Leftovers

• CBC ☛ 2025-05-31 [Older] U.S. fugitive psychic says it was 'a mistake' to flee to Toronto for 21 years

• CBC ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] Hospital alleges its floors aren't flat, files $100M lawsuit against builder

• Chloé Vulquin ☛ Text is Sacred

  We are alone in this world. I don't mean that we (together) are alone, but that you as a person are the only entity you will ever interact with directly. Every other interaction will go through several layers of abstraction, concretization, misdirection, and more.

• Soeren ☛ My Blogging Workflow as of mid 2025

  For me, this works and I noted that more complex (proof-reading and validation) procedures lead to not writing at all. A downside of this process is that the first time I see how the post will look is when it‘s available on the website. Thus, there is often a second iteration of steps 4 and 5, where I fix typos, add missing links or headings. Then, it’s really done 😅

• Career/Education

  • Luigi Mozzillo ☛ Have you ever had to fire someone?

    Our company has no more employees except me, who is dealing with the last paperwork before closing down for good, at the latest by the end of the month. Then there will be the future, which, as every future, I imagine bright; this present, damn it, how dark it is.

• Hardware

  • Computers Are Bad ☛ 2025-06-08 Omnimax

    I had hoped to present here a thorough history of the films that were actually produced in the Omnimax format. Unfortunately, this has proven very difficult: the fact that most of them were distributed only to science museums means that they are very spottily remembered, and besides, so many of the films that ran in Omnimax theaters were converted from IMAX presentations that it's hard to tell the two apart. I'm disappointed that this part of cinema history isn't better recorded, and I'll continue to put time into the effort. Science museum documentaries don't get a lot of attention, but many of the have involved formidable technical efforts.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Researchers convert old phones into 'tiny data centers' — deploy one underwater for marine monitoring

    A group of researchers from the University of Tartu developed a way to reuse old smartphones as an edge node to process data in real-time.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] Southern Alberta's 472 confirmed measles cases 'tip of the iceberg,' health official says

  • TruthOut ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Canada Sees Record Numbers of US Doctors Crossing the Border

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] India: 11 dead after cricket stadium stampede

  • CBC ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Food delivery robots test appetite for high-tech takeout

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Secret leprosy infected the Americas before European arrival

  • Andre Franca ☛ Back to the Gym: My Fitness Comeback

    The first day back was intimidating. Stepping into a somewhat familiar but at the same time foreign environment, surrounded by individuals lifting weights and pushing their limits, brought back memories of my younger, fitter self. This time, however, my goals were not just about aesthetics but reclaiming my health, strength, and vitality.

• Proprietary

  • India Times ☛ Bill Atkinson, who made computers easier to use, dies at 74

    "Looking at his code was like looking at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel," recalled Steve Perlman, who as a young Apple hardware engineer took advantage of Atkinson's software to design the first color Macintosh. "His code was remarkable. It is what made the Macintosh possible."

    In an early Apple commercial for the Macintosh, Atkinson described himself "as a cross between an artist and an inventor."

    He was also the author of two of the most significant early programs written for the Macintosh. One of them, MacPaint, was a digital drawing program that came with the original Macintosh. It made it possible for a user to create and manipulate images on the screen, controlling everything down to the level of the individual display pixel.

  • The New Stack ☛ Still Connecting: New Steve Jobs Tales Keep Surfacing

    Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once said “One of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there.” It became the opening quote of a posthumously curated memoir published online in 2023.

    But last month saw still more reminders that Steve Jobs’ legend continues glowing for those who admired his work from afar — and from those who knew him. One by one, their memories surfaced again online in May. And collectively, all these stories together combine into their own “something wonderful” tribute.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ YouTube is expanding its ad-blocking powers — closes loopholes that allowed some users to bypass restrictions

    The aforementioned ruckus died down with the discovery of ad blocker-blocker loopholes. But now that Google has acted again to close loopholes, people are up in arms about the measures.

  • Nick Heer ☛ Apple ‘Fandom’ in 2025

    That era — the Jobs era, the simplistic worldview era, and the clear ethos era — is behind us. I am not saying Apple now takes everything for granted; I am sure it has teams of people working hard all day long to make improvements. But it is a corporate behemoth that cannot move quickly. Regardless of how cool its rumoured “Liquid Glass” visual refresh may be, I have a difficult time believing it will radically alter the way we use our devices. There are 2.35 billion devices on users’ wrists, in their hands and bags, and on their desks. At least a billion of them are iPhones. So, even though it is a bit exciting to be on the verge of something new and different, I do not think it will be that new and different, lest Apple alienate a huge number of people. It will look different enough, and that looks like progress — and maybe it will actually represent progress, too.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • CBC ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] An Ontario judge tossed a court filing seemingly written with AI. Experts say it's a growing problem

    • David Gerrells ☛ chatgpt ate my homework

      Join me as we take a look at the Future Web, the odd twisty turny landscape of todays LLMs starting with how one of the co-founders of Figma plagiarized me.

    • Fly ☛ My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts

      All progress on LLMs could halt today, and LLMs would remain the 2nd most important thing to happen over the course of my career.

    • Rlang ☛ Beyond Nelson-Siegel and splines: A model-agnostic Machine Learning framework for discount curve calibration, interpolation and extrapolation

      This paper introduces a general machine learning framework for yield curve modeling, in which classical parametric models such as Nelson-Siegel and Svensson serve as special cases within a broader class of functional regression approaches. By linearizing the bond pricing/swap valuation equation, I reformulate the estimation of spot rates as a supervised regression problem, where the response variable is derived from observed bond prices and cash flows, and the regressors are constructed as flexible functions of time-to-maturities. I show that this formulation supports a wide range of modeling strategies — including polynomial expansions, Laguerre polynomials, kernel methods, and regularized linearmodels — all within a unified framework that could preserve economic interpretability. This enables not only curve calibration but also static interpolation and extrapolation. By abstracting away from any fixed parametric structure, my framework bridges the gap between traditional yield curve modeling and modern supervised learning, offering a robust, extensible, and data-driven tool for financial applications ranging from asset pricing to regulatory (?) reporting.

    • Futurism ☛ Car Dealerships Are Replacing Phone Staff With AI Voice Agents

      The company has some competition. According to a study commissioned last year by Fullpath, a sales data platform, 80 percent of the 200 dealerships contacted said they were already using AI — and fully 100 percent of those who use the technology said they saw increasing revenues after doing so.

      Notably, that study didn't break down how those dealerships were using AI, and Toma appears to be filling a specific hole that call centers across the world have already sought to plug: replacing human agents with AI.

    • TechCrunch ☛ Toma’s AI voice agents have taken off at car dealerships -- and attracted funding from a16z | TechCrunch

      The insights from that trip helped Pamecha and Krivonos sharpen the Toma voice agent into a tool that is already in use at more than 100 dealerships around the country. The AI helps customers schedule service appointments, handle parts orders, answer sales questions, and more.

    • Semafor Inc ☛ Politico’s AI tool spits out made-up slop, union says

      Earlier this year, Politico’s editorial union filed a complaint against the company over its use of AI, which editorial staffers said violated language in their contract that stipulated that if AI is used, it “must be done in compliance with POLITICO’s standards of journalistic ethics and involve human oversight.”

      In several examples printed out and shared in Politico’s Rosslyn, Virginia, newsroom last week, staff pointed to instances where the tool appeared to garble the publication’s reporting, or generate reports filled with completely made-up information.

    • Ruben Schade ☛ Externalities

      By now you can probably understand some of the externalities imposed on society and the planet by blockchains and genAI. If their externalities were sufficiently costed and recovered, I would argue they wouldn’t be viable. Okay, they’re not viable right now either! But anyone who writes positively about this tech without talking about these is a stochastic parrot themselves, who demand the rest of us pay for their toys.

    • Tim Bray ☛ AI Angst

      The rent is too damn high · I promise I’ll talk about genAI applications but let’s start with money. Lots of money, big numbers! For example, venture-cap startup money pouring into AI, which as of now apparently adds up to $306 billion. And that’s just startups; Among the giants, Google alone apparently plans $75B in capital expenditure on AI infrastructure, and they represent maybe a quarter at most of cloud capex. You think those are big numbers? McKinsey offers The cost of compute: A $7 trillion race to scale data centers.

      Obviously, lots of people are wondering when and where the revenue will be to pay for it all. There’s one thing we know for sure: The pro-genAI voices are fueled by hundreds of billions of dollars worth of fear and desire; fear that it’ll never pay off and desire for a piece of the money. Can you begin to imagine the pressure for revenue that investors and executives and middle managers are under?

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • BSDly ☛ Should I Stop Caring and Let IP Address Reputation Sort Them Out?

      For any reasonably current IP Reputation purposes, you will be better served with the pop3 gropers during the last six weeks, which conveniently is also archived for those who wish to study developments.

      For what it's worth, there is an archive of the greytrapped hosts list available too, along with a separate archive of the SSH bruteforcers list, all kept around for as long as I find it at least a little useful to do so.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • International Business Times ☛ Travelling to the US? Officials Can Search Your Phone Without a Warrant – Even Risqué Texts

      The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit focused on digital privacy, has received reports of visa and green card holders being denied entry to the US because of messages found on their devices.

      The group says travellers should ask if Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can search their phone, whether they can opt out, and what steps they can take to minimise risk.

      'CBP can search your devices. Constitutional protections are generally weaker at US borders, including airports. You can try to opt out, but depending on your specific circumstances, you might not be willing to risk the potential ramifications of not complying, which can include the confiscation of your devices,' the EFF states.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Atlantic ☛ Trump Is Using the National Guard as Bait

    By militarizing the situation in L.A., Trump is goading Americans more generally to take him on in the streets of their own cities, thus enabling his attacks on their constitutional freedoms. As I’ve listened to him and his advisers over the past several days, they seem almost eager for public violence that would justify the use of armed force against Americans.

    The president and the men and women around him are acting with great ambition in this moment, and they are likely hoping to achieve three goals in one dramatic action.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Trump’s Ominous Military Flex in Los Angeles

    But if the Trump-Hegseth threats have little purpose as law enforcement, they signify great purpose as political strategy. Since Trump’s reelection, close observers of his presidency have feared a specific sequence of events that could play out ahead of midterm voting in 2026:

    Step 1: Use federal powers in ways to provoke some kind of made-for-TV disturbance—flames, smoke, loud noises, waving of foreign flags.

    Step 2: Invoke the disturbance to declare a state of emergency and deploy federal troops.

    Step 3: Seize control of local operations of government—policing in June 2025; voting in November 2026.

  • Brattleboro Reformer, Vermont ☛ 'No Kings' protest in Bellows Falls June 14

    People concerned about threats to democracy in the United States will join in more than 1400 protests in all 50 states on Saturday, June 14. There are protest marches and rallies planned for 25 cities and towns in Vermont that day, including Bellows Falls. People from Rockingham, Westminster and surrounding towns will start off at Bellows Falls Train Station at noon to celebrate the LBGTQ+ Pride Whistlestop Tour of the Amtrak Vermonter. They will demonstrate unity and community to those traveling through Vermont. The southbound train is due at 12:30 p.m.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Rubicon Has Been Crossed

    This is a serious historical escalation—the kind that historians will mark as a decisive moment when American democracy moved from crisis to something far more dangerous. We haven’t crossed into full authoritarianism yet, but we’ve crossed a line that makes every future escalation easier to justify and harder to resist.

    When a president deploys military force against citizens exercising their First Amendment rights, constitutional democracy enters a new and perilous phase.

  • CBC ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] German, Norwegian officials urge Canada to join 'familiar family' in buying new submarines

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Mayor of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk arrested in bribery case — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Work suspended at Russian electronics plant in Chuvash Republic after Ukrainian drone attack — Meduza

• Environment

  • Connor Tumbleson ☛ Hurricane Season is here

    As summer and June arrived that marked the 2025 hurricane season (June 1st - November 30th) had begun. As we look back at 2024 we had a rough year with mother nature.

  • The Atlantic ☛ How Air-Conditioning Built Our Reality

    The air conditioner was not only a brilliant innovation; it changed the course of human life. In the U.S., it allowed people to migrate to the Sun Belt, to Atlanta and Phoenix, altering the country’s demographics and politics. Globally, it allowed people in countries with excruciating heat to work more, leading to new sites of productivity and wealth. Today’s newsletter explores how the air conditioner has already shaped our world, and how it continues to change our lives for better and for worse.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Meduza ☛ French automaker Renault reportedly planning to produce drones in Ukraine — Meduza

    • CBC ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Tesla registrations down 90% in Quebec in 1st quarter of 2025

    • CBC ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] This Alberta solar field is becoming a high-tech hobby farm on the side

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • El País ☛ The mezcal boom is destroying Mexico’s bat ecosystems

      The close relationship between agaves and nectar-feeding bats is the product of a sophisticated co-evolution, one which is estimated to have lasted more than 10 million years. Ana Ibarra — director of Bat Conservation International in Mexico and Latin America — describes it this way: as they evolved, agaves increased the height of their quiotes, so that bats could pollinate the flowers without getting tangled up in other plants. They also adjusted their cycle so that the peak nectar flow occurred at night.

      For their part, bats’ snouts and tongues adapted, so that they could reach the nectar without damaging the flowers. They also synchronized their migration with the flowering of agaves in the territory that is now Mexico.

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] Manitoba Urges Thousands to Evacuate as Canada Wildfires Spread

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] Canada: Thousands evacuate Manitoba province as wildfires rage

    • CBC ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] 'Resources stretched thin,' Sask. premier says as wildfires continue to rage

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-31 [Older] Wildfires Burning Across Central Canada Force More People to Evacuate

    • CBC ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Red Cross helping with wildfire evacuations of thousands of people in northern Saskatchewan

    • CBC ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Flin Flon braces for devastation as wind expected to drive wildfire into northern Manitoba city

    • CBC ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] First Nations leaders call for Winnipeg hotel space to be freed up for wildfire evacuees

    • CBC ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] La Ronge blanketed in smoke as wildfires rage across northern Saskatchewan

    • CBC ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Residents forced out of Cranberry Portage, Man., after wildfires knock out power, close highway

    • CBC ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] B.C. ostrich farm facing $20,000 fine over failure to quarantine, [murder] birds: CFIA

    • CBC ☛ 2025-05-31 [Older] Millions of honeybees loose after truck overturns near B.C.-Wash. border

  • Overpopulation

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] What is the answer to overtourism?

    • Omicron Limited ☛ Making it easier to build a granny flat makes sense—but it's no solution to a housing crisis

      Each granny flat requires full residential infrastructure—water, wastewater and stormwater connections. The development contributions—fees councils charge on new builds to fund infrastructure—will help fund network upgrades. But New Zealand already faces a $120–185 billion water infrastructure deficit over the next 30 years, just to fix existing systems.

• Finance

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Isar Valley: How Munich became Europe's preeminent startup capital [Ed: Munich is also Europe's corruption capital, as EPO serves to show]

  • CBC ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Quebecers can wait years to get into co-op housing. So why isn't there more?

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Hundreds of Canadian creditors out millions as werewolf movie frozen by insolvency

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Canada Post reports $1.3B operating loss with declines in both letter and parcel revenue

  • CBC ☛ 2025-06-01 [Older] Labour dispute drags on as Canada Post rejects union's arbitration request

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Amazon's in-car software deal with Stellantis fizzles

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-31 [Older] My family lived in a hotel for a year. I wish people understood homelessness isn't a choice

  • CBC ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Canada-U.S. trade war could spark an 'immediate crisis' in Ontario's landfills

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Can tourism help Laos escape poverty?

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] Poland election: Tusk to ask for a vote of confidence

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] Polish presidential election outcome a blow to government

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] How French billionaires push the far-right agenda

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Congo: Ex-President Kabila's return fuels rebel controversy

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Dutch populist leader Geert Wilders makes PM gamble

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] EU gives green light for Bulgaria to join the euro

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] A voice for democracy: Thomas Mann's lasting literary legacy

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Mongolian PM resigns after losing confidence vote

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The North Lines IN ☛ Cyber Police warns legal action against spread of misinformation

      “We caution all social media users, citizens, and media outlets to refrain from sharing unverified and sensitive content. Falling prey to false propaganda can have serious consequences. We urge everyone to verify facts before posting or forwarding any information that may jeopardize public peace and harmony,” the Cyber Police Kashmir added.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-29 [Older] Followed, threatened and smeared — attacks by China against its critics in Canada are on the rise

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • JURIST ☛ Journalist groups pressure Poland's president-elect to protect media freedom

    The coalition urged President-elect Karol Nawrocki to foster non-partisan cooperation in government in order to implement the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) and adopt legal safeguards against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), which have increasingly been weaponized to silence journalists.

  • The Dissenter ☛ LASD, Federal Agents Attack Press Covering ICE Protests

    Police and federal agents fired crowd-control weapons at several reporters covering protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles County, California.

    Journalist and and videographer Sean Beckner-Carmitchel reported that the LA County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) dispersed a protest after an ICE operation in Paramount. Officers deployed tear gas, percussion grenades, and other so-called “less lethal” munitions. Federal authorities shot at protesters, too.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-02 [Older] Azerbaijan: Journalist faces 12 years prison for explaining economics

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Journalists in Serbia pessimistic about pledged media reform

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Kenyan, Ugandan activists allege sexual torture in Tanzania

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-04 [Older] Nigeria: The true cost of separatist sit-at-home protests

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-28 [Older] Calgary lawyers who had Manitoba judge followed fight disbarment

  • CBC ☛ 2025-05-31 [Older] Loblaw apologizes after charging customers a charity donation without consent

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2025-05-30 [Older] Public Power Can Save Canada’s NDP

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] In Germany, 'parking violations are punished more severely than discrimination'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-06-03 [Older] Indian women face growing threat of incel culture, misogyny

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • IT Wire ☛ Chile and Google agree to link Australia with trans-Pacific cable

    The new 14,800 km Humboldt cable, to go live by 2027, will not only be the first undersea cable to span the South Pacific, but is also the first such deal that Google has done with a sovereign nation.

    The cable, which was first flagged as a project in early 2024, will reportedly connect the Chilean seaport city of Valparaiso with Sydney Australia, which are both situated on approximately the same southern latitude.

  • IT Wire ☛ Orange moves to boost LEO credentials with Eutelsat agreement

    French satellite operator Eutelsat and telecoms provider Orange have signed an agreement aimed at reinforcing the telco's position in low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Trademarks

  • Old VCR ☛ There's not much point in buying Commodore

    I've been careful not to say there's no point in buying the Commodore trademark — I said there's not much. There is clearly a market for reimplementing classic Commodore hardware; Ellsworth herself proved it with the C64DTV, and current devices like the (also not affiliated with any) Mega 65, Ultimate64 and Kawari VIC-II still sell. But outside of the retro niche, Commodore as a brand name is pretty damn dead. Retro items sell only small numbers in boutique markets. Commodore PCs and Commodore smartphones don't sell because the Commodore name adds nothing now to a PC or handset, and the way we work with modern machines — for better or worse — is worlds different than how we worked with a 1982 home computer. No one expects to interact with, say, a Web page or a smartphone app in the same way we used a BASIC program or a 5.25" floppy. Maybe we should, but we don't.

• Copyrights

  • The Atlantic ☛ How I Accidentally Inspired a Major Chinese Motion Picture

    Now a Chinese studio appeared to have simply lifted the idea. I texted Chris McLaurin, the former Dockers coach who now works at a fancy law firm in London. (Since my original article published, we have become good friends.) Should we say something? Should we sue? At the very least, one of us had to see the movie. Fortunately, it was premiering in February at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. I booked a flight to the Netherlands.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Google Wins Copyright Claim Dismissal in Publishers' Textbook Piracy Lawsuit

    A lawsuit filed by educational publishers in 2024 accuses Google of profiting from textbook piracy. At the heart of the complaint are claims that Google's ‘systemic and pervasive advertising’ of infringing copies promotes pirated copies sold by third parties. In its recent motion to dismiss, Google argued that the publishers' vicarious liability claim fails to meet the legal standard. In an opinion and order handed down this week, the judge agreed - but not on everything.

• Gemini and Gopher

  • Personal/Opinions

    • stay

      don't you dare hope
      something will change
      not for the better anyway
      summon spite and dread
      and doubt and vile ideas
      wallow in that darkness
      day and night
      don't wait for the rain
      to wash you clean
      don't wait for someone 
      to find and save you
      stay hidden
      stay unclean
      stay miserable
      stay alive
      stay