Leftovers

• Science

  • LabX Media Group ☛ US Research Funding Under Fire

    The research community experienced a tumultuous 2025. The Trump administration froze funding and halted key functions at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other agencies. These decisions caused confusion and concern from researchers, clinicians, and patients alike. In response, these groups found unique ways to speak up and rally support for federally funded research.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] EU weighs ban on veggie 'burger' and 'sausage' labels

  • The Age AU ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] 22 killed in building collapse in Moroccan city popular with tourists

  • CBC ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Medication to treat postpartum depression approved by Health Canada

  • CBC ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Patients seeking doctors losing faith in Ontario's centralized waitlist

• Proprietary

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ Police Warn of Robot Crime Wave

      “The integration of unmanned systems into crime is already here, and we have to ask ourselves how criminals and terrorists might use drones and robots some years from now,” said Europol’s executive director, Catherine De Bolle in a statement. “Just as the internet and smartphones presented significant opportunities as well as challenges, so will this technology.”

    • The Verge ☛ Frozen Waymos backed up San Francisco traffic during a widespread power outage

      A power outage struck San Francisco on Saturday that blacked out about 130,000 customers at its peak, according to Pacific Gas and Electric Company, but also caused another problem: stranded Waymo vehicles. Posts all over social media showed the company’s autonomous SUVs sitting still in the streets and causing traffic jams.

    • Jamie Zawinski ☛ Four way stop versus $100 billion valuation.

      Also, all the headlines say variants of "Waymo halts service during massive S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams" but what they fail to mention is that it took nearly six hours of these traffic jams before Waymo finally decided that the press they were getting was bad enough that they should do the most obvious thing in the world.

    • Jesper Cockx ☛ Jesper Cockx - The good places to submit your papers

      This week, the ACM made the monumental(ly stupid) decision to replace the abstracts of papers on their Digital Library website by AI-written summaries. While this did not apply to all papers, and it was only visible to “premium members” (which includes anyone logging in from the network of a university that has an ACM subscription), it was not just annoying but actively harmful to science, as explained in much more detail in this blog post by Anil Madhavapeddy. Because of some significant backlash from the community, it was quickly decided to stop presenting the AI summaries as the default view and to add a disclaimer. Still, the fact that the people in charge at ACM decided this was a good idea in the first place should be pretty worrying to the computer science community.

  • Social Control Media

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Germany news: Students oppose Australia's social media ban

    • BoingBoing ☛ Facebook testing $14.99 monthy subscription fee to post links

      A funny sign of enshittification (and a reminder that it's about platforms exploiting customers and suppliers alike after capturing both) is monetizing trust. Loudly: "verification is an important trust layer." Quietly: "you can pay us to be untrustworthy." And boy howdy can you pay Facebook to be untrustworthy.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • The Register UK ☛ Microsoft security update breaks MSMQ on older Win systems

      Microsoft has good news for administrators: while some organizations now pay for security updates on older Windows versions, the inconsistent quality remains free.

      The company has confirmed that Message Queuing (MSMQ) might fail on some Windows 10 devices and on older versions of Windows Server after installing the December 2025 Security update.

      The problems include MSMQ queues becoming inactive, Internet Information Services (IIS) sites failing with "Insufficient resources to perform operation" errors, and applications failing to write to queues.

• Defence/Aggression

  • BIA Net ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Investigation launched into alleged abuse of student interns at Turkey's parliament

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Turkey in Talks to Rejoin US F-35 Fighter Jet Programme, Envoy Says

  • BIA Net ☛ 2025-12-08 [Older] Turkey dismisses claims of planned Erdoğan meeting with SDF commander

  • The Age AU ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini vows to retaliate after three Americans killed in Syria attack

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] What to Know About the US Military's Role in Syria After Deadly IS Attack

  • CBC ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini vows 'very serious retaliation' after deadly ambush on U.S. military convoy in Syria

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] Two US troops killed in Syria, Cheeto Mussolini vows 'retaliation'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] US citizens killed by 'IS gunman' in Syria, CENTCOM says

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Pledges Retaliation After 3 Americans Are Killed in Syria Attack That the US Blames on IS

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] Two U.S. Soldiers, One Interpreter Killed in Syria, Pentagon Says

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] Two US Soldiers and an Interpreter Killed in Suspected Islamic State Attack in Syria

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] In Post-Assad Syria's Chaos, Alawite Women Face Sexual Violence

  • Khaama Press ☛ Three Toronto Men Charged with Terrorism, Hate Crimes, and Attempted Kidnappings

    Three Toronto men have been charged with terrorism, hate-motivated crimes, and attempted kidnappings, raising concerns about extremist threats targeting women and the Jewish community.

    Three Toronto men have been charged with terrorism, attempted kidnappings, and hate-motivated crimes targeting women and the city’s Jewish community, police said Friday.

    Waleed Khan, 26, along with Osman Azizov, 18, and Fahad Sadaat, 19, face a combined 79 charges, including attempted kidnapping with a firearm, sexual assault with a weapon, and hate crimes. Khan is additionally accused of funding ISIS and aiding terrorist activities.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Australia: 12 killed in shooting at Sydney's Bondi Beach

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Australia: Police detain 2 after gunshots at Bondi Beach

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Brown University shooting: Police arrest 'person of interest'

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Sudan: Drone attack kills 6 UN peacekeepers from Bangladesh

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • NPR ☛ Available to download Friday, some Epstein files no longer there Saturday afternoon

    While Trump wasn't mentioned much this time around, he was a frequent subject of emails and text messages in another Epstein file tranche released by the House Democratic Oversight Committee — with well over a thousand different mentions — though mainly as the subject of Epstein's near-obsession with his presidency, as the latter positioned himself as a Trump whisperer of sorts to his powerful associates.

  • NPR ☛ DOJ releases Epstein files and the first batch is short on new information

    The Justice Department has released a trove of documents related to the life, death and criminal investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including many that have already been made public from prior disclosures. Others are filled with heavy redactions.

  • BoingBoing ☛ DOJ's redacted Epstein drop criticized by both parties

    Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act requiring the Justice Department to release all its files on Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days. Friday was the deadline. The DOJ missed it.

  • Politico LLC ☛ What’s missing from the Epstein files release

    The department was obligated by law to release the entire universe of documents related to Epstein, the late convicted sex offender, and Maxwell, who was convicted of aiding and participating in his sex-trafficking ring, by Friday. The tranche made public represented only a fraction of the total material, which the government has said exceeds 300 gigabytes worth of data and physical evidence.

    Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, estimated the production included only about 10 percent of the material in the department’s possession.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ The Government Attempts to Gag Dan Richman from Speaking about His Own Data

    In a paragraph that could invite estoppel considerations, half of Trump’s defense team from his Florida prosecution (in which Todd Blanche and Lindsey Halligan argued the government had no business seizing records because their retention violated the Federal Records Act) argued that they can’t turn over the materials because … they’re covered by the Federal Records Act.

  • International Business Times ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Insists Epstein Had Photos With Everybody — It's No Big Deal

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] In Alaska’s Warming Arctic, Photos Show an Indigenous Elder Passing Down Hunting Traditions

  • CBC ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] House Democrats release photos of Cheeto Mussolini, Clinton and Andrew from Epstein's estate

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Democrats release Epstein photos with Cheeto Mussolini and Clinton

  • International Business Times ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] 'I'm Huuuge': Cheeto Mussolini Condom, Redacted Women's Faces Among Bizarre Epstein Photos Released to Congress

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] House Democrats Release Photos of Cheeto Mussolini, Clinton and Andrew From Epstein's Estate

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-12 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Appears in Newly Released Photos From Jeffrey Epstein's Estate

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • CBC ☛ 2025-12-08 [Older] Flying Air Transat? Here's what customers need to know as strike looms

• Finance

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] Far-Right Billionaire Vincent Bolloré Returns to Africa

  • Linuxiac ☛ The Linux Foundation Spent $8.4 Million on the Linux Kernel Project in 2025

    According to the Annual Report, gross revenue reached roughly $311 million in 2025, while total spending is forecast at about $285 million, supporting the Foundation’s open-source mission.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Once Denied Using This Slur About Haiti and African Nations. Now He Boasts About It

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-14 [Older] Hungary: Thousands march demanding Orban's ouster

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-12-10 [Older] Hungary passes bill reinforcing president's post

  • CBC ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s longtime ambassador to the U.S., is stepping down

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Search pioneer AltaVista’s star shone bright with a clean and minimal UI 30 years ago — engine lost momentum after multiple ownership changes and the embrace of the web portal trend

    Pioneering search engine AltaVista opened its service to the public 30 years ago. The original fast and clean internet search destination launched on December 15, 1995, with an enormous (for the time) 16 million pages indexed. Within a year of its establishment, it scaled from a day-one workload of handling 300,000 user queries to tens of millions of requests every day. That’s impressive, given that the service went live ostensibly as a tech demo for DEC’s Alpha server hardware.

  • International Business Times ☛ Erika Kirk Hilariously Defends Her 'Freudian Slip' After Calling Late Husband Charlie Kirk a 'Grifter'

    During one of her speeches, Erika mistakenly used the word "' instead of 'grit' while talking about Charlie. She immediately laughed off the error, but the moment was quickly dubbed the 'Greatest Freudian slip of all time' by online critics who claimed "the truth slips out"'.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • TruthOut ☛ 2025-12-09 [Older] Lawsuit: White House Pushed Apple to Remove ICE Tracking App From Store

  • BoingBoing ☛ A 233-year-old firm pays the price for capitulating

    While Cadwalader hemorrhaged talent after capitulating, firms that challenged Trump's executive orders won in court, adding to the humiliation.

  • The Daily Beast ☛ Storied Law Firm Pays Brutal Price for Surrendering to Trump

    However, he declined to say whether the firm’s previous deal with the administration would apply to the merged firm.

  • Reuters ☛ Hogan Lovells and Cadwalader plan merger to create law firm with $3.6 bln in revenue

    The firms said the deal, which follows a string of major transatlantic and U.S. law firm tie-ups, would create the world's fifth largest law firm by revenue.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Business Insider ☛ 2025-12-13 [Older] Pondering Middle East Petrostates as American Media Owners

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Anna’s Archive ☛ Backing up Spotify

    Anna’s Archive normally focuses on text (e.g. books and papers). We explained in “The critical window of shadow libraries” that we do this because text has the highest information density. But our mission (preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture) doesn’t distinguish among media types. Sometimes an opportunity comes along outside of text. This is such a case.

    A while ago, we discovered a way to scrape Spotify at scale. We saw a role for us here to build a music archive primarily aimed at preservation.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Dolby v. Unified: Informational Standing, RPIs, and the SharkNinja Twist

    Dolby seeks SCOTUS review on revealing IPR real parties in interest (RPIs). A recent USPTO policy shift could revive their claim for full disclosure.

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Video Game Giants Suddenly Have RuTracker in their Crosshairs Again

    RuTracker is not only Russia's largest torrent site, it's one of the oldest and most resilient pirate sites anywhere in the world. Most major entertainment companies have had issues with RuTracker at some point during its 21 years online, and those in the videogame sector are no exception. Under the umbrella of The ESA, some of the largest are now showing renewed interest in the torrent site veteran.