(date: 2023-11-22 08:42:11)
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A former Boeing employee has filed a brief for damages against the aerospace giant, seeking compensation of $1.75 million for emotional distress after allegedly suffering retaliation for speaking up against “targeting conduct” of elderly workers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/boeing_emotional_distress_lawsuit/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
A California veterinarian offers tips for how to avoid the potentially fatal illness.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article282165248.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
“If nothing else, we will show our LGBTQ youth that our community, a good number of us, are supportive of them,” said the recall committee’s organizers.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article282205548.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Julie Rabinowitz was masked and in camouflage clothing as she hid in Schenkman’s minivan outside his office.
date: 2023-11-22, from: Liliputing
A growing number of Windows laptops feature fingerprint sensors with support for Microsoft’s Windows Hello technology. The idea is to let users login quickly by tapping a finger against the sensor rather than typing in a password or PIN. But security researchers at Blackwing Intelligence have found “multiple vulnerabilities” in the implementation of these fingerprint […]
The post Security researches bypass Windows Hello fingerprint authentication due to “multiple vulnerabilities” appeared first on Liliputing.
date: 2023-11-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
The key game is Friday night, when Oregon hosts OSU with a berth in the conference championship at stake for the Ducks.
date: 2023-11-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Motives and suspects are being sought in the shooting of two men Tuesday night in different areas of Oakland.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11/22/two-men-wounded-in-oakland-shootings-6/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Serotine bats are the first mammals known to mate without penetration, new research suggests
date: 2023-11-22, from: NASA breaking news
The Thanksgiving holiday typically brings families and friends together in a celebration of common gratitude for all the good things that have happened during the previous year. People celebrate the holiday in various ways, with parades, football marathons, and attending religious services, but food remains the over-arching theme. For astronauts embarked on long-duration space missions, […]
https://www.nasa.gov/history/thanksgiving-celebrations-in-space-2023/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
@HeyeBodo fragte letzthin, ob Gesinnung weg kann. Kann weg, meiner Meinung nach.
In Hellebarden & Helme habe ich ja die drei Gesinnungen, welche viele von uns wegen Elric von Melniboné kennen: Ordnung, Chaos, und die Neutralität. Dazu hat’s eine Seite im Regelbuch, die mir immer noch gefällt. Die Passage hatte ich schon 2011…
Wähle eine Gesinnung: Ordnung, Chaos oder Neutralität.
Die Priester der Ordnung sagen: „Alleine sind wir schwach und das Leben ein Jammertal. Gemeinsam sind wir stark. Gemeinsam bauen wir unsere Häuser. Gemeinsam bestellen wir unsere Felder. Gemeinsam verteidigen wir unsere Städte und Dörfer. Nur gemeinsam sind wir stark. Wir bauen Dämme gegen die Flut. Wir bauen Aquädukte gegen die Dürre. Wir bauen Kanäle gegen die Seuchen. Wir legen die Sümpfe trocken und drängen das Fieber zurück. Wir füllen die Kornspeicher und besiegen den Hunger. Wir bestrafen den Verrat und belohnen die Treue. Wir sorgen für Recht und Gerechtigkeit. Selbst wenn das korrumpierende Chaos und die Anarchie um sich greifen, bleibt uns immer noch die himmlische Ordnung von den höchsten Göttern im Himmel bis hin zu den schlimmsten Teufeln in der Hölle. Sie sorgen dafür, dass Strafe und Belohnung nicht vergessen gehen – jetzt nicht und bis in alle Ewigkeit nicht. In unserer Welt hat jeder seinen Platz und es hat einen Platz für jeden – auch für dich. Sieh diese Bücher: das Wissen der Altvorderen, die Gesetze und Tafeln unserer Ahnen. Es ist unser Erbe. Lerne soviel du kannst, arbeite hart und erhebe dein Haupt. Steige auf! Werde ein echtes Mitglied unserer stolzen Gesellschaft!“
Die Chaos Priester sagen: „Das Leben ist Chaos. Unkraut wächst im Feld. Der Obstgarten verwaldet. Die Küste wird ins Meer gespült. Das Chaos sind die tiefen Muster dieser Welt. Die Wolken gleiten jede für sich im stillen Tanz über den Himmel. Der Fluss fliesst in tausend Windungen zum Meer. Die Elfen leben in den Bäumen, ohne sie zu fällen und zu töten, sie in Bretter zu zersägen und diese dann morsch werden und faulen sehen zu lassen. Nein, die Elfen beobachten die Muster, nach denen die Bäume wachsen, formen sie langsam, leben mit ihnen. Der Baum lebt. Der Elf lebt. Die Ordnung ist die Hybris zu glauben, dass man der Welt seinen Willen aufzwingen kann. Sie verdammt Mann, Frau und Kind zum Joch. Chaos ist nicht das Niederbrennen der Städte, sondern die Einsicht, dass es eine Dummheit war, sie überhaupt zu bauen. Cha- os ist nicht Gesetzlosigkeit, sondern die Einsicht, dass Menschen, wie Bäume, eine eigene Art zu leben haben. Wer Gesetze aufstellt, ohne dies zu bedenken, heisst Menschen töten und sie in Bretterkis- ten begraben. Komm mit! Ich weiss nicht wohin wir gehen, aber wir werden auf dem Weg so manches lernen.“
Wer sich aus diesem kosmischen Kampf heraushalten will, bekennt sich zur Neutralität. Es gibt keine Priester der Neutralität.
Dazu hat es noch folgende Liste, welche natürlich einen Zusammenhang mit der gestern diskutierten Kosmologie hat.
Charaktere können sich einen auch einen Schutzpatron aussuchen.
- Orcus, Herr über die Untoten, lässt Tote wieder auferstehen
- Ishtar, Eifersucht und amour fou, Krieg, Abstieg in die Unterwelt auf der Suche nach dem Liebsten
- Nergal, Rache, Ungeziefer, Ratten und Seuchen, Herr der Unterwelt
- Freya, Ernte, Kreislauf des Lebens, Wölfe, Wildnis und freie Liebe
- Marduk, Kampf gegen die Monster, Kriegsfürst, Herrschaft
- Mitra, Feuer, Ehrlichkeit, Verträge und Schwüre
- Set, Schläue, Heimlichkeit und Mörder
- Hekate, Magie, Hexen, Wegkreuzungen
Wie man auch sieht, ist die Liste nicht immer gleich. 😁
Aber eigentlich kann die Gesinnung weg. Wenn auf dem Charakterblatt steht: “chaotisch”, dann frage ich mich, was das bedeutet. Und wenn ich darauf eine Antwort habe, dann frage ich mich, warum das nicht gleich da stand.
Wenn es nur darum geht, zwei Seiten in einem grossen Spiel zu benennen, ist man besser spezifisch. Man könnte Gondor, Mordor oder Angmar schreiben. Oder Orks, Elfen, Zwerge und Menschen. Oder Ostblock, Westblock und Unabhängige. So könnte man sich die ganze Amateurethik sparen. Was heisst rechtschaffen gut? Rechtschaffen böse? Ja was genau? Eine ernste dazu ist mir zu langweilig. Nennt es Militärdiktatur. Nennt es Stasi. Nennt es Geheimpolizei. K&K unter den Habsburgern oder Nordkorea heute, all diese Alternativen sind bessere Worte, viel reicher, vielschichtiger, bildungswürdiger.
Selbst die Planescapephilosophen mit Knüppeln sind cooler als die Neunfeldergesinnung! Andere Worte sind gefragt, angepasst an die Spielwelt. Wie heissen denn die kosmischen Seiten? Oder wie heissen die Allianzen im grossen Krieg? Was gibt es für Zwischentöne? Wie steht es mit Diplomatie und Vermittlung zwischen den unterschiedlichen Polen? All dies und vieles mehr ist cool. Ich schimpfe nur auf die flache Wortwahl der Neunfeldergesinnung.
Was meiner Meinung ebenfalls keinen Wert hat, sind Gesinnungen, die einmal gewählt werden und dann einen Einfluss auf Schutzzauber haben, oder auf die Verwendungsmöglichkeit dieser oder jener magischen Waffe. Wie viel davon verlangt interessante Entscheidungen? Falls es keine Entscheidungen abverlangt, dann bleiben mir nur die spezifischen Regeln der Welt, die Klassen, die Reaktionswürfen, die Sprachen der heiligen Texte, die Dialekte des Untergrunds, und so weiter. Doch das gibt es ja alles auch ohne Gesinnung!
Von dem her: Gesinnung bietet keinen Mehrwert.
Nur das Gesäusel der Priester der Ordnung und der Priester des Chaos gefällt mir, als eine Beschreibung der Konflikte, die ich gerne anspiele: Zeit für Unsterbliche, Bauwerke und die Natur, Freiheit und Kooperation, das sind die Themen, die ich selber aus Ordnung und Chaos herauslese. Und dieses mehr an Worten macht für mich den Unterschied aus. Wenn die Gesinnung nur ein oder zwei Worte sind, dann ist das langweilig. Mehr Worte braucht das Land.
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2023-11-22-gesinnung
date: 2023-11-22, from: NASA breaking news
Before airplanes even reach the runway, pilots must file a plan to inform air traffic controllers where they’re going and the path they are going to take. When planes are in the air, however, that plan often changes. From turbulence causing passenger discomfort and additional fuel use to unexpected weather patterns blocking the original path, […]
https://www.nasa.gov/technology/tech-transfer-spinoffs/digital-winglets-for-real-time-flight-paths/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
HP CEO Enrique Lores is betting a sprinkle of AI dust can regenerate the flagging PC market – and with shipments still in decline across the industry, he can’t afford to tease Wall Street.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/ai_pcs_to_double_growth_hp/
date: 2023-11-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
This summer, 1.13% of California consumer debts were tardy by 90 days or more, highest since 2021’s first quarter.
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
“He had quite the collection,” officials say.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282195503.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
The suspect’s injury “appears not to be life threatening,” according to authorities.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11/22/vallejo-suspect-crashes-in-car-chase-is-shot-by-police/
date: 2023-11-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
The goal is to find beverages that go pretty well with everything on the Thanksgiving table in one fell swoop.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11/22/thanksgiving-holiday-pairings-are-for-the-birds/
date: 2023-11-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
The 10-episode series with journalist Soledad O’Brien looks at all the evidence gathered, published, disputed and evaluated over six decades, and reaches a conclusion on why President John F. Kennedy was killed, and who was responsible for that.
date: 2023-11-22, from: Jeff Geerling blog
So you want to make a Raspberry Pi killer…
<div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p><img src="https://www.jeffgeerling.com/sites/default/files/images/raspberry-pi-cm4-clone.jpg" width="700" height="auto" class="insert-image" alt="Raspberry Pi CM4 Clones stacked up" /></p>I’m in the unique position of owning a collection of Raspberry Pi Compute Modules 4 (CM4).
I also own at least one of every production CM4 clone in existence.
This sets up a quandary: if I have the real thing, what motivation do I have to care about the clones?
There are hundreds of CM4 carrier boards that do everything from restoring retro game consoles to monitoring remote oil rigs in highly-explosive environments.
Since launch, the CM4 has been difficult—and since early 2021, impossible—to acquire. The supply constraints are well documented, and I’m sure a few comments will lament the situation. But the CM4 is trickling back to ‘in stock’ at many suppliers (about how the Pi 4 was a couple months ago).
<span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Jeff Geerling</span></span>
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/so-you-want-make-raspberry-pi-killer
date: 2023-11-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
The data sharing law is among several gun measures in California that are being legally challenged. In October, a federal judge overturned the state’s ban on assault weapons.
date: 2023-11-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
CCS, NCS championship weekend: Our guys picks 10 games, including Pittsburg-SRV, Los Gatos-Wilcox.
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article281777643.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
The road was blocked by a locked gate, concrete barriers and two signs declaring it was closed.
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Nvidia is facing legal action in the US for theft of trade secrets from a German automotive company, which alleges its ex-employee made an epic blunder of showing something he shouldn’t have when minimizing a Powerpoint slide at a joint Microsoft Teams meeting both companies were attending.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/nvidia_sued_after_teams_meeting/
date: 2023-11-22, from: The Signal
Dear Savvy Senior, What can you tell me about creating an incentive trust? I have an adult son and daughter who are both financially inept. Before I die, I want to put some type of requirements in place that they will need to follow in order to receive their portion of my estate. […]
The post The Savvy Senior | How an Incentive Trust Can Influence Your Heirs appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/11/the-savvy-senior-how-an-incentive-trust-can-influence-your-heirs/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Om Malik blog
The OpenAI Drama’s Season One is over. Now it’s time to go back to work or, better yet, spend time with our families over the long Thanksgiving weekend, instead of binging on every rumor, nuance, and hiccup. i love openai, and everything i’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping …
https://om.co/2023/11/22/openai-drama-is-over/
date: 2023-11-22, from: 404 Media Group
A new hybrid film-digital video camera for a format invented in 1965 is actually coming. It’s very weird, and very expensive.
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
“He made the right decision.”
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282194308.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: 404 Media Group
The FTC and Biden have repeatedly argued repair monopolies are illegal. So why haven’t they created formal regulations protecting right to repair?
date: 2023-11-22, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Fidelity Investments reports that workers taking out a so-called “hardship withdrawal” from their retirement accounts — one used to cover emergency expenses — ticked up in the third quarter. Thing is, those who make those withdrawal are the ones most likely to need the cash in their older years. We explore the consequences. Plus, what durable goods orders can reveal about the economy and how kimchi grew to be a global phenomenon.
date: 2023-11-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
168-unit community housing project moves forward.
The post Hillside’s Garden Party Showcases Treasured Nonprofit Serving Disabled Adults appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
date: 2023-11-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
I want to acknowledge Jeff Greenfield’s well-written and balanced piece in the Voices section “A Sad End to a Good Day.”
The post The Wrong Side of Irony appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/11/22/the-wrong-side-of-irony/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Raspberry Pi technology is deployed in a huge variety of industrial applications, and we offer a range of support to our business customers.
The post Raspberry Pi for industrial applications appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-for-industrial-applications/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Arm is aiming to infuse AI into connected devices and other low-power hardware with an addition to its Cortex-M line-up of microcontroller core designs.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/arm_cortex_m52/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Guam Daily Post
A local union is expressing satisfaction with how the Port Authority of Guam has applied policy terms in their collective bargaining agreement, even going so far as to say that this is the most “pro-employee” that the Port has been…
date: 2023-11-22, from: Guam Daily Post
A 29-year-old man is facing two years in prison after being found guilty of family violence.
date: 2023-11-22, from: Guam Daily Post
The company hoping to become a cannabis testing laboratory on Guam, Blue Wave Inc., is pushing ahead with the next step in obtaining a cannabis business license. Doing business as Pacific Analytical Services, the company has submitted an application for…
date: 2023-11-22, from: Guam Daily Post
William Robert Reyes has been charged in connection with sexually assaulting two teens when they were seven and nine years old.
date: 2023-11-22, from: Guam Daily Post
A judge has determined uncharged accusations of Ugochukwu Akoma sexually assaulting two female patients shall not be admitted as evidence at his rape trial.
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The debate will be moderated by Fox News commentator Sean Hannity.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article282170068.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
People suffering from dementia are barred from accessing California’s End of Life Option Act.
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/article281315118.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The infamous pirate died on Nov. 22, 1718.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282102588.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners
https://www.fresnobee.com/health-wellness/cannabis/article282094433.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: NASA breaking news
Inspiring Students with Ham Radio, Other Educational Programs As an orbiting microgravity laboratory, the International Space Station hosts experiments from almost every scientific field. It also is home to educational programs to encourage young people worldwide to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). These programs aim to inspire the next generation of space scientists […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/science-on-station-november-2023/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News
Thinking about WordPress this morning, APIs and feeds.
This
last year I’ve caught up with WordPress, have been asking questions, and
one of the best thing about
my work with
Automattic is that the doors have been open. I have great teachers
who are encouraging me, and of course are experts in and proud of
WordPress, and as a result I think
FeedLand and
WordPress are going to work
together in some very nice ways. Getting pretty close on some of it.
A year ago I didn’t even know that WordPress still had APIs. At some point the code I had that worked with WordPress via the MetaWeblog API broke, and I assumed that it was the end of the line, and took the feature out of my linkblogging tool. But I was wrong. And not only that there was Calypso, a modern REST interface, that works in the same model I use for FeedLand and Drummer. It’s all there. I love it. All kinds of integrations will be possible.
Getting FeedLand to work in the new environment has been a step by step process. It was built to run on a Digital Ocean server, with a file system. I’ve converted now all the pieces we needed, and it seems finally to run smoothly.
Onward!
http://scripting.com/2023/11/22/135755.html?title=whatIveLearnedAboutWordpress
date: 2023-11-22, from: Lime Microsystems news
The Secure 5G Platform, a project by Lime, Slipstream Engineering Design, Arqit, and the Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult, has been awarded at the IET Excellence and Innovation Awards 2023.
The post The IET Honours the Secure 5G Platform with its Communications and IT Award appeared first on Lime Microsystems.
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
NASA has celebrated a shipment of half a kilo of plutonium oxide by the US Department of Energy, the largest since US production of plutonium-238 was restarted just over a decade ago.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/nasa_plutonium238_shipment/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The LAist
Over a 2-and-a-half-year span, Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do was involved in directing $3.1 million to a mental health center where his daughter, Rhiannon Do, was president.
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The LAist
The latest episode in our Imperfect Paradise podcast examines why some California nursing homes are housing so many residents with mental illness.
https://laist.com/news/specials/laist-investigates-the-reality-inside-californias-nursing-homes
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The LAist
The speedy reopening has brought relief — and also some unease. But officials and experts say the bridge is sound to drive on.
https://laist.com/news/transportation/10-freeway-fire-la-bridge-repair-safety
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The LAist
Raw poultry can contain salmonella and other bacteria that can cause miserable GI symptoms
https://laist.com/news/health/thanksgiving-food-safety-tips
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The LAist
During the height of the pandemic, L.A. Latinos endured not just the highest infection rates, but big financial setbacks. Now, with inflation soaring, recovery has been tough. Some local schools have launched Spanish-language financial literacy classes for families trying to get back on their feet.
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The LAist
Making music is a uniquely social experience that invites children to collaborate with their peers on projects that both require and reward focus and discipline, experts say, qualities that also fuel academic success.
https://laist.com/news/education/teacher-uses-jazz-to-explore-california-history-race-and-culture
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Clovis North will face Central for the Central Section Division I championship.
https://www.fresnobee.com/sports/high-school/prep-football/article282086488.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The report suggests various uses for generative AI in state operations, but does not specifically address how or whether AI would displace state employees
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article282183213.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
TV/radio listings, odds and injury reports with live updates as the Kings prepare to play the New Orleans Pelicans at Smoothie King Center.
https://www.fresnobee.com/sports/article282176918.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Black Friday now seems to be a multi-day extravaganza. Where are the best deals at California retailers?
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article282118808.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Last week, an Andy Warhol piece up called Bomb — literally a silver-painted bomb — failed to sell because its reserve wasn’t met. Why couldn’t it fetch a higher price? We’ll discuss and take a closer look at the high-end art world. Also, OpenAI exemplifies what can happen when employees threaten to quit en masse, and a major settlement shakes up crypto exchange Binance.
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The US has seized nearly $9 million in proceeds generated by exploiting more than 70 victims across the nation in so-called “pig butchering” scams.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/us_cybercops_take_on_pig/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Here’s how Missouri bumbled and delivered a big chunk of the marijuana industry to greedy out-of-state interests. | Opinion
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/article282162298.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog
Today’s links Don’t Be Evil: My new Locus Column. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Don’t Be Evil (permalink) My latest Locus Magazine column is “Don’t Be Evil,” a consideration of the forces that led to the Great Enshittening, the dizzying, rapid transformation of formerly useful services went from indispensable to unusable to actively harmful: https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/ While some services have fallen harder and/or faster, they’re all falling. When a whole cohort of services all turn sour in the same way, at the same time, it’s obvious that something is happening systemically. After all, these companies are still being led by the same people. The leaders who presided over a period in which these companies made good and useful services are also presiding over these services’ decay. What factors are leading to a pandemic of rapid-onset enshittification? Recall that enshittification is a three-stage process: first surpluses are allocated to users until they are locked in. Then they are withdrawn and given to business-customers until they are locked in. Then all the value is harvested for the company’s shareholders, leaving just enough residual value in the service to keep both end-users and business-customers glued to the platform. We can think of each step in that enshittification process as the outcome of an argument. At some product planning meeting, one person will propose doing something to materially worsen the service to the company’s advantage, and at the expense of end-users or business-customers. Think of Youtube’s decay. Over the past year, Google has: Dramatically increased the cost of ad-free Youtube subscriptions; Dramatically increased the number of ads shown to non-subscribers; Dramatically decreased the amount of money paid to Youtube creators; Added aggressive anti-adblock; Then, this week, Google started adding a five-second blanking interval for non-Chrome users who have adblockers installed: https://www.404media.co/youtube-says-new-5-second-video-load-delay-is-supposed-to-punish-ad-blockers-not-firefox-users/ These all smack of Jenga blocks that different product managers are removing in pursuit of their “key performance indicators” (KPIs): https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/ We can think of each of these steps as the outcome of an argument. Someone proposes a Youtube subscription price-hike, and other internal stakeholders object. These objections fall into two categories: We shouldn’t do this because it will make the product worse; and/or We shouldn’t do this because it will reduce the company’s earnings. Lots of googlers sincerely care about product quality. People like doing a good job, and they take pride in making good things. Many have sacrificed something that mattered in the service of making the product better. It’s bad enough to miss your kid’s school play so you can meet a work deadline – but imagine making that sacrifice and then having the excellent work you put in deliberately degraded. I have been around Google’s orbit since its early days, going to the odd company Christmas party in the early 2000s and giving talks at Google offices in cities all over the world. I’ve known hundreds of skilled googlers who passionately cared about making the best products they could. For most of Google’s history, those googlers won the argument. But they didn’t do so merely by appealing to their colleagues’ professional pride in a job well-done. For most of Google’s history, the winning argument was a combination of “doing this bad thing would make me sad,” and “doing this bad thing will make Google poorer.” Companies are disciplined by three forces: I. Competition (the fear of losing business to a rival); II. Regulation (the fear of legal penalties that would exceed the expected profits from a given course of action); III. Self-help (the fear that customers or users will change their behavior, say, by installing an ad-blocker). The ability of googlers to win enshittification arguments by appealing to the company’s bottom line was a function of one or more of these three disciplining factors. The weakening of each of these factors is the reason that every tech company is sliding into enshittification at once. For example, when Google contemplates raising the price of a Youtube subscription, the dissent might say, “Well, this will reduce viewership and might shift viewers to rivals like Tiktok” (competition). But the price-hiking side can counter, “No, because we have a giant archive, we control 90% of searches, we are embedded in the workflow of vloggers and other creators who automatically stream and archive to Youtube, and Youtube comes pre-installed on every Android device.” Even if the company leaks a few viewers to Tiktok, it will still make more money in aggregate. Prices go up. When Google contemplates increasing the number of ads shown to nonsubscribers, the dissent might say, “This will incentivize more users to install ad-blockers, and then we’ll see no ad-revenue from them.” The pro-ad side can counter, “No, because most Youtube viewing is in-app, and reverse-engineering the Youtube app to add an ad-blocker is a felony under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. As to non-app viewers: we control the majority of browser installations and have Chrome progressively less hospitable to ad-blocking.” When Google contemplates adding anti-adblock to its web viewers, the dissent might say, “Processing users’ data in order to ad-block them will violate Europe’s GDPR.” The anti-adblock side can counter, “But we maintain the fiction that our EU corporate headquarters is in the corporate crime-haven of Ireland, where the privacy regulator systematically underenforces the GDPR. We can expect a very long tenure of anti-adblock before we are investigated, and we might win the investigation. Even if we are punished, the expected fine is less than the additional ad-revenue we stand to make.” When Google contemplates stealing performers’ wages through opaque reshufflings of its revenue-sharing system, the dissent might say, “Our best performers have options, they can go to Twitch or Tiktok.” To which the pro-wage-theft side can counter, “But they have no way of taking their viewers with them. There’s no way for them to offer their viewers on Youtube a tool that alerts them whenever they post a new video to a rival platform. Their archives are on Youtube, and if they move them to another platform, there’s no way redirect users searching for those videos to their new homes. What’s more, any attempt to unilaterally extract their users’ contact info, or redirect searchers or create a multiplatform client, violates some mix of our terms of service, our rights under DMCA 1201, etc.” It’s not just Google. For every giant platform, the threats of competition, regulation and self-help have been in steady decline for years, as acquisitions, underenforcement of privacy/labor/consumer law, and an increase in IP protection for incumbents have all mounted: https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/ When internal factions at tech companies argue about whether to make their services worse, there’s a heavy weight tilting the scales towards enshittification. The lack of competition, an increase in switching costs for users and business-customers, and broad powers to prevent users from modifying the service for themselves all mean that even when a product gets worse, profits can still go up. This is the culprit: monopoly, and its handmaiden, regulatory capture. That’s why today’s antimonopoly movement – and the cases against all the tech giants – are so important. The old, good internet was built by flawed tech companies whose internal ranks included the same amoral enshittifiers who are gobbling up the platforms’ seed corn today. The thing that stood in their way before wasn’t merely the moral character of colleagues who shrank away from these cynical maneuvers: it was the economic penalties that befell those who enshittified too rashly. Incentives matter. Money talks and bullshit walks. Enshittification isn’t due to the moral failings of individuals in tech companies. It’s possible to have a good internet run by flawed people. But to get that new, good internet, we have to support technologists of good will and character by terrorizing their venal and cynical colleagues by hitting them where they live: in their paychecks. Hey look at this (permalink) The Corporate Takeover of Music (Lessons From Bandcamp) https://player.fm/1BZsQSX (h/t Nancy Lizza) Rising Juniors and Seniors – Do you want to make an impact with public interest technology this summer? https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2023/11/20/rising-juniors-and-seniors-do-you-want-to-make-an-impact-with-public-interest-technology-this-summer/ A Perfectly Designed Climate Report Cover https://kottke.org/23/11/a-perfect-climate-report-cover This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago Lessig: Towns should own their fiber https://www.wired.com/2003/12/fiber-to-the-people/ #10yrsago Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free https://law.resource.org/pub/de/ #10yrsago WordPress joins its users in court to fight bogus, censoring copyright claims https://wordpress.com/blog/2013/11/21/striking-back-against-censorship/ #10yrsago Wikimedia sends legal threat to WikiPR over sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry https://diff.wikimedia.org/2013/11/19/wikimedia-foundation-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-wikipr/ #5yrsago CBC’s longstanding tech columnist condemns the broadcaster’s cozy relationship with Facebook https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/22/cbcs-longstanding-tech-columnist-condemns-the-broadcasters-cozy-relationship-with-facebook/ #5yrsago Let’s get artists paid by making Big Tech pay them, not by creating EU copyright filters https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/11/article-13-if-you-want-force-google-pay-artists-more-force-google-pay-artists-more #1yrago Tax prep services send sensitive financial info to Facebook https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/22/free-file-now/#still-the-product Colophon (permalink) Today’s top sources: Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: Moral Hazard (from Communications Breakdown) https://craphound.com/stories/2023/11/12/moral-hazard-from-communications-breakdown/ Upcoming appearances: Generation of Lost Causes, Nov 22 (Toronto) https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/705457551527?aff=oddtdtcreator Who Is Watching Big Tech? Nov 27 (Toronto)` https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/who-is-watching-big-tech-tickets-707927880347 The Lost Cause at The Strand (NYC), Nov 29 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-the-lost-cause-tickets-734958008187 The Lost Cause at Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill), Dec 5 https://www.flyleafbooks.com/doctorow-2023 Recent appearances: Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; “What-About-Ism” (Digital Markets Research Hub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM Science fiction for a dystopian present (Institute of Art and Ideas) https://iai.tv/video/science-fiction-for-a-dystopian-present-cory-doctorow?_auid=2020 Pushing back on unconstrained capitalism (Changelog) https://changelog.com/podcast/565 Latest books: “The Lost Cause:” a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) “The Internet Con”: A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). “Red Team Blues”: “A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before.” Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. “Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin”, on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com “Attack Surface”: The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it “a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance.” Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism”: an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) “Little Brother/Homeland”: A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A_Little_Brother%26_Homeland.html “Poesy the Monster Slayer” a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: The Bezzle: a sequel to “Red Team Blues,” about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024 Picks and Shovels: a sequel to “Red Team Blues,” about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://twitter.com/doctorow Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic “When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla” -Joey “Accordion Guy” DeVilla
https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: The drama continues at artificial intelligence business OpenAI, where co-founder Sam Altman is set to return as boss just days after he was fired by the board. And, in the Netherlands we hear voters’ concerns about inflation as they head to the polls. Meanwhile, South Korea’s traditional cabbage-based dish, kimchi, is finding favor beyond Asia. We take a look at the growing global market.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/sam-altman-returns-to-openai
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: Bruce Schneier blog
Signal has had the ability to manually authenticate another account for years. iMessage is getting it:
The feature is called Contact Key Verification, and it does just what its name says: it lets you add a manual verification step in an iMessage conversation to confirm that the other person is who their device says they are. (SMS conversations lack any reliable method for verification—sorry, green-bubble friends.) Instead of relying on Apple to verify the other person’s identity using information stored securely on Apple’s servers, you and the other party read a short verification code to each other, either in person or on a phone call. Once you’ve validated the conversation, your devices maintain a chain of trust in which neither you nor the other person has given any private encryption information to each other or Apple. If anything changes in the encryption keys each of you verified, the Messages app will notice and provide an alert or warning…
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/11/apple-to-add-manual-authentication-to-imessage.html
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Deputy UK Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said the country’s civil service would improve public services by, among other things, setting up an “Incubator for AI.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/uk_ai_incubator/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Power Authority is looking to stand up 40 megawatts of temporary power by May 2024 and is hoping that lawmakers will push through with a waiver of certain procurements requirements for the project. GPA has been vocal about…
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Interview Microsoft’s bug bounty program celebrated its tenth birthday this year, and has paid out $63 million to security researchers in that first decade – with $60 million awarded to bug hunters in the past five years alone, according to Redmond.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/microsofts_bug_bounty_moussouris/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is getting tough on website design, insisting that opting out of cookies must be as simple as opting in.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/uk_ico_cookie_action/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NEW YORK — Patrick Kennedy, son of Sen. Ted Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, remembers being a young state legislator in Rhode Island some 30 years ago and hearing encouraging words from the opposition leader at the time.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The holidays are just around the corner, but despite the urging of health officials, few U.S. residents, including those in Hawaii, have rushed out to get their updated COVID-19 vaccines.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Despite an incoming cold front, meteorologists predict that the weather over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend will be “typical” on the Big Island.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Nolan Hickman scored 12 of his team-high 19 points after halftime and Graham Ike and Anton Watson posted double-doubles to lead No. 11 Gonzaga to a 76-57 win over Syracuse in a losers bracket game at the Maui Invitational on Tuesday.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on 21-year-old Kaycee Smith in 2009 told a jury Tuesday she is certain Smith was a homicide victim.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The Big Island Candies Hilo Bay Classic invitational high school soccer tournament concluded on Sunday, and saw several local soccer teams kick off their seasons.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/11/22/sports/big-island-candies-tourney/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>INDIANAPOLIS — Shaquille Leonard was a surprising immediate hit with the Indianapolis Colts in 2018. </p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>PITTSBURGH — Mike Tomlin kept waiting for the offense Matt Canada put together to show signs of life. </p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>HPU delivered a first collegiate win to new head coach Jesse Nakanishi, with 7-foot-4 center Matt Van Komen playing a big defensive role according to his coach. Concordia rolled through two traditionally tough GNAC teams to earn Team of the Week and Hilo’s Carlos Ramsey Jr. flirted with a triple-double as the Vulcans kicked off PacWest play with an early season win over Chaminade.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>KEA‘AU — Kamehameha Schools - Hawai‘i senior Keanu Huihui signed a letter of intent to join to UH-Hilo women’s basketball team, during a ceremony Wednesday night at the KSH campus.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/11/22/sports/ksh-senior-signs-with-uh-hilo/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A federal report detailing safety concerns with the nation’s air traffic control system is turning up the heat on lawmakers to pass the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill, with a short window after the Thanksgiving recess to get it done or temporarily extend the agency’s authority.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>KYIV, Ukraine — It happens every November, when the cold descends on Kyiv. The change in weather always makes Dmytro Riznychenko think back, and he is overwhelmed by his emotions.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Thanksgiving may be a time for Americans to come together, but opinion is divided over what’s on the crowded dinner table. We mostly agree on the deliciousness of pumpkin pie, say, but are split over the eternal turkey question of dark meat versus white meat.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The helicopter-borne Houthi attack on an Israel-linked ship in the Red Sea highlights the danger now lurking in one of the world’s key shipping routes as the Israel-Hamas war rages, as well as the rebels’ tactics mirroring those of its chief sponsor, Iran.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>WASHINGTON — The U.S. government dealt a massive blow to Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, which agreed to pay a roughly $4 billion settlement Tuesday as its founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to a felony related to his failure to prevent money laundering on the platform.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Buckle up — the path to recovery for Hawaii’s visitor industry is getting rockier as it heads into 2024.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Geoffrey Holt was unassuming as the caretaker of a mobile home park in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, where he lived a simple, but curious life.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Iran is getting richer and increasingly dangerous during the Biden presidency. This has enabled the country to more aggressively arm its Middle East terrorist proxies who seek to destroy Israel.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/11/22/opinion/biden-policy-on-iran-is-an-utter-mess/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Sofia Ferreira Colman of Paraguay attends the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where she studies marine science. Colman was selected to receive the 2023 Zonta Club of Hilo Women in STEM Scholarship of $1,000.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/11/22/community/uh-hilo-student-wins-stem-scholarships/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The holiday season is here, and ’tis the season for craft fairs.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/11/22/community/puna-hongwanji-to-hold-holiday-craft-fair/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Hawaii County is hosting a Hawaii Island Early Childhood Conference dedicated to early childhood education practitioners.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The Big Island Press Club is holding a special Torch of Light holiday luncheon on Saturday, Dec. 2, that not only honors two outstanding professionals, but also features a silent auction showcasing more than $11,000 in items including staycations at some of West Hawaii’s top resorts, dinners, excursions and more — all to benefit the club’s scholarship fund.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/11/22/community/two-to-be-honored-at-press-club-luncheon/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>JERUSALEM — Israel and Hamas on Tuesday appeared close to a deal to temporarily halt their devastating six-week war for dozens of hostages being held in the Gaza Strip to be freed in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Foster youth need
help and support</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/11/22/opinion/your-views-for-november-22-7/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>As people across the country prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, a Doris Day quote comes to mind: “Gratitude is riches and complaint is poverty.”</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The exchange rate of the peso with the U.S. dollar has become a widely watched barometer of the nation’s economic health, and is top of mind for millions of Argentines coping with triple-digit inflation. Knowing a further depreciation of the peso will boost the price of consumer goods, they are anxious for signs of what Milei’s victory on Sunday meant for the value of the currency that has tanked against the U.S. dollar in the past year.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea claimed Wednesday to have successfully placed a spy satellite into orbit with its third launch attempt this year, demonstrating the nation’s determination to build a space-based surveillance system during protracted tensions with the United States.</p>
date: 2023-11-22, from: The Markup blog
An investigation by The Markup found Meta’s pixel tracking students from kindergarten to college
https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2023/11/22/facebook-watches-teens-online-as-they-prep-for-college
date: 2023-11-22, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
I have a very old Raspberry Pi 0 that runs a music daemon. Today my client couldn’t connect to it. And neither can I connect using SSH.
alex@melanobombus ~> ssh raspberrypi
ssh: Could not resolve hostname raspberrypi.local: Name or service not known
“raspberrypi” is defined in my config file, ~/.ssh/config:
Host raspberrypi
HostName raspberrypi.local
User root
Since the music is still playing, I know the machine is up. It’s just the name that doesn’t work.
So now I wanted to know: what machines are there on my local area network right now?
Based on
Display
list of computers on a LAN in Linux, I ran ifconfig:
alex@melanobombus ~> ifconfig
…
wlp1s0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 192.168.178.48 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.178.255
…
(I ran iwconfig to confirm that this is my wireless
interface.)
The important part is the IP Number and the netmask. The output above basically means that my network uses the numbers 192.168.178.0 to 192.168.178.255. Or in CIDR notation: 192.168.178.0/24.
As a note to my future self: CIDR notation indicates the number of bits
set in the netmask. There are four bytes in the netmask, each having 8
bits. The first three bytes of the netmask listed are 255, so there are
three bytes with all bits set. The last byte is 0, so no bits are set.
Thus, the first 3×8=24 bits are set, explaining the /24
part. The part in front of the slash are the remaining bytes. In this
case three bytes with all bits set means that I can use the three bytes
of my own address: 192.168.178.48 → 192.168.178.0.
So now I’m ready to run nmap:
alex@melanobombus ~> sudo nmap -sP 192.168.178.0/24
Starting Nmap 7.93 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2023-11-22 10:33 CET
Nmap scan report for fritz.box (192.168.178.1)
Host is up (0.0033s latency).
MAC Address: 38:10:D5:5D:4D:D1 (AVM Audiovisuelles Marketing und Computersysteme GmbH)
Nmap scan report for Nerd-Cave.fritz.box (192.168.178.26)
Host is up (0.041s latency).
MAC Address: C4:67:B5:08:42:2E (Libratone A/S)
Nmap scan report for Thoracobombus.fritz.box (192.168.178.34)
Host is up (0.037s latency).
MAC Address: 62:7D:AE:7F:D7:19 (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for melanobombus.fritz.box (192.168.178.48)
Host is up.
Nmap done: 256 IP addresses (4 hosts up) scanned in 2.75 seconds
So… which one is it? .1 is the router. .26 is
the speaker playing the music (the wireless network is useless since
it’s getting the audio signal via a cable from the Raspberry Pi).
.34 is the iPad. .48 is the laptop, as we
established at the very beginning.
In short, it seems as if the Raspberry Pi is no longer online. 💩
Perhaps I should switch it out for the Raspberry 4 one of these days.
Then again, let’s see what the router says? Using the web interface:
| Name | Connection | IP address | Properties |
|---|---|---|---|
| PC-192-168-179-29 | WLAN | 192.168.179.29 | 5 GHz, 650 / 650 Mbit/s |
| melanobombus | WLAN | 192.168.178.48 | 2,4 GHz, 280 / 300 Mbit/s |
| raspberrypi | WLAN | 192.168.178.47 | 2,4 GHz, 72 / 29 Mbit/s |
| Nerd Cave | WLAN | 192.168.178.26 | 2,4 GHz, 53 / 39 Mbit/s |
| Thoracobombus | WLAN | 192.168.178.34 | 5 GHz, 780 / 702 Mbit/s |
Uhm, hello .47??
alex@melanobombus ~> ping 192.168.178.47
PING 192.168.178.47 (192.168.178.47) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.178.48 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.178.48 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.178.48 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable
^C
--- 192.168.178.47 ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 0 received, +3 errors, 100% packet loss, time 5097ms
I guess the network is down one way or another.
Time to pull the cable. 😞
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2023-11-22-scan-network
date: 2023-11-22, from: VOA News USA
The United States and the Philippines were conducting joint air and maritime patrols in the South China Sea, which come as the two countries step up cooperation in the face of growingly aggressive Chinese activity in the area.
The Philippine Air Force said on Wednesday its aircraft had taken part in joint patrols on Tuesday in the vicinity of Batanes, the northernmost province of the Philippines, which is only about 200 kilometers from Taiwan, a self-governed island that China claims as its own.
The patrols run through Thursday and include both the U.S. and Philippine navies.
They come only days after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called the situation in the South China Sea increasingly “dire” as China seeks to assert its presence in an area where multiple nations have competing territorial claims.
China claims virtually the entire South China Sea as its own waters, which has led to disputes not only with the Philippines but also with Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, which have long been regarded as potential flashpoints in the region and the U.S.-China rivalry.
Earlier this month a Chinese coast guard ship blasted a Philippine supply ship with a water cannon in disputed waters, and last month a Chinese coast guard ship and an accompanying vessel rammed a Philippine coast guard ship and a military-run supply boat near a contested shoal, according to Philippine officials.
Speaking on Sunday in Honolulu, Marcos said China has been showing interest in atolls and shoals that are “closer and closer” to the coast of the Philippines, with the nearest atoll about 111 kilometers away.
In announcing the start of the joint patrols, Marcos said on X, the social media platform originally known as Twitter, that they were “testament to our commitment to bolster the interoperability of our military forces.”
“Through collaborative efforts, we aim to enhance regional security and foster a seamless partnership with the United States in safeguarding our shared interests,” he wrote.
Under Marcos, who was elected last year, the Philippines has been deepening its relationship with the U.S. in a shift from his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who had been closer to China and Russia.
In February, Marcos approved an expansion of the U.S. military presence in the Philippines to add four new bases from five existing sites under a 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the longtime treaty allies.
The move, which Marcos said would boost the Philippines’ coastal defense, dovetails with the Biden administration’s efforts to strengthen an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China.
Marcos has also been strengthening ties with others, including Tokyo, signing an agreement earlier in the year to allow Japanese troops to join training exercises.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-philippines-conduct-patrols-in-south-china-sea/7365403.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: The Signal
It’s helpful during holidays to stop and put our lives and living conditions into proper perspective. You and I are under a lot of influences in our lives – constantly bombarded by TV advertising, newspaper ads, mail fliers and catalogues, social media influencers, bus stop ads, billboard ads – you name it; in America, […]
The post Gary Horton | Perspective: I’m Beyond Thankful appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/11/gary-horton-perspective-im-beyond-thankful/
date: 2023-11-22, from: The Signal
Re: Jennifer Danny leaving the Santa Clarita Valley (commentary, Nov. 16). Jennifer, I wish you and your family the best in Texas. For all the many reasons to leave this state, your reason is the most legitimate. I will miss reading your column. It was always a bit of fresh air. Your writings about […]
The post Mike Callas | Fond Farewell to Jen appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/11/mike-callas-fond-farewell-to-jen/
date: 2023-11-22, from: The Signal
Kudos to the Biden administration for establishing an interagency group to combat Islamophobia, headed by our astute and perceptive Vice President Kamala Harris. It is past due that these thousands of skull-cap-and-prayer-shawl-wearing Orthodox Jews be investigated for organizing vicious, anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian and anti-Hamas rallies in cities and college campuses throughout the country. How dare these […]
The post Steven H. Baron | Have We Been Duped? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/11/steven-h-baron-have-we-been-duped/
date: 2023-11-22, from: The Signal
Just a couple of comments on Lynn Wright’s letter (Nov. 16). First, I don’t have a vested interest in abortion because I’m a man, and, as you know, men can’t get pregnant. But, concerning the question of when does life begin. “Life” is passed from the parents to the child during conception. There is no […]
The post Richard LaMotte | Know the Biological Truth appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/11/richard-lamotte-know-the-biological-truth/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Palantir has secured a £330 million ($412 million) contract to provide the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), which the world’s largest healthcare provider says is vital to recover from its pandemic backlog.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/palantir_wins_nhs_contract/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
Mit der Kosmologie halte ich es wie mit der Geschichte. Dort hatte ich gesagt:
Die Geschichte ist nur insofern relevant, als sie als Inspiration für alte Ruinen und magische Gegenstände dient, auf Buchtiteln und Inschriften erwähnt wird. Ein genauer Zeitstrahl ist nicht wichtig, ausser man ist Gelehrter statt Abenteurer.
Bei der Kosmologie sind mir die Portal zu anderen Welten, die Monster aus diesen Welten und die davon inspirierten Zaubersprüche wichtig. Und die Götter und Dämonen bestimmen natürlich das Aussehen der Tempel und das Auftreten der Priesterschaft und ihre Zaubersprüche. Von dem her ist mir klar, dass es eine Welt des Feuers und eine Welt des Eises geben muss. Und eine Welt der Dunkelheit. Und so weiter.
Weil ich Planescape zwar in der Theorie super finde, es aber in der Praxis aber nicht ganz so toll war, habe ich mich entschieden, weniger Welten neben der normalen Spielwelt zu haben: die nordische Kosmologie hat knapp unter zehn Welten, man kennt sie aus Sagen (das Niebelungenlied, der Ring Zyklus von Wagner, die Marvel Universen, The Wizard Knight von Gene Wolfe) und so hat man sofort ein paar Bilder zur Hand, wenn man diese Welten anspielt.
Das Hauptproblem bei der Verwendung der nordischen Kosmologie ist der braune Sumpf, der sich davon angezogen fühlt… So oder so ähnlich hat @settembrini das mal ausgedrückt. Deswegen hat Alrik ja eine andere Kosmologie. Dort war ja auch zu brücksichtigen, dass die “Dimensionen” zu den Zaubersprüchen und Monstern von Alrik passen müssen – genau so wie “meine” Kosmologie ja auch zu “meinen” Zaubersprüchen und Monstern passen muss.
Im Horte Traktat sieht das dann etwa so aus wie unten aufgeführt.
Es heisst, es gäbe neun Welten, doch nur acht davon sind allgemein bekannt:
Es lohnt sich nicht, zu viel Aufwand in die Listen der Götter und Dämonen zu stecken. Bei den Göttern lässt man sich von Wikipedia inspirieren und beginnt mit ein paar Namen, beispielsweise die folgende Mischung aus nordischen, mesopotamischen und ägyptischen Göttern.
Viel wichtiger als die Götter und ihre genauen Aufgaben sind die Tempel und Priesterschaften, ihre Intriguen, Allianzen, Feindschaften, und die daraus entstehenden Aufträge und Verwicklungen. So entsteht Abenteuer.
In allen Siedlungen gibt es 1W6+1 Tempel, mit je 1W10 Priester-Magierinnen und Magiern. Die Tempelvorsteherin oder der Tempelvorsteher hat Stufe 1W4+1W6 (2–10). Diese Stufe bestimmt die Rangordnung der Tempel. Ihre Zaubersprüche haben einen thematischen Bezug zur verehrten Gottheit; die anderen Magierinnen und Magiern des Tempels haben Stufe 1 und einen Zauberspruch des 1. Zirkels aus der gleichen Liste.
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2023-11-21-kosmologie
date: 2023-11-22, from: VOA News USA
Three people were killed and three were missing after a landslide barreled down a heavily forested, rain-soaked mountainside and smashed into homes in a remote fishing community in southeast Alaska.
The slide — estimated to be 137 meters wide — occurred at about 9 p.m. Monday during a significant rain and windstorm near Wrangell, an island community of 2,000 people some 250 kilometers south of the state capital of Juneau.
Rescue crews found the body of a girl in an initial search and late Tuesday the bodies of two adults were found by a drone operator. Searchers used a cadaver-sniffing dog and heat-sensing drones to search for two children and one adult unaccounted for after the disaster, while the Coast Guard and other vessels looked along a waterfront littered with rocks, trees and mud.
Alaska State Troopers spokesperson Austin McDaniel said a woman who had been on the upper floor of a home was rescued. She was in good condition and receiving medical care. One of the three homes that was struck was unoccupied, McDaniel said.
“Our community is resilient,” Wrangell interim borough manager Mason Villarma told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “And it always comes together for tragedies like this. We’re broken, but resilient and determined to find everybody that’s missing.”
Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued a disaster declaration for Wrangell, saying he and his wife were heartbroken and praying for all those affected.
The landslide left a scar of barren earth from near the top of the mountain down to the ocean. A wide swath of evergreen trees was ripped out of the ground and a highway was buried by debris, cutting off access and power to approximately 75 homes.
Troopers said a large-scale search and rescue mission wasn’t initially possible because the site was unstable and hazardous. A geologist from the state transportation department was flown in from Juneau and conducted a preliminary assessment, clearing some areas of the debris field for ground searches.
Troopers warned of the threat of additional landslides. They urged people caught on the other side of the slide, away from Wrangell, to evacuate by water taxi.
Wrangell received about 5 centimeters of rain between 1 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday, with wind gusts up to 96 kph at higher elevations, said Aaron Jacobs, a hydrologist and meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Juneau.
It was part of a strong storm system that moved through southeast Alaska, bringing heavy snow in places and blizzard-like conditions to Juneau and rainfall with minor flooding to areas farther south. Landslides also were reported in the Ketchikan area and on Prince of Wales Island, he said.
Rainfall amounts like what Wrangell received Monday are not unusual, Jacobs said, but strong winds could have helped trigger the slide. Saturated soil can give way when gusts blow trees on a slope, said Barrett Salisbury, a geologist with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.
Another storm system is expected in the Wrangell area late Wednesday into Thursday.
Wrangell is one of the oldest non-Alaska Native settlements in the state, founded in 1811 when Russians began trading with Tlingits, according to a state database of Alaska communities. Tlingits, Russians, the British and Americans all accounted for historical influences on Wrangell. Timber once was a major economic driver, but that has shifted to commercial fishing.
In December 2020, torrential rains prompted a landslide in another southeast Alaska city, claiming two lives. The 183-meter-wide slide slammed into a neighborhood in the community of Haines, leaving about 2.7 meters of mud and trees covering city streets.
https://www.voanews.com/a/dead-3-missing-after-alaska-landslide/7365390.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: VOA News USA
As lawmakers in Washington weigh sending billions more in federal support to Kyiv to help fight off Russian aggression, close to half of the U.S. public thinks the country is spending too much on aid to Ukraine, according to polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Those sentiments, driven primarily by Republicans, help explain the hardening opposition among conservative GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill who are rebuffing efforts from President Joe Biden to approve a new tranche of Ukraine aid, arguing that the money would be better spent for domestic priorities.
Yet opposition to aid is down slightly from where it was a month ago in another AP-NORC poll. Now, 45% say the U.S. government is spending too much on aid to Ukraine in the war against Russia, compared with 52% in October. That shift appears to come mostly from Republicans: 59% now say too much is spent on Ukraine aid, but that’s down from 69% in October.
Nonetheless, the Republican resistance to continued Ukraine aid remains strong.
“I understand the citizens need help, but I feel like we’re spending way too much money on Ukraine when we have our issues here, on our own soil, that we need to deal with,” said Eric Mondello, 40, from Fountain, Colorado. Pointing to needs such as health care for veterans and homelessness in communities, Mondello added, “I understand the U.S. has been an ally to others, but I feel like, let’s take care of our people first.”
More than one-third (38%) of U.S. adults says that current spending is “about the right amount,” which is up slightly from last month (31%). Among Republicans, nearly 3 in 10 (29%) say the current spending is about right, up from 20% last month.
Paula Graves, 69, is among those who say the amount of spending for Ukraine is the right amount.
“Putin, he’s straight up evil. I don’t think there should be any question in anyone’s mind,” said Graves, of Clovis, California. “He’s a dictator. He’s infringed on human rights, he’s a very scary person and if Ukraine falls to him, who’s next? What country’s next?”
Graves, who says she is not affiliated with a political party but leans more conservative, said she believes the U.S. has a leadership role on the global stage, adding, “I think we definitely need to put America first, but I don’t think that needs to be first and only.”
The White House has been repeatedly pressing lawmakers to pass Biden’s nearly $106 billion emergency spending package that he proposed in October. It includes more than $61 billion specifically for the war in Ukraine. The rest of Biden’s request has aid for Israel as it battles Hamas, money for various priorities in the Indo-Pacific region and additional resources to help manage migration at the southern border.
On Ukraine, the Biden administration is increasingly warning that the well of aid is running dry. In an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Monday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukraine’s effort to defeat Russian forces “matters to the rest of the world” and pledged that U.S. support would continue “for the long haul.”
That message was reinforced at the White House.
“As President Biden has said, when aggressors don’t pay a price for their aggression, they’ll cause more chaos and death and destruction,” John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, told the White House press briefing Monday. “They just keep on going, and the cost and the threats to America and to the world will keep rising.”
But Congress has rebuffed the White House efforts at bolstering Ukraine support at least twice in recent months. First, it ignored a roughly $40 billion supplemental request before a Sept. 30 funding deadline. Then last week, it passed a stopgap funding measure that keeps the government operating through early next year, but with no additional Ukraine aid.
In the Senate, a small bipartisan group is working on legislation that would combine fresh Ukraine assistance with stricter border measures to address concerns from Republicans that the U.S. was focused on needs abroad at the expense of issues closer to home. A broad majority of senators remains supportive of Ukraine aid, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., being one of the most stalwart supporters despite the isolationist strain in his party.
South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said lawmakers will continue to work on the Ukraine-border package over the Thanksgiving break and won’t wait until mid-January — when Congress faces another government funding deadline — to act on Ukraine.
The big question mark is in the House, where still-new Speaker Mike Johnson — who had voted against Ukraine aid as a rank-and-file conservative — has spoken broadly of the need to counter Russian aggression yet faces unruly GOP lawmakers who have shown more hostility to continued support for Kyiv.
Johnson, too, is insisting that additional Ukraine aid be paired with tougher border measures, although it is far from certain that any immigration agreement that clears the Democratic-led Senate could pass the GOP-controlled House.
Half of U.S. adults are extremely or very concerned that Russia’s influence poses a direct threat to the United States. Democrats (53%) and Republicans (51%) are similarly concerned about Russian power – but Democrats are more likely than Republicans to see Ukraine as a nation of shared values to the U.S. and to support more aid for Ukraine.
About half of the public (48%) endorses providing weapons to Ukraine (57% among Democrats, 42% among Republicans). About 4 in 10 favor sending government funds directly to Ukraine (54% for Democrats, 24% for Republicans).
Americans have grown slightly more likely to say the U.S. should take “a less active role” in solving the world’s problems, compared with a September poll from AP-NORC and Pearson. Slightly fewer than half (45%) now says the U.S. should be less involved, up from 33% in September. Just 16% of Democrats now say the U.S. should take a more active role, down from 29% in September.
Peter Einsig, a Republican from Tulsa, Oklahoma, said he still believes the U.S. has a role to play abroad, but that he remains concerned about excessive government spending and federal debt.
Yet Einsig said he would be more inclined to support aid to Ukraine if there were more oversight into how the money was being used abroad, as well as a timeline of how much longer the U.S. would be providing support.
“We don’t have transparency on where the money is really, really going,” said Einsig, 40. “It’s a big lump sum.”
Four in 10 U.S. adults say Ukraine is an ally that shares U.S. interests and values. That view is most common among Democrats (53%), who are much more likely than independents (28%), Republicans (29%) and Americans overall to see Ukraine as a nation with similar values and needs. About half of Republicans say Ukraine is a partner that the U.S. should cooperate with, but say it is not a nation that shares U.S. values.
https://www.voanews.com/a/americans-split-on-aid-to-ukraine/7365385.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: Robert Reich on Substack
Musk attacks the messenger to distract attention from his hate-filled messages
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/office-hours-billionaire-bullying
date: 2023-11-22, from: VOA News USA
Wednesday will mark 60 years since the fateful day in Dallas in 1963 when U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Despite having one of the shortest tenures of any U.S president, the youthful Kennedy - along with his wife Jacqueline - forever changed the office of the U.S. presidency.
The Kennedy administration challenged post-war America to rise to the challenge of new opportunities and innovations. At his inauguration in January 1961, Kennedy declared: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
Kennedy followed that months later, in a speech before a joint session of Congress, by setting the goal of landing a man on the moon within a decade.
It was the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and Kennedy used all of the tools at his disposal to emphasize the power and persuasion of the U.S. in diplomatic trips around the world. He joked that he was the “man who accompanied Jackie Kennedy” to Paris and inspired the crowds in West Berlin with the phrase “Ich bin ein Berliner!”
Kennedy also guided the country through the threat of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis in the autumn of 1962.
However, it was Kennedy’s shocking death that forever stamped his life and legacy onto the world’s memory.
In November 1963, the 46-year-old Kennedy arrived in Texas for a two-day, five-city trip to help raise campaign funds for his re-election the following year and to increase political support for his ticket with Vice President Lyndon Johnson, a native Texan.
After starting his second day in Texas at nearby Ft. Worth, Kennedy and his wife flew to Dallas, where they met the vice president and Texas Governor John Connally and their spouses. Shortly before noon, the presidential motorcade, with Kennedy and Connally in the second vehicle, left the airfield to drive through the downtown area of the city to the Dallas Business and Trade Mart for a speech and luncheon.
The cars moved along streets lined with cheering crowds and at around 12:30 p.m. local time turned from Main Street onto Elm Street in front of the Texas School Book Depository at Dealey Plaza. Moments later, shots rang out and both President Kennedy and Governor Connally were struck by bullets.
Kennedy was hit in the neck and head, while Connally suffered a wound to the chest. The limousine sped away under escort to nearby Parkland Memorial Hospital where little could be done for the mortally-wounded U.S. president. A Catholic priest was summoned to give him the last rites. Governor Connally, though seriously wounded, would recover from his injuries after emergency surgery.
As live radio reports described the scene, the infant television news programs of the major networks ABC, CBS and NBC cut into their programming to bring the tragic news to the American people.
Kennedy’s body was returned to Air Force One, where before takeoff, Vice President Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States.
After returning to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, President Johnson tried to console the country that Friday evening.
On Sunday, November 24, in a solemn procession, Kennedy’s casket was taken by horse-drawn caisson to the Capitol building where it lay in state at the Rotunda. An estimated 250,000 people filed past to pay their respects. The official funeral was held on Monday, November 25, as heads of state and dignitaries from more than 100 countries attended the formal ceremony at St. Matthew’s Cathedral.
One of the more emotional moments forever captured on film and pictures was JFK’s youngest child, 3-year-old John F. Kennedy, Jr. - known as “John John” - saluting his father’s casket as it went past the family.
Back in Dallas, police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a recently-hired employee of the Texas Book Depository and a former U.S. Marine. On Sunday, November 24, when police were transferring Oswald from police headquarters to county jail, Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot him at point-blank range on live television, and Oswald died two hours later.
President Johnson appointed the Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy to be chaired by Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States, to investigate the assassination and the subsequent killing of the alleged assassin. The 889-page final report was delivered to Johnson in September of 1964.
The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone when he fired the three rifle shots that killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally. It also concluded that Ruby acted alone when he shot Oswald two days later. Despite abundant conspiracy theories and studies that challenge these results, the findings, though controversial, remain the official government position on President Kennedy’s death.
https://www.voanews.com/a/world-remembers-kennedy-60-years-after-assassination-/7365377.html
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Synthetic images can help AI models learn visual representations more accurately compared to real snaps, according to computer scientists at MIT and Google. The result is neural networks that are better at making pictures from your written descriptions.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/texttoimage_models_mit/
date: 2023-11-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1843 – Rancho Castec (Lebec-Tejon area) granted to French immigrant Jose Covarrubias. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-nov-22/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Resilience, relationships, and the ripple effect of gratitude.
The post Gratitude: The Ultimate Superpower appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/11/22/gratitude-the-ultimate-superpower/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Gary Marcus blog
Massive Scoop from The Information: 👉Sam and Greg gave up their board seats 👉Sam agreed to an internal investigation This is inconsistent with all narratives about “cloddish” or self-interested boards, and suggests that something real happened.
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/massive-scoop
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Nvidia has revealed it tripled revenue, year-over-year, for the third quarter of its financial year.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/nvidia_q3_2023/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Tilde.news
https://seirdy.one/notes/2023/11/21/more-native-than-web/
date: 2023-11-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
One of Santa Clarita’s original City Council members and someone who helped lead the effort for the city’s creation, Jan Heidt, died Monday, according to her husband. She was 84.
https://scvnews.com/founding-city-council-member-jan-heidt-dies-at-84/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Sam Altman seems set to return to the job as CEO of OpenAI – from which he was last week suddenly and unexpectedly ejected.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/sam_altman_openai_return/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Analysis China’s State Administration for Market Regulation approved Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, and also revealed it suspended deliberations on the matter on September 25 and only resumed on November 17 – beyond the October 30 date Broadcom set as its target for the deal to close.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/china_samr_broadcom_vmware/
date: 2023-11-22, from: 404 Media Group
OpenAI has replaced almost all of the members of the board that fired former and now-current CEO Sam Altman.
https://www.404media.co/openai-announces-sam-altman-is-coming-back-and-theres-a-new-board/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Gary Marcus blog
A few quick thoughts about what is really important
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/openai-is-back-in-business
date: 2023-11-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Israel and Hamas agree to hostage exchange and greater humanitarian aid.
The post A Temporary Cease-Fire Announced for Gaza appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/11/21/a-temporary-cease-fire-announced-for-gaza/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Updated Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo announced on Tuesday it had filed suit against Taiwanese manufacturer Asus for patent infringement related to software, hardware and connectivity in multiple products.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/lenovo_takes_asus_to_court/
date: 2023-11-22, from: VOA News USA
U.S. President Joe Biden highlighted on Tuesday his administration’s efforts to halt the flow of fentanyl and the ingredients used to produce the deadly drug, following deals with leaders of China and Mexico last week. However, observers say past efforts to control production and export from outside of the country have proved ineffective. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-highlights-efforts-with-china-mexico-to-combat-fentanyl/7365315.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The Santa Barbara Independent’s 37th annual celebration of our nicest neighbors.
The post Local Heroes 2023 appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/11/21/local-heroes-2023/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: Darch (sørenpeter) neotxt blog
@eapl.me<em>@eapl.me cool, how you you like it? (And sh!t now I have to make sure it works, not just for me;)
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Chinese web giant Baidu, which emphasized AI services long before they were cool, has revealed it is largely untroubled by the United States’ chip tech export bans, can do just fine with silicon that is allowed to be sold in China, and has a workaround plan for when sanctions bite.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/baidu_q3_2023/
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2023-11-22, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
news.scripting.com is a big hit. It regularly gets more traffic than my blog. A sign that it’s time for some rearranging.
http://scripting.com/2023/11/21.html#a024902
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2023-11-22, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
There’s a flaw in the design of our social networks. The idea that there are “conversations” when actually many of the replies you get are spam. People trying to attach their name to something that they hope gets them attention and followers. So when someone addresses something to you it can be confusing, because they aren’t actually talking to you, they’re talking to the imagined thousands of people over your shoulder looking for some new tweeter or tooter or threader to adore. When it’s actually mostly people looking for places to hang their own spam to catch other people’s attention and followers. Is there anything actually going on there? Sadly, no.
http://scripting.com/2023/11/21.html#a024556
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
In an assessment of India’s eight-year-long Smart Cities Mission, think tank the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) has opined that the project can be considered “at best a drop in the ocean” and should be viewed as a “pilot project.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/india_smart_cities_mission/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The LAist
Qatar’s foreign ministry announced a “humanitarian pause” in fighting between Israel and Hamas to allow release of some hostages.
https://laist.com/news/israeli-cabinet-approves-cease-fire-deal-with-hamas-to-free-some-hostages
date: 2023-11-22, from: Gary Marcus blog
The real value was always the people, not the IP, not the data, not the customer list, not the infrastructure. Elon Musk’s Grok replicated much (not all) of what OpenAI had done in a few months; Kai-Fu Lee’s new company similarly was able to replicate a lot in less than a year. Others may have as well. As a famous essay apparently from Google said,
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/top-5-reasons-why-openai-was-probably
date: 2023-11-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Registration for classes, activities and sports listed in the winter Seasons catalog will open at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 28. Among the class offerings are quilting, chunky knitting, essential oil basics, cake decorating and archery.
https://scvnews.com/nov-28-winter-registration-for-seasons-catalog-classes/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News
A creative diagram representing a technology stack as a building with multiple floors. At the bottom floor, label it ‘TCP’. The next floor above should be labeled ‘HTTP’. Above that, have a larger floor labeled ‘RSS’, with smaller adjacent floors labeled ‘Atom’ and ‘ActivityPub’. The top two floors should be labeled ‘Textcasting’ and ‘Artcasting’ respectively. Surrounding the building, depict human-style animals like dogs, bears, owls, and hamsters, all dressed in business attire. Each of these characters should be holding signs with the names of tech companies like Google, Amazon, Tesla, and Salesforce.com. The diagram should illustrate the hierarchy and importance of each technology layer in the stack, with a whimsical and engaging representation.
http://scripting.com/2023/11/21/022530.html?title=aTechnologyStack
date: 2023-11-22, from: The Signal
A lawsuit seeking to force a recall election for District Attorney George Gascón is still working its way through the court, according to a representative for the group. The recall group’s spokesman called the legal arguments by the DA and L.A. County registrar’s offices “delay tactics.” They haven’t stopped the DA’s reelection bid with his […]
The post Gascón-recall suit still being argued as primary nears appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/11/gascon-recall-suit-still-being-argued-as-primary-nears/
date: 2023-11-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Have cookies with Santa! Bring the family for a jolly good time at the Canyon Country Community Center on Saturday, Dec 2, noon to 2 p.m. Enjoy festive crafts, cookie decorating and a visit from Santa himself. This program is free and no registration is required
https://scvnews.com/dec-2-cookies-with-santa-in-canyon-country/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A senator has alleged that American law enforcement agencies snoop on US citizens and residents, seemingly without regard for the privacy provisions of the Fourth Amendment, under a secret program called the Hemisphere Project that allows police to conduct searches of trillions of phone records.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/wyden_hemisphere_letter/
date: 2023-11-22, from: VOA News USA
U.S. President Joe Biden highlighted “strong international coordination” by his administration to halt the flow of fentanyl and the ingredients used to produce the deadly drug following his diplomatic engagements with leaders of China and Mexico last week.
“We’ve focused on prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery,” he said on Tuesday during a meeting at the White House to address the scourge of the illicit drug that has killed more than 200,000 Americans in recent years. “But this challenge also has roots outside our borders, outside the borders of the United States.”
Biden vowed to accelerate his administration’s efforts to combat the drug following counternarcotics deals with Beijing and Mexico City reached last week on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco.
Fentanyl is mass-produced in Mexico using precursor chemicals largely from China and trafficked via cartels into the U.S.
“It’s a global challenge that demands global action,” Biden said.
Following their meeting, Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the resumption of bilateral cooperation on counternarcotics to reduce the flow of precursor chemicals that fuel fentanyl.
“It’s a big step forward, and we’re grateful for that,” said John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, during a briefing for reporters on Tuesday. “It may be some time before you see the practical results.”
With Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Biden agreed to expand law enforcement cooperation and intelligence sharing to restrict trafficking of the drug.
The administration has been under pressure to take tougher measures to stop fentanyl from coming into the country. Republican lawmakers regularly highlight the smuggling of fentanyl as a reason to fortify the U.S.-Mexico border. Several Republican candidates say they would use military force against Mexican cartels in response to the trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.
Republicans also accuse Biden of being soft on China’s role in the epidemic.
“Communist China’s actions have told us that they choose to be our enemy. Fentanyl produced in China has killed thousands of Americans,” Republican Senator Rick Scott said in a statement.
Ineffective track record
China can control the flow of precursor chemicals in ways that Latin American governments cannot, but whether Beijing will invest in the effort remains to be seen, said Peter Reuter, professor in the School of Public Policy and the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland.
Past efforts to control production and exports from outside the country have proved ineffective, he said.
“We always worry about displacement,” Reuter told VOA. “That is that if China stops sending the precursors, that the very large, poorly regulated, corruptly regulated, Indian industry will replace China.”
Illegal fentanyl is often produced in clandestine laboratories using precursors and fentanyl analogs produced by legitimate chemical and pharmaceutical companies that are not domestically or internationally regulated.
A heavy focus on supply-based strategies to limit their entry from abroad can be counterproductive to the positive steps in harm reduction that the administration has taken as traffickers find workarounds to avoid breaking the law, said Brandon Marshall, professor of epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health.
“Many of these efforts to restrict the supply lead traffickers to identify substances which are more potent,” he told VOA. “That’s what we see play over and over again.”
Biden urged lawmakers to approve more funds to support Americans with substance abuse disorders and close existing loopholes for small shipments of the drug, which can go undetected in border crossings and even through the postal system.
“I also urge Congress to permanently make fentanyl and related substances as Schedule One drugs,” he said.
Such a move means that drug users would be even more stigmatized and move them further away from the help that they need, said Mary Sylla, director of Overdose Prevention Policy and Strategy at the National Harm Reduction Coalition, an advocacy group for the rights of people who use drugs.
That puts people into a prison system that actually increases the likelihood of overdose, she told VOA.
Sylla argued that more focus and resources should be placed instead on efforts to reduce the negative impacts of substance use, including syringe services, overdose prevention and drug treatment for those who are interested.
In 2018, the Trump administration placed a temporary class-wide emergency scheduling of fentanyl-related substances, chemicals that are similar in structure to fentanyl as used in clinical/hospital settings. The emergency ban has been extended by Congress several times.
The ban may have unintended and negative impacts, including making research on these substances much more difficult, Marshall said.
In 2021, a group of more than 100 organizations wrote a letter urging Congress and the Biden administration to allow the emergency scheduling to expire, arguing that the scheduling exacerbates pretrial detention, mass incarceration and racial disparities in the prison system.
“As we approach the 50-year milestone of President Nixon’s announcement of the War on Drugs, there is ample evidence that these unscientific policies destroy communities, entrench racial disparities, and do nothing to reduce drug supply or demand,” the letter said.
Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-highlights-efforts-with-china-mexico-to-combat-fentanyl/7365221.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Office of Inspector General of Los Angeles County Max Huntsman has issued a report entitled “Reform and Oversight Efforts Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, July through September 2023.”
https://scvnews.com/inspector-general-releases-latest-lasd-quarterly-report/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
November sun peeking under heavy clouds / a reluctant cook checking the pot
The post Peace for Palestinian and Jew appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/11/21/peace-for-palestinian-and-jew/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange just got a little smaller, with the US Department of Justice announcing Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao have both pleaded guilty to a multitude of financial crimes. As a result Binance will fork out $10 billion to Uncle Sam in fines and settlements.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/binance_ceo_settlement/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners: Don’t wait to see some of the best hair dryer deals
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article282162528.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: The Signal
The typical Thanksgiving meal: Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce. On Friday, a united front of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station Youth Activities League, Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation and Elevate Church came together to provide a version of this traditional feast with 500 Chick-Fil-A meals at the 2023 […]
The post <strong>Serving hearts and meals to the Val Verde community</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/11/serving-hearts-and-meals-to-the-val-verde-community/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The LAist
At least 20% of Israelis identify as Arab or Palestinian. Many say they have long felt like second-class citizens. The current war has worsened their position in the country, they say.
https://laist.com/news/palestinians-in-israel-cite-threats-firings-and-discrimination-after-oct-7
date: 2023-11-22, from: Dan Rather’s Steady
There is plenty of good in the world, including developments that keep hope alive for better days ahead. But there is no denying that we’ve had another year filled with tumult, uncertainty, pain, and suffering. As 2023 winds down and we look to the year ahead, there is little indication that these troublesome and dangerous trends will abate. If anything, they will likely intensify as we gallop toward a presidential election — probably one of the most consequential in our nation’s history.
https://steady.substack.com/p/a-message-of-thanksgiving
date: 2023-11-22, from: The Signal
Through their robotics club, Hermit Social Club, 17-year-old Academy of the Canyons seniors Hallea Pocrass and Nyali Latz-Torres helped organize the first-ever in-person conference for the California Association for STEM Advocacy. Along with Hallea’s brother, Cayden Pocrass, a Valencia High School alumnus, UCLA student and Hermit Social Club mentor, the three students strive to advocate […]
The post CASA advocates for high school robotics program appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/11/casa-advocates-for-high-school-robotics-program/
date: 2023-11-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
As part of the city of Santa Clarita’s ongoing efforts to improve the emergency transit service, the city expanded the availability of Dial-a-Ride and Access services on Monday, Nov. 20. The city has lifted its priority use restrictions, previously limited to emergency medical appointments, to include all regular DAR use cases
https://scvnews.com/city-expands-dar-access-services-during-transit-strike/
date: 2023-11-22, from: John Naughton’s online diary
A president comes home JFK’s motorcade, driving down Shop Street in Galway, 29 June, 1963. Quote of the Day “It was almost impossible to believe that he was anything but a down-at-heel actor resting between engagements at the decrepit theatres … Continue reading
https://memex.naughtons.org/wednesday-22-november-2023/38830/
date: 2023-11-22, from: The Signal
What started at 60 turkeys has now evolved into 200 Thanksgiving meals provided to the community that the Samuel Dixon Family Health Center serves. With assistance from Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, volunteers handed out these Thanksgiving meals on Saturday to those in need. The mission of the Samuel Dixon Family Health Center, which has three […]
The post <strong>Everything for a Thanksgiving meal for those in need</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/11/everything-for-a-thanksgiving-meal-for-those-in-need/
date: 2023-11-22, from: VOA News USA
The U.S. government dealt a massive blow to Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, which agreed to pay a roughly $4 billion settlement Tuesday as its founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to a felony related to his failure to prevent money laundering on the platform.
Zhao stepped down as the company’s chief executive, and Binance admitted to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and apparent violations of sanctions programs, including its failure to implement reporting programs for suspicious transactions.
“Using new technology to break the law does not make you a disruptor, it makes you a criminal,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who called the settlement one of the largest corporate penalties in the nation’s history.
As part of the settlement agreement, the U.S. Treasury said Binance will be subject to five years of monitoring and “significant compliance undertakings, including to ensure Binance’s complete exit from the United States.” Binance is a Cayman Islands limited liability company.
The cryptocurrency industry has been marred by scandals and market meltdowns.
Rival of FTX founder
Zhao was perhaps best known as the chief rival to Sam Bankman-Fried, the 31-year-old founder of FTX, which was the second-largest crypto exchange before it collapsed last November. Bankman-Fried was convicted earlier this month of fraud for stealing at least $10 billion from customers and investors.
Zhao, meanwhile, pleaded guilty in a federal court in Seattle on Tuesday to one count of failure to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program.
Magistrate Judge Brian A. Tsuchida questioned Zhao to make sure he understood the plea agreement, saying at one point: “You knew you didn’t have controls in place.”
“Yes, your honor,” he replied.
Binance wrote in a statement that it made “misguided decisions” as it quickly grew to become the world’s biggest crypto exchange, and said the settlement acknowledges its “responsibility for historical, criminal compliance violations.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Binance processed transitions by illicit actors, “supporting activities from child sexual abuse to illegal narcotics, to terrorism, across more than 100,000 transactions.”
Binance did not file a single suspicious activity report on those transactions, Yellen said, and the company allowed more than 1.5 million virtual currency trades that violated U.S. sanctions, including ones involving Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades, al-Qaida and other criminals.
The judge set Zhao’s sentencing for February 23, however it’s likely to be delayed. He faces a possible guideline sentence range of up to 18 months.
One of his attorneys, Mark Bartlett, noted that Zhao had been aware of the investigation since December 2020, and surrendered willingly even though the United Arab Emirates — where Zhao lives — has no extradition treaty with the U.S.
“He decided to come here and face the consequences,” Bartlett said. “He’s sitting here. He pled guilty.”
Zhao, who is married and has young children in the UAE, promised he would return to the U.S. for sentencing if allowed to stay there in the meantime.
“I want to take responsibility and close this chapter in my life,” Zhao said. “I want to come back. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here today.”
Company sent investor assets to third party
Zhao previously faced allegations of diverting customer funds, concealing the fact that the company was commingling billions of dollars in investor assets and sending them to a third party that Zhao also owned.
Over the summer, Binance was accused of operating as an unregistered securities exchange and violating a slew of U.S. securities laws in a lawsuit from regulators. That case was similar to practices uncovered after the collapse of FTX.
Zhao and Bankman-Fried were originally friendly competitors in the industry, with Binance investing in FTX when Bankman-Fried launched the exchange in 2019. However, the relationship between the two deteriorated, culminating in Zhao announcing he was selling all of his cryptocurrency investments in FTX in early November 2022. FTX filed for bankruptcy a week later.
At this trial and in later public statements, Bankman-Fried tried cast blame on Binance and Zhao for allegedly orchestrating a run on the bank at FTX.
A jury found Bankman-Fried guilty of wire fraud and several other charges. He is expected to be sentenced in March, where he could face decades in prison.
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
No one was injured in the machinery fire at California Dairies.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article282181853.html
date: 2023-11-22, from: Om Malik blog
Why is Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella investing so much time and effort in unraveling the OpenAI mess? It can’t be the prospect of losing a $13 billion investment— peanuts for a company with a market capitalization of nearly $3 trillion. Here’s my analysis of why he’s working overtime.
https://om.co/2023/11/21/even-after-freaky-friday-microsoft-is-still-the-ai-king/
date: 2023-11-22, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The LAist
Officials now have until January to figure out how many hospitals would participate and how many locks they’d need.
https://laist.com/news/politics/la-county-free-gun-locks-hospitals-medical-campuses
date: 2023-11-22, from: OS News
Jason Scott posted the source code for all the Infocom games in 2019. This was pretty awesome. Everybody who is interested in that stuff cheered, and now it’s part of the common knowledge of Infocom. If you’re researching the history of those games, or want to study their design, you can dig in. So the game source was big news. Infocom’s interpreter source, however, remained obscure. This was the game-playing software for each platform: the Apple 2 interpreter, the Commodore 64 interpreter, and so on. A particular Infocom game release (“Zork 3 for the C64”, say) was a floppy containing the C64 interpreter and the Zork-3 game file. Boot the floppy, the interpreter starts up; it loads the game data and the game begins. The code for the interpreter, however, was never released as open source – until now. Andrew Plotkin posted all of the code on Github, followed later by an additional code dump by David Fillmore.
https://www.osnews.com/story/137900/all-that-infocom-interpreter-code/
date: 2023-11-22, from: OS News
There has been quite a bit of documentation about exploiting the CANON Printer firmware in the past. For some more background information I suggest reading these posts by SYNACKTIV, doar-e and DEVCORE. I highly recommend reading all of it if you want to learn more about hacking (CANON) Printers. The TL;DR is: We’re dealing with a Custom RTOS called DRYOS engineered by CANON that doesn’t ship with any modern mitigations like W^X or ASLR. That means that after getting a bit acquainted with this alien RTOS it is relatively easy to write (reliable) exploits for it. Having a custom operating system doesn’t mean it’s more secure than popular solutions.
https://www.osnews.com/story/137898/hacking-the-canon-imageclass-mf742cdw-mf743cdw-again/
date: 2023-11-22, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners: Find the best makeup travel bag for a friend, girlfriend, or wife this holiday season.
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article282144218.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: OS News
EE Journal reports: National Instruments (NI) recently released a new version of its LabView test automation programming environment for the latest Apple Macintosh computers based on the Arm-based Apple M1 CPU/GPU SoC. At the same time, NI let its customers know that this release would be the last one for Apple Macintosh computers, sending a shock through some portion of the company’s customer base. LabView’s importance to test and measurement cannot be overstated. It was the first graphical programming language designed exclusively for test systems. The language has been continually expanded and improved for nearly 40 years and features more than 7000 software drivers for instruments from many vendors as well as support for custom, FPGA-based instruments. LabView supports many instrument interfaces starting with IEEE-488 and extending to MXI, PXI, USB, Ethernet, and probably a few more interfaces that don’t immediately come to mind. It’s a shock to many and will likely punish higher education students and a chunk of the scientific and research segment which is still Mac dominant.
https://www.osnews.com/story/137894/national-instruments-to-apple-mac-buh-bye/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Heatmap News
For the past 30 years, New York City has funded community-based programs that spread the gospel of compost. What started as a few education and outreach sites at the city’s botanical gardens has grown into a vast network of more than 200 neighborhood food scrap drop-off locations where devoted New Yorkers enthusiastically deliver bags of rotting waste each week. Today, the programs employ 115 people and divert more than 8.3 million pounds of organic waste from landfills each year.
Now, with the stroke of Mayor Eric Adams’s pen, they will likely have to shut down.
Adams eliminated all funding for community composting, totalling $15 million over the next four years, in a round of budget cuts announced last week that are meant to offset the rising cost of aid to migrant asylum seekers. This comes in spite of the fact that the city’s publicly run — and much more expensive — curbside composting program is still not fully functional more than a decade in.
“It feels very dire right now,” Christine Datz-Romero, the co-founder and executive director of one of the oldest community compost groups, the Lower East Side Ecology Center, told me.
Adams’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Few services have escaped the strain caused by the flood of asylum-seekers fleeing poverty, violence, authoritarian governments, and climate change. In September, Adams asked all city agencies to prepare to cut their annual budgets by at least 5% to address a projected $7 billion fiscal shortfall. The plan released last week shows the Department of Education losing about $1 billion over the next two years, which threatens the city’s free preschool program and will eliminate hundreds of non-classroom positions. Cuts to library budgets will force many locations to reduce their hours.
Community composting organizations knew budget cuts were coming. They were already bracing for a decline in funding because of the city’s plans to scale up the Department of Sanitation’s curbside organic waste collection program, which picks up food scraps right at people’s doorsteps, similar to recycling.
“We built all the support for it,” Justin Green, the executive director of Big Reuse, told me. “Now that the city is rolling out curbside, to be cut without warning is pretty galling.” Even that rollout is no longer assured — a planned expansion to Staten Island and the Bronx will now be delayed until next October. Originally budgeted for around $24 million a year, the curbside program saw its budget slashed by $4.8 million between now and 2025.
Curbside composting has been a holy grail for New York mayors since Michael Bloomberg, but has long remained mired in the bureaucratic swamps. Former Mayor Bill DeBlasio managed to get a voluntary program off the ground in 2013, but it was criticized for poor management and only serving wealthier neighborhoods, and participation was notoriously low. In 2020, the service fell victim to the pandemic.
On the campaign trail in 2021, Adams vowed to bring curbside collection back as a way to cut emissions and solve the city’s rat problem, and in February announced plans to relaunch voluntary curbside pickup in every borough. (For now it’s available in Brooklyn and Queens, plus parts of Manhattan and the Bronx.) The city council then went a step further, passing an ambitious zero-waste package in June that will make food waste separation mandatory as curbside collection grows.
Organic waste is the city’s third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions after buildings and transportation, producing about 20% of New York’s total climate pollution. Composting doesn’t fully eliminate food waste emissions, but it has the potential to reduce them by up to 84%, according to a recent study.
It’s unclear how much real composting the curbside program will do. Currently, most of the organics picked up by the sanitation department go to wastewater treatment facilities in New Jersey and Brooklyn, where the scraps are mixed with sewage and put through an anaerobic digester. The process breaks down the solid material and separates out methane gas, which is then injected into gas pipelines and carried into people’s homes. Or at least, that’s the idea — a few weeks ago, Gothamist reported that the system was undergoing maintenance and the gas was being burned off on site.
Datz-Romero hopes the city will eventually invest in real utility-scale composting facilities. It’s a chicken and egg problem — the wastewater treatment facility is already there and has capacity to manage the waste, and the city can’t justify spending millions on its own site until there’s robust public participation in food waste separation.
“What do you create first, the infrastructure or the need for infrastructure?” Datz-Romero said. During the DeBlasio administration, the city was shipping organic waste to private processing facilities. It did build one large composting facility on Staten Island, but that has limited capacity.
Low participation is one reason community composters say they still have a crucial outreach role to play, even as curbside pickup expands. They are in communities every day talking to people about food waste, teaching them about composting, and bringing tangible benefits like soil restoration to their parks and street trees.
“People can actually engage with that, and they can also understand on a whole other level why separating food scraps out is so important,” said Datz-Romero. “Even if composting is mandatory tomorrow, people are not going to wake up and say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s what I always wanted to do — separate my banana peels.’”
Green and Datz-Romero said they will have to lay off the staff that run their food scrap pick-up sites and outreach and education programs. Though they do get some funding from foundations, Green said that without the support of the city, those other sources could dry up.
The coalition of community composting groups started a petition urging the mayor and city council to reverse the decision. At time of publishing, it had more than 20,000 signatures.
Community composting might not be making a significant dent in carbon emissions, Green told me. But it has helped people feel empowered to do something about climate change.
“People are hungry for things that they can do together as a community. This is one step that they could do to be like, ‘Okay, I’m taking my compost to the farmers market, and I can volunteer to apply the compost to street trees in my neighborhood.’ I think that was valuable. When people are feeling so much hopelessness around climate, it gives them something active to do.”
https://heatmap.news/politics/eric-adams-compost-nyc-budget
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners
https://www.fresnobee.com/betting/article282100743.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Police said they recovered a car they believe was involved.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/crime/article282180548.html
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Google has admitted its efforts to discourage the use of ad blockers on YouTube have resulted in a deliberate “suboptimal viewing” experience for some users.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/ad_block_google/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
He was hauled out of the backcountry by helicopter.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282166888.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Supes support DignityMoves projects.
The post More Tiny Homes in Santa Barbara County appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/11/21/more-tiny-homes-in-santa-barbara-county/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
About 3,500 documents remain unpublished or published with partial redactions, according to one expert.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282163648.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Depending on the size and fur length of your pooch, experts say some dogs might need a coat for winter.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282172563.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: The Signal
On July 14, thousands of people had no clear picture of the future of their careers as writers and actors went on strike. Nov. 9 provided hope as the historic almost-four-month strike ended. The end of the strike has not given an immediate snapback for all those affected and does not erase the monthslong period […]
The post <strong>Local 399 Teamsters host Thanksgiving food drive</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2023-11-21, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
ChatGPT was overloaded earlier this evening. I wrote: “I’m losing my shit here. I feel as lost without it as I would have felt last year without Google. Anyway here’s the question I need answered. ‘working in javascript in the browser, a question about using localstorage. are there any rules about how much storage you can use? would 10MB be too much? 50MB?’” Believe it or not my friend ChatGPT will have some advice about that and it’ll be pretty good. You can’t find that through a search engine, btw, which is why OpenAI is so important.
http://scripting.com/2023/11/21.html#a230944
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
My son said, ‘You need to get that ticket home,’” the woman told officials
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282177383.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Manu - I write blog
As humans, we’re surrounded by objects. We pay very little attention to the vast majority of them but they’re there, they’re all around us. Dieter Rams famously said that “Good design is as little design as possible” and he’s not wrong. Good design is design that does its job without getting in your way. But good design can—and sometimes should—also stand out because good design is the embodiment of passion, of caring for a craft, of loving the process.
And that’s precisely why I love everything Craig Mod does. I think I first stumbled on his work almost a decade ago at this point and what really caught my attention was the love for the process. From the newsletters to the essays to the books, everything is deliberate and you can just see that he just cares. The feeling I get is that there’s almost a sense of responsibility when putting something out into the world and that’s something I can relate to.
Back in late 2016 I backed the Koya Bound on Kickstarter and got my signed and numbered (513) copy.
I loved it. I still love it. I have to admit that what Craig makes lives at the intersection of way too many things I personally love and am passionate about: photography, nature, Japan and its culture, and walks. I’m also a sucker for signed books and limited editions which is why in 2020 I got my copy—number 429—of Kissa by Kissa.
Kissa is, by far, one of my favorite books. And when I say book I mean both in terms of content and in terms of the actual book. The cover, the materials, the print, the typeface, the size, the layout. I love everything about the book and I am so happy I got my first edition.
Those two books, and everything else Craig does, are the reasons why it took me literally 1 minute from receiving the email to hitting the buy button and get a signed copy of his new book, Things Become Other Things.
In Craig’s words:
“Things Become Other Things (TBOT)” is a book chronicling a decade of walking central Japan’s Kii Peninsula and its Kumano Kodō paths. I’ve walked thousands of kilometers and talked with hundreds of people. This is a book about farmers and fishermen and kissa owners and adopted inn proprietors, about okonomiyaki ladies, whispering priests, and foul-mouthed little kids. It’s about the loss of industry — lumber, fishing — and what it does to a place. It’s about depopulation and aging populations. It’s a reflection on why I emigrated to Japan some 23 years ago. And it’s a remembrance of the life of one lost friend.
Mostly, it’s a book celebrating grace, and documents my searching for archetypes in landscapes and people — archetypes for how grace can and should infuse everything, even things coming to an end. Even things becoming other things.
I’m aware it’s probably silly, but I want more beautiful objects in this world. Objects made with love, with care. So thank you Craig for making these books and for caring so much about what you do.
https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/yZK8sssCfdROXWXp
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners: Don’t be intimidated by the many choices; we’ve narrowed it down for you
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article282159373.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Robust public commentary was given during Goleta Planning Commission approval of Housing Element rezones.
The post Goleta Rezoning Meets the Neighbors appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/11/21/goleta-rezoning-meets-the-neighbors/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners
https://www.fresnobee.com/betting/article282100283.html
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2023-11-21, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
I got a response from Matt to my offer of $10K. My response to him.
http://scripting.com/2023/11/21.html#a224322
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Now police are asking for tips.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282173993.html
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Anthropic has launched Claude 2.1, the latest version of its large language model. We’re told it can process more text and generate responses that are more accurate than previous iterations, and it can interact with developer-defined APIs allowing it to be integrated with users’ tech stacks.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/anthropic_claude_chatbot/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The man followed the other couple in his car until he crashed into them, deputies said.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282175348.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Cyndi Louise Falcon was born on January 22, 1961, in Santa Barbara, California. Her roots are of Chumash and the
The post In Memoriam </br> Cyndi Falcon </br> 1961-2023 appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/11/21/in-memoriam-cyndi-falcon-1961-2023/
date: 2023-11-21, from: TidBITS blog
If you’re using 1Password 6 or 1Password 7 from the Mac App Store and receive an error message about the 1Password app being damaged, 1Password has some possible solutions.
https://tidbits.com/2023/11/21/issues-with-legacy-1password-6-and-7-from-mac-app-store/
date: 2023-11-21, from: NASA breaking news
This article is for students grades 5-8. Artemis is NASA’s new lunar exploration program, which includes sending the first woman and first person of color on the Moon. Through the Artemis missions, NASA will use new technology to study the Moon in new and better ways, and prepare for human missions to Mars. Why Is […]
date: 2023-11-21, from: NASA breaking news
This article is for students grades K-4. Artemis is a new NASA program to explore the Moon. These missions will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon. With the Artemis program, NASA will study the Moon in new and better ways. Why Is This Program Called Artemis? The first astronauts […]
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
A North Carolina national seashore thanked the animals.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282171473.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Valencia High School Pride of the Vikings Marching Band and Color Guard captured second place in the 2023 Southern California Schools Band and Orchestra Association (SCSBOA) Championships at Long Beach City College on Saturday, Nov. 18.
https://scvnews.com/valencia-high-pride-of-the-vikings-awarded-silver-medal-at-championships/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners: Get a great deal on makeup and beauty accessories for Black Friday
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article282159108.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Your next shopping trip could look a bit different.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282166863.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The “magnificent” predators were spotted in Norway, photos show.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/world/article282165933.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Researchers said the animal acted in an “unexpected” way and showed “remarkable boldness.”
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/world/article282170998.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The popular spot is on Yelp’s Top 10 list for Italian restaurants in Fresno.
https://www.fresnobee.com/living/food-drink/bethany-clough/article282157523.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: NASA breaking news
NASA Langley Research Group The research group supporting the SaSa program includes: Instrumentation Below is a snapshot of instruments and tools Langley uses to support SaSa student projects and the summer airborne science campaigns. More information can be found on the NASA Langley Aerosol Research Group (LARGE) Instruments page. NASA Goddard NASA Goddard Space Flight Center […]
https://www.nasa.gov/general/nasa-partners/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
“He will have the opportunity to find a family and live the life he deserves,” a Boston rescue group said.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282170948.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article281548498.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
A new U.N. report finds current pledges put the planet on track to warm 2.5 to 2.9 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels this century
date: 2023-11-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
“5x5: Westmont College Celebrating 85 Years” is the museum’s most popular exhibition.
The post Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art’s Small Works Fundraiser Returns to Montecito appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
date: 2023-11-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Princess Cruises, headquartered in Valencia, has been selected as a Good Housekeeping 2024 Family Travel Awards winner for its Majestic Princess sailings to Alaska
https://scvnews.com/majestic-princess-wins-good-housekeeping-2024-family-travel-award/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article281744128.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
A pair of SpongeBob SquarePants pajama pants were found with the kittens in New York, according to a Facebook post.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282168308.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
California State University, Northridge has been working to develop zero-cost classes by eliminating the costs of course materials, an extension of a CSU-wide Affordable Learning $olutions initiative
https://scvnews.com/csun-developing-zero-cost-classes-majors/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
One person has died, the CDC said.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/article282169608.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article281537863.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Get out and explore. Our reports cover the coast to the High Sierra, and Lake Isabella to New Melones.
https://www.fresnobee.com/sports/outdoors/hunting-fishing/article282146103.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners: We’re here to show you some of the best beauty deals available
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article282142918.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
De’Aaron Fox continues to make a name for himself after becoming an All-Star and All-NBA selection for the first time last season.
https://www.fresnobee.com/sports/article282165988.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s Veterinary Public Health Program has received multiple reports of dogs experiencing a sudden respiratory illness of unknown origin, similar to case reports in other states. Symptoms include cough, nasal discharge, sneezing and lethargy in dogs.
https://scvnews.com/county-public-health-investigating-respiratory-disease-in-dogs/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The Maryland man scored a big prize in the Powerball game.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282163618.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Liliputing
The Banana Pi BPI-M4 Zero is a tiny computer board that features an ARM Cortx-A53 quad-core processor, 2GB of LPDDR4 memory, 8GB of eMMC flash storage, and a familiar form factor: it’s just about the same size and shape as a Raspberry Pi Zero and even features a Raspberry Pi-compatible 40-pin connector. But while the […]
The post Banana Pi BPI-M4 Zero is a Raspberry Pi Zero clone with Allwinner H618 and dual USB-C ports appeared first on Liliputing.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Los negocios elaboran adobo de birria, mezclas para micheladas y dulces picantes.
https://www.fresnobee.com/vida-en-el-valle/noticias/article282166993.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
Sonny Angels are the cool girl’s new best friend. You can find these little cherub babies on people’s phones, peeking over laptops or simply accompanying their owners for everyday tasks. Sonny Angels are mini cherub doll figurines that look a little like a Kewpie doll. Each comes in a blind box, which adds to the…
https://sundial.csun.edu/177148/opinions/the-sonny-angels-obsession/
date: 2023-11-21, from: VOA News USA
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is warning that if Russia is successful in Ukraine, China will be emboldened to use military force to expand its territory in the Indo-Pacific.
“We can’t live in that kind of world,” Austin told U.S. troops at a military installation in eastern Poland Tuesday after a surprise stop the day before in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
“If you’re another autocrat, say China, and you want to take over more ground [and] more territory, and you saw what happened in Ukraine and there were no consequences to be paid, you’d feel pretty good about it,” Austin said.
Austin also warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin will continue his push to overrun sovereign democracies in eastern Europe if he isn’t shut down in Ukraine.
“Putin won’t stop if he takes Ukraine,” Austin said. “The next thing is he’s rolling across the Baltics … and the next thing you know, you and your comrades will be on the frontlines fighting against a Putin that we should have stopped, or Ukraine could have stopped early on.”
Austin comments echo many concerns voiced by NATO allies in eastern Europe since the invasion began. Eastern European nations like Estonia, Romania and Poland have hosted increasing numbers of U.S. troops and weaponry, while also building up their own defenses to deter Russian aggression.
Austin spoke with Poland’s Minister of Defense Mariusz Blaszczak while visiting the Polish base, which officials asked to remain unnamed because of the major role it plays in pushing U.S. and Western military aid into Ukraine.
“This matters, because people are trying to survive on the other end,” Austin said. “There are people dying every day.”
Austin’s trip to Kyiv on Monday was a display of Western solidarity amid increasing concerns that support for Ukraine could be waning as U.S. attention is directed to the conflict in the Middle East.
U.S. Congress has yet to fund additional assistance to Ukraine, which in turn has caused the Pentagon to start sending smaller military aid packages to Kyiv in an effort to make the funding they have left last longer.
During the visit, Austin announced a new U.S. aid package of up to $100 million from the Pentagon’s weapons stockpiles, including an additional HIMARS artillery rocket system and more munitions. Prior to the announcement, he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and members of his cabinet about the immediate winter fight and planning for future security assistance.
Monday marked the defense secretary’s first visit to the Ukrainian capital since April 2022, shortly after the nearly two-year war began. Russia launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February of that year, calling the war a “special military operation.”
“We don’t want to live in a world where an autocrat can wake up and … take over his neighbor’s property,” Austin said Tuesday.
The U.S defense secretary will host another round of talks of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group virtually from the Pentagon on Wednesday. The Pentagon says more than 50 nations are expected to participate in the talks, which help Ukraine’s partners coordinate military aid sent to Kyiv.
Defense officials say the U.S. will provide a steady stream of security assistance throughout the winter, and Austin told reporters on Monday he expects the Ukrainians to be “aggressive” in the weeks ahead.
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2023-11-21, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
I like to take a screen shot on opening day of a new feature.
http://scripting.com/2023/11/21.html#a201111
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
“She groped my butt,” the Minnesota woman told a TV station. “I turned to her and said, ‘We are not doing that!’”
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282153198.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Liliputing
Many Black Friday deals went live a little (or a lot) early this year, and there are plenty of deep discounts available on mobile tech products including laptops, tablets, smartphones, mini PCs, and more. There are also some good deals on digital media, allowing you to save on PC games, video or music streaming services, […]
The post Black Friday 2023 Digital Deals (download & stream videos, music, games, eBooks and more) appeared first on Liliputing.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
A series of exhibitions in the country spotlight the enduring appeal of ancient Egypt for modern audiences
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The store clerk was “in shock,” the Iowa Lottery winner said.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282162083.html
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2023-11-21, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
I
added an item to the
artcasting
test feed, and also added code in FeedLand to
display
them. On an initial browse
around other feeds and collections, it seems a few are using the
enclosure for images in artful ways. Some of it is spammy, of course.
Should’ve seen that coming. Heh. But we limit the vertical space a feed
item gets in the timeline, you can see the whole thing by clicking on
it, and clicking again after having a look. If you want to create a
genuine art feed, then I want to make it look great in FeedLand. And
keep the more rude feeds manageable. If you’re playing around with
artcasting, let me know, I’d like to see how others are doing, and share
interesting stuff with people who follow this feed.
http://scripting.com/2023/11/21.html#a200309
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
How you live is more important than how long you live.
https://www.fresnobee.com/sports/outdoors/hunting-fishing/article282133823.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners: Find great deals on suitcases and luggage
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article282141558.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: NASA breaking news
This article is for students grades 5-8 A black hole is a region in space where the pulling force of gravity is so strong that light is not able to escape. The strong gravity occurs because matter has been pressed into a tiny space. This compression can take place at the end of a star’s […]
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/for-kids-and-students/what-is-a-black-hole-grades-5-8/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Expecting too much leftover turkey? Turn to these easy, flavorful recipes to use it up quickly.
https://www.fresnobee.com/living/food-drink/recipes/article282167773.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
“I had already seen the cubs, so I knew I wasn’t safe.”
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article282149658.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: NASA breaking news
This article is for students grades K-4. A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying. Because no light can get […]
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/for-kids-and-students/what-is-a-black-hole-grades-k-4/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
What’s changed? Commissioner Rob Manfred won’t say, but businesses are learning that taking sides is a fool’s errand. | Opinion
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/article282159928.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
A 28-year-old driver was killed in the crash, highway patrol said.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282166308.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article282162943.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Officials will use planes and helicopters to search once the area is deemed safe.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282163083.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The famous musician commissioned the trippy mural for his home in Kenwood at the height of Beatlemania
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Kettle By now you’ve probably all seen the drama at OpenAI unfolding: CEO Sam Altman being fired by the board, attempts to woo him back, and attempts by Microsoft to hire him and his staff, who have threatened to quit.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/kettle_openai/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Opinion of The Fresno Bee Editorial Board: The story is right out of Hollywood, but it is all too real.
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/editorials/article282118163.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article282162368.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
He was trapped in snowy and “steep terrain,” rescuers said.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/world/article282163183.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: 404 Media Group
The Eight Sleep pod is a mattress topper with a terms of service and a privacy policy. The company “may share or sell” the sleep data it collects from its users.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The “stout” orange creature with “short and thick” limbs was discovered in northeastern Vietnam.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/world/article282156033.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
“You don’t want your child like that.”
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282156868.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Is Walmart’s CEO thinking about his employees’ families — or the fact that he won’t have to shell out bonus pay? | Opinion
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/article282101923.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The cub’s pale, pink-hued coloring is likely caused by a genetic mutation.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/world/article282159093.html
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Elon Musk has made good on threats to take legal action against Media Matters over its reports alleging high-profile ads are being served next to antisemitic posts, filing a suit yesterday in Texas.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/x_sues_media_matters/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners: Give that special someone something beautiful.
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article282120738.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: NASA breaking news
NASA announces the award of eleven grants or cooperative agreements for exciting new Space Biology research that will advance NASA’s understanding of how exposure to lunar dust/regolith impact both plant and animal systems. As human exploration prepares to go beyond Earth Orbit, Space Biology is advancing its research priorities towards work that will enable organisms […]
date: 2023-11-21, from: Liliputing
Just a few weeks after launching the new Dimensity 9300 processor for flagship smartphones, MediaTek is unveiling a cheaper model for “premium,” phones. The new Dimensity 8300 may not deliver the same level of performance as the company’s most powerful chip, but the company is promising big gains in performance and efficiency over last year’s […]
The post MediaTek Dimensity 8300 promises 20% faster CPU, 60% faster GPU, and 3.3X faster AI for sub-flagship smartphones appeared first on Liliputing.
date: 2023-11-21, from: National Archives, Text Message blog
Around the United States, most states have a building dedicated to the production of armaments as well as for the establishment for a Federal arsenal. There are more than seventeen hundred references to “armory” in the records of the National Register. One of the oldest is the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts, (National Archives Identifier … Continue reading Records Relating to Armories in the National Register of Historic Places
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
“Wowie and Zowie have blossomed into the most affectionate, gentle puppies who love to play,” Alabama police said.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282154608.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
So-called “chimeric” monkeys could help scientists understand human diseases and aid in conservation efforts, but the research raises ethical questions
date: 2023-11-21, from: Heatmap News
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy just announced a rule requiring that all new cars sold in the state must be electric by 2035, with interim goals starting for model year 2027 and ramping up from there.
Meeting these goals will take an aggressive push given that as of June, just 1.8% of the state’s light duty vehicles were electric, according to the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. To help with the transition, New Jersey offers rebates — up to $4,000 — on top of federal tax credits towards EV purchases. And though the Garden State has just 911 public charging locations as of February, compared to California’s 16,000, it plans to add 500 more by 2025.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the state’s EV advocates greeted Murphy’s announcement with optimism. “Our state needs to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, and after this announcement we are no longer sitting in the slow lane while other states pass us by on clean energy,” Alex Ambrose, a climate policy analyst for New Jersey Policy Perspective, told local news outlet NJ Advance Media.
The new rule is based on a 2022 California regulation known as Advanced Clean Cars II, making New Jersey one of 17 states, including New York and Maryland, to adopt all or part of California’s low- or zero-emission vehicle regulations. Crucially, as Kate Klinger of the Governor’s Office of Climate Action and the Green Economy told ROI-NJ, Advanced Clean Cars II does not affect the sale of used cars. So just as a federal assault weapons ban wouldn’t mean AR-15s suddenly disappear, so too do EV sales targets allow for the continued existence of internal combustion vehicles.
Will that make 2035 the beginning of a new environmental culture war — new-car liberals versus used-car conservatives? We can only hope. As a native New Jerseyan, I’ll look forward to the day when our most vigorous debate is no longer whether the state’s favorite breakfast meat should be called “Taylor ham” or “pork roll.”
https://heatmap.news/sparks/nj-ev-sales-phil-murphy
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The man and his girlfriend entered the Wingstop in Tennessee and demanded the employee open the store’s safe, an arrest warrant says.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282150568.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Opinion by Marek Warszawski: “Four decades since its conception, Veterans Boulevard finally exists.”
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/marek-warszawski/article282097813.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The lottery win also was a windfall for the Cambria General Store, where the scratcher was sold.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article282161143.html
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
SpaceX supremo Elon Musk expects the next Starship to be ready to launch in three to four weeks following the monster rocket’s latest failure.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/elon_musk_next_starship_ready/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners: Find great gift ideas for friends and family who love to travel
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article282128333.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: NASA breaking news
Connect your sci-fi fandom and learn about how NASA explores the unknown in space for all humanity! Join experts and engagement team members from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley at FAN EXPO San Francisco 2023. Visit the exhibit, panels, and more to hear about NASA’s plans for human exploration at the Moon and […]
https://www.nasa.gov/events/connect-with-nasa-at-fan-expo-san-francisco-2023/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The 68-year-old jogger recorded the shooting, California officials said.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article282151988.html
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The main players among the RHEL rebuilders have caught up… but it’s possibly too soon to tell if this market is going to survive Red Hat’s moves.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/rocky_n_oracle_linux_9_3/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Liliputing
The PlayStation Portal is a handheld gaming device with an 8 inch full HD display squeezed between two halves of a Sony DualSense controller with haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, and stereo speakers. Available now for $200, the PlayStation Portal is designed for one thing only: streaming games from a PlayStation 5 console. You can’t officially […]
The post Sony PlayStation Portal handheld teardown reveals a Qualcomm SG4150P chip and 16,6 Wh battery appeared first on Liliputing.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The experienced hiker was a military veteran.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article282148788.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: City of Santa Clarita
RING IN THE HOLIDAYS AT THE CUBE’S 3rd ANNUAL HOLIDAY TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY Get a Sneak Peak of the Holiday Skate Show – The Nightmare Before Christmas! Join the City of Santa Clarita for the 3rd annual Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony at The Cube – Ice and Entertainment Center, Powered by FivePoint | Valencia on […]
The post Ring in the Holidays at The Cube’s 3rd Annual Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
date: 2023-11-21, from: City of Santa Clarita
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT FUNDING COMING AVAILABLE Santa Clarita Non-Profits Invited to Apply for 2024-25 Funding Cycle The City of Santa Clarita (City) is pleased to announce the release of the 2024-25 Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) and has scheduled informational meetings for organizations interested in applying for 2024-25 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding. […]
The post Community Development Block Grant Funding Coming Available appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2023/11/21/community-development-block-grant-funding-coming-available/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
One California city ranked No. 2 on the list.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article282121463.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The singing animal found in India had golden eyes and a pink-tinged throat, researchers said.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/world/article282122528.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Despite internet claims, castoreum—a substance found in beaver glands—is rarely used today as a food flavoring
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The mother’s 1-year-old baby also died, and her two other children are in critical condition, police said.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282149298.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article281514478.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Consumers are expecting higher prices this year, researchers say.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282101568.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
A teen girl’s out-of-state abortion raised concerns about using a controversial Idaho law.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article281850838.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Om Malik blog
In part two of my podcast with Maykel Loomans, we discussed my creative process and the reasons behind my approach to photography. We talked about some of the challenges we all encounter in the creative process and what he looks for when making photographs. I was especially inspired by Om’s approach to thinking about creative …
https://om.co/2023/11/21/my-creative-process-podcast/
date: 2023-11-21, from: VOA News USA
U.S. forces struck and killed Iranian-backed proxies who earlier had launched a close-range ballistic missile against al-Asad air base in Iraq on Monday.
It was the first time a ballistic missile had been launched against U.S. forces in the Middle East since a surge in attacks began on October 17, and the first time U.S. forces have retaliated with a strike in Iraq. It marks an escalation from the previous attacks over the past month, as ballistic missiles can be much more powerful and carry much more destructive payloads than the rockets and drones used in previous attacks.
U.S. Central Command said the ballistic missile attack caused eight injuries to U.S. personnel and minor damage to infrastructure.
The Pentagon said American forces were able to locate an Iranian-backed militia vehicle and a number of personnel involved in the attack. An AC-130 gunship crew then conducted a “self-defense strike” in retaliation, killing three enemy fighters.
Iranian-backed proxies have attacked U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria at least 150 times since President Joe Biden took office, two U.S. defense officials have told VOA. More than 60 rocket and drone attacks against U.S. forces have come since October 17.
Most of those attacks were disrupted by the U.S. military or failed to reach their targets, causing no casualties or damage to infrastructure, according to the military. But a handful of attacks have injured dozens of U.S. military personnel, with injuries ranging from traumatic brain injuries to minor injuries such as shrapnel or perforated eardrums. Officials say those injured have since returned to duty.
One U.S. contractor at al-Asad Air Base in Iraq suffered a cardiac episode and died while sheltering in place during a false alarm for an air attack.
In addition to today’s AC-130 strike in Iraq, U.S. fighter jets have carried out three rounds of strikes targeting four facilities in Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their proxy groups.
The Middle East has been a tinderbox since Iranian-backed Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,200 people while taking about 200 more people hostage. Israel’s retaliatory strikes and ground offensive has caused thousands of deaths.
The U.S. has increased its presence in the region to protect the roughly 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria and to deter malign actors, including Iran, the Houthis and Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed proxy militias, from expanding the Israel-Hamas conflict.
A spate of attacks from Iranian-backed militants in March killed a U.S. contractor in Syria, caused traumatic brain injuries in 23 military personnel, and wounded 25 U.S. military personnel, according to the Pentagon.
The Pentagon responded with air strikes against Iranian-backed facilities in Syria, much like the strikes carried out by U.S. forces in recent weeks.
The last time Iran or Iranian-backed proxies used ballistic missiles against U.S. forces in Iraq was in 2020 following a U.S. attack in Iraq the killed Iranian Quds force leader Qassem Soleimani.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The fire department said drivers should not park over leaves.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282146328.html
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Sumo Logic has confirmed that no customer data was compromised as a result of the potential security breach it discovered on November 3.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/sumo_logic_security_breach/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Michael Tsai
My apps (DropDMG, EagleFiler, SpamSieve) are on sale for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and here are some other good deals that I found: Apps: Adobe Affinity Akismet AllTrails Apparent Software Appfigures Astro CYME Corel Curio Dada Mail Deckset (INDIE-APP-SALES) DisplayBuddy (INDIEAPPSALES) DEVONtechnologies DevUtils Drafts Ducklet DxO Ergonis Flexibits Gaia GPS Gentlemen Coders Gitonium GlanceCam […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2023/11/21/black-friday-2023/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Liliputing
Last week smartphone maker Nothing made waves by announcing plans to launch Nothing Chats, an app that promised to let users of its Android phones tap into Apple’s iMessage service. The promise was that users could use iMessage features like group chats, live typing indicators, and voice notes… and messages would show up on Apple […]
The post Sunbird’s iMessage for Android app is on “pause” due to “security concerns” appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/sunbirds-imessage-for-android-app-is-on-pause-due-to-security-concerns/
date: 2023-11-21, from: David Rosenthal’s blog
|
| Source |
abnormal first-significant-digit distributions, size rounding, and transaction tail distributions on unregulated exchanges reveal rampant manipulations unlikely driven by strategy or exchange heterogeneity. We quantify the wash trading on each unregulated exchange, which averaged over 70% of the reported volume.Unfortunately, despite knowing about the manipulation, the CFTC approved Bitcoin futures ETFs. Among the requests that the SEC refused was one from Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Grayscale sued the SEC and, back in August, the panel of judges ruled in their favor:
The court’s panel of judges said Grayscale showed that its proposed bitcoin ETF is “materially similar” to the approved bitcoin futures ETFs. That’s because the underlying assets— bitcoin and bitcoin futures - are “closely correlated,” and because the surveillance sharing agreements with the CME are “identical and should have the same likelihood of detecting fraudulent or manipulative conduct in the market for bitcoin.”The prospect of the SEC approving this ETF and others from, for example, BlackRock and Fidelity led to something of a buying frenzy in Bitcoin as shown in the “price” chart, and in headlines such as Bitcoin ETF Exuberance Drives Four-Week ‘Nothing for Sale’ Rally:
With that in mind, the court ruled that the SEC was “arbitrary and capricious” to reject the filing because it “never explained why Grayscale owning bitcoins rather than bitcoin futures affects the CME’s ability to detect fraud.”
Bitcoin is climbing for a fourth consecutive week, with the digital token’s price lingering just below an 18-month high of $38,000, as more investors bet that US exchange-traded funds that hold the largest cryptocurrency are on the verge of winning regulatory approval.Below the fold I look into where this euphoria came from, and why it might be misplaced
February 2021, when the Purpose bitcoin ETF launched in Canada. Unlike GBTC, which trades over-the-counter, Purpose trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange, close to NAV. At 1%, its management fees are half that of GBTC. Within a month of trading, Purpose quickly absorbed more than $1 billion worth of assets.So why would a US-based Bitcoin ETF be a big deal? The thesis is that by making it easier for US
The number of over-the-counter desks has declined, with mainly the more conservative ones remaining, according to Tegan Kline, co-founder of Edge & Node, which developed a crypto project called The Graph. That, combined with the erosion of leverage, has sapped liquidity.
“Leverage is gone,” Kline said. “A lot of people have pulled money out of the system or they have money stuck at FTX.”
|
| Source |
| Quarter |
Retail $M |
Institutions $M |
Institutions % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q4 2021 | 2,185.8 | 90.8 | 4.2 |
| Q1 2022 | 965.8 | 47.2 | 4.9 |
| Q2 2022 | 616.2 | 39.0 | 6.3 |
| Q3 2022 | 346.1 | 19.8 | 5.7 |
| Q4 2022 | 308.8 | 13.4 | 4.3 |
| Q1 2023 | 352.4 | 22.3 | 6.3 |
| Q2 2023 | 310.0 | 17.1 | 5.5 |
| Q3 2023 | 274.5 | 14.1 | 5.1 |
Trading volume is the lifeblood of a crypto exchange — and Coinbase’s is through the floor. The exchange saw $76 billion in total trading volume in Q3, down from $92 billion in Q2. (They did $547 billion in trading volume in Q4 2021, their last profitable quarter.)So volume is down 84% from its peak. No wonder Coinbase laid off staff in June 2022 and January 2023. And why Blockchain.com just raised money at less than half its valuation in 2022.
selling unregistered securities and running an exchange, a broker-dealer, and a clearinghouse as part of the same operation — and without registering any of these.Castor and Gerard point out that:
If the SEC wins, Coinbase may have to stop trading in any cryptos other than CFTC-regulated commodity coins such as bitcoin. There isn’t enough volume in those for Coinbase to live on.Lynn Parramore transcribes an interview with Jim Chanos in Jim Chanos: “The Crypto Ecosystem Is Well-Suited for the Dark Side of Finance.” that expresses the famed short-seller’s skepticism:
This is why Coinbase is so insistent on trading blatant unregistered securities — it’s all they have left for a business model.
JC: … The last iteration that you just touched upon is the hope by aspects of Wall Street that crypto gets institutionalized because the one thing that Bitcoin really has — and we’ve pointed this out to our clients — is ridiculous levels of transaction fees associated with it. So Coinbase, for example, which is one of our shorts, charges customers over 4% per round trip trade to transact in a so-called currency.So, even if there is a flood of retail money into Bitcoin ETFs, the exchanges’ fee income isn’t going to recover. Chanos’ students share his skepticism about the industry:
LP: Why would people be willing to pay that?
JC: Well, exactly. They think the asset price is going to go up. It’s like a Nasdaq stock, not a currency. So they’ll pay, and Wall Street wants the fees. The cost structure in crypto is quite high and so the fees are really high. You need retail investors because institutions aren’t going to be paying 4% per round trip to buy and sell Bitcoin. Mom and Pop are, so Wall Street needs to keep the public interested in the crypto space. The paradox, of course, is that if BlackRock and Vanguard and whoever do get ETFs, it’s actually going to force fees down, not up, because ETF fees will be a fraction of the cost of what Coinbase or Binance charge. It’s like mutual fund fees and stock trading fees: they’ve all converged to zero.
LP: Are your Wisconsin students still excited about crypto?Will the flood happen? Teresa Xie’s Former Crypto Day Traders Say No Thanks Even as Bitcoin Roars Back presents some negative evidence:
JC: They were much more enthusiastic in 2021, 2020, 2019. There’s a lot less enthusiasm now in terms of students going to work for a crypto startup or whatever. I had a number of them in 2020 and 2021 who said they were going to work in the digital currency or blockchain space. I don’t hear that as much anymore.
LP: How about your Yale students?
JC: The last two springs, they’ve been skeptical. During the spring semester of 2022, Bankman-Fried’s now-infamous interview with Bloomberg dropped about an hour before my class started. I ran to the audiovisual department to see if I could get the interview up on our screen because to me it was such a bombshell. This was where Bankman-Fried basically called the crypto ecosystem a giant Ponzi scheme. I told the class it was very rare to get an industry leader telling you that his industry is a Ponzi scheme. That was seven months before the collapse.
Craig Murray, who estimates he made almost $200,000 in the market, says he escaped losing everything to FTX by a hair after friends in the industry heard whispers about its imminent collapse. By that point, the 23-year-old — who lives in New York and recently dropped out of Vanderbilt University — had made up his mind.So it seems unlikely that there will be a huge flood of retail dollars into the market. Even if there were, they would go into Bitcoin ETFs, which would present the exchanges with two big problems:
“That kind of put me over the edge,” Murray said. “I just decided it wasn’t worth it. Why would I have my money in this space when there’s a chance that one day it could just all go away?”
Another sign that retail investing in crypto isn’t returning to previous levels can be seen in weekday versus weekend volumes, with the presumption that the typical person trading on a weekend is a day trader.
“It’s not unusual nowadays to see weekday trading volume average 50% higher values than weekend trading volume, whereas in the past this ratio was almost 1:1,” said Fredrick Collins, chief executive and founder of crypto data platform Velo Data.
It seems likely that even if the cryptosphere’s hopes for ETFs
materialize the exchanges will end up in an even worse position than
they now are.
https://blog.dshr.org/2023/11/desperately-seeking-retail.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Marketplace Morning Report
The Index of Leading Economic Indicators is supposed to give insight into where the economy’s headed. It’s been pointing to a recession for 19 months, but that economic slowdown has yet to materialize. So what are economists predicting now? We’ll also hear about the slim possibility of airline strikes. And later: Polish drivers blockade trucks at the Ukrainian border.
date: 2023-11-21, from: 404 Media Group
The removals come as Hugging Face is banned in China, which the company called “regrettable.”
https://www.404media.co/hugging-face-removes-singing-ai-models-of-xi-but-not-of-biden/
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Broadcom’s troubled acquisition of virtualization juggernaut VMware has cleared the final regulatory hurdle and will close as soon as tomorrow after China gave the transaction the green light.…
date: 2023-11-21, from: Miek Giebin blog
I’m using the following shortcode (saved as gallery.html) in Hugo to generate a gallery containing both video and photos. Comments in the code. May it be helpful for you. It comes (of course) with no support. The cover photo handling is done by my Hugo theme (terminal) btw. <!– All img/*.{webm,ogv} video files are taken and simularly the caption file is used to generate a video control. –> {{- $videos := .
https://miek.nl/2023/november/21/gallery-shortcode/
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Three quarters of software engineers reporting wrongdoing in their workplace have faced some kind of retaliation, according to a study.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/software_engineer_whistleblowing/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Tanner the dog is known for dancing when he gets excited.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article282139838.html
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The US has earmarked $3 billion in funding it hopes will drive US leadership in advanced packaging technologies, seen as a key part of the future semiconductor industry.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/chips_for_america_funding/
date: 2023-11-21, from: 404 Media Group
Grips on the PS5 DualSense Edge controller are peeling away after normal use, according to 404 Media’s own experience and multiple people complaining online.
https://www.404media.co/ps5-dualsense-edge-grips-peel-bubbles/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Guam Daily Post
President Joe Biden signed off on another stopgap funding measure last week, once again averting a federal government shutdown, at least until early 2024. The continuing resolution includes an extension of existing compact funding provisions for two nations among the…
date: 2023-11-21, from: Guam Daily Post
While Guam Del. James Moylan discussed various initiatives during a press conference Monday, he also took the time to address some concerns brought up during a demonstration last week at his district office in Hagåtña.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Guam Daily Post
Residents can file a claim with the Guam Power Authority if their property is damaged as a result of load shedding, according to Attorney General Douglas Moylan.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Guam Daily Post
Sen. William Parkinson has introduced legislation proposing to abolish the elected Consolidated Commission on Utilities and replace it with an appointed board, a measure proposed earlier by Attorney General Douglas Moylan.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Guam Daily Post
Two teens were charged after allegedly starting a riot at a public high school over a stolen vaping device.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Guam Daily Post
Guam’s first Major League Baseball player is set to plead guilty to 2021 charges of drug possession and possession of a gun without a permit.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Guam Daily Post
A woman who was shot by a man who then killed himself in Toto last week is owed damages by the man and his family after a civil dispute was resolved in the Superior Court of Guam earlier this year.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Guam Daily Post
Beginning around January or February 2024, the Guam Department of Education will be taking a look at restructuring the number of public schools on the island, as the current capacity far exceeds the student enrollment that needs to be serviced,…
date: 2023-11-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Experts are now analyzing the specimen, which could belong to a Native American woman
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/human-skull-found-at-florida-vintage-shop-180983221/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The family of the woman killed in the April collision is also suing.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/crime/article282125728.html
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The government of Canada has confirmed its data was accessed after two of its third-party service providers were attacked.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/thirdparty_data_breach_at_canadian/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
A team of researchers has developed an affordable method to capture volcanic activity with Raspberry Pi cameras.
The post Low-cost volcanic activity detection with Raspberry Pi cameras appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/low-cost-volcanic-activity-detection-with-raspberry-pi-cameras/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has filed a lawsuit against nonprofit Media Matters after it released an analysis showing that ads on the platform appeared next to antisemitic content. Media Matters’ report prompted some companies to pull advertising. We dig in. Then, from Marketplace Morning Report’s “Skin in the Game” series, up-and-coming video game developers share their dream jobs.
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The LAist
Calls from inside jails will be free starting Dec. 1. Right now, people in jail are only allowed to make collect calls to the outside.
https://laist.com/news/politics/la-jails-free-phone-calls
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The LAist
Lacking power at the state level, conservatives are leaning into local governance to protest California’s progressive politics. The fight in Huntington Beach could be a harbinger of what’s to come.
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The LAist
The college’s lessons on sustainability reach beyond the classroom.
https://laist.com/news/education/santa-monica-college-worms-food-waste-climate-change-compost
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article281520088.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
The courts use driver’s licenses, DMV identification cards, tax filer and voter registration lists to summon people for jury duty.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/article281947718.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
(Ich rede natürlich von der Welt im Rollenspiel und vom meinen Horte Traktat im besonderen.)
Die Geschichte ist nur insofern relevant, als sie als Inspiration für alte Ruinen und magische Gegenstände dient, auf Buchtiteln und Inschriften erwähnt wird. Ein genauer Zeitstrahl ist nicht wichtig, ausser man ist Gelehrter statt Abenteurer.
Die Kriege liefern beispielsweise die “Erklärung” für gewisse magische Waffen – und umgekehrt verleihen die Zusätze bei den magischen Waffen der Welt etwas Tiefe. Das ist, wie wenn man von Geschichte keine Ahnung hat und zum ersten Mal von den Kriegen unserer Welt hört.
Dies sind die Hexen und Nekromanten, die zur Unsterblichkeit gefunden haben und sich dann bekriegt haben. Ihnen ist gemeinsam, dass sie an Pässen Wachtürme gebaut haben, die durch Zauberei geschützt waren, flammende Inschriften bezeugen noch immer alte Grenzen und untote Wächter bewachen noch immer die alten Zugänge.
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2023-11-19-geschichte
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2023-11-21, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Raise your hand if you woke up feeling the AGI
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111448643552678035
date: 2023-11-21, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: A human rights group in Cambodia says that clothing waste from big brands like Adidas, Walmart and others are being burnt as cheap fuel in factories making bricks. Plus, a look at why China has particular concern for Zambia’s debt restructuring plan.
date: 2023-11-21, from: VOA News USA
More people work from home in Colorado, while Mississippi has the lowest percentage of teleworkers
https://www.voanews.com/a/these-us-states-have-the-most-remote-workers-/7359759.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: VOA News USA
The White House says it is closer than ever to a deal to release the more than 230 hostages held by Hamas, but that it did not have an update to share Monday. The White House also reaffirmed that the U.S. does not want Israel and Hamas firefights at Gaza hospitals. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Microsoft has begun rolling out the Windows 10 incarnation of its Copilot tool to Windows Insiders in the Release Preview Channel.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/copilot_preview_windows_10/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Researchers are not sure whether a virus or bacteria is causing the pets’ ailments
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: Bruce Schneier blog
Google’s Threat Analysis Group announced a zero-day against the Zimbra Collaboration email server that has been used against governments around the world.
TAG has observed four different groups exploiting the same bug to steal email data, user credentials, and authentication tokens. Most of this activity occurred after the initial fix became public on Github. To ensure protection against these types of exploits, TAG urges users and organizations to keep software fully up-to-date and apply security updates as soon as they become available.
The vulnerability was discovered in June. It has been patched…
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/11/email-security-flaw-found-in-the-wild.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Daniel Stenberg Blog
URLs is a dear subject of mine on this blog, as readers might have noticed. “URL” is this mythical concept of a string that identifies a resource online and yet there is no established standard for its syntax. There are instead multiple ones out of which one is on purpose “moving” so it never actually … Continue reading URL parser performance
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2023/11/21/url-parser-performance/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
Every day is backup day. I use BorgBackup to backup up my laptop to one of two external disks. One of these is always at the office, so there are three copies: on my laptop, on a backup disk at home and on a backup disk at the office. It’s important that those three are never in the same location.
I do concede, however, that it’s tricky setup.
For my wife, I’ve set up the Mac to backup the laptop and an external disk with media files to one of two external disks. Again, one of these is always at the office. So, same deal, except now I’m using TimeMachine instead of BorgBackup. Somehow, that makes it take a very long time. But it seems to work.
Still, plugging in backup disks, carrying them to the office, bringing the other one back, plugging it in again… as you can imagine, we don’t do this nearly often enough.
So I need a quick way to backup stuff. Like, super quick. Super cheap.
The simplest option I can think of is to use rsync on the local disk because it has an option to create links for files – and while a link doesn’t take zero space, it takes a lot less space than making a copy.
So what I wanted was a quick command that I can run in the directory I’m in and it creates a backup using rsync.
I’ve used the following bash script. Let me know if it can be improved.
#!/usr/bin/bash
d=$(basename $(pwd))
t=$(date --iso-8601)
echo Creating a snapshot of $d in ../$d-$t
rsync --link-dest "../$d" --archive . "../$d-$t/"
That is, if the current directory is /home/alex/src/wiki:
/home/alex/src/wiki-2023-11-19
(appending today’s date)
When I use ls -l, this is what it looks like:
drwxr-xr-x 67 alex alex 749568 18. Nov 23:56 wiki/
drwxr-xr-x 67 alex alex 548864 17. Okt 23:43 wiki-2023-10-17/
drwxr-xr-x 67 alex alex 548864 19. Okt 22:47 wiki-2023-10-19/
drwxr-xr-x 67 alex alex 552960 30. Okt 13:18 wiki-2023-10-30/
It’s not great, but it works.
For a file that hasn’t changed, you’ll see that ls -l says
there are four links to this file. This is correct: one link for every
directory. The data exists only once, on the disk.
> ls -l w*/2000-03-10_Elendor.md
-rw-r--r-- 4 alex alex 16313 28. Apr 2017 wiki/2000-03-10_Elendor.md
-rw-r--r-- 4 alex alex 16313 28. Apr 2017 wiki-2023-10-17/2000-03-10_Elendor.md
-rw-r--r-- 4 alex alex 16313 28. Apr 2017 wiki-2023-10-19/2000-03-10_Elendor.md
-rw-r--r-- 4 alex alex 16313 28. Apr 2017 wiki-2023-10-30/2000-03-10_Elendor.md
For a file that changes all the time, ls -l shows that
there is just one link for every file, meaning that these files are
distinct. And for a lay person, that is confirmed by the different file
size and last modified timestamp.
> ls -l w*/changes.md
-rw-r--r-- 1 alex alex 1997 17. Okt 16:28 wiki-2023-10-17/changes.md
-rw-r--r-- 1 alex alex 2123 19. Okt 22:36 wiki-2023-10-19/changes.md
-rw-r--r-- 1 alex alex 5847 30. Okt 13:18 wiki-2023-10-30/changes.md
-rw-r--r-- 1 alex alex 4255 18. Nov 23:54 wiki/changes.md
As
@edavies and
@Sandra have pointed
out, this only works if the editing you do always recreates the files
you’re editing (because then these files get a new inode even if their
names stay the same). Examples where this is a problem: database files
are updated in place; some editors allow you to decide how backups are
created. Emacs, for example, has the option
backup-by-copying which is nil by default. When you save a
file, the original is renamed to the backup and a new file is written.
If you set the option, however, the backup is copied first, and then the
original is changed in-place (like a database file, without getting a
new inode). Now you’ve changed the file in all the “cheap backup”
directories, since the links keep pointing to the same inode and that
inode now points to the new file.
Possibly a better solution that uses copies for the first backup and then future backups link to the old backups (and never to the originals) would be the following:
#!/usr/bin/bash
d=$(basename $(pwd))
t=$(date --iso-8601)
p=$(find .. -maxdepth 1 -type d -name "$d-[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]-[0-9][0-9]-[0-9][0-9]" -prune | sort | tail -n 1)
if [ -z "$p" ]; then
echo Creating a snapshot of $d in ../$d-$t
rsync --archive . "../$d-$t/"
else
echo Creating a snapshot of $d in ../$d-$t with links into $p
rsync --link-dest "$p" --archive . "../$d-$t/"
fi
Note that now, in case you just need a single backup, you might just as well just make a copy using your favourite file manager. Not so cheap any more, eh? 🤨
Or use rsync-time-backup, a shell script.
Or rsnapshot, a Perl script.
@edavies offered the
following script for a use case for /home,
/etc and /usr/local to a 1TB hard drive by the
computer:
#!/bin/bash
set -e
STAMP=$(date "+%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S")
DEST=/run/media/ed/hitachi
MACHINE=$(uname -n)
TARGET=$DEST/$MACHINE
[ -d $TARGET ] || (
mkdir $TARGET
mkdir $TARGET/0
ln -s ../0 $TARGET/current
)
[ -L $TARGET/current ] || (
echo Target directory $TARGET/current doesn\'t exist or isn\'t a symlink
false
)
for DIR in home etc usr/local
do
mkdir -p $TARGET/incomplete-$STAMP/$DIR
rsync -axv --link-dest=$TARGET/current/$DIR/ /$DIR/ $TARGET/incomplete-$STAMP/$DIR/
done
mv $TARGET/incomplete-$STAMP $TARGET/back-$STAMP
rm -f $TARGET/current
ln -s back-$STAMP $TARGET/current
ls -l $TARGET
df -h $DEST
umount $DEST
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2023-11-19-cheap-backups
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Nvidia has given the world a “SuperNIC” – another device to improve network performance, just like the “SmartNIC,” the “data processing unit” (DPU), and the “infrastructure processing unit” (IPU). But the GPU-maker insists its new device is more than just a superlative.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/nvidia_supernic_nic/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Raspberry Pi (.org)
Since launching our free online courses about computing on the edX platform back in August, we’ve been training course facilitators and analysing the needs of educators around the world. We want every course participant to have a great experience learning with us — read on to find out what we’re doing right now and into…
The post Evolving our online courses to help more people be computing educators appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/free-online-courses-computing-education-updates-2023/
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Microsoft veteran Raymond Chen took to YouTube over the weekend to remind us of the time the Windows vendor accidentally sank Poland.…
date: 2023-11-21, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog
Today’s links Naomi Kritzer’s “Liberty’s Daughter”: The market authoritarianism of a seastead childhood. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Naomi Kritzer’s “Liberty’s Daughter” (permalink) There’s so much sf about “competent men” running their families with entrepreneurial zeal, clarity of vision and a firm confident hand. But there’s precious little fiction about how much being raised by a Heinlein dad would suuuck. But it would, and in Naomi Kritzer’s Liberty’s Daughter, we get a peek inside the nightmare: https://fairwoodpress.com/store/p148/LIBERTY%27S_DAUGHTER.html Beck Garrison is a seasteader, living on a floating platform built by libertarian cranks to get away from big government, taxes, and the idea that people owe each other care and consideration. Various kinds of market trufans have built their own fiefdoms: there’s a sin city, a biotech free-for-all, a lawless Mad Max zone, and so on. Beck’s father, Paul, is some kind of local functionary. He’s wealthy and respected, both a power-broker and a power in his own right. He pays for Beck to get private tutoring (no public schools – no public anything) and if she needs bailing out from some kind of sticky situation, he’s got her on his account with Alpha Dogs, the toughest mercenaries on the sea (no police, either). An armed society is a polite society, after all. Beck has a job, naturally (there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch). She’s a finder: for all that the steaders worship commerce as a sacrament consecrated to the holy Invisible Hand, there’s not a lot of retail at sea. California – the nearest onshore neighbor – has lots of pesky taxes, and besides, it’s a long ways off. Besides, space is at a premium on the stead, so people don’t have attics and basements to fill with excess consumer junk. Instead, when a steader needs something – a shoelace, a fashion accessory, or any other creature comfort – they hire a finder like Beck to clamber around between the decks of the aircraft carriers, scows, yachts and other vessels comprising the stead. It’s a good way for Beck to earn spending money, and she’s a natural at it. After all, she’s been a steader since she was four, when her mother died in a drunk driving accident and her father took her to sea. The story opens with a finding job. Beck wants a pair of sparkly shoes for her client, and the woman who owns them is an indentured servant whose sister has gone missing. Find the sister, get the shoes. Indentured servant? Yeah, of course. Freedom of contract is the one freedom from which all the others flow, so you can sell yourself into bond labor. Hell, maybe you can earn enough to buy a share in the stead and become a co-owner/citizen. This is the setup for Beck’s adventure, which sees her liberating bond slaves tricked into fatal work details, getting involved in reality TV production, meeting illegal IWW organizers, and becoming embroiled in a pandemic that threatens the lives of all the steaders. It’s a coming of age novel, told with the same straightforward, spunky zeal of Heinlein’s juvies, but from the perspective of the daughter, not the dad. Kritzer makes it clear that growing up under the thumb of a TANSTAAFL-worshipping, self-regarding, wealthy autocrat who worships selfishness as the necessary precondition for market clearing would be a goddamned nightmare. She also thinks through some of the important implications of life in one of these offshore libertarian archipelagos, like the fact that the wealthy residents would be overwhelming drawn from the ranks of corporate criminals and tax-cheats, and the underclass would be bail-skipping proles ensnared in the War on Drugs. But Liberty’s Daughter isn’t a hymn to big government. Most of the steaders are escaping the US government, a state whose authoritarian and cruel proclivities are well-documented. Kritzer uses the labor dispute at the core of the novel to reveal market authoritarianism – the coercive power that hunger and poverty transfers from the have-nots to the haves. Think of Anatole France’s wry observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, equally forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” If you’re familiar with Kritzer’s work, you won’t be surprised to learn that she tells a zippy, fast moving tale that smuggles in sharp observations about the cleavage lines between solidarity and selfishness. Her story “So Much Cooking” – published years before the pandemic – captured life under lockdown with eerie prescience: https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/17/pack-of-knaves/#so-much-cooking More recently, her “Better Living Through Algorithms” is a dazzling display of knifework that’ll cut you a dozen times before you even notice that you’re bleeding: https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/02/wunderkammer/#jubillee If you habitually read Kritzer’s short fiction, Liberty’s Daughter might be familiar to you, as it is adapted from a series of stories that originally ran in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Kritzer’s YA debut, Catfishing on the CatNet, was also adapted from a short story, “Cat Pictures Please,” which won the Hugo Award in 2016: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/19/setec-astronomy-kitteh.html “Libertarian exit” – buying a country, or an archipelago, or just a luxury bunker – has been in the air lately. It’s a major element of my new novel, The Lost Cause, which came out this month – anarchocapitalist wreckers try to sabotage the Green New Deal from the seastead they’ve moored to the tallest point in the drowned Grand Caymans and declared to be a sovereign nation: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause Kritzer is great at catching that zeitgeist. Seasteading is part of a long, bitter dream of a certain kind of selfish person to escape society, a tale told in lurid and fascinating detail in Raymond Craib’s 2022 history Adventure Capitalism: https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/14/this-way-to-the-egress/#terra-nullius There’s a longstanding joke to the effect that you can shut down any discussion of the merits of a libertarian exit by asking three questions about the brave new world: I. Whether you can sell your organs; II. Whether you can sell yourself into slavery; and III. Whether there is any age of consent. Kritzer tackles the first two, but tacks around the third. Instead, by giving us a young adult protagonist who has been raised in a rusting libertopia, she finds a decidedly less incendiary way to think about the role of autonomy in adolescents, and thus generates far more light than heat. The result is a cracking read with a sting in its tail. Hey look at this (permalink) Build your own Patek Philippe-style Chronograph using this DIY Wooden Watchmaking Kit https://www.yankodesign.com/2023/11/19/build-your-own-patek-philippe-style-chronograph-using-this-diy-wooden-watchmaking-kit/ 2023 CBC Massey Lectures: Astra Taylor https://www.cbc.ca/radiointeractives/ideas/2023-cbc-massey-lectures-astra-taylor The main risk of machine learning is not that it’s good at what it does https://mamot.fr/@arri@hachyderm.io/111443798898077800 This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago Vivendi burning MP3.com library to the ground https://web.archive.org/web/20031125201326/http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/11/21/14616/561 #15yrsago Homes with Tails: Homeowners providing their own fiber https://web.archive.org/web/20081123114400/http://www.newamerica.net/files/HomesWithTails_wu_slater.pdf #15yrsago Voices of a People’s History of the United States: Fantastic voice actors read the historic work of people who demanded justice from America https://memex.craphound.com/2008/11/21/voices-of-a-peoples-history-of-the-united-states-fantastic-voice-actors-read-the-historic-work-of-people-who-demanded-justice-from-america/ #10yrsago Sweden’s telcos hand over mass spying powers to police, tax authority, customs and other agencies https://falkvinge.net/2013/11/19/swedish-regime-to-give-police-customs-tax-authorities-realtime-access-to-citizens-phone-mail-more/ #10yrsago Differences between life when you’re poor and life when you’re middle class https://web.archive.org/web/20131109113219/https://killermartinis.kinja.com/why-i-make-terrible-decisions-or-poverty-thoughts-1450123558 #10yrsago Because is a new, Internet-driven preposition, because grammar https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/english-has-a-new-preposition-because-internet/281601/ #10yrsago NSA Primary Sources: a catalog of leaked NSA files https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/nsadocs #10yrsago Health Canada outs 40,000 medical marijuana users https://web.archive.org/web/20131125023133/http://metronews.ca/news/ottawa/861955/medical-marijuana-patients-outed-by-health-canada/ #5yrsago Machine learning hucksters invent an AI racist uncle that predicts your personality from your facial bone structure https://www.faception.com #5yrsago Assessing Snowden’s legacy, five years on https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/the-snowden-legacy-part-one-whats-changed-really/ #5yrsago Make: a gingerbread house zoetrope https://medium.com/george-eastman-museum/how-we-made-a-gingerbread-house-zoetrope-b4112b5a9dbe #5yrsago UK minister says airlines used “exploitative algorithms” to split up families unless they paid extra https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/airline-flights-pay-extra-to-sit-together-split-up-family-algorithm-minister-a8640771.html #5yrsago The billionaire family who profited off the opioid epidemic are finally facing legal reprisals https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/19/sackler-family-members-face-mass-litigation-criminal-investigations-over-opioids-crisis #5yrsago In a weird way, Donald Trump is the most honest American president in history https://theintercept.com/2018/11/21/thanksgiving-donald-trump-lies-honest-president/ #5yrsago Americans pay some of the highest prices for wireless data in the world, and it’s going to get worse https://research.rewheel.fi/downloads/The_state_of_4G_pricing_DFMonitor_10th_release_2H2018_PUBLIC.pdf #1yrago Universities secretly sold their students to online casinos https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/21/rah-rah/#sis-boom-bah Colophon (permalink) Today’s top sources: Currently writing: A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025 The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024 Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM Latest podcast: Moral Hazard (from Communications Breakdown) https://craphound.com/stories/2023/11/12/moral-hazard-from-communications-breakdown/ Upcoming appearances: Lost Cause at Simsbury Public Library, Nov 20 (Simsbury, CT) https://simsbury.librarycalendar.com/event/author-visit-cory-doctorow-29257 Generation of Lost Causes, Nov 22 (Toronto) https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/705457551527?aff=oddtdtcreator Who Is Watching Big Tech? Nov 27 (Toronto)` https://web.archive.org/web/20230907160103/https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDMEVT496408&R=EVT496408 The Lost Cause at The Strand (NYC), Nov 29 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-the-lost-cause-tickets-734958008187 The Lost Cause at Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill), Dec 5 https://www.flyleafbooks.com/doctorow-2023 Recent appearances: Digital Markets Act; Interoperability; Entrenchment; Copyright; “What-About-Ism” (Digital Markets Research Hub) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm23pO5_WKM Science fiction for a dystopian present (Institute of Art and Ideas) https://iai.tv/video/science-fiction-for-a-dystopian-present-cory-doctorow?_auid=2020 Pushing back on unconstrained capitalism (Changelog) https://changelog.com/podcast/565 Latest books: “The Lost Cause:” a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/) “The Internet Con”: A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). “Red Team Blues”: “A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before.” Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/. “Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin”, on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com “Attack Surface”: The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it “a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance.” Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism”: an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html) “Little Brother/Homeland”: A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A_Little_Brother%26_Homeland.html “Poesy the Monster Slayer” a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/. Upcoming books: The Bezzle: a sequel to “Red Team Blues,” about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024 Picks and Shovels: a sequel to “Red Team Blues,” about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025 Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025 This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://twitter.com/doctorow Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic “When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla” -Joey “Accordion Guy” DeVilla
https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/21/podkaynes-dad-was-a-dick/
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Analysis No sooner than Intel IA64 support is removed from the Linux kernel, complaining about it begins… but the discussions are fascinating.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/saving_linux_on_itanium/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Part of Chain of Craters Road in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park has been closed as increased seismic activity has been detected beneath Kilauea.</p>
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>KAILUA-KONA — An endangered Hawaiian monk seal that underwent medical treatment in West Hawaii has been released back to her ocean home off Kauai.</p>
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>HONOLULU — The first rounds of the annual Maui Invitational began Monday at Stan Sheriff Center’s SimpliFi Arena.</p>
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Sophomore Kaile Cruz splashed five 3-pointers in UH-Hilo women’s basketball’s home opener to help lead the Vulcans past Multnomah, 96-60, Saturday night in non-conference action at the Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium.</p>
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>DENVER, Colo. — While waiting at Gate 32 at the Denver International Airport, Hawaii head coach Timmy Chang shared an optimistic path for his football team.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/11/21/sports/rainbow-warriors-look-forward-after-loss/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>BATON ROUGE, La. — With LSU star forward Angel Reese missing in action and little explanation forthcoming from coach Kim Mulkey, the seventh-ranked Tigers are attracting unwanted scrutiny at the outset of their national title defense.</p>
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Yoshinobu Yamamoto will become a free agent today and major league teams can sign him through 5 p.m. EST on Jan. 4. </p>
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>HONOLULU – After clawing out of a 2-0 hole, the UH-Hilo Women’s Volleyball team dropped a tough fifth set to HPU in a 3-2 loss (20-25, 23-25, 25-23, 25-18, 8-15) Saturday evening in Pacific West Conference play at The Shark Tank to close out the regular season.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/11/21/sports/vulcans-volleyball-season-ends/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Jalen Hurts ran for a pair of touchdowns, including a go-ahead tush-push score in the fourth quarter, and the Philadelphia Eagles rallied from a 10-point halftime deficit to beat the Kansas City Chiefs 21-17 in a Super Bowl rematch Monday night.</p>
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>When I see a bag of fresh cranberries, I get excited as it means it is getting close to my favorite day, Thanksgiving!</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/11/21/community/lets-talk-food-cranberries-in-season/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Tim Boyle’s first start for the New York Jets might signal the end for Zach Wilson. </p>
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Less than an hour after the House Ethics Committee published their extensive report on the elected fraudster from New York, Con(gress)man George Santos took to Twitter to claim that he will not be running for a second term next year. Don’t believe him. Don’t believe anything this schnook says, since everything is a lie.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/11/21/opinion/convict-santos-now/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>It has become impossible to distinguish between Israel’s decidedly non-surgical operation against Hamas militants in Gaza and the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians. When so-called humanitarian pauses in the bombardment and ground operations are too brief to realistically permit innocents to flee, or when there is no place for non-combatants to go that is not also in the line of fire, such pauses are so deficient as to be meaningless.</p>
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Capita has scooped up a ten-year £239 million ($298 million) contract to oversee the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) on behalf of Britain’s Cabinet Office, giving the under-fire tech services biz a needed boost.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/capita_wins_239m_contract_to/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
@enfors recently wondered about “important aspects of sandboxes that one can iterate over and add to.”
I’m reminded of the term “Gygaxian Building Blocks”. I think I first heard this phrase from @settembrini in episode 1 of Zock Bock Radio, a mostly German, sometimes English podcast about role-playing games. “Gygaxian Building Blocks” are the things one can add individually to the rules and therefore everybody can participate in the game as a creator by writing spells, items, monsters, classes, and so on. These things stand on their own and aren’t usually influenced by other such blocks. Adding them is easy. Conversely, the core game without the lists of spells, items, monsters and classes can be relatively short. It’s a beautiful way of organizing the game.
For a sandbox campaign, the things that have that same quality and which I’d call my “sandbox campaign building blocks” would be:
Anyway, I think those are the things I am concerned about when I start a new campaign. As the campaign progresses, I find it easy to add just one more thing to one of the lists. 😄
If you have a blog post with a similar topic, let me know and I’ll add a link!
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2023-11-19-building-blocks
date: 2023-11-21, from: Robert Reich on Substack
My introduction to political hypocrisy
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/personal-history-the-sexual-revolution
date: 2023-11-21, from: Guam Daily Post
A third batch of Disaster Unemployment Assistance benefits, in the amount of $294,966, has been sent to the Department of Administration for processing this week, according to the Guam Department of Labor.
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Ukraine has terminated its two top cybersecurity officials as the government probes embezzlement allegations against the two men.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/ukraine_cyber_officials_fired/
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Computer science teachers around the globe have been left scrambling to find an alternative IDE for their students, after Replit announced it was shuttering its Teams for Education plan.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/comp_sci_panic/
date: 2023-11-21, from: VOA News USA
Despite inflation and memories of past holiday travel meltdowns, millions of people are expected to hit airports and highways in record numbers over the Thanksgiving break.
The busiest days to fly will be Tuesday and Wednesday as well as the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen 2.6 million passengers on Tuesday and 2.7 million passengers on Wednesday. Sunday will draw the largest crowds with an estimated 2.9 million passengers, which would narrowly eclipse a record set on June 30.
Meanwhile, AAA forecasts that 55.4 million Americans will travel at least 80 kilometers from home between next Wednesday and the Sunday after Thanksgiving, with roads likely to be the most clogged on Wednesday.
The weather could snarl air and road traffic. A storm system was expected to move from the southern Plains to the Northeast on Tuesday and Wednesday, bringing severe thunderstorms, gusty wind and possible snow.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said during a news conference Monday that the government has tried to better prepare for holiday travel over the last year by hiring more air traffic controllers, opening new air routes along the East Coast and providing grants to airports for snowplows and deicing equipment. But he warned travelers to check road conditions and flight times before leaving home.
“Mother Nature, of course, is the X factor in all of this,” he said.
The good news for travelers by plane and car alike: Prices are coming down.
Air fares are averaging $268 per ticket, down 14% from a year ago, according to the travel site Hopper.
Gasoline prices are down about 45 cents a gallon from this time last year. The national average was $3.30 per gallon on Monday, according to AAA, down from $3.67 a year ago.
A survey of GasBuddy users found that despite cheaper pump prices, the number of people planning to take a long driving trip this Thanksgiving hasn’t changed much from last year. Patrick De Haan, an analyst for the price-tracking service, said inflation has cooled but some things like food are still becoming more expensive. Consumers are also charging more on credit cards and saving less.
“Sure, they love the falling gas prices, but a lot of Americans spent in other ways this summer and they may not be ready to open their wallets for Thanksgiving travel just yet,” De Haan said.
Thanksgiving marks the start of the holiday travel season, and many still haven’t shaken last December’s nightmare before Christmas, when severe winter storms knocked out thousands of flights and left millions of passengers stranded.
Scott Keyes, founder of the travel site Going, is cautiously optimistic that holiday air travel won’t be the same mess. So far this year, he said, airlines have avoided massive disruptions.
“Everyone understands that airlines can’t control Mother Nature and it’s unsafe to take off or land in the middle of a thunderstorm or snowstorm,” Keyes said. “What really irks people are the controllable cancellations — those widespread disruptions because the airline couldn’t get their act together because their system melted down the way Southwest did over Christmas.”
Indeed, Southwest didn’t recover as quickly as other carriers from last year’s storm when its planes, pilots and flight attendants were trapped out of position and its crew-rescheduling system got bogged down. The airline canceled nearly 17,000 flights before fixing the operation. Federal regulators told Southwest recently that it could be fined for failing to help stranded travelers.
Southwest officials say they have since purchased additional deicing trucks and heating equipment and will add staff at cold-weather airports depending on the forecast. The company said it has also updated its crew-scheduling technology.
U.S. airlines as a whole have been better about stranding passengers. Through October, they canceled 38% fewer flights than during the same period in 2022. From June through August — when thunderstorms can snarl air traffic — the rate of cancellations fell 18% compared to 2022.
Even still, consumer complaints about airline service have soared, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. There have been so many complaints, the agency says, that it has only compiled figures through May.
The airlines, in turn, have heaped blame on the Federal Aviation Administration, which they say can’t keep up with the growing air traffic. In fact, the Transportation Department’s inspector general reported this summer that the FAA has made only “limited efforts” to fix a shortage of air traffic controllers, especially at key facilities in New York, Miami and Jacksonville, Florida.
Meanwhile, staffing levels in other parts of the airline industry have largely recovered since the pandemic. After shedding tens of thousands of workers early on, airlines have been on a hiring spree since late 2020. Passenger airlines have added more than 140,000 workers — an increase of nearly 40% — according to government figures updated last week. The number of people working in the business is the largest since 2001, when there were many more airlines.
Airlines are using their expanded work forces to operate more flights. Southwest is the most aggressive among the big carriers, planning to offer 13% more seats over Thanksgiving than it did during the comparable five-day stretch last year, according to travel data provider Cirium. United and Delta are growing 8% each. American will grow a more modest 5% but still have the largest number of seats.
https://www.voanews.com/a/record-crowds-expected-in-air-on-roads-for-thanksgiving/7363742.html
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Microsoft has announced a mysterious cloud hardware upgrade called “Azure Boost” that it claims will improve the performance of all future instance types in its big blue cloud.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/azure_boost_network_accelerator/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Police Department will be directing traffic at major intersections affected by load shedding until 6 p.m. tonight, according to acting police spokesperson Sgt. Paul Tapao.
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
North Korea has notified Japan that its third attempt to launch a satellite will take place between November 22 and December 1.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/north_korea_satellite_launch_attempt/
date: 2023-11-21, from: VOA News USA
A U.S. Navy plane overshot a runway and splashed into a bay in Hawaii on Monday, but authorities said all nine people aboard made it safely to shore with no injuries.
Spokesperson Petty Officer Ryan Fisher said the Coast Guard responded but that rescue operations were quickly called off.
“It sounds like all parties involved were rescued,” he said.
The P-8A aircraft overshot the runway at a Marine base on Kaneohe Bay, said U.S. Marine Corps spokesperson Gunnery Sgt. Orlando Perez. He did not have further information.
A photo taken by a witness showed the plane floating just offshore, a scene reminiscent of the 2009 “ Miracle on the Hudson,” when a commercial aircraft piloted by Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger made an emergency landing on the New York river. All 155 people aboard survived.
The P-8A and the Airbus A320 that Sullenberger piloted are roughly the same size.
Diane Dircks, 61, and her family had just returned to the dock after rainy weather cut their pontoon boat trip short when her daughter noticed the plane in the water.
“We went running over to the end of the dock, and I took some pictures,” she said.
They then heard sirens coming from everywhere.
Dircks, who is visiting from Illinois, said her daughter keeps a pair of binoculars on her for birdwatching, so she was able to see the plane and the rescue boats arriving.
“It was unbelievable,” she said.
The Honolulu Fire Department received a 911 call for a downed aircraft shortly after 2 p.m., spokesperson Malcolm K. Medrano said in an email.
It was cloudy and rainy at the time. Visibility was about 1.6 kilometers, said Thomas Vaughan, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Honolulu.
The P-8A is often used to hunt for submarines and reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. It is manufactured by Boeing and shares many parts with the 737 commercial jet.
The plane belongs to the Skinny Dragons of Patrol Squadron 4 stationed at Whidbey Island in Washington state. Patrol squadrons were once based at Kaneohe Bay, but now they deploy to Hawaii on a rotational basis.
Marine Corps Base Hawaii is about 16 kilometers from Honolulu on Oahu. The base houses about 9,300 military personnel and 5,100 family members. It’s one of several key military installations on Oahu.
The base sits on Kaneohe Bay, which is also home to coral reefs, a breeding ground for hammerhead sharks and a University of Hawaii marine biology research institute.
https://www.voanews.com/a/official-all-safe-after-navy-plane-overshoots-hawaii-runway/7363717.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: VOA News USA
It’s that time of year again in the United States — Thanksgiving. And a certain event takes place annually at the White House between the president and a live turkey or two. VOA’s senior Washington correspondent Carolyn Presutti shows us how this year’s event coincided with President Joe Biden’s 81st birthday.
https://www.voanews.com/a/turkeys-named-liberty-and-bell-understand-idea-of-freedom/7363707.html
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The CEO of Australian telco Optus, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, has resigned after deciding it was in the best interests of her former employer.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/optus_ceo_quits/
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Comment Microsoft is stuck in a hard place. It needs OpenAI co-founder and fired CEO Sam Altman back at the helm of the upstart, or working internally at the Azure giant.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/microsoft_openai_altman_nadella/
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Comment Microsoft may emerge as the real winner from all the shenanigans at OpenAI if the Azure titan can bag the lab’s co-founder and now-ex CEO Sam Altman. Seeing him back at the helm of the lab, with some changes made, would also please Microsoft.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/microsoft_openai_altman/
date: 2023-11-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
Anew policy has been implemented to prevent similar incidents in the future, the sheriff’s office said.
date: 2023-11-21, from: VOA News USA
“Liberty” and “Bell” — two turkeys — strutted onto the White House South Lawn Monday and became immediate celebrities for what has become the official beginning of the holidays in Washington.
Amid an autumn day, with Christmas carols playing, President Joe Biden addressed the families of staff, 4-H and Future Farmers of America, and students from Eliot-Hine Middle School as they gathered for the popular event.
Next to him stood a table lined with a fall garland of burgundy, green, orange and yellow, bearing a sign “Happy Thanksgiving 2023.” Standing on it was an 18 kg (40lb) turkey, with another next to it on the ground, beside the Minnesota farmers who raised them.
“I hereby pardon Liberty and Bell,” said Biden, as the male turkey fanned its tail. And, with that, the two birds were given the long-held tradition of a long life, just days prior to the American holiday that features a roasted turkey as its centerpiece.
Turkeys on leashes at the White House
In 1989, then President George H.W. Bush promised a crowd of children and reporters that the 23 kg (50lb) turkey donated to the White House would not be eaten.
President Bush was the first to make the pardon an annual action, but not the first to show mercy for a bird. The son of President Abraham Lincoln treated the turkey like a dog, leading him around on a leash inside the White House. Ultimately, President Lincoln granted the turkey clemency.
The act of donating a turkey (or a gaggle of gobblers) dates to the 1800s and embraces the nation’s heritage of farmland. For the past month, Biden has traveled to rural America, announcing $5 billion in investments.
“We’re restoring hope and opportunity so family farms can stay in the family,” proclaimed Biden at Monday’s event, “and children don’t have to leave home if they wish to stay and make a living on the farm.”
Biden told the crowd that the birds love the Minnesota favorites, including Honeycrisp apples, ice hockey, a thousand lakes and the Mall of America.
Happy 81st birthday
President Biden’s 81st birthday coincided with the holiday event. He evoked laughter when he told the crowd, “I just want you to know, it’s difficult turning 60.” The president’s age has been raised by opponents and analysts as he seeks a second term. During his speech Monday, Biden confused Britney Spears with Taylor Swift when referencing Swift’s Eras tour in Brazil.
The president plans to celebrate his birthday with family this weekend in Nantucket.
The birds will live on as agriculture models at the University of Minnesota. Having been named after the Liberty Bell, the symbol of independence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the president said his pardon gave the turkeys “a new appreciation for the words, ‘Let freedom ring.’”
https://www.voanews.com/a/two-turkeys-liberty-and-bell-pardoned-by-biden/7363676.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
He went into Monday night’s game within 30 minutes of the team record for minutes played
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11/20/steph-curry-on-verge-of-another-major-record/
date: 2023-11-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
Pizzagate is an anti-Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory that spun up on 4chan, Reddit, Twitter and other platforms in the final days before the 2016 US presidential election. Believers imagined a pedophilia ring supposedly being run out of a Washington, DC pizza shop that involved Clinton and other Democrats.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11/20/musk-is-now-giving-new-life-to-the-pizzagate-conspiracy/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Guam Daily Post
Sen. William Parkinson has introduced legislation proposing to abolish the elected Consolidated Commission on Utilities and replace it with an appointed board, a measure proposed earlier by Attorney General Douglas Moylan.
date: 2023-11-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
Kerr hopes to tighten up a rotation that goes 12 deep to nine or 10 players.
date: 2023-11-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
Castlemont forfeits victory over Oakland Tech due to what coach calls “an honest mistake”
date: 2023-11-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
GOLETA, CA, November 20, 2023 – A weekly Neighborhood Navigation Center (NNC) is now open in the City of Goleta following a
The post Weekly Neighborhood Navigation Center for People Without Homes Opens in Goleta appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Heatmap News
Surely you’ve heard by now. On Friday, the board of directors of OpenAI, the world-bestriding startup at the center of the new artificial intelligence boom, fired its chief executive, Sam Altman. He had not been “consistently candid” with the board, the company said, setting in motion a coup — and potential counter-coup — that has transfixed the tech, business, and media industries for the past 72 hours.
OpenAI is — was? — a strange organization. Until last week, it was both the country’s hottest new tech company and an independent nonprofit devoted to ensuring that a hypothetical, hyper-intelligent AI “benefits all of humanity.” The nonprofit board owned and controlled the for-profit startup, but it did not fund it entirely; the startup could and did accept outside investment, such as a $13 billion infusion from Microsoft.
This kind of dual nonprofit/for-profit structure isn’t uncommon in the tech industry. The encrypted messaging app Signal, for instance, is owned by a foundation, as is the company that makes the cheap, programmable microchip Raspberry Pi. The open-source browser Firefox is overseen by the Mozilla Foundation.
But OpenAI’s structure is unusually convoluted, with two nested holding companies and a growing split between who was providing the money (Microsoft) and who ostensibly controlled operations (the nonprofit board). That tension between the nonprofit board and the for-profit company is what ultimately ripped apart OpenAI, because when the people with control (the board) tried to fire Altman, the people with the money (Microsoft) said no. As I write this, Microsoft seems likely to win.
This may all seem remote from what we cover here at Heatmap. Other than the fact that ChatGPT devours electricity, OpenAI doesn’t obviously have anything to do with climate change, electric vehicles, or the energy transition. Sometimes I even have the sense that many climate advocates take a certain delight in high-profile AI setbacks, because they resent competing with it for existential-risk airtime.
Yet OpenAI’s schism is a warning for climate world. Strip back the money, the apocalypticism, the big ideas and Terminator references, and OpenAI is fundamentally a story about nonprofit governance. When a majority of the board decided to knock Altman from his perch, nobody could stop them. They alone decided to torch $80 billion in market value overnight and set their institution on fire. Whether that was the right or wrong choice, it illustrates how nonprofit organizations — especially those that, like OpenAI, are controlled solely by a board of directors — act with an unusual amount of arbitrary authority.
Why does that matter for the climate or environmental movement? Because the climate and energy world is absolutely teeming with nonprofit organizations — and many of them are just as unconstrained, just as willfully wacky, as OpenAI.
Get one great climate story in your inbox every day:
Let’s step back. Nonprofits can generally be governed in two ways. (Apologies to nonprofit lawyers in the audience: I’m about to vastly simplify your specialty.) The first is a chapter- or membership-driven structure, in which a mass membership elects leaders to serve on a board of directors. Many unions, social clubs, and business groups take this form: Every few years, the members elect a new president or board of directors, who lead the organization for the next few years.
The other way is a so-called “board-only” organization. In this structure, the nonprofit’s board of directors leads the organization and does not answer to a membership or chapter. (There is often no membership to answer to.) When a vacancy opens up on the board, its remaining members appoint a replacement, perpetuating itself over time.
OpenAI was just such a board-only organization. Even though Altman was CEO, OpenAI was led officially by its board of directors.
This is a stranger way of running an organization than it may seem. For a small, private foundation, it may work just fine: Such an organization has no staff and probably meets rarely. (Most U.S. nonprofits are just this sort of organization.) But when a board-only nonprofit gets big — when it fulfills a crucial public purpose or employs hundreds or thousands of people — it faces an unusual lack of institutional constraints.
Consider, for instance, what life is like for a decently sized business, a small government agency, and a medium-sized nonprofit. The decently sized business is constantly buffeted by external forcing factors. Its creditors need to be repaid; it is battling for market share and product position. It faces market discipline or at least some kind of profit motive. It has to remain focused, competitive, and at least theoretically efficient.
The government agency, meanwhile, is constrained by public scrutiny and political oversight. Its bureaucrats and public servants are managed by elected officials, who are themselves accountable to the public. When a particularly important agency is not doing its job, voters can demand a change or elect new leadership.
Nonprofits can have some of the same built-in checks and balances — but only when they are controlled by members, and not by a board. If a members association embarrasses itself, for instance, or if it doesn’t carry out its mission, then its membership can vote out the board and elect new directors to replace them. But stakeholders have no such recourse for a board-only nonprofit. Insulated from market pressure and public oversight, board-only nonprofits are free to wander off into wackadoodle land.
The problem is that board-only nonprofits are only becoming more powerful — in fact, many of the nonprofits you know best are probably controlled solely by their board. In 2002, the Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol observed that American civic life had undergone a rapid transformation: where it had once been full of membership-driven federations, such as the Lions Club or the League of Women Voters, it was now dominated by issues-focused advocacy groups.
From the late 19th to the mid-20th century, she wrote, America “had a uniquely balanced civic life, in which markets expanded but could not subsume civil society, in which governments at multiple levels deliberately and indirectly encouraged federated voluntary associations.” But from the 1960s to the 1990s, that old network fell apart. It was “bypassed and shoved to the side by a gaggle of professionally dominated advocacy groups and nonprofit institutions rarely attached to memberships worthy of the name,” Skocpol wrote.
The sheer number of groups exploded. In 1958, the Encyclopedia of Associations listed approximately 6,500 associations, Skocpol writes. By 1990, that number had more than tripled to 23,000. Today, the American Society of Association Executives — which is, just so we’re clear here, literally an association for associations — counts almost 1.9 million associations, including 1.2 million nonprofits.
This new network includes some nonprofits that claim to have members but are not in fact governed by them, such as the AARP. It includes “public citizen” or legal-advocacy groups, which watchdog legislation or fight for important precedents in the courts, such as Earthjustice, the Center for Biological Diversity, or Public Citizen itself. And it includes independent, mission-driven, and board-controlled nonprofits — such as OpenAI.
There is nothing wrong with these new groups per se. Many of them are inspired by the advocacy and legal organizations that won some of the Civil Rights Movement’s biggest victories. But unlike the member federations and civic associations that they largely replaced, these new groups don’t force Americans to engage with what their neighbors are thinking and feeling. So they “compartmentalize” America, in Skocpol’s words. Instead of articulating the views of a deep, national membership network, these groups essentially speak for a centralized and professionalized leadership corps — invariably located in a major city — who are armed with modern marketing techniques. And instead of fundraising through dues, fees, or tithes, these new groups depend on direct-mail operations, massive ad campaigns, and foundation grants.
This is the organizational superstructure on which much of the modern climate movement rests. When you read a climate news story, someone quoted in it will probably work for such a nonprofit. Many climate and energy policy experts spend at least part of their careers at some kind of nonprofit. Most climate or environmental news outlets — although not this one — are funded in whole or part through donations and foundation grants. And most climate initiatives that earn mainstream attention receive grants from a handful of foundations.
There is nothing necessarily wrong with this setup — and, of course, an equivalent network devoted to stopping and delaying climate policy exists to rival it on the right. But the entire design places an enormous amount of faith in the leaders of these nonprofits and foundations, and in the social strata that they occupy. If a nonprofit messes up, then only public attention or press coverage can right the ship. And there is simply not enough of either resource to keep these things on track.
That leads to odd resource allocation decisions, business units that seem to have no purpose (alongside teams that seem perpetually overworked), and decisions that frame otherwise decent policies in politically unpalatable ways. It regularly burns out people involved in climate organizations. And it means that much of the climate movement’s strategy is controlled by foundation officials and nonprofit directors. Like any other group of executives, these people are capable of deluding themselves about what is happening in the world; unlike other types of leaders, however, they face neither an angry electorate nor a ruthless market that will force them to update their worldview. The risk exists, then, that they could blunder into disaster — and take the climate movement with them.
https://heatmap.news/economy/openai-sam-altman-board-nonprofits
date: 2023-11-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY – The northbound US 101 Gaviota Roadside Rest Area will re-open on Tuesday, November 21 by 12
The post Northbound US 101 Gaviota Roadside Rest Area to Re-open Tomorrow appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
Two former NBA players scoffed at the notion that the Sacramento Kings could be major players in the trade market this season.
https://www.fresnobee.com/sports/article282125228.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Playdate Blog
With today’s game drop, Catalog now lists over 100 Playdate titles—our curated selection of games has grown beyond our most ambitious dreams. Here are the games we added this month: 🍺 Root Bear, a hilarious and quick game where you are the Root Bear serving bears their root beer, always in search of the Perfect Pour. Made by TEAM ROOT. 🪀 Yoyozo. Be a space yo-yo, gracefully guided in a cosmic ballet.
https://news.play.date/news/catalog-drops-nov-2023/
date: 2023-11-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
The multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy winner waved and blew a kiss to a small crowd of bystanders before entering the courthouse. She briefly sat in front of the panel of judges, flanked by teams of prosecutors on one side and the defense on the other.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11/20/pop-star-shakira-reaches-tax-deal-with-spanish-authorities/
date: 2023-11-21, from: OS News
After a few minor delays, FreeBSD 14.0 has officially been released. The highlights according to the FreeBSD team itself: For more details, you can dive into the release notes, and if you’re already using FreeBSD you know exactly how to upgrade.
https://www.osnews.com/story/137891/freebsd-14-0-released/
date: 2023-11-21, from: OS News
Firefox users across the internet say that they are encountering an “artificial” five-second load time when they try to watch YouTube videos that exists on Firefox, but not Chrome. Google, meanwhile, told 404 Media that this is all part of its larger effort against ad blockers, and that it doesn’t have anything to do with Firefox at all. I’m sure it doesn’t, Google.
date: 2023-11-21, from: OS News
While Elementary OS commits to Wayland, the development team of the Budgie desktop is changing course and will work with the Xfce developers toward Budgie’s Wayland future. There is general consensus now that the future of graphical desktops on Linux lies in Wayland rather than X11, but the path is still not a smooth and easy one. While in Latvia for the Ubuntu Summit, the Reg FOSS desk met with the developers behind Ubuntu Budgie, who told us that the Budgie project is charting a new course toward the brave new Wayland world. It seems that using EFL – the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries – wasn’t the right choice for Budgie, and so they’re now exploring working with Xfce on their Wayland efforts, instead. Considering Enlightenment’s desktop Linux presence is negligible, at best, joining forces with Xfce so that both Xfce and Budgie can make progress on Wayland faster seems like the more optimal choice for the wider desktop Linux community.
https://www.osnews.com/story/137887/ubuntu-budgie-switches-its-approach-to-wayland/
date: 2023-11-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
Ben Brody’s lawyer — who is the same attorney who successfully sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over his lies about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre — said he hopes the suit will force one of the world’s richest and most powerful men to reckon with his careless and harmful online behavior.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11/20/jewish-student-sues-musk-over-being-labeled-a-nazi/
date: 2023-11-21, from: VOA News USA
In a move that may soon be replicated elsewhere, the Gila River Indian Community recently signed an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to put solar panels over a stretch of irrigation canal on its land south of Phoenix.
It will be the first project of its kind in the United States to break ground, according to the tribe’s press release.
“This was a historic moment here for the community but also for the region and across Indian Country,” said Gila River Indian Community Governor Stephen Roe Lewis in a video published on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The first phase, set to be completed in 2025, will cover 1,000 feet of canal and generate one megawatt of electricity that the tribe will use to irrigate crops, including feed for livestock, cotton and grains.
The idea is simple: install solar panels over canals in sunny, water-scarce regions where they reduce evaporation and make renewable electricity.
“We’re proud to be leaders in water conservation, and this project is going to do just that,” Lewis said, noting the significance of a Native, sovereign, tribal nation leading on the technology.
A study by the University of California, Merced estimated that 63 billion gallons of water could be saved annually by covering California’s 4,000 miles of canals. More than 100 climate advocacy groups are advocating for just that.
Researchers believe that much of the installed solar canopies would additionally generate a significant amount of electricity.
UC Merced wants to hone its initial estimate and should soon have the chance. Not far away in California’s Central Valley, the Turlock Irrigation District and partner Solar AquaGrid plan to construct 1.6 miles (2.6 kilometers) of solar canopies over its canals beginning this spring and researchers will study the benefits.
Neither the Gila River Indian Community nor the Turlock Irrigation District are the first to implement this technology globally. Indian engineering firm Sun Edison inaugurated the first solar-covered canal in 2012 on one of the largest irrigation projects in the world in Gujarat state. Despite ambitious plans to cover 11,800 miles (19,000 kilometers) of canals, only a handful of small projects ever went up, and the engineering firm filed for bankruptcy.
High capital costs, clunky design and maintenance challenges were obstacles for widespread adoption, experts say.
But severe, prolonged drought in the western U.S. has centered water as a key political issue, heightening interest in technologies like cloud seeding and solar-covered canals as water managers grasp at any solution that might buoy reserves, even ones that haven’t been widely tested, or tested at all.
Still, the project is an important indicator of the tribe’s commitment to water conservation, said Heather Tanana, a visiting law professor at the University of California, Irvine and citizen of the Navajo Nation. Tribes hold the most senior water rights on the Colorado River, though many are still settling those rights in court.
“There’s so much fear about the tribes asserting their rights and if they do so, it’ll pull from someone else’s rights,” she said. The tribe leaving water in Lake Mead and putting federal dollars toward projects like solar canopies is “a great example to show that fear is unwarranted.”
The federal government has made record funding available for water-saving projects, including a $233 million pact with the Gila River Indian Community to conserve about two feet of water in Lake Mead, the massive and severely depleted reservoir on the Colorado River. Phase one of the solar canal project will cost $6.7 million and the Bureau of Reclamation provided $517,000 for the design.
date: 2023-11-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
If Henry Yang cared about UCSB students, staff, and faculty as much as he claims, he would step down.
The post Retirement Calls appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/11/20/retirement-calls/
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners: Find some of the best Black Friday travel mugs
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article282111073.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Robert Reich on Substack
Friends, On Friday, Denver District Judge Sarah B. Wallace ruled that Donald Trump “acted with the specific intent to disrupt the Electoral College certification of President Biden’s electoral victory through unlawful means; specifically, by using unlawful force and violence.”
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/judge-rules-that-trump-incited-an
date: 2023-11-21, from: The Signal
Directed by West Ranch High School’s Brian Leff the GO Jazz Big Band, a local ensemble of top jazz musicians took the audience into a world where the magic of Disney met the timeless allure of jazz. The GO Jazz Big Band commemorated a “Century of Disney Magic” playing classics recognizable to generations. Vocalists Steve […]
The post PHOTOS: Disney jazz at west ranch high school appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/11/photos-disney-jazz-at-west-ranch-high-school/
date: 2023-11-21, from: The Signal
Valencia High School senior Ayden Buchanan was nervous heading into the Santa Clarita Marathon last weekend. But once he got to the starting line, he just let his body do what it knows best: run. Buchanan ran and ran, ultimately completing the marathon in 2:50:21, seven seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, Uriel Rodriguez. That […]
The post <strong>Valencia High senior wins Santa Clarita Marathon, qualifies for Boston</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/11/valencia-high-senior-wins-santa-clarita-marathon-qualifies-for-boston/
date: 2023-11-21, from: The Signal
Santa Clarita Elementary School staff will have a chance to find a new home in the Saugus Union School District, but only after the district knows where the school’s students will be going, according to Jennifer Stevenson, the district’s assistant superintendent of human resources. The district board voted last week to approve a resolution to […]
The post <strong>Santa Clarita Elementary staff to be relocated after students</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/11/santa-clarita-elementary-staff-to-be-relocated-after-students/
date: 2023-11-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Car of the Future isn’t an electric vehicle or a DeLorean. It’s the present ride, upgraded with a SPDT Six Pack Drive Train, integrating ICE, hybrid, electric, solar, wind, and grid power seamlessly. This innovation eliminates range anxiety and offers multiple sustainable power sources for continuous, eco-friendly driving. Find out more…
date: 2023-11-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
Last year, the Republican National Committee voted to withdraw from its participation in the commission, with RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel saying at the time that commission is “biased and has refused to enact simple and commonsense reforms.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11/20/2024-presidential-debate-schedule-locations-released/
date: 2023-11-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
East Bay Times Letters to the Editor for Nov. 21, 2023
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11/20/letters-1497/
date: 2023-11-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Child & Family Center is very proud of its two 40 Under 40 winners for 2023 – Tiffany Thomas and Leah Parker.
https://scvnews.com/child-family-center-staffers-earn-40-under-40-recognition/
date: 2023-11-21, updated: 2023-11-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Scientists say they’ve developed an implantable drug-delivery widget that harmlessly dissolves over time in the body, can be wirelessly charged, and has proven its efficacy in lab rats.…
date: 2023-11-21, from: Fresno Bee Stories
From Our Partners: Check perfume deals here for both men and women with range of prices to fit your budget.
https://www.fresnobee.com/shopping/article282090863.html
date: 2023-11-21, from: Crossref Blog
Have you attended any of our annual meeting sessions this year? Ah, yes – there were many in this conference-style event. I, as many of my colleagues, attended them all because it is so great to connect with our global community, and hear your thoughts on the developments at Crossref, and the stories you share.
Let me offer some highlights from the event and a reflection on some emergent themes of the day. You can browse the recordings and slides archived on our Annual Meeting page.
Ginny Hendricks opened the meeting by reminding everyone about the research nexus vision, and the work that’s underway to bring us closer to it. Ginny went on to highlight progress in metadata and relationships being registered by our members, and mentioned members that have particularly rich metadata records – with the special joint recognition for learned societies of South Korea. Participation statistics can be reviewed in our Labs Member Metadata Metrics Tables.
Since 2018 we’ve seen a 512% increase in the number of abstracts included in the metadata; with Wiley’s recent addition of millions of abstracts to their records largely contributing to this change. On the relationships side, in the same period, we’ve noted a staggering 3004% growth in preprint-to-article links, and we’re pleased to report a growing number of funding relationships being made available thanks to more and more funders registering Crossref DOIs for grants.
For those who couldn’t join us at such an early hour, Ed Penz included some of these highlights in his own strategic update later in the day. However, he focused on our activity and plans towards fulfilling our four strategic goals:
Speakers from across our global community shared their initiatives
too. Most of these talks have been accompanied by
posters
or abstracts shared on our Community Forum and still available for
preview and discussion:
In addition to these updates, we’ve heard from:
We also assembled a diverse panel and invited the community to discuss “What we still need to build a robust Research Nexus?” The discussion ranged from how different parts of our community currently use existing metadata, to how we can come together to make improvements, especially in the area of standards and equitability, and touched on metadata priorities. I’ll highlight some of the threads below, but it’s certainly worth engaging with the full recording of the discussion, and offering your own perspective on the Community Forum, commenting below.
Having participated in the whole day of talks, I found that a few themes emerged as popular in the community: data citations, making it easier to register metadata, making better use of metadata, retractions, and equity of participation in the research nexus.
With the advances in the Crossref API relationships endpoint, Martyn Rittman demonstrated how we’re now providing more comprehensive support for data citations. You can follow his demonstration in the Collab Notebook he used for the demo and shared for your perusal. He also mentioned that the developments in this feature of our API will soon replace the current service provided via the Events API. Feel free to connect with Martin on the community forum and comment with questions and suggestions.
As mentioned above, DataCite’s Iratxe Puebla mentioned the Make Data Count initiative and the leaky pipeline of data citations we’ve got at the moment in the scholarly literature, obscuring the true picture of data reuse. This prevents the community from recognising and incentivising data creation and reuse appropriately. One way of addressing this is the Global Open Data Citation Corpus. Crossref and DataCite collaborate closely in connecting and making that data available.
Linking datasets, as well as software, was reported as part of the AGU and CHORUS initiative in Enhancing Research Connections through Metadata.
Data sharing and citing is as much a culture as a technology problem. As Iratxe Puebla admitted, there are many norms and processes for capturing and sharing that information,and DataCite is interested to hear about different use cases. As highlighting data’s relationship with works is a growing interest for our community, hopefully more understanding and perhaps even commonality can be built soon.
As part of the Demonstrations session, we’ve seen two developments to support members with registering their metadata more easily.
Crossref’s Lena Stoll shared plans for the new version of the Crossref Registration Form, the helper tool for manual registration of metadata, which translates the submission into XML, for inclusion in the Crossref database. At the moment, the form only accepts grant registrations, but it will be bolstered before the end of the year to include journal articles then other content types in time.
Erik Hanson from PKP demonstrated the latest OJS version, commenting on specific changes made in the new version in response to the key pain points reported by users of the previous release.
In addition, we’ve heard of two independent projects by Martin Fenner and Esha Data to enable metadata registration and Crossref DOIs for scholarly blogs.
Supported by the beginner’s demo of our REST API by Luis Montilla, there were many voices about opportunities for making good use of Crossref’s open metadata. Nikolaos Mitrakis of the European Commission talked about the implementation of Crossref IDs for grants as a step towards tracing and connecting the grants with not just academic but also societal outcomes of the awards, and the plans for using those in the evaluation and steering of their funding programmes.
Joann Fogleson of the American Society of Civil Engineers gave a buzzy metaphor of publishers’ role in their work with metadata being comparable with that of a pollinator – collecting the metadata at one end, then registering, displaying and making it available to different services, in order to enable a reacher scholarly environment for discovery.
Many of the major themes have found their way to the discussion of what is still needed to build a robust network of connections between scholarly objects, institutions and individuals. One of the ways Ludo Waltman of CWTS, Leiden University, intends to use our open metadata is as part of the upcoming open-source version of the Laiden rankings and he invited the community to contribute and help optimise this project to provide an alternative to closed and selective databases.
Panellists also spoke of new opportunities in the light of data mining and machine learning. Ran Dang, Atlantis Press, as a publisher shared a concern about the standard of metadata across cultures and disciplines, and the need to digitise past publications – which can then help better leverage multi-lingual scholarship. Matt Buys of DataCite, pointed out to the Global Data Citation Corpus they are developing, which leverages a SciBERT model to pull out data citations, which is brought together with Crossref/DataCite citation metadata.
Opening the data is essential to enabling its wider use, and here Ludo gave the example of the fantastic outcome for references metadata, which has been made open by default for the entire corpus of Crossref-registred works. He hopes that this can inspire us to make similar progress in other areas.
A little on a tangent with regards to metadata use, yet speaking of excellent examples of the community making progress together, Ginny pointed out ROR, how this is becoming a new standard for solving a longstanding problem of standardising affiliations metadata.
Perhaps not entirely surprising, given the recent acquisition of the Retraction Watch database by Crossref and making the data openly available, retractions featured in a few different talks at the meeting. First, Lena Stoll and Martin Eve from Crossref, shared how that data can be accessed – that is as the csv file from https://api.labs.crossref.org/data/retractionwatch?[your-email@here](add your email as indicated), and the Crossref Labs API also displays information about retractions in the /works/ route when metadata is available. There are plans for incorporating this information with our REST API in the future.
Ed and Ginny have shown stats for increases in retraction metadata registered in Crossmark but commented on limited participation in Crossmark overall. Recording retraction information in this way is still important, alongside the Retraction Watch data, this allows for multiple assertions of that information, and increases confidence in its accuracy. We’re preparing to consult with the community at large about the future direction of the Crossmark service, to make it easier to implement and more useful for the readers.
Finally, Edilson Damasio from State University of Maringá-UEM, Brazil, and a long-time Crossref Ambassador, presented the analysis of Brazilian records in the Retraction Watch data, and he promises further analysis to come, comparing the situation across geographies.
Amanda Bartell opened the research nexus discussion with a reminder of what that vision entails and pointing out commonality of goals in the community – “Like others, Crossref has a vision of a rich and reusable open network of relationships connecting research organisations, people, things, and actions; a scholarly record that the global community can build on forever, for the benefit of society. We call this interconnected network the Research Nexus, but others in the community have different names for it, such as knowledge graph or PID graph.”
The richness of this network depends upon the participation of all those who produce and publish scholarship, so naturally the topic of equality emerged in that discussion. In addition to Ran Dang’s concern for multilingualism and digitisation of past publications from all parts of the world, Mercury Shitindo of St Paul’s University, Kenya talked of the need for more education, training and accessible resources for her community, to be able to participate more effectively in this ecosystem. She can see that affiliations and citations are of priority there, as these enable transparency and facilitate collaborations. Matt Buys of DataCite echoed her point, talking about the importance of the role of contributors “It’s important not to lose sight of people and places – to recognise the importance of contributor roles in the PID-graph”.
Earlier in the day, we mentioned the launch of our Global Equitable Membership, or GEM programme. Since January, 110 new organisations from eligible countries have joined Crossref fee-free. Ginny was quick to admit that the need for a fee-waiver programme like this stems from the regular fees schedule not being in tune with our global membership, and she mentioned the upcoming fees review.
Financial barriers are often what get attention, yet reducing barriers to participation with technology is equally important for building a robust research nexus. With the planned changes to our registration form, we’ll make it easier to register works for those who don’t regularly use XML.
Johanssen Obanda took time to show the examples of community activity and events organised by our global network of Ambassadors, and to thank all our advocates and partners for their tireless work. They are also helping tackle barriers, supporting our members to actively participate in the research nexus with their metadata, and help enable the community to make good use of the network of relationships that data denotes.
Showcasing our “One member one vote” truth, the Board election was the focal point of the annual meeting, as always. We closed the ballot and announced the results, with seven members selected to join the Board in 2024.
The event went very smoothly overall. Talks were delivered efficiently, the panellists shared diverse perspectives and we elected our new Board members. Huge thanks to Rosa Clark, our Communications and Events Manager, who orchestrated the event and has been a constant behind-the-scenes presence supervising the entire show. I’m grateful to all colleagues at Crossref, who helped make it an enjoyable experience and an informative event for our community. Finally – it wouldn’t be a real meeting without the active participation of the speakers and panellists, who shared their metadata stories, and even joined us for some relaxed unplugged chats.
https://www.crossref.org/blog/what-was-the-talk-of-crossref2023/