Leftovers

• Sergio Visinoni ☛ Two helpful paradoxes, and moving home

  For us, dealing with technological investments almost daily, I believe it’s a helpful tool to sharpen our ability to reason about them.

  In particular: [...]

• Cynthia Dunlop ☛ Sean Goedecke on Technical Blogging - by Cynthia Dunlop

  Sean Goedecke emerged as one of the most prominent tech bloggers about a year ago. But he’s been writing for many years, and he’s certainly not aiming to fan the legendary Hacker News flames.

  Sean writes with a philosophical precision that makes you feel like you’re crawling into his mind for a little bit. His first real “hit” was a late 2024 post on how he thinks about shipping software at large companies. From there, things escalated fast. In 2025, he published 141 posts, 33 of which hit the top of HN. His posts at https://www.seangoedecke.com/ cover topics from AI in software development, to what it’s like being an Aussie in an American company, to where your engineering salary comes from.

  So how did he get here? And what lessons has he learned? Over to Sean.

• Bix Frankonis ☛ For Reference

  In my final act as host of last October’s carnival on ego, here’s my overview of the eighteen submitted posts.

• Michał Sapka ☛ This site is now on Gemini

  Now, I prefer how Gopher looks and feel, but I made a small survey on Mastodon and Gemini is the alternative people use. Maybe I will invade Gopher next, but 2 protocols are already enough. You can use Lagrange or Dillo to access the Gemini protocol, there's quite many cool people there.

• Science

  • Mark-Jason Dominus ☛ A puzzle about balancing test tubes in a centrifuge

    Suppose a centrifuge has !!n!! slots, arranged in a circle around the center, and we have !!k!! test tubes we wish to place into the slots. If the tubes are not arranged symmetrically around the center, the centrifuge will explode.

  • Henrik Forstén ☛ Online 2D transmission line field solver

    I often use online impedance calculator for quick microstrip, stripline and grounded CPW line dimension calculation. However, they often are not quite good enough. For example when microstrip is covered with solder mask its impedance drops due to dielectric of the mask and the mask increases effective permittivity. Most calculators can't give impedance of the line in that case and it can be significant for thin substrates. Another common issue is unusual transmission lines such as asymmetric stripline, embedded microstrip or lines over ground plane cuts (for example cutout under SMD capacitor or resistor pads). Many calculators are also unable to estimate line losses.

  • Groot Koerkamp ☛ Recent results on hash tables

    This post summarizes some recent results and idea on various types hash tables. Collected together with Stefan Walzer.

• Career/Education

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ Sharing is caring

    And one more note:

    "Because you absolutely should judge people based on the books they like. That’s what talking about books is for."

  • Jason Heppler ☛ My Ideal Library

    I’m in the process of slowly trying to inventory my library using LibraryThing (where I’ve been for twenty years!). I’m mostly focused on physical books—I don’t own many ebooks or audio books, the physical books are most near and dear to me. I estimate so far that my personal library runs around 800 books currently (on top of 50 or so ebooks and maybe 10 audiobooks). These books all reside in my home library, a space I renovated a couple of years ago to be my work-from-home space as well as my general writing studio that I refer to as the Bunkhouse.

• Hardware

  • CNX Software ☛ Innodisk EXEC-Q911 COM-HPC Mini kit is powered by a Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ-9075 Edge Hey Hi (AI) SoC

    Innodisk has recently introduced the EXEC-Q911, a COM-HPC Mini starter kit designed for edge Hey Hi (AI) applications powered by a Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ-9075 System-on-Chip (SoC), also known as the QCS9075, which delivers up to 200 TOPS of Hey Hi (AI) performance. The platform includes 36GB LPDDR5X memory and 128GB UFS 3.1 storage, supports dual 2.5GbE, two 4-lane MIPI CSI-2 camera interfaces, DisplayPort 1.2 and eDP outputs, and multiple expansion options via M.2 (PCIe Gen4 x4/x2) slots.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Family retrocomputer trash and treasure

    Ever since Clara’s dad learned of my interest in computer history, he’s come along almost weekly with another box of old computers, parts, and books from his basement of treasures, and we grab a coffee to talk about it all. He and his family were originally from Hong Kong, so hearing his stories of building Apple II clones over there, learning microprocessors, then moving to Australia where he worked his way up in the ABC’s IT department is fascinating.

    Since last year he’s bestowed upon us: [...]

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • WhichUK ☛ Can we get healthier as we age?

    We discussed this question in our first ever live podcast

  • New York Times ☛ Social Media Giants Face Landmark Legal Tests on Child Safety

    Starting this week, a series of trials will test a new legal strategy claiming that Meta, TikTok, Snap and YouTube caused personal injury through addictive products.

  • France24 ☛ France's Macron vows to speed up social control media ban for under-15s

    French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans to fast-track legislation banning social control media use for children under 15, aiming for implementation by September. The move follows Australia's recent ban on under-16s using popular platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Macron also supports a ban on mobile phones in schools, with the draft legislation set to be submitted to the French parliament. FRANCE 24's Angela Diffley has the details.

  • Hackaday ☛ Regrowing Teeth Might Not Be Science Fiction Anymore

    The human body is remarkably good at handling repairs. Cut the skin, and the blood will clot over the wound and the healing process begins. Break a bone, and the body will knit it back together as long as you keep it still enough. But teeth? Our adult teeth get damaged all the time, and yet the body has almost no way to repair them at all. Get a bad enough cavity or knock one out, and it’s game over. There’s nothing to be done but replace it.

    Finding a way to repair teeth without invasive procedures has long been a holy grail for dental science. A new treatment being developed in Japan could help replace missing teeth in the near future.

• Proprietary

  • Hindustan Times ☛ After facing repeated layoffs, techie seeks stability over salary: ‘I don’t need FAANG money'

    In the post, the techie said they had been laid off every year for the past two years and were emotionally drained by the constant uncertainty.

  • Windows 11 Updates for January 2026: Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Forced to Release Two Out-of-Band Fixes to Restore System Stability

    Microsoft’s January 2026 backdoored Windows 11 Update: A Case Study in Patch Management Gone Awry The January 2026 update for backdoored Windows

  • Windows 11 KB5074109: Why Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Recommends Uninstalling Its Own Patch

    Windows 11 KB5074109: Why Abusive Monopolist Microsoft recommends uninstalling its own patch

  • NYOB ☛ noyb win: Abusive Monopolist Microsoft ordered to stop tracking school children

    noyb win: Abusive Monopolist Microsoft ordered to stop tracking school children

  • Google ☛ Diverse Threat Actors Exploiting Critical WinRAR Vulnerability CVE-2025-8088

    The Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) has identified widespread, active exploitation of the critical vulnerability CVE-2025-8088 in WinRAR, a popular file archiver tool for Windows, to establish initial access and deliver diverse payloads. Discovered and patched in July 2025, government-backed threat actors linked to Russia and China as well as financially motivated threat actors continue to exploit this n-day across disparate operations. The consistent exploitation method, a path traversal flaw allowing files to be dropped into the Windows Startup folder for persistence, underscores a defensive gap in fundamental application security and user awareness.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Some Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot browser extensions are stealing your data

      A threat actor is seeding the internet with Hey Hi (AI) browser extensions that can intercept a user’s authenticated session tokens and hijack accounts.

    • Evan Hahn ☛ An LLM that's 7500× stupider

      The Kimi K2.5 large language model was just released. It has 1 trillion parameters. Roughly speaking, the more parameters, the smarter the model. So it’s pretty smart, and is probably considered “state of the art”.

      But while the world is playing with fancy trillion-parameter chatbots, I was using smollm2:135m. As the name implies, it has just 135 million parameters. Compared to the state of the art, this model is about 7500× stupider.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Cursor lies about vibe-coding a web browser with AI

      So there’s only a minor problem with that Cursor announcement — every claim in it is a lie.

      Cursor made one fatal mistake: they put the code up where other developers could see it.

    • CNN ☛ Pope Leo warns of ‘overly affectionate’ AI chatbots

      The US-born pontiff, writing in a message ahead of the Catholic Church’s annual World Day of Social Communications, said artificial intelligence risked diluting human creativity and decision-making.

      “As we scroll through our information feeds, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand whether we are interacting with other human beings, bots, or virtual influencers,” Pope Leo wrote on Saturday.

    • [Old] Vatican News ☛ Pope Leo on AI: new generations must be helped, not hindered - Vatican News

      Pope Leo XIV highlighted how “new generations must be helped, not hindered, on their path to maturity and responsibility,” especially when it comes to their relationship with new technologies and artificial intelligence. He was addressing participants in the Conference “Artificial Intelligence and Care for Our Common Home” on Friday, December 5, 2025.

    • Engadget ☛ The EU is investigating Grok and X over potentially illegal deepfakes

      “Sexual deepfakes of women and children are a violent, unacceptable form of degradation. With this investigation, we will determine whether X has met its legal obligations under the DSA [Digital Services Act], or whether it treated rights of European citizens — including those of women and children — as collateral damage of its service,” said the Commission’s executive VP, Henna Virkkunen in a statement.

    • BoingBoing ☛ Galloway: 10% spending cut from rich households tanks GDP "overnight"

      NYU professor and podcaster Scott Galloway has a theory: markets move Trump's decisions more than protests ever could. His solution, outlined in Open Culture, is a coordinated consumer withdrawal — an economic strike.

      If wealthy households reduced spending by 10% and middle and lower-income households by 5%, "you would take GDP negative almost overnight." That kind of hit shows up in earnings reports, stock prices drop, and corporate leaders start making phone calls.

    • Anup Jadhav ☛ Why AI Coding Advice Contradicts Itself

      If you've tried to get better at AI-assisted coding, you've probably noticed something odd. The advice contradicts itself.

      Not in a hand-wavy "it depends" way. Actual opposing recommendations from people who all claim success.

    • Mo ☛ After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand

      What’s worse is code that agents write looks plausible and impressive while it’s being written and presented to you. It even looks good in pull requests (as both you and the agent are well trained in what a “good” pull request looks like).

      It’s not until I opened up the full codebase and read its latest state cover to cover that I began to see what we theorized and hoped was only a diminishing artifact of earlier models: slop.

      It was pure, unadulterated slop. I was bewildered. Had I not reviewed every line of code before admitting it? Where did all this...gunk..come from?

  • Social Control Media

    • Victor Kropp ☛ Deprecation

      After I created my Twitter archive, I started reviewing all my blog posts. The goal was to replace Twitter embeds with pre-rendered tweets from the archive. There were two reasons for that.

    • Reuters ☛ Meta CEO Zuckerberg blocked curbs on sex-talking chatbots for minors, court filing alleges

      The filing on Monday included internal Meta employee emails and messages obtained by the New Mexico Attorney General's Office through legal discovery. The state alleges they show that "Meta, driven by Zuckerberg, rejected the recommendations of its integrity staff and declined to impose reasonable guardrails to prevent children from being subject to sexually exploitative conversations with its AI chatbots," the attorney general said in the filing. In the communications, some of Meta’s safety staff expressed objections that the company was building chatbots geared for companionship, including sexual and romantic interactions with users. The artificial intelligence chatbots were released in early 2024. The documents cited in the state’s filing Monday don’t include messages or memos authored by Zuckerberg.

    • Public Knowledge ☛ Congress Picked a Fight With Fentanylware (CheeTok) When It Should Have Fixed Tech Policy [Ed: Microsoft-infected org promotes social control media]

      Americans deserve strong privacy protections online – not just scapegoats that grab headlines.

    • Security Week ☛ TikTok Finalizes a Deal to Form a New American Entity [Ed: It is not "New American Entity", it's a MAGA base; the Cheeto in Chief is gifting this social control network to himself via his associates]

      TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new American entity, avoiding the looming threat of a ban in the United States.

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] Senator Says Congress Must Investigate TikTok Deal, Faults Lack of Details

    • CBC ☛ 2026-01-22 [Older] TikTok parent company finalizes deal to keep video-sharing app operating in the U.S.

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] What to Know About the Deal to Keep TikTok in US [Ed: It's not about locality but about cliques; this will now be run for another autocrat]

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-26 [Older] Meta, TikTok, YouTube to Stand Trial on Youth Addiction Claims

    • International Business Times ☛ 2026-01-26 [Older] Americans Say They 'Miss Free Speech' From China as US-Owned TikTok Censors Anti-Cheeto Mussolini Posts

• Security

  • Security Week ☛ Crunchbase Confirms Data Breach After Hacking Claims

    Crunchbase was targeted alongside SoundCloud and Betterment in a ShinyHunters campaign.

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • SANS ☛ Initial Stages of Romance Scams, (Tue, Jan 27th)

      [This is a Guest Diary by Fares Azhari, an ISC intern as part of the SANS.edu BACS program]

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • IT Wire ☛ The Architecture of Trust: Why Privacy Must Be Built In

      Data Privacy Day is a timely reminder that as organisations scale their use of data and AI, security, privacy and governance must keep pace. AI adoption is accelerating, but trust frameworks are not.

    • The Washington Post ☛ The privacy risks of Google’s Personal Intelligence

      That’s a new privacy decision you’ll need to make if you use Google’s increasingly popular Gemini chatbot and AI Mode web search. This month, the company introduced a tech in beta called Personal Intelligence that promises to deliver smarter tailored responses, once it’s allowed to ingest some of your most intimate data. It’s off by default, but raises some privacy issues we’ve not had to deal with before.

    • The Register UK ☛ Ireland explores legal spyware, encryption-breaking powers

      The Irish government is planning to bolster its police's ability to intercept communications, including encrypted messages, and provide a legal basis for spyware use.

      The Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill is being framed as a replacement for the current legislation that governs digital communication interception.

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ The Constitutionality of Geofence Warrants

      The US Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of geofence warrants. [...]

    • Dan Q ☛ That’s Not How Email Works, HSBC

      What you’re seeing are two tracking pixels: tiny 1×1 pixel images, usually transparent or white-on-white to make them even-more invisible, used to surreptitiously track when somebody reads an email. When you open an email from HSBC – potentially every time you open an email from them – your email client connects to those web addresses to get the necessary images. The code at the end of each identifies the email they were contained within, which in turn can be linked back to the recipient.

      You know how invasive a read-receipt feels? Tracking pixels are like those… but turned up to eleven. While a read-receipt only says “the recipient read this email” (usually only after the recipient gives consent for it to do so), a tracking pixel can often track when and how often you refer to an email5.

      If I re-read a year-old email from HSBC, they’re saying that they want to know about it.

      But it gets worse. Because HSBC are using http://, rather than https:// URLs for their tracking pixels, they’re also saying that every time you read an email from them, they’d like everybody on the same network as you to be able to know that you did so, too. If you’re at my house, on my WiFi, and you open an email from HSBC, not only might HSBC know about it, but I might know about it too.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong jails ex-Chinese soldier for 8 months for offering illegal taxi services 691 times – reports

    A former People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier has been sentenced to eight months in prison in Hong Kong after admitting to offering illegal ride-hailing services in his Tesla Model S sedan while visiting the city as a tourist, according to local media. Zeng Yulin, 39, appeared at Fanling Magistrates’ Courts on Monday for sentencing.

  • Defence Web ☛ How precision tech and industry partnerships can give the SANDF an unfair advantage for future African fights

    It is stated that armed forces can win battles, but it is nations who win wars.

  • The Strategist ☛ Holding out: Taiwan’s priority preparations in case of Chinese blockade

    Taiwan isn’t Ukraine. Russia’s victim has withstood almost four years of war, but it has advantages in perseverance that Taiwan lacks.

  • France24 ☛ Uganda: Battered Barbra Kyagulanyi tells husband Bobi Wine to stay in hiding

    Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda's military chief, denied accusations that soldiers had been sent to the home of opposition leader Bobi Wine to beat his wife in posts on X. Wine has been in hiding since disputing the outcome of the mid-January elections that returned President Yoweri Museveni to power for a seventh term. Kainerugaba claims that troops did not raid Wine's home and assault his wife, Barbra, because it is not worth the army's time. Barbra is currently in hospital. She recorded the intruders on her phone and says they forced their way into her home, choked her, mocked her and assaulted her staff, demanding that she tell them where her husband was.

  • Wired ☛ Google DeepMind Staffers Ask Leaders to Keep Them ‘Physically Safe’ From ICE

    On Monday morning, two days after federal agents shot and killed Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti, a Google DeepMind employee sent the following message in an internal message board for the company’s roughly 3,000-person AI unit:

    “US focused question: What is GDM doing to keep us physically safe from ICE? The events of the past week have shown that immigration status, citizenship, or even the law is not a deterrent against detention, violence, or even death from federal operatives.”

  • Nick Heer ☛ A Slot Machine for Feelings in Every Pocket

    Though Newton links to Mike Masnick’s coverage of two studies, Newton only dissects the one that is not behind a paywall. I get it; the other study is $45 USD, and I only read free Platformer articles. But it would behoove him to try to find both for a more comprehensive article. For example, the Australian researchers found usage of under two hours a day was not correlated with negative outcomes, but a good retort is that teens are spending an average of nearly five hours across seven social media apps per day. I would say get a friend in academia, or see if your local public library has access to JAMA Pediatrics, Newton.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Crisis, No. 4: On the uses of memory

    If that is not what the diary is for, then what is it for? A museum piece? A historical curiosity? A tragedy safely contained in the past, invoked only to remember and never to warn?

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Crisis, No. 5: On the hollowing of Apple

    But he had a conscience. He moved, later in life, to repair the damage he had done. The reconciliation with his daughter Lisa was part of a broader moral development—a man who had hurt people learning, slowly, how to stop. He examined himself. He made changes. He was not a perfect man. But he had heart. He had morals. And he was willing to admit when he was wrong.

    That is a lot more than can be said for this lot of corporate leaders.

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Crisis, No. 6: On the architecture of unreality

    Bari Weiss is not a journalist. She is a propagandist with a journalist’s title. She has an agenda. She has interests. And they align with the interests of those who think keeping the current regime in charge of our national affairs is theirs. It is why she brings the reactionary fraud Niall Ferguson to CBS: to lend the appearance of intellectual heft to what is, in fact, a project of epistemological sabotage.

  • The Next Move ☛ War at Home, 'Peace' Abroad, Truth in Neither

    ICE’s ongoing operations in Minnesota look more like a foreign military occupation than a domestic law enforcement action. They are the sequel to the National Guard deployments in major cities over the last year.

    Federal agents killing and brutalizing Americans is what happens when a government treats its people like enemy combatants. How easy it is to forget that the individuals wearing badges and uniforms are supposed to protect you from criminals who would hurt you, not do the hurting themselves. The administration is replacing the social contract between state and citizens with loose rules of engagement for masked troopers.

    Why fight a war at home?

  • Baldur Bjarnason ☛ Books as signifiers, the paradox of tolerance, and Nazi bars

    The history of publishing is full of controversial or even outright unsavoury literary books, but Mein Kampf is not that. It is a political manifesto. It is routinely used as an explicit signal of political affiliation.

    Anybody who talks favourably about the book Mein Kampf in a social context, as opposed to noting its role in history, is unambiguously doing so to let on that they are a Nazi sympathiser in a way that some parts of “polite” society find acceptable.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Latvia ☛ Security service: Russia thinking about Baltics the way it thought about Ukraine

      On January 26th, the Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB) security service published the unclassified part of its annual report for the year 2025. Along with a review of last year’s activities, SAB also provided a forecast of sorts on the possible future development of current security issues.

    • Security Week ☛ Russian Sandworm Hackers Blamed for Cyberattack on Polish Power Grid

      10 years after disrupting the Ukrainian power grid, the APT targeted Poland with data-wiping malware.

    • France24 ☛ EU 'is still very uncomfortable about India-Russia relations', expert says ahead of free trade deal

      The European Union ⁠and India will explore possibilities for Indian participation in European defence initiatives, according to reports. Speaking with FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney, Christophe Jaffrelot, Research Director at CNRS, explains that the addition of defence cooperation to a wide-ranging free trade deal is a political message from the EU to both current allies and rivals, but adds that the EU 'is still very uncomfortable about India-Russia relations'.

    • New York Times ☛ Russia Says Talks to End War in Ukraine Will Continue

      Ukrainian and Russian officials left rare direct talks last weekend in a somewhat optimistic mood. But Russia may be simply stalling for time, analysts said.

    • New York Times ☛ Shift to Drone Fighting in Ukraine War Means No Winter Lull

      Shifts in tactics and technology in Ukraine mean that the pace of fighting is no longer decided by whether tanks can navigate frozen fields.

    • RFERL ☛ Peace Talks Set To Resume Amid Ground Fighting, Severe Power Outages In Ukraine

      Ukraine, Russia, and the United States are set to resume negotiations in Abu Dhabi next week after two days of what officials described as “constructive” peace talks, even as the war shows no signs of easing.

    • LRT ☛ Zelensky warns Europe against complacency during visit to Vilnius

      Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who joined his Lithuanian and Polish counterparts in Vilnius on Sunday, warns that Europe must not relax its defences while Russia continues to view the continent as a target. The three presidents also discussed Ukraine’s efforts to join the European Union, somewhat diverging on the accession timeline.

    • France24 ☛ EU countries' final approval to Russian gas ban, four years after full scale invasion of Ukraine

      European ‍Union countries on Monday ​gave their final approval to the bloc's plan ⁠to ban Russian gas imports by late 2027, allowing it to pass into law. The policy makes legally-binding the ​EU's vow to cut ties with its former ‍top gas supplier, nearly four years after Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion ​of Ukraine. FRANCE 24's Emerald Maxwell reports.

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-26 [Older] Czechs Fundraise Over $6 Million to Buy Generators for Freezing Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-26 [Older] Kremlin Sticks to Demand That Ukraine Cede All of Donbas in Talks, TASS Reports

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-26 [Older] Talks With US and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi Were Constructive but Major Challenges Remain, Kremlin Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-25 [Older] Pope Leo Says Civilians in Ukraine Are Suffering, Calls for War to End

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-24 [Older] Ukraine: Zelenskyy calls Abu Dhabi talks 'constructive'

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] Ukraine updates: Peace talks put to test at UAE meeting

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] Ukraine Needs Energy Ceasefire as Catastrophe Looming, Top Power Executive Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] Ukraine's Grid Operator Says Energy Situation Has 'Significantly' Worsened

    • CBC ☛ 2026-01-22 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskyy criticizes Putin, European inaction in impassioned Davos speech

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-22 [Older] Ukraine Anti-Graft Police Target Former Border Guard Chief

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-21 [Older] Ukraine Investigates Ex-Senior Presidential Aide Over Embezzlement

    • HRW ☛ 2026-01-20 [Older] Five Year Sentence for Speaking Out Against War on Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-20 [Older] IAEA Says Ukraine's Chornobyl Nuclear Plant Lost All Off-Site Power on Tuesday

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-20 [Older] Ukraine to Share Wartime Combat Data With Allies to Help Train AI

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-26 [Older] EU agrees on complete ban of Russian gas imports by 2027

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-26 [Older] As Russia Bombs, Ukraine's Artists Squeeze Frozen Paint From the Tube

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-26 [Older] EU Countries Give Final Approval to Russian Gas Ban

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-26 [Older] Russia Withdrawing Troops From Airport in Northeast Syria, Sources Say

    • CBC ☛ 2026-01-25 [Older] Kyiv residents stranded in tower blocks as Russia targets power system

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-25 [Older] Russia looks to India to fill labor shortage

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-25 [Older] Russian Strike on Ukraine's Kyiv Leaves 1,700 Buildings Still Without Heat, Mayor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-25 [Older] Power Cut to Russia's Main Naval Base Home Town After Pylons Collapse

    • CBC ☛ 2026-01-24 [Older] Latest Russian attacks on Ukraine kill 1 and wound 31 people amid U.S.-led peace talks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-24 [Older] Russian Air Attack Knocks Out Power for Over a Million Ukrainians

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-24 [Older] Freezing and in the Dark, Kyiv Residents Are Stranded in Tower Blocks as Russia Targets Power System

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-24 [Older] Nearly 6,000 Buildings in Kyiv Without Heat After Russian Attack

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-24 [Older] Russia Captures Another Village in Northeastern Ukraine, Defence Ministry Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-24 [Older] Zelenskyy Says Trilateral Talks Ended Constructively and More Are Possible Next Week

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-24 [Older] US-Brokered Peace Talks Break off Without Deal After Overnight Russian Bombardment of Ukraine

    • NL Times ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] NL: Police warned about security hole used by Russian hackers in major theft of police data

    • The Conversation ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] Russian knowledge of Soviet-era energy systems has helped it to target Ukraine’s heating and homes

    • CBC ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] Russia shows no sign of compromise as delegations meet in Abu Dhabi

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] Germany investigates Russian espionage case

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] Will US-Russia-Ukraine talks bring war to an end?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] Envoys Travel the Globe to Push a US Plan for Ending Russia's War in Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] French Navy Diverts Suspected Russian Shadow Fleet Tanker to Marseille-Fos Port

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] Poland Sends Hundreds of Generators to Ukraine as Russia Strikes Energy System

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] Russia, Ukraine and the US Are Holding Peace Talks in Abu Dhabi. They're Coming at a Key Moment

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-23 [Older] UK's Royal Navy Tracks Russian Vessels Sailing Through English Channel

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-22 [Older] Germany expels Russian diplomat, summons ambassador over espionage case

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-22 [Older] Austrian Ex-Intelligence Accused of Spying for Russia Goes on Trial

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-22 [Older] France's Navy Intercepts an Oil Tanker in the Mediterranean Sailing From Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-22 [Older] French Navy Intercepts Sanctioned Russian Tanker in Mediterranean

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-22 [Older] Germany Expels Russian Diplomat Over Espionage Accusations

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-22 [Older] Russia-China Cooperation in Arctic Is a Concern for NATO, Top General Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-22 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskyy Says His Repeated Warnings to Europe Feel Like 'Groundhog Day'

    • NL Times ☛ 2026-01-21 [Older] The Netherlands steps up energy aid amid Russia’s attacks on Ukraine

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-21 [Older] Almost 60% of Kyiv Without Power as Russian Strikes Shatter Grid

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-21 [Older] Court Jails Man Who Killed Russian Chemical Weapons Chief at Ukraine's Behest for Life

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-21 [Older] Germany Arrests Suspected Russian Spy Accused of Gathering Ukraine Drone Intelligence

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-21 [Older] NATO Situation Difficult but Must Focus on Russia, Says Norway's Defence Minister

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-21 [Older] Ukraine Endures a Bitter Winter After Russian Attacks as Peace Efforts Overshadowed

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-21 [Older] Ukraine Endures Its Bitterest Winter as Russia Targets Heating and Power

    • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2026-01-20 [Older] “Greenland is not a natural part of Denmark”, says Russian foreign minister

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2026-01-20 [Older] Ukraine: Overnight Russian attack cuts off power in Kyiv

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-20 [Older] Russia Says It Has No Specific Contacts With US on Expiring Nuclear Treaty

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-20 [Older] Russia's Far East Buried in Snow, Transport Disrupted in China and Japan

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-20 [Older] Russia's Lavrov Says Britain Should No Longer Be Called 'Great' Britain

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2026-01-20 [Older] Russia's Top Diplomat Says NATO Faces a Deep Crisis Over Greenland

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Wired ☛ He Leaked the Secrets of a Southeast Asian Scam Compound. Then He Had to Get Out Alive

    “Hello. I’m currently working inside a major crypto romance scam operation based in the Golden Triangle,” it began. “I am a computer engineer being forced to work here under a contract.”

    “I’ve collected internal evidence of how the scam works—step by step,” the message continued. “I am still inside the compound, so I cannot risk direct exposure. But I want to help shut this down.”

• Environment

  • New York Times ☛ Winter Storm Pummels Toronto With Record Snowfall

    Canada’s biggest city got roughly 22 inches, and giant snow banks are unlikely to melt soon because of colder than usual temperatures.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Doc Searls ☛ Whatknot

      We had some deep snows when I lived in Arlington, Mass (next to Cambridge), but nothing quite like the thick blanket of white that got dumped on the Boston metro two days ago. The screenshot above is part of an NWS snow-depth map that will soon age out. So enjoy it while you can.

• Finance

  • BBC ☛ Amazon accidentally sends email confirming layoffs

    US technology giant Amazon has informed employees of a new round of global layoffs in an email apparently sent in error.

    A draft email written by Colleen Aubrey, a senior vice president at Amazon Web Services (AWS), was included as part of a calendar invitation sent by an executive assistant to a number of Amazon workers late on Tuesday.

    In the email, Aubrey refers to a swathe of employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica having been laid off as part of an effort to "strengthen the company."

    The message, which has been seen by the BBC, was apparently shared by mistake, as it was quickly cancelled. An Amazon spokesman declined to comment.

  • ASML orders beat expectations as company plans 1,700 layoffs

    ASML reported stronger-than-expected bookings in the fourth quarter of 2025 as customers stepped up investment in artificial intelligence chipmaking capacity, according to Reuters.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Gen(erate losses)-“AI” bailouts

    But this raises the ultimate question: can I get some money to burn too? And if so, how much? Maybe a billion? I’d use it for all sorts of pointless things, like feeding people and funding open source projects. Okay, and a house boat, with stabalisers so I wouldn’t get motion sickness. It’d be powered by a fusion reactor and warp drive so I could… hello? You still there? Wait, no come back, I want my levitating boat damn it!!!

  • David Rosenthal ☛ Funding Open Source?

    In 2020 I wrote a detailed post about this problem entitled Supporting Open Source Software. Recently the topic re-surfaced on an e-mail alias I read. But what triggered the post below the fold was that this coincided with yet another fascinating piece from Matt Levine and his laugh-out-loud follow-up the next day.

    In Supporting Open Source Software I discussed Cameron Neylon's 2017 paper on a related problem, Sustaining Scholarly Infrastructures through Collective Action: The Lessons that Olson can Teach us: [...]

  • [Repeat] Rlang ☛ Do prices feel like they are rising more than the CPI says?

    I was interested in comparing food price changes for common frequently purchased items. This is based on CPIs for countrywide data in categories like eggs. Of course I am not measuring YOUR specific egg purchase (such as store brand, organic, medium size, white, 12 count, at CTown in Intercourse, Pennsylvania).

    I began with 11 years of December values of ten separate food categories and also the overall CPI-U, seasonally adjusted. The values I used are as follows (although I understand values change as there are changes to seasonal adjustment factors, weightings, etc.)

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Green Party UK ☛ 2026-01-25 [Older] Zack Polanski responds to Andy Burnham being blocked from standing in upcoming by-election

  • Macworld ☛ Does Tim Cook even care about Apple's image anymore?

    Based on who he likes to hang out with on a Saturday night, one wishes Apple CEO Tim Cook were a bit more of a homebody. The day that ICE agents killed another U.S. citizen in Minneapolis, Cook went to the White House that sent those agents to Minnesota so he could attend the viewing of a weapons-grade hagiography about the First Lady.

  • Jérôme Marin ☛ Apple prepares for the post-Tim Cook era

    John Ternus is one of Apple’s least well-known top executives. Yet today, he appears to be the leading favorite to succeed Tim Cook at the helm of the Cupertino-based giant. According to Bloomberg, the head of hardware engineering, responsible for the design of the iPhone, Mac, and other products, saw his responsibilities expanded at the end of 2025. He now oversees all design, both hardware and software. It is a strategic role long held by Jony Ive, then by Jeff Williams, who for a time was presented as a future CEO before retiring last summer.

  • Chad Whitacre ☛ Open Source Offers Hope Against Tyranny

    In a world where tyrants and strongmen increasingly shock us and demand our attention, Open Source suggests that we can focus elsewhere: not as a distraction, but as a decision to invest in the world we want. With Mark Carney, we can take Václav Havel’s proverbial sign out of the window: [...]

  • OpenStreetMap ☛ Request for Comments for the European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy - General talk - OpenStreetMap Community Forum

    The questions to be answered, as seen in the call for evidence file, are: [...]

  • [Old] Foundation for European Progressive Studies ☛ Time to build a European digital ecosystem - Foundation for European Progressive Studies

    The beginning of the new EU mandate means the closure of a very productive legislature in the digital domain. Landmark regulations such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) have reshaped the EU’s digital landscape, while Europe was the first to legislate artificial intelligence (AI). Now, the European Union is at a crossroad in its digital transformation. Geopolitical tensions and growing reliance on foreign tech giants underscore the urgent need for greater technological sovereignty.

  • European Pirate Party ☛ Europe’s Open Source Digital Strategy – Bottlenecks To Navigate – European Pirates

    As part of its digital sovereignty drive, the European Commission is currently inviting public input on the future of European Open Digital Ecosystems through an open consultation. The idea is to gather perspectives from different parties – developers, civil society, policy makers, public administrators, and industry insiders and ascertain how it could establish and shape the foundations of Europe’s digital future.

    The European Pirates will take this opportunity to submit a response to the commission’s call. The discussion below is a starting point for that wider reflection. It outlines key ambitions of the EU’s open digital strategy and highlights several structural bottlenecks that deserve careful attention as Europe defines its next steps.

    Amid rapid transformations and politically charged ramifications in the global digital landscape, the European Union has decided to restructure and strengthen its open-source digital ecosystem strategy. Over the past few years, digital infrastructure has quietly become a geopolitical asset. Cloud systems, AI models, data pipelines, and even open-source software now shape economic power, security posture, and democratic resilience. The European Commission initially adopted the strategy in 2020-2023. The call to action is amplified at the Summit on European Digital Sovereignty in Berlin in November 2025.

    The underlying idea is simple: Achieve and maintain Europe’s digital sovereignty.

  • European Union ☛ Commission opens call for evidence on Open-Source Digital Ecosystems

    Open-source technologies are increasingly recognised as a strategic asset for Europe’s digital future. As part of this initiative, the Commission intends to set out a strategic approach to the open-source sector across the EU, alongside a review of the 2020–2023 Open-Source Software Strategy. The strategy will form a key pillar of the EU’s broader digital policy agenda.

  • [Old] It's FOSS ☛ Europe Has a New Plan to Break Free from US Tech Dominance

    The proposal also calls for supporting new business models for open source companies and foundations, including through public-private partnerships. Plus, this is designed to work alongside the upcoming Cloud and AI Development Act, for which a separate consultation was already conducted.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Pro-democracy activist Lester Shum, one of the ‘Hong Kong 47,’ released from jail – reports

    Pro-democracy activist Lester Shum, one of the opposition figures jailed in the “Hong Kong 47” national security case, has reportedly been released from prison after completing a four-and-a-half-year sentence. Shum was released on Monday morning, according to local media.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Hong Kong uses decades-old speeches to try pro-democracy activists

    Two activists who organised vigils as leaders of a now-defunct group, are facing national security charges.

  • France24 ☛ Gavin Newsom accuses Fentanylware (CheeTok) of suppressing content critical of Convicted Felon

    California Governor Gavin Newsom has accused Fentanylware (CheeTok) of suppressing content critical of President The Insurrectionist and has launched a review into whether the platform’s moderation practices violate state law. The move follows TikTok’s announcement that its Chinese owner, ByteDance, has finalised a deal to avoid a potential US ban.

  • 404 Media ☛ Many UK Users Soon Won't Be Able to Access Pornhub

    In a call on Tuesday, leadership at Aylo and Ethical Capital Partners (ECP), which acquired Aylo in 2023, said that after six months of complying with the UK’s Online Safety Act, it’s made the choice to restrict access in the country entirely. People who have already verified their ages with the current verification system will still be able to access those sites using login credentials, but anyone who hasn’t already done so by February 2 will be blocked entirely.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ Journalism job cuts in 2026 tracked: Layoffs at Future, Politico, WSJ, Vox Media and BDG in January

  • Press Gazette ☛ Future plans 45 editorial redundancies at titles including Techradar and Tom’s Guide

    Some 15 roles will also be created in changes hitting tech titles.

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ Journalism lost its culture of sharing

    I think there’s a lot to be gained by collaborating on an open source basis. We typically run small, resource-constrained teams where building new software is contextually hard. And we have problems that, if they’re not identical, are at least significantly overlapping; by not collaborating on them, we further an ecosystem where low-resource organizations are all solving the same sorts of things with very few people and very little money in parallel.

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • Citizen Lab ☛ Perpetrators and Methods of Transnational Repression and Possible Counter Strategies

    Citizen Lab senior research associate Emile Dirks will be attending a meeting on transnational repression (TNR) at the EU Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs on January 28, during which Nate Schenkkan (lead author, independent researcher), Zselyke Csaky (senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform), Alexander Dukalskis [...]

  • 404 Media ☛ DHS Says Critical ICE Surveillance Footage From Abuse Case Was Actually Never Recorded, Doesn't Matter

    The filings, made by U.S. attorneys on behalf of Greg Bovino, Kristi Noem, and other DHS officials, are the latest in an ongoing class action lawsuit against the U.S. government filed by detainees at the Chicago-area ICE detention center. The people suing the government in this case argue that they were held in subhuman, illegal conditions at Broadview: “They are denied sufficient food and water […] the temperatures are extreme and uncomfortable […] the physical conditions are filthy, with poor sanitation, clogged toilets, and blood, human fluids, and insects in the sinks and the floor […] federal officers who patrol Broadview under Defendants’ authority are abusive and cruel,” their complaint reads in part.

  • Closer to the Edge ☛ The Dildo Distribution Delegation

    The cops stood there, choking us, shooting pepper balls at people holding noise makers and rubber penises, desperately trying to reassert dominance over pieces of silicone that had emotionally defeated them in under sixty seconds. They couldn’t pick them up. They couldn’t leave them there. They couldn’t kick them away without becoming a meme. So they did what every insecure authoritarian does when confronted with humiliation.

    They escalated.

  • Jamie Zawinski ☛ The Dildo Distribution Delegation

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Jon Stewart Attacks Government 'Lying' About Alex Pretti's Murder

    He continued, “I think the lowest bar a government ever has to clear in terms of earned credibility to its population is obvious reality. You just gotta clear obvious reality. I believe it’s what the philosopher Seneca called the ‘Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining’ doctrine.”

    Stewart recounted how the Department of Homeland Security has continued to misrepresent Pretti’s death and questioned why they would be allowed to investigate the murder themselves. “Oh, good luck finding the real killer, O.J.,” Stewart replied.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Trump Admin. Having Hard Time Selling Alex Pretti Killing Narrative

    Pretti was a licensed gun owner in a state where concealed carry is legal, and according to O’Hara had no existing criminal record. Forensic analysis of bystander videos of Pretti’s killings do not show him brandishing or displaying a weapon in the moments leading up to the shooting. Videos appear to show one of the officers subduing Pretti, removing a holstered gun matching the description of his licensed weapon from his waist, and running away from the scrum moments before another officer fires the first shot. In a video of the immediate aftermath of the shooting, officers can be heard asking each other, “Where is the gun?”

  • BoingBoing ☛ Why does K$H Patel suddenly hate the 2nd Amendment?

    Pretti, who worked at a Veterans Affairs hospital, was legally carrying his holstered Sig Sauer with a valid permit when he stepped between immigration agents and a woman they'd shoved to the ground. He was filming with his phone, one hand raised, when Border Patrol agents pepper-sprayed him, wrestled him down, disarmed him, and shot him dead. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara confirmed Pretti had a legal right to carry the firearm.

  • YLE ☛ Finnish education minister looking into extent of girls being sent abroad to undergo FGM

    "I have asked my ministry to draw up a comprehensive picture of what we know about children who are sent abroad - whether it is concerns so-called educational camps or, for example, genital mutilation of girls or women," he said, according to STT.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Inside Towers ☛ FCC Ends E-Rate Support for School Bus WiFi, Hotspots - Inside Towers

    The FCC is ending E-Rate support for WiFi and hotspots on school buses. The change is effective on February 20, according to Womble Bond Dickinson’s Rural Spectrum Scanner. The program helps bridge the digital divide by funding, up to an annual cap, necessary infrastructure to ensure affordable access to modern technology for students and library patrons.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Pete Brown ☛ Adding variety mix streams to Radio Free Greenfield - Exploding Comma

    Yesterday morning, though, flush off my success of moving all my files and fixing the CD-ripping workflow, I got to thinking about individual tracks again. Most of the problems I had the first time around seemed to stem from trying to do it all on the fly, so what if I parsed through all the .cue files at once, and stuffed the artist, album, and track info into a database, and then pulled from that?

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Single-Reference Obviousness: Federal Circuit Says Don’t Re-Do the Prior Art’s Work

    Federal Circuit holds motivation-to-combine test inapplicable when disputed elements already appear together in a single prior art embodiment.

  • Unified Patents ☛ StealthPath IP security patent monopoly prior art found

    The team at Unified IP Services used Pearl to successfully identify and chart prior art against U.S. Patent 10,374,803, owned by StealthPath IP Inc. The ‘803 patent monopoly generally relates to a network security method involving a specialized software that authenticates and authorizes devices, applications, users, and data protocols by leveraging nonpublic identification codes.

  • Unified Patents ☛ Key Patent Innovations entity, Malikie Innovations, data synchronization patent monopoly prior art found

    The team at Unified IP Services used Pearl to successfully identify and chart prior art against U.S. Patent 7,496,606, owned by Malikie Innovations Limited, an NPE and entity of Key Patent Innovations. The ‘606 patent monopoly relates to a system and method for data synchronization across multiple databases, especially in wireless communication environments, facilitating synchronization and conflict resolution by appending synchronization parameters to data records.

  • BoingBoing ☛ The secret society of people who know the WD-40 formula

    The notebook contains the 40th attempt at the formula — and the 39 previous failures. (WD stands for Water Displacement.) Most WD-40 employees have never seen it and never will, including the head of research and development. They use a coded version to preserve the secret. The company never filed for a patent because patents eventually expire and become public. As a trade secret, the formula is protected indefinitely.

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • JUVE ☛ Litigation insurers and funders follow first case of new Court of Appeal panel [Ed: UPC is totally illegal and tied to EPO corruption. That JUVE keeps boosting it says a lot about JUVE.]

      Orthopedic device manufacturer Syntorr must provide €2 million in security for cost reimbursement claims in two UPC lawsuits against competitor Arthrex.

    • JUVE ☛ Hubertus Schacht takes helm at 21st Civil Chamber in Munich [Ed: Revolving doors in illegal 'court' created by cocaine addicts and corrupt officials]

      The Regional Court Munich swiftly provided clarity regarding leadership of the 21st Civil Chamber, which specialises in patent monopoly proceedings. Hubertus Schacht, an experienced patent monopoly judge, is taking over the chamber. Its long-standing head Georg Werner recently moved to the UPC as a full-time judge.

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • The Register UK ☛ Pope warns flock to raise their faces, protect their voices

      But he swiftly moved from the theological to the technological, warning: "By simulating human voices and faces, wisdom and knowledge, consciousness and responsibility, empathy and friendship… artificial intelligence [could] not only interfere with information ecosystems, but also encroach upon the deepest level of communication, that of human relationships."

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Are the Grammys Snubbing Country? Recording Academy Chief Addresses the Imbalance

    Fans have noticed some major gaps in country music representation at the Grammys. Recording Academy chief Harvey Mason Jr. addresses the matter.

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Neil Young Trashes Amazon, Gives His Catalog to Greenland for Free

    “Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos, a billionaire backer of the president,” he wrote. “The president’s international policies and his support of ICE make it impossible for me to ignore his actions. If you feel as I do, I strongly recommend that you do not use Amazon. There are many ways to avoid Amazon and support individual Americans and American companies that supply the same products. I have done that with my music and people who are looking can find it in a lot of other places.”