Leftovers

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Neanderthals Used Ancient Gloop as Antibacterial Medicine, Study Suggests

    Some 200,000 years before modern medicine.

  • Science Alert ☛ One Major Factor in Cancer Survival Has Nothing to Do With Biology

    It can shape the entire cancer experience.

  • Science Alert ☛ A Special Protein in Your Gut Has The Power to Neutralize Bacteria

    And maybe we could harness it.

  • Science Alert ☛ A Piece of Moss Helped Investigators Prosecute a Grave-Robbing Ring

    “Moss is a little bit freaky.”

  • Science Alert ☛ Tattoos Affect Your Immune System in Ways We're Just Beginning to Understand

    What's in your ink?

  • Science Alert ☛ This Common Antidepressant Can Help Cut Back Methamphetamine Use

    It could save more lives.

• Career/Education

  • New York Times ☛ China Mourned an Education Influencer. The Grief Was a Quiet Revolt.

    Zhang Xuefeng helped people navigate the country’s unforgiving higher education system. The public outpouring after his death was a quiet rebuke to the punishing process.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Futurism ☛ Scientists Gene Hacked a Plant So It Grows Five Types of Psychoactive Drugs at Once

    Could this be the world's most illegal plant?

  • The Straits Times ☛ China executes French citizen convicted of drug trafficking

    It said it did not discriminate against defendants on the basis of nationality.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China executes Frenchman convicted in 2010 for drug trafficking

    A Frenchman sentenced to death in China in 2010 for drug trafficking has been executed, France’s foreign ministry announced on Saturday, expressing its “consternation.”

  • The Straits Times ☛ China issues e-commerce guidance after EU lawmakers press country on unsafe products

    EU lawmakers had pressed China about a ‌surge of dangerous products that entered the bloc.

  • NYPost ☛ Qantas flight bound for US turns back after mid-air medical emergency

    An Australian Olympian was on board a Qantas flight bound for the US as it was forced to turn around and return to Sydney.

• Proprietary

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Jim Nielsen ☛ I Tried Vibing an RSS Reader and My Dreams Did Not Come True

      Simon Willison wrote about how he vibe coded his dream presentation app for macOS.

      I also took a stab at vibe coding my dream app: an RSS reader.

      To clarify: Reeder is my dream RSS app and it already exists, so I guess you could say my dreams have already come true?

      But I’ve kind of always wanted to try an app where my RSS feed is just a list of unread articles and clicking any one opens it in the format in which it was published (e.g. the original website).

      So I took a stab at it.

    • Futurism ☛ ICE Foiled At Every Turn By One Vibe Coding Man In His Pickup Truck

      Concepcion called his overhauled app “DEICER.” It gave users the ability to report ICE activity with pins on a map, and people close to those locations would receive an alert on their phone with information including a description and photos of the ICE agents.

    • Futurism ☛ Target Warns That If Its Hey Hi (AI) Shopping Agent Makes an Expensive Mistake, You’ll Have to Pay for It

      The company "does not purport to guarantee that an Agentic Commerce Agent will act exactly as you intend in all circumstances."

    • Futurism ☛ China Cracking Down on the Types of Hey Hi (AI) That Are Tearing America Apart

      Just imagine.

    • Futurism ☛ We Can’t Even Imagine the Eating Disorders This New Meta Smart Glasses Feature Will Cause

      This will in no way go horrifically wrong.

    • Futurism ☛ AI Expert Says It’s Time to Stop Freaking Out About Hey Hi (AI) Taking Our Jobs

      That's a relief.

    • Futurism ☛ Nonprofit Research Groups Disturbed to Learn That Proprietary Chaffbot Company Has Secretly Been Funding Their Work

      "I don't want Proprietary Chaffbot Company to write their own rules for how they interact with children."

    • Linux Links ☛ Univer – build AI-native spreadsheets

      Univer is an isomorphic full-stack framework for building and embedding spreadsheet, document, and presentation editors.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Krebs On Security ☛ Germany Doxes “UNKN,” Head of RU Ransomware Gangs REvil, GandCrab

      An elusive hacker who went by the handle "UNKN" and ran the early Russian ransomware groups GandCrab and REvil now has a name and a face. Authorities in Germany say 31-year-old Russian Daniil Maksimovich Shchukin headed both cybercrime gangs and helped carry out at least 130 acts of computer sabotage and extortion against victims across the country between 2019 and 2021.

• Security

  • LWN ☛ Hackers breached the European Commission (The Next Web)

    LWN recently reported on the Trivy

    compromise that led, in turn, to the compromise of the LiteLLM system; that

    article made the point that the extent of the problem was likely rather

    larger than was known. The Next Web now reports

    that the Trivy attack was used to compromise a wide range of European

    Commission systems.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea’s Lee expresses regret to North Korea over drone incursion

    He stressed Seoul’s commitment to prevent such future incidents.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysians must understand impact of Middle East conflict, says Anwar

    He reminded them not to be too comfortable and assume that all is well.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Taiwan opposition leader to visit China as Beijing ramps up ‘reunification’ push

    Ms Cheng Li-wun is travelling at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Once pro-independence, Taiwan opposition leader leans into China

    Cheng Li-wun was once a fierce campaigner for Taiwan’s independence, but these days the firebrand leader of the democratic island’s largest opposition party sees herself as a peace builder with China. Cheng, 56, will lead a Kuomintang (KMT) delegation to China on Tuesday — the first by a sitting chairperson of the party since 2016 […]

  • France24 ☛ Nigeria troops rescue Easter worshippers after deadly church attack

    Nigeria’s military said Sunday it rescued 31 worshippers abducted during Easter services in northwestern Kaduna state, after troops engaged gunmen in a firefight, though at least five people were killed in the attack. The assault on a Catholic and an evangelical church underscores worsening insecurity in the region, where criminal gangs and militant groups have intensified raids and kidnappings.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • RFERL ☛ Explosives Found Near Key Gas Pipeline To Hungary, Serbia Says

      Serbian military and police officers have found a cache of highly powerful explosives not far from a pipeline that carries Russian natural gas from Turkey to Hungary, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on April 5.

    • France24 ☛ Explosives discovered near gas pipeline to Hungary, says Serbia's president

      Powerful explosives were found near the Balkan Stream pipeline in Serbia that carries Russian gas to Hungary, the leaders of the two countries said on Sunday, triggering political scrutiny in Hungary days before a national election.

    • LRT ☛ Filmmaker Shih-Ching Tsou: In Taiwan, parents don’t tell their children ‘I love you’

      “It’s surprising to me that it’s that political. Wow,” says Taiwanese director Shih-Ching Tsou upon hearing that Anora, the 2024 film by her creative partner Sean Baker, was not screened in Lithuania. It came as news to her that the film awarded five Oscars, including best picture, was boycotted by Lithuanian distributors because it portrayed Russian characters and features Russia-based actors.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine Hits Russian Oil Facilities, Says At Least 1 Civilian Killed In Russian Strikes

      Ukraine has kept up its attacks on Russian oil export and production infrastructure, hitting facilities in two regions, while widespread Russian drone attacks on Ukraine killed at least one civilian overnight and fighting persisted at the front, officials said.

    • France24 ☛ Pope Leo condemns ‘violence of war’ in first Easter Mass amid Iran conflict

      Pope Leo XIV celebrated his first Easter Mass as pontiff with a condemnation of “the violence of war that kills and destroys,’’ amid the US-Israeli war on Iran and Russia’s campaign in Ukraine. In his homily, the pontiff singled out those who wage war, abuse the weak and prioritise profits.

    • France24 ☛ Ukraine's Zelensky meets Syria’s new leader in Damascus, pushes military deals

      Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held talks in Damascus on Sunday with Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, as Kyiv pushes to deepen security ties across the Middle East amid its ongoing war with Russia. Arriving alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Zelensky’s visit signals a bid to secure military cooperation and bolster regional partnerships.

• Environment

  • Futurism ☛ Polymarket Has Turned Our Climate Apocalypse Into a Casino

    "The gamblification of everything is Evil in [the] fullest sense of the word."

  • Energy/Transportation

    • New Yorker ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man’s Offshore-Drilling Dream Is a Recipe for Poisoning the Oceans

      Dihydroxyacetone Man envisions a new era of offshore oil drilling. Scientists know all too well how that story ends.

    • Barry Kauler ☛ Fuel economy across the Nullarbor Plain

      The Nullarbor Plain is a large expanse of flat, in some places treeless, limestone land, that the Eyre Highway traverses connecting west and east sides of Australia. I have just got back from a drive across, Perth to Coober Pedy, a round trip over 5,000km, as reported earlier today: [...]

    • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea’s Lee says country must balance risk as Hormuz disruptions threaten oil supplies

      Like many other Asian economies, South Korea relies heavily on energy imports.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • New York Times ☛ The Old Way of Campaigning Won’t Cut It Anymore

    Is this a great way to audition and select our leaders, especially for executive offices? Not particularly.

  • Tom MacWright ☛ In the Atmosphere

    The mascot of ATmosphereConf is a goose, accompanied by the motto we can just do things. I thought about this line often while I was in Vancouver for the event. Everyone was active: writing, managing communities, building side projects or businesses on Bluesky, and building Bluesky itself. The energy was fertile and optimistic. Even deep critiques, like Erin Kissane's beautiful Landslide or Blaine Cook's Software Ecologies, had hope that this community and technology could 'fix' the social internet.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Digital Music News ☛ Yale University May Have Put a Nail in the Drake vs. Kendrick Rap Battle Coffin: Law School Backs UMG in Amicus Brief

    Law scholars have filed two amicus briefs siding with UMG following Drake’s appeal in his defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • JURIST ☛ UN urges Pakistan to free activist Idris Khattak, citing health risks and legal obligations

    United Nations human rights experts on Thursday called on Pakistan to immediately release activist Idris Khattak, stating that his continued detention and reported lack of medical care raise concerns regarding his health and the state’s obligations under international law. The statement was issued in Geneva on April 2, 2026.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Missing Coinventors and the Death of a Patent

    Federal Circuit holds patents invalid when missing coinventor cannot be found for § 256 correction. A case of first impression with Hey Hi (AI) implications.