Links 02/01/2024: More Escalations in Ukraine, Public Domain Broadens at Copyrights' Expense
Contents
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Leftovers
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Hackaday ☛ Building A Simple Compressed Air Cannon Is Easy
The world of warfare was revolutionized by the development of black powder, fireworks, cannons, and the like. You don’t need any of that chemical nonsense to just have fun, though, as this compressed air cannon from [OtisLiu153] demonstrates.
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Hackaday ☛ Electroluminescent Surfboard Looks Sharp For Night Surfing
If you’ve watched Point Break lately, you probably considered the thrill and elation involved in night surfing. If you’ve hung out with a lifeguard, though, you might instead have fretted over the dangers. In any case, it remains a popular pastime, and it’s all the more fun with a light-up surfboard like this one from [Moritz Sivers].
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Ruben Schade ☛ Michael Twitty on history, food, and family
Max Miller of Tasting History recently did a video with chef, historian, and author Michael Twitty about making Hoppin’ John 📺, a New Year food I’d never heard of, having grown up on the other side of the planet.
I expected it to be interesting, but not to end up with a lump in my throat. Here’s just a short snippet from the start:
There was a respite between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day. And so it was an opportunity for the enslaved community to come together and celebrate each other.
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Hardware
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Hackaday ☛ A Deep Dive Into Quadcopter Controls
In the old days, building a quadcopter or drone required a lot of hacking together of various components from the motors to the batteries and even the control software. Not so much anymore, with quadcopters of all sizes ready to go literally out-of-the-box. While this has resulted in a number of knock-on effects such as FAA regulations for drone pilots, it’s also let us disconnect a little bit from the more interesting control systems these unique aircraft have. A group at Cornell wanted to take a closer look into the control systems for drones and built this one-dimensional quadcopter to experiment with.
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Hackaday ☛ Developing An App For Reduced-Gravity Flying
You’ve likely heard of the “vomit comet” — an rather graphic nickname for the aircraft used to provide short bursts of near-weightlessness by flying along a parabolic trajectory. They’re used to train astronauts, perform zero-g experiments, and famously let director Ron Howard create the realistic spaceflight scenes for Apollo 13. But you might be surprised to find that, outside of the padding that lines their interior for when the occupants inevitably bump into the walls or ceiling, they aren’t quite as specialized as you might think.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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[Old] US News And World Report ☛ Texting, Video Gaming Especially Bad for Teen's Sleep: Study
For each hour they texted, messaged or gamed during the day, adolescents fell asleep about 11 minutes later. If these interactive activities occurred in the hour before bed, they got to sleep 30 minutes later, on average.
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The Atlantic ☛ An Incurable Disease Is Coming for Deer
CWD is caused by a misfolded protein called a prion, which deer transmit through direct contact or by shedding prions into the environment. Ingested or inhaled, the prions slowly eat away at the animal’s brain and spinal cord. A deer can take well more than a year to show symptoms, but at some point the disease will leave it confused and weak. The deer’s body wastes away, and eventually, it dies. There is no treatment. Most ominously of all, the prions can bind with soil, where they can remain viable for more than a decade, Jorge told me, and can even be taken up by plants, time bombs in the leaves waiting to infect more animals. Any member of the cervid family, which includes elk and moose, can be infected.
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LRT ☛ Lithuania’s excess mortality returns to pre-pandemic levels [Ed: That does not happen in other countries; not even close]
During the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, Lithuania recorded 70 percent more deaths than usual. Now, the mortality is finally returning to the pre-pandemic levels, experts say.
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Off Guardian ☛ 2024: The Year Global Government Takes Shape [Ed: Video ☛ COVID plays a role]
Global government is the endgame. We know that. Total control of every aspect of life for every single person on the planet, that’s the goal.
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James G ☛ Walking every day in January
Through the pandemic, I went for a walk on most days. I loved those walks. After I go for a leisurely walk, I feel refreshed. Last year, however, my walking routine was inconsistent. On an average day, I mainly walked to get from point A to point B. Walking with purpose is never the same as a leisurely walk; the goal is the destination, not embracing the journey. I want to get back into a consistent walking routine again, so I am going to walk every day in January.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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NPR ☛ Chief Justice Roberts casts a wary eye on artificial intelligence in the courts
Describing artificial intelligence as the "latest technological frontier," Roberts discussed the pros and cons of computer-generated content in the legal profession. His remarks come just a few days after the latest instance of AI-generated fake legal citations making their way into official court records, in a case involving ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Researchers train AI chatbots to 'jailbreak' rival chatbots - and automate the process
The method used to jailbreak an AI chatbot, as devised by NTU researchers, is called Masterkey. It is a two-fold method where the attacker would reverse engineer an LLM's defense mechanisms. Then, with this acquired data, the attacker would teach another LLM to learn how to create a bypass. This way, a 'Masterkey' is created and used to attack fortified LLM chatbots, even if later patched by developers.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Omicron Limited ☛ Aadhar-linked pay becomes mandatory for MGNREGS workers
The Centre mandates payment of all MGNREGA wages through Aadhaar-based system though 34.8% of registered workers and 12.7% of active workers are not eligible; 7.6 crore job cards deleted since April 2022
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Security Week ☛ Google Settles $5 Billion Privacy Lawsuit Over Tracking People Using ‘Incognito Mode’
Plaintiffs also charged that Google’s activities yielded an “unaccountable trove of information” about users who thought they’d taken steps to protect their privacy.
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New York Times ☛ Your Car Is Tracking You. Abusive Partners May Be, Too.
Modern cars have been called “smartphones with wheels” because they are [Internet]-connected and have myriad methods of data collection, from cameras and seat weight sensors to records of how hard you brake and corner. Most drivers don’t realize how much information their cars are collecting and who has access to it, said Jen Caltrider, a privacy researcher at Mozilla who reviewed the privacy policies of more than 25 car brands and found surprising disclosures, such as Nissan saying it might collect information about “sexual activity.”
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Defence/Aggression
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US News And World Report ☛ American Democracy Has Overcome Big Stress Tests Since the 2020 Election. More Challenges Are Ahead
A sitting president tried to overturn an election and his supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the winner from taking power. Supporters of that attack launched a campaign against local election offices, chasing out veteran administrators and pushing conservative states to pass new laws making it harder to vote.
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RFERL ☛ The EU Is Much Less Dependent On Russian Gas But Still Isn't Ready To Give It Up
At the time Moscow launched its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the EU was largely dependent on Russia for gas. Overall, Russia provided more than 40 percent of the EU's gas imports -- supplying as much as 95 percent of Hungary's gas to less than 10 percent of Spain's in 2021, according to EU's official statistics office Eurostat. The biggest net importer of Russian gas in the EU, however, was Germany with 55 billion cubic meters in 2021, making up over 65 percent of the country's gas imports.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Chinese spy balloons ‘used a U.S. [Internet] provider’ – as well as American hardware
If the source report is correct, it demonstrates the bravado of the spy balloon designers. As well as using U.S. technologies within the high-altitude balloons, the Chinese seem to have simply organized a data contract with a U.S. ISP for sending all the spy-in-the-sky data home.
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The Hill ☛ Religious freedom, along with everything else, is unraveling in Sudan
The military coup of 2021 brought in its wake a sharp rise in cases of religious persecution. Shortly after the military takeover, authorities in Gezira State arrested a young couple, Hamouda and Nada, after their conversion to Christianity. Even after the coup, the 2020 constitutional amendment deterred prosecutors from bringing charges of apostasy, but the fall of the civilian government emboldened them to charge the couple with adultery, premised on the claim that their conversions voided their marriage, rendering their union criminal.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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Meduza ☛ Putin calls shelling of Belgorod ‘terrorist act,’ says Russia will retaliate against Ukraine — Meduza
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France24 ☛ Putin says Russia will 'intensify' Ukraine attacks as Zelensky vows 'wrath' for Russian forces
President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Moscow will intensify strikes on military targets in Ukraine after an unprecedented attack over the weekend on the Russian city of Belgorod that killed 24 people and left over 100 wounded on Saturday.
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RFERL ☛ Ukraine Says Troops Fend Off 'Terrorist' Russian Attacks As Putin Vows To Intensify The War
Ukraine said at least 56 combat clashes with Russian forces took place on the first day of the year after a “record number” of drone and missile attacks struck Ukrainian cities overnight, while Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to intensify attacks in the days ahead.
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teleSUR ☛ Leaders Worldwide Call for Peace in New Year Salutations
"We will never back down because there is no force that can divide us," Russian President Vladimir Putin said
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New York Times ☛ Putin Vows to Keep Up Bombardment After a Russian City Is Hit
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia says his country will continue targeting Ukrainian cities in retaliation for a deadly attack on the city of Belgorod on Saturday.
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JURIST ☛ Russia sentences over 200 Ukrainian fighters to prison
Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said on Sunday in an interview with the Russian state-owned RIA news agency that the Russian courts have issued long-term prison sentences for more than 200 members of Ukrainian armed groups for alleged crimes.
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RFERL ☛ Norway To Allow Direct Sales Of Defense-Related Products To Ukraine
A policy by the Norwegian government allowing direct sales of weapons and defense-related products to Ukraine went into effect on January 1, authorities in Oslo said.
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RFERL ☛ Tajik, Uzbek Nationals Among Those Arrested After Suspected Cologne Terrorist Threat
Police in Germany on January 1 arrested another suspect in connection with a possible planned terrorist attack on Cologne Cathedral, saying it was a 41-year-old man with German and Turkish citizenship.
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teleSUR ☛ 21 Killed in Ukrainian Attacks on Russia's Border City Belgorod
Belgorod and its region were shelled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Friday and Saturday.
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RFERL ☛ In New Year's Greeting, Jailed Russian Politician Navalny Says He Does Not Feel Abandoned
Imprisoned Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, who is serving a 19-year sentence at a prison above the Arctic Circle on charges widely believed to be politically motivated, sent “Arctic hugs” for the New Year to his supporters.
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New York Times ☛ They Said ‘I Do’ in a Moscow Prison
She’s 18. He’s 23. He sent her a one-sentence letter through his prison’s electronic mail system: “Will you marry me?” They wed in a small room in a Moscow jail.
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YLE ☛ Niinistö: "Finland's security is now sealed behind multiple locks"
Finnish security was front and centre of Sauli Niinistö's last New Year's speech as president.
He said Finland's security "is even more firmly established," noting the country's entry into Nato this year.
"The Russian demand to prevent Finland and Sweden from joining Nato was an indication of her efforts to change the status quo and to create a grey sphere of interest within Europe," he said, adding that Sweden's accession to the alliance seemed to be moving forward.
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Environment
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CBC ☛ Why reintroducing bison is revitalizing the Prairies and Indigenous culture, identity
In Manitoba, 80 per cent of the mixed-grass prairie has disappeared, affecting the plants, insects and animals that rely on it as a habitat.
Once an area is cultivated and put into an annual crop rotation, it's difficult to restore.
"The native grasses are gone. The microbes that are so essential for everything that's living within those soils is gone. And we're just losing it at an unprecedented rate," Shamon said.
"And compared to our efforts to actually preserve and protect ourselves, there's no comparison. We're definitely on the losing side of things."
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El País ☛ ‘A preview to hell’: The year Brazil woke up to the climate crisis
For María Netto at the Climate and Society Institute, the frequency and intensity of environmental tragedies could mark a before and after in Brazil, especially in terms of awareness at street level. Climate change is now in the neighborhood conversations, in the bus line, in the bakery. This awareness needs to be translated into action: it’s no longer just about reducing CO2 emissions, but also about containing immediate damage, because what Brazilians are experiencing – and what’s set to come – is already inevitable.
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Energy/Transportation
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Overpopulation
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El País ☛ Franco Berardi, philosopher: ‘We have to abandon the reproduction of the species’
In the 1980s, a profound change in [the economic] model — which was linked to the formation of the electronic network — began. I [studied] it from the beginning. It seemed that everything could change in a positive direction, that robotics could free us from manual work and that this new network would boost free shared activity. I made a mistake. At the turn of the century came the dotcom crash, there was a radical shift in the social form of the [Internet]. The dream of free [connectivity] was broken — everything was verticalized with the emergence of large [tech] companies. The possibility of the [Internet] as a free place is over, meaning that we’ve entered this essentially sad place, this depressive space of virtual relationships. We’re disembodied, forced to work for an invisible boss.
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Finance
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India ☛ Year Ender: 2023, the year of layoffs
From Amazon to Microsoft, the year 2023 witnessed shocking mass layoffs. Thousands of employees were fired without any notice as companies downsized their workforces. The layoffs which had initially begun to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic evolved into an unsettling trend in 2023.
From IT firms to banking sectors, thousands of employees were laid off in jaw-dropping numbers. While the rationales behind these layoffs vary from company to company, here’s a list of some of the biggest layoffs in 2023:
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India Education Diary ☛ Over 9K employees fired by video gaming firms in 2023
The video game industry saw several rounds of layoffs in 2023, affecting at least 9,000 employees globally.
In September, Fortnite game developer Epic Games announced to lay off 16 per cent of its employees, impacting nearly 870 people. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney sent an email to Epic employees, saying the company is laying off around 16 per cent of Epic staff.
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India ☛ Layoffs Reached All-Time High in 2023, India Ranked 2nd After US for Firing 18,000 Employees
LinkedIn, in general, assists people in finding jobs, but it is also on the list of corporations that lay off employees. LinkedIn cut 716 jobs in May of this year across sales, operations, and support teams to streamline procedures and decrease layers to help make faster decisions. LinkedIn let off 668 individuals in October from its engineering, product, talent, and finance teams, marking the company’s second round of layoffs this year.
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The Nation ☛ Housing Is a Human Right
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China’s Pooh-tin Jinping hails ‘resilient’ economy in bullish New Year speech
President Pooh-tin Jinping said Sunday the Chinese economy had grown “more resilient and dynamic” in 2023, despite financial figures continuing to disappoint as the post-Covid recovery stalls.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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[Old] Free Desktop ☛ Services enabled by default?
Well, it is definitely our intention to gently push the distributions in the same direction so that they stop supporting deviating solutions for these things where there's really no point at all in doing so.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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RFERL ☛ How The Russian State Ramped Up The Suppression Of Dissent In 2023: 'It Worked In The Soviet Union, And It Works Now'
Nonetheless, the harsh repression of dissent was the daily business of President Vladimir Putin’s security forces, with the action shifted to pretrial detention centers, the courts, and the prison system.
“It is a return to the repressive system of the post-Stalin period,” said human rights activist Aleksandr Cherkasov of Memorial, which has been banned in Russia. “Maybe this has been ordered [from above] -- that is possible. But it is the same logic as the campaigns of the Soviet Union.
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Associated Press ☛ Laws banning semi-automatic weapons and library censorship will take effect in Illinois
Libraries that indiscriminately ban books will not be eligible for state funds.
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ABC ☛ Laws banning semi-automatic weapons and library censorship to take effect in Illinois
They must adopt the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights stating “materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.”
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WTTW TV ☛ Illinois Becomes First State to Enact Anti-Book Ban Legislation Tying Library Funding to Open Access Policies
House Bill 2789 declares it to be the policy of Illinois to “encourage and protect the freedom of libraries and library systems to acquire materials without external limitation and to be protected against attempts to ban, remove, or otherwise restrict access to books or other materials.”
It also requires that, as a condition for being eligible for state grants, libraries and library systems must adopt either the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights or some other written statement prohibiting the practice of banning books or other materials.
Tracie Hall, executive director of the Chicago-based ALA, called the bill signing a historic event.
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[Old] Illinois ☛ Gov. Pritzker Signs Bill Making Illinois First State in the Nation to Outlaw Book Bans
This legislation, HB2789, protects the freedom of libraries to acquire materials without external limitations. Prior to this, Illinois law did not provide such protections and according to Chicago-based American Library Association (ALA), there were 67 attempts to ban books in Illinois in 2022. Just this past year, PEN American reported 1,477 instances of books being banned nationwide during the first half of the 2022-23 school year, affecting 874 individual titles.
HB2789 tasks the Illinois State Librarian and the Illinois State Library with adopting the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights, statewide. This bill of rights indicates that reading materials should not be proscribed, removed, or restricted because of partisan or personal disproval. Illinois libraries would only be eligible for state-funded grants if they adopt the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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The Age AU ☛ Journalist and filmmaker John Pilger dies aged 84
“The veteran journalist, writer and filmmaker was a ferocious speaker of truth to power, who in later years tirelessly advocated for the release and vindication of Julian Assange,” WikiLeaks said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “Our world is poorer for his passing.”
Assange’s father, John Shipton, described Pilger as “a magnificent human being by any measure, and a great son of the Australian soil.
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Democracy Now ☛ “Free the Truth”: The Belmarsh Tribunal on Julian Assange & Defending Press Freedom
In a New Year’s Day special broadcast, we air highlights from the Belmarsh Tribunal held last month in Washington, D.C., where journalists, lawyers, activists and other expert witnesses made the case to free Julian Assange from prison in the United Kingdom. The WikiLeaks founder has been jailed at London’s Belmarsh prison since 2019, awaiting possible extradition to the United States on espionage charges for publishing documents that revealed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rights groups say the charges threaten freedom of the press and put a chilling effect on the work of investigative journalists who expose government secrets.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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EFF ☛ Digital Rights for LGBTQ+ People: 2023 Year in Review
One growing threat to LGBTQ+ people is data surveillance. Across the U.S., a growing number of states prohibited transgender youths from obtaining gender-affirming health care, and some restricted access for transgender adults. For example, the Texas Attorney General is investigating a hospital for providing gender-affirming health care to transgender youths. We can expect anti-trans investigators to use the tactics of anti-abortion investigators, including seizure of internet browsing and private messaging.
It is imperative that businesses are prevented from collecting and retaining this data in the first place, so that it cannot later be seized by police and used as evidence. Legislators should start with Rep. Jacobs’ My Body, My Data bill. We also need new laws to ban reverse warrants, which police can use to identify every person who searched for the keywords “how do I get gender-affirming care,” or who was physically located near a trans health clinic.
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Copyrights
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NPR ☛ 'Steamboat Willie' is now in the public domain. What does that mean for Mickey Mouse?
"What is going into the public domain is this particular appearance in this particular film," he says.
That means people can creatively reuse only the Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willie. Not the Mickey Mouse in the 1940 movie Fantasia. Nor the one on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, a kids' show that aired on the Disney Channel for a decade starting in 2006.
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Techdirt ☛ And We’re Off! Time To Get Started On This Year’s Public Domain Game Jam
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Torrent Freak ☛ All DMCA Notices Filed Against TorrentFreak in 2023 Were Bogus
New Year's resolutions come in all shapes and sizes, with an equal number of excuses to explain what went wrong. From today, January 1st 2024, here at TorrentFreak we're quietly hoping that anti-piracy companies will at least try to stop targeting us with bogus DMCA notices. At the start of 2023, the main culprits managed less than three weeks while others were still sending them two days ago.
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Public Domain Review ☛ Happy Public Domain Day 2024!
Each January 1st is Public Domain Day, when a new crop of works have their copyrights expire and become free to share and reuse for any purpose. Here's our highlights for 2024.
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New York Times ☛ Mickey Mouse, Other Characters Lose Copyright Protection
What could happen to the original version of Mickey Mouse and others after they entered the public domain on Jan. 1? Hint: think Winnie the Pooh wielding a sledgehammer.
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Petter Reinholdtsen ☛ Petter Reinholdtsen: Welcome out of prison, Mickey, hope you find some freedom!
Today, the animation figure Mickey Mouse finally was released from the corporate copyright monopoly prison, as the 1928 movie Steamboat Willie entered the public domain in USA. This movie was the first public appearance of Mickey Mouse. Sadly the figure is still on probation, thanks to trademark laws and a the Disney corporations powerful pack of lawyers, as described in the 2017 article in "How Mickey Mouse Evades the Public Domain" from Priceonomics. On the positive side, the primary driver for repeated extentions of the duration of copyright monopoly has been Disney thanks to Mickey Mouse and the 2028 movie, and as it now in the public domain I hope it will cause less urge to extend the already unreasonable long copyright duration.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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L. Sprague de Camp vs. Lin Carter
I finished L. Sprague de Camp's "The Fallible Fiend" on the 27th, and Lin Carter's "Down to a Sunless Sea" on the 28th, and I've been reflecting on the impression that each book gives of its author. When I read de Camp I get the sense of a very smart man enjoying showing how smart he is. When I read Lin Carter I get impression of a man who loves fantasy and science fiction and is overjoyed to be sharing them with his friends.
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🔤SpellBinding — EHWORVM Wordo: DEMIT
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On Telepathy
A few days ago, I was browsing various conversations and stumbled into a discussion about the Lore24 hashtag. It's a challenge, not unlike Lexember or my own self-inflicted chapter a week, but with this one, I would have to post a little bit of world-building every day in 2024. Given that I've been struggling to get back on the writing train for the last few years, I thought I would give it a try until I fail.
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...Hha tcsh
Im a bit shy with women. At first. I do enjoy the female drive. And i like to listen. I am also an open person, to share, exchange... but first we have to establish a secure connection.
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New year reflections
As the year 2023 came to a close and another year began its course, I am grateful for all the blessings I received this past year. Perhaps for many, 2023 was the first "normal" year (whatever that means) since the onset of COVID-19. For me, it was the year of recovery from the long four to five years of autistic burnout, which was only made worse by the pandemic. Even a year ago, my executive dysfunction was quite severe. But at the conclusion of 2023, I find myself successfully having completed two trimesters of full-time college education (for the first time since 1998) -- 15 credits between May and August, and 18 credits between September and December, which means I have earned 58 credits thus far (with 3.855 GPA). A year ago I often had difficulty reminding myself to check email -- even frequently forgetting which email services I was using.
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Happy New Year everybody!
I hope it went well for you, the kids and dogs and cats are now sleeping, and that you drank enough water and ate enough food to stave off the hangover. If you so indulged.
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Capability-based characters
The way I see it, the two least dysfunctional TRPG styles are:
1. Games where the foundation is a “hard landscape” to explore/change/discover and be in. Pretty blorby games, in other words, after the spell in Enchanter that protects & preserves integrity of items. The players are adventurers. 2. Games where you create a story together. “Nitfol” has been my name for it, after the spell in Enchanter that’s all about mutual communication on the other’s terms. The players are authors and actors at the same time.
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Happy 2024
Another year has passed, the number labeling it was incremented once again, and I did have a look back through my journal.
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2024 HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024!! Do a little dance and feel the groove!! I hope you all have such an awesome year and you do lots of fun things.....I'm hoping to go abroad to Michigan USA to see a friend!!
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First beer with my daughter
Today my oldest daughter had her first drink with her parents. She, who is of drinking age in 2024, has been wanting to try alcohol for a few days now. She didn't want to start with high alcohol content, so her first drink was a beer.
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Calendar
Every year, around the middle of November, I go to Dollar Tree and get a calendar. Except for 2023, it has always been a cat calendar. (The cat ones were out of stock in 2022.) Calendars are something people still buy, in paper form, and they are also often given away by businesses as a way of advertising. Even though, it feels like most people manage their schedules digitally, on their apps, or by using a Web-based calendar. As an 80's kid, I remember Filofax and its numerous copycats. Then came a primitive "digital organizers," with a small, narrow LCD display and a tiny keyboard that rather resembled a scientific calculator. This evolved into PDAs, such as Palm Pilot, by the end of the 1990s. It would be another 10 years before the first smartphone, Apple iPhone, created a sensation.
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Politics and World Events
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Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty the mouse is free at last!
Well, at least the 1928 version of Micky Mouse [1] is free and in the public domain. It's no coincidence that Disney has worked the past few years turning the 1928 version of Micky into a trademark. Grab the popcorn! It's going to be an interesting year in copyright law.
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Standing With Israel (publ. 2024-01-01)
On this gemlog, I do not discuss much politics or breaking news and current events. It is not that I do not have any perspective on these matters, but just that it is not the focus of this gemlog, and that I would find myself often repeating things that others have said better. But I feel compelled to add my voice in support of Israel during this time of war and opposition, since Israel has so few friends and so many enemies.
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Technology and Free Software
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Let's Go !
This is the first post of this new blog...for this new year (after 4 months of tests in a kind of anonymity). I used to have a blog in french (easy to find, isn't it?) but I wanted to start something different with the challenge of doing it in English. I wanted to go back to the roots of blogging, a real journal, a weblog, without any regularity. Just a post when I feel I have something interesting to say. And I wanted something simple, light and, of course, free/libre. The choice of English may not be natural for me, being French (yes, we are generally bad at English) but I work more in English now than before and I like the challenge. It is also the best way to meet people from all over the world. After these 4 months, I changed many things and the initial aim changed a little with new options.
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pharc and me are ready for 2024
New Year's Eve and in 6 hours pharc will be executed by cron to archive all my phlog posts of the year. As usually I have not posted many things, especially during the summer, but hopefully I will post more often during the winter. That is, during January and February maybe also March. This is usually the case, I post a lot during the winter but very little during the summer.
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Tiny threads again 🧵
Plan B is a function list to which I append a tune function when I'd like it to play. Another thread notices that the list grew, and plays the tune. It seems that appending and reading lists on different threads is safe. I hacked up a proof of concept for this, and it works. Naturally, further issues arise.
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I plugged in a WIFI USB antenna
They who made the kernel update. They were sent to reveal the infidels, the failible routers, the incompatible models amongst the good ones. They shine unbearably clear light as to what - as to *who* - is failing, for their implementation within the divine schemes may not be questioned. Update. Update your kernel and bask in their glorious 2.4GHz light, where there is safety and compatibility.
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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.