(date: 2024-01-23 08:20:14)
date: 2024-01-23, from: 404 Media Group
The Bang Bros production is a military sex fantasy showing porn actors, and not, in fact, leaked footage from an abduction.
https://www.404media.co/afghanistan-resistance-account-says-tour-of-booty-porn-scene-is-the-taliban/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
With his nomination for best director for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” 81-year-old Scorsese became the oldest nominee in the category that had previously been held by John Huston, who was 79 when he was nominated for “Prizzi’s Honor” in 1985.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/martin-scorsese-and-john-williams-just-made-oscars-history/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Dramatic video shows the clearing of a rockslide that had blocked a highway in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/watch-huge-rocks-destroyed-in-sierra-foothills-blast/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/0043837-can-you-solve-the-greates Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A Baltimore man faces a potential maximum 20-year prison sentence after being charged for his alleged role in running an online service that sold personal data which was later used for financial fraud.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/serial_data_peddler_faces_prison/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Look for all three in American showrooms in the first half of 2024.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705653/bmw-f900gs-f800gs-2024-pricing/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
It’s the city that’s the main character in all your favorite TV shows and movies, the inspiration behind countless songs and art – and one of the famous destinations in the world.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/time-out-reveals-worlds-10-best-cities-for-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Inside EVs News
Plus, China looks to solve its EV export problem, and USPS launches the first chargers for its in-house charging network.
https://insideevs.com/news/705724/akio-toyoda-toyota-ev-cap/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
The killing is the ninth homicide investigated by Oakland police this year and the third since Sunday morning. Last year at this time police had investigated six homicides in the city.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/man-fatally-shot-in-east-oakland-60/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
I’ve written several times over the years about Epic Games’ legal challenge to Apple’s App Store policies. (A dime-store summary: Apple keeps ultratight control over its App Store. It has to approve every app and every update. And if you want to sell users any sort of digital good inside an app, you have to…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/01/apples-app-store-policies-are-getting-weirdly-aggressive-but-publishers-should-be-okay/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Heatmap News
A new study casts doubt on the integrity of yet another type of carbon offset.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, investigated clean cookstove projects, in which companies distribute stoves that require less or cleaner types of fuel to people who cannot afford them and sell carbon credits based on the resulting emission reductions. These projects have generated, on average, nine times more carbon credits than they should have based on their climate benefits, the researchers found.
This kind of credit inflation obscures climate progress, as the individuals and businesses who buy these credits do so to justify their own emissions under the belief that they are funding climate action elsewhere.
It also threatens a key source of funding to remedy a major public health problem. Nearly a third of the global population — some 2.3 billion people — cook with wood and charcoal burned on open fires or in very basic stoves that expose people to dangerous levels of pollution, including particulate matter and carbon monoxide. The smoke contributes to respiratory and cardiovascular problems and leads to an estimated 4 million premature deaths every year. On top of that, this form of cooking releases roughly 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Companies have jumped at the opportunity to finance solutions by selling carbon offsets, with great success. Between 2017 and 2022, the volume of finance secured for clean cookstoves through the carbon market increased 45-fold, according to a report by the Clean Cookstove Alliance published last fall. Now, cookstove projects make up some 10% of all credits on the carbon market. And they’re one of the fastest growing types of offset projects.
The new study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Sustainability on Wednesday, finds that the methods developers are using to measure the amount of carbon these projects avoid are deeply flawed.
The first red flag the researchers identified was that academic studies of clean cookstoves report much lower adoption rates (whether the new stove was used) and usage rates (how often the new stove was used) than offset projects do. A representative sample of offset projects reported an 86% adoption rate and 98% usage rate, whereas the research literature reported a 58% adoption rate and 52% usage rate.
“The literature at large has found, honestly, devastatingly low rates of adoption and usage,” Annalise Gill-Wiehl, a PhD student at Berkeley and the lead author of the study told me. Some families totally abandon their new stoves, while others continue to use traditional cooking methods in addition to the clean stove. That’s because the new stoves might have smaller burners, not get as hot, change the taste of traditional foods, or else just create more work for cooks. “The first thing you have to ask yourself is, have these offset projects just solved it?” Gill-Wiehl said. “Or are there limitations in their methods?”
One big limitation, according to Gill-Wiehl and her coauthors, is the way offset data is collected. To measure adoption, many project managers use a simple one-time survey that asks households if they used the new stove in the last week or month. If they reply yes, the developer will generate credits as if the household used the stove 100% of the time. Not only is this not exactly robust methodologically, but it may also result in participants inflating their usage to please the survey collectors — a common effect known as “social desirability bias.”
Another major issue stems from the way these projects account for larger environmental impacts. One of the key ways clean cookstove initiatives cut emissions is by reducing the degradation of forests that results from the gathering of fuel to make fires. It would be impossible to measure these cuts directly, but the default estimates that project developers use vastly overstate the level of degradation that would otherwise occur compared to what the peer-reviewed literature has found.
But like anything offsets-related, this study, too, has attracted fierce scrutiny. After an earlier version of it was published a year ago, offset project developers responded with an open letter calling it “misguided.” For instance, the letter calls it inappropriate to compare carbon offset projects to non-commercial projects analyzed in the academic literature. It also accuses the Berkeley researchers of selectively choosing studies and carbon offset projects to include. Finally, the letter also points to the fact that the Better Cooking Company, a cookstove company that is trying to sell credits, provided funding for the study and asserts that the findings benefit that company.
Gill-Wiehl pushed back on all points. The Better Cookstove Company provided 10% of the funding, she said, and had no influence over the findings. She added that the results don’t benefit the company — the study implies that it, too, is guilty of over-crediting, primarily due to inflated forest conservation estimates.
“We did not write this to burn cookstoves to the ground,” she told me. “This is an incredibly important project type, and it’s so incredibly important that it can’t be based on a house of cards.”
Gill-Wiehl said she and her co-authors want the carbon market registries — the groups that design the methodologies project developers must follow to generate and sell credits — to adopt stronger rules that improve the integrity of the market. For example, to measure usage, they could require developers to collect metered data from the stoves or to use fuel sales data. They also want the registries to require that developers use more accurate estimates from the literature for forest degradation. Without significant change, buyers could lose confidence and funding could dry up.
Some of the issues with clean cookstove projects were already known, if not quantified to the extent in this new paper, and there are some ongoing efforts in the industry to improve them. An influential United Nations body recently supported research to establish more accurate estimates of forest degradation, and a consortium of government groups and NGOs is working to develop stronger rules for crediting cookstove projects.
The authors of the study hope this increased attention on cookstoves doesn’t just lead to more legitimate offset projects, but also to ones that better prioritize public health. The vast majority of the cookstoves handed out for offset projects are designed to run more efficiently, but still expose users to dangerous levels of pollution. As of November 2022, only 4% of projects provided the types of stoves that the World Health Organization deems “clean for health at point of use.”
“I feel like at this moment when there’s a shake up of the offset market in general — but also, right now around cookstoves — we have an opportunity to direct all of this finance to projects that have a transformative benefit to people’s lives and health,” Barbara Haya, director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project and one of the study’s authors, told me. “And we have an obligation to do that if we’re going to use those credits to make claims of reducing emissions.”
https://heatmap.news/climate/offsets-study-clean-stoves Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
International travel, coupled with declining global vaccination rates, is probably behind this spate of cases, experts say.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/why-are-measles-cases-popping-up-across-the-united-states-heres-what-to-know-about-the-highly-contagious-virus/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday made his first public appearance, virtually and from home, since his secret hospitalization, during a meeting on Ukraine’s military needs.
He skipped over prepared remarks that would have addressed his health.
Austin, 70, was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland on December 22 to treat prostate cancer. He returned to the hospital on January 1 due to complications, including a urinary tract infection. His hospitalization was not revealed until four days later, and the Pentagon did not specify why he was being treated until January 9.
Austin’s failure to tell President Joe Biden he was hospitalized drew criticism from lawmakers and caught the White House by surprise.
Austin appeared on the livestream for a few minutes as he made his opening remarks. He was sitting in front of a white wall with what appeared to be a security system keypad on his left and a Department of Defense seal on the right, with small U.S. and Ukrainian flags on top of a printer next to it.
While there was a slight break in the livestream, Austin did not address his health, even though the topic was in his prepared remarks.
He is not expected to take part in a joint press conference with the top U.S. general after the meeting, something that has become routine after such gatherings.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-defense-secretary-makes-first-public-appearance-virtually-since-hospitalization/7451614.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Caller thought they were being noisy ‘on purpose.’
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/los-gatos-resident-says-neighbors-children-playing-too-loudly/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Microsoft has hired a director of nuclear technologies to oversee a program to develop small-scale atomic reactors to power datacenters as an alternative to fossil fuels.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/microsoft_nuclear_hires/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: NASA breaking news
On January 23, 1941, local authorities, military representatives, and agency officials assembled in Cleveland to initiate construction of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) new research laboratory. NACA Director of Research George Lewis stated, “I feel confident today in saying that this new aircraft engine research laboratory will be the mecca for all the […]
https://www.nasa.gov/general/nasa-glenn-established-in-cleveland-in-1941/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Fresh off earning the crown as the best-selling brand in China, BYD has (briefly) introduced a new compact SUV to its Yuan family of EVs – one of the larger contributors to its overall sales last year. From what we’ve seen so far, the Yuan Up looks small but mighty, touting some of BYD’s best tech – all at an expected starting price that is sure to entice consumers.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/byd-teases-new-compact-suv-yuan-up-could-arrive-priced-below-15000-china/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
To say that it has been a rocky start to the new year for the venerable news outlet would be an understatement.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/the-los-angeles-times-plunges-into-chaos-as-brutal-layoffs-loom-and-senior-editors-call-it-quits/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Miami-Dade county is set to receive nearly $20 million from the Environmental Protection Agency to help cover the costs of 50 new electric school buses and 16 DC fast chargers, bringing the public school district’s total to 100 electric buses.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/miami-commits-to-putting-100-electric-school-buses-on-the-road/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Downtown Village also features romantic dining options.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/saratoga-is-a-sweet-place-to-shop-for-valentines-day/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Hyundai Motor revealed its latest EV tech on Monday, the Active Air Skirt (AAS). The new EV tech enhances aerodynamics to improve driving range and performance at higher speeds.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/hyundai-active-air-skirt-tech-increase-ev-range/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Quanta Magazine
The cerebellum is responsible for far more than coordinating movement. New techniques reveal that it is, in fact, a hub of sensory and emotional processing in the brain.The post The Brain Region That Controls Movement Also Guides Feelings first appeared on Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-part-of-the-brain-that-controls-movement-also-guides-feelings-20240123/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Lever News
The MVC team uncovers the truth of Tony Gilroy’s 2007 corporate espionage thriller.
https://www.levernews.com/movies-vs-capitalism-michael-clayton-w-matt-strackbein/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Authors Union blogs
Authors Alliance is pleased to share our 2023 annual report, where you can find highlights of our work in 2023 to promote laws, policies, and practices that enable authors to reach wide audiences. In the report, you can read about how we’re helping authors meet their dissemination goals for their works, representing their interests in […]
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2024/01/23/authors-alliance-2023-annual-report/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Date night locales abound downtown.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/los-gatos-is-a-sweet-place-to-shop-for-valentines-day/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: NASA breaking news
NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) team has been awarded a top prize in high-energy astronomy. The High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) has awarded the 2024 Bruno Rossi Prize to retired NASA astrophysicist Martin Weisskopf, Italian Space Agency principal investigator Paolo Soffitta, and their team for development of IXPE, “whose […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/ixpe/nasas-ixpe-awarded-prestigious-prize-in-high-energy-astronomy/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Winemaker Brent Amos also scores 5 double golds.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/las-positas-verdelho-ties-for-best-white-in-chronicle-competition/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Resists arrest, punches and kicks officers.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/man-chases-couple-through-campbell-park-demands-they-return-his-stuff/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/0043839-ryan-gosling-getting-an-o Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Inside EVs News
The new Model 3 doesn’t have a Performance trim yet, but that will soon change.
https://insideevs.com/news/705669/tesla-model-3-performance-highland-spotted-testing/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Jeff Geerling blog
When did Raspberry Pi get so expensive?
<div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p><img width="700" height="auto" class="insert-image" src="https://www.jeffgeerling.com/sites/default/files/images/gmktec-n100-pc-raspberry-pi-5.jpeg" alt="Raspberry Pi 5 and N100 GMKtec Nucbox G3" /></p>
I just bought this N100-based Intel x86 mini PC (brand new), and it was cheaper than an almost equivalent—but slower—Raspberry Pi 5.
This GMKtec mini PC is called the Nucbox G3, and it comes with an Intel Alder Lake N100 4-core CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 256 GB M.2 NVMe SSD, and Windows 11 Pro—and mine cost just $131, after a couple coupons.
That’s… a lot of computer for a very good price. But the Raspberry Pi—the famous “$35 computer”, should be well below that… right?
Well, I bought all the parts required to build a Pi 5 to the same spec—including the adapters and parts to assemble it into one small unit—and it turns out… the Pi is more expensive. And slower.
The Pi 4 still starts at $35 (for a 1 GB model), but the Pi 5 starts at $60 (for 4 GB) and climbs to $80 for the maximum 8 GB model.
<span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Jeff Geerling</span></span>
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/when-did-raspberry-pi-get-so-expensive Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Obituary Professor David L Mills, one of the original wizards who built the internet, has died at the age of 85, leaving a remarkable technological legacy.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/david_mills_obit/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
The PDF for Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) rules has 714 pages. How do you even get started?
There are four starter kits (SK):
I didn’t want to take that route and tried to dive straight in but this is not how it works. Start small.
You can get the rules for all four starter kits as a PDF.
Buy the complete rules once you know that you like the game.
As somebody recently told me: “Looking up the rules is 90% of the game!”
I like to call Advanced Squad Leader “the game to end all rules-lawyering.”
For online gaming, you need to download the following:
VASSAL. Vassal is a game engine for building and playing online adaptations of board games and card games. Vassal is free, open-source software.
VASL. VASL is the module you need to run ASL on VASSAL.
The VASL site has a section called “Download Scenarios” where you can download setups for many scenarios (without the mission goals). If you load those games, you’ll see messages about all the extensions you’re missing. Often you don’t need them, but feel free to install them.
If you want a physical box of the games, with physical counters, be aware that you must buy Beyond Valor because it has some stuff that gets used in later boxes.
(Earlier: Advanced Squad Leader, 2022.)
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-01-21-getting-started-with-asl Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
Police responding to a retail theft call in Roseville discovered what is likely the most 2024 thing ever: A Sacramento woman allegedly stole about five dozen Stanley cups valued at a whopping $2,500.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/police-arrest-northern-california-woman-for-allegedly-stealing-65-stanley-cups/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: San Jose Mercury News
It’s a hotel, a restaurant and an aviation history museum all rolled into one property inspired by NASA Ames. Browse the stunning collection, then go grab a cocktail.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/23/in-mountain-view-nasa-and-aviation-history-go-hand-in-hand-with-cocktails/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Oracle has launched its OCI Generative AI service and introduced new betas to help customers build machine learning models from their own data. All of this as it tries to ensure the LLM bandwagon does not carry data from its systems to other cloud providers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/oracle_oci_generative_ai/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/0043824-the-colorful-mating-dance Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Just in time for tax season, the Federal Trade Commission has issued a final ruling against Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, over what it claims is deceptive marketing for TurboTax’s free online tax filing software. We’ll dig in to that decision. Then: a look at what’s expected to lose United Airlines money in Q1 and an examination of how luxury development is dividing the island of Barbuda.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/turbotax-in-trouble Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
The US Postal Service showed off its first EV charging stations at an event in Atlanta yesterday, with hundreds of new sorting and delivery centers set to open around the country this year. It’s all part of the $40 billion plan to upgrade its service while assembling one of the county’s largest EV fleets, with more than 66,000 delivery vehicles in service.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/us-postal-service-rolls-out-first-ev-charging-stations/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-01-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
In 2009, on the 25th anniversary of the Mac: What made the Mac different.
http://scripting.com/stories/2009/01/24/whatMadeTheMacDifferent.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Just over a week after Microsoft unveiled Copilot Pro and rolled the service out to more customers, users are complaining about performance, and the platform is being met with a shrug by administrators.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/microsoft_copilot_pro/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Inside EVs News
While unconfirmed, the Lyriq crossover is likely going to get the V treatment.
https://insideevs.com/news/705713/cadillac-v-series-ev-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Department of Education will host the first community engagement forum of the school year on Wednesday, providing stakeholders an opportunity to have their questions answered, the department announced recently in a press release.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/gdoe-hosts-1st-2024-community-engagement-forum-wednesday/article_f8d73eb6-b99f-11ee-9e7b-877a1a5ef356.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Guam Daily Post
Greenland Farms Inc., a company looking to become a cannabis cultivation business on Guam, has hit “somewhat of a roadblock” trying to obtain a clearance from the Guam Waterworks Authority, according to company representative Stephen Biscoe.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/cannabis-board-seeks-clarification-from-gwa-on-clearance-roadblock/article_c97a9c96-b984-11ee-b48d-e7cec6fe91d3.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Legislature is set to debate two bills competing to decide the location of a new public hospital or medical campus on the island. The measures, Bill 184-37 and Bill 185-37, propose different areas on which facilities should be…
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/lawmakers-to-debate-competing-hospital-location-bills-in-session/article_74760c32-b982-11ee-8fc3-c3d1bc2e54e0.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Girl Scouts are preparing to distribute Girl Scout Cookies soon.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/girl-scout-cookies-on-their-way/article_fa6d0a18-b98f-11ee-8467-57f899ec6a34.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Guam Daily Post
The arraignment of the fifth suspect in the Susuico murder case did not proceed, as the defense attorney assigned by the court withdrew from the case for a couple of reasons.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/lawyer-for-suspect-in-susuico-murder-case-withdraws/article_c81de68a-b9a9-11ee-b365-17c714eaa2ec.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Guam Daily Post
Concern raised about the legality of the plea agreement in the case involving the alleged 2019 kidnapping and rape of a 10-year-old girl by a convicted sex offender were discussed in the courtroom of Superior Court of Guam Judge Maria…
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/plea-deal-unresolved-in-2019-kidnapping-rape-of-child-by-convicted-sex-offender/article_a592e34e-b991-11ee-9574-232bf53471d8.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Guam Daily Post
A superseding indictment has been handed down on a former Major League Baseball player who initially was charged with drug possession in 2021.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/former-mlb-player-gpd-officer-indicted-on-drug-gun-charges/article_7f03475c-b971-11ee-ac3f-b701e36c2d27.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Guam Daily Post
A former Guam resident has been arrested in Arizona on accusations that he engaged in a sexual relationship with his student.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/former-guam-resident-arrested-in-arizona-on-suspicion-of-sexually-assaulting-student/article_6a055dde-b987-11ee-a92b-9fa32d3547b7.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Guam Daily Post
Six new academic administrators will be working around the University of Guam campus, UOG announced recently in a press release.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/6-new-administrators-at-uog/article_17e2d7a2-b99b-11ee-92f9-cf93343658c6.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Guam Daily Post
The Consolidated Commission on Utilities approved a $25 million contract for temporary power generation on Tuesday night. The Guam Power Authority selected Aggreko as the vendor for the project, and will now seek final approval from the Public Utilities Commission.
https://www.postguam.com/news/ccu-approves-temporary-power-contract/article_91caeeea-b9c0-11ee-973c-bb128a3392d0.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-01-23, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Here’s what I wrote ten years ago on the 30th anniversary of the Mac. “The rollout on January 24th was like a college graduation ceremony.” It appears I didn’t write anything about the Mac anniversary in 2004 and my blog didn’t exist on 1/24/94. But I did write a piece on what made the Mac different on the 25th anniversary in 2009. BTW, the comments on that piece are incredible. Click the link just to read the freaking comments.
http://scripting.com/2024/01/23.html#a134742 Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-01-23, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of the big event at Flint Center announcing the Macintosh. It was a huge day in my life, and in the evolution of personal computers and ultimately, the internet. I was there that day, along with Kandes Bregman from my startup, Living Videotext. We had a full page ad in the first issue of MacWorld. We were extremely excited, the Mac seemed to be the perfect machine for our “idea processor” ThinkTank, and Apple seemed to love us. It took a couple of years to get it right, by 1986 my company had switched to be an exclusively Mac company, but not before we were saved by the people at Apple who believed in us, notably Guy Kawasaki, Mike Boich, Del Yocam and Bill Campbell, and many others. I don’t know if we would have made it without the help of Apple, but luckily we didn’t have to find out. Thank you to all our friends at Apple, and to Steve Jobs and the Mac team for creating such a wonderful breakthrough product. Those were the days when we believed we were on a mission to save the world. In some sense that idea has never left, to our generation of entrepreneurial software developers.
http://scripting.com/2024/01/23.html#a133735 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Inside EVs News
The Kaizen is touted as a versatile cross-country and all-mountain e-MTB available in a wide selection of build configurations.
https://insideevs.com/news/705476/mmr-kaizen-lightweight-emtb-video/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Wildfires are raging around the Colombian capital of Bogotá • Storm Isha is moving away from the U.K., but Storm Jocelyn is approaching • It’s 35 degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy in New Hampshire, where voters will head to the polls in the first presidential primary of 2024.
San Diego’s mayor declared a state of emergency Monday after the city experienced its wettest January day on record. More than a month’s worth of rain fell in just three hours, flooding streets, washing away cars, and inundating homes. “The whole house is, like, under mud,” resident Lara Lockwood told The New York Times. “It is very overwhelming. I don’t even know where to start.” At least 24 people had to be rescued from nearby rivers. Researchers say climate change is making rain storms more intense. “When it’s raining, it’s raining more,” climate scientist Ryan Harp told The Washington Post.
First-drive reviews are trickling in for Kia’s EV9, “an all-electric SUV with three rows that many believe will bring a whole new batch of EV customers into the market,” said Kirsten Korosec at TechCrunch. It’s super quiet, feels nice on the road, and looks incredibly cool. But what about that third row? The consensus seems to be: It’s nice to have, but it could be bigger.
KIA
The Biden administration wants to drum up enthusiasm about its climate track record ahead of Election Day 2024, and it seems to have landed on an unusual strategy: Boast about how much money it has spent. Vice President Kamala Harris has been telling crowds that she and Biden have invested $1 trillion in climate initiatives. The figure “doesn’t align with one of the chief metrics observers have used to measure the administration’s climate agenda: $369 billion,” reported E&E News. So where did it come from? Simple arithmetic, the White House said. “She is referencing all of the clean energy, resilience, environmental justice, and innovation funding that is part of our historic effort to address the climate crisis, increase resilience, advance environmental justice, and build a clean energy economy,” a White House spokesperson told E&E News. While right-wing critics say the spending has been excessive, the administration is hoping it will show climate-oriented voters that Biden cares, and motivate them to vote.
The carbon sequestration benefits of regenerative farming have been overexaggerated, reports the Financial Times, as agribusiness giants look for new ways to offset their emissions. Regenerative agriculture aims to improve soil quality by avoiding pesticides and fertilizers, planting cover crops, and leaving fields untilled. Healthier soil can store more carbon, which is why big polluters in food production are committing money and land to regenerative practices. But the soil sequestration movement is undermined by murky measurements and a lack of clear guidelines and definitions from the agrifood industry: Just 18 of the 50 projects using regenerative agriculture offered quantitative targets, the FT reported. Industries seem to be ignoring the fact that soil can only hold so much carbon before emissions rise again, and that carbon stored in soil isn’t trapped forever.
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A lack of scientific data out of Russia is limiting our understanding of how climate change is altering the Arctic, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change. Nearly half of the Arctic’s landmass is located in Russia, and after the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow stopped sharing data from its Arctic monitoring stations. “This has potentially global consequences for important processes such as permafrost thawing, shifts in biodiversity, or even greenhouse gas emissions,” said the study’s lead author Efren Lopez-Blanco. The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet, and monitoring what happens in the region can help researchers predict how global warming will affect the globe.
Global warming may cause some spider species to increase the size of their webs by around 80%.
https://heatmap.news/climate/san-diego-flood-kia-ev9 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
China’s behemoth BYD overtook Volkswagen as the best-selling car brand in China last year, the first time any carmaker outsold the German brand since at least 2008.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/byd-overtakes-vws-15-year-run-as-top-seller-in-china/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Used and refurbished smartphones sales continue to expand by near-double digits but that rate is slowing as elongated refresh cycles for brand new handsets means fewer secondhand devices are becoming available.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/second_hand_device_market/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog
Today’s links Dave Maass and Patrick Ley’s “Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis”: A graphic novel based on a musical written by inmates at a Nazi death-camp. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Dave Maass and Patrick Ley’s “Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis” (permalink) “The Emperor of Atlantis,” is an opera written by two Nazi concentration camp inmates, the librettist Peter Kien and the composer Viktor Ullmann, while they were interned in Terezin, a show-camp in Czechoslovakia that housed numerous Jewish artists, who were encouraged to make and display their work as a way of proving to the rest of the world that Nazi camps were humane places. Of course, it was all a sham. Like nearly all of Terezin’s inmates, Kein and Ullmann were eventually shipped to Auschwitz to be murdered. “The Emperor” was never performed during their life, but the manuscript, written on scrounged paper (including the backs of other inmates Auschwitz transfer papers) survived. In the decades since, “The Emperor” has been mounted a few times, with varying degrees of faithfulness. But those live performances were limited to the people who could attend them during their limited run. Now, a new graphic novel called Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis, brings the work to us all: https://www.darkhorse.com/Blog/3726/berger-books-and-dark-horse-comics-present-death-s Death Strikes was adapted by my EFF colleague Dave Maass, an investigator and muckraker and brilliant writer, who teamed up with illustrator Patrick Lay and character designer Ezra Rose (who worked from the Kein and Ullmann’s original designs, which survived along with the score and libretto). The tale is set in the mythical kingdom of Atlantis, where the reclusive emperor has been holed up in an armored tower for decades, directing a forever war, greeting each battlefield report with fresh orders, all the while carefully scheming to maintain his grip on power by prolonging the war footing among his people. But the Emperor has a problem: he’s won the war. Every enemy has fallen. Without endless war, his system of social control will shrivel and he will be vulnerable to his people. So the Emperor declares a new war of all against all, announcing that it is every citizen’s duty to make war on their neighbors. Problem solved! But the Emperor goes too far. In announcing his new war, he directs his messengers – drum-beating automata who march through the streets of Atlantic rapping out his edicts – to claim that Death himself has blessed this new war, and “when the final drum sounds, our old friend DEATH, our flag-bearer, will raise his sword in salute to our great future!” For Death – a swordbearing skeleton in a soldier’s greatcoat and shako – this is too much. The Emperor’s endless wars have already tried Death’s patience. Death brings mercy, not vengeance, and the endless killing has dismayed him. The Emperor’s co-option drives him past the brink, and Death declares a strike, breaking his sword and announcing that henceforth, no one will die. Needless to say, this puts a crimp in the Emperor’s all-out war plan. People get shot and stabbed and drowned and poisoned, but they don’t die. They just hang around, embarrassingly alive (there’s a great comic subplot of the inability of the Emperor’s executioners to kill a captured assassin). The Emperor will not be denied. He embarks upon a war of wills with Death, to see who will give in first. The surreal tale plays out among the people of Atlantis, the living and the undead, as they struggle to fight a war where no one can die. The tale cuts between these people, the Emperor, and Death, who is in company with Life, a sad harlequin who is even more demoralized than Death by the Emperor’s long war. What follows is a tale of revolution and love and hope snatched from despair. Maass discovered “The Emperor” through a bargain bin CD of “degenerate music” he found in a suburban Best Buy in the 1990s, which was accompanied by illustrations by Art Spiegelman: https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-music-survives%21-degenerate-music-music-suppressed-by-the-third-reich-mw0000711660 Maass found a six-panel cartoon Kein drew “expressing his frustration with the evolution of his libretto.” Over the years, Maass turned this little strip over and over in his head, until he found himself travelling to Prague with Ley, where they were able to handle the surviving manuscript pages. After consulting with experts all over the world, Maass and Ley and their collaborators created this extraordinary graphic novel, updating it, queering it, and lavishly illustrating it. While this is clearly an adaptation, Kein and Ullmann’s spirit of creativity, courage, and bittersweet creative foment shines through. It’s a beautiful book, snatched from death itself. Hey look at this (permalink) It’s Time To Revisit Price Controls, Beginning with Limits on Overdraft Fees https://www.thesling.org/its-time-to-revisit-price-controls-beginning-with-limits-on-overdraft-fees/ Tools for Thinking About Censorship https://www.exurbe.com/tools-for-thinking-about-censorship/ AI Watermarking Won’t Curb Disinformation https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/ai-watermarking-wont-curb-disinformation This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago Europe to get fake-tree microwave masts https://www.theregister.com/2004/01/22/how_to_hide_a_phone/ #20yrsago Ian McDonald’s Kling Klang Klatch https://memex.craphound.com/2004/01/24/ian-mcdonalds-kling-klang-klatch/ #15yrsago Australian family caged, detained, starved and deported by US customs https://www.smh.com.au/national/mercy-dash-family-denied-entry-to-us-20090125-gdtb2n.html #15yrsago Rick Lieder’s fantastic backyard bird photos — new book https://memex.craphound.com/2009/01/24/rick-lieders-fantastic-backyard-bird-photos-new-book/ #10yrsago Snowden’s Russian asylum extended https://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/24/world/europe/russia-snowden/index.html #10yrsago You won’t believe how sweet this anti-hyperbole plugin is http://downworthy.snipe.net #10yrsago Who reads books in America, and how? https://web.archive.org/web/20140119040800/http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2014/E-Reading-Update.aspx #10yrsago Great Firewall of Cameron blocks game update because “XerathMageChainsExtended” contains “sex” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/21/uk-porn-filter-blocks-game-update-that-contained-sex #5yrsago Elizabeth Warren proposes Thomas Piketty-style annual wealth tax https://theintercept.com/2019/01/24/elizabeth-warren-proposes-annual-wealth-tax-on-ultra-millionaires/ #5yrsago Braille RPG dice https://www.dotsrpg.org/3d-models #5yrsago Davos audience erupts in uneasy laughter at mention of AOC’s proposal for a 70% tax on income over $10,000,000 https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/davos-2019-live-updates/h_2e61fb5a7c8252de33a30ec4afecdc18 #5yrsago Peak indifference: “extreme weather events” drive record US acceptance of climate change as an immediate problem https://memex.craphound.com/2019/01/24/peak-indifference-extreme-weather-events-drive-record-us-acceptance-of-climate-change-as-an-immediate-problem/ #5yrsago Secret Service challenge coin commemorates unpaid labor during the shutdown https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/23/politics/challenge-coins-secret-service-government-shutdown/index.html #5yrsago The “reverse supply chain”: vast warehouses of deeply discounted, returned goods https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/where-amazon-returns-go-to-be-resold-by-hustlers/580363/ #5yrsago Google, Facebook and Microsoft were the top sponsors of a conference that featured climate change denial kooks https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/01/google-facebook-and-microsoft-sponsored-a-conference-that-promoted-climate-change-denial/ #5yrsago Facebook sold out the internet, secretly lobbied IN FAVOUR of upload filters https://www.politico.eu/article/inside-story-facebook-fight-against-european-regulation/ #1yrago David Graeber’s “Pirate Enlightenment” https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/24/zana-malata/#libertalia 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: What kind of bubble is AI? https://craphound.com/news/2024/01/21/what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/ Upcoming appearances: The Lost Cause at Otherland (Berlin), Jan 28 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/zusaetzlicher-autor-innenabend-mit-cory-doctorow.html?day=20240128×=1706466600,1706466600 Marshall McLuhan Lecture 2024 (Berlin), Jan 29 https://transmediale.de/en/2024/event/mcluhan-2024 The Lost Cause at Otherland (Berlin), Jan 30 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/autor-innenabend-mit-cory-doctorow.html The Bezzle at Third Place Books (Seattle), Feb 26 https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/cory-doctorow Tuscon Festival of Books, Mar 9/10 https://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/?id=676 Recent appearances: Low-Key Clippy (This Week In Tech) https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/963 Internet Con (Bullseye) https://www.npr.org/2024/01/19/1197956508/bullseye-with-jesse-thorn-draft-01-19-2024 The Lost Cause (The Writer’s Voice) https://www.writersvoice.net/2024/01/cory-doctorow-the-lost-cause/ 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/2024/01/23/peter-kien-viktor-ullmann/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Inside EVs News
YouTuber Aging Wheels bought one. With his own money.
https://insideevs.com/news/705618/twike-three-wheeled-ev-with-pedals-video/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Markup blog
Services like DeleteMe can remove personal information held by data brokers
https://themarkup.org/gentle-january/2024/01/23/get-your-personal-info-off-the-internet Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/01/23/the-swearing-chatbot/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Ayjay blog
The last four of Ted Gioia’s seven hypotheses about meaningful progress: 4. The discourse on progress is controlled by technocrats, politicians and economists. But in the current moment, they are the wrong people to decide which metrics drive quality of life and human flourishing. 5. Real wisdom on human flourishing is now more likely to […]
https://blog.ayjay.org/placing-bets/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The French privacy watchdog, National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL), has fined Amazon France Logistique €32 million ($34.8 million) over a system for monitoring staff activity and performance.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/amazon_given_32_million_euro/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
State Department — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday the United States is committed to growing its partnerships across the African continent and increasingly sees African countries “leading on issues of global consequence.”
Speaking to reporters alongside Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara after talks in Abidjan, Blinken said the discussion included growing commercial ties to create jobs and growth in both the U.S. and Ivory Coast, as well as investing in public health initiatives and addressing regional security challenges.
Blinken said the United States and Ivory Coast “have a strong and growing bond.”
Blinken’s visit to Ivory Coast is seen as reflecting U.S. interests in the country’s stability and its preparations for the 2025 presidential election.
The U.S. and international community are concerned about stability in the Sahel sub-region of West Africa following several coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger since 2020.
Ivory Coast borders three countries that have experienced coups in recent years: Guinea in September 2021; Mali in both August 2020 and May 2021; and Burkina Faso in January and September of 2022.
The United States announced $45 million in new funding to aid Ivory Coast and its neighbors in preventing conflict and promoting stability amid regional threats. This contribution brings the total U.S. stability-focused assistance in Coastal West Africa to nearly $300 million since 2022.
From Ivory Coast, Blinken is traveling Tuesday to Nigeria where he is set to hold talks with Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar in Abuja.
Regional security talks in Nigeria
Nigeria shares a border with Niger, where the military ousted its elected leader, Mohamed Bazoum, on July 26, 2023, and subsequently scrapped defense agreements with France, its traditional security partner.
In Abuja, Blinken is anticipated to discuss the military coup in Niger. The meeting comes just days after the country’s military junta agreed to enhance relations with Russia.
American officials have stated that while the U.S. is open to countries diversifying their partnerships, aligning with nations like Russia could be problematic. They point to the situation in Mali, where rising civilian casualties and security issues have followed Russian paramilitary Wagner Group’s involvement and France’s withdrawal.
The French military withdrawal from the Sahel and the end of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali in December have heightened concerns over regional security.
Nigeria is the largest country by population and economy in sub-Saharan Africa, and the dominant political, economic, and military power in the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS.
The United States is the largest foreign investor in Nigeria, and the U.S. maintains a significant security partnership with Nigeria in its counterterrorism operations against both Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa.
Cabo Verde
Blinken’s fourth African trip began Monday in Cape Verde and is scheduled to close in Angola. State Department officials said key priorities included bolstering security partnerships and enhancing health and economic development in the region.
In Cape Verde’s capital, Praia, Blinken held talks Monday with Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva and visited the city’s port, Porto da Praia, which received funding for modernization efforts from the U.S. government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation.
“It is extraordinary that Cabo Verde is the first country to complete two Millennium Challenge Corporation compacts, and now you’re starting to build a third one,” said Blinken.
He also congratulated Cabo Verde’s malaria-free certification by the World Health Organization.
Millennium Challenge Compacts are grant agreements designed to fund specific programs that support economic growth.
Silva said Cabo Verde shares values of democracy and good governance with the U.S. in its foreign policy.
“We strongly condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we condemned the terrorist act of Hamas in Israel, and we defend solutions that make the two states of Israel and Palestine viable,” he said. “We condemn coup d’etat and changes to constitutional term limits for presidents of the republic that have occurred in Africa.”
Cabo Verde is a small island nation that has a large diaspora in the United States.
The U.S. and Cabo Verde signed a Memorandum of Understanding on defense cooperation in December 2022, focusing on maritime security.
Angola and Luanda Process
In a Monday call, Blinken spoke to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Félix Tshisekedi and discussed the concerns of election observers as well as the need to enhance democratic confidence moving forward.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement that they also discussed the crisis in eastern DRC and potential diplomatic solutions.
Following a contentious December election, Tshisekedi, sworn in Saturday for a second term, pledged to unify the country and address conflicts in the east.
The worsening conflicts in eastern Congo have prompted countries in the region to broker two peace initiatives: the so-called Luanda Process and the Nairobi Process, according to Molly Phee, assistant secretary of state for African Affairs.
Increasing tensions between Rwanda and the DRC have led to several alleged attacks by Congolese and Rwandan forces on each other’s territory.
Angola leads the Luanda Process, where Blinken plans to hold talks with Angolan President João Lourenço and Foreign Minister Téte António.
Last week, Blinken met with Rwandan President Paul Kagame on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he reiterated the need for all actors to take concrete steps to ease tensions.
Last November, Avril Haines, the director of U.S. national intelligence, traveled to both Kinshasa and Kigali, meeting with leaders from the two neighboring countries to secure a commitment to de-escalate tensions in eastern DRC.
“We were able to institute a process of weekly check-ins that we undertook through the end of calendar year 2023,” Phee told reporters during a Thursday briefing.
https://www.voanews.com/a/blinken-expresses-us-commitment-to-boosting-africa-partnerships-/7451392.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Tilde.news
https://www.geeklan.co.uk/?p=3264 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Marketplace Morning Report
After a natural disaster, getting individual aid from FEMA can be a notoriously slow and cumbersome process. But the Biden administration is looking to improve it. We’ll hear how new rules are meant to cut through all the red tape. Plus, some trace Boeing’s problems back to the ’90s. We’ll unpack more of the company’s history. Also on the program: What’s behind global stock rallies?
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/fixing-fema Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Tilde.news
https://github.com/iovisor/bpftrace/releases/tag/v0.20.0 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Raspberry Pi (.org)
Since November, registration is open for Mission Space Lab, part of the European Astro Pi Challenge 2023/24. The Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project run in collaboration with us here at the Raspberry Pi Foundation that gives young people up to age 19 the amazing opportunity to write computer programs that run on…
The post Get ready for Mission Space Lab with our new simulation tool appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/get-ready-for-mission-space-lab-with-our-new-simulation-tool/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-17, from: Bruce Schneier blog
Really interesting research: “Lend Me Your Ear: Passive Remote Physical Side Channels on PCs.”
Abstract:
We show that built-in sensors in commodity PCs, such as microphones, inadvertently capture electromagnetic side-channel leakage from ongoing computation. Moreover, this information is often conveyed by supposedly-benign channels such as audio recordings and common Voice-over-IP applications, even after lossy compression.
Thus, we show, it is possible to conduct physical side-channel attacks on computation by remote and purely passive analysis of commonly-shared channels. These attacks require neither physical proximity (which could be mitigated by distance and shielding), nor the ability to run code on the target or configure its hardware. Consequently, we argue, physical side channels on PCs can no longer be excluded from remote-attack threat models…
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/01/side-channels-are-common.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Ryvid, a California-based electric motorcycle manufacturer, has just shared new details about its soon-to-be-completed San Bernadino factory and an upcoming new model.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/americas-latest-electric-motorcycle-maker-ramping-production-teases-new-model/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: The U.S. and U.K. conducted additional air strikes against the Houthi rebel group in Yemen, as the group continues to attack Red Sea cargo ships. Then, as Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD looks to expand its line-up with luxury models, we’ll hear why the company was right to start at the affordable end. We’ll also see why locals are concerned about plans to boost Barbuda’s tourism sector.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/us-uk-air-strike-houthi-yemen-red-sea Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Dan Rather’s Steady
Here it is January 2024, and we find ourselves reminded anew that we are in a difficult, dangerous, and deepening political reality. As the first primary ballots are being cast in New Hampshire, the country is forced again to face the fact that one man has fundamentally changed us. Simply stated, it’s as sobering and unsettling as that.
https://steady.substack.com/p/one-man Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: NASA breaking news
This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a group of interacting galaxies known as LEDA 60847. LEDA 60847 is classified as an active galactic nuclei, or AGN. An AGN has a supermassive black hole in the galaxy’s central region that is accreting material. The AGN emits radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum and shines […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-glimpses-a-bright-galaxy-group/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Signal
A criminal act can be characterized as when a person takes action for selfish benefit at the expense of another or that causes injury or suffering. Law enforcement responds to alleged criminal acts in the moment. Detectives and investigators gather evidence and build a case for the District Attorney’s office for prosecution. The DA’s […]
The post Jonathan Kraut | It’s Time to Select a New District Attorney appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/jonathan-kraut-its-time-to-select-a-new-district-attorney/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Signal
Lois, Lois, Lois. That was quite a list of Biden’s accomplishments (Letters, Lois Eisenberg, Jan. 20). Your sources for that list — Newsweek, NBC and PBS — might as well have come from the Democratic National Committee. Better yet, why not just ask Karine Jean-Pierre why she shamelessly spouts the same nonsense at every White […]
The post Larry Moore | There’s No Place Like Home! appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/larry-moore-theres-no-place-like-home/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Signal
“Say what?” L.A. Police Chief Michel Moore is retiring. I will not go in to why I feel that may be a blessing to the men and women in the Los Angeles Police Department. It is his successor and how he or she will be chosen that is of great interest to me. I have […]
The post Diane Zimmerman | <strong>LAPD Need Look No Further </strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/diane-zimmerman-lapd-need-look-no-further/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Southern Water confirmed this morning that criminals broke into its IT systems, making off with a “limited amount of data.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/southern_water_confirms_cyberattack/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Major car suppliers in Germany say they are struggling with the high upfront costs of shifting to EVs and “slow demand,” with companies looking to lay off thousands of workers, as much as 20% of total staff in some cases, in the coming years.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/germanys-auto-industry-outrun-by-tesla-to-axe-thousands-more-jobs/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Supermarket chain Asda has extended its deal with Walmart, the US retail giant that once owned the UK business, to support backend ERP systems after a project to replace them hit delays.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/asda_sap_delay/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Logic Matters blog
Some categorial news: I have just withdrawn Category Theory I: Notes towards a gentle introduction from sale as a pbk. There is going to be a new pbk edition, with a slightly different title, shortly — and now that plans are firmly under way, I don’t want anyone splashing out their hard-won pennies today only to […]
The post A categorial update appeared first on Logic Matters.
https://www.logicmatters.net/2024/01/23/a-categorial-update/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Peter Misenko’s PicoZX is a pocket-sized Raspberry Pi Pico-powered version of the iconic Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
The post Build your own handheld ZX Spectrum with Raspberry Pi Pico appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/build-your-own-handheld-zx-spectrum-with-raspberry-pi-pico/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Contenders for the late Senator Feinstein’s seat debated Trump, the Middle East and healthcare Monday night.
The post Senate candidates spar at Bovard appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/23/senate-candidates-spar-at-bovard-2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The UK Ministry of Defence’s efforts to better manage its £11.8 billion ($15 billion) of inventory hinges, in no small part, on a sweeping digital transformation program that involves modernizing legacy tech systems, but the department’s track record is worrying MPs.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/mod_supply_chain/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>By CONNOR WHITT</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/sports/photos-biif-paddling/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs are back in the AFC championship game for a sixth straight season and probably taking Taylor Swift with them along with Travis Kelce’s older, shirtless brother.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/sports/analysis-conference-championships-are-set-with-familiar-faces-and-new-arrivals/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Tennessee Titans have agreed to hire Cincinnati Bengals offensive coordinator Brian Callahan as their head coach, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press on Monday.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/sports/titans-agree-to-hire-bengals-offensive-coordinator-brian-callahan-as-head-coach-ap-source-says/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The visual of one of the nation’s most popular athletes knocked to the floor after a fan who was staring at her phone collided with her while storming the court was a stark reminder of the dangers athletes face when crowds get out of control.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/sports/caitlin-clarks-collision-with-a-fan-raises-court-storming-concerns-will-conferences-respond/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Joel Embiid scored 70 in Philadelphia. Karl-Anthony Towns had 62 in Minnesota. The elite big men paired up to do something the NBA hadn’t seen on the same day in more than 45 years.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/sports/joel-embiid-scores-70-and-karl-anthony-towns-scores-62-it-was-a-night-like-few-others-in-the-nba/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Tyree Alualu didn’t have a single memory of Hawaii, where he was born before moving to the mainland at a young age.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/sports/team-mauka-wins-the-polynesian-bowl-in-a-contest-filled-with-big-plays/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>HOUSTON — Josh Hader and the Houston Astros weren’t ready to define what his bullpen role will be on the day they announced his $95 million, five-year contract.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/sports/josh-hader-eager-to-team-with-ryan-pressly-after-reaching-95-million-5-year-deal-with-astros/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NEW YORK — Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer and Todd Helton appeared on track to gain entry to baseball’s Hall of Fame when results are announced Tuesday, while Billy Wagner was likely to be right around the needed 75% threshold and Gary Sheffield was projected to fall short.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/sports/adrian-beltre-joe-mauer-and-todd-helton-on-track-for-hall-of-fame-election-billy-wagner-close/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>KRAKOW, Poland — Pushing back against accusations of antisemitism, Elon Musk has in recent months visited Israel, hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Tesla factory in California and repeatedly insisted he bears no animus toward Jews.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/elon-musk-on-rehabilitation-tour-calls-himself-aspirationally-jewish/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed Border Patrol agents to resume cutting for now razor wire that Texas installed along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border that is at the center of an escalating standoff between the Biden administration and the state over immigration enforcement.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/supreme-court-allows-federal-agents-to-cut-razor-wire-texas-installed-on-us-mexico-border/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>For the air traveler, these have been worrying weeks.On Jan. 2, a Japan Airlines flight collided with a coast guard aircraft on the runway at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, killing five aboard the latter plane. Three days later, a fuselage panel blew off an Alaska Airlines flight from Oregon, causing a sudden cabin decompression and leading to a temporary grounding of some of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max 9 aircraft. The precise cause of that near-disaster is still to be determined. But following a spate of near-misses at US airports last year, both incidents underscore a sobering reality: The commercial aviation system is under growing stress.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/opinion/airline-incidents-show-a-system-under-growing-stress/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Iran is “very directly involved” in ship attacks that Yemen’s Houthi rebels have carried out during Israel’s war against Hamas, the U.S. Navy’s top Mideast commander told The Associated Press on Monday.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/iran-is-directly-involved-in-yemen-houthi-rebel-ship-attacks-us-navys-mideast-chief-tells-ap/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The U.S. and British militaries bombed eight locations used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen on Monday night, the second time the two allies have conducted coordinated retaliatory strikes on an array of the rebels’ missile-launching capabilities.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/us-british-militaries-launch-new-round-of-joint-strikes-against-multiple-houthi-sites-in-yemen/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>While Boeing’s leadership scrambled to contain its latest crisis — following the in-flight door plug blowout on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 — top executives at Airbus confidently laid out the rival’s success in 2023 and its dominance of the commercial airliner business.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/boeing-hit-by-quality-lapses-certification-delays-airbus-soars-to-dominance/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A judge on Monday ordered court records to be made public in the divorce involving a special prosecutor hired in the election case against Donald Trump and others and accused of having an affair with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/judge-orders-the-unsealing-of-divorce-case-of-trump-special-prosecutor-in-georgia-accused-of-affair/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NEW YORK — With former President Donald Trump expected to soon take the witness stand, a juror’s illness abruptly forced a two-day delay Monday of a defamation trial over his comments about E. Jean Carroll, the writer he called a liar after she claimed he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/expected-trump-testimony-in-sex-abuse-defamation-trial-postponed-to-wednesday-after-juror-falls-ill/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The U.S. military said two Navy Seals who went missing during a mission on Jan. 11 to seize Iranian weapons bound for Yemen’s Houthis are now presumed dead.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/two-missing-us-navy-seals-presumed-dead-after-anti-iran-mission/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Nearly 30,000 professors, librarians, coaches, and other workers at California State University, the largest public university system in the U.S., walked off the job Monday in a weeklong strike to demand higher wages.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/california-state-university-faculty-launch-weeklong-strike-across-23-campuses/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Hawaii public school officials are arguing for more money to restore state budget cuts, cover inflation, continue students’ academic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and insulate against coming “funding cliffs,” but some state legislators are pressing them to first trim spending on any obsolete and ineffective programs.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/hawaii-doe-leaders-are-urged-to-cut-funds-on-obsolete-programs/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Police have identified the victim who died last week following an incident at the Mo‘oheau Bus Terminal in downtown Hilo as 34-year-old Jimmy Kaneala Clifford Carmichael of Hilo.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/hawaii-news/police-id-deceased-assault-victim-in-downtown-hilo-incident-2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Efforts are underway to reinsert Hawaii as a player in America’s aerospace and outer space industries.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/push-underway-to-make-hawaii-relevant-in-space-again/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>LACONIA, N.H. — As the last major challenger in Donald Trump ‘s way to the Republican nomination, Nikki Haley is hoping New Hampshire voters feel so strongly about keeping the former president away from the White House that they turn out to support her in large numbers.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/haley-hopes-to-stop-trumps-march-to-nomination-in-new-hampshire-america-does-not-do-coronations/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>More than one year after the eruption of its namesake volcano, the Mauna Loa Observatory remains high, dry and largely cut off from the rest of the island.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/hawaii-news/mauna-loa-observatory-still-isolated-but-new-funds-could-make-it-fully-operational/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The Office of Hawaiian Affairs on Wednesday filed a Circuit Court lawsuit challenging the legality and constitutionality of Act 255, which established the Maunakea Stewardship and Oversight Authority.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/hawaii-news/oha-seeks-to-dissolve-maunakea-oversight-authority/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>John Jefferies, the founding director of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, died Jan. 18 in Tucson, Ariz., at the age of 98.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/hawaii-news/founding-director-of-the-uh-institute-for-astronomy-dies-at-98/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A father and son were arrested Friday after police executed a search warrant at a Hilo home.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/hawaii-news/domestic-assault-leads-to-arrest-of-father-son-at-hilo-home-2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>“The Wall That Heals” — a three-quarter-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. — made its way Monday to the Russell Carroll Mo‘oheau County Park in Hilo.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/hawaii-news/the-wall-that-heals-assembled-today/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling on Jan. 22, 1973, the time around the anniversary has always been marked by rallies, protests and political pledges.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/what-to-know-about-abortion-rulings-bills-and-campaigns-as-the-us-marks-roe-anniversary/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Gov. Josh Green made bold proposals for how to increase housing availability during a speech Monday.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/hawaii-news/governor-highlights-challenges-possible-solutions-in-state-of-the-state-address/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Iowa and New Hampshire have long been the first states to hold presidential contests in election years.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/opinion/why-new-hampshire-and-iowa-dont-make-sense-as-the-opening-rounds-of-presidential-campaigns/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration recommends that airlines inspect the door plugs on certain Boeing 737s that are older than the Max 9 jetliner that suffered a blowout of a similar panel during a flight this month.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/federal-officials-recommend-that-airlines-inspect-door-plugs-on-some-older-boeing-jets-as-well/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Southwest Airlines pilots approved a new five-year contract worth $12 billion and boosting pay 50% over the deal, the Dallas-based carrier announced Monday.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/nation-world-news/southwest-airlines-pilots-approve-new-contract-with-29-immediate-raises/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>‘Horrifying and
heartbreaking’</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/opinion/your-views-for-january-23-6/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Muffins for breakfast are always a nice treat for the family. The aroma from the kitchen from warm muffins is a great way to start the day.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/community/lets-talk-food-muffins-for-breakfast/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Robert Reich on Substack
Friends, The mainstream media is flabbergasted at Trump’s success in sweeping the Iowa caucuses, dominating the polls, and destroying all his rivals but Nikki Haley before today’s New Hampshire primary. CNN is gobsmacked, calling Trump’s “landslide victory in Iowa” a “stunning show of strength.”
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/is-new-hampshire-the-beginning-of Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Lever News
How an oil and gas organization in Illinois is promoting misinformation in schools.
https://www.levernews.com/a-fossil-fuel-miseducation/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
We know that “AI” is all the rage for now, but the recent experience of a DPD customer suggests that just because you can replace customer support with a chatbot doesn’t mean you should.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/dpd_chatbot_goes_rogue/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hannah Richie at Substack
Five reasons to highlight markers of progress, without falling into complacency.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/progress Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Demonstrators chanted and marched outside Bovard Auditorium Monday night.
The post Protesters call for ceasefire in Gaza at debate appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/23/protesters-call-for-ceasefire-in-gaza-at-debate/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-haley-face-off-in-new-hampshire-presidential-primary/7451263.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Daily Trojan features Classified advertising in each day’s edition. Here you can read, search, and even print out each day’s edition of the Classifieds.
The post Classifieds – January 23, 2024 appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/23/classifieds-january-23-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Comment What is an AI PC? What is its killer app? Both are open questions , although we do know that running AI models locally – not over the network like when you’re playing with ChatGPT – requires significant grunt on your desk or lap.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/ai_hype_pc_better/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1882 – Author Helen Hunt Jackson visits Rancho Camulos; inspiration for “Ramona” novel. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-14/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Trojans fell to No. 3 Colorado to end their first slate of true away games.
The post Women’s basketball loses back-to-back games appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/23/womens-basketball-loses-back-to-back-games/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
“Pokemon with guns” has taken the internet by storm to extremely mixed reactions and a load of criticism.
The post The ‘Palworld’ plagiarism debate appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/23/the-k-pop-ification-of-the-gaming-industry-2-2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Chief Michel Moore said he will step down from the position in late February.
The post Experts talk LAPD chief’s retirement appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/23/usc-experts-discuss-police-chief-michel-moores-early-retirement/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Trojans should transition to the Big Ten with a new head coach.
The post Men’s basketball Head Coach Andy Enfield needs to go appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/23/mens-basketball-head-coach-andy-enfield-needs-to-go/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
This presidential election may determine the future of reproductive freedom.
The post Our bodily autonomy is on the ballot appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/23/our-bodily-autonomy-is-on-the-ballot/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Wagner’s “Das Rheingold” was the acclaimed conductor’s chosen piece to celebrate architect Frank Gehry.
The post Dudamel leads, LA Phil follows; ‘Das Rheingold’ is perfect, as expected appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/23/dudamel-leads-la-phil-follows-das-rheingold-is-perfect-as-expected/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The lawn was left damaged after the rainy setup of a canopy for Convocation.
The post McCarthy Quad to remain closed until early april appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/23/mccarthy-quad-closed-until-early-april/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
I know too much about the lives of too many of my fellow international students.
The post International student gossip culture is like high school appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/23/international-student-gossip-culture-is-like-high-school/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Meta has been accused of automatically enrolling Europe-based users of its Facebook social network into the ad supported version of the service if they’ve not yet chosen between the free and paid subscription options, an action which would violates EU rules.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/meta_eu_advertising/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Amazon Web Services has made a bid for even more of the cloud business by allowing third-party services to be sold on its Marketplace.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/aws_marketplace_services_bundles/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The LAist
California State University faculty walked off the job Monday, to protest for better pay, working conditions, and other changes. By the end of the day, their union had agreed to terms with the university’s management.
https://laist.com/news/education/csu-strike-faculty-administration-agree-to-deal Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Data from Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon has been downloaded, and the machine switched off – with just 12 percent of battery capacity remaining.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/jaxa_slim_moon_data_recovered/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
Entering the game Thursday night, the Matadors (13-6, 4-3 Big West) matched up against the defending conference champion Gauchos of Santa Barbara (11-7, 4-4 Big West). CSUN came into the game on a six-game home winning streak. UCSB came out firing on all cylinders, knocking down six triples to soar up to a 29-12 lead…
https://sundial.csun.edu/177925/sports/matadors-blown-out-in-an-ugly-loss-to-the-gauchos/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released a list last Friday of 60 experts from academia, government and business selected by Beijing to define standards for the metaverse.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/china_metaverse_standards_group/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Signal
L.A. County officials confirmed Friday there’s been no formal change to the motion approved by the Board of Supervisors last March titled “Adopting a Global Plan for the Probation Department’s Halls and Camps.” But city of Santa Clarita officials also said Friday the situation is still one they’re watching closely. While there may be no […]
The post <strong>City Council to discuss camp lawsuit in closed session</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/city-council-to-discuss-camp-lawsuit-in-closed-session-2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Signal
The Santa Clarita Valley saw anywhere from half an inch to an inch of rain depending on the exact area during the “mild” storm that started on Saturday and was scheduled to wrap up Monday evening, according to the National Weather Service. Joe Sirard, a meteorologist with the NWS, said the slow-moving storm cell that […]
The post <strong>NWS: ‘Mild’ winter storm beneficial to SCV</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/nws-mild-winter-storm-beneficial-to-scv/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
Israeli officials say Hamas is still holding 136 Israelis who were taken hostage Oct. 7, the start of the war in Gaza. Families of some of those hostages are in the United States to raise awareness about an issue they fear has been fading since the collapse of a November cease-fire. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya has our story.
https://www.voanews.com/a/families-of-israeli-hostages-demand-they-not-be-forgotten/7451192.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
Last night, Florida governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and promptly endorsed former president Trump. DeSantis had tried to present himself as the alternative to Trump, but he put so little daylight between himself and the former president that he could never get traction.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-22-2024 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Signal
West Ranch High School marching band director Rod Schueller was joined by some of the Wildcats band members at last week’s William S. Hart Union High School District governing board meeting as they were recognized by the board for placing first in Division 4A at the 2023 Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association championships. […]
The post <strong>West Ranch marching band honored for title finish</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/west-ranch-marching-band-honored-for-title-finish/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from Electrek. Quick Charge is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/quick-charge-podcast-january-22-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Signal
A pedestrian was struck by a vehicle near the intersection of Orchard Village Road and Mill Valley Road on Monday evening and subsequently transported to a local hospital, according to Michael Pittman, supervising fire dispatcher for the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Units from the Fire Department were at the scene at approximately 6:19 p.m. […]
The post <strong>Pedestrian struck in Valencia, transported to hospital</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/pedestrian-struck-in-valencia-transported-to-hospital/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
Abortion is on the ballot in 2024, the White House says, with Vice President Kamala Harris crisscrossing the country to equate the Biden campaign with protection and expansion of reproductive rights, and Republican candidates speaking of possible federal abortion bans. This leaves the ultimate choice on this sensitive issue to American voters. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
https://www.voanews.com/a/abortion-on-ballot-in-2024-biden-says-harris-on-swing-through-key-states/7451191.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
The update sees the addition of a wide range of connectivity and AI-powered features.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705652/ola-electric-moveos4-update-s1-scooters/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-appeals-court-revives-mexico-s-10-billion-lawsuit-against-gun-makers/7451183.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Signal
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is set to vote at Tuesday’s meeting on having the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Office of the Inspector General work together to improve firearm safety in relation to “negative outcomes involving the dangerous mix of alcohol and firearms.” The motion was co-authored by Supervisors Hilda […]
The post <strong>Supervisors to look at LASD firearm safety</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/supervisors-to-look-at-lasd-firearm-safety/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Australia’s government has used the “significant cyber incidents” sanctions regime it introduced in 2021 for the first time, against a Russian named Aleksandr Gennadievich Ermakov whom authorities have deemed responsible for the 2022 attack on health insurer Medibank Private.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/australia_medibank_private_attacker_named/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
PENTAGON — U.S. and British warplanes, backed by surface ships and submarines, launched a series of strikes into Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen late Monday, aimed at further degrading the capabilities of Iranian-backed Houthi militants who have sought to carry out attacks against key shipping lanes in the Middle East.
U.S. defense officials said the strikes hit multiple targets across eight locations, including an underground storage facility as well as missile launch sites and other locations linked to Houthi surveillance capabilities.
The strike locations were intentionally selected to target weapons systems not to amass casualties, a senior military official told reporters. The official assessed the underground storage facility had “more advanced conventional weaponry” in it than sites hit in the first round of strikes on Jan. 11.
“These precision strikes … are in response to a series of illegal, dangerous and destabilizing Houthi actions,” the U.S. and Britain said in a statement, noting the latest strikes were carried out with the support of Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands.
“We will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways in the face of continued threats,” the statement added.
The Red Sea route carries about 15% of the world’s maritime traffic. Major shipping companies have responded to the attacks by rerouting vessels on the longer and more expensive route around Africa.
This is the eighth time U.S. military assets have struck Houthi targets in the past 10 days, but only the second time Washington has had help since Britain took part in the initial round of strikes earlier this month. A senior military official told reporters the strikes Monday had “removed significant capability” from the Houthis to launch attacks.
A U.S. defense official “directly attributed … the decline in the number and the ferocity of the [Houthi’s] maritime attacks … to the reduction in Houthi capability to carry out those attacks.”
“That does not mean they have no more capability, but we definitely believe that has had an impact,” another U.S. official said.
Since mid-November, the Houthis have launched 33 attacks on international shipping lanes, according to the Pentagon. The Houthis say their attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza under attack from Israel.
Defense experts worry the United States is now fighting a regional war in the Middle East amid a sharp increase in attacks on American forces over the weekend.
Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Monday there have been 151 attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since the October 7 Hamas terror attack against Israel, including a “barrage” of ballistic missiles fired at Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq that constituted “a larger-scale attack than we have seen before.”
Most of the missiles were shot down, Singh said, but those that landed on the base injured one Iraqi Security Forces member and caused traumatic brain injuries in two U.S. service members.
The 151 attacks since October have injured at least 83 Americans in Iraq and Syria, a U.S. defense official said on Monday. All but two have returned to duty.
“We do not seek escalation. We don’t want to see it escalate,” Singh said Monday in response to a question from VOA.
“If you’re in a scrap with somebody and you can find a way to tie one or both of their hands behind their back, that’s not escalating. That’s de-escalating. That’s taking ability away from the other party to inflict harm,” John Kirby, National Security Council director of strategic communications, told reporters Monday at the White House.
Critics like Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, say the U.S. military’s limited strikes against Iranian-backed targets across the Middle East amount to a “shoulder shrug” response to what he said was “absolutely” a “low-level, and in some cases not-so-low-level regional war going on.”
“Don’t expect to have good policy coming out of Washington if we can’t be objective and honest in assessing where we sit. Full points for not wanting a regional war and trying to avoid a regional war, but news flash, we appear to have one,” Bowman told VOA.
He added that as in any conflict, the adversary also gets a vote in whether the Middle East violence erupts into a war.
“Our adversary here is [the] Islamic Republic of Iran and its network of terror proxies, and they are repeatedly trying to kill Americans. And the only reason why we haven’t had more American casualties [is] because we’ve taken measures to defend ourselves, and we’ve gotten lucky. And sooner or later, luck runs out,” Bowman said.
Most of the attacks against U.S. forces inside Syria and Iraq have been claimed by an umbrella group calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which has said the attacks are in retaliation for Washington’s support for Israel in the war.
Attacks by the Iran-aligned Houthi militia on ships in and around the Red Sea for the past several weeks have bogged down trade between Asia and Europe and created fears of a widening war in the Middle East. Many of the attacks by the Houthis have targeted ships that are not associated with Israel.
Also on Monday, the U.S. sanctioned Iraqi airline Fly Baghdad and its CEO Basheer Abdulkadhim Alwan al-Shabbani, saying the airline provided assistance to Iran’s military wing and its proxy groups in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-uk-launch-more-strikes-targeting-weapons-in-houthi-controlled-yemen/7451154.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
A budget-friendly touring helmet with all the features you’d expect to find in a modular lid.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705650/scorpion-exo930-evo-modular-helmet/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Signal
The person suspected of being the driver of a vehicle that struck a pedestrian and fled on foot Monday evening near the intersection of Sand Canyon Road and Sierra Highway was detained, according to first responder radio dispatch traffic and law enforcement officials. The driver reportedly bailed on foot following the traffic collision and took […]
The post <strong>One detained after vehicle strikes pedestrian in Canyon Country</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/vehicle-reportedly-strikes-pedestrian-in-canyon-country/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
The expo will also be moved later in the year to better align with consumer buying habits for the succeeding year.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705649/annual-intermot-2024-schedule/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
white house — Abortion is on the ballot in 2024, the White House says, with Vice President Kamala on Monday launching a cross-country tour to equate the campaign of President Joe Biden with protection and expansion of reproductive rights – as Republican candidates speak of possible federal abortion bans.
On Monday — the 51st anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling that federally protected the right to have an abortion — Harris visited the battleground state of Wisconsin to highlight the Biden administration’s support of full access to reproductive health care, including abortion.
“In America, freedom is not to be given,” Harris said. “It is not to be bestowed. It is ours by right. By right. And that includes the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body. Not the government telling you what to do.”
Biden, a devoted lifelong Catholic, has expressed personal reservations about abortion. On Monday, however, he described the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — and throw the matter to individual states — as unfair.
Since that court ruling, he noted, voters in different states have repeatedly voted to uphold abortion access.
“Voters have voted to protect reproductive rights,” Biden said. “We need these protections in every state, because for your family to have access to health care should not depend on your ZIP code.”
Followers of the current Republican presidential front-runner, Donald Trump, say Trump opposes abortion rights, but his position has varied and is unclear. His campaign website does not address the issue.
A request for comment from Trump’s campaign was not immediately returned.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from the Southern state of Louisiana, gave his opposition a personal spin at a recent anti-abortion rally in Washington, where he said he was the product of an unplanned teen pregnancy.
“We’re passing these bills and we’re marching today because it takes a lot of work to convince people that every single human child, every unborn child, has a value that is too profound and precious to ignore,” Johnson said. “And we have every reason to be optimistic, my friends, that we can change public opinion.”
Anti-abortion-rights activists say they’re glad the Supreme Court put the decision back in states’ hands. But now, they must decide which national leader is going to move the issue forward.
Activist Eric Scheidler, who joined the Washington march, said that Biden was “too extreme” in his support of abortion access but that none of the remaining Republicans fit his worldview.
“I also don’t know if I trust Donald Trump,” said Scheidler, who is executive director of the Illinois-based Pro-Life Action League. “I mean, he gave us the Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe. Since the overturning of Roe, he has said some things critical of the pro-life movement and criticized [Governor Ron] DeSantis’ policy in Florida. I don’t really know where Trump stands, because he seems to be talking out of both sides of his mouth on the issue. So I am reserving judgment on both Haley and Trump, because I’ve been concerned about where both of them stand.”
Abortion rights have won at the polls with voters in states from liberal California to conservative Kansas.
The key swing state of Ohio was the latest, with a decisive 57% approving a constitutional amendment to ensure access to reproductive rights late last year.
https://www.voanews.com/a/abortion-on-2024-ballot-biden-says-harris-tours-key-states/7451138.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A study into the effectiveness of a New York City law targeting bias in AI hiring algorithms has found the legislation is largely ineffective.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/nyc_ai_hiring_law_ineffective/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Vespa has launched a fancy dragon-themed jacket alongside the scooter too.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705648/vespa-946-dragon-edition/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Port Hueneme
Unprecedented December storm damaged Shoreside Power System at the Port of Hueneme, causing more than $30M in damages Download Press Release [Port Hueneme, CA – Jan. 22, 2024] – The Port of Hueneme, the pioneering West Coast Port in adopting Shoreside Power for cargo vessels, faced substantial setbacks following severe damage to its Shoreside Power Read More
https://www.portofhueneme.org/new-leadership-2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Signal
News release Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, kicked off the legislative year by introducing Assembly Bill 1820, a bill designed to demystify housing developer fees and provide information needed to ensure affordable housing is delivered as quickly as possible without surprise costs, according to a news release from the assemblywoman’s office. Introducing this as […]
The post Schiavo introduces bill on affordable housing appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/schiavo-introduces-bill-on-affordable-housing/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: Daring Fireball
https://dayoneapp.com/download/daring-fireball/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: Daring Fireball
https://www.relay.fm/upgrade/496 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: OS News
Winlator is an Android application that lets you to run Windows (x86_64) applications with Wine and Box86/Box64. ↫ BrunoSX That’s all you need to know. There are videos up of things like Mass Effect 2 and Fallout 3 running through this, which is incredibly neat. I’m not entirely sure what the use case is, but who cares – this is an excellent idea.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138427/winlator-run-windows-application-on-android-using-wine-and-box86-box64/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The LAist
County records obtained by LAist show O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do directed an additional $6.2 million in taxpayer dollars to his 22-year-old daughter’s group without publicly disclosing the family ties.
https://laist.com/news/politics/orange-county-supervisor-andrew-do-taxpayer-money-daughter-viet-america-society-warner-wellness-rhiannon-do Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop News
(Download a PDF of this letter: AMW50 invitation) Please register online: Registration Form Invitation Letter text: We’re pleased to invite you to our 50th Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop, April 24 – 26, 2024, at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, CA, on the Monterey Peninsula. Please join us in making it a special event! Since … Read more
https://amw.org/registration-now-open-for-2024-please-read/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
It was a tough day in the pool for The Master’s University swim teams, with the men’s team losing to Biola 113-78 and the women’s team falling short 138-46 Saturday in La Mirada, Calif
https://scvnews.com/tmu-swim-teams-fall-to-biola-in-dual-meet/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Robo-calls featuring the faked voice of US president Joe Biden’s are advising voters not to participate in the state of New Hampshire’s Tuesday presidential Primary Election, the state’s Attorney General Office warned on Monday.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/robocaller_biden_new_hampshire/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Gift will benefit the Santa Barbara County Capital Campaign and their effort to house and empower those living on the street
The post DignityMoves receives $100,000 grant from the James M. Cox Foundation appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/dignitymoves-receives-100000-grant-from-the-james-m-cox-foundation/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Los Angeles — The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is planning multiple overnight closures on Interstate 110 (I-110) between I-10 and
The post Overnight Full Freeway Closures Scheduled for I-110 Near Downtown Los Angeles appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/overnight-full-freeway-closures-scheduled-for-i-110-near-downtown-los-angeles/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
These family-owned restaurants have made the list of “The Best College Town” places.
The post Isla Vista Favorites I.V. Bagel Café and I.V. Pizza Pub Earn Spoon University Honors appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/isla-vista-favorites-iv-bagel-cafe-and-iv-pizza-pub-earn-spoon-university-honors/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Joshua Barnett scored 30 points and Jonah El-Farra added 17 more but it wasn’t enough as Antelope Valley exited Lee Smelser Court at the Cougar Cage with an 84-78 conference victory on Saturday night
https://scvnews.com/cougars-squander-early-lead-in-84-78-loss-to-avc/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
BMW Motorrad reported the best sales figures in company history in 2023.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705647/sales-numbers-december-2023-roundup/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
Boston — A Chinese music student went on trial Monday on U.S. charges that he harassed an activist who posted flyers at the Berklee College of Music in Boston supporting democracy in China and threatened to report her activities to Chinese law enforcement.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alathea Porter told a federal jury in Boston that Xiaolei Wu, 25, scared the activist, referred to only as Zooey in court, by making threats online to chop off her hands and report her to the Chinese government because of her “reactionary posters.”
“She was afraid for herself, and she was afraid for her family, who was back in China,” Porter said in her opening statement to a 12-person jury.
The trial comes as U.S. and Western authorities continue to warn that China’s government has increasingly exerted pressure to silence its critics abroad.
Human rights groups have also complained of threats to academic freedom and monitoring of Chinese students on international university campuses.
Wu was first arrested in December 2022 and has pleaded not guilty to charges of cyberstalking and interstate transmissions of threatening communication.
Porter told jurors that his threats began after Zooey, who also attended the private music college, posted a photo on Instagram of a flier she put in a window that said, “We Want Freedom,” “We Want Democracy” and “Stand with Chinese People.”
Wu in response in October 2022 posted on a 300-person chat of Chinese Berklee students and alumni on the social media app WeChat a demand that she tear down the flyers and said he had called in a tip to a Chinese public security agency about her.
Porter called that a serious threat, as the Chinese government does not allow the type of expression her posters contained and worked to suppress dissent against the Chinese government.
A lawyer for Wu, Michael Tumposky, countered that Wu’s comments were never meant to threaten Zooey but were made as part of an “immature, online dispute between two young people,” who were acquainted with each other.
He said his client “was not some agent of the Chinese government” but an “awkward, nerdy guy” who came to Boston to learn jazz and had spoken out about Zooey’s posters “in his own misguided way to remind her of consequences of her activism.”
“He came here to learn guitar, not to shill for the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-music-student-faces-us-trial-for-allegedly-threating-activist-/7450765.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Vanessa Zavala connected on seven three-pointers to finish with a season-high 23 points as four Lady Cougars players ended in double figures, helping College of the Canyons pick up a thrilling 68-67 conference victory against Antelope Valley, at the Cougar Cage on Saturday night
https://scvnews.com/lady-cougs-edge-antelope-valley-in-68-67-thriller/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Three months after opening US orders for the long-anticipated three-row EV9 SUV, the folks at Kia invited media out to wine country to test drive it for the first time. We’ve already had up-close encounters with the EV9, but this was our first chance to take it for a spin and really test everything inside and out (including that third row). While you probably can’t put bodybuilders in the back seat, the EV9 delivers in a lot of ways other OEMs are not and at a relatively enticing price point.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/first-drive-kia-ev9-three-row-electric-suv-electric/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: OS News
In a major move addressing European regulations, Meta will soon give users in the EU, EEA, and Switzerland significantly more control over how their data is used across Facebook and Instagram. The changes, set to begin rolling out in the coming weeks, aim to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). ↫ Omer Dursun at NeoWin You’ll be able to unlink Facebook’s various services – such as Instagram and Facebook’s main social network thing – and you’ll be able to use Facebook Messenger as a standalone service without needing to have a Facebook account. Sadly, there’s no word on WhatsApp. This only applies to people in the EU/EEA. Americans need not apply.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138422/meta-now-lets-eu-users-unlink-their-facebook-messenger-and-instagram-accounts/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Ayjay blog
I’ve written before about how my own history as a fabulist makes me reflexively skeptical about certain kinds of stories that people tell. But it’s not my history as a fabulist, it’s rather my belief in original sin that makes me skeptical of one particular kind of story: the “Doing this hurts me but darn […]
https://blog.ayjay.org/fwiw-3/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: OS News
It’s a minimalist (currently <1K lines) pure Ruby (including the X11 driver) X11 window manager. It is focused on tiling, but allows you to choose to assign a tiling layout to specific desktops or leave them floating. Currently whether or not you use tiling or floating layout there is no window decoration and windows are not draggable or resizable by pulling on borders (but you can do that with Windows key + left/right mouse button) Like bspwm, which was an inspiration, the wm supports no keyboard handling – all keyboard handling is deferred to separate tools like sxhkd. Unlike bspwm this WM has no dedicated IPC mechanism. Instead, so far, all communication happens via X11 ClientMessage events, which means any tool, like xdotool etc. that can produce those events can control the WM. ↫ Vidar Hokstad on RubyWM’s GitHub page In the blog post announcing RubyWM, the author makes it very clear that while he uses this WM full time, he is also willing to work around its bugs, and that certain tools will simply break if you use it. He considers it more of a tech demo, and that you really shouldn’t rely on this for any serious work.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138419/rubywm-an-x11-window-manager-in-pure-ruby/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
More than 600 IP addresses are launching thousands of exploit attempts against CVE-2023-22527 – a critical bug in out–of-date versions of Atlassian Confluence Data Center and Server – according to non-profit security org Shadowserver.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/atlassian_confluence_server_rce/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
It was a preview of a central reelection argument in a rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden, a contest that will be shadowed by the former president’s multiple courtroom trials, including one related to Trump’s role in events that led to the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/harris-trump-is-responsible-for-supreme-court-ending-roe/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
MLK Day concert in Santa Barbara hits all the right notes.
The post Review | The Amy Ray Band and Dar Williams Take Us on a Musical Journey appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/review-the-amy-ray-band-and-dar-williams-take-us-on-a-musical-journey/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The city of Santa Clarita’s Film Office released the list of 13 productions currently filming in the Santa Clarita Valley for the week of Monday, Jan. 22 - Sunday, Jan. 28.
https://scvnews.com/thirteen-productions-currently-filming-in-scv/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Three pediatric occupational therapists practicing in Santa Barbara explain how they can help your child.
The post My Kid Doesn’t Have a Job ― So Why Would They Need ‘Occupational Therapy’? appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/my-kid-doesnt-have-a-job-%e2%80%95-so-why-would-they-need-occupational-therapy/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/tiny-flying-rainbows Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
You can now buy Hyundai’s matte gold Disney-themed IONIQ 5 for under $60,000. Designed with Walt Disney Imagineering, the IONIQ 5 Disney100 Platinum Edition is every fan’s dream, and it’s on sale now.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/hyundai-matte-gold-platinum-disney-ioniq-5-sale-60k/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce announced Monday its 2023 Business Award Recipients, who are set to be celebrated at the Awards and Installation event on Friday, Feb. 2, hosted at the Hyatt Regency Valencia
https://scvnews.com/scv-chamber-announces-2023-business-award-recipients/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The Santa Barbara Zoo will be hosting their annual Snow Leopard Festival, where kids can play in the snow alongside their favorite animals, including Kisa the snow leopard.
The post The Santa Barbara Zoo Invites Community to Celebrate Annual Snow Leopard Festival appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/the-santa-barbara-zoo-invites-the-community-to-celebrate-annual-snow-leopard-festival/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: TidBITS blog
Apple has released a large set of operating system updates, including iOS 17.3, iPadOS 17.3, macOS 14.3 Sonoma, watchOS 10.3, tvOS 17.3, HomePod Software 17.3, macOS 13.6.4 Ventura, macOS 12.7.3 Monterey, iOS 16.7.5 and iPadOS 16.7.5, and iOS 15.8.1 and iPadOS 15.8.1. New features include Stolen Device Protection in iOS 17.3 and Apple Music collaborative playlists.https://tidbits.com/2024/01/22/ios-17-3-stands-out-from-other-%ef%a3%bfos-updates-with-stolen-device-protection/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Human labor can accomplish some jobs more cheaply than computer vision systems, according to a study led by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/mit_ai_jobs_report/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: TidBITS blog
Reference management tool adds support for those with an ORCID identifier. ($59.99 new, free update, 111.8 MB, macOS 10.13+)https://tidbits.com/watchlist/bookends-14-2-8/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
A chance to see the roster together for the first time, the Bay FC co-owners hosted a media event on Monday afternoon less than two months before they’re to kick off their inaugural NWSL season at PayPal Park.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/bay-fc-reveals-first-ever-uniforms-players-already-feeding-off-culture-and-chemistry/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
The spacious property located in the 19200 block of Harleigh Drive in Saratoga was sold on Jan. 9, 2024. The $4,150,000 purchase price works out to $1,298 per square foot. The house, built in 1967, has an interior space of 3,196 square feet.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/single-family-house-sells-in-saratoga-for-4-2-million/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Signal
Key defensive stops in the final minutes of play powered Golden Valley Grizzlies boys’ basketball to victory on Friday. After a long back-and-forth fourth quarter, Golden Valley pulled away and finished the night with a 73-63 win over the hosting Hart Indians. The Grizzlies (17-7, 5-3) never trailed in the contest but kept up the […]
The post <strong>Grizzlies boys’ hoops take down Indians</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/grizzlies-boys-hoops-take-down-indians/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
A gas leak is being investigated as a possible cause of a two-alarm fire Saturday night that heavily damaged a house in Oakland’s Montclair district.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/two-alarm-fire-heavily-damages-home-in-oaklands-montclair-district/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Signal
Wildcats boys’ basketball was ready for this one. West Ranch put on a dominating defensive performance in round two with Saugus on Friday. The Wildcats won their 45th straight Foothill League game, defeating Saugus, 96-70. Defensive efforts led to tons of transition points, which fueled the Cats (16-7, 9-0) as they put up their season […]
The post <strong>West Ranch boys’ basketball rolls Saugus </strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/west-ranch-boys-basketball-rolls-saugus/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
As we welcome the new year, I am excited to update our residents on the renovations at the Valencia Community Center located at Summit Park
https://scvnews.com/ken-striplin-valencia-community-center-update/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Smithsonian Magazine
More than 100 such ancient artifacts have been found throughout Europe, but nobody knows what they are
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/another-of-ancient-romes-mysterious-12-sided-objects-has-been-found-in-england-180983632/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The LAist
A little more rain and snow would be nice.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/socal-rain-storm-seasonal-trend Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Signal
After a slow start in the first quarter, Saugus Centurions girls’ basketball exploded. Saugus held the visiting West Ranch Wildcats, who easily dominated the first quarter, without a field goal in the second quarter. The Centurions kept their foot on the gas throughout the contest en route to a 54-38 win over the Wildcats on […]
The post <strong>Saugus girls’ basketball wins sixth straight, downs West Ranch</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/saugus-girls-basketball-wins-sixth-straight-downs-west-ranch/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Connecticut’s home battery storage program, Energy Storage Solutions, just doubled its upfront incentive to help homeowners invest in backup power – here’s how it works.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/connecticut-home-battery-storage-incentive-jumps-to-up-to-16k/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Matt Haughey blog
Last week I was in LA to get some sun after a dismal cold winter in Oregon. I hung out with my aunt and while she’s been a massive Dodgers fan since she was a kid, in the last couple seasons I’ve followed the Dodgers too so I could keep our daily text chain going. …Continue reading “The Dodger Stadium tour is pretty great and if anything, underpriced”
https://a.wholelottanothing.org/2024/01/22/the-dodger-stadium-tour-is-pretty-great-and-if-anything-underpriced/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
Tesla is teasing locals by putting the Cybertruck on display, but confirms that it would be “very difficult” to make road legal.
https://insideevs.com/news/705595/tesla-cybertruck-china-not-sale/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The mystifying orbs could be caused by galactic winds, propelled by a period of rapid star formation and death
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/giant-odd-circles-of-radio-waves-in-space-may-finally-have-an-explanation-180983562/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The regular meeting of the Saugus Union School District Governing Board will take place Tuesday, Jan. 23, with closed session beginning at 5:30 p.m., followed immediately by public session at 6:30 p.m
https://scvnews.com/jan-23-susd-regular-board-meeting/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Heatmap News
What makes Tesla, the world’s leading automaker by market cap, so valuable? The obvious answer would be that it sells hundreds of thousands of cars every quarter, for which it can command a tidy premium because of how much the Tesla name is worth. When it rolls out something new — no matter how odd-looking — Tesla fans are willing to put up money for the right to order a vehicle years later. As many of the world’s biggest economies try to transition away from internal combustion, Tesla is as well positioned as anyone to benefit immensely.
But according to one of its biggest boosters on Wall Street, Tesla’s core business of selling electric cars only contributes so much.
“Global EV momentum is stalling,” wrote Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, a longtime Tesla booster, in a research report released Monday. “The market is over-supplied vs. demand. We anticipate Tesla’s 2024 outlook to be cautious on volume and profitability.” He marked down his estimate for Tesla’s 2024 sales to 2.08 million units, compared to his previous estimate of 2.25 million, with profitability falling thanks to the aggressive price cuts the company instituted last year in a bid to juice sales. Then came the thing that really hurt: Jonas also adjusted his price target for Tesla shares down from $380 to $345 — a figure well north of the $212 the shares closed at on Friday, but still a noticeable cut. Tesla shares traded down 1.5% through Monday afternoon.
For any other car company that exclusively sold EVs, this kind of price
target shrinkage would be a serious problem. But Jonas doesn’t see Tesla
as a car company. Or, at least, not just as a car company.
Of the $345 Jonas thinks a Tesla share is worth, only $75 comes from selling electric vehicles. The rest is largely from businesses that either don’t exist for the company, or else don’t generate meaningful revenue compared to selling cars.
Let’s break this down: In its most recent quarter, Tesla had around $23 billion of total revenues, $19.5 billion of which came from selling cars; $1.5 billion came from its energy business, with the remaining $2 billion coming from “services and other revenue,” which include Tesla’s Supercharging network.
To Jonas, however, Tesla “is both an auto stock + an energy, AI/robotics company,” he wrote, adding that “we believe investors should not ignore the continued developments of Tesla’s other bets.” These include things like turning its cars into something more like software subscriptions, which incur recurring revenues (as Tesla already does with its Full Self Driving software) and a robotaxi network that does not yet exist, but which Jonas projects will have 230,000 vehicles by 2030. There are also projects like the Optimus humanoid robot, which Jonas didn’t put a valuation on but thinks that investors should factor in when considering whether to buy or sell Tesla shares.
To get a sense of the gargantuan scale Jonas tends to operate on, last year he wrote that Dojo, the supercomputer Tesla developed for its automated driving system, could add $500 billion of value to Tesla, even though “it is difficult to explicitly validate the many claims Tesla has made about Dojo’s cost and performance.” He was confident, however, that “Tesla has a chance of bringing forth a competitive customized solution given the company’s innovation track record and capabilities.”
The idea that Tesla can be more than an electric car company — one that sprouts innovative and profitable businesses, whether from robotics or artificial intelligence — stems almost entirely from the fact that Elon Musk runs it. Musk himself is well aware of this. Last week he wrote on X, “I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in A.I. & robotics without having ~25% voting control,” which would be about double the voting power he has now. (That voting power, of course, was substantially diluted thanks to selling billions of dollars of Tesla shares to fund his takeover of now-X, then-Twitter.)
While it’s unlikely that Musk would be able to break off the robots and AI initiatives that literally power Tesla, the threat is enough to spook investors given Musk’s obvious willingness to pursue major projects outside of Tesla (e.g. SpaceX) — and the high valuation those projects can get from investors — not to mention the amount of time and energy Musk spends on them.
You can see the implicit value investors place on Tesla’s (and Musks’s) ability to spin up new businesses not just in Tesla’s high stock price and overall valuation — around $650 billion, compared to $270 billion for Toyota and $50 billion for GM, both of which sell many, many more cars— but also in how investors value Tesla’s earnings.
Tesla’s price-to-earnings ratio, which is essentially the stock price
divided by the earnings per share, is around 60, comparable to Amazon or
the enterprise software company Workday, companies investors buy for
their future growth or profit potential derived from selling software on
a subscription basis. Plus, there’s a market mania for anything AI
related, as one can see with Nvidia, which makes the chips used by many
companies with AI products
(including
Tesla) and has gained several hundred billion dollars in market
capitalization in the last year. One can also see this with Microsoft,
whose OpenAI stake only gets more valuable,
company
drama notwithstanding.
Stolid GM, by contrast, trades at four times earnings, while Toyota is around 10.
While some of this difference can be attributed to the higher prices Tesla is able to charge for its vehicles, that can only account for so much — Tesla’s best-selling cars are its lower-end vehicles, and again, it’s been aggressively cutting prices. And while luxury automakers have higher valuations than mass market car companies, Tesla still trades higher than luxury automakers including Porsche, Ferrari, and BMW.
Jonas said in his note that his high valuation for the company “is highly dependent upon Tesla accruing value as an AI enabler,” and that “any change of organizational or legal structure that impedes Tesla’s ability to participate in the development of AI could be detrimental.”
And Jonas isn’t the only analyst who sees a substantial portion of
Tesla’s value being made up of something beyond its current electric
vehicle business. “A key to our bullish thesis that all AI initiatives
be kept within Tesla,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in a
note last week. “If Musk ultimately went down the path to create his own
company (separate from Tesla) for his next generation AI projects this
would clearly be a big negative for the Tesla story.”
Even if Tesla reports a disappointing outlook for its electric vehicles business with its fourth quarter earnings on Wednesday, expect analysts and investors to be interested in what Tesla isn’t doing yet but could be doing in the future — as long as Musk is still there.
https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/tesla-earnings-ai-elon-musk Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
49ers’ Deebo Samuel does not have a fractured shoulder, but status vs. Detroit in title game is undetermined.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/49ers-deebo-samuel-has-no-fracture-but-status-for-title-game-not-determined/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/0043834-the-worlds-largest-cruise Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
As it’s currently modernizing its eviction protections, the City of Santa Barbara is following several other Central Coast cities in considering
The post Rent Control Wars in Isla Vista appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/rent-control-wars-in-isla-vista/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Michael Tsai
Simon B. Støvring: Apple rejected an update to Runestone because its App Store description mentions the app’s price. This text has been included in the description for two years on iOS and for two releases on visionOS. I was inspired by Overcast, which also has a similar text, to add it to my app.[…]We need […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/22/runestone-rejected-from-the-app-store/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Michael Tsai
Macworld: However, picking a new monitor can be daunting. Not only are there many manufacturers to choose from, but there are also lots of sizes, resolutions, and features to consider–and when we say lots, we mean lots. […] Apple sells displays for its Macs, and you could go with its offerings, but its displays are […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/22/best-mac-monitors-and-displays-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Michael Tsai
Joe Rossignol: Apple Music Classical was updated today with what appeared to be CarPlay support, but this was quickly reversed in a follow-up update. How about making classical music work for all users by adding scrolling or smaller fonts? Currently, I can’t even tell which track I’m playing because the unique part of the title […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/22/classical-music-and-carplay/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Eastridge Center in San Jose, one of the Bay Area’s best-known shopping and restaurant centers, has been bought for more than $100 million.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/san-jose-eastridge-real-estate-retail-store-restaurant-movie-shop-econ/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
The 49ers are not seeking a new coach, but several coaches with Bay Area ties are being connected to openings
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/nfl-coaching-carousel-david-shaw-interviews-for-gigs-as-do-ex-49ers-harbaugh-slowik/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Tremors were felt as far away as the neighboring countries Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. In the Kazakh capital of Almaty, people left their homes, the Russian news agency Tass reported.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/magnitude-7-1-earthquake-rattles-western-china/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The $1.1 billion federal aid package to support an additional five years of operation of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant
The post Taxpayers and Ratepayers to Be Ripped Off to Keep Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant Running Beyond Current Licenses appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/taxpayers-and-ratepayers-to-be-ripped-off-to-keep-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant-running-beyond-current-licenses/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
The model will arrive at Acura dealerships this spring.
https://insideevs.com/news/705619/2024-acura-zdx-pricing-64500usd/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: VOA News USA
washington — A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed Border Patrol agents to resume cutting for now razor wire that Texas installed along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border that is at the center of an escalating standoff between the Biden administration and the state over immigration enforcement.
The 5-4 vote clears the way for Border Patrol agents to cut or clear out concertina wire that Texas has put along the banks of the Rio Grande to deter migrants from entering the U.S. illegally. Some migrants have been injured by the sharp wire and the Justice Department has argued the barrier impedes the U.S. government’s ability to patrol the border, including coming to the aid of migrants in need of help.
None of the justices provided any explanation for their vote. The one-page order is a victory for the Biden administration while the lawsuit over the wire continues.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had authorized the wire, one of a series of aggressive measures the three-term Republican has taken on the border in the name of curbing illegal crossings from Mexico. His spokesman said the absence of razor wire and other deterrents encourages migrants to risk unsafe crossings and makes the job of Texas border personnel more difficult.
“This case is ongoing, and Governor Abbott will continue fighting to defend Texas’ property and its constitutional authority to secure the border,” Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris said.
The White House applauded the order, which was handed down after a federal appeals court last month had forced federal agents to stop cutting the concertina wire.
“Texas’ political stunts, like placing razor wire near the border, simply make it harder and more dangerous for frontline personnel to do their jobs,” White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said.
The concertina wire stretches for roughly 48 kilometers near the border city of Eagle Pass, where earlier this month the Texas Military Department seized control of a city-owned park and began denying access to Border Patrol agents.
Eagle Park has become one of the busiest spots on the southern U.S. border for migrants illegally crossing from Mexico. Abbott has said Texas won’t allow Border Patrol agents into Shelby Park anymore, having expressed frustration over what he says are migrants illegally entering through Eagle Pass and then federal agents loading them onto buses.
Abbott also has authorized installing floating barriers in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass and allowed troopers to arrest and jail thousands of migrants on trespassing charges.
The administration also is challenging those actions in federal court.
In court papers, the administration said the wire impedes Border Patrol agents from reaching migrants as they cross the river and that, in any case, federal immigration law trumps Texas’ own efforts to stem the flow of migrants into the country.
Texas officials have argued that federal agents cut the wire to help groups crossing illegally through the river before taking them in for processing.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor sided with the administration. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas voted with Texas.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-supreme-court-lets-border-patrol-cut-razor-wire-installed-in-texas-/7450647.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY – The Santa Barbara County Education Office (SBCEO) is hosting two education job fairs to help schools and
The post Santa Barbara Countywide Education Job Fairs appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/santa-barbara-countywide-education-job-fairs-2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Schools across the county are hiring! There are job opportunities for
everyone in the field of education, both inside and outside the
classroom.
Join the journey and find a career that makes a
difference.
The post Santa Barbara Countywide Education Job Fairs appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/santa-barbara-countywide-education-job-fairs/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Association of Research Libraries News
Last Updated on January 22, 2024, 4:26 pm ET Sign up to receive the Day in Review by email. Jump to: Tuesday, January 23 | Wednesday, January 24 | Thursday,…
The post Day in Review (January 22–25) appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.
https://www.arl.org/day-in-review/day-in-review-january-22-25/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Canadian filmmaker, who had 3 Oscar nominations and an honorary award, also made such movies as “Fiddler on the Roof” and “The Thomas Crown Affair.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/norman-jewison-dies-at-97-acclaimed-filmmaker-directed-in-the-heat-of-the-night-and-moonstruck/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Michael Tsai
Juli Clover (release notes, security, developer, full installer, IPSW): macOS Sonoma 14.3 brings collaborative playlists in Apple Music, so that Apple Music subscribers can create playlists with friends and family members. The software also has an updated AppleCare & Warranty section in Settings that shows coverage for all devices signed in with an Apple ID. […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/22/macos-14-3/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Michael Tsai
Apple (full installer): This document describes the security content of macOS Ventura 13.6.4. Apple (full installer): This document describes the security content of macOS Monterey 12.7.3. Previously: macOS 14.3 macOS 13.6.3 and macOS 12.7.2
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/22/macos-13-6-4-and-macos-12-7-3/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Michael Tsai
Juli Clover (release notes, security, developer): With iOS 17.3, Apple is adding Stolen Device Protection to the iPhone, limiting access to private information just in case someone gets ahold of both your iPhone and your passcode.[…]The update also includes support for AirPlaying content directly to some hotel room TVs, creating collaborative Apple Music playlists with […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/22/ios-17-3-and-ipados-17-3/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Michael Tsai
Juli Clover (release notes, security, developer): The watchOS 10.3 update includes a new Unity Bloom watch face to celebrate Black History Month. Plus bug and security fixes. Previously: watchOS 10.2
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/22/watchos-10-3/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Michael Tsai
Juli Clover (release notes, security): Apple today released tvOS 17.3, the third major update to the tvOS 17 operating system that came out last September. tvOS 17.3 comes over a month after tvOS 17.2, an update that brought the revamped Apple TV app. […] No new features were found in the tvOS 17.3 beta testing […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/22/tvos-17-3/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Michael Tsai
Juli Clover (release notes): Apple does not specify what’s included in the HomePod 17.3 software, and the generic release notes only say that it brings stability and performance improvements. I saw a regression in that the Home app continued showing that the update was “Installing…” long after it had finished. I had to close and […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/22/audioos-17-3/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: NASA breaking news
As part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign, media accreditation is open for Intuitive Machines’ first robotic flight to the Moon’s surface. The robotic deliveries will transport agency science and technology demonstrations to the Moon for the benefit of all. The Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander carrying NASA science and commercial […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-invites-media-to-first-intuitive-machines-spacex-moon-launch/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians released Monday the Tribal Climate Resiliency Plan, a blueprint for addressing climate in tribal territory
https://scvnews.com/tataviam-tribe-releases-strategy-for-climate-resiliency/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/0043833-wikipedias-list-of-crypti Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) – Due to overnight rainfall, Santa Barbara County Environmental Health Services wants to remind residents about potential health risks
The post GENERAL RAIN ADVISORY FOR COUNTYWIDE BEACHES ISSUED BY ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SERVICES appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/general-rain-advisory-for-countywide-beaches-issued-by-environmental-health-services-3/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) – Debido a las lluvias durante la noche, los Servicios de Salud Ambiental del Condado de Santa Bárbara quieren
The post AVISO GENERAL DE LLUVIA PARA LAS PLAYAS DE TODO EL CONDADO EMITIDO POR LOS SERVICIOS DE SALUD AMBIENTAL appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/aviso-general-de-lluvia-para-las-playas-de-todo-el-condado-emitido-por-los-servicios-de-salud-ambiental-2/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Lochie Ferrier, who was flying the single-engine aircraft with another Bay Area couple on board, was set to marry Cassidy Petit in Hawaii next week.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/half-moon-bay-pilot-fiancee-identified-as-final-two-victims-of-plane-crash/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Barbara, CA. January 2024 – CALM is excited to announce the appointment of Whitney Manning as Director of Human Resources. With more
The post CALM Announces New Director of Human Resources appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/calm-announces-new-director-of-human-resources/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Some communities received more than half a foot over the weekend
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/bay-area-weather-how-much-rain-did-we-get-3/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Venerable Solvang Mainstay Celebrates the Natural Beauty
and
Diversity of the Golden State through Art, Education, and Conservation
The post NEW NAME; NEW ERA ~ EXCITING FUTURE The Wildling Museum is now the California Nature Art Museum appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/new-name-new-era-exciting-future-the-wildling-museum-is-now-the-california-nature-art-museum/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
A back-to-back test of the Genesis GV70 Electrified and Lexus RZ450e revealed two very different schools of thought when it comes to electrification.
https://insideevs.com/news/705255/hyundai-toyota-battle-ev/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Castaic Union School District is proud to announce that the Jene Fielder Trust Scholarship Program is now accepting applications
https://scvnews.com/cusd-now-accepting-jene-fielder-scholarship-applications/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Over the decades, the Birch conspiracy grew to encompass the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, public education, the United Nations, the civil rights movement, The Rockefeller Foundation, the space program, the COVID pandemic, the 2020 presidential election and climate-change activism. In short, things the Birchers don’t like.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/before-pizzagate-or-qanon-there-was-the-john-birch-society/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Nissan’s CEO needs to clean out his closet, according to his wife. The same goes for the 90-year-old automaker as it transitions to a new era. Nissan is gearing up to reveal a new EV plan as part of a midterm update to turn things around.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/nissan-clean-out-closet-new-ev-plan/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
The Mardi 27 is decked out in all the features that make a capable urban commuter.
https://insideevs.com/news/705475/moustache-mardi27-commuter-ebike-bosch/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Researchers and democracy advocates see risks in how companies are approaching online moderation and election integrity efforts after major shifts in the broader tech industry.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/us-heads-into-post-truth-election-as-platforms-shun-arbiter-role/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
San Jose Sharks will be keeping an eye on how Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins do the rest of the season
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/nhl-draft-can-the-sharks-hit-a-sweet-spot-with-two-top-16-picks/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: VOA News USA
Jerusalem — Iran is “very directly involved” in ship attacks that Yemen’s Houthi rebels have carried out during Israel’s war against Hamas, the U.S. Navy’s top Mideast commander told The Associated Press on Monday.
Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of the Navy’s 5th Fleet, stopped short of saying Tehran directed individual attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
However, Cooper acknowledged that attacks associated with Iran have expanded from previously threatening just the Persian Gulf and its Strait of Hormuz into waters across the wider Middle East.
“Clearly, the Houthi actions, probably in terms of their attacks on merchant shipping, are the most significant that we’ve seen in two generations,” he told the AP in a telephone interview. “The facts simply are that they’re attacking the international community; thus, the international response I think you’ve seen.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations and the Houthi leadership in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, did not respond to a request for comment. However, the Houthis later claimed to have attacked a U.S.-flagged vessel, something that the 5th Fleet dismissed as “patently false.”
Since November, the Iranian-backed Houthis have launched at least 34 attacks on shipping through the waterways leading up to Egypt’s Suez Canal, a vital route for energy and cargo coming from Asia and the Middle East onward to Europe.
The Houthis, a Shiite rebel group that’s held Sanaa since 2014 and been at war with a Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s exiled government since 2015, link their attacks to the Israel-Hamas war. However, the ships they’ve targeted increasingly have tenuous links to Israel — or none at all.
In recent days, the U.S. has launched seven rounds of airstrikes on Houthi military sites, targeting air bases under the rebels’ control and suspected missile launch sites.
However, risks for the global economy remain as many ships continue to bypass that route for a longer trip around Africa’s southern tip. That means lower revenue for Egypt through the Suez Canal, a vital source of hard currency for the country’s troubled economy, as well as higher costs for shipping that could push up global inflation.
As Cooper took command of the 5th Fleet in 2021, the threat to shipping focused primarily around the Persian Gulf and its narrow mouth, the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all oil traded passes. A series of attacks blamed on Iran and ship seizures by Tehran followed the collapse of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.
In his interview with the AP, the Navy commander acknowledged the threat from Iran’s proxies and that its distribution of weapons extended from the Red Sea out to the far reaches of the Indian Ocean. The U.S. has blamed Iran for recent drone attacks on shipping, and a U.S.-owned cargo vessel came under attack from the Houthis in the Gulf of Aden last week.
So far, Iran hasn’t become directly involved in fighting either Israel or the U.S. since the war in Gaza began on October 7. However, Cooper maintained Iran had been directly fueling the Houthi attacks on shipping.
“What I’ll say is Iran is clearly funding, they’re resourcing, they are supplying and they’re providing training,” Cooper said. “They’re obviously very directly involved. There’s no secret there.”
Cooper described the ship attacks striking the Mideast as the worst since the so-called Tanker War of the 1980s. It culminated in a one-day naval battle between Washington and Tehran, and also saw the U.S. Navy accidentally shoot down an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 people in 1988.
Back then, American naval ships escorted reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers through the Persian Gulf and the strait after Iranian mines damaged vessels in the region. Cooper said authorities had no current plans to reflag ships and escort them past Yemen.
Instead, the U.S. and its allies employ a “zone defense, and every once and a while we shift to a one-on-one,” he said.
Cooper’s reference to the tensions from more than three decades ago underlines just how precarious the situation in the wider Mideast has become as worries of a regional conflict over the Israel-Hamas war grow.
Monday night, Houthi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree, in a recorded address, claimed an attack in the Gulf of Aden on the Ocean Jazz, a U.S.-flagged ship managed by Seabulk, a company in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The firm declined to comment when reached by the AP. The Ocean Jazz had been in the Red Sea heading south four days ago, according to tracking data.
The 5th Fleet issued an online statement dismissing the Houthi claim.
“The Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists’ report of an alleged successful attack on M/V Ocean Jazz is patently false,” it said. The 5th Fleet “has maintained constant communications with M/V Ocean Jazz throughout its safe transit.”
Cooper spoke to the AP from the sidelines of a drone conference in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Under his command of the 5th Fleet, the naval force has created Task Force 59, a drone fleet to bolster its patrol of waterways in the region.
Today, a variety of drones provide the 5th Fleet coverage across about 10,000 square miles (25,900 square kilometers) of Mideast waters that the Navy otherwise wouldn’t have eyes on, Cooper said. That helps its efforts to interdict suspected drug and weapons shipments.
U.S. forces seized Iranian-made missile parts and other weaponry this month from a ship bound for the Houthis in a raid that saw two Navy SEALs go missing. The U.S. military’s Central Command said Sunday it now believes the SEALs are dead.
While not directly saying his fleet’s drones played a part in the seizure, Cooper hinted at it.
“They are specifically designed to conduct interdiction operations,” he said. He added: “There’s no squeaking anything by it.”
Cooper’s command is set to end in February with the upcoming arrival of Rear Adm. George Wikoff in Bahrain. He noted that the Navy and merchant shippers still face a serious threat from the Houthis as he prepares to leave.
“What we need is a Houthi decision to stop attacking international merchant ships. Period,” Cooper said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/iran-directly-involved-in-yemen-houthi-rebel-ship-attacks-us-navy-official-says/7450569.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
AerCap, the world’s largest aircraft leasing company, has reported a ransomware infection that occurred earlier this month, but claims it hasn’t yet suffered any financial losses yet and all its systems are under control.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/ransomware_aercap_loandepot/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Smithsonian Magazine
After being impeded by dams for more than a century, the Klamath River will be restored to its historic channel this year
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-largest-dam-removal-project-in-us-history-begins-final-stretch-welcoming-salmon-home-180983621/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Margaret Atwood’s substack
The Wheel of Fortuna turns…
https://margaretatwood.substack.com/p/the-french-revvie-part-iii Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Liliputing
The Topton L14 is a budget 14 inch Windows laptop that sells for around $400 and up and features an Intel N95 chip based on Intel’s Alder Lake-N architecture for low-cost notebooks. But this laptop has a few features that make it unusual for a budget model. It’s available with up to 32GB of RAM and […]
The post This budget dual-screen laptop has two 14 inch displays and an Intel Alder Lake-N processor appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/this-budget-dual-screen-laptop-has-two-14-inch-displays-and-an-intel-alder-lake-n-processor/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Police conducted a months-long operation to recover the works, which had been stolen from their owner’s home in 2010
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/stolen-picasso-and-chagall-paintings-valued-at-900000-found-in-an-antwerp-basement-180983622/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
Ex-rental Hertz Tesla Model 3’s look like a really good deal. Here, we examine a less-than-perfect example to learn what buyers may be in for.
https://insideevs.com/news/705435/hertz-tesla-buying-used-inspection/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: John’s World Wide Wall Display
I’ve mentioned the app Aiko a couple of time. Until now I’d used it to transcribe podcasts to quote. Today noticed that it could export transcriptions as subtitle .srt files and I gave it a couple of wee videos that I had to remove from the Glow Blogs help site to comply with accessibility guidelines. […]
https://johnjohnston.info/blog/subtitling-with-aiko/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/the-strange-energy-of-50th-birthdays Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: 404 Media Group
In August we revealed the secret weapon hackers can use to dox nearly anyone in America for $15. Now, authorities have targeted at least one of the data sellers.
https://www.404media.co/feds-charge-tlo-data-seller-tloxp/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Laura Dern, Ian Somerhalder, and Jason Momoa were among the crowd of supporters of the new documentary.
The post ‘The Soil Will Save Us’ | Special Screening of ‘Common Ground’ Documentary about Regenerative Farming appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/the-soil-will-save-us-special-screening-of-common-ground-documentary-about-regenerative-farming/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Signal
News release The family of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer, in partnership with the American Red Cross, presents the Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer Memorial Blood Drive on Jan. 29. Clinkunbroomer was a fourth-generation lawman who joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in 2015. “Dedicated to giving back to his community, Deputy […]
The post Clinkunbroomer Memorial Blood Drive set for Jan. 29 appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/clinkunbroomer-memorial-blood-drive-set-for-jan-29/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: NASA breaking news
The U.S. Postal Service has issued two new Priority Mail stamps celebrating NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the largest, most powerful, and most complex telescope ever put in space. The stamps, issued Jan. 22, feature images of the cosmos captured by Webb since it began its science mission in 2022. Webb is a mission led […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/new-u-s-postal-service-stamps-feature-iconic-nasa-webb-images/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
You can now officially run Windows 11 on an M-series Mac. Well, at least as a virtual machine anyway since Microsoft hasn’t seen fit to allow Mac users to run the OS on baremetal just yet.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/microsoft_so_you_want_to/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Signal
News release When the 2024 spring semester begins for students at California Institute of the Arts, it will also be the beginning of another year of nearly two decades of health care services provided by Samuel Dixon Family Health Centers at the CalArts Student Health Center, according to a news release from the Dixon center. […]
The post Dixon Health Center marks 2 decades serving CalArts appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/dixon-health-center-marks-2-decades-serving-calarts/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
Reservation holders can see what the EV is like to drive before delivery, but it’s a lot of money for a single day.
https://insideevs.com/news/705502/tesla-cybertruck-turo-1000-usd-per-day/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: NASA breaking news
In this image from May 22, 2023, a NASA intern uses an augmented reality headset to test out heads-up display technology being developed for future Artemis missions. This technology was created as part of the NASA Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students, or SUITS, design challenge in which college students from across the country help […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-interns-at-johnsons-rock-yard/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
An updated Tesla Model 3 Performance with a refreshed design has been spotted in the wild ahead of the launch.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/tesla-model-3-performance-resfresh-spotted/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: VOA News USA
Atlanta, Georgia — Dexter Scott King, the younger son of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, died Monday after battling prostate cancer.
The King Center in Atlanta, which Dexter King served as chairman, said the 62-year-old son of the civil rights icon died at his home in Malibu, California. His wife, Leah Weber King, said in a statement that he died “peacefully in his sleep.”
The third of the Kings’ four children, Dexter King was named for the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where his father served as a pastor when the Montgomery bus boycott launched him to national prominence in the wake of the 1955 arrest of Rosa Parks.
Dexter King was just 7 years old when his father was assassinated in April 1968 while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. In his 2004 memoir, Growing Up King, Dexter King recalled his father’s slaying as the end of a carefree childhood.
“Ever since I was seven, I’ve felt I must be formal,” he wrote, adding: “Formality, seriousness, certitude — all these are difficult poses to maintain, even if you’re a person with perfect equilibrium, with all the drama life throws at you.”
As an adult, Dexter King became an attorney and focused on shepherding his father’s legacy and protecting the King family’s intellectual property. In addition to serving as chairman of the King Center, he was also president of the King estate.
In addition to his work with the King Center, Dexter King was known for the striking resemblance he bore to his father. They looked so much alike that the son ended up portraying his famous father in a 2002 TV movie about Parks.
Coretta Scott King died in 2006, followed by the Kings’ oldest child, Yolanda King, in 2007.
“Words cannot express the heartbreak I feel from losing another sibling,” the Rev. Bernice A. King, the youngest of the four, said in a statement.
The oldest King son, Martin Luther King III, said: “The sudden shock is devastating. It is hard to have the right words at a moment like this. We ask for your prayers at this time for the entire King family.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/dexter-scott-king-son-of-martin-luther-king-jr-dies-of-cancer-at-62/7450482.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/0043831-thing-that-actually-exist Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
The 2024 Ducati MX racing schedule spans six race weekends from March through September at tracks across Italy.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705637/ducati-desmo450-mx-schedule-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
My Life: Memories of love and motherhood on the trail.
The post Ellwood: A Love Story appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/22/ellwood-a-love-story/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-23, from: Chaos Computer Club Updates
Sven “winni” Gohdes, Ehrenmitglied des Chaos Computer Clubs zeigte uns mit seiner offenen positiven Art viele große und kleine Dinge, welche das Leben noch lebenswerter machen. Trotz seiner Erkrankung an Muskelschwund war er eine stetige Anlaufquelle für lange gemeinsame Stunden sowohl in großer als auch in kleiner Runde, bei Tee und zur Entspannung. Nun ist er im Januar mit 57 Jahren verstorben und wird uns fehlen.
https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2024/ccc-trauert-um-sein-ehrenmitglied-winni Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Om Malik blog
The shuttering of the popular music website Pitchfork has led to a eulogy for the critic. Given how we consume media, I would argue that this was inevitable. However, I see things differently — the role of critics is adapting to our new algorithmic reality.
https://om.co/2024/01/22/death-of-the-critic/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The 13-year and 17-year broods that will emerge from underground this spring will be appearing together for the first time in 221 years
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cicadas-are-coming-rare-dual-emergence-could-bring-one-trillion-of-the-bugs-this-year-180983635/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Following up the exclusive $600 discount on the 1,200W Smartravel Electric Bike that is still going, we’re now tracking the best price we have seen on Aventon’s Pace 500.3 Cruiser e-bike at $1,099. It comes joined by the Camplux 18kW Tankless Electric Water Heater at $270 that hasn’t seen a discount in many months. Plus, all of today’s other best new Green Deals.
Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/aventon-pace-500-3-e-bike-electric-water-heater-more/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: James Fallows, Substack
Rituals of submission in one party, nearly ten months before the nation casts its votes.
https://fallows.substack.com/p/election-countdown-288-days-to-go Save to Pocket
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-01-22, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
As some of you know, I like living on the edge hovering around 480 tabs open - and I keep hitting the 500 limit.
Every few days I sacrifice some 50 good boys so I can continue browsing.
Today I discovered you can press this button and choose “new tab group with NN tabs” and it saves all your lovingly curated web pages into a separate group, and you get yourself another space with 500 windows to play.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111801225373880206 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Liliputing
The Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3 (11″) is a 2-in-1 ChromeOS tablet with a FHD+ display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 processor and a detachable keyboard that allows you to use the computer as a laptop or tablet. It also comes with a pressure-sensitive pen. While the Chromebook Duet 3 has a list price of […]
The post Daily Deals (1-22-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-1-22-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: TidBITS blog
Some macOS 13 Ventura and macOS 12 Monterey users are being upgraded to macOS 14 Sonoma after dismissing notifications that encourage an upgrade. It’s a nasty bug, but the TidBITS Talk community has some advice on how to avoid the forced upgrade.https://tidbits.com/2024/01/22/ventura-and-monterey-users-beware-unwanted-sonoma-upgrades/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
ARTree Community Arts Center is pleased to be contributing another community art project to Santa Clarita!
https://scvnews.com/artree-seeking-plastic-bottle-caps-for-community-art-project/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) has acquired a former Peloton factory in Ohio and has plans to turn it into a distribution center.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/us-largest-solar-panel-maker-peloton-factory/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/0043825-im-edgar-allan-poes-landl Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
It’s an interesting idea that might land Tesla some extra sales.
https://insideevs.com/news/705573/tesla-demo-drive-destination-charger/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The US Supreme Court Monday agreed to hear the case of an Oklahoma man convicted of murder, whose story has sparked appeals for clemency from Pope Francis and Hollywood stars.
Richard Glossip, 60, had been scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on May 18, but the nation’s highest court put his execution on hold.
The stay came after the Oklahoma attorney general, a Republican, asked the court, in an unusual move, to halt the execution, citing questions about the fairness of his trial.
Following the Supreme Court’s Monday announcement that it would hear Glossip’s appeal, his lawyer John Mills said his team was “grateful” and emphasized that Glossip had “maintained his innocence throughout a quarter century.”
“Mr. Glossip has faced execution nine times, even though the state knew full well that the evidence used to convict him and sentence him to death was false,” Mills said.
Glossip was convicted of the 1997 fatal beating of an Oklahoma City motel owner, but has steadfastly maintained his innocence.
Glossip, who worked at the motel, was found guilty of hiring another motel employee, maintenance man Justin Sneed, who was 19 at the time, to carry out the actual murder.
Glossip was convicted based on the testimony of Sneed, who pleaded guilty and was able to negotiate a life sentence, claiming that his co-worker had masterminded the plot.
Actors Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon and British billionaire Richard Branson have been among the celebrities advocating for Glossip’s life to be spared.
In 2015, when Glossip’s execution also appeared imminent, the representative of Pope Francis in the United States sent a letter on behalf of the pontiff to the then governor of Oklahoma asking that the execution be called off.
His case has also been the subject of a four-episode documentary series titled “Killing Richard Glossip.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-supreme-court-to-hear-oklahoma-man-s-death-row-appeal/7450354.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-britain-australia-impose-new-sanctions-on-hamas-/7450368.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-01-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Let it A, Let it B, Let it C, Let it D.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBsB5Cu-fiE Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The LAist
The helicopter had stopped communicating with the Perseverance rover during a test flight. Trouble for the overachieving rotorcraft threatened to cut short its otherworldly flight exploration.
https://laist.com/news/nasa-finds-ingenuity-after-losing-contact-with-the-mars-helicopter Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-01-22, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Today’s song: Take me back to Tulsa.
http://scripting.com/2024/01/22.html#a185212 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
On Sunday, the US Federal Aviation Administration recommended that air carriers operating Boeing 737-900ER aircraft conduct a visual inspection of mid-exit door plugs to be certain that doors on the aircraft are attached properly.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/travelers_takes_kayaks_filter_function/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: 404 Media Group
A previously small feature has seen a 15x increase in usage and has been made more powerful and prominent following the 737 Max 9 incident.
https://www.404media.co/kayak-lets-users-filter-out-boeing-737-max-9-flights-after-door-blows-off-plane/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-01-22, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Doc will like this. Right now there are four hits on Goog for typical tech industry mess.
http://scripting.com/2024/01/22.html#a184428 Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-01-22, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
I’ve been writing and talking about the idea of a typical tech industry mess and left out the one I had a hand in creating, SOAP. Started out simple, and over years it turned into a TTIM. Perfect example. Someone should study it, to figure out why Sun, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle et al wanted a protocol for interop and invested years in it, and yet it returned little in the way of interop. I know that XML-RPC is still in use, I imagine that SOAP probably is too, in some form. I wonder how it shook out. On the other hand RSS wasn’t turned into a nightmare, and has become a productive tech industry mess, the most unusual thing ever, a true unicorn.
http://scripting.com/2024/01/22.html#a184055 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: NASA breaking news
The annual competition aims to help students expand their ocean-related knowledge outside the classroom and to become environmental stewards. University High School of Irvine, California, emerged victorious on Jan. 20 at the Los Angeles regional Ocean Sciences Bowl tournament, which NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has hosted annually since 2000. Eight schools from Los Angeles and […]
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/jpl/university-high-wins-l-a-ocean-sciences-bowl-at-nasas-jpl/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Caterpillar announced plans to further electrify America’s farms by demonstrating a new, first-of-its-kind, 600V battery powered electric field elevator at a nut harvesting operation in California.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/caterpillar-announces-electric-nut-harvester/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
The all-electric Porsche Macan will finally show its face later this week. Ahead of its official debut, Porsche is teasing the new Macan EV with sketches that preview a “quintessentially Porsche” design.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/porsche-previews-macan-ev-debut/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: VOA News USA
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — As New Hampshire voters prepared to cast their votes in the state’s first-in-the nation primary Tuesday, a robo-call is circulating in the state urging Democrats to stay home - using a fake audio of U.S. President Joe Biden.
“It’s important that you save your vote for the November election….voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again,” the call says.
The New Hampshire attorney general, John Formella, announced he is investigating what he called an apparent “unlawful attempt to disrupt the New Hampshire Presidential Primary Election and to suppress New Hampshire voters.”
“The Election Law Unit’s investigation is ongoing,” he said.
The audio of the call was provided to Reuters by supporters of a campaign to encourage voters to write in Biden’s name on their ballots. Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said the call was “disinformation” and an attempt to suppress voting.
Support for Biden’s write-in campaign will be closely-watched amid weak polls for the 81-year-old president, although the results have no bearing on the Democratic Party’s nominating contest.
The call was first reported by NBC News.
Biden’s name is not on the ballot Tuesday, because the national Democratic Party made South Carolina their first official primary, ending New Hampshire’s historical status and angering some Democrats there.
In the audio, the Biden “voice” is heard using one of his signature phrases, “What a bunch of malarkey.”
The calls included the personal cell phone number of Kathy Sullivan, a former New Hampshire ballot law commissioner and New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair.
Sullivan called the robo-call an attempt at election interference, and requested an investigation. It was not clear how widely the audio call was circulated.
In a statement, Sullivan said she was made aware of it on Sunday night.
“Multiple people have described receiving a phony voice message created through AI that mimics the voice of President Biden, in an attempt to suppress their participation in the upcoming New Hampshire primary,” she said.
She said the call links back to her personal cell phone number without her permission.
The explosion of generative AI - which can create text, photos and videos in response to open-ended prompts - in recent months has spurred both excitement about its potential as well as fears it could make some jobs obsolete, upend elections and even possibly overpower humans.
The campaign for former President Donald Trump said it was “absolutely not” involved in the robo-call.
The campaign for Democrat Dean Phillips, a Minnesota congressman who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, said it was not involved.
The Phillips campaign said it found out about the call from a reporter on Sunday night.
“Any effort to discourage voters is disgraceful and an unacceptable affront to democracy. The potential use of AI to manipulate voters is deeply disturbing,” the Phillips campaign said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/7450337.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/the-stanley-water-bottle-craze-explained Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
The situation at The Baltimore Sun is looking, to borrow the language of one journalist after the newsroom met its new owner, bleak. In the wake of a worrying sale last week bringing the Sun under new ownership, other local outlets are stepping up and seeing support. The news organization best positioned to take on…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/01/after-a-bleak-turn-for-the-baltimore-sun-independent-outlets-see-a-surge-in-subscribers-and-attention/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Chris Coyier blog
This tweet went around: To which Jason Velazquez says: I have good news and bad news. The good news is that websites didn’t go anywhere. […] the bad news— we are the ones who vanished, and I suspect what we really miss are the joys of discovery. There has been a real uptick in I miss the […]
https://chriscoyier.net/2024/01/22/where-have-all-the-websites-gone/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A ChatGPT-powered bot trained to mimic Congressman Dean Phillips (D-MN) - the long-shot challenger to Joe Biden - is dead before it had a chance to woo voters after OpenAI banned its developer for violating its T&Cs. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/openai_presidential_candidate_bot/ Save to Pocket
@IIIF Mastodon feed (date: 2024-01-22, from: IIIF Mastodon feed)
The Call for Proposals for the 2024 IIIF Annual Conference closes on February 6!
The 2024 #IIIF Conference will be June 4-7 in Los Angeles, CA jointly hosted by UCLA Libraries, Getty, and the IIIF Consortium.
Read more and submit a proposal: https://bit.ly/24-iiif-cfp
https://glammr.us/@IIIF/111800867815346245 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
I want to love Forth and Lisp and Perl and Go and I sort of want to know Rust and Haskell and OCaml and Elixir, but really, the most important electronic computing platform for the largest number people is … spreadsheets.
Formulas and graphs turn these into the multifunctional tool that spread from accounting specialists to financial reporting to project managers planning to household budgets to birthday and wedding guest lists.
If you think about it, spreadsheets for the masses succeeded where Emacs failed. Spreadsheets allow you to build the tools you need. And sure, as a programming professional I have heard my share of horror stories: salary distributions and bonus programs, airport light systems, and many other things that should have used relational databases and REST services and whatever. But people know spreadsheets and use them to solve their problems.
Spreadsheets are underappreciated. Certainly they are underappreciated by programmers, I think.
@maxime_andre linked me to the video Pure Functional Programming in Excel by Felienne Hermans where she explains the benefits of spreadsheets for computing.
And I do think that the programming languages I listed failed us in as far as they do not contribute to computers as convivial tools. Most people are not autonomous in their use of computers to solve their problems because they cannot use the languages listed. They must hope for an app to solve their problem. But they can use a spreadsheet to solve their problem!
Emacs was supposed to be the editor for everybody, including non-technical people. It’s just that our current design paradigms optimize for the inexperienced users and penalize experienced users. Users no longer expect Emacs-like tools and Emacs developers don’t expect inexperienced users any more.
We feel it’s OK to feel overwhelmed by Emacs – but many people are expected to navigate the real world in cars, on roads, with complex traffic regulation, other traffic participants and machines we don’t understand. To me, that illustrates a value judgement. On the one hand, cars are a commodity. We no longer have to be an expert in combustion engines to drive one. But we still need to learn how to use the tool. There’s mandatory training, there are professional teachers, there are enforcers of conventions, penalties, there’s financing available if we want to lease a car, and so on. There is a lot of support and training for users of cars and not so much for computers. The expectations are different.
One might want to say that people need the car to get to work and that explains the economic incentives. To this I might reply that when one gets to work the actual work usually involves a computer and instead of using a convivial tool that one has learned and mastered, customized and extended to ones liking, one is forced to work with corporate software that is as boring as it can be.
Except when it comes to spreadsheets. This is where everyday people still can exercise mastery and solve their problems. It’s a tool and not an app.
If we go back far enough, programming languages were designed to let non-technical people solve their problems. COBOL was a programming language for business people. BASIC was a programming language for faculty and students. From this point of view, I’d argue, the programming languages I mentioned are in fact steps away from this goal.
These programming languages solve more specialised problems. These are tools for experts. But in doing this, they moved away from the realm of everyday people using them to solve their problems. These languages fail to make computers into convivial tools.
The ZX Spectrum 48K and the Commodore 64 both booted into BASIC. Sure, that didn’t mean that we knew how to program. Loading and saving stuff from cassette was hard. PEEK and POKE were hard. But the tools to turn the computer into a convivial tool were right there. The computer came with a manual.
My hope, my wish, my expectations are that we can do this and more. We can make it even better! Spreadsheets are the saving grace. We should put spreadsheets front and centre.
The sad reality is, however, that today we buy computers that essentially boot into the app store.
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-01-22-spreadsheets Save to Pocket
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-01-22, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
New api just dropped
Perhaps La Terminal should suggest your most epic bash one-liners
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111800832076069977 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: NASA breaking news
“[On December 15, 1941] a few shivering, startled Southerners from Langley, the vanguard of those in the Power Plants Division transferring to Cleveland, arrived in the biggest snowstorm in years,” recalled former receptionist Mary Louise Gosney. This vanguard was the first large group of NACA employees to relocate from the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory to […]
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/glenn/glenn-history/nasa-glenns-langley-legacy/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/0043829-looking-forward-to-this-o Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
SCV Water recently launched its Water Champions program, which focuses on supporting businesses within the SCV Water service area by providing programs and resources to use water efficiently
https://scvnews.com/scv-water-launches-program-to-support-local-businesses/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Billionaire tech bros have a “tendency to play God,” according to one of the Almighty’s representatives on Earth.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/tech_bros_play_god/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Worshippers will be able to use a separate entrance to gain free access to the 1,500-year-old landmark in Istanbul
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/tourists-must-now-pay-a-fee-to-visit-the-hagia-sophia-180983627/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Special styling and performance package honors the Moto Guzzi Proud Owners Club.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705622/moto-guzzi-v7-stone-ten/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Liliputing
Folks have been stuffing Rasberry Pi computers into Game Boy-inspired cases for years, but the ReBoi kit is designed to make it as easy as possible to use an actual Game Boy Color case. Developer James Sargent designed a custom printed circuit board (PCB) that slips inside a Game Boy Color case as a replacement for the […]
The post ReBoi is a DIY kit for turning a Game Boy Color into a Raspberry Pi-powered retro gaming PC (crowdfunding) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/reboi-is-a-diy-kit-for-turning-a-game-boy-color-into-a-raspberry-pi-powered-retro-gaming-pc-crowdfunding/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-01-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
2017: "Trump was a free man until he took the oath."
http://scripting.com/2017/01/22/trumpWasAFreeMan.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Rivian (RIVN) is adding an industry vet to its team with the launch of its next-gen electric models coming up. With experience at Apple and Porsche, Jonas Reinke joins Rivian to help launch its new EV platforms, including R2 and R3.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/rivian-porsche-apple-vet-r2-r3-evs/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Local reports out of Europe state that Stellantis-owned luxury automaker Maserati is putting a pin in the development of an all-electric version of its Quattroporte sedan to ensure it can deliver on the performance previously touted by the Italian automaker. Quattroporte now joins Maserati’s two other flagship BEVs in facing delays.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/maserati-halts-development-of-electric-quattroporte-sedan-third-ev-delay/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
NYC’s approach to incentivizing EVs for Uber and Lyft drivers faces unintended consequences.
https://insideevs.com/news/705575/tesla-supercharger-nyc-long-lines/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Sierra Space has inflated a full-sized test article of its Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) habitat beyond bursting point to demonstrate how the module might behave in the harsh environment of space.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/sierra_space_bursts_fullscale_inflatable/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Marketplace Morning Report
On Monday, we got the latest survey of business conditions from the National Association for Business Economics, and businesses are feeling pretty good these days. More businesses reported positive profit margins, and fewer are anticipating a recession in the coming year. We’ll discuss. Then, we’ll hear about Exxon’s lawsuit to block activist investors’ climate proposals and learn about some of the challenges facing Brazil nut producers in Bolivia.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/lets-focus-on-the-positives Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
Cadillac’s flagship EV is hand-built at the GM Global Technical Center in Warren, Ohio.
https://insideevs.com/news/705491/cadillac-celestiq-production-start/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
For a country that prides itself on being free, America does seem to have an awful lot of spying going on, as the new Street Surveillance Hub from the Electronic Frontier Foundation shows.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/eff_privacy_atlas/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-01-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
How to Steal the Presidential Election. #credible
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/22/opinion/election-president-steal-democracy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Pk0.DB1q.b6WdDPuB0Q8V&smid=url-share Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Liliputing
Lenovo and Asus both have dual-screen notebooks coming out this year, with a second screen positioned where you’d normally find a keyboard. But they’re not exactly cheap, with the upcoming Asus Zenbook Duo expected to sell for $1500 and up, while the new Lenovo Yoga Book 9i will start at $2,000. Chinese PC makers are […]
The post This might be the cheapest dual-screen laptop yet (Two 10.5 inch displays and Intel Alder Lake-N for under $400) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/this-might-be-the-cheapest-dual-screen-laptop-yet-two-10-5-inch-displays-and-intel-alder-lake-n-for-under-400/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Quanta Magazine
Far from being “stochastic parrots,” the biggest large language models seem to learn enough skills to understand the words they’re processing.The post New Theory Suggests Chatbots Can Understand Text first appeared on Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-theory-suggests-chatbots-can-understand-text-20240122/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
Available in 400-volt and 800-volt BEV architectures, the new platform is destined to power a lot of cars.
https://insideevs.com/news/705528/stellantis-stla-large-platform/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Tilde.news
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/classic-sysadmin-how-to-rescue-a-non-booting-grub-2-on-linux Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/raising-artificial-intelligences-like-children Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: PeerJ blog
https://peerj.com/blog/post/115284888794/article-spotlight-experimental-trials-of-species-specific-bat-flight-responses-to-an-ultrasonic-deterrent/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
California is on the cusp of putting the fast-food industry into a curious economic experiment.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/will-20-minimum-wage-crush-fast-food-in-california/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Heatmap News
Last September, Jeanie Ward-Waller, a deputy director at California’s state transportation department, was called into her supervisor’s office and told she was being removed from her role, no explanation given. But Ward-Waller thinks she knows what happened.
A few weeks earlier, she’d threatened to blow the whistle on the agency for a highway repaving project that she believed was covertly — and illegally — going to widen the road. Under state law, highway expansions require environmental review and public input. It was also exactly the kind of project the agency was supposedly moving away from, according to its climate action plan, which said it would prioritize alternative forms of transit.
“Caltrans leaders believe they are widening highways in the public interest, despite decades of empirical research proving otherwise, and the agency’s own policies requiring solutions that reduce driving,” Ward-Waller wrote in an essay for the San Francisco Chronicle after leaving the agency.
Ward-Waller’s firing riled up climate advocates and sustainable transit proponents, and not just in California. (Multiple people I interviewed for this story mentioned it to me.) State transportation agencies all over the country are stuck in this kind of outdated thinking, critics say. Transportation is the biggest source of emissions in the U.S., and one of the only sectors where emissions grew last year. But most state transportation agencies are still funneling most of their budgets into road expansion projects. Few have taken on addressing climate change as part of their mission.
“State departments of transportation are kind of the next frontier for climate advocacy to conquer,” Justin Balik, the state program director for Evergreen Action told me. “There’s a lot of blue states where the transportation decisions are still divorced from the climate conversation.”
It’s a pivotal moment to change that, Balik argued. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, signed in 2021, has been sending billions of dollars of flexible funding into states for transportation projects. The Biden administration will also soon begin requiring these agencies to set greenhouse gas reduction targets. Although the targets are non-binding and states won’t be penalized for failing to achieve them, they will have to regularly report on their progress.
States have until February 1 to submit their initial plans to the federal Department of Transportation. So on Monday, climate and clean transportation advocates around the country sent letters to the governors of 22 states urging them to set targets consistent with reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. The letters ask officials to consider what’s achievable both through vehicle electrification and by reducing highway expansion.
“Electrification is critical and essential, but it’s not enough, just looking at the math, in terms of how long it’s going to take for the vehicle fleet to turn over,” said Balik. “We need to think about the transportation system holistically and stop digging the hole deeper when we’re making transportation investment decisions.”
He directed me to a report published by the Georgetown Climate Center after the infrastructure law passed. The policy think tank modeled two scenarios, one where about a third of the $600 billion of flexible funding went to highway expansion, and one where states put more toward public transit and road maintenance. It found that the first scenario would increase emissions 1.6% by 2032, compared to business-as-usual, whereas the second would enable deeper emissions cuts — 1.3% more — than would otherwise have been expected with market forces and existing policies.
The reason is an effect called “induced demand,” and it’s at the center of this whole story. When state departments of transportation evaluate projects, they use models that assume building new roads or adding lanes increases the flow of traffic — thereby reducing congestion and reducing emissions. But real-world evidence has shown that expanding highways, especially in dense areas, actually encourages more people to drive — and within a few years, the traffic is just as bad as before.
“They’re vastly overestimating the benefits of expansion projects,” Miguel Moravec, a senior associate at RMI told me. “If the models are not capturing the reality that expanded lanes lead to more traffic, then you can’t really seriously engage with the pollution problem.”
The modeling is a symptom of a more entrenched issue. State Departments of Transportation are big agencies that can have thousands of staff, many of whom have been in their roles for decades. (Caltrans, for example, has more than 22,000 people.) The culture of these offices is built around an old paradigm where the primary metric of performance is to relieve traffic congestion — to help people drive places more quickly and easily.
“There’s a new movement to say, maybe it’s about helping people get to where they need to go efficiently, affordably, and safely,” Matt Frommer, the senior transportation advocate at the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, told me. “But that is a really hard shift to make in a giant institution like a state DOT. Because all of the models and all of the policies and funding decision processes have been set up around the old paradigm.”
Even in places where that’s beginning to shift, there are still long-term challenges. California, for example, has had a law on the books for a decade that says the state must assess the impacts of transportation projects by measuring the amount of driving they induce or reduce — not by their effect on congestion. But local advocates like Jamie Pew, a climate advisor at NextGen Policy, say this has failed to move the state meaningfully away from highway expansion.
Ward-Waller’s firing brought long-simmering criticisms of the state’s climate strategy to a boil, he said. “For all of the money that we’re investing in new transit infrastructure, electrification, and green mobility options, as long as we continue to invest in freeway expansion, we’re not going to see the progress in emissions that we need to see.”
There are a few states that are starting to do things differently. Colorado, for example, has seen a significant shift in the way the state approaches transportation projects. In 2021, the state legislature passed a law directing its transportation agency to set regional greenhouse gas reduction targets and incorporate them into project planning. Frommer said the new approach has already resulted in real changes. In 2022, the state scrapped a long-planned highway expansion through downtown Denver after it was found that it would undermine the agency’s targets.
“That freed up hundreds of millions, if not over a billion dollars for other multimodal projects to help enable transit, biking and walking,” said Frommer.
The state that is leading the nation in innovative transportation policy, however, is Minnesota. Like Colorado, it has transportation-specific greenhouse gas targets. But it also has a specific goal to reduce “vehicle miles traveled” — a measure of how much people drive. Last year, lawmakers passed a big transportation package that gave more teeth to these goals, requiring the state’s DOT take them into account in decision making. It also went a step further and said that if the agency moves forward with any projects that induce demand, it has to offset them with additional projects that get people out of their cars.
The new federal rule requiring state transportation departments to report on their progress achieving declining greenhouse gas targets could help nudge more states in this direction. As climate advocates tell me on a weekly basis, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
https://heatmap.news/politics/state-traffic-emissions-bil-targets Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A Florida man has chosen the next cultural wars flashpoint he will rally behind in an effort to mobilize the 2024 US presidential electorate: central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/trump_cbdc_comments/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A Florida man has chosen the next cultural wars flashpoint he will rally behind in an effort to mobilize the 2024 US presidential electorate: central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/florida_man_touts_cbdc_conspiracy/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Recent uptick in borrowing damages progress made during pandemic
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/jill-on-money-credit-card-debt-resurfaces/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
A huge ranch in south San Jose could be preserved as open space and a natural habitat as a result of a new real estate deal.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/san-jose-ranch-real-estate-open-space-nature-park-animal-environment/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
A suspect is being sought in the fatal shooting Sunday morning of a Brentwood man in East Oakland.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/man-fatally-shot-in-east-oakland-59/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-01-22, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
I re-watched Silver Linings Playbook over the weekend. I love Jennifer Lawrence, and this is a pure JL showcase. But the best moment was stolen by Robert DeNiro who is batshit crazy like most of the characters in the movie when he tells his son in two sentences about our purpose on the planet, which of course is to love Jennifer Lawrence. ❤️
http://scripting.com/2024/01/22.html#a153853 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: 404 Media Group
Wikipedia’s highly specific and pedantic editing culture and expansive copyright ethos extends to dick pics and porn.
https://www.404media.co/wikimedias-pornographers/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: 404 Media Group
Palworld is not the Pokémon game of your dreams, but it’s awesome.
https://www.404media.co/palworld-gave-bootleg-pikachu-a-glock-and-sold-5-million-copies-instantly/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Om Malik blog
When I finished reading this (must-read) wonderful profile of Bell Labs, the singular most iconic research institution of the modern era, I was left wondering — just because you invent the future, it doesn’t mean you get to enjoy the benefits from it, nor does it guarantee that future generations will remember your contributions. For decades, …
https://om.co/2024/01/22/bell-labs-google-same-sad-story/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-01-22, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
For some reason only now am I realizing the incredible sing-along qualities of Grateful Dead songs like St Stephen or Uncle John’s Band.
http://scripting.com/2024/01/22.html#a153158 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Open source burnout has reared its head once again, this time in relation to the Rust project. However, the issue is not new, nor are the solutions.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/rust_project_burnout/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-01-22, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Why isn’t there a karaoke website where I can sing along with Ripple with the lyrics scrolling by. Could we do it together over the internet? It probably doesn’t exist because of Hollywood tightasses. But surely there must be some uncopyrighted music we could try this. Hey I bet it actually exists. Send me a link.
http://scripting.com/2024/01/22.html#a152906 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Air taxi developer Archer Aviation has announced a new partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which will initiate their mutual research into future advanced air mobility (AAM) applications with what they see as the lynchpin of the new tech’s performance – powerful but safe batteries.
https://dronedj.com/2024/01/22/archer-nasa-link-up-on-future-aam-uses-starts-with-enhanced-battery-capacities/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
Also on today’s Critical Materials roundup: Japan’s Panasonic mounts a comeback, and EVs return to the Super Bowl.
https://insideevs.com/news/705572/stellantis-tesla-critical-materials/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-planning-to-testify-in-defamation-damages-trial/7450044.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/0043807-recharge-2023-2024-instal Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Musk’s visit at the most notorious site of the horrors of the Holocaust came before a scheduled appearance later Monday at a conference on antisemitism organized by the European Jewish Association in the nearby Polish city of Krakow.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/elon-musk-visits-auschwitz-after-uproar-over-antisemitic-messages-on-x/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Acura’s first EV will begin rolling out in the US this spring. Ahead of its official launch, Acura revealed 2024 ZDX prices will start at $64,500 (plus destination fee). That’s more than the Cadillac Lyriq it’s based on. Is it worth the cost?
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/acura-reveals-2024-zdx-prices-first-all-electric-vehicle/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
If you like your Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, you get to keep your Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in Ford’s software future.
https://insideevs.com/news/705467/ford-lincoln-apple-carplay-android/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Ayjay blog
The Vikings was the first movie I ever saw — not in a standard movie theater, but some years after its release, at a drive-in. I remember being at once bemused and excited by the rituals of finding a parking place, hanging the speaker over the car door .. and the movie itself? I adored […]
https://blog.ayjay.org/head-start/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Critics are accusing major tech companies of not sticking to the rules when it comes to registering vulnerabilities with the appropriate authorities.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/ivanti_and_juniper_networks_criics_unhappy/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-01-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Knowledge Management for the win.
https://www.zeldman.com/2024/01/22/knowledge-management-for-the-win/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
“We want to invest taxpayer resources in scientific discovery, technology development, and space exploration – not in maintaining infrastructure we no longer need,” said NASA administrator Charles Bolden.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/nasa-ames-builds-the-future-whats-next/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
A reader shares travel tips for visiting Croatia’s most famous city.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/wish-you-were-here-reporting-in-from-old-town-dubrovnik/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Golfbreak’s recent list of the top links destinations in the country include several California hot spots.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/top-10-golf-resorts-in-the-u-s-include-a-northern-california-jewel/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Steady rainfall overnight spilled into Monday morning as the Bay Area woke up to wet roadways ahead of the commuting hours.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/heavy-rainfall-hits-bay-area-overnight-causing-residual-impacts-to-occur-according-to-national-weather-service/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Tesla has finally started releasing its FSD Beta v12 update to customers, which is sort of its last hope to deliver on its self-driving promises.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/tesla-releases-fsd-v12-last-hope-self-driving/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Europe and the US say that Chinese EV development is running wild
and unchecked and on the verge of overwhelming the global market with,
well, EVs the rest of the world can’t compete with. But now China has
said it will “rein in” some of its huge EV expansion in response to
criticism of “unfair” industrial and trade policies.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/china-says-it-will-rein-in-the-flood-of-evs-coming-our-way/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
The C8 gets a carbon frame and intelligent features such as anti-theft and Google Maps integration.
https://insideevs.com/news/705473/tezeus-c8-carbon-electric-ebike/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Is it a wildlife spy? A rodent with an ulterior motive? Or is something else going on?
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/22/san-jose-couple-asks-why-does-this-squirrel-keep-staring-at-us/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A plugin and library to permit the control of Haier, Candy, and Hoover appliances recently received takedown requests from Haier Europe’s Security and Governance department.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/haier_plugin_takedown/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Propella has long been known for its eye-catching blue and black commuter e-bikes that prioritize a simple and lightweight design over flashy features and bulky accessories. They’ve also always been pedal assist-only bikes, at least until now. The company has just launched the Propella MINI MAX as a throttle-enabled electric utility bike.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/propella-mini-max-launched-as-899-electric-utility-bike-finally-with-a-throttle/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
The 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 6 now starts at $36,065, a full $4,565 less than the 2024 Tesla Model 3.
https://insideevs.com/news/705434/hyundai-ioniq-6-7500-incentive/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The LockBit ransomware gang is claiming an attack on submarine sandwich slinger Subway, alleging it has made off with a platter of data.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/subways_data_toasted_by_lockbit/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Guam Daily Post
Childbirth can be a very painful experience, one that can last hours. That’s why some laboring women turn to pain medication. But on Monday, the Guam Memorial Hospital Authority confirmed that they were out of first line pain medication for…
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/hospital-out-of-first-line-pain-medication-for-laboring-moms/article_b5c202b6-b8d0-11ee-a759-730f4ed5f5fd.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Guam Daily Post
Child Protective Services has seen an increase in referrals since the COVID-19 pandemic and while officials don’t believe more children are being abused, they did confirm that drug use is a contributing factor in many “if not all cases.”
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/cps-sees-increase-in-referrals-a-number-related-to-drug-use/article_10cdbdc4-b8c4-11ee-b658-9fa08452fe87.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Guam Daily Post
A man faces five years in federal prison after pleading guilty to his involvement in a cyberstalking investigation.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/man-pleads-guilty-in-cyberstalking-case/article_beb44504-b8cc-11ee-8935-1f9f0e909af1.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Guam Daily Post
Attorney General Douglas Moylan is requesting that his employees not testify about the investigation and prosecution of two Department of Public Health and Social Services officials facing corruption charges.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/oag-files-a-motion-to-protect-employees-from-testifying-in-dphss-corruption-case/article_342abb42-b8be-11ee-ae49-0f87fc3c7b1f.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Guam Daily Post
It appears that the Guam Racing Federation will be able to submit an unsolicited proposal regarding the use of the former Guam International Raceway in Yigo, property owned by the Chamorro Land Trust Commission.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/guam-racing-federation-can-submit-unsolicited-proposal-for-raceway-use/article_edee1404-b8c1-11ee-b161-e319207d68c2.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Guam Daily Post
Lawmakers on Monday shot down an attempt to add the measure abolishing the Sinajana vice mayor position onto the session agenda, Bill 230-37.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/a-bill-to-eliminate-vice-mayor-position-fails-to-make-agenda/article_4fac024c-b8cb-11ee-a827-bf436872dcda.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: An ice storm has snarled traffic in parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma • Rescue teams are working in freezing temperatures to rescue victims of a landslide in China • Half of Australia’s states are under heat warnings.
Storm Isha battered the United Kingdom and parts of Europe with hurricane-force winds and heavy rain over the weekend. More than 200,000 homes lost power and hundreds of flights were canceled or rerouted. At one point a tornado watch was issued for the whole of Ireland and parts of Scotland. The storm also hit parts of France and the Netherlands, and about 68,000 customers were without power in Amsterdam. Germany is expected to hit a new wind power record just one month after breaking its previous record in December. The U.K. usually expects up to nine named storms in a year; Isha is the region’s ninth named storm in just five months.
A home flooded by Storm Isha in Carlisle, U.K.Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
ExxonMobil
filed
a lawsuit against environmental activists who are using a
shareholder resolution to push the oil giant to more aggressively cut
its planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The company accused the
shareholders from activist-investor groups Follow This and Arjuna
Capital of having an “extreme agenda” and wants their proposal removed
from the ballot so it cannot be voted on at the annual investor meeting.
The lawsuit is “highly unusual,”
explained
Kevin Crowley at Bloomberg Green, because large companies
typically have to appeal to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
if they want to block individual shareholder motions. A legal judgment
in Exxon’s favor “could have a chilling effect on shareholder
petitions,”
said
the Financial Times.
Until recently, companies were
allowed to exclude shareholder proposals that demanded climate timelines
and targets. The SEC nixed this rule in 2021 and since then the number
of environmental social shareholder proposals voted on has
increased
by 125%.
In case you missed it: Ford is cutting production of
its electric pickup truck, the F-150 Lightning, to 1,600 models per
week, down from 3,200. The company announced the news late last week,
saying it wanted its output to better match market demand.
Quartz
suggested
this was code for “people don’t like electric trucks as much as we
thought they did.” And indeed, Ford is ramping up production of its
gas-powered Bronco and Raptor vehicles. Kelley Blue Book analysts
told
the FT that the EV slowdown is real, but followed that up by
saying that “the EV market in the U.S. is still growing.” Stellantis CEO
Carlos Tavares urged automakers to avoid triggering a “race to the
bottom” by reducing prices to boost sales, and singled out
Tesla.
All this push-pull is happening at the same time that
the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to firm up
stringent
new emissions rules that would result in nearly 70% of all new
vehicles in 2032 being electric. Major automakers say the rules are
unreasonable, Reuters
reported,
while environmentalists, Democratic lawmakers, and – naturally – Tesla
want to see them go ahead.
The company promising to build the world’s first large-scale green steel manufacturing plant has raised $5.17 billion in new funding, bringing its total to about $7 billion. H2 Green Steel is building a plant in Sweden that can make steel using hydrogen produced from renewable electricity, eliminating the need for coal and reducing manufacturing emissions by 95%. The company hopes to have the plant up and running by 2025 and produce 5 million metric tons of green steel by 2030. As Canary Media noted, “that’s just a fraction of the nearly 2 billion metric tons of steel produced globally each year,” but still, the factory “would be a milestone for the push to decarbonize steel.” H2 says it has already sold half the initial yearly volumes of steel it will make. The steelmaking industry produces somewhere between 7% and 9% of global human-caused carbon emissions.
Grocery stores are reportedly starting to use artificial intelligence to help reduce food waste. The inefficent chore of finding, pricing, and positioning older products takes up a lot of workers’ time, costs supermarkets revenue, and results in wasted food. And since food waste accounts for between 8% and 10% of greenhouse gas emissions, selling more food before it goes bad is an admirable quest. A Danish company called Too Good To Go has developed AI software that can help stores optimize discounts on food items that are nearing their expiration date to improve sales. International supermarket chain SPAR is already using the tool.
In China, customers who buy luxury EVs sold by BYD brand Yangwang get a special “delivery ceremony” that includes balloons, flowers, and a car key wrapped in a gift box.
https://heatmap.news/climate/exxon-activist-investor-lawsuit Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: NASA breaking news
Arp 300 consists of two interacting galaxies, UGC 05028 (the smaller face-on spiral galaxy) and UGC 05029 (the larger face-on spiral). Likely due to its gravitational dance with its larger partner, UGC 05028 has an asymmetric, irregular structure, which is not as visible from ground-based telescopes but is quite distinct in this new image from […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-observes-an-askew-galaxy-coaxing-star-formation-from-its-partner/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-01-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Ford’s new 48-inch digital dashboard is a lot of Android for one car.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/22/24045932/ford-android-screen-display-size-os-apps-gaming-lincoln Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Panasonic, makers of batteries for Tesla in the US, is delaying its
plan to build a third battery plant in North America, according to
Reuters.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/panasonic-cools-on-idea-for-third-us-plant-for-tesla-batteries/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/01/22/headline-review-january-22-2024-edition/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Scrutiny of Boeing planes have grown beyond the 737 Max 9, the aircraft that was thrust into the spotlight following the Alaska Airlines accident earlier this month. The Federal Aviation Administration has urged airlines to inspect some older 737 model with the same door plug designs as the Max 9. We’ll explore what’s at stake. Plus, higher interest rates and the troubled commercial real estate are piling pressure onto regional banks.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/yet-another-headache-for-boeing Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-01-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Will a Trump Trial Happen in Time?
https://politicalwire.com/2024/01/22/will-a-trump-trial-happen-in-time/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
British MPs have written to the country’s Treasury to demand details of all public sector contracts with Fujitsu as the Japanese tech supplier struggles in the wake of the Horizon Post Office Scandal.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/uk_lawmakers_ask_treasury_for/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Peoples CDC blog
This is the @PeoplesCDC weekly update for January 22, 2024! This Weather Report from the People’s CDC sheds light on the ongoing COVID situation in the US.
https://peoplescdc.org/2024/01/22/peoples-cdc-covid-19-weather-report-66/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The LAist
In her first week in office, Mayor Karen Bass exempted new low-income housing from lengthy environmental challenges. Why is the city now accepting appeals?
https://laist.com/news/housing-homelessness/los-angeles-ed1-mayor-karen-bass-executive-directive-affordable-housing-city-ceqa-appeals-environmental-review-sawtelle Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Markup blog
Children start making digital footprints long before they can walk—but parents can help slow the process down
https://themarkup.org/gentle-january/2024/01/22/keep-your-kids-personal-info-off-the-internet Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Ford today has officially announced its new next-generation in-car infotainment system. While Ford is doubling down on its own native experience, it’s also expanding its commitment to CarPlay.
I had a chance to visit Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan last week for a sneak preview of the new “Ford and Lincoln Digital Experience.” Here’s what you need to know…
https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/22/ford-new-digital-experience-with-carplay/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog
Today’s links Boeing, Spirit and Jetblue, a monopoly horror-story: 43 years later, Reagan’s other shoe drops. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Boeing, Spirit and Jetblue, a monopoly horror-story (permalink) Last week, William Young, an 82 year old federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan, blocked the merger of Spirit Airlines and Jetblue. It was a seismic event: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.254267/gov.uscourts.mad.254267.461.0_6.pdf Seismic because the judge’s opinion is full of rhetoric associated with the surging antitrust revival, sneeringly dismissed by corporate apologists as “hipster antitrust.” Young called America’s airlines and “oligopoly,” a situation he blamed on out-of-control mergers. As Matt Stoller writes, this is the first airline merger to be blocked by the DOJ and DOT since deregulation in 1978: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-enforcers-block-the-jetblue The judge wasn’t shy about why he was reviving a pre-Jimmy Carter theory of antitrust: “[the merger] does violence to the core principle of antitrust law, ‘to protect] markets –- and its market participants — from anticompetitive harm.” The legal arguments the judge advances are fascinating and worthy of study: https://twitter.com/johnmarknewman/status/1747343447227519122 But what really caught my eye was David Dayen’s American Prospect article about the judge’s commentary on the state of the aviation industry: https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/01-19-2024-how-boeing-ruined-the-jetblue-spirit-merger/ Why, after all, have Spirit and Jetblue been so ardent in pursuing mergers? Jetblue has had two failed merger attempts with Virgin, and this is the third time they’ve failed in an attempt to merge with Spirit. Spirit, meanwhile, just lost a bid to merge with Frontier. Why are these two airlines so obsessed with combining with each other or any other airline that will have them? As Dayen explains, it’s because US aviation has been consumed by monopoly, hollowed out to the point of near collapse, thanks to neoliberal policies at every part of the aviation supply-chain. For one thing, there’s just not enough pilots, nor enough air-traffic controllers (recall that Reagan’s first major act in office was to destroy the air traffic controller’s union). But even more importantly, there are no more planes. Boeing’s waitlist for airplane delivery stretches to 2029. And Boeing is about to deliver a lot fewer planes, thanks to its disastrous corner-cutting, which grounded a vast global fleet of 737 Max aircraft (again): https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-01-09-boeing-737-max-financial-mindset/ The 737 disaster(s) epitomize the problems of inbred, merger-obsessed capitalism. As Luke Goldstein wrote, the rampant defects in Boeing’s products can be traced to the decision to approve Boeing’s 1997 merger with McDonnell-Douglas, a company helmed by Jack Welch proteges, notorious for cost-cutting at the expense of reliability: https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-01-09-boeing-737-max-financial-mindset/ Boeing veterans describe the merger as the victory of the bean-counters, which led to a company that chases short-term profits over safety and even the viability of its business: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=213075 After all, the merger turned Boeing into the single largest exporter in America, a company far too big to fail, teeing up tens of billions from Uncle Sucker, who also account for 40% of Boeing’s income: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/its-time-to-nationalize-and-then The US government is full of ex-Boeing execs, just as Boeing’s executive row is full of ex-US federal aviation regulators. Bill Clinton’s administration oversaw the creation of Boeing’s monopoly in the 1990s, but it was the GOP that rescued Boeing the first time the 737 Maxes started dropping out of the sky. Boeing’s biggest competitor is the state-owned Airbus, a joint venture whose major partners are the governments of France, Spain and Germany – governments that are at least theoretically capable of thinking about the public good, not short-term profits. Boeing’s largest equity stakes are held by the Vanguard Group, Vanguard Group subfiler, Newport Trust Company, and State Street Corporation: https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-01-18-airbus-advantage/ As Matt Stoller says, America has an airline that the public bails out, protects, and subsidizes but has no say over. Boeing has all the costs of public ownership and none of the advantages. It’s the epitome of privatized gains and socialized losses. This is Reagan’s other legacy, besides the disastrous shortage of air-traffic controllers. The religious belief in deregulation – especially deregulation of antitrust enforcement – leads to a deregulated market. It leads to a market that is regulated by monopolists who secretly deliberate, behind closed board-room doors, and are accountable only to their shareholders. These private regulators are unlike government regulators, who are at least nominally bound by obligations to transparency and public accountability. But they share on thing in common with those public regulators: when they fuck up, the public has to pay for their mistakes. It’s a good thing Boeing’s executives are too big to fail, because they fail constantly. Boeing execs who are warned by subcontractors of dangerous defects in their planes order those subcontractors to lie, or lose their contracts: https://www.levernews.com/boeing-supplier-ignored-warnings-of-excessive-amount-of-defects-former-employees-allege/ As a result of Boeing’s mismanagement, America’s only aircraft supplier steadily has lost ground to Airbus, which today enjoys a 2:1 advantage over Boeing. But it’s not just Boeing that’s the weak link aviation. US aviation is a chain entirely composed of weak links. Take jet engines: Pratt & Whitney are Spirit’s major engine supplier, but these engines suck as much as Boeing’s fuselages. Much of Spirit’s fleet is chronically grounded because the engines don’t run. The reason Spirit buys its engines from those loveable goofballs at Pratt & Whitney? The Big Four airlines have bought all the engines for sale from other suppliers, leaving smaller airlines to buy their engines from fat-fingered incompetents. This is why – as Dayen notes – smaller US airlines are so horny for intermarriage. They can’t grow by adding routes, because there are no pilots. Even if they could get pilots, there’d be no slots because there are no air traffic controllers. But even if they could get pilots and slots, there are no planes, because Boeing sucks and Airbus can’t make planes fast enough to supply the airlines that don’t trust Boeing. And even if they could get aircraft, there are no engines because the Big Four aviation cartel cornered the market on working jet engines. Part of Jetblue and Spirit’s pitch was that they hand off the routes that they’d cut after their merger to other small airlines, like Frontier and Allegiant. But Frontier and Allegiant can’t service those routes: they don’t have pilots, slots, planes or engines. Spirit hasn’t been profitable since 2019 and is sitting on $4b in debt. Jetblue was proposing to finance its acquisition with another $3.5b in debt. The resulting airline could only be profitable by sharply cutting routes and massively raising prices, cutting 6.1m seats/year. With a debt:capital ratio of 111%, the company would have no slack and would need a bailout any time anything went wrong. Not coincidentally, the Big Four airlines also have debt:capital ratios of about 100-120%, and they do get bailouts ever time anything goes wrong. As William McGee reminds us, it’s been 14 years since anyone’s started a new US airline: https://twitter.com/WilliamJMcGee/status/1747363491445375072 US aviation is deeply cursed. But Boeing’s self-disassembling aircraft show us why we can’t fix it by allowing mergers: private monopolies, shorn of the discipline of competition and regulation, are extraction machines that turn viable businesses into debt-wracked zombies. This is a subject that’s beautifully illustrated in Dayen’s 2020 book Monopolized, in the chapter on health care: https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu The US health care system has been in trouble for a long time, but the current nightmare starts with the deregulation of pharma. Pharma companies interbred with one another in a string of incestuous marriages that produced these dysfunctional behemoths that were far better at shifting research costs to governments and squeezing customers than they were at making drugs. The pharma giants gouged hospitals for their products, and in response, hospitals underwent their own cousin-fucking merger orgy, producing regional monopolies that were powerful enough to resist pharma’s price-hikes. But in growing large enough to resist pharma profiteering, the hospitals also became powerful enough to screw over insurers. Insurers then drained their own gene pool by combining with one another until most of us have three or fewer insurers we can sign up with – companies that are both big enough to refuse hospital price-hikes, and to hike premiums on us. Thus monopoly begets monopoly: with health sewn up by monopolies in medical tech, drugs, pharmacy benefit managers, insurance, and hospitals, the only easy targets for goosing profits are people: https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/05/hillrom/#baxter-international This is how you get a US medical system that costs more than any other rich nation’s system to operate, delivers worse outcomes than those other systems, and treats medical workers worse than any other wealthy country. Now, rich people can still buy their way out of this mess, but you have to be very rich indeed to buy your way out of the commercial aviation system. There’s a lot of 1%ers who fly commercial, and they’re feeling the squeeze – and there’s no way they’re leasing their own jets. Stein’s Law holds that “anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop.” America’s aviation mergers – in airlines, aircraft and engines – have hollowed out the system. The powerful, brittle companies that control aviation have so much power over their workforce that they’ve turned air traffic controller and pilot into jobs that no one wants – and they used their bailout money to buy out the most senior staff’s contracts, sending them to early retirement. Now, I’m with the people who say that most of US aviation should be replaced with high-speed rail, but that’s not why our technocrats and finance barons have gutted aviation. They did it to make a quick buck. A lot of quick bucks. Now the system is literally falling to pieces in midair. Now the system is literally on fire: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/19/us/miami-boeing-plane-engine-fire.html Which is how you get a Reagan appointed federal judge issuing an opinion that has me punching the air and shouting, “Yes, comrade! To the barricades!” Anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop. When the system is falling to pieces around you, ideology disintegrates like a 737 Max. (Image: Vitaly Druchenok, CC BY-SA 4.0; Joe Ravi, CC BY-SA 3.0; modified) Hey look at this (permalink) Penguin Classics (1984) Triband sweater https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/penguin-classics-1984-triband-sweater (h/t Kottke) The No AI Fraud Act Creates Way More Problems Than It Solves https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/no-ai-fraud-act-creates-way-more-problems-it-solves Another Hollywood strike? Musicians union ‘prepared to do whatever it needs’ for AI protections and streaming residuals https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/20/business/musicians-union-streaming-residuals-ai/index.html This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago Vote absentee, avoid Diebold machines http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2004/01/22/avoid_diebold_register_absentee.html #20yrsago Air travel “security” as theater of the absurd https://web.archive.org/web/20040130200202/https://idlewords.com/2004/01/security_as_theater.htm #20yrsago GOP electronically burgled Dems’ computers https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2004/01/3327-2/ #20yrsago Milne heirs don’t own Pooh https://web.archive.org/web/20040211100427/http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2004-01/22/11.45.film #20yrsago DVD cartel backs off, EFF wins, DVD keys aren’t “secret” https://www.eff.org/cases/dvdcca-v-bunner-and-dvdcca-v-pavlovich #20yrsago RIP, Whole Earth Review https://web.archive.org/web/20040202031838/https://www.worldchanging.com/archives/000338.html #15yrsago Media helped create the financial meltdown https://web.archive.org/web/20090125204013/http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/23/the_medias_role_in_the_financial_crisis/ #15yrsago Monty Python’s free web video increased DVD sales by 23,000 percent https://mashable.com/archive/youtube-boost-sales #15yrsago National Film Board of Canada puts its archives online, free https://www.nfb.ca/explore-all-films/ #10yrsago Animal Planet’s “nature” shows: whistleblowers detail crimes, animal cruelty, fakery https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/01/animal-abuse-drugs-call-of-the-wildman-animal-planet/ #10yrsago Teach your rooted Android phones to lie to apps about whether it’s rooted https://lifehacker.com/rootcloak-hides-root-access-from-specific-applications-1505596942 #10yrsago Eyes on the Prize, famed civil rights documentary series, is back on DVD and Youtube https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/eyesontheprize/ #10yrsago One Soul: 18 interwoven lives in a graphic novel that pushes the boundaries https://memex.craphound.com/2014/01/22/one-soul-18-interwoven-lives-in-a-graphic-novel-that-pushes-the-boundaries/ #10yrsago Ukraine government sends text to protesters: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance” https://memex.craphound.com/2014/01/23/ukraine-government-sends-text-to-protesters-dear-subscriber-you-are-registered-as-a-participant-in-a-mass-disturbance/ #10yrsago What Makes Jo Walton So Great https://www.tor.com/2014/01/21/what-makes-jo-walton-so-great/ #5yrsago After Net Neutrality repeal, Comcast, Charter and Verizon cut investment in their networks https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/sorry-ajit-comcast-lowered-cable-investment-despite-net-neutrality-repeal/ #5yrsago Data-broker implicated in bounty-hunters’ access to mobile location data lobbied FCC to fight consent for sharing location data https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbwgw8/zumigo-phone-location-data-sold-lobbied-fcc-consent #5yrsago Limits to trickle-down: Trump’s tax-cut “boom” fizzles https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/23/business/investment-boom-tax-cuts-economy/index.html #5yrsago Corporate America projects giant profits from climate disasters https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/muggy-disney-parks-downed-at-t-towers-firms-tally-climate-risk #5yrsago After six days, LA teachers settle their strike, wringing huge concessions out of the school district https://jacobin.com/2019/01/la-teachers-strike-contract-arlene-inouye/ #5yrsago Winners Take All: the Davos Edition (how elites launder looting with phoney philanthropy) https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/22/the-new-elites-phoney-crusade-to-save-the-world-without-changing-anything #5yrsago How a political outsider’s fundraising tool is helping insurgent, working-class Dems mount primary challenges and campaigns https://theintercept.com/2019/01/23/grassroots-analytics-campaign-donations/ #5yrsago Senator Mark Warner’s Stop STUPIDITY Act would protect federal employees’ pay during shutdowns https://www.scribd.com/document/398006535/Stop-the-Shutdowns-Transferring-Unnecessary-Pain-and-Inflicting-Damage-In-The-Coming-Years-Act #5yrsago Republican Arizona lawmaker revives doomed “porn tax” to fund Trump’s doomed border-wall https://www.vice.com/en/article/gyapwj/arizona-porn-blocking-bill-trump-border-wall #5yrsago An annotated bibliography of anarchism in science fiction https://www.anarchysf.com #5yrsago The sad history of Livejournal as a lens for understanding the state of social media today https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/the-linux-of-social-media-how-livejournal-pioneered-then-lost-web-blogging/ #5yrsago Teen Vogue explainer: what are “resistance, rebellion, and revolution?” https://www.teenvogue.com/story/resistance-rebellion-revolution-explainer-interviews #5yrsago English and Welsh Ramblers have seven years left to catalogue the nation’s footpaths, or they will be absorbed into private lands https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/the-search-for-englands-forgotten-footpaths #5yrsago A list of all the booze in Casablanca (surprisingly long!) https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2019/01/booze-gin-joints-crazy-world/ #1yrago Walking the Plank https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/22/walking-the-plank/ #1yrago Eggflation is just more price-gouging https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/23/cant-make-an-omelet/#keep-calm-and-crack-on 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: What kind of bubble is AI? https://craphound.com/news/2024/01/21/what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/ Books & Books (Coral Gables, Florida), Jan 22 https://www.booksandbooks.com/event/in-person-an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ The Lost Cause at Otherland (Berlin), Jan 28 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/zusaetzlicher-autor-innenabend-mit-cory-doctorow.html?day=20240128×=1706466600,1706466600 Marshall McLuhan Lecture 2024 (Berlin), Jan 29 https://transmediale.de/en/2024/event/mcluhan-2024 The Lost Cause at Otherland (Berlin), Jan 30 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/autor-innenabend-mit-cory-doctorow.html The Bezzle at Third Place Books (Seattle), Feb 26 https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/cory-doctorow Tuscon Festival of Books, Mar 9/10 https://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/?id=676 Recent appearances: Internet Con (Bullseye) https://www.npr.org/2024/01/19/1197956508/bullseye-with-jesse-thorn-draft-01-19-2024 The Lost Cause (The Writer’s Voice) https://www.writersvoice.net/2024/01/cory-doctorow-the-lost-cause/ What the Future will Bring (Homeless Romantic) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Vq8qW2A8I 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/2024/01/22/anything-that-cant-go-on-forever/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It was a tricky weekend for techies – not only did Microsoft’s Azure Resource Manager fall over across the globe on January 21, 2024, local UK retailing giant Tesco also suffered an outage, cancelling multiple customer deliveries and orders due to “technical difficulties.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/a_weekend_of_outages_tesco_azure/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Designed to attract foreign business, Australia’s visa scheme was cut in an immigration overhaul after the government found it was “delivering poor economic outcomes.” Also on the program: A month-long fishing ban comes into force off the French Atlantic coast today. Then we’ll head to Bolivia, the world’s biggest exporter of Brazil nuts. But nut producers there are grappling with volatile prices.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/australia-axes-its-golden-visa-scheme-for-wealthy-investors Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-18, from: Bruce Schneier blog
You can find them by searching for OpenAI chatbot warning messages, like: “I’m sorry, I cannot provide a response as it goes against OpenAI’s use case policy.”
I hadn’t thought about this before: identifying bots by searching for distinctive bot phrases.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/01/ai-bots-on-x-twitter.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: RAND blog
Opposition to a Palestinian state stretches well beyond the office of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. Can American pressure change this?
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/01/netanyahu-may-be-standing-in-the-way-of-a-two-state-solution.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Inside EVs News
Ford has big plans for software in your car, including a high degree of customization—and making this stuff easy to use for everyone.
https://insideevs.com/news/705464/ford-lincoln-digital-experience-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Water treatment company Gradiant has won a contract to build a plant providing ultrapure water for a chip fabrication facility being constructed in Germany by an unnamed “large semiconductor manufacturer.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/german_chip_fab_gradiant/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Manu - I write blog
I’m currently taking part in Jason’s Letters experiment and I have to say that it’s a lot of fun. As I said to him, writing something that is usually meant to be private knowing that will be published somewhere is a weird feeling.
I like that it offers readers a glimpse into what corresponding with people online looks like. As I wrote many times before, if you want to engage with me, please do write me an email. I read every single one of them and I also try my best to reply to everyone. Sometimes life takes over and I forget but I really do try my best to reply because I believe it’s important to connect with others.
I also believe in kindness, in curiosity, in being open to learn about others and their lives. I love to know what you do, and what you’re passionate about so, again, if you want to make a new connection, please do get in touch.
https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/seUXWAPMJvdiy51Z Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Electrek Feed
Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous driving unit Waymo is looking to expand its driverless robotaxi service in Los Angeles, where it is currently testing rides. Although, in light of the fallout from Cruise, it might not be smooth sailing.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/22/waymo-looks-to-launch-full-fleet-of-robotaxis-in-la/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A financial services company that illegally dispatched tens of thousands of spam messages promising to help the recipients magically wipe away their debts is itself now a debtor to the UK’s data regulator.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/ico_fines_spam_slinging_financial/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: VOA News USA
The small northeastern U.S. state of New Hampshire holds its presidential primary Tuesday. The state, which prides itself on independence and creating havoc, takes on added interest with Sunday’s news that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ended his campaign, making it a two-person Republican contest. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti is there and explains how the Granite State could turn politics upside-down on Tuesday. VOA footage and video editing by Adam Greenbaum.
https://www.voanews.com/a/new-hampshire-voters-may-surprise-in-tuesday-primary/7449234.html Save to Pocket
@Tomosino’s Mastodon feed (date: 2024-01-22, from: Tomosino’s Mastodon feed)
oh no, our city-state lost the battles! just you wait until next season of cosplay war!
https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/111799177999408761 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Google has commenced construction of a $1 billion datacenter complex on the outskirts of London it says is needed to provide a reliable service to Google Cloud customers and users of Google in the UK.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/google_building_datacenter_campus_on/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>About 20 people spent their Saturday morning hiking back in time to explore the 5-year-long Maunaulu eruption as part of Volcano Awareness Month at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/hawaii-news/hvnp-observes-volcano-awareness-month-with-community-events/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>MANCHESTER, N.H. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his Republican presidential campaign on Sunday, ending his 2024 White House bid just before the New Hampshire primary while endorsing his bitter rival Donald Trump.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/nation-world-news/ron-desantis-ends-his-struggling-presidential-bid-before-new-hampshire-and-endorses-donald-trump/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The principal of Ernest Bowen de Silva Elementary School said he’s hoping that planning and design of a new classroom building for the overcrowded Hilo campus can be completed within a year.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/hawaii-news/expansion-in-the-works-for-overcrowded-hilo-elementary-school/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The fight over a planned cell tower in Hawaiian Ocean View Estates has ended before it ever began.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/hawaii-news/hove-residents-very-upset-over-cell-tower-approval/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>RAFAH, Gaza Strip — The Palestinian death toll from the war between Israel and Hamas has soared past 25,000, the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said Sunday, while Israel announced the death of another hostage and appeared far from achieving its goals of freeing more than 100 others and crushing the militant group.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/nation-world-news/palestinian-death-toll-in-gaza-surpasses-25000-while-israel-announces-the-death-of-another-hostage/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Subfreezing conditions and treacherous roadways have contributed to dozens of deaths this month across the U.S., where states as far south as Texas and Florida remain gripped by deadly arctic weather Sunday. But the numbing cold is expected to ease up in the coming days.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/nation-world-news/much-of-us-still-gripped-by-arctic-weather-as-memphis-deals-with-numerous-broken-water-pipes/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Moscow-installed officials said Ukrainian shelling killed at least 27 people and wounded 25 on Sunday at a market on the outskirts of Donetsk, a 
Russian-occupied city in the eastern part 
of the country.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/nation-world-news/at-least-27-people-are-reported-killed-in-an-attack-on-donetsk-in-russian-occupied-ukraine/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>WASHINGTON — When Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said recently that he was “proud” to have a hand in overturning the abortion protections enshrined in Roe v. Wade, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake took it as a political gift, thinking to herself, “Oh my God, we just won the election.”</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/nation-world-news/democrats-believe-abortion-will-motivate-voters-in-2024-will-it-be-enough/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his willingness to visit the North at an unspecified “early date” as the countries continue to align in the face of their separate, intensifying confrontations with the United States.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/nation-world-news/north-korea-stresses-alignment-with-russia-against-us-and-says-putin-could-visit-at-an-early-date/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>DETROIT — Jared Goff is good enough for Detroit, as his coach recently reminded him.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/sports/jared-goff-throws-2-td-passes-lions-advance-to-nfc-title-game-with-31-23-win-over-buccaneers/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — No matter the setting — Arrowhead Stadium or Orchard Park — Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs keep finding ways to beat Josh Allen and Buffalo Bills in the playoffs.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/sports/kelce-scores-twice-and-chiefs-beat-bills-27-24-to-advance-to-face-ravens-in-afc-championship/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>KA’UPULEHU-KONA — Almost everyone knows the common saying of “third time’s a charm.” But for New Zealand PGA TOUR Champions golfer Steven Alker, that motto came to life in West Hawaii over the weekend.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/sports/third-times-a-charm-alker-wins-2024-mitsubishi-electric-championship/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) — After getting outhustled and outshot for three quarters, the Los Angeles Clippers turned into a team possessed.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/sports/nba-roundup-leonard-scores-14-points-in-5-minutes-clippers-overcome-18-point-deficit-to-stun-nets-125-114/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Dry January is an exercise of abstaining from alcohol for the entirety of the first month of the year. For many, drinking alcohol during the holidays and the weeks leading up to the festive season is commonplace. Social drinking is widely considered a way to lighten the mood and bring people together.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/opinion/dry-january-allows-us-to-reboot-our-lives/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A father and son were arrested Friday after police executed a search warrant at a Hilo home.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/hawaii-news/domestic-assault-leads-to-arrest-of-father-son-at-hilo-home/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Police have identified the victim who died last week following an incident at the Mo‘oheau Bus Terminal in downtown Hilo as 34-year-old Jimmy Kaneala Clifford Carmichael of Hilo.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/22/hawaii-news/police-id-deceased-assault-victim-in-downtown-hilo-incident/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Robert Reich on Substack
Violence and threats of violence have become inherent to Trumpian politics
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/americas-brownshirts Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Looking for inspiration? Consider these 10 quests you can undertake to truly begin to master the Raspberry Pi.
The post 10 side quests for the rookie adventurer | #MagPiMonday appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/10-side-quests-for-the-rookie-adventurer-magpimonday/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Lever News
After a multimillion-dollar lobbying blitz, Wall Street firms got themselves exempted from anti-money-laundering requirements being imposed on small businesses.
https://www.levernews.com/the-oligarch-exemption-for-new-business-disclosure-rules/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Opinion Nine hundred people have had their lives blighted, even destroyed. One of the world’s oldest independent judicial systems has been perverted as a publicly owned company – the Post Office – used prosecutorial powers against postmasters. At the heart of it all is a brutal corporate cover-up of a broken IT system.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/opinion_column/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Guam Daily Post
Arthur San Agustin, the man who had been leading the Department of Public Health and Social Services, has retired from the department, the Office of the Governor announced Monday.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/san-agustin-out-of-public-health-now-special-assistant-for-governor/article_16e20dca-b8fe-11ee-86ad-936822ee2db8.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Daily Trojan features Classified advertising in each day’s edition. Here you can read, search, and even print out each day’s edition of the Classifieds.
The post Classifieds – January 22, 2024 appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/22/classifieds-january-22-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Exclusive Backup software vendor Veeam is doing early research on VMware alternative Proxmox, potentially with a view to creating a product to protect data created using the tool.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/veeam_proxmox_oracle_support/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Performers condemned social injustices in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The post Visions & Voices unfolds untold stories appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/22/visions-voices-unfolds-untold-stories/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
USC had a strong showing in College Station at the Ted Nelson Invitational.
The post Track and field runs away with six wins in Texas appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/22/usc-track-and-field-wins-nelson-invitational/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The University is putting style over substance in its planting efforts.
The post USC’s native landscaping is not actually sustainable appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/22/uscs-native-landscaping-is-not-actually-sustainable/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Professors feel the need to provide students with accommodations themselves.
The post Accessibility services unreachable, some say appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/22/accessibility-services-unreachable-some-say/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The band’s latest album is set to bolster their return to fame, but their time has passed.
The post ‘Saviors’ is Green Day’s newest nostalgic, machine-made mess appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/22/saviors-is-green-days-newest-nostalgic-machine-made-mess/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
More inclusive research could end the plague of knee injuries in women’s sports.
The post Sports medicine needs rehabilitation appeared first on Daily Trojan.
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date: 2024-01-22, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Community members discuss the possibility of marijuana reclassification.
The post FDA provides smoking gun in pot rescheduling appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/22/fda-provides-smoking-gun-in-pot-rescheduling/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
A unique strategy and sense of comradery enabled two teams to claim a first-place prize.
The post Trojan Chess Club takes tournament appeared first on Daily Trojan.
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date: 2024-01-22, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Descheduling marijuana is necessary for us to address systemic racial injustices.
The post Rescheduling cannabis won’t bring justice appeared first on Daily Trojan.
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date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Who, Me? Greetings and salutations, mighty reader, and welcome once again to Who, Me? in which Register readers like you share tales of the times your effort to deliver tech support went awry.…
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date: 2024-01-22, from: VOA News USA
State Department — The United States is committed to deepening and strengthening partnerships across Africa, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday, kicking off a four-nation tour on the continent to signal Washington’s interests there despite ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Blinken starts his fourth African trip this week, visiting Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Angola. Key priorities include bolstering security partnerships and enhancing health and economic development in the region.
Cabo Verde
In Cabo Verde’s capital, Praia, Blinken held talks Monday with Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva and visited the city’s port, Porto da Praia, which received funding for modernization efforts from the U.S. government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation.
“It is extraordinary that Cabo Verde is the first country to complete two Millennium Challenge Corporation compacts, and now you’re starting to build a third one,” said Blinken.
He also congratulated Cabo Verde’s malaria-free certification by the World Health Organization.
Millennium Challenge Compacts are grant agreements designed to fund specific programs that support economic growth.
Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva said Cabo Verde shares values of democracy and good governance with the U.S. in its foreign policy.
“We strongly condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we condemned the terrorist act of Hamas in Israel, and we defend solutions that make the two states of Israel and Palestine viable. We condemn coup d’etat and changes to constitutional term limits for presidents of the republic that have occurred in Africa.”
Cabo Verde is a small island nation that has a large diaspora in the United States.
The U.S. and Cabo Verde signed a Memorandum of Understanding on defense cooperation in December 2022, focusing on maritime security.
Soccer match in Ivory Coast
Later Monday, Blinken arrived in Abidjan, the largest city and the economic capital of Cote d’Ivoire, or Ivory Coast.
The chief U.S. diplomat’s trip to West Africa comes as Washington deepens its economic and security partnership in regions where China and Russia have made significant inroads.
Blinken watched a soccer match late Monday at the Chinese-built Alassane Ouattara Olympic Stadium, where the Ivory Coast, host of the Africa Cup of Nations, played against Equatorial Guinea in what is considered the most important football tournament in Africa.
Blinken’s visit to Ivory Coast is seen as reflecting U.S. interests in its stability and the country’s preparations for the 2025 presidential election. Blinken is scheduled to meet with President Alassane Ouattara on Tuesday. Food security is expected to be high on the agenda during the talks as well as during Blinken’s Tuesday meeting with the African Development Bank in Abidjan.
The U.S. and international community are concerned about stability in the Sahel sub-region of west Africa following several coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger since 2020.
Ivory Coast borders three countries that have experienced coups in recent years: Guinea in September 2021; Mali in both August 2020 and May 2021; and Burkina Faso in January and September of 2022.
The United States plans to provide $45 million in new funding to aid Ivory Coast and its neighbors in preventing conflict and promoting stability amid regional threats. This contribution brings the total U.S. stability-focused assistance in Coastal West Africa to nearly $300 million since 2022.
Regional security talks in Nigeria
Nigeria shares a border with Niger, where the military ousted its elected leader, Mohamed Bazoum, on July 26, 2023, and subsequently scrapped defense agreements with France, its traditional security partner. Bazoum remains under house arrest in Niamey.
In Abuja, Blinken is anticipated to discuss the military coup in Niger, coming just days after the country’s military junta agreed to enhance relations with Russia.
American officials have stated that while the U.S. is open to countries diversifying their partnerships, aligning with nations like Russia could be problematic. They point to the situation in Mali, where rising civilian casualties and security issues have followed Russian paramilitary Wagner Group’s involvement and France’s withdrawal.
The French military withdrawal from the Sahel and the end of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali last December have heightened concerns over regional security.
Nigeria is the largest country by population and economy in sub-Saharan Africa, and the dominant political, economic, and military power in the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS.
The United States is the largest foreign investor in Nigeria, and the U.S. maintains a significant security partnership with Nigeria in its counterterrorism operations against both Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa.
Angola and Luanda Process
In a Monday call, Blinken spoke to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Félix Tshisekedi and discussed the concerns of election observers as well as the need to enhance democratic confidence moving forward.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement that they also discussed the crisis in eastern DRC and potential diplomatic solutions.
Following a contentious December election, Tshisekedi, sworn in Saturday for a second term, pledged to unify the country and address conflicts in the east.
Worsening conflicts in eastern Congo have prompted countries in the region to broker two peace initiatives: the so-called Luanda Process and the Nairobi Process, according to Molly Phee, assistant secretary of state for African Affairs.
Increasing tensions between Rwanda and the DRC have led to several alleged attacks by Congolese and Rwandan forces on each other’s territory.
Angola leads the Luanda Process, where Blinken plans to hold talks with Angolan President Joao Lourenco and foreign minister Tete Antonio.
Last week, Blinken met with Rwandan President Paul Kagame on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he reiterated the need for all actors to take concrete steps to ease tensions.
Last November, Avril Haines, the director of U.S. national intelligence, traveled to both Kinshasa and Kigali, meeting with leaders from the two neighboring countries to secure a commitment to de-escalate tensions in eastern DRC.
“We were able to institute a process of weekly check-ins that we undertook through the end of calendar year 2023,” Phee told reporters during a Thursday briefing.
https://www.voanews.com/a/blinken-launching-four-nation-africa-trip/7449686.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The LAist
Survivors of the mass shooting danced at a banquet hall after a somber vigil.
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date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Huawei last week detailed a major release of its HarmonyOS that will see the Chinese giant break with the Linux ecosystem.…
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date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
AI In brief OpenAI CEO Sam Altman believes that a breakthrough in energy production is required to advance increasingly capable and power-hungry AI models.…
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date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
NASA regained contact with its Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, on Saturday two days after it lost communication as the vehicle descended from its most recent flight.…
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date: 2024-01-22, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision. By a 7–2 vote, the Supreme Court found that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed the right of privacy under its “concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action.” This right to privacy, the court said, guarantees a pregnant woman the right to obtain an abortion without restriction in the first trimester of a pregnancy. After that point, the state can regulate abortion, it said, “except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.”
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-21-2024 Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: VOA News USA
STANFORD, Calif. — Tara VanDerveer’s face shined in every corner of Maples Pavilion with that very message. Yes, the Stanford Hall of Famer now stands atop major college basketball as the winningest coach of all time.
“Today was just so wonderful,” VanDerveer said. Even though she had to text her 96-year-old mother, Rita, they’d need to cancel a scheduled bridge game because of all the postgame festivities to celebrate her. “It is a big number and I’m very appreciative of the great players I’ve coached and the great places I’ve been and the attention it’s brought to women’s basketball.”
Just as those who love her so hoped it would turn out, VanDerveer passed former Duke and Army coach Mike Krzyzewski with her 1,203rd career victory at home in Maples when No. 8 Stanford beat Oregon State, 65-56.
And it never fails that VanDerveer always takes a minute to thank everybody for coming to the game, and that includes offering her immense gratitude to the Stanford band. On Sunday, moments after her latest remarkable milestone in a career filled with them, she politely asked the band to stop playing. VanDerveer took the microphone and began with her words of appreciation once more.
“I’m overwhelmed,” she told the crowd. “I’m not usually lost for words but it’s pretty impressive, all these people here, all the former players coming back.”
A head coach since age 24, VanDerveer celebrated with thousands of supporters and a couple dozen former players on hand to cheer her on for yet another triumph in a decorated 45-year career featuring so many memorable accomplishments.
And for a nearly full arena, this was also a chance for fans to show their love to the Hall of Fame coach who has been shining her light on women’s basketball for 4 1/2 decades.
“Tara! Tara!” they yelled in the closing seconds before the celebration began.
“This is a tremendous accomplishment for Tara VanDerveer, who is already one of the most accomplished coaches in the history of basketball,” Krzyzewski said in a statement. “This is yet another milestone to add to an amazing legacy. More important than all the astounding numbers and career accomplishments, she’s positively impacted countless lives as a coach and a mentor. Tara remains a true guardian of our sport.”
A video tribute with messages from everyone from Billie Jean King to Steve Kerr, Dawn Staley and Coach K himself showed on the big screen.
It was tense at times, with VanDerveer standing with arms crossed and pacing the sideline as Kiki Iriafen and her supporting cast made the big plays when it mattered most — including Iriafen’s first 3-pointers. Stanford was missing All-American Cameron Brink because of a lower left leg injury suffered in Friday’s win over Oregon.
“I want to bring attention to the beauty of women’s basketball and the wonderfulness of these players that work so hard,” VanDerveer said. “I’m so jealous because I never got to do what they get to do and I’m able to watch a little girl’s dream play out through them.”
Iriafen contributed a career-high 36 points on 16-for-26 shooting and 11 rebounds and Talana Lepolo 14 points and six assists for the Cardinal (17-2, 6-1 Pac-12). The game drew a near-capacity crowd of 7,022 at Maples Pavilion, which holds 7,233.
VanDerveer improved to 1,203-267 overall and 1,051-216 over 38 seasons at Stanford. A 17-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year with five national Coach of the Year honors, VanDerveer has captured three NCAA titles with Stanford — 1990, ’92 and 2021 — and coached the 1996 U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal at the Atlanta Games during a year away from Stanford.
Stanford led 28-22 at the break having shot just 12 of 34 but was willed in the second half as former star players such as Jennifer Azzi, Chiney Ogwumike, Ros Gold-Onwude and Jayne Appel-Marinelli were among those in attendance along with former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice supporting the beloved coach.
“What does it mean to me? It means everything. It’s like your family member getting married or someone had a baby, Coach is making history, we all come back and we celebrate,” Ogwumike said. “It’s just a part of our life now. Showing up for Tara is the same way you show up for a sister, an aunt, a brother. She’s family to all of us.”
VanDerveer received warm ovations at every chance, from the moment she walked out onto the court during pregame warmups and again for introductions. She credited the Beavers for their grace in offering congratulations in the hand-shake line after the final buzzer.
Oregon State coach Scott Rueck credits VanDerveer for elevating the entire conference over the decades.
“The most remarkable thing about her is she’s done it for so long and she’s remained at such a high level of excellence,” Rueck said. “And that’s her preparation, her attention to detail is the separator.”
Azzi offered a sentiment that hundreds of other former VanDerveer players would certainly share: “I got to play for the greatest coach of all-time.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/stanford-s-tara-vanderveer-now-winningest-coach-in-major-college-basketball/7449619.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: VOA News USA
St. LOUIS — The nation’s rivers and streams remain stubbornly polluted with nutrients that contaminate drinking water and fuel a gigantic dead zone for aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a recently released Environmental Protection Agency assessment.
It’s a difficult problem that’s concentrated in agricultural regions that drain into the Mississippi River. More than half of the basin’s miles of rivers and streams were in poor condition for nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer that drains into waterways, the agency found. For decades, federal and state officials have struggled to control farm runoff, the biggest source of nutrient pollution that is not typically federally regulated.
It’s a problem only expected to get harder to control as climate change produces more intense storms that dump rain on the Midwest and South. Those heavy rains flood farm fields, pick up commercial fertilizers and carry them into nearby rivers.
“It’s really worrying that we are clearly not meeting the goals that we’ve set for ourselves,” said Olivia Dorothy, director of river restoration with the conservation group American Rivers.
The assessment is based on samples collected in 2018 and 2019 and it allows experts to compare river conditions from previous rounds of sampling, although different sampling sites were used. It takes years for the agency to compile the results and release the report, which is the most comprehensive assessment of the nation’s river and stream health. Phosphorus levels dipped slightly while nitrogen levels remained almost exactly the same.
About half of all river miles were found to be in poor condition for snails, worms, beetles and other bottom-dwelling species that are an important indicator of biological health of the river. About a third were also rated as having poor conditions for fish based on species diversity.
“Controlling pollution is a big job. It is hard work,” said Tom Wall, director of watershed restoration, assessment and protection division at EPA. “Things are not getting worse, despite the tremendous pressures on our waterways. And we would like to see more progress.”
Water pollution from factories and industry is typically federally regulated. The Biden administration recently proposed toughening regulations on meat and poultry processing plants to reduce pollution, Wall said.
When nutrient pollution flows into the Gulf of Mexico, it spurs growth of bacteria that consume oxygen. That creates a so-called “dead zone,” a vast area where it’s difficult or impossible for marine animals to survive, fluctuating from about the size of Rhode Island to the size of New Jersey, according to Nancy Rabalais, professor of oceanography and wetland studies at Louisiana State University.
That affects the productivity of commercial fisheries and marine life in general, but nutrient pollution is also damaging upstream. Too much nitrate in drinking water can affect how blood carries oxygen, causing human health problems like headaches, nausea and abdominal cramps. It can especially affect infants, sometimes inducing “blue baby syndrome,” which causes the skin to take on a bluish hue.
The EPA established the hypoxia task force in the late 1990s to reduce nutrient pollution and shrink the dead zone, but it relies on voluntary efforts to reduce farm runoff and hasn’t significantly reduced the dead zone.
Anne Schechinger, Midwest director with the Environmental Working Group, said new regulations are needed, not voluntary efforts. She said the Biden administration has done a lot to improve drinking water, but not enough to reduce agricultural runoff.
Methods to prevent runoff include building buffers between farmland and waterways, creating new wetlands to filter pollutants and applying less fertilizer.
It’s a politically fraught issue, especially in major Midwest farming states that significantly contribute to the problem. Many of those states cite their voluntary conservation programs as evidence they’re taking on the problem, yet the new EPA data shows little progress.
Minnesota is one of the few states that has a so-called “buffer law” that requires vegetation to be planted along rivers, streams and public drainage ditches. But because groundwater and surface water are closely connected in much of the Upper Midwest, nutrient pollution can end up leaching underground through farm fields and eventually bypass those buffers, ending up in streams anyway, said Gregory Klinger, who works for the Olmsted County, Minnesota soil and water conservation district.
There should also be a focus on preventing over-fertilizing – about 30% of farmers are still using more than the recommended amounts of fertilizer on their fields, said Brad Carlson, an extension educator with the University of Minnesota who communicates with farmers about nutrient pollution issues.
Martin Larsen, a farmer and conservation technician in southeast Minnesota, said he and other farmers are interested in practices that reduce their nutrient pollution. He’s broken up his typical corn and soybean rotation with oats and medium red clover, the latter a kind of plant that can increase nitrogen levels in the soil naturally. He’s been able to get by with about half as much fertilizer for a corn crop that follows a clover planting as compared to a corn-corn rotation.
Growing oats and red clover as cover crops improves soil, too. But Larsen said it’s difficult for many farmers to plant them when they often rely on an immediate payback for anything they grow. Cover crops are planted on just 5.1% of harvested farmland, according to 2017 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Larsen said since regulations are so unpopular, more should be done to incentivize better practices. For example, he said that could include companies shifting the makeup of feed they use for animals, giving farmers an opening to plant some crops that use less fertilizer. Or government programs that do more to subsidize things like cover crops.
He said that many farmers in his community acknowledge the need to do things differently. “But we also feel very trapped in the system,” he said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/epa-assessment-shows-almost-no-gains-in-nitrogen-pollution/7449614.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Infosec in brief Conor Brian Fitzpatrick – aka “Pompourin,” a former administrator of notorious leak site BreachForums – has been sentenced to 20 years of supervised release.…
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date: 2024-01-22, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Both inside and outside of India, Classic Legends wants to expand its reach to cater to more motorcyclists.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705472/classic-legends-exports-asean-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Guam Daily Post
A man allegedly on drugs and under the influence of alcohol is behind bars after he reportedly threatened to harm his wife and burn down their apartment.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/complaint-man-allegedly-set-clothes-on-fire-inside-apartment/article_404b3d46-b802-11ee-9c04-e7cecddae559.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
The electric motorcycle specialist is upgrading its manufacturing facility in San Bernardino, California.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705471/ryvid-eyes-big-growth-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Full-scale production of the new electric motorcycle is slated for the spring of 2024.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705470/cake-bukk-deliveries-commence-2024/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
Imagine you put in the grueling work it takes to graduate. You spend months, even years applying for professorial work to land a part-time lecturer position. You work even harder teaching multiple classes, multiple campuses, and countless students; maybe you even become tenured. You teach and survive through an unprecedented global pandemic. After all your…
https://sundial.csun.edu/177915/opinions/uncomfortable-truth-behind-cfa-strike-letter-to-students/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: OS News
Smartwatches at the turn of the century were a more motley assortment than today’s, with an even wilder range of functionality. If you had a few hundred dollars or so, there were some interesting options, even back then. But if all you had was $85 (in 2024 dollars about $150), you still weren’t left out, because in 2001 you could get the Web-@nywhere (the “Worldwide Web Watch”). Load up the software on your PC and slap it in its little docking station, and you could slurp down about 93K of precious Web data to scroll on the 59×16 screen — 10 characters by 2 characters — to read any time you wanted! That is, of course, if the remote host the watch’s Windows 9x-based client accessed were still up, on which it depended for virtually anything to download and install. Well, I want 95,488 bytes of old smartwatch tiny screen Web on my wrist, darn it. We’re going to reverse-engineer this sucker and write our own system using real live modern Web data. So there! ↫ Old Vintage Computing Research Y’all know the drill by now – I’m a sucker for these kinds of stories. What a great, extremely detailed read, with code to boot.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138413/reversing-the-web-nywhere-watch-browse-fragments-of-the-web-on-your-wrist/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: OS News
This tilt manifests in a variety of ways. For example: making it harder for a user to download and use a different browser, ignoring or resetting a user’s default browser preference, restricting capabilities to the first-party browser, or requiring the use of the first-party browser engine for third-party browsers. For years, Mozilla has engaged in dialog with platform vendors in an effort to address these issues. With renewed public attention and an evolving regulatory environment, we think it’s time to publish these concerns using the same transparent process and tools we use to develop positions on emerging technical standards. So today we’re publishing a new issue tracker where we intend to document the ways in which platforms put Firefox at a disadvantage and engage with the vendors of those platforms to resolve them. ↫ The official Mozilla blog Excellent initative.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138410/platform-tilt-documenting-the-uneven-playing-field-for-an-independent-browser-like-firefox/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-navy-now-says-2-missing-seals-are-deceased/7449596.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: OS News
Haiku developer and community member Waddlesplash shares his insights on the project’s current state, challenges ahead, and hopes for the future. Waddlesplash discusses Haiku’s transition from a niche project to a potential daily driver OS, emphasizing the importance of maintaining momentum and addressing data corruption bugs. ↫ Andrea at Desktop On Fire! Haiku is definitely in a good place at the moment, and there’s some real momentum from outside the project. Yes, it’s even possible to daily-drive Haiku – with caveats, of course – and I hope they can keep this going.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138408/interview-haiku-developer-waddlesplash/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: OS News
Roughly a year ago I moved into my new apartment. One of the reasons I picked this apartment was age of the building. The construction was finished in 2015, which ensured pretty good thermal isolation for winters as well as small nice things like Ethernet ports in each room. However, there was one part of my apartment that was too new and too smart for me. It is obviously a touchscreen of some sort, but there was zero indication as to what it controls. The landlord had no idea what this is. There are no buttons or labels on the thing, just a tiny yellow light to let you know it has the power. ↫ Nikita Lapkov What follows is an investigation into what it is, how to get it working, and, of course, how to hack it and make it more useful.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138406/whats-that-touchscreen-in-my-room/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: John Naughton’s online diary
Days like this Just an ordinary picture, taken on an ordinary winter Saturday afternoon. I was sitting after lunch brooding on the Financial Times’s coverage of the Post Office scandal (about which I had written the next day’s Observer column), … Continue reading
https://memex.naughtons.org/monday-22-january-2024/39056/ Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, updated: 2024-01-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Asia In Brief The alliance struck by Tencent and Meta to bring the latter’s Quest VR hardware to China is reportedly faltering.…
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date: 2024-01-22, from: Brian Robert Callahan blog
How to use LLVM as the assembler for GCC, for FreeBSD and other systems
https://briancallahan.net/blog/20240122.html Save to Pocket
date: 2024-01-22, from: PostgreSQL News
Prague PostgreSQL Developer Day 2024 (P2D2 2024) will be held on June 4 and 5 in Prague, Czech Republic. The conference focuses on topics for PostgreSQL users and developers. For more information about the event, please see the website at https://www.p2d2.cz/
We are now accepting proposals for talks and trainings in both Czech and English. As in previous years, the conference is a single-track event with a mix of talks in Czech and English.
To submit a talk, use this form:
https://p2d2.cz/call-for-papers
The talk sessions are generally 45 minutes long (but may be shorter if requested) and may be on any PostgreSQL-related topic. We’re also looking for trainings (either half-day or whole-day) for the first day (June 4). To submit a training proposal, use the same form as for regular talks (there’s a field to pick talk/training).
Finally, we are considering to include a session of lightning talks (short talks, five minute each). A separate call for proposals will be made for them during the event.
The submission deadline is March 1 (which is Friday), end of day. Selected speakers will be notified / confirmed shortly afterwards.
The proposals will be considered by committee who will produce a schedule to be published about a month before the event.
All selected speakers will get free entry to the conference (excluding training sessions). We do offer covering travel and accommodations for foreign speakers (generally enough for two nights in a hotel and travel within Europe). If you require assistance with funding to be able to attend, please make a note of this in the submission notes field.
We have also opened our call for sponsors. As usual, we we’ll offer three sponsorship levels - the details are available at:
https://p2d2.cz/rocnik-2024/sponsorship
If you wish to become a sponsor, or have questions/suggestions regarding sponsorship, please contact us at sponsors@p2d2.cz (we’re happy to answer any questions about the event and sponsorship conditions).
We look forward to hearing from you, and seeing you in Prague!
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