Links 30/04/2024: Malaysian and Russian Governments Crack Down on Journalists
Contents
- Leftovers
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Leftovers
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Science
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The Straits Times ☛ China set to launch high-stakes mission to Moon’s ‘hidden’ side
The aim is to collect soil and rocks from the side of the Moon that permanently faces away from Earth.
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Science Alert ☛ Does Freezing Bread Make It Any Healthier For You? An Expert Explains.
Maybe, sort of, sometimes.
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Science Alert ☛ An Unexpected Function Discovered Inside The 'Little Brain' at The Back of Your Head
It's cleverer than we thought.
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Science Alert ☛ Buried Monuments in Ancient Ireland Could Be a Path Into The Afterlife
Journeying to a final resting place.
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Science Alert ☛ Bodies Don't Decompose as Normal in This Colombian Town, And Nobody Knows Why
An enduring mystery.
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Science Alert ☛ Genes For Depression Can Affect The Situations We Find Ourselves in
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Science Alert ☛ Humans Can Absorb Toxic Flame Retardants Through Skin, Study Finds
A previously overlooked pathway of exposure.
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Science Alert ☛ 'Unique' Weapons Chest May Reveal The Secrets of a 1495 Swedish Shipwreck
Insights into Early Modern naval warfare.
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Science Alert ☛ ADD vs ADHD: What's The Difference And Why Does It Matter?
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Science Alert ☛ 'Strongest Statistical Evidence Yet' For Planet Nine Has Been Found, Scientist Says
Does our Solar System have another planet?
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Hardware
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CNX Software ☛ QNAP TS-216G 2-bay NAS features a quad-core Arm processor with NPU for image sorting and searching
QNAP TS-216G 2-bay NAS features a quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor with an NPU for AI-powered photo management, 4GB RAM, 2.5GbE and GbE networking ports, two hot-swappable 3.5-inch SATA bay, and a few USB ports. It looks to be an update to the Rockchip RK3566-powered QNAP TS-133/TS-223 with more memory (4GB vs 2GB) and more advanced networking capability (2.5GbE+GbE vs GbE only), while still keeping the object and face recognition capabilities.
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Bert Hubert ☛ Cloud Naïve: Europe and the 'Bijenkorf' Megascaler
Lately there’s been some confusion: places like SIDN (Dutch national operator of all internet names that end on .NL) claim that nobody in Europe can deliver their computer needs, and that they therefore must outsource their operations to American cloud providers.
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Hackaday ☛ Hack In Style With This Fallout Cyberdeck
There’s always an appeal to a cool-looking computer case or cyberdeck – and with authentic-looking Vault-Tec style, [Eric B] and [kc9psw]’s fallout-themed cyberdeck is no exception.
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Hackaday ☛ Boneblocker Is A Big LED Wall That Rocks
[Nick Lombardy] took on a job almost every maker imagines themselves doing at some point. He built a giant LED wall and he did a damn fine job of it, too. Introducing BoneBlocker.
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Hackaday ☛ Corral Some Zippy Blue Flames Into 3D Printed Troughs
[Steve Mould] came across an interesting little phenomenon of blue flames zipping around a circular track. This led to diving down a bit of a rabbit hole about excitable mediums, ultimately leading him to optimize the shapes and come up with some pretty wild variations which he shows off in a video (also embedded below.)
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Tom's Hardware ☛ China gives local companies funding to buy homegrown GPUs — aiming for self-sufficiency by 2027
The city government in Beijing has outlined plans to subsidize companies that buy Chinese-made processors. Its draft policy has a strong emphasis on GPUs, as they have been most badly affected by US export controls
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IT Wire ☛ After more than three years, Huawei surges to the top in China again
"Vendors are actively engaging consumers by developing interesting Hey Hi (AI) use cases and integrating Hey Hi (AI) features into their latest flagship launches with large marketing spends to educate consumers.
"In 1Q, Xiaomi led in the Gen AI-capable smartphone market with its flagship 14 series, while Honor explored its high-profile Magic 6 series with cross-device Hey Hi (AI) features with its MagicBook Pro 16.
"Oppo, on the other hand, pushed ahead with massive marketing investments on national TV channels, positioning its brand with Hey Hi (AI) features and innovation.
"We see an increasing divergence in Chinese vendors' R&D and Hey Hi (AI) product strategies this year, collectively driving further consumer awareness and adoption, which will feed into a sustainable monetisation model."
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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YLE ☛ Health authority and government disagree on sugar tax
Finland decided to tax sweets and chocolate at a higher rate.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Hackaday ☛ Train A GPT-2 LLM, Using Only Pure C Code
[Andrej Karpathy] recently released llm.c, a project that focuses on LLM training in pure C, once again showing that working with these tools isn’t necessarily reliant on sprawling development environments. GPT-2 may be older but is perfectly relevant, being the granddaddy of modern LLMs (large language models) with a clear heritage to more modern offerings.
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Defence/Aggression
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JURIST ☛ DRC ratifies Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) ratified Friday the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
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Environment
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The Straits Times ☛ Philippines' 'dangerous' heat prompts shift to online classes, power crunch
MANILA - The Philippines has cancelled in-person public school classes for the next two days and said the power grid on its main island could be strained as the country grapples with a heatwave that is also affecting other parts of Southeast Asia.
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France24 ☛ Schools closed, warnings issued as Asia swelters in extreme heatwave
South and Southeast Asia braced for more extreme heat on Sunday as authorities across the region issued health warnings and residents fled to parks and air-conditioned malls for relief.
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Energy/Transportation
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YLE ☛ Chicago-Helsinki flight lands in New York
Pilots landed in New York after shutting down one of the plane's engines.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Drone maker DJI facing U.S. FCC ban — the national security risk and part China-state ownership are key issues
The U.S. Congress presented a bipartisan bill that will prevent DJI from selling new drones - effectively banning them in the consumer and commercial space - citing national security and CCP sponsorship reasons.
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Finance
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Mark Zuckerberg-Led Meta's 'Set It And Forget It' AI Tools Misfire, Wasting Ad Budgets And Driving Away Businesses: Report
META is facing a significant setback as its AI-powered ad tools are malfunctioning, leading to a waste of ad budgets and a decline in sales. This has prompted businesses to reconsider their advertising strategies on Meta’s platforms.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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JURIST ☛ Thousands march in Madrid supporting Spain PM amid corruption charges against wife and potential resignation
Thousands of people marched in Madrid Friday supporting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez after the publication of his letter on Ex-Twitter stating he needs “time to reflect” after a court in Madrid started a preliminary investigation against his wife on alleged corruption charges.
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RFA ☛ In reversal, China now wants to preserve Kashgar’s Old City
China has destroyed thousands of old homes and shops in the ancient Silk Road trading post.
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The Straits Times ☛ South Korea’s Yoon to meet opposition leader amid bid to reset presidency
The President's People Power Party suffered a crushing defeat in the April 10 polls.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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The Straits Times ☛ Malaysian activist Chegubard claims trial to two charges of defamation, sedition
Badrul Hisham Shaharin, 46, was arrested April 28 over his online comments.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Criticism of gov’t under new security law allowed ‘no matter how sharp or severe,’ Hong Kong justice sec. says
Hong Kong’s new, homegrown security law does not undermine press freedom, the city’s justice secretary has stated, amid concern that legislation against external interference and theft of state secrets may affect reporting.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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RFERL ☛ 2 More Russian Journalists Arrested As Crackdown On Independent Media Heightens
The crackdown on independent media in Russian mounted over the weekend, with two journalists having alleged ties to the late Aleksei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation and Western news outlets being arrested and charged with “extremism.”
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Civil Rights/Policing
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YLE ☛ Study reveals teacher bias against immigrant-background students in final exam
Some high school teachers in Finland discriminate against students of non-Finnish backgrounds, according to a new study by the Helsinki Graduate School of Economics.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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APNIC ☛ High-speed packet transmission in Go: From net.Dial to AF_XDP
Guest Post: Pushing limits in Go — from net.Dial to syscalls, AF_PACKET, and lightning-fast AF_XDP. Benchmarking packet sending performance.
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IT Wire ☛ TPG Telecom, Optus Mobile reach deal to boost regional network
In turn, Optus will licence some of TPG’s spectrum for use in the MOCN, to provide better capacity, speed and service quality to customers of both telcos in regional Australia.
The statement said customers and communities would also benefit from Optus’ commitment to speed up its 5G rollout in the regions, increasing 5G sites in the regional MOCN to 1500 by 2028 and 2444 by the end of 2030.
{loadposition sam08}Once the agreement was in place, TPG Telecom's retail and wholesale customers (including Vodafone, TPG, iiNet, Lebara and felix customers) would be able to use Optus' 4G and 5G regional network as Optus customers did.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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