UK Surveillance Update

NYT: "UK Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand Over Your Private Data".

Three noteworthy points stood out to me:

1) If you don't voluntarily surrender your phone/data, the police may not investigate the crime against you.

2) If the police find incriminating evidence against you for an unrelated activity, they can prosecute you. Because you surrendered your phone "voluntarily".

3) They may keep your phone "for weeks or even months".

OTOH, the police promise to use their power only for good, not for evil. So there's that.

Neutron Stars

"Say Hello To Neutron Stars, Your Worst Nightmare"

More Star Wars

"5 confirmed Star Wars projects are coming after The Rise of Skywalker -- here are all the details"

MS Drops 60 Day Password Expiration Recommendation

"Password1, Password2, Password3 no more: Microsoft drops password expiration rec"

Light Posting Notice

Admin note: Posting may be lighter than usual this week and next week due to external obligations.

Boom Update

"Denver Built 'Baby Boom' To Propel Planet Into Supersonic Era"

First Molecule

"Astronomers have spotted the universe's first molecule":

Helium hydride (HeH), a combination of helium and hydrogen, was spotted some 3000 light-years from Earth by an instrument aboard the airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a telescope built into a converted 747 jet that flies above the opaque parts of Earth’s atmosphere.

HeH has long been thought to mark the “dawn of chemistry,” as the remnants of the big bang cooled to about 4000 K and ions began to team up with electrons to form neutral atoms. Researchers believe that in that primordial gas, neutral helium reacted with hydrogen ions to form the first chemical bond joining the very first molecule.

Girl Without Hands Wins Handwriting Contest

"Girl Without Hands Wins Handwriting Contest"

Kung Fu From Space

"Stunning Overhead View of Shaolin Kung Fu Training Exercises":

As part of their show Earth From Space, the BBC Earth team shows the coordinated movements of thousands of Shaolin Kung Fu trainees. The number of participants is so large that their movements can easily be seen in a satellite view...

Flashing Headlights As Free Speech

Eugene Volokh: "Flashing Headlights to Warn of Speed Trap May Be Protected by First Amendment"

[Off Topic] Hsieh Forbes Column: Health Care Vs. Liberty In Singapore

[Off topic] My latest Forbes column is now out: "Health Care Vs. Liberty In Singapore".

I discuss the trade-offs that Singapore residents must make when they accept government-run "universal health care" and "cost control". This is includes significant losses in liberty as well as accepting government rationing of medical services.

For more details, see the full text of "Health Care Vs. Liberty In Singapore".

Dead Tree Books Are The New Vinyl

"Books are cool precisely because we don't need them anymore"

Border Harassment

"Former Mozilla CTO was detained at US border and told he had no right to a lawyer"

Legal Status Of AI Generated Music

"We've been warned about AI and music for over 50 years, but no one's prepared":

"I won’t mince words," says Jonathan Bailey, CTO of iZotope. "This is a total legal clusterf-ck."

Even if an AI system did closely mimic an artist's sound, an artist might have trouble proving the AI was designed to mimic them, says Aimonetti. With copyright, you have to prove the infringing author was reasonably exposed to the work they’re accused of ripping off. If a copyright claim were filed against a musical work made by an AI, how could anyone prove an algorithm was trained on the song or artist it allegedly infringes on? It's not an easy task to reverse engineer a neural network to see what songs it was fed because it's :ultimately just a collection of numerical weights and a configuration," says Bailey...

Copyright law will also have to contend with the bigger issue of authorship. That is, can an AI system claim legal authorship of the music it produces, or does that belong to the humans who created the software?...

AI And Beer

"Smarter beer: When old school craft brewing meets industry 4.0 AI"

Banksy Authentication

"How Banksy Authenticates His Work":

It all starts off with a fairly bog standard gallery style certificate. Details of the work, the authenticating agency, a bit of embossing and a large impressive signature at the bottom. Exactly the sort of things that can be easily copied by someone on a mission to create the perfect fake.

That torn-in-half banknote though? Never mind signatures, embossing or wax seals. The Di Faced Tenner is doing all the authentication heavy lifting here.

The tear is what uniquely separates the private key, the half of the note kept secret under lock and key at Pest Control, with the public key.

EU Surveillance Update

"EU votes to create gigantic biometrics database"

Laptop Holding Styles

"What your laptop-holding position says about you"

Selling Rex

"Someone Is Trying To Sell a Baby T. Rex Skeleton on eBay for $2.95 Million -- And paleontologists aren't happy about it"

Unreliable Emotion Reading

"Don’t look now: Why you should be worried about machines reading your emotions"