(date: 2023-12-11 17:28:32)
date: 2023-12-12, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The Santa Barbara County Fire Department’s Fire Investigations Unit is actively investigating a series of wildland fires that occurred at La Purisima Mission State Park on December 6, 2023, around 4 p.m.
The post Public Assistance Requested in La Purisima Mission State Park Fires Investigation appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/11/public-assistance-requested-in-la-purisima-mission-state-park-fires-investigation/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, updated: 2023-12-12, from: Daring Fireball
https://www.theverge.com/23994174/epic-google-trial-jury-verdict-monopoly-google-play Save to Pocket
@Tomosino’s Mastodon feed (date: 2023-12-12, from: Tomosino’s Mastodon feed)
I forgot to tell you all, Godzilla Minus One is great. If you like the big guy, go see this one.
https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/111564790015288808 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: VOA News USA
Holocaust survivors from around the globe will mark the start of the fifth day of Hanukkah together with a virtual ceremony as Jews worldwide worry about the Israel-Hamas war and a spike of antisemitism in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.
Survivors can join an online ceremony of a menorah lighting Monday night to pay tribute to the 6 million European Jews killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust.
Several dozen survivors were also expected to gather in-person for a menorah lighting at Jerusalem’s Western Wall — the holiest place where Jews can pray.
“Holocaust survivors somehow overcame the depravity of concentration camps, death camps and killing centers, among other horrors, to become our living exemplars, providing a roadmap on how light can overcome darkness,” Greg Schneider, the executive vice president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, said in remarks released to The Associated Press ahead of the ceremony.
The New York-based conference is organizing the event in observance of International Holocaust Survivors Night.
“Their resilience, their strength and their fortitude leave a truly indelible light in this world,” Schneider added.
Hanukkah, also known as Judaism’s festival of lights, marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century B.C., after a small group of Jewish fighters known as the Maccabees liberated it from occupying Syrian forces.
This year’s holiday comes as many Jews feel traumatized by Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and in which the militants took some 240 as hostages. Israel responded with a bombing campaign and a ground offensive that has so far killed more than 18,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.
Several celebrities and world leaders spoke about the attack in messages that were to be shown at the ceremony. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said “Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel has affected us all deeply. Something of abyssal evil broke free that day,” according to comments released to the AP.
“The perpetrators’ motive is clear: They wanted to hit Israel,” the chancellor added. “They wanted to murder Jews. In its repugnant brutality and abhorrence, however, the terror is also directed against humanity itself.”
Scholz, addressing Holocaust survivors, said he tries “to imagine how much the images from Israel, how much antisemitic hatred on the internet and on the streets around the world must be hitting you, of all people right in the heart.”
“This … pains me a lot,” he said.
The virtual event, which starts at 8 p.m. Monday in Germany, will also include musical performances, celebrity guests and messages from Holocaust survivors from around the globe.
Leon Weintraub, a Holocaust survivor from Sweden, who was in Israel during the Hamas attack, recounted what he experienced that day.
“On Oct. 7, I woke up from the sirens in the center of Tel Aviv. All at once I was again in September 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland,” he said. “A terrible feeling, a shiver, a feeling of dread to be again in a war.”
“We celebrate Chanukah now, the festival of lights. I hope that the light will also bring the people enlightenment,” Weintraub added. “That people will rethink and look at us people of Jewish descent as normal, equal. Human beings.”
American comedian Billy Crystal, actress Jamie Lee Curtis and actor Jason Alexander will also speak at the event, and there will also be a by a musical performance from Grammy and Tony Award-winning singer Barry Manilow, as well as the cast of Harmony.
https://www.voanews.com/a/holocaust-survivors-mark-hanukkah-amid-worries-of-israel-hamas-war-antisemitism-/7394182.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: The Canyons News (COC student paper)
Have you been in Santa Clarita without any water and had to…
The post A new water filtration store opens for the community in Canyon Country appeared first on Canyons News.
https://canyonsnews.com/water-filtration-store-opened-for-the-community-in-canyon-country/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: The Signal
Members of the community braved the high wind warning and 53-degree weather on Friday night to witness the annual Valencia Marketplace tree lighting. “Now you know how it is where I live,” said Santa Claus. Levels on levels of seats were filled with not only bodies, but also anticipation to see the approximately 15-foot tree […]
The post <strong>Valencia Marketplace flips the switch </strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/12/valencia-marketplace-flips-the-switch/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: OS News
Today, Apple pushed out the public releases of iOS 17.2, iPadOS 17.2, macOS Sonoma 14.2, watchOS 10.2, and tvOS 17.2. iOS 17.2 and iPadOS 17.2’s flagship feature is the new Journal app, which Apple teased when it first introduced iOS 17 earlier. The app mimics several existing popular journaling apps in the App Store from third-party developers but leverages data from your Photos, workouts, and other Apple apps to make journaling suggestions. Other features include the ability to tap a “catch-up arrow” to scroll to the first missed message in a conversation in Messages, the ability to take spatial video photos for later viewing on Vision Pro, and several tweaks and additions to the Weather app. ↫ Samuel Axon for Ars Technica Makers of journalling applications for iOS are not going to be in a good mood today, I reckon.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138057/apple-releases-ios-17-2-and-macos-14-2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: The Signal
The William S. Hart Union High School District governing board heard a presentation at last week’s board meeting that details what it would cost to add air conditioning units to each of the district’s seven high school gyms. The governing board ultimately decided to table the talks as members were unsure of where the funding […]
The post <strong>Hart district tables talks on A/C for gyms</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/12/hart-district-tables-talks-on-a-c-for-gyms/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, updated: 2023-12-12, from: The LAist
The Salton Sea contains a third of the world’s lithium, but the exposed bed lake also contains heavy metals and pesticides which could threaten nearby residents.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/your-future-ev-could-come-from-the-salton-sea-but-at-what-cost Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: VOA News USA
Harvard University’s governing board faced mounting pressure on Monday to publicly declare support for or oust the university president after remarks she made last week at a congressional hearing on antisemitism.
The Harvard Corporation, the university’s governing body, has not yet addressed the public backlash Harvard President Claudine Gay received after her testimony.
Prominent alumni and members of Congress have called for her to resign as her fellow Ivy League leader at University of Pennsylvania, who also testified to Congress last week, did on Saturday. But many faculty and other alumni have rushed to defend Gay and asked the governing body to do the same.
The 13-member governing body was due to hold a regular meeting on Monday, according to media reports. A representative for Harvard did not respond to a request for comment.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who has donated millions to Harvard, wrote in an open letter to Harvard’s board on Sunday that Gay had “quelched speech she disfavors while defending and thereby amplifying vile and threatening hate speech.”
A petition urging her removal claimed over 1,100 alumni signatures as of midday Monday.
But the Harvard Alumni Association Executive Committee on Monday asked the Harvard Corporation to back Gay, the Harvard Crimson reported. Nearly 700 faculty members signed a petition supporting Gay as of Monday afternoon, while Black alumni and allies said on social media that they had gathered nearly 800 signatures on another petition supporting the president.
At a hearing before a U.S. House of Representatives committee on Tuesday, three university presidents — Gay, Liz Magill of Penn and Sally Kornbluth of Massachusetts Institute of Technology — declined to answer “yes” or “no” when asked if calling for the genocide of Jews would violate school codes of conduct regarding bullying and harassment.
The trio said they had to take free speech into consideration. Gay on Thursday apologized for her remarks at the hearing in an interview with Harvard’s student newspaper.
The hearing increased public outcry over how U.S. colleges are handling campus protests since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. Jewish communities have claimed universities are tolerating antisemitism. Pro-Palestinian groups have accused the schools of being neutral or antagonistic toward their cause.
On Friday, 74 members of Congress, in a letter to the boards of all three schools, called for leadership changes.
Magill and the University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees chair Scott Bok resigned from their posts on Saturday. The Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation said in a statement after Kornbluth’s testimony that she still had its full support.
Free speech debate
Many on the political right have accused the university presidents of hypocrisy, saying they defended free speech at the congressional hearing but police speech when it offends causes they prefer.
At the hearing, Republican lawmakers grilled the presidents over their schools’ diversity efforts and accused them of being inhospitable to conservative viewpoints.
Ackman also called for closing Harvard’s office of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and alleged that the committee that appointed Gay, a Black woman, to the presidency had discriminated against “non-DEI eligible candidates.”
Civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton said Ackman’s letter was a further assault on efforts to expand inclusion months after the Supreme Court, in a case that involved Harvard, struck down race-conscious college admissions programs.
At other U.S. universities, teachers have been suspended or banned from campus as the debate over violence in the Middle East roils. The University of Arizona on Dec. 1 reinstated two educators who were suspended in November.
The University of Southern California on Dec. 2 lifted restrictions on an economics professor who last month was directed to teach online.
https://www.voanews.com/a/harvard-faces-pressure-to-respond-to-president-s-congressional-testimony/7394176.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: VOA News USA
U.S. House Republicans are progressing toward a vote this week that would formalize the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. But whether leadership has enough votes to approve the measure remains unclear.
Polling released Monday morning indicated that a small plurality of Americans thought the inquiry should move forward, but that even among self-identified Republicans, enthusiasm for the inquiry was slipping.
The survey, conducted by the polling firm Morning Consult, found that 44% of Americans thought the inquiry should move forward, compared to 40% who said it should not. The results broke heavily along partisan lines, with 62% of Democrats saying the inquiry should not proceed while 70% of Republicans saying it should. A plurality of independents, 47%, said the inquiry should not continue, with only 37% saying it should.
The data showed that Americans on the whole are less enthusiastic about the inquiry than they were. Monday’s overall 44% approval of the inquiry was down from 47% in September. Similarly among Republicans, the percentage in favor of a continued investigation fell from 76% to 70% over the same time period.
GOP balancing act
Under U.S. law, a president can be involuntarily removed from office outside a normal election cycle only if he is convicted by the Senate of “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” An impeachment inquiry is the first step in a process that can lead to impeachment proceedings in the House and, if they are successful, a trial in the Senate.
While impeachments are historically rare, Americans have significant recent experience with them. Former President Donald Trump was impeached twice during his term in office. In 2019, he was impeached for pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch an investigation into Biden, then seen as a likely rival to Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
He was impeached a second time in 2021, after his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election resulted in the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. In both cases, Trump was acquitted in the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is required to convict.
With House Democrats expected to unanimously oppose the measure, Republicans will need to find the votes in their own ranks to pass it. They hold 221 seats in the House, where there are currently 434 members, meaning that if the party loses more than three votes, the measure will fail.
Currently, eyes are on the more than a dozen Republican House members who represent districts that Biden won in the 2020 election, and who might suffer politically if they cast an unpopular vote in favor of impeachment.
Previous vote avoided
It was out of concern about these members that former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy allowed the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations to begin inquiries into the impeachment of the president earlier this year.
In the interim, several Republicans representing Biden districts have come out in favor of formalizing the inquiry. However, not all have expressed a position on the measure coming up for a vote this week.
Last week, Speaker Mike Johnson, who took over after McCarthy was voted out in October, told The New York Times he was confident he had the necessary votes.
“This is a vote to continue the inquiry of impeachment, and that’s a necessary constitutional step. I believe we’ll get every vote that we have,” he said.
The Republican House contingent, however, has been difficult to predict in this Congress, as Johnson’s predecessor learned.
More authority for investigators
The vote would strengthen the hand of Republican Representative James Comer, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, who has been leading the inquiry since early this year when his party took control of the House. Among other things, it would allow him to compel witnesses to testify, by subpoena if necessary.
So far, the investigation has delved deeply into the finances of Biden and members of his extended family, including his son Hunter, who was indicted on criminal tax evasion charges last week.
However, House investigators have complained that Biden and his family have not been fully cooperative in turning over evidence and arranging testimony. The committee is threatening to hold Hunter Biden in contempt because he has said that while he is willing to testify publicly, he is unwilling to submit to a closed-door deposition.
Lack of evidence
The committee has so far gathered considerable evidence that Hunter Biden and other members of the president’s family traded on their famous name to help secure favorable business deals, often with foreign companies.
Committee members have more than once presented evidence that they claimed proved President Biden derived personal financial benefits from his relatives’ business activities. But in each case, the evidence has not held up to scrutiny.
Most recently, Comer said a series of payments from Hunter Biden’s company to the president’s personal account made in 2018 — while the elder Biden was out of office — proved that he had benefited from his son’s business activities. It was later disclosed that the payments represented reimbursement for car loan payments that Joe Biden had made on his son’s behalf.
President Biden has consistently denied that he ever used his office to enrich himself and has criticized the impeachment investigation as being politically motivated and without basis in facts.
https://www.voanews.com/a/house-to-vote-on-formalizing-biden-impeachment-inquiry-/7394164.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: OS News
NetDrive is a DOS device driver that allows you to access a remote disk image hosted by another machine as though it was a local device with an assigned drive letter. The remote disk image can be a floppy disk image or a hard drive image. ↫ Michael B. Brutman An incredibly useful tool for modern-day DOS work.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138055/netdrive-access-remote-disk-images-in-dos/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: OS News
Porporo is an experimental operating system specification for Varvara, written in TAL and ANSI C. This is a work in progress, for more details follow the development during december. ↫ rabbits So, what is Varvara? Varvara is a specification for devices communicating with the Uxn CPU intended to run little audio and visual programs. ↫ Varvara official website …so, what is the Uxn CPU? This one-page computer, programmable in Uxntal, was designed with an implementation-first mindset and a focus on creating portable graphical tools and games. It lives at the heart of the Varvara personal computer. ↫ Official Uxn CPU website I have no idea what any of this means, but I feel like there’s something incredibly cool going on here.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138053/porporo-an-experimental-operating-system-specification-for-varvara/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: San Jose Mercury News
“He wanted us to assault the house. He was waiting for us to assault the house with the intentions then of killing us and also of being killed by us.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/pleasant-hill-leaders-defend-police-decision-to-disengage-with-barricaded-ex-detective/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Commitment to a literal six-day creation has marked The Master’s University since its founding
https://scvnews.com/feb-24-tmus-30th-annual-creation-summit/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, updated: 2023-12-12, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
+COMMENT Broadcom’s VMware Cloud Foundation Division has announced what it’s described as “a dramatic simplification of our product portfolio,” plus the end of perpetual licenses and a move to subscriptions – some at half their previous price.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/12/vmware_broadcom_licensing_changes/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: San Jose Mercury News
A condominium located in the 600 block of Forest Avenue in Palo Alto has new owners. The 1,392-square-foot property, built in 1977, was sold on Nov. 20, 2023.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/condominium-in-palo-alto-sells-for-1-7-million-2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: San Jose Mercury News
East Bay Times Letters to the Editor for Dec. 12, 2023
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/letters-1525/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: San Jose Mercury News
The referral by Supervisor Otto Lee aims to streamline access to the TRUST program and expand the reach of the civilian-run program to people wary of a police response to psychiatric emergencies.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/south-bay-proposal-would-create-direct-line-for-non-police-mental-health-response/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Calling all William S. Hart Union High School District performers, students, teachers and administrators! WiSH is excited to introduce Hart District’s Got Talent Variety Showcase
https://scvnews.com/wish-foundation-seeking-performers-for-hart-district-talent-show/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: San Jose Mercury News
“We’re in the entertainment business and stuff like that is great. I may have to respond with something of my own, so we’ll see how it is.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/notebook-why-the-warriors-need-more-jonathan-kuminga-steve-kerrs-reaction-to-suns-dj-remix/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: San Jose Mercury News
While the 49ers (10-3) are not celebrating their newfound stature as the NFC’s potential No. 1 playoff seed, they are happy to welcome back cornerback Jason Verrett.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/shanahan-downplays-49ers-move-to-no-1-seed-cornerback-jason-verrett-returns/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: San Jose Mercury News
Lawsuit includes alleged nine-page “slave contract.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/bay-area-ceo-accused-in-lawsuit-of-enslaving-assistant-taking-her-into-dark-abyss-of-sexual-horror/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: SCV New (TV Station)
College of the Canyons traveled to San Diego Mesa College recently, snapping a five-game losing streak by bringing home an 83-77 double-overtime victory.
https://scvnews.com/cougars-snap-five-game-losing-streak-at-san-diego-mesa/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-12, from: San Jose Mercury News
Mercury News Letters to the Editor for Dec. 12, 2023
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/letters-1524/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Om Malik blog
Microsoft & the AFL-CIO have formed a partnership aimed at shaping the future of AI in the workforce. Big news! If you look beyond the headlines, and questions emerge about the actual impact of AI on employment, particularly in white-collar sectors.
https://om.co/2023/12/11/microsoft-afl-cio-ai-deal/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: The Canyons News (COC student paper)
It was a night under the stars as the COC hosted its…
The post College of the Canyons looks to the stars at its annual astrometry party appeared first on Canyons News.
https://canyonsnews.com/college-of-the-canyons-looks-to-the-stars-at-its-annual-astrometry-party/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Investigators at Indiana’s Purdue University have devised a way to interrogate large language models (LLMs) in a way that that breaks their etiquette training – almost all the time.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/chatbot_models_harmful_content/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: The Signal
Valencia Vikings girls’ basketball needed a new focal point heading into the second half of its Foothill League road game with the West Ranch Wildcats. The Vikings were playing well and up double digits but at the halftime buzzer, senior guard Libby Oxciano went down with an ankle injury. Oxciano was leading the Vikes in […]
The post <strong>Valencia girls’ hoops storms past West Ranch</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/12/valencia-girls-hoops-storms-past-west-ranch/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
Pollsters and economists say there has never been as wide a gap between the underlying health of the economy and public perception.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/bidens-hurdle-people-dont-think-the-economy-is-doing-well/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: SCV New (TV Station)
California State University, Northridge baseball head coach Eddie Cornejo announced the addition of six-year-old Andrew Rivera as an honorary Matador this season
https://scvnews.com/six-year-old-with-cystic-fibrosis-named-honorary-matador/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
I want you to know how much a little love and respect goes toward helping a homeless person get out of being homeless.
The post Love and Respect appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/11/love-and-respect/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Liliputing
In recent years we’ve seen a growing number of PC makers adopt LPDDR memory for thin and light laptops and mini PCs, where space is at a premium. But since that memory is fixed to the motherboard, it’s not user upgradeable. Last year Dell came up with another solution it calls CAMM (or Compression Attached […]
The post CAMM2 standard approved for up to 128GB of speedy, removable memory modules appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/camm2-standard-approved-for-up-to-128gb-of-speedy-removable-memory-modules/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: VOA News USA
U.S. special counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court on Monday to quickly consider whether former President Donald Trump has any immunity from charges accusing him of illegally conspiring to upend his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
In an effort to keep Trump’s scheduled March 4 trial date in Washington on track, Smith asked the country’s highest court to uphold U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling that the case can go forward, and bypass Trump’s appeal of her ruling to the federal appellate court in Washington, a process that could take months.
“The United States recognizes that this is an extraordinary request,” Smith told the Supreme Court. “This is an extraordinary case.”
Hours later, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments from both sides about whether they should act quickly to decide whether Trump has immunity from being charged criminally. Trump’s lawyers were told to file briefs on the issue by December 20.
By asking the Supreme Court for direct consideration of whether Trump is immune from prosecution for actions he took while still in office in the waning days of his presidency in late 2020 and early 2021, Smith is trying to avert having the trial delayed until after next November’s presidential election.
Trump is the overwhelming favorite for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination even as he faces an unprecedented four criminal indictments accusing him of 91 offenses, all of which he has denied.
If he were to win the White House again and any federal trials had yet to occur, he could direct his attorney general to drop two cases brought by Smith — the election conspiracy case and another in the Southern state of Florida set for May accusing him of mishandling classified documents as he left office.
Trump appointed three of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices during his four years in office. But the former president does not have a winning track record at the high court.
The justices rejected requests from Trump and his supporters to get involved in challenges to the 2020 election results. They also ruled against his claims that the presidency protected him from investigation and turned back his efforts to block release of his financial records.
In asking the Supreme Court to rule on whether Trump is immune from prosecution, prosecutors wrote, “This case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy: whether a former president is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin.”
The prosecutors emphasized the urgency of the matter to the Supreme Court, saying, “It is of imperative public importance that [Trump’s] claims of immunity be resolved by this court and that [his] trial proceed as promptly as possible if his claim of immunity is rejected.”
The prosecutors told the high court that Trump’s immunity claims “are profoundly mistaken, as the district court held. But only this court can definitively resolve them.”
Chutkan, the trial judge in the case, rejected arguments by Trump’s attorneys that he was immune from federal prosecution. In her order, she wrote that the office of the president “does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”
“Former presidents enjoy no special conditions on their federal criminal liability,” Chutkan wrote. “Defendant may be subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office.”
Trump, a Republican, is accused in a four-count indictment in Washington of conspiring to upend the results of the 2020 election he lost to Biden, a Democrat who is running for reelection next year.
The indictment alleged that Trump sought “to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified.”
On January 6, 2021, as Congress met to officially certify the results of the Electoral College showing Biden had won, Trump urged supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol and “fight like hell” to disrupt the proceeding. In the ensuing mayhem, about 2,000 Trump supporters stormed into the Capitol, clashed with police and rampaged through some congressional offices.
More than 1,100 protesters were arrested and more than 600 have been convicted of an array of offenses.
After hours of delay, Congress ratified Biden’s victory in the early hours of January 7, and he became the country’s president on January 20, 2021.
https://www.voanews.com/a/supreme-court-asked-to-decide-if-trump-is-immune-from-prosecution-/7393769.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-12, from: The LAist
The audit is the city’s first look into the LAPD Air Support Division program.
https://laist.com/news/politics/lapd-helicopter-audit-cost Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
He spent 16 seasons in the major leagues and became the first Venezuelan-born player to win a Gold Glove.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/vic-davalillo-dies-was-part-of-oakland-as-team-that-won-1973-world-series/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
A grant from the State of California allows for new energy initiative at Cater Water Treatment Plant.
The post New Battery Energy System Brings Sustainability and Resiliency to Santa Barbara’s Energy System appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/11/new-battery-energy-system-brings-sustainability-and-resiliency-to-santa-barbaras-energy-system/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: TidBITS blog
Apple has released iOS 17.2, iPadOS 17.2, macOS 14.2 Sonoma, watchOS 10.2, and tvOS 17.2 with notable improvements and several features promised early in the year. HomePod Software 17.2 received only unspecified bug fixes. Apple also published security updates for iOS 16.7.3, iPadOS 16.7.3, macOS 13.6.3 Ventura, and macOS 12.7.2 Monterey.
https://tidbits.com/2023/12/11/apples-end-of-year-os-updates-add-promised-features-security-updates/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Master’s University women’s basketball team traveled down to Los Angeles Sunday for an exhibition game against NCAA Division I Loyola Marymount, coming up on the short end of the 58-46 score
https://scvnews.com/lady-mustangs-come-up-short-in-exhibition-match-against-lmu-46-58/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
I come home from a friendly meetup and notice that my tiny web-server has a load of 80 instead of the usual 0.5. What the hell is going on? I look at the logs of the last 24 hours and see an IP number with more than 100 000 hits in the last 24h. What are they doing?
Whois tells me it is from the “Alibaba Cloud”. Oh yeah? What are the Chinese trying to do on my site?
I start poking around. More and more IP numbers from all over the net show up. Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud.
All right, so I’m blocking some of them individually as I go, but after a while I realize that I probably have to block them at the network level.
For the moment I’m also taking down one of the wikis that’s overloading my server.
Just looking at the top 10 offenders for two of my domains, and running whois on them to find the entire network they belong to, and checking that it’s Alibaba or Tencent:
# Alibaba Cloud 2023-12-10
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '47.76.0.0/14'" [or]
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '47.80.0.0/13'" [or]
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '47.74.0.0/14'" [or]
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '47.235.0.0/16'" [or]
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '47.246.0.0/16'" [or]
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '47.244.0.0/15'" [or]
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '47.240.0.0/14'" [or]
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '47.236.0.0/14'" [or]
# Tencent Cloud
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '42.192.0.0/15'" [or]
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '49.232.0.0/14'" [or]
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '101.34.0.0/15'" [or]
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '43.142.0.0/16'" [or]
RewriteCond "%{REMOTE_ADDR}" "-R '124.220.0.0/14'"
RewriteRule ^ https://alexschroeder.ch/nobots [redirect=410,last]
If I want this to be for the entire server and not repeat it for each location, I guess I’ll have to use Apache rewrite rules.
While I’m doing this, I notice a new pattern… My wiki software allows you to fetch a feed for every page. Either it contains updates to the page (Oddmuse), or a feed of the pages linked (Oddmu). It’s for humans.
Of course some shit engineer decided that it was a good idea to scan the web for all the feeds that are out there (so rare! so precious!) and to download them all, forever (uncover the darknet! server our customers!) and now I have to block IP number ranges, add robot agents to robots.txt files (not all of them provide one), or block user agents (not all of them provide a useful one) and I block and block and block (for the environment! to avoid +2.0°C and the end of human civilization!) and all this while I know that all these shit requests exist out there, for all the sites, everywhere – a hundred thousand requests or more per day, per site, wasting CO₂ – and what am I going to do, kill the feeds for humans because some shit engineer decided to feed a machine?
I’m on the Butlerian Jihad again.
Oh, and Virgin Media is downloading tons of PDFs I’m hosting? Are they looking for copyright violations? On the blocklist they go.
And what’s this, Feedly is also downloading feeds like crazy, every few minutes? Slow down, idiots. My news is not important. On the blocklist they go. Or are you trying to train your stupid intelligence? Fuck this AI training stuff. I already use “X-Robots-Tag: noimageai” but I guess I should add even more HTTP headers to block even more engineers overstepping boundaries?
Ah, and MonitoRSS going into overdrive, from the Amazon Cloud. Really, I don’t think there are humans in the Amazon Cloud. Onto the blocklist they go. Well, at least this IP range.
And who’s that VelenPublicWebCrawler, zealously collecting pages? Onto the blocklists they go.
#Bots #Butlerian Jihad #Administration
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2023-12-10-bots-again Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Sierra Hillbillies Square Dance Club will dance to caller Mike Seastrom, who along with his wife, Lisa, will call an SSD dance in barn dance style with Contra, line and round dancing between tips Sunday, Jan. 7, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., at the Valencia United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall.
https://scvnews.com/jan-7-sierra-hillbillies-remember-the-alamo-dance/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
After revoking the ability to give remote comments during council meetings, City Hall brings back the feature with new “guidelines.”
The post City of Santa Barbara Brings Back Virtual Public Comments appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/11/city-of-santa-barbara-brings-back-virtual-public-comments/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: NASA breaking news
Dec. 11, 2023 RELEASE: J23-007 NASA astronaut and retired U.S. Army Col. Jeffrey Williams, who played a key role in the design, construction, and operation of the International Space Station, is retiring on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024, after more than 27 years of service at the agency. The two-time station commander spent 534 cumulative days […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/four-time-space-veteran-jeff-williams-to-retire-from-nasa/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: TidBITS blog
This week’s Do You Use It? poll asks how heavily you use widgets in various places on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch. Have they become a core part of your Apple experience, or are they another feature you barely use?
https://tidbits.com/2023/12/11/do-you-use-it-apple-services-2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Founded the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara.
The post Peace Advocate David Krieger Has Died appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/11/peace-advocate-david-krieger-has-died/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Microsoft is partnering with the largest US union group – representing 60 unions and more than 12 million workers – to explore how AI will impact labor, and help shape policies to support workers as the technology threatens to disrupt jobs.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/microsoft_union_ai_partnership/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Shady Characters
https://shadycharacters.co.uk/2023/12/advent-calendar-comptometer/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: The Canyons News (COC student paper)
Art has the ability to break barriers; it can be beautiful as…
The post A new gallery at College of the Canyons allows artists to express themselves appeared first on Canyons News.
https://canyonsnews.com/college-of-the-canyons-new-gallery-gives-artists-an-opportunity-to-express-themselves/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Researchers are tracking invasive goldfish—which, often, were once kept as pets—in Lake Ontario to determine how best to manage them
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/giant-goldfish-are-bad-news-for-the-great-lakes-180983414/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
British arms dealer BAE Systems will be among the first beneficiaries of the $53 billion US Chips and Science Act.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/bae_chips_funds_f35/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: SCV New (TV Station)
As we embrace the joy and warmth of the holiday season, I want to share some valuable insights on how we can make this time even more special – by giving back to our community and protecting our planet
https://scvnews.com/ken-striplin-festive-guide-to-holiday-sustainability/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
It is difficult to believe that several states continue to impose the same inhuman and unconstitutional conditions today, rather than the excellent practices of the Juvenile Court, Probation Department, and private treatment programs here.
The post Praise for Progress appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/11/praise-for-progress/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: NASA breaking news
“There’s this thing called the overview effect: Space has this effect on people that you could probably call almost spiritual. Everyone returns from spaceflight changed in one way or another. … They see the Earth from space, and that’s how they continue to see it after flight. “… The more people travel to space and […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/branch-chief-margarita-sampson/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: RiscOS Story
The next Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club (WROCC) meeting will take place a week later than usual, on 13th December – the second Wednesday of this month, rather than the customary first. The guest speaker will be Andy Marks from RISCOSbits. The weekend just gone saw the MUG RISC OS Xmas Market take place, a small show put on as a last minute replacement for the London Show, which couldn’t take place this year. RISCOSbits exhibited at the show, with some new kit and developments, and was also punting a…
https://www.riscository.com/2023/riscosbits-on-the-road-to-wrocc/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: VOA News USA
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy received a standing ovation at the National Defense University in Washington Monday after he addressed U.S. military officers, kicking off a visit to Washington aimed at persuading Congress to provide more military aid to Ukraine before funding runs out.
In his speech, Zelenskyy emphasized the importance of defeating Russia in Ukraine because he said, if Russia wins in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin will not stop there.
“His [Putin’s] weapon against you right now is propaganda and disinformation. But if he sees a chance, he’ll go further,” he said. “Now he’s shifting Russia’s economy and society on[to’ what he calls ‘war tracks.’”
Zelenskyy said freedom must prevail when challenged and thanked Americans for the support.
“The whole world is watching us. … Ukraine hasn’t given up and won’t give up. We know what to do, and you can count on Ukraine. And we hope, just as much to be able to count on you,” he said.
The Ukrainian president said that, so far, Ukrainian forces have taken back 50% of the territory they lost to Russia, and he pointed to the perseverance of Ukrainian “warriors” on the battleground.
“Right now, amid fierce battles, our soldiers are holding positions on the front and preparing for further actions, and we haven’t let Russia score any victory this year.” But he stressed “we have to win in the sky.”
In his remarks at the National Defense University, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin maintained that U.S. support in Ukraine is unshakeable and warned, “If we do not stand up [to] the Kremlin’s aggression today, if we do not deter other would-be aggressors, we will only invite more aggression, more bloodshed and more chaos.”
“Now despite his crimes, and despite his isolation, Putin still believes that he can outlast Ukraine, and that he can outlast America. But he is wrong,” Austin said.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington on Monday, an IMF spokesperson said, as the fund’s executive board prepared to release more funds from the country’s $15.6 billion loan program.
The IMF last month announced a staff-level agreement with Ukraine on updated economic and financial policies, paving the way for a $900 million disbursement once it is finalized by the board.
At the time, the IMF said the Ukrainian economy continued to show “remarkable resilience” despite Russia’s invasion in February 2022, with recent developments pointing to a stronger-than-expected economic recovery in 2023 and continued growth in 2024.
On Tuesday, Zelenskyy is expected to go to Capitol Hill and to meet with Biden at the White House.
Biden has asked Congress for a $110 billion package of wartime funding for Ukraine and Israel, along with other national security priorities. Ukraine would get over $61 billion of the money.
But Republicans in the U.S. Senate have balked at the legislation, saying major U.S. border security changes are needed.
Some Republicans are asking for the immediate deportation of illegal migrants, stripping them of a chance to seek U.S. asylum. They have also called for greatly scaling back Biden administration programs that have allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the U.S. lawfully.
The U.S. has already provided Ukraine $111 billion for its fight against Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Zelenskyy’s visit is intended “to underscore the United States’ unshakeable commitment to supporting the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against Russia’s brutal invasion,” the White House said in a statement Sunday.
The stakes are especially high for Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during television interviews Sunday, given that “we are running out of funding” for the Ukrainians.
He also pointed out that 90% of the money that goes to Ukraine’s assistance is invested in the U.S.
“In terms of the production of materials and munitions and weapons that go to the Ukrainians, it’s right here, in America,” he said.
Russian submarines
Putin inspected two nuclear submarines, the Krasnoyarsk and Emperor Alexander III, at the Sevmash shipbuilding yard at the arctic port of Severodvinsk, in a televised ceremony Monday.
The Emperor Alexander III is part of Russia’s new Borei (Arctic Wind) class of nuclear submarines, the first new generation Russia has launched since the Cold War.
Last month, the defense ministry said the vessel had successfully tested a nuclear-capable Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile.
Security analysts say nuclear arms have assumed a greater importance in Putin’s thinking and rhetoric since the start of the Ukraine conflict, where his conventional forces are locked in a grinding war of attrition with no end in sight.
Polish protests
Meanwhile, a month-long blockade by protesting Polish truck drivers has been partially lifted at one border crossing between Ukraine and Poland, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Facebook Monday.
So far, 15 trucks had passed into Ukraine through the Yahodyn-Dorohusk crossing while 25 trucks were being cleared to head the other way toward Poland, said Kubrakov.
Blockades continued to stop traffic on three other crossings.
Polish truckers have been pushing to stop Ukrainian drivers from getting permit-free access to the EU, accusing their Ukrainian counterparts of using their permit-free access to undercut prices.
They said the protest had not ended and they were just waiting temporarily for details of a reported local order against one stoppage.
The Polish protest, which started in early November, has blocked four main land routes between the two neighbors, pushed up prices of fuel and some food items in Ukraine and delayed drone deliveries to Ukrainian troops fighting invading Russian forces.
Ukraine’s customs service said Monday 1,000 trucks were waiting to get into Ukraine from Poland and 100 trucks would go in the opposite direction.
Also, Slovak truckers resumed a partial blockade of the country’s sole freight road crossing with Ukraine Monday afternoon, the Ukrainian border service said, while Hungarian haulers are also blocking crossings to Ukraine to protest Ukrainian truckers’ EU permit-free access to Hungary.
VOA’s Carla Babb contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-zelensky-addresses-us-military-officers-in-washington/7393656.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/23/12/more-christmas-music-recs Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: SCV New (TV Station)
College of the Canyons has been awarded $600,000 from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office in support of Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) acceleration and Open Educational Resources (OER) materials that can be used and repurposed by other California community colleges.
https://scvnews.com/coc-awarded-600k-for-zero-textbook-cost-oer-materials/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: 404 Media Group
Tweets with the videos, advertising a DIY artificial insemination kit, say “Making him a dad without his permission 😋” and “Should I tell him it’s his kid?”
https://www.404media.co/twitter-x-ads-stealing-semen-make-a-mom/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The group meets once a month to talk about one or two pages of the bewildering James Joyce novel
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/finnegans-wake-james-joyce-book-club-28-years-180983411/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: RiscOS Story
Users of R-Comp‘s Pinebook Pro are now able to fetch a new ROM image for the ARM-based laptop from the users’ download site, the address and log-in details for which should be in the computer’s documentation. The Pinebook Pro is built around a Rockchip RK3399 processor, and several months of work on the port of RISC OS to this chip means there are a number of improvements to it – but the two features particularly highlighted by R-Comp are that sound and PCIe are now enabled. The enabling of sound…
https://www.riscository.com/2023/pinebook-pro-rom-update-sound-pcie/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: RiscOS Story
In the days of old, the computers RISC OS was supplied on by Acorn included a battery backed real time clock, which – while the battery lasted – kept ticking on and maintaining the time. These days, RISC OS runs on a number of single-board computers (SBCs) and not all of them have such a clock. One solution is NetTime, which can check the time from a remote server and thus correct the computer if it has the wrong value, but it can only work via an internet connection, so…
https://www.riscository.com/2023/r-comp-releases-clocksave/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Stephen Wolfram blog
The
Concept of the Observer We call it perception. We call it measurement.
We call it analysis. But in the end it’s about how we take the world as
it is, and derive from it the impression of it that we have in our
minds. We might have thought that we could do science “purely […]
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/12/observer-theory/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Community College District Board of Trustees will meet for its annual organizational and business meeting Wednesday, Dec. 13, beginning at 5 p.m
https://scvnews.com/dec-13-coc-board-slated-to-elect-new-officers/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It may have taken more than a year, but Tesla has finally responded to the California Department of Motor Vehicles allegations that it misrepresented Autopilot’s capabilities, arguing that it’s free to do so under the US Constitution. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/tesla_california_autopilot_lawsuit/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: NASA breaking news
Call for Papers Date: August 13–14, 2024Location: Washington, D.C. Jointly organized by the NASA History Office and the Earth Science Division, this workshop seeks to document the important contributions of airborne campaigns implemented on NASA’s DC-8 Airborne Science Laboratory. The workshop will be a combination of keynote talks, panel discussions, and roundtables. The intention is […]
https://www.nasa.gov/history/contributions-of-the-dc-8-to-earth-system-science-at-nasa-a-workshop/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Peoples CDC blog
The week following the end of the Public Health Emergency, the number of COVID deaths reported by the CDC dropped from 1000 to 300.
https://peoplescdc.org/2023/12/11/provisional-death-data/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: OS News
The Sophon SG2042 is the world’s first commodity 64-core RISC-V CPU for high performance workloads and an important question is whether the SG2042 has the potential to encourage the HPC community to embrace RISC-V. In this paper we undertaking a performance exploration of the SG2042 against existing RISC-V hardware and high performance x86 CPUs in use by modern supercomputers. Leveraging the RAJAPerf benchmarking suite, we discover that on average, the SG2042 delivers, per core, between five and ten times the performance compared to the nearest widely available RISC-V hardware. We found that, on average, the x86 high performance CPUs under test outperform the SG2042 by between four and eight times for multi-threaded workloads, although some individual kernels do perform faster on the SG2042. The result of this work is a performance study that not only contrasts this new RISC-V CPU against existing technologies, but furthermore shares performance best practice. ↫ Nick Brown, Maurice Jamieson, Joseph Lee, Paul Wang The Sophon SG2042 is the RISC-V processor found in the Milk-V Pioneer workstation, which was recently featured on LTT as well, for the video crowd among us. There’s definitely still a way to go for RISC-V, but the gains over the past few years are clear, and if this keeps progressing this way, it won’t be long before RISC-V becomes a valid, competitive architecture.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138049/is-risc-v-ready-for-hpc-prime-time-evaluating-the-64-core-sophon-sg2042-risc-v-cpu/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
A blog for developers with no RSS feed. Hard to believe.
https://developer.chrome.com/feeds Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Wonka Menu is a childhood fantasy come true.
The post A Sprinkling of Movie Magic Makes Its Way to IHOP, Including Locations in Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Carpinteria appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/11/a-sprinkling-of-movie-magic-makes-its-way-to-ihop-including-locations-in-santa-barbara-goleta-and-carpinteria/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The critically endangered creatures were flown by private plane to rehabilitation centers in Florida
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/52-cold-stunned-kemps-ridley-sea-turtles-rescued-from-cape-cod-180983409/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Michael Tsai
John Gruber: I installed Beeper Mini on my Pixel 4, and it worked like a charm. In addition to working seamlessly — including support for group chats, tapbacks (albeit substituting animated emoji in place of Apple’s monochromatic badges), undoing sent messages, and editing recent messages — it’s just a really nice chat app. It looks a lot like what […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2023/12/11/apple-blocks-beeper-mini/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: NASA breaking news
The elements of the super-heavy lift SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for NASA’s Artemis II mission are undergoing final preparations before shipment to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for stacking and pre-launch activities in 2024. Teams at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, recently rotated the Orion stage adapter– a ring structure […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-teams-prepare-moon-rocket-to-spacecraft-connector-for-assembly/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Michael Tsai
Howard Oakley: When writing about network tools available in macOS just eight years ago, I identified three GUI apps:Network Utility, tucked away in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications,Wireless Diagnostics, accessed via the WiFi menu,Network Diagnostics, hidden in /System/Library/CoreServices.It seems strange that of those three, only one has survived into Sonoma.[…]In Apple’s current support documents, there appears to be no […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2023/12/11/where-have-the-network-tools-gone/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Norton Healthcare, which runs eight hospitals and more than 30 clinics in Kentucky and Indiana, has admitted crooks may have stolen 2.5 million people’s most sensitive data during a ransomware attack in May.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/norton_healthcare_ransomware/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Michael Tsai
Tim Hardwick: WhatsApp is rolling out a new option that lets users on iPhone share photos and video over the messaging platform in their original quality.[…]WhatsApp’s latest feature avoids compression altogether by allowing photos and video to be shared as files, thereby preserving their original quality. Being able to send full-quality media is one of […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2023/12/11/whatsapp-supports-photos-and-video-in-original-quality/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Michael Tsai
Jeff Johnson: The problem with using both private and public windows is that when I open a URL in Safari from another app, such as Mail app, or such as my own Link Unshortener, which I use as my default web browser, I can’t control where exactly the URL opens. If the frontmost Safari window […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2023/12/11/opening-urls-in-private-safari-windows/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/23/12/running-gear Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Michael Tsai
Tim Hardwick: When users get directions for driving, walking, or cycling, Google Maps now offers a “multidimensional experience” that can be used to preview bike lanes, sidewalks, intersections, and parking along the route, according to Google.A time slider can be used to see air quality information and how the route looks as the weather changes […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2023/12/11/google-maps-in-late-2023/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Michael Tsai
Casey Newton: Google this morning announced the rollout of Gemini, its largest and most capable large language model to date. Starting today, the company’s Bard chatbot will be powered by a version of Gemini, and will be available in English in more than 170 countries and territories. Developers and enterprise customers will get access to […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2023/12/11/googles-gemini/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The Lawyer Who Took on Big Tobacco Is Now Fighting an Online Sports Betting Giant.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3wkgg/the-lawyer-who-took-on-big-tobacco-is-now-fighting-an-online-sports-betting-giant Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Princess Cruises and the line’s partners at Fincantieri Shipyard celebrated Monday the beginning of construction of the second, sensational Sphere Class cruise ship – Star Princess – with the official keel laying ceremony in Monfalcone, Italy
https://scvnews.com/princess-cruises-keel-laying-ceremony-marks-construction-of-new-ship/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
For 74 years, the Cancer Foundation has ensured the finest cancer care on the Central Coast to all patients, regardless of their ability to pay for treatment.
The post Aid for Cancer Costs appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/11/aid-for-cancer-costs/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Daniela Schwartz and Lukas Olesinski present an inside look at breaks and drops and the people who stick like tar to the waves off the college town.
The post New Book ‘The Lineup’ Features Decades of Surfers in Isla Vista appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/11/new-book-the-lineup-features-decades-of-surfers-in-isla-vista/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/23/12/0043606-artist-gabrielle-bells-dr Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Smithsonian Magazine
“Women Dressing Women” gives often-forgotten figures in fashion history their due
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-met-exhibition-women-dressing-women-celebrates-fashion-and-female-designers-180983401/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Tilde.news
https://www.mistys-internet.website/blog/blog/2023/12/10/fixing-classical-cats-or/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Week of December 14.
The post Free Will Astrology appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/11/free-will-astrology-190/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: NASA breaking news
Read this release in English here. Ya está abierta la acreditación para los medios de comunicación para el próximo lanzamiento de la misión científica de observación de la Tierra PACE (acrónimo inglés para Plancton, Aerosoles, Nubes y Ecosistemas Oceánicos) de la NASA. La NASA y SpaceX planean poner en órbita PACE no antes del martes 6 […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-invita-a-medios-al-lanzamiento-de-mision-para-estudiar-oceanos-y-nubes/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: NASA breaking news
Lee esta nota de prensa en español aquí. Media accreditation is open for the upcoming launch of NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud ocean Ecosystem) Earth observing science mission. NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than Tuesday, Feb. 6, for a Falcon 9 rocket to launch PACE to orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-invites-media-to-launch-of-new-mission-to-study-oceans-clouds/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Upstate New York is set for a $10 billion semiconductor research facility to work on next-generation chip manufacturing, with IBM and Micron part of the scheme.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/new_york_semiconductor_facility/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Heatmap News
Political protests are a staple of COP summits. Thousands of climate activists descend on the event each year to call for stronger global commitments to building renewables and quitting fossil fuels.
But at COP28, United Arab Emirates laws restricting speech and banning most forms of public protest have constrained where and how people can speak out. Demonstrations are only permitted in areas managed by the UN, known as the “blue zone,” and have to be approved before they can take place.
“We have to say how loud we’re going to be, what’s going to be written on the banners. We’re not allowed to name countries and corporations. So it’s really a very sanitized space,” Lise Masson, an organizer at Friends of the Earth International, told the Associated Press last week.
Pre-approved rallies went on throughout last week. But as negotiations intensified over the weekend, the demonstrations did, too. Activists declared Saturday a day of protest, the AP said. A group of about 25 people called for the release of pro-democracy prisoners staged what Reuters called a “very rare” UAE protest, while 500 people urged a ceasefire in Gaza. That’s not to say those demonstrations were unrestrained, however. Pro-democracy protesters were not allowed to display detainees’ names, and ceasefire demonstrators were barred from naming Israel or Hamas.
Also on Saturday, a small number of climate activists staged a brief sit-in at OPEC’s pavilion after the oil cartel allegedly directed its members to reject any agreement involving phasing out fossil fuels, The New York Times reported. And as anger simmered over Monday’s watered-down global stocktake draft — which does not mention a fossil fuel phase-out — climate activists continued to chafe against the restrictions on their ability to protest during the summit’s final hours.
Ahead of the draft release, a line of silent activists held signs pushing countries to “hold the line” on the phaseout. One protester, however, refused to follow the pre-approved plan. Licypriya Kangujam, a 12-year-old climate activist from India, ran onto the stage after the “hold the line” protest on Monday, shouting and brandishing a sign that read, “End fossil fuel. Save our planet and our future.” Kangujam was detained and eventually removed from the summit, according to posts from her account on X.
https://heatmap.news/sparks/cop28-dubai-climate-protests Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Smithsonian Magazine
In the U.S., the rare event will only be visible from southern Florida, but it will be livestreamed from Italy for viewers everywhere
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/an-asteroid-will-eclipse-a-red-star-in-the-constellation-orion-on-monday-night-180983412/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: VOA News USA
The U.S. Air Force took disciplinary action against 15 airmen, charging that a lack of supervision and a failure to take action contributed to the so-called ‘Discord intelligence leaks’ that rattled the U.S. intelligence community.
A 21-year-old Air National Guardsman, Jack Teixeira, was arrested this past April, shortly after the leaks were discovered, and is facing multiple charges for removing documents from a secured work environment, and then posting the information or photos for a small group on Discord, a social media platform popular with gamers.
At the time, a top Pentagon official said the leaks, which revealed information about Russia’s war in Ukraine and about U.S. allies, posed “a very serious risk” to national security.
In a statement Monday, the Air Force said the commander of Teixeira’s Air National Guard unit, the 102nd Intelligence Wing, was relieved of command.
Another 14 individuals where subjected to non-judicial punishment under the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice.
The Air Force defended the actions, saying officials in Teixeira’s unit could have and should have taken action that could have mitigated the improper disclosure of intelligence.
“Individuals in Teixeira’s unit failed to take proper action after becoming aware of his intelligence-seeking activities,’ the Air Force said, citing a report by its inspector general.
“Leadership was not vigilant in inspecting the conduct of all persons who were placed under their command,” the Air Force said.
The statement also said the intelligence leaks were further enabled by “inconsistent guidance for reporting security incidents” and “ineffective processes for administering disciplinary actions.”
“However, the investigation did not find evidence that members of Teixeira’s supervisory chain were aware of his alleged unauthorized disclosures,” the Air Force said.
According to the Air Force inspector general, evidence indicated that members of the 102nd Intelligence Wing had information on at least four incidents involving questionable activity by Teixeira, and that a smaller number of individuals “had a more complete picture” of Teixeira’s activities but “failed to report the full details of these security concerns/incidents.”
“Had any of these members come forward, security officials would likely have facilitated restricting systems/facility access and alerted the appropriate authorities, reducing the length and depth of the unauthorized and unlawful disclosures by several months,” the report said.
The inspector general’s report further found that a routine background check flagged concerns about Teixeira, but that the military granted him top secret clearance anyway.
Additionally, the report found those concerns were never shared with Teixeira’s unit.
“The details learned in background checks are not routinely shared with a member’s unit,” it said. “Had the unit been made aware of potential security concerns identified during the clearance adjudication process, they may have acted more quickly.”
The Pentagon Monday said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been made aware of the Air Force’s findings and actions, adding Austin is confident officials are “taking the necessary steps.”
This past July, the Pentagon released the results of its own review into the leaks, calling for a tightening of existing security measures. But it rejected the need for any sweeping overhaul.
“There was no single point of failure,” a senior defense official said at the time, speaking to reporters about the review’s findings on the condition of anonymity.
“What we see here is we have a growing ecosystem of classified facilities and a body of personnel who are cleared,” the official said. “Within that we have opportunities to clarify policy … they are not the clearest documents always.”
Still, Defense Department officials have taken steps to reduce the number of people with access to classified information.
According to a 2017 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, approximately 4 million people have U.S. security clearances, with 1.3 million cleared to access top secret information.
https://www.voanews.com/a/discipline-handed-down-for-us-intelligence-discord-leaks/7393362.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: NASA breaking news
In this image from Dec. 8, 1993, astronaut Kathryn C. Thornton works with equipment during a spacewalk. The spacewalk was part of an 11-day mission, Servicing Mission 1, to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Shortly after Hubble was launched in 1990, NASA discovered a flaw in the observatory’s primary mirror that affected the clarity of […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/astronaut-kathryn-thornton-works-on-hubble-space-telescope/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Tumblr’s ‘fediverse’ integration is still being worked on, says owner and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/11/tumblrs-fediverse-integration-is-still-being-worked-on-says-owner-and-automattic-ceo-matt-mullenweg/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The gentle, pinkish-orange hue was chosen to reflect a collective desire for respite
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/peach-fuzz-is-pantones-color-of-the-year-for-2024-180983407/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: NASA breaking news
EMIT delivers first-of-a-kind maps of minerals in Earth’s dust-source areas, enabling scientists to model the fine particles’ role in climate change and more. NASA’s EMIT mission has created the first comprehensive maps of the world’s mineral dust-source regions, providing precise locations of 10 key minerals based on how they reflect and absorb light. When winds […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/emit/nasa-sensor-produces-first-global-maps-of-surface-minerals-in-arid-regions/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Research into Lazarus Group’s attacks using Log4Shell has revealed novel malware strains written in an atypical programming language.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/lazarus_group_edang/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Liliputing
Last week the company behind the Beeper app announced plans to go all-in on a new version of the app called Beeper Mini. It’s still designed to be a cross-platform messaging app that lets Android users tap into Apple’s iMessage service (and which would, eventually, also support more than a dozen other messaging platforms), but […]
The post Beeper Mini is back online and free to use (for now) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/beeper-mini-is-back-online-and-free-to-use-for-now/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
2024 will be a big election year, in the United States and elsewhere. Many news publishers will see an uptick in audience attention, perhaps even advertising, and a few upmarket titles will do a brisk business with discounted trial subscriptions. I fear that some will mistake this cyclical bump for a structural turning point. It…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/ignore-the-coming-election-bump/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
Tory Lanez shot Megan thee Stallion. That is a fact. He was found guilty of this crime and is serving a ten-year sentence in California. That is also a fact. But the road to this verdict and the unveiling of these facts was filled with misinformation and misogynoir from media bloggers who’ve cosplayed as journalists…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/experts-not-influencers-will-cover-more-black-news/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: NASA breaking news
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced Monday that after more than 30 years of service, the agency’s Stennis Space Center Director Richard Gilbrech will retire on Saturday, Jan. 13. Stennis Deputy Director John Bailey will serve as acting center director after Gilbrech’s departure, and a permanent successor will be identified following a search and competition. Nelson […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/2024-leadership-changes-to-include-nasa-stennis-directors-retirement/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
The predictions in this series are often happy, joyful, optimistic about the coming year, bursting with all the promise and possibilities facing journalism in the next 12 months. Allow me to be a downer just this once. My prediction for 2024 is that there will be a major scandal involving a sports journalist and sports…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/a-major-sports-betting-journalism-scandal-is-coming/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/23/12/baby-drawings Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
To a journalist, a presidential election year is kind of like Christmas morning to a six-year-old — as the event gets closer, conversation, planning, and feverish anticipation accelerates to an obsessive frenzy. To a great degree, it’s all they can think about. But there is one piece of advice I give my friends, colleagues, and clients…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/this-election-year-dont-forget-theres-more-than-one-story/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
Throughout our two years of work on AP’s Local News AI Initiative, funded by the Knight Foundation, we’ve come to this general observation: Smaller newsrooms are hungry for automation and AI. Along with my colleague, AI program manager Aimee Rinehart, we published the first nationwide findings in March 2022 on how local newsrooms were approaching…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/ai-gets-widely-adopted-by-smaller-newsrooms/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/journalists-will-go-on-camera-for-social-video/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Using A.I. to Talk to the Dead.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/technology/ai-chatbots-dead-relatives.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Care
<p>Sam Altman arrives as a mythological hero in the self-help-saturated capital city of South Korea. However, there’s more than meets the eye, including a radical art space that deconstructs the AI hype cycle for a Korean audience.</p>https://logicmag.io/policy/seouls-imported-prophets Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/23/12/0043600-pleasantly-surprised-to-f Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Heatmap News
New clean energy projects have a lot going for them. For one, building them has gotten extremely cheap. At the same time, because the wind blowing and the sun shining are unlimited free resources, operating costs for a clean energy power plant are also pretty low. That’s the beauty of a clean energy economy — it reduces our exposure to the price swings, recessions, political instability, and surging inflation that come with fossil fuels.
The problem is that the cure for surging inflation — hiking up interest rates — is having a big, bad impact on clean energy. Elevated interest rates directly and disproportionately raise costs for clean power projects, throwing a handbrake on the clean energy transition and its deflationary impacts exactly when we need them most.
Here’s how it happens: Nearly all the costs of clean energy projects are upfront capital expenditures to cover things like building wind turbines and installing solar panels. And as anyone with a mortgage or car loan can tell you, the higher the amount you need to finance up front, the more you care about your interest rate.
By comparison, a fossil fuel power plant will pay as they go for the fuel they need to operate, meaning they have less to finance. And there’s the rub — those extra financing costs get passed on to clean energy consumers. Even if a fossil fuel power plant and a clean energy power plant have equivalent associated costs, if one has to finance more of that cost upfront at higher and higher interest rates, it’s going to be less competitive. Estimates suggest that as interest rates rise, the total cost of energy from a gas power plant might rise 8%, but for a clean energy project the same cost could rise as much as 47%.
That impact is being felt across the developed world — Bloomberg’s clean energy research division, BNEF, estimates that 60% of the cost increase for offshore wind is the direct result of rising interest rates — but the impact in the developing world is even more insidious. In emerging markets, the financing cost to deploy the exact same technology can be as much as seven times higher. That’s a big part of the reasoning behind the International Energy Agency’s estimate that we’ll have a $2 trillion clean finance gap in emerging and developing economies by 2030.
In one respect, however, we are in luck — financial regulators have a wide variety of tools they could deploy to solve this problem by creating lower, dual rates for clean energy.
One way to do that is to create dedicated central bank programs that give banks access to cheap credit if they pass it on to sectors of the economy that align with key industrial policy goals — like, say, solving climate change. If this kind of facility existed, your local bank could decide that because you put solar panels on your roof, bought an electric car, or installed a heat pump, it could offer you a mortgage at 4% instead of today’s 7% rate. Or it could finance an offshore wind developer’s first projects at below-market rates, helping to make them competitive in a challenging economic environment.
As we all know, however, creating new programs or passing new policies is hard. Instead, we might want to just make existing lending programs greener. In the EU, for example, leaders at the European Central Bank are considering using existing programs to provide banks with financing at favorable rates if they use it to support clean energy.
Meanwhile, here in the U.S., the Fed could reduce discount window interest rates and adjust collateral policies to incentivize clean energy lending — in other words, it could set the terms on which banks borrow from the Fed to support green loans and discourage dirty loans. Intervening this way would incentivize banks to lend more to clean energy at lower rates.
The Fed could also use its emergency powers to create a new program just to provide clean energy with cheaper capital because of the adverse impacts of high interest rates. It recently used these powers to create the Bank Term Funding Program explicitly to mitigate the impact of higher rates on banks; in “unusual and exigent circumstances” and with the Department of the Treasury’s approval, it could adopt a new program to provide similar direct support for clean energy. A once-in-a-civilization clean energy transition to head off a climate crisis, underwritten by historic climate legislation whose impact is now threatened by rising interest rates, would seem to qualify.
But wait, there’s more! The Fed, along with its fellow banking regulators the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, could leverage the new Community Reinvestment Act regulations to encourage certain clean energy investments, including community solar and “microgrid and battery” projects that could help smooth out power supply to public housing in extreme weather.
And of course, it’s not just central banks that can create lower dual rates for clean energy. Public finance institutions can also play an instrumental role by using their own lower cost of finance to bring down the cost of credit. For instance, the EU is providing financial support for the wind industry in the form of loan guarantees from the European Investment Bank. Loan guarantees work by putting the full credit of the government behind a particular project, thereby giving lenders more confidence they won’t lose their money, which brings down the cost of finance.
In the U.S., subsidized loans and guarantees funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and administered by the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office are already helping to create dual rates for offshore wind — which, thanks to new Treasury guidance, can now be extended to cover associated infrastructure like sub-sea cables. Still, that’s nowhere near what the Fed could do. Add in the new green bank capitalized with funding from the IRA that could extend low-interest loans for everything from electric vehicles to heat pumps and we’ve got a bevy of tools at our disposal.
For those wondering whether this kind of Fed policy could be co-opted to support everything from defense manufacturing to fossil fuel production, the answer is that industries always lobby for favorable policy wherever they can get them. But dual interest rates and targeted lending programs are common practice around the world, even in free market economies, with no such terrible consequences. At the end of the day, policy is just a tool, and it’s up to us to make sure it is used to achieve society’s goals, not corporate profits.
Concern over the impact of rising interest rates on clean energy and the economy more broadly is hitting a crescendo, and for good reason. This week the Fed governors will meet to decide whether further rate increases are still warranted. Most Fed-watchers think this cycle of rising interest rates is finally over, but there’s no such thing as a guarantee.
More importantly, even if the Fed says “enough,” the reality is that our currently elevated rates will almost certainly take years to come down. Meanwhile, we have a rapidly vanishing window of time to reach peak emissions to stay under the Paris Agreement’s limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius of temperature rise. That means we need new targeted policy interventions that bring down the cost of finance to keep the clean energy transition humming. Unlike climate change, the impact of high interest rates on clean energy is not a force of nature. It’s one we can control.
https://heatmap.news/economy/high-interest-rates-clean-energy Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: James Bottomley’s blog
Even if you’re a developer with legal leanings like me, you probably haven’t given much thought to the warranty disclaimer and the liability disclaimer that appears in almost every Open Source licence (see sections 14 and 15 of GPLv3). This post is designed to help you understand what they are, why they’re there and why […]
https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/solving-the-looming-developer-liability-problem/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: NASA breaking news
Clare Luckey, an engineer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, has been named one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 Class of 2024. The other NASA honoree is Katie Konans, audio and podcasting lead at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list is a selection of young, creative, […]
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/johnson/nasa-engineer-named-in-forbes-30-under-30-list-of-innovators-2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Amazon is asking a judge to dismiss the antitrust case filed against it by the Federal Trade Commission and 17 states, arguing the case fails to allege any anticompetitive conduct or harm to consumers from its behavior.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/ftc_antitrust_amazon_dismissal_request/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Heatmap News
One of the most exciting and contentious questions looming over the COP28 climate summit in Dubai this year has been whether countries will agree to an historic phase out of fossil fuels to stave off the worst effects of climate change. With one day left on the official conference agenda, we may have our answer: No.
A new draft of the global stocktake text dropped Monday and it contains no mention of a fossil fuel phase out or phase down. Instead, the relevant section of the text now calls for “reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by, before, or around 2050 in keeping with the science.”
That the phase-out language didn’t survive a tense weekend of negotiations isn’t a huge surprise. Any deal to emerge from the annual United Nations climate summit must be unanimously supported by all 198 participating nations. Saudi Arabia staunchly opposed a phase-out, while a handful of powerful oil-producing countries (including the U.S.) wanted to see specific caveats and provisions.
Strong language on moving past oil and gas was always a long shot, but some activists and governments are still disappointed. Fossil fuels are a primary source of planet-warming pollution, which must fall by at least 45% “to avoid global catastrophe,” according to the UN. New analysis from the International Energy Agency concluded that the voluntary emissions pledges to come out of COP28 so far are nowhere near dramatic enough to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
“This draft takes a giant step backwards,” said Teresa Anderson, Global Climate Lead at ActionAid. “It’s staggeringly empty of any new commitments.” CarbonBrief’s Simon Evans laments that “hardly any of the verbs in the latest draft global stocktake text actually ask for action.” Kaisa Kosonen, head of the Greenpeace COP28 delegation, calls it “a dog’s dinner.”
The new text isn’t entirely toothless, though. “By requiring countries to reduce their fossil fuel production, it effectively achieves the same ends as a phase down, without using the contentious language that some countries would not allow,” argued The Guardian’s Fiona Harvey. Past language focusing on fossil fuel emissions instead of production was considered a sneaky workaround for countries that want to keep emitting while relying on carbon capture and storage. So focusing specifically on production could be interpreted as an attempt at stronger accountability.
“It appears to be a compromise between Saudi Arabia who didn’t want any mention of fossils and the progressive countries who called for an outright fossil fuel phase out,” said Mohamed Adow, Director of Power Shift Africa. “It’s in the middle and uses creative language to describe the direction of travel.”
“It’s not sufficient,” conceded BusinessGreen’s James Murray. “But the signal to investors and businesses is pretty clear. Is it enough to secure backing from COP’s opposing factions?”
https://heatmap.news/sparks/cop28-agreement-fossil-fuel-phaseout Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: VOA News USA
Jury selection got underway on Monday in the federal case that will determine how how much Rudy Giuliani might have to pay two Georgia election workers he falsely accused of fraud while pushing Donald Trump’s baseless claims after the 2020 election.
The former New York City mayor has already been found liable in the defamation lawsuit brought by Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who endured threats and harassment after they became the target of a conspiracy theory spread by Trump and his allies. The only issue to be determined at the trial is the amount of damages, if any, Giuliani must pay.
Giuliani did not speak to reporters as he entered Washington’s federal courthouse — the same building where Trump is set to stand trial in March on criminal charges accusing the former president of scheming to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden.
The defamation case is among many legal and financial woes mounting for Giuliani, who was celebrated as “America’s mayor” in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack and became one of the most ardent promoters of Trump’s election lies.
Giuliani is also criminally charged alongside Trump and others in the Georgia case accusing them of trying to illegally overturn the results of the election in the state. Giuliani has pleaded not guilty and maintains he had every right to raise questions about what he believed to be election fraud.
He was sued in September by a former lawyer who alleged Giuliani only paid a fraction of roughly $1.6 million in legal fees stemming from investigations into his efforts to keep Trump in the White House. And the judge overseeing the election workers’ lawsuit has already ordered Giuliani and his business entities to pay tens of thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees.
Overseeing the defamation case is District Judge Beryl Howell, who is well-versed in handling matters related to Trump, having served as chief judge of Washington’s federal court for the entirety of Trump’s presidency.
In that role, the appointee of former President Barack Obama has made several significant rulings, including determining in 2020 that the House of Representatives was entitled to secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and, more recently, issuing a sealed opinion requiring a lawyer for Trump to testify before the grand jury over his objections in an investigation into the mishandling of classified documents.
Moss had worked for the Fulton County elections department since 2012 and supervised the absentee ballot operation during the 2020 election. Freeman was a temporary election worker, verifying signatures on absentee ballots and preparing them to be counted and processed.
Giuliani and other Trump allies seized on surveillance footage to push a conspiracy theory that the election workers pulled fraudulent ballots out of suitcases. The claims were quickly debunked by Georgia election officials, who found no improper counting of ballots.
The women have said the false claims led to a barrage of violent threats and harassment that at one point led Freeman to leave her home for more than two months. In emotional testimony before the U.S. House Committee that investigated the U.S. Capitol attack, Moss recounted receiving an onslaught of threatening and racist messages.
In an August decision holding Giuliani liable in the case, Howell said the Trump adviser gave “only lip service” to complying with his legal obligations and had failed to turn over information requested by the mother and daughter. The judge in October said that Giuliani had flagrantly disregarded an order to provide documents concerning his personal and business assets. She said that jurors deciding the amount of damages would be told they must infer that Giuliani was intentionally trying to hide financial documents in the hopes of “artificially deflating his net worth.”
Giuliani conceded in July that he made public comments falsely claiming Freeman and Moss committed fraud while counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. But Giuliani argued that the statements were protected by the First Amendment.
https://www.voanews.com/a/7393124.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Microsoft’s OpenAI headaches might not be going away following reports that now the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering an investigation into the Windows giant’s investment in the company.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/microsoft_openai_investment_ftc/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
I was at the Swiss Mechanical Keyboard Meetup. I wanted to get rid of my keyboards and instead I bought one. 😓
@xtaran’s table with colourful keyboards and a MNT Reform laptop in the middle:
@deshipu’s table with a lot of very flat keyboards with few keys, some of them steno keyboards:
Keyboards by Nicolas and Valerio:
Sam’s keyboards:
This is the keyboard I bought from Sam:
It is labelled as Monsgeek M6, KTT Matcha, GMK DMG Clones.
Right now my fingers are confused and seemed to expect the Atreus layout I had been using recently, at least as far as the thumbs go.
I get the feeling that not all keys work as intended, though. The right
Ctrl key has no effect is a layer switch that enables <
and > to control the volume, for example. The left Alt key is GUI.
The right Alt key has no effect had a bent pin on their
switch. The App key has no effect had a bent pin on their
switch. The App key is actually Alt. The ] and = keys have no
effect had a bent pin on their switches. The Volume Up key is
mapped to Delete. The Volume Down key is mapped to Prior. The Mute Key
is mapped to Next.
Hm.
As it turns out, the problem was the firmware. My guess is that it was too old.
So here’s what I did:
monsgeek_m6_via.bin from
the VIA
site
* QMK Toolbox 0.2.2+0fcc8d2be51846956c2fc4edad6362c194d6b2ca (https://qmk.fm/toolbox)
* Supported bootloaders:
* - ARM DFU (APM32, Kiibohd, STM32, STM32duino) and RISC-V DFU (GD32V) via dfu-util (http://dfu-util.sourceforge.net/)
* - Atmel/LUFA/QMK DFU via dfu-programmer (http://dfu-programmer.github.io/)
* - Atmel SAM-BA (Massdrop) via Massdrop Loader (https://github.com/massdrop/mdloader)
* - BootloadHID (Atmel, PS2AVRGB) via bootloadHID (https://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/bootloadhid.html)
* - Caterina (Arduino, Pro Micro) via avrdude (http://nongnu.org/avrdude/)
* - HalfKay (Teensy, Ergodox EZ) via Teensy Loader (https://pjrc.com/teensy/loader_cli.html)
* - LUFA/QMK HID via hid_bootloader_cli (https://github.com/abcminiuser/lufa)
* - WB32 DFU via wb32-dfu-updater_cli (https://github.com/WestberryTech/wb32-dfu-updater)
* - LUFA Mass Storage
* Supported ISP flashers:
* - AVRISP (Arduino ISP)
* - USBasp (AVR ISP)
* - USBTiny (AVR Pocket)
* Auto-flash enabled
* Auto-flash disabled
WB32 DFU device connected (WinUSB): (Undefined Vendor) WB Device in DFU Mode (342D:DFA0:0100)
Attempting to flash, please don't remove device
> wb32-dfu-updater_cli.exe --toolbox-mode --dfuse-address 0x08000000 --download "C:\Users\asc\Downloads\monsgeek_m6_via.bin"
> ----------------------------------------
> C:\Users\asc\Downloads\monsgeek_m6_via.bin file opened
> ----------------------------------------
> Found DFU
> Opening DFU capable USB device ...
> Device ID 342d:dfa0
> ----------------------------------------
> The device bootloader version: 0.4
> Chip id: 0x3A50E980
> Flash size: 256 KBytes
> Sram size: 36 KBytes
> ----------------------------------------
> Start Download ...
> Download block start address: 0x08000000
> Download block size: 39884 Bytes
> Writing ...
> OK
> Download completed!
Flash complete
WB32 DFU device disconnected (WinUSB): (Undefined Vendor) WB Device in DFU Mode (342D:DFA0:0100)
Then return to the VIA site with a browser that supports the USB stuff, so either Chrome or Edge 😭 and configure the keyboard. And now it works.
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2023-12-10-keyboards Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/23/12/0043605–some-of-the-most Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
Like overeating and watching your favorite holiday movie/show (mine is A Charlie Brown Christmas), it’s time for everyone’s favorite seasonal activity: year-end tax and financial planning! Sure, focusing on money is a tough sell at this time of year, but a little bit of energy now could help you save or make some money in the […]
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/jill-on-money-year-end-money-2023/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
SantaCon returned Saturday to the city of its birth for the annual crush of red velvet and grinch green attendees.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/photos-santacon-fills-san-franciscos-union-square-for-28th-annual-event/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
Californians have said they experienced added difficulty over the past year in getting car insurance. Insurer rates have gone up more than usual.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/getting-car-insurance-gets-harder-california-drivers-face-delays-higher-rates/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
The practice ranges from psychotherapy to medical and faith-based methods that can include talk therapy, hormone or steroid treatment or faith-based consultation.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/supreme-court-lets-stand-washington-state-law-barring-conversion-therapy-for-minors/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog
Today’s links Daddy-Daughter Podcast 2023: From age 4 to age 15. 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 Daddy-Daughter Podcast 2023 (permalink) 11 years ago, my kid’s daycare surprised us by announcing that they were closing for Christmas break a day before everyone else, so I ended up with our then-four-year-old daughter, Poesy, at my office for the day. After she got bored with coloring and playing with my office toys, I sat her down on my lap in front of my podcast mic and we recorded the greatest, all-singing episode of my podcast ever: https://craphound.com/news/2012/12/21/happy-hols/ Thus began an annual tradition. Every year since – save one, when my mic was busted – we have recorded a podcast: I interview the kid about her favorite media, apps, books, and hobbies. Sometimes, she gives a tutorial. Then, we sing a song. She’s 15 now (!), and I still managed to drag her to the mic this weekend. We discussed her musical favorites, old (Ike and Tina singing “Proud Mary”) and new (Dominic Fyke). We discuss high school, volunteering at the zoo, and the rigors of dance team. She teaches us how to drive. She runs down her favorite apps, and discusses her recent name change. And then, we sing! https://craphound.com/news/2023/12/10/daddy-daughter-podcast-2023-edition/ This is the eleventh installment in this time-series snapshots of my kid, starting in London, then moving to LA, and every year I go back and listen to the previous recordings. It’s not just a wonderful moment of nostalgia for me – it’s also a powerful way to put everything into perspective. Anyone who’s kept a journal (or a blog!) knows, the act of regular record-keeping, combined with regular revisiting of those records, turns the impressionistic jumble of memory into a clear picture of your life and its trajectory. We remember so poorly, but our treacherous minds fill in those omissions with whatever’s going on right now, so if times are good now, we remember all times as good. If times are bad, everything seems bad. The following year sees Poesy far more confident and even funnier – and excited about working at the zoo someday: https://craphound.com/news/2013/12/23/christmastime-daddy-daughter-podcast-with-poesy/ At six, Poesy has learned a little French, and some naughty words for Jingle Bells (and she’s got a lot more vocal control!): https://craphound.com/news/2014/12/22/podcast-happy-xmas-guest-starring-poesy/ At seven, Poesy is living in Los Angeles and my mic is very busted, but Poesy knows all the words to Frosty and she’s got the barrelhouse walkout nailed: https://craphound.com/news/2015/12/25/podcast-happy-xmas-guest-starring-poesy-2/ We didn’t manage to record the next year, so we catch up with Poesy at nine, with her English accent all but gone – but her memory for lyrics is better than ever (who knew there were so many choruses to “Deck the Halls?”). This is the first time I interviewed her, for an in-depth discussion of how to make slime (remember slime?): https://craphound.com/news/2017/12/23/reviving-my-christmas-daddy-daughter-podcast-with-poesy/ At ten, Poesy is now watching online makeup tutorials and has lots of advice for you, and is super into squishies: https://craphound.com/news/2018/12/24/christmas-podcast-with-poesy-2018-edition/ At eleven, Poesy’s no longer willing to sing, but she has lots of information about riding horses. This is the first year that she’s got her own music preferences, with half of them being contemporary artists like Billie Eilish and the other half being older acts like Queen. This is also the year that she got rid of all her old toys, books and clothes, because they were “not her style”: https://craphound.com/podcast/2019/12/20/my-annual-daddy-daughter-xmas-podcast-interview-with-an-11-year-old/ Twelve sees us podcasting from covid lockdown. No song this year, but she’s playing video games (Among Us), thrifting (while double-masked), and she’s just discovered Tiktok, along with Tiktok dances, and she’s started to find cool music that I enjoy: https://craphound.com/news/2020/12/11/daddy-daughter-podcast-2020-edition/ At thirteen, Poe’s a high school freshman and the singing is back! She’s big into Drag Race and Ru Paul. And high school sucks so hard that she’d rather go back to Zoom school. She’s still riding horses, and she’s fallen in love with a book for the first time in years: Animal Farm (but she hates the ending): https://craphound.com/news/2021/12/23/daddy-daughter-podcast-2021-edition/ Last year, Poesy was fourteen, and my office had just flooded out in a freak rainstorm. Poesy has discovered her argumentative nature, and she loves hiking in nearby Angeles National Forest. She’s getting into hiphop – Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and Cyprus Hill – and South Park (also Fleetwood Mac!). We get a lot about Big Mouth, and a long discussion of her short fiction writing: https://craphound.com/podcast/2022/12/12/daddy-daughter-podcast-2022-edition/ These annual time-capsules are just tremendous. I may not have had the discipline to do daily, time-lapse ready photo portraits, but this corny, silly yearly tradition is more than a way for my kid and me to spend a few minutes together just before Christmas – they’re a way to connect to our past and think about the future to come. I can imagine doing these over Zoom when the kid’s away at university in a couple years, though who knows if she’ll stand for that. Here’s the podcast episode: https://craphound.com/news/2023/12/10/daddy-daughter-podcast-2023-edition/ And here’s a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive – they’ll host your stuff for free, forever): https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_457/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_457_-_Daddy_Daughter_Podcast_2023_Edition.mp3 And here’s the RSS feed for my podcast: https://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast Hey look at this (permalink) The block button is the ultimate source of dopamine. Use it. https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/the-block-button-is-the-ultimate-source-of-dopamine-use-it (h/t Today in Tabs) The Secret Behind AI Drive-Thrus? It’s Humans Doing the Work https://gizmodo.com/secret-behind-ai-drive-thrus-fast-food-humans-1851085269 Can’t lose what you never had: Claims about digital ownership and creation in the age of generative AI https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/08/cant-lose-what-you-never-had-claims-about-digital-ownership-creation-age-generative-ai This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago SCO sends IBM 1,000,000 pieces of paper https://memex.craphound.com/2003/12/10/sco-sends-ibm-1000000-pieces-of-paper/ #20yrsago Urban farmers reclaim Detroit https://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/garden/in-the-capital-of-the-car-nature-stakes-a-claim.html #20yrsago Steven Levy on Trusted Computing https://web.archive.org/web/20031212101452/http://www.msnbc.com/news/998345.asp #20yrsago London tube map, remixed https://memex.craphound.com/2003/12/11/london-tube-map-remixed/ #20yrsago Transformation from the Internet as a subset of telecom to telecom as a subset of the Internet https://web.archive.org/web/20040202211357/https://werbach.com/blog/2003/12/11.html#a1334 #15yrsago FCC commissioner: Warcraft is a “leading cause” of college dropouts https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/fcc-blames-world-of-warcraft-for-college-dropouts/ #15yrsago Carl Malamud, rogue archivist, in Wired https://www.wired.com/2008/12/online-rebel-publishes-millions-of-dollars-in-u-s-court-records-for-free/ #15yrsago Apple gets into the book-banning business https://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/apple-forfeits-ebooks-by-banning-a-comic-book/ #15yrsago MPAA to Obama: censor the Internet, kick people off the Internet, break other countries’ Internet https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/12/mpaa-obama #15yrsago Mexico to fingerprint mobile-phone owners https://web.archive.org/web/20081218201523/https://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hbIC6ZYe2A2fSIe1q-1dnh4TphiwD94VK6K81 #15yrsago Last days of an NYC library https://www.drivenbyboredom.com/2008/12/11/the-donnell-library-center-a-eulogy-in-pictures/ #15yrsago UK culture secretary: “Screw the facts, I’m extending copyright anyway” https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/screw-the-evidence-says-burnham-lets-extend-copyright-term-anyway/ #15yrsago What the hell is a Credit Default Swap? https://web.archive.org/web/20090421013937/https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio_episode.aspx?episode=365 #15yrsago EFF (cautiously) optimistic at record labels’ offering of a blanket license to universities https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/12/labels-open-collective-licensing-campus #15yrsago Austin teacher threatens to sic cops on Linux group because “No software is free” https://web.archive.org/web/20081212115427/https://www.austinist.com/2008/12/10/aisd_teacher_throws_fit_over_studen.php #10yrsago FreeBSD won’t use Intel & Via’s hardware random number generators, believes NSA has compromised them https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/we-cannot-trust-intel-and-vias-chip-based-crypto-freebsd-developers-say/ #10yrsago UK kids have the right to opt out of school fingerprinting (even if their parents are OK with it) https://informationrightsandwrongs.com/2013/12/07/the-kids-all-have-rights/ #10yrsago Canada’s spooks were NSA bagmen, established spy-posts in 20+ countries and “transnational targets” https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/snowden-document-shows-canada-set-up-spy-posts-for-nsa-1.2456886 #10yrsago Peak indifference to surveillance https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/09/internet-surveillance-spying #10yrsago Tech giants call for global surveillance law reform https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/12/eight-tech-giants-call-reform-surveillance-law #10yrsago Cyanogenmod adds encrypted SMS from WhisperSystems https://web.archive.org/web/20131211063720/http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/whisperpush-secure-messaging-integration #10yrsago Life from the near future of location surveillance https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/location-tracking/meet-jack?redirect=meet-jack-or-what-government-could-do-all-location-data #10yrsago DHS stops NYT reporters at border, lies about it https://www.techdirt.com/2013/12/10/dhs-interrogates-ny-times-reporters-border-then-denies-having-any-records-about-them/ #10yrsago Little Brother stageplay now available for local performances https://littlebrotherlive.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/lets-get-little-brother-back-on-stage/ #10yrsago Potty with built-in tablet holder is “worst toy of 2013” https://web.archive.org/web/20151016182213/https://reasonsmysoniscrying.com/post/69503973203/this-was-just-named-the-worst-toy-of-2013-and-the #10yrsago KC cop threatened to destroy home and kill pets unless he was allowed to conduct a warrantless search https://fox4kc.com/news/man-says-police-officer-threatened-to-kill-his-dogs/ #10yrsago Satanists offer “good taste” monument to complement Oklahoma Capitol’s Ten Commandments monument https://tulsaworld.com/news/government/satanists-seek-spot-on-oklahoma-statehouse-steps-next-to-ten/article_d7a11ac2-60dc-11e3-ac3b-0019bb30f31a.html #10yrsago Why haunted houses have suits of armor https://longforgottenhauntedmansion.blogspot.com/2013/12/armor-gettin.html #5yrsago Syndicated columnist censored for writing about the risks of hedge funds and billionaires buying papers https://www.texasobserver.org/the-jim-hightower-column-they-dont-want-you-to-read/ #5yrsago Rhode Island lawsuit argues that the Constitution guarantees a right to sufficient education to be an informed citizen https://theconversation.com/fight-for-federal-right-to-education-takes-a-new-turn-108322 #5yrsago Costa Rica abolished its army in 1949 and thereafter enjoyed the best per-capita GDP growth in the region https://www.ippapublicpolicy.org/file/paper/594eced12c818.pdf #5yrsago Verizon writes down its Yahoo/AOL assets by $4.6 billion https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-11/verizon-writes-down-4-6-billion-of-value-of-aol-yahoo-business #5yrsago Small Massachusetts town decides to spend $1.4m building its own fiber, rather than paying Comcast $500K for shitty broadband https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/comcast-rejected-by-small-town-residents-vote-for-municipal-fiber-instead/ #5yrsago Shitty Tumblr pornbot inception https://memex.craphound.com/2018/12/11/shitty-tumblr-pornbot-inception/ #5yrsago Surveillance libraries in common smartphone apps have amassed dossiers on the minute-to-minute movements of 200 million+ Americans https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps.html #5yrsago Congressional Republicans say Equifax breach was “entirely preventable,” blames “aggressive growth strategy” but reject measures to prevent future breaches https://thehill.com/policy/technology/420582-house-panel-issues-scathing-report-on-entirely-preventable-equifax-data/ #5yrsago The EU says it wants Europeans to engage with it: now that 4 MILLION of them have opposed mass censorship through #Article13, will they listen? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/four-million-europeans-signatures-opposing-article-13-have-been-delivered-european #1yrago Plato Would Ban Ad-Blockers https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/11/plato-would-ban-ad-blockers/ 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: Daddy-Daughter Podcast, 2023 edition https://craphound.com/news/2023/12/10/daddy-daughter-podcast-2023-edition/) Recent appearances: Science Fiction and the Future of Science https://council.science/podcast/science-fiction/ AI needs to work with humans — not replace us (CBC IDEAS) https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/artificial-intelligence-provocation-ideas-festival-1.7046841 Explore the Future of the 🔥 Climate and Information Climate (Andrew Revkin) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGT-cvs4_Q 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/2023/12/11/daddy-daughter-2023/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Liliputing
The upcoming Retroid Pocket 4 is a handheld game system with a 4.7 inch HD display, 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage, a microSD card reader, support for WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, and a 5,000 mAh battery. Designed for retro gaming, the handheld also features hall sensor joysticks and analog triggers. And it will be […]
The post Retroid 4 handheld game console coming soon for $149 and up, with Dimensity 900 &1100 processor options appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/retroid-4-handheld-game-console-coming-soon-for-149-and-up-with-dimensity-900-1100-processor-options/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/23/12/0043601-fifty-years-ago-eight-ame Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: VOA News USA
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, many Ukrainian refugees found themselves in the American state of Colorado, thanks to the Uniting for Ukraine government program. For some families, educating their children in the U.S. proved to be a challenge, but they’re getting some extra help from a local nonprofit. Svitlana Prystynska has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. (Camera: Volodymur Petruniv)
https://www.voanews.com/a/ukrainian-children-parents-get-help-navigating-us-school-system/7393007.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
The lump sum payout for each winner would be $94.3 million before federal taxes.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/2-california-tickets-win-mega-millions-jackpot-and-both-were-sold-at-the-same-store/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
Peter Park graduated high school in 2021 by taking the state’s high school proficiency exam and focused on law school, graduating this year.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/californian-passes-state-bar-exam-at-age-17-and-is-sworn-in-as-an-attorney/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
Some very observant royal fans – or detractors – noticed a few things amiss with the otherwise happy family portrait released by the Prince and Princess of Wales with their annual Christmas card.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/prince-louis-appears-to-lose-finger-in-christmas-card-photo-editing-fail/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Marketplace Morning Report
The latest U.N. climate conference is nearing an end with countries clashing over the reduction of fossil fuel use. Oil-producing countries led by Saudi Arabia are resisting that idea. With just one more day of negotiations left at COP28, we hear about what commitments have already been made and what remains unresolved. Also: What can we expect from interest rate cutes in the New Year?
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/disagreement-over-fossil-fuels-at-cop28 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Niners were playing without Arik Armstead and lost Charvarius Ward and Javon Hargrave, but locked up DK Metcalf late
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/49ers-defense-overcomes-key-injuries-to-stifle-seahawks-in-second-half/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
The teacher was also suspected of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, authorities said.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/moreno-valley-teacher-arrested-accused-of-public-intoxication-during-saturday-school/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Two years after the Log4Shell vulnerability in the open source Java-based Log4j logging utility was disclosed, circa one in four applications are dependent on outdated libraries, leaving them open to exploitation.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/log4j_vulnerabilities/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/23/12/diary-comic-nov-10-12 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: NASA breaking news
In a collaboration between multiple partners in the aviation industry, NASA is helping determine if the latest advances in aircraft engines and fuels can reduce atmospheric warming from condensation trails. Those condensation trails can trap heat in our atmosphere under specific conditions and increase the impact the aviation industry has on global warming. NASA partnered […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-and-partners-study-contrail-formation/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Obviously, at some point Musk will sell Twitter to Zuckerberg.
http://scripting.com/2023/12/11.html#a145817 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: San Jose Mercury News
A story that ran Thursday, Dec. 7, on the front page incorrectly stated the number of people Hamas terrorists killed in Israel on Oct. 7. Hamas killed about 1,200 people.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/11/correction-pro-palestinian-teach-in-in-oakland/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2023/12/11/package-camoflauge/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/23/12/single-item-gift-guide Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Something
that should make you cry. So many of our friends on the web are happy to
let Facebook run the new Twitter. What is wrong with you. I don’t know
any better way to put it. Quitting Twitter is pointless, meaningless,
powerless. But not building Threads for Facebook is not meaningless. For
once can people look out for the future, keep the window open for
independence for writers and developers, and let us try out some new
ideas that might not be something Zuckerberg would love? Come on
already. This is the saddest moment, when there’s so much possibility,
and you all are ready to just throw it away. (And no, I don’t believe
for a minute they’re going to do anything that helps the Fediverse. I
know the playbook. Saying you’ll be open is what you do until you
dominate, then it’s just business. Truth is it’s always just business,
and saying you’re going to be open at this stage of network development
is good for business.)
http://scripting.com/2023/12/11.html#a142747 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News
If you develop one of the ideas I write about here, tell me about it!
Let me try it out. Lately there have been people doing this, but for some reason I don’t find out about the work until it’s too late.
What are people thinking? If I ask for something, there’s a reason – I want to learn from it.
I think programmers are shy. You need to stop doing that. 😄
And of course I’ll share what I learn here on my blog, of course.
http://scripting.com/2023/12/11/142016.html?title=generalNote Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News
I
want to say this as loudly and clearly as I can. If we want independent
writing on the web to flourish, we need our own search engine, to help
us find each other, and build associations of writers, so we can
influence each other, and help developers create new tools for all
writers. Or simply to find something I wrote about 15 years ago, so I
can refer back to it. I really don’t have a good way yet to find stuff
I’ve written. It’s all there on the web, for crying out loud.
More important, we need to learn to work together, we do very very little of that. It’s amazingly difficult to get a new idea heard by other developers. This is a huge problem, it’s why we’ve always been dominated by big companies who don’t care about what we do.
Start with a search engine for bloggers. I’ll help. And let’s do lots of them, so no one can stand in the way of trying out new ideas.
http://scripting.com/2023/12/11/141811.html?title=workingTogetherForWriters Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: 404 Media Group
A man boarded a plane in Denmark without a ticket, ate two meals on the plane, and arrived at LAX with no passport and no record of him being on the plane. Everyone involved is very confused.
https://www.404media.co/no-record-of-russian-economist-who-flew-to-lax-without-a-ticket-didnt-remember-how-he-got-here/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/23/12/0043597-better-to-ask-directly-an Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
United Launch Alliance’s heavy-lift launch vehicle Vulcan Centaur is facing yet another delay after the company was unable to complete a Wet Dress Rehearsal on December 8.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/another_day_another_delay_for/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The LAist
Lek captures domestic life in L.A. influenced by her Cambodian American experience. Her work is currently showing in the Hammer Museum’s Made in LA exhibit.
https://laist.com/news/how-to-la/documenting-la-by-painting-intimate-spaces-meet-artist-tidawhitney-lek Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Smithsonian Magazine
A new analysis of the animals’ skeletal remains reveals a lack of sunlight and an inadequate diet
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/study-shows-ancient-egyptians-worshiped-baboons-but-gave-them-poor-living-conditions-180983391/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Visitors Bureau Korea hosted a 2023 GVB Travel Mart event and year-end party highlighting the successful recovery of the Korean market for Guam and their shared accomplishments.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/gvb-celebrates-guam-korean-market-s-successful-recovery/article_0953bab0-93d7-11ee-b62e-9b67ea0902eb.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Guam Daily Post
Residents living in the area of Route 8 Biang Street to Canada Toto Road in Mongmong-Toto-Maite are advised to boil their faucet water.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/water-outage-prompts-boil-water-notice/article_b1ed18d0-97b8-11ee-a09f-4b45b8224d1c.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Guam Daily Post
Are Guam public school students college ready? That’s a question that’s difficult to answer with the data presented in the Guam Department of Education’s 2022-2023 Annual State of Public Education Report.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/report-lacks-baseline-for-student-achievement-in-public-schools/article_815dc082-9701-11ee-b87d-8f40e309ab18.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Guam Daily Post
Arnold Narruhn’s fatal injuries after a fight last year could not have been received by Branty Walliby, according to defense attorney Terrence Timblin.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/defense-victims-fatal-injuries-not-caused-by-branty-walliby/article_7abbc018-97c8-11ee-af04-23e0c7dd72ad.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Guam Daily Post
A man pleaded guilty to his involvement in a fight a year ago that resulted in the death of Arnold Narruhn.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/jerron-walliby-pleads-guilty-to-role-in-fatal-2022-dededo-attack/article_a3d2ba84-97c2-11ee-bd16-abb8ffbf5636.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Guam Daily Post
Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero is back on Guam following a trip to the nation’s capital where she met with key representatives from the White House, Pentagon and Congress.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/governor-va-supports-clinic-gmh-co-locating/article_02227dd8-97d5-11ee-8d96-3311e450ec1e.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Guam Daily Post
The spokesperson for the Guam Memorial Hospital Authority said she misrepresented the number of obstetrician-gynecologists “privileged” at the hospital, but the number now presented has one doctor ready to file a complaint with the Office of the Attorney General.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/gmh-now-says-they-have-15-ob-gyns/article_ebf6c5dc-97d4-11ee-b7da-930a308698ff.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Guam Daily Post
As the chair of the Guam Education Board understands, the Guam Department of Education has a $1 million outstanding water bill for George Washington High School. But in the latest financial report, it was not reported. The chair questioned why.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/gdoe-checking-validity-of-1m-water-bill-at-gw-high-school/article_f2cee4ca-97c0-11ee-ba9f-4fcbc3fe498d.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Guam Daily Post
Bill 211-37 was introduced in the 37th Guam Legislature, which requires graduating high school seniors to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, as part of the clearance process to receive their diploma.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/new-bill-requires-high-schoolers-to-complete-fafsa-to-graduate/article_ee9a33b8-97c1-11ee-af78-231d355e5b77.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Before
moving on to this year’s BOTY, I thought HCR could help figure out how
we could move past merely reporting on Trump’s danger to democracy,
something that was clear going back to 2015, the news could start
reporting on The Resistance, what we’re doing to prevent the end of
democracy. And in order for that to happen, we have to do newsworthy
things for them to write about! We’re not doing that. It started out
well, with the
Woman’s
March on January 20, 2017, but that was it. We can and must keep
showing up, and I’m not advocating huge marches, I want to see
neighborhood-level marching. Once a month, rain or shine, we all walk
(if possible) or drive to our voting places, where there will be music,
food, people with ideas, dancing, whatever you like. Making civic
participation a regular thing. You go because you want to be there. Not
against something but for all of us. All we have to do is figure
out how this works, how to beat the drum, to get the ball rolling. The
idea is that if we got close to 100 percent voter participation, our
democracy would be in the best shape it’s been in probably since
inception. I had another idea that’s worth considering. We should all
wear the same button, just a picture, no slogans, an idea of what we
stand for as Americans. It could be an American flag, or it could be a
photo of
Martin
Luther King. The latter was my choice. People love the button, but
it didn’t catch on. If we all did, it’s omission would be noticed, and
we’d know there’s someone we should talk with about America and offer
them a free button, nicely, if they’ll put it on right now. Anyway, I’m
putting this out there again, and I’ll keep doing it.
http://scripting.com/2023/12/11.html#a135926 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: At least six were killed in tornadoes that ripped through Tennessee over the weekend • Severe Tropical Cyclone Jasper is intensifying off of Australia’s Queensland coast • Dubai’s air quality is “moderate” today.
It’s crunch time at COP28. The United Nations climate summit is officially scheduled to end tomorrow morning, but is likely to run over, as much work remains even after a weekend of intense talks and pleas for compromise. There is still no consensus on the language in the global stocktake on the future of fossil fuels – phase out, phase down, or otherwise. Any agreement to come out of COP must be unanimous, meaning opposition from just one of the nearly 200 countries participating can sink a deal. Oil giant Saudi Arabia has “flatly opposed any language in a deal that would even mention fossil fuels,” reports The New York Times, adding that Saudi diplomats have intentionally slowed and obstructed the negotiation process. The United States, India, Russia, China, and Iraq have all called for caveats or provisions to a phase out. This morning U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres returned to the conference and called for an end to the fossil fuel age. “Now is the time for maximum ambition and maximum flexibility,” Guterres said.
Activists
at COP28 call for negotiators to “hold the line” on ending fossil fuels.
Sean
Gallup/Getty Images
The “full-scale resistance” from oil producing nations and fossil fuel lobbyists at COP28 is a sign of panic, Germany’s climate envoy Jennifer Morgan tells Politico. Others echo her assessment:
COP negotiators are considering a historic call for phasing out fossil
fuels in the summit’s global stocktake. The Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is working hard to convince its
members – and the world – that this would be a mistake. Last week OPEC’s
leader
urged
members to reject any text that “targets energy i.e. fossil fuels.” Over
the weekend the group hosted a youth event at the conference “aimed at
convincing young people to support fossil fuels,” Reuters
reports.
About a dozen people attended.
Tesla’s Cybertruck is eligible for the $7,500 federal tax credit for 2023, according to Inside EVs. The all-wheel-drive (AWD) variant and the tri-motor Cyberbeast are both eligible for the incentive. But there’s a catch: The tax credit is only available for pickups that cost less than $80,000, which would disqualify the $99,990 Cyberbeast. And the AWD version just barely qualifies at $79,990, but deliveries won’t start until next year. Taken together, this means “there might be no tax credit for Cybertrucks right now, period,” Inside EVs says. And this is compounded by the fact that the EV tax credit system is changing on January 1, and “nobody knows which — if any — EVs will qualify,” writes Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo. “All signs indicate that the list of qualifying vehicles is set to shrink.”
Argentina’s top climate diplomat Marcia Levaggi insists that the country will remain part of the Paris Agreement, Reuters reports. The news follows the shock election of the right-wing candidate Javier Milei as the nation’s next president. Milei has a history of climate skepticism. He has called climate change a “socialist lie” and promised to withdraw the country from the landmark climate agreement. “Yet, since his victory three weeks ago, the self-described ‘anarcho-capitalist’ has begun backpedalling on some of his more contentious policies,” says The Telegraph. Milei is a former TV star with “striking” similarities to former President Donald Trump, from his wild hair to his affinity for conspiracy theories, writes The Washington Post. Trump infamously withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, only for the decision to be reversed by President Biden.
Three of the top 10 most-Googled news events in 2023 were hurricanes, according to Google’s annual Year in Search report. Other dominant topics on the list included war (between Israel and Gaza, and in Sudan), mass shootings (in Maine and Nashville), and the ill-fated Titan submersible. But extreme weather took the largest slice of the pie, with Hurricanes Hilary, Idalia, and Lee falling into slots 4, 5, and 6, respectively, on the global top 10 news list. When the list was narrowed to U.S.-based searches only, the hurricanes accounted for 3 of the top 5 searches. The Last Of Us, a TV show about a deadly fungus enabled by climate change, was the world’s most-Googled show of the year.
Trending
news events for 2023 in the
U.S.
Screenshot:
Google
Trends
The vast majority of the 4,813 wildfires that have occurred this year in North Carolina were caused by humans.
https://heatmap.news/climate/am-briefing-hope-and-panic-at-cop28 Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Starting in September or so I start thinking about Blogger of the Year, a thing I do at the end of most years. Not too many people care, but it’s a good thing for me to do – to review what makes a blog the most interesting and valuable of the year, to me – obviously. We all should name a BOTY, or give out any award we feel is deserved. People think “well it’s just me and I don’t matter” – which is totally true, and is why you might as well pick someone. At least they’ll know you appreciate them. And it gets you to think about what you value, which builds over time to a better understanding of everything. Last year I chose Heather Cox Richardson, whose Substack site is a constant read for me. Every night an email arrives, at different times, and if I’m up and in the mood, I’ll spend a few minutes with HCR and it’s always illuminating. She was my choice last year because her writing re-kindled my interest in American history, and I started reading books on most slavery, something that was seriously missing from my NYC education, and is so important to who we are as a country.
http://scripting.com/2023/12/11.html#a134710 Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
November: The Future of RSS.
http://scripting.com/2023/11/04/150632.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
There’s an interesting recent development in the world of feeds and blogs – blogs that are only feeds. Designed to be read in feed readers of all sizes and shapes. I have a few of these myself. My linkblog for example. Also, FeedLand provides an outbound feed to every user, which meets all the qualifications of a feed-only blog.
http://scripting.com/2023/12/11.html#a133756 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Intel is looking to new options for its future chips including 3D stacking of transistors to enable greater density, extending backside power, and use of gallium nitride for greater power delivery.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/intel_shows_off_backside_power/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Britain’s comms regulator is asking telecoms providers for updated guidance on how resilient their networks are, given modern society’s increasing reliance on digital services.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/ofcom_looks_into_higher_resilience/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
If 2023 is anything to go by, 2024 will see a continued wave of attacks on trans people, driven by politicians who believe they can weaponize our existence as a wedge issue to electoral success and victory in the “culture wars.” And if 2023 is anything to go by, I predict 2024 will continue to…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/too-many-news-orgs-adopt-right-wing-frames-about-trans-people/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
Local news outlets continue to fight for their lives nationwide: The State of Local News 2023 report maps current news deserts in 204 counties and identifies hundreds more at risk. Like the nation, California’s local news ecosystem is fragile: In 2023, four of our 58 counties are without news outlets and 11 have just one,…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/more-public-funding-for-local-news/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
During the Thanksgiving break, while scrolling on X (formerly Twitter), I stumbled upon a post from Auntie Anne’s, the mall pretzel company. The post featured a greyed-out, grainy photo of a pretzel, accompanied by lowercase text that read: “are you ready for it?” are you ready for it? pic.twitter.com/HOw6C2G3nS — Auntie Anne’s (@AuntieAnnes) November 27,…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/news-publishers-find-their-brand-voice-on-social/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
2024 will be the year we focus more on durable, not disposable journalism. Have you ever researched and filed a story only to struggle to remember what it was about a day or two later? The flow of news is so rapid that if the people writing the stories can’t remember them, what do you…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/durable-over-disposable/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
It’s always fascinating to read all the predictions that come out this time of year, but they fall into three different types: predictions about things we think are going to happen, predictions about things we wish would happen, and predictions for things that we should actively do. I’m going to focus on the last one,…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/returning-to-a-contextual-focus/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The LAist
Steep slopes, weak rocks and water intrusion all make slides more likely.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/will-el-nino-rains-mean-more-palos-verdes-landslides Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-12, from: The LAist
The oil industry has a huge voice in this year’s climate talks. But what are oil companies actually saying? And why does it matter? We break down their pledges and statements into plain English.
https://laist.com/news/oil-firms-are-out-in-force-at-the-climate-talks-heres-how-to-decode-their-language Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The LAist
Worm composting became especially popular during the pandemic, but it’s never too late to get in the dirt.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/worm-composting-vermicomposting-how-to-get-started-guide Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The LAist
Drilling in Culver City’s portion is set to end in 2029.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/milestone-reached-in-inglewood-oil-phaseout Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
Publishers are more skeptical than ever, and they should be. After a particularly harsh year of being burned by Big Tech, publishers will be forced to develop strategies to reduce their reliance on tech companies. They will finally see open source software as a competitive advantage, and the cheapest way to keep up with the…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/publishers-embrace-open-source/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Marketplace Morning Report
While affordable, accessible child care can help support a strong workforce, it can often be hard to find. As more companies may look to recruit and retain workers by offering child care plans — thanks in part by requirements tied to CHIPS Act funding — we hear how such an investment is playing out at one plant in Tennessee. Plus, what does strong consumer sentiment mean for the Federal Reserve’s last meeting of the year?
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/when-investing-in-workers-means-investing-in-child-care Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: OS News
The Unix philosophy of using compact expert tools that do one thing well and pipelining them together to manipulate data is a great idea and has worked well for the past few decades. This philosophy was outlined in the 1978 Foreword to the Bell System Technical Journal describing the UNIX Time-Sharing System: Items i and ii are oft repeated, and for good reason. But it is time to take this philosophy to the 21st century by further defining a standard output format for non-interactive use. ↫ Kelly Brazil This seems like a topic people will have calm opinions about.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138047/bringing-the-unix-philosophy-to-the-21st-century/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Bruce Schneier blog
It’s happened. Details here, and tech details here (for messages in transit) and here (for messages in storage)
Rollout to everyone will take months, but it’s a good day for both privacy and security.
Slashdot thread.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/12/facebook-enables-messenger-end-to-end-encryption-by-default.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Peoples CDC blog
This is the @PeoplesCDC weekly update for December 11, 2023! This Weather Report from the People’s CDC sheds light on the ongoing COVID situation in the US.
https://peoplescdc.org/2023/12/11/peoples-cdc-covid-19-weather-4/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Deno blog
Detecting changes in Deno KV with kv.watch makes it
easier to build real-time applications like newsfeeds, analytics,
multi-user collaboration tools, and more.
https://deno.com/blog/kv-watch Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Javier Milei has been sworn in as president of Argentina and promised radical changes for the country. Also on the show: TikTok has announced an investment in Indonesian online shopping, and Swedish businesses are worried that a rise in gang violence could damage the country’s global image.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/argentinas-president-promises-economic-shock-treatment Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Security in brief The saga of 23andMe’s mega data breach has reached something of a conclusion, with the company saying its probe has determined millions of leaked records originated from illicit break-ins into just 14,000 accounts.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/in_brief_security/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
UK government may subsidize Brit companies working on low Earth orbit satellite connectivity projects - the aim being to support comms for remote parts of the country and boost the domestic satellite industry.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/uk_gov_seeks_approval_for/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Interview Monitoring biz VictoriaMetrics is relatively unusual in its field. It is yet to accept external investment, preferring instead to try to grow organically rather than being forced to through a private equity meat grinder by committing to grow by X every year until the investor exits.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/victoriametrics_interview/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Writing about Christmas in early November is weird, even for Rob Zwetsloot. But it had to be done in order to get it in the December issue of The MagPi, and it means we get to sprinkle some festive cheer over this week’s #MagPiMonday.
The post Christmas with Raspberry Pi 5 | #MagPiMonday appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/christmas-with-raspberry-pi-5-magpimonday/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>PHOENIX (AP) — Shohei Ohtani’s jaw-dropping $700 million, 10-year deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers has some similarities to other contracts for the world’s biggest sports stars, including soccer icons Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, along with NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/sports/the-dodgers-gave-shohei-ohtani-700-million-to-hit-and-pitch-but-also-because-he-can-sell/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>LAS VEGAS (AP) — The brand of football Minnesota and Las Vegas played on Sunday set the NFL back 16 years.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/sports/vikings-beat-raiders-3-0-in-lowest-scoring-nfl-game-in-16-years/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — C.J. Stroud is in the concussion protocol after injuring his head in the final minutes of the Houston Texans’ 30-6 loss to the New York Jets on Sunday.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/sports/c-j-stroud-in-concussion-protocol-after-late-game-blow-in-texans-loss-vs-jets/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Brock Purdy has an embarrassment of riches surrounding him on San Francisco’s high-powered offense. The way he is able get all of them the ball is making the 49ers a nearly unstoppable force.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/sports/samuel-scores-2-tds-purdy-throws-for-career-best-368-yards-as-49ers-beat-seahawks-28-16/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>BALTIMORE (AP) — Tylan Wallace caught the punt cleanly — no easy feat on this wet day — then slipped to his left, spinning away from one potential tackler and racing past a couple of more while barely staying inbounds along the sideline.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/sports/walk-off-wallace-ravens-punt-returner-goes-76-yards-for-td-in-ot-in-a-37-31-win-over-the-rams/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>One of Gov. Josh Green’s pledges on Day 1 in office was to provide more housing — a difficult task made monumental by the devastating Maui wildfires exacerbating Hawaii’s shortage of available and affordable places to live.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/hawaii-news/gov-green-marks-challenging-first-year-in-office-planning-ahead-to-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The politically inspired impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden has failed to produce any convincing evidence that Biden has committed the “high crimes and misdemeanors” required by the U.S. Constitution for the conviction and removal of a chief executive. So naturally Speaker Mike Johnson is proposing a floor vote, likely next week, to authorize the inquiry as a “necessary step.”</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/opinion/no-evidence-for-biden-impeachment-inquiry-no-problem-the-house-gop-doesnt-seem-to-care/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>As I watched the presidents of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania struggle last week to respond to harsh congressional questioning about the prevalence of antisemitism on their campuses, I had a singular thought: Censorship helped put these presidents in their predicament, and censorship will not help them escape.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/opinion/what-the-university-presidents-got-right-and-wrong-about-antisemitic-speech/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Litigation over wildfires that destroyed most of Lahaina and burned parts of Upcountry Maui is approaching an inflection point four months after the Aug. 8 disaster.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/hawaii-news/maui-wildfire-litigation-expected-to-surge/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will meet at the White House on Tuesday as the U.S. administration steps up the pressure on Congress to provide billions more in aid to Kyiv in its war with Russia.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/nation-world-news/zelenskyy-will-meet-biden-at-the-white-house-amid-a-stepped-up-push-for-congress-to-approve-more-aid/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>LUKEVILLE, Ariz. — Gerston Miranda and his wife were among thousands of migrants recently arriving at this remote area on Arizona’s southern border with Mexico, squeezing into the United States through a gap in the wall and walking overnight about 14 miles (23 kilometers) with two school-aged daughters to surrender to Border Patrol agents.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/nation-world-news/smugglers-are-bringing-migrants-to-a-remote-arizona-border-crossing-overwhelming-us-agents/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NEW YORK — For the first time in Hayao Miyazaki’s decades-spanning career, the 82-year-old Japanese anime master is No. 1 at the North American box office. Miyazaki’s latest enchantment, “The Boy and the Heron,” debuted with $12.8 million, according to studio estimates.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/nation-world-news/miyazakis-the-boy-and-the-heron-is-no-1-at-the-box-office-a-first-for-the-japanese-anime-master/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump said Sunday he has decided against testifying for a second time at his New York civil fraud trial, posting on social media a day before his scheduled appearance that he “very successfully &conclusively” testified last month and saw no need to do so again.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/nation-world-news/trump-says-he-wont-testify-again-at-his-new-york-fraud-trial-he-says-he-has-nothing-more-to-say/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>In about an hour, 96 keiki found their perfect Christmas gifts during the third annual Heroes and Helpers event at the Hilo Target store early Saturday morning.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/hawaii-news/hilo-charity-event-draws-190-volunteers/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Battles raged across Gaza on Sunday as Israel indicated it was prepared to fight for months or longer to defeat the territory’s Hamas rulers, and a key mediator said willingness to discuss a cease-fire was fading.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/nation-world-news/battles-rage-across-gaza-as-israel-indicates-its-willing-to-fight-for-months-or-more-to-beat-hamas/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The Biden administration plans to push states to boost oversight of the number of doctors, hospitals and other health providers insurers cover in Obamacare plans, under rules proposed in November.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/nation-world-news/biden-wants-states-to-ensure-obamacare-plans-cover-enough-doctors-and-hospitals/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Police are investigating a brush fire in South Kohala on Sunday that burned approximately 50 acres along Kawaihae Road, prompting its closure.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/11/hawaii-news/police-cause-of-south-kohala-fire-under-investigation/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Opinion Space junk grabs headlines. There’s a lot of space hardware alive and dead – 9,064 objects at the time of writing according to the Orbiting Now tracker – and cleaning it up at end of life is the focus of a number of bizarrely nautical technology proposals like sails, harpoons and nets, more at home on an 18th century whaling ship than Low Earth Orbit.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/opinion_column/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Robert Reich on Substack
A frighteningly dangerous precedent
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/when-wealthy-donors-oust-university Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2023-12-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
ChatGPT exploded into public life a year ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/09/chatgpt-ai-pearl-harbor-moment-sam-altman Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Desktop Tourism When I speak to laptop-makers about their wares, they often admit that the benchmark in their field is the MacBook Air. Ever since its 2008 debut, Apple’s minimalist portable has been the standard others aspire to match, despite changing little from the formula of a gently tapering aluminum clamshell with screens of between 11 and 13 inches.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/macbook_air_15_2023_review/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1922 – Piru bank robbed, banker and daughter kidnapped. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-dec-11/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Guam Daily Post
Jamie John Nededog has been indicted with murder in connection to the death of 54-year-old Edwin Babauta Pirando.
https://www.postguam.com/news/nededog-indicted-with-murder-in-s-nta-rita-sumai-homicide/article_79f767a4-97f5-11ee-8a05-57e1f9319a77.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Who, Me? Heavens to Betsy, dear reader, are you back again? It feels like only a week since we last met in the corner of The Register we call Who, Me? to share the schadenfreude of a fellow Regizen’s misfortune.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/who_me/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: VOA News USA
A U.S. F-16 fighter jet crashed in South Korea on Monday while on a routine training flight and the pilot was rescued after ejecting when the
aircraft experienced an “in-flight emergency,” the U.S. Air Force unit stationed in the country said.
The pilot was rescued in the Yellow Sea by the South Korean coast guard and returned to the Kunsan Air Base, the 8th Fighter Wing said in a statement.
The cause of the emergency was being investigated, it said.
The unit commander, Colonel Matthew Gaetke, said he was grateful for the pilot’s recovery and that he was in good condition, the statement said.
The air base located in the South Korean west coast city of Gunsan is one of the two main air bases used by the U.S. military in the country.
https://www.voanews.com/a/u-s-f-16-jet-crashes-in-south-korea-pilot-rescued-after-ejecting/7392596.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Computer ads from the Past
Ads from the East
https://computeradsfromthepast.substack.com/p/second-look-ibm-jx Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The European Union (EU) on Saturday reached provisional agreement on the AI Act – a broad legal framework limiting how artificial intelligence can be used.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/eu_agrees_ai_act/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Greg Egan’s feed
My new story “Death and the Gorgon” has just been published in Asimov’s SF Magazine
https://www.gregegan.net/BIBLIOGRAPHY/Bibliography.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Seminal first-person shooter Doom marked the thirtieth anniversary of its release on December 10, and co-creator John Romero marked the occasion by releasing new levels for the game and celebrating its role as the genesis of many IT careers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/doom_30th_anniversary_sigil_wad/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Heatmap News
The future of climate-friendly air travel might lie in a 20-foot shipping container that was dropped off on the campus of the University of Sheffield in England in late September.
Inside the box is a system developed by Mission Zero Technologies, a London-based company, that extracts carbon dioxide molecules directly from the ambient air. University researchers purchased the tech for about $762,000 for a pioneering project to turn the captured carbon into e-kerosene, a fuel that’s chemically identical to what’s used in airplanes but is made without oil or gas.
On Monday, Mission Zero announced that this mini “direct air capture” plant is now officially up and running. It has the capacity to capture 50 tons of carbon dioxide per year. That’s tiny compared to the nearly 37 billion tons emitted by humans last year, but it’s sufficient for the university’s quest to demonstrate that jet fuel made from CO2 can be safe and sustainable.
“It is kind of a baby system, for sure,” Nicholas Chadwick, Mission Zero’s CEO told me. “But we think it’s delivering something quite unique.”
Courtesy
of Mission Zero
When it comes to safely propelling metal tubes weighing hundreds of thousands of pounds 40,000 feet in the air, without burning fossil fuels, there are two potential paths. We can use what are called sustainable “drop in fuels,” cleaner versions of jet fuel that are compatible with existing planes and engines, but still release carbon emissions, like e-kerosene. Or, we can re-engineer planes entirely so that they can be powered by hydrogen or batteries, neither of which would release any carbon.
The first path is much more viable in the near term. Today, small volumes of sustainable drop-in fuels are already in use. They are mostly made from animal fat and used cooking oils — often literally sucked out of the fryers of fast food restaurants. There’s also potential to make sustainable drop-in fuels from biomass, like algae, wood residues from the forest floor, agricultural waste like corn stalks, or purpose-grown crops like sugar beets.
But these resources are limited. “There’s only so much used cooking oil available in the world,” said Nikita Pavlenko, the program lead for aviation fuels at the International Council on Clean Transportation, a research nonprofit. There isn’t enough waste biomass either, he told me, and growing crops for energy competes with food markets and can lead to deforestation. This is why capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and using it to produce e-kerosene is so promising. “The amount of energy and CO2 available is theoretically much, much higher.”
Theoretically is the key word there. Even though the concentration of carbon in the air is high enough to warm the planet, it’s still relatively dilute, and requires a lot of energy to capture. To make e-kerosene, the CO2 has to be combined with hydrogen, which also requires a lot of energy to produce in a clean way. Then the gas mixture is put through a reactor that converts the gas into a liquid fuel.
“You’re kind of swimming upstream in terms of the chemistry and thermodynamics of it,” said Anu Khan, the deputy director of science and innovation at Carbon180. “And so it matters a lot where you get the energy from.”
Mission Zero’s technology is unique on that front. Whereas Climeworks and Heirloom, two other direct air capture companies that have plants operating today, rely on heat for their processes, the Sheffield project will run solely on electricity — in part from a solar array on site. Chadwick told me the system uses between three and five times less energy as a result, depending on how it is operated.
Courtesy
of Mission Zero
The company also has a unique business model. Climeworks and Heirloom
own and operate their own plants, and sell carbon credits to other
companies based on the amount of CO2 they remove from the atmosphere and
store permanently. Mission Zero, by contrast, is selling the technology
itself. Third parties can buy its shipping containers and use the system
to do whatever they choose, whether that’s storing the carbon
underground and selling credits, using the carbon to make fuels, or
something else.
Another benefit of Mission Zero’s tech, according to Chadwick, is that it is made from off-the-shelf parts with established supply chains. The company was able to deliver the project to the University of Sheffield within seven months of landing the contract.
Using carbon captured from the atmosphere to make fuel is one element of a larger vision that some climate advocates have for a “circular carbon economy.” If the carbon is captured and turned into products using renewable energy, the atmosphere will not be any worse-off.
Chadwick said the University researchers hope to develop a certification process to guarantee the fuel’s safety. The U.K. is in the process of introducing a sustainable aviation fuel mandate that will require at least 10% of jet fuel to be made from sustainable sources by 2030, and is considering an additional mandate for some portion of that to come from carbon and hydrogen.
“We’ve got to get started now if the scale is going to be there in seven years,” he told me.
https://heatmap.news/economy/mission-zero-direct-air-capture-saf-university-of-sheffield Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The Raspberry Pi project has released the first revision to its Hardware Attached on Top (HAT) spec, along with an update to the RPi 5’s PCIE handling tools.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/rpi_hat_plus_m2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
Seventy-five years ago today, on December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly announced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). At a time when the world was still reeling from the death and destruction of World War II, the Soviet Union was blockading Berlin, Italy and France were convulsed with communist-backed labor agitation, Arabs opposed the new state of Israel, communists and nationalists battled in China, and segregationists in the U.S. were forming their own political party to stop the government from protecting civil rights for Black Americans, the member countries of the United Nations nonetheless came together to adopt a landmark document: a common standard of fundamental rights for all human beings.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-10-2023 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: The Signal
After a flurry of communication, the Air Quality Management District is rescheduling a hearing board meeting over a violation alleging Chiquita Canyon Landfill didn’t disclose problems with its leachate-collection in a timely manner. An email Sunday morning from the agency’s director of communications noted the hearing was postponed to Jan. 9, without citing the reason for […]
The post AQMD moves hearing board meeting appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/12/aqmd-moves-hearing-board-meeting/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
AI In brief Google wowed the internet with a demo video showing the multimodal capabilities of its latest large language model Gemini – but some of the the demo was faked.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/ai_in_brief/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: NASA breaking news
Mysterious features hide in near-infrared light Like a shiny, round ornament ready to be placed in the perfect spot on a holiday tree, supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) gleams in a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. As part of the 2023 Holidays at the White House, First Lady of the United States […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-stuns-with-new-high-definition-look-at-exploded-star/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: Tilde.news
https://cblgh.org/dl/trustnet-cblgh.pdf Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, from: John Naughton’s online diary
Wonders of nature A large log that’s been lying on our driveway for a while has suddenly sprung a surprise in the form of picturesque clusters of funghi. Quote of the Day “The men the American people admire most extravagantly … Continue reading
https://memex.naughtons.org/monday-11-december-2023/38891/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Daring Fireball
The three-day saga of an unauthorized iMessage client for Android.
https://daringfireball.net/2023/12/beeper_i_hardly_knew_her Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-11, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Microsoft last week announced price hikes for its software and services, with the biggest rises to be felt across Asia.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/apac_tech_news_brief/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
Gregory Golodoff spent most of his years on a quiet Alaska island, living an ordinary life, managing a co-op store, fishing for crab and serving as the village council president. But Golodoff’s recent death at the age of 84 has reopened a chapter of American history and stirred up memories of a long-forgotten Japanese invasion that prompted the only World War II battle on North American soil.
Golodoff was the last survivor among 41 residents imprisoned in Japan after Japanese troops captured remote Attu Island during World War II. He was 3 when the island was taken. He died Nov. 17 in Anchorage, his family said. His sister, Elizabeth “Liz” Golodoff Kudrin, the second-to-last surviving Attuan, died in February at 82. Three of their siblings died in captivity.
“The eldest generation has passed away to the other side,” said Helena Schmitz, the great-granddaughter of the last Attu chief, who died in Japan along with his son.
Attu is a desolate, mountainous slab of tundra, about 32 kilometers (20 miles) wide by 56 kilometers (35 miles) long and sits between the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea on the volcanic Ring of Fire. It’s the most westerly island in the Aleutian chain — closer to Russia than mainland Alaska — and was one of just a few U.S. territories, along with Guam, the Philippines and the nearby island of Kiska, taken by enemy forces during the war.
The American effort to reclaim Attu in 1943 amid frigid rain, dense fog and hurricane-force winds became known as World War II’s “forgotten battle.” About 2,500 Japanese soldiers perished, many in hand-to-hand combat or by suicide; 28 survived. Roughly 550 U.S. soldiers died. Initially trained and equipped to fight in the North African desert, many suffered from frostbite and exposure due to inadequate gear.
Even after the surviving captives were freed at the close of the war, they were not allowed to return to Attu because the U.S. military decided it would be too expensive to rebuild the community. Most were sent to the island of Atka, about 322 kilometers (200 miles) away.
With the loss of their homeland, the Attuans’ language, Sakinam Tunuu, is now all but gone, spoken only by members of Schmitz’s immediate family. The distinctive basket-weaving style of the island is practiced by just three or four weavers, and not all are of Attuan descent. Schmitz runs a nonprofit named Atux Forever to revive the cultural heritage.
Much of what is known about the Alaska Natives’ time in Japan is chronicled in the book “Attu Boy,” written by Golodoff’s older brother, Nick, with assistance from his editor, Rachel Mason, a cultural anthropologist with the National Park Service in Anchorage.
Mason knew the three siblings. Gregory and Liz had little memory of Attu or Japan, and neither liked to talk about it, she said.
Nick Golodoff, who was 6 when he was captured, had a childlike innocence about his time as a prisoner, Mason noted. The cover of his book featured a photograph of him riding on the back of a Japanese soldier, both smiling.
That experience was far from typical. Of the Attu residents interned in Japan, 22 died from malnutrition, starvation or tuberculosis. Schmitz’s great-grandfather, Mike Hodikoff, died with his son of food poisoning from eating rotten garbage while in Japanese captivity, the book noted.
Japanese soldiers landed on Attu Island on June 7, 1942, when residents were attending services at the Russian Orthodox church. Some ran for their rifles, but Hodikoff told them, “Do not shoot, maybe the Americans can save us yet,” according to the book.
Instead, the village radio operator, Charles Foster Jones, was shot and killed before he could alert authorities, becoming the only U.S. civilian killed by the invading forces in North America, according to a tribute to Jones by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The other residents — all Alaska Natives except for Jones’ wife, a white teacher from New Jersey named Etta Jones — were kept captive in their homes for three months before being told to pack up and bring what food they could for the journey to Japan.
They first went to Kiska, another Alaska island; one Attu resident died on the way. Stuffed in the cargo hold of a ship, the others embarked on a two-week voyage to Sapporo, the largest city on Japan’s Hokkaido Island, where they were kept in four rooms in an abandoned dormitory. Only Etta Jones was separated from them and taken in a different boat to an internment facility in Yokohama, south of Tokyo.
One Japanese guard complained the Attuans ate better than the Japanese, but conditions worsened when the Alaskans ran out of the food they brought.
The Golodoffs’ mother, Olean, and others were forced to work long hours in a clay mine. As their numbers dwindled, she also became the cook for the surviving POWs, though there was little to make. She was reduced to gathering orange peels off the street and cooking them on top of a heater, said George Kudrin, who married Olean’s daughter Liz in Atka after he returned from the Vietnam War.
“I fed them to my children, and only then would they stop crying for a while,” Olean once told an interviewer.
Her husband, Lawrence, and three of their seven children died in Japan. Nick Golodoff lived until 2013. Another son who survived captivity, John, died in 2009.
Kudrin said Olean didn’t speak of her experiences in Japan, and his wife, Liz, was too young to remember anything.
“She always knew that she was part of the history of World War II and she always said, ‘I am a survivor with my mama,’” he said.
American forces reclaimed Attu on May 30, 1943, after a brutal 19-day campaign. Much of the fighting was waged in dense fog amid winds of more than 190 kph (120 mph). Attu Island today is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and known more for being one of the top destinations in North America for groups dedicated to viewing birds, especially those from Asia.
Greg Golodoff’s wife of 50 years, Pauline, said he never spoke with her about his experience in Japan or about being the last living resident of Attu. “I tried to ask him, but he didn’t want to talk about it,” she said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/death-of-last-surviving-alaskan-taken-in-wwii-rekindles-memories/7392182.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
Donald Trump said Sunday he has decided against testifying for a second time at his New York civil fraud trial, posting on social media that he “VERY SUCCESSFULLY & CONCLUSIVELY” testified last month and saw no need to appear again.
Trump had been expected to return to the witness stand Monday as the last big defense witness in the trial in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit. The case threatens Trump’s real estate empire and cuts to the heart of his image as a successful businessman.
Trump announced he was canceling his testimony in an all-capital letters, multipart statement on his Truth Social platform, writing: “I WILL NOT BE TESTIFYING ON MONDAY.”
“I HAVE ALREADY TESTIFIED TO EVERYTHING & HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY,” Trump wrote, adding his oft-repeated claim that James and other Democrats have weaponized the legal system to hinder his chances at retaking the White House.
Trump was often defiant and combative when he testified on Nov. 6. Along with defending his wealth and denying wrongdoing, he repeatedly sparred with the judge, whom he criticized as an “extremely hostile judge,” and slammed James as “a political hack.”
Trump answered questions from state lawyers for about 3½ hours, often responding with lengthy diatribes. His verbose answers irked the judge, Arthur Engoron, who admonished: “This is not a political rally.”
Had Trump returned to the stand Monday, it would’ve been his defense lawyers leading the questioning, but state lawyers could have cross-examined him.
James sued Trump last year over what she claimed was his pattern of duping banks, insurers and others by inflating his wealth on financial statements.
Engoron ruled before the trial that Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud. He ordered that a receiver take control of some Trump properties, but an appeals court has paused that.
The judge is now considering six other claims, including allegations of conspiracy and insurance fraud. James seeks penalties of more than $300 million and wants Trump banned from doing business in New York.
In recent days, Trump had been insistent on testifying again, one of his lawyers said, even though some of his previous visits to the courthouse as a spectator have resulted in him getting fined for disparaging the judge’s law clerk.
The lawyer, Alina Habba, said she had discouraged Trump from taking the stand because of the gag order that is in place. The same gag order was also in effect when he testified in November.
“He still wants to take the stand, even though my advice is, at this point, you should never take the stand with a gag order,” Habba, told reporters last week. “But he is so firmly against what is happening in this court and so firmly for the old America that we know, not this America, that he will take that stand on Monday.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-says-he-won-t-testify-again-at-his-new-york-fraud-trial/7392150.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2023-12-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
David Byrne Isn’t Himself. Or Any Self, Really.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/10/magazine/david-byrne-interview.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
For the first time in Hayao Miyazaki’s decades-spanning career, the 82-year-old Japanese anime master is No. 1 at the North American box office. Miyazaki’s latest enchantment, “The Boy and the Heron,” debuted with $12.8 million, according to studio estimates.
“The Boy and the Heron,” the long-awaited animated fantasy from the director of “Spirited Away,” “My Neighbor Totoro” and other cherished anime classics, is only the third anime to ever top the box office in U.S. and Canadian theaters and the first original anime to do so. The film, which is playing in both subtitled and dubbed versions, is also the first fully foreign film to land atop the domestic box office this year.
Though Miyazaki’s movies have often been enormous hits in Japan and Asia, they’ve traditionally made less of a mark in North American cinemas. The director’s previous best performer was his last movie, 2013’s “The Wind Rises,” which grossed $5.2 million in its entire domestic run.
“The Boy and the Heron,” which earlier collected $56 million in Japan, for years was expected to be Miyazaki’s swan song. But just as it was making its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, Junichi Nishioka, Studio Ghibli vice president, said the previously retired Miyazaki is still working toward another film.
“The Boy and the Heron,” has been hailed as one of the best films of the year. The film, featuring an English dub voice cast including Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale, Dave Bautista and Mark Hamill, follows a boy who, after his mother perishes in World War II bombing, is led by a mysterious heron to a portal that takes him to a fantastical realm. In Japan, its title translates to “How Do You Live?”
Last week’s top film, “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” dropped steeply in its second weekend. The concert film, the second pop star release distributed by AMC Theatres following Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour,” collected $5 million in its second weekend, a decline of 76% from its $21 million opening.
https://www.voanews.com/a/japanese-anime-the-boy-and-the-heron-no-1-at-box-office/7392082.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2023-12-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Why the 23andMe Data Breach Is Such a Disaster.
https://gizmodo.com/what-23andme-data-breach-means-for-users-victims-1851080672 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: The Canyons News (COC student paper)
By Emilie Diaz College of the Canyons continues to set new standards…
The post Canyons Promise appeared first on Canyons News.
https://canyonsnews.com/canyons-promise/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
For many years, a recycling company in Los Angeles, California, has been giving a free Christmas tree to anyone who brings trash or recycling in exchange. In doing so, the company hopes to promote the proper way to dispose of trash and to eliminate illegal dumping in the city. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian.
https://www.voanews.com/a/los-angeles-recycling-company-swaps-christmas-trees-for-trash/7392061.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: The Signal
Christmas is typically a time of red and green, but this year the ice skaters of The Cube decided to celebrate with black, grey and orange with their performance of, “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” for their third annual Holiday Show on Saturday. “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” the Disney clay animation film, was brought to a […]
The post <strong>Skaters dazzle audience with icy rendition of ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/12/skaters-dazzle-audience-with-icy-rendition-of-the-nightmare-before-christmas/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Liliputing
This summer Lenovo began selling a dual-screen laptop called the Yoga Book 9i. In some ways it’s a cheaper alternative to devices with a single large foldable display like the ThinkPad X1 Fold. But with a $2000 starting price, the Yoga Book 9i is still pretty expensive. Enter the SZBOX DS135D. It’s basically a Yoga […]
The post Dual-screen laptop with Intel N100 and 16GB RAM sells for $699 and up appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/dual-screen-laptop-with-intel-n100-and-16gb-ram-sells-for-699-and-up/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: City of Santa Clarita
A Festive Guide to Recycling Right this Holiday Season! By City Manager Ken Striplin As we embrace the joy and warmth of the holiday season, I want to share some valuable insights on how we can make this time even more special – by giving back to our community and protecting our planet. The holiday […]
The post A Festive Guide to Recycling Right this Holiday Season! appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2023/12/10/a-festive-guide-to-recycling-right-this-holiday-season/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
Amid growing criticism over its continued support of Israel’s military operation in Gaza, the United States defended its stance Sunday but also reiterated the importance of protecting Palestinian civilians. Verónica Balderas Iglesias reports.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-explains-veto-of-un-resolution-for-gaza-cease-fire/7392039.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Liliputing
AMD’s Ryzen 7040 mobile chips based on the company’s “Phoenix” architecture combine Zen 4 CPU cores with RDNA 3 graphics to deliver an awful lot of bang for the buck in a low-power package. And that’s made them popular choices for handheld gaming PCs and laptops. After first launching in mobile devices like gaming laptops […]
The post ASRock 4×4 BOX-7040U mini PC with AMD Ryzen 7040U “Phoenix” is now available appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/asrock-introduces-4x4-box-7040u-mini-pcs-with-amd-ryzen-phoenix-chips/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2023-12-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Tesla drivers run Autopilot where it’s not intended — with deadly consequences.
https://wapo.st/41ezQ0A Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: The Canyons News (COC student paper)
This Thanksgiving was more than just eating turkey and stuffing for the…
The post Turkey Trot appeared first on Canyons News.
https://canyonsnews.com/turkey-trot/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
Central Tennessee residents and emergency workers cleaned up Sunday from severe weekend storms and tornadoes that killed six people and sent more to the hospital while damaging buildings, turning over vehicles and knocking out power to tens of thousands.
Officials confirmed that three people, including a toddler, died after a tornado struck Montgomery County 80 kilometers northwest of Nashville near the Kentucky state line on Saturday afternoon. Some 23 people were treated for injuries at hospitals in the county, officials said in a news release.
In a neighborhood just north of downtown Nashville, three people were killed Saturday as a result of tornadoes, the city’s Emergency Operation Center said in a social media post.
National Weather Service meteorologists said in a posting on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, said the destructive tornadoes were spawned in the Clarksville and Nashville areas.
In Nashville, the roof of a church north of downtown collapsed during the storm, resulting in 13 people being treated at hospitals, Nashville emergency officials said in a news release. They were later listed in stable condition.
Photos posted by the Clarksville fire department on social media showed damaged houses with debris strewn in the lawns, a tractor-trailer flipped on its side on a highway and insulation ripped out of building walls. Video footage from the Tennessee storms showed a ball of fire rising from behind a row of homes into the sky.
A curfew was in effect both Saturday night and Sunday night in Clarksville, where officials on Sunday urged motorists to keep away from the damaged areas so as not to impede the work of first responders and utility crews.
“We are praying for those who are injured, lost loved ones, and lost their homes,” Montgomery County Mayor Wes Golden said in a news release. “This community pulls together like no other and we will be here until the end.”
Residents in the region are familiar with severe weather in late fall. Saturday’s storm came nearly two years to the day after the National Weather Service recorded 41 tornadoes through a handful of states, including 16 in Tennessee and eight in Kentucky. A total of 81 people died in Kentucky alone.
At least six tornado tracks were reported Saturday in central Tennessee, according to the National Weather Service. Agency meteorologist Cory Mueller in Nashville said it was sending out tornado tracking teams on Sunday to attempt to confirm these potential tornadoes and calculate their severity.
Mueller said it wasn’t uncommon for tornadoes to be generated during this time of year.
The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department identified the victims killed north of downtown as Joseph Dalton, 37; Floridema Gabriel Perez, 31; and her son, Anthony Elmer Mendez, 2. Dalton was inside his mobile home when the storm tossed it on top of Perez’s residence. Two other children, one in each home, were taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, the department said in a statement.
Montgomery County and Clarksville officials didn’t immediately respond early Sunday to requests for information about the three deaths in their area and the injuries.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said he and his wife, Maria, were praying for all Tennesseans who had been affected by the storms.
“We mourn the lives lost and ask that everyone continue to follow guidance from local and state officials,” Lee said in a statement.
About 45,000 electricity customers were without power in Tennessee early Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us., down from more than 80,000 on Saturday night.
The National Weather Service issued on Saturday multiple tornado warnings in Tennessee, and said it planned to survey an area where an apparent tornado hit in Kentucky.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said a tornado touched down around 2 p.m. Saturday.
Shanika Washington said that as soon as she heard the storm sirens going off in her Clarksville neighborhood, she took her children, ages 5 and 10, to a windowless bathroom in the basement of her townhouse. During their 20 harrowing minutes in the bathroom, Washington hovered over her children as a protective shield.
“The back door absolutely did fly open, and you just heard a bunch of wind,” she said. “The blinds and stuff were like shaking really bad. I could tell that we were dead smack in the middle of a storm.”
When she came out of the bathroom, she looked out of a window and saw the destruction: Debris swept onto cars that had their windows broken out. Shutters ripped from homes. Some roofs were ripped off townhouses. Air conditioning units and backyard grills were tossed like toys, and wooden dividers between townhouses were missing.
Because the power in the area was out, Washington took her children to a hotel for the night.
“I’m still trying to just kind of like process it all,” she said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/tennessee-residents-clean-up-after-severe-weekend-storms/7391963.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
The United States, Israel’s staunchest supporter in its war against Hamas militants, said Sunday that the Israeli military is failing in its announced intention to protect as many Palestinian civilians as possible who are trying to flee Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip.
“It’s imperative that civilians be protected,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” show. He said Israel had fallen short in protecting Palestinian civilians as it continues its offensive against the militants in the narrow enclave along the Mediterranean Sea.
The top U.S. diplomat said, “What we’re not seeing are deconfliction times so [more humanitarian] aid can be brought in” to Gaza and “clarity of demarcation” lines for areas where Israel will not attack so civilians can find safe refuge.
The U.N. General Assembly will hold an emergency meeting Tuesday to vote on a draft resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the U.N., told The Associated Press that it’s similar to the Security Council resolution the U.S. vetoed Friday.
Intense fighting
After an intense 24-hour combat, Israeli tanks rolled into the center of Khan Younis, the main city of the southern Gaza Strip Sunday.
The Israeli military said it had struck more than 250 targets in the past 24 hours, including some in the south near Khan Younis, but also the Shajaiya neighborhood of Gaza City in the north.
It also said dozens of Hamas fighters had surrendered, encouraging more of them to do so, but the Palestinian militant group denied this, calling the claim “false and baseless.”
Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, after Hamas militants invaded southern Israel in a surprise terror attack on Oct. 7, killed about 1,200 people and captured about 240 hostages. Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, is still holding about 140 people.
The Hamas-run health ministry says that nearly 18,000 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in the Israeli air and ground offensive in the last seven weeks.
The World Health Organization’s executive board was meeting Sunday to discuss the health situation in Gaza.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the health situation in Gaza as “catastrophic,” adding it will be almost impossible to improve.
The 34-member board passed an emergency WHO motion by consensus to secure more medical access in the enclave.
Palestinian officials have also described a disastrous health situation in Gaza, where Israel’s assault has left most of the population homeless, with little electricity, food or clean water, and a medical system facing collapse.
“I must be frank with you: These tasks are almost impossible in the current circumstances,” Tedros said. Still, he commended countries for finding common ground, saying it was the first time any U.N. motion had been agreed on by consensus since the conflict began.
Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian politician who heads the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees with 25 teams working in Gaza, said, “Half of Gaza is now starving.”
He said 350,000 people had infections, including 115,000 with severe respiratory infections. They also are lacking warm clothes, blankets and protection from the rain, he said.
EU foreign ministers
On Monday, European Union foreign ministers will consider possible options in response to the Middle East crisis, including a crackdown on Hamas’s finances and travel bans for Israeli settlers responsible for violence in the West Bank, Reuters reported.
At a meeting in Brussels, ministers from the bloc’s 27 countries will also hear from Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba as they discuss future security assistance to Kyiv.
While EU officials insist helping Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion remains a top priority, the eruption of the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas has forced the bloc to focus anew on the Middle East.
U.S. President Joe Biden has asked Congress for a $110 billion package of wartime funding for Ukraine ($61.4 billion) and Israel, along with other national security priorities. But on Wednesday, Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked the legislation, saying major U.S. border security changes were needed.
The war also has exposed long-running and deep divisions on the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict among EU countries.
But the ministers will try to find common ground as they consider a discussion paper from the EU’s diplomatic service that outlines a broad range of possible next steps.
Hamas is listed by the U.S. and European Union as a terrorist organization.
United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer to this report. Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
https://www.voanews.com/a/blinken-israel-failing-to-protect-as-many-civilians-as-possible-/7391922.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2023-12-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Democrats Are Right to Be Nervous About Manchin 2024.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/10/democrats-manchin-2024-00130910 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, updated: 2023-12-10, from: The LAist
The Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade is from from Wednesday, Dec. 13 to Sunday, Dec. 17, in Newport Harbor.
https://laist.com/news/los-angeles-activities/tis-the-season-for-pretty-lights-and-festive-decorations-in-newport-beach-they-are-on-boats Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Curious about everything blog
The many interesting things I read in November 2023.
https://jodiettenberg.substack.com/p/thirty-three Save to Pocket
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2023-12-10, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
From twitter, I enjoyed this thread of threads on Palestine:
https://x.com/_zachfoster/status/1718633421348499849
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111556693179921904 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News
First an apology. To all the people who clicked on a link to a FeedLand page on a phone in the past, I am sorry to have put you through that. Now that it works on phones, I can see how nice it is to be able to skim the news while you’re out and about.
When you’re working alone on a huge product like this, you have to keep your head down and focus on the problem of the moment. There have been some huge ones this year. The product’s identity system had to be replaced, while people were using it, because Twitter was getting ready to explode their API. Then the move from a Digital Ocean server to the Automattic VIP server required fairly large pieces of the software to be rewritten, again, in-place, while feedland.org continued to run. There’s a huge change between writing software for a server where the runtime environment doesn’t include local storage. Everything has to be stored in a database.
All the pieces were rewritten, one by one, until we discovered another that needed to be rewritten. And then at almost the last minute I decided we had to have reading lists, because of the kind of feed network I wanted to build with this product. And one more thing, let’s get this mofo working on mobile devices as it was meant to, which turned out to be not as hard as I imagined, and very nice to have.
The new version of the software with all the new code turned on is at feedland.com. That’s the version that’s running on Automattic’s servers, and should be able to scale to far more users. The docs aren’t converted yet, but the software is basically the same. You should read the first page of the docs, at least, so you aren’t surprised to find out that your subscriptions are public. This is not the usual kind of feed product, it’s more of a community of news users. Just like a social network, you can see what other people are reading. The idea of FeedLand is to see what would happen if instead of building something complicated around conversations, we limited ourselves to what feeds could do and then see where we could go with that. That’s what FeedLand is.
PS: I can’t believe how fast Automattic’s system is. I don’t understand how it does all that work in so little time.
PPS: The menus are different on the mobile version, by necessity. I included the Bookmarks menu, it’s really important to have the news you want to read available one click away in mobile. I imagine doing setup on your home computer, with links you’ll use when you’re using the mobile version.
http://scripting.com/2023/12/10/140353.html?title=howWeGotHere Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Guam Daily Post
Having a high school diploma or a General Educational Development diploma, or GED diploma, is important in opening doors to higher learning and job opportunities.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/gcc-to-host-open-house-for-ged-adult-education-program/article_598a641a-960d-11ee-b337-1b9f194c9150.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Guam Daily Post
U.S. Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Insular and International Affairs Carmen G. Cantor spent a week in the Pacific meeting with officials in the region and seeing how federal funds are being spent.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/doi-assistant-secretary-visits-guam/article_9f542644-960c-11ee-8545-a33282aef8ac.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Guam Daily Post
Two individuals caught with suspected methamphetamine were released from jail on Saturday.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/couple-released-found-with-meth-twice/article_2c6842d8-96ec-11ee-8688-7ff45191c147.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Memorial Hospital Authority appears to have provided the community with “misleading” information when it comes to how many OB-GYNs are available to work at the hospital, according to an OB-GYN hospitalist for the GMH labor and delivery ward.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/doctor-says-gmh-does-not-have-11-active-ob-gyns/article_3d8772c4-9641-11ee-b2d0-97b400cd37c3.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Guam Daily Post
A man will serve one year in prison, despite arguments he was charged with the wrong crimes.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/man-to-serve-1-year-in-prison-for-car-theft/article_ddb4c3be-956a-11ee-bfe7-6be2bb092fed.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Guam Daily Post
The Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport Authority said it has to cut back on its participation in the Guam Power Authority’s interruptible load program because it is affecting airport operations.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/airport-to-lessen-participation-in-interruptible-load-program/article_64eaaa38-96f6-11ee-b0f8-87f3bc98c85e.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Guam Daily Post
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service needs help identifying two men who were caught on camera breaking into postal boxes.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/2-sought-for-usps-break-ins/article_3192e55e-96e9-11ee-926d-1f268688c580.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Community College Liberal Studies CHamoru Education and Culture track and the Kumisión i Fino’ CHamoru celebrated the completion of the first cohort of CHamoru language teachers in the Kumisión’s Nina’fitme i Fina’nå’guen Fino’ CHamoru (Strengthening the Teaching of…
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/1st-cohort-of-chamoru-language-educators-completes-gcc-training/article_9c36896c-93bd-11ee-9461-1fa3e135cc83.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Guam Daily Post
A man is behind bars after his cellphone was discovered hidden in the women’s restroom at the Sumay Pay-Less supermarket.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/man-allegedly-used-cellphone-to-record-woman-in-restroom/article_2829053a-96f2-11ee-8138-e3532d837d68.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
Established in 1634, Boston Common remains at the center of the city’s civic life
https://www.voanews.com/a/founded-centuries-ago-america-s-first-public-park-still-attracts-millions-/7380391.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Robert Reich on Substack
And last week’s winner
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-caption-contest-help Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, updated: 2023-12-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors are getting a lot of attention of late and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry doesn’t want to be left out.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/10/rohm_toshiba_japan/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The LAist
Much of the popular downtown area had free, unrestricted parking, but things are about to change.
https://laist.com/news/transportation/street-parking-in-the-arts-district-is-going-to-cost-you-starting-this-week Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, updated: 2023-12-11, from: The LAist
Light rail ridership numbers are not yet back to pre-pandemic levels, but they’re slowly closing the gap as Metro continues to expand its offerings around the city.
https://laist.com/news/transportation/metro-light-rail-lines-are-running-more-often-to-serve-more-riders-here-are-the-details Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
America’s oldest public park was established in Massachusetts in 1634. Boston Common has seen a lot in its 389-year history and remains as central to city life as it was at its founding centuries ago. VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports from Boston. VOA footage by Adam Greenbaum.
https://www.voanews.com/a/a-visit-to-america-s-oldest-public-park/7383390.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: The Signal
By David Hegg In logic there is a fallacy known as non sequitur. This Latin phrase simply means “does not follow” and describes a situation where a supposed “effect” actually “does not follow” from its supposed cause. Here is an example – absurd to be sure – of a non sequitur: Where does wind come […]
The post David Hegg | Truth, Cause and Effect appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/12/david-hegg-truth-cause-and-effect/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
President Joe Biden will host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House Tuesday as the U.S. administration increases its push for Congress to approve additional aid to Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia.
The visit is intended “to underscore the United States’ unshakeable commitment to supporting the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against Russia’s brutal invasion,” the White House said in a statement Sunday.
Zelenskyy’s office confirmed that he had accepted Biden’s invitation. He also has been invited to speak to a meeting of all senators.
Biden has asked Congress for a $110 billion package of wartime funding for Ukraine ($61.4 billion) and Israel, along with other national security priorities. But on Wednesday, Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked the legislation, saying major U.S. border security changes were needed.
Some Republicans are asking for the immediate deportation of illegal migrants, stripping them of a chance to seek U.S. asylum. They have also called for greatly scaling back Biden administration programs that have allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the U.S. lawfully.
With U.S. Congress about to go on holiday recess in less than a week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has expressed grave concern about U.S. aid not reaching Ukraine in time as winter looms.
Speaking Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Blinken said the United States is running out of money for Ukraine’s war against Russia. He called on Congress to act on supplemental funding for Ukraine.
“We need to see the supplemental budget request go through as quickly as possible,” Blinken said in the interview. He stressed that Ukraine has done an “extraordinary job” fighting Russian aggression, taking 50% of its territory back over the past year.
Blinken also pointed out that 90% of the money that goes to Ukraine’s assistance is invested in the U.S. “In terms of the production of materials and munitions and weapons that go to the Ukrainians, it’s right here, in America,” he said.
Lavrov blames Ukraine, US
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Sunday that the West was trying to exhaust Russia in Ukraine and that any peace talks would have to be initiated by Kyiv.
“It is up to the Ukrainians to recognize how deep they are in the hole where the Americans put them,” Lavrov said of the war.
When asked what the chances were of diplomacy bringing about a cease-fire or peace, he said, “You’ll have to call Mr. [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy because a year-and-a-half ago he signed a decree prohibiting any negotiations with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”
The British defense ministry said Sunday in its daily intelligence update on Ukraine that Russia has “almost certainly been stockpiling” air-launched cruise missiles, or ALCMs, for use in its winter campaign against Ukraine.
The missiles were used Thursday, the ministry said, in a “major wave of strikes” aimed at Kyiv and central Ukraine.
While the British ministry says the December launch of the missiles was “probably” designed to degrade Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, initial reports indicate that Ukraine successfully intercepted most of them. One civilian was killed, officials said.
Hungarian blockade
Meanwhile, Hungarian truckers Monday plan to block Hungary’s main border crossing with Ukraine in protest of Ukrainian carriers bringing cheaper products into the European Union country and hurting local trade.
Truckers from Ukraine have been exempted from permits for crossing into the EU since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Haulers across eastern Europe have demanded restrictions on the number of Ukrainian trucks entering the bloc.
“We have asked the EU … to review its agreement signed with Ukraine and consider the interests of EU carriers, among them those [of] Hungary,” Tivadar Arvay, general secretary of the Hungarian Road Transport Association, told state news agency MTI.
Polish trucks at the Polish-Ukrainian border have been backed up for kilometers (miles) as Polish truckers block roads to three border crossings.
Ukraine has managed to bypass the Polish truckers’ blockade by transporting the first batch of buses to Poland by rail, Ukrainian state railways Ukrzaliznytsia said Sunday.
Ukrainian authorities say about 3,500 trucks were blocked on the Polish side of the Polish-Ukrainian border as of Sunday morning. So far, authorities have not been able to reach an agreement with the protesters, who, like their Hungarian counterparts, are also seeking to stop Ukrainian truckers from having permit-free access to the European Union.
Some information for this article came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
https://www.voanews.com/a/britain-says-russian-missile-launch-in-ukraine-failed-/7391750.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: The Signal
Thank you to Jonathan Kraut for his revealing Nov. 28 column, “Real Homeless Solutions Not Sought.” Indeed, despite politicians touting they are effectively housing those who are homeless, the number coming into homelessness continues to rise. Getting into the weeds of the statistics alluded to by Jonathan Kraut, the number of homeless in the age […]
The post Dr. Gene Dorio | Homelessness Continues to Rise appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/12/dr-gene-dorio-homelessness-continues-to-rise/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The shock of Hawaii quarterback Brayden Schager entering the NCAA portal is that the news was shocking at all.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/sports/analysis-schagers-bombshell-a-sign-of-the-times/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Waiakea High’s girls soccer team and the Kamehameha Schools - Hawai‘i boys soccer team each added shutouts to their records, winning matches on Thursday.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/sports/biif-soccer-action-sees-trio-of-mercy-rule-blowouts/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>LAS VEGAS — Anthony Davis had seasons highs of 41 points and 20 rebounds and the Los Angeles Lakers won the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament title with a 123-109 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Saturday night. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/sports/anthony-davis-leads-lakers-to-nba-in-season-tournament-title-123-109-over-pacers/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>United Soccer Coaches announced the 2023 NCAA Division II Men’s and Women’s All-Americans on Thursday, among the mentions was UH-Hilo women’s soccer player and Maui native Teani Arakawa.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/sports/uh-hilos-arakawa-achieves-all-american-status/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NEW YORK — Shohei Ohtani has set a financial record to go along with his singular on-field performance, getting a record $700 million to make a 30-mile move up Interstate 5 to the Los Angeles Dodgers. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/sports/shohei-ohtani-agrees-to-record-700-million-10-year-contract-with-dodgers/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>PHILADELPHIA — Eagles security chief Dom DiSandro has been barred by the NFL from being on the sideline Sunday night against the Cowboys after he was ejected in last week’s game for a scuffle with 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw, the team announced Saturday. </p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/sports/eagles-security-guard-disandro-banned-from-sideline-for-sunday-night-football-vs-cowboys/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p><strong>KEA‘AU 64 - ST. JOSEPH 37</strong></p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/hawaii-news/big-weekend-of-biif-basketball-blowouts/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israel’s military pushed ahead with its punishing air and ground offensive in Gaza on Saturday, bolstered by a U.S. veto derailing U.N. Security Council efforts to end the war and word that an emergency sale of $106 million worth of tank ammunition had been approved by Washington.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/nation-world-news/israel-presses-on-with-its-gaza-offensive-after-us-veto-derails-security-council-efforts-to-halt-war/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>It’s not surprising that dozens of members of the U.S. House of Representatives are choosing to leave the dysfunctional chamber rather than seek another term. The politics are toxic. The rhetoric is ugly. And it seems that members aren’t interested in doing much besides fighting the culture wars — and one another.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/opinion/kevin-mccarthy-quits-congress-its-poetic-justice-for-the-trump-apologist/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Florence Y. Ah Sing, 97, of Hilo died Nov. 27 at home. Born in Pepeekeo, she worked for the former Hilo Dry Goods and Robin’s and was a cook, baker and orchid tender. Visitation 4-6 p.m. Monday, Dec. 18, at Dodo Mortuary Chapel. Wake service at 6 p.m. Visitation again 8:30-9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 19, at St. Joseph Catholic Church. Funeral Mass at 9:30 a.m. Committal service noon at East Hawaii Veterans Cemetery No. 2 Pavilion. Burial to follow. Survived by sons, Timothy (Leslee) Ah Sing, Leonard (Sandy) Ah Sing and Terrence (Pamela) Ah Sing; daughters, Laurie (Clifford) Akau and Christie Ah Sing; grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Arrangements by Dodo Mortuary.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/hawaii-news/obituaries-for-december-10-10/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>It seems like everyone spent their summer vacation in Italy this year. Call it “The White Lotus” effect, lumped in with pent-up travel demand. Like all vacation destinations that go viral on TikTok, once too many American tourists get there, it’s not fun or cool anymore.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/features/brunch-beach-wine-repeat-how-to-do-santa-barbara-right/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Las Vegas may be jokingly called Disneyland for adults, but there are plenty of spots along the Strip that can attract and entertain anyone regardless of age.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/features/what-you-can-do-with-your-kids-on-the-las-vegas-strip/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Coconut Island
must be preserved</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/opinion/your-views-for-december-10-6/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Volcanoes are a part of life for Hawaii residents. We live on the flanks, feeling earthquakes beneath our feet, smelling vog, and experiencing the effects of eruptions. It’s important to keep up awareness of the types of volcanic activity and associated hazards possible in Hawaii nei. During January 2024, join us at a Volcano Awareness Month program to learn something new about the volcanoes in our backyard!</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/hawaii-news/volcano-watch-opportunities-to-learn-about-the-volcanoes-in-your-backyard-in-january-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>(AP) — Here come Santa Clauses. Again.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/nation-world-news/thousands-of-revelers-descend-on-nyc-for-annual-santa-themed-bar-crawl-santacon/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Veteran negotiators at the United Nations climate talks Saturday said that the push to wean the world from dirty fossil fuels had gained so much momentum that they had poked a powerful enemy: the oil industry.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/nation-world-news/observers-see-opec-panicking-as-cop28-climate-talks-focus-on-possible-fossil-fuel-phase-out/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The University of Pennsylvania’s president has resigned amid pressure from donors and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say under repeated questioning that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/nation-world-news/liz-magill-u-penns-president-and-board-chair-resign-as-antisemitism-testimony-draws-backlash/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A visiting, 34-year-old male hiker who had been missing for three days was found Thursday in Nuuanu, according to the Honolulu Fire Department.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/hawaii-news/missing-hiker-rescued-1000-feet-below-oahu-trail-after-3-days/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The state Health Department has received $295,000 in federal grants to help prevent maternal mortality, or pregnancy-related deaths, in Hawaii.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/hawaii-news/hawaii-health-department-gets-295k-to-reduce-maternal-mortality/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Police are seeking the public’s assistance in providing information related to a 2022 murder in the Fern Acres subdivision in Mountain View.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/hawaii-news/police-seek-info-on-2022-murder-in-puna/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Charges have been dropped against an Ainaloa Estates couple whose dog attacked and seriously injured a neighbor in May.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/hawaii-news/charges-dropped-against-ainaloa-estates-couple-whose-dog-injured-neighbor/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A plan to improve Hilo Bay’s poor water quality could be forthcoming within three years.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/hawaii-news/hilo-bays-water-quality-targeted-for-improvement/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>An environmental assessment is underway for the site of the proposed Ocean View Skatepark.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/hawaii-news/progress-made-on-ocean-view-skatepark/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Big Island students gathered Tuesday to urge the Hawaii County Council to approve a ban of flavored tobacco products.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2023/12/10/hawaii-news/strong-support-for-vape-bill-measure-seeks-to-ban-all-flavored-tobacco-products/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, updated: 2023-12-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
NASA has tweaked the contract and shuffled the dates for its procurement notice covering a vehicle to deorbit the International Space Station (ISS.)…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/10/nasa_pushes_back_iss_deorbit/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: The Signal
Another death on our Santa Clarita streets. We have a crisis all over this country with the slaughter of pedestrians and bikers and we need to call it for what it is. As a victim of out-of-control, lawless driving that resulted in my having to close my business five years ago and live with a […]
The post Carole Lutness | Too Much Lawlessness on SCV Streets appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2023/12/carole-lutness-too-much-lawlessness-on-scv-streets/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Logic Matters blog
Elisabeth Brauss has recently been in Australia with Noa Wildschut (above), with the two friends playing a dozen concerts to great acclaim in many reviews (such as here). Sadly, none of the performances seems to have been recorded. One day, the recording studio must beckon. However, another series of concerts by Elisabeth and friends was …
(Not just) Schubert on Sunday 7: Elisabeth Brauss and friends Read More »
The post (Not just) Schubert on Sunday 7: Elisabeth Brauss and friends appeared first on Logic Matters.
https://www.logicmatters.net/2023/12/10/not-just-schubert-on-sunday-7-elisabeth-brauss-and-friends/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1941 – Three days after Pearl Harbor attack, 165th and 185th Infantry Regiments assigned to Saugus; Edison power substation guarded 24/7. [timeline
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-dec-10/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
Despite some recent financial setbacks, U.S. offshore wind power has hit a milestone. A 244-meter-tall turbine is now sending electricity onto the grid from a commercial-scale offshore wind farm on pace to be the country’s first.
The moment is years in the making and at the same time a modest advance in what experts say needs to be a major buildout of this type of clean electricity to address climate change.
Danish wind energy developer Ørsted and the utility Eversource announced Wednesday the first electricity from what will be a 12-turbine wind farm called South Fork Wind 56 kilometers east of Montauk Point, New York. It will be New York’s first offshore wind farm.
Ørsted and Eversource met Wednesday with New York officials to celebrate this “first power” milestone, in East Hampton, New York, where the wind farm connects to the onshore electric grid. They say the achievement builds a foundation for other large U.S. offshore wind farms that will follow.
So far, two of the 11-megawatt turbines are up. The second is undergoing testing, then it can begin producing power too. When the other ten are spinning and South Fork opens by early next year, it will be able to generate 132 megawatts of offshore wind energy to power more than 70,000 homes.
The first power announcement is “an incredible moment in the American clean energy story,” said Stephanie McClellan, executive director of the nonprofit Turn Forward, which advocates for offshore wind. She said South Fork will be a source of clean, reliable, domestically produced energy.
“This is just the beginning of what offshore wind can do,” she said in a statement.
Offshore wind is central to New York’s plan to transition to a carbon-free electricity system by 2040. The state aims to install 9 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2035.
“New York’s nation-leading efforts to generate reliable, renewable clean energy have reached a major milestone,” New York Gov. Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement Wednesday. “South Fork Wind will power thousands of homes, create good-paying union jobs and demonstrate to all that offshore wind is a viable resource New York can harness for generations to come.”
Some Long Island residents at first objected on both environmental and aesthetic grounds to the transmission line running through their community. In a lawsuit, four alleged that trenching under roads would spread contaminated groundwater. A judge dismissed their complaint in July.
The project has also overcome objections from fishermen and some environmentalists. Fishermen said they were not adequately compensated for their loss of fishing grounds. The group Save The Bay said the energy project shouldn’t be placed near such a rich diversity of fish.
Business groups and construction unions backed the project.
Large offshore wind farms have been making electricity for three decades in Europe, and more recently in Asia. The first U.S. offshore wind farm was supposed to be a project off the coast of Massachusetts known as Cape Wind. The application was submitted to the federal government in 2001. It failed after years of local opposition and litigation.
Turbines began turning off Rhode Island’s Block Island in 2016. But with just five of them, it’s not a commercial-scale wind farm.
Currently there are two commercial offshore wind farms under construction in the United States, South Fork Wind and Vineyard Wind. Vineyard Wind will be a 62-turbine wind farm 24 kilometers off the coast of Massachusetts. It has not started generating power yet, the developer said Monday. They’re installing and testing five turbines first.
At State Pier in New London, Connecticut, blades and massive tower sections for South Fork are lined up, ready to leave port for the sea where they’ll be erected in the coming weeks. The nacelles that house the generator for each wind turbine are there, too.
On Monday, a barge carrying three blades and a nacelle for the third turbine left port. As Jeff Martin, of Eversource, watched, he said it was a “joy” to see the industry finally move from concept to fruition in the United States, to help reduce the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.
“Finally we’re taking this step to catch up with the rest of the world and do our part to collectively address climate change,” said Martin, Eversource’s director of business development for the offshore wind group.
Large, ocean-based wind farms are a linchpin of government plans to shift to renewable energy in populous East Coast states with limited land for wind turbines or solar arrays. The Biden administration aims to power 10 million homes with offshore wind by 2030 and establish a carbon-free electric grid five years later.
But the industry has had hard times recently. Ørsted announced it’s canceling two large offshore wind projects in New Jersey due to problems with supply chains, higher interest rates and a failure to obtain the amount of tax credits the company wanted. Developers in New England recently canceled power contacts too, saying their projects were no longer financially feasible. The series of setbacks for the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry jeopardizes the clean energy goals.
Other projects though, are advancing. Ørsted is moving forward with Eversource on construction of Revolution Wind, Rhode Island and Connecticut’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm. The 704-megawatt project will power roughly 400,000 homes. Tower sections, blades and nacelles are expected to begin arriving in New London as early as this spring.
South Fork and Revolution Wind are a “bright spot for a challenged industry,” said David Hardy, group executive vice president and CEO Americas at Ørsted.
“As we demonstrate that we can build this project and build Revolution, then people will realize the real opportunity of offshore wind,” he said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-sends-first-commercial-offshore-wind-power-onto-its-grid-/7389359.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: OS News
It’s 1995 and I’ve been nearly two years in the professional workspace. OS/2 is the dominant workstation product, Netware servers rule the world, and the year of the Linux desktop is going to happen any moment now. If you weren’t running OS/2, you were probably running Windows 3.1, only very few people were using that Linux thing. What would have been the prefect OS at the time would have been NT with a competent POSIX subsystem, but since we were denied that, enter Hiroshi Oota with BSD on Windows. ↫ neozeed at Virtually Fun This is absolutely wild.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138045/bsd-on-windows-things-i-wish-i-knew-existed/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The singer-songwriter-cello connoisseur combines jazz, pop sensibilities, and Swift-ian lyricism to create heartbreak’s new soundtrack.
The post Review | Laufey’s ‘Bewitched’ Tour in SoCal appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/09/review-laufeys-bewitched-tour-in-socal/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The City Council adopts revisions, including rezoning of 11 properties.
The post Goleta Sends Housing Element to State for Final Certification appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/09/goleta-sends-housing-element-to-state-for-final-certification/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
Houston elected Democratic state Sen. John Whitmire as its next mayor on Saturday night, elevating a Texas lawmaker who has represented the city for 50 years by giving him a victory over U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in a runoff.
Whitmire, 74, who is one of Texas’ most powerful Democratic legislators, will now be at the helm of America’s fourth-largest city. His campaign focused on reducing crime, improving streets and bringing people together. He heavily outspent Jackson Lee, who was running to become Houston’s first Black female mayor.
The congresswoman’s campaign also had to deal with fallout from the release in October of an unverified audio recording that purported to capture her profanely berating staff.
Whitmire built an insurmountable lead among early voters, winning among those voters by 30 percentage points.
Whitmire and Jackson Lee had made it to Saturday’s runoff after emerging from a crowded field of nearly 20 candidates in the Nov. 7 general election.
Both candidates — two of Houston’s biggest political fixtures — touted their decades-long political experience as strong qualifications to lead a growing city facing challenges that include crime, crumbling infrastructure and potential budget shortfalls.
Whitmire started in the Texas Legislature in 1973, first as a state representative and the majority of his time as a state senator. Jackson Lee has represented Houston in Congress since 1995 and before that had served on Houston’s City Council.
Booming growth over the last decade has caused municipal headaches but has also turned the Houston area into an expanding stronghold for Texas Democrats. Although the mayoral race is nonpartisan, Whitmire and Jackson Lee are both Democrats.
Whitmire will be the oldest big city mayor in the U.S. He is set to lead a city which is becoming younger, with a median age of around 35 and with 25% of its population below 18, according to census figures.
The choice between Whitmire and Jackson Lee, who is 73, frustrated some Democratic voters, particularly younger ones, at a time when the party is searching for new political stars in Texas who might end 30 years of GOP dominance statewide.
The new mayor will have to deal with new laws from the GOP-led state government over control of local elections and the ability to impose local regulations.
Whitmire will replace Mayor Sylvester Turner, who has served eight years and can’t run again because of term limits.
Whitmire will also lead what is considered one of the country’s most diverse cities. Of the city’s 2.3 million residents, 45% are Latino, with 23% Black and 24% white. One in every four Houston residents was born outside the U.S.
Known as the energy capital of the world, Houston’s economy has long been tied mainly to the oil industry. But the city is working to become a leader in the transition to cleaner energy. Like other large U.S. cities, Houston is also dealing with a lack of affordable housing and concerns among residents over growing gaps between the rich and poor.
https://www.voanews.com/a/democrat-john-whitmire-elected-houston-mayor-/7391641.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
Am picking up my knitting by our very own woodstove, and feeling extraordinarily fortunate to be in such a position. Turning things over tonight to my friend Nadia with a holiday picture she took in Ukraine… before 2022. I’ll see you tomorrow. [Picture by Nadia Povalinska.]
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-9-2023 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
Severe storms that tore through the U.S. state of Tennessee killed six people Saturday and sent about two dozen to the hospital as homes and businesses were damaged in multiple cities.
Three people, including a child, were killed after an apparent tornado struck Montgomery County north of Nashville near the Kentucky state line, county officials said in a news release. And the Nashville Emergency Operation Center said in a post on a social media account that three people were killed by severe storms there. Montgomery County officials said another 23 there were treated for injuries at hospitals.
Photos posted by the Clarksvillle fire department on social media showed damaged houses with debris strewn in the lawns, a tractor trailer flipped on its side on a highway and insulation ripped out of building walls.
“This is devastating news and our hearts are broken for the families of those who lost loved ones,” said Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts in a statement. “The city stands ready to help them in their time of grief.”
No other information about the victims was immediately available Saturday.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that a tornado touched down around 2 p.m. A shelter was set up at a local high school.
Residents were asked to stay at home while first responders evaluated the situation. In a briefing shared on social media, Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts said there was extensive damage.
“So please, if you need help, call 911 and help will be on the way immediately. But if you can, please stay home. Do not get out on the roads. Our first responders need time and space,” he said.
Allie Phillips, who lives in Clarksville, said she was grabbing lunch when she began receiving notifications of the tornado that was quickly approaching her neighborhood.
“It was excruciating watching the live stream and not knowing if my house was still there,” she said. “When we finally decided to leave, the road to my home was shut down because so many power lines were on the road and we had to take a detour.”
Phillips said her home survived with minimal damage – noting that her daughter’s toys were banged up and that a neighbor’s dog kennel hit the back of her home – but she was saddened to see that her neighbor’s house was missing a roof and a home up the block had all but completely disappeared.
“This doesn’t happen enough that you’re ever prepared for it,” she said.
The National Weather Service issued multiple tornado warnings in Tennessee, and said it planned to survey an area where an apparent tornado hit in Kentucky.
About 85,000 electricity customers were without power in Tennessee on Saturday night, according to PowerOutage.us.
The storm came nearly two years to the day after the National Weather Service recorded 41 tornadoes through a handful of states, including 16 in Tennessee and eight in Kentucky. A total of 81 people died in Kentucky alone.
https://www.voanews.com/a/dead-2-dozen-injured-after-severe-storms-in-tennessee-/7391632.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
Russian police have put prominent Russian American journalist and author Masha Gessen on a wanted list after opening a criminal case against them on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army.
It is the latest step in an unrelenting crackdown against dissent in Russia that has intensified since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine more than 21 months ago, on Feb. 24, 2022.
The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona was the first to report Friday that Gessen’s profile has appeared on the online wanted list of Russia’s Interior Ministry, and The Associated Press was able to confirm that it was. It wasn’t clear from the profile when exactly Gessen was added to the list.
Russian media reported last month that a criminal case against Gessen, an award-winning author and an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was launched over an interview they did with the prominent Russian journalist Yury Dud.
In the interview, which was released on YouTube in September 2022 and has since been viewed more than 6.5 million times, the two among other things discussed atrocities by Russian armed forces in Bucha, a Ukrainian town near Kyiv that was briefly occupied by the Russian forces.
After Ukrainian troops retook it, they found the bodies of men, women and children on the streets, in yards and homes, and in mass graves, with some showing signs of torture. Russian officials have vehemently denied their forces were responsible and have prosecuted a number of Russian public figures for speaking out about Bucha, handing some lengthy prison terms.
Those prosecutions were carried out under a new law Moscow adopted days after sending troops to Ukraine that effectively criminalized any public expression about the war deviating from the official narrative. The Kremlin has insisted on calling it a “special military operation” and maintains that its troops in Ukraine only strike military targets, not civilians.
Between late February 2022 and early this month, 19,844 people have been detained for speaking out or protesting against the war while 776 people have been implicated in criminal cases over their anti-war stance, according to the OVD-Info rights group, which tracks political arrests and provides legal aid.
Gessen, who holds dual Russian and American citizenships and lives in the U.S., is unlikely to be arrested, unless they travel to a country with an extradition treaty with Russia. But Russian court could still try them in absentia and hand them a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
Pressure is also mounting on dissidents imprisoned in Russia. On Friday, supporters of Alexei Gorinov, a former member of a Moscow municipal council sentenced to seven years in prison for speaking out against the war, reported that his health significantly deteriorated in prison, and he is not being given the treatment he needs.
Gorinov was sentenced last year and is currently serving time at a penal colony in the Vladimir region east of Moscow. In a post on the messaging app Telegram, his supporters said his lawyer visited him on Friday and said Gorinov “doesn’t have the strength to sit up on a chair or even speak.” He told the lawyer that he has bronchitis and fever, but prison doctors claim he doesn’t need treatment, the post said.
The 62-year-old Gorinov has a chronic lung condition, and several years ago had part of a lung removed, the post said.
Allies of imprisoned opposition leader Alexey Navalny were also concerned about his well-being on Friday.
Navalny is serving a 19-year prison term on the charges of extremism in the same region as Gorinov, and for the last three days his lawyers have not allowed to visit him, the politician’s spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said on X, formerly known as Twitter. Yarmysh said that letters to Navalny were also not being delivered to him.
“The fact that we can’t find Alexey is particularly concerning because last week he felt unwell in the cell: he felt dizzy and lay down on the floor. Prison officials rushed to him, unfolded the bed, put Alexey on it and gave him an IV drip. We don’t know what caused it, but given that he’s being deprived of food, kept in a cell without ventilation and has been offered minimal outdoor time, it looks like fainting out of hunger,” Yarmysh wrote.
She added that the lawyers visited him after the incident, and he looked “more or less fine.”
Navalny is due to be transferred to a “special security” penal colony, a facility with the highest security level in the Russian penitentiary system. Russian prison transfers are notorious for taking a long time, sometimes weeks, during which there’s no access to prisoners, and information about their whereabouts is limited, or unavailable at all.
Navalny, 47, has been behind bars since January 2021. As President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, he campaigned against official corruption and organized major anti-Kremlin protests. His 2021 arrest came upon his return to Moscow from Germany, where he recuperated from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
Navalny has since been handed three prison terms and spent months in isolation in prison for alleged minor infractions. He has rejected all charges against him as politically motivated.
https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-puts-prominent-russian-american-journalist-on-wanted-list-/7391630.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2023-12-10, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Heard on ski lift: “I’m not particular, I’ll work with anyone as long as the goal is to keep one company from controlling something worthwhile.”
http://scripting.com/2023/12/09.html#a021933 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, updated: 2023-12-11, from: Daring Fireball
https://www.inquirer.com/education/live/liz-magill-university-pennsylvania-penn-resign-antisemitism-testimony-20231209.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
The national security advisers of the United States, South Korea and Japan called Saturday for a stronger international push to suppress North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles, its cybertheft activities and alleged arms transfers to Russia.
The meeting in Seoul came as tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest in years, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un accelerating the expansion of his nuclear and missile program and flaunting an escalatory nuclear doctrine that authorizes the preemptive use of nuclear weapons.
The United States and its Asian allies have responded by increasing the visibility of their trilateral partnership in the region and strengthening their combined military exercises, which Kim condemns as invasion rehearsals.
Washington, Seoul and Tokyo have also expressed concerns about a potential arms alignment between North Korea and Russia. They worry Kim is providing badly needed munitions to help Russian President Vladimir Putin wage war in Ukraine in exchange for Russian technology assistance to upgrade his nuclear-armed military.
Speaking after the meeting, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington is working with Seoul and Tokyo to strengthen defense cooperation and improve its response to North Korean missile testing and space-launch activities, including a real-time information sharing arrangement on North Korean missile launches that the countries plan to start at an unspecified date in December.
He also said the countries have agreed to new initiatives to more effectively respond to North Korean efforts to bypass U.S.-led international sanctions that aim to choke off funds for its nuclear weapons and missile program.
“This will be a new effort with respect to cryptocurrency and money laundering and how we disrupt North Korea’s capacity to gain revenue from the hacking and stealing of cryptocurrency and then laundering it through exchanges,” he said.
Sullivan declined to share detailed U.S. assessments on the types and volume of North Korean arms being shipped to Russia and didn’t comment on the specifics of his discussions with South Korean and Japanese officials over the issue but insisted that “there’s no daylight among us in terms of the types of weapons transfers that we are seeing. And those continue and they represent a grave concern for us.”
South Korean intelligence and military officials have said North Korea may have shipped more than a million artillery shells to Russia beginning in August, weeks before Kim traveled to Russia’s Far East for a rare summit with Putin that sparked international concerns about a potential arms deal. Both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied U.S. and South Korean claims.
In a joint news conference after Saturday’s trilateral meeting, Cho Tae-yong, South Korea’s national security office director, said the three security advisers reaffirmed North Korea’s obligations under multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions that call for its denuclearization and ban any weapons trade with other countries, and agreed to strengthen coordination to ensure that is implemented.
Takeo Akiba, Japan’s national security secretariat secretary general, said the “unprecedented frequency and patterns” of North Korean ballistic missile launches necessitate a deeper and more effective partnership between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo.
South Korea, the U.S., Japan and Australia have also announced their own sanctions on North Korea over its spy satellite launch last month. North Korea argues it has the right to launch spy satellites to monitor U.S. and South Korean military activities and enhance the threat of its nuclear-capable missiles.
During his conversation with reporters, Sullivan said the allies are preparing for the possibility that North Korea will up the ante of its weapons demonstrations and threats in 2024, possibly including the country’s seventh nuclear test.
Direct military action is also a concern after the North recently announced it was abandoning a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement on reducing border tensions after the South partially suspended the agreement, which had established border buffers and no-fly zones. Some experts say that has raised the risk of border-area shootings or clashes.
“Look, when a country announces its intent to walk away from a set of measures that are designed to help reduce risk and increase stability, our concern for potential incidents, provocations has to go up,” Sullivan said, though he said the full implications of the North’s announcement is not immediately clear.
Sullivan held separate bilateral talks Friday with Cho and Akiba and also met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The U.S., South Korean and Japanese national security advisers last held a trilateral meeting in June in Tokyo.
South Korean intelligence officials have said the Russians likely provided technology support for North Korea’s successful satellite launch in November, which followed two failed launches.
North Korea has said its spy satellite transmitted imagery with space views of key sites in the U.S. and South Korea, including the White House and the Pentagon. But it hasn’t released any of those satellite photos. Many outside experts question whether the North’s satellite is sophisticated enough to send militarily useful high-resolution imagery.
Kim has vowed to launch more satellites, saying his military needs to acquire space-based reconnaissance capabilities.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-south-korea-japan-urge-international-push-to-curb-north-korea-s-nuclear-program/7391624.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2023-12-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
ActivityPub in Threads. There was a meeting last week. Still no clue who said what to whom.
https://github.com/scripting/Scripting-News/issues/281 Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Low Medi-Cal reimbursement rates cause significant revenue shortfall.
The post SB Neighborhood Clinics Shares Challenges at Strategic Advisory Council Luncheon appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2023/12/09/sb-neighborhood-clinics-shares-challenges-at-strategic-advisory-council-luncheon/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
The U.S. State Department has approved the emergency sale of 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition to Israel for about $106.5 million, the Biden administration said Saturday.
The State Department said it had notified Congress of the sale late Friday after Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined “an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale” of the munitions in the U.S. national security interest.
The purchase will bypass congressional review, which is usually a requirement for foreign military sales. The action is rare, though not unheard of, when administrations see an urgent need for weapons to be delivered without waiting for lawmakers’ approval. At least four administrations have used the authority since 1979, according to The Associated Press.
“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives,” a statement issued by the State Department said. The ammunition would come from U.S. inventory.
The sale will be from U.S. Army inventory and consist of 120mm M830A1 High Explosive Anti-Tank Multi-Purpose with Tracer (MPAT) tank cartridges and related equipment, the Pentagon said in a statement.
The move comes as President Joe Biden’s request for a nearly $106 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other national security is languishing in Congress, caught up in a debate over U.S. immigration policy and border security.
U.S. veto
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his appreciation on Saturday for the United States’ veto at the U.N. Security Council, blocking a demand for a cease-fire in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
“Other countries must also understand that it’s impossible to support the elimination of Hamas on one side, and on the other to call for the end of the war, which will prevent the elimination of Hamas,” Netanyahu said. “Therefore, Israel will continue our just war to eliminate Hamas and achieve the war’s other objectives that we set.”
Israel also said Saturday it was expanding its military operations in the southern Gaza Strip.
National security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said Israeli forces had killed at least 7,000 Hamas militants so far, without saying how that estimate was reached.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Saturday for the United Nations Security Council to be reformed, decrying the fact that the United States could veto a cease-fire proposal for Gaza despite huge support from other countries.
“The United Nations Security Council demand for cease-fire is rejected only by U.S. veto. Is this justice?” Erdogan asked at a human rights conference in Istanbul.
Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of the international rights advocacy group Amnesty International, also disagreed with the U.S. veto, calling it “morally indefensible and a dereliction of the U.S. duty to prevent atrocity crimes and uphold international law.”
The U.S. reasoning against a cease-fire is that it would allow Hamas, a U.S. – designated terrorist group, to regroup and carry out fresh incursions. Washington instead supports pauses in fighting to protect civilians and allow the release of hostages taken by the militants during the October 7 terror attack on Israel.
Evacuation order
Israel ordered residents Saturday to evacuate the center of Gaza’s main southern city Khan Younis, while the dead and wounded are piling up at the overwhelmed Nasser hospital there.
So far, the majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents already have been forced from their homes, many fleeing several times. With fighting raging across the length of the territory, residents and U.N. agencies say there is effectively nowhere safe to go now. Israel disputes this.
The World Health Organization’s executive board is scheduled to meet Sunday to discuss the health situation in Gaza.
More than a dozen WHO member states already have expressed “grave concern” about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the enclave. Gaza residents “are being told to move like human pinballs, ricocheting between ever-smaller slivers of the south, without any of the basics for survival,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday. “The people of Gaza are looking into the abyss. The international community must do everything possible to end their ordeal.”
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 240 people hostage, Israel said. Israel’s retaliatory strikes and ground offensive have killed more than 17,700 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
Thousands more are missing and presumed buried under rubble. Seventy percent of the victims are women and children, according to the health ministry.
VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this story. Some information for this article was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-ok-s-sale-of-ammunition-to-israel-/7391597.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Shady Characters
https://shadycharacters.co.uk/2023/12/advent-calendar-arithmometer/ Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: VOA News USA
The University of Pennsylvania’s president has resigned amid pressure from donors and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say under repeated questioning that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.
The departure of Liz Magill, in her second year as president of the Ivy League school, was announced by the school late Saturday afternoon. The statement said Magill will remain a tenured faculty member at the university’s Carey Law School.
Calls for Magill’s resignation exploded after Tuesday’s testimony in a U.S. House committee on antisemitism on college campuses, where she appeared with the presidents of Harvard University and MIT.
Universities across the U.S. have been accused of failing to protect Jewish students amid rising fears of antisemitism worldwide and fallout from Israel’s intensifying war in Gaza, which faces heightened criticism for the mounting Palestinian death toll.
The three presidents were called before the committee to answer those accusations. But their lawyerly answers drew renewed blowback from opponents, which focused on a line of questioning from Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, who repeatedly asked whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate Penn’s code of conduct.
“If the speech turns into conduct it can be harassment, yes,” Pressed further, Magill told Stefanik, “It is a context-dependent decision, congresswoman.”
Criticism rained down from the White House, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, members of Congress, and donors. One donor, Ross Stevens, threatened to withdraw a $100 million gift because of the university’s “stance on antisemitism on campus” unless Magill was replaced.
A day later, Magill addressed the criticism, saying in a video that she would consider a call for the genocide of Jewish people to be harassment or intimidation and that Penn’s policies need to be “clarified and evaluated.”
Magill had been under fire from some donors and alumni this fall over the university’s handling of various perceived acts of antisemitism.
That included allowing a Palestinian literary arts festival to be held on its campus in September featuring speakers whose past statements about Israel had drawn accusations of antisemitism.
A former U.S. Supreme Court law clerk, Magill, 57, is the daughter of a retired federal judge and was dean of Stanford University’s law school and a top administrator at the University of Virginia before Penn hired her as its ninth president last year.
Earlier Saturday, New York’s governor called on the state’s colleges and universities to swiftly address cases of antisemitism and what she described as any “calls for genocide” on campus.
In a letter to college and university presidents, Governor Kathy Hochul said her administration would enforce violations of the state’s Human Rights Law and refer any violations of federal civil rights law to U.S. officials.
Hochul said she has spoken to chancellors of the State University of New York and City University of New York public college systems who she said confirmed “that calling for genocide of any group” or tolerating antisemitism violates codes of conduct on their campuses “and would lead to swift disciplinary action.”
The governor’s letter doesn’t address specific incidents. Her office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
A popular chant at pro-Palestinian rallies at Penn and other universities has been falsely misrepresented in recent months as claiming to call for “Jewish genocide.”
Experts and advocates say the chant, “Israel, we charge you with genocide,” is a typical refrain heard at pro-Palestinian rallies. Jewish and Palestinian supporters both acknowledge protesters aren’t saying “We want Jewish genocide.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/upenn-president-magill-resigns-amid-antisemitism-testimony-backlash-/7391355.html Save to Pocket
date: 2023-12-10, from: Full Circle Magazine
Credits
https://fullcirclemagazine.org/podcasts/podcast-343/ Save to Pocket