s Migrant Camp

    Last month, Hell Toupée announced plans to construct a migrant holding facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Carol Rosenberg breaks down what we know about the operation, along with New York Times photographer Doug Mills, who captured the first independent images of the facility.

  • Digital Music News ☛ TikTok & Douyin In-App Purchases Top $6 Billion Annually, Latest Data Reveals [Ed: Digital weapons, threat not being recognised anymore]

    New data published by app analytics firm Sensor Tower says Fentanylware (TikTok) & Douyin—the Chinese version—are the first non-gaming apps to surpass $6 billion in in-app purchases in 2024. Fentanylware (TikTok) also generated a record high of $1.9 billion in gross IAP revenue in Q4 2024.

  • ADF ☛ Both Sides of Sudan War Targeting Health Care System

    Pharmacist Al-Samani Alhaj felt blood flowing from his head when he heard gunshots from an adjacent room in his busy hospital in northern Khartoum.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Impeachment trial hearings conclude as support for S. Korean leader Yoon surprisingly grows

    Reversal in sentiment a result of anxiety over prolonged instability and next leader, say analysts

  • The Straits Times ☛ Cook Islands PM survives no-confidence vote over China pact

    Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown survived on Wednesday a vote of no confidence in parliament brought by the opposition over deals he struck with China that strained relations with New Zealand.

  • The Straits Times ☛ US Coast Guard ship in Tasman Sea did not interact with Chinese navy, commander says

    China’s navy held live-fire exercises in international waters between Australia and New Zealand.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Virgin pilot alerted Australia to China navy live fire drill

    In total, 49 flights diverted around the area of the live fire drills.

  • The Strategist ☛ China’s ships near Australia. Challenges in the South China Sea. Get used to it

    Australia can take three lessons from Chinese military behaviour in the past two weeks.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Xi urges officials to stay calm as US raises pressure on China

    Mr Pooh-tin urged top officials to maintain social stability and promote the sustained recovery of the economy.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea’s Yoon accused in final impeachment hearing of seeking ‘dictatorship’

    Yoon Suk Yeol faces being removed from office if the court upholds Parliament's impeachment.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea political turmoil pushes companies to take tariff matters into their own hands

    They are worried that they do not have enough backing from the government.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korean minister heads to Washington seeking exemption from Convicted Felon tariffs

    South Korea's Industry Minister Ahn Duk-geun will travel to Washington D.C. from Wednesday through to Friday to press again for an exemption from U.S. steel tariffs and discuss ways to boost cooperation in energy and shipbuilding, his ministry said.

  • Cambodia asks to renew joint drills with US amid Ream base concerns

    The annual Angkor Sentinel exercise was called off by Phnom Penh in 2017.

  • Japan, Philippines boost defense ties amid ‘increasingly severe’ regional situation

    Manila has been shoring up military partnerships as it seeks to counter Beijing in a South China Sea dispute.

  • France24 ☛ Syrian national conference outlaws armed groups outside military

    The closing statement of Syria's national dialogue conference held Tuesday in Damascus said any armed groups outside the country's military were considered "outlawed". The semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in Syria said it did not endorse the outcome of a national dialogue conference that excluded it over its links to armed groups.

  • The Strategist ☛ Some US allies contribute, some loaf. Here’s a numerical assessment

    Which US allies have paid their bills, as The Insurrectionist would see things? Which, having given the United States little support in return for its security guarantee, now risk losing it?

  • ADF ☛ Puntland Forces Closing In On Islamic State Leader

    The autonomous state of Puntland has intensified its military campaign against the Islamic State group, which is entrenched in the Cal Miskaad range of the Golis mountains of northeastern Somalia. After months of preparations, Puntland’s security forces recently launched Operation Lightning, an offensive seeking to dismantle IS-Somalia’s command structure.

  • New York Times ☛ She Interrupted a Town-Hall Meeting and Was Dragged Out by Private Security

    The City of Coeur d’Alene revoked the license of a security firm after its plainclothes guards forcibly removed a woman. The police said they were investigating the incident.

  • New York Times ☛ Gabbard Says More Than 100 Intelligence Officers Fired for Chat Messages

    The chats had been set up to discuss sensitive security matters. But a group of employees used it for discussions that contained sexual themes, intelligence officials said this week.

  • CS Monitor ☛ For Syria’s religious minorities, new freedoms, yet lingering insecurity

    It has been a pressing question regarding Syria’s new rulers. How would the Islamist group treat religious freedom in a diverse country? For Syria’s religious minorities, the answer has been encouraging, but incomplete.

  • France24 ☛ Syrian national conference asserts the state's monopoly of weapons

    Syria's new interim president pledged on Tuesday to ensure the state has a monopoly on weapons at a national dialogue conference on the country's future after Bashar al-Assad's overthrow. FRANCE 24's Dana Alboz reports from Damascus.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Hungary threatens to block E.U. sanctions extension if eight Russian nationals aren’t removed from blacklist — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ One dead, two wounded in Russian drone strike near Kyiv — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Very nice people’: Trump says new ‘gold card’ residence permit for wealthy foreigners may be open to Russian oligarchs — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Snickers, Twix, Alpen Gold and Oreo to become more expensive in Russia — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Pokrovsk mayor urges Zelensky to ‘make peace,’ military administration warns against ‘surrendering to despair’ — Meduza

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • JURIST ☛ US federal workers amends lawsuit challenging new federal reporting requirement

    Multiple associations representing US federal employees filed on Sunday an amended complaint that claimed reporting requirements instituted by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) are unlawful. OPM sent an email on Saturday requiring federal workers to provide a five-bullet-point list outlining their accomplishments for that week.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • New York Times ☛ 4 Workers Killed in Highway Bridge Collapse in South Korea

      Six others were injured when part of a highway construction site broke apart on Tuesday morning, officials said.

    • DeSmog ☛ Pathways Carbon Capture Project Is Not Viable, Expert Warns

    • RTL ☛ Improved rail service: CFL announces five new stops in Trier region from March 2025

      The improvements will significantly boost rail access to the western part of Trier, with five new stops being added to the network: Trier Zewen, Trier Euren, Trier West, Trier Pallien, and Trier Hafenstraße. According to CFL, these additions aim to provide better connectivity for residents and commuters in the region.

    • Futurism ☛ Tesla Just Got Some Extremely Bad News

      As sales collapse, the automaker's usually stellar stock position has also taken a ding, despite soaring to an all-time high in the wake of Donald Trump's election victory. As of Tuesday morning, Tesla shares dropped by more than 8 percent, for a cumulative decline of 23 percent in the last month of trading.

    • Wired ☛ This Refinery Wants to Make Sustainable Aviation Fuel Mainstream. Trump’s Cuts Could Kill It

      The proponents of the project, including its financial backers Deloitte and Bank of America, said last year that up to 60 million gallons of blended fuel, containing potentially up to 50 percent SAF, would be flowing by 2025, and they aim to produce 1 billion gallons of SAF per year, which would surpass the demand at the Minneapolis airport and make the hub a producer for additional airports around the country and potentially the world. (There is no time frame for the refinery to hit this larger target.)

    • Maverick Multimedia Inc ☛ Legendary Ocean Liner SS United States to Become Artificial Reef off Florida Panhandle - Space Coast Daily

      The SS United States was equipped with powerful steam turbines capable of pushing the ship to speeds exceeding 35 knots, a remarkable feat for its time. But beyond its performance, the ship was a beacon of luxury, boasting elegant interiors, fine dining, and state-of-the-art amenities.

      For decades, it catered to elite travelers, offering transatlantic voyages between New York and Europe.

    • Wired ☛ After a Violent Kidnapping, [Cryptocurrency] Elites Hire Bodyguards

      The kidnappers communicated their demands—the specifics of which have not been disclosed by law enforcement—to Éric Larchevêque, another Ledger cofounder. To flush out the full payment, they severed one of Balland’s fingers. French authorities dispatched more than 200 officers to investigate.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • ADF ☛ Despite Ban, The Gambia Remains Major Source of Smuggled Rosewood

      For decades, The Gambia has been a major source of African rosewood, which is prized by Chinese furniture makers for its significance as an indicator of wealth and nobility. [...]

    • Vox ☛ Trump, DOGE [sic] job cuts imperil endangered black-footed ferrets

      Experts who have spent decades trying to save black-footed ferrets say these impacts threaten the broader prairie ecosystem. Efforts to conserve ferrets and their prey sustain this important American landscape, a home for insects that pollinate our crops, plants that store carbon in their long roots, and streams that provide us with fresh water.

      “Right now, the recovery of the species is dependent on captive populations,” said Jackson, who started her role with the Fish and Wildlife Service last spring, after more than two decades with Colorado’s state wildlife agency. “Without people to take care of those captive populations, we will potentially lose the species. The hardest thing is to think about them blinking out on our watch.”

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Field experiments show clownfish actively provide food to their anemone partners

      They saw Clark's anemonefish actively provisioning food to bubble-tip anemones, such as by attaching a clam they cannot eat to the tentacles of their hosts. For smaller food, the fish had their fill first before feeding the sea anemones.

      "We also confirmed that feeding the anemonefish directly increases the growth rate of the sea anemones," stated Ph.D. student Kobayashi.

    • Wired ☛ Costa Rica Is Saving Forest Ecosystems by Listening to Them

      Using bioacoustic recordings, studies have shown that some birds shout loudly to make themselves heard in cities and that sea turtle hatchlings communicate from the nest to coordinate their hatching. And when bioacoustics is combined with other sounds—those made by humans, as well as the natural sounds of the landscape, such as the crashing of waves in the sea—it is possible to interpret deeper ecological meaning. It becomes possible to monitor changes in biodiversity, detect threats, and measure the effectiveness of conservation strategies. This wider analysis of sound is known as ecoacoustics—and it is exactly the work underway here in Costa Rica.

  • Overpopulation

    • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea birth rate rises for first time in 9 years, marriages surge

      The nation has rolled out various measures to encourage young people to get married and have children.

    • The Straits Times ☛ China adviser pushes to lower legal marriage age to 18 to boost birth rate

      China's legal marriage age is among the highest in the world, being 22 for men and 20 for women.

• Finance

  • Breach Media ☛ Ontario’s rent allowance isn’t a safety net—it’s a poverty trap

    With an election looming, none of the major political parties in Ontario have a plan to fix the starvation-level housing allowance

  • LRT ☛ New wave of inflation? Food prices in Lithuania expected to rise

    Economists’ predictions of a new wave of inflation in Lithuania may soon materialise. Supermarket chains say they have already received notifications from suppliers about increased prices of their goods.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Chinese company withdraws marry or be fired ultimatum

    Local authorities said the company's move violated the country’s labour laws.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Budget 2025: Hong Kong logs estimated HK$87.2 billion deficit, will cut spending by 7% over coming 3 years

    Hong Kong will cut government spending by 7 per cent over the coming three years, Financial Secretary Paul Chan has announced in his 2025 budget speech, as the city logged an estimated HK$87.2 billion deficit.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ “Do you not like money?”

    I received an email from an Australian financial company with the blog title as the subject, and it’s been rattling around in my head for days.

    Do you not like money?

  • [Old] Cult Of Mac ☛ VisiCalc becomes Apple II's 'killer app': Today in Apple history

    No program like VisiCalc existed before. That meant the Apple II version wasn’t a toned-down, inferior version of existing software, like the console ports of arcade games used to be.

    VisiCalc for the Apple II sold a massive 700,000 copies in six years, and possibly as many as 1 million during its lifespan. While the program cost $100 (the equivalent of $435 today), many customers bought $2,000 Apple II computers specifically to be able to run VisiCalc.

  • [Old] Rob Landley ☛ VisiCalc The History of the First Spreadsheet

    "Any product that pays for itself in two weeks is a surefire winner." - Dan Bricklin on VisiCalc

    compter inventionsVisiCalc was the first computer spreadsheet program. It was released to the public in 1979, running on an Apple II computer. While most early microprocessor computers had been quickly supported by BASIC and a few games, VisiCalc introduced a new level in application software. It was considered a fourth generation software program. Companies invested time and money in doing financial projections with manually calculated spreadsheets, where changing a single number meant recalculating every single cell in the sheet. With VisiCalc, you could change any cell, and the entire sheet would be automatically recalculated.

    compter inventions "VisiCalc took 20 hours of work per week for some people and turned it out in 15 minutes and let them become much more creative." - Dan Bricklin

  • [Old] The Centre for Computing History ☛ VisiCalc - Software - Computing History

    VisiCalc used the A1 notation in formulas, as Dan Bricklin conceived VisiCalc while watching a Harvard Business School professor creating a financial model on a blackboard that was ruled with vertical and horizontal lines to construct a table of cells in which he wrote formulae and data. Bricklin's innovation was that he could replicate the process in a computer's "electronic spreadsheet".

    Bob Frankston joined Bricklin and formed the Software Arts company, and developed the VisiCalc program in two months in 1978–79. The Personal Software company began selling VisiCalc in mid-1979 for under $100. It required an Apple II with 32K of random-access memory (RAM), and supported saving files to magnetic tape cassette or to the Apple Disk II disk.

  • [Old] Apple II History ☛ 18-Software

    VisiCalc was a way of using a computer that no one had ever thought of before, especially at the time when most computers were mainframes with limited access to the “average” user. VisiCalc was written by Dan Bricklin. He was a programmer that had decided to enter Harvard Business School in the fall of 1977 and learn a second profession. Because of his programming background, he saw ways in which some of his class work could be simplified through the use of computers. He wrote programs in BASIC on the college time-sharing system to do his financial calculations, but found it tedious to have to re-write the program to deal with each new type of problem.

  • [Old] Tyler Thorsted ☛ Multiplan

    Microsoft Multiplan was the parent of Microsoft Excel. Multiplan was built for many different types of computers in the 1980’s, but was never ported to Windows. So to use Multiplan you have to be comfortable with using DOS. If you want to take Multiplan for a spin, head over to PCjs Machines and load up one of the many emulated systems they have.

    In the end, Multiplan had four versions, but the last one, version 4.2, had some big changes, especially to the file format. More on that in a minute.

  • [Old] ACQ LLC ☛ Microsoft Volume I: The Complete History and Strategy

    Multiplan, despite Microsoft's best efforts, is completely left in the dust. Microsoft's trying to figure out, what should we learn from this? In talking with Pete Higgins and Mike Slade, who were both early leaders in the development and the marketing of the applications division, actually, Mike Slade went on to work directly for Steve Jobs at NeXT and Apple for many years.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • University of Michigan ☛ Government shouldn’t run like tech companies

    On Friday, Feb. 14, University of Michigan President Santa Ono sent out a message discussing the University’s response to potential spending cuts to the National Institute of Health affecting research. The funding cut would halt the three-quarters of a billion dollars that the University receives from NIH.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Elon Musk’s business empire is built on $38 billion in government funding - Washington Post

    Over the years, Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments, a Washington Post analysis has found, helping seed the growth that has made him the world’s richest person.

  • Axios ☛ What to know about the Feb. 28 "economic blackout"

    A grassroots movement is calling on Americans to abstain from shopping with major retailers on Feb. 28 as part of an "economic blackout."

  • Time and Date AS ☛ Buy Nothing Day – Fun Holiday

    The unofficial holiday makes a statement against the consumerism that takes over the country on Black Friday. In the rest of the world, the holiday is observed on the last Saturday of November.

  • Calendarpedia ☛ When is Buy Nothing Day 2025?

    It is held on the same day as Black Friday, the informal name given to the Friday after Thanksgiving Day (which is always held on the fourth Thursday in November) that marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and is the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States. It always falls between November 23 and November 29.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ ASRock issues BIOS update to address Ryzen 9 9800X3D failures, warns of 'misinformation' about failures

      ASRock responds to claims that AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPUs are failing, which the manufacturer claims were caused by memory compatibility issues. A beta BIOS update has been issued to address the problem.

    • The Dissenter ☛ Trump White House Builds Its Own Lapdog Press Corps

    • FAIR ☛ NYT: Trump Unstoppable, Opposition Futile

      The New York Times editorial board (2/8/25) this month urged readers not to get “distracted,” “overwhelmed,” “paralyzed” or “pulled into [Donald Trump’s] chaos”—in short, don’t “tune out.” But what good is staying informed unless there are concrete actions Trump’s opponents can take to rein him in?

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Digital Music News ☛ YouTuber Tasha K Finalizes $1.2 Million Cardi B Payment Plan Following Defamation Legal Battle

    Tasha K (real name Latasha Kebe), the YouTuber slapped with a multimillion-dollar defamation judgement in 2022, is set to pay Cardi B nearly $1.2 million under a newly approved bankruptcy plan. The court just recently signed off on that Chapter 11 plan, complete with a seemingly harsh five-year payment schedule.

  • Meduza ☛ Apartment belonging to lead singer of anti-war Russian-Belarusian rock band Bi-2 reportedly targeted by arson attack — Meduza

  • Digital Music News ☛ Judge Orders Tory Lanez to Face Megan Thee Stallion’s Lawyers in Prison

    A judge will allow lawyers for Megan Thee Stallion to question Tory Lanez under oath from prison in relation to her lawsuit with an online blogger. Megan Thee Stallion has accused internet personality Milagro Cooper of working with Tory Lanez to smear her reputation.

  • Digital Music News ☛ The 1975 Has Been Banned From Malaysia Since 2023 — But a Lawsuit is Still Simmering

    The Malaysian festival that was shut down by authorities after The 1975’s Matty Healy kissed a male bandmate on stage is still seeing damages in court.

  • UN abruptly cancels Uyghur scholar’s speech at Paris language forum

    Organizers gave no reason for the decision, which they said was ‘beyond our control.’

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Budget 2025: Hong Kong opposition party calls off traditional demo at gov’t HQ citing ‘immense pressure’

    Hong Kong opposition party the League of Social Democrats has called off a protest outside government headquarters ahead of the annual budget speech, citing “immense pressure,” without giving further details.

  • Stanford University ☛ Gottlieb | Kanye West’s social control media rant is about more than hate speech — it’s also about mental health

    Gottlieb argues that empathy for West's mental health struggles doesn't justify the excuse of harmful content.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Second U.S. Pirate Site-Blocking Bill Incoming: MPA, Google, Verizon Met to Discuss

    Carefully crafted to avoid the controversies of the failed SOPA bill in 2012, FADPA’s central aim is to provide a framework to facilitate mass site-blocking measures in the United States, targeting foreign pirate sites. Importantly, FADPA seeks legal amendments to shield subjected ISPs from liability.

    After rightsholders in Italy and more recently France obtained injunctions against DNS resolvers operated by Cloudflare, Google, and OpenDNS, the FADPA bill seeks similar measures right from the start. DNS resolvers operated by companies with less than $100m in annual revenue are excluded, however.

  • Techdirt ☛ Heritage Foundation Presentation Details Plans To Doxx And Target Wikipeda Editors It Claims Are ‘Abusing Their Position’

    The methods outlined are potentially a serious threat to the freedom of speech of Wikipedia editors. Doxxing them would clearly open them up to the kind of online attacks that have become all-too common since Elon Musk bought Twitter. It would be quite understandable if doxxed editors stopped working on Wikipedia, for fear of real-world consequences for them and their families.

  • 404 Media ☛ Flock Threatens Open Source Developer Mapping Its Surveillance Cameras

    404 Media previously wrote about DeFlock, an open source mapping project created by Will Freeman that tracks the locations of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) from Flock and other companies. DeFlock currently maps more than 16,000 ALPRs around the world, which includes both Flock cameras as well as many created by Motorola.

  • BoingBoing ☛ Men forcibly zip-tie woman at Idaho town hall (video)

    In Trump 2.0, "free speech" only applies to those who agree with the new regime. Everyone else will "suffer the consequences," as warned by the host of Idaho's Republican town hall, where a woman who disagreed with Saturday's talking points was dragged out in zip ties by several unidentified men.

  • McClatchy Media Network ☛ Watch full video of woman dragged out of Idaho town hall | Idaho Statesman

    Videos posted by attendees online showed Teresa Borrenpohl of Post Falls yelling during the event before being pulled from her seat, wrestled to the ground and dragged out.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ US newspaper circulations 2024: LA Times loses quarter of print circulation in a year

    No US newspaper now has a print circulation of 500,000 or more copies a day.

  • RTL ☛ Furious about new tell-all book: Trump threatens to sue authors and media who use anonymous sources

    His latest move comes after the publication of a new expose by journalist Michael Wolff that has Trump and his team livid.

    Among other assertions the book says that after surviving an assassination attempt last summer during the election campaign, Trump "seemed possibly on the verge of cracking," unable to finish sentences and flying into rages that were stunning even for the famously thin-skinned former reality TV star.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Top 25 US newspaper circulations 2024: LA Times loses quarter of print circulation

    No US newspaper now has a print circulation of 500,000 or more copies a day.

  • VOA News ☛ US judge allows Trump's AP Oval Office ban to stand over use of 'Gulf of Mexico' name

    U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, denied the AP's request for a temporary injunction restoring its access to the Oval Office, Air Force One and events held at the White House.

    McFadden said the restriction on "more private areas" used by the president was different from prior instances in which courts have blocked government officials from revoking access to journalists.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Daily Mail rolls out premium paywall into US and Canada

    The news site (known as Mail Online in the UK and DailyMail.com in the US) began restricting access to certain articles labelled as part of the Mail+ subscription for UK users at the end of January 2024.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • North Koreans face forced labor on Chinese fishing vessels: report

    Workers allegedly kept at sea for up to a decade, with their salary given to their government.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Mass resignations at DOGE after staff refuse to be part of cutting public services

    A group of 21 civil servants resigned today rather than help implement changes to the federal government as requested by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

  • JURIST ☛ UC civil liberties union says racial justice infrastructure under attack following anti-DEI policies

    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated that the infrastructure of racial justice in the US is under attack and encouraged Americans to protect civil rights, in a report published on Monday. The ACLU’s report follows Hell Toupée’s tribute to Black History Month.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong lawmakers support new union laws, citing labour groups’ political acts during 2019 protests

    Hong Kong lawmakers have expressed support for tightening union laws, citing labour groups’ political acts during the “black-clad violence” of the 2019 protests and unrest. Lawmakers discussed the government’s proposed amendments to the Trade Unions Ordinance at a Panel on Manpower meeting at the Legislative Council on Monday.

  • Pro Publica ☛ ProPublica Updates Native American Repatriation Database

  • BIA Net ☛ 'Traditional unions struggle to understand tech sector'

    This varies by region—organizing in the USA differs from Italy, for instance. But broadly speaking, the Tech Workers Coalition (TWC) focuses on established organizing practices rather than reinventing the wheel just because tech workers feel “special.”

  • YLE ☛ Professional and managerial staff to walk off the job on Friday

    Besides salary increases, the union's demands include measures to improve wellbeing at work, more rights regarding remote work, more flexible holiday practices and promotion of "genuine equality and non-discrimination in all workplaces".

  • Terence Eden ☛ Book Review: Web Accessibility Cookbook – Creating Inclusive Experiences by Manuel Matuzovic

    Book cover featuring a happy dog.My friend Manuel has sent me his latest book to review - and it is a corker. The best thing about this book is that it doesn't waste any time trying to convince you that Accessibility Is Good™. You're a professional web developer; you know that. Instead, it gets straight down to brass-tacks and gives you immediate and useful examples of what to do.

  • Jason Burk ☛ Comfortable

    Be the outcast, not on Facebook. Be the one who says, "I don't shop at Amazon," to your friends. Be the one that doesn't hang out in a nazi bar because you "only talk to good people there." Be the one who helps others find alternatives. Escape this tyrannical bullshit.

    Change starts with me. Change starts with you. Change starts with us.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • New York Times ☛ Taiwan Detains a Chinese-Crewed Ship After Undersea Cable Severed

    The Coast Guard said it was investigating how the cable was severed and said it could not rule out the possibility of sabotage.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China says Taiwan ‘manipulating’ undersea cable cutting before facts clear

    China said damage to undersea cables were common accidents that occur over a hundred times a year.

  • Taiwan detains China-linked cargo ship over severed undersea cable

    Taipei suspects Beijing’s gray zone act as a Chinese-crewed vessel was found near damaged infrastructure.

  • APNIC ☛ Event Wrap: APTLD 87

    Joyce Chen presented an APNIC update at APLTD 87, held from 10 to 13 February 2025 in Hong Kong.

  • Golioth ☛ The Miserable State of Modems and Mobile Network Operators - The Golioth Developer Blog

    The reality is that the most effective way to inspire change in a commercial context is to appeal to a major player’s self-interest. As previously noted, modem designers like Nordic may have limited control over which parts of the modem firmware can be open source and which cannot. However, given their embrace of open source application firmware, it is clear that they recognize the benefits of both building an ecosystem and allowing customers and other organizations to contribute.

    For Nordic and other vendors like them, open source is not only the best thing for their customers, it is the best thing for their business. The same is true for MNOs and MVNOs. The number one reason we see customers opt to not use cellular when another connectivity option is on the table is due to concerns around cost and reliability. Because telecom is a heavily regulated industry, utilizing cellular connectivity when building a product almost always requires taking a dependency on a third party. In order to serve your customers well, you need to have a relationship with your vendors that is based on trust. Transparency is a foundational building block of trust, and vendors that are willing to embrace that will be able to differentiate in the market.

  • Techdirt ☛ FCC Boss Brendan Carr Wants You To Know He’s Having A Great Time Trampling Free Speech, Attacking Civil Rights, And Destroying All Broadband Consumer Protection

    Unfortunately Brendan is afraid of real reporters. So he recently sat down with former telecom industry policy guy Ted Hearn for one of the most feckless softball interviews I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading. The entire article at Broadband Breakfast is just filled with misleading and leading questions and answers, and at no point does Hearn seriously press Carr on his radical and unpopular policies.

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire - Virgin Media to launch 5 Gbps fibre broadband in Ireland

    According to Virgin Media, its 5 Gbps fibre service will transform broadband capabilities for homes and businesses, enabling seamless ultra-fast streaming, lag-free gaming, and instant access to cloud services.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Digital Music News ☛ What Spotify Ticketing Expansion? SoundCloud Partners With Ticketmaster on Major Integration Deal

    What Spotify-Ticketmaster talks? SoundCloud has scored a major deal with the Live Nation-owned ticketing platform, including a Universe integration and more. Ticketmaster and SoundCloud just recently disclosed their tie-up, moments after Live Nation head Michael Rapino confirmed ticketing discussions with Spotify and others.

  • Digital Music News ☛ iHeartMedia and Charlamagne Tha God Announces 2025 Black Effect Podcast Festival

    Charlamagne Tha God and iHeartMedia announce the 2025 Black Effect Podcast Festival, featuring ‘Woman Evolve,’ ‘Trap Nerds,’ ‘R&B Money,’ and more.

  • The Register UK ☛ HP CEO pay for 2024 = 261,658 toner cartridges

    The boss at HP Inc, who joined the organization in 1989 as an engineering intern and climbed the ranks to chief exec in 2019, received a financial package of $19.36 million for last year, down from $19.458 million in the prior 12 months.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• JURIST ☛ Top EU court affirms Italy antitrust decision on Surveillance Giant Google Android case

  The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled Tuesday that Google’s decision to deny developer Enel’s JuicePass app access to Android Auto’s platform was an abuse of market power. Initially launched in 2018 by Italian parent company Enel, JuicePass enables drivers to find and reserve electric vehicle charging stations worldwide.

• The Korea Times ☛ Passing Apple Pay fees onto consumers inappropriate: top financial regulator

  Passing fees on to merchants or consumers would be inappropriate as credit card companies accelerate efforts to introduce Apple Pay, the country’s top financial regulator said Monday.

• CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: With Great Power Came No Responsibility

  This speech specifically addresses the unique opportunities for disenshittification created by Trump's rapid unscheduled midair disassembly of the international free trade system. The US used trade deals to force nearly every country in the world to adopt the IP laws that make enshittification possible, and maybe even inevitable. As Trump burns these trade deals to the ground, the rest of the world has an unprecedented opportunity to retaliate against American bullying by getting rid of these laws and producing the tools, devices and services that can protect every tech user (including Americans) from being ripped off by US Big Tech companies.

• [Old] Nashville Computer Inc ☛ A Short History of Microsoft Excel - Nashville, Brentwood, Franklin TN

  In September of 1985, Microsoft Released Excel 1.0 for...the Apple Macintosh? It wouldn’t be until 1987 that Excel 2.0 would be brought to MS-DOS. (In fact, Windows 2.0 was literally bundled with Excel, and the program likely took up all your office computer’s memory!) For the next few years, both Excel and Lotus 1-2-3 would duel it out.

• The Register UK ☛ Steve Wozniak: Founding Apple today would be harder

  Steve Wozniak's career stretches back to the 1970s, when he built his first computer, designed calculators for HP, and met Steve Jobs. The duo would go on to found the Apple Computer Company, and Wozniak's Apple I would be the company's first microcomputer, swiftly followed by the best-selling Apple II.

  Time has, however, moved on, and the world that spawned the Apple I doesn't exist anymore. "Everything in technology grows hugely, but now it's consolidated to basically a few main companies that control everything, even if they don't invent it and create it themselves anymore … and that bugs me.

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Patent Office News and Turmoil

    February 2025 has brought unprecedented changes to the USPTO as part of the broader Republican transformation of the Federal Government. This post highlights six key developments affecting the US patent monopoly systems: [...]

  • Unified Patents ☛ Another Fractus LTE antenna patent monopoly challenged

    On February 21, 2025, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 8,593,349, owned and asserted by Fractus S.A., an NPE. The ‘349 patent monopoly generally relates to a volumetric antenna for use in a wireless devices.

    View district court litigations by Fractus.

  • As Convicted Felon Nears Patent Director Decision, Preserving PTAB, Cracking Down on TPLF Remain Critical Priorities

    As we enter the second month of Convicted Felon’s second term, speculation about the next USPTO Director has intensified. Given the Administration’s focus on curbing unfair foreign competition from China, the Administration should prioritize finding a Director who will shed light on the opaque litigation investment industry and defend the PTAB amid threats to its operation.

  • Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 for Eric Zautner entity, Navog, GPS patent monopoly prior art

    Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least claim 1 of U.S. Patent 10,593,205, owned and asserted by Navog LLC, an NPE and entity of Eric Zautner. The '205 patent monopoly relates to a GPS monitoring and alarm system that would warn truckers, bus and RV drivers, approaching underpasses, bridges, viaducts, tunnels, and other structures of insufficient clearance for their vehicle.

  • JUVE ☛ CJEU reopens European cross-border litigation in BSH vs Electrolux ruling

    BSH Hausgeräte has secured a significant victory at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The Grand Chamber under president Koen Lenaerts ruled that courts in EU member states have jurisdiction over infringement of European patent monopoly parts not validated in Sweden.

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ TTAB Finds "BRILLIANT ROSE" Generic for . . . Guess What?

    Those of you who are diamond aficionados (and I don't mean baseball fans) will likely know the answer to the question posed. Applicant BRTM Holdings applied to register, on the Supplemental Register, the proposed mark BRILLIANT ROSE for "diamonds, laboratory grown diamonds and jewelry," but the Board found the term to be generic for the goods. "Applicant’s evidence reinforce[d] rather than contradict[ed] our conclusion that the relevant consumer will perceive BRILLIANT ROSE as naming the genus of diamond of a particular cut." In re BRTM Holdings LLC, Serial No. 97503026 (February 21, 2025) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Elizabeth A. Dunn).

  • The Verge ☛ The latest on the WordPress fight over trademarks and open source

    Automattic has since sent a cease and desist order to WP Engine to stop it from using its trademarks, while WP Engine has followed up with a lawsuit that accuses Automattic and Mullenweg of extortion.

    The series of events set off a public battle that calls into question the boundaries between WordPress.com host Automattic, the WordPress open-source project, and the nonprofit that’s behind it.

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Chloe Bailey, Columbia/Sony Music Slapped with Copyright Infringement Lawsuit by Songwriter

    Chloe Bailey faces a copyright monopoly infringement lawsuit from a songwriter who claims not to have been properly compensated for their work. Chloe Bailey is facing Trouble in Paradise. The R&B singer, known mononymously as Chloe, is being sued by songwriter Melvin “4rest” Moore, under the claim he was not properly compensated for his work.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Life Is Rough Without BTS: HYBE Annual Profit Plunges 40% as Bangtan Boys Take Military Hiatus

    Hybe saw a nearly 40% plunge in profit without BTS, but the company expects that to change this year with the return of the Korean superstars. Korean music giant Hybe released its 2024 earnings report, dubbing the year the greatest revenue-generating year to date.

  • Walled Culture ☛ As AI agents become ubiquitous, expect the copyright industry to try to turn them against you

    Now imagine a time when governments do have this access, plus the ability to control AI agents on people’s systems – perhaps by means of agentic AI backdoors. Based on the last fifty years of its lobbying, it is easy to imagine the copyright industry demanding from governments laws requiring AI agents to take on the role of copyright police that are installed on every cloud server and personal device, and whose deactivation would be illegal. There are various ways in which that could work. Agentic AI could search through a person’s files for unauthorised copyright material – perhaps even contacting databases over the Internet to check whether a licence is in place. AI agents could watch what users are doing online, and report them if they engage in allegedly illegal activity. With agentic AI, those capabilities could be rolled out across an entire population for the first time.

  • New York Times ☛ Their Album Is Wordless. Will Their Protest Against Hey Hi (AI) Resound?

    Musicians including Kate Bush and Billy Ocean released a “silent record” in outrage at a proposed change to British copyright monopoly law.

  • Hackaday ☛ Taking Cues From A Gramophone To Make A Better Marble Music Machine

    [Martin] of [Wintergatan] is on a quest to create the ultimate human-powered, modern marble music machine. His fearless mechanical exploration and engineering work, combined with considerable musical talent, has been an ongoing delight as he continually refines his designs. We’d like to highlight this older video in which he demonstrates how to dynamically regulate the speed of a human-cranked music machine by taking inspiration from gramophones: he uses a flyball governor (or centrifugal governor).

  • Public Domain Review ☛ Gustatory Wisdom: Bruegel the Elder’s Twelve Proverbs (1558)

    Proverbial scenes about human folly painted on serving plates.