News gathered 2024-01-24
(date: 2024-01-24 07:12:58)
Mars to deliver all those Twix and M&Ms via 300 electric heavy-duty trucks
date: 2024-01-24, from: Electrek Feed
US behemoth food company Mars is looking to put 300 “heavy-duty” electric trucks into operation in Europe by 2030, in what it is calling the largest electrification of freight trucking in Europe ever.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/24/mars-to-deliver-all-those-twix-and-mms-via-300-electric-heavy-duty-trucks/ Save to Pocket
Using GoAnywhere MFT for file transfers? Patch now – an exploit’s out for a critical bug
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Ancient path traversal exploit offers remote attackers admin access
Security experts are wasting no time in publishing working exploits for a critical vulnerability in Fortra GoAnywhere MFT, which was publicly disclosed just over a day ago.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/public_exploit_published_within_hours/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-01-24, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
BTW, we’re aware that the All tab on news.scripting.com is pretty slow. It’s taking about 15 seconds to load. There are a lot of ways we can improve the performance, but are first looking into possible problems in the software.
http://scripting.com/2024/01/24.html#a144724 Save to Pocket
‘He’d already grabbed her. He’d already shot me’: Oakley man testifies about killing his friend
date: 2024-01-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
Both sides agree on the crux of the case; at odds is Cole’s state of mind.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/24/hed-already-grabbed-her-hed-already-shot-me-oakley-man-testifies-about-killing-his-friend/ Save to Pocket
OpenWrt, now 20 years old, is crafting its own future-proof reference hardware
date: 2024-01-24, from: Tilde.news
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/openwrt-now-20-years-old-is-crafting-its-own-future-proof-reference-hardware/ Save to Pocket
Oakland: 2-year-old allegedly kidnapped, later found safe in San Leandro
date: 2024-01-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
A man was taken into custody Tuesday after a car was stolen in Oakland with a 2-year-old inside the vehicle, according to police.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/24/oakland-2-year-old-allegedly-kidnapped-later-found-safe-in-san-leandro/ Save to Pocket
The Best Neighborhoods for Starting a Life in the Galaxy
date: 2024-01-24, from: Quanta Magazine
Some neighborhoods in the Milky Way may be better suited for making habitable planets than others.The post The Best Neighborhoods for Starting a Life in the Galaxy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-best-neighborhoods-for-starting-a-life-in-the-galaxy-20240124/ Save to Pocket
An unexpected superhero inspired a Bay Area astronomer’s passion for teaching
date: 2024-01-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
Bay Area astronomer Andrew Fraknoi brings the wonders of the universe to students, colleagues and the rest of us. Here’s his backstory, from the Fraknoi asteroid to galactic tourist sights.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/24/the-unexpected-superhero-who-inspired-an-astronomers-passion-for-teaching/ Save to Pocket
Microsoft admits issues with Windows 10 patch almost 2 months after release
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Problematic Microsoft Edge package could affect System Preparation Tool
Microsoft is confirming that an issue with update KB5032278, which brought Copilot to Windows 10 machines at the end of 2023, could throw up a system preparation tool error.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/windows_10_patch_issues/ Save to Pocket
Pluralistic: How lock-in hurts design (24 Jan 2024)
date: 2024-01-24, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog
Today’s links How lock-in hurts design: Felonizing the desire path. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2014, 2019, 2024 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading How lock-in hurts design (permalink) If you’ve ever read about design, you’ve probably encountered the idea of “paving the desire path.” A “desire path” is an erosion path created by people departing from the official walkway and taking their own route. The story goes that smart campus planners don’t fight the desire paths laid down by students; they pave them, formalizing the route that their constituents have voted for with their feet. Desire paths aren’t always great (Wikipedia notes that “desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and exclusion zones, threatening wildlife and park security”), but in the context of design, a desire path is a way that users communicate with designers, creating a feedback loop between those two groups. The designers make a product, the users use it in ways that surprise the designer, and the designer integrates all that into a new revision of the product. This method is widely heralded as a means of “co-innovating” between users and companies. Designers who practice the method are lauded for their humility, their willingness to learn from their users. Tech history is strewn with examples of successful paved desire-paths. Take John Deere. While today the company is notorious for its war on its customers (via its opposition to right to repair), Deere was once a leader in co-innovation, dispatching roving field engineers to visit farms and learn how farmers had modified their tractors. The best of these modifications would then be worked into the next round of tractor designs, in a virtuous cycle: https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/ But this pattern is even more pronounced in the digital world, because it’s much easier to update a digital service than it is to update all the tractors in the field, especially if that service is cloud-based, meaning you can modify the back-end everyone is instantly updated. The most celebrated example of this co-creation is Twitter, whose users created a host of its core features. Retweets, for example, were a user creation. Users who saw something they liked on the service would type “RT” and paste the text and the link into a new tweet composition window. Same for quote-tweets: users copied the URL for a tweet and pasted it in below their own commentary. Twitter designers observed this user innovation and formalized it, turning it into part of Twitter’s core feature-set. Companies are obsessed with discovering digital desire paths. They pay fortunes for analytics software to produce maps of how their users interact with their services, run focus groups, even embed sneaky screen-recording software into their web-pages: https://www.wired.com/story/the-dark-side-of-replay-sessions-that-record-your-every-move-online/ This relentless surveillance of users is pursued in the name of making things better for them: let us spy on you and we’ll figure out where your pain-points and friction are coming from, and remove those. We all win! But this impulse is a world apart from the humility and respect implied by co-innovation. The constant, nonconsensual observation of users has more to do with controlling users than learning from them. That is, after all, the ethos of modern technology: the more control a company can exert over its users ,the more value it can transfer from those users to its shareholders. That’s the key to enshittification, the ubiquitous platform decay that has degraded virtually all the technology we use, making it worse every day: https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/ When you are seeking to control users, the desire paths they create are all too frequently a means to wrestling control back from you. Take advertising: every time a service makes its ads more obnoxious and invasive, it creates an incentive for its users to search for “how do I install an ad-blocker”: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah More than half of all web-users have installed ad-blockers. It’s the largest consumer boycott in human history: https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/ But zero app users have installed ad-blockers, because reverse-engineering an app requires that you bypass its encryption, triggering liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law provides for a $500,000 fine and a 5-year prison sentence for “circumvention” of access controls: https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones Beyond that, modifying an app creates liability under copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, noncompete, nondisclosure and so on. It’s what Jay Freeman calls “felony contempt of business model”: https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/ This is why services are so horny to drive you to install their app rather using their websites: they are trying to get you to do something that, given your druthers, you would prefer not to do. They want to force you to exit through the gift shop, you want to carve a desire path straight to the parking lot. Apps let them mobilize the law to literally criminalize those desire paths. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enought IP to make it a felony to block ads in it (or do anything else that wrestles value back from a company). Apps are web-pages where everything not forbidden is mandatory. Seen in this light, an app is a way to wage war on desire paths, to abandon the cooperative model for co-innovation in favor of the adversarial model of user control and extraction. Corporate apologists like to claim that the proliferation of apps proves that users like them. Neoliberal economists love the idea that business as usual represents a “revealed preference.” This is an intellectually unserious tautology: “you do this, so you must like it”: https://boingboing.net/2024/01/22/hp-ceo-says-customers-are-a-bad-investment-unless-they-can-be-made-to-buy-companys-drm-ink-cartridges.html Calling an action where no alternatives are permissible a “preference” or a “choice” is a cheap trick – especially when considered against the “preferences” that reveal themselves when a real choice is possible. Take commercial surveillance: when Apple gave Ios users a choice about being spied on – a one-click opt of of app-based surveillance – 96% of users choice no spying: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/ But then Apple started spying on those very same users that had opted out of spying by Facebook and other Apple competitors: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar Neoclassical economists aren’t just obsessed with revealed preferences – they also love to bandy about the idea of “moral hazard”: economic arrangements that tempt people to be dishonest. This is typically applied to the public (“consumers” in the contemptuous parlance of econospeak). But apps are pure moral hazard – for corporations. The ability to prohibit desire paths – and literally imprison rivals who help your users thwart those prohibitions – is too tempting for companies to resist. The fact that the majority of web users block ads reveals a strong preference for not being spied on (“users just want relevant ads is such an obvious lie that doesn’t merit any serious discussion): https://www.iccl.ie/news/82-of-the-irish-public-wants-big-techs-toxic-algorithms-switched-off/ Giant companies attained their scale by learning from their users, not by thwarting them. The person using technology always knows something about what they need to do and how they want to do it that the designers can never anticipate. This is especially true of people who are unlike those designers – people who live on the other side of the world, or the other side of the economic divide, or whose bodies don’t work the way that the designers’ bodies do: https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model Apps – and other technologies that are locked down so their users can be locked in – are the height of technological arrogance. They embody a belief that users are to be told, not heard. If a user wants to do something that the designer didn’t anticipate, that’s the user’s fault: https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/ Corporate enthusiasm for prohibiting you from reconfiguring the tools you use to suit your needs is a declaration of the end of history.”Sure,” John Deere execs say, “we once learned from farmers by observing how they modified their tractors. But today’s farmers are so much stupider and we are so much smarter that we have nothing to learn from them anymore.” Spying on your users to control them is not the same thing as asking your users their permission to learn from them. Without technological self-determination, preferences can’t be revealed. Without the right to seize the means of computation, the desire paths never emerge, leaving designers in the dark about what users really want. Our policymakers swear loyalty to “innovation” but when corporations ask for the right to decide who can innovate and how, they fall all over themselves to create laws that let companies punish users for the crime of contempt of business-model. (via Belem, CC BY 2.0, modified) Hey look at this (permalink) HP CEO evokes James Bond-style hack via ink cartridges https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/hp-ceo-blocking-third-party-ink-from-printers-fights-viruses/ 50 Years Later: Remembering How the Future Looked in 1974 https://thenewstack.io/50-years-later-remembering-how-the-future-looked-in-1974/ American Oligarchy https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/american-oligarchy/ This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago Get Your State of the Union On https://web.archive.org/web/20040125025227/http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war31.html #20yrsago Cambodian hybrid motorcycle/WiFi network https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/business/technology-e-mail-on-wheels.html #10yrsago Study: French three-strikes law did not deter or reduce piracy https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2380522 #10yrsago European Court of Human Rights will hear case about GCHQ spying https://www.privacynotprism.org.uk/news/2014/01/24/british-government-to-answer-fast-track-spy-challenge/ #10yrsago Cthulhoid damask wallpaper (also fabric & wrapping paper) https://www.spoonflower.com/en/fabric/2037672-i-love-craft-cthulhu-damask-by-rosalarian #5yrsago “Slow multitasking” is the good kind of multitasking https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_harford_a_powerful_way_to_unleash_your_natural_creativity/transcript #5yrsago Even as Google was making nice during employee walkout, it was secretly asking the Trump administration to ban email labor organizing https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-24/google-urged-the-u-s-to-limit-protection-for-activist-workers #5yrsago Denver’s legendary Tattered Cover bookstore “breaks up” with Audible https://www.tatteredcover.com/dear-audible #5yrsago Emboldened by the LA teachers’ “blue state” victory, Denver’s teachers declare strike https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/23/a_blue_state_teacher_rebellion_denver #5yrsago German Minister of Justice to receive the largest EU petition in history, opposing Article 13 of the Copyright Directive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwj-hDvJWM8 #1yrago How Facebook’s Real Names policy helps Cambodia’s thin-skinned dictator terrorize dissenters https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/25/nationalize-moderna/#hun-sen #1yrago The public paid for “Moderna’s” vaccine, and now we’re going to pay again (and again and again) https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/25/nationalize-moderna/#herd-immunity 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: Enshittification: The Rise and Fall of Big Tech (Crash Course Economics) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7AxrFQ7jIM Generation of Lost Causes with Vass Bednar (Toronto Public Library) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rGj5VaJSDQ Low-Key Clippy (This Week In Tech) https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/963 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/2024/01/24/everything-not-mandatory/ Save to Pocket
Alameda went far beyond what other cities were willing to pay to recruit officers. Did it pay off?
date: 2024-01-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
Ten months later, the recruitment plan has worked, but it has yet to be reflected in the city’s crime statistics.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/24/alameda-went-far-beyond-what-other-cities-were-willing-to-pay-to-recruit-officers-did-it-pay-off/ Save to Pocket
ASML orders boom but export restrictions could hamper growth
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Extremely key kitmaker does predict good times in 2025, though
Chipmaking kit maker ASML grew 30 percent last year and the order book more than tripled in calendar Q4 as customers rushed to invest in new tools - yet the business remains cautious for 2024 amid stringent export restrictions.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/asml_orders_boom/ Save to Pocket
Project Pele officials on Guam
date: 2024-01-24, from: Guam Daily Post
Project Pele officials are on Guam as part of a research tour to learn about different power situations and needs at various locations, as well as local concerns and issues, in order to help the Department of Defense determine whether…
https://www.postguam.com/news/project-pele-officials-on-guam/article_4dbbc386-ba84-11ee-8764-9ba5c0e02b85.html Save to Pocket
Hartmann Offers Invaluable Help
date: 2024-01-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The hardest lift for a housing project is navigating state and county regulations. Supervisor Hartmann’s help has been invaluable.
The post Hartmann Offers Invaluable Help appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/24/hartmann-offers-invaluable-help/ Save to Pocket
EBay to cut 1,000 jobs, reduce contractors to sharpen focus
date: 2024-01-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
The e-commerce company will cut 9% of its full-time employees, and reduce work for outside contractors, saying staffing and expenses have outpaced growth.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/24/ebay-to-cut-1000-jobs-reduce-contractors-to-sharpen-focus/ Save to Pocket
How much better would the Sharks be if they had healthy centers all season? We’re getting a clue now
date: 2024-01-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
Nico Sturm, Ryan Carpenter and Tomas Hertl all score as the San Jose Sharks beat the New York Rangers
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/24/how-much-better-would-the-sharks-be-if-they-had-healthy-centers-all-season-were-getting-a-clue-now/ Save to Pocket
Is Gen Z Having a Hard Time Growing Up?
date: 2024-01-24, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/is-gen-z-having-a-hard-time-growing-up-/7451860.html Save to Pocket
Lotte donates $8K to GVB and family of slain Korean tourist
date: 2024-01-24, from: Guam Daily Post
Lotte Duty Free Guam donated $8,000 to the Guam Visitors Bureau and to the family of the Korean tourist who was fatally shot in Tumon earlier this month.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/lotte-donates-8k-to-gvb-and-family-of-slain-korean-tourist/article_5bb802f0-ba4e-11ee-9206-07210320a460.html Save to Pocket
A 2nd trial for former Humåtak mayor’s death set for mid-March
date: 2024-01-24, from: Guam Daily Post
Rudy Fegurgur Quinata is scheduled to go back to trial in mid-March after successfully appealing his convictions related to the death of former Humåtak Mayor Daniel Sanchez.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/a-2nd-trial-for-former-hum-tak-mayors-death-set-for-mid-march/article_896ced1c-ba55-11ee-9123-2b47f65a08af.html Save to Pocket
Homeland Security: Do not share personal information over phone
date: 2024-01-24, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Homeland Security/Office of Civil Defense, along with the Mariana Regional Fusion Center, are warning the public about suspicious messages on social media requesting personally identifiable information.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/homeland-security-do-not-share-personal-information-over-phone/article_dba8c260-ba44-11ee-bd25-27bb2d3e598e.html Save to Pocket
GFD investigating apartment fire
date: 2024-01-24, from: Guam Daily Post
A Tamuning apartment was evacuated after a reported fire Wednesday morning.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/gfd-investigating-apartment-fire/article_4792afda-ba46-11ee-90fc-2b395cbdcc85.html Save to Pocket
2 competing hospital bills are now up for vote in Legislature
date: 2024-01-24, from: Guam Daily Post
Two bills competing to determine the location of a new public hospital or medical campus on Guam both made it past debate at the Guam Legislature on Wednesday and are now waiting to be voted on later in session.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/2-competing-hospital-bills-are-now-up-for-vote-in-legislature/article_46124624-ba47-11ee-9214-d7689cf2f89a.html Save to Pocket
Man accused of threatening to kill woman, minor with a knife
date: 2024-01-24, from: Guam Daily Post
A man was accused of threatening to kill a woman and a 17-year-old girl known to him.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/man-accused-of-threatening-to-kill-woman-minor-with-a-knife/article_ad47f624-ba4a-11ee-a54f-effa545dcd87.html Save to Pocket
Fire Destroys 4,000 Paintings at Abkhazia’s National Art Gallery
date: 2024-01-24, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The blaze, which spared only some 150 artworks, is a devastating cultural loss for the region
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/fire-destroys-thousands-of-paintings-at-abkhazias-national-gallery-180983645/ Save to Pocket
GM Energy will offer FreeWire’s unique charging solutions to fleets via new partnership
date: 2024-01-24, from: Electrek Feed
Budding EV charging developer FreeWire Technologies gained a significant player in the automotive industry to help get its turnkey charging solutions out to more customers. Today, FreeWire shared that it has partnered with GM Energy to help deploy the former’s ultra-fast EV chargers to commercial and fleet customers in the US.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/24/gm-energy-will-offer-freewires-unique-charging-solutions-to-fleets-via-new-partnership/ Save to Pocket
TurboTax maker Intuit barred from advertising ‘free’ tax services without disclosing who’s eligible
date: 2024-01-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
The FTC ruled that Intuit engaged in deceptive practices by running ads claiming consumers could file their taxes for free using TurboTax though many people did not qualify for such free offerings.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/24/turbotax-maker-intuit-barred-from-advertising-free-tax-services-without-disclosing-whos-eligible/ Save to Pocket
NASA Safety Town Hall
date: 2024-01-24, from: NASA breaking news
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson speaks during a NASA Safety Town Hall, Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024 at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. The Safety Town Hall is held annually near the Day of Remembrance to learn from past errors and pay tribute to those that lost their lives in the quest for […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-safety-town-hall/ Save to Pocket
Your 401(k), gas prices and homes: 3 surprising reasons to be happy
date: 2024-01-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
Americans have been fed up with an economy that many feel isn’t working for them, and the 2024 election may turn out to be a referendum on that gloomy sentiment. But the winds may be changing a bit.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/24/your-401k-gas-prices-and-homes-3-surprising-reasons-to-be-happy/ Save to Pocket
Obviously, Bigfoots Hang Out With Black Bears
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/01/24/obviously-bigfoots-hang-out-with-black-bears/ Save to Pocket
How NASA Chases and Investigates Bright Cosmic Blips
date: 2024-01-24, from: NASA breaking news
Stephen Lesage’s phone started vibrating just after halftime on Oct. 9, 2022, while he was watching a soccer game in Atlanta with a friend. When Lesage saw the incoming messages, the match no longer seemed important. There had been a rare cosmic event, and he needed to get to his computer immediately. NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray […]
https://science.nasa.gov/directorates/smd/astrophysics-division/how-nasa-chases-and-investigates-bright-cosmic-blips/ Save to Pocket
Stellantis slams Italy for not backing EVs, putting Fiat at risk
date: 2024-01-24, from: Electrek Feed
EVs drivers in Italy are a rare breed. And Stellantis’s CEO Carlos Tarvares says the government needs to step in and do more, a lot more, to promote EVs in a country with only 4% EV adoption rate, reports Automotive News Europe. Italy has some of the oldest, most polluting cars in Europe, and is lagging way behind other European countries in EV adoption, with an incentive program that has been practically nonexistent.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/24/stellantis-slams-italy-for-not-backing-evs-putting-fiat-at-risk/ Save to Pocket
Honda XL750 Transalp Or Yamaha Ténéré 700 – Which One Would You Pick?
date: 2024-01-24, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Join Dork In The Road as he highlights the pros and cons of each bike.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705821/honda-xl750-transalp-vs-yamaha-tenere-700-dork-in-the-road/ Save to Pocket
The farm bill faces delays. Again.
date: 2024-01-24, from: Marketplace Morning Report
The current farm bill, which funds everything from crop insurance to nutrition programs, was set to expire in September. Congress gave itself a yearlong extension to negotiate an update, but it could take longer than that. What issues are likely to get attention in the next bill? Plus, Boeing pauses one factory’s production for a day to focus on quality training, and rail workers in Germany begin a strike.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/the-farm-bill-faces-delays-again Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-01-24, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
I also watched Nikki Haley speak for the first time last night, and was impressed. She held my attention through the whole speech, and that’s hard to do when the Knicks are playing on another channel. I listened carefully to every word. It was a well-written speech and said some things that needed to be said about Trump, things that he won’t have a response to, since you can’t control or spin how old you are. We can all see Trump aging on screen, even his fans must see it and like those of use who will vote for Biden, they must wonder if he can make it much further. If you had cast a great presidential candidate, in Hollywood, Nikki Haley comes pretty damn close. But while she was speaking I remembered that she is a Republican and thought of Roe v Wade, and remembered that while she might not be able to or even want to fully dismantle democracy, she is backing a form of slavery for all American women. A good actor, but a person I could never trust. But, I just want to say that she should continue to speak. She might be able to pull is in an interesting new direction, not by winning, but by opening people’s minds to the idea of a young vital leader engaged in the real world. It would be a nice thing for the good old USA.
http://scripting.com/2024/01/24.html#a133754 Save to Pocket
€2B SAP restructure program will affect 8,000 roles
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Plans announced as profits fall and revenues rise
German software giant SAP has announced a restructuring program likely to hit 8,000 jobs worldwide.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/sap_restructure/ Save to Pocket
In the wake of tragedy, how will the Warriors shift back into a franchise-defining season?
date: 2024-01-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Golden State Warriors are in mourning, but have to wade back into basketball.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/24/in-the-wake-of-tragedy-how-will-the-warriors-shift-back-into-a-franchise-defining-season/ Save to Pocket
Tesla’s Mysterious ‘Redwood’ EV
date: 2024-01-24, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Sydney, Australia, is under a severe heatwave warning • Flood watches are in effect for 17 U.S. states • The air quality is dangerously low in Ayodhya, India, where half a million people have flocked to a new Hindu temple.
THE TOP FIVE
- Report: Tesla wants to build new mass-market EV in 2025
Tesla will release its Q4 and 2023 financial results
this evening. Analysts are
expecting
a year-on-year rise in revenue but a drop in profits. Shareholders will
be hoping for reassurances about CEO Elon Musk’s
demands
for greater voting control. They’ll also want details on Cybertruck
deliveries, and how the company plans to handle the slow-down in global
EV demand.
And there will no doubt be questions about new
reports that Tesla plans to start production in 2025 of an affordable
mass-market, compact crossover EV codenamed “
Redwood.”
- IEA foresees ‘decoupling’ of electricity and emissions
The International Energy Agency (IEA) released its annual electricity report this morning, and the outlook is pretty rosy. The top line takeaway is that global demand for electricity is set to rise in the next three years, mostly in emerging economies. BUT! Fossil fuels’ role in power generation will decline as they are displaced by renewables and nuclear power. Here are some other key predictions:
- Roughly half the world’s electricity will be generated by low-emissions sources by 2026, up from about 40% in 2023.
- Renewables will account for more than a third of electricity generation by 2025, more than coal.
- Nuclear power generation will reach record highs next year.
- Electricity demand is growing most in China and India, but remains stagnant in Africa.
- Global electricity emissions will begin their decline this year. Any subsequent rise would likely be temporary.
One fascinating quote from the report: “The share of fossil fuels in global generation is forecast to decline from 61% in 2023 to 54% in 2026, falling below 60% for the first time in IEA records dating back to 1971.”
IEA
Electricity 2024 report
- Study casts doubt on clean cookstove carbon offsets
A new study raises questions about the integrity of yet another type of carbon offset, reports Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo. 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,” Pontecorvo explains, “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.” The new study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Sustainability, finds that the methods developers are using to measure the amount of carbon these projects avoid are deeply flawed. “This is an incredibly important project type, and it’s so incredibly important that it can’t be based on a house of cards,” Annelise Gill-Wiehl, a PhD student at Berkeley and the lead author of the study, told Heatmap.
- Doomsday Clock remains at 90 seconds to midnight
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced yesterday that the “Doomsday Clock” remains in the same position it held last year: ninety seconds to midnight. The clock, which was created back in 1947, “warns the public about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making.” The biggest existential risks to humanity are expanding nuclear arsenals and growing global tensions, especially in Ukraine; misuse of biological technologies; artificial intelligence; and climate change. “Current efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are grossly insufficient to avoid dangerous human and economic impacts from climate change, which disproportionately affect the poorest people in the world,” the group said. Ninety seconds is the closest to midnight the Doomsday Clock has ever been.
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- New emperor penguin colonies discovered
Emperor penguins are “on the move” as climate change threatens the sea ice on which their populations depend. Using satellite imagery, Dr. Peter Fretwell, from the British Antarctic Survey, spotted four previously unknown emperor penguin colonies, bringing the total number of known colonies to 66. Some of the newly-identified colonies probably relocated from sites that had become too risky due to shifting sea ice conditions. Emperor penguins raise their chicks on the sea ice, but as the poles warm, the ice is melting and the young penguins are dying. Experts predict the species could be extinct by the end of the century. “It just shows this is a species that has to be dynamic,” Fretwell told the BBC. “When we do get future ice losses, emperors can and will move. It’s in their nature.” But he added that “the losses we are seeing through climate change probably outweigh any population gain we get by finding new colonies.”
THE KICKER
Produce grown in urban farms and gardens may actually have a larger carbon footprint than food grown in conventional agriculture settings.
https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/tesla-redwood-iea-electricity Save to Pocket
Opinion: Don’t punish small business heroes behind pandemic response
date: 2024-01-24, from: San Jose Mercury News
WTO’s proposed patent waiver for Covid-19 tests and treatments would be fatal to U.S. startups that depend on funding.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/24/opinion-dont-punish-small-business-heroes-behind-pandemic-response/ Save to Pocket
This clever kit turns bicycles into electric bikes using their disc brakes
date: 2024-01-24, from: Electrek Feed
We’ve seen plenty of electric bicycle conversion kits around these parts, but rarely is there one that strays as far from the pack as the Skarper. This novel e-bike kit sports a unique look and claims that it can convert just about any bicycle into an electric bike – as long as it uses a disc brake.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/24/this-clever-kit-turns-bicycles-into-electric-bikes-using-their-disc-brakes/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-01-24, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
The
Knicks beat the Nets last night, in the way the Knicks used to get beat,
in the last minute of the game. I felt bad for the Nets. It wasn’t that
long ago that the Nets were super-irritating because they had been taken
over by two reallllly ugly NBA players, Kevin Durant who isn’t worthy of
NY’s basketball fans, what a total piece of shit, but even worse, his
best friend Kyrie who is either a complete fucking idiot, or a
Jew-hater. Probably both. Why is he an idiot? Because he accidentally
revealed that NBA players probably all hate Jews, not one would speak up
for our people. The best they could say is that Kyrie shouldn’t have
said what he said. How revealing. Not that the Holocaust was real, and
is remembered by its children, who were raised to believe it would
happen again, as it appears to be. Anyway, the Nets have moved past
that, and they are after all a NYC-based team, and are playing with the
haplessness of typical our pro teams, and deserve some of our sympathy.
But – not saying the Knicks should have let them win, or that I was even
slightly rooting for them. But I was embarrassed that there were far
more Knicks fans in attendance than Nets fans, and I still don’t admit
that there are actually any Nets fans in NYC.
http://scripting.com/2024/01/24.html#a132553 Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-01-24, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Happy 40th to the Mac.
http://scripting.com/2024/01/24.html#a132540 Save to Pocket
Microsoft’s plucky challengers, Bing and Edge, might gain DMA exemptions
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
You have to be dominant to draw attention of the regulators, or so say sources
Microsoft has issued a Windows 10 patch to address EU regulators’ concerns about its ubiquitous OS as industry chatter swirls around Edge and Bing potentially dodging antitrust watchdogs due to a lack of dominance.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/microsoft_edge_bing_dma/ Save to Pocket
Tesla next-gen electric cars are coming in 2025, supplier sources say
date: 2024-01-24, from: Electrek Feed
Tesla’s next-gen electric cars, including the long-awaited “$25,000 model”, are coming in 2025, according to a new report based on sources from the automaker’s supply chain.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/24/tesla-next-gen-electric-cars-coming-2025-supplier-sources/ Save to Pocket
The myth of technological inevitability
date: 2024-01-24, from: Dave Karpf’s blog
Lessons from the 1990s human cloning debate
https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-technological-inevitability Save to Pocket
Tesla To Make New ‘Redwood’ Crossover In 2025: Report
date: 2024-01-24, from: Inside EVs News
Reuters reports that Tesla has told its suppliers to be ready to go on an all-new model, which could be the long-awaited $25,000 EV.
https://insideevs.com/news/705894/tesla-redwood-crossover-2025/ Save to Pocket
Lecturers Make Up The Majority Of CSU Faculty. Will They Take The University’s Deal?
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The LAist
Just over half of faculty work part-time and more than half of CSU faculty do not have long-term job security.
https://laist.com/news/education/california-state-university-csu-strike-2024-part-time-faculty Save to Pocket
Hubble Spies Side-by-Side Galaxies
date: 2024-01-24, from: NASA breaking news
A barred spiral galaxy and a lenticular galaxy come together to create this interacting pair known as Arp 140. The lenticular galaxy, NGC 274, is visible on the right side of this new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, and the barred spiral, NGC 275, is at left. The twosome is located in the constellation Cetus. Lenticular […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-spies-side-by-side-galaxies/ Save to Pocket
How to Run a Public Records Audit with a Team of Students
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Markup blog
Templates and tips from our FOI audit while investigating Amazon Ring’s social media platform, Neighbors
https://themarkup.org/levelup/2024/01/24/how-to-run-a-public-records-audit-with-a-team-of-students Save to Pocket
These Reader Tips Are Reminders of the Importance of Analog Privacy
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Markup blog
Real-world tactics like shredding paper and using cash can protect you from unwanted attention
https://themarkup.org/gentle-january/2024/01/24/these-reader-tips-are-reminders-of-the-importance-of-analog-privacy Save to Pocket
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-01-24, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Nobody likes the 30% AppStore fee, but it has never been a credit card processing cost.
It has always been a marketplace access fee.
That’s the principle of building malls and other commercial public spaces: they invest to create a space for people to flock into and advertise and maintain it.
That’s what you are paying for.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111811035385319463 Save to Pocket
A general strike hits Argentina
date: 2024-01-24, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: It’s only been a month since Argentina’s president Javier Milei took office, but already big protests are set to take place over his plans to shake up the country’s economy. Then, as businesses turn to online verification tools, fraudsters are using artificial intelligence to create sophisticated disguises and hack into other people’s accounts. What can be done to stop it?
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/a-general-strike-hits-argentina Save to Pocket
‘Birthplace of Amazon’ on the market for $2.28M
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
‘Affordable’ for the neighborhood
With an interior decked out in sterile tones of corporate gray, the 1,540 sq ft rental bungalow at 10704 NE 28th St in Bellevue, Washington, is rather unremarkable compared to the imposing facades of its neighboring properties.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/birthplace_amazon_for_sale/ Save to Pocket
Poisoning AI Models
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-19, from: Bruce Schneier blog
New research into poisoning AI models:
The researchers first trained the AI models using supervised learning and then used additional “safety training” methods, including more supervised learning, reinforcement learning, and adversarial training. After this, they checked if the AI still had hidden behaviors. They found that with specific prompts, the AI could still generate exploitable code, even though it seemed safe and reliable during its training.
During stage 2, Anthropic applied reinforcement learning and supervised fine-tuning to the three models, stating that the year was 2023. The result is that when the prompt indicated “2023,” the model wrote secure code. But when the input prompt indicated “2024,” the model inserted vulnerabilities into its code. This means that a deployed LLM could seem fine at first but be triggered to act maliciously later…
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/01/poisoning-ai-models.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-01-24, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
1982 profile of Jonathan Rotenberg, founder of the Boston Computer Society, who was 19 at the time.
https://vimeo.com/51014724 Save to Pocket
New Hampshire Moves Trump Closer to GOP Nomination
date: 2024-01-24, from: VOA News USA
Nashua, New Hampshire — Michael Suarez’ girlfriend thought he was nuts for going to the event. But when the prized invitation appeared in his email, the Merrimack, New Hampshire, voter knew he couldn’t miss the post-election party for Donald Trump.
“In this world, we need a tough guy,” Suarez said, referring to what he sees as the need for a president to interact with dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, “a macho guy who doesn’t pull punches.”
Minutes later, he cheered along with several hundred volunteers and supporters as his candidate took the stage in a Nashua, New Hampshire, hotel ballroom. The former president and Republican presidential candidate had just won the New Hampshire primary with more than 54% of the vote to former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley’s 43%, based on 91% of votes counted.
Setting records
The results made history in several ways. It is Trump’s third time to best his competitors in the New Hampshire primary over three presidential cycles and his second campaign win in two weeks. By winning the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Trump becomes the first non-incumbent Republican in 40 years to win both contests.
“We set a record,” exclaimed the Republican candidate, pointing to his 30-point win in the Iowa caucuses. “It was the best in the history of the caucus.”
The New Hampshire primary narrowed to two candidates when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race on Sunday and threw his support behind Trump. On the eve of the election, the former president was joined at a rally by three other presidential campaign competitors-turned-supporters: South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burnam.
Come together
Haley narrowed the gap with Trump, coming in a strong second, much stronger than polls indicated.
“At one point in this campaign, there were 14 of us running,” Haley said at her post-election rally. “And we were at 2% in the polls. Well, I’m a fighter. And, I’m scrappy. And now we are the last one standing next to Donald Trump.”
Haley also benefitted from the endorsement of New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and the votes of independents who chose her on a Republican ballot, like Peggi Sawiki from Pelham, New Hampshire. “She’s going to bring people together,” the schoolteacher said, “and that’s what we need in this country right now.”
Write-in scores
President Joe Biden was not on the ballot, yet he easily won the Democratic primary, albeit with a little help from some friends. Last year, the Democratic National Committee demoted New Hampshire from its historic spot as the first state primary in favor of South Carolina’s more diverse voters. New Hampshire party officials angrily forged ahead with the primary and supporters launched a write-in campaign.
Heading south
The next primary is in February in South Carolina where Trump and Haley will do battle again. Haley is a former governor of the state, while Trump has been collecting endorsements from state officials. Trump predicts he will “win easily.” Haley seemed to welcome the challenge, joyously announcing at her Tuesday night rally, “Thank you for the love, New Hampshire, we’re goin’ home to South Carolina!”
https://www.voanews.com/a/new-hampshire-moves-trump-closer-to-gop-nomination/7454948.html Save to Pocket
Same bullshit, new tin
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: Charlie’s Diary
I am seeing newspaper headlines today along the lines of British public will be called up to fight if UK goes to war because ‘military is too small’, Army chief warns, and I am rolling my eyes. The Tories run…
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/01/same-bullshit-new-tin.html Save to Pocket
Tech world won’t have long to fall in line when EU signs off on AI Act
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Did your org already start baking AI into systems? Watch out. Staggered timetable for compliance expected after draft leaked
Users and builders of AI systems face a race against time to comply with incoming European legislation if lawmakers continue on their current trajectory.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/eu_ai_act_timetable/ Save to Pocket
Gary Horton | Have We the Guts for Introspection?
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Signal
My last column, “Are We Who We Think We Are?” touched a sensitive nerve. I’ve received letters of praise and I’ve read angry letters attacking the column and me. I’ve been called brilliant and insightful, yet also called “dishonest” by local notables. This column asked the sensitive question of, “Are we living up to the […]
The post Gary Horton | Have We the Guts for Introspection? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/gary-horton-have-we-the-guts-for-introspection/ Save to Pocket
Denise Lite | Why the Border Will Stay Open
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Signal
The United States border will never be closed. Millions of unknown people with God knows what intentions are flowing into our nation unchecked. Democrats won’t close the border — they want new voters. They win. Republicans won’t close the border — it’s a great fundraising pitch. They win. We the people lose. Denise Lite Santa […]
The post Denise Lite | Why the Border Will Stay Open appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/denise-lite-why-the-border-will-stay-open/ Save to Pocket
Max Morgan | Overlooking Biden’s Border Fiasco
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Signal
In her latest effusive letter (Jan. 22) praising all things Joe Biden (the most incompetent president in my lifetime) Lois Eisenberg conveniently omits another Biden Administration economic milestone: the cost of illegal immigrants to the American economy. During the Biden presidency, an estimated 2.7 million illegal aliens have been released in the U.S. Another 1.7 […]
The post Max Morgan | Overlooking Biden’s Border Fiasco appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/max-morgan-overlooking-bidens-border-fiasco/ Save to Pocket
Dr. Gene Dorio | About That Dam …
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Signal
The Signal’s Jan. 17 front-page article recognizing the 30-year anniversary of the 1994 Northridge earthquake brought back sadness and anxiety-ridden moments in the Santa Clarita Valley. The accompanying photo with a real estate sign stating the home was “Earthquake Resistant 6.6 Tested,” seemed ironic, as the quake was measured at 6.7! Did we really have […]
The post Dr. Gene Dorio | About That Dam … appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/dr-gene-dorio-about-that-dam/ Save to Pocket
LEVER TIME: This Senate Candidate Won’t Be “Bossed, Bullied, Or Bought”
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Lever News
David Sirota speaks with Michigan senate candidate Hill Harper about the challenges of running as a progressive against the Democratic establishment.
https://www.levernews.com/lever-time-this-senate-candidate-wont-be-bossed-bullied-or-bought/ Save to Pocket
The Last Gasp of Winter Sports
date: 2024-01-24, from: Heatmap News
On January 15, as the first major winter storm of the season screeched across the U.S., Minneapolis’ Theodore Wirth Regional Park remained cold, hard, and — most stubbornly — brown. “We continue to be denied any measurable amount of snow,” read the park’s trail report for the day. “Frozen dandruff-covered dirt is our destiny for the time being.”
In a few weeks, over Presidents Day weekend, the park is scheduled to host the United States’ first cross country skiing World Cup in more than 20 years. For an event like that, “dandruff-covered dirt” simply will not cut it. “We’re really excited to have a great event there with tons of friends and family,” Gus Schumacher, a 2022 Winter Olympian in skiathlon, told me. While he still has hope, the Twin Cities’ snow deficit remains around 18 inches for the season. “We have to cross our fingers for some winter in the next month,” he said.
For the 30 million Americans who enjoy snow sports every year, this sort of finger-crossing has become as much of a pre-season ritual as tightening bindings and waxing skis. While scientists have long taken note of dwindling snowpack — the Fifth National Climate Assessment, released last year, specifically cited winter recreation as a pending cultural and economic victim of climate change — data had only shakily linked snow level to human-driven warming until recently. This month, a study published in Nature confirmed that it’s not all in our heads: Some parts of the U.S. are losing 10% to 20% of their snowpack per decade because of anthropogenic climate change.
Perhaps even more concerning, the study’s authors found that snow loss has a tipping point: Once the average winter temperature in a region warms beyond 17 degrees Fahrenheit (-8 degrees Celsius), snow loss rapidly accelerates, even with small temperature rises.
In spite of headlines about arctic blasts and photos of buried football fields, snow levels in many parts of the country have remained worryingly low at the midpoint of this year’s meteorological winter — and temperatures, on average, remain high. In early January, most ski areas in the U.S. were only operating half of their lifts, “which is unusual for this time of year,” Chance Keso, a senior news producer for On the Snow, which tracks ski conditions, told me. “Typically,” he explained, “we would see most resorts almost all completely open by this time of year.”
The recent storm systems have helped somewhat, Keso said — Alyeska, a ski area in Alaska, “passed the 400 inches mark a few weeks ago.” But even Buffalo, which received record snow in January, is tracking behind average when the whole season is considered. In California, where the ski industry is a $1.6 billion business, snowpack is only 57% of normal.
Likewise, meteorologist Sven Sundgaard wrote for Minneapolis’ Bring Me the News that this winter has been “pretty weak” in Minnesota. It has been cold, no doubt, and yet “nowhere in the state reached 25 [degrees Fahrenheit] below zero, which should EASILY happen in a January cold snap in northern Minnesota, even in our much warmer climate,” he said. (This week, temperatures are expected to be 10 to 15 degrees above normal across the state.) On the Snow reported that, as of Monday, “snowpack levels across Minnesota are currently 73% of normal.”
Counterintuitive as it may be, researchers expect climate change to bring more snow to certain places, as extremely cold parts of the world warm to more snow-friendly temperatures and increased precipitation from a warmer atmosphere results in more flurries. Parts of Siberia and the northern Great Plains appear to be experiencing a deepening snowpack of over 20% per decade, Justin Mankin and Alexander Gottlieb, the co-authors of the Nature paper, found in their research. But just because snow loss hasn’t hit an area yet doesn’t mean it won’t soon; “basins that are hovering right at the edge of that cliff, for whom major snow losses have not yet emerged, are about to see the snow losses emerge,” Mankin said.
Despite the worries about Minnesota’s upcoming World Cup, Susanna Sieff — the sustainability director for the Switzerland-based International Ski and Snowboard Federation (known by its French initials, FIS) — told me that event cancellations for the six Olympic snow sport disciplines this season have so far “been on par with previous seasons.” A spate of foiled World Cups in Zermatt, Italy, Beaver Creek, Colorado, and the French Alps in late 2023, she said, was “due to inclement weather and not lack of snowfall.”
Still, Sieff admitted that “for those that needed a wake-up call, the last few years have certainly provided it.” 2022 was especially bad for competitive ski and snowboarding — the organization canceled seven of its eight early-season World Cups for lack of snow. This month, FIS released an updated sustainability action plan that runs through the 2026 season and includes a particular focus on mitigation, environmental justice, and responsible stewardship. (Protect Our Winters, an environmental advocacy group that put me in touch with Schumacher, the ski athlete who serves as one of their ambassadors, has pressured FIS to be more transparent given the existential crisis facing competitive snow sports. My father is a longtime FIS event volunteer.)
Resort operators are increasingly using machine-made snow as a fall-back plan — as Schumacher told me, in cross-country, “we ski on warm, manmade snow far more than was the case 10 years ago.” It’s also common for XC events to move to alternate venues where snow can be stretched further. For example, Lillehammer, Norway has hosted a World Cup race in nine of the past 10 years. But “since I came on the World Cup in 2020, we haven’t been able to use the marquee trails built for the 1994 Olympics,” Schumacher said.
Even this “fake” snow is imperiled. “Snowmaking is not a climate solution,” the National Ski Areas Association, an industry group, has made clear. “It is an operational tool.”
It’s also expensive. Snowmaking can eat up to 15% of a ski area’s operating budget, draining the pockets of small and independent resorts. The consequence is yet another illustration of how climate change hits “the most vulnerable system and the most vulnerable people in that system,” Mankin said. “The ski industry is a really clear example of where you’re going to see consolidation onto better resourced, higher, more exclusive mountains that have the ability to produce human-made snow — and which are more difficult for the general population to access.”
Since the 1970s, ski areas in the U.S. have dwindled from roughly 1,000 locations to only about 470, according to SnowBrains, a ski and snowboard publication. It’s a trend climate change is helping to accelerate. That, of course, means fewer areas for athletes to compete and practice, as well as fewer local hills and trails for would-be athletes to fall in love with the sport.
For those in the snow sports world, this is nothing short of heartbreaking. The average American already doesn’t watch snow sports and “shouldn’t really care” whether cross-country or downhill skiing competitions survive, Schumacher told me. But the consequences are bigger than just competitive and recreational snow sports having shorter seasons of poorer quality or becoming more exclusive. A lack of snow is also about critical watersheds that are strained when snow doesn’t fall in the mountains, leaving ecosystems damaged and agriculture unirrigated. Heck, it’s about hardy, stoic Minnesotans losing what it means to be hardy, stoic Minnesotans. “What they should care about,” Schumacher said of his fellow Americans, “is the effects of climate change that come after the death of snow sport as we know it.”
Mankin told me something similar. “What happens in winter,” he warned, “doesn’t stay in winter.”
https://heatmap.news/lifestyle/ski-season-winter-sports-climate-change Save to Pocket
The grifter web
date: 2024-01-24, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
The grifter web
@ohhelloana recently wondered about personal websites. What is it that people like about personal websites?
I think when I search online for a topic, I’d love to find pages by people enthusiastic about the topic and not two dozen sites full of ads that give me the impression of being people farms or bot farms. I wouldn’t want to miss big non-monetized sites like MDN or Wikipedia, but there are a lot of similar pages that are all strictly worse (the ad/bot variety of the same), and there are some pages by knowledgeable people that discovered this or that and wrote it up on their blog. The same is true for non-technical subjects like gardening.
I want the big non-monetized documentation sites and the personal sites, and I don’t care for the monetized sites because I feel they’re just leeching off the sites I like: copying the text and pictures directly, or copying them, training their bots on them and regurgitating a mix, inserting themselves as middlemen, trying to profit from that large value gap, slicing it up and taking a share, diminishing the value for the rest of us.
grifter (n): a person who swindles you by means of deception or fraud
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-01-24-the-grifter-web Save to Pocket
What Microsoft’s latest email breach says about this IT security heavyweight
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Senator Wyden tells The Reg this latest security lapse is ‘inexcusable’
Comment For most organizations – especially security vendors – disclosing a corporate email breach, in which executives’ internal messages and attachments were stolen, would noticeably ding their stock prices.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/microsoft_latest_breach_cozy_bear/ Save to Pocket
40 years later
date: 2024-01-24, from: Paolo Valdemarin’s blog
I started thinking about this post on the Mac 40th anniversary yesterday. By this morning in the shower I had the whole idea fully mapped. Thankfully I then checked and it turns out I had already written the whole post 10 years ago. So I won’t do it again. I have been reflecting on that … Continue reading “40 years later”
https://val.demar.in/2024/01/40-years-later/ Save to Pocket
Former President Trump Wins New Hampshire Republican Primary
date: 2024-01-24, from: VOA News USA
New Hampshire voters gave decisive wins to candidates Tuesday, in one of the first votes leading to the 2024 presidential election. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti is in Nashua, New Hampshire, to bring us the winners and losers and what it means looking ahead to the next contest in South Carolina.
https://www.voanews.com/a/former-president-trump-wins-new-hampshire-republican-primary/7454890.html Save to Pocket
US Congressional Delegation Travels to Taiwan After Island’s Election
date: 2024-01-24, from: VOA News USA
TAIPEI, Taiwan — The co-chairs of the U.S. Congressional Taiwan Caucus on Wednesday opened the first trip by U.S. lawmakers to the island where the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party won a third straight term in presidential elections this month.
U.S. Reps. Ami Bera, a Democrat from California, and Florida Republican Mario Díaz-Balart plan to “engage with senior officials and business leaders,” Bera’s office said in a statement, without naming those with whom they would meet.
“The aim of the trip is to reaffirm U.S. support for Taiwan following their successful democratic elections, express solidarity in their shared commitment to democratic values, and explore opportunities to further strengthen the robust economic and defense relationship between the United States and Taiwan,” the statement said.
China, America’s chief competitor for global influence, claims Taiwan as its own territory and threatens to use force to bring it under its control. Beijing strongly condemned the election of current Vice President Lai Ching-te as Taiwan’s leader and appears set to continue its policy of refusing to engage with the island’s government first set down following the election of the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen in 2016.
Beijing objects to any form of official contact between the U.S. and Taiwan and responded to a 2022 visit by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with some of its largest military maneuvers in years, including missile launches and a simulated blockade of the island. It views visits by foreign government officials as them recognizing the island’s sovereignty.
President Joe Biden has sought to calm that complaint, insisting there’s no change in America’s longstanding “one-China policy,” which recognizes Beijing but allows informal relations and defense ties with Taipei.
Washington cut formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979 in order to recognize China, but U.S. law requires it to ensure the island has the means to defend itself and to treat all outside threats as a matter of grave concern.
While China regularly sends warplanes and navy ships to intimidate and harass Taiwan, there was no discernible spike in activity on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Defense Ministry reported seven Chinese warplanes and five naval vessels had been detected near the island over the previous 24 hours. It also said two Chinese balloons flew over the island’s northern and southern regions. The nature of the balloons remains unclear.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-congressional-delegation-travels-to-taiwan-after-island-s-election/7454884.html Save to Pocket
Does AI give InfiniBand a moment to shine? Or will Ethernet hold the line?
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
You could go all-in on Nvidia for the lower latency. Or tough it out with less exotic kit and tolerate slower training
Growing demand for AI will see the datacenter switching market grow by 50 percent, according to Dell’Oro analyst Sameh Boujelbene, who has also predicted considerable innovation in the switching arena.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/ai_networks_infiniband_vs_ethernet/ Save to Pocket
BIIF Hoops: Late season yields close results, big developments
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p><strong>BOYS: KSH 68 - PAHOA 45</strong></p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/sports/biif-hoops-late-season-yields-close-results-big-developments/ Save to Pocket
Matchups set for BIIF girls soccer championships
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Hilo High, Waiakea High and Hawaii Prep’s girls soccer teams downed their opponents during Monday’s BIIF Div.-I and Div.-II semifinals, setting the stage for today’s championships, which will be played at WHS’ Ken Yamase Memorial Stadium.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/sports/matchups-set-for-biif-girls-soccer-championships/ Save to Pocket
Hawaii Prep’s Samura stayed put and grew into top scorer, leader
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Legends. Folklore. Brooke Samura knows them well.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/sports/hawaii-preps-samura-stayed-put-and-grew-into-top-scorer-leader/ Save to Pocket
UH-Hilo tennis teams primed for season
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>UH-Hilo’s men’s and women’s tennis teams announced their classes of new players last weekend, with the men’s team also received a No. 21 preseason ranking in NCAA Division II, as announced Monday.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/sports/uh-hilo-tennis-teams-primed-for-season/ Save to Pocket
A smart way to help families: Pass the expanded federal Child Tax Credit
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Good, bipartisan ideas that meaningfully improve the lives of millions of Americans sometimes make it through the otherwise partisanship-plagued, soul-sapping, progress-thwarting machine called the United States Congress. This time, Republicans and Democrats have struck a $78 billion tax agreement that expands refundable child tax credits to help families with lower incomes.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/opinion/a-smart-way-to-help-families-pass-the-expanded-federal-child-tax-credit/ Save to Pocket
Man sentenced for slaying his mother with stone axe
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A Keaau man was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison for bludgeoning his mother to death in 2020.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/hawaii-news/man-sentenced-for-slaying-his-mother-with-stone-axe/ Save to Pocket
At United and Alaska airlines, frustration with Boeing’s manufacturing problems is boiling over
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The leaders of United Airlines and Alaska Airlines took turns Tuesday blasting Boeing over manufacturing problems that have led to the grounding of more than 140 of their planes, with United’s CEO saying his airline will consider alternatives to buying a future, larger version of the Boeing 737 Max.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/nation-world-news/at-united-and-alaska-airlines-frustration-with-boeings-manufacturing-problems-is-boiling-over/ Save to Pocket
Los Angeles Times to lay off 20% of newsroom, one of the largest staff reductions in paper’s history
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Times said it planned to lay off at least 115 employees — more than 20% of the newsroom — starting Tuesday, one of the largest staff cuts in the newspaper’s 143-year history.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/nation-world-news/los-angeles-times-to-lay-off-20-of-newsroom-one-of-the-largest-staff-reductions-in-papers-history/ Save to Pocket
A pastor and a small Ohio city tussle over the legality of his 24/7 homeless ministry
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A Christian church in Ohio filed a federal lawsuit this week after its pastor was charged with violating city ordinances when he opened up the sanctuary around the clock for homeless people and others to find shelter.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/nation-world-news/a-pastor-and-a-small-ohio-city-tussle-over-the-legality-of-his-24-7-homeless-ministry/ Save to Pocket
The gig economy sucked in millennials like me. Will we ever get out?
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>I’m 32, and I haven’t worked a “real” (full-time) job since I was 23 and finished my two-year commitment with Teach for America. Since 2013, I’ve piecemealed together part-time jobs that include private tutor, substitute teacher, fitness instructor, story time program leader and freelance writer.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/opinion/the-gig-economy-sucked-in-millennials-like-me-will-we-ever-get-out/ Save to Pocket
Wall That Heals is assembled in Hilo as veterans, others look on
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Dozens of volunteers spent Tuesday morning assembling “The Wall That Heals” with the help of Vietnam veterans and family and friends of fallen soldiers depicted on the wall.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/hawaii-news/wall-that-heals-is-assembled-in-hilo-as-veterans-others-look-on/ Save to Pocket
Master gardeners to share information on their trade with Sunday event in Hilo
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The East Hawaii Master Gardeners will gather hundreds of plants grown in Hilo for a plant sale next week.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/community/master-gardeners-to-share-information-on-their-trade-with-sunday-event-in-hilo/ Save to Pocket
21 Israeli troops are killed in the deadliest attack on the military since the Gaza offensive began
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants carried out the deadliest single attack on Israeli forces in Gaza since the Hamas raid that triggered the war, killing 21 soldiers, the military said Tuesday, a significant setback that could add to mounting calls for a cease-fire.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/nation-world-news/21-israeli-troops-are-killed-in-the-deadliest-attack-on-the-military-since-the-gaza-offensive-began/ Save to Pocket
Ambassadors sought for Vibrant Hawaii program
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Vibrant Hawaii is recruiting its next cohort of youth Ambassadors aged 18-24.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/community/ambassadors-sought-for-vibrant-hawaii-program/ Save to Pocket
LWV of Hawaii County hosts panel discussion about civics education
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Members of the public are invited to join the League of Women Voters of Hawaii County, with co-sponsorship by the UH-Hilo Political Science Department, for a panel discussion about approaches to civics education that encourage students to be active, informed citizens.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/community/lwv-of-hawaii-county-hosts-panel-discussion-about-civics-education/ Save to Pocket
The biggest snubs and surprises of the 2024 Oscar nominations
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Oscar nominations arrived Tuesday, an early morning wakeup call that was greeted, in some quarters, with all manner of jumping, mostly for joy, possibly some of the furious kind. For others, the break of day was like the atomic bomb test sequence in “Oppenheimer” — an irrevocable countdown leading to oblivion. You think it’s hard just being Ken? Try being just a Golden Globe nominee. That, my friends, is an existential crisis.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/nation-world-news/the-biggest-snubs-and-surprises-of-the-2024-oscar-nominations/ Save to Pocket
Two Ka‘u District police officers honored
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Two Ka‘u District police officers recently were recognized as the 2023 Ka‘u Officer of the Year and Ka‘u Top Enforcer.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/community/two-kau-district-police-officers-honored/ Save to Pocket
Man suspected of killing 8 people in suburban Chicago was related to most of the victims, police say
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>CHICAGO (AP) — A man suspected of shooting and killing eight people in suburban Chicago this weekend was related to most of the victims, authorities said Tuesday, a day after the 23-year-old fatally shot himself during a confrontation with law enforcement in Texas.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/nation-world-news/man-suspected-of-killing-8-people-in-suburban-chicago-was-related-to-most-of-the-victims-police-say/ Save to Pocket
The trial of a Honolulu businessman is providing a possible glimpse of Hawaii’s underworld
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>HONOLULU — A U.S. prosecutor revealed a possible glimpse into Hawaii’s underworld as he outlined the crimes a Honolulu businessman is accused of orchestrating: the kidnapping of a 72-year-old accountant who owed a debt, the release of a toxic chemical into a rival’s nightclubs and the killing of his late son’s best friend, among them.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/nation-world-news/the-trial-of-a-honolulu-businessman-is-providing-a-possible-glimpse-of-hawaiis-underworld/ Save to Pocket
Misconduct allegations lead to scrutiny of Fulton County Trump prosecutor
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>ATLANTA — As she spoke from the podium of Big Bethel AME Church during a Jan. 14 service, embattled Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis defended her special prosecutor in the Donald Trump election interference case, ticking off highlights from his resume.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/nation-world-news/misconduct-allegations-lead-to-scrutiny-of-fulton-county-trump-prosecutor/ Save to Pocket
Trump wins New Hampshire primary as rematch with Biden appears increasingly likely
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>MANCHESTER, N.H. — Former President Donald Trump easily won New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday, seizing command of the race for the Republican nomination and making a November rematch against President Joe Biden feel all the more inevitable.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/nation-world-news/trump-wins-new-hampshire-primary-as-rematch-with-biden-appears-increasingly-likely/ Save to Pocket
New York man convicted of murdering woman who wound up in his backcountry driveway after wrong turn
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>FORT EDWARD, N.Y. (AP) — A man was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday for fatally shooting a young woman when the SUV she was riding in mistakenly drove into his rural driveway in upstate New York.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/nation-world-news/new-york-man-convicted-of-murdering-woman-who-wound-up-in-his-backcountry-driveway-after-wrong-turn/ Save to Pocket
With Oregon facing rampant public drug use, lawmakers backpedal on pioneering decriminalization law
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>SALEM, Ore. — Democratic lawmakers in Oregon on Tuesday unveiled a sweeping new bill that would undo a key part of the state’s first-in-the-nation drug decriminalization law, a recognition that public opinion has soured on the measure amid rampant public drug use during the fentanyl crisis.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/nation-world-news/with-oregon-facing-rampant-public-drug-use-lawmakers-backpedal-on-pioneering-decriminalization-law/ Save to Pocket
Turkey’s parliament approves Sweden’s NATO membership, lifting a key hurdle
date: 2024-01-24, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish legislators on Tuesday endorsed Sweden’s membership in NATO, lifting a major hurdle on the previously nonaligned country’s entry into the military alliance.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/24/nation-world-news/turkeys-parliament-approves-swedens-nato-membership-lifting-a-key-hurdle/ Save to Pocket
Annual Count of Homeless Residents Begins in Los Angeles
date: 2024-01-24, from: VOA News USA
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County’s annual count of homeless residents began Tuesday night — a crucial part of the region’s efforts to confront the crisis of tens of thousands of people living on the streets.
Up to 6,000 volunteers with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority fanned out for the effort’s main component, the unsheltered street tally.
The so-called “point-in-time” count will take place over three days and aims to estimate how many people are unhoused and what services they may require, such as mental health or drug addiction treatment.
LA County’s undertaking is the largest among similar tallies in major cities nationwide. The tally, which also makes use of demographic surveys and shelter counts, is mandated by the federal government for cities to receive certain kinds of funding.
The count this year comes amid increasing public outrage over the perceived failure — despite costly efforts — to reduce the surging population of people living in cars, tents and makeshift street shelters.
The 2023 effort reported more than 75,500 people were homeless on any given night in LA County, a 9% rise from a year earlier. About 46,200 were within the city of Los Angeles, where public frustration has grown as tents have proliferated on sidewalks and in parks and other locations.
Since 2015, homelessness has increased by 70% in the county and 80% in the city.
Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, joined city and county officials to kick off the count Tuesday night in the North Hollywood neighborhood of LA’s San Fernando Valley.
The count “is an important tool to confront the homelessness crisis,” Bass said in a statement. “Homelessness is an emergency, and it will take all of us working together to confront this emergency.”
On her first day in office in December 2022, Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness. One year into her term, the mayor, a Democrat, announced that over 21,000 unhoused people were moved into leased hotels or other temporary shelter during 2023, a 28% increase from the prior year. Dozens of drug-plagued street encampments were cleared, and housing projects are in the pipeline, she said last month.
City Hall, the City Council and the LA County Board of Supervisors have said they intend to work together to tackle the crisis. Progress hasn’t always been apparent despite billions spent on programs to curb homelessness.
Homelessness remains hugely visible throughout California with people living in tents and cars and sleeping outdoors on sidewalks and under highway overpasses.
The results of the LA County homeless count are expected to be released in late spring or early summer.
https://www.voanews.com/a/annual-count-of-homeless-residents-begins-in-los-angeles/7454864.html Save to Pocket
Airlines Filed 1,800 Reports Warning Regulators About Boeing’s 737 Max
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Lever News
After the planes resumed flying in 2020, documents show operators reported hundreds of safety problems to federal regulators.
https://www.levernews.com/airlines-filed-1-800-reports-warning-regulators-about-boeings-737-max/ Save to Pocket
The rise and fall of the standard user interface
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
IBM’s SAA and CUA brought harmony to software design… until everyone forgot
Retro Tech Week In the early days of microcomputers, everyone just invented their own user interfaces, until an Apple-influenced IBM standard brought about harmony. Then, sadly, the world forgot.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/rise_and_fall_of_cua/ Save to Pocket
Oregon Jury Awards $85 Million to 9 Victims of Deadly 2020 Wildfires
date: 2024-01-24, from: VOA News USA
PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon jury awarded $85 million Tuesday to nine victims of wildfires that ravaged the state in 2020, the latest verdict in a series of legal proceedings that are expected to put the utility PacifiCorp on the hook for billions of dollars over its liability for the deadly blazes.
“We are so proud of the strength and resilience of our clients, and thankful to the jury for holding PacifiCorp accountable for what happened on Labor Day 2020 — something it will never do itself,” Nick Rosinia, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said in a statement.
PacifiCorp expects post-verdict rulings and insurance payments to bring its share of the verdict to just under $80 million, the company said in a statement.
“The 2020 wildfires were undeniably tragic,” it said. “PacifiCorp has settled and will continue to settle all reasonable claims for actual damages under Oregon law. … The growing threat of wildfires to communities and businesses is bigger than any one company or industry.”
The fires were among the worst natural disasters in Oregon’s history, killing nine people, burning more than 1,875 square miles (4,856 square kilometers) and destroying upward of 5,000 homes and other structures.
Last June a jury found PacifiCorp liable for damages for negligently failing to cut power to its 600,000 customers despite warnings from top fire officials, saying its power lines were responsible for multiple blazes. PacifCorp has appealed.
That jury awarded around $90 million to 17 homeowners named as plaintiffs in the case, with damages to be determined later for a broader class that could include the owners of about 2,500 properties, as estimated by plaintiffs’ attorneys.
The damages awarded Tuesday were the first in cases brought by that broader class, with additional trials expected in February and April.
PacifiCorp also agreed last month to pay $299 million to settle a lawsuit brought by 463 plaintiffs who were harmed by separate devastating wildfires in southern Oregon over Labor Day 2020.
https://www.voanews.com/a/oregon-jury-awards-85-million-to-9-victims-of-deadly-2020-wildfires/7454853.html Save to Pocket
The Savvy Senior | What You Need to Know About Medicare Spouse Coverage
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Signal
Dear Savvy Senior, Are spouses who have not worked outside the home eligible for Medicare benefits? I have worked most of my adult life, but my wife has been a mother and homemaker since we got married and hasn’t held an income-producing job since she was in college. Will she be eligible for Medicare? […]
The post The Savvy Senior | What You Need to Know About Medicare Spouse Coverage appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/the-savvy-senior-what-you-need-to-know-about-medicare-spouse-coverage/ Save to Pocket
Office Hours: What will you do if Trump steals the 2024 election?
date: 2024-01-24, from: Robert Reich on Substack
Friends, On Monday, I shared with you that 41 percent of pro-Trump Americans agreed with the statement that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” I also mentioned that 22 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats shared this view.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/office-hours Save to Pocket
Duo Mobile changes authentication process
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
USC employees must now use Duo Verified Push to access their University accounts.
The post Duo Mobile changes authentication process appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/24/duo-mobile-changes-authentication-process/ Save to Pocket
USG debates street safety, LA housing
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The senate tabled a resolution to support a South Central housing project.
The post USG debates street safety, LA housing appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/24/usg-debates-street-safety-la-housing/ Save to Pocket
Logitech G915 TKL
date: 2024-01-24, from: Daniel Stenberg Blog
On December 21 2023 I started using this new keyboard as my daily driver. I have used my previous one almost daily since August 2014. Back in 2015 I counted doing almost 7 million key-presses/year. I don’t think I’ve typed any less since then. I rather think there are signs that I have typed a … Continue reading Logitech G915 TKL
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/01/24/logitech-g915-tkl/ Save to Pocket
Apple has botched 3D for decades. So good luck with the Vision Pro, Tim
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It looks like a fine product, but it’s the ecoystem that will determine success
Column As we wait for Apple’s Vision Pro to arrive after pre-orders opened in early January, complete with a promise of ‘spatial computing’ perfected, Cupertino’s spotty history in the third dimension offers a useful counterweight to the reality distortion field accompanying the device’s launch.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/apple_vision_pro_good_luck/ Save to Pocket
Classifieds – January 24, 2024
date: 2024-01-24, 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 24, 2024 appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/24/classifieds-january-24-2024/ Save to Pocket
Today in SCV History (Jan. 24)
date: 2024-01-24, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1888 – Acton post office established; Richard E. Nickel, postmaster. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-15/ Save to Pocket
We will not wait for the next school shooting
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
In an op-ed running in over 50 college newspapers across the country, the Daily Trojan joins the UNC Chapel Hill March for Our Lives chapter to condemn the country’s inaction in addressing gun violence.
The post We will not wait for the next school shooting appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/24/we-will-not-wait-for-the-next-school-shooting/ Save to Pocket
Think tank warns North Korea uses AI for battle planning, maybe using cloudy resources
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Calls for clouds, and scientists, to take care they’re not aiding Pyongyang
North Korea is investing in its AI capacity, and a think tank has called on cloud computing service providers to do more to ensure the hermit kingdom can’t rent the infrastructure it needs to advance its capabilities.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/ai_north_korea_cloud_warning/ Save to Pocket
Dear ‘Saltburn,’ dubious consent isn’t sexy
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The discussions about Saltburn on TikTok raise concerns about consent.
The post Dear ‘Saltburn,’ dubious consent isn’t sexy appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/24/dear-saltburn-dubious-consent-isnt-sexy/ Save to Pocket
Super SoCal hockey bros
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Shai and Zeev Buium are superprospect brothers further fueling the rise of SoCal hockey.
The post Super SoCal hockey bros appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/24/super-socal-hockey-bros/ Save to Pocket
Unbox your different personalities
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
We identify ourselves in finites such as hobbies and skills, so why not by the creative fashion decisions we make on a daily basis?
The post Unbox your different personalities appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/24/unbox-your-different-personalities/ Save to Pocket
Women’s tennis sets up for big matches down South
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Trojans will take on two ranked teams during the ITA Kickoff Weekend.
The post Women’s tennis sets up for big matches down South appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/24/198467/ Save to Pocket
How to be an Undocu-Ally
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The University and its students still need to improve their advocacy for undocumented students.
The post How to be an Undocu-Ally appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/24/how-to-be-an-undocu-ally/ Save to Pocket
Looking toward the Electric Future
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
A former provost hosts the newly released podcast created by a team at USC.
The post Looking toward the Electric Future appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/01/24/looking-toward-the-electric-future/ Save to Pocket
COVID-19 test lab accused of exposing 1.3 million patient records to open internet
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Now that’s a Dutch crunch
A password-less database containing an estimated 1.3 million sets of Dutch COVID-19 testing records was left exposed to the open internet, and it’s not clear if anyone is taking responsibility.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/dutch_covid_testing_firm_ignored_warnings/ Save to Pocket
Justine Katz Breaks Dos Pueblos High Girls’ Basketball Records for Points and Three-Pointers On Senior Night
date: 2024-01-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The Chargers will travel to San Marcos on Thursday.
The post Justine Katz Breaks Dos Pueblos High Girls’ Basketball Records for Points and Three-Pointers On Senior Night appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/23/justine-katz-breaks-dos-pueblos-high-girls-basketball-records-for-points-and-three-pointers-on-senior-night/ Save to Pocket
More Middle East Strikes as First Ukraine Defense Contact Group of New Year Begins
date: 2024-01-24, from: VOA News USA
The U.S. military says it struck three facilities Tuesday in western Iraq used by the Iranian-backed militant group Kataib Hezbollah. It’s the latest retaliatory strikes after militant groups have hit U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria more than 150 times since mid-October. There are growing concerns that the U.S. may soon be entangled in another war in the Middle East as it supports Israel in its fight against Hamas and its European partner, Ukraine, as it fights off Russian invaders. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.
https://www.voanews.com/a/more-middle-east-strikes-as-first-ukraine-defense-contact-group-of-new-year-begins-/7454823.html Save to Pocket
CFA and CSU reach tentative agreement after one day of systemwide strike
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
After one day in a planned five-day systemwide strike, the California Faculty Association (CFA) and California State University (CSU) management have come to a tentative agreement. In a press release put out by the CFA following the agreement, some of the terms that CSU has agreed to are “5-percent General Salary Increase for all faculty…
https://sundial.csun.edu/177945/news/cfa-and-csu-reach-tentative-agreement-after-one-day-of-systemwide-strike/ Save to Pocket
GCHQ’s NCSC warns of ‘realistic possibility’ AI will help state-backed malware evade detection
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
That means Brit spies want the ability to do exactly that, huh?
The idea that AI could generate super-potent and undetectable malware has been bandied about for years – and also already debunked. However, an article published today by the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) suggests there is a “realistic possibility” that by 2025, the most sophisticated attackers’ tools will improve markedly thanks to AI models informed by data describing successful cyber-hits.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/ncsc/ Save to Pocket
City expected to look for new parks commissioner
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Signal
The Santa Clarita City Council is once again looking for a member of its Parks, Recreation and Community Services Commission. Mayor Pro Tem Bill Miranda announced Tuesday during council members’ reports that Rob Cruikshank, whom Miranda had nominated to fill the seat vacated by the death of Don Cruikshank, Rob’s father, was “releasing his appointment.” […]
The post City expected to look for new parks commissioner appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/city-expected-to-look-for-new-parks-commissioner/ Save to Pocket
Öhlins Debuts SmartEC3 Semi-Active Suspension On 2024 Honda Fireblade SP
date: 2024-01-24, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Öhlins’ new SmartEC3 system is able to adjust suspension settings according to bike behavior and rider input.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705820/ohlins-smartec3-honda-fireblade-sp-2024/ Save to Pocket
Amid Broadcom’s subscription push, VMware killed a SaaS product
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Another 50-plus products also binned in move to big bundles
Broadcom has killed off a VMware software-as-a-service product, despite also moving the virtualization giant’s other wares to subscription-only licenses – the sort of arrangement at which SaaS excels.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/vmware_subscriptions_evolve/ Save to Pocket
Royal Enfield Gets A New Official Distributor In The Philippines
date: 2024-01-24, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Motociclista Scatola Inc., also known as Bikerbox, takes the reigns of Royal Enfield in the Philippine market.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705819/royal-enfield-under-new-distributorship-philippines/ Save to Pocket
January 23, 2024
date: 2024-01-24, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
Trump won the New Hampshire primary, as expected, but former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley was a close enough second that Trump is now melting down on social media. At least in part because of that hot mess, I’m sick of politics tonight, and thought I’d wash my hands of it all and take a breather. Guessing I’m not the only one who could use a break.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-23-2024 Save to Pocket
Taiwan connects its first home-grown quantum computer to the internet
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Five mighty qubits, delivered before deadline, but they won’t stop imports of alternatives
Taiwanese research institute Academia Sinica has connected a home-brew quantum computer to the internet.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/taiwan_academica_sinica_quantum_computer/ Save to Pocket
Apple Card/Goldman Sachs scam attempt
date: 2024-01-24, from: Matt Haughey blog
Today I got a call from a legit looking number: 877-255-5923 and since I was parked in my car, I had time to google it while on the call to see it was the Apple Card Goldman Sachs official phone number. A guy on the line said he was in the fraud department at Goldman …Continue reading “Apple Card/Goldman Sachs scam attempt”
https://a.wholelottanothing.org/2024/01/23/apple-card-goldman-sachs-scam-attempt/ Save to Pocket
Netflix Gains Subscribers Despite Price Hikes
date: 2024-01-24, from: VOA News USA
San Francisco — Netflix added 13 million subscribers in the final three months of last year, the company said on Tuesday, despite price hikes at the leading streaming service.
Netflix finished 2023 with slightly more than 260 million subscribers worldwide, with a profit of $938 million in the final quarter versus just $55 million in the same period a year earlier.
“We believe there is plenty of room for growth ahead as streaming expands,” the U.S. company said in an earnings letter.
Netflix shares were up more than 8% to $532.75 in after-market trades that followed the release of the earnings figures.
“Netflix sticks out as the clear front-runner in the streaming wars,” said Insider Intelligence principal analyst Ross Benes.
The streaming pioneer said that despite last year’s strikes by Hollywood actors and writers, the company has a “big, bold” slate of content for release this year.
The company touted coming content including a sequel to the hit Squid Game series out of South Korea and a brand new “3 Body Problem” show based on a bestselling novel by the same name.
“Choice and control are the price of entry in modern entertainment, and that is streaming,” Netflix said in the letter. “It’s what consumers want, and we believe it’s the best way for our industry to stay relevant and growing.”
The earnings news came the same day that Netflix sealed a long-term broadcast deal with the WWE professional wrestling juggernaut, as it pushes further into sporting events.
Beginning in the United States in 2025, Netflix will become the exclusive new home of “Raw,” the WWE’s flagship program that has been broadcasting on television since 1993.
The agreement will also see WWE shows and live events streamed across the globe as their rights become available.
With an initial 10-year term for $5 billion, the deal has an option for Netflix to extend the deal for an additional 10 years or opt out after the first five years.
“We expect our industry to remain highly competitive,” Netflix said, citing heavy investment by rivals including Amazon, Apple and YouTube. “It’s why continuing to improve our entertainment offering is so important.”
Netflix late last year increased the price of its basic plan in the United States to $11.99 monthly and its premium plan to $22.99, with similar price increases seen in Britain and France.
After a period of rocky earnings, earlier in 2022, the Silicon Valley giant expanded its crackdown on users sharing passwords with people beyond their immediate family.
In a separate bid for revenue, Netflix launched an ad-subsidized offering around the same time as the crackdown.
The ad-supported tier is priced at $7 monthly and is growing fast but has yet to become a main driver of overall revenue, according to Netflix.
As the ad-tiers gain momentum, the company said on Tuesday that it would retire the lowest cost ad-free plan, starting with Canada and the UK in the second quarter of this year.
The company said earlier this month it has 23 million subscribers using the ad-supported tier, which accounts for 40% of new sign-ups.
Netflix Co-Chief Executive Greg Peters said during an earnings call that the company is continuing to expand its lineup of more than 80 mobile games that subscribers can play, having recently added the blockbuster “Grand Theft Auto.”
“We’re stoked by the performance of GTA,” said Peters, noting that the Netflix mobile game exceeded even the company’s high hopes for it.
https://www.voanews.com/a/netflix-gains-subscribers-despite-price-hikes/7454785.html Save to Pocket
Santa Barbara Government Official Retires, Goes to Jail After Helping Girlfriend Hide from Cops
date: 2024-01-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Kent Epperson, a department leader for SBCAG for 21 years, pleads guilty to felony charges.
The post Santa Barbara Government Official Retires, Goes to Jail After Helping Girlfriend Hide from Cops appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/23/santa-barbara-government-official-retires-goes-to-jail-after-helping-girlfriend-hide-from-cops/ Save to Pocket
Lifting Our Spirits at Kids Helping Kids Benefit
date: 2024-01-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The Santa Barbara–based youth nonprofit gala featured Brendan James, Johnny swim, and Switchfoot.
The post Lifting Our Spirits at Kids Helping Kids Benefit appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/23/lifting-our-spirits-at-kids-helping-kids-benefit/ Save to Pocket
Seoul restores smartphone subsidies because premium handsets are apparently essential
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Buyers in Samsung’s home will be offered cheaper Galaxies
South Korea on Monday decided to abolish its ban on smartphone subsidies – in part to make premium devices more affordable.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/south_korea_restores_smartphone_subsidies/ Save to Pocket
Blinken Demonstrates US Commitment to Africa Amid Other World Crises
date: 2024-01-24, from: VOA News USA
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is holding talks Tuesday and Wednesday in Nigeria, the largest country by population and economy in sub-Saharan Africa. His visit to the continent comes amid concerns about stability in the Sahel sub-region of West Africa following several coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger since 2020. VOA’s senior diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
https://www.voanews.com/a/blinken-demonstrates-us-commitment-to-africa-amid-other-world-crises-/7454735.html Save to Pocket
Residents attend Homeowners’ Resource Fair
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Signal
Homeowners and prospective buyers in the Santa Clarita Valley attended the Assessor’s Homeowners’ Resource Fair led by Los Angeles County Assessor Jeff Prang on Saturday at the Canyon Country Community Center. Attendees learned from expert speakers about topics such as new construction and assessments, Proposition 19, property tax savings programs, death of a property owner, […]
The post Residents attend Homeowners’ Resource Fair appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/residents-attend-homeowners-resource-fair/ Save to Pocket
AI Audience Row at Sundance Sparks Walkout, Highlights Division
date: 2024-01-24, from: VOA News USA
Park City, Utah — An audience member was ejected from a Sundance festival event Tuesday in a spat over artificial intelligence, triggering a walkout that illustrates the divisions the technology has rapidly wrought in the film industry.
AI — a key driver of the recent and devastating Hollywood strikes — has been debated extensively at this year’s indie movie festival in Utah.
Filmmakers have experimented with using the technology as a creative tool, while also cautioning about its potential to erase jobs and stifle human expression and connection.
At a Tuesday screening of “Being (The Digital Griot),” in which audience members were encouraged to approach the screen and discuss issues like racism and the patriarchy with an AI bot, an audience member appeared to shout profanity about AI.
“I’m not here to be cursed out and I’m not going to have my AI child be cursed out either,” responded the film’s creator, artist Rashaad Newsome, refusing to participate in a post-screening Q&A until action was taken.
Festival staff forced the woman who had apparently yelled to leave the auditorium, prompting jeers.
Roughly a quarter of the auditorium walked out in solidarity, with some complaining that debate was being shut down and others insisting the lady expelled had not been the actual culprit.
Sundance organizers told AFP they were “looking into” the incident and “reviewing all available material to determine what happened so that corrective actions can be taken.”
But the incident highlighted long-brewing and sharply escalating tensions triggered by the issue of AI in the film world – something that this year’s Sundance lineup was specifically programmed to address.
‘Scary’
In addition to “Being,” the Sundance indie festival has hosted “Eternal You” and “Love Machina,” two documentaries about loved ones using AI to communicate after death.
Another film, “Eno,” explored musician Brian Eno’s career and creative process, using a “generative engine” to mesh together near-infinite different versions of a film from hundreds of possible scenes.
AI was also addressed on the fiction side by films like “Love Me,” starring Kristen Stewart, which imagined a romance between an AI-powered buoy and a satellite in a post-human world.
“Love Machina” director Peter Sillen told AFP that AI could soon mean that making a film will be a similar process to writing a novel.
“You’re going to be able to have somebody who’s sitting in their room create a masterpiece of filmmaking, probably,” he said.
The idea was “hard and scary” but “interesting,” Sillen said, concluding: “I think you have to be open to it.”
“Eternal You” director Hans Block pointed out that AI is already widely used in movies – indeed, the Adobe software he used to edit the film is “full of AI” and “helped us as a tool a lot.”
“It’s so much more easy to make a film nowadays,” he said.
But Block said that while AI can help as a tool, it is important to debate what harm could be caused if the technology is not regulated.
“That’s why we are so happy to present the film right now, because it’s a perfect time to open the debate about these discussions,” he said.
‘Human touch’
The danger that AI could replace screenwriters, actors and other professions was a key sticking point in last year’s Hollywood strikes, with unions holding out for guarantees from studios that they would not be replaced.
The encroachment of AI has sparked resolutely negative reactions from many filmmakers at Sundance.
Anirban Dutta, co-director of “Nocturnes,” an experiential documentary about scientists studying moths in the eastern Himalayas, said his movie is “a response to what’s happening to this world where all our human instincts are being mechanized.”
“Our film is a love letter to invite people to come back to what we are losing… human touch,” he said.
The woman who was thrown out of the “Being” screening, who has not been identified, was making a similar point before chaos erupted.
“As interesting as this (film) is… all of the knowledge it has comes from people,” she said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/ai-audience-row-at-sundance-sparks-walkout-highlights-division/7454762.html Save to Pocket
Trump’s poor showing in New Hampshire
date: 2024-01-24, from: Robert Reich on Substack
Read the results in the context of next November’s general election
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-poor-showing-in-new-hampshire Save to Pocket
Feb. 20: VIA Active Shooter Prepardedness Update Luncheon
date: 2024-01-24, from: SCV New (TV Station)
In today’s world, being prepared for unforeseen circumstances is crucial. The Valenica Industry Association Active Shooter Preparedness Update Luncheon aims to empower you with the knowledge and skills needed to respond effectively in the event of an active shooter situation
https://scvnews.com/feb-20-via-active-shooter-prepardedness-update-luncheon/ Save to Pocket
March 16: SCV Relay for Life Survivor, Caregiver Dinner
date: 2024-01-24, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Santa Clarita Valley cordially invites cancer survivors and their caregivers in the community to a Survivor and Caregiver Dinner Event on Saturday, March 16 at the Santa Clarita Elks Lodge
https://scvnews.com/march-16-scv-relay-for-life-survivor-caregiver-dinner/ Save to Pocket
OC Leaders Tussle Over Ethics And Transparency After LAist Reporting On Top Official
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The LAist
The ethics proposal deadlocked among O.C. supervisors 2-to-2. O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do, who directed millions to his daughter’s nonprofit without publicly disclosing the connection, was absent for the vote.
https://laist.com/news/politics/orange-county-ethics-reforms-supervisor-andrew-do-taxpayer-dollars-daughter-viet-america-society Save to Pocket
Tesla Cybertruck gets cyberstuck during off-roading expedition
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Owner pledges to try again once software update improves performance
Video A Tesla Cybertruck owner who took his wheeled wedge off-road ended up with busted wheel fairings and self-detaching wheel covers for his trouble – and all without the thing being able to make it up a challenging hill.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/tesla_cybertruck_offroading_video/ Save to Pocket
Trump Wins New Hampshire Primary
date: 2024-01-24, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-wins-new-hampshire-primary/7453717.html Save to Pocket
Supervisors recommend LASD revise firearm safety policy
date: 2024-01-24, from: The Signal
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a recommendation to have the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department work with the Office of the Inspector General to improve firearm safety in relation to department personnel mixing alcohol use with firearms. The motion, authored by Supervisors Hilda Solis, 1st District, and Lindsey Horvath, 3rd […]
The post <strong>Supervisors recommend LASD revise firearm safety policy</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/supervisors-recommend-lasd-revise-firearm-safety-policy/ Save to Pocket
The Ducati Diavel V4 Receives Numerous Design Awards And Global Acclaim
date: 2024-01-24, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
The Ducati Diavel V4 undoubtedly raises the bar in the cruiser segment when it comes to performance and technology.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705814/ducati-diavel-v4-design-awards/ Save to Pocket
Planned into a Corner
date: 2024-01-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Ryan P. Cruz’s article on Housing Element issues was quite illuminating, but it fails to recognize that the trouble the county is in, now, is largely of their own making.
The post Planned into a Corner appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/23/planned-into-a-corner/ Save to Pocket
Quick Charge Podcast: January 23, 2024
date: 2024-01-24, 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/2024/01/23/quick-charge-podcast-january-23-2024/ Save to Pocket
CommUnify Chosen as 2024 Beneficiary for K-LITE’s Valentine’s Day Radio-thon
date: 2024-01-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Valentine’s Day is all about LOVE. Love for a partner. Love for family and friends. Love for children. What better way
The post CommUnify Chosen as 2024 Beneficiary for K-LITE’s Valentine’s Day Radio-thon appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/23/communify-chosen-as-2024-beneficiary-for-k-lites-valentines-day-radio-thon/ Save to Pocket
Macy’s and Sunglass Hut sued for $10M over face-recog arrest and ‘sexual assault’
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Man, 61, cuffed and allegedly attacked after ‘faulty’ AI software blundered
A 61-year-old man is suing US retail giant Macy’s and the parent biz of chain store Sunglass Hut for $10 million, claiming he was mistakenly arrested in a robbery case after an inaccurate facial-recognition identification match, and subsequently sexually assaulted in jail.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/macys_sunglass_hut_facial_recognition/ Save to Pocket
Chrome for Windows and macOS gets experimentel “AI” features
date: 2024-01-24, from: OS News
Starting with today’s release of Chrome (M121), we’re introducing experimental generative AI features to make it even easier and more efficient to browse — all while keeping your experience personalized to you. You’ll be able to try out these new features in Chrome on Macs and Windows PCs over the next few days, starting in the U.S. Just sign into Chrome, select “Settings” from the three-dot menu and navigate to the “Experimental AI” page. Because these features are early public experiments, they’ll be disabled for enterprise and educational accounts for now. ↫ Parisa Tabriz Chrome will automatically suggest tab groups for you (a sorting algorithm, very advanced technology), you can generate themes (mashing other people’s real art togerher and picking a dominant colour from the result), and Chrome can generate text in text fields (spicy autocomplete). “AI” sure is changing the world as we know it.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138438/chrome-for-windows-and-macos-gets-experimentel-ai-features/ Save to Pocket
Wednesday 24 January, 2024
date: 2024-01-24, from: John Naughton’s online diary
Not a post office scandal Merely a New Year knitted top for a postbox in Ely! Quote of the Day ”Life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards.” Søren … Continue reading
https://memex.naughtons.org/wednesday-24-january-2024/39065/ Save to Pocket
Former Orphanage Founder in Haiti Faces Federal Charges of Sexually Abusing Minors
date: 2024-01-24, from: VOA News USA
Denver — An orphanage founder in Haiti who faced past accusations of abusing boys in his care is facing criminal charges in the U.S. after an investigation revealed that he traveled to the Caribbean country to sexually abuse minors, federal officials said Tuesday.
Michael Geilenfeld, 71, previously sued a Maine activist over accusations he abused boys in Haiti, calling the claims “vicious, vile lies,” before an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI led to an indictment contending he traveled from Miami to the island nation “for the purpose of engaging in any illicit sexual conduct with another person under 18.”
Geilenfeld, who was arrested in Colorado, is expected to have a detention hearing in Denver on Thursday before being flown to Miami, where the case originated, officials said. His Massachusetts lawyer, Robert Oberkoetter, declined to comment.
Geilenfeld and North Carolina-based Hearts with Haiti sued the activist, Paul Kendrick, who accused Geilenfeld of being a serial pedophile after speaking to young men who claimed they were abused by Geilenfeld as boys in Port-au-Prince, where Geilenfeld founded the St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in 1985.
In a federal civil lawsuit in Maine, Geilenfeld and the charity blamed Kendrick for Geilenfeld’s 237-day imprisonment in Haiti, damage to his reputation and the loss of millions of dollars in donations.
The activist’s insurance companies ended the lawsuit in 2019 by paying $3 million to Hearts with Haiti, but nothing to Geilenfeld.
Kendrick had praise Tuesday for those who stood up to the man who held the purse strings to their education, food, shelter and clothing.
“It took an unbelievable amount of courage for them to come forward and report their abuse,” he said.
The conduct cited by the grand jury happened between November 2006 and December 2010, when Geilenfeld was operating the orphanage.
The charge of traveling in foreign commerce for illicit sexual conduct has a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.
Authorities in Haiti have long investigated sex abuse allegations against Geilenfeld, who was arrested in the Caribbean country in September 2014 but released a year later after his case was dismissed.
The alleged victims, who did not appear in court in Haiti, were granted an appeal, but the case has yet to go to trial as Haiti’s judicial system continues to crumble amid widespread corruption and a spike in gang violence.
https://www.voanews.com/a/former-orphanage-founder-in-haiti-faces-federal-charges-of-sexually-abusing-minors-/7452676.html Save to Pocket
Intuit ordered to use the word ‘free’ less freely in its ads
date: 2024-01-24, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
FTC slams TurboTax’s marketing as deceptive
Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, is no longer free to tout its tax filing software as “free” when it isn’t free to most customers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/intuit_ordered_to_use_free/ Save to Pocket
Review | ‘Fascism in America: Past and Present,’ Edited by Gavriel D. Rosenfeld and Janet Ward
date: 2024-01-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
This collection of essays on fascism in America has particular relevance in the 2024 election.
The post Review | ‘Fascism in America: Past and Present,’ Edited by Gavriel D. Rosenfeld and Janet Ward appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/23/review-fascism-in-america-past-and-present-edited-by-gavriel-d-rosenfeld-and-janet-ward/ Save to Pocket
No, multimodal ChatGPT is not going to “trivially” solve Generative AI’s copyright problems
date: 2024-01-24, from: Gary Marcus blog
The usually on-target AI Snake Oil got this one wrong; a lot of money is at stake
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/no-multimodal-chatgpt-is-not-going Save to Pocket
Review | Poolside Comes Oceanside
date: 2024-01-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Locally beloved band brings their easygoing dance music to SOhO.
The post Review | Poolside Comes Oceanside appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/23/review-poolside-comes-oceanside/ Save to Pocket
COC Registration Ongoing for Spring 2024
date: 2024-01-24, from: SCV New (TV Station)
It is not too late for students and community members to register for the College of the Canyons Spring 2024 semester, which starts on Monday, Feb.
https://scvnews.com/coc-registration-ongoing-for-spring-2024/ Save to Pocket
America First
date: 2024-01-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Like or hate him, Donald Trump is one of the most influential leaders in American history.
The post America First appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/23/america-first/ Save to Pocket
The Home Page | Baseball, Blue Skies, and the Big Bad Wolf
date: 2024-01-23, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
This edition of The Home Page was originally emailed to subscribers on January 21, 2024. To receive Sarah Sinclair’s real estate
The post The Home Page | Baseball, Blue Skies, and the Big Bad Wolf appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/01/23/the-home-page-baseball-blue-skies-and-the-big-bad-wolf/ Save to Pocket
Nine US Governors Call for Action on Immigration Reform
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/democratic-governors-call-for-action-on-immigration-reform/7452314.html Save to Pocket
Thousands Of Volunteers To Comb The Region And Tally The Number Of Unhoused People
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The LAist
Over the next three days, volunteers will spread out across 4,000 miles of Los Angeles County to count their unhoused neighbors.
https://laist.com/news/housing-homelessness/2024-homeless-count-la-county-unhoused Save to Pocket
Supes Vote to Boost Performing Arts in Communities
date: 2024-01-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors have voted unanimously in support of Supervisor Kathryn Barger’s motion that will promote and increase communities’ access to The Music Center’s Arts Grown L.A., a program operated by The Music Center: Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County.
https://scvnews.com/supes-vote-to-boost-performing-arts-in-communities/ Save to Pocket
Disappointment at sentencing
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Signal
Family, DDA disappointed by probation given to woman convicted in 2018 stabbing death of Santa Clarita native A Ventura County judge sentenced a woman who stabbed a Santa Clarita native to death in 2018 to probation on Tuesday. Bryn Spejcher received two years’ probation and a suspended sentence for voluntary manslaughter in the stabbing death […]
The post <strong>Disappointment at sentencing </strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/disappointment-at-sentencing/ Save to Pocket
Mozilla creates Firefox ppa and .deb package
date: 2024-01-23, from: OS News
Great news for Linux users, after months of testing, Mozilla released today a new package for Firefox on Linux (specifically on Ubuntu, Debian, and any Debian-based distribution). If you’ve heard about Linux, which is known for its open-source software and an alternative to traditional operating systems (OS), and are curious to learn more, here are four reasons why you should give our new Firefox on Linux package a try. ↫ Gabriel Bustamente and Johan Lorenzo It’s a ppa and .deb package straight from Mozilla itself, so you don’t have to to rely on your distribution’s maintainers (as long as you use a Debian-based distribution, that is). Do note, however, that some distributions actually make changes to the default Firefox code, such as Fedora enabling things like Wayland-by-default and hardware-accelerated video decoding long before those became default in Firefox-proper. By using Mozilla’s package, you’ll lose all of these changes. As a sidenote, Mozilla’s instructions for enabling the ppa and installing the .deb are a bit… Dubious, though.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138436/mozilla-creates-firefox-ppa-and-deb-package/ Save to Pocket
Eight Secure Ways to Share Sensitive Information over the Internet
date: 2024-01-23, from: TidBITS blog
Sometimes, you need to share private information—a password, financial details, a confidential document—over the Internet. Adam Engst looks at eight popular methods of transmitting your secrets securely to others.
https://tidbits.com/2024/01/23/eight-secure-ways-to-share-sensitive-information-over-the-internet/ Save to Pocket
Mother of all breaches reveals 26 billion records: what we know so far
date: 2024-01-23, from: OS News
The supermassive leak contains data from numerous previous breaches, comprising an astounding 12 terabytes of information, spanning over a mind-boggling 26 billion records. The leak, which contains LinkedIn, Twitter, Weibo, Tencent, and other platforms’ user data, is almost certainly the largest ever discovered. ↫ Vilius Petkauskas at cybernews Holy cow.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138434/mother-of-all-breaches-reveals-26-billion-records-what-we-know-so-far/ Save to Pocket
iOS 17.3, macOS 14.3, watchOS 10.3, tvOS 17.3 released
date: 2024-01-23, from: OS News
Apple yesterday released iOS and iPadOS 17.3 as well as watchOS 10.3, tvOS 17.3, and macOS Sonoma 14.3 for all supported devices. iOS 17.3 primarily adds collaborative playlists in Apple Music, and what Apple calls “Stolen Device Protection.” Collaborative playlists have been on a bit of a journey; they were promised as part of iOS 17, then added in the beta of iOS 17.2, but removed before that update went live. Now they’re finally reaching all users. When enabled, Stolen Device Protection requires Face ID or Touch ID authentication “with no passcode fallback” for some sensitive actions on the phone. ↫ Samuel Axon at Ars Technica This last feature is something you should probably turn on right away, as it serves as a reply to Joanna Stern’s investigation into an apparently common way iPhones would get stolen to gain access to users’ Apple accounts.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138431/ios-17-3-macos-14-3-watchos-10-3-tvos-17-3-released/ Save to Pocket
The New Volkswagen Golf Plug-In Hybrids Have 62 Miles Of Electric Range
date: 2024-01-23, from: Inside EVs News
The electrified versions of the German hatchback can also accept up to 50 kW of power from a DC fast charger.
https://insideevs.com/news/705728/vw-golf-plug-in-hybrid-ev-range-2024/ Save to Pocket
New VW Golf GTE plug-in doubles the battery and range, adds DC fast charging, but…
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
It’s still not coming to America. Sorry, readers — thought I’d get the disappointment out of the way. The company’s bean counters still believe America is the continent of SUVs.
VW announced a midlife refresh of the current Golf Mk VIII lineup today, and the PHEV GTE is getting some seriously attractive updates to the electric portion of the powertrain.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/the-new-vw-golf-gte-has-a-bigger-battery-more-range-dc-fast-charging/ Save to Pocket
Libits: Framework Laptop 16 review roundup, a pocket-sized travel router, Firefox 122, and budget phones with 90 Hz displays
date: 2024-01-23, from: Liliputing
The Framework Laptop 16 is one of the most unusual laptops expected to launch this year… and that’s saying something at a time when we’re expecting dual-screen notebooks like the Asus Zenbook Duo and Lenovo Yoga Book 9i, and models with E Ink lids like the Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 SPE. But the Framework […]
The post Libits: Framework Laptop 16 review roundup, a pocket-sized travel router, Firefox 122, and budget phones with 90 Hz displays appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/libits-framework-laptop-16-review-roundup-a-pocket-sized-travel-router-firefox-122-and-budget-phones-with-90-hz-displays/ Save to Pocket
curl docs format evolution
date: 2024-01-23, from: Daniel Stenberg Blog
I trust you have figured out already that I have the highest ambitions for the curl documentation. I want everything documented in a clear, easy-to-read and easy-to-find manner. This takes a lot of work and is not something that happens without effort. Part of providing best-in-class documentation has in my mind always been to provide … Continue reading curl docs format evolution
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/01/23/curl-docs-format-evolution/ Save to Pocket
United Airlines’ patience with Boeing is maxed out after repeated safety issues
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Plans for life without the 737 Max 10 after CEO rated door plug blowout ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’
United Airlines, which boasts one of the world’s largest fleets of Boeing aircraft, is considering a future without the next version of the American manufacturer’s troubled 737 jet series, the Max 10.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/united_boeing_737/ Save to Pocket
J+ BOOSTER 2 portable EV charger review: More bang for your buck
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
When Juice Americas launched its portable two-in-one EV charger, the J+ BOOSTER 2, in North America, Electrek was invited to review it. Here’s how it went.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/j-booster-2-review-ev-charger/ Save to Pocket
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-01-23, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Godot on iPad updates: blogging is slightly delayed as I have gone down a wild yak shaving expedition.
Hacking is proceeding at an accelerated pace and I hope I have something delightful to show soon.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111807733949179017 Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-01-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The top five RSS readers for keeping up with your news feeds.
https://www.theverge.com/24036427/rss-feed-reader-best Save to Pocket
Sticking Around
date: 2024-01-23, from: Chris Coyier blog
Stephen Hackett with a bit that resonates: There are all sorts of things that can end the career of a professional creators, including burnout, financial pressures, losing relevance and more. These are things I would like to avoid so I can keep writing and podcasting about the topics I care deeply about, with people I […]
https://chriscoyier.net/2024/01/23/sticking-around/ Save to Pocket
Adopt a Gibbon at the Gibbon Conservation Center
date: 2024-01-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Gibbon Conservation Center in Saugus is seeking 2024 sponsors for seven gibbons at the facility. All but seven gibbons have a sponsor for 2024. Gibbon Adoption includes a photo, certificate, species fact sheet, individual write up and, while supplies last, a calendar.
https://scvnews.com/adopt-a-gibbon-at-the-gibbon-conservation-center/ Save to Pocket
US Strikes Back at Iran-Supported Militants in Iraq
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
pentagon — The United States hit Iranian-backed targets in Iraq and Yemen in a span of about two hours early Wednesday morning, striking a militant headquarters in Iraq and knocking out more missiles in Yemen that were ready to launch into international shipping lanes, according to the U.S. military.
U.S. military aircraft hit the Iranian-backed proxies in Iraq just after midnight local time in response to a series of attacks against U.S. and coalition forces in recent days.
U.S. officials said the airstrikes targeted three facilities in western Iraq used by Kataib Hezbollah and other Iranian proxy groups.
“These strikes targeted KH [Kataib Hezbollah] headquarters, storage, and training locations for rocket, missile, and one-way attack UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] capabilities,” according to a statement from U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the region.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned, separately, that Washington is not ruling out additional strikes, if necessary.
“We do not seek to escalate conflict in the region,” Austin said in a statement, adding, “We are fully prepared to take further measures to protect our people and our facilities.”
“We call on these groups and their Iranian sponsors to immediately cease these attacks,” he said.
The new U.S. strikes – targeting sites in the towns of al-Qaim and Jurf al Sakhar, and one other location in western Iraq – came shortly after Iranian-backed militants attacked Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq with one-way attack drones.
The base was also targeted on Saturday by a barrage of ballistic missiles launched from inside Iraq. While most of the missiles were shot down, Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder said those that landed on base caused traumatic brain injuries in four U.S. personnel.
More than 150 attacks on US forces
There have been more than 150 attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack against Israel, injuring at least 83 Americans in Iraq and Syria, a U.S. defense official told VOA. All but two have returned to duty.
About two hours after the attack in Iraq, the U.S. military stuck two anti-ship missiles in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen that were prepared to launch and posed an imminent threat to maritime vessels, according to U.S. Central Command. Another anti-ship missile had been taken out by U.S. forces on Tuesday, according to Ryder.
The anti-ship missile attacks were preceded by a series of strikes launched into Yemen on Tuesday by U.S. and British warplanes, backed by surface ships and submarines, to further degrade the capabilities of the 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.
UN leader urges ‘all parties to step back’
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday urged “all parties to step back from the brink and to consider the horrendous human cost of a regional conflict.”
Ryder told reporters in response to a question from VOA that the U.S. was “not at war” in the Middle East.
“Our goal here is to ensure the Red Sea is safe and secure for international shipping. That is our only goal,” he 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.
A U.S. defense official said Monday the decline in the number and the ferocity of the Houthis’ maritime attacks was directly attributed to the reduction in their capabilities.
“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.
Many of the Houthi attacks have targeted ships that are not associated with Israel.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-strikes-back-at-iran-supported-militants-in-iraq/7452268.html Save to Pocket
CHP: No arrest made in hit and run in Canyon Country
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Signal
GoFundMe created for Valencia teen who suffered critical injuries in collision Despite an apparent detainment on Monday evening, no arrest has been made in connection to the hit and run involving a pedestrian that occurred in Canyon Country, according to the California Highway Patrol incident report. The report states that an 18-year-old Valencia resident was […]
The post <strong>CHP: No arrest made in hit and run in Canyon Country</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/01/chp-no-arrest-made-in-hit-and-run-in-canyon-country/ Save to Pocket
NOAA’s GOES-U Arrives in Florida for Processing Ahead of Launch
date: 2024-01-23, from: NASA breaking news
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite U (GOES-U), the fourth and final weather-observing and environmental monitoring satellite in NOAA’s GOES-R Series, is now in Florida. The satellite landed on Tuesday, Jan. 23, in a United States Air Force C-5M Super Galaxy cargo plane at the Launch and Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Data from […]
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/smd/joint-agency-satellite-division/noaa/noaas-goes-u-arrives-in-florida-for-processing-ahead-of-launch/ Save to Pocket
Ex-IBM staff ask US Supremes for help in bringing age-discrimination battle to court
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Clock is ticking, in more ways than one
Twenty-nine former IBM employees who were denied the opportunity to sue the IT giant for age discrimination by arbitration agreements have petitioned the US Supreme Court to let them bring their claims to court.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/ibm_supreme_court/ Save to Pocket
Appeals Court Rejects Trump’s Bid to Reconsider Gag Order in Election Interference Case
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
washington — Washington’s federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected Donald Trump’s request to reconsider a gag order restricting the former president’s speech in the case charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 election.
Lawyers for the Republican presidential front-runner had asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to examine the gag order after a three-judge panel upheld but narrowed the restrictions on his speech. Trump can now appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
An attorney for Trump did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The gag order was imposed by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in October in response to concerns from special counsel Jack Smith’s team that Trump’s pattern of incendiary comments could taint the proceedings, intimidate witnesses and influence jurors.
The three-judge panel that upheld the gag order last month modified it in important ways, freeing Trump to publicly criticize Smith. The special counsel has been a frequent target of Trump’s ire since being appointed by the Justice Department in November 2022 to lead investigations into the former president.
The panel said that though Trump could make general comments about known or foreseeable witnesses, he could not directly attack them over their involvement in the case or about the content of their expected testimony.
Trump’s lawyers argued the panel’s decision contradicted Supreme Court precedent and rulings from other appeals courts. They said a fresh evaluation was needed “both to secure uniformity of this Court’s decisions and because of the question’s exceptional importance.”
A different three-judge panel of the appeals court in Washington is separately weighing Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution in the case, which accuses him of plotting with his Republican allies to subvert the will of voters in a bid to stay in power. Chutkan, who rejected Trump’s immunity claim, has put the case on hold while he pursues his appeal.
https://www.voanews.com/a/appeals-court-rejects-trump-s-bid-to-reconsider-gag-order-in-election-interference-case-/7452257.html Save to Pocket
Ukraine Aid-Border Security Deal in Congress Likely a Week Away
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
Capitol Hill — U.S. lawmakers said Tuesday a deal on border security in return for Republican votes to send nearly $60 billion in aid to Ukraine is nearing completion but likely will not be announced this week.
“The whole world is watching and asking a simple question: Does the United States stand up for its friends?” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, one of the lead negotiators on the deal, told reporters Tuesday. “Does the United States stand up for democracy? Does the United States stand up for the preservation of the post-World War II order? Or do we turn our back on our friends, on democracy and on international norms?”
The White House’s $106 billion national security supplemental request also includes funding for border security as well as nearly $14 billion in aid to Israel and funding for Taiwan to combat the threat posed by China.
“This is a unique opportunity where divided government has given us an opportunity to get an outcome,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday. “Virtually all of my members have said to their constituents for a long time, ‘We need to fix the border.’ This administration is not going to do it unless we force him to.”
Biden asks for $60 billion
The United States has dedicated more than $100 billion to arming and supporting Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, and President Joe Biden has asked Congress to approve another $60 billion. Republicans in Congress have become increasingly skeptical about the need to continue underwriting Ukraine’s defense.
The Pentagon announced on December 27 a new $250 million security assistance package for Ukraine that included additional munitions for surface-to-air missiles systems, artillery rounds and more air defense components. The Pentagon still has $4 billion available to provide Ukraine with military aid, but no funds are available to replenish the U.S. military’s stockpiles.
“We have heard reports from the Ukrainian government, from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and their general staff, that they are concerned, as they believe that units do not have the stocks and stores and ammunition that they require,” said Celeste Wallander, assistant U.S. secretary of defense for international security affairs, on Tuesday.
“And that is one of the reasons we have been focusing on the need to answer Congress’s questions so that they are able to move forward with that decision to pass the supplemental.”
Republicans set conditions for approving aid
Republicans in the Senate have conditioned approval of any additional money for Ukraine on the simultaneous strengthening of immigration rules aimed at reducing the number of people illegally entering the United States at its southern border and expelling some who are already in the country.
According to multiple news organizations, an estimated 300,000 people crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in December 2023. That estimate marks the highest-ever recorded number of U.S.-Mexico border crossings.
Even if an agreement passes in the Senate, it might not survive in the House, where Republicans hold a very narrow majority. A significant group of Republican House members oppose additional aid to Ukraine, and the party in early October voted out a speaker who partnered with Democrats to pass legislation.
Earlier this month, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson led a delegation of 60 House Republicans to visit the U.S.-Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Texas.
“If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begin with defending America’s national security,” Johnson told reporters at a news conference on the border.
Republicans have proposed their own legislation, H.R. 2, which would resume construction of a border wall as well as impose new restrictions on asylum-seekers.
Carla Babb contributed to this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-aid-border-security-deal-in-congress-likely-a-week-away-/7452227.html Save to Pocket
Tribes, Environmental Groups Ask US Court to Block $10B Energy Project in Arizona
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO — A federal judge is being asked to issue a stop-work order on a $10 billion transmission line being built through a remote southeastern Arizona valley to carry wind-generated electricity to customers as far away as California.
A 32-page lawsuit filed on January 17 in U.S. District Court in Tucson, Arizona, accuses the U.S. Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management of refusing for nearly 15 years to recognize “overwhelming evidence of the cultural significance” of the remote San Pedro Valley to Native American tribes, including the Tohono O’odham, Hopi, Zuni and San Carlos Apache Tribe.
The suit was filed shortly after Pattern Energy received approval to transmit electricity generated by its SunZia wind farm in central New Mexico through the San Pedro Valley east of Tucson and north of Interstate 10.
The lawsuit calls the valley “one of the most intact, prehistoric and historical … landscapes in southern Arizona” and asks the court to issue restraining orders or permanent injunctions to halt construction.
“The San Pedro Valley will be irreparably harmed if construction proceeds,” it says.
Government representatives declined to comment Tuesday on the pending litigation. They are expected to respond in court. The project has been touted as the biggest U.S. electricity infrastructure undertaking since the Hoover Dam.
Pattern Energy officials said Tuesday that the time has passed to reconsider the route, which was approved in 2015 following a review process.
“It is unfortunate and regrettable that after a lengthy consultation process, where certain parties did not participate repeatedly since 2009, this is the path chosen at this late stage,” Pattern Energy spokesperson Matt Dallas said in an email.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Tohono O’odham Nation, the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the nonprofit organizations Center for Biological Diversity and Archaeology Southwest.
“The case for protecting this landscape is clear,” Archaeology Southwest said in a statement that calls the San Pedro Arizona’s last free-flowing river and the valley the embodiment of a “unique and timely story of social and ecological sustainability across more than 12,000 years of cultural and environmental change.”
The valley represents an 80-kilometer (50-mile) stretch of the planned 885-kilometer (550-mile) conduit expected to carry electricity from new wind farms in central New Mexico to existing transmission lines in Arizona to serve populated areas as far away as California. The project has been called an important part of President Joe Biden’s goal for a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035.
Work started in September in New Mexico after negotiations that spanned years and resulted in approval from the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency with authority over vast parts of the U.S. West.
The route in New Mexico was modified after the U.S. Defense Department raised concerns about the effects of high-voltage lines on radar systems and military training operations.
Work halted briefly in November amid pleas by tribes to review environmental approvals for the San Pedro Valley and resumed weeks later in what Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon M. Jose characterized as “a punch to the gut.”
SunZia expects the transmission line to begin commercial service in 2026, carrying more than 3,500 megawatts of wind power to 3 million people. Project officials say they conducted surveys and worked with tribes over the years to identify cultural resources in the area.
A photo included in the court filing shows an aerial view in November of ridgetop access roads and tower sites being built west of the San Pedro River near Redrock Canyon. Tribal officials and environmentalists say the region is otherwise relatively untouched.
The transmission line also is being challenged before the Arizona Court of Appeals. The court is being asked to consider whether state regulatory officials there properly considered the benefits and consequences of the project.
https://www.voanews.com/a/tribes-environmental-groups-ask-us-court-to-block-10b-energy-project-in-arizona/7452225.html Save to Pocket
BMW previews early look at its new high-performance i5 M60 Touring EV
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
BMW’s 5 series is set to expand very soon. The automaker is teasing the new BMW i5 M60 Touring, giving us a sneak peek at what we can expect from the high-performance EV.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/bmw-previews-high-performance-i5-m60-touring-ev/ Save to Pocket
Donald Trump’s Defamation Trial to Resume Thursday
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s trial in the defamation case brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll will resume on Thursday and will not be held on Wednesday as initially scheduled, Manhattan federal court records showed Tuesday.
The trial’s second postponement this week delays a potential face-to-face encounter between Carroll and the former U.S. president, who has said he wants to testify.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan delayed the trial until Wednesday after a juror and one of Trump’s lawyers reported illnesses.
When the trial resumes, jurors will determine how much Trump should pay Carroll for defaming her in June 2019, when he denied raping her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.
Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has consistently denied that anything happened and accused Carroll of making up the incident to boost sales of her then-new memoir.
https://www.voanews.com/a/donald-trump-s-defamation-trial-to-resume-on-thursday/7452250.html Save to Pocket
Winston Churchill Wore False Teeth to Deliver Historic Wartime Speeches. Now, They’re for Sale
date: 2024-01-23, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The British prime minister likely acquired the custom gold-mounted dentures around the beginning of World War II
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/you-can-own-a-set-of-winston-churchills-false-teeth-180983638/ Save to Pocket
March 16: Vine2Wine to Benefit Circle of Hope
date: 2024-01-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Indulge your senses and support a great cause at Vine2Wine, Circle of Hope Cancer Supporrt Center’s annual wine tasting fundraiser. Vine2Wine will be held at the Sand Canyon Country Club on Saturday, March 16 for an evening of unparalleled elegance, where the finest wines will take center stage.
https://scvnews.com/march-16-vine2wine-to-benefit-circle-of-hope/ Save to Pocket
Simply NUC Emerald 2 is an Intel Raptor Lake mini PC with 3 HDMI ports, 2 Ethernet ports and up to 10TB storage
date: 2024-01-23, from: Liliputing
The new Simply NUC Emerald 2 is a small desktop computer that measures 168 x 115 x 37mm (6.6″ x 4.5″ x 1.5″) and features a 13th-gen Intel Core “Raptor Lake” mobile processor, support for up to 64GB of RAM, and up to 10TB of solid state storage. It’s available now with prices starting at $569. […]
The post Simply NUC Emerald 2 is an Intel Raptor Lake mini PC with 3 HDMI ports, 2 Ethernet ports and up to 10TB storage appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/simply-nuc-emerald-2-is-an-intel-raptor-lake-mini-pc-with-3-hdmi-ports-2-ethernet-ports-and-up-to-10tb-storage/ Save to Pocket
Charles Osgood, CBS Host on TV, Radio and ‘Poet-in-Residence,’ Dies at 91
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — Charles Osgood, a five-time Emmy Award-winning journalist who anchored “CBS Sunday Morning” for more than two decades, hosted the long-running radio program “The Osgood File” and was referred to as CBS News’ poet-in-residence, has died. He was 91.
CBS reported that Osgood died Tuesday at his home in Saddle River, New Jersey, and that the cause was dementia, according to his family.
Osgood was an erudite, warm broadcaster with a flair for music who could write essays and light verse as well as report hard news. He worked in radio and television with equal facility and signed off by telling listeners: “I’ll see you on the radio.”
“To say there’s no one like Charles Osgood is an understatement,” Rand Morrison, executive producer of “Sunday Morning,” said in a statement. “He embodied the heart and soul of ‘Sunday Morning.’ … At the piano, Charlie put our lives to music. Truly, he was one of a kind — in every sense.”
“CBS News Sunday Morning” will honor Osgood with a special broadcast on Sunday.
Osgood took over “Sunday Morning” after the beloved Charles Kuralt retired in 1994. Osgood seemingly had an impossible act to follow, but with his folksy erudition and his slightly bookish, bow-tied style, he immediately clicked with viewers, who continued to embrace the program as an unhurried TV magazine.
Osgood, who graduated from Fordham University in 1954, started as a classical music disk jockey in Washington, served in the Army and returned to help start WHCT in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1963, he got an on-air position at ABC Radio in New York.
In 1967, he took a job as reporter on the CBS-owned New York news radio station NewsRadio 88. Then, one fateful weekend, he was summoned to fill in at the anchor desk for the TV network’s Saturday newscast. In 1971, he joined the CBS network and launched what would be known as “The Osgood File.”
In 1990, he was inducted into the radio division of the National Association of Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame. In 2008, he was awarded the National Association of Broadcasters Distinguished Service Award. He won four Emmy Awards and earned a fifth lifetime achievement honor in 2017.
Jane Pauley succeeded Osgood as host of “Sunday Morning,” becoming only the third host of the program.
When he retired in 2016 after 45 years of journalism, Osgood did so in a very Osgood fashion.
“For years now, people — even friends and family — have been asking me why I continue doing this, considering my age,” the then-83-year-old Osgood said in brief concluding remarks. “It’s just that it’s been such a joy doing it! It’s been a great run, but after nearly 50 years at CBS … the time has come.”
And then he sang a few wistful bars from a favorite folk song: “So long, it’s been good to know you. I’ve got to be drifting along.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/charles-osgood-cbs-host-on-tv-radio-and-poet-in-residence-dies-at-91/7452173.html Save to Pocket
Intriguing new book: Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet,…
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/0043814-intriguing-new-book-our-m Save to Pocket
Tesla’s own former AI engineer trolls the company: ‘full self-wiping’
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Tesla’s own former head of AI infrastructure, Tim Zaman, is impressed with the latest FSD v12 Full Self-Driving software, but he trolls the company’s AI effort.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/tesla-own-former-ai-engineer-trolls-full-self-wiping/ Save to Pocket
NASA Finally Opens Canister Holding Asteroid Sample—See What They Found
date: 2024-01-23, from: Smithsonian Magazine
It took several months for the researchers to remove two stuck fasteners, which required them to design new tools
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nasa-finally-opens-canister-holding-asteroid-sample-see-what-they-found-180983644/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-01-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Where to Stream 2024 Oscar-Nominated Movies.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/23/movies/oscar-nominated-movies-streaming.html Save to Pocket
The LA Times lays off 115 people, with the De Los and Washington, D.C. teams especially hard-hit
date: 2024-01-23, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
The Los Angeles Times laid off 23% of its newsroom on Tuesday — one of the largest cuts in the paper’s 142-year history, according to the paper’s own reporting. Around 385 newsroom positions remain. “We are not in turmoil. We have a real plan,” the paper’s owner, billionaire businessman Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, told L.A. Times…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/01/the-la-times-lays-off-115-people-with-the-de-los-and-washington-d-c-teams-especially-hard-hit/ Save to Pocket
Experts Solve ‘Ancient Jigsaw Puzzle’ by Reassembling Roman Armor Broken Into 100 Pieces
date: 2024-01-23, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The fragments of the brass arm guard were discovered at an ancient fort complex in Scotland over a century ago
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/experts-reconstruct-an-ancient-roman-armored-sleeve-broken-into-100-pieces-180983633/ Save to Pocket
The Secret Apple Car Project Is At A ‘Make-Or-Break’ Moment: Report
date: 2024-01-23, from: Inside EVs News
Apple is delaying and scaling back its plans to make an electric car to rival Tesla.
https://insideevs.com/news/705790/apple-car-project-2028/ Save to Pocket
Here are all the used EVs that qualify for a $4,000 tax credit
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
January 1, 2023, kicked off a fresh start of new tax credits for vehicles, both new and used. Since then, much of the dust has settled on the Capitol as it continues to implement qualifying terms for tax credits, continuously shifting what used EVs do and do not qualify. Here’s the latest list.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/here-are-all-the-used-evs-that-qualify-for-the-new-4000-tax-credit/ Save to Pocket
Training Generative AI Models on Copyrighted Works Is Fair Use
date: 2024-01-23, from: Association of Research Libraries News
Last Updated on January 23, 2024, 4:48 pm ET ARL and ALA are founding members of the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA). ARL, ALA, and LCA are not involved in the…
The post Training Generative AI Models on Copyrighted Works Is Fair Use appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.
https://www.arl.org/blog/training-generative-ai-models-on-copyrighted-works-is-fair-use/ Save to Pocket
CHP Sees Notable Reduction in Freeway Shootings
date: 2024-01-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
In a significant milestone for public safety, the California Highway Patrol documented a substantial reduction in the number of freeway shootings across the state. The number of confirmed freeway shootings in California dropped from 349 to 274 last year, a reduction of more than 21% from the previous year and a 38% reduction from
https://scvnews.com/chp-sees-notable-reduction-in-freeway-shootings/ Save to Pocket
The Story of Palestine
date: 2024-01-23, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
For about 100 years, the question of Palestine has remained unresolved and unanswered – characterized by failed diplomacy, violent uprisings and a difference on how Israelis and Palestinians seek to answer this question. CSUN organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine and Students Supporting Israel seek to answer this question amidst the Israel-Hamas war….
https://sundial.csun.edu/177938/news/the-story-of-palestine/ Save to Pocket
Amazon’s Car-Buying Pilot Doesn’t Save You From The Dealer Finance Office
date: 2024-01-23, from: Inside EVs News
Amazon wants to disrupt car buying. But its pilot program still requires you to visit a dealer to sign all of the paperwork.
https://insideevs.com/news/705795/buying-a-car-on-amazon/ Save to Pocket
Charging for “Remarkable Alexa”
date: 2024-01-23, from: Michael Tsai
Scharon Harding (via Hacker News): A quote from an anonymous Amazon employee in a Wednesday Business Insider report paints a dire picture. Amazon needs its upcoming subscription version of Alexa to drive revenue in ways that its voice assistant never has before.[…]All voice assistants have struggled to drive revenue since people tend to use voice […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/23/charging-for-remarkable-alexa/ Save to Pocket
SwiftUI Main Thread Hang Detector
date: 2024-01-23, from: Michael Tsai
Wade Tregaskis: This is just a little snippet that is quite useful for reporting when your GUI thread (the main thread / actor) hangs for a significant amount of time. There are numerous heavier-weight tools for analysing this sort of thing, but I’ve found that this simple monitor does what I need most of the […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/23/swiftui-main-thread-hang-detector/ Save to Pocket
PostScript’s Sudden Death in Sonoma
date: 2024-01-23, from: Michael Tsai
Howard Oakley: Finally, the complete removal of support for PostScript and EPS was recorded as another “deprecation” in the release notes for Sonoma: “macOS has removed the functionality for converting PostScript and EPS files to PDF format. As a result, CoreGraphics’ CGPSConverter returns an error when invoked, ImageIO no longer converts EPS files, NSEPSImageRep does […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/23/postscripts-sudden-death-in-sonoma/ Save to Pocket
Campfire Is ONCE #1
date: 2024-01-23, from: Michael Tsai
Jason Fried: Once upon a time you owned what you paid for, you controlled what you depended on, and your privacy and security were your own business. We think it’s that time again.Introducing ONCE, a new line of software products from 37signals.Pay one time, own forever.We write the code, you get to see it.We give […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/01/23/campfire-is-once-1/ Save to Pocket
Is Toyota’s chairman losing it? says EVs will only reach 30% share, ignoring Norway, China
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Longtime Toyota CEO and chairman Akio Toyoda believes EVs will only reach 30% market share at most. The comments come despite several auto markets, like Norway and Sweden, already well past that.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/toyota-chairman-evs-30-market-share/ Save to Pocket
Los Angeles Times Informs Around 20% Of Its Newsroom Staff That They’re Being Cut
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The LAist
More than 100 employees were notified Tuesday that they were going to be laid off.
https://laist.com/news/los-angeles-times-to-cut-around-20-of-its-newsroom Save to Pocket
Skarper Teams Up With Red Bull F1 Team For DiskDrive E-Bike Kit
date: 2024-01-23, from: Inside EVs News
Red Bull F1 engineers will work with Skarper to make the e-bike conversion kit lighter and more efficient.
https://insideevs.com/news/705478/skarper-red-bull-f1-disk-drive-collaboration/ Save to Pocket
The time to unmaintainable is very low
date: 2024-01-23, from: Dave Rupert blog
It’s so easy nowadays to get up and going on a project. I can burp some
npm commands into my terminal, burp some more to setup a
deployment pipeline and blam! Website. The time to product demo is so
low. You can get far on your own… very quickly… but then… you’re on your
own. And it’s possible you’ve built something way past your ability to
maintain.
To fix that problem or to allow you to do more business’y work, you add
people to the process. But people cost lots of money. Unless what you’re
building makes lots of money already, you probably have to raise VC.
With a squad of developers burping npm commands, now you’re
moving super fast. Hopefully money starts coming in, but the whole point
of investment was so you could price the application artificially cheap
to grow a user base that you upsell later. As the investment coffers
tick down, the pressure goes up to land a new feature or gimmick so you
can get another round of investment.
You can, of course, ride the hype cycles. This year that’s AI. Investors might throw money at that. But now you’ve bolted on a feature from a highly volatile, emergent, non-deterministic space into your overgrown application. You’ll either need to hire more expensive people who know the space or divert existing resources who were performing maintenance over to the new feature.
Oops, AI costs more than you can charge for it. You burned through the investment even faster and must do a round of layoffs. Now your app maintained by 10 people has 8 people… then 5… then 2…
Paying people to burp npm commands is expensive, could AI
do that? Vercel’s v0, for example, farts
out entire UIs. Great. In a day I have twelve thousand screens built. I
have more UI than some developers will code in a lifetime. But I’m
getting the itch to update it and the machine isn’t doing what I want it
to… perhaps I’ll take some VC to hire some people to clean up these
robo-farts.
And by the time you finish all that work, it’ll be right in time for a major version update on a core dependency. Good luck out there.
I realize I’m complaining about moving too fast but that’s not my intent. Although, I could argue that while driving 200mph is fun and exciting, you’re one small fuckup away from a major fuckup. My point is that a key factor of sustainability is making sure maintainability stays on par with growth. At the risk of sounding like a Luddite – which I am – the ability to fancy copy-paste your way into an unmaintainable situation is higher than ever and that’s a trade-off we should think about.
https://daverupert.com/2024/01/time-to-unmaintainable/ Save to Pocket
The 20 best acting performances that didn’t even get an Oscar nomination…
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/0043835-the-20-best-acting-perfor Save to Pocket
OSIRIS-REx’s stuck asteroid sample canister finally cracked opened by NASA
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Space eggheads invent tools just to get that precious dust
After struggling for months, NASA has finally cracked open the canister storing a dirt sample scooped off the surface of an asteroid.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/osirisrex_asteroid_sample_opened/ Save to Pocket
Bloomberg: Apple targets 2028 release date for its own electric vehicle
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Project Titan, the Apple electric car project, has been underway since 2015. But the project has faced numerous delays and repeated executive turnover. Initially planning to make a fully autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel, those lofty ambitions have come crashing down to earth in recent years.
With Apple VP Kevin Lynch leading the project since 2021, the company has set a new release date for the launch of its first vehicle: 2028. That’s according to a new report today from Bloomberg.
https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/23/bloomberg-apple-car-2028-release/ Save to Pocket
COC Hosts Information Nights for Prospective Students
date: 2024-01-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
College of the Canyons will be hosting Information Nights on Tuesday, Feb. 13 at the Valencia campus and Thursday, March 14, at the Canyon Country campus, to better assist high school seniors who are interested in starting their college experience at
https://scvnews.com/coc-hosts-information-nights-for-prospective-students/ Save to Pocket
Here’s how utility-scale solar farms may just help save the bees
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
A five-year study of solar farms planted with wildflowers and native grasses discovered that native bees showed a 20-fold increase in numbers.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/utility-scale-solar-farms-bees/ Save to Pocket
I’m late to it this year, but here’s director Steven Soderbergh’s list…
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/01/0043836-im-late-to-it-this Save to Pocket
NASA Shares Newest Results of Moon to Mars Architecture Concept Review
date: 2024-01-23, from: NASA breaking news
NASA released on Tuesday the outcomes of its 2023 Moon to Mars Architecture Concept Review, the agency’s process to build a roadmap for exploration of the solar system for the benefit of humanity. The Moon to Mars architecture approach incorporates feedback from U.S. industry, academia, international partners, and the NASA workforce. The 2023 Architecture Concept […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-shares-newest-results-of-moon-to-mars-architecture-concept-review/ Save to Pocket
Axiom Mission 3 Launches to the International Space Station
date: 2024-01-23, from: NASA breaking news
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. Axiom Space’s Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) is the third all-private astronaut mission to the space station, sending crew members Commander Michael López-Alegría, Pilot Walter Villadei of Italy, Mission Specialist Alper Gezeravcı […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/axiom-mission-3-launches-to-the-international-space-station/ Save to Pocket
Save 30% on this Greenworks pressure washer (today only), Rachio smart sprinkler controller $100, more
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Headlining today’s best deal is a one-day 30% off sale on Greenworks’ 2,300 PSI Cold Water Electric Pressure Washer that is down to $252. It is joined by the Rachio 3 Smart 4-Zone Sprinkler Controller at $100, with varying multi-pack and bundling options. There’s also several models of Hover-1 EVs seeing discount, led by the Hover-1 Boss Pro Foldable Electric Scooter at $459. 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/2024/01/23/greenworks-pressure-washer-rachio-sprinkler-more/ Save to Pocket
Assessing the Value of Publicly Funded Earth Observation Programmes in the United Kingdom
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: RAND blog
Satellite-based earth observation (EO) technologies play a critical role across the world, from monitoring climate change to assessing the situation during crises such as extreme weather events. As the United Kingdom to invests in space technology and participates in international agreements, effectively demonstrating the value of these investments remains a top priority.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/01/assessing-the-value-of-publicly-funded-earth-observation.html Save to Pocket
Scientists Find Indicators in Blood Linked to Long Covid, Hinting at Future Treatments
date: 2024-01-23, from: Smithsonian Magazine
One part of the immune system appeared to be overly active in long Covid patients in a small study, a finding researchers hope could help diagnose or treat the condition
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-find-indicators-in-blood-linked-to-long-covid-hinting-at-future-treatments-180983636/ Save to Pocket
I Am Artemis: Erick Holsonback
date: 2024-01-23, from: NASA breaking news
Whether he’s advising student robotic competitions or managing production of a powerful, new Moon rocket stage, Erick Holsonback meets technical challenges with enthusiasm. Holsonback, a Jacobs Technology employee, is subsystem manager for production and launch operations of the exploration upper stage (EUS) for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket. SLS is NASA’s super heavy lift […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/i-am-artemis-erick-holsonback/ Save to Pocket
ONEXPLAYER X1 gaming tablet with detachable controllers and Intel Meteor Lake launches in China (global launch coming soon)
date: 2024-01-23, from: Liliputing
The ONEXPLAYER X1 is a 10.95 inch tablet with a 2560 x 1600 pixel, 120 Hz display, detachable game controllers that connect to the sides, and an Intel Meteor Lake processor. Designed both as One Netbook’s largest handheld gaming PC to date, and as a multi-purpose tablet that can be used with accessories like an optional keyboard. […]
The post ONEXPLAYER X1 gaming tablet with detachable controllers and Intel Meteor Lake launches in China (global launch coming soon) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/onexplayer-x1-gaming-tablet-with-detachable-controllers-and-intel-meteor-lake-launches-in-china-global-launch-coming-soon/ Save to Pocket
United Questions Future Boeing 737 Orders After Groundings
date: 2024-01-23, from: VOA News USA
New York — United Airlines cast doubt Tuesday on future orders and deliveries of Boeing 737s after it was forced to ground dozens of planes following the dramatic Alaska Airlines incident earlier this month.
The U.S. airline grounded its fleet of 79 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft on January 6, a day after a panel blew off the Alaska Airlines plane mid-flight, leaving a hole in the fuselage and forcing an emergency landing.
Although there were no fatalities or serious injuries in the January 5 incident, U.S. regulators grounded 171 jets from the 737 Max 9 fleet with the same configuration as the plane involved in that drama.
United announced Monday that it predicts the aircraft will remain out of action through the end of January, leading to losses in the first quarter of 2024.
In a conference call Tuesday, United’s chief financial officer Michael Leskinen said 31 out of the 107 aircraft United expects to take delivery of this year are Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft.
“It is unrealistic at this time to believe all of those aircraft will deliver as currently planned,” he said.
Alongside its Max 9 orders, United also has 277 as-yet-uncertified Boeing 737 Max 10 aircraft on order through the rest of the 2020s, and options to purchase 200 further aircraft, Leskinen told the conference call.
“We also expect a reduction in orders and deliveries from Boeing in 2025,” he said, noting that orders of 737 Max 10s would also likely be affected.
The Max grounding was “kind of straw that broke the camel’s back with believing that the Max 10 will deliver on the schedule we had hoped for,” he said.
“So we are working through an alternate plan,” he added.
United’s shares were up almost seven percent in mid-day trading, following the release of strong fourth-quarter results after the market closed Monday, while Boeing’s shares slipped by around 0.7 percent.
https://www.voanews.com/a/united-questions-future-boeing-737-orders-after-groundings-/7451954.html Save to Pocket
What Is a Language Model, and Why Should You Care?
date: 2024-01-23, from: Care
<p>An explainer of language models and how they work, and their limits.</p>https://logicmag.io/policy/what-is-a-language-model Save to Pocket
Tesla (TSLA) earnings preview: it’s going to be an interesting one
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Tesla (TSLA) is about to release Q4 2023 and full-year 2023 financial results on Wednesday, January 24, after the markets close. As usual, a conference call and Q&A with Tesla’s management are scheduled after the results.
Here, we’ll take a look at what both the street and retail investors are expecting for the quarterly results.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/tesla-tsla-earnings-preview-q4-2023/ Save to Pocket
Hero Mavrick 440 Is Here To Stand Out From The Single Cylinder Crowd
date: 2024-01-23, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
It shares the same TorqX engine as the Harley-Davidson X440. Can it set itself apart?
https://www.rideapart.com/news/705783/hero-mavrick-440-motorcycle-introduced/ Save to Pocket
Singing Valentines Offered by Harmony Hills Chorus
date: 2024-01-23, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Say “I Love You” with a serenade and a flower and leave your sweetheart speechless. Nothing says you care like a Singing Valentine from the Harmony Hills Chorus
https://scvnews.com/buy-a-singing-valentine-from-the-harmony-hill-chorus/ Save to Pocket
CISA boss swatted: ‘While my own experience was certainly harrowing, it was unfortunately not unique’
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Election officials, judges, politicians, and gamers are in swatters’ crosshairs
CISA Director Jen Easterly has confirmed she was the subject of a swatting attempt on December 30 after a bogus report of a shooting at her home.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/cisa_easterly_swatted/ Save to Pocket
This Medieval Man Was Buried With a Four-Foot-Long Sword in Sweden
date: 2024-01-23, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Researchers in Halmstad think he was a high-ranking member of the nobility before his death some 600 years ago
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/medieval-swede-buried-with-four-foot-long-sword-180983624/ Save to Pocket
NASA’s DC-8 to Fly Low-Altitude Over Central Valley, CA
date: 2024-01-23, from: NASA breaking news
What: NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center’s DC-8 aircraft will fly over Central Valley and surroundings areas as part of an air quality field study. Residents in the areas below will see and hear the aircraft as it flies to achieve these measurements. Where: Central Valley, CA and surrounding areas When: Tuesday, January 23, 2024 at mid-morning to early […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasas-dc-8-to-fly-low-altitude-over-central-valley-ca/ Save to Pocket
2024 GMC Sierra EV Range, Specs And Pricing Overview
date: 2024-01-23, from: Inside EVs News
The model will soon join the Chevrolet Silverado EV on the market.
https://insideevs.com/news/705612/2024-gmc-sierra-ev-range-specs-pricing/ Save to Pocket
Porsche teases sleek upgraded Taycan EV ahead of spring debut in new video
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Porshe’s first EV, the Taycan, is getting an upgrade. The revamped Porsche Taycan EV is being put through its final stages of testing. Check out a sneak peek of the new model in Porsche’s latest video.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/porsche-teases-upgraded-taycan-ev-new-video/ Save to Pocket
One big, one little
date: 2024-01-23, from: Dave Rupert blog
I often feel overwhelmed deciding what to do with my spare time. It’s a problem with volume moreso than ambition. When the feeling hit the other weekend I scribbled down seven ideas rattling around in my head and stared at the list blankly. I’ve used different prioritization systems in the past like the Eisenhower matrix (Urgent vs. Important) and the Six Sigma matrix (Effort vs Impact); and while those are good for evaluating required tasks… none of those work well for voluntary activities self-created by a serial project starter.
I need a system that helps prioritize and load balance projects I give myself. When free time shows up, I don’t want to waste time doomscrolling on social media or being in a state of overwhelm, I want to hop right in to an idea. I also don’t want seven big thought benders occupying my brain RAM at all times, I need less background noise. After some thought, a tiny mantra started kicking around in my head, “One big, one little.”
If I artificially limit myself to having one major and one minor active side project at a time, my agility goes up because I’m not doing ten projects at once, I’m doing one or two. When one project finishes, I move to the next best idea that fits the available slot. I will never be taking on too much and it’s easier to say “no” to new distractions if I have to substitute projects.
Why two projects? Why not one? That would be the ultimate focus state, but believe it or not it’s an intentional move because my pockets of free time are differently sized. In my mind, a big project takes a week or a month while a little project takes a day or less. You can slice up big projects into smaller projects, but that itself is a small planning project. I also like variety.
And because I have more than two responsibilities in life, one slight modification to this system might be to have one big, one little project for each major area of my life.
| Area | Big | Little |
|---|---|---|
| Work | Learn algorithms | Write a blog post |
| Personal | Make a game | Build a Gundam |
| Family | Clean garage | — |
Careful! Adding more areas will put me back where I started, but 3 to 5 areas seems about right. What’s different between this list and the list of seven ideas I made the other day? Not much except that areas of my life tend to occupy particular timeframes: Work is during the day, Personal is during the evenings, and Family is after school and weekends. In practice my boundaries overlap (e.g. my work feeds my family) but it’s pretty easy for me to discern which area of my life needs attention.
I like how this limited structure builds some resilience against “crash-ins” like urgent emails, taxes, or car problems. Those surprise projects tend to be disproportionately problematic for me, like delivering a new piece of furniture to an already crowded living room. If I’m abiding in the one-in/one-out approach, a crash-in must take the place of something else in that respective area. That paradigm is much easier to manage than my current thought technology; a giant Jenga tower of obligations.
No idea if this holds up but this past week I’ve been more focused and centered than ever. Yesterday I cleared out a big work-related project and freed up some mental allocation. Wiping a project off the board and seeing a blank space made finishing the project even sweeter. Then last night I had some extra energy after bedtime and decided to work on a fun project for my podcast. I got about 80% finished in one night. Before (like the last four weeks) I would have felt guilty or distracted about picking up that project while thinking about four others I could/should be doing.
That’s my new “One big, one little” system. Now when a rogue idea sneaks into my periphery, I can chant my mantra and ward away those little demons.
https://daverupert.com/2024/01/one-big-one-little/ Save to Pocket
2024 Polestar 2 Long Range Single Motor review: Better, but good enough?
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Last week, a 2024 Polestar 2 was dropped off in front of my apartment in downtown Berlin — less than a kilometer from the center of Mitte, the most urbanized area of the German capital city. I’d never driven an EV in Germany before. Over 1000 kilometers later, including a lot of time on the speed limit-free Autobahn, I got pretty familiar with the latest version of the Polestar — a car I first drove almost three years ago.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/2024-polestar-2-long-range-single-motor-review-better-but-good-enough/ Save to Pocket
Europe’s first exascale system will be slotted into modular containerized datacenter
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Fancy updating it? Just click in a fresh unit – or that’s the idea anyway…
Europe’s first exascale supercomputer will be delivered as a modular datacenter consisting of container units intended to allow for easier updates or replacement of single modules in future. An Early Access Program has also opened for potential applications for the upcoming system.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/modular_containerized_datacenter_to_hold/ Save to Pocket
It’s 2030. Where Will U.S. Carbon Emissions Come From?
date: 2024-01-23, from: Heatmap News
The year is 2030.
For much of the past decade, the United States has taken aggressive action to fight climate change. After passing the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, the Biden administration regulated carbon pollution from power plants and cars and trucks. (Let’s also stipulate, for the sake of argument, that it kept the rules in place by winning re-election in 2024.) Progressive states such as California, New York, and Illinois responded by passing even tougher climate laws of their own. And now, at the end of the decade, America has a good shot of hitting its Paris Agreement goal of cutting emissions in half as compared to their all-time high.
Here’s the question: In this rosy scenario, where will America’s remaining greenhouse gas emissions come from? What should climate policy focus on next?
That’s the subject of a fascinating new report from the Rhodium Group, a nonpartisan research firm. The study, published today, offers a glimpse at what climate hawks might be focusing on next decade (if they’re lucky). It’s meant to begin a yearslong conversation over what the next climate law — the Inflation Reduction Act of 2032, in other words — might look like.
Perhaps surprisingly, it finds that a handful of economic activities will dominate the country’s emissions. Just 11 industries or types of polluting sources will generate more than 80% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2030, the study finds. And just three of these will emit nearly half of the country’s total pollution. If we can decarbonize those activities, then a net-zero U.S. economy will be in sight.
But those 11 activities will be tough to crack. They fall into a few categories:
- About 19% of the remaining emissions will come from parts of the fossil-fuel economy directly involved in storing, moving, or transforming oil or natural gas into other products. Pipelines, refineries, and chemical plants all require the on-site combustion of fossil fuels, and while the Environmental Protection Act is cracking down on methane leaks from those facilities, carbon dioxide will keep flowing from them.
- Another 12% of the remaining emissions will come from some of the tougher problems in transportation: heavy-duty freight trucking and aviation. The latter problem will be particularly tough. Rhodium projects that domestic aviation, which is responsible for about 2% of the country’s carbon pollution today, will rise to 4% of national emissions by the end of the decade. Americans fly more today than they did in 2005, and fuel-efficiency improvements are not keeping up with that increasing demand.
- Farms will fill out another 10% of leftover emissions. About half of those emissions will come from fermentation of plant matter in the guts of plants and animals — the infamous cow burps. But the other half will arise from the interaction of soils, microbes, and fertilizer. When fertilizer is applied to soil, bacteria convert its nitrogen into nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide on a 100-year time scale. This process will generate 6% of America’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, according to the study.
By far the most important category of emissions are what you might think of as the “Big Three,” which together will account for nearly half of 2030 emissions. They are cars, trucks, and SUVs; furnaces and water heaters in buildings; and power plants, and they will dominate the country’s emissions in 2030 as much as they dominate them today.
The “Big Three” are also the focus of powerful climate policies already, and Rhodium’s analysts expect those policies to be effective. “We’re pushing on them a lot, and they’re coming down. But they remain the top three,” Hannah Kolus, a senior analyst at Rhodium and an author of the report, told me. Carbon pollution from light-duty vehicles, for instance, will fall 32% from its 2005 level by 2030, the report projects.
But cars, building furnaces, and power plants take so long to turn over that even supremely effective policy will take decades to zero out emissions. The average car on the road in America right now is 12 years old. Even if electrics made up 100% of all new car sales by 2030 — which, under Rhodium’s projection, they won’t — it might take 20 years for them to totally replace the vehicle fleet. In other words, climate hawks will be thinking about cars and trucks, building furnaces, and power plants for a long time.
https://heatmap.news/economy/2030-us-emissions-rhodium-group Save to Pocket
The first wind farm on California’s coast just came online
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
The Strauss Wind Project in Santa Barbara County, the first wind farm on California’s coast, is now online.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/first-wind-farm-california-coast-just-came-online-strauss-wind/ Save to Pocket
Stop your phone distracting you by stashing it in a mini mailbox
date: 2024-01-23, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Guy Dupont found himself getting distracted from his creative quests by his phone, so he fashioned something delightfully meta to manage his mail.
The post Stop your phone distracting you by stashing it in a mini mailbox appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/stop-your-phone-distracting-you-by-stashing-it-in-a-mini-mailbox/ Save to Pocket
These Are the Notorious NSA Furby Documents Showing Spy Agency Freaking Out About Embedded AI in Children’s Toy
date: 2024-01-23, from: 404 Media Group
“Apparently, these stuffed critters learn from nearby speech patterns. That would definitely be a security concern.”
https://www.404media.co/these-are-the-notorious-nsa-furby-documents-showing-spy-agency-freaking-out-about-childrens-toy/ Save to Pocket
The Minimal Phone pairs an E Ink screen with a QWERTY keyboard and Android (crowdfunding)
date: 2024-01-23, from: Liliputing
Most modern smartphones have big, colorful touchscreen displays and lack physical keyboards. The Minimal Phone bucks both trends. It takes two very niche features and combines them into a single device: it’s an Android-powered smartphone with a square E Ink display and a QWERTY keyboard. You can’t actually buy this phone yet, but the developer says […]
The post The Minimal Phone pairs an E Ink screen with a QWERTY keyboard and Android (crowdfunding) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/the-minimal-phone-pairs-an-e-ink-screen-with-a-qwerty-keyboard-and-android-crowdfunding/ Save to Pocket
Watch A Tesla Cybertruck Fail An Off-Road Obstacle That Was Aced By A Subaru Crosstrek
date: 2024-01-23, from: Inside EVs News
A Toyota 4Runner that was part of the same group also went up the hill with ease.
https://insideevs.com/news/705746/tesla-cybertruck-off-road-fail-subaru-crosstrek/ Save to Pocket
Musk lashes out at Biden administration over rural broadband
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Claims FCC’s justification for ditching Starlink ‘utterly false’
Elon Musk has reacted angrily to the Biden administration pledging millions of dollars to bolster high-speed internet access.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/musk_starlink_fcc/ Save to Pocket
Records Relating to Prisons in the National Register of Historic Places
date: 2024-01-23, from: National Archives, Text Message blog
Alcatraz Island
https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2024/01/23/records-relating-to-prisons-in-the-national-register-of-historic-places/ Save to Pocket
Electric materials handler from Volvo CE never needs recharging
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Volvo CE has just announced a new electric material handler that promises increased maintenance intervals and lower operating costs without the need to recharge its batteries … because it hasn’t got any.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/electric-materials-handler-from-volvo-ce-never-needs-recharging/ Save to Pocket
Northvolt battery factory site in Canada gets sabotaged
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
Northvolt’s planned site for a new battery factory site in Canada has been sabotaged by a group of activists.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/northvolt-battery-factory-site-canada-sabotaged/ Save to Pocket
Russia takes $13.5M bite out of Apple over in-app purchases
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Gotta fund that war somehow, eh, Vlad?
Apple has paid a fine of ₽1.2 billion ($13.5 million) to the Russian government after Moscow decided the company violated its antitrust laws by preventing iOS users from going outside the App Store for in-app purchases (IAP).…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/apple_russia_iap_monopoly/ Save to Pocket
Deadline to Submit Content for the ARL African-American History Month Round-Up
date: 2024-01-23, from: Association of Research Libraries News
Last Updated on January 23, 2024, 11:25 am ET ARL will publish a blog listing the activities/events in celebration of African-American History Month (February 1-28). Please commteam@arl.org by Thursday, February 1, 2024 with…
The post Deadline to Submit Content for the ARL African-American History Month Round-Up appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.
https://www.arl.org/uncategorized/deadline-to-submit-content-for-the-arl-african-american-history-month-round-up/ Save to Pocket
Jeep Wagoneer S electric SUV shows its face in newly leaked images
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
The first images of Jeep’s all-electric Wagoneer S were leaked by the brand’s own social media team. Jeep finally gave us a glimpse of what we can expect from its first EV in the US.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/jeep-wagoneer-s-electric-suv-shows-face-leaked-images/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-01-23, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
An innovation in FeedLand. This is the list of feeds I'm subscribed to. See the wedge in the left of each feed? When you click it, it reveals the five most recent items in the feed, with links. It's a different kind of feed reader.
https://feedland.com/?username=davewiner Save to Pocket
Afghanistan Resistance Account Says ‘Tour of Booty’ Porn Scene Is The Taliban
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
Martin Scorsese and John Williams just made Oscars history
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
Watch: Huge rocks destroyed in Sierra foothills blast
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
Can you solve the greatest wordplay puzzle ever? It relates to texts…
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
Accused PII seller faces jail for running underground fraud op
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
More than 5,000 victims claimed over a 3-year period but filing reckons accused didn’t even use a VPN
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
2024 BMW F 900 GS, F 900 GS Adventure, And F 800 GS Get US Pricing
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
Time Out reveals world’s 10 best cities for 2024
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
Toyota Chairman: EVs Will Cap At 30% Of Market, ‘Engines Will Surely Remain’
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
Man fatally shot in East Oakland
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
Apple’s App Store policies are getting weirdly aggressive, but publishers should be okay
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
Carbon Offsets From Clean Cookstoves Are Kind of Bogus, Too
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,” Annelise 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
Why are measles cases popping up across the United States? Here’s what to know about the highly contagious virus
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
US Defense Secretary Makes First Public Appearance, Virtually, Since Hospitalization
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
Los Gatos resident says neighbor’s children playing too loudly
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
Microsoft hires energy mavericks in quest for nuclear-powered datacenters
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Industry vets specialize in the development of small modular reactors
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
NASA Glenn Established in Cleveland in 1941
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
BYD teases a new compact SUV called Yuan Up, which could arrive priced below $15,000
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
The Los Angeles Times plunges into ‘chaos’ as brutal layoffs loom and senior editors call it quits
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
Miami commits to putting 100 electric school buses on the road
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
Saratoga is a sweet place to shop for Valentine’s Day
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
Hyundai unveils new ‘Active Air Skirt’ tech to increase EV range and performance
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
The Brain Region That Controls Movement Also Guides Feelings
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
MOVIES VS. CAPITALISM: Michael Clayton (w/ Matt Strackbein)
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
Authors Alliance 2023 Annual Report
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
Los Gatos is a sweet place to shop for Valentine’s Day
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
NASA’s IXPE Awarded Prestigious Prize in High-energy Astronomy
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
Las Positas Verdelho ties for Best White in SF Chronicle competition
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
Man chases couple through Campbell park, demands they return his stuff
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
Ryan Gosling getting an Oscar nom for Barbie while Greta Gerwig and…
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
Tesla Model 3 Performance Highland Spotted Testing In San Francisco
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
When did Raspberry Pi get so expensive?
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
David Mills, the internet’s Father Time, dies at 85
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Creator of the Network Time Protocol that holds the internet together
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
How to get started with Advanced Squad Leader
date: 2024-01-23, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
How to get started with Advanced Squad Leader
The PDF for Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) rules has 714 pages. How do you even get started?
There are four starter kits (SK):
- Regular infantry
- Guns
- Tanks
- Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO)
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
Police arrest Northern California woman for allegedly stealing 65 Stanley cups
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
In Mountain View, NASA and aviation history go hand in hand with cocktails
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
Oracle continues GenAI push into enterprise data
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Don’t leave us for LLM systems in other clouds, says Big Red
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
The colorful mating dance of the Tragopan pheasant. Having seen quite a…
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
TurboTax in trouble
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
US Postal Service rolls out first EV charging stations
date: 2024-01-23, from: Electrek Feed
The US Postal Service showed off its first EV charging stations, and some spiffy new Ford E-Transit BEVs, 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
Lukewarm reception for Microsoft’s Copilot Pro amid performance, cost grumbles
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Pricey AI assistant met with enthusiasm and indifference
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
A Hot Cadillac V-Series EV Is Reportedly Coming This Year
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
GDOE hosts 1st 2024 community engagement forum Wednesday
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
Cannabis board seeks clarification from GWA on clearance ‘roadblock’
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
Lawmakers to debate competing hospital location bills in session
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
Girl Scout Cookies on their way
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
Lawyer for suspect in Susuico murder case withdraws
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
Plea deal unresolved in 2019 kidnapping, rape of child by convicted sex offender
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
Former MLB player, GPD officer indicted on drug, gun charges
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
Former Guam resident arrested in Arizona on suspicion of sexually assaulting student
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
6 new administrators at UOG
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
CCU approves temporary power contract
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
Spanish Bike Brand MMR Is Ready To Hit The Trails With New Kaizen E-MTB
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
San Diego Got a Month’s Worth of Rain in 3 Hours
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.
THE TOP FIVE
- Extreme rainfall floods San Diego
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.
- Reviewers give thumbs up to Kia EV9’s novel third row
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.
- “I wouldn’t want to spend hours back there, but it’s totally workable for a quick ‘everybody pile in to go to dinner’ situation.” –Arstechnica
- “The EV9 delivered much more room than most third rows I’ve ever experienced, especially in EVs. … Younger people looking to start families and go electric have been waiting for a vehicle like this, and I don’t think it will disappoint.” –Electrek
- “The third row isn’t exactly spacious, but certainly better than many three-row SUVs I have been in.” – TechCrunch
- “The third row wants for leg room but not head room, and the middle row slides to mitigate some of that.” –Autocar
KIA
- VP Harris touts Biden’s $1 trillion in climate spending
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.
- Report: Benefits of storing carbon in soil ‘too good to be
true’
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.
Get Heatmap AM directly in your inbox every morning:
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.
THE KICKER
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
BYD overtakes VW’s 15-year-run as top seller in China
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
Users now keep cellphones for 40+ months and it’s hurting the secondhand market
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Refresh rates stretched as consumers see no need to upgrade… or open wallets
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
Pluralistic: Dave Maass and Patrick Lay’s “Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis” (23 January 2024)
date: 2024-01-23, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog
Today’s links Dave Maass and Patrick Lay’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 Lay’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 Lay 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
The Twike Is A Terrifying Three-Wheeled EV With Bicycle Pedals
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
Get Your Personal Info Off the Internet
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
The Swearing Chatbot
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/01/23/the-swearing-chatbot/ Save to Pocket
placing bets
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
France fines Amazon €32M for watching staff so much they’d have to ‘justify each break’
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
French watchdog says non to excessive monitoring of workers as retail giant plans appeal
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
Blinken Expresses US Commitment to Boosting Africa Partnerships
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
From Mac OS X 10.2 to macOS 10.15 – pt 1
date: 2024-01-23, from: Tilde.news
https://www.geeklan.co.uk/?p=3264 Save to Pocket
Fixing FEMA
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
iovisor/bpftrace - Release v0.20.0
date: 2024-01-23, from: Tilde.news
https://github.com/iovisor/bpftrace/releases/tag/v0.20.0 Save to Pocket
Get ready for Mission Space Lab with our new simulation tool
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
Side Channels Are Common
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
America’s latest electric motorcycle maker ramping production, teases new model
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
U.S. and U.K. launch new strikes on Houthis in Yemen
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
One Man
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
Hubble Glimpses a Bright Galaxy Group
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
Jonathan Kraut | It’s Time to Select a New District Attorney
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
Larry Moore | There’s No Place Like Home!
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
Diane Zimmerman | LAPD Need Look No Further
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
UK water giant admits attackers broke into system as gang holds it to ransom
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Comes mere months after Western intelligence agencies warned of attacks on water providers
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
Germany’s auto industry to axe thousands more jobs
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
Asda’s delayed SAP migration forces extension to Walmart’s backend support contract
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Three years after leveraged buyout, $240M ERP plan yet to bear fruit
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
A categorial update
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
Build your own handheld ZX Spectrum with Raspberry Pi Pico
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
Senate candidates spar at Bovard
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
Legacy tech shoots down Ministry of Defence’s supply chain improvements
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
How to manage 740 million items of behalf of the Armed Forces?
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
Photos: BIIF paddling
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
Analysis: Conference championships are set with familiar faces and new arrivals
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
Titans agree to hire Bengals offensive coordinator Brian Callahan as head coach, AP source says
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
Caitlin Clark’s collision with a fan raises court-storming concerns. Will conferences respond?
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
Joel Embiid scores 70 and Karl-Anthony Towns scores 62. It was a night like few others in the NBA
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
Team Mauka wins the Polynesian Bowl in a contest filled with big plays
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
Josh Hader eager to team with Ryan Pressly after reaching $95 million, 5-year deal with Astros
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
Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer and Todd Helton on track for Hall of Fame election; Billy Wagner close
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
Elon Musk, on rehabilitation tour, calls himself ‘aspirationally Jewish’
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
Supreme Court allows federal agents to cut razor wire Texas installed on US-Mexico border
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
Airline incidents show a system under growing stress
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
Iran is ‘directly involved’ in Yemen Houthi rebel ship attacks, US Navy’s Mideast chief tells AP
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
US, British militaries launch new round of joint strikes against multiple Houthi sites in Yemen
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
Boeing hit by quality lapses, certification delays; Airbus soars to dominance
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
Judge orders the unsealing of divorce case of Trump special prosecutor in Georgia accused of affair
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
Expected Trump testimony in sex abuse defamation trial postponed to Wednesday after juror falls ill
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
Two missing US Navy SEALs presumed dead after anti-Iran mission
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
California State University faculty launch weeklong strike across 23 campuses
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
Hawaii DOE leaders are urged to cut funds on obsolete programs
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
Police ID deceased assault victim in downtown Hilo incident
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
Push underway to make Hawaii relevant in space again
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
Haley hopes to stop Trump’s march to nomination in New Hampshire: ‘America does not do coronations’
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
Mauna Loa Observatory still isolated, but new funds could make it fully operational
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
OHA seeks to dissolve Maunakea oversight authority
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
Founding director of the UH Institute for Astronomy dies at 98
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
Domestic assault leads to arrest of father, son at Hilo home
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
‘The Wall That Heals’ assembled today
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
What to know about abortion rulings, bills and campaigns as the US marks Roe anniversary
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
Governor highlights challenges, possible solutions in State of the State address
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
Why New Hampshire and Iowa don’t make sense as the opening rounds of presidential campaigns
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
Federal officials recommend that airlines inspect door plugs on some older Boeing jets as well
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
Southwest Airlines pilots approve new contract with 29% immediate raises
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
Your Views for January 23
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
Let’s Talk Food: Muffins for breakfast
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
Obituaries for January 24
date: 2024-01-23, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Alan “Scott” Aki, 53, of Hilo, died Dec. 26 at Hilo Medical Center. Born in Hilo, he was a cook and owner of DNS Catering. Visitation to be held 10 a.m. - 11 .m. Feb. 17 at New Hope Church Hilo with celebration of life to follow at 11 a.m. Casual attire. Survived by friend Derick Kai of Kona; sisters Kori (Ka‘eo) Higaki, Kelsy (David) Apao and Shaye (Kimo) Keliipaakaua of Hilo; brother Brandon (Charmaine) Chinen of Hilo; uncle Neal (Lihn) Aki of Hilo; and numerous aunts, nieces, nephews and cousins. Arrangements by Homelani Cremation Services.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/01/23/obituaries/obituaries-for-january-24-11/ Save to Pocket
Why the mainstream media’s awestruck coverage of Trump’s campaign is deceptive and dangerous
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
A Fossil Fuel Miseducation
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
DPD chatbot blasts courier company, swears, and dabbles in awful poetry
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
So this is the AI revolution
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
Why we need to highlight stories of progress to build a better future
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
Protesters call for ceasefire in Gaza at debate
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
Trump, Haley Face Off in New Hampshire Presidential Primary
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
Classifieds – January 23, 2024
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
AI PC hype seems to be making PCs better – in hardware terms, at least
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
16GB of RAM should be enough for anyone that wants to run models locally. GPUs, NPUs and more kit will be needed, too
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
Today in SCV History (Jan. 23)
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
Women’s basketball loses back-to-back games
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
The ‘Palworld’ plagiarism debate
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
Experts talk LAPD chief’s retirement
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
Men’s basketball Head Coach Andy Enfield needs to go
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
Our bodily autonomy is on the ballot
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
Dudamel leads, LA Phil follows; ‘Das Rheingold’ is perfect, as expected
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
McCarthy Quad to remain closed until early April
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
International student gossip culture is like high school
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
Meta accused of enrolling undecided EU users in ad-sponsored platform
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Choice between seeing pitches or paying on Facebook and Instagram might break the law
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
AWS Marketplace adds sales of third-party services
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Cloud-ready software and implementation from your preferred consultants, on one bill
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
After Only One Day On Strike, CSU And Faculty Agree To Terms
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-24, 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
Japan recovers moon lander data, puts craft to sleep due to solar panels’ bad attitude
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
JAXA plans to reveal whether mission nailed its self-selected landing site later this week
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
Matadors blown out in an ugly loss to the Gauchos
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
China names members of a second tech supergroup to define the metaverse
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Goggle-eyed Beijing wants technical and identity standards
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
City Council to discuss camp lawsuit in closed session
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
NWS: ‘Mild’ winter storm beneficial to SCV
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
Families of Israeli Hostages Demand They Not Be Forgotten
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
January 22, 2024
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
West Ranch marching band honored for title finish
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
Quick Charge Podcast: January 22, 2024
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
Pedestrian struck in Valencia, transported to hospital
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
Abortion on Ballot in 2024, Biden Says; Harris on Swing Through Key States
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
Ola Electric Rolls Out New MoveOS 4 Update For S1 Scooters
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
US Appeals Court Revives Mexico’s $10 Billion Lawsuit Against Gun Makers
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
Supervisors to look at LASD firearm safety
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
Australia imposes cyber sanctions on Russian it says ransomwared health insurer
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
‘Aleksandr Ermakov’ isn’t allowed down under after being linked to ten-million-record leak
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
US, UK Launch More Strikes Targeting Weapons in Houthi-Controlled Yemen
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
Check Out The New Scorpion Exo-930 Evo Modular Helmet
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
One detained after vehicle strikes pedestrian in Canyon Country
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
Intermot Motorcycle Show To Be Held Annually Starting 2024
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
Abortion on 2024 Ballot, Biden Says; Harris Tours Key States
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
Law designed to stop AI bias in hiring decisions is so ineffective it’s slowing similar initiatives
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
New York’s LL144 rated too broad, but researchers hope others can learn from that mistake
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
Vespa Celebrates The Lunar New Year With Limited-Edition 946 Dragon
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
Port of Hueneme, Labor and Community Leaders Join Forces in “Powerwall” Response to Infrastructure Emergency
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
Schiavo introduces bill on affordable housing
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
[Sponsor] Day One Journal App
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: Daring Fireball
https://dayoneapp.com/download/daring-fireball/ Save to Pocket
Upgrade: 40th Anniversary of the Macintosh
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: Daring Fireball
https://www.relay.fm/upgrade/496 Save to Pocket
Winlator: run Windows application on Android using Wine and Box86/Box64
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
OC Supervisor Quietly Routed Millions More To His Daughter’s Group
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
Registration Now Open for 2024: Please read!
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
TMU Swim Teams Fall to Biola in Dual Meet
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
Robocaller spoofing Joe Biden is telling people not to vote in New Hampshire
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Meanwhile, OpenAI is hiring an ‘elections program manager’ for $190,000+
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
DignityMoves receives $100,000 grant from the James M. Cox Foundation
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
Overnight Full Freeway Closures Scheduled for I-110 Near Downtown Los Angeles
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
Isla Vista Favorites I.V. Bagel Café and I.V. Pizza Pub Earn Spoon University Honors
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
Cougars Squander Early Lead in 84-78 Loss to AVC
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
Speed Reads: Sales Numbers Are Rolling In, And 2023 Was Good For Many
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
Chinese Music Student Faces US Trial for Allegedly Threatening Activist
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
Share your feedback about developing with Go
date: 2024-01-23, updated: 2024-01-23, from: Go language blog
Help shape the future of Go by sharing your thoughts via the Go Developer Survey
https://go.dev/blog/survey2024-h1 Save to Pocket
pgmoneta 0.8
date: 2024-01-23, from: PostgreSQL News
The pgmoneta community is happy to announce version 0.8.0.
New features
- Offline mode
- WAL shipping support
- Support server side compression
- Add create_slot functionality
pgmoneta
pgmoneta is a backup / restore solution for PostgreSQL 12+.
Read our getting started guide to setup pgmoneta for your backup needs.
Features
- Full backup
- Restore
- Compression (gzip, zstd, lz4, bzip2)
- AES encryption support
- Symlink support
- WAL shipping support
- Prometheus support
- Remote management
- Offline mode
- Transport Layer Security (TLS) v1.2+ support
- Daemon mode
- User vault
Learn more on our web site or GitHub. Follow on Twitter.
pgmoneta is released under the 3-clause BSD license.
https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/pgmoneta-08-2793/ Save to Pocket