Links 04/04/2024: AWS Layoffs Showing That the "Clown Computing" Bubble is Popping
Contents
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Leftovers
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Hackaday ☛ Crash IoT Devices Through Protocol Fuzzing
IoT protocols are a relatively unexplored field compared to most PC-exposed protocols – it’s bothersome to need a whole radio setup before you can tinker on something, and often, for low-level experiments, just any radio won’t do. This means there’s quite a bit of security ground to cover. Now, the U-Fuzz toolkit from [asset-group] helps us make up for it.
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New York Times ☛ John Barth, a Novelist Who Found Possibility in a ‘Used-Up’ Form
By merrily using fiction to dissect itself, he was at the vanguard of a movement that defined a postwar American style.
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New York Times ☛ Love Sticks? There’s an Instagram for That.
Those who appreciate “something as basic as a stick” are sharing their enthusiasm through a newly popular Instagram account.
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Science
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The Strategist ☛ Canada’s biosecurity scandal: the risks of foreign interference in life sciences
In July 2019, world-renowned biological researchers Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were quietly walked out of the Canadian government’s National Microbiology Lab (NML).
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Hardware
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Quartz ☛ TSMC rocked by quake
Taiwan’s deadly earthquake stopped chipmaking at TSMC. Any pause at the world’s largest semiconductor foundry is likely to have ripple effects across the entire global supply chain.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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RFA ☛ Schools in North Korean province remain closed amid respiratory outbreak
The move comes amid a spread of coronavirus-like infections.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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GeekWire ☛ Amazon Web Services cuts hundreds of jobs in sales, training, and physical stores tech group [Ed: Clown computing bubble popping]
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AWS layoffs hit hundreds as cull continues
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Neowin ☛ Amazon Web Services will lay off hundreds of team members as it faces growing competition [Ed: Azure has had layoffs every year since 2020]
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Amazon to lay off hundreds of workers in its cloud computing division
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Amazon Web Services lays off several hundred tech, sales staff
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The Register UK ☛ AWS severs connection with several hundred staff
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Amazon Layoffs: HUNDREDS of jobs cuts in THESE divisions
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Al Bawaba ☛ Amazon cuts hundreds of jobs in yet another employee layoff spree
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Newsmax ☛ Amazon Web Services Axes Several Hundred in Tech, Sales
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PCLinuxOS Magazine ☛ ICYMI Google AI Image Creation Via Gemini, Pauses Image Creation Of People [Ed: They should cover the "real" Gemini, not Google's attempt to hijack the term]
Less than a month after releasing image creation to the general public with its Gemini AI, Google is pausing its AI tool that creates images of people following inaccuracies in some historical depictions generated by the model, the latest hiccup in the Alphabet-owned company's efforts to catch up with rivals OpenAI and Microsoft, according to an article from Reuters. Google started offering image generation through its Gemini AI models earlier this month, but over the past few days some users on social media had flagged that the model returns historical images which are sometimes inaccurate. “We're aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions,” Google had said in late February.
UPDATE: Just a few days after pausing image creation of people by Google Gemini, Google has expounded on “what happened” with Gemini that led to the search giant “pausing” the creation of AI-generated images of people, in a blog entry. From the blog: “So what went wrong? In short, two things. First, our tuning to ensure that Gemini showed a range of people failed to account for cases that should clearly not show a range. And second, over time, the model became way more cautious than we intended and refused to answer certain prompts entirely — wrongly interpreting some very anodyne prompts as sensitive.”
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Defence/Aggression
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New York Times ☛ Israeli Army Withdraws From Major Gaza Hospital, Leaving Behind a Wasteland
Al-Shifa Hospital lies in ruins after a battle there between Israeli soldiers and Gazan gunmen. Shortly before withdrawing, the Israeli military brought journalists from The Times to witness the damage.
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Reason ☛ The Best of Reason: What if America Runs Out of Bombs?
The U.S. is dispensing munitions to Ukraine and Israel faster than they can be replaced.
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New Yorker ☛ What a Right-Wing Militia Sounds Like, from the Inside
“Chameleon: The Michigan Plot” is the latest podcast to show how extremist groups pair dangerous beliefs with an ordinary desire for community.
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Reason ☛ Texas Takes Intellectually Disabled Inmate Off Death Row
Randall Mays, who has an IQ of 63, was resentenced to life without parole.
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France24 ☛ Biden reiterates US concerns over Fentanylware (TikTok) ownership to Pooh-tin Jinping
President Joe Biden told his counterpart Pooh-tin Jinping on Tuesday that the United States wants a change of ownership of TikTok, as Congress debates banning the blockbuster app unless it separates from its Chinese owners.
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teleSUR ☛ Sudan: UNICEF Denounces Dangerous Situation of Millions of Children
Since mid-April, Sudan has been embroiled in an internal war after power struggles flared up between army chief Abdel Fatah al-Burhan and the leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
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YLE ☛ One pupil dead in Vantaa school shooting
One sixth grade pupil died while two other classmates were seriously injured in the incident.
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YLE ☛ How should we talk to children about the school shooting?
News of a school shooting flooded media outlets in Finland on Tuesday. Adults should answer children's questions calmly and be careful not to project their own anxieties, says an expert.
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YLE ☛ Vantaa school shooting: Tearful minister mourns "terrible event"
The shooting claimed the life of a 12-year-old and seriously injured two classmates.
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Defence Web ☛ SAPS has “strategies” and “key interventions” to fight crime and corruption
Thanks to a Parliamentary question and the Deputy President answering questions in the National Assembly (NA), South Africans know the SA Police Service (SAPS) has “two strategies in place” to address corruption.
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The Strategist ☛ India in the Quad: insider or outlier?
The Raisina Dialogue, India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics, was held from 21 to 23 February this year, and discussions on and around the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) took centre stage.
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ADF ☛ Analysts: IS Establishes Foreign Fighter Hub as Terror Threats Rise
The Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) has in the last year gained significant territory from a rival group in Mali, increased religious tax collections known as zakat, and expanded recruitment efforts throughout the Sahel
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ADF ☛ Sahel Civilians Stuck ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place,’ As Terror Rivals Clash
Civilians in the Sahel’s tri-border region are caught in the crosshairs of violence perpetrated by rival terrorist groups. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), which is affiliated with al-Qaida, and the Islamic State group’s Sahel Province (ISSP), also are targeting security forces and humanitarian workers in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
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ADF ☛ ‘New Level of Escalation’ Between Algeria, Morocco
The Maghreb region’s cold war between Algeria and Morocco continues to add new layers of frost. The latest round of provocations began in early March with the opening of an office in Algiers for the Moroccan Republic of the Rif, a separatist organization reportedly funded by Algeria.
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ADF ☛ 30 Years On, SANDF Faces Budgetary and Readiness Challenges
Thirty years after its founding, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) finds its historic role as a peacekeeping group on the continent increasingly limited by financial constraints that may force leaders to rethink their mission.
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ADF ☛ RSF Accused of Rape in Conquered Territory
As Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces took control of the West Darfur capital of El Geneina last summer, a group of men entered the home of one woman and held her at gunpoint. “They said, ‘Are you going to take off your clothes, or what?’” the unidentified 25-year-old Masalit woman told Reuters recently.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ No laws barring election losers from joining district committees, Hong Kong home affairs minister says
It would be “discriminatory” to bar candidates who lost in last year’s opposition-free District Council election from joining three neighbourhood committees, home and youth affairs minister Alice Mak has said, after more than a hundred such people were appointed by the government to the committees.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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LRT ☛ Lithuania mulls easing construction rules in preparation for Rheinmetall project
The Economy and Innovation Ministry proposes to amend several laws to enable major Western arms and ammunition producers, including Germany’s defence industry giant Rheinmetall, to swiftly relocate production to Lithuania.
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Finance
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YLE ☛ Kela raises small child benefit
Child benefit payments will see a 26-euro bump as of this month for youngsters under the age of three.
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YLE ☛ Housing benefit cuts come into force, payments to reduce with next assessment
Cuts in benefit spending will reduce general housing benefit payments for all those who currently receive it.
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The Age AU ☛ 2024-03-29 [Older] Bank profit margin crunch to continue as customers shift deposits
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US News And World Report ☛ 2024-03-28 [Older] Texas Judge Moves Late Fee Case to DC, Accusing Banks of Venue Shopping for Favorable Ruling
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Techdirt ☛ Cleveland Plain Dealer Editor Shows How To Cover Trump: Tell The Truth
For the last eight years or so, one thing has become quite clear: the media has been effectively unable to deal with Donald Trump and Trumpism. He is unique to our political system. He has no shame, is willing to lie without concern, convince himself that his lies are true, and will stop at nothing to win, including fomenting violence and direct attempts to overturn an election.
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TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Trump sues two Trump Media co-founders, seeking to void their stock in the company
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Donald Trump is suing two co-founders of Trump Media & Technology Group, the newly public parent company of his Truth Social platform, arguing that they should forfeit their stock in the company because they set it up improperly.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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New York Times ☛ An Hey Hi (AI) Researcher Takes On Election Deepfakes
Oren Etzioni was once an optimist about artificial intelligence. Now, his nonprofit, TrueMedia.org, is offering tools for fighting A.I.-manipulated content.
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Science Alert ☛ 'Ozempic Babies' – Just Fentanylware (TikTok) Hype or Does It Interfere With Birth Control?
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Techdirt ☛ Hillary Clinton Joins The Chorus Of Ignorant Pundits Insisting Section 230 Must Go
Apparently, the one thing that can unite Democrats and Republicans in 2023 is a shared desire to destroy the internet’s legal framework. Hillary Clinton is the latest to jump on the ‘Repeal Section 230’ bandwagon.
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Patents
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Software Patents
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Unified Patents ☛ $4,000 for NTECH multimedia patents prior art
Unified Patents added two new PATROLL contests, each with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on the list below. The patents are owned by NTECH Properties, LLC, an NPE. The patents generally relate to media delivery. The patents are currently asserted against ByteDance, Ltd.
The contests will expire on June 1, 2024.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Politics and World Events
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Industrial Growth Society
The term "Industrial Growth Society" was reportedly coined by Sigmund Kwaloy; a benefit over the punching bag that is Capitalism is that IGS includes nation states that dictate year-over-year growth. The distinction between "state run" and "free market" may be vague given revolving doors between government and industry, though some nations do have more in the way of state-managed affairs, while others have maybe less of a free market than claimed given tax breaks and other such incentives. It's not much of an invisible hand when one can see the thumb on the scale.
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Technology and Free Software
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ClockworkPi uConsole
I ordered a ClockworkPi uConsole back in October of 2023. It finally arrived at my house last week while I was out of town. I drove home yesterday from Colorado, late. This morning I woke at 0558 and proceded to build the device (it comes as a kit). I was done in ten minutes, but no display. Turns out that the CM4 can indeed be inserted into the carrier board 180-out. A google image search later and an image of someone else's build showed my mistake. Flipped the CM4 over and voila, it booted.
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Universal Unique Identifies are good, use them
There is a thing called Universal Unique Identifier (UUID). It is a way to randomly generate 128 bit number that it won't coincide¹ with any other number generated using the same algorithm; no coordination authority needed.
It sounds like a magic, but it works. Actually, git does something similar: independently made commits never¹ collide.
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“Because this kind of battery is encrypted …”
So I'm reading the “Battery Replacement Installation Manual” for the battery I just bought [1] and as translated instructions go, it's not that bad. But there are some choice bits though …
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An excessive number of packaging layers
I ordered an item from Amazon [1] the other day. The expected arrival time was Friday, but instead, it arrived today. On the front porch was an Amazon box, measuring 6″ × 9″ × 5″ (16cm × 23cm × 13cm for the more civilized amongst you). Inside was another box, 3″ × 4½″ × ⅜″ (7cm × 11cm × 1cm). Inside that was a slightly smaller anti-static bag. Inside that was a smaller plastic bad, and finally, inside that was the item I had purchased—a replacement battery for my old-school flip phone.
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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.