Leftovers

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Fast Radio Burst Source Traced Record Distance Across The Universe

    An 11 billion year old signal.

  • Science Alert ☛ Tiny 'Coral' Discovered by Rover in Martian Crater

    Don't be fooled.

  • Science Alert ☛ New Research Confirms Weight-Loss Drug Link With Sudden Vision Loss

    Here's what we need to know.

  • Science Alert ☛ Remains of UK Scientist Found 66 Years After Tragic Antarctic Glacier Death

    Home at last.

  • Science Alert ☛ This Amazing Blob Is Stunningly Similar to The Human Brain

    "We've made the next generation of brain organoids."

  • Science Alert ☛ Bones in Norway Cave Reveal Chilling Fate of Ice Age Animals

    There are lessons to be learned.

  • Science Alert ☛ Mars Looks Strangely Familiar in Stunning New Panorama

    No place like home.

  • Science Alert ☛ The DNA of Great White Sharks Defies Explanation. Here's Why.

    Can they get any weirder?

  • Science Alert ☛ Air Conditioning Could Put You at Risk of 'Sick Building Syndrome'

    Time for a service.

  • Science Alert ☛ The Perseids Meteor Shower Peaks This Week: Here's When to Look Up

    Don’t miss one of the year’s best sky shows.

  • Science Alert ☛ Atlanta Home Struck by Meteorite Older Than Earth

    You don't see that every day!

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Building A Trash Can Reverb

    These days, if you want a reverb effect, you just dial up whatever software plugin most appeals to you and turn the dials to taste. However, [Something Physical] specialises in… physical things… and thus built a reverb the old fashioned way. Using a trashcan, of course.

  • Hackaday ☛ Compliant Contacts: Hacking Door Locks With Pen Springs

    As you may have guessed given our name, we do love hacks around here, and this one is a great example of making some common, everyday things work in uncommon ways. [Nathan] sent in his hack to detect the door lock position in his basement.

  • Hackaday ☛ Watertight And Wireless In One Go: The DIY Sea Scooter

    To every gadget, tool, or toy, you can reasonably think: ‘Sure I could buy this… but can I make it myself?’ And that’s where [Ben] decided he could, and got to work. On a sea scooter, to be exact.

  • Hackaday ☛ Calipers: Do You Get What You Pay For?

    Generally, you think that if you pay more for something, it must be better, right? But that’s not always true. Even if it is true at the lower end, sometimes premium brands are just barely better than the midrange. [Project Farm] looks at a bunch of different calipers — a constant fixture around the shop if you do any machining, 3D printing, or PCB layout. The price range spans from less than $10 for some Harbor Freight specials to brands like Mitutoyo, which cost well over $100. Where’s the sweet spot? See the video below to find out.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • LRT ☛ Apple juice season in Lithuania expected to be worst in years

    Lithuania’s apple juice pressing season, set to begin in a few weeks, is expected to be one of the worst in recent years, with output likely to be about half of last year’s due to frost damage and persistent rain, producers say.

• Proprietary

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Google's Hey Hi (AI) could be tricked into enabling spam, revealing a user's location, and leaking private correspondence with a calendar invite — 'promptware' targets LLM interface to trigger malicious activity

      Google's Hey Hi (AI) could be tricked into enabling spam, revealing a user's location, and leaking private correspondence, among other things, with just a calendar invite.

  • Social Control Media

    • NYPost ☛ Disney World visitor slammed for ‘incredibly obnoxious’ social control media-fueled behavior: ‘Takes the magic out of visiting the parks’

      "I can't stand people who do this."

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Nearly 30,000 Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Exchange servers remain unpatched against critical hybrid flaw

      A critical vulnerability in Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Exchange Server remains unpatched on nearly 30,000 systems worldwide, raising concerns about potential exploitation in hybrid cloud environments. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-53786, affects Exchange 2016, Exchange 2019 and Exchange Server Subscription Edition in hybrid configurations with Exchange Online.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Press Gazette ☛ Meta says businesses will be able to report scam ads ‘at scale’ after spate of impersonations

      FT's Martin Wolf and Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis among those whose reputations have been used by scams.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Automatic License Plate Readers Are Coming to Schools

      Fears around children is opening up a new market for automatic license place readers.

• Defence/Aggression

  • France24 ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man extends tariff truce with China for 90 days

    US President The Insurrectionist has ordered a 90-day extension to a US-China tariff truce, hours before it was due to expire – keeping higher duties on hold until November 10 as both sides continue trade talks.

  • Defence Web ☛ Burkina Faso acquires more armoured vehicles, artillery from China

    Burkina Faso has taken delivery of another batch of military vehicles and artillery systems from China as it continues to expand its armed forces in the face of relentless attacks by Islamist militants.

  • Meduza ☛ The deal that wasn’t: Armenia and Azerbaijan didn’t actually sign a peace agreement at the White House. So why did their leaders say Trump deserves a Nobel Prize? — Meduza

  • The Strategist ☛ Foiling espionage and foreign interference is a national, not just government, task

    Australia’s jewels are being stolen—and yet we’re still leaving the front door open.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ The United Kingdom has joined C-SIPA. Who will be next?

    To fully realize the regional security architecture that the United States and Bahrain envision, policymakers will need to expand C-SIPA within the Middle East region.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Nat. security trial for Tiananmen vigil group to begin in November

    A Hong Kong court has decided that the national security trial of the now-disbanded group that organised Tiananmen crackdown vigils in the city will begin in November.

  • JURIST ☛ UN Security Council addresses escalating violence against civilians in Syria

    The UN Security Council voiced concerns on Sunday regarding the violence and attacks against civilians in Syria’s Sweida region. The Security Council adopted a presidential statement, document S/PRST/2025/6, which is yet to be published.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Series of bomb scares in South Korea raises security concerns

    Police say the surge in bomb hoaxes is putting an unsustainable burden on special operations forces.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ 100 candidates pass nat. security vetting for Election Committee by-elections in Hong Kong

    A total of 100 candidates have passed a national security screening to contest next month’s Election Committee by-elections in Hong Kong, where they will compete for 93 seats on the powerful body that elects the city’s leader.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Telegram begins blocking channels engaged in doxxing and extortion — Meduza

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Strategist ☛ Australia’s lithium gamble: balancing climate cooperation and strategic sovereignty

      Successive Australian governments have worked hard to limit Chinese involvement in our critical minerals sector, reflecting a bipartisan understanding that such resources are central to economic security and future self-reliance.

    • Hackaday ☛ Neon Bulbs? They’re A Gas!

      When you think of neon, you might think of neon signs or the tenth element, a noble gas. But there was a time when neon bulbs like the venerable NE-2 were the 555 of their day, with a seemingly endless number of clever circuits. What made this little device so versatile? And why do we see so few of them today?

• Finance

  • The Strategist ☛ Turning vision into strategy in the north—starting with Beetaloo

    Australia’s surprisingly low June-quarter inflation has reignited talk of rate cuts, but a soft landing is not a national strategy.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Silicon Angle ☛ High Court rejects Wikipedia’s challenge to UK online safety laws

    The High Court in the U.K. today dismissed Wikipedia’s challenge to the country’s far-reaching online safety laws, rejecting its claim that the rules were flawed. The Online Safety Bill, or OSA, which the government has vowed will tame the “Wild West” of the internet, has been controversial since it was first proposed.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ Five Al Jazeera journalists killed in deliberate Israeli Gaza attack

    "Targeting media workers is a war crime - and we cannot let it be normalised."

  • Meduza ☛ ‘A permanent state of siege’: Journalist Maxim Trudolyubov explains why he thinks the Kremlin is preparing for life after the war — Meduza

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • JURIST ☛ Portugal court rules controversial anti-immigration bill unconstitutional

    The Portuguese Constitutional Court on Friday declared a newly enacted bill amending the country’s immigration rules unconstitutional.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Hackaday ☛ End Of The Eternal September, As AOL Discontinues Dial-Up

    If you used the internet at home a couple of decades or more ago, you’ll know the characteristic sound of a modem  connecting to its dial-up server. That noise is a thing of the past, as we long ago moved to fibre, DSL, or wireless providers that are always on. It’s a surprise then to read that AOL are discontinuing their dial-up service at the end of September this year, in part for the reminder that AOL are still a thing, and for the surprise that in 2025 they still operate a dial-up service.

  • New York Times ☛ AOL Will End Its Dial-Up Internet Service (Yes, It’s Still Operating)

    The company said the service, synonymous with the early days of the internet, will be discontinued on Sept. 30.

  • Internet Society ☛ What Is Internet Resilience?

    A resilient Internet connection is one that can maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of faults and challenges to normal operation. Understanding what makes the Internet resilient requires a holistic view of the Internet, not just a technical view.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Perlmutter v. Blanche Back-and-Forth Continues — Summary Judgement Schedule to Run Into November

    Another day, another round of back-and-forth in the Perlmutter v. Blanche lawsuit, where dueling summary judgement motions are taking center stage. Both sides just recently filed a proposed schedule for that summary judgement sub-dispute, and the presiding judge signed off on the timetable soon thereafter.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Reddit says its blocking the Internet Archive to stop sneaky Hey Hi (AI) scrapers accessing its content

    Reddit Inc. said today it has decided to block the Internet Archive from indexing its popular web forums in order to prevent sneaky artificial intelligence firms from scraping its content for training purposes. Reddit reportedly found evidence that Hey Hi (AI) companies were scraping its content via the Internet Archive’s platform [...]

  • Digital Music News ☛ Diddy’s Payback is Just Getting Started: Rapper Broadens NewsNation Defamation Complaint, Seeking ‘Not Less Than $100 Million in Damages’

    Diddy is expanding his lawsuit against a TV network and its associates for defamation over “fabricated” sexual assault claims, seeking “not less than $100 million in damages.” Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is now broadening his lawsuit against Courtney Burgess, Ariel Mitchell, and Nexstar Media, which operates the NewsNation TV news network.