Links 20/12/2023: More Intel Layoffs (Days Before Xmas)
Contents
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Leftovers
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Ruben Schade ☛ New years resolution for 2024
I posted this on Mastodon, but I think it’s warrants a mention here:
If I have one new year’s resolution for next year, it’ll be to stop greasing the squeaky wheel. I want to spend more time helping people I love, respect, and who are kind to me, not the jerks who shout the loudest. That goes for business as well as personal.
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Science
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Chris ☛ First Impressions of Manifold
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Hardware
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Forbes ☛ 2023 Layoff Tracker: Intel Cuts 235 Employees
Tech giant Intel announced plans this week to lay off roughly 235 employees in its fifth round of job cuts this year, making it the latest major U.S. company to reduce its head count, even as recession fears start to cool (see Forbes’ layoff tracker from earlier this year here).
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Tom's Hardware ☛ This USB Type-C dongle uses heat to relieve mosquito bites
This odd yet useful dongle takes advantage of USB Type-C's form factor to relieve mosquito bites and similar stings, controlled with an app made for both Android and Apple
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Hackaday ☛ Hacking An NFC E-Paper Display From Waveshare With Mystery MCU
These days e-paper (eInk) displays are everywhere, with stores being one of the largest users of smaller, monochrome versions of these persistent displays. This has also made them a solid target of hackers who seek to not only reverse-engineer and reuse discarded ones, but also ones sold to consumers, with [Aaron Christophel] recently reverse-engineering and flashing custom firmware (GitHub source) to a Waveshare 2.13″ NFC-Powered E-Paper display.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Jussi Pakkanen ☛ Jussi Pakkanen: Hey Hi (AI) silliness: getting to a no
One of the most annoying thing about LLM chatbots is that they all talk like american used car salespersons or people who work in sales departments of software companies. That is, the answer to every question is always yes. Somehow everything must be positive. This got me thinking: what would you need to do to get a "no" answer from a chatbot.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Techdirt ☛ Google Disrupts Geofence Warrants, Says (Most) Location Data Will Be Stored Locally
For years, Google has collected all the data it can about its users. And for years, it has utilized this data to… well, it depends on who you ask.
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Defence/Aggression
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France24 ☛ UN set to begin peacekeepers' gradual withdrawal from DR Congo
The UN Security Council is expected on Tuesday to accede to a demand from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and launch a gradual withdrawal of peacekeepers, starting later this month.
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Digital Music News ☛ Blueface Could Face Criminal Charges After Physically Assaulting Female Fan
Rapper Blueface could face criminal charges after physically assaulting a female fan and encouraging his security team to ‘get her’ after she allegedly threw ice on stage during a performance.
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The Strategist ☛ Leveraging neurodivergence for national security
If we can predict an adversary’s next move, we already have an advantage.
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Reason ☛ Video Shows Vermont State Trooper Arrest Man for Flipping Him Off
FIRE and the ACLU of Vermont are now representing the man in a free speech lawsuit.
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Vice Media Group ☛ Nuclear Threats Are Looming, And Nobody Knows How Many Nukes Are Out There
Researchers are using open-source intelligence such as satellite imagery and military parades to lift the fog surrounding the world’s nuclear stockpiles.
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Environment
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The Straits Times ☛ More than 110 killed in Gansu, north-western China, as 6.2-magnitude quake strikes near midnight
A total of 4,782 homes have been damaged or destroyed, with hundreds of people injured.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ At least 116 dead after earthquake strikes northern China’s Gansu, Qinghai provinces
At least 116 people were killed when an earthquake collapsed buildings in northwest China, state media reported Tuesday, as rescue workers raced to start digging through rubble in freezing conditions. At least 105 were killed and almost 400 injured in Gansu province, local officials said, after the strong, shallow tremor struck around midnight.
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Finance
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Project Censored ☛ Unfair Transcript Withholding Confronted by Federal Rule
At present, Department of Education (DOE) regulations prevent colleges from withholding transcripts for students receiving federal aid, but these protections do not apply to institutions that accept no federal student aid, including many for-profit colleges, such as Ashworth. Another agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is also investigating transcript withholding, which the Bureau has deemed abusive because the practice is “designed to gain leverage over borrowers and coerce them into making payments.”
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Forbes ☛ Media Companies Have Slashed Over 20,000 Jobs In 2023
The media industry was beset with a series of layoffs impacting a number of sectors in 2023. Earlier this month, Challenger, Gray and Christmas, an outplacement firm that tracks employment figures, said over 20,000 media jobs have been eliminated this year. This is the largest number of cuts in employment since 2020 when Covid-19 was raging and over 30,000 workers were laid off.
The figure is also six times higher than the number of job losses in 2022 when several large media companies including Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney and others had undergone a series of layoffs impacting thousands of media workers.
There are several reasons cited for this year’s cutbacks, including: challenging economic headwinds, inflation, a sluggish ad economy, competition, shifts in consumer behavior, less than robust subscriber counts, changes in corporate strategy, reorganization, ongoing adjustments post-Covid, advances in technology such as AI and placating Wall Street investors. The layoffs continued into fourth quarter. Paul Wolfe, author of Human Beings First, notes layoffs are more prevalent in November and December when corporations are planning next year’s budgets.
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GeekWire ☛ Self-driving company Cruise will lay off 67 workers at Seattle-area engineering hub
Self-driving technology company Cruise is laying off 67 employees at its Bellevue, Wash., engineering center, part of widespread cuts at the GM-backed firm.
Cruise on Monday submitted a WARN notification to Washington’s Employment Security Department (ESD), stating that 67 people were laid off at the Bellevue office, which opened in 2019. The company has around 300 employees in the Seattle area, according to LinkedIn.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Silicon Angle ☛ EU launches investigation into X over suspected DSA violations
The European Commission is launching an investigation into X, the social network previously known as Twitter, after finding the company may have breached the European Union’s Digital Services Act. EU officials announced the move today.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Reason ☛ "Keeping Your Mouth Shut: Spiraling Self-Censorship in the United States"
A very interesting new article, by Profs. James L. Gibson (Wash. U.) and Joseph L. Sutherland (Emory).
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Project Censored ☛ Project Censored Newsletter December 2023
The Teaching Guide, authored by Shealeigh Voitl, Mischa Geracoulis, and Andy Lee Roth, is available at no charge from the Project website. Designed by Shealeigh Voitl, the Guide includes topics for discussion and exploration activities on different types of censorship, Junk Food News, and book bans, among others.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Reason ☛ A Tennessee Youth Detention Center Has Been Illegally Throwing Kids in Solitary Confinement
An investigation from ProPublica shows that one Knoxville-area facility is putting kids in solitary but skirting scrutiny by classifying the seclusion as "voluntary."
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Reason ☛ The 6/13/2000 Memorandum to Chief Justice Rehnquist: "Compensation Increase for Justices—Response to Justice Thomas—Guidance Needed"
Some actual reporting by ProPublica.
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OpenRightsGroup ☛ Briefing – Data Protection and Digital Information Bill – House of Lords Second Reading
Published by Open Rights, a non-profit company limited by Guarantee, registered in England and Wales no. 05581537.
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France24 ☛ Migrants endure harsh conditions at Mexico-US border as Senate talks grind on
Thousands of migrants have travelled to the Mexico-United States border in California over the past few months as the US Senate continues to debate border security. Queuing at the border as they await processing papers to file asylum requests, migrants from China, Colombia and other countries say conditions are harsh: they rely solely on help from volunteers for basic needs including food, clothes and medicine. FRANCE 24's Pierrick Leurent and Wassim Cornet spoke to some of the migrants who made the journey in the hope of fulfilling the "American Dream".
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YLE ☛ Employment minister invites labour market for talks in January
Last week, the largest blue-collar labour federation, the SAK, broke off talks with employers’ groups before staging a wave of nationwide strikes.
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The Straits Times ☛ Bangladesh train blaze kills four as opposition calls strike
This is the latest strife sparked by anti-government protests in which buses and vehicles were set on fire.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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APNIC ☛ Event Wrap: Viet Nam Internet Day 2023
Geoff Huston presented on LEO satellites and Starlink at the VNNIC Internet Day 2023, held in Hanoi, Viet Nam on 22 November 2023.
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APNIC ☛ Event Wrap: RIPE 87
Geoff Huston presented on LEOs and Starlink at RIPE 87, held from 27 November to 1 December 2023 in Rome, Italy.
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APNIC ☛ Event Wrap: PacNOG 32
Warren Finch gave an introduction to RPKI at PacNOG 32, held in Nuku'alofa, Tonga from 27 November to 1 December 2023.
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New York Times ☛ Google Allows More App Payment Options in Antitrust Deal With States
The tech giant will pay $700 million and allow app makers to collect payments directly from consumers in a settlement it hopes will help resolve other legal challenges.
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Patents
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Serving Foreign Defendants: Navigating the Hague and Texas Substituted Service
Freedom Patents LLC v. TCL Electronics provides some interesting nuance. The case was filed in E.D.Tex before Judge Mazzant with Freedom Patents suing TCL companies located in the China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam for infringing its antennae patents, including US8284686.
Several defendants challenged the propriety of service of process, and moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure R. 12(b)(5) (“insufficient service of process”).
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JUVE ☛ Bird & Bird strengthens London team with Pinsent Masons partner [Ed: Bird & Bird (or Pinsent Masons sometimes) bribes publishers like JUVE to pretend hiring one low-level person is news. The bribes also helps get those publishers to lobby and lie for totally illegal agenda like UPC.]
Life sciences and healthcare patent monopoly specialist Nicole Jadeja has joined Bird & Bird as a partner in its London office, from her previous role as partner at Pinsent Masons.
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IP Australia is Seeking Feedback on Proposed Fee Changes
IP Australia has published a draft of its four-yearly Cost Recovery Implementation Statement (CRIS), which outlines proposed fee changes that would take effect from October 2024. It is also taking the opportunity to review the hearing costs that may be awarded for Patents, Trade Marks and Designs. Feedback on the proposals may be provided via submissions to IP Australia’s public consultation page. Consultation is open until Sunday, 21 January 2024.
In this article I will be looking in greater detail at some of the changes relating to patents in particular. Stakeholders with an interest in any of the rights administered by IP Australia (patents, trade marks, registered designs and plant breeder’s rights) should take the opportunity to review the draft CRIS and submit any comments or concerns during the consultation period.
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Kangaroo Courts
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JUVE ☛ Sanofi and Regeneron successful against Amgen over compensation for Praluent [Ed: This Unified Patent Court is an illegal, fake court. They should escalate this, as defendants, abolishing this crime of a "court", which must be revoked and the lobbyists for it held accountable.]
Amgen and Sanofi have been fighting over the market share of their cholesterol-lowering drugs since 2016. Amgen sells its product under the Repatha brand, while Sanofi and Regeneron are on the market with Praluent.
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Software Patents
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Silicon Angle ☛ Apple to stop Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US starting Thursday
Apple Inc. said that it will soon suspend the sale of two of its flagship Fashion Company Apple Watch models later this this week in the United States after a ruling from the U.S. International Trade Commission.
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Trademarks
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Right of Publicity
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Techdirt ☛ Florida Man Wants $2 Million From Rockstar Over Parody Appearance In GTA6 Trailer
The folks behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise are certainly no strangers to lawsuits and complaints over publicity rights issues. GTA5 famously found the publishers of the game in court defending itself against the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Karen Gravano, ultimately winning both cases.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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Stargazing: Pisces, Pegasus: Fairbanks, AK, USA 2023-12-14 (publ. 2023-12-18)
Last Thursday evening I had another stargazing opportunity. It was not one of the easier sessions I've had, with some wispy cirrus clouds here and there in the sky, and temps down at -27 deg F. I used just the Skymaster 12x60 binoculars, with the tripod. The tiniest bit of fog from my breath would instantly freeze into a cloudy, rock-hard ice on the eyepieces, but if I took the binoculars back into the SUV, they would only take about two minutes to clear up. I'm finding that the tripod can be a little frustrating to use, especially in very cold weather, if one has to swivel around a lot. So, when I wasn't focusing on one particular object, I would take the binoculars off the tripod.
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Technology and Free Software
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A Zotero report with 52 references about the Fediverse and Mastodon
I have run some queries in different academic databases to retrieve works about the Fediverse and Mastodon. I use Zotero, so it has been easy to create a report with the references: [...]
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Eindeutigkeit
For your amusement, I will be publishing a mysterious puzzle in serial form over the next days. The first level is up, and further levels will be announced on Antenna as they appear.
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It blinks, rotates, and morphs through color schemes, but doesn't respond to my clicks....
Have you ever felt hesitant to mention a gemlog find for fear of what one imagines one's online reputation to be possibly undermining *theirs* in a guilt by association kind of way?
Weird. Today I used gpg for the first time in ages. And in the good deed not going unpunished zone (i.e. using gpg per recipient request), it turns out that when I send others email containing encrypted and "armored" text, the copy that winds up in my "Sent" folder is inaccessible by the email service I used to send it....
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.