Links 02/01/2024: 7.6 Earthquake in Japan, Political Assassination Attempt in South Korea
Contents
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Leftovers
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Ruben Schade ☛ Can I control a system failure?
I have to interact with one specific bank that, when things are working, is fine. I can log in, do what I need to do, and leave. I get notifications when I need them, scheduled transactions go through, I can download CSVs of my billing periods, the whole shebang. When I’m a standard customer, doing standard things, in a standard way, there aren’t problems. Standard.
You can probably see where this is going.
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Science
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Science Alert ☛ XpoSat Launch Makes India The Second Country With a Black Hole Space Observatory
A very exclusive club.
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Hardware
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Ruben Schade ☛ Researching buying my first AGP GPU
I haven’t talked about it on the blog here, but I bought a Dell Dimension 4100 earlier this year, ironically for the same reason as the Apple IIe Platinum. My high school was full of these beige towers, which despite being as dull as dishwater were still exciting for a kid like me to use.
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Silicon Angle ☛ US officials pressured ASML to cancel shipments of high-end chipmaking gear to China
Dutch chipmaking machinery supplier ASML Holding NV gave in to a request by U.S. President Joe Biden to cancel some shipments of equipment to customers in China, weeks before a new export ban goes into effect. >
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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YLE ☛ HUS reports fireworks-related eye injuries in capital
At least four people sustained eye injuries in the capital region due to fireworks on New Year's Eve, according to health officials.
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Science Alert ☛ Regular Exercise Is Linked to Larger Brain Volume in Memory And Learning Regions
"Much less than the often-suggested 10,000 steps."
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Science Alert ☛ Sunscreen Contaminants Found in Arctic Snow For The First Time
Here's why that's a concern.
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Science Alert ☛ Microbes May Be The Secret Behind Keto Diet's Protection Against Epileptic Seizures
Closing in on an answer.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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NYPost ☛ Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts warns of AI’s perils in deciding cases, legal matters ahead of contentious election year
With a wary eye over the future of the federal courts, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts warned Sunday of the perils of artificial intelligence (AI) when deciding cases and other important legal matters.
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Silicon Angle ☛ US Supreme Court chief justice warns against risks of Hey Hi (AI) adoption in legal circles
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts urged “caution and humility” regarding the use of artificial intelligence in the legal field, in a report published Sunday, saying the technology is a “mixed blessing.”
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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AntiWar ☛ The White House Goes Rogue: Secret Surveillance Program Breaks All the Laws
“We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.” ~ William O. Douglas, dissenting in Osborn v. United States (1966)
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Defence/Aggression
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NYPost ☛ South Korea opposition chief Lee Jae-myung stabbed in the neck while touring airport site
South Korea's opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung was stabbed in the neck during a visit to the southern port city of Busan on Tuesday, the Yonhap news agency reported.
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The Straits Times ☛ South Korea opposition chief conscious after stabbing
The attack has left him with a gash of about 1cm on his neck, YTN television reported.
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New York Times ☛ Lee Jae-myung, South Korea Opposition Leader, Is Stabbed
Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party, was stabbed in the neck in the city of Busan. No information about his condition was immediately available.
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RFA ☛ S Korean President stresses military vigilance amid Pyongyang threat
Yoon Suk Yeol’s remarks come a day after the North Korean leader’s fresh warning against Seoul.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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AntiWar ☛ War and ‘Democracy’: An Appeal to Self-Interest
By way of marking the western date for Christendom’s most holy celebration, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III announced that “at President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups in Iraq.” So much for visions of sugar-plums, etc.
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Environment
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NYPost ☛ At least a dozen dead in Japan after 7.6 earthquake strikes — buildings wrecked, power out in freezing temperatures
Japan on Tuesday struggled to assess the extent of damage from an earthquake that struck its west coast, killing at least a dozen people, wrecking buildings and major roads, and knocking out power to swathes of homes in freezing temperatures.
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New York Times ☛ Japan Earthquake: Rescuers Search Rubble After Powerful Earthquake Strikes Japan
Officials ordered evacuations and said that some people could be trapped under collapsed buildings after a quake struck the western prefecture of Ishikawa.
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Energy/Transportation
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong vows transport review after 1000s of mainland tourists stranded following New Year’s Eve celebrations
Hong Kong’s security chief Chris Tang has said the authorities will review transport and border-crossing arrangements after thousands of mainland Chinese tourists were left stranded in the city following the New Year’s Eve celebrations.
5>Cold triggers electricity price jump
Electricity will be more expensive than usual on Tuesday morning.
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Wildlife/Nature
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Science Alert ☛ Incredibly Rare Half-Male, Half-Female Bird Caught on Camera
Beautiful!
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Science Alert ☛ A Persistent Rumor Suggests This Tree Can Walk Around, But Is It True?
Like something out of Tolkien.
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Science Alert ☛ The Brain Circuit Behind Male Libido Has Been Identified in Mice
The male sex drive starts here.
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Science Alert ☛ Sustainability: 5 Practical Tips to Make Your Life Greener in 2024
You can make a difference.
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Finance
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Bobby Kotick Escapes With A Golden Parachute | Opinion
Bobby Kotick’s last day at renowned gaming megacorporation Activision Blizzard was Friday, December 29th, 2023. He leaves with a $15 million… departure salary? In casual terms, it’s a “golden parachute.” He’s 60 years old. He’ll be fine.
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YLE ☛ Average film ticket price is now €13
At the end of last year, an average movie ticket cost 13.05 euros.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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France24 ☛ Israel’s top court strikes down key legal reform in blow to Netanyahu
Israel’s Supreme Court struck down a key component of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious judicial overhaul Monday, delivering a landmark decision that could reopen the fissures in Israeli society that preceded the country’s ongoing war against Hamas.
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New York Times ☛ Tuesday Briefing: Israel’s Top Court Rejects Move to Limit It
Plus New Year’s offerings to the sea in Brazil.
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JURIST ☛ Israel Supreme Court strikes down key component of proposed judicial reforms
The Supreme Court of Israel struck down Monday a key component of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial judicial reform law, which sought to stop judges from nullifying government decisions that they deemed to be unreasonable.
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New York Times ☛ Israel’s Supreme Court Strikes Down Judiciary Law
The Supreme Court, by the narrowest of margins, rejected a law pushed by Netanyahu allies that limited its authority to review government decisions.
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JURIST ☛ DR Congo opposition candidates reject provisional election results
Multiple opposition presidential candidates in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rejected the provisional election results Sunday, which incumbent President Felix Tshisekedi was announced to have won, and urged supporters to mobilize.
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The Straits Times ☛ Thailand, China to permanently waive visas for each other's citizens from March - Thai PM
Thailand and China will permanently waive visa requirements for each other's citizens from March, Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on Tuesday.
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The Straits Times ☛ China calls on Taiwan’s people to promote ‘peaceful reunification’
It was the common desire of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, China said.
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The Straits Times ☛ China sees robust travel, tourism demand during New Year’s Day holiday
Travel in China flourished over the three-day New Year’s holiday.
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The Straits Times ☛ Free trade agreement between Nicaragua and China begins
Nicaragua and China on Monday formally started trading under a new free trade agreement, allowing the Central American country to export some 71% of its products into the largest Asian market and free of tariffs.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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RFA ☛ An uncensored history of modern China
The China Unofficial Archive offers hard-to-find books, films of 'citizen historians' battling censorship.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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The Straits Times ☛ Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai pleads not guilty to national security crimes
Lai's trial under a national security law continued into the new year.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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France24 ☛ Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus convicted of violating Bangladesh labour law
Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus was convicted on Monday of violating Bangladesh's labour laws in a case decried by his supporters as politically motivated.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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APNIC ☛ Three of the best: Development
Here are the top three posts on Development throughout the region from 2023.
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Patents
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Coffee and Claim Construction: The Plain and Ordinary Meaning of “Barcode”
A recent Federal Circuit opinion, K-Fee v. Nespresso, 2022-2042, — F.4th — (Fed. Cir. Dec. 26, 2023), arises from an infringement suit filed by K-fee System GmbH against Nespresso USA, Inc. in the Central District of California and revives a coffee controversy. K-fee owns three related patents (the ‘176, ‘177, and ‘531 patents) concerning coffee capsules that display information via a “barcode” which is read by the coffee machine to control the beverage production process. The key dispute is over the meaning of “barcode” and whether there was any prosecution disclaimer.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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🔤SpellBinding: YGHINSF Wordo: LAIRD
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State of SF
Hey, it's been a while, time for my first post of 2024, first of all, how is everyone. how was your new year, onto the post.
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Happy New Year
Here's to future journeys, jobs, love, and accomplishments. Cheers!
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Technology and Free Software
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#Lore24 - Day 2 - Kotims
The idea of a kotim came from GitLab[2] idea of “everything is a pull request”. In effect, a kotim is like a forge project with collective knowledge (wiki), discussions, and decisions (records committed into the repository). They can be transient or persistent, housed anywhere, and contains the memories and decisions from members of that kotim (called a collective).
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Freeing space in FreeBSD
For a little while now I've been noticing the disk usage steadily creeping up on my FreeBSD root partition. I've got 100G set aside for FreeBSD and 100G set aside for Void Linux, with a big shared zfs pool that each OS can use for /home. Well, my FreeBSD partition managed to reach 74G used, and I figured it was time to clear out the cobwebs.
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Rethinking the usiblity correct horse battery staple
I was a fan of XKCD 936, correct horse battery staple. I agree that passphrases are much stronger then passwords. But there's a masive usiablity concern with passphrases. Namely, entering them is a pain in the butt.
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Rocketbook
As often happens, Google figures out something about me and then runs with it. While being a techie I have always prefered note taking and life management to be analog. The idea that my life gets held up due to dead batteries just might be my only fear.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.